“But we know you’ll be all right.”
“Okay,” Provoni said. He opened the cube of food, ate it, drank a cup of redistilled water, shuddered, wondered about brushing his teeth. I stink, he thought. All of me. They’ll be appalled. I’ll look like someone trapped in a submarine for four weeks.
“They’ll understand why,” Morgo said.
“I want,” Provoni said, “to take a shower.”
“There is not enough water.”
“Can’t you—get me some? Somehow?” On a number of times in the past, the Frolixan had provided him with chemical constituents, building blocks he needed for more complicated entities. Surely, if it could do this it could synthesize water . . . there, around the Gray Dinosaur, where it had placed itself.
“My own somatic system is short on water, too,” Morgo said. “I was thinking of asking you for some.”
He laughed.
“What is funny?” the Frolixan asked.
“Here we are, out here between Proxima and Sol, on our way to save Earth from the tyranny of its oligarchy of elite rulers, and we’re busy trying to cadge a few quarts of water from each other. How are we going to save Earth if we can’t even synthesize water?”
“Let me tell you a legend about God,” Morgo said. “In the beginning he created an egg, a huge egg, with a creature inside it. God tried to break the eggshell open to let the creature—the original living creature—out. He couldn’t. But the creature which He had made had a sharp beak, constructed for just such a task, and it chipped its way out of the egg. And hence—all living creatures have free will, now.”
“Why?”
“Because we broke the egg, not He.”
“Why does that give us free will?”
“Because, dammit, we can do what He can’t.”
“Oh.” Provoni nodded, grinned, then, in amusement at the Frolixan’s idiomatic English, learned, of course, from himself. It knew Terran language, only to the extent that he knew them: a reasonably adequate span of English—but not what Cordon possessed—plus a little Latin, German, Italian. It could say “goodbye” in Italian, and seemed to enjoy doing so; it always signed off with a solemn ciao. He himself preferred “Biz you later,” but evidently the Frolixans considered that substandard . . . and by his own standards. It was an idiom from the Service which he couldn’t get rid of. It was, like much else in his mind, a clutter of fleas: hopping fragments of thoughts and ideas, memories and fears, that had taken up residence evidently for good. It was up to the Frolixans to sort it all out, and they had so done, it would seem.
“You know,” Provoni said, “when we get to Earth, I’m going to find, somewhere, a bottle of brandy. And sit down on the steps—”
“What steps?”
“I just see a big gray public building, with no windows, like the Internal Revenue Service, something really dreadful, and I see myself sitting on the steps, wearing an old dark-blue coat, drinking brandy. Right out in the open. And people will come by and they will mutter, ‘Look, that man’s drinking in public.’ And I’ll say, ‘I’m Thors Provoni.’ And then they’ll say, ‘He deserves it. We won’t turn him in.’ And they won’t.”
“There will be no arrest made of you, Mr. Provoni,” Morgo said. “Then or any other time. We’ll be with you from the moment you land. Not merely me, as we have here now, but my brothers. The brotherhood. And they—”
“They’ll take over Earth. And then spit me out to die.”
“No, no. We have shaken hands on it. Don’t you remember?”
“Maybe you lied.”
“We can’t lie, Mr. Provoni. I explained that to you, and so did my supervisor, Gran Ce Wanh. If you don’t believe me, and you don’t believe him, an entity over six million years old—” The Frolixan sounded exasperated.
“When I see it,” Provoni said, “I’ll believe it.” He grimly drank a second cup of reconstituted water, even though the red light above the water-source was on . . . and had been on for a week.
Chapter 12
The special courier saluted Willis Gram and said, “This came in marked Code One. For you to read immediately, if you will, with all respect, Council Chairman.”
Grunting, Willis Gram opened the envelope. Typewritten on a single sheet of ordinary sixteen-weight paper ran one sentence.Our agent at the 16th Ave printing plant reports a second call from Provoni, and that he has been successful.
My mother’s broken back, Gram said to himself. Successful. He glanced up at the courier and said, “Bring me some straight methamphetamine hydrochloride. I’ll take it orally in a capsule; make sure it’s a capsule.”
A little surprised, the courier saluted again and said, “Yes, Council Chairman.” He left the bedroom-office, and Gram found himself alone. I’ll kill myself, he said to himself. Depression filled him, bursting him until he sagged like a popped balloon. Even before Cordon is dead, he thought. Well, let’s get Cordon.
He pressed a button on his intercom. “Send in a commissioned occifer; anyone—it doesn’t matter.”
‘Yes sir.”
“Have him bring his side arm with him.”
Five minutes later, a nattily dressed major entered the room, snapped a polished and professional salute. “Yes, Council Chairman.”
“I want you to go to Eric Cordon’s jail cell at the Long Beach facilities,” Gram said, “and I want you personally, with your own gun, the gun I see at your belt, there, to shoot Cordon until he is dead.” He held out a slip of paper. “This gives you my authorization.”
“Are you sure—” the occifer began.
“I am sure,” Gram said.
“I mean sir, are you sure—”
“If you won’t, I’ll go myself,” Gram said. “Go.” He made a curt, abrupt gesture toward the main doors of his office.
The major departed.
No TV coverage, Gram said to himself. No audience. Just two men in a cell. Well, Provoni has forced me to do it; I can’t have both of them around at the same time. It’s really—in a sense—Provoni who is killing Cordon.
I wonder what kind of life forms they are? he asked himself. That Provoni found?
The bastard, he said to himself.
He flicked switches, cursed, managed to find the one which lit the camera monitoring Cordon’s cell. The thin, ascetic face, the gray glasses, grayer—and thinning—hair . . . the college professor who writes, Gram said to himself. Well, I am going to personally watch as that major—whoever he is—shoots him.
On the screen, Cordon sat as if asleep . . . but obviously he was dictating, probably to the 16th Avenue plant. Emanate your pontifications, Gram thought grimly, and waited.
A quarter of an hour passed. Nothing happened; Cordon continued to emanate. And then, all at once, surprising both Cordon and Willis Gram, the cell door slid back. The natty, spick-and-span major entered, briskly.
“Are you Cordon, Eric?” the major asked.
“Yes,” Cordon said, standing.
The major—a young man, really, with pinched, sharply-cut features—reached for his weapon. He lifted the gun up and said, “Under the authorization of the Council Chairman I have been instructed to come here to this place and snuff you. Do you wish to read the authorization?” He dug into his pocket.
“No,” Cordon said.
The major fired his gun. Cordon fell backward, forced by the beam of destructive power back in a sliding motion that brought him against the far wall of the cell. Then, by degrees, he slid down, until he sat like some abandoned doll—its legs apart, its head down, arms lifeless.