told the man there was some mistake,” she wailed. “But he insisted—”
“What—in—the—world—is—this?” Darzek demanded weakly.
Cardboard cartons filled the office, each of them new and neatly taped shut. A narrow alley had been left leading to Darzek’s private office. He opened that door and saw more cartons.
“Your name is on every box,” Miss Schlupe said defensively. She fluttered his hands again. “What could they be?”
“I don’t know. Time bombs, perhaps, though one would think that a dozen or two would satisfy the most bloodthirsty intent. Whatever it is, there must be a couple of hundred of them. Which of my current enemies has no sense of moderation?”
“Are you sure you didn’t order something for your trip, and hit the wrong number on your typewriter?”
“It takes more than a typing error to produce a deluge like this one. Anyway, I haven’t ordered anything. Go down and have your lunch while I open one.”
“Nonsense!”
“Miss Schlupe!” Darzek said sternly. “Your loyalty is not in question here—just your common sense. Go!”
“Nonsense!” She stood on tiptoe to joggle a carton from the top of a pile, caught it deftly, and placed it on her desk. “Open it. It isn’t heavy enough to be a very big bomb.”
“Then we’ll die together, in a small way,” Darzek said cheerfully. He slit the tape with his penknife, peered inside, closed the flap.
“You didn’t even let me see,” Miss Schlupe complained. “What is it?”
“Money.”
“Money? You mean all of these boxes—but that’s ridiculous!”
“It’s more than that. It’s outrageous.” He handed her the penknife. “Try one yourself.”
She lifted down another box and slit the tape. “Money!” she whispered. “Wait’ll Internal Revenue hears about this!”
“I don’t suppose there’s a return address.”
“I don’t see any.”
“Pity. Then I can’t send it back. Do we know anyone who has a room-size vault?”
“Aren’t you going to count it?”
Darzek perched frowning on the edge of her desk. “It would take hours. Anyway, I know how much it is. It’s a million dollars. Did you see the truck that delivered it?”
She shook her head.
“Pity. If you’d gotten the license number—”
“You never left any instructions about getting license numbers.”
“I never thought the occasion would arise. From now on, let’s make it standard procedure. Any time a million dollars is delivered here, get the license number.”
“Have you any idea at all who sent it?” she asked.
“Certainly. Mr. Smith sent it. I knew as soon as I saw him that he was trying to pull some kind of gag.”
“Gag!” she exclaimed indignantly. “Why, there must be hundreds of dollars in every box!”
“Thousands, I think. Who besides the U.S. Treasury would have this much ready cash for a practical joke? Several New York banks, I suppose, but financial institutions have notoriously bad senses of humor. The government has none at all. It has to be Smith.”
“You ought to find out if it’s real. I could take some of it down to the bank and ask.”
“Quiet. I want to think.”
Obediently she returned to her rocking chair, and Darzek remained seated on her desk. “Smith offered me a job,” he said slowly. “I named my price, and he seems to have met it. I think that constitutes a contract.”
“What sort of a job?”
“Quiet. First I’ll have to figure out how to get the money to a bank. Then I’ll cancel the Tahiti trip, and see a lawyer—”
“You need a whole law firm. Internal Revenue—”
“I’m not worried about the taxes. I want to make a will. Smith said the job might take years, with extensive travel, so there’s no point in keeping the office open. It’s a shame.”
“What’s a shame?”
“I’ve never had to do anything that I liked less.”
“What do you have to do?”
“Schluppy,” Darzek said sadly, “I never thought it would come to this, but here it is. You’re fired.”
“Mr. Darzek!”
“I’ll pay you two years’ salary in lieu of a month’s notice. Make that five years. No objections, now—it won’t scratch the surface of that million. You can set up your own detective agency. Or retire, and take my trip to Tahiti.”
Miss Schlupe blew a blast into her hankerchief. “I don’t want to retire,” she blubbered. “I want to work for you.”
“It’s nothing to cry about. There wouldn’t be anything for you to do if I kept you on.”
“I’m not crying about that.”
“Then why are you crying?”
“That’s the first time you ever called me Schluppy!”
Darzek picked up a box of money, hefted it thoughtfully, and put it down again. “I don’t like this at all. But I made a bad joke, and Smith called me on it, and I feel obligated to take his job. I wonder what it is.”
Chapter 3
There were seventeen new passengers in the ship’s day lounge and three in the night lounge, and none of them possessed a time segment’s worth of solvency. The captain alternately cursed the world of Quarm and all of its workings for inflicting these unwanted passengers on him and pleaded with those who occupied compartments to make room for them.
“They can’t live in the lounges,” the captain said.
“Why not?” asked Gul Brokefa, a wealthy trader whose family was occupying two compartments.
“Because,” the captain said gloomily, “the Quarmers say I have to take at least a hundred more passengers before they’ll release the ship. And if these stay in the lounges, where will I put a hundred more?”
Gul Brokefa rudely suggested a place, and the captain snarled back. There was a spirited exchange before Gul Brokefa flounced away disdainfully.
Biag-n, settled unobtrusively in a remote corner,
