rfall. They landed
snarling.

Something smashed viciously into the wall beside Ward's head. From the
back of the room, someone's hand flashed a glitter of light. Ward leaped
away and cut across the end of the room toward the escape chute. Holding
his ring with its identifying light beam before him, he leaped into the
slot like a racing driver. Behind him, the room exploded in shouts and
snarls. The gate on the chute slammed shut after him, and he heard them
scratching and banging at it. Without the identifying light, they would
be unable to get through. He took a long breath of relief as he shot
down the polished groove of the slide into the Mob Quad. The boys he'd
left behind knew how to protect themselves.

They were all there--Dr. Allenby, McCarthy the psych man, Laura Ames the
pretty gym teacher, Foster, Jensen--all of them. So it had been general
then, not just his group which had rioted. He knew it was all the more
serious now, because it had not been limited to one outbreak.

"You, too, Ward?" Dr. Allenby said sadly. He was a short, slender man
with white hair and a white mustache. He helped Ward up from where he
had fallen at the foot of the escape slide. "What was it in your
classroom this time?"

"Tigers," Ward said. Standing beside Allenby, he felt very tall,
although he was only of average height. He smoothed down his wiry dark
hair and began energetically brushing the dust from his clothing.

"Well, it's always something," Allenby said tiredly.

He seemed more sad than upset, Ward thought, a spent old man clinging to
the straw of a dream. He saw where the metaphor was leading and pushed
it aside. If Allenby were a drowning man, then Ward himself was one. He
looked at the others.

They were all edgy or simply frightened, but they were taking it very
well. Some of them were stationed at the gates of the Quad, but none of
them, as far as he could see, was armed. Except for McCarthy. The psych
man was wearing his Star Watcher helmet and had a B-gun strapped at his
side. Probably had a small force-field in his pocket, Ward thought,
_and_ a pair of brass knuckles.

"So--the philosophy king got it too," McCarthy said, coming over to
them. He was a big man, young but already florid with what Ward had
always thought of as a roan complexion. "Love, understanding,
sympathy--wasn't that what was supposed to work wonders? All they need
is a copy of Robinson Crusoe and a chance to follow their natural
instincts