EVIDENCE IGNORED
  [282] "Is the morning television news on yet?" Jack Brown asked Sideswipe who
he was riding to school in.
  "Yes. I'll show on my dashboard screen." said Sideswipe, "Never'd be allowed
if I was a car that needed a human driver, a television where the driver could
see it.".
  Yet again the screen showed a newsreader's head rather than informative
pictures, and the news was the usual assortment.
  "Traffic from Coventry into Birmingham this morning is held up by sewer works
in Yardley.
  Searchers have failed to find any trace of five skindivers who failed to
surface after a dive near Crabhaven. Local fishermen said they had been warned
of a strong offshore current [see 270].
  The foot and mouth disease scare at Long Itchington has proved to be false.
  Smith & Malton's Ltd of Droitwich has received several large foreign orders
for dredging equipment.
  `Optimus Prime' is to officially open a hospital extension in Worcester.
[which Jack knew of already]
  Police are still appealing for any witnesses to a violent affray between
railway workmen and vagrants near Droitwich railway station [see 266].
  A group of four scallop-catching professional divers who failed to return
after a dive near Flamborough Head a month ago, have returned, apparently well.
They said they had been on a special course, but have refused to give more
details.
  Now for the weather ...".
  "Oh, that's <them> found." Jack thought, "I thought it was just another of
those disappearances. I suppose they <might> be one thing and another, but ...
Anyway, I'm nearly at school, I better put my pack on.". He got out of Sideswipe
and went into school, thinking: "History first lesson. Thank goodness that Paul
Smith's finally gone. I wonder where he is? He was a total pest.".
  "Bye." said Sideswipe and drove away.
  "Crumbs." said the teacher, "That's a flashy car you came in. Red Countach!
Nobody driving it: another of those? How many now?".
  "He's called Sideswipe. Since then we've got Shockwave and Bumblebee and
Buzzsaw; and two more are being made. Our Shockwave transforms into a mobile
refuse destructor and not like in the stories." said Jack.
  "At least it isn't Optimus." said the teacher, "Last time Optimus came, he
bent down to pick up a metalworking lathe that had been delivered, to move it to
the metalworking room for us. What with where the lathe had been left, and how
hard his motor was revving to pick it up, and which window was open, his
chrome-plated-to-emphasize-it obvious oversized gaseous diesel exhaust pipe
blasted room 14 full of his exhaust during geography class. Nobody hurt, but
they sure ran out in a hurry! (`Oops sorry.' he said.)".
  Prowl, teaching computer programming, first passed on a message from the
police: "... Enough of them. They say they're `only dossin'', then they start
thieving. If you see them again, keep away from them and tell the police. They
are wanted for something.
  Now back to computers. [283] Problem: write a function to work out x to the
power of n. Most of you treated this as babyfood to be rushed and get on with
something else: multiply 1 by x, n times. No. The best way is to create
successive `power-of-two-th' powers of x by keeping on squaring it, and
multiplying by <those> according to the binary bits of n:-
  double powi(double x,int n) {double y; y=1;
     if(n<0) {n=-n; x=1/x; } while(n) {if(n&1) y*=x; x*=x; n>>=1; } return y;}
 /* powi(x,n) = x to power of n,faster than multiplying n times. 0^0=1 here */
  is much quicker for big values of n. Admittedly it sets 0^0 to 1 rather than
`indefinite', but this makes life easier when working out polynomials and the
like. Ellison was the only boy that spotted this method. All the rest merely
multiplied n times. No good if n = a big number like 20000! Robinson even forgot
to cater for n being negative! Homework: write a function to solve a polynomial
using Bairstow's method. Any queries before you go to your next lesson?".
  "Sorry sir," said a boy, "but Dad says: you're with the police sometimes, do
you know where all those tramps are? He says they go in back of places pinching
things.".
  "Aye, they do thieve." said Prowl, "Tell him that all I know is that they
tried to squat in a storeroom at Droitwich railway station and the railway
workmen slung them out. The tramps went out all together, and that's all I know.
No more complaints about them since so far. Enough of them. The police'll likely
hear of where they are next, soon enough. Now go to your next lesson.".
  The boys went to their next lesson. Near the gym they passed a burnt patch on
the ground. There lay the ashes of several nights' scavengings by tramps, and of
their hope of shelter [see 248]. There also lay the ashes of four other men's
hope of smuggled profit [see 250]. To the boys it was merely a place where
rubbish was burnt, a matter of no interest. They went into class. Nor at the end
of the school day was it any interest to Prowl as he went out into the school
yard and folded himself up into car form to take Jack home to Wernicke's. It was
starting to rain, but Jack had to wait until Prowl had finished transforming.
  "Where's Wheeljack been the last few days?" asked Jack.
  "He's been at a factory called Braithwaite's on Tyneside. They wanted help
with some engineering and machinery." said Prowl, "I still wonder where those
tramps are, and the teachers'll have to warn the children about them.".
  Someone did know, partly [see 267]. Catfood Joe, driven by fears arising from
something he had seen, plucked up courage to enter Droitwich police station of
his own will, despite his and his kind's bad memories of such places.
  "Catfood Joe? What brings you here?" asked the duty officer, slightly
surprised.
  "Those other -people- I used to go about with - I think somethin''s `appened
to 'em." said Catfood Joe, wondering if, after the amount of lies he and his
kind had told to get things, the policeman would believe him now he had a true
story to tell. His mouth felt very dry from apprehension, but he realized that
asking for anything to drink would be a certain way to make the policeman think
he was merely telling another story to beg and send him away without listening
to him. [284] He described what he had seen:
  "Ahter the railway's $%^$$'ers finished with us, we 'ad to go somewhere. Thick
overalls, 'elmets, we didn't 'ave a *&^ chance. I fetched one a @#$% with 'alf a
brick, but it didn't do no good, and one 'eavy mob of 'em 'ad #$@@ shields, see?
Anybody, we got into this old ware'ouse that nobody were usin'. I stayed outside
and 'id in a bush. I couldn't go in with the others, there'd been some -
trouble- [see 247]. Ahter a bit, four men in overalls and 'elmets and gasmasks
came. They 'ad 'lectric drills in their belts. ('Ow they were goin' a run 'em
with no 'lectric in there, $#% knows.) One was drivin' one of those dumpers like
on buildin' sites. The four men went in and banged the place up [= made it
secure against entry and exit]. Then I 'eard argybargyin', then runnin' about
and shoutin', then nothin'. I didn't like it at all. The four men came out. One
was drivin' their dumper. It 'ad a great big 'eaped up load in it, all sheeted
over so I couldn't see what it was. They went away. The other three got in a
car. A bit later, I went into the ware'ouse. Pr'aps they'd let me in ahter all.
There was #$%#%$-in' nobody and nothin' in there! I saw 'em all go in. There was
no other $%^ way they could've got out. But they'd $%^ vanished! If you ask me,
there's only one thing that could've 'appened.".
  "Yes, we looked in there also, when we were looking for something, a bit
later, and we found nothing. All right, here's something to drink." said the
policeman, handing Catfood Joe a glass.
  Catfood Joe took one pull at the glass. The taste sent him back to his usual
mentality. Blowing the liquid out of his mouth and throwing the glass across the
desk, he exclaimed angrily: "Water! Yer can 'ave yer $%^-in' water like I can
get in the tap in the gents without wastin' good tottin' time! I bring yer good
info and yer push me off! Well, I <am> off! $%^^ yer all!".
  This was no surprise to the policeman, who was used to that sort of
character's fanciful tales gradually working around to how parched in the mouth
it made them. He picked up the glass and mopped up the spilt water and waited
for more work to arise. Anyway, the police would have looked in vain. It was
unlikely, and in the event did not happen, that Catfood Joe would ever have gone
to Crabhaven, and unlikelier that he and Aphanistor would meet and by comparing
memories find that each had seen the same four men. Aphanistor had no love of
tramps [see 278 & 106], nor Catfood Joe of robots [see 108 & 109 & 112]. So it
ended. Catfood Joe left and went to a tip to scavenge. Life went on.