The Wheels of If And Other Science-Fiction

THE CONTRABAND COW

A bat zigzagged across the sluggish reach of the lower Nueces, and Homer Osborn piled out of the rowboat with the painter in one hand. Since most of the boat's load was now concentrated on its rear seat by Charles Kenny's broad behind, its bow rose high into the air, and Osborn had little trouble in hauling the boat well up onto the sand.

Then he took hold of the bow and braced his legs to hold the craft level. Kenny grunted his elephantine way slowly toward the bow, crouching and holding the gunwales with both hands, and lifting his feet carefully over the fishing-tackle.

"Hey," said Osborn, "don't forget the critter!"

"Not so loud!" Kenny halted, backed one step, reached under the middle seat, and brought up a package the shape of a brick and a little larger. Attached to this package by a stout cord was one real brick. As Kenny raised the package, the brick dangled revolving on the lower end of the cord.

Osborn suggested: "If you untie it, we can throw away the sinker ..." '

"Naw," said Kenny. "You don't know how a real fisherman does it. Homer. You want to keep your sinker attached until you're ready to cook your critter. Then if a Fodals shows up; you heave the evidence ka-plunk into the river. You cain't swallow half a pound of critter in one second, you know."

"Okay, boss," said Osborn, and tied the painter to the nearest pecan tree.

Kenny stretched his cramped muscles. "Now, if we can just find a dry spot ..."

"Don't think there is such a thing in this part of Texas," said Osborn with slight asperity.

"... we'll have plenty of time to get to Dinero before she's too dark."

"With no fish for the girls."

"Aw, Homer," wheezed Kenny, "you don't get the idea. A real fisherman don't care if he catches anything or not. Reckon this spot'll do."

"If that's dry," said Osborn, feeling the sandy soil with his hand, "I'm a—"

"Hush your mouth, Yankee, and help git some wood. Careful; don't go steppin' on a snake. Used to be 'gators in this part of the river too; I reckon the hide-hunters killed 'em all."

Osborn returned after ten minutes of collecting soggy scraps of firewood, to find Kenny, by some private thaumaturgy, conjuring a fire out of a heap of equally unpromising fuel.

When the fire was going, the massive department head opened a can of beans and hung it in the flames. Then he sat back, uncorked the whiskey-bottle, took a swig, passed the bottle to Osborn, and sat back looking at the deepening blue sky.

"And to think," he said, "that a young squirt like you would give this up to go back to Brooklyn!"

"No snakes in Brooklyn anyway."

Kenny sighed. "When you learned to say 'bird' instead of 'buid' I thought I'd make a real Texan out of you. Mebbe I will yet."

"Not likely. Seriously, boss, you can find plenty of biochemists, and it would mean so much to Gladys and me—"

"Not another biochemist who can make the discovery of the age. You go turnin' out discoveries of the age, and the San Antone labs will go on gettin' appropriations, and when your contract's up I'll offer you another you cain't afford to turn—what's that?" Kenny was silent for a frozen quarter-minute, then resumed: "Imagination, I guess. Unless maybe you are. bein' followed."

"I'm not imagining that," said Osborn. "You know Pedro, who runs the steakeasy on Apache Street? Well, he asked me—"

"Pedro got padlocked the other day," interrupted Kenny.

"Yeah? You don't say!"

"Yep. Damn fool insisted on servin' roast beef. It takes a long time to cook, and you're apt to have a lot left over, so the Fodals got him with the evidence. What did he say to you?"

Osborn explained: "The word got out among the leggers that this synthetic protein of mine was going to put 'em out of business. I explained that I could make a steak, all right, but it wouldn't taste like a steak and would cost twenty times as much as a hunk of prime Mexican critter delivered in San Antonio by a reliable steaklegger. He didn't seem convinced."

"So now you think the leggers are out to get you," said Kenny. "Well, mebbe the repeal act will pass when it comes up Monday in Delhi. The Bloodies have tried hard enough; I've been up all night for a week, gittin' folks to write letters and send telegrams."

Osborn sighed. "Not likely, boss. The Hindus disagree on everything else, but not on eating critter."

"Hear they lynched a Fodals in Dallas last week," said Kenny, poking at the fire. "Good idea on general principles, but I'm afraid it won't do the Bloody vote no good come Monday."

"You're a fanatic," said Osborn quietly. "Now me, I vote Bloody, but I can take my critter or leave it alone. What really gripes me is getting my research mixed up in a prohibition question."

"You wouldn't care if your synthetic steak stopped all this corruption and law-breakin'? You'd be famous."

"Nope. Don't want to be famous, outside the technical periodicals. What I want is to get back to Brooklyn."

Kenny laughed and heaved himself to his feet. "Looks like those coals are about ready for the critter. You start it; I'm going to get me some more wood. And any time you can figure how to repeal the anti-vaccicidc law, you can write your own contract, or I'll get you a new one in Brooklyn, Belfast, or any place you pick."

Kenny crunched off into the brush, muttering about the iniquity of a Union Now scheme which gave the cow-worshipping sons of India, on a straight population basis, a clear majority in the Assembly of the Federation of Democratic and Libertarian States.

Homer Osborn nervously unwrapped the package. The crackle of the heavy yellow paper seemed inordinately loud. His mouth watered at the sight of the steaks, for which he had paid Agard, his pet steaklegger, a fat wad of his and Charles Kenny's money.

He then pulled a lot of pieces of heavy steel wire out of his boot. These, when joined together, made a rickety but serviceable grid.

The sound of Kenny's movements died away. No, thought Osborn, he would never learn to like Texas, really. The Gulf Coast region was fairly comfortable this early in spring. But in a couple of months San Antonio would be a baking inferno, outside the laboratories ...

He slapped a mosquito, and extended the grid over the coals. A flame licked the fat on one of the steaks, and a pearly drop fell into the coals, sending up a brief spurt of yellow.

As the hiss of that drop of fat died out, something came out of the darkness and wrapped itself like an affectionate anaconda around Homer Osborn's wrist, and something else calmly took the grid, steaks and all, away from him.

"You," said the voice, "are under arrest for violation of the anti-vaccicide law. Title Nine, Section 486 of the Criminal Code of the Federation!"

"Huh?" said Osborn stupidly. It had all been done so swiftly and competently that he had not recovered his wits.

"Which reads," continued the voice, "Paragraph One: The eating of cattle, which term shall include all animals of the subfamily Bovinae of the family Bovidae, the same comprising kine, buffaloes, bison, zebus, gayals, bantengs, yaks, and species closely related thereto, or of any parts or members thereof, or ff any hashes, gravies, soups, or other edible products thereof, is hereby prohibited!"

"B-But, I wasn't eating—" In the twilight Osborn could now make out the turban and beard of a towering Sikh of the Border Patrol.

"Par-r-ragraph Two: The killing, for any parpose whatever, and the assault, molestation, capture, imprisonment, sale, purchase, possession, transportation, importation into or exportation out of the Federation of Democratic and Libertarian States, or any territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof ..."

"Okay, okay!" shouted Osborn, as the Patrolman carefully set down the evidence and with his free hand snapped a handcuff on the culprit's wrist. "I know your damned law, and I think it's a lousy invasion of my personal liberty—"

"I am sorry, sir," purred the Indian. "I merely carry out my orders. Now let us go; it is about a mile to my car."

Osborn groaned, mentally consigning Mr. Clarence Streit to the most elaborately sadistic Hell he could imagine. He thought of yelling for Kenny, but decided that it would be better not to involve his boss; Charley could do more for him from outside the bars.

The thought that most pained Homer Osborn was the recollection of how cocksurely he had brushed aside his wife's cautions before leaving. Gladys would kid him about this in front of their grandchildren, if they lived that long.

He let the Sikh tow him gently up the infinitesimal rise that passed for the bank of the Neuces River. Better, he thought, make enough noise to warn Kenny, so that the department head should not blunder into them.

He declaimed: "Who the Hell are you, to come halfway around the world to butt into our affairs?"

"I am Guja Singh, sir, Patrolman Number 3214. As for the mixing, surely you know that the Federation government was forced to send us of India to enforce the anti-vaccicide law, because none of your American officials could be trusted to do so."

"Yeah, but what the hell business is it of yours in the first place? I'm not hurting—"

"Ah, but you are," continued the soft, slightly accented voice. "The sacrilege of vaccicide harts us of India to our very souls."

"Well, but aren't you a Sikh? I thought they didn't take this cow-worship business seriously."

"We of the Udasi sect take it seriously, sir. Obsarve this branch and duck, please. Please, sir, do not think too harshly of me because I do my duty. Do you think we enjoy patrolling this hostile land, where we dare not go out in your cities except in pairs?"

"Well, why do it, sap?"

"You mean me personally, sir? I joined the force largely because my father, though he could have secured me a position at Delhi, was reluctant to do so lest the charge of nepotism be brought against him."

"Who's your father?"

"Arjan Singh, sir. You have heard of him?"

"Sure. A politician." Osborn put scorn into it.

Guja Singh sighed unhappily. "I fear we shall never understand the mysterious West. Nothing appears to please you ..."

They walked on in silence. Osborn cooled off somewhat, and was thankful that his captor was not a really tough guy, despite his formidable appearance. Still, Homer Osborn knew better than to try to get away; he had met Fodals cops of this superficially humble type before.

They reached the road, and a few rods away Osborn made out the bullet-shape of a patrol car parked by the side. They were halfway to it when Guja Singh halted and stood with his head up silently, as if sniffing the air. Osborn strained his cars, and thought he made out a whisper, unintelligible but urgent, from the trees.

"Put those up!" came a voice.

The Fodals released Osborn, jerked out his pistol, and fired. Osborn had already started to run when the flash and report from behind him were mixed with a tinkle of glass. Something struck his body a light blow and shattered, and as he took his next step he smelled geraniums.

He knew what that meant, and tried to stop breathing ...

But not quickly enough. His muscles all at once began to jerk uncontrollably, as if he had St. Vitus' dance, and the sand came up and hit him with a thud.

The convulsion—more exasperating than painful— died, and hands tried to heave him to his feet. His legs buckled, and a couple of men picked him up and carried him, not too gently.

He tried to talk, but he could not control his tongue: "Th upp sh mwa-a-a th uh uwzze idea?"

No answer. Somewhere in the darkness another contingent was breathing heavily as it toted six-feet-three of Sikh patrolman. The sound of a door-latch compounded this, and Osborn made out the shape of a vehicle, not Guja's patrol-car. Somebody had a flashlight. Osborn saw dimly that the conveyance looked like a rather large delivery-truck.

"Don't bother with him; he's already got one handcuff on."

The response to this advice was to pull Osborn's un-manacled hand behind him and snap the empty half of the pair of handcuffs over the wrist. Next he was boosted into the body of the truck, and the door boomed shut behind him.

As it did so, a light flashed on, penetratingly, right into his eyes.

"Sit down, you two."

There were wisps of straw under Osborn's feet, and a definite smell of cow. Osborn knew that he was in a cattle-runner's truck. He sat, and was aware of Guja Singh beside him. They were seated on a bench built into the inner side of the door at the rear of the body. At the front end were that damned searchlight and—when his eyes got accustomed to the glare—a pair of powerful-looking dark-men with submachineguns under their arms.

The body jerked and swayed into motion; there was no sound from outside. Sound-insulation that would keep the moo of a smuggled steer in would likewise keep the noise of the external world out.

"Who the hell do you think you are and what the hell do you think you're doin—" began Osborn, but soon gave up when no response was coming from the men with the guns. He pushed himself into the angle of the corner to keep from being thrown about by the motion of the truck.

So his imagination had not played him tricks! Next question, whose was the gang? Not one of the indigenous steakleggers; they were mostly individuals or small concerns, on amicable terms with the local Texan police forces and hence constrained to the more seemly forms of illegality. Hijackers? The method suggested it, but such downright criminals would hardly concern themselves with anything so recondite as the synthetic-protein experiments of the San Antonio branch of the Federal Research Laboratories.

That left the great Mexican critter-kings; shadowy but sinister figures: the modern equivalent of the old political generals who had run the country before the great period of Mexican prosperity and peace in the middle of the century. Some of Osborn's scientific Mexican acquaintances were bitter about the vaccicide law for having conjured this robber-baron class out of its feudal graves.

The truck-body bounced and shuddered silently over invisible miles. Homer Osborn thought a great volume of private thoughts, and at last out of sheer boredom went to sleep on Guja Singh's shoulder.

The motion was easier, though as far as one could tell from the dark interior of the truck it might have been up, down, or sideways. Then it stopped altogether.

"Stand up," commanded one of the guards.

They did, and the door swung open. The searchlight winked off automatically, and was replaced by the vaster but more diffused light of early morning on the desert.

Osborn had narrowed the list of kidnapper suspects down to the big Three: Ximinez, Dualler, Stewart.

Endless, arid, gently rolling plain; patches of white rock on brown dirt; occasional sage, mesquite, cactus—the last with bright red or yellow flowers; a hint of low mountains to the west, already shimmering in the heat: that meant Harmodio Dualler, even though Homer Osborn had never before been in the Bolsom de Mapimi.

"Jump down."

Osborn gave the guard a venomous look and jumped.

He avoided falling, and, with Guja Singh, was herded toward one of a small city of adobe house and barns. He saw that there were a great many trucks parked about, most of them with appropriately deceptive signs painted on their weatherbeaten sides: "Ft. Worth Express Co.," "Lone Star Cleaners & Dyers," "Jerrehian, the House of Rugs." An Indian cowboy with a pink ribbon around his black hair trotted by on a horse.

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."

"But what about you?"

"Never mind me. Good-bye." And the turban-cloth was hauled back with a faint hiss through the bars of Guja's window.

Osborn reasoned that he had better keep his pants on in order to have a pocket in which to carry the gun. He was donning them when there were excited shouts from outside, and the sound of men running. Osborn could not make out the words, and presently the hubbub died away without his being enlightened.

But the next morning Guja Singh appeared without his turban, and looking more gaunt and hopeless than ever.

"He tried to hang himself by that head-scarf of his," explained Harmodio Dualler. "We had to dope him to put him to sleep." The critter-king shook his head. "I thought I knew how to handle men, but with a so unreasonable one as this one ...Ts, ts. I'm glad you are a reasonable one, Mr. Osborn. Now we will go in the communication room; everything is set up."

The room in question had a television booth at one side. Swank, or love of gadgets, thought Osborn; in the United States few private telephone-subscribers cared to have their expense quadrupled "for the doubtful privilege of being able to see the faces of persons with whom they were arranging bridge-dates or arguing about a grocery-bill.

But there was the contraption, and Osborn knew that there was one in Charley Kenny's office as well. They did come in handy in transactions where the identity of one of the speakers was open to question. This perhaps explained Dualler's use of a set, since he was engaged in a business that was illegal according to the laws of the Federation if not the laws of the Estados Unidos de Mejico.

Dualler explained in detail what Osborn was to tell his assistant, and they sat chummily on the bench in front of ike. The ubiquitous Jesus-Maria lounged against the far wall of the room with a gun in plain sight.

The call was put through; Kenny's round face snapped into focus on the screen.

"Homer!" cried Kenny. "Where in God's name are you?"

Dualler murmured: "Tell him—"

The critter-king broke off as he observed that the hard object which had suddenly been dug into his ribs was the small pistol which Osborn had received from the Sikh.

"Just a minute, boss," said Osborn. He gave his head an infinitesimal jerk toward the unsuspecting Jesus-Maria, and told Dualler: "Send him out—and tell him to send Guja Singh in here."

Dualler smiled. "Do I have to search—" Osborn jabbed him with the muzzle, and the Mexican stopped his sentence and gave the required order.

Homer Osborn's muscles quivered tautly, and he could feel that Dualler's were tightening, too; the slightest relaxation on his part, and either Dualler would be shot or would attack him roaring an alarm.

"Boss," he told the visiscrcen, "this is important. First, can you arrange to switch this call to the house of a Hindu politician named Arjan Singh in Delhi?".

Kenny's jowls quivered and his voice rose to a squeak. "Are you nuts. Homer? Think of the expense, and it's the middle of the night in India ..."

"I know. Can you?"

"I—I suppose so, if it's a life-and-death matter."

"It is." Osborn raised his right hand to bring the gun momentarily into the view of the ike. "Any minute now Senor Dualler and I will be trying to kill each other."

Kenny's eyes popped, but he buzzed his switchboard operator and told her what to do. While they waited for the connection, Osborn told Kenny what had happened. He finished: "Now that you know where I am and everything, boss, I think Senor Dualler understands that he can't bump me off the way he was planning to."

"He was going to murder one of my researchers?" exploded Kenny, "Why, you fat yellow slob, you—"

The department head had not yet run out of expletives when Guja Singh entered, and almost immediately afterward Kenny's operator announced that the call to Delhi was through.

Dualler was still silently smiling, though in a dark and dangerous manner. The screen winked, and in place of Kenny appeared a bald, brown, hooknosed man in a dimly-lit booth.

"Whozh calling me from Texas thish time of night?" yawned the newcomer.

Osborn, still keeping an eye on Dualler, asked: "That your old man, Guja?"

"Guja!" cried the image, suddenly wide awake; it rattled a string of questions in Hindustani.

"Easy, mister," said Osborn. "Guja, how many votes does your father control in the Assembly?"

"Three."

"Let's sec—three from thirty-seven is thirty-four; that'll do it. Fine. You, Dualler, move over this way. Guja, you take Dualler's place." Osborn slid off the end of the bench to remove himself and his gun from the field of the ike. He lowered his voice to a murmur to Dualler, "You tell Mr. Arjan Singh that you'll bump off his son if he doesn't switch those votes in favor of repeal tomorrow. Get it?"

Dualler did so. Arjan Singh's eyes popped; he cried an agonized question at Guja. After some Hindustani dialogue, Arjan Singh announced in a voice of brave despair: "If it is God's will that my son shall die, he shall die. He will not betray the family honor."

"Then tell him," Osborn ordered Dualler sotto voce, "that when he arrived here you got him drunk so he ate a steak, and you've got a movie record of it, and will publish it if the votes aren't changed. That for the family honor!"

This threat finally broke down father and son. "I'll do it," said Arjan Singh; "but how do I know you will go through with your part?"

"Why shouldn't I?" smiled Dualler. "It is nothing to me if this one eats a whole steer at one sitting."

"But what is your object? This is a strange piece of black—"

Osborn reached over and pushed the switch; the screen went blank.

Harmodio Dualler turned a puzzled face up to Osborn.

He said softly: "I don't understand, my friend. The other, yes, but not this—unless it is to cause that anti-vaccicide law to be repealed—that is it!"

"Yep," said Osborn. "Now—"

"So," interrupted Dualler, "we rancheros will no longer enjoy our position, eh? Those obscenities in Mexico City will not be afraid of us, and they will steal our ranches to divide among the peons, as they did under Cardenas? The critter-business of Mexico will again be destroyed? Very well, you have ruined me, Mr. Osborn, but you won't live to—" And Dualler hurled himself on Homer.

For a big man, he moved with rattlesnake speed; one hand caught Osborn's right wrist and twisted it violently before Osborn had the presence of mind to shoot. The other caught Osborn's neck in a vise.

"Guja! Catch!" cried Osborn, wriggling in this grizzly-bear hug. He flipped the pistol toward the Sikh, who caught it, stuck the muzzle into Dualler's ribs, and fired three times, the sharp crack muffled by the critter-king's clothing.

Harmodio Dualler slumped to the floor, dead.

Then there was a knock on the door, and Jesus-Maria's anxious voice; "Is all well with thee, boss?"

"Lock it," said Osborn, and he began searching furiously about the room for inflammables.

Guja Singh shot the bolt home, whereat there were louder knocks and loud demands for admittance.

"Mr. Osborn," said Guja Singh, "how will you get those films out of the safe?"

"Think this place will burn?"

"Why, with all those oak beams, yes. I see!" The patrolman fell to work building the bonfire. Osborn lit the pile of crumpled papers at the base, and a tremendous bang on the door announced that the gang were trying to batter their way in.

The fire crackled and roared upward; the heat and smoke became nauseating.

Osborn told Guja Singh: "You pick up Dualler and make as if you were carrying him out from an accident. Lucky those bullet-holes didn't bleed much."

Guja Singh heaved the massive body over his shoulders in a fireman's carry. Then Osborn threw the bolt, to confront a lot of amazed Mexicans with guns in their hands.

"The machine exploded," he announced. "Your boss is hurt, and the place is on fire." (The last statement was not strictly necessary, as the communications room was a roaring oven.)

The gang scattered with cries of alarm, yelling contradictory directions at each other to fetch water, fetch blankets, run for their lives.

Osborn and Guja strolled to the front door and out, through the courtyard, out the gate, and toward the truck-park before somebody yelled: "Hey, you, where do you theenk you are going with our boss?"

Guja dropped the corpse, and the two dashed to the nearest truck. The key was in the ignition-lock and the fuel-tank was full. With gunfire crashing behind them, they whirled the vehicle around on two wheels and streaked down the road toward Cuatro Cienegas.

At five P.M. they arrived at the San Antonio laboratories. Somebody spotted them, and before they reached the Administration Building Charley Kenny rushed out to greet them on the front steps.

"Where's Gladys?" gasped Osborn.

"She went home; when we didn't hear from you all day—"

"We've been driving like bats from hell—"

"Yes; how did you escape—"

"Did the repeal act pass?"

"Sure, by one vote. Hey—George! Run in and 'phone Mrs. Osborn that Homer's back—"

"I'll 'phone her myself—"

"But wait, you haven't told me—"

While this was going on, people began streaming gradually up as if drawn by a magnet. They paid little attention to anybody save Guja Singh. The tall patrolman became visibly uneasy under their regard. He muttered: "What is this, another lynching? I think I'd better go."

He started to walk dignifiedly off; the crowd closed in >n him and followed. He began to run, but the crowd, with one Texan roar, pounced on him.

"Hey!" cried Osborn.

"It's all right." said Kenny.

"The hell it's all right! Gimme a gun or something ..."

He broke off as he observed the action of the crowd, which, instead of tearing the Sikh to pieces, had hoisted him on their shoulders and were parading him down the street with deafening cheers. Guja Singh looked bewildered.

Kenny explained: "Our switchboard operator listened in on your conversation with that guy in India, and she got it sort of mixed up, but reckoned as how your patrolman friend was makin' his old man swing the repeal vote. Anyway that's her story, and all San Antone thinks he's responsible. Was he. or did you have a hand in it? Can't imagine Harmodio Dualler doin' it of his own accord."

Osborn explained what had happened.

"Then it was your doin'! We'll have to see that the credit goes to you, instead of that—"

"I don't want the credit!" said Osborn. "All I want is to call my wife and tell her the good news!"

"What good news?" but Osborn had broken away and run into the building. Kenny followed as fast as his bulk allowed. He reached the 'phone booth in time to hear Osborn shout: "... Gladys? I got the greatest news in the world! We're going back to Brooklyn!."