“You’re an underperson!” yelled Hopper. “We’ve never let the crutting things loose on Norstrilia.”
“I’m not an underperson. I’m an animal. Conditioned to—” The monkey jumped. Hopper’s heavy knife twanged like a musical instrument as it clung to the softer steel of the wall. Hopper’s other hand held a long thin knife, ready to reach Redlady’s heart.
The left hand of the Lord Redlady flashed straight forward. Something in his hand glowed silently, terribly. There was a hiss in the air.
Where Hopper had been, a cloud of oily thick smoke, stinking of burning meat, coiled slowly toward the, ventilators. Hopper’s clothing and personal belongings, including one false tooth, lay on the chair in which he had been sitting. They were undamaged. His drink stood on the floor beside the chair, forever to remain unfinished.
The doctor’s eyes gleamed as he stared strangely at Redlady:
“Noted and reported to the Old North Australian Navy.”
’I’ll report it too,” said the Lord Redlady, “…as the use of weapons on diplomatic grounds.”
“Never mind,” said John Fisher to the hundredth, not angry at all, but jusf pale and looking a little ill. Violence did not frighten him, but decision did. “Let’s get on with it. Which box, big or little, boy?”
The workwoman Eleanor stood up. She had said nothing but now she dominated the scene. “Take him in there, girls,” she said, “and wash him like you would for the Garden of Death. I’ll wash myself in there. You see,” she added, “I’ve always wanted to see the blue skies on Earth, and wanted to swim in a house that ran around on the big big waters. I’ll take your big box, Rod, and if I get through alive, you will owe me some treats on Earth. You take the little box, Roddy, take the little box. And that little tiny doctor with the fur on him. Rod, I trust him.”
Rod stood up.
Everybody was looking at him and at Eleanor.
“You agree?” said the Lord Redlady.
He nodded.
“You agree to be scunned and put in the little box for instant shipment to Earth?”
He nodded again.
“You will pay all the extra expenses?”
He nodded again.
The doctor said,
“You authorize me to cut you up and reduce you down, in the hope that you may be reconstituted on Earth?”
Rod nodded to him, too.
“Shaking your head isn’t enough,” said the doctor. “You have to agree for the record.”
“I agree,” said Rod quietly.
Aunt Doris and Lavinia came forward to lead him into the dressing room and shower room. Just as they reached for his arms, the doctor patted Rod on the back with a quick strange motion. Rod jumped a little.
“Deep hypnotic,” said the doctor. “You can manage his body all right, but the next words he utters will be said, luck willing, on Old Earth itself.”
The women were wide-eyed but they led Rod forward to be cleaned for the operations and the voyage.
The doctor turned to the Lord Redlady and to John Fisher, the financial secretary.
“A good night’s work,” he said. “Pity about that man, though.”
Bill sat still, frozen with grief in his chair, staring at Hopper’s empty clothing in the chair next to him.
The console tinkled, “Twelve hours, Greenwich mean time. No adverse weather reports from the channel coast or from Meeya Meefla or Earthport building. All’s well!”
The Lord Redlady served drinks to the misters. He did not even offer one to Bill. It would have been no use, at this point.
From beyond the door, where they were cleaning the body, clothes and hair of the deeply hypnotized Rod, Lavinia and Aunt Doris unconsciously reverted to the ceremony of the Garden of Death and lifted their voices in a sort of plainsong chant:
The three men listened for a few moments, attentively. From the other washroom there came the sounds of the workwoman Eleanor, washing herself, alone and unattended, for a long voyage and a possible death.
The Lord Redlady heaved a sigh, “Have a drink, Bill. Hopper brought it on himself.”
Bill refused to speak to them but he held forth his glass.
The Lord Redlady filled that and the others. He turned to John Fisher to the hundredth and said:
“You’re shipping him?”
“Who?”
“The boy.”
“I thought so.”
“Better not,” said the Lord Redlady.
“You mean — danger?”
“That’s only half the word for it,” said the Lord Redlady. “You can’t possibly plan to offload him at Earthport. Put him into a good medical station. There’s an old one, still good, on Mars, if they haven’t closed it down. I know Earth. Half the people of Earth will be waiting to greet him and the other half will be waiting to rob him.”
“You represent the Earth government, Sir and Commissioner,” said John Fisher, “that’s a rum way to talk about your own people.”
“They are not that way all the time,” laughed Redlady. “Just when they’re in heat. Sex hasn’t a chance to compare with money when it comes to the human race on Earth. They all think that they want power and freedom and six other impossible things. I’m not speaking for the Earth government when I say this. Just for myself.”
“If we don’t ship him, who will?” demanded Fisher.
“The Instrumentality.”
“The Instrumentality? You don’t conduct commerce. How can you?”
“We don’t conduct commerce, but we do meet emergencies. I can flag down a long-jump cruiser and he’ll be there months before anybody expects him.”
“Those are warships. You can’t use one for passengers!”
“Can’t I?” said the Lord Redlady, with a smile.
“The Instrumentality would — ?” said Fisher, with a puzzled smile. “The cost would be tremendous. How will you pay for it? It’d be hard to justify.”
“He will pay for it. Special donation from him for special service. One megacredit for the trip.”
The financial secretary whistled. “That’s a fearful price for a single trip. You’d want SAD money and not surface money, I suppose?”
“No. FOE money.”
“Hot buttered moonbeams, man! That’s a thousand times the most expensive trip that any person has ever had.”
The big doctor had been listening to the two of them. “Mister and Owner Fisher,” he said, “I recommend it.”
“You?” cried John Fisher angrily. “You’re a Norstrilian and you want to rob this poor boy?”
“Poor boy?” snorted the doctor. “It’s not that. The trip’s no good if he’s not alive. Our friend here is extravagant but his ideas are sound. I suggest one amendment.”
“What’s that?” said the Lord Redlady quickly.
“One and a half megacredits for the round trip. If he is well and alive and with the same personality, apart from natural causes. But note this. One kilocredit only if you deliver him on Earth dead.”
John Fisher rubbed his chin. His suspicious eyes looked down at Redlady, who had taken a seat and looked up at the doctor, whose head was still bumping the ceiling.
A voice behind him spoke.
“Take it, Mister Financial Secretary. The boy won’t use money if he’s dead. You can’t fight the Instrumentality, you can’t be reasonable with the Instrumentality, and you can’t buy the Instrumentality. With what they’ve been taking off us all these thousands of years, they’ve got more stroon than we do. Hidden away somewhere. You, there!” said Bill rudely to the Lord Redlady, “do you have any idea what the Instrumentality is worth?”