ed murderer.

Chapter Nine

Being accused of a murder you can't remember is one thing; remembering a
murder you have been accused of is another thing entirely. Such evidence
is hard to disbelieve.

Barrent tried to sort out his feelings on the matter. Before his visit
to the Dream Shop he had never felt himself a murderer, no matter what
the Earth authorities had accused him of. At worst, he had thought that
he might have killed a man in a sudden uncontrollable fit of rage. But
to plan and perform a murder in cold blood....

Why had he done it? Had his lust for revenge been so great as to throw
off all the restraint of Earth's civilization? Apparently so. He had
killed, and someone had informed on him, and a judge had sentenced him
to Omega. He was a murderer on a criminal's planet. To live here
successfully, he simply had to follow his natural bias toward murder.

And yet, Barrent found this extremely difficult to do. He had
surprisingly little taste for bloodshed. On Free Citizen's Day,
although he went into the streets with his needlebeam, he couldn't bring
himself to slaughter any of the lower classes. He didn't want to kill.
It was a ridiculous prejudice, considering where and what he was; but
there it was. No matter how often Tem Rend or Joe lectured him on his
Citizen's duties, Barrent still found murder quite distasteful.

He sought the aid of a psychiatrist, who told him that his rejection of
murder had its roots in an unhappy childhood. The phobia had been
further complicated by the traumatic qualities of his experience in the
Dream Shop. Because of this, murder, the highest social good, had become
repugnant to him. This antimurder neurosis in a man eminently suited for
the art of killing would, the psychiatrist said, inevitably lead to
Barrent's destruction. The only solution was to displace the neurosis.
The psychiatrist suggested immediate treatment in a sanitarium for the
criminally non-murderous.

Barrent visited a sanitarium, and heard the mad inmates screaming about
goodness, fair play, the sanctity of life, and other obscenities. He had
no intention of joining them. Perhaps he was sick, but he wasn't _that_
sick!

His friends told him that his uncooperative attitude was bound to get
him into trouble. Barrent agreed; but he hoped, by killing only when it
became necessary, that he would escape the observation of the highly
placed individuals who administered the law.

For several weeks