m, but he burst by me with hardly a glance.

"Where is he?" he demanded, and stormed out into the kitchen without
awaiting a reply.

I followed in time to see him fall on his face before our Soth and shed
genuine tears. He lay there sobbing and hissing for over a minute, and
an incredible idea began forming in my mind. I sent Vicki to her bedroom
and stepped into the kitchen.

I said, "Will you please explain this?"

He didn't move or acknowledge.

Soth flipped him aside with a twist of his ankle and brushed past me
into the living room, where he took up an immobile stance again before
the video. He stared unblinkingly at the 40-inch screen.

"It's too bad," I said.

He didn't answer, but he moved his head slightly so that his parabolic
ear could catch the sound of my movements.

* * * * *

[Illustration]

For minutes we stood transfixed by the magnitude of the mob action
around the entrance to the Willow Run plant. The portable video
transmitter was atop a truck parked on the outskirts of the mob.
Thousands of people were milling around, and over the excited voice of
the announcer came hysterical screams.

Even as we watched, more people thronged into the scene, and it was
evident that the flimsy cordon of soldiers and troopers could not hold
the line for long.

Army trucks with million-candlepower searchlights held the insane
figures somewhat at bay by tilting their hot, blinding beams down into
the human masses and threatening them with tear gas and hack guns.

The workers were out for blood. Not content with restricting Soths to
non-union labor, now they were screaming their jealous hearts out for
these new symbols of class distinction to be destroyed. Of course, their
beef was more against the professional-managerial human classes who
could afford a surface car, an airboat _and a Soth_. The two so-called
crimes and the trial publicity had triggered a sociological time bomb
that might have endured for years without detonating--but it was here,
now, upon us. And my own sweat trickling into my eyes stung me to a
realization of my personal problem.

I wiped my eyes clear with my knuckles--and at that instant the video
screen flashed with a series of concentric halos.

The operator, apparently, was so startled he forgot to turn down the
gain on the transmitter. When he finally did, we saw that brilliant
flares were emitting from the roof of the plant.

Then great audio