“I’m glad it was you, Professor. Been fun working with you.” I blew her a kiss, which she snatched out of the air and blew back.
“I didn’t know about this!” Admiral Steengo said, more than miffed. “I am beginning to find out that there are levels of secrecy and duplicity in this so-called artifact retrieval operation that no one seems to know anything about. The more I discover about it-the more it stinks. And more and more it appears to bear the stamp of Stinky Benbow.”
“That nickname is classified and will be stricken from the records,” a loathsomely familiar voice grated from the direction of the suddenly opened door. “Fun and games are over. Sit down diGriz. I am in charge now.”
“Well as I live and breathe!” I turned, filled with great pleasure, to face the ever-scowling countenance of Admiral Benbow. “This is almost too good to be true. The old poisoner himself-in person.”
“You will be silent. That is an order.”
Steengo was shocked. “Benbow, you bastard-have you been going over my head with this project? Are there other things about it that even I don’t know?”
“Plenty. But your need to know is plenty far down the knowing chain of command. So, like this crook-shut up.”
“No more orders, Benbow,” I broke in. Reluctantly since there is nothing I enjoy more than a brace of admirals slanging each other off. But this was a time for work, not fun. “Now tell the truth, just for a change. It was your idea to give me the fake thirty-day poison, wasn’t it?”
“Of course. I know how to deal with criminals. No trust, just fear. And complete control.” The lizard lips bent into a frigid smile. “I will show you how it works.”
He snapped his fingers and an aide hurried in with a familiar package. He held it up and the serpentine smile broadened. “You didn’t really think that I would let you get away with this, did you?”
It was the package with the three million credits that I had mailed to Professor Van Diver for safekeeping. My fee for putting my life in danger, money well earned. Now in the hands of the enemy. Not only wasn’t I bothered by seeing it-I was overjoyed.
“How kind of you, dear Admiral,” I chortled. “The circle is complete, the ring closed. The play ended. The alien artifact retrieved. The last song sung. Thank you, thank you.”
“Don’t sound so cheery, diGriz-because you are in the deep cagal. Although you will not be executed for robbing the Mint you will get a well-deserved prison sentence for that crime. This fee, which you extorted from the university, will be returned to them. Along with that artifact . . .”
“Oh-so we have remembered it at last. Don’t you want to know what it is, what it does?”
“No. Not my problem. Let the university worry about that. I was against this entire operation from the first. Now it is over and life will go on the way it was.”
“Including life on this despicable planet?”
“Of course. We are not going to let the do-gooders interfere with the sound administration of the law.”
“Admiral-I do admire you,” I said, standing and turning to the intent audience. “Hear that, Iron John? You can go back to your old job at the bottom of the pond as soon as your bones heal. Svinjar, more killing and general swinery on your part. There will be the return of the rule of law and justice-on Admiral Benbow’s terms.”
“Arrest this man,” Benbow ordered, and two armed guards entered and marched towards me.
“I’ll go quietly,” I said. Turned and touched the alien artifact as I had been instructed to. “But I’ll go alone.”
It was so quiet you could heard a pin drop. But, of course, a pin could not drop.
Nothing could move, was moving. Would move for quite a while.
Except me, of course. Strolling over, cheerfully whistling “Nothing’s Too Bad for the Enemy,” relieving the Admiral of my hard-earned fee. Smiling benignly into his glaring, frozen face. Due to stay that way for quite awhile. I turned and waved at my statue-like audience.