Isaac Asimov: Profession

What right had they to be technicians and he, himself, a Laborer? Laborer! He was certain!

He was led by a red-uniformed guide along the busy corridors lined with separate rooms each containing its groups, here two, there five: the Motor Mechanics, the Construction Engineers, the Agronomists—There were hundreds of specialized Professions and most of them would be represented in this small town by one or two anyway.

He hated them all just then: the Statisticians, the Accountants, the lesser breeds and the higher. He hated them because they owned their smug knowledge now, knew their fate, while he himself, empty still, had to face some kind of further red tape.

He reached 15-C, was ushered in and left in an empty room. For one moment, his spirits bounded. Surely, if this were the Labor classification room, there would be dozens of youngsters present.

A door sucked into its recess on the other side of a waist-high partition and an elderly, white-haired man stepped out. He smiled and showed even teeth that were obviously false, but his face was still ruddy and unlined and his voice had vigor.

He said, “Good evening, George. Our own sector has only one of you this time, I see.”

“Only one?” said George blankly.

“Thousands over the Earth, of course. Thousands. You’re not alone.”

George felt exasperated. He said, “I don’t understand, sir. What’s my classification? What’s happening?”

“Easy, son. You’re all right. It could happen to anyone.” He held out his hand and George took it mechanically. It was warm and it pressed George’s hand firmly. “Sit down, son. I’m Sam Ellenford.”

George nodded impatiently. “I want to know what’s going on, sir.”

“Of course. To begin with, you can’t be a Computer Programmer, George. You’ve guessed that, I think.”

“Yes, I have,” said George bitterly. “What will I be, then?”

“That’s the hard part to explain, George.” He paused, then said with careful distinctness, “Nothing.”

“What!”

“Nothing!”

“But what does that mean? Why can’t you assign me a profession?”

“We have no choice in the matter, George. It’s the structure of your mind that decides that.”

George went a sallow yellow. His eyes bulged. “There’s something wrong with my mind?”

“There’s something about it. As far as professional classification is concerned, I suppose you can call it wrong.”

“But why?”

Ellenford shrugged. “I’m sure you know how Earth runs its Educational program, George. Practically any human being can absorb practically any body of knowledge, but each individual brain pattern is better suited to receiving some types of knowledge than others. We try to match mind to knowledge as well as we can within the limits of the quota requirements for each profession.”

George nodded. “Yes, I know.”

“Every once in a while, George, we come up against a young man whose mind is not suited to receiving a superimposed knowledge of any sort.”

“You mean I can’t be Educated?”

“That is what I mean.”

“But that’s crazy. I’m intelligent. I can understand—”

He looked helplessly about as though trying to find some way of proving that he had a functioning brain.

“Don’t misunderstand me, please,” said Ellenford gravely. “You’re intelligent. There’s no question about that. You’re even above average in intelligence. Unfortunately that has nothing to do with whether the mind ought to be allowed to accept superimposed knowledge or not. In fact, it is almost always the intelligent person who comes here.”

“You mean I can’t even be a Registered Laborer?” babbled George. Suddenly even that was better than the blank that faced him. “What’s there to know to be a Laborer?”

“Don’t underestimate the Laborer, young man. There are dozens of subclassifications and each variety has its own corpus of fairly detailed knowledge. Do you think there’s no skill in knowing the proper manner of lifting a weight? Besides, for the Laborer, we must select not only minds suited to it, but bodies as well. You’re not the type, George, to last long as a Laborer.”

George was conscious of his slight build. He said, “But I’ve never heard of anyone without a profession.”

“There aren’t many,” conceded Ellenford. “And we protect them.”

“Protect them?” George felt confusion and fright grow higher inside him.

“You’re a ward of the planet, George. From the time you walked through that door, we’ve been in charge of you.” And he smiled.

It was a fond smile. To George it seemed the smile of ownership; the smile of a grown man for a helpless child.

He said, “You mean, I’m going to be in prison?”

“Of course not. You will simply be with others of your kind.”

Your kind.The words made a kind of thunder in George’s ear.

Ellenford said, “You need special treatment. We’ll take care of you.”

To George’s own horror, he burst into tears. Ellenford walked to the other end of the room and faced away as though in thought.

George fought to reduce the agonized weeping to sobs and then to strangle those. He thought of his father and mother, of his friends, of Trevelyan, of his own shame—

He said rebelliously, “I learned to read.”

“Everyone with a whole mind can do that. We’ve never found exceptions. It is at this stage that we discover—exceptions. And when you learned to read, George, we were concerned about your mind pattern. Certain peculiarities were reported even then by the doctor in charge.”

“Can’t you try Educating me? You haven’t even tried. I’m willing to take the risk.”

“The law forbids us to do that, George. But look, it will not be bad. We will explain matters to your family so they will not be hurt. At the place to which you’ll be taken, you’ll be allowed privileges. We’ll get you books and you can learn what you will.”

“Dab knowledge in by hand,” said George bitterly. “Shred by shred. Then, when I die I’ll know enough to be a Registered Junior Office Boy, Paper-Clip Division.”

“Yet I understand you’ve already been studying books.”

George froze. He was struck devastatingly by sudden understanding. “That’s it…”

“What is?”

“That fellow Antonelli. He’s knifing me.”

“No, George. You’re quite wrong.”

“Don’t tell me that.” George was in an ecstasy of fury. “That lousy bastard is selling me out because he thought I was a little too wise for him. I read books and tried to get a head start toward programming. Well, what do you want to square things? Money? You won’t get it. I’m getting out of here and when I finish broadcasting this—”

He was screaming.

Ellenford shook his head and touched a contact.

Two men entered on catfeet and got on either side of George. They pinned his arms to his sides. One of them used an air-spray hypodermic in the hollow of his right elbow and the hypnotic entered his vein and had an almost immediate effect.

His screams cut off and his head fell forward. His knees buckled and only the men on either side kept him erect as he slept.

They took care of George as they said they would; they were good to him and unfailingly kind—about the way, George thought, he himself would be to a sick kitten he had taken pity on.

They told him that he should sit up and take some interest in life; and then told him that most people who came there had the same attitude of despair at the beginning and that he would snap out of it.

He didn’t even hear them.

Dr. Ellenford himself visited him to tell him that his parents had been informed that he was away on special assignment.