'Want to stay and see them?'
'Oh, no! I couldn't, not the parts I Witnessed. But I would like to know - later - whether or not they show that I've slipped my clutches.'
'All right.'
XIII
WHEN THEY HAD GONE, Harshaw started to give instructions to Duke - then instead said grumpily, 'What are you looking sour about?'
'Boss, when are we going to get rid of that ghoul?'
''Ghoul'? Why, you provincial lout!'
'Okay, so I come from Kansas. You won't find any cases of cannibalism in Kansas - they were all farther west. I've got my own opinions about who is a lout and who isn't? but I'm eating in the kitchen until we get rid of him.'
Harshaw said icily, 'So? Don't put yourself out. Anne can have your closing check ready in five minutes? and it ought not to take you more than ten minutes to pack up your comic books and your other shirt.'
Duke had been setting up a projector. He stopped and straightened up. 'Oh, I didn't mean that I was quitting.'
'It means exactly that to me, son.'
'But - I mean, what the hell? I've eaten in the kitchen lots of times.'
'So you have. For your own convenience, or to keep from making extra work for the girls. Or some such. You can have breakfast in bed, for all of me, if you can bribe the girls to serve it to you. But nobody who sleeps under my roof refuses to eat at my table because he doesn't want to eat with others who eat there. I happen to be of an almost extinct breed, an old-fashioned gentleman - which means I can be a real revolving son of bitch when it suits me. And it suits me right now? which is to say that no ignorant, superstitious, prejudiced bumpkin is permitted to tell me who is, or is not, fit to eat at my table. If I choose to dine with publicans and sinners, that is my business. But I do not choose to break bread with Pharisees.'
Duke turned red and said slowly, 'I ought to pop you one - and I would, if you were my age.'
'Don't let that stop you, Duke. I may be tougher than you think and if I'm not, the commotion will probably bring the others in. Do you think you can handle the Man from Mars?'
'Him? I could break him in two with one hand!' 'Probably? if you could lay a hand on him.' 'Huh?'
'You saw me try to point a pistol at him. Duke - where's that pistol? Before you go flexing your biceps, stop and think - or whatever it is you do in place of thinking. Find that pistol. Then tell me whether or not you still think you can break Mike in two. But find the pistol first.'
Duke wrinkled his forehead, then went ahead setting up the projector. 'Some sort of sleight-of-hand. The films will show it.'
Harshaw said, 'Duke. Stop fiddling with that projector. Sit down. I'll take care of it after you've left and run off the films myself. But I want to talk to you a few moments first.'
'Huh? Jubal, I don't want you touching this projector. Every time you do, you get it out of whack. It's a delicate piece of machinery.'
'Sit down, I said.'
'But-'
'It's my projector, Duke. I'll bust the damned thing if it suits me. Or: I'll get Larry to run it for me. But I do not accept service from a man alter he has resigned from my employ.'
'Hell, I didn't resign! You got nasty and sounded off and fired me - for no reason.'
'Sit down, Duke,' Harshaw said quietly. 'Either sit down? and let me try to save your life - or get off this place as fast as you can and let me send your clothes and wages after you. Don't stop to pack; it's too risky. You might not live that long.'
'What the hell do you mean?'
'Exactly what I say. Duke, it's irrelevant whether you resigned or were fired; you terminated your employment here when you announced that you would no longer eat at my table. Nevertheless I would find it distasteful for you to be killed on my premises. So sit down and I will do my best to avoid it.'
Duke looked startled, opened his mouth - closed it and sat down. Harshaw went on, 'Are you Mike's water brother?'
'Huh? Of course not. Oh, I've heard such chatter - but it's nonsense, if you ask me.'
'It is not nonsense and nobody asked you; you aren't competent to have an opinion about it.' Harshaw frowned. 'That's too bad. I can see that I am not only going to have to let you go - and, Duke, I don't want to fire you; you do a good job of keeping the gadgetry around here working properly and thereby save me from being annoyed by mechanical buffoonery I am totally uninterested in. But I must not only get you safely off the place but I must also find out at once who else around here is not a water brother to Mike? and either see to it that they become such - or get them off the place before anything happens to them.' Jubal chewed his lip and stared at the ceiling. 'Maybe it would be sufficient to exact a solemn promise from Mike not to hurt anyone without my specific permission. Mmmm? no, I can't risk it. Too much horse play around here - and there is always the chance that Mike might misinterpret something that was meant in fun. Say if you - or Larry, rather, since you won't be here - picked up Jill and tossed her into the pool, Larry might wind up where that pistol went, before I could explain to Mike that it was all in fun and Jill was not in danger. I wouldn't want Larry to die through my oversight. Larry is entitled to work out his own damn foolishness without having it cut short through my carelessness. Duke, I believe in everyone's working out his own damnation his own way? but nevertheless that is no excuse for an adult to give a dynamite cap to a baby as a toy.'
Duke said slowly, 'Boss, you sound like you've come unzipped. Mike wouldn't hurt anybody - shucks, this cannibalism talk makes me want to throw up but don't get me wrong; I know he's just a savage, he doesn't know any better. Hell, Boss, he's gentle as a lamb. He would never hurt anybody.'
'You think so?'
'I'm sure of it.'
'So. You've got two or three guns in your room. I say he's dangerous. It's open season on Martians, so pick a gun you trust, go down to the swimming pool, and kill him. Don't worry about the law; I'll be your attorney and I guarantee that you'll never be indicted. Go ahead, do it!'
'Jubal? you don't mean that.'
'No. No, I don't really mean it. Because you can't. If you tried it, your gun would go where my pistol went - and if you hurried him you'd probably go with it. Duke, you don't know what you are fiddling with - and I don't either except that I know it's dangerous and you don't. Mike is not 'gentle as a lamb' and he is not a savage. I suspect we are the savages. Ever raise snakes?'
'Uh? no.'
'I did, when I was a kid. Thought I was going to be a zoologist then. One winter, down in Florida, I caught what I thought was a scarlet snake. Know what they look like?'
'I don't like snakes.'
'Prejudice again, rank prejudice. Most snakes are harmless, useful, and fun to raise. The scarlet snake is a beauty - red, and black and yellow - docile and makes a fine pet. I think this little fellow was fond of me, in its dim reptilian fashion. Of course I knew how to handle snakes, how not to alarm them and not give them a chance to bite, because the bite of even a non-poisonous snake is a nuisance. But I was fond of this baby; he was the prize of my collection. I used to take him out and show him to people, holding him back of his head and letting him wrap himself around my wrist.
'One day I got a chance to show my collection to the herpetologist of the Tampa zoo - and I showed him my prize first. He almost had hysterics. My pet was not a scarlet snake - it was a young coral snake. The American cobra? the most deadly snake in North America. Duke, do you see my point?'
'I see that raising snakes is dangerous. I could have told you.'
'Oh, for Pete's sake! I already had rattlesnakes and water moccasins in my collection. A poisonous snake is not dangerous, not any more than a loaded gun is dangerous - in each case, if you handle it properly. The thing that made that coral snake dangerous was that I hadn't known what it was, what it could do. If, in my ignorance, I had
