The Penal Cluster
By Randall Garrett
- Release Date: 1987-01-01
- Genre: Short Stories
The Penal Cluster is a Fiction Short Story Book. Tomorrow's technocracy will produce more and more things for better living. It will produce other things, also; among them, criminals too despicable to live on this earth. Too abominable to breathe our free air. The clipped British voice said, in David Houston's ear, I'm quite sure he's one. He's cashing a check for a thousand pounds. Keep him under surveillance. Houston didn't look up immediately. He simply stood there in the lobby of the big London bank, filling out a deposit slip at one of the long, high desks. When he had finished, he picked up the slip and headed towards the teller's cage. Ahead of him, standing at the window, was a tall, impeccably dressed, aristocratic looking man with graying hair. "The man in the tweeds?" Houston whispered. His voice was so low that it was inaudible a foot away, and his lips scarcely moved. But the sensitive microphone in his collar picked up the voice and relayed it to the man behind the teller's wicket. That's him, said the tiny speaker hidden in Houston's ear. The fine looking chap in the tweeds and bowler. "Got him", whispered Houston. He didn't go anywhere near the man in the bowler and tweeds; instead, he went to a window several feet away. "Deposit", he said, handing the slip to the man on the other side of the partition. While the teller went through the motions of putting the deposit through the robot accounting machine, David Houston kept his ears open. "How did you want the thousand, sir?" asked the teller in the next wicket.
