“One please.”
“That’ll be ten imperial bucks.”
“Isn’t that a little expensive?” he said peevishly, unrolling the bills one by one from his thin wad.
“If you’re poor, don’t come to Helior.”
The cashier-robot was primed with all the snappy answers. Bill ignored it and pushed through into the gardens. They were everything he had ever dreamed of and more. As he walked down the gray cinder path inside the outer wall he could see green shrubs and grass just on the other side of the titanium mesh fence. No more than a hundred yards away, on the other side of the grass, were floating, colorful plants and flowers from all the worlds of the Empire. And there! Tiny in the distance were the Rainbow Fountains, almost visible to the naked eye. Bill slipped a coin into one of the telescopes and watched their colors glow and wane, and it was just as good as seeing it on TV. He went on, circling inside the wall, bathed by the light of the artificial sun in the giant dome above.
But even the heady pleasures of the gardens waned in the face of the soul-consuming fatigue that gripped him in iron hands. There were steel benches pegged to the wall, and he dropped onto one to rest for a moment, then closed his eyes for a second to ease the glare. His chin dropped onto his chest, and before he realized it he was sound asleep. Other visitors scrunched by on the cinders without disturbing him, nor did he move when one sat down at the far end of the bench.
Since Bill never saw this man there is no point in describing him. Suffice to say that he had sallow skin, a broken, reddened nose, feral eyes peering from under a simian brow, wide hips and narrow shoulders, mismatched feet, lean, knobby, dirty fingers, and a twitch.
Long seconds of eternity ticked by while the man sat there. Then for a few moments there were no other visitors in sight. With a quick, snakelike motion the newcomer whipped an atomic arc-pencil from his pocket. The small, incredibly hot flame whispered briefly as he pressed it against the chain that secured Bill’s floor plan to his waist, just at the point where the looped chain rested on the metal bench. In a trice the metal of the chain was welded fast to the metal of the bench. Still undisturbed, Bill slept on.
A wolfish grin flickered across the man’s face like the evil rings formed in sewer water by a diving rat. Then, with a single swift motion, the atomic flame severed the chain near the volume. Pocketing the arc-pencil the thief rose, plucked Bill’s floor plan from his lap, and strode quickly away.
III
At first Bill didn’t appreciate the magnitude of his loss. He swam slowly up out of his sleep, thickheaded, with the feeling that something was wrong. Only after repeated tugging did he realize that the chain was stuck fast to the bench and that the book was gone. The chain could not be freed, and in the end he had to unfasten it from his belt and leave it dangling. Retracing his steps to the entrance, he knocked on the cashier’s window.
“No refunds,” the robot said.
“I want to report a crime.”
“The police handle crime. You want to talk to the police. You talk to the police on a phone. Here is a phone. The number is 111-11-111.” A small door slid open, and a phone popped out, catching Bill in the chest and knocking him back on his heels. He dialed the number.
“Police,” a voice said, and a bulldog-faced sergeant wearing a Prussian blue uniform and a scowl appeared on the screen.
“I want to report a theft.”
“Grand larceny or petty larceny?”
“I don’t know, it was my floor plan that was stolen.”
“Petty larceny. Proceed to your nearest police station. This is an emergency circuit, and you are tying it up illegally. The penalty for illegally tying up an emergency circuit is …” Bill jammed hard on the button and the screen went blank. He turned back to the robot cashier.