Facial Justice Read Free Page B

counted out five tickets, and tore them off. "I don't get much opportunity to," she said. "What, a pretty girl like you!" "Inspectors shouldn't talk to Delinquents," said Jael primly, but without much conviction. "No, it's you who mustn't talk to us," replied the Inspector in a lordly manner. "Name, please." "Jael 97." "Address?" "Tophet 518." "Now I know," said the Inspector, with satisfaction. "Now I know," he added in a conversational tone. "I was a Tophet man myself before I was elected. Nice place. Good radio reception. No excuse for this sort of thing." He shook his head reprovingly, making the plume dance. "I was out," said Jael. Gracious as the Inspector was, she could not feel at her ease talking to him. "But what about the loudspeakers?" "There didn't happen to be one where I was," said Jael feebly. She felt wretched. Among the many emotions of the evening exhilaration had been one, but it had worn off, leaving her empty and despondent: and she felt she could hardly bear this extra stroke of bad luck. But the law must be obeyed She handed her fine to the Inspector. But to her astonishment he waved it away. "Alpha is--?" Making a prodigious effort Jael remembered. "Antiquated." "Yes, but you're not," said the Inspector, "and don't forget it. Sweet thoughts of the Dictator." He saluted and strode off into the twilight, and the gleam from his uniform left a glow in Jael's heart long after he was gone.
    Chapter Three
    THE Dictator had ruled for fifteen years and was not unpopular. The Third World War had eliminated nine-tenths of the human race, and when the end came the twenty million survivors were living underground in the caverns they had excavated before and during the catastrophe. Nobody really believed that it was over, for there had been many false alarms. Deceived by these, reckless and enterprising persons had gone up to explore and not come back. The Governments of each cavern then prockimed that anyone making investigations on his own should be punished with death; the guards at the cavern entrances were doubled and redoubled. Any attempt to reconnoiter the upper element, it was given out, must have official sanction. (Telephonic communication existed between the various national caves and in some cases, though not in many, they were connected by corridors, heavily guarded. These corridors were hardly ever used and it cost a lot to keep them in repair, but such cave countries as possessed them were intensely proud of them.) Perhaps the guards at the entrances were corruptible; at any rate dauntless individuals did manage to slip out and a few of them got back, bearing news which, unobtrusively and judiciously circulated, eventually induced the Governments to send out exploration parties. They were in no hurry to do this because not only had a great many formalities to be gone through, innumerable forms filled out, and special and very expensive rayproof suits manufactured (the original explorers had gone in their ordinary clothes), but by far the greatest proportion of the various surviving people had no wish at all to regain the upper air, or go aloft, as it was called. They were conditioned to the ways of life below, and many had gone through such experiences on the earth's crust that the mere thought of them brought on a nervous seizure. These dissidents brought pressure to bear on their Governments to leave the upper air alone; their own air was plenty good enough, they said; it was sucked down from above and filtered and the temperature and the seasons never varied. Every day was exactly like the last, and this was what they liked. Indeed, the smallest variation in their routine, such as the substitution of a blue food tablet for a pink one (all food was taken in tablet form) had a disastrous effect on their nervous systems. "Daylight is dangerous," was one of the passwords of the cave dwellers; people wandering too near the mouths of their caves had been known to faint at the sight of a reflected