RANDOM SAMPLE

E. C. TUBB

When Starship Prometheus came out of ftl her crew could fairly consider their next task the exploration of this new solar system and their settlement upon the finest of the new worlds. But it wasn't as easy as that. Doctor Chappell faced the hard reality of unpleasant alternatives in a situation where the wrong choice would bring death.

* * * *

CHAPPEL noisily turned the latch on the door and paused before entering the compartment. It was one of the mores which had become second nature on the Prometheus, a consideration of the privacy of others in a vessel in which privacy was at a premium. He needn't have bothered. The couple within had made no attempt to break apart. Lesley Judd sat with his arm snugly around Linda Parkinson and it was obvious from their expressions that each considered their search was over.

Chappell was glad to see it. He had worried a little about Linda, wondering, at times, if the selection board back on Earth had made a mistake. She had been too highly-strung, too much the extrovert, changing partners as if she had been a child in a toy shop eager to try everything before making up her mind. Over-compensation, he decided, the delusive atmosphere of social freedom on board the Prometheus coupled with the fear of making a wrong decision.

A computer should have solved the problem and one had been used but, in the final essence, what machine could determine emotional compatibility? The ingredients had been selected, the various units assembled and thrown into close proximity, and nature had done the rest. Fifteen months of flight-time had been long enough to cure initial errors, dissolve jealousy, form friendships and found the basis for an enduring colony.

If they found a habitable planet, of course. If the ship could re-enter normal space without destroying itself. If no one or no thing objected violently to their presence. A lot of 'ifs', he thought tiredly. But what other way was there to do it?

He moved deeper into the compartment as Judd lifted his free hand.

'Hi, Doc! Looking for someone?'

'Rodgers.' It was a lie and they probably both knew it. The ship was too small and the crew too intimate for his main function to have remained a secret, yet the excuse served to mask his professional interest in the couple and so avoid embarrassment. 'We were to have played chess. Have you seen him?'

Linda stirred in the shelter of Lesley's arm. 'No, Ian, he hasn't been here.'

'He won't have time for chess,' said Judd emphatically. 'Not now and not for some time. He's busy,' he explained. 'On duty - all the ship-operating personnel are.' He smiled at Chappell's expression. 'Didn't they tell you that the trip is almost over?'

* * * *

As colony-doctor Chappell had no real crew-status but now, for the first time, he realized just how great was the resentment he had generated against himself. It was a danger he had foreseen and had tried to avoid but, in the tiny universe of the Prometheus, that had been impossible.

No man likes to be told that he is unsuited to any woman. No woman likes to be ordered to behave herself. Of the sixty-seven people on the ship forty-nine would form the colony, twenty-four couples with himself as initial doctor and director. The essential operating crew of the vessel numbered six. Which left twelve people, six couples who would return to Earth and, no matter what was said, they would be considered as the rejects.

And he had been the one to make the decision as to who should stay and who should return.

Rodgers turned as he entered the control room. The First Officer was a thick-set, burly man who would have seemed more at home on the bridge of a whaling ship of the early part of the preceding century if it had not been for his hands, slender and delicate and his eyes, blue and compassionate. Like the captain, the chief engineer and Chappell himself, he was in late middle-age, too old to be a colonist and therefore with no reason to resent the visitor.

'Hello, Ian, come to see the fun?'

'If I'm permitted.'

'Hell, yes, why not?' Rodgers glanced at the panels, the men busy before them. 'I expected you before this. Why the delay?'

'I didn't know,' said Chappell. 'No one told me.'

'Or everyone thought that someone else had,' said Rodgers, grasping the implication and trying to negate it. 'Well, you're here now, that's all that matters. You know what's going on?'

'You're breaking out of FTL drive. Right?'

'Smack on target. To travel faster than light we had to go somewhere where it could be done. Another dimension, if you like. Now we've got to get back into our own universe. According to the math we've reached about where we wanted to go. The Vegian system, twenty-six light years from good old Sol. A hell of a jump but the area should be lousy with planets. The trick is to break out close enough to reach them but not too close to get trapped in a gravity well.' He nodded to where the captain sat at a console. 'That's the Old Man's decision and he's welcome to it.'

Chappell nodded, looking with interest at the banks of meters, the columns of coloured light. Aside from small noises the control room was silent, heavy with tension as men scanned their instruments. A bell chimed from a panel, the sound augmented by a glare of red light.

'Mass on sector three, sir,' reported the operator. 'About Luna size and approximately ten light minutes--'

Captain Foreman lifted his head. 'Be more precise,' he snapped. 'I don't want guesses!'

'Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Mass located at...'

Rodgers grunted as the man droned his revised information. Leaving Chappell he crossed the room to the panels and busied himself checking data. It was, Chappell knew, a thankless task. From the dimension in which they travelled instruments gathered a skein of information as to electromagnetic phenomena, radiation, local strains and distortions. From it had to be gathered usable knowledge. A local disturbance could be the location of a planetary mass or an electronic storm - FTL flight was still too recent for anyone to be wholly sure, and navigation was a matter of inspired guesswork and dead reckoning. If either were wrong the best they could hope for was the tedious business of re-establishing the drive - the worst would be utter and complete destruction as they tried to fill a space already occupied.

'Stand by for Breakout!' Captain Foreman lifted his head. 'All stations secure. Sound alarm.'

A low moaning echoed through the fabric of the vessel as the alarm signalled all personnel to fasten down. Chappell found himself sweating and looked down at his hands. The first and second fingers of both hands were firmly crossed.

'Now!'

There was a twisting, an indefinable sensation which utterly confused the senses so that the air was filled with lances of dazzling colour and shrieking noise. A sudden nausea which passed as quickly as it had come. And then the control room was normal again, the great vision screens bright with a glitter of stars, the swollen balloon of a sun. And something else.

* * * *

'A ship,' said Chappell. 'Of tremendous size and totally unfamiliar design; but it could have been nothing else.'

'Are you sure?' Legrain had a logical mind. 'I mean, did it speed up or slow down? Manoeuvre? Did it have a drive mechanism?'

'No.'

'Then how can you be positive it was a ship? It could have been anything, a small planetoid, a rogue asteroid or--'

'We're here, aren't we?' Walsh was a big man, as he clenched his fists muscles bulged on shoulders and arms. 'I think the doc is right. It was an alien vessel and it attacked us on sight. They didn't give us a chance.'

'They didn't kill us, though.' Sears turned from where he examined one of the walls. 'How come - if they wanted to wipe us out?'

'How do I know?' Walsh glared his anger. 'Maybe they saved us to put in a zoo. Or keeping us for later vivisection. Pets, maybe. Who can tell?'

Chappell sighed. He sat on the floor, his back against a wall, his legs stretched before him. Like the others he was completely nude. The room was about twelve feet square, a featureless cube lit by a soft glow from the ceiling. The walls, as far as they could tell, were completely unbroken. It was hot, the temperature, he guessed, well above body-heat, and the air was so dry that sweat evaporated as soon as it was formed.

Sears turned from his examination of the wall and sat beside him. 'Why?' he demanded of no one in particular. 'Why?"

'Let's take it from the beginning,' said Chappell quietly. 'How did we get here? I think we know that. A ship approached us and used some device which immediately rendered us unconscious. Blacked us out, if you like. When we regained awareness we were in this room. I can't be certain where it is but my guess is that it's within the alien vessel. It certainly isn't a part of the Prometheus. I don't feel hungry and I don't need a shave so not much time could have passed. So we must be on the mysterious vessel I saw. Has anyone any objection to that assumption?' He waited but there were no objections. 'So far so good. Now to extrapolate. Our captors must be of a high order of intelligence and have a very sophisticated technology. They matched our speed and course, made contact and effected our transfer. And it is obvious that they are our superiors in spacial navigation.'

'I don't follow,' objected Legrain. 'How can you be so sure they are more advanced than we are? Their presence could have been due to simple chance.'

'True,' admitted Chappell. 'But the fact that they immediately used their blackout device shows they were expecting us.' He wiped his face and began to wish for a drink. 'I think the most important facet of the incident is the proof that they have a very good knowledge of the human body and mind.'

Walsh frowned. 'Hold on a minute, Doc. You're going too fast. Nothing we have learned justifies such an assumption.'

'Wrong,' said Sears quickly. 'I begin to get the drift of what the Doc is getting at. These birds are clever and, to them, we aren't strangers.'

'They know us?' Legrain was incredulous. 'I don't believe it!'

'Then you'd better start trying!' Sears was sharp, his tone betraying his rising irritation. 'For any one species to be able to knock out a member of any other species by means of radiation, vibration or paralysing beam, pre-supposes that they have studied that race. Even back home we still can't develop a beam that will do more than disorganize nervous responses and we've grown up together.'

'Yes,' said Chappell. 'Logic tells us that they know quite a bit about us. Logic also tells us that, in order for them to have gained that knowledge, they must have contacted us at some time. And so--'

'They were waiting for us,' said Legrain, slowly. 'They knew when we'd Breakout. They had the ship in position and this room all ready.'

'But why?' insisted Sears. 'Why?'

Chappell didn't answer. Twenty-five centimetres from his right foot, a metre from the wall which he would have sworn was one solid piece without crack or flaw, stood what appeared to be a paper cup containing some ten ounces of fluid.

* * * *

It was water. He tested it with a cautious sip, finding it pleasantly cool and slightly brackish, resisting the impulse to gulp it all. Instead he shared it out, one swallow to a man, the cup collapsing into a sodden mess as he drained the final drops. Walsh, who had been the first to drink, turned from his examination of the wall.

'Nothing,' he said disgustedly. 'It's as solid as ever.'

'Try again!' Legrain was impatient and showed it. 'The cup must have come from somewhere. It couldn't have been passed through a solid. There must be a door or hatch.'

'There isn't.'

'There has to be!'

'Forget it.' Chappell broke up the incipient quarrel. 'Sit down, Legrain! You too, Walsh. The last thing we want is to lose our tempers.' He waited until the others had settled themselves with a slap of bare flesh. 'Let's think this thing out. Sears! Have you any ideas?'

'They could have used their device again,' said Sears thoughtfully. 'Blacked us out, entered with the water, left and then woke us up again.'

'How did they manage to get in?' snapped Walsh. 'The walls are solid.'

'So how did we get in here?' Sears glared at the big man. 'Use your head. Maybe they can swing up an entire wall or open the roof or something.'

'All right,' yielded Walsh. 'So I spoke without thinking.' He ran his tongue over his lips. 'Hell, that water tasted good. I could use about five gallons of it. Iced and poured through a funnel.'

'Me too!' Legrain wiped his hand over his bare chest and licked at the dew on his palm. Chappell watched him with mounting certainty.

Quietly he said, 'We were pondering a question. Why are we here?'

'Prisoners,' said Walsh shortly.

'That isn't answering the question. Try again.'

'Quarantine, then.'

'That's hardly likely,' objected Legrain. 'What about the rest of us or are we something special?'

'A sample batch,' elaborated Walsh. 'They could be exposing us to various bacteria and viruses to see what will happen.'

'How about hostages?' suggested Sears. Chappell shook his head.

'That's hardly logical. For us to be hostages pre-supposes that somewhere some of our kind could do our captors harm. Hostages are held to ensure the good behaviour of other members of the same tribe, or group or clan. As the only conceivable persons who could be influenced by our welfare are the others on the Prometheus and as they were in all probability captured with us it hardly seems logical that we are held as hostages for their good behaviour.'

Sears cleared his throat. 'All right, that was a bad guess, but how about them keeping us as specimens?'

'I don't believe that is true, either. For one thing if we were we would have been supplied with food and drink. The main objection, however, is that our captors are intelligent. Intelligent people don't put other intelligent people into a zoo. If they did they wouldn't be intelligent.'

Walsh snorted. 'That doesn't leave us much, does it? According to your brand of logic if we can't find a good reason for us being here, we shouldn't be here. We can't therefore we're not. Let's go home.'

Legrain glared his irritation. 'Use your head, Walsh. This isn't a game. This is serious.' He appealed to Chappell. 'That's right, isn't it, Doc?'

'You're both right,' said Chappell flatly. 'It is serious -deadly serious. And Walsh is right also. We are being subjected to intense strain.' He looked at their intent faces. 'I believe that we are a part of a controlled experiment. A test, if you like and, if we don't pass it, we and all on the Prometheus will die.'

* * * *

There was, he thought, nothing like dramatic emphasis to gain attention. Next to it came the dramatic pause and he used it now, letting his gaze drift from one to the other, allowing the silence to grow until it was time for him to break it.

'And explanation, to be feasible, must fit all the known facts and none other that I can think of does it better. Everything points to it. A sealed, escape-proof cell. No method of determining the passage of time. No clothing. No contact with either our own people or our captors. Sterile surroundings. Reduced to our basic primevality.' He looked around the room. 'Laboratory conditions. A group reduced to a common norm. Carefully regulated stimulus provided and the results noted. I've done the same thing myself a hundred times with rats and mice. Test conditions to determine what will happen in particular situations.'

Legrain frowned. 'But what do they hope to learn? I thought we decided that they must know all about us.'

'They probably do,' agreed Chappell. 'Physically at least, but maybe they want to learn more.' He frowned, thinking, automatically rubbing his chin and feeling the harsh stubble.

Stubble! But he hadn't been here long enough for his beard to grow - or had he? It was impossible to determine the passage of time, the utter sameness of the room, the probability of frequent blackouts of which he would remain unaware. No wonder he felt so thirsty. They could have been here for days in sweltering conditions ideal for the creation of dehydration. And now that his mind was on the subject he couldn't leave it alone. Water! Crystal clear mountain streams, gurgling faucets, limpid pools, the calming beat of rain.

Irritably he wrenched the images from his immediate consciousness. 'What would happen if you put a dozen rats in a cage and only provided enough food for one?'

'They would fight,' said Legrain.

'And if you provided a way out of the cage with ample food at the exit?'

'If it was plain and they didn't follow it you'd know that they weren't very bright.'

'An intelligence test,' said Chappell. 'But we know there isn't a way out of this room so the analogy isn't correct. What else would the behaviour of the rats indicate?'

'They wouldn't be intelligent,' said Sears. 'Or they wouldn't fight over one ration of food.'

'Intelligent?'

'Wrong word. Try civilized.' Sears narrowed his eyes. 'The water?'

'Yes.' Chappell looked from one to the other. 'We can take it that we are under constant observation. Every action, every word we speak is either watched or recorded. What we do and how we do it is important. Probably far more important than we realize.'

Walsh scowled at his fists. 'So I was right. We're specimens. Just what are we supposed to do?'

Chappell drew a deep breath. 'Decide who is to live and who is to die.'

'No!' said Legrain. 'We can't! We--'

'-- have no choice,' interrupted Chappell curtly. 'That was made by our captors and we have to abide by it. There are four of us. If we receive only the same amount of water as we did last time, and I believe that we will, then only one of us has a hope in hell of staying alive. The rest will die of thirst. The problem is - who is going to be the lucky man?'

No one said anything but, unconsciously, Walsh flexed his muscles.

'That isn't the way,' said Chappell quietly. 'It isn't as simple as that. We're not animals but, if we act like animals we must expect to be treated like them. What we do may not be as important as how we do it.'

Walsh spread his fingers. 'What do you mean?'

'Look at it this way. We are strangers arriving unheralded and perhaps unwanted in a sector of space already occupied by an intelligent race. They know of us but that knowledge could be thousands of years out of date. So how are we to be treated? Are we decadent? Are we brutes prematurely advanced and bent on conquest? Or are we a race which has kept its culture in step with its technological progress? How are they to know?'

Sears licked his swollen and cracking lips. 'Make a test.'

'Exactly,' said Chappell. 'What else.'

Legrain coughed. He held a paper cup of water in one hand. 'I think it's feeding time again. I just found this.' He began to raise it to his lips.

Walsh roared and lunged at the other man. Legrain saw him coming and tried to dodge. Chappell and Sears joined the fray. When it was over Legrain had a bruised cheek. Walsh a torn ear and both Chappell and Sears ugly marks on belly and torso.

The water had spilled and gone to waste.

* * * *

Chappell said, 'We'd better come to a decision. I don't want to go through that again.'

'He was going to drink it all,' said Walsh. 'I tried to stop him.'

'You mean that you wanted to drink it all yourself.' Legrain was shaking with anger. 'I was only taking a swallow.'

'That's what you say!'

'Shut up, Walsh,' snapped Chappell before Legrain could answer. 'You too, Legrain. The water should have been handed to me. Don't let it happen again.' He tried to put what authority he could into his voice; but it was little enough, simply that of age and experience. 'As I see it we have a limited choice. We can fight over the water - and we know what will happen then. We can refuse it - all die on the basis of absolute equality. Or we can decide who is to get it - and the rest will have to make sure that he does.'

Sears frowned, 'I don't get that.'

'When men get really thirsty, when the craving for water gets too strong, good resolutions are quickly forgotten.* Chappell looked at the others. 'As yet any one of us could be picked to receive the entire ration. That ration means continued life and, perhaps, a chance to get out of this place. But it will do him no good if three thirst-crazed men gang up on him. He wouldn't stand a chance and we'd be back to the first alternative where we all fight and no one gets the water. So those who go without must restrain not only themselves but each other. Agreed?'

'I guess so,' said Walsh. The others nodded.

'Good. Now to decide.' Chappell pulled four hairs from his head, knotted one, held it with the others in his hand. 'The hair with the knot is the winner. Who picks first?'

Walsh swallowed, put out his hand, hesitated. Sears shrugged. 'One chance in four.' He drew. No knot.

Legrain stepped forward, quickly, snatched a hair, pursed his lips as he found it smooth. Walsh smiled, 'Even odds.' He drew and muscles bunched on his thick shoulders.

Chappell looked at the remaining hair. It was knotted. As if in ironical reward a cup of water appeared at his feet.

* * * *

The aliens were cunning, he thought, bleakly. Diabolically so. They had struck at the prime dynamic, the instinct of self-preservation, the fundamental urge of the entire human race. Perhaps of all races. That, at least, was a thing they would hold in common.

The water had tasted like nectar but he hadn't really enjoyed it. He had gulped it down, conscious of the envious stares, the barely restrained craving of his companions. Almost he had felt ashamed; but deep within something had gloated because he was going to survive.

Until, of course, Walsh realized that he was the strongest, that agreements meant nothing, and that he could have all the water, safely and completely, simply by first killing the other three.

That would be the barbaric solution to the problem and the red proof of the survival of the fittest; but no society which hadn't risen above such primitive methods could call itself civilized. Was that, he wondered, the purpose of the test? To determine if the veneer of civilization was strong enough to imprison the beast?

And why had no women been included in the group? Would that have made it too easy? The procreators of the race were always protected unless they were old and ugly and, in civilized societies, even then.

Chappell stirred restlessly on the floor. He lay apart from the others as if already isolated. For want of anything better to do he rose and again examined the walls. They were smooth, of a peculiar substance which gave them the appearance of vertical pools, the surface highly polished with highlights within so that the fingers met the obstruction before the mind was ready for it. An optical illusion, of course, he had seen something like it in a hall of marble with panels of polished jet.

Time passed. The next drink appeared directly before Walsh, almost touching his foot, His arm twitched but he made no other move. Chappell hesitated then drank it down. The same with the next. The third was wasted.

Like the others it appeared directly before the big man. Both he and Chappell reached for it together. Before the others could interfere the damage had been done.

Chappell reeled back, head singing, the salt taste of blood in his mouth from hammered lips. The water spread in an evaporating pool at the side of the struggling trio.

'You see what I mean?' he said, bitterly. 'Is it impossible to prove that we are human, not animal? Don't you realize that is just what they were waiting to see if we would do?'

'All right, Doc,' croaked Legrain. 'Don't be too hard on him. He's half crazy. We'll see it doesn't happen again.'

Chappell turned, nursing his bruises, sitting apart and staring at the far wall. His thirst was maddening, the worse for having anticipated the water, seeming to burn his tissues, his very ability to think. What more could the test prove? How much longer would it last?

One thing he was sure about. He would share the next drink. No matter how illogical it was, how senseless, he would share it. He couldn't just sit and watch his companions die.

He must have stared at it for a good five seconds before he recognized the cup. It was directly before him, twenty-five metres from the wall, and had appeared as mysteriously as the others. Even as he picked it up something made him hesitate. He looked and confirmed the impression of lightness. The cup was empty.

A croak made him turn. Walsh stared at him, eyes imploring, one hand outstretched.

'It's finished,' said Chappell, tightly, and upended the container. 'There is no more water. There won't be any more water. The experiment is over.'

But not quite. With an effort of will Chappell forced himself to ignore his physical discomfort, the agony of his companions, the desperate need of haste. He took deep, even breaths, lying on the floor and relaxing as far as he was able. When he had achieved some kind of detachment he began to think over the whole thing again as he would an interesting problem.

After a while he smiled, opened his eyes, climbed to his feet - and walked through the wall.

* * * *

'It was a test, of course,' he said to the captain. 'We realized that quite early. The only thing we had doubt about was exactly what it was designed to prove. And I also fell into the error of being a bit too clever for my own good.'

Foreman shook his grizzled head. 'It still seems unbelievable. If it weren't for the instruments and your testimony I'd swear that nothing at all could have happened. As far as I'm concerned we achieved Breakout and saw an alien vessel. That vessel.' His arm lifted and pointed to where a monstrous artifact hung against a backdrop of stars.

'They'll be contacting us soon,' said Chappell. His eyes were thoughtful. 'They must have blacked out the entire ship, selected us four, put us to the test and then returned us before allowing you to regain awareness.'

'But why?' demanded Foreman. 'Why didn't they contact us in the normal manner?'

'Perhaps they did, normal for them, that is. After all they are probably experienced in meeting alien cultures. We are not.'

Foreman nodded. 'I see. You think that they have devised some sort of test as a working basis. But what made you walk through the wall? You said that it was solid.'

Chappell smiled. 'It was. As I said I was just a little too clever. I thought it was a simple test to determine how we would react to a given situation. And that is exactly what it was. The trouble was that I only fully recognized half of the problem.'

'I still don't get it.'

'There was no point at all in them letting us die of thirst so, when the water ceased to arrive, the empty cup must have been a clue of a kind. Something like "the test is over - now all get out of here". When I sat down to think things over I was suddenly reminded of a joke we once played on a student at school. We locked him in his room. It was on the top floor and he couldn't leave by other than the door. He had a heavy date and almost pulled it off its hinges before quietening down. Later we crept up and unlocked it. He didn't know this, of course, and continued to sit for hours in an unlocked room under the firm impression that he couldn't get out.'

'So?'

'The point is this, that student had tried the door so often and found it locked that he was unable to think of it as otherwise. We had so convinced ourselves that the room was one solid piece that we just didn't think of it as other than a breakproof cell. At first it was probably just that. But I'm inclined to believe we could have walked out of it simply by refusing to admit that it was an impassable barrier. Perhaps it has a mentally operated lock, or something. After all, our own cages are built something like that. Laboratory ones, at least. A child can open one but an animal lacks the mental ability to operate the simple catch-mechanism. Anyway, I just stepped towards a wall and kept going.'

'What happened then?'

'Nothing.' Chappell met the captain's eyes. 'I mean that literally. As far as I'm concerned I stepped into the wall and was immediately back on the Prometheus, dressed, shaved and feeling fine.'

'The others came with you,' mused Foreman. 'They and you must have been given restorative treatment of some kind.' He swore with sudden exasperation. 'Damn it! According to the chronometers we arrived twelve days ago. According to me it was ten minutes. They could have investigated every inch of my ship and probed every member of my crew and I'd never know it. What kind of creatures are we up against?'

Chappell looked at the tremendous bulk of the alien vessel depicted in the screen. 'Clever ones, Captain, and experienced. I think it would be wise for us to think in terms of "work with" rather than "up against". This is one race we can't afford to antagonize.'

'Maybe not.' Foreman looked thoughtful. 'What would have happened if you hadn't walked through the wall?'

Chappell replied without taking his eyes from the screen. 'I believe we would have died in that room,' he said quietly. 'Any race capable of subjecting others to such a test would have no tolerance for stupidity. And rightly so - an idiot must not be allowed access to destructive mechanisms.'

'Fair enough. But it's over now. You passed and we passed with you. But I'd still like to know just what was the deciding factor. Not your walking out, I can understand that, but what made them let you do it. Unlatch the cage, so to speak.'

'An accident,' said Chappell.

'What?'

'Luck.' Chappell turned and stared at the captain. 'We drew straws and I won. I also happened to be the oldest of the four. It didn't strike me at the time but it's obvious when you think about it. What is the concept of law and order based on? Respect for authority. And who is almost inevitably in the highest position of authority? The aged. Those with accumulations of experience, in this case myself. And, by giving me the water, the others showed their respect and deference to established rule. So we passed and so are acceptable to the alien culture.'

Foreman whistled as he stared at the alien ship on which lights began to flash in a familiar code. 'Luck,' he said and added, 'Man! Are they in for a surprise!'