"From Major Slater; call came in about ten minutes ago," he said. Cardon snapped the disk into his recorder-reproducer and put in the ear plug. "Frank," Slater's voice came out of the small machine. "You'd better get busy, or you won't have any candidate when the polls open tomorrow. Just got a call from Pelton's store--place infiltrated by goons, estimated strength two hundred, presumed Independent-Conservatives. Serious rioting already going on; I'm taking my reserve company there. And if you haven't found out, yet, where China is, it's on the third floor, next to Glassware." Cardon pulled out the ear plug, stuffed the recorder into his trouser pocket, and began unbuckling his Sam Browne as he ran for the nearest wall visiphone. He was dialing the guard room on that floor with one hand as he took off the belt. "Get a big ambulance on the roof, with a Literate medic and orderly-driver," he ordered, unbuttoning his smock. "And four guards, plain clothes if possible, but don't waste time changing clothes if you don't have anybody out of uniform. Heavy-duty sono guns, sleep-gas projectors, gas masks and pistols. Hurry." He threw the smock and belt at the guard. "Here, Pancho; put these away for me. Thanks." He tossed the last word back over his shoulder as he ran for the escalator. [Illustration:] It was three eternal minutes after he had reached the landing stage above before the ambulance arrived, medic and orderly on the front seat and the four guards, all in conservatively cut civilian clothes, inside. He crowded in beside the medic, told him, "Pelton's store," and snapped the door shut as the big white 'copter began to rise. They climbed to five thousand feet, and then the driver nosed his vehicle up, cut his propeller and retracted it, and fired his rocket, aiming toward downtown Manhattan. Four minutes later, after the rocket stopped firing and they were on the down-curve of their trajectory, the propeller was erected and they began letting down toward the central landing stage of Pelton's Purchasers' Paradise. Cardon cut in the TV and began calling the control tower. "Ambulance, to evacuate Mr. Pelton," he called. "What's the score, down there?" One of Pelton's traffic-control men appeared on Cardon's screen. "You're safe to land on the central stage, but you'd better come in at a long angle from the north," he said. "We control the north public stage, but the east and south stages are in the hands of the goons; they'd fire on you. Land beside that big pile of boxes under tarpaulins up here, but be careful; it's fireworks we didn't have time to get into storage."