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My Lady Greensleeves - Frederik Pohl · X Minus One Project

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  Speaker 1: Chapter one of My Lady Greensleeves by Frederick Pohle. This
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  Speaker 1: is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the
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  Speaker 1: public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox dot org. Read by Ben Tucker. My Lady Greensleeves
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  Speaker 1: by Frederick pohl One. His name was Liam O'Leary, and
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  Speaker 1: there was something stinking in his nostrils. It was the
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  Speaker 1: smell of trouble. He hadn't found what the trouble was yet,
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  Speaker 1: but he would. That was his business. He was a
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  Speaker 1: captain of guards in a state's General Correctional Institution, better
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  Speaker 1: known to its inmates as the Jug and if he
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been able to detect the scent of trouble brewing
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  Speaker 1: a cell block away, he would never have survived to
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  Speaker 1: reach his captaincy. And her name he saw was Sue
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  Speaker 1: Anne Bradley, detainee number w F A DASH six five
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  Speaker 1: six R at the rap sheet, trying to figure out
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  Speaker 1: what got a girl like her into a place like this,
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  Speaker 1: and what was more important, why she couldn't just adjust
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  Speaker 1: herself to it now that she was in, he demanded,
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  Speaker 1: why wouldn't you mop out your cell. The girl lifted
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  Speaker 1: her head angrily and took a step forward. The block guard,
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  Speaker 1: Sadaro growled, warningly, watch it, Auntie O'Leary shook his head.
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  Speaker 1: Let her talk, Sadaro. It said in the Civil Service
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  Speaker 1: Guide to Prison Administration, detainees will be permitted to speak
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  Speaker 1: in their own behalf in disciplinary proceedings. And O'Leary was
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  Speaker 1: a man who lived by the book. She burst out,
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  Speaker 1: I never got a chance. That old witch Matthias never
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  Speaker 1: told me I was supposed to mop up. She banged
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  Speaker 1: on the door and said, slush up, sister. And then
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  Speaker 1: ten minutes later she called the guards and told him
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  Speaker 1: I refused to mop The block guard guffawed, white tuck,
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  Speaker 1: that's what she was telling you, too, Captain. You know
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  Speaker 1: what's funny about this, this Bradley's shut up Saddaro. Captain
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  Speaker 1: O'Leary put down his pencil and looked at the girl.
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  Speaker 1: She was attractive and young, not beyond hope. Surely maybe
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  Speaker 1: she had got off to a wrong start, But the
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  Speaker 1: question was would putting her in the disciplinary block help
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  Speaker 1: straighten her out? He rubbed his ear and looked past
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  Speaker 1: her at the line of prisoners on the rap detail
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  Speaker 1: waiting for him to judge their cases. He said patiently, Bradley,
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  Speaker 1: the rules are you have to mop out your cell.
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  Speaker 1: If you didn't understand what Matthias was talking about, you
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  Speaker 1: should have asked her. Now I'm warning you the next time. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: cap'n wait, said Arra was looking alarmed. This isn't the
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  Speaker 1: first offense. Look at the rap sheet. Yesterday she pulled
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  Speaker 1: the same thing in the mess hall. He shook his
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  Speaker 1: head reprovingly at the prisoner. The block guard had to
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  Speaker 1: break up a fight between her and another wench, and
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  Speaker 1: she claimed the same business. Said she didn't understand when
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  Speaker 1: the other one asked her to move along, he added virtuously.
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  Speaker 1: The guard warned her then that the next time she'd
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  Speaker 1: get the green sleeves for sure. Inmate Bradley seemed to
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  Speaker 1: be on the verge of tears. She said tautly, I
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  Speaker 1: don't care. I don't care. O'Leary stopped her. That's enough
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  Speaker 1: three days in block. Oh. It was the only thing
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  Speaker 1: to do for her own sake as much as for his.
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  Speaker 1: He had managed, by strength of will not to hear
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  Speaker 1: that she had omitted to say sir every time she
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  Speaker 1: spoke to him, But he couldn't keep it up forever,
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  Speaker 1: and he certainly couldn't overlook hysteria, and hysteria was clearly
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  Speaker 1: the next step for her. All the same, he stared
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  Speaker 1: after her as she left. He handed the rap sheet
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  Speaker 1: to Sadaro and said, absently, too bad, a kid like
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  Speaker 1: her has to be here. What's she in for? You
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  Speaker 1: didn't know, cap'n. Sadaro leered, she's in for conspiracy to
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  Speaker 1: violate the categorized class loss. Don't waste her time with her, cap'n.
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  Speaker 1: She's a figure lover. Captain O'Leary took a long drink
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  Speaker 1: of water from the fountain marked civil Service, but it
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  Speaker 1: didn't wash the taste out of his mouth, the smell
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  Speaker 1: from his nose. What got into a girl to get
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  Speaker 1: her mixed up with that kind of dirty business. He
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  Speaker 1: checked out of the cell blocks and walked across the yard,
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  Speaker 1: wondering about her. She had had every advantage, decent civil
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  Speaker 1: service parents, a good education, everything a girl could wish for.
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  Speaker 1: If anything, she had had a better environment than O'Leary himself,
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  Speaker 1: and look what she had made of it. The direction
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  Speaker 1: of evolution is towards specialization, and man is no exception.
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  Speaker 1: But with the difference that his is the one species
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  Speaker 1: that creates its own environment in which to specialize. From
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  Speaker 1: the moment that clan's form, specialization began the hunters using
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  Speaker 1: the weapons made by the flint chippers, the food cooked
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  Speaker 1: in clay pots made by the seramists over fire made
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  Speaker 1: by the shaman who guarded the sacred flame. Civilization merely
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  Speaker 1: increased the extent of specialization from the born mechanic in
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  Speaker 1: the man with the gift of gab. Society evolved to
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  Speaker 1: the point of smaller contact and less communication between the specializations,
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  Speaker 1: until now they could under stand each other on only
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  Speaker 1: the most basic physical necessities, and not even always then.
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  Speaker 1: But this was desirable for the more specialists the higher
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  Speaker 1: degree of civilization. The ultimate should be the complete segregation
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  Speaker 1: of each specialization social and genetic measures to make them
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  Speaker 1: breed true, because the unspecialized man is an uncivilized man,
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  Speaker 1: or at any rate, he does not advance civilization, and
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  Speaker 1: letting the specialization's mix would produce genetic undesirables clerk laborer
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  Speaker 1: or professional gi misfits. For example, being only half specialized
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  Speaker 1: would be good at no specialization. And the basis of
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  Speaker 1: this specialization society was the aptitude groups are the true
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  Speaker 1: races of mankind. Putting it into law was the only
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  Speaker 1: legal enforcement of a demonstrable fact. Evening, cap'n oblitery old
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  Speaker 1: inmate orderly stood up straight and touched his cap as
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  Speaker 1: O'Leary passed by. Evening O'Leary noted with the part of
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  Speaker 1: his mind that always noted those things that the orderly
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  Speaker 1: had been leaning on his broom until he had noticed
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  Speaker 1: the captain coming by. Of course, there wasn't much to sweep.
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  Speaker 1: The spray machines and sweeper dozers had been over the
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  Speaker 1: cobblestones of the yard twice already that day. But it
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  Speaker 1: was an inmate's job to keep busy, and it was
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  Speaker 1: a guard captain's job to notice when they didn't. There
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  Speaker 1: wasn't anything wrong with that job, he told himself. It
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  Speaker 1: was a perfectly good civil service position, better than post
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  Speaker 1: office clerk, not as good as congressmen, but a job
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  Speaker 1: you could be proud to hold. He was proud of it.
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  Speaker 1: It was right that he should be proud of it.
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  Speaker 1: He was civil service born and bred, and naturally he
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  Speaker 1: was proud and content to do a good, clean, civil
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  Speaker 1: service job. If he had happened to be born a
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  Speaker 1: fig a clerk, he corrected himself. If he had happened
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  Speaker 1: to be born a clerk, why he would have been
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  Speaker 1: proud of that too. There wasn't anything wrong with being
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  Speaker 1: a clerk, or a cannon, or a soldier, or even
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  Speaker 1: a laborer for that matter. Good laborers were the salt
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  Speaker 1: of the earth. They weren't smart, maybe, but they had
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  Speaker 1: a well, a sort of natural, relaxed joy of living.
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  Speaker 1: O'Leary was a broad minded man, and many times he
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  Speaker 1: had thought, almost with a touch of envy, how comfortable
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  Speaker 1: it must be to wipe a laborer. No responsibilities, no worries,
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  Speaker 1: just an easy, slow routine of work and loaf, work
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  Speaker 1: and love. Of course, he wouldn't really want that kind
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  Speaker 1: of life, because he was a civil service and not
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  Speaker 1: the kind to try to cross over class barriers that
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  Speaker 1: weren't meant to be. Evening, cap'n He nodded to the
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  Speaker 1: mechanic inmate, who was theoretically in charge of maintaining the
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  Speaker 1: prison's carpool just inside the gate. Evening, Conan, he said, Conan,
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  Speaker 1: Now he was a big buck greaser, and he would
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  Speaker 1: be there for the next hour, languidly poking a piece
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  Speaker 1: of fluff out of the air filter on the prison.
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  Speaker 1: Keep Lazy Shore undependable, certainly, but he kept the cars going.
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  Speaker 1: And O'Leary thought approvingly, when his sentence was up in
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  Speaker 1: another year or so, he would go back to his
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  Speaker 1: life with his status restored, a mechanic on the outside
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  Speaker 1: as he had been inside. And he certainly would never
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  Speaker 1: risk coming back to the jug by trying to pass
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  Speaker 1: his civil service or anything else. He knew his place.
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  Speaker 1: So why didn't this girl, this Sue Anne Bradley know hers?
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  Speaker 1: End of chapter one, chapter two of My Lady Greensleeves
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  Speaker 1: by Frederick Pohl. This LibriVox recordings in the public domain. Two.
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  Speaker 1: Every prison has its green sleeves. Sometimes they are called
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  Speaker 1: by different names. Old Marquette called it the canary. Louisiana
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  Speaker 1: State called it the red hats. Elsewhere it was called
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  Speaker 1: the hole, the snake pit, the klondike. When you're in it,
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  Speaker 1: you don't much care what it's called. It is a
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  Speaker 1: place for punishment, and punishment is what you get. Block Oh,
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  Speaker 1: in a state's general correctional institution was the disciplinary block,
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  Speaker 1: and because of the green strait jackets, its inhabitants wore.
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  Speaker 1: It was called the Green Sleeves. It was a community
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  Speaker 1: of its own, an enclave within the larger city state
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  Speaker 1: that was the Jug, and like any other community, it
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  Speaker 1: had its leading citizens. Two of them. Their names were A,
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  Speaker 1: Sour and Flock. Sue Anne Bradley heard them before she
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  Speaker 1: reached the Green Sleeves. She was in a detachment of
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  Speaker 1: three unfortunates like herself, convoyed by an irritable guard, climbing
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  Speaker 1: the steel steps toward Block O from the floor below.
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  Speaker 1: When she heard the yelling, A screamed Sour from one
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  Speaker 1: end of the cell block, and Yao shrieked Flock at
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  Speaker 1: the other. The inside deck guard of Block O looked
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  Speaker 1: nervously at the outside deck guard. The outside guard looked
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  Speaker 1: impassively back, after all, he was on the outside. The
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  Speaker 1: inside guard muttered, why brats, they're getting on my nerves.
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  Speaker 1: The outside guard shrugged detail hat. The two guards turned
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  Speaker 1: to see what was coming in as the three new
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  Speaker 1: candidates for the Green Sleeves slumped to a stop at
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  Speaker 1: the head of the stairs. Here they are, said Arrow
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  Speaker 1: told them, take good care of them, will you, especially
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  Speaker 1: the lady. She's gonna like it here because there's plenty
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  Speaker 1: of wipes and greases and figures to keep a company.
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  Speaker 1: He laughed coarsely and abandoned his charges to the Block
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  Speaker 1: O guards. The outside guard said sourly, a woman. For
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  Speaker 1: God's sake, No O'Leary knows, I hate it when there's
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  Speaker 1: a woman in here against the others all riled up.
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  Speaker 1: Let him in. The inside guard told him, the others
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  Speaker 1: are all riled up already. Sue Anne Bradley looked carefully
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  Speaker 1: at the floor and paid them no attention. The outside
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  Speaker 1: guard pulled the switch that turned on the tankle foot
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  Speaker 1: electronic fields that swamped the floor of the block corridor
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  Speaker 1: and of each individual's cell. While the fields were on,
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  Speaker 1: you could ignore the prisoners. They simply could not move
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  Speaker 1: fast enough against the electronic drag of the field to
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  Speaker 1: do any harm. But it was a rule that even
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  Speaker 1: in Block OH, you didn't leave the tanglar fields on
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  Speaker 1: all the time, only when the cell doors had to
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  Speaker 1: be opened, where a prisoner's restraining garment removed. Sue Anne
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  Speaker 1: walked bravely forward through the opened gate and fell flat
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  Speaker 1: on her face. It was her first experience of a
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  Speaker 1: tangle foot field. It was like walking through molasses. The
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  Speaker 1: guard gaffawed and lifted her up by one shoulder. Take
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  Speaker 1: it easy, Auntie, Come on, get in your cell. He
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  Speaker 1: steered her in the right direction and pointed to a
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  Speaker 1: green sleeved straight jacket on the cell. Caught put that on.
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  Speaker 1: beIN as you're a lady. We won't tie it up,
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  Speaker 1: but the rules say you gotta wear it and rules. Hey,
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  Speaker 1: she's crying. He shook his head, marveling. It was the
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  Speaker 1: first time he had ever seen a prison and her
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  Speaker 1: cry and the green sleeves. However, he was wrong. Sue
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  Speaker 1: Ane's shoulders were shaking, but not from tears. Sue Anne
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  Speaker 1: Bradley had got a good look at Sour and at
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  Speaker 1: Flock as she passed them by, and she was fighting
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  Speaker 1: off an almost uncontrollable urged or wretch. Sour and Flock
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  Speaker 1: were what are called prison wolves. They were laborers wipes
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  Speaker 1: for short or at any rate they had been once.
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  Speaker 1: They had spent so much time in prisons that it
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  Speaker 1: was sometimes hard even for them to remember what they
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  Speaker 1: really were outside. Sour was a big, grinning redhead with
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  Speaker 1: eyes like a water moccasin. Flock was a lithe five
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  Speaker 1: footer with the build of a water moccasin and the sad,
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  Speaker 1: stupid eyes of a calf. Sower stopped yelling for a moment. Hey, Flock,
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  Speaker 1: what do you want, Sour called Flock from his own cell.
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  Speaker 1: We got a lady with us. Maybe we ought to
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  Speaker 1: cut out this yellin so as not to disturb the lady.
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  Speaker 1: He screeched, with howling maniacal laughter. Anyway, if we don't
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  Speaker 1: cut this out, they'll get us in trouble. Flop, Oh
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  Speaker 1: you think so, shrieked Flop. Jeez, I wish you hadn't
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  Speaker 1: said that, Sour, You got me scared. I'm so scared
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  Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to yell. The howling started all over again.
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  Speaker 1: The inside guard finished putting the new prisoners away and
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  Speaker 1: turned off the tanglar field once more. He licked his lips.
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  Speaker 1: Say you want to take a turn in here for
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  Speaker 1: a while. Uh uh? The outside guard shook his head. Yeah, Yellow,
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  Speaker 1: The inside guard said, moodily, Ah, I don't know. I
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  Speaker 1: don't quit this lassy job. Hey, you pop down and
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  Speaker 1: I'll come in and beat your head off. Hey, screamed
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  Speaker 1: Sour in a shrill falsetto. I'm scared. Then he grinned
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  Speaker 1: at the guard all but his water, mokus and eyes.
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  Speaker 1: Don't you know you can't hurt a white by hitting
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  Speaker 1: him on the head. Boss, shut up, yelled the inside guard.
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  Speaker 1: Sue Anne Bradley's weeping now was genuine. She simply could
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  Speaker 1: not help it. The crazy yowling of the hard timers
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  Speaker 1: Sour and Flock was getting onunder her skin. They weren't
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  Speaker 1: even even human, she told herself, miserably, trying to weep
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  Speaker 1: silently so as not to give the guards the satisfaction
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  Speaker 1: of hearing her. They were animals. Resentment and anger she
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  Speaker 1: could understand. She told herself doggedly that resentment and anger
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  Speaker 1: were natural and right. They were perfectly normal expressions of
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  Speaker 1: the freedom loving citizen's rebellion against the vile and stifling
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  Speaker 1: system of categorized classes. It was good that Sour and
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  Speaker 1: Flocks still had enough spirit to struggle against the vicious system,
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  Speaker 1: but that they had to scream so the senseless yelling
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  Speaker 1: was driving her crazy. She abandoned herself to weeping, and
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  Speaker 1: she didn't even care who heard her any more. Senseless.
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  Speaker 1: It never occurred to Sue Anne Bradley that it might
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  Speaker 1: not be senseless, because noise hides noise but then she
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been a prisoner very long. End of chapter two,
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  Speaker 1: Chapter three of My Lady Greensleeves by Frederick Pohl. This
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  Speaker 1: LibriVox recording is in the public domain. Three. I smell trouble,
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: said O'Leary to the warden. Trouble, trouble. Warden Schluckbeer clutched
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  Speaker 1: his throat, and his little round eyes looked terrified, as
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  Speaker 1: perhaps they should have. Warden Godfrey schluck Beer was the
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  Speaker 1: almighty caesar of ten thousand inmates in the jug, but
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  Speaker 1: privately he was a fussy old man trying to hold
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  Speaker 1: on to the last decent job he would have in
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  Speaker 1: his life. Trouble, what trouble? O'Leary shrugged, different things. You know,
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  Speaker 1: La Fawn from BLOCKA. This afternoon he was playing ball
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  Speaker 1: with the laundry orderlies in the yard. The warden, faintly relieved,
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  Speaker 1: faintly annoyed, scolded, oh, Larry, what did you want to
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  Speaker 1: worry me for? There's nothing wrong with playing ball in
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  Speaker 1: the yard. That's what recreation periods are for. You don't
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  Speaker 1: see what I mean. Warden Lafawn was a professional on
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  Speaker 1: the outside, an architect. Those laundry cons were laborers, pros
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  Speaker 1: and wipes don't mix. It isn't natural, and there are
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  Speaker 1: other things, Olary hesitated, frowning. How could you explain to
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  Speaker 1: the wharten that it didn't smell right? For instance? Well,
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  Speaker 1: there's Aunt Matthias and the woman's block. She's a pretty
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  Speaker 1: good old girl. That's why she's the block. Orderly, she's
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  Speaker 1: a lifer. She's got no place to go, so she
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  Speaker 1: gets along with the other women. But today she put
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  Speaker 1: a woman named Bradley on report. Why because she told
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  Speaker 1: Bradley to mop up and wipe talk and Bradley didn't understand. Now,
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  Speaker 1: Matthias wouldn't. The warden raised his hand. Please, Oliary, don't
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  Speaker 1: bother me about that kind of stuff. He sighed heavily
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  Speaker 1: and rubbed his eyes. He poured himself a cup of
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  Speaker 1: steaming black coffee from a brew pot, reached in a
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  Speaker 1: desk drawer for something. Hesitated, glanced at O'Leary, then dropped
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: a pale blue tablet into the cup. He drank it
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  Speaker 1: down eagerly, ignoring the scalding heat. He leaned back, looking
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  Speaker 1: suddenly happier and much more assured. O leary, you're a
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  Speaker 1: guard captain, right, and I'm your warden, you have your
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  Speaker 1: job keeping the inmates in line, and I have mine.
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  Speaker 1: Now your job is just as important as my job,
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  Speaker 1: he said piously. Everybody's job is just as important as
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  Speaker 1: everybody helps us, right, But we have to stick to
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  Speaker 1: our own jobs. We don't want to try to pass.
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  Speaker 1: O'Leary snapped, erect abruptly, angry pass. What the devil way
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  Speaker 1: was that for the warden to talk to him? Excuse
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  Speaker 1: the expression, O'Leary, The warden said, anxiously. I mean, after all,
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  Speaker 1: specialization is the goal of civilization.
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  Speaker 2: Right.
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  Speaker 1: He was a great man for platitudes, was warden? Schluckbeer.
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  Speaker 1: You know you don't want to worry about my end
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  Speaker 1: of running the prison, and I don't want to worry
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  Speaker 1: about yours, you see. Then he folded his hands and
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  Speaker 1: smiled like a civil service Buddha. O'Leary choked back his temper.
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  Speaker 1: The warden, I'm telling you there's trouble coming up. I
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  Speaker 1: smell the signs handle it, then snapped the warden, irritated
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  Speaker 1: at last. But suppose it's too big to handle. Suppose
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  Speaker 1: it isn't, the warden said, positively. Don't borrow trouble with
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  Speaker 1: all your supposing oh leary. He sipped the remains of
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  Speaker 1: his coffee, made a wry face, poured a fresh cup, and,
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  Speaker 1: with an elaborate show of not noticing what he was doing,
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  Speaker 1: dropped three of the pale blue tablets into it. This
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  Speaker 1: time he sat beaming into space, waiting for the jolt
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  Speaker 1: to take effect. Well, then he said, at last, you
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  Speaker 1: just remember what I've told you tonight, o' leary, and
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  Speaker 1: we'll get along. Fine specialization is oh curse the thing
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: his phone was ringing. The warden picked it up irritably.
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: That was the trouble with those pale blue tablets, thought O'Leary.
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: They gave you a lift, but they put you on edge. Hello,
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: barked the warden, not even glancing at the view screen.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: What the devil do you want? Don't you know I'm
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: what you did? What you're going to what? He looked
• 19:18
  Speaker 1: at the viewscreen at last, with a look of pure horror.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: Whatever he saw on it did not reassure him. His
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: eyes opened like clam shells in a steamer. Oh leary,
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: he said, faintly, my mistake, and he hung up. More
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: or less by accident, the handset dropped from his fingers.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: The person on the other end of the phone was
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: calling from cell block oh five minutes later. He hadn't
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: been anywhere near the phone, and it didn't look as
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: if his chances of ever getting near it were very good,
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: because five minutes before he was in his cell with
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: the rest of the hard timers of the Green Sleeves.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: His name was Flock. He was still yelling. Sue Anne Bradley,
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: in the cell of cross from him, thought that maybe,
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: after all, the man was really in pain, maybe the
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: crazy screams were screams of agony, because certainly his face
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: was the face of an agonized man. The outside guard
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: bellowed okitek ten Sue Anne froze, waiting to see what
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: would happen. What actually did happen was that the guard
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: reached up and closed the switch that actuated the tanglar
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: fields on the floors of the cells. The prison rules
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: were humanitarian, even for the dregs that inhabited the Green Sleeves.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Ten minutes out of every two hours, even the worst
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: case had to be allowed to take his hands out
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: of the restraining garment rest period it was called in
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: the rule book. The inmates had a less lovely term
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: for it, at the guard's yell, the inmates jumped to
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: their feet. Bradley was a little slow getting off the
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: edge of the steel slat bed. Nobody had warned her
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: that the eddy currents in the tanglar fields had a
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: way of making metal smoke hot. She gasped, but did
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: not cry out one more painful lesson in her new
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: language course. She rubbed the backs of her thighs gingerly
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: and slowly, slowly, for the eddy currents did not permit
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: you to move fast. It was like pushing against rubber.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: The faster you tried to move, the greater the resistance.
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: The guard peered genially into her cell. You're okay, auntie,
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: She proudly ignored him as he slogged deliberately away on
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: his rounds. He didn't have to untie her and practically
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: stand over her while she attended to various personal matters
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: as he did with the male prisoners. It was not
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: much to be grateful for, but Sue Anne Bradley was grateful.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: At least she didn't have to live quite like a
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: fig like an underprivileged clerk, she told herself, conscience stricken.
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: Across the hall, the guard was saying irritably, What the
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: hell's the matter with you? He opened the door of
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: the cell with an asbestos handled key held in a
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: canvas glove. Flock was in that cell, and he was
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: doubled over. The guard looked at him doubtfully. It could
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: be a trick, maybe, couldn't it. But he could see
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: Flock's face and the agony in it was real enough,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: and Flock was gasping through real tears.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: Cramps.
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: Eh, you wipe's always got a pain in the gut.
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: The guard lumbered around Flock to the draw strings at
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the back of the jacket. Funny smell in here, he
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: told himself, not for the first time, and imagine some
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: people didn't believe that wipes had a smell of their own.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: But this time he realized cloudily. It was a rather
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: unusual smell, something burning, almost like meat scorching. It wasn't pleasant.
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: He finished untied Flock and turned away. Let the stinking
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: wipe take care of his own troubles. He only had
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: ten minutes to get all the way around block oh,
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: and the inmates complained like crazy if he didn't make
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: sure they all got the most possible free time. He
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: was pretty good at snowshoeing through the tangler field. He
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: was a little vain about it, even at times. He
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: had been known to boast of his ability to make
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: the rounds in two minutes every time, every time. But
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: this for Flock moaned behind him Oddly close, the guard turned,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: but not quick enough. There was Flock. Astonishingly, he was
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: half out of his jacket. His arms hadn't been in
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: the sleeves at all, and in one of the hands. Incredibly,
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: there was something that glinted and smoked all right, croaked
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: flop tears trickling out of his eyes, nearly shut with pain.
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: But it wasn't the tears that held the guard. It
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: was the shining, smoking thing now poised at his throat.
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: A shive. It looked as though it had been made
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: out of a bed spring, ripped loose from its frame,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: God knows how hidden inside the green sleeved jacket, God
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: knows how filed filed a sharpness over endless hours, no wonder,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: Flock moaned. The eddy currents and the shive were slowly
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: cooking his hand, and the blister against his abdomen where
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: the shive had been hidden during other rest periods, felt
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: like raw acid. All right, whispered Flock.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: Just walk out the door, and you won't get hurt.
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: Unless the other screw makes trouble, you won't get hurt.
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: So tell him not to hear. He was nearly fainting
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: with the pain, but he hadn't let go. He didn't
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: let go, and he didn't stop. End of chapter three,
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Chapter four of My Lady Greensleeves by Frederick Pohl. This
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: LibriVox recording is in the public domain.
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: Four. It was Flock on the phone to the warden,
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: Flock with his eyes still streaming tears, Flock with sour
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: standing right behind him, menacing the two bound deck guards.
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: Sower shoved Flock out of the way. Hey, Warden, he said,
• 24:57
  Speaker 1: and the voice was a cheerful bray, though the serpent
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: and eyes were cold and hating. Warden, you gotta get
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: a medican here. My boy Flock, he hurt himself real
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: bad and he needs a doctor. He gestured playfully at
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: the guards with the shift. I tell you, Warden, I
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: got this knife, and I got your guards here, and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: I've said, so get a medican here real quick, you hear,
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: And he snapped a connection. O'Leary, said Warden. I told you.
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: I smelled trouble. The warden lifted his head, glared, started
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: feebly to speak, hesitated and picked up the long distance phone.
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: He said sadly to the prison operator, get me the
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: governor fast riot. The words spread out from the prison
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: on seven league boots. It snatched the city governor out
• 25:42
  Speaker 1: of a friendly game of seniority with his manager and
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: their wives, and just when he was holding the pork
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: barrel joker concealed in the hole, it broke up the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: Bass Championship Scramble finals at half Arnold Field to the south,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: as half the contestants had to scramble in earnest to
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: a red alert that was real. It reached to police
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: precinct houses and TV news rooms and highway checkpoints, and
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: from there it filtered into the homes and lives of
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: the nineteen million persons that lived within a few dozen
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: miles of the jug riot. And yet fewer than half
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: a dozen men were in bald A handful of men,
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: and the enormous bulk of the city state quivered in
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: every limb and class, and its ten million homes and
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: its hundreds of thousands of public places. The city states
• 26:29
  Speaker 1: people shook under the impact of the news from the prison,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: for the news touched them where their fears lay. Riot
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: and not merely a street brawl among roistering wipes or
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: a bar room fight of greasers relaxing from a hard
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: day at the plant. The riot was down among the
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: corrupt sludge that under lay the state itself. Wipes brawled
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: with wipes, and no one cared. But in the jug
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: all classes were cast together. Forty miles to the south
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: half Arnold Field was a blaze of light. The airmen
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: tumbled out of their quarters and day rooms at the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: screech of the alert siren, and behind them their wives
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: and children stretched and yawned and worried an alert. The
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: older kids fussed and complained, and their mothers shut them up. No,
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: there wasn't any alert scheduled for tonight. No, they didn't
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: know where daddy was going. No, the kids couldn't get
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: up yet. It was the middle of the night, and
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: as soon as they had the kids back in bed,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: most of the mothers struggled into their own air whack
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: uniforms and headed for the briefing area to hear They
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: caught the words from a distance not quite correctly. Riot
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: gasped an aircraft's woman, first class, mother of three the wipes.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: I told Charlie, they get out of hand, and Alice,
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: we aren't safe, you know how they are about gi women.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: I'm going right home and get a club and stand
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: right by the door. Club, snapped Alice Radarscope, sergeant with
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: two children, querulously awaken her nursery at home. What in
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: God's name is the use of a club. You can't
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: hurt a wipe by hitting him on the head. You'd
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: better come along to supply with me and draw a gun.
• 28:02
  Speaker 1: You'll need it before this night's over. But the air
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: men themselves heard the briefing loud and clear over the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: scramble call speakers, and they knew it was not merely
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: a matter of trouble in the white quarters the jug
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: the government himself had called them out. They were to
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: fly interdicting missions at such and such levels, on such
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: and such flight circuits around the prison. The rockets took
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: off on fountains of fire, and the jets took off
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: with a whistling roar. And last of all, the helicopters
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: took off. And they were the ones who might actually
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: accomplish something. They took up their picket posts on the
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: prison perimeter. A pilot and two bombardiers in each copter
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: stone faced, staring, grimly alert at the prison below. They
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: were ready for the breakout. But there wasn't any break out.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: The rockets went home for fuel. The jets went home
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: for fuel. The helicopters hung on, still ready, still waiting.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: The rockets came back and roared harmlessly about and went
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: away again. They stayed away. The helicopter men never faltered
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: and never relaxed. The prison below them was washed with
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: light from the guard posts on the walls, from the
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: cell blocks themselves, from the mobile lights of the guard
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: squadrons surrounding the walls. North of the prison, on the long, flat,
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: damp developments of reclaimed land, the match box row houses
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: of the clerical neighborhoods showed lights in every window as
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: the figures stood ready to repel invasion from their undesired neighbors.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: To the east, the wipes in the crowded tenements of
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: the laborers quarters. The wipes shouted from window to window,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: and there were crowds in the bright streets. The whole
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: bloody thing's gonna blow up. A helicopter bombardier yelled bitterly
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to his pilot, above the flutter and roar of the
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: whirling blades. Look at the mobs in Greaserville. The first
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: breakout from the JUG's gonna start a fight like you
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: never saw, and we'll be right in the middle of it.
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: He was partly right. He would be right in the
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: middle of it, for every man, woman and child in
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: the City State would be right in the middle of it.
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: There was no place anywhere that would be spared, no mixing.
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: That was the prescription that kept the City State alive.
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: There's no harm in a family fight. And aren't all
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: mechanics of family. Aren't all laborers a clan, aren't all
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: clerks and office workers related by closer ties than blood
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: or skin. But the declassed cons of the JUG were
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: the dregs of every class, and once they spread, the
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: neat compartmentation of society was pierced. The breakout would mean
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: riot on a bigger scale than any prison had ever known.
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: But he was also partly wrong because the breakout wasn't
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: seeming to come. The Jug itself was coming to a
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: boil honor block, a relaxed and easy at the end
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: of another day found itself shaken alert by strange goings on.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: First there was the whir and roar of the Air
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Force overhead trouble. Then there was the sudden arrival of
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: extra guards, double the normal complement day shift guards, summoned
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: away from their comfortable civil service homes at some urgent
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: call trouble. For sure, Honor Block A wasn't used to trouble.
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: A block was as far from the green sleeves of
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: O Block as you could get and still be in
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: the jug. Honor Block A belonged to the prison's half breeds,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: the Honor prisoners, the trustees who did guard's work because
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: there weren't enough guards to go around. They weren't apaches
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: or putes. They were camp following engines who had sold
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: out for the white men's firewater. The price of their
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: service was privilege. Many privileges, item TV sets in every cell,
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: item hobby tools to make gadgets for the visitor trade,
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: the only way an inmate could earn an honest dollar item.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: In consequence, an exact knowledge of everything the outside world
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: knew and put on its TV screens, including the grim,
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: alarming reports of trouble at a States General and the
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: capacity to convert their hobby tools to other uses. An
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: honor prisoner named Wilmer Lafaan was watching the TV screen
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: with an expression of rage and despair. Lafn was a
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: credit to the jug He was a showpiece for visitors.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Prison rules provided for prisoner training. It was a matter
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: of rehabilitation. Prisoner rehabilitation is a joke, and a centuries
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: old one at that, but it had its serious uses,
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: and one of them was to keep the prisoners busy.
• 32:27
  Speaker 1: It didn't much matter at what. Lafawn, for instance, was
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: being rehabilitated by studying architecture. The guards made a point
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: of bringing inspection delegations to a cell to show him off.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: There were his walls covered with pin ups, but not
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: of women. The pictures were sketches Lafwn had drawn himself.
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: They were of buildings, highways, dams and bridges. They were
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: splendidly conceived and immaculately executed. Look at that, the guards
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: would rumble to their guests. There wasn't an architect on
• 32:59
  Speaker 1: the outside as good as this boy. What do you say,
• 33:02
  Speaker 1: Wilma tell the gentlemen how long he had been taking
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: these correspondence courses in architecture six years ever since he
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: came to the Jug, and Lafawn would grin and bob
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: his head, and the delegation would go with the guards
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: saying something like, believe me that Wilma could design a
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: whole skyscraper and it wouldn't fall down either, And they
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: were perfectly provably right. Not only could inmate Lafan design
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: a skyscraper, but he had already done so, more than
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: a dozen of them, and none had fallen down. Of course,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: that was more than six years back before he was
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: convicted and sent to the JUG. He would never design another,
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: or if he did, it would never be built. For
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: the plain fact of the matter was that the jugs
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: rehabilitation courses were like rehabilitation in every prison since crime
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: and punishment began. They kept the inmates busy. They made
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: a show of purpose for an institution that had never
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: had a purpose beyond punishment, and that was all for
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: punishment for a crime is not satisfied by a jail sentence.
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: How does it hurt a man to feed and clothe
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: and house him with the bills paid by the state.
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: Lafawn's punishment was that he, as an architect, was through
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: savage tribes used to lop off a finger or an
• 34:18
  Speaker 1: ear to punish a criminal. Civilized societies confine their amputations
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: to bits and pieces of the personality. Chop chop, and
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: a man's reputation comes off Chop chop again, and his
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: professional standing is gone. Chop chop, and he has lost
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: the respect and trust of his fellows. The jail itself
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: isn't the punishment. The jail is only the shaman's hatchet
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: that performs the amputation. If rehabilitation and a jail worked,
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: if it were meant to work, it would be the
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: end of jails, rehabilitation, rehabilitation for what. Wilmer Lafawn switched
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: off to television set and silently pounded his fist into
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: the wall, never again to return to the professional class.
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: For naturally, the conviction had cost him his membership in
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: the architectural society, and that had cost him his professional standing.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: But still, just to be out of the jug that
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: would be something, And his whole hope of ever getting
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: out lay not here in honor Block A, but in
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: the turmoil of the Green sleeves, one hundred meters and
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: more than fifty armed guards away. He was a furious man.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: He looked into the cell next door, where a con
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: named Garcia was trying to concentrate on a game of
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: Solitaire splitbe once. Garcia had been a professional too. He
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: was the closest thing to a friend Wilmer Lafwan had.
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: Maybe he could now help to get Lafan where he
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: wanted needed to be. Lafan swore silently and shook his head.
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: Garcia was a spineless milk sop, as bad as any clerk.
• 35:55
  Speaker 1: Lafaan was nearly sure there was a touch of the
• 35:57
  Speaker 1: ink well somewhere in his family, shrewd and slippery enough,
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: like all figures. But you couldn't rely on him in
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: a pinch. Lafawn would have to do it all himself,
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: he thought for a second, ignoring the rustle and mumble
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: of the other honor prisoners of Block A. There was
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: no help for it. He would have to dirty his
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: hands with physical activity. Outside on the deck, the guards
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: were grumbling to each other. Lafan wiped the scowl off
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: his black face, but on a smile, rehearsed what he
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: was going to say, and politely rattled the door of
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: his cell. Shut up down there, one of the screws bawled.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Lafawn recognized the voice. It was the guard named Sadaro.
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: That was all to the good. He knew Sadaro, and
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: he had some plans for him. He rattled the cell
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: door again and called, Chief, can you come here for
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: a minute please? Saddaro yelled, didn't you hear me? Shut up?
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: But he came wandering by and looked into Lafawn's tidy
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: little cell. What the devil do you want? He growled,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Lafawn said, ingratiatingly, what's going on? Chief? Shut him out?
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: Sadaro said absently and yawned. He have to his shoulder
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: holster comfortably. That O'Leary, what a production he had made
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: of getting the guards back, and here he was stuck
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: in Block A on the night he had set aside
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: for getting better acquainted with that little blue eyed statistician
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: from the Census Office.
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: Chief, the television says, there's something going on in the
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: green sleeves. What's the score? Sadaro had no reason to
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: answer him, but it was his unvarying practice to make
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: a khan wait before doing anything the kahan wanted. He
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: gave Lafawn a ten second stare before he relented. The
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: score sour and flop took over block out what about it? Much?
• 37:44
  Speaker 1: Much about it? But Lafawn looked away to hide the
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: eagerness in his eyes. Perhaps, after all, it was not
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: too late, he suggested, humbly, you look a little sleepy.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Do you want some coffee? Coffee? Saidaro, scratched, You got
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: a cup for me? Certainly? I I've got one put aside,
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: swiped it from the mess hall, not the one I
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: used myself. Hum Saidaro, leaned on the cell door. You
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: know I could toss you in the green sleeves for
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: stealing from the mess hall. Ah, Chief Leafwan grinned you've
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: been lookin for trouble. O'livery says you were messing around
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: with the bucks from the laundry detail. Sadaro said half heartily,
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: but he didn't really like picking on Lafawn, who was,
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: after all, an agreeable inmate to have on occasion. All right,
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: where's the coffee? They didn't bother with tangle foot fields
• 38:34
  Speaker 1: and honor blockade. Siddaro just unlocked the door and walked in,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: hardly bothering to look at Lafawn. He took three steps
• 38:41
  Speaker 1: toward the neat little desk at the back of the cell,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: where Lefawn had rigged up a drawing board and a
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: table where Lefawn kept his little store of luxury goods.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: Three steps and then, suddenly aware that Lafawn was very
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: close to him, he turned, astonished, a little too late,
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: he saw that Leafwn had snatched up a chair. He
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: saw a la Fawn swinging it his black face maniacal.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: He saw the chair coming down. He reached for his
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: shoulder holster, but it was very much too late for that.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: End of chapter four, section five of My Lady Greensleeves
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: by Frederick Pohle. This lirivox recording is in the public domain. Five.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: Captain O'Leary dragged the scared little wretch into the warden's office.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: He shook the con angrily. Listen to this warden, The
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: boys just brought this one in from the shops building.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: Do you know what he's up to? The warden wheezed
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: sadly and looked away. He had stopped even answering O'Leary
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: by now. He had stopped talking to Sour on the interphone.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: When the big convict called every few minutes to rave
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: and threaten and demand a doctor. He had almost doing
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: everything except worry and weep bud. Still in all he
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: was the warden. He was the one who gave the orders.
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: O'larry barked, Warden, this little greasers bollocks up the whole
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: Tanglar's circuit for the prison. If the cons get out
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: into the yard now, you won't be able to tangle them.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: You know what that means. They'll have the freedom of
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: the yard, and who knows what comes next. The warden
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: frowned sympathetically, tisk tisk. O'larry shook the con again. Come on, Heroko,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: tell the warden what you told the guards. The con
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: shrank away from him. Sweat was glistening on his furrowed
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: yellow forehead. I had to do it, Kevin, I shorted
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the worm can in the tanglar subgrid. But I had to.
• 40:42
  Speaker 1: I got a signal. Bollock's the grid, Tony, or someday
• 40:45
  Speaker 1: he'll be in the yard and we'll static you. What
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: can I do, Captain? I didn't want to. O'lary pressed,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: who did the signal come from? The con only shook
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: his head, perspiring still more. The warden asked, faintly, what's
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: he saying. O'Leary rolled his eyes to heaven. And this
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: was the warden couldn't even understand shop talk from the
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: mouths of his own inmates. He translated, he got orders
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: from the prison underground to short circuit the electronic units
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: in the Tangler circuit. They threatened to kill him if
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: he didn't. The warden drummed with his fingers on the desk,
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: U Tangler phild eh Ah, Yes, that that is important.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: You'd better get it fixed, o' larry, right away, fixed Wharton.
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: Who's going to fix it? You know as well as
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: I do that every mechanic in the prison is a Cohn.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Even if one of the guards would do a thing
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: like that, and I'd bust him myself if he did,
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: he wouldn't know where to start. That's mechanic work. The
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: warden swallowed. He had to admit that O'Leary was right. Naturally,
• 41:46
  Speaker 1: nobody but a mechanic and a specialist electrician from a
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: particular subgroup of the Greaser class at that could fix
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: something like the tanglarfield generators. He said absently. Well, that's
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: true enough, After all, specialization is the goal of civilization.
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: No O'Leary took a deep breath. He needed it. He
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: beckoned to the guard at the door, take this greaser
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: out of here. The khan shambled out, his head hanging.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: O'Leary turned to the warden and spread his hands. Warden,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: he said, don't you see how this thing is building up.
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: Let's not just wait for the place to explode in
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: their faces. Let me take a squad into block, oh,
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: before it's too late. The warden pursed his lips thoughtfully
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: and cocked his head, as though he were trying to
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: find some trace of merit in an unreasonable request. He said,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: at last, No, O'Leary made a passionate sound that was
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: trying to be bad language, but he was too raging
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: mad to articulate it. He walked stiffly away from the
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: limp silent warden and stared out the window. At least,
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: he told himself he hadn't gone to pieces. It was
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: his doing, not the wardens. That all the off duty
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: guards had been dragged double time back to the prison.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: His doing. That they were now ringed around the outer
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: walls or scattered on extra man patrols throughout the prison.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: It was something, but O'Leary couldn't believe that it was enough.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: He had been in touch with half a dozen of
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the details inside the prison on the intercom, and each
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: of them had reported the same thing. In all of
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: e g. Not a single prisoner was asleep. They were
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: talking back and forth between the cells, and the guards
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: couldn't shut them up. They were listening to concealed radios,
• 43:24
  Speaker 1: and the guards didn't dare make a shakedown to find them.
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: They were working themselves up to something. Two What O'Leary
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: didn't want ever to find out what? He wanted to
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: go in there with a couple of the best guards
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: he could get his hands on, shoot his way into
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: the green sleeves if he had to, and clean out
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: the infection. But the warden said no. O'Leary stared balefully
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: at the hovering helicopters. The warden was the warden. He
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: was placed in that position through the meticulously careful operations
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: of the Civil Service machinery, maintained in that position year
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: after year through the penn trading annual inquiries of the
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: reclassification Board. It was subversive to think that the board
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: could have made a mistake, But O'Leary was absolutely sure
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: that the warden was a scared, ineffectual jerk. The inter
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: phone was ringing again. The warden picked up the handpiece
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: and held it bonelessly at arm's length, his eyes fixed
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: glassily on the wall. It was sour from the green sleeves. Again.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: O'Leary could hear his maddened bray. I wanted you, Warden.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: O'Leary could see the big CON's contorted face and miniature
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: in the viewscreen of the inter phone. The grin was
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: broad and jolly, the snake's eyes poisonously cold. I'm gonna
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: give you five minutes, Warden. You hear five minutes, and
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: if there isn't a medican here in five minutes to
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: take care of my boy flock. Your guards have had it.
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna slice off an here and throw it out
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: the window. You hear me. And five minutes later, another ear.
• 44:53
  Speaker 1: And five minutes later, the warden groaned weakly. I've called
• 44:57
  Speaker 1: for the prison medic, sour, honestly, I have. I'm sure
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: he's coming as rapidly as he Five minutes and the
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: ferociously grinning face disappeared. O'Leary leaned forward, Warden, let me
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: take a squad in there. The warden gazed at him
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: for a blank moment. Squad, No, Ohlary, what's the use
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: of a squad. It's a medic. I have to get
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: in there. I have a responsibility to those guards, and
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: if I don't get a medic. A cold, calm voice
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: from the door, I am here, Warden. O'Leary and the
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: warden both jumped up. The medic nodded slightly. You may
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: sit down, Oh doctor, Thank heaven, you're here. The warden
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: was falling all over himself getting a chair for his guest.
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: Flustering about. O'Leary said sharply, wait a minute, warden, you
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: can't let the doctor go in alone. He isn't alone.
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: The doctor's interurn came from behind him, scowling belligerently at O'Leary, youngish,
• 45:53
  Speaker 1: his beard, pale and silky. He was a long way
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: from his first practice. I'm here to assist him. O'Leary
• 46:00
  Speaker 1: put a strain on his patience. They'll eat you up
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: in their dock. Those are the worst cons in the prison.
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: They've got two hostages already. What's the use of giving
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: them two more. The medick fixed him with his eyes.
• 46:12
  Speaker 1: He was a tall man, and he wore his beard proudly.
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: Guard do you think you can prevent me from healing
• 46:18
  Speaker 1: a sufferer? He folded his hands over his abdomen and
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: turned to leave. The intern stepped aside and bowed his head.
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: O'Leary surrendered, all right, you can go, but I'm comin
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: with you with a squad inmates. Sue Anne Bradley Coward
• 46:36
  Speaker 1: in her cell, the greensleeves was jumping. She had never, no, never,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: she told herself, wretchedly thought that it would be anything
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: like this. She listened unbelievingly to the noise the released
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: prisoners were making, smashing the chairs and commodes in their cells,
• 46:51
  Speaker 1: screaming threats at the bound guards. She faced the thought
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: with fear, and with the sorrow of a murdered belief
• 46:57
  Speaker 1: that was worse than fear. It was bad that she
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: was in danger of dying right here and now, But
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: what was even worse was that the principles that had
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: brought her to the jug were dying too. Wipes were
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: not the same as civil service people. A bull's roar
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: from the corridor, and a shocking crash of glass that
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: was flock and apparently he had smashed the TV interphone.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: What in the world are they doing in mat Bradley,
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: sobbed to herself. It was beyond comprehension. They were yelling
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: words that made no sense to her, threatening punishments on
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: the guards that she could barely imagine. Sour and Flock
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: were laborers. Some of the other rioting cons were clerks, mechanics,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: even civil service or professionals for all she could tell.
• 47:41
  Speaker 1: But she could hardly understand any of them. Why was
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: the quiet little Chinese clerk and sell six setting fire
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: to his bed? There did seem to be a pattern
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: of sorts. The laborers were rocketing about breaking things at random,
• 47:54
  Speaker 1: The mechanics were pleasurably sabotaging the electronic and plumbing installations.
• 47:59
  Speaker 1: The white collar categories were finding their dubious joys in
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: less direct ways, like setting fire to a bed. But
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: what a mad pattern. The more Sue Anne saw of them,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: the less she understood. It wasn't just that they talked differently.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: She had spent endless hours studying the various patois of
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: shop talk, and it had defeated her. But it wasn't
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: just that. It was bad enough when she couldn't understand
• 48:22
  Speaker 1: the words, as when that trusty Matthias had ordered her
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: in white shop talk to mop out her cell. But
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: what was even worse was not understanding the thought behind
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: the words. Sue Anne Bradley had consecrated her young life
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: to the belief that all men were created, free and
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: equal and alike or alike in all the things that
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: mattered anyhow, alike in hopes, alike, in motives, alike in virtues.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: She had turned her back on a decent civil service
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: family and a promising civil service career to join the
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: band and despised association for the advancement of the categorized classes.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: Screams from the corridor outside. Sue Anne leaped to the
• 49:01
  Speaker 1: door of her cell to see sour clutching at one
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: of the guards. The guard's hands were tied, but his
• 49:06
  Speaker 1: feet were free. He broke loose from the clumsy clown
• 49:09
  Speaker 1: with the serpent's eyes, almost fell ran towards Sue Anne.
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: There was nowhere else to run. The guard, moaning and gasping, tripped, slid,
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: caught himself and stumbled into her cell. Please, he begged,
• 49:21
  Speaker 1: that crazy sawer. He's gonna cut my ear off. For
• 49:24
  Speaker 1: Heaven's sake, ma'am, stop him. Sue Anne stared at him
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: between terror and tears. Stop sar, if only she could.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: The big redhead was lurching stiffly toward them, raging, but
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: not so angry that the water moccas and eyes showed heat.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: Come here, you figure, scum, he roared. The epithet wasn't
• 49:44
  Speaker 1: even close. The guard was civil service through and through,
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: but it was like a reviving whipstain to Sue Anne Bradley,
• 49:51
  Speaker 1: watch your language, mister Sower, she snapped in congruously. Sowyer
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: stopped dead and blinked. Don't you dare hurt him? She warned,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: don't you see me, mister Sour. You're playing into their hands.
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: They're trying to divide us. They pit mechanic against clerk,
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: laborer against armed forces, and you're helping them, brother Sour,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: I beg. The redhead spat deliberately on the floor. He
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: licked his lips and grinned an amiable clowns grin, and said,
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: in his cheerful buffoon bray antie coverbia adgive adgitive noun.
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: Sue Anne Bradley gasped and turned white. She had known
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: such words existed, but only theoretically. She had never expected
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: to hear them, and certainly she would never have believed
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: she would hear them applied to her from the lips
• 50:36
  Speaker 1: of a laborer at her knees. The guard shrieked and
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: fell to the floor.
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: Sour, sour.
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: A panicky bellow from the corridor. The red haired giant hesitated, Saur.
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: Come on out here, there's a median God's coming up
• 50:49
  Speaker 1: the stairs. Looks like trouble, Sower said hoarsely to the
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: unconscious guard. I'll take carry you. And he looked blankly
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: at the girl and shook his head and hurried back
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: outside of the corridor. Guards were coming, all right, not
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: a million of them, but half a dozen or more.
• 51:05
  Speaker 1: And leading them all was the medic, calm, bearded face,
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: looking straight ahead, hands clasped before him, ready to heal
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: the sick, comfort the aged, or bring new life into
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: the world. Hold it, shrieked little Flock, crouching over the
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: agonized blister on his abdomen, gun in hand, peering insanely
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: down the steps. Hold it shut up, Sower called softly
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: to the approaching group. Let only the dock come up,
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: nobody else. The interurn faltered, The guard stopped dead, the
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: medic said, calmly, I must have my intern with me.
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: He glanced at the barred gate wonderingly. Sower hesitated, well,
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: all right, but no guards. A few yards away, Sue
• 51:47
  Speaker 1: Anne Bradley was stuffing the sinc coped form of the
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: guard into her small washroom. It was time to take
• 51:53
  Speaker 1: a stand. No more cowering, she told herself, desperately, no
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: more waiting. She closed the door on the guard still unconscious,
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: and stood grimly before it him. At least she would
• 52:03
  Speaker 1: save if she could. They could get him, but only
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: over her dead body, or anyway, she thought, with a
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: sudden throbbing in her throat, over her body. End of
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: chapter five, chapter six of My Lady Greensleeves by Frederick Pohl.
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: The LIBRIVOPX recordings in the public domain. Six after O'Leary
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: and the medic left, the warden tottered to a chair,
• 52:38
  Speaker 1: but not for long. His secretary appeared, eyes bulging the governor.
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: He gasped. Warden Schluckbeer managed to say, why, Governor, how
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: good of you to come. The Governor shook him off
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: and held the door open for the men who had
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: come with him. There were reporters from all the news
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: services officials from the township governments within the city state.
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: There was an airgi with Major's leaves on his collar.
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: Liaison Sir, he explained crisply to the warden, just in
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: case you have any orders for our men up there.
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: There were nearly a dozen others. The warden was quite overcome.
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: The Governor rapped out, Warden, no criticism of your course,
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: but I've come to take personal charge. I'm superseding you
• 53:21
  Speaker 1: under Rule twelve paragraph A of the Uniform Civil Service Code. Right, oh, right,
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: cried the warden, incredulous with joy. The situation is bad,
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: perhaps worse than you think. I'm seriously concerned about the hostages.
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: Those men haven't there, and I had a call from
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Senator Bradley a short time ago. Senator Bradley echoed the warden.
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: Senator Sebastian Bradley one of our foremost civil servants. The
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: Governor said firmly, it so happens that his daughters and
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: block O is an inmate. The warden closed his eyes.
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: He tried to swallow, but the throat muscles were paralyzed.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: There is no question. The Governor went on briskly about
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: the propriety of her being there. She was duly convicted
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: of a felonious act, namely conspiracy and excitement to riot.
• 54:16
  Speaker 1: But you see the position the wardens saw all too well. Therefore,
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: said the Governor. I intend to go into block oh myself.
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: Sebastian Bradley's an old and personal friend as well, he
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: emphasized as being a senior member of the reclassification board.
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: I understand a medic is going to block Oh. I
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: shall go with him. The warden managed to sit up straight.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: He's gone. I mean they already left, Governor. But I
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: assure you miss brad inmate Bradley, that is the young ladies,
• 54:51
  Speaker 1: and no danger. I have already taken precautions, he said,
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: gaining confidence as he listened to himself talk. I I
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: was decided on a course of action as you came in. See, Governor,
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: the guards on the walls are all armed. All they
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: have to do is fire a couple of rounds into
• 55:08
  Speaker 1: the yard and then the coptors could start dropping tear
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: gas and light fragmentation bombs. And the Governor was already
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: at the door. You will not, he said, And now
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: which way did they go? O'Leary was in the yard
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: and he was smelling trouble, loud and strong. The first
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: he knew that the rest of the prison had caught
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: the riot fever was when the lights flared on and
• 55:29
  Speaker 1: sell Block A. That's sadaro, he snarled. But there wasn't
• 55:34
  Speaker 1: time to worry about that sadaro. He grabbed the rest
• 55:37
  Speaker 1: of his guard detail and double timed it toward the
• 55:39
  Speaker 1: new building, leaving the medic and a couple of guards
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: walking sedately toward the old Block A on the new
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: building's lowest tier was already coming to life. A dozen
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: yards and blocks be and sea lighted up, and a
• 55:52
  Speaker 1: dozen yards more and they could hear the yelling. And
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: it wasn't more than a minute before the building doors opened.
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: The cons had taken over three more blocks. How O'Leary
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: didn't take time to even guess the inmates were piling
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: out into the yard. He took one look at the
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: rushing mob. Crazy. It was Wilmer Lafon leading the rioters
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: with a guard's gun and a voice screaming threats. But
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: O'Leary didn't take time to worry about an honor prisoner
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: gone bad either. Let's get out of here, he bellowed,
• 56:21
  Speaker 1: to the detachment, and they ran just plane, ran cut
• 56:26
  Speaker 1: and ran, scattering as they went. Wait, screamed O'Leary, but
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: they weren't waiting. Cursing himself for letting them get out
• 56:33
  Speaker 1: of hand, O'Leary salvage two guards and headed on the
• 56:36
  Speaker 1: run for the old building, huge and dark, all but
• 56:39
  Speaker 1: the topmost lights of Block Oh. They saw the medic
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: and his escort disappearing into the bulk of the old building,
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: and they saw something else. There were inmates between them
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: and the old building. The Shops building lay between, with
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: a dozen more cell blocks over the workshops that gave
• 56:55
  Speaker 1: it its name, and there was a million rush of
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: activity around its entrance, next to the laundry shed. The
• 57:02
  Speaker 1: laundry shed, O'Leary stood stock still, lafon, leading the breakout
• 57:06
  Speaker 1: from Block A. The little greaser who was a trustee
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: in the Shops building, sabotaging the yard's tangler circuit, sour
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: and flock taking over the green sleeves with a manufactured
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: knife and a lot of guts. Did it fit together?
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: Was it all part of a plan? That was something
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: to find out? But not just then? Come on, O'Leary
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: cried to the two guards, and they raced for the
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: temporary safety of the main gates. The whole prison was
• 57:32
  Speaker 1: up and yelling. Now. O'Leary could hear scattered shots from
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: the beat guards on the wall, over their heads, Over
• 57:39
  Speaker 1: their heads, he prayed silently, And there were other shots
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: that seemed to come from inside the walls, guards shooting
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: or convicts with guard's guns. He couldn't tell which. The
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: yard was full of convicts now in bunches and clumps,
• 57:53
  Speaker 1: but none near the gate, and they seemed to have
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: lost some of their drive. They were milling around, lit
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: by the searchlights from the wall, yelling and making a
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: lot of noise, but going nowhere in particular, waiting for
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: a leader. O'Leary thought and wondered briefly what had become
• 58:08
  Speaker 1: of Lafawn. You, Captain O'Leary, somebody demanded. He turned and blinked,
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Good Lord the governor. He was coming through the gate,
• 58:18
  Speaker 1: waving aside the gate guards alone you him. The governor repeated,
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: All right, glad I found you. I'm going into block.
• 58:26
  Speaker 1: Oh with you. O'Leary swallowed and waved inarticulately at the
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: teeming cons True, they were none immediately nearby. But there
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: were plenty in the yard. Riots meant breaking things up. Already,
• 58:38
  Speaker 1: the inmates had started to break up the machines in
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: the laundry shed, and the athletic equipment and the yard lockers.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: When they found a couple of choice breakables, like O'Leary
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: and the governor, they'd have a ball. But Governor, bud
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: my foot. Can you get me in there, can't you?
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: O'Leary gaged their chances. It wasn't more than fifty feet
• 58:57
  Speaker 1: to the main entrance to the old building, not at
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: the moment guarded, since all the guards were in hiding
• 59:01
  Speaker 1: or on the walls, and not as yet being invaded
• 59:04
  Speaker 1: by the inmates at large. He said, you're the boss.
• 59:09
  Speaker 1: Hold on a minute. The search lights were on the
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: bare yard cobblestones in front of them. In a moment,
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: the search lights danced away. Come on, cried O'Leary, and
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: jumped for the entrance. The Governor was with him, and
• 59:20
  Speaker 1: a pair of the guards came stumbling. After they made
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: it to the old building. Inside the entrance, they could
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: hear the noise from outside and the yelling of the
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: inmates who were still in their cells, But around them
• 59:30
  Speaker 1: was nothing but gray steel walls and the stairs going
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: all the way up to Block Oh. Up, panted O'Leary,
• 59:37
  Speaker 1: and they clattered up the steel steps. They would have
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: made it if it hadn't been for the honor inmate
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: Wilmer Lafawan, who knew what he was after and had
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: headed for the Greensleeves through the back way. In fact,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: they did make it, but not the way they planned.
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Get out of the way, yelled O'Leary at Lafawan and
• 59:54
  Speaker 1: the half dozen inmates with him, and go to hell,
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: screamed Lafawn, charging And it was a rough and tumble fight,
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: and O'Leary's party lost a fair and square So when
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: they got to block Oh, it was with the governor
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: marching before a convict held gun, and with O'Leary cold,
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: unconscious a lump from a gun bud on the side
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: of his head. As they came up the stairs, Sower
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: was howling at the medic. You gotta fix up my boy.
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: He's dyin and all you do is sit there. The
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: medics said, patiently, my son, I've dressed his wound. He
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 1: is under sedation and I must rest. There will be
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: other casualties. Sour raged, but that was as far as
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: it went. Even Sower wouldn't attack a metic He would
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: as soon strike an attorney or even a director of funerals.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: It wasn't merely that they were professionals. Even among the
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 1: professional class. They were special, not superior exactly, but a part.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: They certainly were not for the likes of sour to
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: fool with, And Sourer knew it. So i's comin, bawled
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: one of the other Freedom mates. Sowyer jumped to the
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 1: head of the steps, saw that Lfawn was leading the group,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: stepped back, saw whom Lafaan's helpers were carrying, and leaped
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: forward again. Captain o'lary. He roared, gemme shut up, said
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: Wilmer Lafawn and pushed the big redhead out of the way.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 1: Sower's jaw dropped, and the snake eyes opened wide. Will mah,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: he protested feebly, But that was all the protest he made,
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 1: because the snake's eyes had seen that Lafawn held a gun.
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 1: He stood back, the big hands half outstretched toward the
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: unconscious guard Captain O'Leary, and the cold eyes became thoughtful,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 1: and then he saw who else was with the party. Wilmah,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 1: you got the governor there, Lafawn nodded. Throw them in
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: a cell, he ordered, and sat down on a guard stool,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: breathing hard. It had been a fine fight on the
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: steps before he and his boys had subdued the governor
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: and the guards. But Wilmer Lafawn wasn't used to fighting,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: even six years in the jug, hadn't turned an architect
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: into a laborer. Physical exuls simply was not his. Matie
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: Sowers said coaxingly, Well, Maa, won't you leave me have
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: o'larry for a while. If it wasn't for me in Flock,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: you'd still be an a block and shut up, la
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: Fawn said again, gently enough, but he waved the gun muzzle.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: He drew a deep breath, glanced around him, and grinned.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 1: If it wasn't for you and Flock, he mimicked, If
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: it wasn't for you and Flock saw you wipe clown.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 1: Do you think it took brains to file down a
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: shive and stop things rolling? If it wasn't for me,
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: you and Flock would have beaten up a few guards
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: and had your kicks for half an hour, and then
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 1: the whole prison would fall in on you. It was me,
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Wilma Lafawn, who set things up, and you know it.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: He was yelling, and suddenly he realized he was yelling,
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: And what was the use he demanded of himself, contemptuously
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: of trying to argue with a bunch of lousy wipes
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 1: and greasers. They'd never understand the long, soul killing hours
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: of planning and sweat. They wouldn't realize the importance of
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: the careful timing of arranging that the laundry cons would
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 1: start a disturbance in the yard right after the green
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: Sleeves hard timers kicked off the riot, of getting the
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: little greaser Heiroco to short circuit the yard field so
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 1: the laundry cons could start their disturbances. It took a
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: professional to organize and plan, yes, and to make sure
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: that he himself was out of it until everything was ripe,
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: so that if anything went wrong, he was all right.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: It took somebody like Wilmer Lafon, a professional who had
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: spent six years too long in the jug and who
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: would shortly be getting out. End of chapter six, Chapter
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 1: seven of My Lady Greensleeves by Frederick Pohl. The slipprivox
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: recordings in the public domain. Seven. Any prison is a
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: ticking bomb. The States General was in the process of
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 1: going off from the green sleeves where the trouble had started,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: clear out to the trusty farms that ringed the walls.
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: Every inmate was up and jumping. Some were still in
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 1: their cells, the scared ones, the decrepit oldsters, the short
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 1: termers who didn't dare risk their early discharge. But for
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: every man in his cell, a dozen were out and yelling.
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: A torch licking as high as the hanging helicopters blazing
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: up from the yard that was the laundry shed. Why
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 1: burn the laundry The cons couldn't have said it was burnable,
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 1: and it was there. Burn it. The yard lay open
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 1: to the wrath of the helicopters, but the helicopters made
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: no move. The cobblestones were solidly covered with milling men.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: The guards were on the walls sighting down their guns.
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: The helicopter bombardiers had their fingers on the bomb trips.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: There had been a few rounds fired over the heads
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: of the rioters at first, nothing since in the milling
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 1: mob the figures club groups, the inmates from Honor Block A,
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: huddled under the guard's guns at the angle of the wall.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 1: They had clubs. All the inmates had clubs, but they
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: weren't using them. Honor block A on the outside, civil
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: service and professionals on the inside, the trustees, the good
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: cons they weren't the type for clubs. With all the inmates,
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: you looked at them and you wondered what twisted devil
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: had got into their heads to land them in the jug. Oh,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: perhaps you could understand it a little bit, at least
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: in the case of the figures and Blocks B and C,
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 1: the greasers and the shop building that sort. It was
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: easy enough for some of the categorized classes to commit
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 1: a crime and thereby land in jail. Who could blame
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: a wipe for trying to pass if he thought he
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: could get away with it, But when he didn't get
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 1: away with it, he wound up in the jug. And
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: that was logical enough. And Greecers, like civil service women
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: and everybody knew that there was almost a sort of
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: logic to it, even if it was a sort of
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: inevitable logic that made d since civil service people see
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 1: read you had to enforce the laws against rape if
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: for instance, a greaser should ask an innocent, young female
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: postal clerk for a date. But you could understand what
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 1: drove him to it. The jug was full of criminals
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: of that sort, and the jug was the place for them.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: But what about honor block A. Why would a Wilmer Lafawn,
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: a certified public architect, a professional by category, do his
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: own car repairs and get himself jugged for malpractice? Why
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: would a dental nurse sneak back into the laboratory at
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: night and cast an upper plate for her mother. She
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: must have realized she would be caught, but she had
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: done it, and she had been caught. And there she was,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: this wild knight, huddled under the helicopters, uncertainly waving the
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: handle of a floor mob It was a club, She
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: shivered and turned to the stocky convict next to her.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Why don't they break down the gate, she demanded? How
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: long are we going to hang around here waiting for
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: the guards to get organized and pick us all off
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 1: one at a time. The convict next to her side
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 1: and wiped his glasses with a beefy hand. Once he
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 1: had been an income tax accountant, disbarred and convicted on
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 1: three counts of impersonating an attorney when he took the
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: liberty of making changes in a client's lease, He snorted,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: and they expect us to do their dirty work. The
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: two of them glared angrily and fearfully at the other
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 1: convicts in the yard, and the other convicts huddled greaser
• 1:07:26
  Speaker 1: with greaser, wipe with wipe, glared ragingly back. It wasn't
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 1: their place to plan the strategy of a prison break.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 1: Captain Leam O'Leary muttered, groggily. I don't want to escape.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 1: All they want is to make trouble, I know. Cons
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: He came fully awake and sat up and focused his eyes.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 1: His head was hammering. That girl that Bradley was leaning
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: over him. She looked scared and sick. Sit still, sour's
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 1: just playing crazy. Listen to them yelling out there. O'Leary
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 1: sat up and looked around, one hand holding his drumming skull.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: They do want to escape, said Sue Ann Bradley. Listen
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 1: to what they're saying. O'Leary discovered that he was in
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 1: a cell. There was a battle going on outside. Men
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 1: were yelling, but he couldn't see them. He jumped up,
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: remembering the governor, Sue Ann Bradley said, he's all right.
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: I think he is. Anyway, he's in the cell right
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: next to us with a couple of guards. I guess
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 1: they came up with you. She shivered as the yells
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: in the corridor. Rose sour is angry at the medic,
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 1: she explained. He wants him to fix Flock up so
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: they can crush out. I think, he said. The medic
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 1: says he can't do it. You see, Flock got burned
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 1: pretty badly with a knife. He made something about the
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 1: tangle foot field Eddie currents, said O'Leary, dizzily. Anyway, the medic,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 1: never mind the medic. What's Lafawn doing? Lafawn the Negro,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 1: Sue Anne Bradley frowned, I know his name. He started
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 1: the whole thing the way it sounds. They're waiting for
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 1: the mob down in the yard to break out, and
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 1: then they're gonna make a break. Wait a minute, growled O'Leary.
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 1: His head was beginning to clear. What about you? Are
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 1: you in on this? She hung between laughter and tears. Finally,
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: do I look as if I am O'Leary took stock
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 1: somehow somewhere the girl had got a length of metal
• 1:09:25
  Speaker 1: pipe from the plumbing. Maybe she was holding it in
• 1:09:28
  Speaker 1: one hand, supporting him with the other. There were two
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 1: other guards in the cell, both out cold, one from
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: O'Leary's squad, the other O'Leary guested, a dusk guard who
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: had been on duty when the trouble started. I wouldn't
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 1: let them in, she said wildly. I told them they'd
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: have to kill me before they could touch that guard.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: O'Leary said, suspiciously. You belonged to that double ac, didn't you.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: You were pretty anxious to get in the green sleeves,
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 1: disobeying Auntie Mattias's orders. Are you sure you didn't know
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 1: this was going to It was too much? The pipe
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: buried her head in her hands. He couldn't tell if
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 1: she laughed or wept, but he could tell that it
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: hadn't been like that at all. I'm sorry, he said awkwardly,
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 1: and touched her helplessly on the shoulder. He turned and
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 1: looked out the little barred window because he couldn't think
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 1: of any additional way to apologize. He heard the wavering
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 1: bead in the air and saw them bobbing one hundred
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: yards up their wide metal veins fluttering and hissing from
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 1: the jets at the tips the GI copters waiting as
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: everyone seemed to be waiting. Sue Anne Bradley asked, shakily,
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 1: is anything the matter? O'Leary turned away. It was astonishing,
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 1: he thought, what a different perspective he had on those
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 1: helicopter bombers from inside Block Oh. Once he had cursed
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 1: the warden for not ordering at least teargas to be dropped,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: he said, harshly, nothing, just that the copters have the
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: place surrounded. Does it make any difference, he shrugged. Does
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: it make a difference, the difference between trouble and tragedy?
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: Or so it now seemed to Captain O'Leary. The riot
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: was trouble. They could handle it one way or another.
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: It was his job, any guard's job to handle prison trouble.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 1: But to bring the GIS into it was to invite
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 1: race riot, not prison riot, race riot. Even the D
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 1: classed scum and the jug would fight back against the GIS.
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: They were used to having the civil service guards over them.
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: That was what the guards were for. Civil service guards
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: guarded what else. It was their job as clerking was
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: a rigger's job and machines were a greaser's, and pick
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 1: and shovel strong arm work was a wipe's. But the
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: armed services their job was to defend the country against
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 1: forces outside. In a world that had only inside forces,
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 1: the cons wouldn't hold still under attack from the GIS
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 1: race riot. But how could you tell that to a
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 1: girl like this? Bradley O'Leary glanced at her covertly. She
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: looked all right, rather nice looking if anything, but he
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 1: hadn't forgotten why she was in e g. Joining a
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 1: terrorist organization, the Association for the Advancement of the Categorized Classes,
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 1: actually getting up on street corners and proposing that Greaser's
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: children be allowed to go to school with GI's. That
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 1: wipes intermarried with civil service, Good lord, they'd be suggesting
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 1: that doctors eat with layman. Next, the girl said evenly,
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: don't look at me that way. I'm not a monster.
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: O'Leary coughed, Sorry, I didn't know I was staring. She
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: looked at him with cold eyes. I mean, he said,
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: you don't look like anybody who'd get mixed up in well, miscegenation. Miscegenation,
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: she blazed, you're all alike. You talk about the mission
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: of the categorized classes and the rightness of segregation. But
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: it's always just the one thing that's in your minds.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: I'll tell you this, Captain O'Leary, I'd rather marry a decent,
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: hard working clerk any day than the sort of civil
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: service trash I've seen around here. O'Leary cringed. He couldn't
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 1: help it. Funny, he told himself. I thought it was
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: shock proof, but this goes too far. A bull roar
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: from the corridor, Sour O'Leary spun. The big redhead was yelling,
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: bring the governor out here. Lafawn wants to talk to him.
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: O'Leary went to the door of the cell fast. A slim,
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: pale con from blanc A was pushing the governor down
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: the hall towards Sour and Lafawn. The governor was a
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: strong man, but he didn't struggle. His face was as
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 1: composed and remote as the medics. If he was afraid,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 1: he concealed it extremely well. Sue Anne Bradley stood beside O'Leary.
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: What's happening. He kept his eyes on what was going on.
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: Lafawn is going to try to use the governor as
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 1: a shield. I think the voice of Lafawn was loud,
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: but the noises outside made it hard to understand. But
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: O'Leary could make out what the dark ex professional was saying. No, damn, well,
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: you did something. But what Why don't they crush out?
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: Mumble mumble from the governor. O'Leary couldn't hear the words,
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 1: but he could see the effect of them in Lafawn's face.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Hear the rage in Lafawn's voice. Don't call me a liar,
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: you sivvy punk. You did something. I had it all
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 1: planned out, do you hear me? The laundry boys were
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 1: gonna rush the gate the block, A bunch would follow,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: and then I was going to breeze right through. But
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: you'll loust it up somehow, you must have. His voice
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: was rising to a scream. O'Leary, watching tautly from the cell,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: thought he's going to break. He can't hold it in
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: much longer. All right, shouted Lafan, and even sour looming
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 1: behind him looked alarmed. It doesn't matter what you did.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: I've got you now, and you're gonna get me out
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: of here. You hear I've got this gun, and the
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: two of us are gonna walk right out through the gate.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 1: And if anybody tries to stop us, hey said Sour,
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: waking up. If anybody tries to stop a silk and
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: a bullet right, hey, Sour was roaring loud as Lafawn himself. Now,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 1: what's this talk about the toy? You you want going
• 1:15:10
  Speaker 1: to leave me and flock? Shut up, Lafon said conversationally,
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: without taking his eyes off the governor. But Sour just
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 1: then was not the man to say shut up two
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: and especially he was not a man to take your
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 1: eyes away from that's torn it, O'Leary said aloud. The
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: girl started to say something, but he was no longer
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: there to hear. It looked very much as though Sour
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: and Lafawn were going to tangle, and when they did,
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 1: it was the end of the line for the governor.
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 1: Captain O'Leary hurtled out of the sheltering cell and skidded
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 1: down the corridor. Lafan's face was a hawk's face, gleaming
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 1: with triumph as he saw O'Leary coming toward him. The
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 1: hawks sneer froze. He brought the gun up, but O'Leary
• 1:15:53
  Speaker 1: was a fast man. O'Leary leaped on the lithe Black
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 1: Honor prisoner. Lafawn screamed and clutched, and O'Leary's lunging weight
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 1: drove him back against the wall. Lafawn's arms smacked against
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 1: the steel grating and the gun went flying. The two
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: of them clinched and fell, gouging to the floor. Grabbing
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: the advantage, O'Leary hammered the Khan's head against the deck,
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: hard enough to split a skull, and perhaps it split lafawn's,
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: because the dark face twitched and froth appeared at the lips,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: and the body slacked one down. Now Sour was charging,
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 1: O'Leary wriggled sidewise, and the big red had blundered, crashing
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 1: into the steel grate. Sower fell and O'Leary caught at him.
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: He tried hammering the head as he swarmed on top
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 1: of the huge clown, but Sower only roared the louder.
• 1:16:38
  Speaker 1: The bull body surged under O'Leary, and then Sower was
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 1: on top, and O'Leary wasn't breathing, not at all. Goodbye, Sueenne,
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 1: O'Leary said, silently, without meaning to say anything of the kind,
• 1:16:49
  Speaker 1: And even then he wondered why he was saying it.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: O'Leary heard a gun explode beside his head. Amazing, he thought,
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 1: I'm breathing again. The choking hands were gone from his throat.
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 1: It took him a moment to realize that it was
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 1: Sour who had taken the bullet, not him. Sour who
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: now lay dead, not o leary. But he realized it
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 1: when he rolled over and looked up and saw the
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 1: girl with the gun still in her hand, staring at
• 1:17:12
  Speaker 1: him and weeping. He sat up. The two guards still
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: able to walk, were backing Sue Anne Bradley up. The
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: governor was looking proud as an eagle, pleased as a mother.
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 1: Hen the Green Sleeves were back in the hands of
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 1: law and order. The medic came toward O'Leary, hands folded
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: my son. He said, if your throat needs O'Leary interrupted him.
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: I don't need a thing, Doc, I've got everything I
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: want right now. End of chapter seven, Chapter eight of
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: My Lady Greensleeves by Frederick Pohle. This LibriVox recording is
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: in the public domain. Eight inmates, Sue An Bradley cried,
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 1: they're coming, O'Leary, They're coming. The guards, who had once
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: been hostages, clattered down the steps to meet the party.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: The cohns from the Green Sleeves were back in their cells.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 1: The medic, after finishing his chores on O'Leary himself, paced
• 1:18:15
  Speaker 1: meditatively out into the wake of the riot, where there
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 1: was plenty to keep him busy. A faintly guilty expression
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 1: tinctured his carven face. Contrary to his oath to care
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 1: for all humanity and anguish, he had not liked lafawn
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: or sour. The party of fresh guards appeared and efficiently
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: began relocking the cells of the Green Sleeves. Excuse me, cap'n,
• 1:18:38
  Speaker 1: said one, taking sue An Bradley by the arm. I'll
• 1:18:41
  Speaker 1: just put this one back. I'll take care of her,
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 1: said leam O'Leary. He looked at her sideways as he
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 1: rubbed the bruises on his face. The governor tapped him
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: on the shoulder. Come along, he said, looking so proud
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: of himself, so pleased. Let's go out into the yard
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 1: for a breath of fresh air. He smiled contentedly at
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: sue Anne Bradley, You too, O'Leary protested instinctively. But she's
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 1: an inmate. And I'm a governor. Come along. They walked
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 1: out into the yard. The air was fresh, all right.
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 1: A handful of cons double guarded by sleepy and irritable
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: men from the day shift, were hosing down the rubble
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 1: on the cobblestones. The yard was a mess, but it
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 1: was quiet now. The helicopters were still riding their picket line,
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 1: glowing softly in the early light that promised sunrise. My car,
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 1: the governor said quietly to a state policeman who appeared
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 1: from nowhere. The trooper snapped a salute and trotted away.
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 1: I killed the man, said Sue Anne Bradley, looking a
• 1:19:41
  Speaker 1: little ill. You saved a man, corrected the governor. Don't
• 1:19:46
  Speaker 1: weep for that lafawn. He was willing to kill a
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: thousand men if he had two to break out o here.
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: But he never did break out, said Sue Anne. The
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: governor stretched contentedly. He ain't never had a chance. Laborers
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: and clerks joined together in a breakout, It would never happen.
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 1: They don't even speak the same language, as you've discovered,
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 1: my dear, Sue Anne blazed. I still believe in the
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 1: equality of man. Oh please do, the governor said, straight faced,
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with that. Your father and I perfectly
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: willing to admit that men are equal, But we can't
• 1:20:21
  Speaker 1: admit that all men are the same. Use your eyes.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 1: What you believe in is your business. But he added,
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: when your beliefs extend a set and fired as segregated
• 1:20:31
  Speaker 1: public laboratories as a protest move, which is what you
• 1:20:34
  Speaker 1: got arrested. You apparently need to be taught a lesson. Well,
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: perhaps you've learned it. You were a help here tonight,
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 1: and that counts for a lot. Captain O'Leary said, face furrowed,
• 1:20:45
  Speaker 1: What about the warden, Governor? They say the category system
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: is what makes the world go round. It fits the
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: right men to the right job and keeps him there.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 1: But look at Warden Schluckbeer. He fell completely a part
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 1: at the seams. He turned that statement around. O'liary turn
• 1:21:02
  Speaker 1: The Governor nodded, you've got it reversed. Not the right
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: man for the job, the right job for the man.
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 1: We've got schluck Beer on a hand. See he's been born.
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: It's too late to do anything about that. He will
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: go to pieces an emergency. So where do we put him?
• 1:21:19
  Speaker 1: O'Leary stubbornly clamped his jaw frowning. We put him. The
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: governor went on gently, Where the best thing to do
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: in a crisis is to go to pieces? Why O'Leary,
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: you get some hot headed man of action in here,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: and every time an inmate sneezes, you'll have bloodshed. And
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 1: there's no harm in a prison, right Let the poor
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 1: devil's work off steam. I wouldn't have bothered to get
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: out of bed for it, except I was worried about
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: the hostages, so I came down to make sure they
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: were protected in the best possible way. O'Leary's jaw dropped.
• 1:21:52
  Speaker 1: But you were, the governor nodded. Ay, I was a
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: hostage myself. That's one way to protect them, isn't it
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: By giving the h's a hostage that's worth more to them.
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: He yawned and looked around for his car. So the
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 1: world keeps going around, he said. Everybody is somebody else's
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: out group, and maybe it's a bad thing. But did
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: you ever stop to realize that we don't have wars anymore?
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 1: The category stick tightly together. Who was to say that
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 1: that's a bad thing? He grinned. Reminds me of a story.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 1: If you too, will pay attention to me long enough
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 1: to listen. There was a meeting Missus an old old story,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: a neighborhood meeting of the leaders of the two biggest
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 1: women's groups on the block. There were eighteen Irish ladies
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: from the Church Auxiliary and three Jewish ladies from the
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 1: benig Breath. The first thing they did was have an
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 1: election for temporary chairwoman. Twenty one votes were cast. Missus
• 1:22:49
  Speaker 1: Grosinger from Benign Breth got three and Missus O'Flaherty from
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 1: the Auxiliary got eighteen. So when Missus Murphy came up
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 1: to congratulate Missus O'Flaherty after the election, she whispered, good
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: for you, But isn't it terrible the way these Jews
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 1: stick together? He stood up and waved a signal as
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: his long official car came, poking hesitantly through the gate well,
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 1: he declared, professionally, that's that as we politicians say. Any questions,
• 1:23:18
  Speaker 1: Sue Anne hesitated, Yes, I guess I do have a question,
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 1: She said, what's a jew? It was full dawn at last,
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: the recall signal had come and the helicopters were swooping
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 1: home to half Arnold Field, a bombardier named Novak, red
• 1:23:34
  Speaker 1: eyed and grumpy, was amusing himself on the homeward flight
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: by taking practice sights on the stream of work bound
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 1: mechanics as they fluttered over Greeserville. Could pick em off
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: like pigeons, he said sourly to his pilot as he
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 1: dropped an imaginary bomb on a cluster of a dozen men.
• 1:23:52
  Speaker 1: For two cents, I'd do it too. The only good
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 1: greaser is a dead greaser, his pilot, just as Wary said, loftily,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: leave them alone. Best way to handle them is to
• 1:24:02
  Speaker 1: leave them alone. And the pilot was perfectly right. And
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 1: that was the way the world went round, spinning slowly
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: and unstoppably toward the dawn. End of chapter eight and
• 1:24:15
  Speaker 1: end of My Lady Greensleeves by Frederick Pohl, read by
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: Ben Tucker,