In the elevator thus revealed the two men went down to a sub-basement. Along a dimly-lit corridor, through an elaborately locked steel door, and into a steel-lined room. Four inert bodies lay upon the floor.
Graves thrust a key into an orifice and a plate swung open, revealing a chute into which the bodies were dumped. The two retraced their steps to the manager’s office.
“Well, that’s all we can feed to the disintegrator.” Fairchild lit an Alsakanite cigarette and exhaled appreciatively.
“Why? Going soft on us?”
“No. The ice is getting too thin.”
“Whaddya mean, ‘thin’?” Graves demanded. “The Patrol inspectors are ours—all that count. Our records are fixed. Everything’s on the green.”
“That’s what you think,” the scientist sneered. “You’re supposed to be smart. Are you? Our accident rate is up three hundredths; industrial hazard rate and employee turnover about three and a half; and the Narcotics Division alone knows how much we have upped total bootleg sales. Those figures are all in the Patrol’s books. How can you give such facts the brush-off?”
“We don’t have to.” Graves laughed comfortably. “Even a half of one percent wouldn’t excite suspicion. Our distribution is so uniform throughout the galaxy that they can’t center it. They can’t possibly trace anything back to us. Besides, with our lily-white reputation, other firms would get knocked off in time to give us plenty of warning. Lutzenschiffer’s, for instance, is putting out Heroin by the ton.”
“So what?” Fairchild remained entirely unconvinced. “Nobody else is putting out what comes out of cave two seventeen—demand and price prove that. What you don’t seem to get, Graves, is that some of those damned Lensmen have brains. Suppose they decide to put a couple of Lensmen onto this job—then what? The minute anybody runs a rigid statistical analysis on us, we’re done for.”
“Um . . . m.” This was a distinctly disquieting thought, in view of the impossibility of concealing anything from a Lensman who was really on the prowl. “That wouldn’t be so good. What would you do?”