Free All My Sins Remembered by Joe Haldeman Page A

tonight, Isaac. You can talk over old times out in the dustpit.”
    “Shut up!” Another man came into view, his right arm stiff in a tractor cast. “Give me that gun.” He took it in his left hand. Otto noted that he was trembling even more than the other, but it was pain, and probably anger, rather than nervousness. “Now go disarm him.”
    Kill him use body as shield would work one gee Otto-body but Crowell-body too slow too big
… Jonathon plucked the gun from his belt and hopped back. “You aren’t as dangerous as Stuart said you would be.”
    “He’s dangerous, all right. But we’ve pulled his fangs. Go on back to your office, Lyndham. Fitz and I’ll finish this job; you’re the only one without any good reason for being here.”
    Jonathon went out the front door. “Well, Mr. McGavin—I suppose you find this rather embarrassing, to be held at bay by a ‘meek fellow’ like me.
    “Yes, we heard your whole conversation this morning—Dr. Norman’s radiophone really doesn’t work too well, and neither does Dr. Struckheimer’s; they broadcast all the time, straight into a recorder in my office.” He motioned with the gun. “Come sit in the living room, Mr. McGavin. By all means bring your wine. I d love to join you, but my good hand is full—that should make it even easier to kill you when the time comes.”
    Crowell sat in the old-fashioned chair and wondered when the time would come. “You can’t actually think you can keep getting away with this.”
    “It’s a big dustpit, the biggest. I’m afraid Doctors Norman and Struckheimer will be following you into it, too. We can’t afford to have dozens of specialists prying around.”
    Crowell shook his head. “If I don’t report, you’re going to have to contend with more than a handful of scientists. A battle cruiser will land in your port and put the whole Goddamn planet under arrest.”
    “Strange they didn’t do it when the first two agents disappeared. That’s a pretty clumsy bluff, McGavin.”
    “Those two good men were agents, Mr. Kindle, but just agents. I’m a prime operator, one of twelve such. You can ask Fitz-Jones what that means when he gets back.”
    “You may not be alive when he gets back. He didn’t want to kill you here, because that would entail dragging your body over nearly a kilometer of desert. But it occurs to me that we could make more than one trip.”
    “A grisly alternative. Do you actually think you could cut up a man as if he were a side of beef? Very messy.”
    “I’m desperate…”
    “Whatever are you two talking about?” Fitz-Jones came in through the hall entrance. “I saw Jonathon on the way here. I thought he was supposed to wait with you until I got back.”
    “I was afraid he’d do something stupid, so I told him to go on. Never did feel I could trust the man very much.”
    “You may be right. But I didn’t want to leave you alone with this expert murderer.”
    “Hasn’t murdered me yet. Fitz, he says he’s a prime operator—does that mean anything to you?”
    Fitz-Jones’s eyebrows went up a fraction and he looked at Crowell. “That can’t possibly be true. This planet’s too small to rate a prime operator.”
    “We always send a prime when an agent gets killed,” Crowell said. “No matter how unimportant the case is otherwise.”
    “Possibly,” Fitz-Jones mused, “and if so, I am indeed honored.” He gave a little mocking bow. “But the most expert bridge player would lose if he couldn’t pick up his cards. That’s the position you’re in, sir.”
    “Do you know what will happen if you murder me, ambassador?”
    “No if.’
After
we murder you… what, they’ll send another prime operator? They’ll soon run out.”
    “They’ll quarantine this whole planet and ferret you out. You haven’t got a chance.”
    “On the contrary, we have a very good chance—the chance that you’re lying. Which is rather large, considering your circumstances. I don’t think ill of