Hawkes fished a coin out of his pocket and tossed it up. "Heads for
Overshoot," he said, and caught the coin on the back of his left hand.
He peered at it. "Heads it is. We take the Overshoot. This way."
They ducked into the lobby of the nearest building and took the elevator
to the top floor. Hawkes stopped a man in a blue uniform and said,
"Where's the nearest Shoot pickup?"
"Take the North Corridor bridge across to the next building. The
pickup's there."
"Right."
Hawkes led the way down the corridor, up a staircase, and through a
door. With sudden alarm Alan found himself on one of the bridges linking
the skyscrapers. The bridge was no more than a ribbon of plastic with
handholds at each side; it swayed gently in the breeze.
"You better not look down," Hawkes said. "It's fifty stories to the
bottom."
Alan kept his eyes stiffly forward. There was a good-sized crowd
gathered on the top of the adjoining building, and he saw a metal
platform of some kind.
A vender came up to them. Alan thought he might be selling tickets, but
instead he held forth a tray of soft drinks. Hawkes bought one; Alan
started to say he didn't want one when he felt a sharp kick in his
ankle, and he hurriedly changed his mind and produced a coin.
When the vender was gone, Hawkes said, "Remind me to explain rotation to
you when we get aboard the Shoot. And here it comes now."
Alan turned and saw a silvery torpedo come whistling through the air and
settle in the landing-rack of the platform; it looked like a jet-powered
vessel of some kind. A line formed, and Hawkes stuffed a ticket into
Alan's hand.
"I have a month's supply of them," he explained. "It's cheaper that
way."
They found a pair of seats together and strapped themselves in. With a
roar and a hiss the Overshoot blasted away from the landing platform,
and almost immediately came to rest on another building some distance
away.
"We've just travelled about half a mile," Hawkes said. "This ship really
moves."
A jet-propelled omnibus that travelled over the roofs of the buildings,
Alan thought. Clever. He said, "Isn't there any public surface
transportation in the city?"
"Nope. It was all banned about fifty years ago, on account of the
congestion. Taxis and everything. You can still use a private car in
some parts of the city, of course, but the only people who own them are
those who like to impress their neighbors. Most of us take the Undertube
or the Overshoot to get around."
The Shoot blasted off from its third stop and picked up passengers at
its fourth. Alan glanced up front and saw the pilot peering over an
elaborate radar setup.
"Westbound Shoots travel a hundred feet over the roof-tops, eastbound
ones two hundred. There hasn't been a major accident in years. But about
this rotation--that's part of our new economic plan."
"Which is?"
"_Keep the money moving!_ Saving's discouraged. Spending's the thing
now. The guilds are really pushing it. Instead of buying one piece of
fruit from a vender, buy two. Spend, spend, spend! It's a little tough
on the people in Free Status--we don't offer anything for sale, so we
don't benefit much--but we don't amount to one per cent of the
population, so who cares about us?"
"You mean it's sort of subversive not to spend money, is that it?" Alan
asked.
Hawkes nodded. "You get in trouble if you're too openly penny-pinching.
Keep the credits flowing; that's the way to be popular around here."
That had been his original mistake, Alan thought. He saw he had a lot to
learn about this strange, unfriendly world if he were going to stay here
long. He wondered if anyone had missed him back at the Enclave, yet.
Maybe it won't take too long to find Steve, he thought. I should have
left a note for Dad explaining I'd be back. But----
"Here we are," Hawkes said, nudging him. The door in the Overshoot's
side opened and they got out quickly. They were on another rooftop.
Ten minutes later they stood outside an immense building whose walls
were sleek slabs of green pellucite, shining with a radiant inner warmth
of their own. The building must have been a hundred stories high, or
more. It terminated in a burnished spire.
"This is it," Hawkes said. "The Central Directory Building. We'll try
the Standard Matrix first."
A little dizzy, Alan followed without discussing the matter. Hawkes led
him through a vast lobby big enough to hide the _Valhalla_ in, past
throngs of Earthers, into a huge hall lined on all sides by computer
banks.
"Let's take this booth here," Hawkes suggested. They stepped into it;
the door clicked shut automatically behind them. There was a row of
blank forms in a metal rack against the inside of the door.
Hawkes pulled one out. Alan looked at it. It said, CENTRAL DIRECTORY
MATRIX INFORMATION REQUISITION 1067432. STANDARD SERIES.
Hawkes took a pen from the rack. "We have to fill this out. What's your
brother's full name?"
"Steve Donnell." He spelled it.
"Year of birth?"
Alan paused. "3576," he said finally.
Hawkes frowned, but wrote it down that way.
"Work card number--well, we don't know that. And they want five or six
other numbers too. We'll just have to skip them. Better give me a full
physical description as of the last time you saw him."
Alan thought a moment. "He looked pretty much like me. Height 73 inches,
weight 172 or so, reddish-blonde hair, and so on."
"Don't you have a gene-record?"