Click. "Follow the red arrow in Aisle Three, please."
Tom Rogers moved down the aisle, eyes wide on the flashing, arrow-shaped lights just beneath the surface of the quartzite floor.
Abruptly, he found himself before a desk. Someone pushed him into a foam-rubber contour chair.
"Surprised, eh, boy?" boomed a deep voice. "No robots at this stage of the game. No sir. This requires the human touch. Get me?"
"Uh-huh."
"Well, let's see now." The man settled back in his chair behind the desk and began thumbing through a file of papers. He was paunchy and bald save for a forepeak of red-brown fuzz. His gray eyes, with the dreamy look imposed by thick contact lenses, were kindly. Sweeping across his flat chest were two rows of rainbow-bright Driver's Ribbons. Two of the bronze accident stars were flanked by smaller stars which indicated limb replacements.
Belatedly, Tom noticed the desk's aluminum placard which read Harry Hayden, Final Examiner—Human.
Tom thought, Please, Harry Hayden, tell me I failed. Don't lead up to it. Please come out and say I failed the tests.
"Haven't had much time to look over your file," mused Harry Hayden. "Thomas Darwell Rogers. Occupation: journalism student. Unmarried. No siblings. Height, five-eleven. Weight, one-sixty-three. Age, twenty."
Harry Hayden frowned. "Twenty?" he repeated, looking up.