Helena was panting with excitement, eyes bright on the screen. “Isn’t it wonderful?” she gasped ecstatically. “Oh, look at him!”
“Him” was the third candidate, and the first oldster Ross had seen whose gocart was a wheeled stretcher. Prone and almost invisible through the clusters of tubing and chromed equipment, Senior Citizen Immanuel Appleby acknowledged his introduction—“Age one century, three decades, eleven months and five days!” The crowd went mad; Helena broke from Ross’s side and joined a long yelling snake dance through the corridors.
Ross yelled experimentally as protective coloration, then found himself yelling because everybody was yelling, because he couldn’t help it. By the time the speaker on the screen began to call for order, Ross was standing on top of the voting bench and screaming his head off.
Helena, weeping with excitement, tugged at his leg. “Vote now, Ross,” she begged, and all over the hall the cry was “Vote! Vote!”
Ross reached out for the voting buttons. “What do we do now?” he asked Helena.
“Push the button marked ‘Appleby,’ of course. Hurry!”
“But why Appleby?” Ross objected. “That fellow Flexner, for instance——”
“Hush, Ross! Somebody might be listening.” There was sickening fright on Helena’s face. “Didn’t you hear? We have to vote for the best man. ‘Oldest Is Bestest,’ you know. That’s what Democracy means, the freedom of choice. They read us the ages, and we choose which is oldest. Now please, Ross, hurry before somebody starts asking questions!”
The voting was over, and the best man had won in every case. It was a triumph for informed public opinion. The mob poured out of the hall in happy-go-lucky order, all precedences and formalities suspended for Holiday.
Helena grasped Ross firmly by the arm. The crowd was spreading over the quiet acres surrounding the Center, each little cluster heedlessly intent on a long-planned project of its own. Under the pressure of Helena’s arm, Ross found himself swerving toward a clump of shrubbery.