“You’d kill me, Lord Redlady?” said Rod. “I thought you were saving me?”

“Both,” said the doctor, standing up. “The Commonwealth government has not tried to take your property away from you, though they have their doubts as to what you will do with Earth if you do buy it. They are not going to let you stay on this planet and endanger it by being the richiest kidnap victim who ever lived. Tomorrow they will strip you of your property, unless you want to take a chance on running for it. Earth government is the same way. If you can figure out your own defences, you can come on in. Of course, the police will protect you, but would that be enough? I’m a doctor, and I’m here to ship you out if you want to go.”

“And I’m an officer of government, and I will arrest you if you do not go,” said John Fisher.

“And I represent the Instrumentality, which does not declare its policy to anyone, least of all to outsiders. But it is my personal policy,” said the Lord Redlady, holding out his hands and twisting his thumbs in a meaningless, grotesque, but somehow very threatening way, “to see that this boy gets a safe trip to Earth and a fair deal when he comes back here!”

“You’ll protect him all the way!” cried Lavinia, looking very happy.

“All the way. As far as I can. As long as I live.”

“That’s pretty long,” muttered Hopper, “conceited little pommy cockahoop!”

“Watch your language, Hopper,” said the Lord Redlady. “Rod?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Your answer?” The Lord Redlady was peremptory.

“I’m going,” said Rod.

“What on Earth do you want?” said the Lord Redlady ceremoniously.

“A genuine Cape triangle.”

“A what?” cried the Lord Redlady.

“A Cape triangle. A postage stamp.”

“What’s postage?” said the Lord Redlady, really puzzled.

“Payments on messages.”

“But you do that with thumbprints or eyeprints!”

“No,” said Rod, “I mean paper ones.”

“Paper messages?” said the Lord Redlady, looking as though someone had mentioned grass battleships, hairless sheep, solid cast-iron women, or something else equally improbable; “Paper messages?” he repeated, and then he laughed quite charmingly. “Oh!” he said, with a tone of secret discovery, “You mean antiquities… ”

“Of course,” said Rod. “Even before Space itself.”

“Earth has a lot of antiquities, and I am sure you will be welcome to study them or to collect them. That will be perfectly all right. Just don’t do any of the wrong things, or you will be in real trouble.”

“What are the wrong things?” said Rod.

“Buying real people, or trying to. Shipping religion from one planet to another. Smuggling underpeople.”

“What’s religion?” said Rod.

“Later, later,” said the Lord Redlady. “You’ll learn everything later. Doctor, you take over.”

Wentworth stood very carefully so that his head did not touch the ceiling. He had to bend his neck a little. “We have two boxes, Rod.”

When he spoke, the door whirred in its tracks and showed them a small room beyond. There was a large box like a coffin and a very small box, like the kind that women have around the house to keep a single party-going bonnet in.

“There will be criminals, and wild governments, and conspirators, and adventurers, and just plain good people gone wrong at the thought of your wealth — there will be all these waiting for you to kidnap you or rob or even kill you—”

“Why kill me — ?”

“To impersonate you and try to get your money,” said the doctor. “Now look. This is your big choice. If you take the big box, we can put you in a sail-ship convoy and you will get there in several hundred or thousand years. But you will get there, ninety-nine point ninety-nine percent. Or we can send the big box on the regular planoforming ships, and somebody will steal you. Or we scun you down and put you in the little box.”

“That little box?” cried Rod.

“Scunned. You’ve scunned sheep, haven’t you?”

“I’ve heard of it. But a man, no. Dehydrate my body, pickle my head, and freeze the whole mucking mess?” cried Rod.

“That’s it. Too bloody right!” cried the doctor cheerfully. “That’ll give you a real chance of getting there alive.”

“But who’ll put me together. I’d need my own doctor — ?” His voice quavered at the unnaturalness of the risk, not at the mere chanciness and danger of it.

“Here,” said the Lord Redlady, “is your doctor, already trained.”—

“I am at your service,” said the little Earth-animal, the “monkey,” with a small bow to the assembled company. “My name is A’gentur and I have been conditioned as a physician, a surgeon and a barber.”

The women had gasped. Hopper and Bill stared at the little animal in horror.

“You’re an underperson!” yelled Hopper. “We’ve never let the crutting things loose on Norstrilia.”

“I’m not an underperson. I’m an animal. Conditioned to—” The monkey jumped. Hopper’s heavy knife twanged like a musical instrument as it clung to the softer steel of the wall. Hopper’s other hand held a long thin knife, ready to reach Redlady’s heart.

The left hand of the Lord Redlady flashed straight forward. Something in his hand glowed silently, terribly. There was a hiss in the air.

Where Hopper had been, a cloud of oily thick smoke, stinking of burning meat, coiled slowly toward the, ventilators. Hopper’s clothing and personal belongings, including one false tooth, lay on the chair in which he had been sitting. They were undamaged. His drink stood on the floor beside the chair, forever to remain unfinished.

The doctor’s eyes gleamed as he stared strangely at Redlady:

“Noted and reported to the Old North Australian Navy.”

’I’ll report it too,” said the Lord Redlady, “…as the use of weapons on diplomatic grounds.”

“Never mind,” said John Fisher to the hundredth, not angry at all, but jusf pale and looking a little ill. Violence did not frighten him, but decision did. “Let’s get on with it. Which box, big or little, boy?”

The workwoman Eleanor stood up. She had said nothing but now she dominated the scene. “Take him in there, girls,” she said, “and wash him like you would for the Garden of Death. I’ll wash myself in there. You see,” she added, “I’ve always wanted to see the blue skies on Earth, and wanted to swim in a house that ran around on the big big waters. I’ll take your big box, Rod, and if I get through alive, you will owe me some treats on Earth. You take the little box, Roddy, take the little box. And that little tiny doctor with the fur on him. Rod, I trust him.”

Rod stood up.

Everybody was looking at him and at Eleanor.

“You agree?” said the Lord Redlady.

He nodded.

“You agree to be scunned and put in the little box for instant shipment to Earth?”

He nodded again.

“You will pay all the extra expenses?”

He nodded again.

The doctor said,

“You authorize me to cut you up and reduce you down, in the hope that you may be reconstituted on Earth?”

Rod nodded to him, too.

“Shaking your head isn’t enough,” said the doctor. “You have to agree for the record.”

“I agree,” said Rod quietly.

Aunt Doris and Lavinia came forward to lead him into the dressing room and shower room. Just as they reached for his arms, the doctor patted Rod on the back with a quick strange motion. Rod jumped a little.

“Deep hypnotic,” said the doctor. “You can manage his body all right, but the next words he utters will be said, luck willing, on Old Earth itself.”

The women were wide-eyed but they led Rod forward to be cleaned for the operations and the voyage.

The doctor turned to the Lord Redlady and to John Fisher, the financial secretary.

“A good night’s work,” he said. “Pity about that man, though.”

Bill sat still, frozen with grief in his chair, staring at Hopper’s empty clothing in the chair next to him.

The console tinkled, “Twelve hours, Greenwich mean time. No adverse weather reports from the channel coast or from Meeya Meefla or Earthport building. All’s well!”