Any prison is a ticking bomb. Estates-General was in process of going
off.
From the Greensleeves, where the trouble had started, clear out to the
trusty farms that ringed the walls, every inmate was up and jumping.
Some were still in their cells--the scared ones, the decrepit oldsters,
the short-termers who didn't dare risk their early discharge. But for
every man in his cell, a dozen were out and yelling.
A torch, licking as high as the hanging helicopters, blazing up from
the yard--that was the laundry shed. Why burn the laundry? The cons
couldn't have said. It was burnable and it was there--burn it!
The yard lay open to the wrath of the helicopters, but the helicopters
made no move. The cobblestones were solidly covered with milling men.
The guards were on the walls, sighting down their guns; the helicopter
bombardiers had their fingers on the bomb trips. There had been a few
rounds fired over the heads of the rioters, at first.
Nothing since.
In the milling mob, the figures clustered in groups. The inmates from
Honor Block A huddled under the guards' guns at the angle of the wall.
They had clubs--all the inmates had clubs--but they weren't using them.
Honor Block A: On the outside, Civil Service and Professionals. On the
inside, the trusties, the "good" cons.
They weren't the type for clubs.
With all of the inmates, you looked at them and you wondered what
twisted devil had got into their heads to land them in the Jug. Oh,
perhaps you could understand it--a little bit, at least--in the
case of the figgers in Blocks B and C, the greasers in the Shop
Building--that sort. It was easy enough for some of the Categoried
Classes to commit a crime and thereby land in jail.
Who could blame a wipe for trying to "pass" if he thought he could
get away with it? But when he didn't get away with it, he wound up in
the Jug and that was logical enough. And greasers liked Civil-Service
women--everyone knew that.
There was almost a sort of logic to it, even if it was a sort of
inevitable logic that made decent Civil-Service people see red. You
_had_ to enforce the laws against rape if, for instance, a greaser
should ask an innocent young female postal clerk for a date. But you
could understand what drove him to it. The Jug was full of criminals of
that sort. And the Jug was the place for them.
But what about Honor Block A?
Why would a Wilmer Lafon--a certified public architect, a Professional
by category--do his own car repairs and get himself jugged for
malpractice? Why would a dental nurse sneak back into the laboratory at
night and cast an upper plate for her mother? She must have realized
she would be caught.
But she had done it. And she had been caught; and there she was, this
wild night, huddled under the helicopters, uncertainly waving the
handle of a floor mop. It was a club.
She shivered and turned to the stocky convict next to her. "Why don't
they break down the gate?" she demanded. "How long are we going to hang
around here, waiting for the guards to get organized and pick us all
off one at a time?"
The convict next to her sighed and wiped his glasses with a beefy hand.
Once he had been an Income-Tax Accountant, disbarred and convicted on
three counts of impersonating an attorney when he took the liberty of
making changes in a client's lease. He snorted: "They expect us to do
_their_ dirty work."
The two of them glared angrily and fearfully at the other convicts in
the yard.
And the other convicts, huddled greaser with greaser, wipe with wipe,
glared ragingly back. It wasn't _their_ place to plan the strategy of a
prison break.
* * * * *
Captain Liam O'Leary muttered groggily: "They don't want to escape. All
they want is to make trouble. I know cons!"
He came fully awake and sat up and focused his eyes. His head was
hammering.
That girl, that Bradley, was leaning over him. She looked scared and
sick. "Sit still! Sauer is just plain crazy--listen to them yelling out
there!"
O'Leary sat up and looked around, one hand holding his drumming skull.
"They _do_ want to escape," said Sue-Ann Bradley. "Listen to what
they're saying!"
* * * * *
O'Leary discovered that he was in a cell. There was a battle going on
outside. Men were yelling, but he couldn't see them.