The Census Takers - Frederik Pohl(1), ebook, Temp
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The Census TakersIT GETS TO BE A MADHOUSE around here along about theend of the first week. Thank heaven we only do thisonce a year, that's what I say! Six weeks on, and forty-sixweeks offthat's pretty good hours, most people think.But they don't know what those six weeks are like.It's bad enough for the field crews, but when you get tobe an Area Boss like me it's frantic. You work your wayup through the ranks, and then they give you a whole C.A.of your own; and you think you've got it made. Fiftythree-man crews go out, covering the whole Census Area;a hundred and fifty men in the field, and twenty or thirtymore in Area Commandand you boss them all. Andeverything looks great, until- Census Period starts andyou've got to work those hundred and fifty men; and sixweeks is too unbearably long to live through, and too im-possibly short to get the work done; and you begin livingon black coffee and thiamin shots and dreaming about thevacation hostel on Point Loma.Anybody can panic, when the pressure is on like that.Your best field men begin to crack up. But you can'tafford to, because you're the Area Boss. ...Take Witeck. We were Enumerators together, and hewas as good a man as you ever saw, absolutely nervelesswhen it came to processing the Overs. I counted on thatman the way I counted on my own right arm; I alwaysbracketed him with the greenest, shakiest new cadetEnumerators, and he never gave me a moment's troublefor years. Maybe it was too good to last; maybe I shouldhave figured he would crack.I set up my Area Command in a plush penthouse apart-ment. The people who lived there were pretty well off,you know, and they naturally raised the dickens aboutbeing shoved out. "Blow it," I told them. "Get out of herein five minutes, and we'll count you first." Well, that tookcare of that; they were practically kissing my feet on theway out. Of course, it wasn't strictly by the book, but youhave to be a little flexible; that's why some men-becomeArea Bosses, and others stay Enumerators.Like Witeck.Along about Day Eight things were really hotting up. Iwas up to my neck in hurry-ups from Regional Controlwe were running a little slowwhen Witeck called up."Chief," he said, "I've got an In."I grabbed the rotary file with one hand and a pencilwith the other. "Blue card number?" I asked.Witeck sounded funny over the phone. "Well, Chief,"he said, "he doesn't have a blue card. He says""No blue card?" I couldn't believe it. Come in to astrange C.A. without a card from your own Area Boss,and you're one In that's a cinch to be an Over. "Whatkind of a crazy C.A. does he come from, without a bluecard?"Witeck said, '"He don't come from any C.A., Chief.He says""You mean he isn't from this country?""That's right, Chief. He-""Hold it!" I pushed away the rotary file and grabbed theimmigration roster. There were only a couple of dozennames on it, of coursewe have enough trouble with ourown Overs, without taking on a lot of foreigners, but stillthere were a handful every year who managed to get onthe quotas. "I.D. number?" I demanded."Well, Chief," Witeck began, "he doesn't have an I.D.number. The way it looks to me"Well, you can fool around with these irregulars for amonth, if you want to, but it's no way to get the workdone. I said: "Over him!" and hung up. I was a littlesurprised, though; Witeck knew the ropes, and it wasn'tlike him to buck an irregular on to me. In the old days,when we were both starting out, I'd seen him Over awhole family just because the spelling of their names ontheir registry cards was different from the spelling on thechecklist.But we get older. I made a note to talk to Witeck assoon as the rush was past. We were old friends; I wouldn'thave to threaten him with being Overed himself, or any-thing like that. He'd know, and maybe that would be allhe would need to snap him back. I certainly would talkto him, I promised myself, as soon as the rush was over,or anyway as soon as I got back from Point Loma.I had to run up to Regional Control to take a littletalking-to myself just then, but I proved to them that wewere catching up and they were only medium nasty. WhenI got back Witeck was on the phone again. "Chief," hesaid, real unhappy, "this In is giving me a headache. I""Witeck," I snapped at him, "are you bothering mewith another In? Can't you handle anything by yourself?"He said, "It's the same one. Chief. He says he's a kindof ambassador, and""Oh," I said. "Well, why-the devil don't you get yourfacts straight in the first place? Give me his name and I'llcheck his legation.""Well, Chief," he began again, "he, uh, doesn't haveany legation. He says he's from the" he swallowed"from the middle of the earth.""You're crazy." I'd seen it happen before, good menbreaking under the strain of census taking. They say incadets that by the time you process your first five hundredOvers you've had it; either you take a voluntary Overyourself, or you split wide open and they carry you off toa giggle farm. And Witeck was past the five hundred mark,way past.There was a lot of yelling and crying from the filtercenter, which I'd put out by the elevators, and it lookedlike Jumpers. I stabbed the transfer button on the phoneand called to Carias, my number-two man: "Witeck'sflipped or something. Handle it!"And then I forgot about it, while Carias talked toWiteck on the phone; because it was Jumpers, all right, awhole family of them.There was a father and a mother and five kidsfive ofthem. Aren't some people disgusting? The field Enumer-ator turned them over to the guardsthey were moaningand cryingand came up and gave me the story. It wasbad."You're the head of the household?" I demanded ofthe man.He nodded, looking at me like a sick dog. "Weweweren't Jumping," he whined. "Honest to heaven, misteryou've got to believe me. We were"I cut in, "You were packed and on the doorstep whenthe field crew came by. Right?" He started to say some-thing, but I had him dead to rights. "That's plenty, friend,"I told him. "That's Jumping, under the law: Packing, withintent to move, while a census Enumeration crew is oper-ating in your locale. Got anything to say?"Well, he had plenty to say, but none of it made anysense. He turned my stomach, listening to him. I tried tokeep my temperyou're not supposed to think of indi-viduals, no matter how worthless and useless and generallyunfit they are; that's against the whole principle of theCensusbut I couldn't help telling him: "I've met yourkind before, mister. Five kids! If it wasn't for people likeyou we wouldn't have any Overs, did you ever think of that?Sure you didn'tyou people never think of anything butyourself! Five kids, and then when Census comes aroundyou think you can get smart and Jump." I tell you, I was. shaking. "You keep your little beady eyes peeled, sneakingaround, watching the Enumerators, trying to count howm~ny it takes to make an Over; and then you wait untilthey get close to you, so you can Jump. Ever stop to thinkwhat trouble that makes for us?" I demanded. "Censusis supposed to be fair and square, everybody an evenchanceand how can we make it that way unless every-body stands still to be counted?" I patted Old Betsy, onmy hip. "I haven't Overed anybody myself in five years,"I told him, "but I swear, I'd like to handle you personally!"He didn't say a word once I got started on him. He juststood there, taking it. I had to force myself to stop, finally;I could have gone on for a long time, because if there'sone thing I hate it's these lousy, stinking breeders who tryto Jump when they think one of them is going to be anOver in the count-off. Regular Jumpers are bad enough,but when it's the people who make the mess in the firstplaceAnyway, time was wasting. I took a deep breath andthought things over. Actually, we weren't too badly off;we'd started off Overing every two-hundred-and-fiftiethperson, and it was beginning to look as though onr pre-liminary estimate was high; we'd just cut back to Overingevery three-hundredth. So we had a little margin to playwith.I told the man, dead serious: "You know I could Overthe lot of you on charges, don't you?" He nodded sickly."All right, I'll give you a chance. I don't want to botherwith the red tape; if you'll take a voluntary Over for your-self, we'll start the new count with your wife."Call me soft, if you want to; but I still say that it wasa lot better than fussing around with charges and a hear-ing. You get into a hearing like that and it can drag onfor half an hour or more; and then Regional Control ison your tail because you're falling behind.It never hurts to give a man a break, even a Jumper, Ialways sayas long as it doesn't slow down your Census.Carias was waiting at my desk when I got back; helooked worried about something, but I brushed him offwhile I initialed the Overage report on the man we'd justprocessed. He'd been an In, I found out when I canceledhis blue card. I can't say I was surprised. He'd come fromDenver, and you know how they keep exceeding theirCensus figures; no doubt he thought he'd have a betterchance in my C.A. than anywhere else. And no doubt hewas right, because we certainly don't encourage breederslike himactually, if he hadn't tried to Jump it was odds-on that the whole damned family would get by withoutan Over for years.Carias was hovering right behind me as I finished. "Ihate these voluntaries," I told him, basketing the canceledcard. "I'm going to talk to Regional Control about it;there's no ...
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