A big man named Cal was the chairman of the City Council. He wore an Old Time jacket, too-an ugly plaid one. He also wore a big white Stetson for no reason Liz could see. “Are we going to let the Valley get away with treating our ambassador that way?” he shouted, his voice high and quick and glib. Liz wouldn't have wanted to buy a used car from him. “I don't think so!”

“No way! No way! No way!” people chanted. They were a claque, a group set up in advance to make the kind of noise their patrons wanted when their patrons wanted it. They were too loud and too smooth to be anything else. When others joined in the chant, they sounded different-less rehearsed, maybe.

“I'm gonna sic my dog on the Valley!” Cal shouted. That was no idle threat. Cal 's dog was famed-and feared-all over the Westside. There weren't nearly so many mutations alter the atomic war as people had feared. But there were some, and that dog was descended from them. It was a German shepherd about three quarters as big as a horse, with teeth a Tyrannosaurus might have envied. It was, mostly, a nice dog. But if it got mad…

“Feed King Zev to it!” yelled somebody from the claque. In a moment, that whole group was shouting the phrase. Again, people who didn't belong joined more slowly. But they did join. The stage managing would have been too open, too blatant, to work in the home timeline- Liz hoped so, anyhow. But it did just fine here.

“So shall we show the Valley that they can't tell us what to do?” Cal asked.

“Yes!” ''That's right!” “Bet your bippy!” people shouted back. Liz didn't know what a bippy was. She wondered if the men who used the word knew what it meant. Back in 1967, it had probably had a meaning. Now it was just a noise here. People said it without thinking about it. There were words like that in the home timeline, too.