Larn nodded. "They got bored with the games. Sorry to have to put you through this." He pulled a small rectangle out of his pocket and passed it over Rod's body, head to toe, about six inches in front of him. "Turn around, please."
Resentment smoldered, but Rod complied. After all, he was the one asking for help.
"Okay. Thanks." Larn turned to Gwen. "If you don't mind, Miz?"
An angry refusal leaped to Rod's lips, but Gwen threw him a quick, imploring, determined glance, and he swallowed the words.
Larn scanned Gwen front and back, then Chornoi and Yorick. Finally, he nodded and slipped the rectangle back in his pocket. "All right, no bugs."
Gwen frowned.
"Listening devices," Chornoi explained. "Surveillance."
Gwen's lips formed an O.
"You ought to recognize the setup by now, Major," Yorick said, with a steady gaze.
Rod met that gaze, frowning. Then his eyes widened, and he spun to the manager. "Good grief! You're a Cholly Barman graduate!"
The manager nodded. "And our great and glorious masters of the Proletarian Eclectic State of Terra have decreed that no one is to learn more than basic reading, writing, and arithmetic. Oh, a very small number of very talented students will be allowed to go on through high school, and maybe even college—any society has to have at least a few people to keep the machinery running, and collect the taxes— but the vast majority will never be taught to read anything more than the directions on a food packet."
Yorick nodded. "And, strangely, the children of PEST officials are already almost all included in that small number of 'very talented' chosen to go on in school."
"Despite the fact that some of their parents are total idiots," Chornoi said through clenched teeth.
Rod gazed at the manager. "You're taking quite a risk."
Larn smiled. "I suppose a good lawyer could get me off. All those games out there are just machines. The customers may be learning, but nobody's teaching, right? And they don't learn very much, by the hour."
"Sure, but they spend so many hours at it, that they do learn!"
Lam nodded. "And will keep on learning, for the rest of their lives, I hope. Which is better than spending all their days without anything more than the primary education the law allows."
Rod frowned. "How many of them graduate from the games to the back room?"
"Only about twenty percent. Most of them are very satisfied with the games, which is why we have to keep thinking up more and more challenging ones. But between games, 3DT epics, and song cubes, I think we're getting a good, solid elementary education across to about a third of the population."
" Tis remarkable, surely," Gwen said, "yet can you teach them no more than that?"
Lam shook his head. "Not with the techniques we've worked out so far, though I understand some drunken poet Cholly knows, has come up with some new approaches to epics that're conveying abstract concepts. But the real limitation is learning how to reason—and that takes a live teacher to guide you."
"Yet ere thou canst so guide them, thou must needs bring them to this place of study."
Lam nodded. "The few who do develop real intellectual curiosity are quietly ushered back here to the books, where tutors can guide their reading and develop their thinking abilities through discussions. Education always comes down to the live teacher, right there with the student. Nothing can really replace the human mind."
"And once they have started learning to think," Rod inferred, "they're not too apt to turn you in?"
"No, not terribly." Larn smiled. "But if they do, there's always that lawyer."
"The lawyer can't get you off if the case never goes to court though," Chornoi said softly.
Larn nodded again. "There is that little problem. PEST intends to enforce the laws, even if they're not sure the person's guilty. And if they lock up one innocent man for every three guilty ones, who cares?"
"No one who counts," Rod growled.
"Which means no PEST officials," Chornoi added.
"Except. "^Yorick held up a forefinger. "Except that they're not going to lock 'em up—prisons cost too much. It's a lot cheaper to terminate them."
"Lends a wealth of new meaning to the term 'executive,' doesn't it?" Larn gave him a bleak smile. "However, there is hope, if you can call it that. There're still a lot of jobs that're cheaper to do by hand than by machine—as long as the worker doesn't have to be paid."
"Convict labor." Yorick nodded, lips thin. "Well, it beats execution, I suppose."
"Don't be too sure. For myself, I'd rather not find out the hard way. So let's get you folks helped and moved on, shall we? From the 3DT bulletins, I gather the armsmen are after you, and I don't relish having them as patrons."
"They are," Yorick confirmed. "But behind them are the PEST spies. They're trying to eliminate us."
"Join the club," Larn snorted.
"I did." Chornoi's face was frozen. "But I began to realize that their 'more efficient government' was going to end up being total oppression, so I quit."
Larn shook his head. "Only one way out of the Security Service."
Chornoi nodded. "That's what they're trying for."
Larn gazed at her. Then he gave a bleak smile. "Well, that explains it all nicely. Can't think what I can do to help, though; we can't hide you for more than a few hours—too risky. How about a quick makeup job?"
"That would help." Yorick nodded. "But what we really need, see, is to get into PEST's central headquarters."
"What!!?!"
"I know, I know." Yorick held up a hand. "But we're stranded time-travelers, see, and we think PEST might have a time machine hidden away somewhere in the bowels of its labyrinth."
Larn just stared at him for a minute, then shrugged his shoulders. "Why not? I believe the masses can be educated, don't I? But they've got an outer wall and an inner wall, folks, and all the gates are guarded by lasers that fire if you don't push the right button. The landing pad on top of the building has blasters all around it, and a dozen live guards day and night. I could go on, but I think you get the point; the only way into PEST HQ is to be carried in… as a prisoner."
Yorick looked at Rod. Rod looked at Gwen. They both looked at Chornoi. All four swallowed heavily, and nodded. "Okay," Yorick said. "How do we commit a crime?"
"We could have thought of this ourselves, you know," Chornoi growled as they walked down the concourse.
"But we didn't," Rod reminded her. "That shows we needed help."
Chornoi shook her head. "I still don't like it. Letting myself get caught goes against all my training."
"Yes, but this is a bright new innovation," Yorick pointed out. "This way, getting caught lets you keep control of the situation."
"Keep talking," Chornoi growled, "you may convince me."
Yorick shook his head. "No time. If we're gonna do it, we gotta do it now." He dropped back and, before the other three could quite realize what he was doing, he was pointing at them and shouting, "There they go!"
Everyone walking on the concourse, in both directions, stopped and stared.
Rod felt the old sick sinking feeling in his stomach and the itch between his shoulder blades, where he just knew somebody was aiming a blaser. "Too late now," he growled. "Gotta go through with it! Run!"
They broke into a sprint.
Behind them, Yorick was shouting, "Get them! That's Public Enemy Number One—both of them! And Public Enemy Number Two! Haven't you seen them on 3DT?"
But the passersby only stared at him, then at the fleeing trio. Fear haunted their eyes.
"Oh, f crying out softly!" Yorick growled. "If you want something done right…" And he ran after Rod and the ladies, howling, "Stop them! Stop!"