Then he paused and drew a relieved breath. His sly opponent had a Rook in danger with a check in the offing and his own Queen ready to wreak havoc. And he was ahead a Rook to a Pawn.
"Your move," he said with satisfaction.
Schwartz said finally, "What-what is the Sixty?"
There was a sharp unfriendliness to Grew's voice. "Why do you ask that? What are you after?"
"Please," humbly. He had little spirit left in him. "I am a man with no harm in me. I don't know who I am or what happened to me. Maybe I'm an amnesia case."
"Very likely," was the contemptuous reply. "Are you escaping from the Sixty? Answer truthfully."
"But I tell you I don't know what the Sixty is!"
It carried conviction. There was a long silence. To Schwartz, Grew's Mind Touch was ominous, but he could not, quite, make out words.
Grew said slowly, "The Sixty is your sixtieth year. Earth supports twenty million people, no more. To live, you must produce. If you cannot produce, you cannot live. Past Sixty-you cannot produce."
"And so..." Schwartz's mouth remained open.
"You're put away. It doesn't hurt."
"You're killed?"
"It's not murder," stiffly. "It must be that way. Other worlds won't take us, and we must make room for the children some way. The older generation must make room for the younger."
"Suppose you don't tell them you're sixty?"
"Why shouldn't you? Life after sixty is no joke...And there's a Census every ten years to catch anyone who is foolish enough to try to live. Besides, they have your age on record."
"Not mine." The words slipped out, Schwartz couldn't stop them. "Besides, I'm only fifty-next birthday."
"It doesn't matter. They can check by your bone structure. Don't you know that? There's no way of masking it. They'll get me next time...Say, it's your move."
Schwartz disregarded the urging. "You mean they'll-"
"Sure, I'm only fifty-five, but look at my legs. I can't work, can I? There are three of us registered in our family, and our quota is adjusted on a basis of three workers. When I had the stroke I should have been reported, and then the quota would have been reduced. But I would have gotten a premature Sixty, and Arbin and Loa wouldn't do it. They're fools, because it has meant hard work for them-till you came along. And they'll get me next year, anyway... Your move."
"Is next year the Census?"
"That's right...Your move."
"Wait!" urgently. "Is everyone put away after sixty? No exceptions at all?"
"Not for you and me. The High Minister lives a full life, and members of the Society of Ancients; certain scientists or those performing some great service. Not many qualify. Maybe a dozen a year...It's your move!"
"Who decides who qualifies?"
"The High Minister, of course. Are you moving?"
But Schwartz stood up. "Never mind. It's checkmate in five moves. My Queen is going to take your Pawn to check you; you've got to move to Knight 1; I bring up the Knight to check you at King 2; you must move to Bishop 2; my Queen checks you at King 6; you must move to Knight 2; my Queen goes to Knight 6, and when you're then forced to Rook 1, my Queen mates you at Rook 6.
"Good game," he added automatically.
Grew stared long at the board, then, with a cry, dashed it from the table. The gleaming pieces rolled dejectedly about on the lawn.
"You and your damned distracting chatter," yelled Grew.
But Schwartz was conscious of nothing. Nothing except the overwhelming necessity of escaping the Sixty. For though Browning said:
Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be... that was in an Earth of teeming billions and of unlimited food. The best that was now to be was the Sixty-and death.
Schwartz was sixty-two.
Sixty-two...
12. The Mind That Killed
There was the-what was it, a hospital?-in Chica. They had taken care of him before. And why? Because he had been a medical "case." But wasn't he still a case? And he could talk now; he could give them the symptoms, which he couldn't before. He could even tell them about the Mind Touch.
Or did everyone have the Mind Touch? Was there any way he could tell?...None of the others had it. Not Arbin or Loa or Grew. He knew that. They had no way of telling where he was unless they saw or heard him. Why, he couldn't beat Grew in chess if Grew could- Wait, now, chess was a popular game. And it couldn't be played if people had the Mind Touch. Not really.
So that made him a peculiarity-a psychological specimen. It might not be a particularly gay life, being a specimen, but it would keep him alive,
And suppose one considered the new possibility that had just arisen. Suppose he were not an amnesiac but a man who had stumbled through time. Why, then, in addition to the Mind Touch, he was a man from the past. He was a historical specimen, an archaeological specimen; they couldn't kill him.
If they believed him.
Hmm, if they believed him.
That doctor would believe. He had needed a shave that morning Arbin took him to Chica. He remembered that very well. After that his hair never grew, so they must have done something to him. That meant that the doctor knew that he-he, Schwartz-had had hair on his face. Wouldn't that be significant? Grew and Arbin never shaved. Grew had once told him that only animals had hair on their face.
So he had to get to the doctor.
What was his name? Shekt?...Shekt, that was right.
But he knew so little of this horrible world. To leave by night or cross-country would have entangled him in mysteries, would have plunged him into radioactive danger pockets of which he knew nothing. So, with the boldness of one with no choice, he struck out upon the highway in the early afternoon.