Alarmed attendants moved close, uncertain whether to
try and restrain Haust or wait till he actually struck
their mistress. She was frozen and could offer them no
clue for guidance.
“You’re as bad as the rest!” the old man raved. “Who
keeps the ZRP’s in subjusubju’arion? The Corps stink-
ing Galacrica, that’s who, and their whining lackeys in
the Patrol! And who leases a base right here on Cy-
closhShyclopsright on this filthy world whatever its
name is!to the triply damned Corps? Why, you do!
Aargh! Give me some more drink to wash away the
taste of you!”
H snatched at the nearest goblet, which happened to
be Quist’s own, and as he made to raise it to his lips lost
his precarious grip on stability and went crashing to the
floor.
“I am sure,” said the next speaker, “we ought to learn
a lesson from what too many of us took simply as a dis-
gusting exhibition.” He was a lean man from the twin
worlds of Alpha and Beta Lobulae, which having been
blessed with few internal troubles had much surplus en-
ergy for meddling in those of other systems. “It should
have reminded us all that we are not dealing with ab-
stracts, but with human beings, with a capacity to suffer,
and suffer more greatly than we fortunate children of
happier worlds can know. Indeed, it comes as no great
surprise to me to realise that Omar Haust feels himself
unnecessarily mocked by the presence of the Corps
Galacrica base on this planetwhose hospitality and
whose government’s sympathy with our aims I do not
question, but whose action in this respect perhaps casts
doubt in the minds of waverers about our ultimate deter-
mination.”
That, Quist realised with a sinking heart, called for a
reply. And it would be useless to state the truththat but
for the income the leasing of that island to the Corps
brought to Cyclops, the delegates would not be here; the
revenue tipped the balance between Cyclops affording
and not affording an interstellar fleet, small though it had
to be.
She rose and looked around. She could use the opening
of her original speech, she decided, and began on it. The
compositor had worked well, and it soon had the dele-
gates listening in calm self-approval, bar the man from
Lobulae.
To him, finally, she said with an air of desperation, “It
must of course be recalled that in the days when the
agreement between my our government and the Corps
was reached, the first of the ZRP’s had not yet been
chanced upon. Far be it from me to decry the useful
work the Corps has done, in its capacity as the interstel-
lar counterpart to a police force. It seems only to be in
the area of framing policy that they have exceeded their
intended brief.”
Nods to that.
“However, we are grateful for the suggestion. I’ll have
the proposal investigated, and if on balance it does ap-
pear th;kt such an action would be an effective lever in
securing our aims against the opposition of the Corps, I
will make a formal statement to that effect.”
Appla?ase. She sat down, wishing with all her heart
that justin were here to shower his praise on her, forced
though she knew it to be.
Heaven help Cyclops if I have to act on that vaporous
promise, she thought grimly, and turned to smile at those
delegates who were complimenting her on what she had
said*
Nole had gone off again, still in a state of agitation, to
see whether there was a print-out from the computer
which he had set to tracking the gene-type of the tissue
in Kolb’s leg-graft.
It was very quiet in the office where Maddalena and
Langenschmidt waited for news. The hospital hummed
with the same soft efficient noise as an advanced auto-
matic factory; since its business was the repair and main-
tenance of what were after all the highly complex
mechanisms of human flesh, that wasn’t surprising. Dimly
from beyond the walls noise of other repair work reached
them: clashing as hull-plates were fitted to ships under-
going overhaul, the subdy disturbing moan of drive units