"Me? I didn't do anything." Morgan did a good imitation of a shark trying to look innocent. "I'll admit that I looped a very fine filament of the stuff across the doorway a few times, so that if anyone tried to enter my room illegally I would be warned." He didn't bother to add that a pressure-sensitive device had released and reeled in the filament after it had done its work. "It doesn't need to be nearly as tough and heavy to cut through soft stuff like ... er ... say, a beefsteak, as it does to cut through steel. It's as fine as cobweb almost invisible. Won't the World Welfare State have fun when that stuff gets into the hands of its happy, crime-free populace?"
Edway Tarnhorst became suddenly alert. "What?"
"Yes. Think of the fun they'll have, all those lovely slobs who get their basic subsistence and their dignity and their honor as a free gift from the State. The kids, especially. They'll love it. It's so fine it can be hidden inside an ordinary thread—or woven into the hair—or...." He spread his hands. "A million places."
Fergus was gaping. Tarnhorst was concentrating on Morgan's words.
"And there's no possible way to leave fingerprints on anything that fine," Morgan continued. "You just hook it around a couple of nails or screws, across an open doorway or an alleyway—and wait."
"We wouldn't let it get into the people's hands," Tarnhorst said.
"You couldn't stop it," Morgan said flatly. "Manufacture the stuff and eventually one of the workers in the plant will figure out a way to steal some of it."
"Guards—" Fergus said faintly.
"Pfui. But even you had a perfect guard system, I think I can guarantee that some of it would get into the hands of the—common people. Unless you want to cut off all imports from the Belt."
Tarnhorst's voice hardened. "You mean you'd deliberately—"