Mission Earth 06 - Death Quest by L. Ron Hubbard

Author:L. Ron Hubbard [Hubbard, L. Ron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781592125920
Publisher: Galaxy Press, LLC
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

PART FORTY-SEVEN

Chapter 3

I went over my basic outline. Apparently, I was a little bit out of sequence. If one is going to attack, one must have something to attack with. It is no good, I discovered, to do a plan to use a tank and then have no tank to gather. So I had better pay some attention to “4. GATHER WEAPONS BEFORE YOU ATTACK.”

All right, what weapons could I gather? I looked around. I didn’t have a tank. This was going to require real brains.

My eye happened to land on an old, decayed scrap of newspaper some cockroaches were towing possessively across the floor. I took it away from them. It said “. . .’S MORALITY IN QUESTION.”

It was an omen.

MORALITY!

I well knew Voltar customs were different. The tremendous life expectancy there meant that one had to be pretty sure who he or she was marrying before taking the plunge: otherwise one could be stuck with an unsuitable partner for a century and a half. So it was quite usual for a man and woman to live together for anything up to two years before tying the final knot. The only way you could get a “divorce” in the Confederacy was by finding the other partner guilty of bigamy or adultery and getting him executed, as the penalty for these was death. So marriage was a totally fatal step.

But Earth customs, I knew, were quite different. One was expected to take the plunge without any data at all on the other person. They frowned heavily at loose living, no matter how much they practiced it.

It was a weapon.

Instantly, I shook the cockroaches out of my clothes, dressed and rushed to 42 Mess Street.

Madison was sitting at his desk. His sincere and earnest face was somewhat overcast with cloud. I realized I had arrived in the nick of time.

“How is it going?” I said.

“Smith,” said Madison gloomily, “we’re not getting front page the way we should. The Whiz Kid went into hiding in Kansas. It was a mistake.”

“What’s this fixation on Kansas?” I said.

“That’s Jesse James country. We’re still following the Jesse James image pattern, of course.”

“What’s the state of morality in Kansas?” I said.

“Morality? That is the Bible Belt. Bunch of hypocrites. Very hot on morality.”

“Good,” I said. “Now open your ears, Madison. The Whiz Kid is leading an immoral life. He is living with a woman to whom he is not married!”

Madison looked at me and blinked. Then he cupped his chin upon a palm and thought. Suddenly he smiled like the sun coming through the clouds on a stormy day. “I think you may have an idea there, Smith. Not very pro. Not polished, of course. But it is definitely a germ.”

I didn’t want to hear any more about germs. I left quickly.

I went back to the wino hotel. I am sure any self-respecting spider gloats when he has spun a web to trap flies coming his way. I turned my viewers on.

For some time I only got a flare on Heller’s screen.

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