Bert Alshuler said, “The one thing I learned in the army that was worth learning was never to volunteer.”

Professor Katz did his rueful smile. “I was in Korea,” he said. “It seems a long time ago, and, of course, it was.” It would have been difficult to put your finger on the professor’s age; he might have been in his early sixties, his late seventies. His hair was gray, rather than white, and he was vitally alert.

The younger man didn’t respond to the smile. “Then you should know.”

Leonard Katz shifted in his chair, leaned forward and touched the tips of his fingers together. He said, “It’s not exactly a matter of volunteering… ah… Alshuler. You were selected.”

“By whom?”

“By the computers of the National Data Banks.”

“Why me?”

“Remember the tests you took, immediately before release from the military?”

“How in the hell could I forget? They must have taken at least two weeks. Why, I couldn’t figure. We were getting out of the army, not in. It was just two more weeks of typical army snafu.”

“They were compiling your Ability Quotient,” the professor told him.

“Never heard of it.”

“Very few have. At this stage of the game, we who are on the project are keeping it minimized.”

Bert Alshuler recrossed his legs. He was beginning to become intrigued. “Kay,” he said. “Tell me about the Ability Quotient tests. Something like I.Q.?”

“It goes far beyond I.Q.” The professor made with his rueful smile again. “You see, the I.Q. tests were early in the game. They were the infancy of the tests of today. They didn’t and couldn’t measure all-round intelligence. There is no such thing. But they were a beginning. Today we still utilize an upgraded form of the I.Q.