United States or Malaysia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
He was beginning to see, now, that parliamentary procedure wasn't any weapon against Ravick's force and fraud and intimidation. "I think Walt has something," Oscar Fujisawa said. "As long as Murell's in the hospital at the spaceport, he's safe, but as soon as he gets out of Odin Dock & Shipyard territory, he's going to be a clay pigeon." Tom hadn't been saying anything. Now he cleared his throat.
"We have a chunk of goose liver about fifty feet in diameter growing in one of our vats." By this time, we'd gotten across the bottom of the pit, Murell's luggage and my equipment being towed after us, and had entered the Bottom Level.
And I was sure that he and Murell had come to some kind of an understanding, while I was being lied to by Belsher. I didn't get it. There was just too much going on around me that I didn't get, and me, I'm supposed to be the razor-sharp newshawk who gets everything. It didn't take long to get Murell's luggage assembled.
I decided, for the oomptieth time, to do something about cleaning it up. Say in another two or three hundred hours, when the ships would all be in port and work would be slack, and I could hire a couple of good men to help. We got Murell's stuff off the jeep, and I hunted around till I found a hand-lifter. "Want to stay and have dinner with us, Tom?" I asked. "Uh?"
"Why, then the Co-op would have been stuck with it." "That's right. And as soon as Murell's price was announced, everybody would drop out of the Co-operative and reclaim their wax, even the captains who owe Ravick money. He'd have nobody left but a handful of thugs and barflies." "But that would smash the Co-operative," Joe Kivelson objected.
"It's a thousand to one against us, but if we stay here our chances are precisely one hundred per cent negative." "What do you think?" Joe asked generally. "I think Mr. Murell's stated it correctly." "There is no death," Cesário said. "Death is only a change, and then more of life. I don't care what you do." "What have we got to lose?" somebody else asked. "We're broke and gambling on credit now."
We borrowed a small handling-lifter and one of the spaceport roustabouts to tow it for us, loaded Murell's luggage and my things onto it, and started down to the bottomside cargo hatches, from which the ship was discharging. There was no cargo at all to go aboard, except mail and things like Adolf Lautier's old film and music tapes. Our only export is tallow-wax, and it all goes to Terra.
Bish and I watched him go; Bish looked as though he had wanted to say something and then thought better of it. We floated Murell's stuff and mine over to the elevator beside the central column, and I ran it up to the editorial offices on the top floor. We came out in a big room, half the area of the floor, full of worktables and radios and screens and photoprinting machines.
I reached into the front pocket of my "camera" case for the handphone, to shift to two-way. "I'll call the Times and have somebody come up with a car to get us and Mr. Murell's luggage." "Oh, I have a car. Jeep, that is," Tom said. "It's down on the Bottom Level. We can use that." Funny place to leave a car.
A moment later, looking at Murell's leg, he added, "Omit 'possible." There were a couple of little spots on Murell's skin that were beginning to turn raw-liver color. The raw poison hadn't gotten into his blood, but some of it, with impurities, had filtered through the cloth, and he'd absorbed enough of it through his skin to make him seriously ill.
Word Of The Day