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. And, in this case, not by me."
"Odd indeed. Yet the owners of Golden Rule have offered a substantial
reward for your death. Or, to be precise, for delivering you alive or dead, with
no emphasis on keeping you alive-just your body, cobber, warm or cold. Should I
point out that, if I were your attorney, I would be ethically bound not to
exploit this opportunity?"
"Rabbi, I don't think you would anyhow; you're too much the old Loonie.
You're simply trying to chivvy me into hiring you. Mmm. I claim the Three Days."
"Three days, it is. Do you want skin receipts or will chits suffice?"
"Since I've lost the look of a Loonie, we had better have both."
"Very well. A crown or two for luck?"
The Reverend Ezra stamped our forearms with the date three months hence and
with his chop, using a waterproof ink visible only in black light, and showed
us, using his test lamp, that we were marked and now could legally breathe for
one quarter anywhere in L-City municipal pressure-and enjoy other concomitant
privileges such as passage through public cubic. I offered him three crowns over
what I had paid for air; he accepted two.
I thanked him and bade him good day; we went on down the tunnel, each
somewhat awkwardly burdened. Fifty meters farther along, the tunnel debouched
into a main corridor. We were about to exit, and I was checking my orientation,
deciding whether to go left or right, when I heard a whistle and a soprano
voice
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