The gates of St. Alban's prison swung open and emitted the prison bus. It bowled out beneath the aluminum legend over the portal that read "To Understand Is To Forgive", and headed for the region of the metropolis called The Gay Ghetto.
Or so the area was most generally known. Its inhabitants called it The Knackers, or Joburg, or Wonderland, or Sucker City, or indeed any less savory name that occurred to them. The area had been established by a government enlightened enough to realize that some men, while being far from criminal in intent, are incapable of living within the exacting framework of civilization; which is to say that they do not share the goals and incentives of the majority of their fellow beings; which is to say that they see no point in working from ten till four day in and day out for the privilege of maintaining a woman in wed-lock and x or n number of children. This body of men, which numbered geniuses and neurotics in equal proportions (frequently within the same anatomy), was allowed to settle within the Gay Ghetto, which - because it was unsupervised in any way by the forces of law - soon became the nesting ground also of criminals.
Within the ruinous square mile of this human game reserve, a unique society formed; it looked at the monstrous machinery of living that ground on beyond its walls with the same mixture of fear and moral disapproval with which the monstrous machinery regarded it.
The prison taxi halted at the end of a steep brick street. The two released prisoners, Rodney Walthamstone and his ex-cell mate, climbed out. At once the taxi swerved and drove away, its door automatically sliding shut as it went.
Walthamstone looked about him with unease.
The drearily respectable dolls' houses on either side of the street hunched their thin shoulders behind dog-soiled railings, averting their gaze from the strip of waste that began where they left off.
Beyond the waste rose the wall of the Gay Ghetto. Some of the wall was wall; some of it was formed from little old houses into which concrete had been poured until the little old houses were solid.
"Is this it?" Walthamstone asked.
"This is it, Wal. This is freedom. We can live here with-out anybody mucking us about.”
The early sunshine, a snaggle-toothed old trickster, lay its transient gold and broken shadows across the uninviting flank of the Ghetto, of Joburg, of Paradise, of Bums' Berg, of Queer Street, of Floppers.
Tid started towards it, saw that Walthamstone hesitated, grasped his hand, and pulled him along.
"I ought to write to my old Aunt Flo and Hank Quilter and tell 'em what I'm doing," Walthamstone said. He stood between the old life and the new, naturally fearful. Although Tid was his own age, Tid was so much more sure of himself.
"You can think about that later," Tid said.
"There was other blokes on the starship....”
"Like I tell you, Wal, only suckers allow themselves to enlist on spaceships. I got a cousin Jack, he signed on for Charon; he's perched out on that miserable billiard ball, fighting Brazilians. Come on, Wal.”
The grubby hand tightened on the grubby wrist.
"Perhaps I'm being stupid. Perhaps I got all mixed up in jug," Walthamstone said.
"That's what jug is meant for.”
"My poor old aunt. She's always been so kind to me.”
"Don't make me weep. You know I'll be kind to you too.”
Giving up the grueling battle to express himself, Walthamstone moved forward and was led like a lost soul towards the entrance to Avernus. But the ascent to this Avernus was not easy. No portals stood wide. They climbed over rubble and litter towards the solid houses.
One of the houses had a door which creaked open when Tid pulled it. A tongue of sunlight licked in with their untrusting glances. Within, the solid concrete had been chipped into a sort of chimney with steps in the side. Without another word to his friend, Tid began to climb; left with no option, Walthamstone followed. In the gloom on either side of him he saw tiny grottoes, some no bigger than open mouths; and there were cysts and bubbles; and clots and blemishes; all of which had formed in the liquid concrete when it had first been poured down through the rafters and engulfed the house.
The chimney brought them out to an upper window at the back. Tid gave a cheer and turned to help Walthamstone.
They squatted on the window-sill. The ground sloped down from the sill, where it had been piled as an embankment for no other apparent purpose than to grow as fine a crop of cow parsley, tall grass, and elder as you could wish to see.
This wilderness was divided by paths, some of which ran round the upper windows of the solid houses, some of which sloped down into the Ghetto. Already people stirred there, a child of seven ran naked, whooping from door-step to doorstep with a newspaper hat on its head. Ancient facades grew down into the earth, tatty and grand with a patina of old dirt and new sun.
"Me dear old shanty town!" Tid cried. He ran down one of the tracks, a foam of flower about his knees.
Hesitating only a moment, Walthamstone ran down after his lover.
Bruce Ainson assumed his coat with a fine air of desperation, while Enid stood at the other end of the hall, watching him with her hands clasped. He wanted her to start to speak, so that he could say, "Don't say anything!", but she had nothing else to say. He looked sideways at her, and a shaft of compassion pierced through his self-concern.
"Don't worry," he said.
She smiled, made a gesture. He closed the door and was gone.
Outside, he paid ten tubbies into the corner sinker and rose to the local traffic level. Abstractedly, he climbed into a moving chair that skied him up to the non-stop level and racked itself on to one of the robot monobuses. As he sped towards distant London, Bruce dwelt on the scene he had just made with Enid after the news in the paper hit him.
Yes, he had behaved badly. He had behaved badly because he did not, in such a crisis, see the point of behaving well. One was as moral as one could be, as well-intentioned, as well-controlled, as intelligent, as innocent; and then the flood of days brought down with it (from some ghastly unseen headwaters, whence it had been travelling for unguessed time) some vile fetid thing that had to be faced and survived. Why should one behave other than badly before such beastliness?
Now the mood, the shaky exhilaration of the mood, was passing. He had shed it on Enid. He would have to behave well before Mihaly.
But did life have to be quite so vile a draught? Dimly, he recognized one of the drives that had carried him through the years of study necessary to gain him his Master Explorer's certificate. He had hoped to find a world, hiding beyond reach of sight of Earth in the dark light years, a world of beings for whom diurnal existence was not such an encumbrance to the spirit. He wanted to know how it was done.
Now it looked as if he'd never have the chance again.
Reaching the tremendous new Outflank Ring that circled high about outer London, Ainson changed on to a district level and headed for the quarter where Sir Mihaly Pasztor worked. Ten minutes later, he was stalling impatiently before the Director's secretary.
"I doubt if he can see you this morning, Mr. Ainson, since you have no appointment.”
"He has to see me, my dear girl; will you please announce me?”