could be turned to some advantage, at that. A
free souvenir with each purchase, carrying a Pelton-for-Senator
picture-message--

He broke off, peering down at the five-hundred-foot-square landing stage
above the central block, then brought his 'copter swooping down rapidly.
The white-clad figures he had seen swarming up the helical escalator
were not wearing the Ku Klux robes of the Independent-Conservative storm
troops, as he had first feared--they were in Literate smocks, and among
them were the black leather jackets and futuristic helmets of their
guards. They were led, he saw, by Stephen S. Bayne, the store's Chief
Literate; with him were his assistant, Literate Third Class Roger B.
Feinberg, and the novices carrying books and briefcases and cased
typewriters, and the guards, and every Literate employed in the store.
Four or five men in ordinarily vivid-colored business suits were
obviously expostulating about something. As he landed and threw back the
transparent canopy, he could hear a babel of voices, above which
Feinberg was crying: "Unfair! Unfair! Unfair to Organized Literacy!"

He jumped out and hurried over.

* * * * *

"But you simply can't!" a white-haired man in blue-and-orange business
clothes was protesting. "If you do, the Associated Fraternities'll be
liable for losses we incur; you know that!"

Bayne, his thin face livid with anger--and also, Cardon noticed, with
what looked like a couple of fresh bruises--ignored him. Feinberg
broke off his chant of "Unfair! Unfair!" long enough to answer:

"A Literate First Class has been brutally assaulted by the Illiterate
owner of this store. Literate service for this store is, accordingly,
being discontinued, pending a decision by the Grand Council of the
local Fraternity."

Cardon grabbed the blue-and-orange clad man and dragged him to one
side.

"What happened, Hutschnecker?" he demanded.

"They're walking out on us," Hutschnecker told him, unnecessarily.
"The boss had a fight with Bayne; knocked him down a couple of times.
Bayne tried to pull his tablet gun, and I grabbed it away from him,
and somebody else grabbed Pelton before he could pull his, and a
couple of store cops got all the other Literates in the office
covered. Then Bayne put on the general-address system and began
calling out the Literates--"

"Yes, but why did Pelton beat Bayne up?"

"Bayne made a pass at Miss Claire. I wasn't there when it happened