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section of machine that stood where the weapon shop had been.
A machine, oh, a machine
His brain lifted up, up in his effort to grasp the tremendousness of the dull-metaled immensity of what
was spread here under a summer sun beneath a sky as blue as a remote southern sea.
The machine towered into the heavens, five great tiers of metal, each a hundred feet high; and the
superbly streamlined five hundred feet ended in a peak of light, a gorgeous spire that tilted straight up a
sheer two hundred feet farther, and matched the very sun for brightness.
And it was a machine, not a building, because the whole lower tier was alive with shimmering lights,
mostly green, but sprinkled colorfully with red and occasionally a blue and yellow. Twice, as Fara
watched, green lights directly in front of him flashed unscintillatingly into red.
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Give Me Liberty
The second tier was alive with white and red lights, although there were only a fraction as many lights as
on the lowest tier. The third section had on its dull-metal surface only blue and yellow lights; they
twinkled softly here and there over the vast area.
The fourth tier was a series of signs that brought the beginning of comprehension. The whole sign was:
WHITE BIRTHS
RED DEATHS
GREEN LIVING
BLUE IMMIGRATION TO EARTH
YELLOW EMIGRATION
The fifth tier was also all sign, finally explaining:
POPULATIONS
SOLAR SYSTEM 19,174,463,747
EARTH 11,193,247,361
MARS 1,097,298,604
VENUS 5,141,053,811
MOONS 1,742,863,971
The numbers changed, even as he looked at them, leaping up and down, shifting below and above what
they had first been. People were dying, being born, moving to Mars, to Venus, to the moons of Jupiter,
to Earth's moon, and others coming back again, landing minute by minute in the thousands of
spaceports. Life went on in its gigantic fashion and here was the stupendous record. Here was
"Better get in line," said a friendly voice beside Fara. "It takes quite a while to put through an individual
case, I understand."
Fara stared at the man. He had the distinct impression of having had senseless words flung at him. "In
line?" he started and stopped himself with a jerk that hurt his throat.
He was moving forward, blindly, ahead of the younger man, thinking a curious jumble that this must
have been how Constable Jor was transported to Mars when another of the man's words penetrated.
"Case?" said Fara violently. "Individual case!"
The man, a heavy-faced, blue-eyed young chap of around thirty-five, looked at him curiously: "You
must know why you're here," he said. "Surely, you wouldn't have been sent through here unless you had
a problem of some kind that the weapon shop courts will solve for you; there's no other reason for
coming to Information Center."
Fara walked on because he was in the line now, a fast-moving line that curved him inexorably around
the machine; and seemed to be heading him toward a door that led into the interior of the great metal
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Give Me Liberty
structure.
So it was a building as well as a machine.
A problem, he was thinking, why, of course, he had a problem, a hopeless, insoluble, completely tangled
problem so deeply rooted in the basic structure of Imperial civilization that the whole world would have
to be overturned to make it right.
With a start, he saw that he was at the entrance. And the awed thought came: In seconds he would be
committed irrevocably to what?
* * *
Inside was a long, shining corridor, with scores of completely transparent hallways leading off the main
corridor. Behind Fara, the young man's voice said, "There's one, practically empty. Let's go."
Fara walked ahead; and suddenly he was trembling. He had already noticed that at the end of each side
hallway were some dozen young women sitting at desks, interviewing men and . . . and, good heavens,
was it possible that all this meant
He grew aware that he had stopped in front of one of the girls.
She was older than she had looked from a distance, over thirty, but good-looking, alert. She smiled
pleasantly, but impersonally, and said, "Your name, please?"
He gave it before he thought and added a mumble about being from the village of Glay. The woman
said, "Thank you. It will take a few minutes to get your file. Won't you sit down?"
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