The emaciated young man entered Gorman's office and locked the door
behind him with an electroseal. "Disembodiment," he identified himself.
"So you did get a new body, Jed," the lawyer remarked affably. "Very
good packaging. Makes you look like a poet or something."
"Good as a disguise, maybe, but one hell of a lousy hulk." The young
man hurled himself into the chair by the desk. Even Gorman winced at
the cruel treatment accorded such obvious fragility. "Gimme a milgot,
Les. This thing--" he indicated his body with contempt--"is shot to
Polaris. Won't last more than a few months. Some bargain I got."
Gorman lit a stick himself. "The guy who got your body didn't get such
a bargain either," he murmured through a cloud of purple smoke.
"At least he'll live. If he's lucky. I wish he'd hurry and get himself
picked up, though, so I could collect the folio and jet off. Can't go
after it now. Hounds will be sniffing after anybody gravitating around
the place where I've stashed it until they're sure they have me. They
don't know where the money is exactly, of course, or they'd soak it up,
but they've got an idea of the general sector."
"Want me to pick it up for you, Jed?" the lawyer asked, his pale,
flickering eyes brushing across the young man's dark intense ones.
"Oh, sure. All I need is for you to know where it is and all I'd see
would be your rocket trail." The young man leaned across the expanse of
littered steel. "Or _do_ you know where it is, Les?" he asked softly.
"Do you know where it is and are you just hibernating until I'm safely
out of the way?"
In spite of himself, Gorman could not help moving back. "Don't be a
fool, Jed," he said in a voice that was several tones higher. "If I
knew where it was ... well, you're not very frightening in your present
embodiment, you know."
"Don't be too sure of that, Gorman. And you were always yellow; anybody
could frighten you." He began to laugh shrilly. "Hey, that's good. Get
it? Any body, see?"
The lawyer did not join in the mirth. "How are you fixed for cash?" he
asked abruptly.
* * * * *
The young man's face split in a sardonic grin. "Why do you think I
risked public communion with a darkside character like you, Les? I shot
my wad making the shift. I could use a little loan. You know I have
millions stashed away," the young man said angrily as Gorman remained
silent. "I'll pay you as soon as the hounds take the chump who's
leasing my hulk."
"Maybe you can earn some money." Gorman toyed with a paperweight. "Did
you get a look at that big blond guy in the cafe--the one I told you
about on the phone?"
"Yeah. Nice life-form he had with him. I wouldn't mind being in that
body."
"Seems he wants somebody exterminated. And I told him I heard Jed
Carmody was in the parish and might be interested."