exclamation
tion . "What do you think Victor Grego's wishing , right now ?"
Victor Grego replaced the hand - phone .
" Leslie , on the
yacht , ” he said . " They're coming in now. They'll stop at the
hospital to drop Kellogg , and then they're coming here ."
Nick Emmert nibbled a canape . He had reddish hair , pale
eyes and a wide , bovine face .
"Holloway must have done him up pretty badly , " he said . "I wish Holloway'd killed him !" He blurted it angrily, and saw the Resident General's shocked expression .
"You don't really mean that , Victor ?"
"The devil I don't !" He gestured at the recorder - player , which had just finished the tape of the hearing , transmitted from the yacht at sixty - speed . " That's only a teaser to what'll come out at the trial . You know what the Company's epitaph will be ? Kicked to death , along with a Fuzzy, by Leonard Kellogg ."
Everything would have worked out perfectly if Kellogg had only kept his head and avoided collision with Hollo- way . Why, even the killing of the Fuzzy and the shooting of Borch , inexcusable as that had been , wouldn't have been so bad if it hadn't been for that asinine murder complaint . That was what had provoked Holloway's countercomplaint , which was what had done the damage .
And, now that he thought of it , it had been one of Kel- logg's people , van Riebeek , who had touched off the explo- sion in the first place . He didn't know van Riebeek himself, but Kellogg should have , and he had handled him the wrong way . He should have known what van Riebeek would go along with and what he wouldn't .
"But , Victor , they won't convict Leonard of murder , ” Em- mert was saying . "Not for killing one of those little things. " " 'Murder shall consist of the deliberate and unjustified killing of any sapient being, of any race , ' " he quoted . "That's the law . If they can prove in court that the Fuzzies are sapient beings . . . "
Then , some morning , a couple of deputy marshals would take Leonard Kellogg out in the jail yard and put a bullet through the back of his head , which , in itself, would be no loss . The trouble was , they would also be shooting an irre- parable hole in the Zarathustra Company's charter . Maybe Kellogg could be kept out of court , at that . There wasn't a
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