, and swaggered off, his thick neck red
above his green collar.

Fred found he'd had more than enough of swaggering young men with beefy
red necks. That added to his disgust with the constant struggle to
produce and consume, consume and produce. Vague, wishful threats froze
as determination: he absolutely wasn't going through any more of it.

He filed a flight plan that would return him to his home, and in due
course arrived there.

The phone rang in his ears as he opened the cockpit. He didn't want to
answer, and he stayed on the roof securing the gyro and plugging in its
battery-charger. But he couldn't ignore the bell's insistent clamor.

When he went downstairs and switched on the phone, George Harding's
round face splashed on the wall.

"Fred," he said, "when we talked a few hours ago, you forgot to say you
were sick. I phoned to confirm that for the Attendance Report. Did this
call get you out of bed?"

He could see it hadn't. Therefore Fred knew he must be recording the
audio only, and not the video; trying to give him a break with the
Attendance people and coach him on the most appeasing answers.

A well-meant gesture, but a false one. And Fred was fed up with the
false. "I forgot nothing," he said bluntly. "I'm perfectly well and
haven't been near bed."

"Now, wait," George said hastily. "It's no crime to be sick.
And--ah--don't say anything you wouldn't want preserved for posterity."

"George, I'm not going to play along with you," Fred insisted. "This
business of producing to consume and consuming to produce has got me
down. It's beyond all reason!"

"No, it isn't. You're an excellent mechanical engineer, Fred, but you're
not an economist. That's why you don't understand. Just excuse me for a
minute, and I'll show you."

He left the field of view. Fred waited incuriously for him to return,
suddenly conscious of the fact that he now had nothing better to do with
his time.

George was back in less than a minute, anyhow. "O.K.," he said briskly.
"Now, where were we? Oh, yes. I just wanted to say that production is a
form of consumption, too--even the production of machine-tools and
labor-saving devices. So there's nothing inconsistent--"

"What are you trying to do?" Fred demanded. "Don't lecture me--I know as
much econ as you do!"

"But you've got to come back to work, Fred! I want you to use your
rations, put your shoulder to the wheel, and conform generally. The
policing's too strict for you