SEN wandered through the crowded corridors, lost in the ever-stampeding masses of people who made the shopping levels a chaos of frenzied bodies rushing, rushing in response to the goadings from overhead:
“Today only, red dendrites are only fifty credits. Buy now.”
“The consumer has the factor of advantage.”
“Did you repent today?”
SEN let the torrent of rushing bodies carry him along wherever it wanted to. He had no place to go. Once in a while he would see the shining white helmet of a police robot standing well above the heads of the masses. But the robots never came after him. In these pell-mell mobs, the robots couldn’t even see him, SEN knew.
At Mercicontrol, another dispatcher—different from the one who was following THX and SRT and yet very much the same—received an analysis on his main viewscreen. “On the monk found dead in Cathedral 090. Statistical analysis shows the only known felon observed within reasonable range of that location/time complex is 5241 prefix SEN. Presume guilty unless otherwise proven.”
The dispatcher nodded agreement and tapped out a bulletin on his keyboard that would add the murder to SEN’s record.
“What are the latest reports on 5241 prefix SEN?”
“Visual contact at Habot 25, Con H DS 947. Contact broken at 1438.”
“Tracking information doesn’t match Harris profile of 5241 prefix SEN. Are you sure you’re following the right man?”
“Computer correlation to point eight.”
“Okay, okay. Keep all observers looking for him. Mark him dangerous.”
The dispatcher nodded again and resumed working his keyboard.
SEN drifted aimlessly in the busy roaring crowd. If only there were time… time to think… to rest… When he thought his head would split from the noise and bruisings of the crowd, he tried to edge his way out of the main flow of the pedestrian thoroughfare, toward a prayer booth or a rest area—anything, as long as there was some quiet and rest.
He found an open corridor entrance along the edge of the main thoroughfare wall and, pushing himself free of the rushing crowd, staggered out into the empty corridor. It led to a school plaza—a restful little plaza with space to spare, a bench to sit on, and no taped announce- ments or glitter-eyed shoppers.
The school itself was half a level above, connected to the plaza by moving stairways. Children were scattered all around the plaza, playing intensely at quiet, ordered, meaningful games. No teacher or supervisor was in sight, but still the children didn’t raise thek voices or run or get themselves dirty.
Taped to each child’s arm was a plastic vial filled with a yellowish fluid. A connector tube fed the fluid into the main vein of the forearm.
SEN sat, exhausted, on a bench off to one side of the plaza. He watched the children playing their solemn little games, his mind a blank. When there is too much to think on, too much to remember, it feels good to blank it all out, to pretend none of it exists. For a while, at least.
His body began to relax. Cramped tense muscles were easing, the fluttering in his stomach was fading away. SEN almost felt as if he wanted to smile.
One of the children approached him, his face very grave.
“My inducer fell off.”
SEN blinked at him. “What?”
The boy held out his left arm. The plastic vial was gone. SEN could see the outlines of where the tape had held it on.
“Oh, I see…”
The boy had the vial in his other hand. The tape was still connected to it, but torn raggedly along one edge.
“OPA 3114 knocked it off,” the boy said.
“Really?”
“He didn’t mean to.”
SEN took the vial from the boy’s hand. It was marked Advanced Primary Economics 5867H. A drop of the yellow liquid trickled out of the dangling connector tube.
“Look out!” the boy snapped, and reached for the tube to pinch it shut.
“Oh… I’m sorry… here, let me get it back on for you.”
He taped the vial onto the boy’s arm and plugged the connector into the acceptor tube that poked out from the skin of his forearm.
“There, that should do it. You’ll have the whole course digested by sleep time.” SEN smiled at the boy like an indulgent uncle.
A bigger, older boy came trotting over. “Come on, we’re going to play stochastics…” He eyed SEN. “What are you doing here? Where’s your badge?”
SEN shrugged. “I’m… I’m an escaped felon.”
The two boys’ eyes bugged wide.
“You’re not! Why aren’t you arrested?”
Another shrug. “I will be… sooner or later.”
They didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but they were plainly fascinated.
“What did you do? How did you escape?”
SEN chuckled at them. “Now, now… it’s nothing for your tender ears to listen to.” He tapped the vial on the first boy’s arm. “When I was in school it was all different. We had to lie in bed all the time. Advanced primary economics was a bottle about this big—” He spread his hands about the width of his shoulders. “It took a week to digest it!”
“Wow!”
An observer, making a routine scan of the school plaza, spotted him. In his earphones he was hearing a police dispatcher saying:
“Lost contact with 1138. An unidentified felon is traveling with him. Will transfer further information when available.”
The observer ran a crosscheck on all known fugitives. The man in the school plaza was without a badge. When SEN’s picture turned up on one of the screens, the observer dialed a closeup of the man in the plaza.
“Visual contact with 5241 prefix SEN,” he spoke into his lip mike. “Habot 25 Con H, PS947.”
Voices crackled in his earphones.
“PS947? Is he molesting the children?”
“Not yet.”
“Request PB 848: officer 1088 proceed with recovery of felon 5241 SEN. Use caution, protect children. Current position Habot 25, Con H, PS947.”
“Negative sweep of Con J, Section H.”
“If 5241SEN is not the unidentified felon traveling with 1138THX, then who the hell is he?”
“Better get analysis to worry that one.”
“Will comply.”
SEN had attracted most of the children in the plaza by now. They were clustered around htm. The first boy was reciting from his lessons, but the older boy corrected:
“No… impresses on each of us.”
“That’s not how it goes.”
“Yes it is,” the older boy said, drawing himself up to dominate the younger child physically.
“Now, now,” said SEN. “Don’t argue. Go on, continue the lesson.”
The younger boy singsonged, “There are no other rational alternatives in this way. We eliminate the economic function generated by the contrast of separate but compatible energies…”
“Elements! Compatible elements,” the older boy said.
“Energies!”
“There, there,” SEN soothed.
“I know the whole text by heart,” the younger boy said proudly. “I got a perfect mark on my test…” Then, a little wistfully, “I wish I knew what it meant. All those words…”
A chrome robot came down the moving staircase. SEN saw it and stood up. The children, turning to follow his gaze, flowed back away from him silently as the robot approached.
“SEN 5241,” the robot said.
“Yes.”
Smoothly, almost gently, the robot turned SEN around and pulled his arms behind his back. He taped SEN’S hands together at the wrists, then taped his mouth and eyes and led him off. The children stood there for a long, long moment and watched SEN being led off by the policeman, back up the escalator.
“See?” said the younger boy. “I told you he really was a felon.”