"Kuppo!" said the Shah, shaking his head.
Khashdrahr blushed, and translated uneasily, apologetically. "Shah says, 'Communism.' "
"No Kuppo!" said Halyard vehemently. "The government does not own the machines. They simply tax that part of industry's income that once went into labor, and redistribute it. Industry is privately owned and managed, and co-ordinated - to prevent the waste of competition - by a committee of leaders from private industry, not politicians. By eliminating human error through machinery, and needless competition through organization, we've raised the standard of living of the average man immensely."
Khashdrahr stopped translating and frowned perplexedly. "Please, this average man, there is no equivalent in our language, I'm afraid."
"You know," said Halyard, "the ordinary man, like, well, anybody - those men working back on the bridge, the man in that old car we passed. The little man, not brilliant but a good-hearted, plain, ordinary, everyday kind of person."
Khashdrahr translated.
"Aha," said the Shah, nodding, "Takaru."
"What did he say?"
"Takaru," said Khashdrahr. "Slave."
"No Takaru," said Halyard, speaking directly to the Shah. "Ci-ti-zen."
"Ahhhhh," said the Shah. "Ci-ti-zen." He grinned happily. "Takaru - citizen. Citizen - Takaru."
"No Takaru!" said Halyard.
Khashdrahr shrugged. "In the Shah's land are only the Elite and the Takaru."
Halyard's ulcer gave him a twinge, the ulcer that had grown in size and authority over the years of his career as an interpreter of America to provincial and ignorant notables from the backwaters of civilization.
The limousine came to a stop again, and the driver honked his horn at a crew of Reconstruction and Reclamation Corpsmen. They had left their wheelbarrows blocking the road, and were throwing rocks at a squirrel on a branch a hundred feet overhead.
Halyard rolled down his window. "Get these damn wheelbarrows out of the way!" he shouted.
"Ci-ti-zen!" piped the Shah, smiling modestly at his newly acquired bilinguality.
"Drop dead," called one of the rock throwers. Reluctantly, surlily, he came down to the road and moved two wheelbarrows very slowly, studying the car and its occupants as he did it. He stepped to one side.
"Thanks! It's about time!" said Halyard as the limousine eased past the man.
"You're welcome, Doc," said the man, and he spat in Halyard's face.
Halyard sputtered, manfully regained his poise, and wiped his face. "Isolated incident," he said bitterly.
"Takaru yamu brouha, pu dinka bu," said the Shah sympathetically.
"The Shah," said Khashdrahr gravely, "he says it is the same with Takaru everywhere since the war."
"No Takaru," said Halyard apathetically, and let it go.
"Sumklish," sighed the Shah.
Khashdrahr handed him the flask of sacred liquor.
Chapter Three
DOCTOR PAUL PROTEUS, the man with the highest income in Ilium, drove his cheap and old Plymouth across the bridge to Homestead. He had had the car at the time of the riots, and among the bits of junk in the glove compartment - match cards, registration, flashlight, and face tissues -was the rusty pistol he had been issued then. Having a pistol where some unauthorized person might get at it was very much against the law. Even members of the huge standing army did without firearms until they'd disembarked for occupation duty overseas. Only the police and plant guards were armed. Paul didn't want the pistol but was forever forgetting to turn it in. Over the years, as it had accumulated a patina of rust, he'd come to regard it as a harmless antique. The glove compartment wouldn't lock, so Paul covered the pistol with tissues.
The engine wasn't working properly, now and then hesitating, catching again, slowing suddenly, catching again. His other cars, a new station wagon and a very expensive sedan, were at home, as he put it, for Anita. Neither of the good cars had ever been in Homestead, and neither had Anita for many years. Anita never needled him about his devotion to the old car, though she did seem to think some sort of explanation to others was in order. He had overheard her telling visitors that he had had it rebuilt in such a way that it was far better mechanically than what was coming off the automatic assembly lines at Detroit - which simply wasn't true. Nor was it logical that a man with so special a car would put off and put off having the broken left headlamp fixed. And he wondered how she might have explained, had she known, that he kept a leather jacket in the trunk, and that he exchanged his coat for this and took off his necktie before crossing the Iroquois. It was a trip he made only when he had to - for, say, a bottle of Irish whisky for one of the few persons he had ever felt close to.
He came to a stop at the Homestead end of the bridge. About forty men, leaning on crowbars, picks, and shovels, blocked the way, smoking, talking, milling about something in the middle of the pavement. They looked around at Paul with an air of sheepishness and, as though there were nothing but time in the world, they moved slowly to the sides of the bridge, leaving an alley barely wide enough for Paul's car. As they separated, Paul saw what it was they had been standing around. A small man was kneeling beside a chuckhole perhaps two feet in diameter, patting a fresh fill of tar and gravel with the flat of his shovel.
Importantly, the man waved for Paul to go around the patch, not over it. The others fell silent, and watched to make sure that Paul did go around it.
"Hey, Mac, your headlamp's busted," shouted one of the men. The others joined in, chorusing the message earnestly.
Paul nodded his thanks. His skin began to itch, as though he had suddenly become unclean. These were members of the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps, in their own estimate the "Reeks and Wrecks." Those who couldn't compete economically with machines had their choice, if they had no source of income, of the Army or the Reconstruction and Reclamation Corps. The soldiers, with their hollowness hidden beneath twinkling buttons and buckles, crisp serge, and glossy leather, didn't depress Paul nearly as much as the Reeks and Wrecks did.
He eased through the work crew, past a black government limousine, and into Homestead.
A saloon was close to the end of the bridge. Paul had to park his car a half-block away, for another crew was flushing out the storm sewers with an opened fire hydrant. This seemed to be a favorite undertaking. Whenever he had come to Homestead when the temperature had been above freezing, he'd found a hydrant going.
One big man, with an air of proprietorship, kept his hands on the wrench that controlled the flow. Another stood by as second-in-command of the water. All around them, and along the course of the water to the sewer mouth, a crowd stood watching. A dirty little boy caught a scrap of paper skittering along the sidewalk, fashioned it into a crude boat, and launched it in the gutter. All eyes followed the craft with interest, seeming to wish it luck as it shot perilous rapids, as it snagged on a twig, spun free, shot into the swift, deep main flow, mounted a crest for a triumphant instant, and plunged into the sewer.