He menaced his supposed uncle; was about to strike him. Then suddenly he was ashamed. He turned on his heel.
“I’m leaving,” he said shortly.
“Karl—my boy,” begged Rudolph Krassin, struggling to his feet. “You can’t! That lad in there—he—”
But Karl was too angry to reason.
“To hell with him!” he raged, “and to hell with you! I’m through!”
He stamped from the room and out into the eery shadows of the Way. Karl was done with his old life. He’d go to the upper levels and claim his rights. Some day, too, he’d punish the man who’d stolen them away. God! Born to the purple! To think he’d missed it all! Probably was kidnaped by the old rascal he’d been calling uncle. But he’d find out. Rudolph didn’t have to explain. Fingerprint records would clear his name; establish his rightful station in life. He dived into a passage that would lead him to one of the express lifts. He’d soon be overhead.
A sergeant of the red police looked up startled from his desk as a tall youth in the gray denim of forty levels below appeared before him.
“Well?” he growled. The stalwart young worker had stared belligerently and insolently, he thought.
“I want to check my fingerprint record, Sergeant.”