Isaac Asimov: Profession

George nodded and swallowed.

“Are you ready?”

George nodded. He closed his eyes while the doctor busied himself. His parents had explained this to him. They, too, had said it wouldn’t hurt, but then there were always the older children. There were the ten- and twelve-year-olds who howled after the eight-year-olds waiting for Reading Day, “Watch out for the needle.” There were the others who took you off in confidence and said, “They got to cut your head open. They use a sharp knife that big with a hook on it,” and so on into horrifying details.

George had never believed them but he had had nightmares, and now he closed his eyes and felt pure terror.

He didn’t feel the wires at his temple. The buzz was a distant thing, and there was the sound of his own blood in his ears, ringing hollowly as though it and he were in a large cave. Slowly he chanced opening his eyes.

The doctor had his back to him. From one of the instruments a strip of paper unwound and was covered with a thin, wavy purple line. The doctor tore off pieces and put them into a slot in another machine. He did it over and over again. Each time a little piece of film came out, which the doctor looked at. Finally, he turned toward George with a queer frown between his eyes.

The buzzing stopped.

George said breathlessly, “Is it over?”

The doctor said, “Yes,” but he was still frowning.

“Can I read now?” asked George. He felt no different.

The doctor said, “What?” then smiled very suddenly and briefly. He said, “It works fine, George. You’ll be reading in fifteen minutes. Now we’re going to use another machine this time and it will take longer. I’m going to cover your whole head, and when I turn it on you won’t be able to see or hear anything for a while, but it won’t hurt. Just to make sure I’m going to give you a little switch to hold in your hand. If anything hurts, you press the little button and everything shuts off. All right?”

In later years, George was told that the little switch was strictly a dummy; that it was introduced solely for confidence. He never did know for sure, however, since he never pushed the button.

A large smoothly curved helmet with a rubbery inner lining was placed over his head and left there. Three or four little knobs seemed to grab at him and bite into his skull, but there was only a little pressure that faded. No pain.

The doctor’s voice sounded dimly. “Everything all right, George?”

And then, with no real warning, a layer of thick felt closed down all about him. He was disembodied, there was no sensation, no universe, only himself and a distant murmur at the very ends of nothingness telling him something—telling him—telling him—

He strained to hear and understand but there was all that thick felt between.

Then the helmet was taken off his head, and the light was so bright that it hurt his eyes while the doctor’s voice drummed at his ears.

The doctor said, “Here’s your card, George. What does it say?”

George looked at his card again and gave out a strangled shout. The marks weren’t just marks at all. They made up words. They were words just as clearly as though something were whispering them in his ears. He could hear them being whispered as he looked at them.

“What does it say, George?”

“It says—it says—’Platen, George. Born 13 February 6492 of Peter and Amy Platen in …’” He broke off.

“You can read, George,” said the doctor. “It’s all over.”

“For good? I won’t forget how?”

“Of course not.” The doctor leaned over to shake hands gravely. “You will be taken home now.”

It was days before George got over this new and great talent of his. He read, for his father with such facility that Platen, Senior, wept and called relatives to tell the good news.

George walked about town, reading every scrap of printing he could find and wondering how it was that none of it had ever made sense to him before.

He tried to remember how it was not to be able to read and he couldn’t. As far as his feeling about it was concerned, he had always been able to read. Always.

At eighteen, George was rather dark, of medium height, but thin enough to look taller. Trevelyan, who was scarcely an inch shorter, had a stockiness of build that made “Stubby” more than ever appropriate, but in this last year he had grown self-conscious. The nickname could no longer be used without reprisal. And since Trevelyan disapproved of his proper first name even more strongly, he was called Trevelyan or any decent variant of that. As though to prove his manhood further, he had most persistently grown a pair of sideburns and a bristly mustache.

He was sweating and nervous now, and George, who had himself grown out of “Jaw-jee” and into the curt monosyllabic gutturability of “George,” was rather amused by that.

They were in the same large hall they had been in ten years before (and not since). It was as if a vague dream of the past had come to sudden reality. In the first few minutes George had been distinctly surprised at finding everything seem smaller and more cramped than his memory told him; then he made allowance for his own growth.

The crowd was smaller than it had been in childhood. It was exclusively male this time. The girls had another day assigned them.

Trevelyan leaned over to say, “Beats me the way they make you wait.”

“Red tape,” said George. “You can’t avoid it.”

Trevelyan said, “What makes you so damned tolerant about it?”

“I’ve got nothing to worry about.”

“Oh, brother, you make me sick. I hope you end up Registered Manure Spreader just so I can see your face when you do.” His somber eyes swept the crowd anxiously.

George looked about, too. It wasn’t quite the system they used on the children. Matters went slower, and instructions had been given out at the start in print (an advantage over the pre-Readers). The names Platen and Trevelyan were well down the alphabet still, but this time the two knew it.

Young men came out of the education rooms, frowning and uncomfortable, picked up their clothes and belongings, then went oft to analysis to learn the results.

Each, as he come out, would be surrounded by a clot of the thinning crowd. “How was it?” “How’d it feel?” “Whacha think ya made?” “Ya feel any different?”

Answers were vague and noncommittal.

George forced himself to remain out of those clots. You only raised your own blood pressure. Everyone said you stood the best chance if you remained calm. Even so, you could feel the palms of your hands grow cold. Funny that new tensions came with the years.

For instance, high-specialty professionals heading out for an Outworld were accompanied by a wife (or husband). It was important to keep the sex ratio in good balance on all worlds. And if you were going out to a Grade A world, what girl would refuse you? George had no specific girl in mind yet; he wanted none. Not now! Once he made Programmer; once he could add to his name, Registered Computer Programmer, he could take his pick, like a sultan in a harem. The thought excited him and he tried to put it away. Must stay calm.

Trevelyan muttered, “What’s it all about anyway? First they say it works best if you’re relaxed and at ease. Then they put you through this and make it impossible for you to be relaxed and at ease.”

“Maybe that’s the idea. They’re separating the boys from the men to begin with. Take it easy, Trev.”

“Shut up.”

George’s turn came. His name was not called. It appeared in glowing letters on the notice board.

He waved at Trevelyan. “Take it easy. Don’t let it get you.”

He was happy as he entered the testing chamber. Actually happy.