I Speak for Earth by John Brunner Page B

you want to do. You’re at liberty to poke your noses anywhere on the island—except the cybernetics building, though. There’s stuff in there which could be wrecked by a single grain of dust or a single smear of the natural grease from a fingertip. So to save us from having to fit you out with silicone suits, when we could be getting on with the work, please avoid that one building. Anything else you want to know?”
    No one spoke. Joe found his eyes moving slowly around the group now. And he was sure that the same thought had come into the others’ minds as had come into his:
    So this is the pride of Earth! Well, I dont know why they selected me, in spite of all they’ve said. I only hope someone out of this group has the right talents—

X
    I T WAS quiet in his room except for the very faint hum of the tape recorder he had borrowed to record his letter to Maggie.
    Joe began, “Well, two weeks have gone by here, and I’m getting the weirdest sensation of unreality about the whole affair. When we catch the news broadcasts and hear about the arguments and the rows that go on everywhere about the urgency of the matter, we feel as though it all has to do with other people.
    “I’ll try and give you an idea of what it’s like here. We six candidates, except for Schneider who’s also more or less in charge of the whole business, have as much time as we want to rove around the island—what there is of it. The weather is beautiful; you can swim in the little bay, or lounge on the beach, or watch the UN troops exercising, or sit in the recreation room, or in your own room. Maybe I should explain that the UN troops are here for a very good reason; there was that bomb in the plane I arrived in, which Major Gupta’s boys got rid of barely in time, and since then we’ve heard about other sabotage attempts at the project building in New York—obviously, someone is damnably eager to get chosen by eliminating the competition. Anyway, time hangs on our hands.
    “They’ve made their choice of us six; presumably it only remains to eliminate five of us. No doubt they’re watching us continually, because there are people like ghosts on this island. They’re in the main canteen, or walking around during the day, but they come and go again and never seem to establish a foothold in the present, if you get me. I think they’re experts—psychologists, presumably—who are just weighing up everything we do, probably eavesdropping by microphone on the entire twenty-four hours of the day.
    “Outside the other candidates, only two people really impinge on me: one is Lagenfeld, the Australian cyberneticist who spends most of his time in a sealed hut full of electronic gadgetry, but who emerges in the evenings and sometimes comes and chats with us in the recreation room. I don’t know what he keeps in that hut; presumably, computers to process the data which these ghostly watchers bring in.
    “And the other is this Major Gupta, whom I suspect of actually holding a very much higher rank. In fact, I don’t believe Gupta is his real name. He mentioned casually that he used to serve with the UN disarmament inspection teams, which implies that by now he ought to have reached a generalship if only because his superiors had been retired out of his way. He’s in command of the military—specifically, of anti-sabotage work and I imagine also of the Tiger’s Claws missiles, which have disappeared into superbly camouflaged emplacements at each end of the island. Those things worry me, you know; I hope to God they don’t turn out to benecessary. He has a staff, but they keep to themselves even more than the psychological watchdogs.
    “Something else that worries me, you know—that’s the nature of the candidates. If you had to choose someone to represent Earth this way, you’d pick the most versatile people you could imagine. Instead, all of us candidates are specialists. At most, Stepan Prodshenko shines in three different fields,