this?" he asked Claire. "Then hang onto it, and stay close to your
father. This wasn't any accident, it was a deliberate attempt on his
life. I'll have a couple of store cops sent in here; see that they
stay with you."

He gave her no chance to argue. Pushing Latterman ahead of him, he
drove through the mob of clerks outside the door.

"... Course she can; didn't you see her open the safe?" he heard.
"... Nobody but a Literate--" "Then she's a Literate, herself!"

A couple of centuries ago, they would have talked like that if it had
been discovered that the girl were pregnant; a couple of centuries
before that, they would have been equally horrified if she had been
discovered to have been a Protestant, or a Catholic, or whatever the
locally unpopular religion happened to be. By noon, this would be all
over Penn-Jersey-York; coming on top of Slade Gardner's accusations--

* * * * *

He ran up the spiral escalator, stumbling and regaining his footing as
he left it. Bayne and his striking Literates were all gone; he saw a
sergeant of Pelton's store police and went toward him, taking his
spare identity-badge from his pocket.

"Here," he said, handing it to the sergeant. "Get another officer, and
go down to Pelton's office. Show it to Miss Pelton, and tell her I
sent you. There's been an attempt on Chester Pelton's life; you're to
stay with him. Use your own judgment, but don't let anybody, and that
definitely includes Russell Latterman, get at him. If you see anything