expostulating about something. As he landed and threw back thetransparent canopy, he could hear a babel of voices, above whichFeinberg was crying: "Unfair! Unfair! Unfair to Organized Literacy!"
He jumped out and hurried over.
* * * * *
"But you simply can't!" a white-haired man in blue-and-orange businessclothes was protesting. "If you do, the Associated Fraternities'll beliable for losses we incur; you know that!"
Bayne, his thin face livid with anger--and also, Cardon noticed, withwhat looked like a couple of fresh bruises--ignored him. Feinbergbroke off his chant of "Unfair! Unfair!" long enough to answer:
"A Literate First Class has been brutally assaulted by the Illiterateowner of this store. Literate service for this store is, accordingly,being discontinued, pending a decision by the Grand Council of thelocal Fraternity."
Cardon grabbed the blue-and-orange clad man and dragged him to oneside.
"What happened, Hutschnecker?" he demanded.
"They're walking out on us," Hutschnecker told him, unnecessarily."The boss had a fight with Bayne; knocked him down a couple of times.Bayne tried to pull his tablet gun, and I grabbed it away from him,and somebody else grabbed Pelton before he could pull his, and acouple of store cops got all the other Literates in the officecovered. Then Bayne put on the general-address system and begancalling out the Literates--"
"Yes, but why did Pelton beat Bayne up?"
"Bayne made a pass at Miss Claire. I wasn't there when it happened;she came into the office--"
Cardon felt his face tighten into a frown of perplexity. That wasn'tlike Literate First Class Stephen S. Bayne. He made quite a hobby ofpinching salesgirls behind the counter which was one thing; the boss'daughter was quite another.
"Where's Latterman?" he asked, looking around.
"Down in the office, with the others, trying to help Mr. Pelton. He'shad another of those heart attacks--"
Cardon swore and ran for the descending escalator, running down therotating spiral to the executive floor and jumping off into thegawking mob of Illiterate clerks crowded in the open doors of Pelton'soffice. He hit and shoved and elbowed and cursed them out of the way,and burst into the big room beyond, and then, for a moment, he wasalmost sorry he had come.
Pelton was slumped in his big relaxer chair, his face pale and twistedin pain, his breath coming in feeble gasps. His daughter was besidehim, her blond head bent over him; Russell Latterman was standing toone side, watching intently. For an instant, Cardon was reminded of atomcat watching a promising mouse hole.
"Claire!" Cardon exploded, "give him a nitrocaine bulb. Why are youall just standing around?"
Claire turned. "There are none," she said, looking at him withdesperate eyes. "The box is empty; he must have used them all."
He shot a quick glance at Latterman, catching the sales manager beforehe could erase a look of triumph from his face. Things began to addup. Latterman, of course, was the undercover man for Wilton Joyner andHarvey Graves and the rest of the Conservative faction at Literates'Hall, just as he, himself, was Lancedale's agent. Obsessed withimmediate advantages and disadvantages, the Joyner-Graves factionwanted to secure the re-election of Grant Hamilton, and the way thingshad been going in the past two months, only Chester Pelton's deathcould accomplish that. Latterman had probably thrown out Pelton'snitrocaine capsules and then put Bayne up to insulting Pelton'sdaughter, knowing that a fit of rage would bring on another heartattack, which could be fatal without the medicine.
"Well, send for more!"
"The prescription's in the safe," she said faintly.
The office safe was locked, and only a Literate could open it. Thedouble combination was neatly stenciled on the door, the numbersspelled out as words and the letters spelled in phonetic equivalents.All three of them--himself, Claire, and Russell Latterman--could readthem. None of them dared admit it. Latterman was fairly licking hischops in anticipation. If Cardon opened the safe, Pelton's campaignmanager stood convicted as a Literate. If Claire opened it, the gaggleof Illiterate clerks in the doorway would see, and speedily spreadthe news, that the daughter of the arch-foe of Literacy was herselfable to read. Maybe Latterman hadn't really intended his employer todie. Maybe this was the situation he had really intended to contrive.
Chester Pelton couldn't be allowed to die. If Grant Hamilton werereturned to the Senate, the long-range planning of William Lancedalewould suffer a crushing setback, and the public reaction would becatastrophic. _The Plan comes first_, Lancedale had told him. He madehis decision, and then saw that he hadn't needed to make it. Clairehad straightened, left her father, crossed quickly to the safe, andwas kneeling in front of it, her back stiff with determination, herfingers busy at the dials, her eyes going from them to the printedcombination and back again. She swung open the door, skimmed throughthe papers inside, unerringly selected the prescription, and rose.
"Here, Russ; go get it filled at once," she ordered. "And hurry!"
Oh, no, you don't, Cardon thought. One chance is enough for you, Russ.He snatched the prescription from her and turned to Latterman.
"I'll get it," he told the sales manager. "You're needed for the sale;stay on the job here."
"But with the Literates walked out, we can't--"
Cardon blazed: "Do I have to teach you your business? Have a sample ofeach item set aside at the counter, and pile sales slips under it.And for unique items, just detach the tag and put it with the salesslip. Now get out of here, and get cracking with it!" He picked up thepistol that had been taken from Pelton when he had tried to draw it onBayne, checking the chamber and setting the safety. "Know how to usethis?" he asked Claire. "Then hang onto it, and stay close to yourfather. This wasn't any accident, it was a deliberate attempt on hislife. I'll have a couple of store cops sent in here; see that theystay with you."
He gave her no chance to argue. Pushing Latterman ahead of him, hedrove through the mob of clerks outside the door.
"... Course she can; didn't you see her open the safe?" he heard."... Nobody but a Literate--" "Then she's a Literate, herself!"
A couple of centuries ago, they would have talked like that if it hadbeen discovered that the girl were pregnant; a couple of centuriesbefore that, they would have been equally horrified if she had beendiscovered to have been a Protestant, or a Catholic, or whatever thelocally unpopular religion happened to be. By noon, this would be allover Penn-Jersey-York; coming on top of Slade Gardner's accusations--
* * * * *
He ran up the spiral escalator, stumbling and regaining his footing ashe left it. Bayne and his striking Literates were all gone; he saw asergeant of Pelton's store police and went toward him, taking hisspare identity-badge from his pocket.
"Here," he said, handing it to the sergeant. "Get another officer, andgo down to Pelton's office. Show it to Miss Pelton, and tell her Isent you. There's been an attempt on Chester Pelton's life; you're tostay with him. Use your own judgment, but don't let anybody, and thatdefinitely includes Russell Latterman, get at him. If you see anythingsuspicious, shoot first and ask questions afterwards. What's yourname, sergeant?"
"Coccozello, sir. Guido Coccozello."
"All right. There'll be a medic or a pharmacist--a Literate,anyhow--with medicine for Mr. Pelton. He'll ask for you, by name, andmention me. And there'll be another Literate, maybe; he'll know yourname, and use mine. Hurry, now, sergeant."
He jumped into his 'copter, pulled forward the plexiglass canopy, andtook off vertically to ten thousand feet, then, orienting himself,swooped downward toward a landing stage on the other side of the EastRiver, cutting across traffic levels with an utter contempt forregulations.
The building on which he landed was one of the principal pharmacies;he spiraled down on the escalator to the main floor and went directlyto the Literate in charge, noticing that he wore on his Sam Browne notonly the badges of retail-merchandising, pharmacist and graduatechemist but also that of medic-in-training.
Snatching a pad and pencilfrom a counter, he wrote hastily: _Your private office, at once;urgent and important._
Looking at it, the Literate nodded in recognition of Cardon'sLiteracy.
"Over this way, sir," he said, guiding Cardon to his small cubicleoffice.
"Here." Cardon gave him the prescription. "Nitrocaine bulbs. They'refor Chester Pelton; he's had a serious heart attack. He needs thesewith all speed. I don't suppose I need tell you how many kinds of hellwill break loose if he dies now and the Fraternities are accused, asthe Illiterates' Organization will be sure to, of having had
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