block; and "Yow-w-w!" shrieked Flock at the other.
The inside deck guard of Block 0 looked nervously at
the outside deck guard. The outside guard looked im-
passively backafter all, he was on the outside. The in-
side guard muttered, "Wipe rats! They're getting on my
nerves."
The outside guard shrugged.
"Detail, halt!" The two guards turned to see what was
coming in as the three new candidates for the Green
Sleeves slumped to a stop at the head of the stairs. "Here
they are," Sodaro told them. "Take good care of 'em, will
you? Especially the ladyshe's going to like it here, be-
cause there's plenty of wipes and greasers and figgers to
keep her company." He laughed coarsely and abandoned
his charges to the Block 0 guards.
The outside guard said sourly, "A woman, for God's
sake. Now, O'Leary knows I hate it when there's a woman
in here. It gets the others all riled up."
"Let them in," the inside guard told him. "The others
are riled up already." -
Sue-Ann Bradley looked carefully at the floor and paid
them no attention. The outside guard pulled the switch
that turned on the tanglefoot electronic fields that
swamped the floor of the block corridor and of each in-
dividual cell. While the fields were on, you could ignore
the prisonersthey simply could not move fast enough,
against the electronic drag of the field, to do any harm.
But it was a rule that even in Block 0 you didn't leave
the tangler fields on all the timeonly when the cell doors
had to be opened or a prisoner's restraining garment re-
moved.
Sue-Ann walked bravely forward through the opened
gateand fell flat on her face. It was like walking through
molasses; it was her first experience of a tanglefoot field.
The guard guffawed and lifted her up by one shoulder.
'Take it easy, auntie. Come on, get in your cell." He
steered her in the right direction and pointed to a green-
sleeved straitjacket on the cell cot. "Put that on. Being
as you're a lady, we won't tie it upbut the rules say
you got to wear it, and the rulesHey! She's crying!" He
shook his head, marveling. It was the first time he had
ever seen a prisoner cry in the Green Sleeves.
However, he was wrong. Sue-Ami's shoulders were
shaking, but not from tears. Sue-Ann Bradley had got a
good look at Sauer and at Flock as she passed them by,
and she was fighting off an almost uncontrollable urge
to retch.
Sauer and Flock were what are called prison wolves.
They were laborers"wipes," for shortor at any rate
they had been once; they had spent so much time in
