Dak came out, wiping his hands on his shirt, and said, “We’ll have to clean this up. There isn’t much time.” He could have been speaking of a spilled drink.
I tried to make clear in one jumbled sentence that I wanted no part of it, that we ought to call the cops, that I wanted to get away from there before the cops came, that he knew what he could do with his crazy impersonation job, and that I planned to sprout wings and fly out the window, flak brushed it all aside. “Don’t jitter, Lorenzo. We’re on minus minutes now. Help me get the bodies into the bathroom.”
“Huh? Good God, man! Let’s just lock up and run for it. Maybe they will never connect us with it.”
“Probably they wouldn’t,” he agreed, “since neither one of us is supposed to be here. But they would be able to see that Rrringriil had killed Jock-and we can’t have that. Not now we can’t.”
“Huh?”
“We can’t afford a news story about a Martian killing a human. So shut up and help me.”
I shut up and helped him. It steadied me to recall that “Benny Grey” had been the worst of sadistic psychopaths, who had enjoyed dismembering his victims. I let “Benny Grey” drag the two human bodies into the bath while Dak took the life wand and sliced Rrringriil into pieces small enough to handle. He was careful to make the first cut below the brain case so the job was not messy, but I could not help him with it-it seemed to me that a dead Martian stank even worse than a live one.
The oubliette was concealed in a panel in the bath just beyond the bidet; if it had not been marked with the usual radiation trefoil it would have been hard to find. After we had shoved the chunks of Rrringriil down it (I managed to get my spunk up enough to help), Dak tackled the messier problem of butchering and draining the human corpses, using the wand and, of course, working in the bath tub.
It is amazing how much blood a man holds. We kept the water running the whole time; nevertheless, it was bad. But when Dak had to tackle the remains of poor little Jock, he just wasn’t up to it. His eyes flooded with tears, blinding him, so I elbowed him aside before he sliced off his own fingers and let “Benny Grey” take over.
When I had finished and there was nothing left to show that there had ever been two other men and a monster in the suite, I sluiced out the tub carefully and stood up. Dak was in the doorway, looking as calm as ever. “I’ve made sure the floor is tidy,” he announced. “I suppose a criminologist with proper equipment could reconstruct it-but we are counting on no one ever suspecting. So let’s get out of here. We’ve got to gain almost twelve minutes somehow. Come on!”
I was beyond asking where or why. “All right. Let’s fix your boots.”
He shook his head. “It would slow me up. Right now speed is more essential than not being recognized.”
“I am in your hands.” I followed him to the door; he stopped and said, “There may be others around. If so, shoot first-there’s nothing else you can do.” He had the life wand in his hand, with his cloak drawn over it.
“Martians?”
“Or men. Or both.”
“Dak? Was Rrringriil one of those four at the Mañana bar?”
“Certainly. Why do you think I went around Robinson’s barn to get you out of there and over here? They either tailed you, as we did, or they tailed me. Didn’t you recognize him?”
“Heavens, no! Those monsters all look alike to me.”
“And they say we all look alike. The four were Rrringriil, his conjugate-brother Rrringlath, and two others from his nest, of divergent lines. But shut up. If you see a Martian, shoot. You have the other gun?”
“Uh, yes. Look, Dak, I don’t know what this is all about. But as long as those beasts are against you, I’m with you. I despise Martians.”