Another massive weakness: the bugs were basing their ideas about the human race on Laszlo Scott, for Christ’s sake. You might as well believe you can handle wolves because you’ve had a dog. A yellow dog. If these blue plate specials thought they were dealing with a planetful of Laszlos, they were in trouble.
Anything I could do that Laszlo couldn’t, I figured — like overpowering Ktch’s mind control goody — almost anybody else could also do, Laszlo being pretty much at the bottom of the racial totem pole, wherein might lurk some nasty shocks should the lobsters ever come to grips with the human race at large.
Just to be mean, I filled my head with “Love Sold in Doses” again. Ktch winced. The others twitched rhythmically. Nice.
“All right,” I said, still keeping it harsh. “I’m done thinking for a while. You can move again. But keep it quiet, you hear?”
Hesitantly, the eleven working lobsters went back to work, muffling clicks as best they could. Some of the starch, returned to Ktch’s feelers.
“Spy?” humbly.
“Yes?”
“The torture. Did you break under the torture? Ah, are you ready to talk now?”
“Not a chance.”
“Oh my. I didn’t really think so.”
“Right. What are you doing?”
“Conducting the morning interview, as prescribed by The Rules. Ah, um, may I ask you some questions, please, Mister Spy?”
“Not a chance. What are the rest of them doing?”
“I’m not allowed to answer questions. The Rules…”
“Remember what happened yesterday?” I whistled a phrase in case he’d forgotten.
He hadn’t. “They are making ready for phase two, which begins tonight, Mister Spy.”
“Indeed. Just what is phase two?”
“Oh my. Large-scale testing of the chemical weapon, sir. We have already studied its effect on individuals and small groups. Now, Phase Two, we must observe its effect on large population masses before we can initiate Phase Three. The effect, you see, is — I shouldn’t be telling you this — is both qualitatively and quantitatively different in large groups. There is a resonance factor, and…”
“That’s nice. What are you going to do to get Phase Two started?”
“Please! The Rules specifically forbid…”
“I offered you riches an’ all of them things,’” fortissimo,
“For all of your fingers I offered you rings…”
“Ai! Stop! Oh, Stop!”
“To cover your body, silk fabric that clings:
And you gave me Love Sold in Doses.”
“Please, no more.” There’s something in the sight of a cringing lobster. “I beg of you, sir…”
“It’s an awfully long song, but I’ll sing it all if you insist”
“Oh dear.”
I rather liked the way Ktch kept changing colors. It lent variety to what would otherwise’ve been a fairly monotonous exoskeleton.
“Our plan,” he whispered, “is to pour six hundred gallons of the liquefied chemical into the reservoir called Croton under cover of darkness. Laszlo Scott will lead us there.”
“Oh yeah? Six hundred gallons, you say?”
“Shh! The others will hear you.”
“That’s nice. How many doses in six hundred gallons?”
“Doses? Oh, roughly ten billions, I believe.”
That stopped me. But, “Isn’t that a bit much for only ten million people?”
“We expect some waste, you understand. Besides, it’s really quite harmless. There is no lethal dose. We couldn’t do a thing like that.”
“Um. You shellfish have some pretty twisty ethics.”
That bothered him. He embarked on an elaborate defense of lobsterian ethics, full of feeler-flippings, claw-clickings, and similar rhetorical devices. Very dull. And I thought about Phase Two: the whole city high on Reality Pills. My imagination was too good.
I could see it all. Birchites launching millions of missiles against Russia, starting at last the war we’d avoided so long. Racists suddenly become omnipotent. The persecuted manufacturing impossible revenge. Cops really stamping out crime. Kids getting even with grown-ups. Mental patients striking back at the world. Sadists getting infinite kicks. The weak grown powerful beyond endurance. Lovers crushing all things under love…
And not just the city, no. The lobsters underestimated us. The whole world in flames, at the very least. And back of it all the blond Abaddon, Laszlo Scott, leading twelve blue lobsters to the Croton Reservoir.
And only I could stop it. I felt ill.
Why me? I never volunteered to save the world. I wasn’t even very good at saving myself.
But there it was, my job, whether I liked it or not, and time was running short. I reinstated yesterday’s rock-n-roll festival chorus and orchestra. “Untie the spy,” they played and sang, “Untie the spy,” over and over again, “Untie the spy,” in B flat, a domineering key.
Ktch weakened. His argument began to run down, to falter, and his gestures grew sloppy. He took one tentative step forward, then another. The argument petered out and stopped. He moved around behind me. I could feel the small pincers he used for delicate manipulation working at my ankles.
The other lobsters had stopped what they’d been doing and were standing frozen in their tracks like polyethylene-extruded monster models, paralyzed by my music, I presumed. Just to be on the safe side, I changed my text to, “Let the spy go home.” It had a catchy Latin beat.
There! My left foot was free. I wiggled it gratefully. Ktch was working on my right.
Then, “What’re you Doin’?” a shriek, and the whole thing fell apart. Laszlo had arrived.
Ktch backed away, gibbering percussively. The other lobsters took up defensive positions around me. One of them, ignoring my most vigorous kicks, retied my left foot. Phooey!
All the lobsters were clattering like up-tight teletype machines, and, “You was lettin’ ’im Go!” Laszlo complained. “You was gonna let ’im Go!” It was all very noisy.
“Shut up!” I yelled.
It didn’t work this time. That is, the lobsters shut up, but Laszlo didn’t. He stomped over to me like an angry gob of mayonnaise, screaming, “He was gonna let you Go!” while Ktch scurried out the door.
That blew it. When Ktch returned, his carapace was covered with a silvery blanket-like affair that evidently shielded him from my musical assaults. Ignoring me altogether, he concentrated on directing the other lobsters’ work.
That left me to Laszlo. “You know what I’m gonna Do to you?” he said, among other things, taking care no lobster overheard. “What I’m gonna do, soon’s all these Blue cats split, man, I’m gonna Take Care of You, baby. Real dirty an’ slow-like, you dig?”
He went into it in whispered detail, drooling over every indignity and pain he had in store for me. I’d never realized that Laszlo had such a fertile imagination. He must’ve been working on this for years. I was worried.
Then the loft fell silent. Laszlo shut up. The lobsters were gone, all but Ktch, who stood, glimmering in his silver safety suit, by the door.
“We are ready now,” he said.
“That’s boss,” said Laszlo, his little eyes twinkling.
“Come along, Laszlo Scott. Your services will be required Come. Now.”
“Me? But, man,” distress, “don’t you want, like, someone oughtta Look Out for this guy? I mean…”
“No. He will be all right here. Come.”
Laszlo slowly wilted and went.
“Downstairs now,” the lobster told him. “Hurry.”
Then, as Laszlo thudded down the stairs, “Farewell, Spy,” Ktch said. “I hope you will not be harmed in the disturbances tonight. You have been a brave and worthy opponent. Now farewell,” and he was gone, leaving the door slightly ajar behind him.
I had failed. I was still a prisoner, still attached to the torture machines (they were lit and humming, but I didn’t feel anything, so they were probably on standby), still absolutely helpless. So much for saving the world.