The Cloud took the release and went out through the smouldering corridor and into the broken streets to the food train that came once a month through the last not-completely broken tunnel.

"Something else came on the food trail, gimpy John," the Duke said uneasily.

"Well, what, what was it? Duke, Duke, you didn't get hold of a saw so I could saw my leg off, did you?"

"Nah. You're not supposed to saw your leg off. You're supposed to stay here just like you are. Who's going to sign for the food trains and hostage transfers if our mayor saws his leg off and runs away?

"John Mayor, there's three other men came on that food train. These are funny men. They might even be important enough men that we can hold them for hostages. They brought some heavy kegs and boxes with them, John, and they even conned some of the colts into carrying them over here for them. We can't figure out what kind of men they are, Mayor. They look at us and we look at them, and we both got sparks in our eyes. They are in the building now, Mayor, and they want to see you."

"Show them in, spook Duke, the mayor is always available to his const.i.tuents."

"Const.i.tuents these are not," said the Lob. "They are washed-out pale fellows, but they are solid."

"And one of those kegs of theirs got a smell I like, Mayor," saidthe Sky. "I believe I remember that smell like it was born in me. You get that keg, Mayor."

"And those long crates got a heft I like," said the Wideman. "I almost know what will be in those crates. You get those crates, Mayor."

"Those square boxes got a feel I like," said the Lob. "I almost know what short-handled things will be in those square boxes. And the smallest package has a bra.s.s glint through a rip in it. You get those square boxes and that smallest package, Mayor."

"I don't understand this at all," said John the mayor, rolling his red-rimmed eves in his constant pain. "Let the men and their baggage come in."

The three new men who came in had a certain animal power about them, and a certain human authority. Possibly they might he important enough to hold for hostages, but who was going to take the lead in holding them? Men, they moved like big cats. But they were dressed like businessmen of an earlier decade, an anomaly on the island, and they were lighter than any of the islanders there except Lawrence Sky.

"You are the Mayor Johnjohn?" asked one of the new men. "And you have authority to deal?"

"I am the mayor," said John, "and I have such authority as a shackled prisoner may have, For what do we deal?"

"Oh, for the island. We've come to buy it. You'd like that, wouldn't you?"

"What, what, who are you?"

"I am Adrian Sweetsong," said the first of the new men. "I'm a petroleum geologist by profession, which has nothing to do with the matter.

And I'm an official of the Midlands Gun and Rod Club."

"I'm Dennis Halftown," said the second of the new men. "I'm an electronic engineer by profession, which has nothing to do with the matter either. And I'm also an official of the Midlands Gun and Rod Club."

"I'm Freddy Flatfish," said the third of the new men. "I'm a lawyer, which does have something to do with this matter. I am also an official of the Midlands Gun and Rod Club, and I have studied the legal aspects of this thing pretty thoroughly."

"Is it the Midlands Gun and Rod Club that is dealing for the island?" Mayor John asked.

"That's right," said Adrian Sweetsong, the first of the new men.

"First installment! Set em right there, boys."

Several of the colts, the strong rough island boys, set down two heavy square boxes, and Dennis Halftown (the second of the new men) broke them open with a pry.bar.

"Man-eating Millie! Those things are for me!" the Lob gasped, and she had a couple of them out in her hands.

"Sweet little choppies!" the Sky drooled. "What's a knife along side of one of those?"

"Black-berry pudding!" cried the Cloud as he returned from his errand. "Here, here, they look good, let's get them tested. I'll just pa.s.s a dozen of those out the windows to some of the boys. Let them try them out!

Let them fall in love with them!"

"Fifty hatchets," announced Adrian Sweetsong, "delivered and accepted. We record them."

"Wait! Wait!" howled Mayor John jangling his shackles. "What have fifty hatchets to do with dealing for the island? Who has used hatchets for a century?"

"One-leg John," the Duke crooned, "too bad your shackles won't let you get as far as the window. Some of the boys are using them now. Believe me, John, they're using them now!"

"Mr. Sweetsong," Mayor John explained patiently, "the last valuation of island property ever made set it at over a hundred billion dollars. Dueto certain developments, it may be down a little now, but not that far.

Hatchets will not get it. I can sell it only for Fair Value or Value Justified. My own shackling is governed by the Equity Factor."

"We know that, Mr. Mayor," said Freddy Flatfish, the lawyer for the Midlands Gun and Rod Club. Freddy Flatfish was a tow-headed, twinkling man.

"But the island has reverted. It's really worthless since it was left to the ten thousand gangs, which have since devoured themselves down to a hundred.

Perhaps its reverted value is now its original value. Anyhow, the first approach was yours."

"Mine? Mine? I made no approach. I never heard of you fellows," the Mayor said.

"But we have monitored you, Mayor John. Two years ago you said to the commissioner 'Can't we give it back to someone?' And you are also recorded as saying 'We ought to sell it back to --'"

"Second installment!" announced Adrian Sweetsong. "Set them right there, boys."

Several of the colts set down the long crates, and Dennis Halftown broken them open with his pry-bar.

"Oh, those long sweet songs!" the Wideman slavered. "Smooth bores!

You can jam them with any kind of soup at all and pan-light them. You can shoot broken gla.s.s with them. You can shoot anything. Here, we'll just hand a few of them out the windows and let the fellows try them out. Get the heft of those things! Even as clubs your hands would fall in love with them!

Blunderbusses!" And the Wideman handed half a dozen of them out the windows.

"Twenty guns," announced Adrian Sweetsong. "Delivered and accepted.

We record them."

"Even if it were possible for me to deal the island for things of no value," John the mayor began -- and there was deep-throated roaring and death-screaming in the streets -- "No value, Mayor?" the Duke Durango asked with deep irony. "Mayor, you should be able to watch them. They jam them with soup, and then ram in gla.s.s and nails for a load. They spark them off, and it's wonderful. Cuts people right in two. Don't talk no value about those things!"

"Even if it were possible for me to deal the island for such things, what could the Midlands Gun and Rod Club possibly do with the island?" Mayor John asked.

"Set up a hunting preserve," Adrian Sweetsong said. "It's a nicely stocked jungle island seventeen miles by four. We'll hunt. We'll hunt."

"Hunt? What would you hunt?" the mayor wanted to know.

"Big game, big game," said Dennis Halftown lovingly.

"But there is no big game, no game at all on the island," the mayor insisted.

"Remember what ancient Hemingway wrote," said Freddy Flatfish.

"'There is no sport equal to the hunting of an armed man.' Ah, we'll hunt them here, as will many of our well-heeled members."

"Third installment! Set it right there, boys," Adrian Sweetsong ordered.

The ragged island boys set down the bag, and Dennis Halftown broke it open with his pry-bar.

"Boys, boys, that's the smell like was born in me!" the Sky chortled, and he had his arms up to the elbows in the dark grainy powder.

"Sure it hasn't the power of soup. Sure it's clumsy and crude. But it's the grandpa of them all! The smell of it, the smell of it! Men, men, bust your noses on that smell!"

"Twenty-five kilograms of gun-powder," announced Adrian Sweetsong.

"That's as close as we could figure it. Twenty-five kilos delivered and accepted. We record it."

"When you going to start, fellows, when you going to start?" the Duke asked the three new men in excitement, getting the idea. "How soon you he ready to start?" asked the Duke and the Sky and the Wideman and the Cloudand the Lob, all going for it avidly.

"Should he the first bunch of hunters here in the morning," said Adrian Sweetsong.

"Too long to wait," the Lob protested. "You three? How about you?.

"We three will begin stalking and pot-shotting in a very few minutes," said the Adrian, "just as soon as we can get t.i.tle to this place from the reluctant mayor. We suggest you deploy your forces outside in the corridors. When we come out of this room we will come out rough, and it's rough animals we want to meet with."

"Rough it will be," said the Cloud. "Colts, colts, you carry this stuff out to our place again just as soon as they have recorded it. Men, we will have some sport! We will show these sports some sport!"

"But this cannot be, even in a nightmare," Mayor John protested.

"You three pale-browns are not Wappingers or Manahattas, and we are not Dutch."

"I'm a Choctaw," said Freddy Flatfish. "Dennis Halftown is a Shawnee. Adrian Sweetsong is an Osage. But we inherit. I have drawn up a legal brief to prove it. And you are double-Dutch if you don't accept. Awk, blew half my shoulder off! Those animals are jumping the gun. Now I know how the expression started. They really know how to handle those blunderbusses."

Freddy Flatfish had been shot by a blunderbuss blast from the corridor and was bleeding badly. So they hurried it along, anxious to close the bargain and get the hunting season started.

"Bring them in fast, boys. Set them down till they are accepted and recorded. Then take them out again to your place," Adrian Sweetsong ordered.

And the rough colts brought in a variety of boxes and packages.

"Ten shirts, accepted and recorded," Adrian Sweetsong announced, hurriedly now. "Thirty pair socks, accepted and recorded. One hundred bullets, accepted and recorded. Forty kettles, accepted and recorded. One bra.s.s frying-pan, accepted and recorded."

And at the recording of the bra.s.s frying-pan, the leg-piercing pin was withdrawn from the leg of Mayor John and all his shackles fell off. The psychic-coded lock of his shackles had opened. He had finished his job and was released. He had disposed of the island in equity. He had gotten Fair Value for it, or Value Justified, or at least Original Value from Original Entailment. And it sufficed.

Mayor John was free. He started to run from the room, fell down on his crippled leg, and arose and ran once more. And was caught in a blunderbuss blast.

And then the great hunt began. The three members of the Midlands Gun and Rod Club had most sophisticated weapons. They were canny and smooth.

This was the dangerous big-game hunt they had always dreamed of. And their prey were armed and wild and truculent and joyous.

It would be good.

Out between the orbs, several tentacles of Ultimate Justice came near together.

"Was there not somewhere the mention of twenty-four or twenty-six dollars paid?" one tentacle asked the other. "I thought I remembered some such figure."

"No, no," said the other tentacle, "That was only the estimated value placed on the material. There was no specie paid. The list is correct as rendered, and the repayment has been accepted and certified."

In a forgotten and half-filled bas.e.m.e.nt on the island, two of the remaining old-folk people were still in hiding. They were startled by the new sort of noise.

"What is it, papa? What have they done?" the old woman asked.

"Sold it back to the Indians, mama," the old man said.

"Why have they not thought of that a long time ago?"

McGRUDER'S MARVELS

There were four bids, and there should have been only three. Only three firms in the country were capable of making so minia- turized a control station.

Three bids were in quite heavy packets. The fourth was in I slim envelope. This was Opening INV-3MINCON3999.

"Ah, here are the bids from Micro Machinists Amalgamated, from Intensive Instrumentation, and from DOW-MEC-TEC," said Colonel Ludenschiager. "It isn't likely that any of them will be less than two years, and we need it within two weeks. We are whipped before we start!" He struck the table with a ringing thud. "But what is the anomalous intrusion, the small envelope bid, Dinneen?"

"It's from an M. M. McGruder," said Colonel Dinneen. "The secend M is in quotation marks. We may have a case for the prosecution here. The Joker Act was set up for just such stuff as this. There has to be a ceiling put on cranks."

"There was a certain McGruder in Manhattan when I was a boy,"

Colonel Schacbmeister smiled. "I spent many pleasant moments in his, ah, Hippodrome, I believe he called it. It was a narrow place off a narrow cigar store, and only about three could get in at one time, if they were small, and we were. Best show I over saw for a dim , though. What is the address of this one?"

"Here in D. C.," said Dinneen. "It would be a rundown address even without the ending 'Apt. 3, room 4-E, use cellar steps off small alley.'

Some address! And the phone number of the Rowdy-Dow Bar and Grill is given.

It's written in an old and probably insane hand. We will prosecute with compa.s.sion, possibly."

The chime chimed for 9:30. It was opening time. And they opened the bids.

They quickly made the basic resume: 1. Micro Machinists Amalgamated. Basic Module: $2,106,740.00.

Estimated Time: 25 months. Exceptions and Alternatives: 256 (detailed).

Follow-Up Units: $260,000.00 ea. Estimated Time: 30 days each for first 6, grading down to 21 days each for additional. 2. Intensive Instrumentation. Basic Module: $2,004,000.00. Estimated Time: 721 days.