At the same time, others were arriving on the escalators from the floors below, firing as they came off—Slater’s Literates’ guards, the Literates and their black-jacketed troopers of Hopkinson’s store service crew, the fifteen survivors of the twenty riflemen from Macy & Gimbel’s. The attackers turned and crowded onto the ascending escalator. Most of them got away, the casualties being carried up by the escalator. Doug Yetsko bounded forward and brought his fire hose down on the back of one invader’s neck. Then, after a last spatter of upward-aimed shots from the defenders, there was silence.
Cardon stepped forward and yanked the hood from the man whom Yetsko had knocked down, hoping that he had a stunned prisoner who could be interrogated. The man was dead, however, with a broken neck. For a moment, Cardon looked down at the heavy, brutal features of Joe West, the Illiterates’ Organization man. If Chester Pelton got out of this mess alive and won the election tomorrow, there was going to have to be a purge in the Radical-Socialist party, and something was going to have to be done about the Consolidated Organization of Illiterates. He turned to Yetsko.
“You and your gang got here just in the nick of time,” he said. “How did you get into the store?”
“Through the freight conveyor, into the basement.”
“But I thought those goons had both ends of that plugged.”
“They did,” Yetsko grinned. “But Ray Pelton took us in at the middle, and we crawled through a cable conduit to get around the gang at this end.”
Cardon looked around quickly, in search of Ray. The boy, having come out of the excitement of battle, was looking around at the litter of dead and wounded on the blood-splashed floor. His eyes widened, and he gulped. Then, carefully setting the safety of his burp gun and slinging it, he went over and leaned against the wall, and was sick.
Prestonby, with Claire Pelton beside him, started toward the white-faced, retching boy. Yetsko put out a hamlike hand to stop them.
“If the kid wants to be sick, let him be sick,” he said. “He’s got a right to. I was sicker’n that, after my first fight. But he won’t do that the next time.”
“There isn’t going to be any next time!” Claire declared, with maternal protectiveness.
“That’s what you think, Miss Claire,” Yetsko told her. “That boy’s gonna make a great storm trooper,” he declared. “Every bit as great as Captain Prestonby, here.”
Claire looked up at Prestonby almost worshipfully. “And I never knew anything about your being a fighting-man, till today,” she said. “Ralph, there’s so much about you that I don’t know.”
“There’ll be plenty of time to find out, now, honey,” he told her.
Cardon stepped over the body of Joe West and went up to them.
“Sorry to intrude on you two,” he said, “but we’ve got to figure on how to get out of here. Could we get out the same way you got in?” he asked Yetsko. “And take Mr. Pelton with us?”
Yetsko frowned. “Part of the way, we gotta crawl through this conduit; it’s only about a yard square. And we’d have to go up a ladder, and out a manhole, to get out of the conveyor tunnel. What sorta shape’s Mr. Pelton in?”
“He’s under hypnotaine, completely unconscious,” Prestonby said.
“Then we’d have to drag him,” Yetsko said. “Strap him up in a tarp, or load him into a sleeping bag, if we can get hold of one.”
“There are plenty, down in the warehouse,” Latterman interrupted, joining them. “And the warehouse is in our hands.”
“All right,” Cardon decided. “We’ll take him out, now, and take him home. I have some men there who’ll take care of him. We’ll have to get you and Ray out, too,” he told Claire. “I think we’ll take both of you to Literates’ Hall; you’ll be absolutely safe there.”
“But the store,” Claire started to object. “And all these people who came here to help us—”
“As soon as I have your father home, I’m going to start rounding up a gang to raise the siege,” Cardon said. “Radical-Socialist storm troops, and—” He grinned suddenly. “The insurance company; the one that has the store insured against riot! Why didn’t I think of them before? They’re losing money every second this thing goes on. It’ll be worth their while to start doing something to stop it!”
The trip out through the conduit was not so difficult, even with the encumbrance of the unconscious Chester Pelton, but Prestonby was convinced that, except for the giant strength of Doug Yetsko, it would have been nearly impossible. Ray Pelton, recovered from his after-battle nausea and steeled by responsibility, went first. Cardon crawled after him, followed by a couple of the boys. Then came Yetsko, dragging the sleeping bag in which Chester Pelton was packed like a mummy. Prestonby himself followed, pushing on his future father-in-law’s feet, and Claire crawled behind, with the rest of Ray’s schoolmates for a rearguard.
They got past the battle which was still going on at the entrance to the store basement, letting Pelton down with a rope and carrying him onto the outward-bound belt. They left it in time to assemble under
