took the thick-barreled gas pistol from the shelf under thelectern and shoved it into his hip pocket; Yetsko picked up atwo-and-a-half foot length of rubber hose and tucked it under his leftarm. Together, they went back through the wings and out into thehallway that led to the office. So a Twenty-second Century high schoolwas a place where a teacher carried a pistol and a tear-gas projectorand a sleep-gas gun, and had a bodyguard, and still walked in dangerof his life from armed 'teen-age hooligans. It was meaningless to askwhose fault it was. There had been the World Wars, and the cold-warinterbellum periods--rising birth rates, huge demands on the publictreasury for armaments, with the public taxed to the saturation point,and no money left for the schools. There had been fantastic"Progressive" education experiments--even in the 'Fifties of theTwentieth Century, in the big cities, children were being pushedthrough grade school without having learned to read. And when therehad been money available for education, school boards had insisted onspending it for audio-visual equipment, recordings, films, anythingbut textbooks. And there had been that lunatic theory that childrenshould be taught to read by recognizing whole words instead oflearning the alphabet. And more and more illiterates had been shovedout of the schools, into a world where radio and television and movingpictures were supplanting books and newspapers, and more and morechildren of illiterates had gone to school without any desire orincentive to learn to read. And finally, the illiterates had becomeIlliterates, and literacy had become Literacy.
And now, the Associated Fraternities of Literates had come tomonopolize the ability to read and write, and a few men like WilliamR. Lancedale, with a handful of followers like Ralph N. Prestonby,were trying--
The gleaming cleanliness of the corridor, as always, heartenedPrestonby a little; it was a trophy of victory from his first two daysat Mineola High School, three years ago. He remembered what they hadlooked like when he had first seen them.
"This school is a pig pen!" he had barked at the janitorial force."And even if they are Illiterates, these children aren't pigs; theydeserve decent surroundings. This school will be cleaned, immediately,from top to bottom, and it'll be kept that way."
The janitors, all political appointees, Independent-Conservativeparty-hacks, secure in their jobs, had laughed derisively. Thebuilding superintendent, without troubling to rise, had answered him:
"Young man, you don't want to get off on the wrong foot, here," he hadsaid. "This here's the way this school's always been run, an' it'sgonna take a lot more than you to change it."
The fellow's name, he recalled, was Kettner; Lancedale had given hima briefing which had included some particulars about him. He was anIndependent-Conservative ward-committeeman. He had gotten his presentjob after being fired from his former position as mailman forlistening to other peoples' mail with his pocket recorder-reproducer.
"Yetsko," he had said. "Kick this bum out on his face."
"You can't get away with--" Kettner had begun. Yetsko had yanked himout of his chair with one hand and started for the door with him.
"Just a moment, Yetsko," he had said.
Thinking that he was backing down, they had all begun grinning at him.
"Don't bother opening the door," he had said. "Just kick him out."
After the third kick, Kettner had gotten the door open, himself; thefourth kick sent him across the hall to the opposite wall. He pulledhimself to his feet and limped away, never to return. The nextmorning, the school was spotless. It had stayed that way.
Beside him, Yetsko must also have returned mentally to the past.
"Looks better now than it did when we first saw it, captain," he said.
"Yes. It didn't take us as long to clean up this mess as it did toclean up that mutinous guards company in Pittsburgh. But when wecleaned that up, it stayed cleaned. This is like trying to bail out aboat with a pitchfork."
"Yeah. I wish we'dda stayed in Pittsburgh, captain. I wish we'd neverseen this place!"
"So do I!" Prestonby agreed, heartily.
No, he didn't, either. If he'd never have come to Mineola High School,he'd never have found Claire Pelton.
* * * * *
Sitting down again at the breakfast table with her father, Clairelevered another cigarette out of the Readilit and puffed at it withexaggeratedly bored slowness. She was still frightened. Ray shouldn'thave done what he did, even if he had furnished a plausibleexplanation. The trouble with plausible explanations was having tomake them. Sooner or later, you made too many, and then you made onethat wasn't so plausible, and then all the others were remembered, andthey all looked phony. And why had the Senator had to mention Ralph?Was he beginning to suspect the truth about that, too?
I hope not! she thought desperately. If he ever found out about that,it'd kill him. Just kill him, period!
Mrs. Harris must have turned off the video, after they had gone up tothe landing stage. To cover her nervousness, she reached up andsnapped it on again. The screen lit, and from it a young man with darkeyes under bushy black brows was shouting angrily:
"... Most obvious sort of conspiracy! If the Radical-Socialist Partyleaders, or the Consolidated Illiterates' Organization PoliticalAction Committee, need any further evidence of the character of theircandidate and idolized leader, Chester Pelton, the treatment given toPelton's candidacy by Literate First Class Elliot C. Mongery, thismorning, ought to be sufficient to remove the scales from the eyes ofthe blindest of them. I won't state, in so many words, that ChesterPelton's sold out the Radical-Socialists and the ConsolidatedIlliterates' Organization to the Associated Fraternities of Literates,because, since no witness to any actual transfer of money can befound, such a statement would be libelous--provided Pelton had nerveenough to sue me."
"Why, you dirty misbegotten illegitimate--!" Pelton was on his feet.His hand went to his hip, and then, realizing that he was unarmed and,in any case, confronted only by an electronic image, he sat downagain.
"Pelton's been yapping for socialized Literacy," the man on the screencontinued. "I'm not going back to the old argument that any kind ofsocialization is only the thin edge of the wedge which will pry openthe pit of horrors from which the world has climbed since the FourthWorld War. If you don't realize that now, it's no use for me torepeat it again. But I will ask you, do you realize, for a moment,what a program of socialized Literacy would mean, apart from theimplications of any kind of socialization? It would mean that insideof five years, the Literates would control the whole government. Theycontrol the courts, now--only a Literate can become a lawyer, and onlya lawyer can become a judge. They control the armed forces--only aLiterate can enter West Point or Fort MacKenzie or Chapultepec orWhite Sands or Annapolis. And, if Chester Pelton's socializationscheme goes into effect, there will be no branch of the governmentwhich will not be completely under the control of the AssociatedFraternities of Literates!"
The screen went suddenly dark. Her father turned, to catch her withher hand still on the switch.
"Put it back on; I want to hear what that lying pimp of a SladeGardner's saying about me!"
"Phooy; you'd have shot it out, yourself, if you'd had your gun on. Isaw you reaching for it. Now be quiet, and take it easy," she ordered.
He reached toward the Readilit for a cigarette, then his hand stopped.His face was contorted with pain; he gave a gasp of suffocation.
Claire cried in dismay: "You're not going to have another of thoseattacks? Where are the nitrocaine bulbs?"
"Don't ... have any ... here. Some at the office, but--"
"I told you to get more," she accused.
"Oh, I don't need them, really." His voice was steadier, now; thespasm of pain had passed. He filled his coffee cup and sipped from it."Turn on the video again, Claire. I want to hear what that Gardner'ssaying."
"I will not! Don't you have people at party headquarters monitoringthis stuff? Well, then. Somebody'll prepare an answer, if he needsanswering."
"I think he does. A lot of these dumbos'll hear that and believe it.I'l
l talk to Frank. He'll know what to do."
Frank again. She frowned.
"Look, Senator; you think Frank Cardon's your friend, but I don'ttrust him. I never could," she said. "I think he's utterly andentirely unscrupulous. Amoral, I believe, is the word. Like a savage,or a pirate, or one of the old-time Nazis or Communists."
"Oh, Claire!" her father protested. "Frank's in a tough business--youhave no idea the lengths competition goes to in the beer business--andhe's been in politics, and dealing with racketeers and labor unions,all his life. But he's a good sound Illiterate--family Illiterate forfour