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Lancedale understated gently.
"Well then. If anything happened to Pelton, there wouldn't be aLiterate left alive in this city twelve hours later. And I questionwhether or not Graves and Joyner know that."
"I think they do. If they don't, it's not because I've failed to pointit out to them. Of course, there are the Independent-Conservativegrafters; a lot of them are beginning to hear jail doors opening forthem, and they're scared. But I think routine body-guarding ought toprotect Pelton from them, or from any isolated fanatics."
"And there is also the matter of Pelton's daughter, and his son,"Cardon said. "We know, and Graves and Joyner know, and I assume thatSlade Gardner knows, that they can both read and write as well as anyLiterate in the Fraternities. Suppose that got out between now and theelection?"
"And that could not only hurt Pelton, but it would expose the workwe've been doing in the schools," Lancedale added. "And even insidethe Fraternities, that would raise the devil. Joyner and Graves don'tbegin to realize how far we've gone with that. They could kick up asimply hideous row about it!"
"And if Pelton found out that his kids are Literates--_Woooo!_" Cardongrimaced. "Or what we've been doing to him. I hope I'm not around whenthat happens. I'm beginning to like the cantankerous old bugger."
"I was afraid of that," Lancedale said. "Well, don't let it interferewith what you have to do. Remember, Frank; the Plan has to come first,always."
He walked with O'Reilly to the street door, talking about tomorrow'selection; after shaking hands with the saloon keeper, he crossed thesidewalk and stepped onto the beltway, moving across the strips untilhe came to the twenty m.p.h. strip. The tall office buildings of upperYonkers Borough marched away as he stood on the strip, appreciativelypuffing at Lancedale's cigar. The character of the street changed; thebuildings grew lower, and the quiet and fashionable ground-floor shopsand cafes gave place to bargain stores, their audio-advertiserswhooping urgently about improbable prices and offerings, and garish,noisy, crowded bars and cafeterias blaring recorded popular music.There was quite a bit of political advertising in evidence--hugepictures of the two major senatorial candidates. He estimated thatChester Pelton's bald head and bulldog features appeared twice forevery one of Grant Hamilton's white locks, old-fashioned spectaclesand self-satisfied smirk.
Then he came to the building on which he had parked his 'copter, andleft the beltway, entering and riding up to the landing stage on thehelical escalator. There seemed to have been some trouble; about adozen Independent-Conservative storm troopers, in their white robesand hoods, with the fiery-cross emblem on their breasts, were bunchedtogether, most of them with their right hands inside their bosoms,while a similar group of Radical-Conservative storm troopers, withtheir black sombreros and little black masks, stood watching them andfingering the white-handled pistols they wore in pairs on their belts.Between the two groups were four city policemen, looking acutelyunhappy.
The group in the Lone Ranger uniforms, he saw, were standing in frontof a huge tri-dimensional animated portrait of Chester Pelton. As hewatched, the pictured candidate raised a clenched fist, and Pelton'srecorded and amplified voice thundered:
"_Put the Literates in their place! Our servants, not our masters!_"
He recognized the group leader of the Radical-Socialists--the maskswere too small to be more than token disguises--and beckoned to him,at the same time walking toward his 'copter. The man in black with thewhite-handled pistols followed him, spurs jingling.
"Hello, Mr. Cardon," he said, joining him. "Nothing to it. We got atip they were coming to sabotage Big Brother, over there. Take out oursound-recording, and put in one of their own, like they did over inQueens, last week. The town clowns got here in time to saveeverybody's face, so there wasn't any shooting. We're staying put tillthey go, though."
"_Put the Literates in their place! Our servants, not our masters!_"the huge tridianimate bellowed.
Over in Queens, the Independents had managed to get at a similartridianimate, had taken out the record, and had put in one: _I am alying fraud! Vote for Grant Hamilton and liberty and soundgovernment!_
"Smart work, Goodkin," he approved. "Don't let any of your boys startthe gunplay. The city cops are beginning to get wise to who's going towin the election, tomorrow, but don't antagonize them. But if any ofthose Ku Kluxers tries to pull a gun, don't waste time trying to winghim. Just hold on to that fiery something-or-other on his chest andlet him have it, and let the coroner worry about him."
"Yeah. With pleasure," Goodkin replied. "You know, that nightshirtthing they wear is about the stupidest idea for a storm-troop uniformI ever saw. Natural target in a gunfight, and in a rough-and-tumble itgets them all tangled up. Ah, there go a couple of coppers to talk tothem; that's what they've been waiting on. Now they can beat itwithout looking like they been run out by our gang."
Cardon nodded. "Tell your boys to stay around for a while; they mayexpect you to leave right after they do, and then they'll try to slipback. You did a good job; got here promptly. Be seeing you, Goodkin."
He climbed into his own 'copter and started the motor.
"_Put the Literates in their place!_" the tri-dimensional colossusroared triumphantly after the retreating Independents. "_Our servants,not our masters!_"
* * * * *
At eight thousand, he got the 'copter onto the lower Manhattan beamand relaxed. First of all, he'd have to do something about answeringSlade Gardner's telecast propaganda. That stuff was dangerous. Theanswer ought to go on the air by noon, and should be stepped upthrough the afternoon. First as a straight news story; Elliot Mongeryhad fifteen minutes, beginning at 1215--no, that wouldn't do.Mongery's sponsor for that time was Atomflame Heaters, and Atomflamewas a subsidiary of Canada Northwest Fissionables, and CanadaNorthwest was umbilicus-deep in that Kettle River lease graft thatPelton had sworn to get investigated as soon as he took office.Professional ethics wouldn't allow Mongery to say anything in Pelton'sbehalf on Atomflame's time. Well, there was Guthrie Parham, he came onat 1245, and his sponsor was all right. He'd call Parham and tell himwhat he wanted done.
]
The buzzer warned him that he was approaching the lower Manhattanbeacon; he shifted to manual control, dropped down to thethree-thousand-foot level, and set his selector beam for the signalfrom Pelton's Purchasers' Paradise. Down toward the tip of the island,in the section that had been rebuilt after that Stalin Mark XVguided missile had gotten through the counter-rocket defenses in 1987,he could see the quadrate cross of his goal, with public landingstages on each of the four arms, and the higher central block with itslanding stage for freight and store personnel. Above the four publicstages, helicopters swarmed like May flies--May flies which hadmutated and invented ritual or military drill or choreography--comingin in four streams to the tips of the arms and rising vertically fromthe middle. There was about ten times the normal amount of traffic forthis early in the morning. He wondered, briefly, then remembered, andcursed. That infernal sale!
Grudgingly, he respected Russell Latterman's smartness, and inconsequence, the ability of Wilton Joyner and Harvey Graves inselecting a good agent to plant in Pelton's store. Latterman gave aplausible impersonation of the Illiterate businessman, loyal PrimeMinister of Pelton's commercial empire, Generalissimo in the perpetualwar against Macy & Gimbel's. From that viewpoint, the sale wasexcellent business--Latterman had gotten the jump on all the otherdepartment stores for the winter fashions and fall sports trade. Hehad also turned the store into a madhouse at the exact time whenChester Pelton needed to give all his attention to the election.
Pressing the button that put on his private recognition signal, herose above the incoming customers and began to drop toward theprivate landing stage, circling to get a view of the other fourstages. Maybe the sale could be turned to some advantage, at that. Afree souvenir with each purchase, carrying a Pelton-for-Senatorpicture-message--
He broke off, peering down at the five-hundred-foot-square landing stageabove t
he central block, then brought his 'copter swooping down rapidly.The white-clad figures he had seen swarming up the helical escalatorwere not wearing the Ku Klux robes of the Independent-Conservative stormtroops, as he had first feared--they were in Literate smocks, and amongthem were the black leather jackets and futuristic helmets of theirguards. They were led, he saw, by Stephen S. Bayne, the store's ChiefLiterate; with him were his assistant, Literate Third Class Roger B.Feinberg, and the novices carrying books and briefcases and casedtypewriters, and the guards, and every Literate employed in the store.Four or five men in ordinarily vivid-colored business suits wereobviously