"Yes, the name's Scatterday," he said. "And duraplast's considerably harder than flesh."
Everybody knew that Jonas Scatterday had lost his right arm from squirt gun corrosive while standing off a raid on an eastern bugtown.
The manager nursed his hand. His puffy little white face was venomous. He said, "We could have you in court for using a bogus tape of introduction to try to sneak in and agitate among our bugs. But since you've so conveniently put yourself in our hands, I don't believe it will be necessary to call in the law."
Scat laughed. "Better check first with Kemmerdygn's secretarial offices. With the situation as it is, and all those government contracts that you're having to hump yourselves to fulfill, I don't think they'd want anything to happen that would raise a stink. If Jonas Scatterday should disappear at Ten Mile, I'm afraid the government—regretfully of course—would have to take a hand."
As he walked out, the manager acted as if he were about to give the bug-bosses an order. But he didn't.
Scat parked the utility car in front of the Newsbeam. A rock clunked against the duraplast of the tail; he didn't turn around. There were more signs soaped on the glastic, but a chunky little man with a great shock of red hair was erasing them. Scat called "Hi, Len," and walked in.
Donnolan was waiting for him with a couple of seedy-looking policemen. He jumped up and waved a spool under Scat's nose. "Put that on your pocket projector!" he chortled triumphantly. "It's an injunction restraining you from publishing the Newsbeam, because fraud was employed in its purchase."
Scat pushed past him, remarking casually, "The regional court has attested the legality of the sale and has set aside any and all injunctions against the present ownership of the Newsbeam based on those grounds. The whole world doesn't take orders from Kemmerdygn—quite!"
The light of triumph in Donnolan's watery blue eyes flickered. "The regional court can't set aside an injunction that hasn't even been issued yet," he protested; "it's not legal!"