"You kill yourself," Raver said calmly. The lieutenant's lips pulled back from his teeth and he shouted with rage as he pulled the trigger.
The gun blew up, killing him instantly.
"I'm sorry," Raver said. "I tried to tell you. During the night I fixed your rifle to explode when fired, as I did the other. I was hoping that you would come with me."
Head lowered with sorrow, Raver turned and walked toward the mine visible below.
Precisely at nine in the morning the post office opened and the first customers were allowed to enter. Howards knew this, yet, as he straightened his Book on the counter before him, he could not prevent himself from glancing worriedly at the big clock on the wall. Why? This was just a workday like any other day. God, the fear, deep down, as the long black pointer clicked another notch toward the vertical.
Just another day, why should he be so concerned? He tittered nervously and turned his key in the lock of the multifrank before him, just as two people appeared on the other side of the counter.
"I wish to post this letter to Sierra Leone," the man said.
"A two-credit insurance stamp," the woman said.
Instantly, they began to squabble as to which of them had been there first, their voices crescendoing shriller and higher. Howards slapped his left hand on the Book and raised his right.
"Stop," he said, and they did, struck by the authority in his voice. "Reference B-86Y/234 in the Book of Postal Regulations states that all differences of opinion and priority are to be settled by the serving clerk. That is myself. Ladies first. Here is your insurance stamp, madam."
His fingers were snapping over the complex controls of the multi-frank even as he spoke, and he was secretly proud of the assured way that he said it. The man stepped aside, the woman timidly proffered her insurance book as he stood with his finger poised over the Activate button. With his free hand he flipped the book open, dropped it into the slot and pressed the button.
"That will be twenty-two credits eighty, madam." The bills went into the cash receptacle and her change rattled into the delivery cup. "Next," he said, not without a certain amount of condescension.
The man said nothing; he knew better than to argue. He certainly did. What was in the Book was correct. The man stepped away and Howards thought that this day had certainly begun busily enough: but why the little shivering knot of fear, Howards? he wondered to himself, and rubbed at the spot in his midriff with his knuckles.
A large, dark man with a full black beard filled the space outside the counter. "Do you know what this is?" he bellowed.
"I certainly do," Howards said. (Did his voice crack a little?) "That is a needle gun."
"You are correct," the man hissed in a voice like the breaking of poison waves. "It fires a needle soundlessly with such great speed that contact with the human body produces a hydrostatic wave that utterly destroys the nervous system. Would you like that?" White teeth appeared in the tangle of black beard.
"I would not like my nervous system utterly destroyed."
"You will then pay me the sum of four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine credits."
"I have no till or money. Cash is centrally supplied. ."
"Fool I know all that. I also know that the payment of any sum over five thousand credits must be especially authorized for any position. Therefore — four thousand nine hundred ninety-nine credits. At once."
"At once," Howards said crisply, and spoke aloud as he hit the keys. "Four, nine, nine, nine…"
"Now activate."
Howards hesitated for a mere fraction of an instant, sucked in his breath, then snapped his finger down on the Activate button.
There was the rattle of small change from the delivery cup and the man glanced down at it just as a gush of white vapor shot out into his face. He screamed and writhed and fell as the full force of the regurgitants, irritants, and vesicants hit him at once.
"Foolish man," Howards said into the handkerchief he raised to his face, stepping back, away from the gas. "Security was onto him as soon as I rang up four hundred and ninety-nine million, nine hundred thousand credits. Just a simple decimal shift…"
It was almost nine and the first customer would be in soon. A day like any other day — then why was he feeling this way? What way? As if he were imprisoned in the back of his own brain and screaming. Foolishness, this was not a proper thought for a public servant to have.
"Help me," the old woman said just as the black hand touched the hour.
"Of course, madam." Where had she come from, like that, so quickly?
"It is my pension," pushing a battered and torn payment book across the counter with her scaling, shivering hand. "They will not pay me my money."
