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By Root 198 0

work hard at school and at university, and then you must get into one of the big corporations and stay there, and they'll look after you.' He had listened to his father's advice. He had never wanted to be like his uncle, a man who had changed jobs many times in his life and still had no real position in the world. From the beginning, Dent wanted to work up to a good job, and that meant getting into a really big corporation and staying there. He was lucky enough to join IMC at the age of 20, one of five successful applicants that term out of seventeen thousand. Immediately, he got a room of his own to live in, a rare privilege for any unmarried man on the overcrowded planet Earth. He was given six months' training on spaceship maintenance; he studied day and night and never took the elevator up to the sunshine or went for Walks or attended parties. He graduated with honours. It was then that they gave him his special IMC uniform, piped with red, and sent him as a crew member on his first mission with a survey ship looking for much-needed minerals on other planets. On his return to Earth he not only got his share of the crew's bonus, but also a note telling him to report to the IMC personnel manager's office.

'We like your work,' said the personnel manager, 'and we want to promote you to First Officer for your text trip. However, I see from your file that you're not married.'

'That is correct, sir,' said Dent.

The personnel manager smiled, a smile that reminded Dent of his own father. 'The Corporation likes its First Officers, and its Captains of course, to be married. It makes a man feel more secure. Got any on in mind?'

'No, sir,' said Dent. He had always remembered his father's advice that the big corporations much preferred to choose the wives and husbands for their employees, so he hadn't tried to find a wife.

'Then let IMC help you,' beamed the personnel manager. 'I'll just run the details from your file through the computer, and see who it matches up with, and we'll have a nice wife and home waiting for you when you get back from your next trip!'

Six months later Dent returned to Earth again, this time with a bigger bonus. In the envelope with the bonus statement was a key bearing an address tag. This was his new home. His wife was waiting for him, quite a pretty young woman with short hair dyed dull blue, as was the fashion that month. 'Are you my husband?' she said as he let himself in.

'I imagine I will be,' he answered, looking round his new home. It had two rooms, a shower, a lavatory, and a tiny kitchen. He was amazed at the influence wielded by IMC which could get him anywhere to live in as big as this.

'It's all fixed,' said the girl. 'IMC had our State records stapled together in the Automatic Personnel File, so we're already married.'

'That's fine,' Dent said, still looking about his new living quarters. 'What's that?' He pointed to a set of knobs and dials in the tiny kitchen.

The girl explained it was the infra-red cooker, and spent the next hour showing Dent all the gadgets in their home. Finally he asked, 'Do you know how much all this is going to cost me '

'I worked it out,' said the girl. 'Even if they make you up to Captain in a year, with your earnings you'll pay off IMC for all this in about twenty years' time. But, of course, by then we'll have moved to somewhere bigger, and there'll be children, so I imagine you'll be paying back IMC for just about the rest of your life!'

She laughed. It was a very pretty laugh. And now, for the first time, Dent really noticed her in among all the other gadgets of his new home. Over the next few days of leave he found that the IMC match-making computer had done a good job, and that the two of them were going to be very happy together. Two years later they had their first child, then their second, and both children were now in a school owned and run by IMC solely for the children of IMC staff.

As Dent sat there, touching the controls of the IMC spaceship, he felt happy and secure in the fact that he was an IMC man, with an IMC wife, IMC children, with