Bonny, seated stiffly, her face pale, nodded.

“You still scared, Bonny?” Stroud asked.

“It was terrible,” Bonny said quietly.

“Sure it was,” Stroud said, “but Hoppy got him.” And then he thought to himself, That makes Hoppy pretty formidable, doesn’t it? Maybe that’s what Bonny’s thinking. Maybe that’s why she’s so quiet.

“I think the best thing to do,” Cas Stone said, “is to go right to Hoppy and say, ‘Hoppy, what do you want that sye can do for you in token of our appreciation?’ We’ll put it right to him. Maybe there’s something he wants very badly that we don’t know about.”

Yes, Stroud thought to himself. You have quite a point there, Cas. Maybe he wants many things we don’t know about, and maybe one day—not too far off—he’ll want to get them. Whether we form a delegation and go inquire after that or not.

“Bonny,” he said to Mrs. Keller, “I wish you’d speak up; you’re sitting there so quiet.”

Bonny Keller murmured, “I’m just tired.”

“Did you know Jack Tree was Bluthgeld?”

Silently, she nodded.

“Was it you, then,” Stroud asked, “who told Hoppy?”

“No,” she said. “I intended to; I was on my way. But it had already happened. He knew.”

I wonder how he knew, Stroud asked himself.

“That Hoppy,” Mrs. Lully said in a quavering voice, “he seems to be able to do almost anything… why, he’s even more powerful than that Mr. Bluthgeld, evidently.”

“Right,” Stroud agreed.

The audience murmured nervously.

“But he’s put all his abilities to use for the welfare ot our community,” Andrew Gill said. “Remember that. Remember he’s our handy and he helps bring in Dangerfield when the signal’s weak, and he does tricks for us, and imitations when we can’t get Dangerfield at all—he does a whole lot of things, including saving our lives from another nuclear holocaust. So I say, God bless Hoppy and his abilities. I think we should thank God that we have a funny here like him.”

“Right,” Cas Stone said.

“I agree,” Stroud said, with caution. “But I think we ought to sort of put it to Hoppy that maybe from now on—” He hesitated. “Our killings should be like with Austurias, done legally, by our Jury. I mean, Hoppy did right and he had to act quickly and all . .. but the Jury is the legal body that’s supposed to decide. And Earl, here should do the actual act. In the future, I mean. That doesn’t include Bluthgeld because having all That magic he was different.” You can’t kill a man with powers like that through the ordinary methods, he realized. Like Hoppy, for instance… suppose someone tried to kill him; it would be next to impossible.

He shivered.

“What’s the matter, Orion?” Cas Stone asked, acutely.

“Nothing,” Orion Stroud said. “Just thinking what we can do to reward Hoppy to show our appreciation; it’s a weighty problem because we owe him so much.”

The audience murmured, as the individual members discussed with one another how to reward Hoppy.

George Keller, noticing his wife’s pale, drawn features, said, “Are you okay?” He put his hand on her shoulder but she leaned away.

“Just tired,” she said. “I ran for a mile, I think, when those explosions began. Trying to reach Hoppy’s house.”

“How did you know Hoppy could do it?” he asked.

“Oh,” she said, “we all know that; we all surely know he’s the only one of us who has anything remotely resembling that kind of strength. It came into our—” She corrected herself. “My mind right away, as soon as I saw the explosions.” She glanced at her husband.

“Who were you with?” he said.

“Barnes. We were hunting chanterelle mushrooms under the oaks along Bear Valley Ranch Road.”

George Keller said, “Personally I’m afraid of Hoppy. Look—he isn’t even here. He has a sort of contempt for us all. He’s always late getting to the Hall; do you know what I mean? Do you sense it? And it gets more true all the time, perhaps as he sharpens his abilities.”

“Perhaps,” Bonny murmured.

“What do you think will happen to us now?” George asked her. “Now that we’ve killed BluthgeldP We’re better off, a lot safer. It’s a load off everybody’s mind. Someone should notify Dangerfleld so he can broadcast it from the satellite.”

“Hoppy could do that,” Bonny said in a remote voice. “He can do anything. Almost anything.”

In the speaker’s chafr, Orion Stroud rapped for order. “Who wants to be in the delegation that goes down to Hoppy’s house and confers the reward and notification of honor on him?” He looked all around the room. “Somebody start to volunteer.”

“I’ll go,” Andrew Gill spoke up.

“Me, too,” Fred Quinn said.

Bonny said, “I’ll go.”

To her, George said, “Do you feel well enought to?”

“Sure.” She nodded listlessly. “I’m fine, now. Except for the gash on my head.” Automatically she touched the bandage.

“How about you, Mrs. Tallman?” Stroud was saying.

“Yes, I’ll go,” Mrs. Taliman answered, but her voice trembled.

“Afraid?” Stroud asked.

“Yes,” she said.

“Why?”

Mrs. Taliman hesitated. “I—don’t know, Orion.”

“I’ll go, too,” Orion Stroud announced. “That’s five of us, three men and two women; that’s just about right. We’ll take the brandy and the cigaboos along and announce the rest—about the plaque, and him being President of the Council and clerk and all that.”

“Maybe,” Bonny said in a low voice, “we ought to send a delegation there that will stone him to death.”

George Keller sucked in his breath and said, “For God’s sake, Bonny.”

“I mean it,” she said.

“You’re behaving in an incredible way,” he said, furious and surprised; he did not understand her. “What’s the matter?”

“But of course it wouldn’t do any good,” she said. “He’d mash us before we got near his house. Maybe he’ll mash me now.” She smiled. “For saying that.”

“Then shut up!” He stared at her in great fear.

“All right,” she said. “I’ll be quiet. I don’t want to be flung up into the air and then dropped all the way to the ground, the way Jack was.”

“I should think not.” He was trembling.

“You’re a coward,” she said mildly. “Aren’t you? I wonder why I in all this time didn’t realize it before. Maybe that’s why I feel the way I do about you.”

“And what way’s that?”

Bonny smiled. And did not answer. It was a hard, hateful and rigidly cold smile and he did not understand it; he glanced away, wondering once again if all the rumors he had heard about his wife, over the years, could be true after all. She was so cold, so independent. George Keller felt miserable.

“Christ,” he said, “you call me a coward because I don’t want to see my wife mashed flat.”

“It’s my body and my existence,” Bonny said. “I’ll do with it what I want. I’m not afraid of Hoppy; actually I am, but I don’t intend to act afraid, if you can comprehend the difference. I’ll go down there to that tar-paper house of his and face him honestly. I’ll thank him but I think I’ll tell him that he must be more careful in the future. We insist on it.”

He couldn’t help admiring her. “Do that,” he urged. “It would be a good thing, dear. He should understand that, how we feel.”

“Thank you,” she said remotely. “Thanks a lot, George, for your encouragement.” She turned away, then, listening to Orion Stroud.

George Keller felt more miserable than ever.

First it was necessary to visit Andrew Gill’s factory to pick up the special deluxe Gold Label cigarettes and the Five Star brandy; Bonny, along with Orion Stroud and Gill, left the Foresters’ Hall and walked up the road together, all of them conscious of the gravity of their task.

“What’s this business relationship you’re going into with McConchie?” Bonny asked Andrew Gill.

Gill said, “Stuart is going to bring automation to my factory.”