Part 9 (1/2)

”n.o.body goes back,” Mother Corey wheezed. ”_I_ know.” His eyes rested on Gordon.

”A lot don't want to,” Praeger said. ”I never meant to go back. I've got me a farm up north. Another ten years, and I retire to it. My kids are up there now--grandkids, that is. They're Martians; maybe you won't believe me, but they can breathe the air here without a helmet.”

The others nodded. Gordon had learned that a fair number of third-generation people got that way. Their chests were only a trifle larger, and their heartbeat only a few points higher; it was an internal adaptation, like the one that had occurred in test animals reared at a simulated forty-thousand-feet alt.i.tude on Earth, before Mars was ever settled.

”They'll take the planet away from Earth yet,” Randolph agreed.

”Marsport is strictly artificial. It's kept going only because it's the only place where Earth will set down her s.h.i.+ps. If Security doesn't do anything, time will.”

”Security!” Gordon muttered bitterly. Security was good at getting people in trouble, but he had seen no other sign of it.

Randolph frowned over his cards. ”Yeah, I know. The government set them up, gave them a mixture of powers, and has been trying to keep them from working ever since. But somehow they did clean up Venus; and every crook here is scared to death of the name. How come a muckraking newspaperman like you never turned up anything on them, Gordon?”

Gordon shrugged. It was the first reference he'd heard to his background, and he preferred to let it drop.

But Mother Corey cut in, his voice older and hoa.r.s.er, and the skin on his jowls even grayer than usual. ”Don't sell them short, cobber. I did--once.... You forget them, here, after a while. But they're around....”

Bruce Gordon felt something run down his armpit, and a chill creep up his back....

Out on the street, a sudden whooping began, and he glanced down. The parade was on, the Croopsters in full swing, already mostly drunk. The main body went down the street, waving fluorescent signs, while side-guards preceded them, armed with axes, knocking aside the flimsier barricades as they went. He watched a group break into a small grocery store to come out with bundles. They dragged out the storekeeper, his wife, and young daughter, and pressed them into the middle of the parade.

”If Security's so d.a.m.ned powerful, why doesn't it stop that?” he asked bitterly.

Randolph grinned at him. ”They might do it, Gordon. They just might. But are you sure you want it stopped?”

”All right,” Mother Corey said suddenly. ”This is a social game, cobbers.”

Outside, the parade picked up enthusiasm as smaller gangs joined behind the main one. There were a fair number of plain citizens who had been impressed into it, too, judging by the appearance of little frightened groups in the middle of the mobsters.

Gordon couldn't understand why the police hadn't at least been kept on duty, until Honest Izzy came into the room. The little man found a chair and bought chips silently; he looked tired.

”Vacation?” Mother Corey asked.

Izzy nodded. ”Trench took forever giving it to us, Mother. But it's the same old deal; all the police gees get tomorrow off--you, too, gov'nor.

No cops to influence the vote, that's the word. We even gotta wear civvies when we go out to vote for Wayne.”

Gordon looked down at the rioters, who were now only keeping up a pretense of a parade. It would be worse tomorrow, he supposed; and there would be no cops. The image of the old woman and her husband in the little liquor store where he'd had his first experience came back to him. He wondered how well barricaded they were.

He felt the curious eyes of Mother Corey dancing from him to Izzy and back, and heard the old man's chuckle. ”Put a uniform on some men and they begin to believe they're cops, eh, cobber?”

He shoved up from the table abruptly and headed for his room, swearing to himself.

Chapter VIII

VOTE EARLY AND OFTEN

Izzy was up first the next morning, urging them to hurry before things began to hum. From somewhere, he dug up a suit of clothes that Murdoch could wear. He found the gun that Gordon had confiscated from O'Neill and filled it from a box of ammunition he'd apparently purchased.

”I picked up some special permits,” he said. ”I knew you had this cannon, gov'nor, and I figured it'd come in handy. Wouldn't be caught dead with one myself. Knives, that's my specialty. Come on, Cap'n, we gotta get out the vote.”