“I was,” replied Milo. “But what has that to do with my previous question, Doctor?”
Sternheimer’s tones became fervid. “We, Mr. Morai, are attempting to re-establish The United States of America.”
This time Milo’s laughter was real. “Doctor, if you’re not pulling my leg, I advise you to have a long chat with one of your shrinks. Have you lost track of time? Doctor, this is, I believe, the twenty-seventh century A.D. The United States, as you and I knew it, has been dead a long time. Why not let it rest in peace?”
“Because, Mr. Morai, I am a patriot!” announced Sternheimer.
Milo laughed again. “So patriotic are you—or were you—that you disregarded the orders of the Congress and your superiors in H.E.W. to discontinue your vampiric experiments and destroy all notes and records of them.”
“But I knew that our work was terribly important, Mr. Morai, and events bear out my belief!” Sternheimer exclaimed. “Besides, who were those damned, ignorant politicians to dictate to me?”
“They were the elected congressmen of the citizens whose taxes paid for your experiments, Doctor,” said Milo coolly.
This time, it was Sternheimer who expelled a snort of hard laughter. “The Great Unwashed Masses? Oh, come now, Mr. Morai, you know as well as I do that those congressional fools simply overreacted to a few letters from religious fanatics and the tripe churned out by a handful of newsmongering simpletons calling themselves ‘journalists’! When we re-establish our nation, there will be no such aggregation of august fools. The people will be governed sensibly, scientifically.”
“Forget it, Sternheimer.” Milo’s voice was become glacial. “I remind you again; this is not the world we knew, long ago. Today’s people need you and your plans of a scientific dictatorship as much as they need a hole in the head. And I serve you fair warnirfg: keep your damned vampires out of my lands—which now include the Southern Kingdom as well as Karaleenos and Kehnooryos Ehlahs, incidentally. I’ll scotch every one of your people I can lay my hands on, Sternheimer, and don’t you for-get it!”
Sternheimer abruptly turned on the charm once more. “My dear Mr. Morai, you do misunderstand. How I wish we could speak face to face, man to man, so that I might convince you of . . .”
“Sternheimer, you couldn’t convince me that dung stinks! So don’t waste your breath trying psychology on me. Just remember what I said, what I promised to do to any of your parasites I catch, and keep them out of my Confederation. I expect I’ll have my work cut out for me during the next couple of centuries, and I’ll have no mercy on any of your ghouls who traipse about stirring things up.” Milo hurled the mike to the floor.
“Wait a minute, Mr. Morai.” Sternheimer’s next words remained unheard, for Milo spun the frequency knob, losing the nasal voice in a welter of static.
The High-Lord disconnected the power source, then ordered his guards that the two chests be carried to the center of the bridge and dumped into the river.
Nothing that was done to Zastros’ body could evoke even the fluttering of an eyelid—shaking him did no good, nor did slaps or blows or dagger points pushed into the most sensitive spots on his body, not even torch flames applied to his fingertips and toes.
“And he has been just so, Lord Milo, since the night we came to depose him,” asserted Mahvros. “He swallows liquids if we open his jaws and dribble them into his mouth, but he cannot eat.”
Milo gazed down on the inert body, now bruised and burned and bleeding. He attempted to enter the mind, but he found it shielded. He then surmised the actual fact, though he never knew it for such.
“Gentlemen, I imagine that Zastros’ wife, who was the agent of a very evil man far south of here, drugged her husband. She probably wished him unconscious while she used that radio to contact her lord. We’ll never know the antidote that might restore him to consciousness until we know what drugs she used, and she took that knowledge with her to her grave. His body would starve to death ere we might chance upon that antidote. The kindest thing to do now is to grant him a clean, quick death.”