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who’d witnessed the altercation, they made their way through the crowded hall and down the steps, but it wasn’t until they reached the sidewalk that they discovered a fourth person had joined them, the tall fellow who’d tried to defend them.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” Nat asked. “They didn’t throw you out.”
    â€œNo, they didn’t.” The tall man reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a briar pipe. “But hanging around with the three of you looks like more fun.”
    *   *   *
    The restaurant across the street from Caravan Hall was an Automat, appropriately futuristic for the World’s Science Fiction Convention. Vending machines with little glass doors dispensed sandwiches and pie slices for a nickel apiece, leaving the waiter with only the job of coming around to pour coffee. For Sunday noon, the place was crowded; all the tables were taken.
    The girl—whose name was Margaret Krough, although she insisted that they call her Maggie—made good her promise to buy lunch for Nat and the kid. His name was Harry Skinner, and it was clear that, although he seemed to be just as poor as Nat was, he was perfectly willing to take advantage of her generosity; he let Maggie plug nickels into the machines until he had a submarine sandwich, a Boston cream pie, and a carton of milk on his tray. Nat settled for a chicken salad sandwich and told Maggie that he’d repay her later. The tall chap, whose name was George Hallahan, bought his own lunch; Maggie’s offer hadn’t been extended to him, but he didn’t seem to mind. A little older than the rest of them, he was also the most reserved, yet Nat detected a keen and swift intelligence behind his quiet, perpetual smile.
    Once they’d collected their food, they waited a few minutes for a group to vacate a table so they could take their place. “I think half the convention has moved over here,” Nat said, looking around as they settled into chrome-frame chairs. Everyone in the room appeared to be the same sort of young men whom they’d left behind.
    â€œNot surprised,” said Harry. “There’s a feud going on among the fans who organized the convention. The Futurians are the guys who lost, so the other guys voted in an exclusion act to bar them from coming in.” He motioned toward a large group who’d pulled together several tables; Nat recognized among them Fred, Cyril, and Don. “But they showed up, anyway, and that’s got the people inside hot under the collar.”
    â€œSo what is it about them that’s upset the other guys?”
    â€œThe Futurians believe that science fiction can change the world,” Harry said. “They think it should do more than just entertain people and instead present ways in which science and technology can solve social problems. The other guys—the so-called New Fandom, although most of them are just diehards from the old Science Fiction League—only want monsters and mad scientists and claim that the Futurians are nothing but a bunch of communists.” A lopsided grin. “They’re half-right, really. Some of the Futurians are reds … or at least they used to be.”
    Nat nodded. Although he wasn’t interested in joining the Communist Party, he had to agree that science fiction needed to get past its adolescent tendencies. “And the leaflet you were handing out?”
    â€œDave Kyle wrote it. It’s a statement of the Futurian position.” Harry bit into his sandwich. “He must have tried to ditch ’em under the radiator,” he added, speaking around a mouthful of food. “I found ’em and decided to hand ’em out, anyway.” An unhappy shrug. “Fat lot of good that did me.”
    Nat frowned but said nothing. He was beginning to regret his decision to step up for Harry. Wasting a dollar was bad enough; it now appeared that he’d