"You been looking for trouble. O'Leary says you were messing around
with the bucks from the laundry detail," Sodaro said halfheartedly.
But he didn't really like picking on Lafon, who was, after all, an
agreeable inmate to have on occasion. "All right. Where's the coffee?"
They didn't bother with tanglefoot fields in Honor Block A. Sodaro just
unlocked the door and walked in, hardly bothering to look at Lafon. He
took three steps toward the neat little desk at the back of the cell,
where Lafon had rigged up a drawing board and a table, where Lafon kept
his little store of luxury goods.
Three steps.
And then, suddenly aware that Lafon was very close to him, he turned,
astonished--a little too late. He saw that Lafon had snatched up a
metal chair; he saw Lafon swinging it, his black face maniacal; he saw
the chair coming down.
He reached for his shoulder holster, but it was very much too late for
that.
V
Captain O'Leary dragged the scared little wretch into the warden's
office. He shook the con angrily. "Listen to this, Warden! The boys
just brought this one in from the Shops Building. Do you know what he's
been up to?"
The warden wheezed sadly and looked away. He had stopped even answering
O'Leary by now. He had stopped talking to Sauer on the interphone when
the big convict called, every few minutes, to rave and threaten and
demand a doctor. He had almost stopped doing everything except worry
and weep. But--still and all, he was the warden. He was the one who
gave the orders.
O'Leary barked: "Warden, this little greaser has bollixed up the whole
tangler circuit for the prison. If the cons get out into the yard now,
you won't be able to tangle them. You know what that means? They'll
have the freedom of the yard, and who knows what comes next?"
The warden frowned sympathetically. "Tsk, tsk."
O'Leary shook the con again. "Come on, Hiroko! Tell the warden what you
told the guards."
The con shrank away from him. Sweat was glistening on his furrowed
yellow forehead. "I--I had to do it, Cap'n! I shorted the wormcan in
the tangler subgrid, but I had to! I got a signal--'Bollix the grid
tonight or some day you'll be in the yard and we'll static you!' What
could I do, Cap'n? I didn't want to--"
O'Leary pressed: "Who did the signal come from?"
The con only shook his head, perspiring still more.
The warden asked faintly: "What's he saying?"
O'Leary rolled his eyes to heaven. And this was the warden--couldn't
even understand shoptalk from the mouths of his own inmates!
He translated: "He got orders from the prison underground to
short-circuit the electronic units in the tangler circuit. They
threatened to kill him if he didn't."
The warden drummed with his fingers on the desk.
"The tangler field, eh? My, yes. That is important. You'd better get it
fixed, O'Leary. Right away."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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