Babylon glanced at his watch and made a decision. "Let me out here," he told the driver. "I'll walk the rest of the way."
But, he thought, maybe what he sought was in that square . . .
In the detention-area halls of the Criminal Courts Building Te'ehala Tupaia heard the noise from outside and dismissed it. There were nearer problems. He followed the stooped Judas-ram of the file of Purchased People through one more barred door, and stopped short, eyes outraged by a flashing of cameras. Noise and confusion reigned here, too—fortunately, for no one noticed his lapse. He let his head fall forward and shambled docilely toward the prisoners' corral. Clearly they were in the news again, though he did not know why.
The court attendants managed to quiet the press and public long enough for the hearing to begin, but the noise outside continued to grow. Tupaia listened alertly, eyes looking up under lowered brows to try to follow what was going on. It was of no real interest, he decided, just more whiteskin foolishness, some legal point that required the presence of the Purchased People in the courtroom, but certainly nothing that would ever yield freedom to Te'ehala Tupaia of Polynesie-libre. He would have to get that by himself!
Because the Purchased People were either firmly controlled or apathetic, the courtroom authorities had not bothered to handcuff them. Because Tupaia knew that his only hope of escape was to pretend the same apathy, he kept his muscles relaxed and his eyes downcast. But he missed nothing. That guard, just outside the rail, scowling at a photographer trying to get one last shot—surely that was a pistol in the holster at his belt? Those disheveled creatures by the door, reluctantly taking their seats as attendants whispered savagely at them—Kooks? They had to be; no normal human being, not even a whiteskin, would allow himself to appear in such wretchedly unkempt condition. And what was outside the door? It was a continuous rumble, like the combers crashing over the breakwater outside a lagoon, but he could almost hear words in it. More Kooks, no doubt . . .
He folded his hands placidly in his lap, while inside his skull his mind was racing with schemes. He let the courtroom talk flow past him. Whiteskin justice! Whiteskin madness! Neither of them meant anything to Te'ehala Tupaia.
There had been a time, of course, when he had not yet learned the bitter truths about whiteskin "fair play." He remembered, with both nostalgia and rage, those long-ago, hot teenage years, working in the tourist hotels, always at a trot at the dinner hour to be sure M'sieur's wine carafe reached Table 10 and to lug the huge, searing silver tureen of soup to the six American ladies at Table 45. A fifteen- year-old kid—could he be blamed? All he knew was that he wanted enough money to buy a Moped and, someday, rise in the whiteskin world until he, too, could be a rich tourist. Fantasy! It had all turned out to be lies and betrayals.
For a moment he let himself listen to the endless wrangling drone from the front of the courtroom. Attorney for the defense was saying that his clients had paid good money, strictly according to Statute 53 U.S. 195, and they weren't getting their money's worth—"clients" meaning strange creatures from another world, and "money's worth" meaning Tupaia and the other Purchased People themselves! And the attorney for the prisoners was protesting that no one doubted that, all they had to do was abandon their plans to use these Purchased People on Cuckoo and destroy their tapes.
Whiteskin lunacy! How could grown human beings persuade themselves that this meant anything, when it affected no one nearer than forty thousand light-years away, and at that distance was unenforceable anyway? He cared not at all whether the attorney for the prison system successfully defended their sale, or the Civil Liberties lawyers won their technical point. Let the judge decide what she would, it would mean nothing.
But the growing volume and frenzy of the noise outside the courtroom . . . they might mean something. They meant, at least, confusion and turmoil—and in some sudden confusion was Tupaia's only hope.
But the hope dwindled and, at last, died away. The judge impatiently cut the lawyers off, announced that she had heard the arguments and would give her decision in chambers at a later date.
And that was the end of it.
The bored attendants prodded the torpid Purchased People toward the door, and Tupaia felt despair soak into his heart once more. Back to the detention cells again, with the strange screams and moans in the night and the queer, inhuman things that looked out of his fellow prisoners' eyes.
But perhaps not.
The guards were nervous, whispering to each other. As they approached the rear entrance where the prison vans waited to take them back to their cells, Tupaia heard the crowd noises from outside, closer and louder than ever. The guards stopped them at the door. Then two guards, side by side, thrust it open and shoved their way out into the milling, shouting mob.
Then it became easy.
The guards expected nothing threatening from their prisoners; it was the Kooks they were worried about. Tupaia found himself directly behind the one who had stood guard nearest him in the courtroom. And the gun was still in the holster.
Tupaia stood up to his full height and reached forward, one great arm encircling the man's neck. He snapped it as easily as he had long ago plucked hibiscus blossoms for the breakfast tables of the tourists. He let the man fall under the stampeding feet of the mob and turned, the gun swiftly concealed in his blouse. No one had noticed as Tupaia melted swiftly into the rioting crowd.
Long before then Jen Babylon had given up the useless scan of ecstatic faces in the Kook mob, pushed his way through, and hurried the few short blocks to Sheryl's apartment building. The autodoorman passed him readily enough—his facial profile had been recorded long ago— and in moments he was hammering on the door to Sheryl's apartment.
No one answered the door. Yet Babylon was sure he heard sounds from within. He could not identify them; not the voices of a party, or a show on the stereostage. Not any sounds he recognized, even with the sharpened ears of his profession. They were so faint that he was hardly convinced they were real, but they sounded like—like what?— like cards shuffling? or dice rattling?
"Sheryl!" he called. "It's Jen Babylon!"
Still no answer. He shrugged and moved grimly down the hall. It was the only other apartment on the floor, far bigger than Sheryl's little corner; if Althea's information was right, perhaps the girl was inside. He banged on the door, bruising his knuckles.
The answer he got was not the one he might have expected. The door to Sheryl's own apartment opened down the hall, and she stood in the frame, peering toward him. "Yes, Jen?" she said softly.
He was back there at a bound, furious, brushing past her into the tiny room. "My God, Sheryl!" he cried. "Don't you know I've been worried about you? What have you been doing?"
She followed him slowly inside, her face radiant. "The very greatest of things, Jen," she told him solemnly. "You had no cause to worry."
"No cause! With you mixed up with these maniacs! Starving yourself. Letting yourself go to pot—look at you!" he said bitterly, turning her to face a mirror. She had been thin; now she was almost ethereal, except that the smudged face, the careless hair, the shadows under her eyes were nothing that could be called ethereal. The whole apartment was as uncared-for as its owner. Furniture appeared to have been shoved out of the way, for what purpose Babylon could not guess; the place had not been dusted or swept in some time, and there was a sour, metallic reek that he could not identify.