Down in the great cave that Old Serpent, a two-legged one among whose names were "Snake-Oil Sam," spoke to his underlings:
"It'll take them fourteen days to get back with the settlers. We'll have time to overhaul the blasters. We haven't had any well-equipped settlers for six weeks. It used to be we'd hardly have time to strip and slaughter and stow before there was another batch to take care of."
"I think you'd better write me some new lines," said Adam. "I feel like a goof saying those same ones to each bunch."
"You are a goof, and therefore perfect for the part. I was in show business long enough to know never to change a line too soon. I did change Adam and Eve to Ha-Adamah and Hawwah, and the apple to the pomegranate. People aren't becoming any smarter—but they are becoming better researched, and they insist on authenticity.
"This is still a perfect come-on here. There is something in human nature that cannot resist the idea of a Perfect Paradise. Folks will whoop and holler to their neighbors to come in droves to spoil and mar it. It isn't greed or the desire for new land so much—though that is strong too. Mainly it is the feverish passion to befoul and poison what is unspoiled. Fortunately I am sagacious enough to take advantage of this trait. And when you start to farm a new world on a shoestring you have to acquire your equipment as you can."
He looked proudly around at the great cave with its mountains and tiers of materials, heavy machinery of all sorts, titanic crates of foodstuff space-sealed; wheeled, tracked, propped, vaned and jetted vehicles; and power packs to run a world.
He looked at the three dozen space ships stripped and stacked, and at the rather large pile of bone-meal in one corner.
"We will have to have another lion," said Eve. "Bowser is getting old, and Marie-Yvette abuses him and gnaws his toes. And we do have to have a big-maned lion to lie down with the lamb."
"I know it, Eve. The lion is a very important prop. Maybe one of the crackpot settlers will bring a new lion."