Alan nodded and put down the news-sheet. "Right away," he said, and switched out.
As he took the fastway to the elevators, he mused over the manner in which the riot had been reported. He was certain that the police had tried not to use violence. Yet, towards the end, they might have lost their patience. These days the police force required superior intelligence and education to get into it, and modern police weren't the good-for-nothing-else characters of earlier times.
Still, it could have been that because one side ignored established law and order, so did the other. Violence tended to breed violence.
Violence, he thought, is a self-generating monster. The more you let it take control, the more it grows.
He didn't know it, but he was in for a taste of it.
Two muscular arms suddenly shot out to each side of him. His face slammed against them and he lost his balance on the fastway, falling backwards and sliding along. Two figures rushed along beside him and yanked him onto the slowway.
"Get up," one of them said.
Alan got up slowly, dazed and wary.
He stared at the tall, thin-faced man and his fatter, glowering partner. They were dressed in engineers' smocks.
"What did you do that for?" Alan said.
"You're Alan Powys, aren't you?"
"I am. What do you want?"
"You're the man who attacked Helen Curtis yesterday."
"I did not!"
"You're lying." The man flicked his hand across Alan's face. It stung. "We don't like Council hirelings who attack women!"
"I attacked no one!" Alan prepared, desperately, to defend himself.
The fat man hit him, fairly lightly, in the chest.
On the fastway people were passing, pretending not to notice.
Alan punched the fat man in the face and kicked the thin man's shins.
Neither had expected it. Alan himself was surprised at his own bravery. He had acted instinctively. He was also shocked by his own violence.
Now the pair were pummeling him and he struck back at random. A blow in his stomach winded him, a blow in his face made him dizzy. His own efforts became weaker and he was forced to confine himself to protecting his body as best he could.
Then it was over.
A new voice shouted: "Stop that!"
Breathing heavily, Alan looked up and saw the slightly ashamed face of Tristan B'Ula.
He noticed, too, that all three were wearing a Sun emblem on their clothing-a little metal badge.
The thin-faced man said: "It's Powys-the man who wanted to close the levels. The one who attacked Miss Curtis last night."
"Don't be a fool," B'Ula said angrily. "He didn't want to close the levels; he was taking orders from the Council. I know him-he isn't likely to have attacked Helen Curtis, either."
B'Ula came closer.
"Hello, Tristan," Alan said painfully. "You've started something haven't you?"
"Never mind about that. What were you doing last night?" As B'Ula approached, the two men stepped back.
"I was arguing with Helen, telling her she was stupid. Just as you're stupid.
None of you knows what you're doing!"
"You got a lot of Press cuttings this morning. If I were you I’d stay off the public ways." He turned to the two engineers. "Get going. You're nothing better than hoodlums. You pay too much attention to what the Press says."
Alan tried to smile. "The pot calling the kettle black. You started all this, Tris. You should have thought for a while before you began shouting the news about."
"You're damned ungrateful," B'Ula said. "I just saved you from a nasty beating.
I did what I had to-I wasn't going to let the Fireclown be shoved around."
"This way, he may get worse," Alan said.
B'Ula grimaced and walked away with the two engineers. Alan looked around for his briefcase but couldn't find it. He got onto the fastway again and took the elevator to the Top, but when he arrived he didn't go to City Administration.
He'd heard two people talking in the elevator. There was going to be a debate in the Solar House on last night's riots.
Careless of what Carson would think when he didn't turn up, Alan took a car towards the majestic Solar House where representatives from all over the Solar System had gathered.
He wanted very badly to see his grandfather and his ex-mistress in action.
Solar House was a vast, circular building with tall, slender towers at intervals around its circumference. Each tower was topped by a gleaming glass-alloy dome.
The center of the circle housed the main hall containing many thousands of places for members. Each nation had, like the City of Switzerland, its own councils and sub-councils, sending a certain number of candidates, depending on its size, to the Solar House.
When Alan squeezed his way into the public gallery the House was almost full.
Many representatives must have just arrived back in their constituencies after the debate on the outgoing President's policies only to hear the news of the riot, and returned.
Politics hadn't been nearly so interesting for years, Alan thought.
The debate had already opened.
In the center of the spiral was a small platform upon which sat the President, Benjosef, looking old and sullen; the Chief Mediator, Morgan Tregarith, in ruby-red robes and metallic Mask of Justice; the Cabinet Ministers, including Simon Powys in full purple. In the narrowest ring of benches surrounding the platform were the leaders of the opposition parties-Helen Curtis in a dark yellow robe, belted at the waist, with fluffs of lace at bodice and sleeves; ancient Baron Rolf de Crespigny, leader of the right-wing reactionary Democratic Socialists; John Holt, thin-lipped in black, leader of the Solar Nationalists;
Bela Hakasaki, melancholy-faced Hungarian-Japanese leader of the Divisionists;
Luis Jaffe of the New Royalists, and about a dozen more, all representing varying creeds and opinions, all comparatively weak compared with the Solrefs, RLMs, or even the Demosocs.
Behind the circle comprising the opposition leaders all the other Solar representatives sat, first the minor lights in the Solref Cabinet-Denholm Curtis, Under-Secretary for Hydro-Agriculture, was there-then the members of the RLM shadow cabinet; de Crespigny’s shadow cabinet shared a tier with John Holt's; behind them were four smaller groups; behind them again six or seven, until, finally, the rank-and-file, split into planets and continents and finally individual nations.
There were probably five thousand men and women in the Solar House, and they all listened carefully as Alfred Gupta, Minister for Police Affairs, answered a charge made by Helen Curtis that the police had used violence towards last night" s crowd.
"Miss Curtis has accused Chief of Police Sandai of exercising insufficient control over his officers; that the men were allowed to indulge in offensive language towards members of the public, attacked these members in a brutal manner and did not allow them to lodge a protest which they had prepared for the City Council. These are all grave charges-charges which have also appeared in the Press and on our laservid screens-and Miss Curtis mentions 'proof of police violence having appeared on those media. If the charges are true, then this is a matter of considerable magnitude. But I suggest that the charges are fabrication, a falsification of what actually happened. I have here a statement from Chief Sandai." He held up a piece of paper and then proceeded to read from it-a straightforward account of what had actually happened, agreeing that some police officers had been forced to defend themselves against the mob, having been pressed beyond reasonable endurance.
Alan had seen one or two of the policemen attack with very little provocation but he felt, from his own observation of the previous night's trouble, that the chief's statement was fairly accurate, although painting his officers a trifle too white to ring true.
The House itself seemed fairly divided on the question, but when Helen got up to suggest that the paper contained nothing but lies she was loudly cheered. She went on, in an ironical manner, to accuse the Solar Referendum Government of deliberately provoking the riot by allowing the City Council to close off the levels. Minister for Civil Affairs, Ule Bengtsson, pointed out that it was not the Government's policy to meddle in local politics and that if this matter had been discussed in the Solar House in the first place, then it might have been possible to veto the Council. But no such motion, he observed cynically, had been placed before the House.