The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Penal Cluster, by
Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)

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Title: The Penal Cluster

Author: Ivar Jorgensen (AKA Randall Garrett)

Release Date: April 12, 2008 [EBook #25061]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration: Their combined thought-force hit him like a
thunderbolt.]

THE
PENAL
CLUSTER

By IVAR JORGENSEN

_Tomorrow's technocracy will
produce more and more things
for better living. It will
produce other things, also;
among them, criminals too
despicable to live on this
earth. Too abominable to
breathe our free air._

The clipped British voice said, in David Houston's ear, _I'm quite sure
he's one. He's cashing a check for a thousand pounds. Keep him under
surveillance._

Houston didn't look up immediately. He simply stood there in the lobby
of the big London bank, filling out a deposit slip at one of the long,
high desks. When he had finished, he picked up the slip and headed
towards the teller's cage.

Ahead of him, standing at the window, was a tall, impeccably dressed,
aristocratic-looking man with graying hair.

"The man in the tweeds?" Houston whispered. His voice was so low that it
was inaudible a foot away, and his lips scarcely moved. But the
sensitive microphone in his collar picked up the voice and relayed it to
the man behind the teller's wicket.

_That's him_, said the tiny speaker hidden in Houston's ear. _The
fine-looking chap in the tweeds and bowler._

"Got him," whispered Houston.

* * * * *

He didn't go anywhere near the man in the bowler and tweeds; instead, he
went to a window several feet away.

"Deposit," he said, handing the slip to the man on the other side of the
partition. While the teller went through the motions of putting the
deposit through the robot accounting machine, David Houston kept his
ears open.

"How did you want the thousand, sir?" asked the teller in the ne