VI + 

After O’Leary and the medic left, the warden tottered to a chair⁠—but not for long. His secretary appeared, eyes bulging. “The governor!” he gasped. + 

Warden Schluckebier managed to say: “Why, Governor! How good of you to come⁠—” + 

The governor shook him off and held the door open for the men who had come with him. There were reporters from all the news services, officials from the township governments within the city-state. There was an Air G.I. with major’s leaves on his collar⁠—“Liaison, sir,” he explained crisply to the warden, “just in case you have any orders for our men up there.” There were nearly a dozen others. + 

The warden was quite overcome. + 

The governor rapped out: “Warden, no criticism of you, of course, but I’ve come to take personal charge. I’m superseding you under Rule Twelve, Paragraph A, of the Uniform Civil Service Code. Right?” + 

“Oh, right!” cried the warden, incredulous with joy. + 

“The situation is bad⁠—perhaps worse than you think. I’m seriously concerned about the hostages those men have in there. And I had a call from Senator Bradley a short time ago⁠—” + 

“Senator Bradley?” echoed the warden. + 

“Senator Sebastian Bradley. One of our foremost civil servants,” the governor said firmly. “It so happens that his daughter is in Block O as an inmate.” + 

The warden closed his eyes. He tried to swallow, but the throat muscles were paralyzed. + 

“There is no question,” the governor went on briskly, “about the propriety of her being there. She was duly convicted of a felonious act, namely conspiracy and incitement to riot. But you see the position.” + 

The warden saw all too well. + 

“Therefore,” said the governor. “I intend to go in to Block O myself. Sebastian Bradley is an old and personal friend⁠—as well,” he emphasized, “as being a senior member of the Reclassification Board. I understand a medic is going to Block O. I shall go with him.” + 

The warden managed to sit up straight. “He’s gone. I mean they already left, Governor. But I assure you Miss Brad⁠—Inmate Bradley⁠—that is, the young lady is in no danger. I have already taken precautions,” he said, gaining confidence as he listened to himself talk. “I⁠—uh⁠—I was deciding on a course of action as you came in. See, Governor, the guards on the walls are all armed. All they have to do is fire a couple of rounds into the yard and then the ’copters could start dropping tear gas and light fragmentation bombs and⁠—” + 

The governor was already at the door. “You will not,” he said; and: “Now which way did they go?” + 

O’Leary was in the yard and he was smelling trouble, loud and strong. The first he knew that the rest of the prison had caught the riot fever was when the lights flared on in Cell Block A. + 

“That Sodaro!” he snarled, but there wasn’t time to worry about that Sodaro. He grabbed the rest of his guard detail and double-timed it toward the New Building, leaving the medic and a couple of guards walking sedately toward the Old. Block A, on the New Building’s lowest tier, was already coming to life; a dozen yards, and Blocks B and C lighted up. + 

And a dozen yards more and they could hear the yelling; and it wasn’t more than a minute before the building doors opened. + 

The cons had taken over three more blocks. How? O’Leary didn’t take time even to guess. The inmates were piling out into the yard. He took one look at the rushing mob. Crazy! It was Wilmer Lafon leading the rioters, with a guard’s gun and a voice screaming threats! But O’Leary didn’t take time to worry about an honor prisoner gone bad, either. + 

“Let’s get out of here!” he bellowed to the detachment, and they ran. + 

Just plain ran. Cut and ran, scattering as they went. + 

“Wait!” screamed O’Leary, but they weren’t waiting. Cursing himself for letting them get out of hand, O’Leary salvaged two guards and headed on the run for the Old Building, huge and dark, all but the topmost lights of Block O. + 

They saw the medic and his escort disappearing into the bulk of the Old Building and they saw something else. There were inmates between them and the Old Building! The Shops Building lay between⁠—with a dozen more cell blocks over the workshops that gave it its name⁠—and there was a milling rush of activity around its entrance, next to the laundry shed⁠— + 

The laundry shed. + 

O’Leary stood stock still. Lafon leading the breakout from Block A. The little greaser who was a trusty in the Shops Building sabotaging the yard’s tangler circuit. Sauer and Flock taking over the Greensleeves with a manufactured knife and a lot of guts. + 

Did it fit together? Was it all part of a plan? + 

That was something to find out⁠—but not just then. “Come on,” O’Leary cried to the two guards, and they raced for the temporary safety of the main gates. + 

The whole prison was up and yelling now. + 

O’Leary could hear scattered shots from the beat guards on the wall⁠—Over their heads, over their heads! he prayed silently. And there were other shots that seemed to come from inside the walls⁠—guards shooting, or convicts with guards’ guns, he couldn’t tell which. The yard was full of convicts now, in bunches and clumps; but none near the gate. And they seemed to have lost some of their drive. They were milling around, lit by the searchlights from the wall, yelling and making a lot of noise⁠ ⁠… but going nowhere in particular. Waiting for a leader, O’Leary thought, and wondered briefly what had become of Lafon. + 

“You Captain O’Leary?” somebody demanded. + 

He turned and blinked. Good Lord, the governor! He was coming through the gate, waving aside the gate guards, alone. “You him?” the governor repeated. “All right, glad I found you. I’m going into Block O with you.” + 

O’Leary swallowed and waved inarticulately at the teeming cons. True, there were none immediately near by⁠—but there were plenty in the yard! Riots meant breaking things up; already the inmates had started to break up the machines in the laundry shed and the athletic equipment in the yard lockers. When they found a couple of choice breakables like O’Leary and the governor, they’d have a ball! + 

“But, Governor⁠—” + 

“But my foot! Can you get me in there or can’t you?” + 

O’Leary gauged their chances. It wasn’t more than fifty feet to the main entrance to the Old Building⁠—not at the moment guarded, since all the guards were in hiding or on the walls, and not as yet being invaded by the inmates at large. + 

He said: “You’re the boss. Hold on a minute⁠—” The searchlights were on the bare yard cobblestones in front of them; in a moment, the searchlights danced away. + 

“Come on!” cried O’Leary, and jumped for the entrance. The governor was with him and a pair of the guards came stumbling after. + 

They made it to the Old Building. + 

Inside the entrance, they could hear the noise from outside and the yelling of the inmates who were still in their cells. But around them was nothing but gray steel walls and the stairs going all the way up to Block O. + 

“Up!” panted O’Leary, and they clattered up the steel steps. + 

They would have made it⁠—if it hadn’t been for the honor inmate, Wilmer Lafon, who knew what he was after and had headed for the Greensleeves through the back way. In fact, they did make it⁠—but not the way they planned. “Get out of the way!” yelled O’Leary at Lafon and the half-dozen inmates with him; and “Go to hell!” screamed Lafon, charging; and it was a rough-and-tumble fight, and O’Leary’s party lost it, fair and square. + 

So when they got to Block O, it was with the governor marching before a convict-held gun, and with O’Leary cold unconscious, a lump from a gun-butt on the side of his head. + 

As they came up the stairs, Sauer was howling at the medic: “You got to fix up my boy! He’s dying and all you do is sit there!” + 

The medic said patiently: “My son, I’ve dressed his wound. He is under sedation and I must rest. There will be other casualties.” + 

Sauer raged, but that was as far as it went. Even Sauer wouldn’t attack a medic. He would as soon strike an Attorney, or even a Director of Funerals. It wasn’t merely that they were Professionals. Even among the Professional class, they were special; not superior, exactly, but apart. They certainly were not for the likes of Sauer to fool with and Sauer knew it. + 

“Somebody’s coming!” bawled one of the other freed inmates. + 

Sauer jumped to the head of the steps, saw that Lafon was leading the group, stepped back, saw whom Lafon’s helpers were carrying and leaped forward again. + 

“Cap’n O’Leary!” he roared. “Gimme!” + 

“Shut up,” said Wilmer Lafon, and pushed the big redhead out of the way. Sauer’s jaw dropped and the snake eyes opened wide. + 

“Wilmer,” he protested feebly. But that was all the protest he made, because the snake’s eyes had seen that Lafon held a gun. He stood back, the big hands half outstretched toward the unconscious guard captain, O’Leary, and the cold eyes became thoughtful. + 

And then he saw who else was with the party. “Wilmer! You got the governor there!” + 

Lafon nodded. “Throw them in a cell,” he ordered, and sat down on a guard’s stool, breathing hard. It had been a fine fight on the steps, before he and his boys had subdued the governor and the guards, but Wilmer Lafon wasn’t used to fighting. Even six years in the Jug hadn’t turned an architect into a laborer; physical exertion simply was not his métier. + 

Sauer said coaxingly: “Wilmer, won’t you leave me have O’Leary for a while? If it wasn’t for me and Flock, you’d still be in A Block and⁠—” + 

“Shut up,” Lafon said again, gently enough, but he waved the gun muzzle. He drew a deep breath, glanced around him and grinned. “If it wasn’t for you and Flock,” he mimicked. “If it wasn’t for you and Flock! Sauer, you wipe clown, do you think it took brains to file down a shiv and start things rolling? If it wasn’t for me, you and Flock would have beaten up a few guards, and had your kicks for half an hour, and then the whole prison would fall in on you! It was me, Wilmer Lafon, who set things up and you know it!” + 

He was yelling and suddenly he realized he was yelling. And what was the use, he demanded of himself contemptuously, of trying to argue with a bunch of lousy wipes and greasers? They’d never understand the long, soul-killing hours of planning and sweat. They wouldn’t realize the importance of the careful timing⁠—of arranging that the laundry cons would start a disturbance in the yard right after the Greensleeves hard-timers kicked off the riot, of getting the little greaser Hiroko to short-circuit the yard field so the laundry cons could start their disturbances. + 

It took a Professional to organize and plan⁠—yes, and to make sure that he himself was out of it until everything was ripe, so that if anything went wrong, he was all right. It took somebody like Wilmer Lafon⁠—a Professional, who had spent six years too long in the Jug⁠— + 

And who would shortly be getting out. + 