Retief braked. "In that case, I'm afraid our association is at an end, Jake."
"You mean ... you're getting out here?"
"No, you are."
"Huh? Now wait a minute, Mister! The corporal said I was to stay with you."
Retief accelerated. "That's settled, then. Which way?"
IV
Retief pulled the car to a halt two hundred yards from the periphery of a loose crowd of brown-uniformed men who stood in groups scattered across a broad plaza, overflowing into a stretch of manicured lawn before the bare, functional facade of sub-station number Nine. In the midst of the besieging mob, Sozier's red face and bald head bobbed as he harangued a cluster of green-uniformed men from his place in the rear of a long open car.
"What's it all about, Jake?" Retief enquired. "Since the parasites have all left peacefully, I'm having a hard time figuring out who'd be holed up in the pumping station—and why. Maybe they haven't gotten the word that it's all going to be fun and games from now on."
"If the corporal sees you over here—"