'Don't tell me what your idea is,' Cravelli said. 'Tell me after it works. If it doesn't work, don't tell me at all.'
Jim grinned starkly. 'You're a hard man. You might be too ruthless as Attorney General; I'll have to rethink that, possibly.'
'It's signed and sealed,' Cravelli said. 'You can't get out of it. Good luck up on the satellite.' He rang off, then.
Leaving the phone booth, Jim Briskin walked along the half-deserted sidewalk until he came to a parked, empty jet-hopper.
'Take me to the Golden Door satellite,' he said, opening the door and getting in.
"The Golden Door is closed down,' the 'hopper driven said languidly. 'No more girls up there.
Just some goof broadcasting that he's king of the world or some crazy thing like that.' He turned to face Jim. 'However, I know a gnuvvy doggone place in the north west side of town that I can...'
'The satellite,' Jim said. 'Okay ? Just drive the 'hopper and let me decide where I want to go.'
'You Cols,' the driver muttered as he started the 'hopper up. 'You sure always got a chip on your shoulder. All right, buddy, have it your way. But you're going to be disappointed when you get up there.'
Silently, Jim leaned back against the seat and sat waiting as the 'hopper rose into the sky.
At the landing field on the satellite, George Walt personally met him, hand outstretched. 'This is
George,' the head said, as Jim shook hands with whichever of them it was. 'I knew they'd want to talk terms, but I didn't expect them to send you, Briskin.'
'This is Walt,' the head said then, belligerently. 'I certainly have no desire to do business with you, Briskin. Go back and tell them ...' The mouth struggled as both brothers sought to make use of it simultaneously.
'What does it matter who they send ?' the head - no doubt George, now - said at last. 'Come below to the office, Briskin, where we can make ourselves comfortable. I have a hunch this darn business might take quite a while.'
It was extraordinary how much George Walt had aged. They had a wrinkled, brittle, almost frail quality about them, and when they walked they moved slowly, hesitantly, as if afraid of falling, as if they were terribly infirm. What would account for this ? Jim wondered. And then he understood. George Walt were now jerries. One hundred years had passed for them since he had last seen them. He wondered how much longer they could keep going. Certainly not for too great a period. But their mental energies were undimmed. He could still sense the enormous alertness emanating from them; they remained as formidable as ever.
In George Walt's office sat the huge, white-haired old Sinanthropus; he watched warily from beneath his beetling brows as Jim Briskin entered, obviously suspicious at once. It would be no easy task, Jim realized, to come to terms with this man. Mistrust was profoundly written on his massive-jawed, sloping face.
'We've got them where we want them,' George Walt said expansively to the Sinanthropus. This man's coming up here - Jim Briskin is his name - verifies it.' Both eyes flamed with gloating.
In a hoarse voice, the Sinanthropus said, 'What will you offer us if we abandon your world ?'
Jim Briskin said, 'That which we prize beyond everything elite. Our most valued possession.'
The Sinanthropus and George Walt watched him fixedly.
"The Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.,' Jim said.
'Wait a minute' / 'We're not interested in that!' George Walt said together. "That won't do; that's out of the question. We want political and economic priority over the North American land mass
- otherwise the invasion continues. What kind of offer is the Smithsonian ? That's nothing but a museum.' / 'Who wants a museum ? This is ridiculous!' Both eyes blazed with outraged and uneasy anger.
The Sinanthropus, however, said slowly and distinctly, 'I am reading Mr. Briskin's mind, and I
am interested. Please be silent. Wind God, it goes without saying that your opinion is valuable, but it is I who must make the actual decision,"
"The conference is over!' / 'I've heard enough,' George Walt said. 'Go back below to Terra,
Briskin; you're not wanted here.' / 'Let's call this off.'
'There is, in the back of your mind,' the Sinanthropus said to Jim, 'the thought that you will, if pressed, add in the Library of Congress. I will consider that offer as well.'
'We'd prefer not to add that,' Jim said, 'but if we have to, we have to.' He felt resigned.
'Goodbye, Briskin,' George Walt said. 'See you some time. It's evident that you're trying to make a side deal, here; trying to cut my brother and me out. But we won't be cut out.' The head added emphatically, 'I agree. You're completely wasting your time, Briskin.' One of George Walt's four arms was extended, then, 'Until next time.'
'Until next time,' Jim said, shaking hands. Taking a deep, unsteady breath he all at once yanked with every dyne of strength which he could muster; the hand and arm came loose from the artificial body and he was left holding them.
Bewildered, the Sinanthropus said, 'Wind God, it seems strange to me that your arm is detachable.'
'This is no Wind God,' Jim Briskin said. 'You've been misled. Our people were, too, for a good long time. This is an ordinary man with an extra, artificial body.' He pointed to the wiring visible within the gaping shoulder.
'A Homo sapiens, you mean ?' the stooped old Sinanthropus said. 'Like yourself ?' Slow but exact comprehension began to form in his reddish eyes.
'Not only is he not a Wind God,' Jim said, 'but he's been for decades the owner of a ... I dislike naming it outright.'
'Name it!'
'Let's simply call it a house of pleasure. He's a businessman. No more, no less.'
'I can think of nothing more obnoxious to the mores of my people,' the Sinanthropus said to
George Walt, 'than a hoax of this stripe. You swore to us that you were our Wind God. And in fulfillment of many myths, your unusual anatomy seemed to prove it.' He panted slowly, raggedly.
' "Unusual",' George Walt echoed. 'You mean unique. In all of the parallel Earths - and God knows exactly how many there may be, you won't find anyone, anyone at all, like me.' He amended quickly, 'Like us, rather. And consider this satellite. What do you think keeps it up ?
The wind, of course; how else could it stay up here, month after month ? Obviously I control the wind, as I told you. Otherwise this satellite would...'
'I could destroy you,' the old Sinanthropus said. He no longer seemed much impressed by George
Walt's line of argument. 'But I am frankly too disappointed to care one way or another. It's clear to me, and I will soon see that it's equally clear to my people, that you Homo sapiens are a treacherous lot. Probably best avoided.' To Jim he said, 'It's that so ?'
'We're known for that,' Jim agreed.
'And that's how you triumphed originally over our ancestors on this parallel world ?'
'You're damn right,' Jim said. He added, 'And we'd do it again, given half a chance.'
'Probably you would not genuinely have delivered that museum of yours to us,' the Sinanthropus said, 'the name of which I have already forgotten. Well, no matter. Obviously it's impossible to do business with you Homo sapiens; you're adept, polished liars. Nothing we agreed on would remain truly binding in such a milieu. My people lack even a name for such conduct.'
'No wonder we had so little trouble wiping you out,' Jim said.
'In view of your dedication to fraud,' the Sinanthropus said, 'I see no real point in my remaining here; the longer I go on, the more immersed I become. Personally, I regret this whole encounter; my people have suffered by it already. God knows what would become of us if we were so naive as to try to continue.' An unhappy expression on his face, the aged, white-haired Sinanthropus turned his back and walked away from Jim Briskin and George Walt. 'It would be unnatural for people of our race to seek to participate in an exclusively destructive relationship,' he said, over his shoulder. And vanished. One moment he stood there, the next he had gone. Even George