Sue-Ann Bradley's weeping now was genuine. She simply could not help
it. The crazy yowling of the hard-timers, Sauer and Flock, was getting
under her skin. They weren't even--even _human_, she told herself
miserably, trying to weep silently so as not to give the guards the
satisfaction of hearing her--they were animals!
Resentment and anger, she could understand. She told herself doggedly
that resentment and anger were natural and right. They were perfectly
normal expressions of the freedom-loving citizen's rebellion against
the vile and stifling system of Categoried Classes. It was _good_ that
Sauer and Flock still had enough spirit to struggle against the vicious
system--
But did they have to scream so?
The senseless yelling was driving her crazy. She abandoned herself to
weeping and she didn't even care who heard her any more. Senseless!
It never occurred to Sue-Ann Bradley that it might not be senseless,
because noise hides noise. But then she hadn't been a prisoner very
long.
III
"I smell trouble," said O'Leary to the warden.
"Trouble? Trouble?" Warden Schluckebier clutched his throat and his
little round eyes looked terrified--as perhaps they should have. Warden
Godfrey Schluckebier was the almighty Caesar of ten thousand inmates in
the Jug, but privately he was a fussy old man trying to hold onto the
last decent job he would have in his life.
"Trouble? _What_ trouble?"
O'Leary shrugged. "Different things. You know Lafon, from Block A? This
afternoon, he was playing ball with the laundry orderlies in the yard."
The warden, faintly relieved, faintly annoyed, scolded: "O'Leary, what
did you want to worry me for? There's nothing wrong with playing ball
in the yard. That's what recreation periods are for."
"You don't see what I mean, Warden. Lafon was a professional on the
outside--an architect. Those laundry cons were laborers. Pros and wipes
don't mix; it isn't natural. And there are other things."
O'Leary hesitated, frowning. How could you explain to the warden that
it didn't _smell_ right?
"For instance--Well, there's Aunt Mathias in the women's block. She's
a pretty good old girl--that's why she's the block orderly. She's a
lifer, she's got no place to go, she gets along with the other women.
But today she put a woman named Bradley on report. Why? Because she
told Bradley to mop up in wipe talk and Bradley didn't understand. Now
Mathias wouldn't--"
The warden raised his hand. "Please, O'Leary, don't bother me about
that kind of stuff." He sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. He poured
himself a cup of steaming black coffee from a brewpot, reached in a
desk drawer for something, hesitated, glanced at O'Leary, then dropped
a pale blue tablet into the cup. He drank it down eagerly, ignoring the
scalding heat.
He leaned back, looking suddenly happier and much more assured.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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