The instructor called a Literates' guard and gave him instructions. Yetsko went to the guards' squad room on the second floor, where he found half a dozen of the reserves loafing. "All right; you guys start earning your pay," he said. "We're going to a party." The men got to their feet and began gathering their weapons. "Mason," he continued, "you have your big 'copter here; the gang of you can all get in it. I'm taking off in a four-ton truck, with some of these kids. I want you boys to follow us. We're going to Pelton's store. There's a fight going on there, and the captain's in the middle of it. We gotta get him out." They all looked at him in puzzled surprise, but nobody gave him any argument. Funny, now that he thought of it; it had been quite a long time since anybody had ever given him any argument about anything. A couple of guys out in Pittsburgh had tried it, but somehow they'd lost interest in arguing, after a little-- When he returned to the office and opened the door, a blast of shots greeted him through the open door of Prestonby's private office. He had his pistol out before he realized that the shooting was going on at Pelton's Purchasers' Paradise, ten miles away. Literate Martha Collins, in the inner room, was fairly screaming: "Shut that infernal thing off and listen to me!" The dozen-odd boys whom Ray had recruited for the improvised relief-expedition were pulling weapons out of the gun locker, pawing through the boxes on the ammunition shelf, trying to explain to one another the working of machine carbines and burp guns. Yetsko shouldered through them and turned down the sound volume of the TV. "This is absolutely outrageous!" Literate Martha Collins stormed at him. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, taking these children to a murderous battle like that--" "Well, maybe it ain't right, using savages in a civilized riot," Yetsko admitted, "but I don't care. The captain's in a jam, and I'd use live devils, if I could catch a few." He took a burp gun from one of the boys, who had opened the action and couldn't get it closed again. "Here; you kids don't want this kinda stuff," he reproved. "Sono guns, and sleep-gas guns, that's all right. But these things are killing tools!" "It's what we'll have to use, Doug," Ray told him. "Things have been happening, since you went out. Look at the screen." Yetsko looked, and swore blisteringly. Then he gave the burp gun back to the boy. "Look; you gotta press this little gismo, here, to let the action shut when there's no clip in, or when the clip's empty. When you got a loaded clip in, you just pull back on this and let go--" * * * * *