handled it carelessly, it would have killed me as casually and as innocently as a kitten scratches. And that's what I'm trying to tell you about Mike. He seems as gentle as a lamb - and I'm convinced that he really is gentle and unreservedly friendly with anyone he trusts. But if he doesn't trust you - well, he's not what he seems to be. He seems like an ordinary young male human, rather underdeveloped, decidedly clumsy, and abysmally ignorant? but bright and very docile and eager to learn. All of which is true and not surprising, in view of his ancestry and his strange background. But, like my pet snake, Mike is more than he appears to be. If Mike does not trust you, blindly and all out, he can be instantly aggressive and much more deadly than that coral snake. Especially if he thinks you are harming one of his water brothers, such as Jill - or me.'
Harshaw shook his head sadly. 'Duke, if you had given way to your natural impulse to take a poke at me, a few minutes ago when I told you some homely truths about yourself, and if Mike had been standing in that doorway behind you? well, I'm convinced that you would have stood no chance at all. None. You would have been dead before you knew it, much too quickly for me to stop him. Mike would then have been sorrowfully apologetic over having 'wasted food' - namely your big, beefy carcass. Oh, he would feel guilty about that; you heard him a while ago. But he wouldn't feel guilty about killing you; that would just be a necessity you had forced on him? and not a matter of any great importance anyhow, even to you. You see, Mike believes that your soul is immortal.'
'Huh? Well, hell, so do I. But-'
'Do you?' Jubal said bleakly. 'I wonder.'
'Why, certainly I do! Oh, I admit I don't go to church much, but I was brought up right. I'm no infidel. I've got faith.'
'Good. Though I've never been able to understand 'faith' myself, nor to see how a just God could expect his creatures to pick the one true religion out of an infinitude of false ones - by faith alone. It strikes me as a sloppy way to run an organization, whether a universe or a smaller one. However, since you do have faith and it includes belief in your own immortality, we need not trouble further over the probability that your prejudices will result in your early demise. Do you want to be cremated or buried?'
'Huh? Oh, for cripe's sake, Jubal, quit trying to get my goat.'
'Not at all. I can't guarantee to get you off my place safely as long as you persist in thinking that a coral snake is a harmless scarlet snake - any blunder you make may be your last. But I promise you I won't let Mike eat you.'
Duke's mouth dropped open. At last he managed to answer, explosively, profanely, and quite incoherently. Harshaw listened, then said testily, 'All right, all right, but pipe down. You can make any arrangements with Mike you like. I thought I was doing you a favor.' Harshaw turned and bent over the projector. 'I want to see these pictures. Stick around, if you want to, until I'm through. Prob'ly safer. Damn!' he added. 'The pesky thing savaged me.'
'You tried to force it. Here-' Duke completed the adjustment Harshaw had muffed, then went ahead and inserted the first film cartridge. Neither of them re-opened the question of whether Duke was, or was not, still working for Jubal. The cameras were Mitchell servos; the projector was a Yashinon tabletop tank, with an adapter to permit it to receive Land Solid-Sight-Sound 4 mm. film. Shortly they were listening to and watching the events leading up to the disappearance of the empty brandy case.
Jubal watched the box being thrown at his head, saw it wink out in midair. 'That's enough,' he said. 'Anne will be pleased to know that the cameras back her up. Duke, let's repeat that last bit in slow motion.'
'Okay.' Duke spooled back, then announced, 'This is ten-to-one.'
The scene was the same but the slowed-down sound was useless; Duke switched it off. The box floated slowly from Jill's hands toward Jubal's head, then quite suddenly ceased to be. But it did not simply wink out; under slow-motion projection it could be seen shrinking, smaller and smaller until it was no longer there.
Jubal nodded thoughtfully. 'Duke, can you slow it down still more?'
'Just a sec. Something is fouled up with the stereo.'
'What?'
'Darned if I can figure it out. It looked all right on the fast run. But when I slowed it down, the depth effect was reversed. You saw it. That box went away from us fast, mighty fast - but it always looked closer than the wall. Swapped parallax, of course. But I never took that cartridge off the spindle. Gremlins.'
'Oh. Hold it, Duke. Run the film from the other camera.'
'Unh? oh, I see, That'll give us a ninety-degree cross on it and we'll see properly even if I did jimmy this film somehow.' Duke changed cartridges. 'Zip through the first part, okay? Then undercranked ten-to-one on the part that counts.'
'Go ahead.'
The scene was the same save for angle. When the image of Jill grabbed the box, Duke slowed down the show and again they watched the box go away. Duke cursed. 'Something was fouled up with the second camera too.'
'So?'
'Of course. It was looking at it around from the side so the box should have gone out of the frame to one side or the other. Instead it went straight away from us again. Well, didn't it? You saw it. Straight away from us.'
'Yes,' agreed Jubal. ''Straight away from us.''
'Out it can't - not from both angles.'
'What do you mean, it can't? It already did.' Harshaw added, 'If we I had used doppler-radar in place of each of those cameras, I wonder what they would have shown?'
'How should I know? I'm going to take both these cameras apart.'
'Don't bother.'
'But-'
'Don't waste your time, Duke; the cameras are all right. What is exactly ninety degrees from everything else?'
'I'm no good at riddles.'
'It's not a riddle and I meant it seriously. I could refer you to Mr. A. Square from Flatland, but I'll answer it myself. What is exactly at right angles to everything else? Answer: two dead bodies, one old pistol, and an empty liquor case.'
'What the deuce do you mean, Boss?'
'I never spoke more plainly in my life. Try believing what the cameras see instead of insisting that the cameras must be at fault because what they saw was not what you expected. Let's see the other films.'
Harshaw made no comment as they were shown; they added nothing to what he already knew but did confirm and substantiate. The ash tray when floating near the ceiling had been out of camera angle, but its leisurely descent and landing had been recorded. The pistol's image in the:' stereo tank was quite small but, so far as could be seen, the pistol had done just what the box appeared to have done: shrunk away into the far distance without moving. Since Harshaw had been gripping it tightly when it had shrunk out of his hand, he was satisfied - if 'satisfied' was the right word, he added grumpily to himself. 'Convinced' at least.
'Duke, when you get time, I want duplicate prints of all of those.'
Duke hesitated. 'You mean I'm still working here?'
'What? Oh, damn it! You can't eat in the kitchen, and Duke, try to cut your local prejudices out of the circuit and just while. Try really hard.'
'I'll listen.'
'When Mike asked for the privilege of eating my stringy old carcass, he was doing me the greatest honor that he knew of - by the only rules he knows. What he had 'learned at his mother's knee,' so to speak. Do you savvy that? You heard his tone of voice, you saw his manner. He was paying me his highest compliment - and asking of me a boon. You see? Never mind what they think of such things in Kansas; Mike uses the values taught him on Mars.'
'I think I'll take Kansas.'
'Well,' admitted Jubal, 'so do I. But it is not a matter of free choice for me, nor for you - nor for Mike. All three of us are prisoners of our early indoctrinations, for it is hard, very nearly impossible, to shake off one's earliest training. Duke, can you get it through your skull that if you had been born on Mars and brought up by Martians, you yourself would have exactly the same attitude toward eating and being eaten that Mike has?'
Duke considered it, then shook his head. 'I won't buy it, Jubal. Sure, about most things it's just Mike's hard luck
