The Dark Design by Phillip Jose Farmer

“They’ll grab you, just as they did Piscator. And then what? Besides, for all you know, the metal of the tower could be resistant to a laser beam.”

“Too right. But we have to try. That’s the only way we can find out.”

“All right, all right! You’ve got logic and right on your side, as if that ever won an argument! But I’m a reasonable man. So, you can have the laser!

“But, and this is a big but, as the queen of Spain said to Dan Sickles, you’ve got to get Rotten John for me first!”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I mean that I want you to make a raid on the Rex. Send in a party in the chopper at night and grab John. I’d rather see him here alive, but if you can’t get him alive and kicking, kill him!”

“That’s stupid and vicious!” Jill said. “We could lose the chopper and all the raiding party in a useless, vainglorious venture. Not to mention risking lives, we can’t afford to lose the chopper. It’s the only one we have.”

Sam had been breathing heavily, but he waited until he had regained his wind. Now he spoke smoothly, icily.

“It’s you that’s being stupid now. If John is gotten rid of, I won’t have any reason to pit my boat against the Rex. Think of the lives that’ll be saved. For all I care, his second-in-command, whoever he is, can take over and I’ll wish him good luck. All I want is that John doesn’t get away with all the crimes he committed and that he doesn’t get to keep the beautiful boat I toiled and sweated and plotted and suffered agonies for. And don’t forget that he tried to sink this boat, too!

“I want that miserable excuse for a human being standing in front of me so I can tell him exactly what he is. That’s all. I promise I won’t kill him or mistreat him, if that’s bothering you. Thunderation! Why should it?

“And when I’m done chewing him out, the most glorious verbal reaming ever given anybody since the dawn of time-it’ll make Jeremiah look tongue-tied-then I’ll put him ashore and steam away. Of course, I may maroon him among cannibals or grail slavers.

“I promise you that, Jill.”

“What if he has to be killed?”

“I’ll just have to endure my disappointment.”

“But I can’t order my men to go on such a dangerous mission.”

“I won’t ask you to. Just ask for volunteers. If you can’t get enough, too bad. You can’t have the laser. However, I don’t anticipate any dearth of heroes. If there’s one thing I know, Jill, it’s human nature.”

Cyrano shouted, “I will be honored to enlist, Sam!”

“Is that you, Cyrano? Well, I have to admit you’ve not been one of my dearest friends. But if you do go, I wish you good luck. I mean it.”

Jill was so surprised she could not speak for a moment.

Here was the man who’d said he regarded Mars, the deity of war, as the most stupid of gods.

When she regained her voice, she said, “Why are you doing this, Cyrano?”

“Why? But you forget that I, too, was on the Not For Hire when John and his pirates seized it. I was almost killed. I would like to have my revenge, to see the expression on his face when he realizes that the trap is sprung on the trapper, the pirate pirated.

“This is not your vast, impersonal war initiated by greedy, glory-mad imbeciles who do not care how many thousands are slaugh­tered, mutilated, driven insane, frozen, starved, dying of disease; how many children and woman blown up; how many women raped or left husbandless or sonless.

“No, this is personal. I know the man whom I would make my small, wholly justified war upon. So does Clemens, who abhors war as much as myself.”

Jill did not argue with him. At that moment, he seemed like a little child to her. An idiot child. He still wanted to play at war, yet he had seen its miseries and horrors.

There was nothing for her to do but go along with Sam’s propo­sal . She did not have to obey him, since he had no way of enforcing his orders. But if she wanted the laser, and she did, she could only carry out the raid.