Page:Fantastic Universe (1956-10; vol. 8, no. 3).djvu/76

104 tonelessly. It was as if all intelligence had been drained from her mind. She was a thing for his designs.

"Our floating agents follow up on the work of our soda fountain clerks," he said softly.

She put both hands against her mouth to stop the trembling of her lips.

"You see we have four hundred recruited soda fountain clerks working currently. You can readily see that dropping a capsule into a drinking glass is a simple matter. Of course in the case of our fountain clerks there can be no follow ups as in the cases of doctors who can visit their patients without detection."

Theresa, moaned Sara voicelessly as her body rocked, oh, Theresa you didn't know he was a fiend

"To continue," his voice was cool and kindly. "Because there can be no follow up by the clerk, there is a color additive in the capsule he administers. This tints the skin of the prospective recruit a faint blue discernible to our floating agents. Such as you would be, Sara. It is not a demanding task to simply walk about and look at people. Really that is all there is to it, my dear. You would have received excellent training before you begin.

"Yes, we leave nothing to chance. Simply, your specific work would be to move about without haste, on the alert for persons with tinted skin, and of course after a passage between the agent and the prospect, contact is made."

Her head was whirling now and almost without volition she ran to the window that fronted a busy, center city street. Looking down she saw streams of people going in all directions. Who now could she trust? Would she recognize a floating agent? Would she ever be able again to sit down at a drug store soda fountain? And that nice, well-mannered Jimmy at the corner candy store! Could she ever be certain that he was not a recruit?

She spun around to find Dr. Smith very close behind her.

"There is no fear in my land," he said softly.

"Don't touch me," she pleaded, shrinking against the wall.

"No," he said and turned away.

A hundred questions sent rockets bursting in her brain.

"What happens to these tinted people?" she asked, her voice harsh in the quiet room. "What sort of lives do they lead until you contact them? If the capsule wipes out memory, how do they find their own homes and families?"

"Remember," he said soothingly, "that the process is gradual. Actually the whole thing is simple. On the fourth day after swallowing the capsule the prospect will not go home from his job. Or a woman, possibly marketing or returning from an afternoon with friends, will not return home to