Ron had fixed the cable and the plug. He had also wanted to try to put in the new windshield, but his father wouldn’t let him. Mr. Morgan took the car to a repair shop, where they charged him six times what Ron thought the job was worth. But Ron did change the socket in the car, so that it would automatically disengage and release the cable when the car began to move.

“That’s pretty good, son,” Mr. Morgan had said, with genuine astonishment in his voice.

So Ron clanked around in the garage workshop for more than an hour. He deliberately avoided looking at his wristwatch. Instead, he worked on the electronic image booster that he was building for his telescope. It would allow the instrument to pick out stars that were far too faint for an unboosted telescope to register. With this electronics package, Ron’s telescope would be almost the equal of the big reflector in the school’s observatory.

“Ron!” His father’s voice.

He suddenly felt hot and cold at the same time. His guts seemed to go rigid, and he could hear the blood pounding in his ears. Stiffly, Ron walked back to the house. Through the back door into the kitchen, across the dining area, and into the family room.

His father was sitting on the big plastic sofa. The full-wall TV screen was connected to the phone, so the Examiner’s face looked out at them, huge and frightening.

But he was smiling. The Examiner had a thin face, with absolutely white hair that was cropped so close to his slightly square skull that it looked like baby fuzz. But his face wasn’t a baby’s. It was lined and lean and leathery.

But he was smiling!

“Ahh . . . and this is our young man,” said the Examiner.

He hadn’t been smiling when he’d handed out the test sheets to Ron and the other sixteen-year-olds. Nor had he smiled when they had left the Exams, eight grueling hours later.

“Ron, you kept the Examiner waiting,” his father snapped.

“I’m sorry . . . I was out in the workshop . . .” But you knew that, Ron thought.

The Examiner said, “Perfectly all right, although I am rather pressed for time. Ronald Morgan, I have the pleasure of announcing that you scored in the top three percent of the National Exams.”

Ron felt the breath gush out of him. He hadn’t realized he had been holding his breath. His father broke into a broad grin and looked up at him happily.

“Your scores were especially good in the mechanical arts and electronics. Math was a little low, but still in the highest ten percentile. All in all, one of the best Exams it’s been my pleasure to score this year. Congratulations.”

“Um . . . er . . . thank you, sir.”

“Marvelous, son. Marvelous.”

“Now then,” the Examiner went on, “you are in the happy position of being qualified to choose the Career vector you desire. You are obviously too valuable a man for service in the Armed Forces—unless you choose to volunteer for officer training. With your Exam results, you could be commissioned in the Army, Navy, or Space Forces quite easily.”