himpoisoned."
"Who are you?" the Literate asked, taking the prescription andglancing at it. "That,"--he gestured toward Cardon's silver-lacedblack Mexican jacket--"isn't exactly a white smock."
Cardon had his pocket recorder in his hand. He held it out, pressing aconcealed stud; the stylus-and-tablet insignia glowed redly on it fora moment, then vanished. The uniformed Literate nodded.
"Fill this exactly; better do it yourself, to make sure, and take itover to Pelton's yourself. I see you have a medic-trainee's badge. Askfor Sergeant Coccozello, and tell him Frank Cardon sent you." TheLiterate, who had not recognized him before, opened his eyes at thename and whistled softly. "And fix up a sedative to keep him quietfor not less than four nor more than six hours. Let me use yourvisiphone for a while, if you please."
The man in the Literate smock nodded and hurried out. Cardon dialedWilliam R. Lancedale's private number. When Lancedale's thin, intenseface appeared on the screen, he reported swiftly.
"The way I estimate it," he finished, "Latterman put Bayne up tomaking a pass at the girl, after having thrown out Pelton's nitrocainebulbs. Probably told the silly jerk that Claire was pining away withsecret passion for him, or something. Maybe he wanted to kill Pelton;maybe he just wanted this to happen."
"I assume there's no chance of stopping a leak?"
Cardon laughed with mirthless harshness. "That, I take it, wasrhetorical."
"Yes, of course." Lancedale's face assumed the blank expression thatwent with a pause for semantic re-integration. "Can you cover yourselffor about an hour?"
"Certainly. 'Copter trouble. Visits to campaign headquarters. Anappeal on Pelton's behalf for a new crew of Literates for the store--"
"Good enough. Come over. I think I can see a way to turn this toadvantage. I'm going to call for an emergency session of the GrandCouncil this afternoon, and I'll want you sitting in on it; I want totalk to you about plans now." He considered for a moment. "There'stoo much of a crowd at O'Reilly's, now; come the church way."
Breaking the connection, Cardon dialed again. A girl's face, over aLiterate Third Class smock, appeared in the screen; a lovely goldenvoice chimed at him:
"Mineola High School; good morning, sir."
"Good morning. Frank Cardon here. Let me talk, at once, to yourprincipal, Literate First Class Prestonby."
* * * * *
Ralph Prestonby cleared his throat, slipped a master disk into therecording machine beside his desk, and pressed the start button.
"Dear Parent or Guardian," he began. "Your daughter, now a third-yearstudent at this school, has reached the age of eligibility for theDomestic Science course entitled, 'How To Win and Hold a Husband.'Statistics show that girls who have completed this valuable course aresooner, longer, and happier married than those who have not enjoyedits advantages. We recommend it most highly.
"However, because of the delicate nature of some of the visualmaterial used, your consent is required. You can attach such consentto this disk by running it for at least ten seconds after the sign-offand then switching from 'Play' to 'Transcribe.' Kindly include yourfull name, as well as your daughter's, and place your thumbprint onthe opposite side of the disk. Very sincerely yours, Literate FirstClass Ralph C. Prestonby, Principal."
He put the master disk in an envelope, checked over a list of namesand addresses of parents and girl students, and put that in also. Helooked over the winter sports schedule, and signed and thumbprintedit. Then he loaded the recorder with his morning's mail, switched to"Play," and started it. As he listened, he blew smoke rings across theroom and toyed with a dagger, made from a file, which had been throwndown the central light-well at him a few days before. The invention ofthe pocket recorder, which put a half-hour's conversation on ahalf-inch disk, had done more to slow down business and promote inanecorrespondence than anything since the earlier inventions ofshorthand, typewriters and pretty stenographers. Finally, he clearedthe machine, dumping the whole mess into a basket and carrying it outto his secretary.
"Miss Collins, take this infernal rubbish and have a couple of thegirls divide it between them, play it off, and make a digest of it,"he said. "And here. The sports schedule, and this parental-consentthing on the husband-trapping course. Have them taken care of."
"This stuff," Martha Collins said, poking at the pile of letter disks."I suppose about half of it is threats, abuse and obscenities, and theother half is from long-winded bores with idiotic suggestions andill-natured gripes. I'll use that old tag line, again--'hoping youappreciate our brevity as much as we enjoyed yours--'"
"Yes. That'll be all right." He looked at his watch. "I'm going tomake a personal building-tour, instead of using the TV. The animalsare sort of restless, today. The election; the infantile compulsion totake sides. If you need me for anything urgent, don't use oral call.Just flash my signal, red-blue-red-blue, on the hall and classroomscreens. Oh, Doug!"
Yetsko, his length of rubber hose under his arm, ambled out ofPrestonby's private office, stopping to stub out his cigarette. Theaction reminded Prestonby that he still had his pipe in his mouth; heknocked it out and pocketed it. Together, they went into the halloutside.
"Where to, first, captain?" Yetsko wanted to know.
"Cloak-and-Dagger Department, on the top floor. Then we'll drop downto the shops, and then up through Domestic Science and Business andGeneral Arts."
"And back here. We hope," Yetsko finished.
* * * * *
They took a service elevator to the top floor, emerging into astockroom piled with boxes and crates and cases of sound records andcans of film and stacks of picture cards, and all the otherimpedimenta of Illiterate education. Passing through it to the otherend, Prestonby unlocked a door, and they went down a short hall, towhere ten or fifteen boys and girls had just gotten off a helicalescalator and were queued up at a door at the other end. There weretwo Literate guards in black leather, and a student-monitor, with hiswhite belt and rubber truncheon, outside the door.
Prestonby swore under his breath. He'd hoped they'd miss this, butsince they hadn't, there was nothing for it but to fall in at the tailof the queue. One by one, the boys and girls went up, spoke briefly tothe guards and the student-monitor, and were passed through the door,Each time, one of the guards had to open it with a key. Finally, itwas Prestonby's turn.
"B, D, F, H, J, L, N, P, R, T, V, X, Y," he recited to the guardiansof the door.
"A, C, E, G, I, K, M, O, Q, S, U, W, Y," the monitor replied solemnly."The inkwell is dry, and the book is dusty."
"But tomorrow, there will be writing and reading for all," Prestonbyanswered.
The guard with the key unlocked the door, and he and Yetsko wentthrough, into an utterly silent sound-proofed room, and from it intoan inner, noisy, room, where a recorded voice was chanting:
"Hat--_huh-ah-tuh._ H-a-t. Box--_buh-oh-ksss_. B-o-x.Gun--_guh-uh-nnn_. G-u-n. Girl--_guh-ih-rrr-lll_," while pictures wereflashed on a screen at the front, and words appeared under them.
There were about twenty boys and girls, of the freshman-yearage-bracket at desk-seats, facing the screen. They'd started learningthe alphabet when school had opened in September; now they had gottenas far as combining letters into simple words. In another month,they'd be as far as diphthongs and would be initiated into themysteries of silent letters. Maybe sooner than that; he was findingthat children who had not been taught to read until their twelfth yearlearned much more rapidly than the primary grade children in theLiterate schools.
What he was doing here wasn't exactly illegal. It wasn't even againstthe strict letter of Fraternity regulations. But it had to be doneclandestinely. What he'd have liked to have done would have been tohave given every boy and girl in English I the same instruction thisselected group was getting, but that would have been out of thequestion. The public would never have stood for it; the police wouldhave had to intervene to prevent a riotous mob of Illiterates fromtearing the school down brick by brick
, and even if that didn'thappen, the ensuing uproar inside the Fraternity would have blown theroof off Literates' Hall. Even Lancedale couldn't have survived suchan explosion, and the body of Literate First Class Ralph N. Prestonbywould have been found in a vacant lot the next morning. Even many ofLancedale's supporters would have turned on him in anger at thissudden blow to the Fraternities' monopoly of the printed Word.
So it had to be kept secret, and since adolescents in possession of asecret are under constant temptation to hint mysteriously in thepresence of outsiders, this hocus-pocus of ritual and
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