Chapter One
“You’re kidding!” Owen exclaimed.
“No, I mean it. I wish I could break an arm and sit things out for a couple months, like you.”
“You wouldn’t say that if you’d been through it, like I have.”
Technician Cory did not answer. He knew Owen had hated being sidelined, and it was not fair to make light of what he had been through. Still, the plain truth was that Cory would have regarded the accident as a kind of escape. That did not make much sense—saying it had caused Owen to stare at him in puzzled concern—but there it was.
The daily comsesh was a simple fact of life, as routine and unquestioned as eating or sleeping. Like everyone else under the sky—which, as far as Technician Cory was concerned, meant everyone who had ever lived—he had punctually endured the compulsory exercise periods twice a day ever since he was old enough to walk. But unlike everyone else—or so he assumed—he had stopped enjoying them.
No, that did not say it. He had come to hate them. To dread them. If it weren’t for the proximity of Citizen Zona during Mixed Exercise, there were evenings, like this one, when he could hardly force himself to go, no matter what the consequences.
It was unthinkable, but that was the way he was thinking.
Technician Owen could not understand him, though the two young men were close friends and had had adjoining bunks in the same sleeproom for over three years, Clocktime. The difference was that Owen had retained a child’s zest for athletic games and drills, and he was uncommonly good at them. He had won the Bar Exercise Award two years running, and Cory was sure he would again when he got himself completely back in shape, even with one arm shortened. The accident had not discouraged him at all.
“Listen,” Owen said, “I’m going to pass the test this time with one arm tied …” He stopped, uncomfortable. The phrase had been an awkward choice, popping into his mind because the injured arm was on his mind—and because he might not be as confident as he claimed, Cory thought. “It’ll be a breeze. And when I get back in the gym with you, you’re going to shape up in a hurry!”
His infectious grin made Cory feel foolish about his reluctance over comsesh. The fact was that he had found the sessions less burdensome and boring when Owen was on hand to goad or jeer his efforts. It would be good to have him back.
The injury to Owen’s arm had come as a direct result of his unusual athletic prowess. He was always trying to outdo himself—and everyone else. He had been working out past the specified time, and he was probably more tired then he knew. He had tried a somersault and one-hand stand on the high bar. Either his hand had been slippery from sweat or the bar had been wet. Owen lost his grip and fell. Even then Owen would normally have recovered in mid fall because he was so agile, but he had struck the bar as he flipped, a glancing but painful blow across the small of his back. Thrown clear of the mat, he had landed heavily in a clumsy dead fall, his left arm twisted under his body.
The arm snapped in two places, and his collarbone was fractured.
The trouble was that the breaks were slow to mend, and when the arm eventually healed it was both shorter and weaker than the right arm—over an inch shorter and almost thirty percent weaker in the fitness tests. He had been sent back to the reconditioning center for another thirty days.
Now he was up before the Board of Instructors again, and his eagerness was in sharp contrast to Cory’s increasingly sour view of comsesh. Owen had worked hard, both in compulsory gym and in the privacy of the sleeproom the two men shared. He really was dedicated about exercise, and he wanted to come all the way back. He was sure now that his left arm was at least as strong as the right, possibly even stronger. The fact that it remained slightly shorter was no handicap at all, he had assured Cory earnestly—and perhaps more often than necessary.
He could crush Cory’s grip with either hand, as he had demonstrated. Even with one arm Owen could whip Cory. Neither man doubted that.
“You just show those Instructors what you can do, and pass that test,” Cory said. “You know me, I’m just sounding off.”
“I’ll pass,” Owen said with a frown that was both determined and concerned. “But don’t go around talking like that. It’s all right with me, but you know what would happen if anybody else heard you. You’d be up before the Psychoanalyzer.”
Cory said nothing, but Owen’s warning stuck in his mind. Maybe that was what he needed.
But he was not sure exactly what going before the Psychoanalyzer meant, and he was a little afraid.