Sitting at a shiny imitation-oak table in the Public Library, Mart turned the pages of a booklet titled Adjustment Fits the Man to the Job.
" . . . . neuroses arising from job tension," he read at random. "Thus, the Adjusted worker enjoys the deep-down satisfaction which comes from Doing a Job, free from conflict-inducing nonproductive impulses and the distractions of feckless speculative intellectual activity. . . ."
Mart rose and went to the librarian's console.
"I want something a little more objective," he said in a hoarse library whisper. "This is nothing but propaganda."
The librarian paused in her button-punching to peer at the booklet. "That's put out by the Placement people themselves," she said sharply. She was a jawless woman with a green tag against a ribby chest and thin, black-dyed hair. "It contains all the information anyone needs."
"Not quite; it doesn't tell who grades Placement tests and decides who gets their brain poached."
"Well!" the woman's button chin drew in. "I'm sure I never heard Adjustment referred to in those terms before!"
"Do you have any technical information on it—or anything on Placement policy in general?"
"Certainly not for indiscriminate use by—" she searched for a word, "—browsers!"
"Look, I've got a right to know what goes on in my own town, I hope," Mart said, forgetting to whisper. "What is it, a conspiracy. . . . ?"
"You're paranoiac!" The librarian's lean fingers snatched the pamphlet from Maldon's hand. "You come stamping in here—without even a tag—a great healthy creature like you—" her voice cut like a sheet-metal file. Heads turned.
"All I want is information—"
"—living in luxury on MY tax money! You ought to be—"