He came out. The tray was on the night table. Eating, he continued to watch the progress of the starships.
The voice of the Oligarch now came from the TV. He fabricated plausible details about what they were discovering of Earth's early physical history.
Sweaty faces advanced and receded from the cameras. The three tubes continued into the Earth, going deeper by the minute.
A sense of urgency and desperation filled Herb. He must hurry to kill Bud. By noon the desert operation would be completed. Earth would be a mined planet. Destruction could then be accomplished by the flick of a switch.
He looked at his face in the mirror. Black stubble pricked his skin in a thousand places, and he ran his hand across his cheek. He shrugged and found his hat.
Until sunset, he told himself, he would have until sunset to accomplish his self-imposed assignment.
Bud, he thought (and revulsion mounted in him), is her brother, and she, his sister; and Frank, Frank is dead and forgotten and hidden somewhere, as soon will be now the Earth and all its beauty.
He was in the street. The sunshine was bright. He walked.
A gun, he thought, for a hand that is hungry for—and he thought: To cup the hand behind Norma's head, and stroke her hair, and look deeply into her eyes. He looked at his hands; strange, hungry hands, he thought. He felt them tighten against the metallic iciness of a gun....
"You can't," the man behind the counter said, "buy a pistol without a permit. You'll have to get a police permit before I can sell you a gun." His eyes shifted uneasily from Herb's face, and Herb thanked the man and started back toward the sunshine.