He shifted the dial again; a young Literate announcer was speaking quickly, excitedly:
"... Scene of the riot, already the worst this year, and growing steadily worse. We take you now to downtown Manhattan, where our portable units and commentators have just arrived, and switch you to Ed Morgan."
The screen went black, and Yetsko swore angrily. Ray lifted his head quickly from his book and reached for the sono pistol Yetsko had given him.
"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and just a moment, until we can give you the picture. We're having what is usually labeled as 'slight technical difficulties,' in this case the difficulty of avoiding having a hole shot in our camera or in your commentator's head. Yes, that's shooting you hear; there, somebody's using an auto rifle! How are you coming, Steve?"
A voice muttered something which, two centuries ago, would have caused an earth-shaking scandal in the whole radio-TV industry.
"Well, till Steve gets things fixed up, a brief review, to date, of what's sure to go down in history as the Battle of Pelton's Purchasers' Paradise—"
"Huh?" Ray fairly shouted, the book forgotten.
"... Started in the Chinaware Department, as a relatively innocent brawl, and spread to the Liquor Department, and then, all of a sudden, everybody started playing rough. At first, it was suspected that Macy & Gimbel's had sent a goon gang around to break up Pelton's fall sale, but when the former concern rallied to the assistance of their competitor with a force of twenty riflemen, that began to look less likely, and we're beginning to think that it might be the work of some of Pelton's political enemies. About ten minutes ago, Major James F. Slater, of the Literates' Guards, arrived with two hundred of his men, to protect the Literates on duty at the store. They captured the entire twelfth floor, where we are, now, with the exception of the Ladies' Lingerie and Hosiery departments around one of the escalators to the lower floors; here the gang who started the riot, and who are now donning white hoods to distinguish themselves from the various other factions involved, have thrown up barricades of counters and display tables and are fighting bitterly to keep control of the escalator head. Ah, here we are!"
The screen lit suddenly, and they were looking, Ray over Yetsko's shoulder, across the devastated expanse of what had been the Ladies' Frocks department, toward Lingerie and Hosiery, which seemed to have been thoroughly looted, then stripped of everything that could be used to build a barricade.
"... Seems to have been quite a number of heavy 'copters just landed on the east stage, filled with more goons, probably to re-enforce the gang back of that barricade. The firing's gotten noticeably heavier—"
Yetsko had turned from the screen, and was pawing in the arms locker. For a job like this, he'd need firepower. He took the ten-shot clip from the butt of his pistol and inserted one with a curling hundred-shot drum at the bottom, and shoved two more like it into the pockets of his jacket. And now, something to clear the way with. He took out a three-foot length of weighted fire hose.
Then he saw Ray. That kid was pinning him down, here, while the captain was probably fighting for his life! But the captain'd told him to stay with Ray—He dropped the weighted hose.
"What's the matter, Doug?" the boy asked. "Pick it up and let's get going."
He shook his head. "Can't. The captain told me I had to take care of you."
The boy opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, and thought for a moment. Then he asked:
"Doug, didn't Captain Prestonby tell you to stay with me?"
"Yes—"
"All right. You do just that, because I'm going to help Claire and the senator. That's who that goon gang's after."
Yetsko considered the proposition for a moment, horrified. Why, this was the captain's girl's kid brother; if anything happened to him—His mind refused to contemplate what the captain would do to him.
"No. You gotta stay here, Ray," he said. "The captain—"
Then his eye caught the screen. Ed Morgan must have found a place where he could run his camera up on an extension rod from behind something; they were looking down, from almost ceiling height, at the barricade, and at the Literates' guards who were firing from cover at it. A sudden blast of automatic-weapons burst from the barricade; more men in white hoods came boiling up the escalator, and they all rushed forward. The few Literates' guards skirmishers were overwhelmed. He saw one of them, a man he knew, Sam Igoe, from Company 5, go down wounded; he saw one of the white-hooded goons pause to brain him with a carbine butt before charging on.
"Why, you dirty rotten Illiterate—!" he roared, retrieving his weighted hose. "Come on, Ray; let's go!"
Ray hesitated, as though in thought. "Ken Dorchin; Harry Cobb; Dick Hirschfield; Jerry McCarty; Ramon Nogales; Pete Shawne; Tom Hutchinson—"
"Who—?" Yetsko began. "What've they gotta do with—?"
"We need a gang; the two of us'd last about as long as a pint of beer at a Dutch picnic." Ray went to the desk, grabbed a pen, and made a list of names, in a fair imitation of Ralph Prestonby's neat block-printing. "Give this to the girl outside, and tell her to have them called for and sent in here," the boy directed. "And see if you can find us some transport. I think there ought to be a couple of big 'copters finished down at the shops. And if you can find a couple more Literates' guards you can talk into going with us—"
Yetsko nodded and took the paper without question. He was not, and he would be the first to admit it, of the thinking type. He was a good sergeant, but he had to have an officer to tell him what to do. Ray Pelton might be only fifteen years old, but his sister was the captain's girl, and that put him in the officer class. A very young and recently-commissioned second lieutenant, say, but definitely an officer. Yetsko took the list and looked at it. Like most Literates' guards, he could read, after a fashion. He recognized the names; the boys were all members of the top floor secret society. He went out and gave the list to Martha Collins.
He'd expected some argument with her, but she seemed to accept Ray Pelton's printing as Prestonby's; she began checking room charts and class lists, and calling for the boys to be sent at once to the office. He went out, and down to the 'copter repair shop, where he found that a big four-ton air truck that the senior class had been working on for several weeks was finished.
"That thing been tested, yet?" he asked the instructor.
"Yes; I had it up, myself, this morning. Flew it over to the Bronx and back with a load of supplies."
"O. K. Have somebody you can trust—one of your guards, preferably—bring it around behind the Administration Wing. Captain Prestonby wants it. I'm to take some boys from Fourth Year Civics on a tour. Something about election campaign methods."
The instructor called a Literates' guard and gave him instructions. Yetsko went to the guards' squad room on the second floor, where he found half a dozen of the reserves loafing.
"All right; you guys start earning your pay," he said. "We're going to a party."
The men got to their feet and began gathering their weapons.
"Mason," he continued, "you have your big 'copter here; the gang of you can all get in it. I'm taking off in a four-ton truck, with some of these kids. I want you boys to follow us. We're going to Pelton's store. There's a fight going on there, and the captain's in the middle of it. We gotta get him out."
They all looked at him in puzzled surprise, but nobody gave him any argument. Funny, now that he thought of it; it had been quite a long time since anybody had ever given him any argument about anything. A couple of guys out in Pittsburgh had tried it, but somehow they'd lost interest in arguing, after a little—
When he returned to the office and opened the door, a blast of shots greeted him through the open door of Prestonby's private office. He had his pistol out before he realized that the shooting was going on at Pelton's Purchasers' Paradise, ten miles away. Literate Martha Collins, in the inner room, was fairly screaming: "Shut that infernal thing off and listen to me!"
The dozen-odd boys whom Ray had recruited for the improvised relief-expedition were pulling weapons out of the gun locker, pawing through the boxes on the ammunition shelf, trying to explain to one another the working of machine carbines and burp guns. Yetsko shouldered through them and turned down the sound volume of the TV.
"This is absolutely outrageous!" Literate Martha Collins stormed at him. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, taking these children to a murderous battle like that—"
"Well, maybe it ain't right, using savages in a civilized riot," Yetsko admitted, "but I don't care. The captain's in a jam, and I'd use live devils, if I could catch a few." He took a burp gun from one of the boys, who had opened the action and couldn't get it closed again. "Here; you kids don't want this kinda stuff," he reproved. "Sono guns, and sleep-gas guns, that's all right. But these things are killing tools!"
"It's what we'll have to use, Doug," Ray told him. "Things have been happening, since you went out. Look at the screen."
Yetsko looked, and swore blisteringly. Then he gave the burp gun back to the boy.
"Look; you gotta press this little gismo, here, to let the action shut when there's no clip in, or when the clip's empty. When you got a loaded clip in, you just pull back on this and let go—"
Frank Cardon looked at his watch, and saw that it was 1345, as it had been ten seconds before, when he had last looked. He started to drum nervously on his chair arm with his fingers, then caught himself as he saw Lancedale, who must have been every bit as anxious as himself, standing outwardly calm and unruffled.
"Well, that's the situation which now confronts us, brother Literates," the slender, white-haired man was finishing. "You must see, by now, that the policy of unyielding opposition which some of you have advocated and pursued is futile. You know the policy I favor, which now remains the only policy we can follow; it is summed up in that law of political strategy: If you can't lick 'em, join 'em, and, after joining, take control.
"In spite of the Radical-Socialist victory in this state at tomorrow's election, it will not be possible, in the next Congress, to enact Pelton's socialized Literacy program into law. The Radicals will not be able to capture enough seats in the lower house, and there are too many uncontested seats in the Senate now held by Independent-Conservatives. But, and this is inevitable, barring some unforeseen accident of the order of a political cataclysm, they will control both houses of Congress after the election of 2144, two years hence, and we can also be sure that two years hence Chester Pelton will be nominated and overwhelmingly elected president of the Consolidated States of North America. Six months thereafter, the socialized Literacy program will be the law of the land.
"So, we have until mid-2145 to make our preparations. I would estimate that, if we do not destroy ourselves by our own folly in the meantime, we should, two years thereafter, be in complete if secret control of the whole Consolidated States Government. If any of you question that last statement, you can merely ask yourselves one question: How, in the name of all that is rational, can Illiterates control and operate a system of socialized Literacy? Who but Literates can keep such a program from disintegrating into complete and indescribable confusion?
"I don't ask for any decision at this time. I do not ask for any debate at this time. Let each of us consider the situation in his or her own mind, and let us meet again a week from today to consider our future course of action, each of us realizing that any decision we take then will determine forever the fate of our Fraternities." He looked around the room. "Thank you, brother Literates," he said.
Instantly, Cardon was on his feet with a motion to recess the meeting until 1300 the following Monday, and Brigade commander Chernov seconded the motion immediately. As soon as Literate President Morehead's gavel banged, Cardon, still on his feet, was running for the double doors at the rear; the two Literates' guards on duty there got them unsealed and opened by the time he had reached them.
There was another guard in the hall, waiting for him with a little record-disk.
"From Major Slater; call came in about ten minutes ago," he said.
Cardon snapped the disk into his recorder-reproducer and put in the ear plug.
"Frank," Slater's voice came out of the small machine. "You'd better get busy, or you won't have any candidate when the polls open tomorrow. Just got a call from Pelton's store—place infiltrated by goons, estimated strength two hundred, presumed Independent-Conservatives. Serious rioting already going on; I'm taking my reserve company there. And if you haven't found out, yet, where China is, it's on the third floor, next to Glassware."
Cardon pulled out the ear plug, stuffed the recorder into his trouser pocket, and began unbuckling his Sam Browne as he ran for the nearest wall visiphone. He was dialing the guard room on that floor with one hand as he took off the belt.
"Get a big ambulance on the roof, with a Literate medic and orderly-driver," he ordered, unbuttoning his smock. "And four guards, plain clothes if possible, but don't waste time changing clothes if you don't have anybody out of uniform. Heavy-duty sono guns, sleep-gas projectors, gas masks and pistols. Hurry." He threw the smock and belt at the guard. "Here, Pancho; put these away for me. Thanks." He tossed the last word back over his shoulder as he ran for the escalator.
It was three eternal minutes after he had reached the landing stage above before the ambulance arrived, medic and orderly on the front seat and the four guards, all in conservatively cut civilian clothes, inside. He crowded in beside the medic, told him, "Pelton's store," and snapped the door shut as the big white 'copter began to rise.
They climbed to five thousand feet, and then the driver nosed his vehicle up, cut his propeller and retracted it, and fired his rocket, aiming toward downtown Manhattan. Four minutes later, after the rocket stopped firing and they were on the down-curve of their trajectory, the propeller was erected and they began letting down toward the central landing stage of Pelton's Purchasers' Paradise. Cardon cut in the TV and began calling the control tower.
"Ambulance, to evacuate Mr. Pelton," he called. "What's the score, down there?"
One of Pelton's traffic-control men appeared on Cardon's screen. "You're safe to land on the central stage, but you'd better come in at a long angle from the north," he said. "We control the north public stage, but the east and south stages are in the hands of the goons; they'd fire on you. Land beside that big pile of boxes under tarpaulins up here, but be careful; it's fireworks we didn't have time to get into storage."
The ambulance came slanting in from uptown, and Cardon looked around anxiously. The May-fly dance of customers' 'copters had stopped; there was a Sabbath stillness about the big store, at least visually. A few small figures in Literates' guards black leather moved about on the north landing stage, and several Pelton employees were on the central stop stage. The howling of the 'copter propeller overhead effectively blocked out any sounds that might be coming from the building, at least until the ambulance landed. Then a spatter of firing from below was audible.
Cardon, the medic and the guards piled out, the latter with the stretcher. The orderly-driver got out his tablet pistol and checked the chamber, then settled into a posture of watchful relaxation. Major Slater was waiting for them by one of the vertical lift platforms.
"I tried to get hold of you, but that blasted meeting was going on, and they had the doors sealed, and—" he began.
Cardon hushed him quickly. "Around here, I'm an Illiterate," he warned. "Where's Pelton? We've got to get him and his daughter out of here, at once."
"He's still flat on his back, out cold," Slater said. "The medic you sent around here gave him a shot of hypnotaine: he'll be out for a couple of hours, yet. Prestonby's still here. He's commanding the defense; doing a good job, too."
That was good. Ralph would help get Claire to Literates' Hall, after they'd gotten her father to safety.
"There must be about five hundred Independent-Conservative storm troopers in the store," Slater was saying. "Most of them got here after we did. The city cops have all the street approaches roped off; they're letting nobody but Grant Hamilton's thugs in."
"They were fairly friendly this morning," Cardon said. "Mayor Jameson must have passed the word." They all got off the lift two floors down, where they found Claire Pelton and Ralph Prestonby waiting. "Hello, Ralph. Claire. What's the situation?"
"We have all the twelfth floor," Prestonby said. "We have about half the eleventh, including the north and west public stages. We have the basement and the storerooms and the warehouse—Sergeant Coccozello's down there, with as many of the store police and Literates and Literates' guards and store-help as he could salvage, and the warehouse gang. They've taken most of the ground floor, the main mezzanine, and parts of the second floor. We moved two of the 7-mm machine guns down from the top, and we control the front street entrance with them and a couple of sono guns. The store's isolated from the outside by the city police, who are allowing re-enforcements to come through for the raiders, but we're managing to stop them at the doors."
"Have you called Radical-Socialist headquarters for help?"
"Yes, half a dozen times. There's some fellow named Yingling there, who says that all their storm troops are over in North Jersey, on some kind of a false-alarm riot-call, and can't be contacted."
"So?" Cardon commented gently. "That's too bad, now." Too bad for Horace Yingling and Joe West; this time tomorrow, they'll be a pair of dead traitors, he thought. "Well, we'll have to make do with what we have. Where's Russ Latterman, by the way?"
Prestonby gave a sidewise glance toward Claire and shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together.She doesn't know, yet, Cardon interpreted.
"Down in the basement, with Coccozello," Prestonby said, aloud. "We're in telephone communication with Coccozello, and have a freight elevator running between here and the basement. Coccozello says Latterman is using a rifle against the raiders, killing every one he can get a shot at."
Cardon nodded. Probably vindictive about being involved in action injurious to Pelton's commercial interests; just another odd quirk of Literate ethics.
"We'd better get him up here," he said. "You and I have got to leave, at once; we have to get Pelton and Claire to safety. He can help Major Slater till we can get back with re-enforcements. I am going to kill a man named Horace Yingling, and then I'm going to round up the storm troops he diverted on a wild-goose chase to North Jersey." He nodded to the medic and the four plain-clothes guards. "Get Pelton on the stretcher. Better use the canvas flaps and the straps. He's under hypnotaine, but it's likely to be a rough trip. Claire, get anything you want to take with you. Ralph will take you where you'll be safe for a while."
"But the store—" Claire began.
"Your father has riot-insurance, doesn't he? I know he does; they doubled the premium on him when he came out for Senate. Let the insurance company worry about the store."
The medic and the guards moved into Chester Pelton's private rest room with the stretcher. Claire went to the desk and began picking up odds and ends, including the pistol Cardon had given her, and putting them in her handbag.
"We've got to keep her away from her father, for a few days, Ralph," he told Prestonby softly. "It's all over town that she can read and write. We've got to give him a chance to cool off before he sees her again. Take her to Lancedale. I have everything fixed up; she'll be admitted to the Fraternities this afternoon, and given Literate protection."
Prestonby grabbed his hand impulsively. "Frank! I'll never be able to repay you for this, not if I live to be a thousand—" he began.
There was a sudden blast of sound from overhead—the banging of machine guns, the bark of the store's 20-mm auto-cannon, the howling of airplane jets, and the crash of explosions. Everybody in the room jerked up and stood frozen, then Prestonby jumped for the TV-screen and pawed at the dials. A moment later, after the screen flashed and went black twice, they were looking across the topside landing stage from a pickup at one corner.
A slim fighter-bomber, with square-tipped, backswept, wings, was jetting up in almost perpendicular flight; another was coming in toward the landing stage, and, as they watched, a flight of rockets leaped forward from under its wings. Cardon saw the orderly-driver of the ambulance jump down and start to run for the open lift-shaft. He got five steps away from his vehicle. Then the rockets came in, and one of them struck the tarpaulin-covered pile of boxes beside the ambulance. There was a flash of multicolored flame, in which the man and the vehicle he had left both vanished. Immediately, the screen went black.
The fireworks had mostly exploded at the first blast; however, when Cardon and Major Slater and one or two others reached the top landing stage, there were still explosions. A thing the size and shape of a two-gallon kettle, covered with red paper, came rolling toward them, and suddenly let go with a blue-green flash, throwing a column of smoke, in miniature imitation of an A-bomb, into the air. Something about three feet long came whizzing at them on the end of a tail of fire, causing them to fling themselves flat; involuntarily, Cardon's head jerked about and his eyes followed it until it blew up with a flash and a bang three blocks uptown. Here and there, colored fire flared, small rockets flew about, and firecrackers popped.
The ambulance was gone, blown clear off the roof. The other 'copters on the landing stage were a tangled mass of wreckage. The 20-mm was toppled over; the gunner was dead, and one of the crew, half-dazed, was trying to drag a third man from under the overturned gun. The control tower, with the two 12-mm machine guns, was wrecked. The two 7-mm's that had been left on the top had vanished, along with the machine gunners, in a hole that had been blown in the landing stage.
Cardon, Slater, and the others dashed forward and pulled the auto-cannon off the injured man, hauling him and his companion over to the lift. The two rakish-winged fighter-bombers were returning, spraying the roof with machine-gun bullets, and behind them came a procession of fifteen big 'copters. They dropped the lift hastily; Slater jumped off when it was still six feet above the floor, and began shouting orders.
"Falk: take ten men and get to the head of this lift-shaft! Burdick, Levine: get as many men as you can in thirty seconds, and get up to the head of the escalator! Diaz: go down and tell Sternberg to bring all his gang up here!"
Cardon caught up a rifle and rummaged for a bandolier of ammunition, losing about a minute in the search. The delay was fortunate; when he got to the escalators, he was met by a rush of men hurrying down the ascending spiral or jumping over onto the descending one.
"Sono guns!" one of them was shouting. "They have the escalator head covered; you'll get knocked out before you get off the spiral!"
He turned and looked toward the freight lift. It was coming down again, with Falk and his men unconscious on it, knocked senseless by bludgeons of inaudible sound, and a half a dozen of the 'copter-borne raiders, all wearing the white robes and hoods of the Independent-Conservative storm troops. He swung his rifle up and began squeezing the trigger, remembering to first make sure that the fire-control lever was set forward for semiauto, and remembering his advice to Goodkin, that morning. By the time the platform had stopped, all the men in white robes were either dead or wounded, and none of the unconscious Literates' guards along with them had been injured. The medic who had come with Cardon, assisted by a couple of the office force, got the casualties sorted out. There was nothing that could be done about the men who had been sono-stunned; in half an hour or so, they would recover consciousness with no ill effects that a couple of headache tablets wouldn't set right.
The situation, while bad, was not immediately desperate. If the white-clad raiders controlled the top landing stage, they were pinned down by the firearms and sono guns of the defenders, below, who were in a position to stop anything that came down the escalators or the lift shaft. The fate of the first party was proof of that. And the very magnitude of the riot guaranteed that somebody on the outside, city police, State guards, or even Consolidated States regulars, would be taking a hand shortly. The air attack and 'copter-landing on the roof had been excellent tactics, but it had been a serious policy-blunder. As long as the disturbance had been confined to the interior of the store, the city police could shrug it off as another minor riot on property supposed to be protected by private police, and do nothing about it. The rocket-attack on the top landing stage and the spectacular explosion of the fireworks temporarily stored there, however, was something that simply couldn't be concealed or dismissed. The cloud of varicolored smoke alone must have been visible all over the five original boroughs of the older New York, and there were probably rumors of atom-bombing going around.
"What gets me," Slater, who must have been thinking about the same thing, said to Cardon, "is where they got hold of those two fighter-bombers. That kind of stuff isn't supposed to be in private hands."
"A couple of hundred years ago, they had something they called the Sullivan Law," Cardon told him. "Private citizens weren't even allowed to own pistols. But the gangsters and hoodlums seemed to be able to get hold of all the pistols they wanted, and burp guns, too. I know of four or five racket gangs in this area that have aircraft like that, based up in the Adirondacks, at secret fields. Anybody who has connections with one of those gangs can order an air attack like this on an hour's notice, if he's able to pay for it. What I can't understand is the Independent-Conservatives doing anything like this. The facts about this business will be all over the state before the polls open tomorrow—" He snapped his fingers suddenly. "Come on; let's have a look at those fellows who came down on the lift!"
There were two dead men in white Independent-Conservative robes and hoods, lying where they had been dragged from the lift platform. Cardon pulled off the hoods and zipped open the white robes. One of the men was a complete stranger; the other, however, was a man he had seen, earlier in the day, at the Manhattan headquarters of the Radical-Socialist Party. One of the Consolidated Illiterates' Organization people; a follower of West and Yingling.
"So that's how it was!" he said, straightening. "Now I get it! Let's go see if any of those wounded goons are in condition to be questioned."
Ray Pelton and Doug Yetsko had their heads out an open window on the right side of the cab of the 'copter truck; Ray was pointing down.
"That roof, over there, looks like a good place to land," he said. "We can get down the fire escape, and the hatch to the conveyor belt is only half a block away."
Yetsko nodded. There'd be a watchman, or a private cop, in the building on which Ray intended landing. A couple of hundred dollars would take care of him, and they could leave two of Mason's boys with the vehicles to see that he stayed bribed.
"Sure we can get in on the freight conveyor?" he asked. "Maybe it'll be guarded."
"Then we'll have to crawl in through the cable conduit," Ray said. "I've done that, lots of times; so have most of the other guys." He nodded toward the body of the truck, behind, where his dozen-odd 'teen-age recruits were riding. "I've played all over the store, ever since I've been big enough to walk; I must know more about it than anybody but the guy who built it. That's why I said we'd have to bring bullet guns; down where we're going, we'd gas ourselves with gas guns, and if we used sono guns, we'd knock ourselves out with the echo."
"You know, Ray, you'll make a real storm trooper," Yetsko said. "If you manage to stay alive for another ten years, you'll be almost as good a storm troop captain as Captain Prestonby."
That, Ray knew, was about as high praise as Doug Yetsko could give anybody. He'd have liked to ask Doug more about Captain Prestonby—Doug could never seem to get used to the idea of his officer being a schoolteacher—but there was no time. The 'copter truck was already settling onto the roof.
The watchman proved amenable to reason. He took one look at Yetsko, with three feet of weighted fire hose in his hand, and gulped, then accepted the two C-notes Yetsko gave him. They left a couple of Literates' guards with the vehicles, and Ray led the way to the fire escape, and down into the alley. A few hundred feet away, there was an iron grating which they pulled up. Ray drew the pistol he had gotten out of Captain Prestonby's arms locker and checked the magazine, chamber, and safety, knowing that Yetsko and the other guards were watching him critically, and then started climbing down the ladder.
The conduit was halfway down. Yetsko, climbing behind him, examined it with his flashlight, probably wondering how he was going to fit himself into a hole like that. They climbed down onto the concrete walkway beside the conveyor belts, and in the dim light of the overhead lamps Ray could see that the two broad belts, to and from the store, were empty for as far as he could see in either direction. Normally, there should be things moving constantly in both directions—big wire baskets full of parcels for delivery, and trash containers, going out, and bales and crates and cases of merchandise, and empty delivery baskets and trash containers coming in. He pointed this out to Yetsko.
"Sure," the big Literates' guards sergeant nodded. "They got control of the opening from the terminal, and they probably got a gang up at the other end, too," he shouted, over the noise of the conveyor belts. "I hope they haven't got into the basement of the store."
"If they have, I know a way to get in," Ray told him. "You'd better stay here for about five minutes, and let me scout ahead. We don't want to run into a big gang of them ahead."
Yetsko shook his head. "No, Ray; the captain told me I was to stick with you. I'll go along with you. And we better take another of these kids, for a runner, in case we have to send word back."
"Ramon, you come with us," Ray said. "The rest of you, stay here for five minutes, and then, if you don't hear from us, follow us."
"Mason, you take over," Yetsko told the guards corporal. "And keep an eye out behind you. We're in a sandwich, here; they're behind us, and in front of us. If anything comes at you from behind, send the kids forward to the next conduit port."
Ray and Yetsko and Ramon Nogales started forward. Halfway to the next conduit port, there was a smear of lubricating oil on the concrete, and in it, and away from it in the direction of the store, they found footprints. It was Ramon Nogales who noticed the oil on the ladder to the next conduit port.
"You stick here," Yetsko told him, "and when Mason and the others come up, hold them here. Tell Mason to send one of the guards forward, and use the rest of the gang to grab anybody who comes out. Come on, Ray."
At the port beyond, they halted, waiting for Mason's man to come up. They lost some time, thereafter, but they learned that the section of conduit between the two ports was empty and that the main telephone line to the store had been cut. Whoever had cut it had gone, either forward or back away from the store. A little farther on, the sound of shots ahead became audible over the clanking and rattling of the conveyor belts.
"Well, I guess this is where we start crawling," Yetsko said. "Your father's people seem to be holding the store basement against a gang in the conveyor tunnel."
One of the boys scouted ahead, and returned to report that they could reach the next conduit port, but that the section of both conveyor belts ahead of him was stopped, apparently wedged.
Yetsko stood for a moment, grimacing in an effort to reach a decision.
"I'd like to just go forward and hit them from behind," he said. "But I don't know how many of them there are, and we'd have to be careful, shooting into them, that we didn't shoot up your father's gang, beyond them. I wish—"
"Well, let's go through the conduit, then," Ray said. "We can slide down a branch conduit that runs a power line into the basement. I'll go ahead; everybody at the store knows me, and they don't know you. They might shoot you before they found out you were a friend."
Before Yetsko could object, he started up the ladder, Yetsko behind him and the others following. At the next conduit port, they could hear shooting very plainly, seeming to be in front of them. At the next one, the shooting seemed to be going on directly under them, in the tunnel. With the flashlight Yetsko had passed forward to him, Ray could see that the dust on the concrete floor of the three-foot by three-foot passage between and under the power and telephone cables was undisturbed.
A little farther on, there was an opening on the left, and a power cable branched off downward, at a sharp angle, overhead. Ray was able to turn about and get his feet in front of him; Yetsko had to crawl on until he had passed it, and then back into it after Ray had entered. Bracing one foot on either side, Ray inched his way down the forty-degree slope, hoping that the two hundred pound weight of Doug Yetsko wouldn't start sliding upon him.
Ahead, he could hear voices. He drew his hands and feet away from the sides of the branch conduit and let himself slip, landing in a heap in the electricians' shop, above the furnace rooms. Two men, who had been working at a bench, trying to assemble a mass of equipment into a radio, whirled, snatching weapons. Ray knew both of them—Sam Jacobowitz and George Nyman, who serviced the store's communications equipment. They both stared at him, swearing in amazement.
"All right, Doug!" Ray called out. "We're in! Bring the gang down!"
Frank Cardon and Ralph Prestonby were waiting at the freight-elevator door when it opened and Russell Latterman emerged, a rifle slung over one shoulder. Cardon stepped forward and took the rifle from him.
"Come on over here, Russ," he said. "And don't do anything reckless."
They led him to one side. Latterman looked from one to the other apprehensively, licking his lips.
"It's all right; we're not going to hurt you, Russ," Cardon assured him. "We just want a few facts. Beside rigging that business with Bayne, and almost killing Chet Pelton, and forcing Claire to blow her cover, how much did you have to do with this business?"
"And who put you up to it?" Prestonby wanted to know. "My guess is Joyner and Graves. Am I right?"
"Graves," Latterman said. "Joyner didn't have anything to do with it; didn't know anything about it. He's in charge of the Retail Merchandising section, and any action like this would be unethical, since Pelton's is a client of the Retail Merchandising section. All Graves told me to do was fix up a situation, using my own judgment, that would provoke a Literate strike and force either Claire or Frank here to betray Literacy. But I had no idea that it would involve a riot like this. If I had, I'd have stood on Literates' ethics and refused to have any part in it."
"That's about how I thought it would be," Cardon nodded. "Graves probably was informed by Literates with the Independent-Conservatives that this riot was planned; he wanted to get our people out of the store. Unfortunately for him, he wasn't present at the extemporary meeting that reversed Bayne's action in calling the strike." He handed the rifle back to Latterman. "I just took this in case you might get excited, before I could explain. And you can forget about the Graves-Joyner opposition to Pelton. We had a meeting, right after noon. Lancedale gained the upper hand; Joyner and Graves are co-operating, now; the plan is to support Pelton and get on the inside of the socialized Literacy program, when it's enacted."
"I still think that's a suicidal policy," Latterman said. "But not as suicidal as splitting the Fraternities and trying to follow two policies simultaneously. I wonder if I could put a call through to Literates' Hall without some of these picture-readers overhearing me."
"You've been out of touch, down in the cellar, Russ." Prestonby told him. "Our telephone line's cut, and the radio is smashed." He told Latterman about the rocket attack on the control tower, which also housed the store's telecast station. "So we're sandwiched, here; one gang has us blocked at the twelfth floor, and another gang's up on the roof, trying to get down at us from above, and we've no way to communicate with the outside. We can pick up the regular telecasts, but nobody outside seems to be paying much attention to us."
"There's a lot of equipment down in the electricians' shop," Latterman said. "Maybe we could rig up a sending set that could contact one of the telecast stations outside."
"That's an idea," Prestonby said. "Let's see what we can do about it."
They went into Pelton's office. The store owner was still lying motionless on his stretcher. Claire was fiddling with a telecast receiving set; she had just tuned out a lecture on Home Beautifications and had gotten the mid-section of a serial in which three couples were somewhat confused over just who was married to whom.
"Nobody seems to realize what's happening to us!" she said, turning the knob again. Then she froze, as Elliot C. Mongery—this time sponsored by Parc, the Miracle Cleanser—appeared on the screen.
"... And it seems that the attack on Chester Pelton has picked up new complications; somebody seems determined to wipe out the whole Pelton family, because, only ten minutes ago, some twenty armed men invaded the Mineola High School, where Pelton's fifteen-year-old son, Raymond, is a student, and forced their way to the office of Literate First Class Ralph N. Prestonby, in an attempt to kidnap young Pelton. Neither Literate Prestonby, the principal, nor the Pelton boy, who was supposed to be in his office, could be found. The raiders were put to flight by the presence of mind of Literate Martha B. Collins, who pressed the button which turned in the fire alarm, filling the halls with a mob of students. The interlopers fled in panic after being set upon and almost mobbed—"
Prestonby looked worried. "I left Ray in my office, with Doug Yetsko," he said. "I can't understand—"
"Maybe Yetsko got a tip that they were coming and got Ray out of the school," Cardon suggested. "I hope he took him home." He caught himself just in time to avoid mentioning the platoon of Literates' guards at the Pelton home, which he was not supposed to know about. "Don't worry, Claire; if anything'd happened to Ray, Mongery'd have been screaming about it to high heaven. That's what he's paid to do."
"Well, I'll stake my life on it; if anybody tried to do anything to Ray while Yetsko was with him, you'd have heard about it," Prestonby said. "It'd have been a bigger battle than this one."
"... Can't seem to find out anything about what's going on at Pelton's store," Mongery continued. "Telephone and radio communication seems to be broken, and, although there is continuous firing going on inside the building, the city police, who have a cordon completely around it, say that the situation in the store is well in hand. Considering Chester Pelton's attacks on the city administration and particularly the police department, I leave to your imagination what they mean by that. We do know that a large body of unidentified plug-uglies whom Police Inspector Cassidy claims are 'special officers' are holding the conveyor line into the store at the downtown Manhattan terminal, and nobody seems to know what's going on at the other end—"
"They have the sections of both belts at the store entrance end wedged," Latterman said, coming up at the moment. "Coccozello has a barricade thrown up across the store end of the tunnel, and they have a barricade about fifty yards down the tunnel. That's where I was fighting when you called me up."
"Anything being done about gold-berging up a radio sending-set?" Prestonby asked.
"Yes. I just called Coccozello," Latterman said. "Fortunately, the inter-department telephone is still working. He's put a couple of men to work, and thinks he may have a set in operation in about half an hour."
"... And if, as I much fear, Chester Pelton has been murdered, then I advise all listening to me to go to the polls tomorrow and vote the straight Anarchist ticket. If we've got to have anarchy in this country, let's have anarchy for all, and not just for Grant Hamilton and his political adherents!" Mongery was saying.
There was a series of heavy explosions on the floor above. Everybody grabbed weapons and hurried outside, crowding onto the escalators. The floor above was a shambles, with bodies lying about, and the descending escalator was packed with white-robed attackers, who had apparently prepared for their charge by tossing down a number of heavy fragmentation bombs. Cardon had a burp gun, this time; he emptied the fifty-shot magazine into the hooded hoodlums who were coming down. Prestonby, beside him, had a heavy sono gun; he kept it trained on the head of the escalator and held the trigger back until it was empty, then slapped in a fresh clip of the small blank cartridges which produced the sound waves that were amplified and altered to stunning vibrations. Still, many of the attackers got through. More were dropping down the lift-platform shaft. Cardon's submachine-gun ceased firing, the action open on an empty clip. He dropped it and yanked the heavy pistol from his shoulder holster. Then, from the direction of the freight elevator, reinforcements arrived, headed by a huge man in the black leather of the Literates' guard, who swung a three-foot length of fire hose with his right hand and fired a pistol with his left, and a boy in a black-and-red jacket who was letting off a burp gun in deliberate, parsimonious, bursts. It was a second or two before Cardon recognized them as Prestonby's bodyguard, Doug Yetsko, and Claire Pelton's brother Ray. There were four Literates' guards and about a dozen boys with them, all firing with a variety of weapons.
At the same time, others were arriving on the escalators from the floors below, firing as they came off—Slater's Literates' guards, the Literates and their black-jacketed troopers of Hopkinson's store service crew, the fifteen survivors of the twenty riflemen from Macy & Gimbel's. The attackers turned and crowded onto the ascending escalator. Most of them got away, the casualties being carried up by the escalator. Doug Yetsko bounded forward and brought his fire hose down on the back of one invader's neck. Then, after a last spatter of upward-aimed shots from the defenders, there was silence.
Cardon stepped forward and yanked the hood from the man whom Yetsko had knocked down, hoping that he had a stunned prisoner who could be interrogated. The man was dead, however, with a broken neck. For a moment, Cardon looked down at the heavy, brutal features of Joe West, the Illiterates' Organization man. If Chester Pelton got out of this mess alive and won the election tomorrow, there was going to have to be a purge in the Radical-Socialist party, and something was going to have to be done about the Consolidated Organization of Illiterates. He turned to Yetsko.
"You and your gang got here just in the nick of time," he said. "How did you get into the store?"
"Through the freight conveyor, into the basement."
"But I thought those goons had both ends of that plugged."
"They did," Yetsko grinned. "But Ray Pelton took us in at the middle, and we crawled through a cable conduit to get around the gang at this end."
Cardon looked around quickly, in search of Ray. The boy, having come out of the excitement of battle, was looking around at the litter of dead and wounded on the blood-splashed floor. His eyes widened, and he gulped. Then, carefully setting the safety of his burp gun and slinging it, he went over and leaned against the wall, and was sick.
Prestonby, with Claire Pelton beside him, started toward the white-faced, retching boy. Yetsko put out a hamlike hand to stop them.
"If the kid wants to be sick, let him be sick," he said. "He's got a right to. I was sicker'n that, after my first fight. But he won't do that the next time."
"There isn't going to be any next time!" Claire declared, with maternal protectiveness.
"That's what you think, Miss Claire," Yetsko told her. "That boy's gonna make a great storm trooper," he declared. "Every bit as great as Captain Prestonby, here."
Claire looked up at Prestonby almost worshipfully. "And I never knew anything about your being a fighting-man, till today," she said. "Ralph, there's so much about you that I don't know."
"There'll be plenty of time to find out, now, honey," he told her.
Cardon stepped over the body of Joe West and went up to them.
"Sorry to intrude on you two," he said, "but we've got to figure on how to get out of here. Could we get out the same way you got in?" he asked Yetsko. "And take Mr. Pelton with us?"
Yetsko frowned. "Part of the way, we gotta crawl through this conduit; it's only about a yard square. And we'd have to go up a ladder, and out a manhole, to get out of the conveyor tunnel. What sorta shape's Mr. Pelton in?"
"He's under hypnotaine, completely unconscious," Prestonby said.
"Then we'd have to drag him," Yetsko said. "Strap him up in a tarp, or load him into a sleeping bag, if we can get hold of one."
"There are plenty, down in the warehouse," Latterman interrupted, joining them. "And the warehouse is in our hands."
"All right," Cardon decided. "We'll take him out, now, and take him home. I have some men there who'll take care of him. We'll have to get you and Ray out, too," he told Claire. "I think we'll take both of you to Literates' Hall; you'll be absolutely safe there."
"But the store," Claire started to object. "And all these people who came here to help us—"
"As soon as I have your father home, I'm going to start rounding up a gang to raise the siege," Cardon said. "Radical-Socialist storm troops, and—" He grinned suddenly. "The insurance company; the one that has the store insured against riot! Why didn't I think of them before? They're losing money every second this thing goes on. It'll be worth their while to start doing something to stop it!"
The trip out through the conduit was not so difficult, even with the encumbrance of the unconscious Chester Pelton, but Prestonby was convinced that, except for the giant strength of Doug Yetsko, it would have been nearly impossible. Ray Pelton, recovered from his after-battle nausea and steeled by responsibility, went first. Cardon crawled after him, followed by a couple of the boys. Then came Yetsko, dragging the sleeping bag in which Chester Pelton was packed like a mummy. Prestonby himself followed, pushing on his future father-in-law's feet, and Claire crawled behind, with the rest of Ray's schoolmates for a rearguard.
They got past the battle which was still going on at the entrance to the store basement, letting Pelton down with a rope and carrying him onto the outward-bound belt. They left it in time to assemble under the ladder leading to the alley through which Ray said they had entered, and hauled Pelton up after them. Then, when they were all out in the open again, Ray ran up the alley and mounted a fire escape, and, in a few minutes, a big 'copter truck which had been parked on the roof let down to them. Into this, Cardon ordered the unconscious senatorial candidate loaded, and the boys who had come with Ray.
"I'll take him home, and then run the boys to the school," he told Prestonby. "You and Ray and Claire get in this other 'copter and go straight to Literates' Hall." He pointed up to the passenger vehicle which was hovering above, waiting for the truck to leave. "Go in the church way, and go straight to Lancedale's office. And here." He scribbled an address and a phone number and a couple of names. "These men have my 'copter at this address. Call them as soon as you get to Literates' Hall and have them take it at once to Pelton's home, on Long Island."
Prestonby nodded and watched Cardon climb into the truck. The Literates' guard who was driving lifted it up and began windmilling away toward the east. The passenger 'copter, driven by another guard from the school, settled down. Putting Ray and Claire into it, he climbed in after them.
"Ray," he said, "how would you like to be a real white-smock Literate?"
Ray's eyes opened. "You think I'm good enough?"
"Good enough to be a novice, to start with. And I don't think you'll stay a novice long."
Claire looked at him inquiringly, saying nothing.
"You, too, honey," he said. "Frank fixed it all up. You and Ray will be admitted to the Fraternities, this afternoon. And that will remove any objection to our being married."
"But ... how about the Senator?" she asked.
Prestonby shrugged. "It's all over the state now that you can read; there's nothing that you can do about it. And Frank has a lot of influence with him; he'll talk him around to where he'll be willing to make the best of it, in a week or so."
Russell Latterman noticed that Major Slater was looking at him in a respectfully inquiring manner. He said nothing, and, at length, the Literates' guards officer broke the silence.
"You didn't go out with the others."
Latterman shook his head. "No, major; I'm an executive of Pelton's Purchasers' Paradise, however unlike its name it may look at the moment. My job's here. I'm afraid I'll have to lean pretty heavily on you, until Mr. Cardon can get help to us. I'm not particularly used to combat."
"You've been doing all right with that rifle," Slater told him.
"I can hit what I aim at, yes. But I'm not used to commanding men in combat, and I'm not much of a tactician."
Slater thrust out his hand impulsively. "I took a sort of poor view of you, at first. I'm sorry," he said. "Want me to take command?"
"If you please, major."
"What are you going to do, after this thing's over?" Slater asked.
"Stay on with Pelton's, provided Mr. P. doesn't find out that I organized that trick with his medicine and the safe," Latterman said. "Since Lancedale seems to have gotten on top at the Hall, I am, as of now, a Lancedale partisan. That's partly opportunism, and it's partly because, since a single policy has been adopted, I feel obliged to go along with it. I'll have to get the store back in operation, as soon as possible. Pelton's going to need money, badly, if he's going to try for the presidency in '44." He looked around him. "You know, I've always wanted to run a fire sale; this'll be even better—a battle sale!"
Cardon watched Chester Pelton apprehensively as the bald-headed merchant and senatorial candidate sipped from the tall glass in his hand and then set it on the table beside him. His face was pale, and he had the look of a man who has just been hit with a blackjack.
"That's an awful load of bricks to dump on a man, all at once, Frank," he said reproachfully.
"You'd rather I told you, now, than turn on the TV and hear some commentator talking about it, wouldn't you?" Cardon asked.
Pelton swore vilely, in a lifeless monotone, cursing Literacy, and all Literates back to the invention of the alphabet. Then he stopped short.
"No, Frank, I don't mean that, either. My own son and daughter are Literates; I can't say that about them. But how long—?"
"Oh, for about a year, I'd say. I understand, now, that they were admitted to the Fraternities six months ago," he invented.
"And they were working against me, all that time?" Pelton demanded.
Cardon shook his head. "No, Chet; they were for you, all the way. Your daughter exposed her Literacy to save your life. Your son and his teacher came to your store and fought for you. But there are Literates who want to see you defeated, and they're the ones who made that audio-visual, secretly, of the ceremony in which your son and daughter took the Literates' Oath and received the white smock, and they're going to telecast it this evening at twenty-one hundred. Coming on top of the stories that have been going around all afternoon, and Slade Gardner's speech, this morning, they think that'll be enough to defeat you."
"Well, don't you?" Pelton gloomed. "My own kids, Literates!" He seemed to have reached a point at which he was actually getting a masochistic pleasure out of turning the dagger in his wounds. "Who'd trust me, after this?"
"No, Chet; it isn't enough to beat you—if you just throw away that crying towel and start fighting. They made one mistake that's going to wreck them."
"What's that, Frank?" Pelton brightened, by about one angstrom unit.
"The timing, of course!" Cardon told him, impatiently. "I thought you'd see that, at once. This telecast comes on at twenty-one hundred. Your final speech comes on at twenty-one thirty. As soon as they've shown this business of Claire and Ray taking the Literate Oath, you'll be on the air, yourself, and if you put on any kind of a show worth the name, it won't be safe for anybody in this state to be caught wearing a white smock. Now, if they'd only had the wit to wait till after you'd delivered that speech you've been practicing on for the last two weeks, and then spring this on you, that would have been different. They'd have had you over a barrel. But this way, you have them!"
Pelton took another gulp from the tall glass at his elbow, emptying it. "Fix me up another of these, Frank," he said. "I feel like a new man, already." Then his face clouded again. "But we have no time to prepare a speech, now, and I just can't ad lib one."
Cardon drew a little half-inch record-disk from his pocket case.
"Play this off," he said. "I had it fixed up, as soon as I got wise to what was going to happen. The voice is one of the girls in my office, over at the brewery. Pronunciation, grammar, elocution and everything correct."
Pelton snapped the disk onto his recorder and put in the ear plug. Then, before he pressed the stud, he looked at Cardon curiously.
"How'd you get onto this, anyhow, Frank?" he wanted to know.
"Well ... I hope you don't ask me for an accounting of all the money I've been spending in this campaign, because some of the items would look funny as hell, but—"
"No accounting, Frank. After all, you spent as much of your own money as you did of mine," Pelton interrupted.
"... But I bought myself a pipe line into Literates' Hall big enough to chase an elephant through," Cardon went on, ignoring the interruption. "This fellow Mongery, for instance." Elliot Mongery was one of Literate Frank Cardon's best friends; he comforted his conscience with the knowledge that Mongery would slander him just as unscrupulously, if the interests of the Lancedale Plan were at stake. "I have Mongery just like this." He made a clutching and lifting gesture, as though he were picking up some small animal by the scruff of the neck. "So, as soon as I got word of it, I started getting this thing together. It isn't the kind of a job a Literate semanticist would do, but it's all honest Illiterate thinking, in Illiterate language. Turn it on, and tell me what you think of it."
While Pelton listened to the record, Cardon mixed him another of the highballs, adding a little of the heart-stimulant the medic had given him. Pelton was grinning savagely when he turned off the little machine and took out the ear plug.
"Great stuff, Frank! And I won't have to ham it much; it's just about the way I feel." He thought for a moment. "You have me talking about my ruined store, there. Just how bad is it, anyhow?"
"Pretty bad, Chet. Latterman says it's going to take some time to get it fixed up, but he expects to be open for business by Thursday or Friday. He's going to put on a big Battle Sale; he says it's going to make retail-merchandising history. And the insurance covers most of the damage."
"Well, tell me about it. How did you get the riot stopped, after you got me out? And how did you—?"
Cardon shook his head. "You play that record over again; get yourself in the mood. When you go on, we'll have you in a chair, wrapped in a blanket ... you're supposed to have crawled back out of the Valley of the Shadow of Death to make this speech ... and we'll have the wire run down inside the blanket, so that you can listen to the speech while you're giving it. Chet, this is going to be one of the great political speeches of all time—"
Literate William R. Lancedale looked up from his desk and greeted his visitor with a smile.
"Well, Frank! Sit down and accept congratulations! I suppose you got the returns?"
Cardon nodded, dropping into a chair beside the desk. "Just came from campaign headquarters. This automatic tally system they use on the voting machines is really something. Complete returns tabulated and reported for the whole state within forty minutes after the polls closed. I won't be silly enough to ask you if you got the returns."
"I deserved that, of course," Lancedale chuckled. "Can I offer you refreshment? A nice big stein of Cardon's Black Bottle, for instance?"
Cardon shuddered and grimaced horribly. "I've been drinking that slop by the bucketful, all day. And Pelton's throwing a victory party, tonight, and I'll have to choke down another half gallon of it. Give me a cup of coffee, and one of those good cigars of yours."
Lancedale grinned at him. "Ah, yes, the jolly brewer. His own best advertisement. How's Pelton reacting to his triumph? And what's his attitude toward his children? I've been worrying about that; vestigial traces of a conscience, I suppose."
"Well, I had to keep him steamed up, till after he went off the air," Cardon said. "Chet isn't a very good actor. But after that, I talked to him like a Dutch uncle. Told him what a swell pair of kids and a fine son-in-law he had. He got sore at me. Tried to throw me out of the house, a couple of times. I was afraid he was going to have another of those attacks. But by the time Ralph and Claire get back from their honeymoon and Ray finishes that cram-course for Literate prep school, he'll be ready to confer the paternal blessing all around. I'm going to stay in town and make sure of it, and then I'm taking about a month's vacation."
"You've earned it, all right." Lancedale poured Cardon's coffee and passed him the cigar humidor. "How's Pelton's attitude toward the Consolidated Illiterates' Organization, now?"
Cardon, having picked up the Italian stiletto to puncture his cigar, looked at it carefully to make sure that it really had no edge, and then drew it quickly across his throat.
"Just like that. You know what really happened, yesterday afternoon, at the store, don't you?"
"Well, in general, yes. I wish you'd fill me in on some of the details, though, Frank."
"Details he wants. Well." Cardon blew on his coffee and sipped it. "The way we played it for propaganda purposes, of course, there was only one big riot, and it was all the work of the wicked Literates and their Independent-Conservative hirelings. Actually, there were two riots. First, there was one the Independents had planned for about a week in advance; that was the one Sforza tipped us on, the one that started in China. Graves knew about it, enough to advise Latterman to get all the Literates out of the store before noon, which Latterman did, with trimmings.
"Then, there was another riot, masterminded by a couple of Illiterates' Organization Action Committee people named Joe West and Horace Yingling, both deceased. That was the result of Latterman's bright idea to trap Claire and/or me into betraying Literacy. These Illiterate fanatics made up their minds, to speak rather loosely, that the whole Pelton family were Literates, including Chet himself. They decided that it was better to kill off their candidate and use him for a martyr two years from now than to elect him and have him sell them out. They got about a hundred or so of their goons dressed in Independent-Conservative KKK costumes, bought air support from Patsy Callazo's mob, up in Vermont, and made that attack on the top landing stage, after starting a fake riot in North Jersey, to draw off the regular Radical-Socialist storm troops. Incidentally, when I found out it was Callazo's gang that furnished those fighter bombers, I hired another mob to go up and drop a block-buster on Callazo's field, to teach him to keep his schnozzle out of politics."
Lancedale nodded briskly. "That I approve of. How about West and Yingling?"
"Prestonby's muscle man, Yetsko, killed West. I took care of Comrade Yingling, myself, after I'd gotten reinforcements to the store—first a couple of free-lance storm troops that the insurance company hired, and then as many of the Radical Rangers as I could gather up."
"And Pelton knows about all this?"
"He certainly does! After this caper, the Illiterates' Organization's through, as far as any consideration or patronage from the Radicals is concerned."
"Well, that's pretty nearly the best thing I've heard out of the whole business," Lancedale said. "In about eight or ten years, we may want to pull the Independent-Conservative party together again, to cash in on public dissatisfaction with Pelton's socialized Literacy program, which ought to be coming apart at the seams by then. And if we have the Illiterates split into two hostile factions—"
Cardon finished his coffee. "Well, chief, I've got to be getting along. O'Reilly can only cover me for a short while, and I have to be getting to this victory party of Pelton's—"
Lancedale rose and shook hands with him. "I can't tell you, too many times, what a fine job you did, Frank," he said. "I hope ... no, knowing you, I'm positive ... that you'll be able to engineer a reconciliation between Pelton and his son and daughter and young Prestonby. And then, have yourself a good vacation."
"I mean to. I'm going deer hunting, to a place up in the mountains, along the old Pennsylvania-New York state line. A little community of about a thousand people, where everybody, men, women and children, can read."
Lancedale was interested. "A community of Literates?"
Cardon shook his head. "Not Literates-with-a-big-L; just people who can read and write," he replied. "It's a kind of back-eddy sort of place, and I imagine, a couple of hundred years ago, the community was too poor to support one of these 'progressive' school systems that made Illiterates out of the people in the cities. Probably couldn't raise enough money in school taxes to buy all the expensive audio-visual equipment, so they had to use old-fashioned textbooks, and teach the children to read from them. They have radios, and TV, of course, but they also have a little daily paper, and they have a community library."
Lancedale was thoughtful, for a moment. "You know, Frank, there must be quite a few little enclaves of lower-case-literacy like that, in back-woods and mountain communities, especially in the west and the south. I'm going to make a project of finding such communities, helping them, and getting recruits from them. They'll fit into the Plan. Well, I'll be seeing you some time tomorrow, I suppose?"
He watched Cardon go out, and then poured a glass of port for himself and sipped slowly, holding the glass to the light and watching the ruby glow it cast on the desk top. It had been over thirty years ago, when he had been old Jules de Chambord's assistant, that the Plan had been first conceived. De Chambord was dead these twenty years, and he had taken the old man's place, and they had only made the first step. Things would move faster, now, but he would still die before the Plan was completed, and Frank Cardon, whom he had marked as his successor, would be an old man, and somebody like young Ray Pelton would be ready to replace him, but the Plan would go on, until everybody would be literate, not Literate, and illiteracy, not Illiteracy, would be a mark of social stigma, and most people would live their whole lives without personal acquaintance with an illiterate.
There were a few years, yet, to prepare for the next step. The white smocks would have to go; Literates would have to sacrifice their paltry titles and distinctions. There would have to be a re-constitution of the Fraternities. Wilton Joyner and Harvey Graves and the other Conservative Literates would have to be convinced, emotionally as well as intellectually, of the need for change. There were a few of the older brothers who could never adjust their thinking; they would have to be promoted to positions with higher salaries and more impressive titles and no authority whatever.
But that was all a matter of tactics; the younger men, like Frank Cardon and Elliot Mongery and Ralph Prestonby, could take care of that. Certain changes would occur: A stable and peaceful order of society, for one thing. A rule of law, and the liquidation of these goon gangs and storm troops and private armies. If a beginning at that were made tomorrow, using the battle at Pelton's store to mobilize public opinion, it would still take two decades to get anything really significant done. And a renaissance of technological and scientific progress—Today, the manufacturers changed the 'copter models twice a year—and, except for altering the shape of a few chromium-plated excrescences or changing the contours slightly, they were the same 'copters that had been buzzing over the country at the time of the Third World War. Every month, the pharmaceutical companies announced a new wonder drug—and if it wasn't sulfa, it was penicillin, and if it wasn't penicillin it would be aureomycin. Why, most of the scientific research was being carried on by a few Literates in the basements of a few libraries, re-discovering the science of two centuries ago.
He sighed, and finished his port, and, as he did probably once every six months, he re-filled the glass. He'd be seventy-two next birthday. Maybe he'd live long enough to see—