Actually it was not Dickey's body but his soul that was small. Dickey had a size-twelve ego in a size-four soul, in a body almost as big as Ian's. He came into the room with Ian, spotted Georges, said triumphantly, "There you are! Perreault, I arrest you for willfully failing to report for internment as ordered by the Decree of Emergency, paragraph six."

"I have received no such order."

"Oh, piffle! It's been all over the news."

"I do not make a practice of following the news. I know of no law requiring me to. May I see a copy of the order under which you propose to arrest me?"

"Don't try to come the shyster on me, Perreault. We're operating under National Emergency and I'm enforcing it. You can read the order when I get you in. Ian, I'm deputizing you to help me. Take these nips"-Dickey reached behind himself, pulled out a pair of handcuffs-"and put them on him. Hands behind his back."

Ian did not move. "Mel, don't be more of a fool than you have to be. You have no possible excuse to put handcuffs on Georges."

"The hell I don't! We're running shorthanded and I'm making this arrest without assistance. So I can't take a chance on him trying to pull something sneaky while we're floating back. Hurry up and get those cuffs on him!"

"Don't point that gun at me!"

I was no longer watching. I was out of the bath, through two doors, down a long hall, and into the living room, all with a frozen motion feeling I get when I'm triggered into overdrive.

Dickey was trying to cover three people with his gun, one of them being Janet. He should not have done that. I moved up to him, took his gun, and hand-chopped his neck. The bones made that unpleasant crunching noise neck bones always make, so unlike the sharp crack of fractured tibia or radius.

I eased him to the rug and placed his pistolet by him, while noting that it was a Raytheon five-oh-five powerful enough to stop a mastodon-why do men with little souls have to have big weapons? I said, "Jan, are you hurt?"

"No."

"I got here as fast as I could. Ian, this is what I meant when I said that my help might be needed. But I should have stayed here. I was almost too late."

"I've never seen anyone move so fast!"

Georges said quietly, "I have seen."

I looked at him. "Yes, of course you have. Georges, will you help me move this"-I indicated the corpse-"and can you drive a police APV?"

"I can if I must."

"I am about at that level of skill, too. Let's get rid of the body. Janet told me a bit about where bodies go, did not show me the spot. Some hole just off the escape tunnel, isn't it? Let's get busy. Ian, as soon as we dispose of this, Georges and I can leave. Or Georges can stay and sweat it out. But once the body and the APV are gone, you and Jan can play dumb. No evidence. You never saw him. But we must hurry, before he is missed."

Jan was down on her knees beside the late police lieutenant. "Marj, you actually did kill him."

"Yes. He hurried me. Nevertheless I killed him on purpose because in dealing with a policeman it is much safer to kill than to hurt. Jan, he should not have pointed his burner at you. Otherwise I might merely have disarmed him-then killed him only if you decided that he needed to be dead."

"You hurried, all right. You weren't here and then you were and Mel was falling. '-needed to be dead'? I don't know but I won't grieve. He's a rat. Was a rat."

Ian said slowly, "Marj, you don't seem to realize that killing a police officer is a serious matter. It is the only capital crime that British Canada still has on the books."

When people talk that way, I don't understand them; a policeman isn't anybody special. "Ian, to me, pointing a pistol at my friends is a serious matter. Pointing one at Janet is a capital crime. But I'm sorry I upset you. Right now here is a body to dispose of and an APV to get rid of. I can help. Or I can disappear. Say which but be quick; we don't know how soon they will come looking for him- and for us. Just that they will."

While I spoke, I was searching the corpse-no pouch, I had to search his pockets, being very careful with his trouser pockets because his sphincters had cut loose the way they always do. Not much, thank Bast!-he had barely wet his pants and he did not yet stink. Or not badly. The important items were in his jacket pockets: wallet, buzzer, IDs, money, credit cards, all the walk-around junk that tells a modern man that he is alive. I took the wallet and the Raytheon burner; the rest was trash. I picked up those silly handcuffs. "Any way to dispose of metal? Or must these go down the same hole as the body?"

Ian was still chewing his lip. Georges said gently, "Ian, I urge you to accept Marjorie's help. It is evident that she is expert."

Ian stopped jittering. "Georges, take his feet." The men carried the body into the big bath. I hurried ahead and dropped Dickey's gun, cuffs, and wallet on the bed in my room, and Janet put his hat with these items. I hurried into the bath, undressing as I went. Our men, with burden, had just reached it. Ian said, as they put it down, "Marj, you don't need to peel down. Georges and I will take it through. And dispose of it."

"All right," I agreed. "But let me take care of washing it. I know what needs to be done. I can do it better naked, then a quick shower afterwards."

Ian looked puzzled, then said, "Oh, hell, let him stay dirty."

"All right if you say so, but you aren't going to want to use this pool or even go through it getting in and out of the Hole until the water has been changed and the pool basin itself scrubbed. I think it is faster to wash the body. Unless-" Janet had just come in. "Jan, you spoke of emptying this plunge into a holding tank. How long does that take? Full cycle, in and out."

"About an hour. It's a small pump."

"Ian, I can get that body clean in ten minutes if you will strip it and stick it into the shower. How about his clothes? Do they go down your oubliette, whatever you call it, or do you have some way to destroy them? Do they have to go through the pool tunnel?"

Things moved fast then, with Ian being fully cooperative and all of them letting me lead. Jan stripped down, too, and insisted on helping me wash the corpse, while Georges put the clothes through their home laundry and Ian went through the water tunnel to make some preparations.

I did not want to let Janet help me because I have had mind control training and I was fairly sure that she had not. But, trained or not, she is tough. Aside from wrinkling her nose a couple of times she did not flinch. And of course, with her help, it went much faster.

Georges brought the clothes back, dripping. Janet put them into a plastic sack and pressed the air out. Ian reappeared up out of the pool, with the end of a rope. The men hitched it under the body's armpits and shortly it was gone.

Twenty minutes later we were clean and dry, with no trace of Lieutenant Dickey left in the house. Janet had come into "my" room while I was transferring items from Dickey's wallet into the plastic money belt she had given me-primarily money and two credit cards, American Express and Maple Leaf.

She didn't make any silly remarks about "robbing the dead"-and

I would not have listened if she had. These days, operating without a valid credit card and/or cash is impossible. Jan left the room, came back quickly with twice as much cash as I had salvaged. I accepted it, saying, "You know that I have no notion as to how and when I can repay this."

"Certainly I know it. Marj, I'm wealthy. My grandparents were;

I've never been anything else. Look, dear, a man pointed a gun at me... and you jumped him, with your bare hands. Can I repay that? Both of my husbands were present... but you were the one who tackled him."

"Don't feel that way about the men, Jan; they don't have my training."