tificate.

"You had your last boosters in the Mars station, is that correct?"

"Yes, last January," Hunter replied.

"That gives you an eight months' clearance." The clerk smiled. "Plenty
of time for a spaceman's furlough."

"I'm making a permanent separation," Hunter affirmed.

The clerk glanced at him sharply. "Then I'd better issue a temporary
health card." He ran a red-tinted, celluloid rectangle through a
stamping machine and Hunter pressed his thumbprint upon the signature
square. "Can you give me your home address, Captain?"

"I'll be staying at the Roost for a day or so. After that I'm getting
married."

"I'll assign your health file to the Los Angeles Clinic then," the
clerk said. "You can apply for an official reassignment later, if
necessary."

He made a photo-copy of the health card, pushed it into a pneumatic
tube and handed the original to Hunter. Then he rolled the customs
form back into the typewriter.

"Since you're quitting the service, Captain, I'll have to have
additional information for the municipal file. Do you have union
affiliation?"

"No. Spacemen aren't required to join the U.F.W."

"If you want to give me a part payment on the initiation fee, I'll be
glad to issue--"

"It'll be a long, hard winter before Eric Young gets any of my
credits," Hunter said, his eyes narrowing. Considering how Hunter felt
about the Union of Free Workers and the labor czar, Eric Young, he
thought he had phrased his answer with remarkable restraint.

"Anti-labor," the clerk said, and typed the designation on the form.

"No," Hunter snapped, "and I won't be labeled that. As far as the
individual goes, I believe he has every right to organize. No one can
stand up against the cartels in any other way. But this exploitation
by Young--"

"You either join the U.F.W., or you're against us." The clerk shrugged
disinterestedly. "It's all one and the same thing to me, Captain.
However, if you expect a job in the city, you'll have to get it
through the union." He typed again on the customs form. "According to
a new regulation, I'm obliged to classify you as unemployed, and that
restricts you to limited areas of Los Angeles as well as--"

"When the hell did they put over a law like that?"

"Two weeks ago, sir. It gives the clinics a closer control over the
potentially maladjusted, and it should help ease the pressure--"

"There are no exceptions?"

"The executive classifications, naturally--professionals