This time the locked eyes held longer; one pair smoldering, the other gold-flecked, tawny ice.
"Why, indeed?" Herkimer smiled thinly. "We do not advertise it, however."
"Outside, I wouldn't, either; but here I'm laying my cards flat on the table."
"I see. You will do, Olmstead, if you live. There's a test, you know."
"They told me there would be."
"Well, aren't you curious to know what it is?"
"Not particularly. You passed it, didn't you?"
"What do you mean by that crack?" Herkimer leaped to his feet; his eyes, smoldering before, now ablaze.
"Exactly what I said, no more and no less. You may read into it anything you please." Samms' voice was as cold as were his eyes. "You picked me out because of what I am. Did you think that moving upstairs would make a boot-licker out of me?"
"Not at all." Herkimer sat down and took from a drawer two small, transparent, vaguely capsule-like tubes, each containing a few particles of purple dust. "You know what this is?"