And so, in little, frightened bunches, they went in. When they were all clear of the door, Albin and Derban stepped in, too, and the doors slid shut. Derban took a second to mutter secretly: "You don't have to lose your temper. You're on a hell of a thin edge this morning."
Albin flicked his eyes over the brown face, the stocky, stolid figure. "So I'm on a thin edge," he said. "Aren't you?"
"Training is training," Derban said. "Got to put up with it, because what can you do about it?"
Albin grinned wryly. "I told somebody else that, last night," he said. "Man named Dodd—hell, you know Johnny Dodd. Told him he needed some fun. Holy jumping beavers—fun."
"Maybe you need some," Derban said.
"Not like last night, I don't," Albin said, and the elevator door opened.
Now others took over, guiding the Alberts to their individual places on the training floor. Each had a small room to himself, and each room had a spy-TV high up in a corner as a safeguard.
But the spy-eyes were just as much good as the beams, Albin thought. They were useless precautions: rebellion wasn't about to happen. It made more sense, if you thought about it, to worry the way Johnny Dodd worried, about the Confederation—against which spy-eyes and Belbis beams weren't going to do any good anyhow. (And nothing was going to happen. Nothing, he told himself firmly, was going to happen. Nothing.)
The Alberts were shunted off without trouble. Albin, heaving a small sigh, fixed the details of his next job in his mind: quality control in a smelting process. It took him a few seconds to calm down and get ready, and then he headed for room six, where one Albert waited for him, trying to think only of the job ahead, and not at all of the party, of Dr. Haenlingen, of Johnny Dodd, of rebellion and war.
He nearly succeeded.