"Well, let's say ... let's say an order," said Pepper with extraordinary bitterness, "to the members of the Eradication Group to self-eradicate as soon as ever possible. Yes, indeed! Let them all throw themselves off the cliff ... or shoot themselves ... make it today! In charge - Hausbotcher. Now that really is something more useful..."
"One moment," said Alevtina. "That is, commit suicide with the aid of firearms today before twenty-four hundred hours. In charge - Hausbotcher." She closed her notepad and considered. Pepper looked at her in astonishment. "So!" she said. "It's all right. It's even more progressive... Sweety, understand this: you don't like the directive - don't bother about it. But issue another. That's what you've done and I've no more to ask of you..."
She jumped down to the floor and busied herself arranging plates before Pepper.
"Here's the pancakes, here's the jam... Coffee in the thermos, it's hot - watch you don't burn yourself... Eat up and I'll do the draft quick as a flash and bring it in half an hour."
"Wait," said Pepper, stunned. "Wait..."
"Who's my clever one," said Alevtina tenderly. "You're great, only be a bit nicer to Hausbotcher."
"Wait," said Pepper. "What d'you think you're doing?"
Alevtina ran for the door, Pepper rushed after her shouting: "Are you crazy?" but failed to catch her. Alevtina vanished and in her place, like a ghost, Hausbotcher materialized out of emptiness. Now slicked and cleaned, now a normal color, as before ready for anything.
"A stroke of genius," he said softly, edging Pepper toward the table, "it's brilliant. It will surely go down in history..."
Pepper recoiled as if from a giant centipede, bumped into the table and pushed Tannhauser onto Venus.
He woke up, opened his eyes and stared at the low, lime-encrusted ceiling. The ants were again heading across it. Right to the left, loaded, left to right, empty. A month ago it had been the other way around, a month ago Nava had been here. Nothing else had changed. Day after tomorrow, we'll go, he thought.
The old man was sitting at the table looking at him and cleaning out his ear. The old man had got terribly thin, his eyes were sunken, he hadn't a tooth left. Probably he'll soon die, that old man.
"Why on earth is it. Dummy," said the old man tearfully, "you've not a thing to eat. Since Nava got taken from you, you've no more food in the house. Not in the morning or at dinnertime, I told you: don't go, shouldn't. Why did you go away? Paid too much heed to Hopalong and went, what does Hopalong know about what's done and what isn't? Hopalong doesn't realize that, and his father before him was just as slow, his granddad just the same, all the Hopalong breed just the same, so they've all died, and so will Hopalong, no way out... Maybe you have got some food, Dummy, maybe you've hidden it, eh? A lot of them do ... if you have, get it quick, I'm hungry, I can't do without food, I've eaten all my life, got used to it... So now you've got no Nava, Barnacle killed by a tree as well, ... that's who always had a lot of food, Barnacle! I used to get through three pots at his place, thought it was always low-grade stuff, nasty, why he got killed by a tree, likely... I used to tell him: shouldn't eat food like that..."
Kandid got up and searched the hiding places Nava had devised throughout the house. There was no food at all. After that he went out into the street, turned left and headed for the square, to Buster's house. The old man trailed along behind, sniveling and whining. From the field there came coarse and ragged shouting: "Hey, hey, make it gay, left way, right way..." The forest returned an echo. Every morning, so it seemed to Kandid, the forest had moved closer. In fact, this wasn't so, and even if it was, it would hardly have been perceptible to the human eye. The number of deadlings in the forest, probably, had not increased, but it seemed so. Very likely because Kandid now knew what they were, and that he hated them. Whenever a dead-ling appeared out of the forest, the cry at once went up: "Dummy! Dummy!" And he would go there and destroy the deadling with his scalpel, swiftly, surely, with cruel enjoyment. The whole village would run to view the spectacle and invariably exclaimed in unison and covered their faces, when the terrible white scar opened up along the steam-shrouded carcass. Little bovs no longer teased Dummy, they were now mortally afraid of him, ran and hid at his approach. The scalpel was discussed in whispers at home in the evenings, and by order of the resourceful elder they started making storage bins out of deadling hides. They were good ones, too, big and tough...
