There must have been at least a hundred people, fanning outward from a central focus. Walton stepped from the jetbus and, with collar pulled up carefully to obscure as much of his face as possible, went to investigate.
A small red-faced man stood on a rickety chair against the side of the building. He was flanked by a pair of brass flagpoles, one bearing the American flag and the other the ensign of the United Nations. His voice was a biting rasp—probably, thought Walton, intensified, sharpened, and made more irritating by a harmonic modulator at his throat. An irritating voice put its message across twice as fast as a pleasant one.
He was shouting, "This is the place! Up here, in this building, that's where they are! That's where Popeek wastes our money!"
From the slant of the man's words Walton instantly thought: Herschelite!
He repressed his anger and, for once, decided to stay and hear the extremist out. He had never really paid much attention to Herschelite propaganda—he had been exposed to little of it—and he realized that now, as head of Popeek, he owed it to himself to become familiar with the anti-Popeek arguments of both extremist factions—those who insisted Popeek was a tyranny, and the Herschelites, who thought it was too weak.
"This Popeek," the little man said, accenting the awkwardness of the word. "You know what it is? It's a stopgap. It's a silly, soft-minded, half-hearted attempt at solving our problems. It's a fake, a fraud, a phony!"
There was real passion behind the words. Walton distrusted small men with deep wells of passion; he no more enjoyed their company than he did that of a dynamo or an atomic pile. They were always threatening to explode.
The crowd was stirring restlessly. The Herschelite was getting to them, one way or another. Walton drew back nervously, not wanting to be recognized, and stationed himself at the fringe of the crowd.
"Some of you don't like Popeek for this reason or that reason. But let me tell you something, friends ... you're wronger than they are! We've got to get tough with ourselves! We have to face the truth! Popeek is an unrealistic half-solution to man's problems. Until we limit birth, establish rigid controls over who's going to live and who isn't, we—"
It was straight Herschelite propaganda, undiluted. Walton wasn't surprised when someone in the audience interrupted, growling, "And who's going to set those controls? You?"