Enigma Read Free Page B

found him alone in the Panorama when the synglas itself crawled back. Drawn through the opening, he began to move toward Jupiter, more floating than falling. As it grew nearer he felt its compelling presence and the eager foretaste of union with its substance. He never achieved that union: Whether he awoke first or the insistent alarm woke him, he was snatched back when on the brink of rapture.
    For several minutes, he lay drained and shaken on the sweat-dampened sheets. When he finally rose, he was well behind schedule for making his Political Psychology seminar on time. But that did not matter, because he had already decided to skip the session. He went instead to the Evaluation and Counseling Center.
    “I want to take the career orientation assessment,” he told the clerk, flashing his identity card.
    Within fifteen minutes the psychometrician had him wired up in a testing cubicle. “Would you rather dig a ditch or fix a broken toy?” asked the silicon-brained proctor, and the assessment was underway.
    As in the past, none of the questions seemed to relate to what people actually did for a living, nor did his own answers seem to have any pattern or to point authoritatively to any particular career. And yet the assessment had high marks for reliability, especially when presented one-on-one by the proctor with the subject wearing a biosensor band on one wrist.
    Processing the results took less time than Thackery needed to walk from the testing cubicle to his counselor’s anteroom, and Thackery was waved in without waiting.
    “What prompted you to ask for a re-exam?” the counselor asked, absentmindedly rolling a touchscreen stylus between his fingertips.
    “I find I’m not as interested as I once was. I wanted to find out whether it was fatigue, second-tier syndrome, or something real.” It was at least a partially true answer.
    The counselor tilted his data display toward himself and glanced at it. “In terms of ideals and skills, you continue to come out as a very strong candidate for GS.”
    “Oh,” Thackery said, both disappointed and relieved.
    “But there is one curious finding, which you’ve already anticipated. Your emotional commitment to those ideals and skills is much weaker than it was on your last assessment.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Lip service,” the counselor said bluntly. “You’re just going through the motions.” He leaned forward. “What do you really want to be doing, Mr. Thackery?”
    “Doesn’t that tell you, sir?”
    “Of course not. You gave the ‘right’ answers for Georgetown, not the right answers for yourself.”
    “Does it matter where I want to be?” Thackery asked. “I’m twenty-three. It’s a little late to be changing my mind. This is the only thing open to me.”
    The counselor smiled slightly. “You underestimate yourself, Mr. Thackery. You are one of the very best training for a field which, rightly or wrongly, is considered to be the most demanding on this planet. You have options. Whether or not you wish to take them is another question.”
    Thackery was slow in responding. “Do you mean that other training centers might accept me?”
    “I think there are very few that would turn your application down.”
    “Why are you telling me this?” Thackery asked suspiciously. “Isn’t it your job to shepherd us through, to keep us happy here?”
    “I am trying to keep you happy,” the counselor said gently. “If that requires you to take a year off, or even leave here completely, both you and the GS will be better for it. Now—shall we talk about those options?”
    It was remarkable how little there was to pack. The materials he had studied, the music he had played, the art that had decorated the apartment walls—all had been on-line from the GS Depository, and yet they had made the apartment uniquely his. All he really owned was his clothing and a few boxes of what might best be called memorabilia: photos of friends, award certificates from