Let me point out that there has been no question at any time of compliance with One or Three. And even Directive Two, well, we’ve done what we could. “To repay sentients in medium suitable to them for information gained.” These sentients are tricky, Chief. They don’t seem to empathize, really. See our reports. They often take without giving in return among themselves, and it seems to me that under the circumstances a certain modification of Directive Two would have been quite proper.
But I am not protesting the ruling. Especially since you’ve pointed out it won’t do any good. When I get old and skinny enough to retire to a sling in Home Base I guess I'll get that, home-base mentality too> but way out here on the surface of the exploration volume it looks different, believe me.
And what is happening with the rest of our crew back at Host’s domicile I can’t even guess. They must be nearly frantic by now.
Garigolli
There was some discussion with a policeman he wanted to hit (apparently under the impression that the cop was his night watchman playing hookey), but I finally got the little man to the Institute for Psychosomatic Adjustment.
The mausoleum that had graduated my brother-in-law turned out to be three stories high, with a sun porch and a slate roof and bars on the ground-floor bay windows. It was not all that far from my house. Shirl had been pleased about that, I remembered. She said we could visit her brother a lot there, and in fact she had gone over once or twice on Sundays, but me, I’d never set eyes on the place before.
Dagger-sharp fangs flecking white spume, none dared dispute me as I strode through the great green corridors of the rain forest. Corded thews rippling like pythons under my skin, it was child’s play to carry the craven jackal to his lair. The cabbie helped me up the steps with him.
The little man, now revealed as that creature who in anticipation had seemed so much larger and hairier, revived slightly as we entered the reception hall. “Ooooh,” he groaned. “Watch the bouncing, old boy. That door. My office. Leather couch. Much obliged.”
I dumped him on the couch, lit a green-shaded lamp on his desk, closed the door and considered.
Mine enemy had delivered himself into my power. All I had to do was seize him by the forelock. I seemed to see the faces of my family-Shirl’s smiling sweetly, Butchie’s cocoa-overlaid-with-oatmeal-spurring me on.
There had to be a way.
I pondered. Life had not equipped me for this occasion. Raffles or Professor Moriarity would have known what to do at once, but, ponder as I would, I couldn’t think of anything to do except to go through the drawers of his desk.
Well, it was a start. But it yielded very little. Miscellaneous paper clips and sheaves of letterheads, a carton of cigarettes of a brand apparently flavored with rice wine and extract of vanilla, part of a fifth of Old Rathole and five switchblade knives, presumably taken from the inmates. There was also $6.15 in unused postage stamps, but I quickly computed that, even if I went to the trouble of cashing them in, that would leave me $14,745.88 short.
Of Papers to Burn there were none.
All in all, the venture was a bust. I wiped out a water glass with one of the letterheads (difficult, because they were of so high quality that they seemed likelier to shatter than to wad up), and forced down a couple of ounces of the whiskey (difficult, because it was of so low).
Obviously anything of value, like for instance co-signed agreements with brothers-in-law, would be in a safe, which itself would probably be in the offices of the Gudsell Medical Credit Bureau. Blackmail? But there seemed very little to work with, barring one or two curious photographs tucked in among the envelopes. Conceivably I could cause him some slight embarrassment, but nowhere near $14,752.03 worth. I had not noticed any evidence of Red espionage that might put the little man (whose name, I learned from his letterhead, was Bermingham) away for 10,104 and a quarter days, while I saved up the price of reclaiming our liberty.
There seemed to be only one possible thing to do.
Eyes glowing like red coals behind slitted lids, I walked lightly on velvet-soft pads to the kraal of the witch-man. He was snoring with his mouth open. Totally vulnerable to his doom.
Only, how to inflict it?
It is not as easy as one might think to murder a person. Especially if one doesn’t come prepared for it. Mr. Morgan doesn’t like us to carry guns at the office, and heaven knows what Shirl would do with one if I left it around home. Anyway, I didn’t have one.
Poison was a possibility. The Old Rathole suggested itself. But we’d already tried that, hadn’t we?
I considered the switchblade knives. There was a technical problem. Would you know where the heart is? Granted, it had to be inside his chest somewhere, and sooner or later I could find it. But what would I say to Mr. Bermingham after the first three or four exploratory stabs woke him up?
The only reasonably efficient method I could think of to insure Mr. Bermingham’s decease was to burn the place down with him in it. Which, I quickly perceived, meant with whatever cargo of drying-out drunks the Institute now possessed in it too, behind those barred windows.
At this point I came face to face with myself.
I wasn’t going to kill anybody. I wasn’t going to steal any papers.
What I was going to do was, I was going to let Mr. Klaw’s lawyers go ahead and take our house, because I just didn’t know how to do anything else. I hefted the switchblades in my hand, threw them against the wall and poured myself another slug of Mr. Bermingham’s lousy whiskey, wishing it would kill me right there and be a lesson to him.
Garigolli to Home Base
Now, don’t get excited, Chief,
But we have another problem.
Before I get into it, I would like to remind you of a couple of things. First, I was against exploring this planet in the first place, remember? I said it was going to be very difficult, on the grounds of the difference in mass between its dominant species and us. I mean, really. Here we are fighting member to member against dangerous beasts all the time, and the beasts, to the Host and his race, are only microorganisms that live unnoticed in their circulatory systems, their tissues, their food and their environment. Anybody could tell that this was going to be a tough assignment, if not an impossible one.
Then there’s the fact that this Host moves around so. I told you some of our crew got left in his domicile. Well, we’ve timed this before, and almost always he returns within 144 or 216 time-units-at most, half of one of his planet’s days. It’s pretty close to critical, but our crew is tough and they can survive empathy-deprival that long. Only this time he has been away, so far, nearly 432 time-units. It’s bad enough for those of us who have been with him. The ones who were cut off back at his domicile must have been through the tortures of the damned.
Two of them homed in on us to report just a few time-units ago, and I’m afraid you’re not going to like what’s happened. They must have been pretty panicky. They decided to try meeting the Second Directive themselves. They modified some microorganisms to provide some organic chemicals they thought the Host might like.
Unfortunately the organisms turned out to have an appetite for some of the Host’s household artifacts, and they’re pretty well demolished. So we not only haven’t given him anything to comply with Directive Two, we’ve taken something from him. And in the process maybe we’ve called attention to ourselves.
I’m giving it to you arced, Chief, because I know that’s how you’d like it. I accept full responsibility.
Because I don’t have any choice, do I?
Garigolli