Glen noticed this with some satisfaction. At least, he wasn't the only one. "Come on, Wheatley. Us lower-level boys have got to be on the hop. You'd be surprised how fast that mob can get up here."
Glen unfolded the map of Government House that had been placed on his desk that morning. He stared grimly at it, dabbing at his cheek with a rather grubby handkerchief meanwhile. The bleeding did not show any signs of stopping.
Hillary hurried to the door. "Come on!" He was openly nervous now. "It's no good studying that map for safety-holes now. You should have been doing that ever since we got here this morning."
As a matter of fact, Glen had been doing just that, whenever Hillary's flow of words had momentarily run dry. But he had not yet got the location of all the nearby hidden cubbies clearly in his mind. "Government House is such a maze," he said defensively.
"And we're damned lucky it is," Hillary said from the doorway. "Anyway, how do you know that map you've got there isn't just what they've been hawking in People's Square all this past week?" He gave a slightly sick leer.
"You know those maps are inaccurate. They're just a sop, just to give the mob an extra thrill. Government House plants most of them." He could sound like an old hand, too, Glen thought with a certain smugness.
"Nuts to that. Some of them are amazingly accurate. There are a hell of a lot of non-Government people in here from year to year, and some of them aren't here just on business. Let's get going." Hillary pulled Glen through the door, and then locked it. Glen raised his eyebrows at this. "Oh, sure," his co-worker said wryly. "Gives the People something to work off steam on." He patted the flimsy door. "This will cave in under a few hard shoulders. Not like the safety-hole panels. We hope."
"But they don't unlock for another half hour in this area."
"Thirty-eight minutes, to be exact," Hillary said, glancing at his watch. "And of course the ones deeper in and higher up open even later. We're supposed to give them a run for their taxes."