Astounding British Edition, Vol. 9, No. 7 — page 17: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

NULL-ABC 15 “Smart work, Goodkin,” he approved. “Don’t let any of your boys start the gun- play. The city cops are beginning to get wise to who’s going to win the election, tomorrow, but don’t antagonize them. But if any of those Ku Kluxers tries to pull a gun, don’t waste time trying to wing him. Just hold on to that fiery something-or-other on his chest and let him have it, and let the coroner worry about him.” “Yeah. With pleasure,” Goodkin re- plied. “You know, that nightshirt thing they wear is about the stupidest idea for a stormtroop uniform I ever saw. Natural target in a gunfight, and in a rough-and- tumble it gets them all tangled up. Ah, there go a couple of coppers to talk to them; that’s what they've been waiting on. Now they can beat it without looking like they been run out by our gang.” Cardon nodded. “Tell your boys to stay around for a while; they may expect you to leave right after they do, and then they'll try to slip back. You did a good job; got here promptly. Be seeing you, Goodkin.” He climbed into his own ’copter and started the motor. “Put the Literates in their place! the tri-dimensional colossus roared triumph- antly after the retreating Independents. “Our servants, not our masters!” At eight thousand, he got the ’copter onto the lower Manhattan beam and re- laxed. First of all, he’d have to do some- thing about answering Slade Gardner’s telecast propaganda. That stuff was dangerous. The answer ought to go on the air by noon, and should be stepped up through the afternoon. First as a straight news story; Elliot Mongery had fifteen minutes, beginning at 1215—no, that wouldn’t do. Mongery’s sponsor for that time was Atomflame Heaters, and Atomflame was a subsidiary of Canada Northwest Fissionables, and Canada Northwest was umbilicus-deep in that Kettle River lease graft that Pelton had sworn to get investigated as soon as he took office. Professional ethics wouldn’t allow Mongery to say anything in Pelton’s behalf on Atomflame’s time. Well, there was Guthrie Parham, he came on at 1245, and his sponsor was all right. He’d call Parham and tell him what he wanted done. The buzzer warned him that he was approaching the lower Manhattan beacon; he shifted to manual control, dropped down to the three-thousand-foot level, and set his selector beam for the signal from Pelton’s Purchasers’ Paradise. Down toward the tip of the island, in the section that had been rebuilt after that Stalin Mark XV _ guided missile had gotten through the counter-rocket defenses in 1987, he could see the quadrate cross of his goal, with public landing stages on each of the four arms, and the higher central block with its landing stage for freight and store personnel. Above the four public stages, helicopters swarmed like May flies—May flies which had mutated and invented ritual or military. drill or choreography—coming in in four streams to the tips of the arms and rising vertically from the middle. There was about ten times the normal amount of traffic for this early in the morning. He wondered, briefly, then remembered and cursed. That infernal sale! Grudgingly, he respected Russell Latter- man’s smartness, and in consequence, the ability of Wilton Joyner and Harvey Graves in selecting a good agent to plant in Pelton’s store. Latterman gave a plaus- ible impersonation of the Illiterate busi- nessman, loyal Prime Minister of Pelton’s commercial empire, Generalissimo in the perpetual war against Macy & Gimbel’s. From that viewpoint, the sale was ex- cellent business—Latterman had gotten the jump on all the other department stores for the winter fashions and fall sports trade. He had also turned the store into.a madhouse at the exact time when Chester Pelton needed to give all his attention to the election. | Pressing the button that put on his private recognition signal, he rose above the incoming customers and began to drop toward the private landing stage, circling to get a view of the other four stages. Maybe the sale could be turned to some advantage, at that. A free sou- venir with each purchase, carrying a Pelton-for-Senator picture-message— _ He broke off, peering down at the five- hundred-foot-square landing stage above oO Gomichooks:com