Free Futures Past by James White Page A

as half the men on this present job were joining him the secret hadn't been kept very well.
       "I like working with rockets," said Allen seriously, then he finished with a rush, "Maybe you could get me a job?"
       It seemed a silly request to the doctor, for he knew Allen had the necessary technical qualifications to obtain a post in any rocket research project in the world, judging from the things he'd done here. Why, there was one little gadget he'd thought up in only two hours to get distortion-free signals from high altitudes during magnetic storms. That extremely simple but utterly revolutionary dingus would make him a fortune when he patented it. Since Allen was an American—at least he spoke like an American—it was strange that the White Sands crowd hadn't grabbed him long ago. They spared neither trouble, nor expense to get the best brains, he knew, and it seemed the logical place for Allen to go. But the thing that struck the doctor as being most strange was the manner of his asking, as if hoping for a great favor. He said quietly, not allowing a hint of his puzzlement to show in his voice, "I'd be glad to have you along, you know that. Just send your application through the usual channels and I'll O.K. it. I didn't know unemployment was a problem with you." He paused. "Why you poor starving genius, you." He fumbled with an imaginary wallet in the region of his hip pocket, he was hamming it again. "Would you like a little something . . . not charity, of course ... a loan, or an advance?"
       But Allen wasn't entering into the spirit of the thing this time. When he spoke again his voice was still serious, and he was very ill at ease.
       "I meant could you, personally, get me a job. You see, Doc, it's that application through channels that is the whole trouble. Doc, I haven't got a single degree."
       Before Mathewson could make any reply to this startling bit of information he was talking again.
       "And I suppose you've been wondering why I didn't try for White Sands. Well I did, but I couldn't get a look in. Not even as a very junior technician. Security wouldn't pass me," he said bitterly. He was probably thinking of the things they were doing at that heaven of rocket technicians, where they had chucked chemical fuels entirely because, it was whispered, they had an atomic motor a-building that was suitable for use in a spaceship, though its completion and tests would take a few years yet. He hurried on, "But don't think it was anything political. It wasn't, though they thought so. They wanted to trace me back to the cradle to check up. It was unheard of that anyone as well up in technical subjects as I undoubtedly was could be without at least a few degrees. They wanted to know what universities and what colleges I had attended. Science, in this modern age, is a highly complicated and specialized affair. Did I expect them to believe that I got all this knowledge just by reading books? All right then, what primary school had I attended?
       "I wouldn't tell them so I got the push."
       To give himself time to take this in Mathewson started to rearrange the hood of his parka. Finally he coughed and said, "And did you pick up all your gen from books?"
       As soon as he uttered it he knew it was a stupid question, but it was the only one he could think of at the moment.
       Allen shook his head. "My education was the same as thousands of others back home, though I knew what I wanted to be and specialized almost from the beginning. But I just can't tell you where I got it." His voice became almost inaudible. It must have cost him an effort to get out the last sentence, "for . . . well . . . strong personal reasons."
       Mathewson couldn't see his face, but he could imagine it burning hot with shame and embarrassment, and wondered what tremendous scrape the other could have got himself into to make him act like this. Still, it was none of his business. And, if you looked at it properly, there