Scat pushed past him, remarking casually, "The regional court has
attested the legality of the sale and has set aside any and all
injunctions against the present ownership of the _Newsbeam_
based on those grounds. The whole world doesn't take orders from
Kemmerdygn--quite!"
The light of triumph in Donnolan's watery blue eyes flickered. "The
regional court can't set aside an injunction that hasn't even been
issued yet," he protested; "it's not legal!"
Scat opened a drawer and tossed him a spool. "A stat of the regional
court's decision," he explained. "For you to keep. Read it and amplify
your knowledge of law."
As he walked into the transmission room, he added, "There's a projector
on the desk."
"Well, how did you and the staff get along together?" he asked
Click-Click. Audible speech wasn't strictly necessary, Martians being
telepathic, but it was generally easier to say a question than to think
it.
"Just fine," Click-Click coded back at him. "Some men are as bad as
unenlightened Martians; they'd take orders from anything. But after a
while the staff had callers and walked out in a body. Seems they'd all
been offered jobs with Kemmerdygn--and the promise that he'd eventually
make them his pensioners.
"They walked out while the beam was hot," Click-Click ticked on, "but
that didn't make any difference, because by that time Len and the boys
had arrived with the truck and they took over."
"The next injunction," remarked Scat, a little dreamily, "will be on
the grounds that we're employing Martians in semi-restricted jobs. But
it's the one after that I'm worrying about."
Len came in smiling. "All clean for the night," he announced. "Except
for one sign, which said, _Bugs inside_. I just changed it to
_Martians_ and left it."
After getting out the late news flashes, Click-Click and his three
compatriots retired to the refrigerated vacuum tank which had been
the truck's chief freight. Scat and Len were in the office having
a last smoke before their cat-nap. The lights outside made oddly
distorted patterns on the glastic, and the soaped sign Len had left was
silhouetted blackly.
MARTIANS INSIDE
"Calling you. Calling you," came the sweetish feminine sing-song from
the talk-see on the desk. The button blinked red but the screen didn't
come on. Len pushed the lever, but the screen stayed black. Scat smiled
thinly.
"Jonas Scatterday and Len Cutt," came a slow, deep whisper from the
black screen. "This is the voice of the Mystic X. Bronsco will not
tolerate bug-lovers. We are, however, giving you one chance; get out
now and take your bugs with you, and you won't be harmed."
Len joggled the lever futilely. "Blacked out their end," he surmised.
"Halloween stunts. I got a mind to put _The Ghoul Laughs_ in the
projector and play it back at them."
But he didn't look quite as amused as he sounded.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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