IV: FIVEDAY MORNING
Toothies raced for their holes when the Dominant and three guards entered the cell. "Did you get any sleep?" I asked.
The Dominant announced, "Shall see the Jury."
They marched me out into the hot, slanting rays of Joe's Sun. Large, brown-haired, big-nosed pedestrians gawked at me with stolid curiosity. The women carefully kept at a distance of ten foot lengths. We turned a corner and passed a column of varied men and women who did not fall within Maggiese standards. They carried or pushed primitive agricultural tools, such as chain saws, weed burners, and self-propelled soil tillers and sickle bars. Their brooches were inscribed, "Farmer."
We climbed a broad flight of plank steps into a huge log building with wooden pillars and carved friezes. The Dominant said, "Guard him," and passed through one of the many doors in the vestibule.
I examined two flat photographs on the wall. I decided that the Maggiese letters labeled the man as Joe Nordo, and that he had said, "To be alike is to be free." The woman was Maggie Ione Curwen Nordo. Evidently, she had never said anything worth quoting.
Although Maggie was rather pretty, she had features similar to Joe's. Joe was a caricature of most of the natives. His face appeared almost in profile, so that the combination concave and convex bridge of his nose jutted prominently.
The Dominant came through another doorway and motioned. The guards ushered me into a room where Betty Toal sat between two more guards. Dirt smeared her face and her torn white sack.
"Low, Toal," I said. "What—"
The Dominant said, "Planetary Ordinance 104: Criminal aliens shall not speak to fallen Maggiese females."
"Can't you do anything but gibber Ordinances?" I yelled. "Toal only gave me some water. If you—"
Leather bands snapped around my wrists. The guards tied me to rings in the wall. The Dominant strapped a harness under my jaw and across the top of my head. I tried to talk, but all that came past my clenched teeth was, "Effhyu hink hyu kun—" and I stopped.
Someone called, "Criminal Minimum Betty Toal!"
Toal left the room between her guards. She returned, in not more than fifteen minutes, alone. She wore loose white coveralls stamped, "Recessive—Alien Status." As she passed me, her teeth flashed in a glad and grateful smile.