"Turn your antigravs off. I told him Jed Carmody was in the parish. Are
you Jed Carmody?"
The other sat down and exhaled heavily. "You're on course--I'm nobody
just now."
"Any identification come with the package?"
"Naah, what'd you expect...? But why tell anyone that Jed Carmody's
hitting the locality?"
"I thought you might be interested in picking up a little free-falling
foliage."
The young man shook his head impatiently. "Risk having this hulk heated
up for a half-credit crime? Don't be an alien, Gorman. I'm going to hit
subsoil until this other life-form gets collected by the hounds."
"Thought you might like to do it to help me out," Gorman murmured.
The other man stared. "How do you fit into the pattern?" Gorman
shrugged. "Oh, I get it: this guy's putting the barometer on you?"
Gorman nodded.
"Bad landing, counselor. But you don't seriously expect...? Hey!" The
wide-set eyes glistened darkly. "I got it! Why don't you get this guy
who's got my hulk to make the flight? Send somebody out to magnetize
him like you thought he was the real Carmody, see?"
* * * * *
Gorman looked hopeful for a moment; then shook his thin-haired head.
"No reason to think the man is an extralegal."
"Anyone who finds himself in my hulk damn well has to be if he wants
to stay out of the sardine box.... Look, what's the first thing he's
going to want to do when he finds out what he's been stuck with? Go to
another parish and hop hulks, right? And he'll need plenty of foliage
to do it."
"Maybe he has money," Gorman suggested wearily.
"No fuel lost finding out." The young man rubbed his hands together
gleefully. "If he takes on the flight, though, see that he gets my
flash, huh? Rosy up the picture."
"Maybe he can kill whoever this Lockard has in mind without getting
picked up by the police. Such things have happened; otherwise you
wouldn't have been able to run around loose so long, Jed."
"An amateur? Not a chance! Besides, just to make sure, little...." He
stopped in the act of tapping his chest. "Say, I don't have a name, do
I? What's a good epithet for me, Les? Something with class."
The lawyer studied the pale, bony face for a moment or two. "How about
John Keats?" he suggested. "Simple and appropriate."
The other man thought. "Yeah, I like that. John Keats. Plain, but not
like John Smith. Subtle. I'll buy it. Okay, so you think I'm going
to take my view-finder off the fake Carmody? I'm going to adhere to
that life-form closer than Mary's lamb. So when he knocks off whoever
the other guy wants novaed, I can yell doggie. Then the hounds get
him--with my flash on him and all, they'll never have the nebula of
a notion that they don't have all of me.... I pick up the foliage
and rock out to some place where I can buy me a new jewel case, no
questions asked. Don't fret, Gorman--you'll get your nibble. I've never
played the game with you, have I?"
Instead of answering, Gorman asked a question of his own. "Kind of hard
on the other guy, isn't it?"
"He rates it for sticking me with a piece of statuary like this. Look
at it this way, Les--in his own hulk he would've died; this way he's
got a chance to live. Yeah, get him to make the flight, Les. You can
charm the juice out of a lemon when you want to; it's your line of
evil. And don't let on you know he's not the genuine article."
"I won't," Gorman sighed. "I only hope I can persuade him to take on
the flight. Don't forget it's important to me too, Jed--uh, John."
"Make planetfall, then," John Keats said. "So long, Les."
"Good-by, Johnny."