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Innison told him not to be stupid, and added: "If you make a habit of amok
we'll have to do something about you, but not until I figure a way to get you
down an eight-inch drain."
It was a dreadful insult, delivered without so much as a Quirked Smile.
Citizen Germyn could not bring himself to speak to Innison for three more
feedings. Citizen Germyn's rage was such that he nerved himself up to turning
his back on Innison in a marked manner; Innison was not only not crushed but
did not even notice. He went right on talking to Haendl.
Citizen Germyn thereupon took Innison by the hair with one hand and slapped
him ring-ingly across the face with his other.
"Amok!" some of those nearby began to shout.
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Haendl yelled back at them: "He is not! Shut up!" And to Germyn: "You aren't,
are
«v»
your
"No," Germyn snapped. "I'm just angry. Your disgusting friend here took it on
himself to deny me the decent equivalent of a Donation which I deserve!"
Innison, rubbing his cheek, said thoughtfully: "You really want a Donation,
boy? Where they stick the needle in and twist it around to find the canal?
Then you go paralyzed, right then, and the fluid runs out. Then some simpering
idiot takes the knife and saws it across your windpipe until it goes through "
Germyn said: "Whether I
want it or not is beside the point. There are certain decencies to be
observed "
"Then you don't want it?"
Germyn thought for a long while. "No," he finally said. "But that has nothing
to do with
..." He thought some more.
Haendl said gently: "Look at yourself, Germyn. Pinch yourself. Feel your arms
and legs.
You've changed. You grabbed Innison and you hit him, not in a nervous crisis
but because you were angry. You wouldn't have done that not so long ago. Look
at yourself."
Germyn looked. His stomach was flat; there was no trace at all of bloat. His
thighs were now thicker than his knees it had all hap-
pened so insidiously! He felt his face; under the beard it was fleshed, most
Uncitizen-like, telling hardly at all of the skull beneath! His ribs he
couldn't see his ribs!
He faced them, burning with shame for his grotesqueness and saw they were the
same, they were all the same.
' And don't you feel different?" Haendl insisted quietly. "Inside, all through
you? Didn't you used to have an all-through-you feeling that would have kept
you from hitting
Innison? Don't you now have an all-through-you feeling that tells you hitting
Innison, within reason, would be a joy?"
"I do," said Germyn in terror. "I do! What do you call it? What shall I do
about it?"
"It's orthodox Wolf opinion," Innison said, "that you shouldn't do anything
about that feeling. And the accepted name for it is, not being hungry. Have
you been meditating on connectivity lately?"
"No," said Germyn. "The the distractions "
"The absence of hunger, Germyn. Starvation and meditation go together, though
not inseparably. When your vitality's low, your self-awareness flickers; it's
always ready to be blown out."
Germyn wandered off through a forest of machine-tool legs, trying to get
acquainted with his new self.
Haendl said to Innison: "Maybe that's why we're here, to get nice and plump."
"You think they eat people?"
"No; not any more than a fusion pile does. It's got to be something electrical
..."
"If
Germyn's ready and able to fight, all of 'em ought to be. Suppose we get a
little close-
order drilling organized."
"We'd better get something organized. There haven't been any more amoks, but
there's been a lot of pushing-around. Next you get counter-pushing, and then
people start swinging."
The two Wolves grinned at each other. "It lasted just fine, didn't it?" Haendl
said. "Cul-
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chah and aesthetics petered out the first week on unlimited calories, and then
went manners usually with a crash, like ex-Citizen Germyn. Yes, we've got to
give them something to do before they get fat and begin killing one another."
New people stopped arriving in the foundry about then; when twelve
feeding-times passed with no recruits turning up the Princeton Wolves took a
census: six hundred and eighty-four, roughly half male and half female. This
was a great convenience, for one could not talk forever.
The military organization got under way with some difficulty. The ex-Citizens
were glorying in new-found truculence. "Who's gonna make me?" rang joyously
through the corridors; a research-minded Princetonian recalled that some
Biblical person had "waxed fat and wicked." A combination of force and reason
carried the day, however, and at last the most obstreperous ex-Citizen, his
black eye fading slowly, marched in ranks with the rest. Haendl yearned for
the weapons that had been Translated; where were they?
And then several women were in early pregnancy. The pregnancies all occurred
following an incident as inexplicable as it was horrifying. A Pyramid came
again, and again they hid. This time luck had it that one of the Africans was
caught in the open, some distance from a wall and a hopeless long dash to the
tangle of I-beams which supported the giant tools. He did the prudent thing
and flattened himself against the floor, probably feeling reasonably safe in
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