"Okay, so you were on the ball-this time. Let's have it."
"I got chummy with the local judge and asked him to keep me advised. Of course they couldn't throw this critter into the local Bastille; in fact they did not have anything strong enough to hold him... so they had learned, the hard way. And nothing could be built in a hurry that would be strong enough... believe me, that cage he crushed out of was strong. But the local police chief got a brain storm; they had an empty reservoir with sides about thirty feet high, reinforced concrete... part of the fire system. So they built a ramp and herded him down into it, then removed the ramp. It looked like a good dodge; the creature isn't built for jumping."
"Sounds okay."
"Yes, but that isn't all. Judge O'Farrell told me that the chief of police was so jittery that he decided not to wait for departmental okay; he went ahead with the execution.
"What?"
"Let me finish. He did not tell anybody but-accidentally-on-purpose the intake valve was opened-that night and the reservoir filled up. In the morning there was Lummox, on the bottom. So Chief Dreiser assumed that his 'accident' had been successful and that he had drowned the beast."
"So?"
"It did not bother Lummox at all. He had been under water several hours, but when the water drained off, he woke up, stood up, and said, 'Good morning.'"
"Amphibious, probably. What steps have you taken to put a stop to this high-handedness?"
"Just a second, sir. Dreiser knew that firearms and explosives were useless... you saw the transcript... at least of power safe enough to use inside a town. So he tried poison. Knowing nothing about the creature, he used half a dozen sorts in quantities sufficient for a regiment and concealed in several kinds of food."
"Well?"
"Lummox gobbled them all. They didn't even make him sleepy; in fact it seemed to stimulate his appetite, for the next thing he did was to eat the intake valve and the reservoir started to fill up again. They had to shut it off from the pumping station."
Kiku snickered. "I'm beginning to like this Lummox. Did you say he ate the valve? What was it made of?"
"I don't know. The usual alloy, I suppose."
"Hmm.. . seems to like a bit of roughage in its diet. Perhaps it has a craw like a bird."
"I wouldn't be surprised."
"What did the Chief do next?"
"Nothing as yet. I asked O'Farrell to impress on Dreiser that he was likely to end up in a penal colony thirty light-years from Westville if he persisted in bucking the department. So he is waiting and trying to figure out his problem. His latest notion is to cast Lummox in concrete and let him die at his own convenience. But O'Farrell put the nix on that one-inhumane."
"So Lummox is still in the reservoir, waiting for us to act, eh?"
"I believe so, sir. He was yesterday."
"Well, be can wait there, I suppose, until other action can be taken." Mr. Kiku picked up Greenberg's shortform report and recommendation.
Greenberg said, "I take it that you are overruling me, sir?"
"No. What gave you that idea?" He signed the order permitting the destruction of Lummox and let it be swallowed by the outgoing basket. "I don't reverse a man's decision without firing him... and I have another job for you."
"Oh." Greenberg felt a twinge of compassion; he had been expecting, with relief, that the chief would reprieve Lummox's death sentence. Well... too bad... but the beast was dangerous.
Mr. Kiku went on, "Are you afraid of snakes?"
"No. I rather like them."
"Excellent! Though it's a feeling I can't imagine. I've always been deathly afraid of them. Once when I was a boy in Africa... never mind. Have you ever worked closely with Rargyllians? I don't recall."
Greenberg suddenly understood. "I used a Rargyllian interpreter in the Vega-VI affair. I get along all right with Rargyllians."
"I wish I did. Sergei, I have some business which involves a Rargyllian interpreter, a Dr. Ftaeml. You may have heard of him."
"Yes, of course, sir."
"I'll admit that, as Rargyllians go..." He made the noun sound like a swear word. "... Ftaeml is all right. But this involvement has the odor of trouble... and I find my own nose for trouble blanked out by this phobia of mine. So I'm putting you on as my assistant to sniff for me."
"I thought you didn't trust my nose, boss?"
"We'll let the blind lead the blind, if you'll forgive a switch in metaphor. Perhaps between us we'll sniff it out."
"Yes, sir. May I ask the nature of the assignment?"
"Well..." Before Mr. Kiku could answer, his secretary's light flashed and her voice stated, "Your hypnotherapist is here, sir."
The Under Secretary glanced at his clock and said, "Where does the time go?"... then to the communicator: "Put him in my dressing room. I'll be in." He continued to Greenberg, "Ftaeml will be here in thirty minutes. I can't stop to talk, I've got to get braced for it. You'll find what there is... little enough!... in my 'pending-urgent' file." Mr. Kiku glanced at his incoming basket, which had filled to overflowing while they talked. "It won't take five minutes. Spend the rest of the time clearing up that stack of waste paper. Sign my name and hold anything that you think I must see but it had better be no more than half a dozen items, or I'll send you back to Harvard!"
He got up hurriedly, while making a mental note to tell his secretary, from his dressing room, to note everything that went through in the next half hour and let him see it later... he wanted to see how the lad worked. Mr. Kiku was aware that he would die someday and he intended to see to it that Greenberg replaced him. In the meantime life should be as tough for the boy as possible.
The Under Secretary headed for his dressing room, the door ducked aside, contracted behind him; Greenberg was left alone. He was reaching for the pending urgent file when a paper dropped into the incoming basket just as the light on it blinked red and a buzzer sounded.
He picked up the paper, ran his eye down the middle and had just realized that it really was urgent when a similar light-and-buzzer combination showed at the interoffice communicator and its screen came to life;
Greenberg recognized the chief of the bureau of system liaison. "Boss?" the image said excitedly.
Greenberg touched the two-way switch. "Greenberg here," he answered. "I'm keeping the chief's chair warm for him. Your memo just came in, Stan. I'm reading it?
Iba¤ez looked annoyed. "Never mind that. Get me the boss."
Greenberg hesitated. Iba¤ez's problem was simple, but sticky. Ships from Venus were regularly granted pratique without delay, each ship's doctor being a public health deputy. But the Ariel, already due at Port Libya, had suddenly been placed under quarantine by her doctor and was now waiting in a parking orbit. The Venerian foreign minister was aboard... most unfortunately, as Venus was expected to support Terra's position against Mars in the impending triangular conference.
Greenberg could stall the touchy problem until the boss was free; he could break in on the boss; he could go over the boss's head to the Secretary himself (which meant picking an answer and presenting it so as to get that answer approved); or... he could act, using Mr. Kiku's authority.
Mr. Kiku could not have predicted the emergency... but the boss had a pesky habit of pushing people off the deep end.
Greenberg's summing up had been quick. He answered, "Sorry, Stan, you can't talk to the boss. I am acting for him."
"Eh? Since when?"
"Just temporarily, but I am."
Iba¤ez frowned. "Look, chum, you had better find the boss. Maybe you are signing his name on routine matters... but this is not routine. We've got to bring that ship down in a hurry. Your neck would be out a yard if you took it upon yourself to authorize me to overlook a basic rule like quarantine. Use your head."
Break quarantine? Greenberg recalled the Great Plague of '51, back in the days when the biologist serenely believed that each planetary life group was immune to the ills of other planets. "We won't break quarantine."