"But let me tell you, Bruce, let me grind it home into you--Sid and Kaby and Mark will bear me out in this, as officers of equivalent rank--that the Spider line of command stretches into and through this Place just as surely as the word of _der Führer_ rules Chicago. And as I shouldn't have to emphasize to you, Bruce, the Spiders have punishments that would make my countrymen in Belsen and Buchenwald--well, pale a little. So while there is still a shadow of justification for our interpreting your remarks as utterly tasteless clowning--"
"Babble on," Bruce said, giving him a loose downward wave of his hand without looking. "I made you people a proposal." He paused. "How do you stand, Sidney Lessingham?"
Then I felt my legs getting weak, because Sid didn't answer right away. The old boy swallowed and started to look around at the rest of us. Then the feeling of reality clamping down got something awful, because he didn't look around, but straightened his back a little. Just then, Mark cut in fast.
"It grieves me, Bruce, but I think you are possessed. Erich, he must be confined."
Kaby nodded, almost absently. "Confine or kill the coward, whichever is easier, whip the woman, and let's get on to the Egyptian battle."
"Indeed, yes," Mark said. "I died in it. But now perhaps no longer."
Bruce was smiling, barely, and his eyes were moving and fixing. "You, Ilhilihis?"
Illy's squeak box had never sounded mechanical to me before, but it did as he answered, "I'm a lot deeper into borrowed time than the rest of you, tra-la-la, but Papa still loves living. Include me very much out, Brucie."
Beside me, Maud said flatly, "Do you think I'm a fool?" Beyond her, I saw Lili and I thought, "My God, I might look as proud if I were in her shoes, but I sure as hell wouldn't look as confident."
Bruce's eyes hadn't quite come to Beau when the gambler spoke up. "I have no cause to like you, sir, rather the opposite. But this Place has come to bore me more than Boston and I have always found it difficult to resist a long shot. A very long one, I fear. I am with you, sir."
There was a pain in my chest and a roaring in my ears and through it I heard Sevensee grunting, "--sicka these lousy Spiders. Deal me in."