Helena noted at last that the women’s wear shops had live attendants who, presumably, would object to trouble. They marched into one of the gaudy places, each took a dress from a rack and methodically tore them to pieces.
A saleslady approached them dithering and asked tremu-
lously: “What for did you do that? Din’t you like the dresses?”
“Well yes, very much,” Helena began apologetically. “But you see, the fact is———”
“Shuddup!” Ross told her. He said to the saleslady: “No. We hated them. We hate every dress here. We’re going to tear up every dress in the place. Why don’t you call the police?”
“Oh,” she said vaguely. “All right,” and vanished into the rear of the store. She returned after a minute and said, “He wants to know your names.”
“Just say ‘three desperate strangers,’ ” Ross told her.
“Oh. Thank you.” She vanished again.
The police arrived in five minutes or so. An excited elder man with many stripes on his arms strode up to them excitedly as they stood among the shredded-rums of the dresses. “Where’d they go?” he demanded. “Didja see what they looked like?”
“We’re them. We three. We tore these dresses up. You’d better take them along for evidence.”
“Oh,” the cop said. “Okay. Go on into the wagon. And no funny business, hear me?”
They offered no funny business. In the wagon Ross expounded on his theme that there must be directing intelligences and that they must be at the top. Helena was horribly depressed because she had never been arrested before and Bernie was almost jaunty. Something about him suggested that he felt at home hi a patrol wagon.
It stopped and the elderly stripe-wearer opened the door for them. Ross looked on the busy street for anything resembling a station house and found none.
The cop said, “Okay, you people. Get going. An’ let’s don’t have no trouble or I’ll run you in.”
Ross yelled in outrage, “This is a frame-up! You have no right to turn us loose. We demand to be arrested and tried!”
“Wise guy,” sneered the cop, climbed into the wagon and drove off.
They stood forlornly as the crowd eddied and swirled around them. “There was a plate of sandwiches at that
party,” Helena recalled wistfully. “And a ladies’ room.” She began to cry. “If only you hadn’t acted so darn superior, Ross! I’ll bet they would have let us have all the sandwiches we wanted.”
Bernie said unexpectedly, “She’s right. Watch me.”
He buttonholed a pedestrian and said, “Duh.”
“Yeah?” asked the pedestrian with kindly interest.
Bernie concentrated and said, “Duh. I yam losted. I yam broke. I losted all my money. Gimme some money, mister, please?”
The pedestrian beamed and said, “That is real tough luck, buddy. If I give you some money will you send it to me when you get some more? Here is my name wrote on a card.”
Bernie said, “Sure, mister. I will send the money to you.”
“Then,” said the pedestrian, “I will give you some money because you will send it back to me. Good luck, buddy.”
Bernie, with quiet pride, showed them a piece of paper that bore the interesting legend Twenty Dollars.
“Let’s eat,” Ross said, awed.
A machine on a restaurant door changed the bill for a surprising heap of coins and they swaggered hi, making beelines for the modest twin doors at the rear of the place. Close up the doors were not very modest, but after the initial shock Ross realized that there must be many on this planet who could not read at all. The washroom attendant, for instance, who collected the “dimes” and unlocked the booths. “Dime” seemed to be his total vocabulary.
By comparison the machines in the restaurant proper were intelligent. The three of them ate and ate and ate. Only after coffee did they spare a thought for Dr. Sam Jones, who should about then be .awakening with a murderous hangover aboard the starship.
Thinking about him did not mean they could think of anything to do.
“He’s hi trouble,” Bernie said. “We’re in trouble. First things first.”
“What trouble?” asked Helena brightly. “You got twenty dollars by asking for it and I suppose you can get plenty more. And I think we wouldn’t have got thrown out of that