Federation World Read Free Page A

hungry or unsheltered. But for psychological reasons it wanted the new Citizens to become self-supporting as soon as possible-too much help from Federation technology could, at this early stage, set up an inferiority complex which might stunt future cultural and scientific development. So the appropriate public buildings, educational establishments, dwellings ranging from mud huts to skyscraper blocks, and whole factory complexes, were transferee! with the minimum of physical and emotional dislocation.

    One of the first and most pleasant discoveries made by the new arrivals was that the flora and fauna of Earth had been transplanted many centuries earlier and required only cultivation and domestication. Apart from the bright, stratospheric haze in the otherwise cloudless sky and the thirty-five hour day, the new world was very much like home. There was no moon, and the only way to see the sun was from a space observatory, but Earth's space hardware was not on the list for transfer.

    It seemed that the human race was not to be given interstellar travel, matter transmitters, or other technological marvels of Federation science, but they would be given a little guidance in discovering these things for themselves. There was plenty of time, after all, and no pressure of any kind would be exerted on them. The Federation was deeply concerned that the Earth culture should not suffer from forced growth.

    Surely, Martin thought angrily, these were the actions of a sensitive, altruistic, highly ethical group of entities. Why could he not accept what they were offering at face value? What stupid defect in his personality was making him uneasy?

    Martin wiped his palm with a handkerchief. The screen remained lighted but blank. He put the hand back again.

    He remembered how the early reports and then the Earth observers had come back, the former in an increasing flood and the latter in a reluctant trickle. It was a beautiful world, its climate semitropical throughout because of the heat-retaining stratospheric haze, and the Earth vegetation and animal life were flourishing. In short, it was the kind of world his grandparents had insisted that Earth had been back in the good old days when there was room to breathe and air which was breathable.

    But that had been nearly eight years ago, Martin thought as he stared into the blank red screen. The transfer of Earth's population was virtually complete. Soon there would be nobody left but the people who, for personal or psychopathological reasons, were unsuitable for citizenship. There was nothing or nobody to hold him on Earth, and when he thought of the things he had heard and seen of the new world...

    "I want to become a Citizen of the Federation," he said in quiet desperation.

    But he was all too aware of his palm on the sensor plate saying, not in words but in the electrochemical changes in his skin and the equally tiny variations in muscle tensions and pulse-rate, something different. Unlike his voice, those psychophysiological reactions were saying that all this was too good to be true, that there had to be a catch in it somewhere, and that there was something the minds behind the robot examiners were not telling him.

    The words PASS THROUGH ON THE RIGHT AND USE THE UNMARKED DOOR appeared on the screen suddenly.

    The door opened into a room in another building. Outside the window there was a vista of pine trees poking tike green spearheads through a blanket of sunlit, melting snow. He felt irritated because they still felt the need to impress him with their instantaneous transport system-had they never heard of the law of diminishing returns? But as he placed his hand on yet another sensor plate and looked beyond it his irritation changed abruptly to bitter disappointment.

    Behind the examiner there was only one door, and it was unmarked.

    QUESTIONS?

    This time the word shone white on a field of icy blue, giving it an aura of cool, clinical detachment. But Martin did not feel