A strongly beautiful face, thought Dr Carriol, with a jaw that confirmed the astronaut's extraordinary record of physical and psychical gutsiness. But the widely opened grey eyes were the eyes of a genuine thinker.
'Objections?'
No one had any.
'Your number-three choice, Dr Abraham?'
'Percival Taylor Smith. American right back to 1683 on his father's side and 1671 on his mother's, of White Anglo-Saxon Protestant background. Aged forty-two. He is married, one child, a girl now aged sixteen, in school, straight A's. Maritally I rated him ten, and parentally ten also. He is the head of the Community Social Adjustment Bureau in Palestrina, Texas, one of the biggest Band B relocation towns in the whole country, centred on Corpus Christi. His achievement record is without parallel. Not only does Palestrina have a suicide rate of zero, but its psychiatric services report no patients suffering from environment — or relocation — based neurosis. His personality may be labelled as winning, his public speaking is first class, he is the most dedicated worker my caseload uncovered, and his attitude to our current problems in America is magnificent.'
Dr Carriol looked at the photograph of Percival Taylor Smith carefully. A frank, open, smiling and careworn face, caught offguard in the act of speaking; freckles across the cheeks and nose, endearingly lopsided ears, reddish hair, blue eyes, laughter lines and worry lines making a most pleasing pattern around mouth and eyes.
'Objections?'
'Palestrina is a Band B town, which means its relocatees are permanent fixtures. I suggest that Mr Smith's task has been correspondingly easier than in a Band C town,' said Dr Hemingway.
'Well taken, Dr Hemingway. Dr Abraham?'
'Valid. I acknowledge this. But I would point out two facts. One, that even so, Palestrina's record is without peer. And two, that a man of Mr Smith's calibre would nut out some kind of approach that would work in any situation.'
'Agreed,' said Dr Carriol. 'Thank you very much, Sam. I can see no reason why we should not proceed to Dr Hemingway, but before we do, does anyone else have a general objection to Dr Abraham's choices?'
Dr Hemingway leaned forward; Dr Abraham leaned back just as far, frowning. The puggy little lady's persistence was beginning to wear him down.
'I note that your first and second selections were both Jewish. You yourself are Jewish. Your chief researcher is Jewish. Was there any bias in your decision?'
Dr Abraham swallowed, pulled his lips back from his teeth, and drew his breath in with a gentle hiss that indicated he was not going to lose his temper no matter what Dr Hemingway came out with. 'I can see where you might think you had a valid point,' he said. 'I will answer you by asking Dr Carriol if there was any Semitic bias in her selection of the heads of her three investigative teams for the purpose of this exercise. I am a Jew. So is Dr Chasen. Two to one, Millie!'
Dr Carriol laughed, so did Dr Hemingway.
'Say no more, Sam. And thank you. Now it's your turn in the hot seat, Millie.' Dr Carriol put the first three files to one side, and pulled the next pile of three to where she could conveniently study them.
'Okay!' said the little pug-dog lady, not at all put out by Dr Abraham's counter; she was a scientist of the questioning kind in everything, was all. 'My team and I elected to use the alternative selection process, namely that every member of the team voted, rather than just me and my chief researcher. Our three final candidates were unanimous choices, in the order in which I will present them.'
Dr Hemingway opened a file. 'First choice is a woman, Catherine Walking Horse. Father, a full-blood Sioux. Mother, a sixth-generation American of Irish Catholic background. Aged twenty-seven. Single, no children, no previous marriage, but strongly heterosexual in her relationships of an intimate nature. You've undoubtedly heard of her and heard her, she is a very well-known singer of Indian and other folk songs. A most engaging and happy person, with the most positive attitude to life in our times that we encountered in our thirty-three-thousand-plus sample. She's an extremely intelligent woman. Her doctoral thesis in ethology from Princeton is being published this autumn by the Atticus Press as a major contribution to the field. She is of course a brilliant public speaker, and has a most magnetic personality.' Dr Hemingway paused, then added, 'She's a bit of a witch — by that I mean she has a spellbinding quality — she draws people to her. Quite amazing.'
This photograph showed a young, hawklike dark face, its mouth half smiling, its eyes staring eagerly into what Dr Carriol mentally classified as a 'vision'.
'Objections?' asked Dr Carriol.
'At twenty-seven she is too young,' said Dr Abraham emphatically. 'She should not even have been included in your caseload.'
'I concur,' said Dr Hemingway, on her mettle to appear no less accommodating to criticism than Dr Abraham had been. 'But the fact remains that the computer did throw her name up, and after running several checks we assumed that meant her other qualifications negated her age in the computer's judgment. Also, she has emerged as our clear-cut number-one choice. I would respectfully submit that her age not militate against her.'
'Agreed,' said Dr Carriol. 'However, there is something in her gaze I find disquieting. When it comes to personal investigation, I want a lot of digging to make sure Dr Walking Horse is neither on drugs nor possessed of mental instability.' Her hands laid the file down, opened the next file. 'Your second pick, Dr Hemingway?'
'Mark Hastings. An eighth-generation American, at least. Black. Aged thirty-four. Married, one child, a boy now aged nine, in school, a straight-A student and a promising athlete. Dr Hastings scores ten maritally and parentally. Quarterback of the Band B Longhorns, and still holding his own magnificently against the youngsters coming up. Rated the greatest QB in the history of American football. A summa cum laude graduate in philosophy from Wesleyan, with a doctorate from Harvard. He is an indefatigable worker among the youth of all the relocation towns in Texas and New Mexico, founded and supervises the running of the youth clubs that bear his team's name, is a first-class public speaker, a highly personable man, and is chairman of the President's youth council.'
He looks such a brute, thought Dr Carriol; how very misleading faces can be. And indeed the face was an almost classic example of dumb brute strength, with its flattened nose, dented jawline, stitched-up brows. What punishment he must have taken on the football field! But the eyes always gave away the soul, and the eyes said the soul was profound, beautiful, humble, possibly poetic.
'Objections?' she asked.
Silence.
'Your last choice, Dr Hemingway?'
'Is Walter Charnowski. A sixth-generation American of Polish extraction. Aged forty-three. He's married, has one child, a girl now aged twenty and a sophomore at Brown, an A-plus-plus-plus student in basic sciences. My group and I agreed unanimously that he was a ten maritally and parentally. Of course, as you all know, he won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2026, for his work on generation of power from the sun in space. He is currently the scientific director of Project Phoebus. But the main reason we chose him among our final three subjects is that he is the founder and perpetual president of Scientists for Humanity, the first — and only — association of scientists which has managed to cross barriers of race, creed, nationality and ideology and achieved a truly international, actively contributing membership. He has charisma, I think. He's a much better than average public speaker in eight languages, and he has a warm and charming personality.'
Dark yellow-blond hair, yellowish eyes, fine tanned skin, a broad face with the beginning of a network of lines which would only add additional charm and fascination to it. Though she had never met him personally, Dr Carriol had always privately thought him one of the sexiest men in public life.
'Objections?'
Dr Abraham was dying to object. 'Am I or am I not correct, Millie, in remembering that Professor Charnowski was one of the formulators as well as signatories of the Catholics for Free Life petition which attempted in — 2019? — to persuade Pope Innoc
ent to reverse Pope Benedict's ruling on contraception and population control?'
Dr Carriol glanced from Dr Hemingway to Dr Abraham and back again, but said nothing.
'Yes, Sam, you are quite correct,' said Dr Hemingway. 'I was not aware, however, that we were supposed to detail the negative aspects of our candidates in this short verbal report! If you look in your copy of his file you will find all the relevant information there. Nothing in Professor Charnowski's conduct since 2019 indicates that he has not accepted Pope Innocent's response in a spirit of genuine reconciliation.'
'It's a black mark against him that would have led me to eliminate him, especially considering the religious implications,' said Dr Abraham.
'My job, Sam,' said Dr Hemingway, with a look in her little black eyes that said she was going to punish him for inferring that she was ever less than completely on top of that job, 'was to wade through the better than thirty-three thousand cases the computer assigned to me and my group of six investigators, and select by one of two alternative methods the three most suitable persons among those better than thirty-three thousand people, given certain parameters as guidelines.'
She leaned back in her chair, closed her eyes, and with elaborate care proceeded to tick the points off on her fingers as she made them. 'To enumerate! One, that the chosen person be at least a fourth-generation American on both sides. Two, aged between thirty and forty-five years. Three, of either sex. Four, if married be rated ten as a spouse, if a parent be rated ten as a parent, each on a scale of ten designed by Dr Carriol, and if single to be as Caesar's wife whether homo — or heterosexual. Five, that the chosen person's career be a public or community-oriented one. Six, that the said career be uniformly beneficial to the community as a whole or in particular, that self-interest be minimal. Seven, that the personality be extremely stable and attractive. Eight, that he or she be a superlative public speaker. Nine, that, if possible, charisma be present. And ten — the only negative point you might say, Sam, old buddy — that the chosen person not have a formal religious occupation.'
She opened her eyes and stared straight at Dr Abraham. 'Given this protocol, I would say I have done my job.'
'You have all done your jobs,' said Dr Carriol before Dr Abraham could reply. 'It is not,' she went on, fingering the file under her hands with spidery purpose, 'a competition we are engaged upon, even if it is only an exercise designed to check the efficiency of our data resources, computers, methodology and personnel. Five years ago, when you were assigned this task, as well as the money and the computers and the personnel to carry it out, you may privately have thought it was a helluva long time and a helluva lot of Environment money to tie up on nothing more than a drill. But I do not think any of you were more than three months into it before you began to realize how essential a drill it was. Section Four has emerged from phase one of Operation Search with the best data-collection protocols, the best computer programmes, and the best statistical and humanity investigative teams in the whole of the federal bureaucracy.'
'Granted,' said Dr Abraham, feeling, he didn't know why, as if his knuckles were being rapped.
'Good! Now, are we finished with Dr Hemingway? Has anyone any general objections to her candidates?'
Silence.
'All right. Thank you, Millie. And thank you for that admirable precis of the criteria for Operation Search.'
Dr Hemingway winced, but thought better of saying what she wanted to say.
'Dr Chasen, would you give us your candidates, please?' asked Dr Carriol smoothly.
Wounded feelings were forgotten immediately; as Dr Moshe Chasen gathered his little heap of files together, a certain expectancy began to charge the atmosphere in the conference room. Dr Chasen was a bull of a man, big and stubborn and given to strong opinions; he was also a formidable data analyst whom Dr Carriol had stolen from Health, Education and Welfare some ten years before, and like his colleagues Abraham and Hemingway, he loved working for Judith Carriol.
That he had remained silent throughout the presentation of the first six candidates was perhaps surprising, but Drs Abraham and Hemingway now thought they knew why. The anticipated name had not cropped up among those six people, therefore it must come from Dr Chasen, and naturally it would come as his first choice. To a large extent it robbed his, the last presentation, of much of its thunder; and Dr Moshe Chasen was not a man who liked seeing his thunder stolen. Thus the atmosphere of expectancy was not bated-breath in nature; rather, it was anticlimactic. Yet — Moshe Chasen did not look or act like a cheated man as he shifted his bulk in his chair and opened his first file.
'I chose the first alternative when it came to a method of selection,' he said, his voice as deep and growly as his face. 'Not so democratic, Millie, but in my view a lot more effective. My chief researcher and I reserved the decision making for ourselves, and of course our choices were mutual.'
'Of course,' said Dr Carriol, slightly minatory.
He glanced down the table at his boss quickly, then dipped his head. 'Our first choice — and by a very large margin of preference — is Dr Joshua Christian. A seventh-generation American of mixed Nordic, Celtic, Armenian and Russian blood. Aged thirty-two years. Single, no children, and never married. Voluntarily vasectomized at age twenty. We have not been able, given the information available to the computer — and that is very considerable for every citizen of this country — to discover what if any is Dr Christian's sexual preference. However, he lives within a stable family unit consisting of his mother (his father is dead), two brothers, one sister, and two sisters-in-law. He is the undisputed head of the family, what I would call a born father figure. He graduated summa cum laude in basic sciences from Chubb and went on to do a doctorate in philosophy, subject psychology, also from Chubb. He runs a private clinic in Holloman, Connecticut, and specializes in the treatment of what he calls millennial neurosis. His cure record is really phenomenal, and he has what for want of a better word I must call a cult following. This may be because his therapy encourages his patients to find solace in God, though not necessarily in any formal religion. His personality is disturbingly intense, and he speaks very well indeed to any size of audience. But my main reason for picking this man as a definite first — I venture to say, only — choice is his astonishing charisma. You said you wanted it. Well, he's got it.'
This speech was greeted with stunned silence. Dr Moshe Chasen had produced the wrong name.
Dr Carriol sat looking at Dr Chasen so intently that he put his chin up and refused to switch his gaze away from her eyes.
'I shall voice my own objection first,' she said at 57
last, in a level, unemotional tone. 'I have never heard of the term "millennial neurosis." And I have never heard of Dr Joshua Christian.' Outside of her position as head of Section Four in the Department of the Environment, Dr Judith Carriol was one of the country's leading psychologists.
'Valid, ma'am. Dr Christian has never published or given a single paper after his doctoral thesis, which — I've read it, of course, and had it read by experts in his field — almost completely consisted of a mass of experimental data presented as graphs, tables and the like, with the shortest, baldest written text I have ever seen. But the work — on the feedback in anxiety neurosis — was so brilliant and original it has become the standard reference and the jumping-off spot for all investigation in this field.'
'All right, outside my expertise area, but I ought to have heard of him, and I haven't,' said Dr Carriol.
'That doesn't surprise me. He seems to have no ambition to be famous, he just seems to want to conduct his little clinic in Holloman. Among his peers he is either an object of contempt or an object of amusement, and yet the man does very good work.'
'Why doesn't he write?' asked Dr Hemingway.
'Apparently he suffers from writer's block.'
'To the degree that he can't even produce a paper? In this day and age, with all the modern tools available to a nonwriter?' Dr Hemingway sounded incredulous.
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'Yes.'
'Then he's very seriously flawed,' said Dr Abraham.
'Where does it say in the parameters Millie so succinctly itemized that a man has to be perfect outside of his marriage and his children? Are you inferring brain damage, Sam'
'Well, it's a possibility,' said Dr Abraham defensively.
'Oh, come on! Don't be so goddam precious!'
'Gentlemen, gentlemen!' said Dr Carriol sharply. She plucked the photograph out of the file she had opened but not even glanced into, so attentively had she listened while Dr Chasen described his bombshell first choice. And she studied the picture now as if it could offer her some clue as to why Moshe Chasen had preferred this man to the man he should have preferred. Yes, it was an attractive face. Half starved looking, though. Not a bit handsome, with that scimitar of a nose — the Armenian showing, maybe? Dark, very brilliant and arresting eyes. And the face had an ascetic austerity every face so far had lacked. Yes, an intriguing face. But… She shrugged.
'And who is your second choice, Dr Chasen?' she asked.
Dr Chasen grinned wickedly. 'I can hear you all asking yourselves, Which made the booboo, my computer or me? Relax! There's nothing wrong with my computer. It put him in my sample. Senator David Sims Hillier VII. What more can I say? Need I say more?'
The moment Dr Chasen uttered the name, there was a huge collective sigh. The golden boy! There he was in an eight-by-ten colour print under Dr Carriol's eyes; the most liked, the most admired, the most respected man in America. David Sims Hillier VII, U.S. Senator. At thirty-one too young to be President, but bound to be President before he turned forty. Six feet four inches in height, therefore not afflicted by the Napoleon complex. Beautifully built, therefore not afflicted by the Atlas complex. Fair hair, wavy and likely to remain enviably thick into old age. Deep, brilliant blue eyes. Classically regular features, yet not at all pretty. Even in the photograph one could see how masterfully the chin would jut in real life. The curves of the mouth were firm, disciplined, unsensuous, and the eyes looked strong, intelligent, resolved, wise. He was all those; nor was he selfish, cruel, shallow, impractical, or indifferent to the plight of those born into less affluent circumstances than he himself had been.