Christl Turn`. d
Almost ‘,efore its door was shut, the veetol howled heav~wwards, and Danty turned away from the ‘scope, to
‘amazement of the children around him, who took a ull ten seconds before they started quarrelling over who should make first use of the time bought and not expended.
“Reeky pigs,” Potatohead said as he drew on his pants -but not too loudly. The pig who had told them to quit the beach was still within earshot. And gun-shot.
“Mm-hm,” Stark said, squatting on the sand to empty some of it out of his shoes. “Funky traitors.”
The pig happened to be about the same colour as they were.
“Whother fart youter down?” Josh said, coming back from an ice-cream concession holding three overbalancing cones of pale blue, yellow, and pink.
“Nosser much wha’we doon,” Potatohead grunted. “Mop whother ‘adiated cop think we shudnal”
Josh stared at them for a moment. Then, in a gesture of all-embracing disgust, he hurled the ice-creams to the ground and stamped on them. Nearby, a child who had been watching with large envious eyes broke into a howl of misery and would have charged up and pummelled Josh but that his father seized him by the ankle and tripped him-which led to still louder howls.
“Chrahssekl” Josh blasted. “Youter doan’ spen’nough
tahm uppie chothers’ cricks? Lahk youer hanna blow, hunh? ‘Zat it?”
“We-yull . . .” Potatohead shuffled from one foot to the other, reincarnating Uncle Tom to the life.
“Ah, y’make muh wan’thro-wupl” Josh snarled. “Y’knoh they dullet’nyun bu’ gulls scroona beachl Fay-yudl Mekun fast! Ah dwonna knoh youter blabbohs ‘fo’ y’eads get stray-yutl Heah muh? Ah s’d fay-yudl”
Briefly, Shark looked as though he might hurl himself at Josh; the latter, though, kicked with bare toes at the pants he had left folded on the sand and parted folds of cloth to reveal the handle of his knife. He was very fast with it, much faster than his buddies-which was a good reason for him to give the orders.
“Ah, piss’nyal” Shark sighed at length, and turned away.
Turpin getting into a company veetol at a run-and on a Sunday afternoon) Head down, strolling randomly along the beach and attracting cat-calls on every side. not only from girls, proposing reasons why he should havg, his pants on-mostly connected with needing a magnifyingglass-Danty struggled to make sense of the situation.
If it did have anything to do with him, and past experience indicated that he wouldn’t have felt it if it didn’t, then it must connect up by way of the reserved area that he’d left turned off. Why? Why? That was the best possible guarantee that the security force would come running)
Of course, no one would be able to link him personally with what he’d done. Before leaving, he had meticulously wiped everything he recalled touching, and his memory was good. The rock he’d hidden beside was below the tide-mark, and he’d gone to it over firm, dry ground patched with dune-grass, so . . .
He stopped dead. Just ahead of him, some tender-foot had stepped in a patch of damp sand, and the mark of a plastic sandal stood out as clear as a plaster-of-Paris cast. And he remembered.
That puddle, where he’d collected mud to smear on his facel He’d seen-and he’d done nothing about-that print he’d left on its edge . . . and since Friday morning there had been no more rainl
“Josh)”
“Ah, shit! Wh’n Ah sa’ fay-yud, Ah mean fay-yud!” Josh sat up, hand snaking towards his pants and the hilt of his knife.
“Nah, coolunl” Shark hissed. “Tha’ slug dun-s’all wrong -tha’ Dan’y Wohd!”
Instantly Josh forgot everything else. He turned very slow to face them, eyes blank behind his dark glasses.
“Sawun?”
“Sho’! Raht hyah onna be-yutchl”
There was a pause full of the cries of kids playing ball. At length Josh nodded and began to pull on his clothes.
“Shown way, hm?” he said. “We got sco’ t’level wi-yat mother.”
A XV11 A
A few minutes after the discovery of the footprint, a second security veetol dropped out of the sky-not such a fast model as Clarke’s, but much larger, bringing a top forensic team with all their gear. Under Clarke’s direction they set about turning the site inside-out.