human
This is the nerve-center of the world, Hawkes said as they went in.
gpt
By asking the right questions you can find out where anybody in the world happens to be at this very moment.
human
How can they do that?
gpt
Here's my televector transmitter. Everyone who has a work card or Free Status carries one, either on a ring or in a locket round his neck or somewhere else. Some people have them surgically embedded in their bodies. They give off resonance waves, each one absolutely unique; there's about one chance in a quadrillion of a duplicate pattern. The instruments here can pick up a given pattern and tell you exactly where the person you're looking for is.
human
So we can find Steve without much trouble!
gpt
Probably. Hawkes' face darkened.
human
I've known it to happen that the televector pattern picks up a man who's been at the bottom of the sea for five years. But don't let me scare you; Steve's probably in good shape.
gpt
This system, Alan said.
human
It means no one can possibly hide anywhere on Earth unless he removes his televector transmitter.
gpt
You can't do that, though. Strictly illegal. An alarm goes out whenever someone gets more than six inches from his transmitter, and he's picked up on suspicion. It's an automatic cancellation of your work card if you try to fool with your transmitter--or if you're Free Status a fine of ten thousand credits.
human
And if you can't pay the fine?
gpt
Then you work it off in Government indenture, at a thousand credits a year--chopping up rocks in the Antarctica Penitentiary. The system's flawless. It _has_ to be. With Earth as overpopulated as it is, you need some system of tracking down people--otherwise crime would be ten times as prevalent as it is now.
human
There still is crime?
gpt
Oh, sure. There's always somebody who needs food bad enough to rob for it, even though it means a sure arrest. Murder's a little less common. Hawkes fed the requisition slip into the slot.
human
You'd be surprised what a deterrent the televector registry system is. It's not so easy to run off to South America and hide when anybody at all can come in here and find out exactly where you are.