Alarm Clock.

by Everett B. Cole.

_Most useful high explosives, like ammonium nitrate, are enormously violent ... once they're triggered. But they will remain seemingly inert when beaten, burned, variously punished--until the particular shock required comes along...._

Many years had pa.s.sed since the original country rock had been broken, cut and set, to form solid pavement for the courtyard at Opertal Prison. And over those years the stones had suffered change as countless feet, scuffing and pressing against once rough edges, had smoothed the bits of rock, burnishing their surfaces until the light of the setting sun now reflected from them as from polished mosaic.

As Stan Graham crossed the wide expanse from library to cell block, his shoe soles added their small bit to the perfection of the age-old polish.

He looked up at the building ahead of him, noting the coa.r.s.e, weathered stone of the walls. The severe, vertical lines of the ma.s.s reminded him of Kendall Hall, back at the Stellar Guard Academy. He smiled wryly.

There were, he told himself, differences. People rarely left this place against their wishes. None had wanted to come here. Few had any desire to stay. Whereas at the Academy--

How, he wondered, had those other guys they'd booted out really felt?

None had complained--or even said much. They'd just packed their gear and picked up their tickets. There had been no expression of frustrated rage to approach his. Maybe there was something wrong with him--some unknown fault that put him out of phase with all others.

He hadn't liked it at all.

His memory went back to his last conversation with Major Michaels. The officer had listened, then shaken his head decisively.

"Look, Graham, a re-examination wouldn't help. We just can't retain you."

"But I'm sure--"

"No, it won't work. Your academic record isn't outstanding in any area and Gravitics is one of the most important courses we've got."

"But I don't see how I could have bugged it, sir. I got a good grade on the final examination."

"True, but there were several before that. And there were your daily grades." Michaels glanced at the papers on his desk.

"I can't say what went wrong, but I think you missed something, way back at the beginning. After that, things got worse and you ran out of time. This is a pretty compet.i.tive place, you know, and we probably drop some pretty capable men, but that's the way it is."

"Sir, I'm certain I know--"

"It isn't enough to know. You've got to know better than a lot of other people."

Michaels got to his feet and came around the desk.

"Look, there's no disgrace in getting an academic tossout from here.

You had to be way above average to get here. And very few people can make it for one year, let alone three or four."

He raised a hand as Stan started to speak.

"I know. You think it looks as though you'd broken down somehow. You didn't. From the day you came here, everyone looked for weaknesses. If there'd been a flaw, they'd have found it--and they'd have been on you till you came apart--or the flaw disappeared. We lose people that way." He shrugged.

"You didn't fall apart. They just got to you with some pretty rough theory. You don't have to bow your head to anybody about that."

Stan looked at the heavily barred door before him.

"No," he told himself, "I don't suppose I'm the galaxy's prize b.o.o.b, but I'm no high value shipment, either. I'm just some guy that not only couldn't make the grade, but couldn't even make it home without getting into trouble."

He pushed the door aside and went into the building, pausing for an instant between two monitor pillars. There was no warning buzz and he continued on his way through a hallway.

He barely noticed his surroundings. Once, when he had first been brought here, he had studied the stone walls, the tiny, grilled windows, the barred doors, with fascinated horror. But the feeling had dulled. They were just depressingly familiar surroundings now.

He stopped at a heavy metal grill and handed a slip through the bars.

A bored guard turned, dropped the paper into a slot, then glanced at a viewplate. He nodded.

"All right, forty-two ninety. You're on time. Back to your cell." He punched a b.u.t.ton and a gate slid aside.

Stan glanced at the cell fronts as he walked. Men were going about their affairs. A few glanced at him as he pa.s.sed, then looked away.

Stan closed his eyes for an instant.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

That much hadn't changed. At school, he had never been one with any of the cadet groups. He had been accepted at first, then coolly tolerated, then shunted to the outer edges.

Oh, he'd had his friends, of course. There were those other oddb.a.l.l.s, like Winton and Morgan. But they'd gone. For one reason or another, most of them had packed up and left long before he'd had his final run-in with the academic board.

And there had been Major Michaels. For a while, the officer had been warm--friendly. Stan could remember pleasant chats--peaceful hours spent in the major's comfortable quarters. And he could remember parties, with some pretty swell people around.

Then the older man had become a forbidding stranger. Stan had never been able to think of a reason for that. Maybe it was because of the decline in his academic work. Maybe he'd done something to offend.

Maybe--

He shook the thoughts away, walked to a cell door, and stood waiting till the guard touched the release b.u.t.ton.

As Stan tossed his books on his bunk, Jak Holme raised his head and looked across the cell.

"More of them books?"

"Yeah." Stan nodded. "Still trying to find out about this planet."

"You trying to be some kinda big politician when you get out?" Holme snorted.

"Tell you, be better you try mixing with the guys, 'stead of pushing 'em around with that fancy talk, making 'em jump now and then, see.

You get along with 'em, you'll see. They'll tell you all you need. Be working with some of 'em, too, remember?"

"Oh, I don't try to push anybody around." Stan perched on his bunk.

"Doesn't hurt anyone to study, though."

"Oh, sure." Holme grimaced. "Do you a lot of good, too. Guy's working on some production run, it helps a lot he knows why all them big guys in the history books did them things, huh?" He laughed derisively.