Penelope had recovered enough to gasp. “What do you want?”

“I’m from Central Audit Bureau.”

“That’s just lovely,” Penelope said, “but it doesn’t mean anything to us but a place where we get our cards balanced.”

“It should mean something to you,” Conley said hollowly. “Central is the government.”

Penelope stared at him. “Sit down, please. I thought Central was just a machine.”

“It is something more than a machine. There is a small corps of persons who live inside the machine to service it and occasionally adjust it, and those persons really are the government⁠—that is, all the government we have.” He sat down stiffly, his back straight. “Now then, Mr. Renner, your card today showed a credit balance of a hundred and thirteen thousand points. Is that correct?”

Mark swallowed. “Yes.” He looked at Penelope. She was pale. With difficulty Mark asked, “Is it your job to check up on people, to see if they are entitled to their points?”

“Oh, my, no. Central doesn’t care about that. In fact, Central doesn’t care how much anybody’s debit is. We figure as long as a man is in debt he’ll try to pay it off. They always do, at least. No, we never bother with debits, and I don’t suppose we ever would.”

Mark breathed a sigh of relief.

“But a credit of over a hundred thousand is something else,” said Conley. “The machines won’t handle six figures without trouble, you see, so there has to be a penalty.” He looked very sad. “Now, then, I shall have to⁠—”