"In fact, Orgzild's so sure that we're going to accept his offer that
he's started building two new power-reactors, to handle the additional
power-demand that'll result from the increased business," Blount
continued.
"Where's he getting the plutonium?" von Schlichten asked.
"Where can he get it?" Harrington replied. "He just bought four tons
of it from us, off the _City of Pretoria_."
"That's a hell of a lot of plutonium," Blount said. "I wonder if he
mightn't have some idea of what else plutonium can be used for,
beside generating power."
"Oh, God, I hope not!" Harrington exclaimed. "You're going to get me
started seeing burglars under the bed, next...."
"Maybe there are burglars," Blount said, pointing with his
cigarette-holder to Harrington's threatened king. "Can't you do
something about that, Sid?" Then he turned to von Schlichten. "Before
we get off the subject, how about those letters the Rev. Keeluk gave
to the Quinton girl?"
"All addressed to Skilkans known to be Rakkeed disciples and rabidly
anti-Terran," von Schlichten replied. "We radioed the list to Skilk;
Colonel Cheng-Li, our intelligence man there, teleprinted us back a
lot of material on them that looks like the Newgate Calendar. We
turned the letters themselves over to Doc Petrie, the Ulleran
philology sharp, who is a pretty fair cryptanalyst. He couldn't find
any indications of cipher, but there was a lot of gossip about
Keeluk's friends and parishioners which might have arbitrary
code-meanings. I'm going to explain the situation to Miss Quinton, and
advise her to have nothing to do with any of the people Keeluk gave
her letters to."
Harrington had gotten his king temporarily out of danger, losing a
piece doing it.
"Think she'll listen to you?" he asked. "These Extraterrestrials'
Rights Association people are a lot of blasted fanatics, themselves.
We're a gang of bloody-handed, flint-hearted, imperialistic sons of
bitches in their book, and anything we say's sure to be a Hitler-sized
lie."
"Oh, they're not as bad as all that. I never met the girl before
today, but old Mohammed Ferriera's a decent bloke. And their
association's really done a lot of good. For one thing, they put an
end to the peonage system on Yggdrasill, and I know what conditions
were like, there, before they did."
A calculating look came into Harrington's eye. He puffed slowly at his
pipe and slid a piece from the center toward the sector of the board
nearest him. Blount whistled softly and made a quick re-arrangement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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