softly glowing slot at the panel's top.

Suddenly his hand stopped.

He bent forward.

What was this? A feeling of strangeness. Vague. Like sensing some subtle
change in a picture that has hung for twenty years above the fireplace
in one's home.

He drew closer, squinting. The dials and meters seemed to be the same as
they had yesterday and the day before and the year before.

And yet?

The dials. Larger? By a fraction? And the tiny gleaming arrows of the
meters. Barely longer? And the marks on the dials and meters? One extra
each, very faintly, like a piece of hair.

He was very still for a long moment. Then he moved around the foot of
his own sleeping tube, pushed between the two and stood at the head of
the other one.

He checked its dials and meters. They were as they had been for many
years. He stepped back to the panel of his own and pressed a button. As
the glistening metal top rose, silently, he ran his hand around the
yawning interior, felt the downy softness and the body-like warmth. Then
his hand touched a pliable metal plate. That should not be there. He
stood back, remembering the workmen who had come into the house that
morning for the routine checkup of the tubes. His wife had already left
for work and he had just stepped through the door when they had met him
in the corridor. They had gone on into the rooms and he had sensed
vaguely that something was wrong. Then he had put the feeling out of his
mind and gone to his work.

Now suddenly, he turned to the illuminated four inch square panel above
the door, read April 15, 2563. The workmen had checked a day early. He
frowned. Either the Superfather had ordered the machine changed, which
was highly improbable, because every object in the city was standardized
and any change would upset the established order, or the workmen were
tied up with the man who had given him the different dream cards.... In
any event he had to sleep in the tube that night and he definitely
wanted to dream the dreams on the cards he had just gotten from the man
on the corner.

He dropped the cards into the slot at the top of the panel, climbed into
the tube and pressed a button. The top closed over him, like a hand. He
lay still, feeling the warm clasp wash over his body. There was darkness
and silence and a cool motion of antiseptic air. He could try the first
dream. If it wasn't right, he could shut it off and sleep without
dreams.

He pressed another button.

Silen