The Best Rootin' Tootin' Shootin' Gunslinger in the Whole Damned Galaxy (24 page)

      
They left the room and parted at the elevator bank, and a moment later Flint entered his partner's office.

      
“Lock the door,” he said.

      
“I beg your pardon?” replied the blue man.

      
“We've got some serious talking to do, and we don't want to be disturbed."

      
Mr. Ahasuerus shrugged and pressed a button on his desk console. “It is locked,” he announced.

      
“Good,” said Flint. “Now pull out the bottle of Pinch that you've been keeping locked up in your desk since Mr. Romany's last shipment from Earth. I need a drink."

      
“I am sure I don't know what you are talking about,” said Mr. Ahasuerus austerely.

      
“You want me to walk over and pick the lock myself?” asked Flint irritably.

      
“But I've been saving it for a special occasion,” protested the blue man.

      
“This is as special as they get,” said Flint.

      
Mr. Ahasuerus sighed and opened his desk drawer, while Flint looked at his newest piece of artwork, which was hanging just to the right of the door.

      
“What do you do?” he asked, indicating the painting. “Go around to all the loony bins in the galaxy and pick up their used Rorschach tests?"

      
“That was created by a poet and philosopher of Korindus XVI,” said the blue man, pulling out the bottle of Scotch from his bottom drawer.

      
“It sure as hell wasn't done by an artist, that's for certain,” remarked Flint. He walked over to Mr. Ahasuerus and took the bottle from him.

      
“Don't you want a glass?” asked the blue man as Flint unscrewed the cap and took a long swallow.

      
“Are you joining me?"

      
“Certainly not."

      
“Then this'll do fine,” said Flint, taking another, smaller mouthful, and sitting down on an oddly-shaped chair.

      
“Perhaps now you'd like to tell me what this is all about."

      
“You want it straight from the shoulder, or do you want the kind of ten-minute lead-in that you'd give me?” asked Flint.

      
“Straight from the shoulder will be satisfactory,” replied Mr. Ahasuerus.

      
“You know that Tojo and Jiminy are back?"

      
“I know,” said the blue man grimly. “I understand that the robot killed nine sentient beings."

      
“Yeah. Well, Tojo think's he's going to kill a tenth when he goes up against the Dancer,” said Flint.

      
Mr. Ahasuerus muttered something in his native tongue, the first time in Flint's experience that he had done so. Finally he looked up at Flint. “We must cancel the fight,” he said in English.

      
“Out of the question,” replied Flint. “For one thing, the Dancer'll never stand for it."

      
“But if he can't win . . ."

      
“I didn't say he couldn't win. I said Tojo
thinks
he can't win."

      
“And what do you think, Mr. Flint?"

      
Flint shrugged. “I don't know."

      
“But you think he may be right?” persisted Mr. Ahasuerus.

      
“It's a strong possibility. Tojo says they compared tapes they made of the Dancer and the robot, and the robot is faster."

      
“But this is terrible!” exclaimed the blue man. “If we allow Billybuck to go through with this, it will be nothing short of murder!"

      
“Maybe,” said Flint. “What you've got to consider is that the robot is a machine; he's always going to draw at the same speed. The Dancer's a man; he might be able to draw faster if he knows he's got to."

      
“And he might not,” said Mr. Ahasuerus.

      
“And he might not,” agreed Flint.

      
“Then what are we to do?” asked the blue man desperately.

      
Flint took another swig of Scotch. “There's an alternative,” he said at last.

      
“To call off the fight,” said the blue man firmly.

      
“Stop talking nonsense,” said Flint irritably. “Even if you and I and the Dancer agreed to call it off, the Corporation would never let us get away with it. They've invested too much money."

      
“Then what is your suggestion?"

      
“You ain't going to like it."

      
“Let
me
be the judge of that, Mr. Flint."

      
“We get hold of Borilliot, have him build a robot the Dancer can beat, pay him twice what it's worth, and promise to slit his fat little neck if he ever tells anyone what he did.” He fumbled for a cigarette, found that he hadn't brought any with him, and settled for another swallow from the Pinch bottle. “It'll probably cost us every penny we've made, but at least we'll keep the Dancer alive, and we can put the new robot in the show like we originally planned to do."

      
The blue man shook his head. “It is too late,” he said unhappily.

      
“What are you talking about?” scoffed Flint. “Borilliot can make one up in two weeks, and the fight is four months off."

      
“That is not what I meant,” explained the blue man. “Kargennian was in touch with me this morning. Evidently more than half a billion credits have already been wagered. If we rig the fight, we'll be perpetrating the biggest fraud in the Community's history."

      
“Half a billion?” asked Flint, curious in spite of himself. “Who's the favorite?"

      
“What difference does it make?” exploded Mr. Ahasuerus, pounding the polished desk with his fist. “We
must
see to it that the fight does not take place!"

      
“Mr. Ahasuerus,” said Flint, “will you please try to get it through your thick blue skull that Kargennian isn't about to return half a billion credits?"

      
“But he must!"

      
“Why? So you won't have to make a decision?” said Flint sardonically. “Why don't you just admit to yourself that there's going to be a gunfight, and start figuring out just what kind of a gunfight we ought to have. And calm down—you look like you're going to have a stroke."

      
“How can I be calm, when you have presented me with two untenable positions?” said the blue man, his eyes mirroring his distress. “All my life I have lived by a strict moral code. I have tried to uphold the values with which I was raised. Now I am presented with a situation not of my own making, in which, if I act, I will become a swindler on a galactic scale, and if I do not act, I will be an accomplice to murder. There is no easy way out of this predicament."

      
“What ever made you think there would be?” said Flint. “We're not living in one of Tojo's books, where being strong or having good intentions automatically makes you a winner. This is the
real
world."

      
“But what am I to do?” persisted the blue man. “Both courses of action are morally repugnant to me."

      
“Then you decide which one is worse and you choose the other,” said Flint firmly. “And never forget: there's always a chance that the Dancer might win."

      
“If you thought so, you wouldn't be here."

      
“True,” admitted Flint. “But as hard as this may be for you to believe, I've been wrong before."

      
“But if there is even a
chance
that the robot could win—"

      
“If there wasn't a chance, we wouldn't have been able to put this fight together in the first place. What we're concerned with now is whether or not the
Dancer
has a chance."

      
“You make it all sound so simple,” said the blue man, staring blankly at the holograph just above Flint's head.

      
“It is,” replied Flint. “There's a big difference between being easy and being simple. This is a simple situation to define; it's not an easy one to solve."

      
“You have usurped my authority so many times in the past, why did you not simply do it again in this case?” asked Mr. Ahasuerus bitterly.

      
“Because we've got to be united on this one,” said Flint. “If we don't get another robot and the Dancer dies, I don't want you blaming me for the next twenty years. And if we do get another robot and someone finds out about it after the fight is over, we're going to be in one hell of a lot of hot water; I don't want you accusing me of putting you there against your will."

      
The blue man stood up and walked over to an abstract construction that sat on a small table. He picked it up and began examining it absently. “If I weren't here, what would you do?” he asked suddenly.

      
“But you
are
here,” Flint pointed out. “You may wish you weren't, but you wanted to run a business, and being here goes with the territory.” Flint paused and leaned back in his chair, idly playing with the Pinch bottle. “Besides, did it ever occur to you that maybe I'm getting sick and tired of being responsible for everyone else?” he said. “That I am goddamned fed up with being the only one who can decide how to make Gloria happy, and when to make Monk and Batman stop fighting, and whether to let Diggs fleece the other crew members, and whether Stogie will kill himself if he keeps working, and whether to let the Dancer face the robot or not?"

      
“
Are
you tired of it?” asked Mr. Ahasuerus dubiously, as he put the artifact back down and returned to his chair.

      
“I'm getting there,” said Flint. “Mostly, though, I'm tired of watching you dither. We've got a problem, and we've got two solutions, and neither of them is very pleasant, and all the fence-straddling in the world isn't going to make the problem go away."

      
“It is not that simple, and all the verbal games you can play will not make it that simple!” said the blue man desperately. “I am being forced to make a decision that every fiber of my being tells me not to make—except that by not making it, I am
still
influencing what happens."

      
“Hobson's choice,” remarked Flint wryly.

      
“I do not know anyone named Hobson. I only know that I cannot take on this responsibility alone. I must discuss it, and there is no one with whom I can discuss it with except you."

      
Flint stared at him for a long moment, then screwed the cap back on the Pinch bottle and set it down on the floor beside his chair. ‘”You don't happen to have any cigarettes or cigars hidden away in here, do you?"

      
“No."

      
“You're sure?"

      
“I am sure."

      
“Too bad.” He took a deep breath and released it slowly. “All right. I say we buy another robot. If we work it right, we'll not only be able to use it in the Dancer's act for the next few years, but we can amortize a goodly part of the cost by betting a few million credits on the Dancer. I'm sure Borilliot will loan us the money at forty or fifty percent interest, once he knows it's going on a sure thing."

      
“That is out of the question!” exclaimed the blue man, horrified. “If we agree to buy the robot, we will
not
use our special knowledge of the fight's outcome to place wagers on it!"

      
Flint smiled. “Will the fight be any less crooked if we don't bet on it?"

      
Mr. Ahasuerus closed his eyes and held very still for a long minute. Finally he looked at Flint and spoke. “I know that you are an essentially decent man, Mr. Flint, and that you are more compassionate than you want people to believe.” He sighed heavily. “But you are also a morass of moral ambiguities, and I simply cannot judge the rightness or wrongness of a course of action by using your values."

      
“What is
that
supposed to mean?” asked Flint.

      
The blue man stared intently at him. “That under no circumstances will we wager on the outcome of a gunfight when that outcome has been predetermined. If I agree to commit an act of fraud, I will not make a personal profit from it."

      
“Even if it means that we'll be broke when the dust clears?” asked Flint.

      
“Even so."

      
“All right,” said Flint. “Then let's get back to the problem at hand: do you want to buy the robot or not?"

      
“I just don't know,” replied the blue man. “Are you sure that Billybuck will lose?"