“What about the other package?” I asked him then.
“Insurance,” he said. “Come out on the setback.”
He placed the last package on the mosaic tile of the terrace, untied its string, flipped open the edge of the Benson wrapping and jumped back.
It was an NYC police helicopter.
We potrayed it back from the Sands. Suitably wrapped, of course.
That was a month ago. Most of it never came out in the papers. Nothing of Benson’s invention. C. I. thought it should be squelched, at least until Benson and the boys get back from Mars.
Which would be the end except for the packages. Yes, Benson left a gross of them with me and I’ve been mailing them one a day to the leaders of the opposition party. I don’t truly know what’s in them, of course. But it’s very curious that the day before the torchship left exactly one hundred and forty-four cylinders of hydrogen sulphide were missing from quartermaster stores. Coincidentally one of my C. I. friends tells me Benson had him rig up a gross of automatic releases for gas cylinders.
Adding it up, it could be a good lesson for politicians to keep their noses out of science.