Then he disgorged
and pouched his geek-speaker. "See that head, there?" he asked,
rolling it over with his toe. "I killed that geek, myself, with my
pistol. And Hid O'Leary stuck a knife in that one." He walked around
the rug, turning heads over with his foot. "This was a cut-rate
head-payment; they just slashed off two-dozen heads at the scene of
the riot. Six months ago, Gurgurk wouldn't have tried to pull anything
like this. Now he's laughing up his non-existent sleeve at us."
"That's what I've been preaching, all along," Eric Blount took up
after him. "These geeks need having the fear of Terra thrown into
them."
"Oh, nonsense, Eric; you're just as bad as Carlos, here!" Harrington
tut-tuted. "Next, you'll be saying that we ought to depose Jaikark
and take control ourselves."
"Well, what's wrong with that, for an idea?" von Schlichten demanded.
"My God!" Harrington exploded. "Don't let me hear that kind of talk
again! We're not _conquistadores_: we're employees of a business
concern, here to make money honestly, by exchanging goods and services
with these people...."
* * * * *
He turned and walked away, out of the Audience Hall, leaving von
Schlichten and Blount to watch the removal of the geek-heads.
"You know, I went a little too far," von Schlichten confessed. "Or too
fast, rather."
"We can't go too slowly, though," Blount replied.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42