Basil Wells

“ Duggan shrugged and smoothed at his own neck and face. Four red-uniformed men, their heads hidden by ovoid gas helmets, came hissing toward them along the travel strip. They rode single-wheeled cycles and their rapid-fire expoders were trained on them. ”

“ His eyes slitted open, drinking in by degrees the mirrored mentrol booth and the pallid, fat, little man sitting beside his hooded body. He stepped out of the clamps, his sharpened senses aware of softness, and hardness, and scent, and color that human weakness so often blurs. ”

“ Always before he had agreed when Janith decided. He had been so dependent on her those first terrible weeks. But now, with this money from the breakthrough pool, he could rent a super mech—live as a man should live!
Duggan left the employment booth on the 20th Level, a badge on his jacket and a half-grin on his full super mech's lips.
On the records he was now Al Duggan, a second cousin from Montana. He knew that nothing in the world could bring Al further east than Ozarka. Just to be safe, however, he decided to drop Al a line to explain. ”

“ In the super mech hostel, on the 79th Level, Duggan shared a compartment of six sleeping and mentrol plates. All of the others were rockhounds, and three of them worked in his own clean-up gang. His immediate pusher, Ted Rusche, was a legless, dark and hairy man, much like his working super mech. ”

“ Rusche's voice was curious.
"He musta found out something about you, Al. S'funny but you look awful familiar to me too. And you know more about tunnels than you let on. How about leveling with a guy?"
"Not now." Duggan was thinking of the other listening men. "After we've cleaned-up and eaten. See you in the park outside the hostel."
"Right."
Duggan's thoughts were muddled. Fingerprints probably; at every super mech hostel all guests were printed and taped, and possibly through his similar name. Short must have been suspicious from the first. ”

“ His own man. He was released from the calculated economies of his wife. Janith knew to within a few dollars what his newsstand on the 10th Level should make. He had never been able to save the necessary thousand dollar deposit, and ten dollars an hour, that a rented super mech cost. And she would never listen to his pleas that he must see again—if only for an hour....
"Waste ten or twenty dollars for nothing," she would storm. "We have all your hospital bills to pay. I need new clothes. Your stock in the stands is too small." ”

“ He closed up the news-and-cigar stand. With his cane's sensitive radar button pulsating beneath his fingers he hurried along the walkway toward the nearest super mech showroom. It was less than three blocks....
"Be sure that all the contacts are against the skull and neck," the salesman was saying, his voice muffled by the mentrol hood covering Duggan's head and shoulders.
"Of course." Duggan's impatience made his voice shrill. "I've used mentrols before when inspecting cave-ins and such." ”

“ Basil Wells, who lives in Pennsylvania, writes that he has been doing research concerning the keelboat age prior to and following the War of 1812 on the "locally famous section of portage-keelboat-rafting stream from Waterford down to Pittsburgh," turning from this to this grimmer future. ”