Read Facial Justice for Free Online

to learn, and it might be changed at any time without other notice than the voice of the loudspeaker. It was invariably a complimentary epithet, for the Dictator had declared that the thought of another country must always be a pleasant thought. But the epithets themselves varied continually. Thus, Belgium might be beautiful one day, brave the next, bountiful the next, businesslike the next, and so on through all the alliterative adjectives that made Belgium sound attractive (the Dictator was addicted to alliteration), and Denmark might be delightful, delicious, distinguished, dutiful, or even duty-free. The population had to keep themselves informed of what was the current epithet; and anyone who, when challenged by an Inspector, could not give it, was liable to a fine. If in exasperation he or she said that Belgium was beastly or bloody, and Denmark dirty or detestable, the fine was trebled. France was friendly, Germany generous, Spain splendid, Italy inimitable, Uraguay unparalleled, but only from one day to another. Theoretically, international relations could not have been better, for the name of every foreign country evoked an earthly paradise; and theoretical they seemed destined to remain. Many such verbal booby traps had official sanction; it was said that they kept people mentally and harmlessly on the alert, and were valuable agents of civic instruction. But for the Underworld no epithet, complimentary or the reverse, was ever promulgated. It was itself, no adjective could add to or subtract from it: a symbol of absolute dread. The Dictator's dealings with it, whatever they had been, led to a new departure, the results of which will be told in the next chapter.
    Chapter Five
    AFTER her _volte face__, so to speak, at the Equalization (Faces) Center, Jael felt like someone who has broken off an engagement of marriage: at once guilty and relieved. Relief would have carried the day, for she was a girl of sanguine temperament, but for one thing: her brother, Joab. Joab 32, to give him his full title, was, like his sister, a Failed Alpha; but as he was a man this carried no social or moral stigma. Had his other intellectual attainments been as undesirable as his gift for statistics, he might have been a Full Alpha, an Inspector; but they were not. He took his position as a high-grade civil servant very seriously; his detractors (for he had them) said that the only time during the day when he was really happy was in the five minutes set apart for serious thought--the "S.T." as it was called, during which no one was allowed to laugh. It might occur at any time, according to the Dictator's whim, and every day produced a new crop of petty delinquents, who had to pay a forfeit: it had even interrupted the midnight call to duty, though it was then very difficult to enforce. Joab was Jael's senior by four years: he had been eight, she four, at the time of the Exodus fifteen years ago. They were orphans and had been brought up in the same Kiddykot in the Underworld, and were allowed the same privilege in the new--for the Dictator had taken over a great many of the old institutions--too many in the opinion of some, too few in the opinion of others. Zeal for the New Order was paramount in Joab; it was said that he was spiritually married to it and would never seek another spouse; but he was also much attached to his sister and had great influence with her. It was almost as much for her sake as for the State's that he wanted her to standardize her appearance; he thought she would be happier if she did. Neither fish nor flesh, looked on askance by their fellows, few of the Failed Alphas were really happy and Jael was a conformist at heart, as Joab knew. To make her position more tolerable he had given her a job as his secretary. To do this he had had to compromise with his conscience, for, in the allotting of jobs, Betas and even Gammas were given preference to Failed Alphas. But the regime was, let us face it, rather corrupt; civil