Free I Speak for Earth by John Brunner

situation when you meet it.”
    Schneider said gently, “But you were just saying you were once knocked out by the inertia of a strut?”
    “I was a new recruit then. It takes a while to learn.”
    “I see.”
    They had reached the waiting car, and Lagenfeld was holding the door for them to get in. Schneider became brisk and changed the subject as he settled back in his seat.
    “We are to go now to our quarters, as I was instructed. And then you are to have the opportunity to meet your other colleagues.”
    The car whisked them up the mile of road from the field to the village. It proved larger than Joe had estimated from the air; part of it was living quarters, part barracks for the detachments of UN troops who had moved in some time ago and part was technical offices. Langenfeld pointed out individual buildings: psychology block, electronics block, records office, administrative office, field hospital, and others.
    At length the car halted before a block that had a more permanent air than the others; it looked like an ordinary pleasant modern house, lifted out of an expensive, planned suburb and deposited here so that one automatically looked round for others, each with a tidy garden. There were no others.
    “Your quarters,” said Lagenfeld with a wave of his hand. “You’ll probably be wanting breakfast when you’ve had a chance to clean up and change clothes—over there is the main canteen. I’ll go over and tell them you’re coming.”
    Schneider nodded, getting out of the car. As Joe followed him, he turned back and addressed Lagenfeld again.
    “Joe will want to meet the other candidates as soon as possible. Do you think you could have them all there by—say in one hour’s time?”
    “Will do.” said Lagenfeld.
    “All are now here. Today then we can already get down to the real work.”
    Lagenfeld parodied a look of dismay, waved, and told the driver of the car to take him on down the road. Together, Joe and Schneider went into the house.
    The quarters were palatial. Joe found himself shaping a silent whistle as he looked around the room allotted to him. Everything was perfect.
Everything
. Even the books on the shelves of the bookcase were ones he loved. The furniture was cleanly designed in a practical style that he as an engineer appreciated at first glance. The layout of the room and the adjacent shower room were obviously the result of patient time-and motion analysis. On one wall was a photograph of Earth from somewhere in the region of
Old Stormalong’s
orbit. On another was a Dali—
Premonition of Civil War
. Joe shook his head wonderingly. He recalled that one of the psychologists at the project had spent an hour with him going over his likes and dislikes in literature, art and music. Obviously, the purpose hadn’t simply been to furnish an apartment for him—but they had made good use of what they had been told.
    A photograph cube lying on its side on the shelf at the head of the divan-bed caught his attention. Automatically he went across to pick it up and straighten it. When he did, he caught his breath and held it.
    It was a head and shoulders color portrait of Maggie. Etched in the substance of the cube, and forming a sort of halo around her hair, was a message in her handwriting:
    I wish I could be with you, too
.
    The letters had obviously been triggered by setting the cube right side up; after half a minute they faded, and there was only the portrait.
    Joe shook his head again and put the cube down. A warm feeling flooded his mind. Suddenly he realized that in spite of everything Schneider had said about him not being frightened,deep down he had been scared stiff. The fear was going, diminishing like ebbing tide. In its place there came a sort of cautious confidence.
    Whistling, glancing every now and again at the portrait in the cube and remembering the feel of Maggie’s hair on his cheek, remembering the sound of her voice until it almost seemed that the message in the cube had