Free Inferno by Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle

mouth.
    The other voice followed us. “You should keep better track of your handsaw. The rules are very clear . . .”
    At the next door there was a long line of naked people, fat men, pretty girls, ugly women, studs, every form and variety of mankind: the reception desk at a streaker’s convention. They were trying to get to a counter where some fat guy handed them clothing while two beanpole women took information down on more forms.
    What was this? The supply center for Infernoland? Were these employees, or spectators, or—
    —or what?
    We got in line, the only ones with clothing who did. A thin guy in a medieval bachelor gown came in, went behind the counter, and whispered to the supply clerk. The clerk summoned his two biddies, and they whispered together.
    Finally one of the women came out from behind the counter. She wore a coverall of a kind I didn’t recognize, dark blue with strange insignia. “What may we do for you?” she asked. She was trying to be pleasant, and it was obvious that she’d never learned how.
    “This man was given the wrong clothing,” Benito said. “He is wearing the same thing I am. In our section we do not give a junior courier the uniform of a supervisor.”
    She frowned. Benito didn’t look like he was dressed as a supervisor. He looked like an escapee from the violent ward. So did I. But he only stared back, and after a while her eyes dropped. “What should he wear?” she said.
    “Loincloth. And there are nine senior men in my section who have loincloths and no gowns. It is intolerable.”
    “Oh.” She didn’t know what to make of that. She went back and whispered to the other biddy.
    Meanwhile the line moved up. The clerk looked at papers and then at the fat man at the head of the line. He went into the shelving stacks behind the counter and came back with bright gaudy clothes, slashed velvet sleeves and tight trousers. They were obviously too small.
    “Ungood. Double plus ungood. Too small. Wrong period,” the fat man protested.
    “Tough shit, buddy. We all got our troubles. Next!”
    The biddies came over to him and whispered. He looked at us. “Uh, you sirs—can I help you?”
    T
    hree helped carry the gowns, and a fourth brought up the rear with stacks of papers flowing with seals and ribbons. Benito paid no attention to me; he just walked ahead as if he assumed we’d all follow, which we did.
    We turned a corner, and he stopped. “This will do,” he said. “Give those things to Allen. You have your work to do, and this is his task.”
    “Certainly, sir. Is there nothing else we can do for you?” This one wore a policewoman’s uniform, vaguely American, though the shield was shaped strangely. She talked without using articles. When she spoke to her subordinates she used a language I didn’t know. I was afraid to ask her death date.
    “I said this will do,” Benito said. “We will be met by others. You may go.”
    “Thank you, sir.” The sow turned and stalked away, followed by the others.
    When she was out of sight Benito seemed to wilt. His straight posture was gone, the high angle of the chin vanished, and he slumped.
    Then he laughed. “So. Nothing changes. Now we must get out of here before someone tells this story to an internal security agent.”
    “They think—what do they think? That we’re important officials?”
    “No. Of course not. They know we are only pretending that.”
    “Then what—”
    “But they cannot be sure. We might be important officials. But most of them think we are secret police.”
    “But how do you know there are secret police?”
    Benito looked very sad. “Allen, there have to be. You cannot run a bureaucratic state without them. Come.”
    We found a door to the outside, and Benito surrendered one of the documents he’d collected. We passed through and were out on the mud flats again. A stinking breeze wrapped itself around me, deliciously cool, and I said, “Ahh . . .”
    Far to our right the old man had just