“Sorry about the last, Friday. But do you think I would risk the life of my most skillful agent on a useless mission?”
(See why I work for the arrogant bastard? Flattery will get you anywhere.) “Sorry, sir.”
“Check your appendectomy scar.”
“Huh?” I reached under the sheet and felt it, then flipped the sheet back and looked at it. “What the hell?”
“The incision was less than two centimeters and straight through the scar; no muscle tissue was disturbed. The item was withdrawn about twenty-four hours ago by reopening the same incision. With the accelerated repair methods that were used on you I am told that in two more days you will not be able to find the new scar in the old. But I am very glad that the Mortensons took such good care of you as I am sure that the artificial symptoms induced in you to cover what had to be done to you were not pleasant. By the way, there really is a catarrhal-fever epidemic there-fortuitous window dressing.”
Boss paused. I stubbornly refused to ask him what I was carrying-he would not have told me anyhow. Shortly he added, “You were telling me about your trip home.”
“The trip down was without incident. Boss, the next time you send me into space I want to go first-class, in an antigrav ship. Not via that silly Indian rope trick.” –
“Engineering analysis shows that a skyhook is safer than any ship. The Quito cable was lost through sabotage, not materiel failure.”
“Stingy.”
“I don’t intend to bind the mouths of the kine. You may use antigray from here on if circumstances and timing permit. This time there were reasons to use the Kenya Beanstalk.”
“Maybe so, but someone tailed me out of the Beanstalk capsule. As soon as we were alone, I killed him.”
I paused. Someday, someday, I am going to cause his face to register surprise. I retackled the subject diagonally:
“Boss, I need a refresher course, with some careful reorientation.”
“Really? To what end?”
“My kill reflex is too fast. I don’t discriminate. That bloke hadn’t done anything to rate killing. Surely, he was tailing me. But I should either have shaken him, there or in Nairobi, or, at most, knocked him cold and placed him on ice while I went elsewhere.”
“We’ll discuss your possible need later. Continue.”
I told him about the Public Eye and “Belsen’s” quadruple identity and how I had sent them to the four winds, then I outlined my trip home. He checked me. “You did not mention the destruction of that hotel in Nairobi.”
“Huh? But, Boss, that had nothing to do with me. I was halfway to Mombasa.”
“My dear Friday, you are too modest. A large number of people and a huge amount of money have gone into trying to keep you from completing your mission, including a last-ditch attempt at our former farm. You may assume, as least hypothesis, that the bombing of the Hilton had as its sole purpose killing you.”
“Hmm. Boss, apparently you knew that it would be this rough. Couldn’t you have warned me?”
“Would you have been more alert, more resolute, had I filled your mind with vague warnings of unknown dangers? Woman, you made no mistakes.”
“The hell I didn’t! Uncle Jim met my capsule when he should not have known the time I would arrive; that should have set off every alarm in my head. The instant I laid eyes on him I should have dived back down the hole and taken any capsule anywhere.”
“Whereupon it would have become extremely difficult for us to achieve rendezvous, which would have aborted your mission as thoroughly as losing what you carried. My child, if affairs had gone smoothly, Jim would have met you at my behest; you underestimate my intelligence net as well as the effort we put into trying to watch over you. But I did not send Jim to get you because at that moment I was running. Hobbling, to be precise. Hurrying. Trying to escape. I assume that Jim took the ETA message himself-from our man, or that of our antagonists, or possibly from both.”
“Boss, if I had known it at the time, I would have fed Jim to his horses. I was fond of him. When the time comes, I want to cancel him myself. He’s mine.”