"Uh-huh. Ice-cold. Zero degrees Centigrade."
"I will join you, in that case. Thanks."
Olmstead opened a frost-lined compartment; took out two half-liter bottles; placed them and his open lunch-box invitingly on the low stone wall.
"Hm ... m ... m. Quite a zipper you got there, mister." The trooper gazed admiringly at the luxurious, two-wheeled monster; listened appreciatively to its almost inaudible hum. "I've heard about those new supers, but that is the first one I ever saw. Nice. All the comforts of home, eh?"
"Just about. Sure you won't help me clean up on those sandwiches, before they get stale?"
Seated on the wall, the two men ate and talked. If that trooper had known what was in the box beside his leg he probably would have fallen over backward; but how was he even to suspect? There was nothing crass or rough or coarse about any of the work of any of Boskone's high-level operators.
Olmstead drove on to the lake and took up his reservation at the ramshackle hotel. He slept, and bright and early the next morning he was up and fishing—and this part of the performance he really enjoyed. He knew his stuff and the fish were there; big, wary, and game. He loved it.
At noon he ate, and quite openly and brazenly consigned the "empty" box to the watery deep. Even if he had not had so many fish to carry, he was not the type to lug a cheap lunch-box back to town. He fished joyously all afternoon, without getting quite the limit, and as the sun grazed the horizon he started his putt-putt and skimmed back to the dock.
The thing hadn't sent out any radiation yet, Northrop informed him tensely, but it certainly would, and when it did they'd be ready. There were Lensmen and Patrolmen all over the place, thicker than hair on a dog.
And George Olmstead, sighing wearily and yet blissfully anticipatory of one more day of enthralling sport, gathered up his equipment and his fish and strolled toward the hotel.