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167
The Status Civilization
·
Robert Sheckley
12
The
new
prisoners
were
led
to
a
row
of
barracks
at
Square
A-2.
There
were
nearly
five
hundred
of
them.
They
were
not
yet
men;
they
were
entities
whose
true
memories
extended
barely
an
hour
in
time.
Sitting
on
their
bunks,
the
newborns
looked
curiously
at
their
bodies,
examined
with
sharp
interest
their
hands
and
feet.
They
stared
at
each
other,
and
saw
their
formlessness
mirrored
in
each
other's
eyes.
They
were
not
yet
men;
but
they
were
not
children
either.
Certain
abstractions
remained,
and
the
ghosts
of
memories.
Maturation
came
quickly,
born
of
old
habit
patterns
and
personality
traits,
retained
in
the
broken
threads
of
their
former
lives
on
Earth.
The
new
men
clung
to
the
vague
recollections
of
concepts,
ideas,
rules.
Within
a
few
hours,
their
phlegmatic
blandness
had
begun
to
pass.
They
were
becoming
men
now.
Individuals.
Out
of
a
dazed
and
superficial
conformity,
sharp
differences
began
to
emerge.
Character
reasserted
itself,
and
the
five
hundred
began
to
discover
what
they
were.
Will
Barrent
stood
in
line
for
a
look
at
himself
in
the
barracks
mirror.
When
his
turn
came,
he
saw
the
reflection
of
a
thin-faced,
narrow-nosed,
pleasant-looking
young
man
with
straight
brown
hair.
The
young
man
had
a
resolute,
honest,
unexceptional
face,
unmarked
by
any
strong
passion.
Barrent
turned
away
disappointed;
it
was
the
face
of
a
stranger.
Later,
examining
himself
more
closely,
he
could
find
no
scars
or
anything
else
to
distinguish
his
body
from
a
thousand
other
bodies.
His
hands
were
uncallused.
He
was
wiry
rather
than
muscular.
He
wondered
what
sort
of
work
he
had
done
on
Earth.
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