Chapter 3

Dan passed another fish market, then came to a big, brightly polished window. Inside was a huge, chromium-plated bar-bell on a purple velvet cloth. Behind it were arranged displays of hand-grips, exercise cables, dumb-bells and skipping ropes. The inside of the store was indirectly lighted and expensively simple. The place had an air that was quiet, lavish and discreet. It reminded Dan of a well-to-do funeral establishment. In one corner of the window was a small, edge-lighted sign:

You Never Know What the
Next Life Will Be Like.

In the other corner of the window was a polished black plate with a dimly glowing bulb in the center. Around the bulb were the words:

Your Corrected Charge--
Courtesy of Save-Your-Life Co.

A tall, heavily muscled man in a dark-blue cape stepped outside.

“Good morning, Devisement,” he said affably. “I see you’re a stranger in town. I thought I might mention that our birth rate’s rather high just now.” He coughed deferentially. “You set an example, you know. Our main store is on 122 Center Street, so if you--”

He was cut off by a childish scream.

Down the street, a little boy struggled and thrashed near an oblong hole at the base of a building, caught in a tangle of the mysterious ropes.

“A kid!” cried the man. He sucked in his breath and shouted, “Dog! Here, Dog! Dog!“

On the end of a wharf, a crowd of children was watching the unloading. From their midst, a lioness burst.

“Here, Dog!” shouted the man. “A sweeper! A sweeper! Run, Dog!”

The lioness burst into a blur of long bounds, shot down the wharf, sprang into the street and glanced around with glaring yellow eyes.

The little boy was partway inside the hole, clinging to the edge with both hands. “Doggie,” he sobbed.

The lioness crouched, sprang into the hole. A crash, a bellow and a thin scream came from within. The lioness reappeared, its eyes glittering and its fur on end. It gripped the little boy by the cape and trotted off, growling.

“Good dog!” cried the man.

Men in the shops’ doorways echoed his shout.

“A kid,” said the man. “They have to learn sometime, I know, but--” He cut himself short. “Well, all’s well that ends well.” He glanced respectfully at Dan. “If you’re here any length of time, sir, we’d certainly appreciate your looking into this. And if you’re planning to stay long--well, as you see, our sweepers are hungry--our main store is on 122 Center Street. Our vacation advisor might be of some service to you.”

“Thank you,” said Dan, his throat dry.

“Not at all, Devisement.” The man went inside, muttering, “A kid.”

Dan passed several more shops without seeing very much. He turned the corner. Across the street, where the boy had been, was a dented brass plate at the base of the building. On Dan’s side of the street, trotting toward him, was a big, tawny-maned lion. Dan hesitated, then started up the street.

There was a faint clash of metal.

Swish-swish.

A net seemed to form in the air and close around him. There was a feel of innumerable hairy spiders running over him from head to foot. The net vanished. Something wrapped around his ankle and yanked.

The lion growled.

There was a loud clang and Dan’s foot was free. He looked down and saw a brass plate labeled SWEEPER.

Dan decided it might be a good idea to see the Save-Your-Life Co.’s vacation advisor. He started out to locate 122 Center Street and gave all brass plates a wide berth on the way.

He strode through a briskly moving crowd of powerfully built men and women in capes of various colors, noticing uneasily that they were making way for him. He studied them as they passed, and saw capes of red, green, dark blue, brown, purple, and other shades and combinations of colors. But the only sky-blue cape he had seen so far was his own.

A sign on the corner of a building told Dan he was at Center Street. He crossed and the people continued to draw back for him.

It began to dawn on Dan that he had had the ultimate bad luck for a spy in an unknown country: He was marked out on sight as some sort of notable.