"I'll bet they're all like that!" another voice cut in. It belonged to the woman near the front of the cabin. She had risen to confront Hendley, her long face pinched tight with hostility. "Making fun of the rest of us!"
A third passenger intruded. "Fair's fair," he said. He was a 3-Dayman, like Hendley himself, attired in the familiar blue coverall. "It isn't his fault he's young. Somebody had to work to pay off his tax debt. That's the system, and it works the same for all of us."
"He didn't do the work!" the fat man retorted. "Look at him! Gloating over us. I'm sixty-two years old—I've worked all my life. Never let myself have anything I didn't need. And it'll be two, maybe three years before I make it. How much time will I have left?" His red face thrust close to Hendley's. "But why should you care? You've forgotten what it is to work!"
"They have all those women!" the pinched-faced woman up front cried shrilly. "I've seen them on the viewer. That's all they ever think about!"
Hendley's laughter had long since evaporated. He could only gape in amazement at the swollen anger of the fat man, the shrill resentment of the woman. He wondered how widespread was this envy of the free. Had he been so absorbed in his own unrest that he hadn't looked around him? And what soothing platitudes would the computers in the Morale Center recommend to patch this crack in the Organization's perfect structure?
Had he felt this same resentment himself? The question pulled Hendley erect in his seat. Was his rebellion rooted in a common envy? The possibility made him uneasy with himself. It offered an explanation for the way in which the idyllic moments with ABC-331, which had seemed so intensely important, should so quickly have receded in his memory. He had been offered a chance to glimpse the true freedom, the goal of all. Did everything fade into unimportance before that dream? Had his protest, disguised as the yearning for individuality, been no more than a subtler face of envy?
"Don't have much to say for yourself, do you?" the fat distributor in the beige uniform muttered.
Hendley turned to meet the bitter little eyes with a level gaze. In sudden anger he forgot the Investigator's insistence on silence. "I started as a 2-Dayman myself," he said flatly. "I'm not even a—"
The copter dipped abruptly. Hendley broke off. A faint pull in his stomach told him the ship was descending. That brief tug released a tingle of excitement through his body.
A stewardess appeared from the lounge, wearing a tight-fitting green uniform and a vacuous smile. She advanced straight to Hendley's seat. "You will go forward now, sir," she said, her tone a little too eager, too flatteringly awed. "The private debarking platform is through that door."