“Are you crazy, boy?”
“I don’t think so.”
“You talk crazy. Have you ever tried not doing something he wanted? Try it some time.”
I saw his point. Refusing Wormface would be like a rabbit spitting in a snake’s eye-as I knew too well. Jock went on, “You got to understand the other man’s viewpoint. Live and let live, I always say. We got grabbed while we were messin’ around, lookin’ for carnotite-and after that, we never stood no chance. You can’t fight City Hall, that gets you nowhere. So we made a dicker-we run his errands, he pays us in uranium.”
My faint sympathy vanished. I wanted to throw up. “And you got paid?”
“Well . . . you might say we got time on the books.”
I looked around our cell. “You made a bad deal.”
Jock grimaced, looking like a sulky baby. “Maybe so. But be reasonable, kid. You got to cooperate with the inevitable. These boys are moving in-they got what it takes. You seen that yourself. Well, a man’s got to look out for number one, don’t he? It’s a cinch nobody else will. Now I seen a case like this when I was no older than you and it taught me a lesson. Our town had run quietly for years, but the Big Fellow was getting old and losing his grip . . . whereupon some boys from St. Louis moved in. Things were confused for a while. A man had to know which way to jump-else he woke up wearing a wooden overcoat, like as not. Those that seen the handwriting made out; those that didn’t . . . well, it don’t do no good to buck the current, I always say. That makes sense, don’t it?”
I could follow his “logic”-provided you accepted his “live louse” standard. But he had left out a key point. “Even so. Jock, I don’t see how you could do that to a little girl.”
“Huh? I just explained how we couldn’t help it.”
“But you could. Even allowing how hard it is to face up to him and refuse orders, you had a perfect chance to duck out.”
“Wha’ d’you mean?”
“He sent you to Luna City to find her, you said so. You’ve got a return-fare benefit-I know you have, I know the rules. All you had to do was sit tight, where he couldn’t reach you-and take the next ship back to Earth. You didn’t have to do his dirty work.”
“But-”
I cut him off. “Maybe you couldn’t help yourself, out in a lunar desert. Maybe you wouldn’t feel safe even inside Tombaugh Station. But when he sent you into Luna City, you had your chance. You didn’t have to steal a little girl and turn her over to a-a bug-eyed monster!”
He looked baffled, then answered quickly. “Kip, I like you. You’re a good boy. But you ain’t smart. You don’t understand.”
“I think I do!”
“No, you don’t.” He leaned toward me, started to put a hand on my knee; I drew back. He went on, “There’s something I didn’t tell you . . . for fear you’d think I was a-well, a zombie, or something. They operated on us.”
“Huh?”
“They operated on us,” he went on glibly. “They planted bombs in our heads. Remote control, like a missile. A man gets out of line . . . he punches a button-blooie! Brains all over the ceiling.” He fumbled at the nape of his neck. “See the scar? My hair’s getting kind o’ long . . . but if you look close I’m sure you’ll see it; it can’t ‘ave disappeared entirely. See it?”
I started to look. I might even have been sold on it-I had been forced to believe less probable things lately. Tim cut short my suspended judgment with one explosive word.
Jock flinched, then braced himself and said, “Don’t pay any attention to him!”
I shrugged and moved away. Jock didn’t talk the rest of that “day.” That suited me.
The next “morning” I was roused by Jock’s hand on my shoulder. “Wake up, Kip! Wake up!”
I groped for my toy weapon. “It’s over there by the wall,” Jock said, “but it ain’t ever goin’ to do you any good now.”