f victory--someday. And meanwhile, I'll
keep 5274 alive.

"He even knew the psychology of these Managers and their System. That
they can't afford to make an error. He knew they'd still have that
identification punch-plate of him. That they would have one more plate
than they had prisoners. But he anticipated what they would do there
too. To admit there was one more identification plate than there were
prisoners would be to admit a gross error. Of course they could dissolve
one of the other prisoners and use 5274's plate and resurrect 5274. But
they'd gain nothing. There would still be an extra plate. You see?

"So they destroyed the plate. He knew they would. And they also had to
go back through the records, to Earth, through the security files there,
through the birth records, everything. And they destroyed every trace,
every shred of evidence that No. 5274 ever existed."

So he kept the memory alive and that kept 4901 alive while the other
prisoners become automatons, hearing, feeling, sensing nothing except
the bells. Remembering nothing, anticipating nothing.

But 4901 could remember something magnificent, and so he could
anticipate, and that was hope, and faith. He found that no one really
believed him but he kept on telling it anyway, the story of the Plan.

"Maybe this number didn't exist," someone would say. "If there's no
record anywhere--"

4901 would smile. "In my head, there's where the record is. _I_ know.
_I_ remember."

And so it was that 4901 was the only one who still remembered and who
could still smile when sometime after that--no one in the prison colony
knew how long--the Underground was victorious, and the Managerial System
crumbled.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Victor, by Bryce Walton

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