So it went, for the length of the arcade. Finally, in the office of the Legal Aid Society, which kept a neat list of judges, cases, and the aid the judges required to help them make up their minds about the cases, Dar exploded. “Is there anything that isn’t for sale?”
“Haven’t found anything, myself,” a customer answered cheerfully, not noticing Sam’s frantic shushing motions. “Of course, some commodities can’t be had for cash just yet; but I understand they’re working on them.”
“I suppose I’m naïve,” Dar said slowly, “but I thought the law was supposed to help make people equal, not uphold the one who can pay the most.”
The customer winced. “Please, young man! We must be patient with the follies of youth—but that remark was so distinctly political that I can’t ignore it!”
“Don’t offend the gentleman,” the proprietor growled, an ugly glint in his piggy little eye.
“That was political?” Dar stared. While he was staring, Sam grabbed his arm and hustled him out the door. By the time he recovered enough to resist, he was in the street. Then he managed to get his mouth moving again. “Political? Speculating about the purpose of law is political?”
“Of course, when you say things such as ‘equal,’ ” Sam explained. “You really must do something about that death wish of yours.”
“Why?” Dar shrugged her hand off. “It puts me in phase with this whole planet!”
“Just because people don’t talk politics, doesn’t mean they’re moribund,” Sam hissed.
“No, but it means their society is! They don’t even care about the law any more! Don’t they realize that’s what keeps a society from falling apart?”
“Oh. You’re one of these people who believes that law prevents revolutions, huh?”
“Sure, by making sure no one’s too badly oppressed.”
“Sin?”
Dar looked up, startled; but it was just a portly passerby, chatting with a waddling clergyman. “Sin? Come now, Reverend! What a medieval idea!”
“It’ll always be current, I’m afraid,” the minister rejoined, “and even fashionable—though rarely as a conversational topic.”
“It does lend a certain sauce to pleasure,” the passerby admitted. “And, after all, the really important element in life is getting what you want—the things that make you happy.”
“Of course, of course,” the clergyman agreed. “Take heaven, for example…”
The passerby was laughing as they passed out of hearing.
Dar shook his head. “I don’t think the revolution’ll wait a hundred years.”
“You think this is bad?” Sam scoffed. “Just wait till you get to Terra!”
“I can wait, thank you. I’m beginning to see why you liked Wolmar so much. You know, this pretty little market couldn’t be here unless the police were helping it a lot.”
“Of course,” Sam said brightly. “But be fair—they might not have enough officers to cover everything.”
“Yeah, but which is it?” Dar muttered. He glanced up and saw a blimp of a shopkeeper leaning against his storefront. Dar stepped up to him, pointing an accusing finger and snapping, “Which is it, citizen? How can you get away with this? Don’t you have any police here?”
“Sir!” The shopkeeper drew himself up, offended. “I’ll thank you not to discuss such disgusting issues!” And he wheeled about majestically, slamming his door behind him.
“I’m not so squeamish,” said an oily voice.
Dar and Sam looked up and saw a hunched old man with a lascivious grin, peering out from the shop next door. He was obscenely slender. “What’s your perversion, younglings? Plato? Descartes? Machiavelli? I’ve got ‘em all in here, all the banned books! Come in and read anything—just fifty BTUs an hour!”
“Let’s go,” Sam hissed. “I don’t like the way your jaw is setting!”
“All right, all right,” Dar growled. He turned away toward the end of the arcade, and bumped into someone. “Oh, excuse me …” He broke off, staring into a face like a rat’s above a short, lean body.
The little man stared back at him, eyes widening in shock and horror. Then his mouth opened in a moan that turned into a scream, and he slumped to the ground, clutching his chest.
“What happened?” Dar bleated, staring at the bright redness spreading over the man’s tunic from under his hands.
“Murder, I’d say.”
Dar’s head snapped up; he found himself staring into a very familiar beefy face, above an even more familiar breast-patch badge.
“You’re under arrest.” There was another one like him on the other side of Sam. “Just hold out your wrists, now …” He produced a length of cable that glowed, even in daylight.
“Uh, no thanks.” Dar stepped backward; he’d worn a manacle-loop before, on his way to Wolmar. Once around his wrists, the cable would virtually meld with his skin, and his wrists would stick together as though they’d grown that way. “Actually, I have an appointment at the confectionary shop, you see …”
“Well, I’m afraid we’ve got one that’s a little more important. Come on now, let’s not make a scene.” The policeman stepped forward. Sam backed away as the shopkeeper hefted an electroclub and snapped it down against the officer’s occiput. He slumped to the ground with a muted sigh as two lean and muscular types materialized out of adjacent doorways to zap the other policeman and take their places.
“Bit of a lucky thing for you we happened along,” the shopkeeper observed. “From what I read on the newsfax, all the cops in Haskerville’re out hunting you two. Now, if I was you, I’d be wanting a nice, safe bolthole to bolt into, and lock behind me.”
“Good idea,” Dar agreed. “But, personally, I go along with the idea that says the more you move around, the harder you are to find.”
“I was afraid you’d make this difficult,” the shopkeeper sighed. He nodded to the two gorillas. “Move ‘em around, boys.”
Huge arms seized Dar from behind, hoisting him off the ground and carrying him toward the open air. Beside him, Sam cursed and swore, trying to kick a shin with her heels, and missing every time.
As the toughs bundled them into a waiting car, Dar observed, “I think the cops were the better choice.”
8
The sign said, “You are now leaving HASKERVILLE.”
He turned to the tough who shared the back seat with them. “You must work for somebody important, to rate a car.”
“Might be,” the man said shortly. “Ain’t so much, though.”
“Well, no—it goes on wheels, not an air cushion. But it’s still more than most folks have here. Must cost a fortune—all that metal in the engine.”
“Metal?” The man frowned. “Where’d you grow up—on Orehouse?”
“They’re doing such marvelous things with synthetics these days,” Sam murmured.
“Sure, plastic,” the driver confirmed. “Polythermothane. Takes all the heat we need to give it, an’ more.”
“Well, I suppose—for a turbine.” Dar frowned. “Maybe even for a boiler. But how do you shield the fissionables?”
“ ‘E is from Orehouse,” the first tough snorted. “Fissionables’re metal, lunk. How’d we get ‘em ‘ere?”
“Yeah, I suppose it would be a little heavy on the import price.” Dar scratched his head. “So what do you use for an energy source?”
“Methane.”
“Methane?” Sam cried, scandalized. “Chemicals?”
“Uh—I hate to butt in.” Dar glommed onto the tough’s arm with a mastiff-grip. “But, could you say a word to your friend? We’re running right into a mountainside!”
The granite outcrop towered over them, rushing down on them.
The tough nodded. “Close enough, Rog.”
Rog pushed a button set into the dashboard, and the scrub at the base of the cliff swung outward and upward, revealing a huge gaping cave-mouth.