Project Gutenberg's Hex, by Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)

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Title: Hex

Author: Laurence Mark Janifer (AKA Larry M. Harris)

Release Date: January 22, 2008 [EBook #24397]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HEX ***

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HEX

BY LARRY M. HARRIS

Illustrated by Summers

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science
Fiction May 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

_She was a young, enthusiastic worker for the Welfare Department.
She liked helping people ... only she really-but-good helped them!_

The office wasn't very bright or sunny, but that didn't matter. In the
first place, if Gloria really wanted sun, she could always get some by
tuning in on a mind outside, someone walking the streets of downtown New
York. And, in the second place, the weather wasn't important; what
mattered was how you felt inside. Gloria took off her beret and crammed
it into a drawer of her desk. She sat down, feeling perfectly ready for
work, her bright eyes sparkling and her whole twenty-one-year-old body
eager for the demands of the day.

It was ten minutes to nine in the morning.

On the desk was a mass of reports and folders. Gloria looked at them and
sighed; the cleaning woman, she thought, must have upset everything
again.

But neatness was the keystone of good, efficient work in any field.
Gloria set to work rearranging everything in a proper order. The job
took her nearly twenty minutes and, by the time she was finished, the
office was full.

Mr. Fredericksohn hadn't arrived yet, naturally. He always came in
around nine-thirty. But all of the case workers were ready for the day's
work. Gloria looked around the office at them, beaming. It was good to
be able to help people and to know that what you were doing was right.

She remembered wondering how you could be su