Prestonby nodded. It would have been quite conceivable that Pelton’s chief competitor had started the riot; since they hadn’t, their offer of armed aid was just as characteristic of the bitter but mutually-respectful rivalries of the commercial world. A few minutes later, another call came in, this time on the visiphone. Prestonby took it when he saw a Literates’ Guards officer in the screen and recognized him.
“That you, Prestonby?” the officer, Major Slater, asked in some surprise. “Didn’t know you were at Pelton’s. What’s going on, there?”
Prestonby told him, briefly.
“Yes; we had some of our people at the store, in plain clothes,” Slater said. “Just in case of trouble. On Mr. L.’s orders. They reported a riot starting, but naturally, their reports were incomplete. Can you get one of your landing stages cleared for us? We have two hundred men, in twenty ’copters.” Then he must have noticed some of the store Illiterates back of Prestonby, and realized that this offer of help to Literacy’s worst enemy would arouse suspicion. “Not that we care what happens to Chester Pelton, but we have to protect our own people at the store.”
“Yes, of course,” Prestonby agreed. “Come in on our north stage. You’ll probably find a fight going on on our twelfth floor, just inside. Anybody who’s trying to get up the escalators to the office block will be an enemy.”
“Right. We’re halfway there now.” The Literates’ Guards officer broke the connection.
“You heard that?” he asked, turning to the others in the office. “If we can hold out till they get here, we’re all right. Did you contact Radical-Socialist headquarters, yet, Hutschnecker?”
“Yes. I talked to a fellow named Yingling. He said that all the party storm troops had been lured out to some kind of a disturbance in North Jersey Borough; he’d try to get them recalled.”
Prestonby swore bitterly. “By the time his own party-goons get here, the Literates’ Guards and Macy & Gimbel’s will have pulled Pelton’s bacon off the fire for him. Nice friends he has!”
An alarm buzzer went off suddenly, and an urgent voice came out of the box on the wall:
“Here come the goons! South escalator!”
Prestonby grabbed a burp gun and a canvas musette bag full of clips. By the time he had gotten down to what, in deference to the superstitions of the Illiterate store force, was known as the fourteenth floor, an attack on the north escalator had developed as well. In both cases, the attackers seemed to expect no organized resistance. They simply jumped onto the escalators, adding their own running speed, and came rushing up, firing pistols ahead of them at random.
The defenders, however, had been ready: the fire hoses caught those in the lead and hurled them back. Some of them vaulted the barrier between the ascending and descending spirals and let themselves be carried down again. Less than five minutes after the buzzer had sounded the warning, the attack stopped. The noise on the twelfth floor increased, however, and, leaning over into the escalator-way, Prestonby could see the rioters firing in the direction of the entrance from the north landing stage. Within a matter of thirty seconds, they began to flee, and a wave of Literates’ Guards, in their futuristic “space cadet” uniforms, came pouring in after them.
Douglass MacArthur Yetsko put the burp gun back together again, tried the action, and laid it aside with a sigh. He had cleaned every weapon in his and Prestonby’s private arsenal, since lunch, and now he had to admit the unpalatable fact that there was nothing left to do but turn on the TV. Ray had been no company at all; the boy hadn’t spoken a word since he’d started rummaging among the captain’s books. Gloomily, he snapped on the screen to sample the soap shows.
Della Pallas was in jail again, this time accused of murdering the lawyer who had gotten her acquitted on a previous murder rap. Considering the fact that she had languished in jail for almost a year during the other trial, Yetsko felt that she had a sound motive. Rudolf Barstow, in “Broadway Wife,” was, like Bruce’s spider, spinning his five hundredth web to ensnare the glamorous Marie Knobble. And there was a show about a schoolteacher and her class of angelic little tots that almost brought Yetsko’s lunch up.
He shifted the dial again; a young Literate announcer was speaking quickly, excitedly:
“… Scene of the riot, already the worst this year, and growing steadily worse. We take you now to downtown Manhattan, where our portable units and commentators have just arrived, and switch you to Ed Morgan.”
The screen went black, and Yetsko swore angrily. Ray lifted his head quickly from his book and reached for the sono pistol Yetsko had given him.
“Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and just a moment, until we can give you the picture. We’re having what is usually labeled as ‘slight technical difficulties,’ in this case the difficulty of avoiding having a hole shot in our camera or in your commentator’s head. Yes, that’s shooting you hear; there, somebody’s using an auto rifle! How are you coming, Steve?”
A voice muttered something which, two centuries ago, would have caused an earthshaking scandal in the whole radio-TV industry.
“Well, till Steve gets things fixed up, a brief review, to date, of what’s sure to go down in history as the Battle of Pelton’s Purchasers’ Paradise—”
“Huh?” Ray fairly shouted, the book forgotten.
“… Started in the Chinaware Department, as a relatively innocent brawl, and spread to the Liquor Department, and then, all of a sudden, everybody started playing rough. At first, it was suspected that Macy & Gimbel’s had sent a goon gang around to break up Pelton’s fall sale, but when the former concern rallied to the assistance of their competitor with a force of twenty riflemen, that began to look less likely, and we’re beginning to think that it might be the
