“All right,” Les said, reading from the sample test Doctor Trask had gotten them. “Repeat the following sequences of numbers.”
"They were written questions and Les sat there timing his father. It was quiet in the house, warm. Everything seemed very normal and ordinary with the two of them sitting there and Terry sewing in the living room.
"That was the horror.
"Life went on as usual. No one spoke of dying. The government sent out letters, and the tests were given and those who failed were requested to appear at the government center for their injections. The law operated, the death rate was steady, the population problem was contained — all officially, impersonally, without a cry or a sensation.
"But it was still loved people who were being killed."