Null-ABC, John Joseph McGuire and H. Beam Piper [best short books to read .txt] 📗

right cartridges went with each weapon. Somebody had brought a small grinding wheel over from Tools and plugged it in, and was grinding points on the foils and épées. Others were collecting baseball bats, golf clubs, and football helmets and catchers' masks. The Tool Department was being stripped of everything that could be used as a weapon, too.

The whole store, by this time, was an approximation of Mutiny in a Madhouse. Dressgoods was being looted by a howling mob of women, who were pulling bolts of material from shelves and fighting among themselves over them. Somebody had turned on the electric fans, and long streams of flimsy fabric were blowing about like a surrealist maypole dance. Somebody in Household Furnishings had turned on a couple of fans, too, and a mob of hoodlums were opening cans of paint and throwing them into the fan blades.

The little Antiques Department, in a corner of the fourth floor back of the Gift Shoppe, was an island of peace in the general chaos. There was only one way into it, and one of the clerks, who had gotten himself into a suit of Fifteenth Century battle armor, was standing in the entrance, leaning on a two-hand sword. There was blood on the long blade, and more blood splashed on the floor in front of him. He was being left entirely alone.

Hutschnecker, called to the telephone, spoke briefly, listened for a while, spoke again in hearty thanks, and hung up.

"Macy & Gimbel's," he told Prestonby. "They heard about our trouble—probably one of their price-spotters phoned in about it—and they're offering to send twenty of their store-cops to help us out. They'll be landing on our stage in eight minutes, rifles and steel helmets."

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 earth-shaking 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 work of some of Pelton's political enemies. About ten minutes ago, Major James F. Slater, of the Literates' Guards, arrived with two hundred of his men, to protect the Literates on duty at the store. They captured the entire twelfth floor, where we are, now, with the exception of the Ladies' Lingerie and Hosiery departments around one of the escalators to the lower floors; here the gang who started the riot, and who are now donning white hoods to distinguish themselves from the various other factions involved, have thrown up barricades of counters and display tables and are fighting bitterly to keep control of the escalator head. Ah, here we are!"

The screen lit suddenly, and they were looking, Ray over Yetsko's shoulder, across the devastated expanse of what had been the Ladies' Frocks department, toward Lingerie and Hosiery, which seemed to have been thoroughly looted, then stripped of everything that could be used to build a barricade.

"... Seems to have been quite a number of heavy 'copters just landed on the east stage, filled with more goons, probably to re-enforce the gang back of that barricade. The firing's gotten noticeably heavier—"

Yetsko had turned from the screen, and was pawing in the arms locker. For a job like this, he'd need firepower. He took the ten-shot clip from the butt of his pistol and inserted one with a curling hundred-shot drum at the bottom, and shoved two more like it into the pockets of his jacket. And now, something to clear the way with. He took out a three-foot length of weighted fire hose.

Then he saw Ray. That kid was pinning him down, here, while the captain was probably fighting for his life! But the captain'd told him to stay with Ray—He dropped the weighted hose.

"What's the matter, Doug?" the boy asked. "Pick it up and let's get going."

He shook his head. "Can't. The captain told me I had to take care of you."

The boy opened his mouth to speak, closed it again, and thought for a moment. Then he asked:

"Doug, didn't Captain Prestonby tell you to stay with me?"

"Yes—"

"All right. You do just that, because I'm going to help Claire and the senator. That's who that goon gang's after."

Yetsko considered the proposition for a moment, horrified. Why, this was the captain's girl's kid brother; if anything happened to him—His mind refused to contemplate what the captain would do to him.

"No. You gotta stay here, Ray," he said. "The captain—"

Then his eye caught the screen. Ed Morgan must have found a place where he could run his camera up on an extension rod from behind something; they were looking down, from almost ceiling height, at the barricade, and at the Literates' guards who were firing from cover at it. A sudden blast of automatic-weapons burst from the barricade; more men in white hoods came boiling up the escalator, and they all rushed forward. The few Literates' guards skirmishers were overwhelmed. He saw one of them, a man he knew, Sam Igoe, from Company 5, go down wounded; he saw one of the white-hooded goons pause to brain him with a carbine butt before charging on.

"Why, you dirty rotten Illiterate—!" he roared, retrieving his weighted hose. "Come on, Ray; let's go!"

Ray hesitated, as though in thought. "Ken Dorchin; Harry Cobb; Dick Hirschfield; Jerry McCarty; Ramon Nogales; Pete Shawne; Tom Hutchinson—"

"Who—?" Yetsko began. "What've they gotta do with—?"

"We need a gang; the two of us'd last about as long as a pint of beer at a Dutch picnic." Ray went to the desk, grabbed a pen, and made a list of names, in a fair imitation of Ralph Prestonby's neat block-printing. "Give this to the girl outside, and tell her to have them called for and sent in here," the boy directed. "And see if you can find us some transport. I think there ought to be a couple of big 'copters finished down at the shops. And if you can find a couple more Literates' guards you can talk into going with us—"

Yetsko nodded and took the paper without question. He was not, and he would be the first to admit it, of the thinking type. He was a good sergeant, but he had to have an officer to tell him what to do. Ray Pelton might be only fifteen years old, but his sister was the captain's girl, and that put him in the officer class. A very young and recently-commissioned second lieutenant, say, but definitely an officer. Yetsko took the list and looked at it. Like most Literates' guards, he could read, after a fashion. He recognized the names; the boys were all members of the top floor secret society. He went out and gave the list to Martha Collins.

He'd expected some argument with her, but she seemed to accept Ray Pelton's printing as Prestonby's; she began checking room charts and class lists, and calling for the boys to be sent at once to the office. He went out, and down to the 'copter repair shop, where he found that a big four-ton air truck that the senior class had been working on for several weeks was finished.

"That thing been tested, yet?" he asked the instructor.

"Yes; I had it up, myself, this morning. Flew it over to the Bronx and back with a