Four solemn faces waited for his reply. What the Mist Demons was this all about? Matt said, "All right, you thought up the problem; now think up an answer."
"We need an invisible assassin."
Matt raised himself on one shoulder and peered at Harry Kane around the white pillar of his traction-bound leg. No, Kane wasn't joking. The effort was exhausting, and he dropped back.
Laney put a hand on his arm. "It's the only answer, Matt. And it's perfect. No matter how powerful Millard Parlette becomes politically, he'll never have a defense against you."
"It's you or civil war," Kane put in.
Matt found his voice. "I don't doubt you're serious," he said wonderingly. "What I doubt is your sanity. Do I look like an assassin? I've never killed anyone. I never intend to."
"You did pretty well last weekend."
"What--I used a stun gun! I hit some people with my fist! Why does that make me a pro killer?"
"You realize," said Hood, "that we never intend to use you as such. You're a threat, Matt, nothing more. You'll be one leg in the balance of power between the Sons of Earth and Millard Parlette."
"I'm a miner." Matt gestured with his left hand the one that didn't pull cracked ribs. "A miner. I use trained worms to dig for metal. My boss sells the metal, and buys worms and worm food, and with luck he makes enough to pay my salary. Wait a minute. Have you told Parlette about this idea?"
"No, of course not. He'll never know about it unless you agree, and then we'll wait until you're out of the Hospital."
"Mist Demons, I should hope so. If Parlette gets the idea I'm dangerous to him--and me on my back like this--I want to be on Delta before you tell Parlette. Hell I want to be on Earth before--,
"Then you agree?"
"No, Kane! No, I do not agree to anything! Don't you realize I've got a family? What if Parlette takes hostages?"
"Two parents and a sister," Hood amplified. "Parents on Iota."
"Don't worry," Laney said soothingly. "We'll protect them, Matt. They'll be safe."
Kane nodded. "If anyone so much as harms a hair on your head, or threatens any member of your family. I'll declare total war. I'll have to tell Parlette that; and to make him believe it, I'll have to mean it. And I do.".
Matt thought very seriously about shouting for Dr. Bennet. It wouldn't work. Even if she threw them out, they'd only come back later.
And Matt Keller was a man on his back. He could move three inches to the side if he was willing to endure the pain. Four inches, no. A captive audience.
"You've really thought it out, haven't you? Why did you wait so long to tell me?"
Jay Hood answered. "I wanted to be here. This is my day off."
"You're back teaching school, Jay?"
"It seems appropriate to teach history while we're making it." In the dry voice there was a barely concealed jubilation. Hood was in his element. Strange that he'd never suspected the size of Hood's ego.
"You got me into this," said Matt.
"Sorry. My apologies. Believe me, Matt, I only picked you as a probable recruit." When Matt didn't answer, Hood continued, "But we do need you. Let me show you how much. You were dying, Matt--'
"Stop, Jay.!
"He has a right to know, Laney. Matt, those ribs you broke tore up your lung and your diaphragm. Harry had to talk Parlette into--"
"Jay, shut up."
"All right, Laney." He sounded hurt.
"Matt, we weren't going to tell you. Really we weren't."
Dead man's flesh was a part of him, forever. Living under his rib cage: a strange, partial resurrection.
Matt said, "All right, Laney. How do you stand on this?"
Laney looked down, then up to meet his eyes. "It's your choice, Matt. But if we don't have you, we don't have anyone." She seemed to stop, then hurried on. "Listen, Matt, you're making a big thing out of this. We're not asking you to rush right out and murder someone. We'd be perfectly happy to see you go back to your mining worms. For all we care, you can stay there the rest of your life, with a small extra income"--"Thanks"--"For being on standby alert. Maybe Parlette's honest. Maybe he really does want to make the Plateau a paradise. Maybe all is roses. But just in case--" She leaned forward in the uncomfortable hospital chair, gripping his wrist with one hand, looking deep into his eyes. Her nails cut the skin-"just in case Parlette is ambitious, then we'll need you to stop him. Nobody else will be able to do it.
"We must let him have his power now. Somebody has to take power, or there'll be civil war. But if he needs to be stopped, and you don't stop him, you'll be a coward."
Matt tried to pull his arm away. Torn muscles reacted; it was as if he'd been kicked in the side with a lead boot. "You're fanatics! All four of you!" And he was trapped, trapped...
Laney let go. Slowly she sat back, her eyes soft and dreamy, with pinpoint pupils.
Matt relaxed. The others were looking at nothing. Jay Hood was humming under his breath. Mrs. Hancock scowled at some unpleasant thought.
"Tbe luck of Matt Keller" had given him a breathing space.
"Tbe luck of Matt Keller." A joke, a shaggy-dog story. If he hadn't used the power to "rescue" Polly, she might be alive now. If he hadn't come running to Jay Hood for explanations, he'd be back tending his mining worms. No wonder this form of "luck" had never appeared before. Perhaps it never would again.
It was a detrimental mutation. It had kept him virgin until he was twenty-one. It had killed Polly and caused Laney to see him as a tool instead of a man. It had sent him into the Planck; he'd never have tried that without his psychological invisibility. Into the Plank to die; out, by blind luck, with a dead man's lung.
A man should have the sense to hide his differences.
Too late. They would forget him, again and again, as often as he desired. But always they would come back.
Matt Keller, tool, captive assassin.
Not likely!
"You," he said. "Mrs. Hancock."
The others stirred, turned to face him, returned to the world in which Matt Keller was a factor to be considered.
"Mrs. Hancock. Do you have anything to say to me?"
"I don't think so," said the middle-aged rebel who should have been a shrewish housewife.
"You didn't say a word while the others were browbeating me. Why did you come?"
She shrugged. "Just to see what would happen. Keller, did you ever lose someone you loved?"
"Sure."
"To the organ banks?"
"My Uncle Matt."
"I did my damndest to stop you from getting a transplant, Keller. Dr. Bennet says you'd have lived without it, but of course you'd have been a cripple."
"I'd have been just as glad," said Matt, though he wasn't sure it was true.
"I wanted to smash the organ banks the first chance we got. Nobody else seems to feel that way. Maybe nobody else had a husband cut up for the organ banks."
"Make your point."
She shrugged again. "I don't know if you're as important as Harry says. It seems to me nobody could be that important. You got us out of the Hospital, right. Parlette would never have found us otherwise, right. We're grateful, right. But did we have to cut a man up to show how grateful we are? You didn't do him any good.