He said, "It’s all rumor. Nothing more."

"You wait and see, then. You just wait and see."

As things turned out, there was very little time to wait, for the doorbell rang insistently, and when Norman Muller opened it and said, "Yes?" a tall, grave-faced man said, "Are you Norman Muller?"

Norman said, "Yes," again, but in a strange dying voice. It was not difficult to see from the stranger’s bearing that he was one carrying authority, and the nature of his errand suddenly became as inevitably obvious as it had, until the moment before, been unthinkably impossible.

The man presented credentials, stepped into the house, closed the door behind him and said ritualistically, "Mr. Norman Muller, it is necessary for me to inform you on the behalf of the President of the United States that you have been chosen to represent the American electorate on Tuesday, November 4, 2008."

Norman Muller managed, with difficulty, to walk unaided to his chair. He sat there, white-faced and almost insensible, while Sarah brought water, slapped his hands in panic and moaned to her husband between clenched teeth, "Don’t be sick, Norman. Don’t be sick. They’ll pick someone else."

When Norman could manage to talk, he whispered, "I’m sorry, sir."

The secret service agent had removed his coat, unbuttoned his jacket and was sitting at ease on the couch.

"It’s all right," he said, and the mark of officialdom seemed to have vanished with the formal announcement and leave him simply a large and rather friendly man. "This is the sixth time I’ve made the announcement and I’ve seen all kinds of reactions. Not one of them was the kind you see on the video. You know what I mean? A holy, dedicated look, and a character who says, ‘It will be a great privilege to serve my country.’ That sort of stuff." The agent laughed comfortingly.

Sarah’s accompanying laugh held a trace of shrill hysteria.

The agent said, "Now you’re going to have me with you for a while. My name is Phil Handley. I’d appreciate it if you call me Phil. Mr. Muller can’t leave the house any more till Election Day. You’ll have to inform the department store that he’s sick, Mrs. Muller. You can go about your business for a while, but you’ll have to agree not to say a word about this. Right, Mrs. Muller?"

Sarah nodded vigorously. "No, sir. Not a word."

"All right. But, Mrs. Muller," Handley looked grave, "we’re not kidding now. Go out only if you must and you’ll be followed when you do. I’m sorry but that’s the way we must operate."

"Followed?"

"It won’t be obvious. Don’t worry. And it’s only for two days till the formal announcement to the nation is made. Your daughter – "

"She’s in bed," said Sarah hastily.

"Good. She’ll have to be told I’m a relative or friend staying with the family. If she does find out the truth, she’ll have to be kept in the house. Your father had better stay in the house in any case."

"He won’t like that," said Sarah.

"Can’t be helped. Now, since you have no others living with you – "

"You know all about us apparently," whispered Norman.

"Quite a bit," agreed Handley. "In any case, those are all my instructions to you for the moment. I’ll try to cooperate as much as I can and be as little of a nuisance as possible. The government will pay for my maintenance so I won’t be an expense to you. I’ll be relieved each night by someone who will sit up in this room, so there will be no problem about sleeping accommodations. Now, Mr. Muller – "

"Sir?"

"You can call me Phil," said the agent again. "The purpose of the two-day preliminary before formal announcement is to get you used to your position. We prefer to have you face Multivac in as normal a state of mind as possible. Just relax and try to feel this is all in a day’s work. Okay?"

"Okay," said Norman, and then shook his head violently. "But I don’t want the responsibility. Why me?"

"All right," said Handley, "let’s get that straight to begin with. Multivac weighs all sorts of known factors, billions of them. One factor isn’t known, though, and won’t be known for a long time. That’s the reaction pattern of the human mind. All Americans are subjected to the molding pressure of what other Americans do and say, to the things that are done to him and the things he does to others. Any American can be brought to Multivac to have the bent of his mind surveyed. From that the bent of all other minds in the country can be estimated. Some Americans are better for the purpose than others at some given time, depending upon the happenings of that year. Multivac picked you as most representative this year. Not the smartest, or the strongest, or the luckiest, but just the most representative. Now we don’t question Multivac, do we?"

"Couldn’t it make a mistake?" asked Norman.

Sarah, who listened impatiently, interrupted to say, "Don’t listen to him* sir. He’s just nervous, you know. Actually, he’s very well read and he always follows politics very closely."

Handley said, "Multivac makes the decisions, Mrs. Muller. It picked your husband."

"But does it know everything?" insisted Norman wildly. "Couldn’t it have made a mistake?"

"Yes, it can. There’s no point in not being frank. In 1993, a selected Voter died of a stroke two hours before it was time for him to be notified. Multivac didn’t predict that; it couldn’t. A Voter might be mentally unstable, morally unsuitable, or, for that matter, disloyal. Multivac can’t know everything about everybody until he’s fed all the data there is. That’s why alternate selections are always held in readiness. I don’t think we’ll be using one this time. You’re in good health, Mr. Muller, and you’ve been carefully investigated. You qualify."

Norman buried his face in his hands and sat motionless.

"By tomorrow morning, sir," said Sarah, "he’ll be perfectly all right. He just has to get used to it, that’s all."

"Of course," said Handley.

In the privacy of their bedchamber, Sarah Muller expressed herself in other and stronger fashion. The burden of her lecture was, "So get hold of yourself, Norman. You’re trying to throw away the chance of a lifetime."

Norman whispered desperately, "It frightens me, Sarah. The whole thing."

"For goodness’ sake, why? What’s there to it but answering a question or two?"

"The responsibility is too great. I couldn’t face it."

"What responsibility? There isn’t any. Multivac picked you. It’s Multivac’s responsibility. Everyone knows that."

Norman sat up in bed in a sudden excess of rebellion and anguish. "Everyone is supposed to know that. But they don’t. They – "

"Lower your voice," hissed Sarah icily. "They’ll hear you downtown."

"They don’t," said Norman, declining quickly to a whisper. "When they talk about the Ridgely administration of 1988, do they say he won them over with pie-in-the-sky promises and racist baloney? No! They talk about the ‘goddam MacComber vote,’ as though Humphrey MacComber was the only man who had anything to do with it because he faced Multivac. I’ve said it myself – only now I think the poor guy was just a truck farmer who didn’t ask to be picked. Why was it his fault more than anyone else’s? Now his name is a curse."

"You’re just being childish," said Sarah.

"I’m being sensible. I tell you, Sarah, I won’t accept. They can’t make me vote if I don’t want to. I’ll say I’m sick. I’ll say – "

But Sarah had had enough. "Now you listen to me," she whispered in a cold fury. "You don’t have only yourself to think about. You know what it means to be Voter of the Year. A presidential year at that. It means publicity and fame and, maybe, buckets of money – "

"And then I go back to being a clerk."

"You will not. You’ll have a branch managership at the least if you have any brains at all, and you will have, because I’ll tell you what to do. You control the kind of publicity if you play your cards right, and you can force Kennell Stores, Inc., into a tight contract and an escalator clause in connection with your salary and a decent pension plan."