have been used by a customer, but, on theother hand, he was known by sight to many of the customers, and thefact that he was eating here had some advertising value, and he couldkeep his eye on the business going on around him. Off in the distance,he caught the white flash of a Literate smock at one of the counters;one of the new crew sent in to replace the ones Bayne had pulled out.He was glad and at the same time disturbed. He had had his doubtsabout staging a Literates' strike, and he was almost positive thatWilton Joyner had known nothing about it. The whole thing had beenHarvey Graves' idea. There was a serious question of Literate ethicsinvolved, to say nothing of the effect on the public. The trick offorcing Claire Pelton to reveal her secret Literacy was all right,although he wished that it had been Frank Cardon who had opened thatsafe. Or did he? Cardon would have brazened it out, claimed to havememorized the combination after having learned it by observation, andwould probably have gotten away with it. But that silly girl had losther head afterward, and had gone on to brand herself, irrevocably, asa Literate.
One of the waitresses was hurrying toward him, almost falling overherself in excitement. She began talking when she was ten feet fromthe table.
"Mr. Latterman! Mr. Latterman!" she was calling to him. "A terriblefight, down in Chinaware--!"
"Well, what do we have store police for?" he demanded. "They can takecare of it. Now be quiet, Madge; don't get the customers excited!"
He returned to his lunch, watching, with satisfaction, the crowd thatwas packing into the Liquor Department, next to the restaurant. Thatspecial loss-leader, Old Atom-Bomb Rye, had been a good idea. In thefirst place, the stuff was fit for nothing but cleaning drains andremoving varnish; if he were Pelton, he would have fired that foolbuyer who got them overstocked on it. But the audio-advertiser,outside, was reiterating: "_Choice whiskies, two hundred dollars asixth and up!_" and pulling in the customers, who, when theydiscovered that the two-hundred-dollar bargain was Old Atom-Bomb, wereshelling out five hundred to a grand a sixth for good liquor.
He finished his coffee and got to his feet. Be a good idea to look inon Liquor, and see how things were going. The department was gettingmore and more crowded every minute; three customers were entering forevery one who left.
On the way, he passed two women, and caught a snatch of conversation:
"Don't go down on the third floor, for Heaven's sake ... terriblefight ... smashing everything up--"
Worried, he continued into Liquor, and the looks of the crowd thereincreased his worries. Too many men between twenty and thirty, alldressed alike, looking alike, talking and acting alike. It looked likea goon-gang infiltration, and he was beginning to see why HarveyGraves had wanted the Literates pulled out, and why Joyner, bound byethics to do nothing against the commercial interests of Pelton's, hadknown nothing about it. He started toward a counter, to speak to aclerk, but one of the stocky, quietly-dressed young men stepped infront of him.
"Gimme a bottle of Atom-Bomb," he said. "Don't bother wrapping it."
"Yes, sir." The clerk seemed worried, too. He got the bottle and setit on the counter. "That'll be two C, sir."
"I see you're wearing a Radical-Socialist button," the customercommented. "Because you want to, or because Chet Pelton makes you?"
"Mr. Pelton never interferes with his employees' politicalconvictions," the clerk replied loyally.
Saying nothing, the customer took the bottle, swung it by the neck,and smashed it over the clerk's head, knocking him senseless.
"That's all that rotgut's good for," the customer said, jumping overthe counter. "All right, boys; help yourselves!"
* * * * *
For a surprisingly long time, the riot was localized in China, whereit had begun. Using, alternately, three TV-pickups around the scene ofthe disturbance, Prestonby watched its progress, and watchedsuccessive details of store personnel, armed with clubs and a fewknives and sono pistols, hit the riot, shouting their battle cry, andvanish. They were, of course, lambs of sacrifice, however unlambliketheir conduct. They were buying time, and they were drawing groups ofgoons into the action in China and Glassware who might have beenmaking trouble elsewhere.
There was an outbreak on the sixth floor, in Liquor; Claire, touringthe store on the other TV-screen, spotted it and called his attentionto it. Back of the shattered glass partition, a mob of men weresnatching bottles from the shelves and tossing them out to the crowd.One of the clerks, in his gray uniform jacket, was lying unconsciousoutside. While Prestonby watched, another, and another, came flyingout the doorway. A fourth victim, in ordinary business clothes,tattered and disheveled, came flying out after them, to land in aheap, stunned for an instant, and then pick himself up. Prestonbylaughed heartily when he recognized Literate--undercover--First ClassRussell M. Latterman.
"I ought to have anticipated that," he said. "Any time there's a riot,the liquor stores are the first things looted. The liquor stores, andthe--Claire! See what's going on in Sporting Goods!"
Sporting Goods, between Tools & Hardware and Toys, on the fifth floor,was swamped. One of the clerks was lying on the floor in a puddle ofblood, past any help; none of the others were in sight. The gun racksand pistol cases were being cleaned out systematically. This had beenorganized in advance. There were four or five men workingindustriously wiping grease out of bores and actions before handingout firearms, and a couple more making sure that the right cartridgeswent with each weapon. Somebody had brought a small grinding wheelover from Tools and plugged it in, and was grinding points on thefoils and epees. Others were collecting baseball bats, golf clubs, andfootball helmets and catchers' masks. The Tool Department was beingstripped of everything that could be used as a weapon, too.
The whole store, by this time, was an approximation of Mutiny in aMadhouse. Dressgoods was being looted by a howling mob of women, whowere pulling bolts of material from shelves and fighting amongthemselves over them. Somebody had turned on the electric fans, andlong streams of flimsy fabric were blowing about like a surrealistmaypole dance. Somebody in Household Furnishings had turned on acouple of fans, too, and a mob of hoodlums were opening cans of paintand throwing them into the fan blades.
The little Antiques Department, in a corner of the fourth floor backof the Gift Shoppe, was an island of peace in the general chaos. Therewas only one way into it, and one of the clerks, who had gottenhimself into a suit of Fifteenth Century battle armor, was standing inthe entrance, leaning on a two-hand sword. There was blood on the longblade, and more blood splashed on the floor in front of him. He wasbeing left entirely alone.
* * * * *
Hutschnecker, called to the telephone, spoke briefly, listened for awhile, spoke again in hearty thanks, and hung up.
"Macy & Gimbel's," he told Prestonby. "They heard about ourtrouble--probably one of their price-spotters phoned in about it--andthey're offering to send twenty of their store-cops to help us out.They'll be landing on our stage in eight minutes, rifles and steelhelmets."
Prestonby nodded. It would have been quite conceivable that Pelton'schief competitor had started the riot; since they hadn't, their offerof armed aid was just as characteristic of the bitter butmutually-respectful rivalries of the commercial world. A few minuteslater, another call came in, this time on the visiphone. Prestonbytook it when he saw a Literates' Guards officer in the screen andrecognized him.
"That you, Prestonby?" the officer, Major Slater, asked in somesurprise. "Didn't know you were at Pelton's. What's going on, there?"
Prestonby told him, briefly.
"Yes; we had some of our people at the store, in plain clothes,"Slater said. "Just in case of trouble. On Mr. L.'s orders. Theyreported a riot starting, but naturally, their reports wereincomplete. Can you get one of your landing stages cleared for us? Wehave two hundred men, in twenty 'copters." Then he must have noticedsome of the store Illiterates back of Prestonby, and realized thatthis offer of help to Literacy's worst enemy would arouse suspicion."Not that we care what
happens to Chester Pelton, but we have toprotect our own people at the store."
"Yes, of course," Prestonby agreed. "Come in on our north stage.You'll probably find a fight going on on our twelfth floor, justinside. Anybody who's trying to get up the escalators to the officeblock will be an enemy."
"Right. We're halfway there now." The Literates' Guards officer brokethe connection.
"You heard that?" he asked, turning to the others in the office. "Ifwe can hold out till they get here, we're all right. Did you contactRadical-Socialist headquarters, yet, Hutschnecker?"
"Yes. I talked to a fellow named Yingling. He said that all the partystorm troops