Heinlein, Robert A – Friday

“Friday, in our profession it is undesirable to hold grudges.”

“I don’t hold many but Uncle Jim is special. And there is another case I want to handle myself. But I’ll argue with you later. Say, is it true that Uncle Jim used to be a papist priest?”

Boss almost looked surprised. “Where did you hear that nonsense?”

“Around and about. Gossip.”

‘Human, All Too Human.’ Gossip is a vice. Let me settle it. Prufit was a con man. I met him in prison, where he did something for me, important enough that I made a place for him in our organization. My mistake. My inexcusable mistake, as a con man never stops being a con man; he can’t. But I suffered from a will to believe, a defect of character that I thought I had rooted out. I was mistaken. Continue, please.”

I told Boss how they had grabbed me. “Five of them, I think. Possibly only four.”

“Six, I believe. Descriptions.”

“None, Boss, I was too busy. Well, one. I had one sharp look at him just as I killed him. About a hundred and seventy-five tall, weight around seventy-five or -six. Age near thirty-five. Blondish, smooth-shaven. Slavic. But he was the only one my eye photographed. Because he held still. Involuntarily. As his neck snapped.”

“You never do.” “Was the other one you killed blond or brunet?”

‘Belsen’? Brunet.”

“No, at the farm. Never mind. You killed two and injured three before they piled enough bodies on you to hold you down by sheer weight. A credit to your instructor, let me add. In escaping, we had not been able to thin them down enough to keep them from taking you. . . but, in my opinion, you won the battle in which we recaptured you by your having earlier taken out so many of their effectives. Even though you were chained up and unconscious at the time, you won the final fracas. Go on, please.”

“That about wraps it up, Boss. A gang rape next, followed by interrogation, direct, then under drugs, then under pain.”

“I’m sorry about the rape, Friday. The usual bonuses. You will find them enhanced as I judge the circumstances to have been unusually offensive.”

“Oh, not that bad. I’m hardly a twittering virgin. I can recall social occasions that were almost as unpleasant. Except one man. I don’t know his face but I can identify him. I want him! I want him as badly as I want Uncle Jim. Worse, maybe, as I want to punish him a bit before I let him die.”

“I can only repeat what I said earlier. For us, personal grudges are a mistake. They reduce survival probability.”

“I’ll risk it for this bucko. Boss, I don’t hold the rape qua rape against him; they were ordered to rape me under the silly theory that it would soften me up for interrogation. But the scum should bathe and he should have his teeth fixed and he should brush them and use a mouthwash. And somebody must tell him that it is not polite to slap a woman with whom he is copulated. I don’t know his face but I know his voice and his odor and his build and his nickname. Rocks or Rocky.”

“Jeremy Rockford.”

“Huh? You know him? Where is he?”

“I once knew him and I recently had one clear look at him, enough to be sure. Requiescat in pace.”

“Really? Oh, hell. I hope he didn’t die quietly.”

“He did not die quietly. Friday, I have not told you all that I know-”

“-because I wanted your report first. Their assault on the farm succeeded because Jim Prufit had cut all power just before they hit us. This left us nothing but hand weapons for the few who wear arms at the farm, only bare hands for most of us. I ordered evacuation and most of us escaped through a tunnel prepared and concealed when the house was rebuilt. I am sorry and proud to say that three of our best, the three who were armed when we were hit, elected to play Horatius at the bridge. I know that they died as I kept the tunnel open until I could tell by the sounds that it had been entered by the raiders. Then I blasted it.