The others were no rancheros; dark suits, panama hats, and not a scrape in the lot. They shoved Osborn and the Sikh through a gate in a wall, revealing more hundreds of yards of adobe structures, until a big man in shirt-sleeves came out and spoke to them in Spanish. Osborn guessed this to be Harmodio Dualler; powerful, sallow, not fat but with a big roll of fat around his neck.
Dualler looked sharply at Guja Singh, and asked the boss of the kidnappers what the obscenity he meant by bringing this one. The boss kidnapper stopped flicking the dust off his shoes with his handkerchief, shrank visibly, and squeaked that Osborn had not been alone for a minute, and that therefore it was necessary cither to bring this one too or to let the prey go, and he had been merely trying to do his duty ...
"I obscenity on God!" roared Harmodio Dualler, "hast thou no more brains than a burro? But I will attend to thee later; bring these ones in."
Seated behind his desk with his hat still on, Dualler dug out a package of gum which he offered to his prisoners. They did not consider it politic to refuse. When all three were chewing, Dualler said in good English: "I am sorry there has been a little mix-up here—"
"How long," interrupted Osborn, "do you think you can get away with this? I'm a citizen of the Federation ..."
Dualler laughed softly. "Pipe yourself down, my friend. The nearest town is Cuatro Cienegas, and that is fifty miles across the desert, and what Harmodio Dualler says in the state of Coahuila, that goes."
"Well, what do you want of us?"
"Of you, it is simple. I want all your samples of this phoney critter that you have made, and all your notes and writings. All your everything that has to do with it. Understand?"
"Uh, huh," said Osborn. "I thought so."
"As to this one," said Dualler, eyeing the Sikh, "it was a. stupidity that he was ever captured. I can't shoot you, my friend, because your patrol will come looking for you; and I can't even less hold you prisoner until you die of old age, and I can't let you go. So what the hell am I to do with you?"
Guja Singh said loftily: "You can give me back my lost honor."
"Now how the hell do I do that thing?"
"You can fight mc like a man. Guns, knives, anything you say."
Dualler sighed. "Mr. Osborn, what can I do with such a foolish one? He thinks I'm an old-time cabellero fighting duels like in the movies. I'm a businessman. Your country has all gone to hell since you let those Asiatics in, though I don't complain because it makes much business for me. Hernán, take this one away."
"Now, Mr. Osborn," continued the critter-king, "I'll tell you what I will do. Tomorrow, I will arrange a television hook-up in a confidential channel—you have got a secretary?"
"I've got an assistant."
"Good. You will tell this assistant to pack up all your phoney-critter stuff and send it to an address in Laredo, where a man of mine will pick it up. You must make it plain that if this assistant misses something that would make it so another one could do the same thing, you—uh—it'll be just too bad."
"Meaning?"
Dualler looked embarrassed. "Don't make me talk of these unpleasant things right out, Mr. Osborn. I hate to have my guests get accidentally-like killed, especially a so young and promising one."
Osborn protested: "You're all wet, Señor Dualler. My synthetic protein can't possibly compete with the real thing ..."
Dualler heard him out, then said: "Ah, yes, that is the thing I would say if I was in your place. Even if you are telling the truth, which I don't believe, I know that in this so wonderful Age of Science you will quickly improve your product."
"But listen, damn it, I'll prove to you—"
"No use, Mr. Osborn. Take this one away too, Jesus-Maria."
Osborn was taken to a cell-like room: sparse but comfortable furniture; a small, high, barred window; a lack of furnishings and ornaments that could be put to practical use by a prisoner on escape bent. The heat was severe, even after Osborn had stripped to his shorts. He wondered why a man as rich as Harmodio Dualler had not air-conditioned his ranch, until he remembered the scarcity of water in the Bolsom de Mapimi.
The only concession that Dualler had made to his boredom was a carton of cigarettes. When he got hungry, he pounded on the heavy oak door and yelled. Nothing happened.
In fact, Osborn was convinced by sunset that he had never spent a day of such exquisitely horrible boredom in his life. If being in jail was like this, he resolved never to do anything that would land him in such a predicament.
Before dark he was let out and taken to eat with the gang, who treated him with carefully controlled politeness. Guja Singh was there too, looking famished.
When the Sikh sat down, he took one look at his plate and half rose. "I can't eat critter. Dualler! It's against my beliefs, and I'm still an officer—"
"That's all right," beamed Dualler. "Some of Mr. Osborn's synthetic beef, specially removed from his laboratory."
Osborn looked at Guja's plate, and knew at once that he had never turned out such a realistic imitation of a steak. Guja, after going through a mental struggle, tried the steak.
He chewed a few times, then said judicially: "That is not bad. If this is the imitation, no wonder the Americans go to such illegal lengths to get the real thing ..."
Osborn had taken a bite of his own to make sure, and spoke up: "That is the real thing, Guja; they fooled you."
"What? Why—" The Sikh burst out with an inarticulate roar and bounded to his feet, his rawhide-bottomed chair going over with a crash. He knocked one of the Mexicans clear across the table before the rest piled on him.
The fight did not last long; the patrolman seemed suddenly to go limp with weariness, and let his antagonists fasten themselves to his arms. His dark face was pale and glum, as if the last spiritual prop had been knocked out from under him.
"I am ruined," he said.
"Oh, come on, Mr. Singh," said Dualler. "It's not as bad a thing as that. I just had to make sure you would not make trouble for us when I let you go." At this point a grinning henchman appeared with his hands full of motion-picture camera and sound-track recorder. "You see, Jesus-Maria has made a nice record of this scene, in three-dimension color. That goes in my safe. When you get back to your headquarters, you tell them you got drunk—"
"I don't drink," moaned Guja Singh.
"Well, then, that you got full of the marijuana. Anyway you will know nothing about Mr. Osborn, and nobody will know about you eating the critter."
"I am ruined," was all the Sikh would say, until they took him back to his room.
"Sst! Osborn!"
Homer, getting ready for bed, looked around for the source of this whisper, which sounded as if it came from miles away. After looking in the closet and under the bed, he located its source in the little window. He stood on his chair and opened the fly-screen.
"Guja?"
"Yes. Put your hand out and catch this."
Osborn, wondering, did so. Something swung up and past his window; after several tries he caught it. It was the end of a long strip of cloth, to which was tied a small automatic pistol. Guja Singh had been swinging the strip of cloth by its other end from the next window.
"Where'd you get this?" asked Osborn.
"They did not think to search my turban." (Osborn realized that the strip of cloth was the patrolman's unwound headgear.) "Take the pistol; you will need it. I heard a couple of Dualler's men talking of how they were going to kill you as soon as they get your scientific things; they did not know I understand Spanish."