Выбрать главу

“Switzerland,” Sam corrected absently as he wondered if his ancestors had been right about the paucity of intelligence in the universe. “Are you insane? That means that we are really in the red, thanks to your crafty trading.”

“Are we really, friend Sam?” Brill responded, missing the sarcasm in Sam’s voice. “I thought I was doing quite well. But, not to worry. We’ll use the money from the first collection to pay the balance on the new collection, and even have a bit left over. Then we can sell that collection to my buyer and use the proceeds to replenish Pops’s account. See how simple it all is when you think about it?”

Sam sighed. “Provided that you can make all of the sales and that the buyer has the same high opinion of these magazines that you do. Otherwise we are going to have to repay every damn cent!”

“Oh my, you are in a bit of a predicament, aren’t you?” Brill responded. “What are you going to do if this doesn’t work out?”

Sam rocked back on his heels. “What am I going to do? I thought that this was a partnership, Brill. Shouldn’t it be, what are we going to do?”

“Er, not exactly, friend Sam,” Brill responded as she made nervous motions with her tentacle and shuffled her feet. “You see, young Crumptonian females aren’t legally responsible for their actions. With us being mobile, the adults have no way of pinning us down, so to speak. I only become liable when I settle down, like Pops. I’m afraid they’d blame the only adult involved.”

Sam felt as if the hangman had just kicked the stool from under his feet. “Not legally responsible?” he croaked. “You would let them blame it all on me!

“There’s no need to shout, friend Sam, there’s got to be a way to clear things up. I just have to work it out. Meanwhile, why don’t you just go on as if nothing was the matter? I’m sure that Pops won’t get suspicious if you behave normally, or whatever passes for normal with you humans.”

Sam wondered where Brill’s neck might be located, and how pleasant it might be to strangle the little alien.

“How could you?” screamed Town as she dragged herself into the office and threaded her way through the maze of boxes. “I nearly died of embarrassment when Schlubbb said my check was no good. The bank said you put a hold on the check. Why did you do this to me, Sam? Why, why, why?”

“It’s for your own good,” Sam replied. “After all, I was somewhat in loco parentis, you know. I had a responsibility to act as Mardnnn would have.”

“You are just a human!” Town shot back. “How could you possibly know about love? How could you even hope to understand the depths of my emotions? Why, I’ll bet you’ve never tasted love, have you?”

Sam pondered the question. Well, he’d thought he’d come close a time or two, but by the time he realized it, the weekend was over. But if the right woman ever came along…

“I think I will kill myself,” Town announced dramatically, and threw her tentacle across her eye stalk. “I will leap out of that window and crush my body on the hard ground below.” She shuffled toward the window, threading her way between two columns of cardboard boxes. “What are all of these doing here? Has father gone into the storage business?”

“No, this is something Brill thought up. But don’t worry about them; some Ligonian buyer is coming by to pick them up.”

“A Ligonian, you say?” Town asked curiously.

“Yeah,” Sam said mournfully. “Brill sold the lot for a lousy fifty thousand and my soul, I should add.”

“Brill is such a dealer, isn’t she? I imagine that she’ll go far. Can you help me open this window, Sam?”

“The window is sealed, so you can’t open it. Besides, we’re only on the second floor,” Sam reminded her. “Look Town, I know this sounds harsh, but sometimes these things work out for the best.”

“How could you possibly suggest that anything good could come out of this? I am desolate, unloved, unfulfilled. I shall go through life crying for my poor lost little darling. Oh cruel Earthling, how could you do this to me?”

“Don’t you think you are taking this rather hard?” Sam asked. “I mean, there’s still time to do things right. After all, your father will be in the office tomorrow and—”

Town suddenly stopped, her tentacle held rigidly at her side. “Father is back!” she exclaimed incredulously “He isn’t on Erandi?”

“Why, no. Matter of fact, I just saw him a short while ago. Asked him to take the day off to rest up. Isn’t that good news?”

But Town didn’t answer. As soon as Sam had said “rest” she had raced away faster than he had ever seen her move, with her dead leg flapping loosely behind like some sort of tail. Apparently something he’d said had upset her even more than the loss of her lover. He shrugged. Well, maybe he’d better keep his nose out of Mardnnn’s family matters and concentrate on business from now on.

Speaking of which, he dialed Disney World to discuss the matter of buying tickets for the two or fifty-odd Kittchikoostrans. After the confusing sessions with Brill and Town, that should be a piece of cake!

“Nice to be back,” Mardnnn remarked as Sam accompanied him into the office the next morning. They had met near the elevator. Sam tried to keep the Crumptonian from coming up, insisting that Mardnnn still looked somewhat peaked, “off-color,” he had put it, and suggested that he should rest some more—another day, at least. He was hoping to buy enough time to clear the business with Brill and get the accounts back in order so that Mardnnn would be none the wiser. Apparently that was not to be, for Mardnnn had the porters carry him onto the elevator, down the hall, and into the office.

The immense pile of smelly boxes that had filled the room was gone. In its place were two small cartons emblazoned with the ubiquitous mouse logo.

For a second he wondered if Brill had a hand in this new manifestation—not that Brill had any hands, he amended hastily. Actually, he’d not heard from the young alien since she’d raced out of the office the previous afternoon.

Mardnnn slapped the top of one of the boxes. “Bring this!” he foamed at the porters, indicating his office door with a wave of a tentacle. “Shammmm—important visitor coming to look at books. Be ready!” he spat out in a splatter of bilious mist and, with a rude gesture, instructed the porters to carry him into his office.

Beads of sweat emerged on Sam’s forehead. An auditor would find the borrowed funds in a wink of an eye. He was doomed!

The phone rang. It was Brill. “Friend Sam? Is that you?”

“Your father is here,” Sam whispered harshly, before Brill could continue. “He told me that somebody is coming to check the accounts! I think he suspects something is amiss.”

Brill was silent for a long while. Too long, Sam thought. “Hmmm, that is interesting. What are you going to do, friend Sam? Pops won’t take kindly to you borrowing all of that money.”

Sam was appalled at the young Crumptonian’s casual assumption of Sam’s culpability. “Listen Brill, we have to get our money back! Call the guy you bought those magazines from. Tell him we want it all back! Every last cent! Immediately!”

“Er, I don’t think we can do that. If you will recall, the human I bought them from said something about taking a longish trip to some undisclosed location. But that’s not a problem. We already have the Ligonian buyer—remember?”

Sam counted to ten, very slowly. “I doubt that we will be able to make a profit by selling the collection for a lousy fifty thousand. No, we need to get Mardnnn s money back. See if you can find someone who has the same high expectations of the buyer that you do. We—I—need to find someone willing to pay as much as you did, Brill.”