idiot faces. There were many privileges, and though a Corpsman couldn't marry, one was allowed to develop interesting friendships with the women Corps members.

That was another thing. Marie Thurston. What if, as a result of long intimacy, she should suspect?

He paced in his apartment, perspiration streaming down his throat, his muscles tense. He didn't want the little white room. Sometime THE CALL would strike him out there where people were, and he'd act like any of the others. Raise his arms. Raise them to sky, walk blindly, oblivious to anything else, his head raised, his mouth gaping, his eyes closed, feet slogging, stumbling. Mumbling—

But it seemed that Bronson was wrong about that. The masses wanted it and they didn't know what THE CALL was, so no inhibitory factors. But Bronson knew, and as a result, he found he didn't get THE CALL unless he asked for it.

He could look at Mars from his darkened quarters at night alone, and get THE CALL, and no one knew. And what surprised Bronson was that he did ask for it. THE CALL became an obsession, with even the Pleasure Marts, and Marie, sliding into unimportance.

He had to deal with an enigma. He had two choices. Assume he was insane, the most logical, perhaps. Or that he wasn't insane, in which case THE CALL was a phenomenon with some material basis in fact outside of himself.

He decided on the latter as a working hypothesis. He tried to find out what might really be back of THE CALL. There were the files in the Corps headquarters at Central City. He questioned some sources subtly. Studied people who got THE CALL. He even managed to talk with Jacson, one of the higher echelon Psychologists. The Psychologists had taken over, established the New System, above them was a small Elite Ruling class no one ever contacted. They lived apart with very very special privileges. The Psychologists kept things as they were. They were the Pavlovians, the reflex boys. Something to do with dogs and ringing bells.

Jacson gave the usual answer. "Regression. But only a few get THE CALL each year. It can never cause social disorganization or dissociation. The last symptom of the old escape drive away from unpleasant reality, inherent in the germ cells no doubt. But now there's no escape. Everybody has fun. No troubles. No conflicts. Someday there'll be no one getting THE CALL."

Who was he kidding, Bronson thought? More got the call each year. That 

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