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.""Congratulations.What did you have to do to rate this?""I've promised to marry his daughter, Sibao."Simon felt as if he had passed beyond the capacity for surprise.A softblanket of cotton wool was folding around his mind.Yet the other part of himkept talking."Do you mean that?""Don't be absurd.As soon as I know all I need to, I can do without both ofthem.""But suppose they resent that.""Let me tell you something.Voodoo is a very prac-tical kind of insurance.When a member is properly in-itiated, certain parts of a sacrifice and certainthings from his body go into a little urn called the pot de tête, and afterthat the vulnerable element of his soul stays in the urn, which stays in thehoumfort.""Just like a safe deposit.""And so, no one can lay an evil spell on him.""Unless they can get hold of his pot de tête.""So you see how easily I can destroy them if I act first."The Saint moved his head as if to shake and clear it.It was like trying toshake a ton weight."It's very good of you to tell me all this," he articulated mechanically."ButPage 92ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlwhat makes you so con-fidential?""I had to know how you'd respond to my idea when you knew it.Now you musttell me, truthfully.""I think it stinks.""Suppose you knew that I had creatures working for me, in a factory zombies,who'd give me back all the money they'd nominally have to earn, except thebare minimum required for food and lodging.What would you do?""Report it to some authority that could stop you.""That mightn't be so easy.A court that didn't believe in zombies couldn'tstop people voluntarily giving me money.""In that case," Simon answered deliberately, "I might just have to kill you."Netlord sighed heavily."I expected that too," he said."I only wanted to be sure.That's why I tooksteps in advance to be able to control you."The Saint had known it for some indefinite time.He was conscious of his bodysitting in a chair, but it did not seem to belong to him."You bastard," he said."So you managed to feed me some kind of dope.Butyou're really crazy if you think that'll help you."Theron Netlord put a hand in his coat pocket and took out a small automatic.He leveled it at the Saint's chest, resting his forearm on the table."It's very simple," he said calmly."I could kill you now, and easily accountfor your disappearance.But I like the idea of having you work for me.As azombie, you could retain many of your unusual abilities.So I could kill you,and, after I've learned a little more to-night, restore you to living death.But that would impair your usefulness in certain ways.So I'd rather applywhat I know already, if I can, and make you my creature without harming youphysically.""That's certainly considerate of you," Simon scoffed.He didn't know what unquenchable spark of defiance gave him the will to keepup the hopeless bluff.He seemed to have no contact with any muscles below hisneck.But as long as he didn't try to move, and fail, Netlord couldn't be sureof that."The drug is only to relax you," Netlord said."Now look at this."He dipped his left hand in the ashtray beside him, and quickly began drawing apattern with his fingertips on the white tablecloth a design of crisscrossdiagonal lines with other vertical lines rising through the diamonds theyformed, the verticals tipped with stars and curlicues, more than anything likethe picture of an ornate wrought-iron gate.And as he drew it he intoned in astrange chanting voice:"Par pouvoir St.-Jacques Majeur, Ogoun Badagris nèg Baguidi, Bago, OgounFeraille nèg fer, nèg feraille, nèg tagnifer nago, Ogoun batala, nèg, nègOssagne malor, os-sangne aquiquan, Ossangne agouelingui, Jupiter tonnerre, nègblabla, nèg oloncoun, nèg vanté-m pas fie'm.Aocher nago, aocher nago,aocher nago!"The voice had risen, ending on a kind of muted shout, and there was a glaze offanatic excitement and some-thing weirder than that in Netlord's dilated eyes.Simon wanted to laugh.He said: "What's that a se-quel to the Hutsut Song?" Orhe said: "I prefer "Twas brillig and the slithy toves.' " Or perhaps he saidneither, for the thoughts and the ludicrousness and the laugh were suddenlychilled arid empty, and it was like a hollowness and a darkness, like steppinginto noth-ingness and a quicksand opening under his feet, sucking him down,only it was the mind that went down, the lines of the wrought-iron gatepattern shimmering and blinding before his eyes, and a black horror such as hehad never known rising around him.Out of some untouched reserve of will power he wrung the strength to clear hisvision again for a mo-ment, and to shape words that he knew came out, eventhough they came through stiff clumsy lips."Then I'll have to kill you right now," he said.He tried to get up [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]