range under maternal prodding and a promise that she might watch the bedside video till 9:15, if she was prompt about the bathing ritual.
Linda said, "Grandpa," and stood with her chin down and her hands behind her back until his newspaper lowered itself to the point where shaggy eyebrows and eyes, nested in fine wrinkles, showed themselves. It was Friday, October 31.
He said, "Yes?"
Linda came closer and put both her forearms on one of the old man's knees so that he had to discard his newspaper altogether.
She said, "Grandpa, did you really once vote?"
He said, "You heard me say I did, didn't you? Do you think I tell fibs?"
"N - no, but Mamma says everybody voted then."
"So they did."
"But how could they? How could everybody vote?"
Matthew stared at her solemnly, then lifted her and put her on his knee.
He even moderated the tonal qualities of his voice. He said, "You see, Linda, till about forty years ago, everybody always voted. Say we wanted to decide who was to be the new President of the United States. The Democrats and Republicans would both nominate someone, and everybody would say who they wanted. When Election Day was over, they would count how many people wanted the Democrat and how many wanted the Republican. Whoever had more votes was elected. You see?"
Linda nodded and said, "How did all the people know who to vote for? Did Multivac tell them?"
Matthew's eyebrows hunched down and he looked severe. "They just used their own judgment, girl."
She edged away from him, and he lowered his voice again, "I'm not angry at you, Linda. But, you see, sometimes it took all night to count what everyone said and people were impatient. So they invented special machines which could look at the first few votes and compare them with the votes from the same places in previous years. That way the machine could compute how the total vote would be and who would be elected. You see?"
She nodded. "Like Multivac."
"The first computers were much smaller than Multivac. But the machines grew bigger and they could tell how the election would go from fewer and fewer votes. Then, at last, they built Multivac and it can tell from just one voter."
Linda smiled at having reached a familiar part of the story and said, "That's nice."
Matthew frowned and said, "No, it's not nice. I don't want a machine telling me how I would have voted just because some joker in Milwaukee says he's against higher tariffs. Maybe I want to vote cockeyed just for the pleasure of it. Maybe I don't want to vote. Maybe - "
But Linda had wriggled from his knee and was beating a retreat.
She met her mother at the door. Her mother, who was still wearing her coat and had not even had time to remove her hat, said breathlessly, "Run, along, Linda. Don't get in Mother's way."
Then she said to Matthew, as she lifted her hat from her head and patted her hair back into place, "I've been at Agatha's."
Matthew stared at her censoriously and did not even dignify that piece of information with a grunt as he groped for his newspaper.
Sarah said, as she unbuttoned her coat, "Guess what she said?"
Matthew flattened out his newspaper for reading purposes with a sharp crackle and said, "Don't much care."
Sarah said, "Now, Father - " But she had no time for anger. The news i had to be told and Matthew was the only recipient handy, so she went on, "Agatha's Joe is a policeman, you know, and he says a whole truckload of secret service men came into Bloomington last night."
"They're not after me."
"Don't you see, Father? Secret service agents, and it's almost election time. In Bloomington."
"Maybe they're after a bank robber."
"There hasn't been a bank robbery in town in ages... Father, you're hopeless."
She stalked away.
Nor did Norman Muller receive the news with noticeably greater excitement.
"Now, Sarah, how did Agatha's Joe know they were secret service agents?" he asked calmly. "They wouldn't go around with identification cards pasted on their foreheads."
But by next evening, with November a day old, she could say triumphantly, "It's just everyone in Bloomington that's waiting for someone local to be the voter. The Bloomington News as much as said so on video."
Norman stirred uneasily. He couldn't deny it, and his heart was sinking. If Bloomington was really to be hit by Multivac's lightning, it would mean newspapermen, video shows, tourists, all sorts of -