But that hope was quenched as he joined them in time to hear Artur expound his favourite theme.

“The machine impartial! That’s just the comet dust they feed you back at the Pool. Sure, we know the story they set up—that a man has to be fitted by temperament and background to his job, that each ship has to carry a well integrated crew—but that’s all moon gas! When Inter-Solar wants a man, they get him—and no Psycho fits him into their ships if they don’t want him! That’s for the guys who don’t know how to fire the right jets—or haven’t brains enough to look around for good berths. I’m not worrying about being stuck on some starving Free Trader on the fringe—”

Ricki and Hanlaf were swallowing every word of that. Dane didn’t want to. His belief in the incorruptibility of the Psycho was the one thing he had clung to during the past few weeks when Artur and those like him had strutted about the Pool confident about their speedy transition to the higher levels of Trade.

He had preferred to believe that the official statements were correct, that a machine, a collection of impulses and relays which could be in no way influenced, decided the fate of all who applied for assignment to off-world ships. He wanted to believe that when he fed his ID plate into the Psycho at the star port here it would make no difference that he was an orphan without kin in the service, that the flatness of his money belt could not turn or twist a decision which would be based only on his knowledge, his past record at the Pool, his temperament and potentialities.

But doubt had been planted and it was that lack of faith which worked on him now, slowing his pace as they approached the assignment room. On the other hand Dane had no intention of allowing Artur or either of his satellites to guess he was bothered.