Birds of a Feather, Robert Silverberg [christmas read aloud TXT] 📗

in the person of this Ildwar Gorb-Mike Higgins. He could think for himself. He knew a good racket when he saw one. We were birds of a feather, Higgins and I. I doubted if there was room for both of us in this outfit.

I sent for him just before we were about to make Earthfall, offered him a few slugs of brandy before I got to the point. "Mike, I've watched the way you handled the exhibits on the way back here."

"The other exhibits," he pointed out. "I'm one of them, not a staff man."

"Your Wazzenazzian status is just a fiction cooked up to get you past the immigration authorities, Mike. But I've got a proposition for you."

"Propose away."

"I'm getting a little too old for this starcombing routine," I said. "Up to now, I've been doing my own recruiting, but only because I couldn't trust anyone else to do the job. I think you could handle it, though." I stubbed out my cigarette and lit another. "Tell you what, Mike—I'll rip up your contract as an exhibit, and I'll give you another one as a staffman, paying twice as much. Your job will be to roam the planets finding new material for us. How about it?"

I had the new contract all drawn up. I pushed it toward him, but he put his hand down over mine and smiled amiably as he said, "No go."

"No? Not even for twice the pay?"

"I've done my own share of roaming," he said. "Don't offer me more money. I just want to settle down on Earth, Jim. I don't care about the cash. Honest."

It was very touching, and also very phony, but there was nothing I could do. I couldn't get rid of him that way. I had to bring him to Earth.

The immigration officials argued about his papers, but he'd had the things so cleverly faked that there was no way of proving he wasn't from Wazzenazz XIII. We set him up in a key spot of the building.

The Kallerian, Heraal, is one of our top attractions now. Every day at two in the afternoon, he commits ritual suicide, and soon afterward rises from death to the accompaniment of a trumpet fanfare. The four other Kallerians we had before are wildly jealous of the crowds he draws, but they're just not trained to do his act.

But the unquestioned number one attraction here is confidence man Mike Higgins. He's billed as the only absolutely human life-form from an extraterrestrial planet, and though we've had our share of debunking, it has only increased business.

Funny that the biggest draw at a zoo like ours should be a home-grown Earthman, but that's show business.

A couple of weeks after we got back, Mike added a new wrinkle to the act. He turned up with a blonde showgirl named Marie, and now we have a Woman from Wazzenazz too. It's more fun for Mike that way. And downright clever.

He's too clever, in fact. Like I said, I appreciate a good confidence man, the way some people appreciate fine wine. But I wish I had left Ildwar Gorb back on Ghryne, instead of signing him up with us.

Yesterday he stopped by at my office after we had closed down for the day. He was wearing that pleasant smile he always wears when he's up to something.

He accepted a drink, as usual, and then he said, "Jim, I was talking to Lawrence R. Fitzgerald yesterday."

"The little Regulan? The green basketball?"

"That's the one. He tells me he's only getting $50 a week. And a lot of the other boys here are drawing pretty low pay too."

My stomach gave a warning twinge. "Mike, if you're looking for a raise, I've told you time and again you're worth it to me. How about twenty a week?"

He held up one hand. "I'm not angling for a raise for me, Jim."

"What then?"

He smiled beatifically. "The boys and I held a little meeting yesterday evening, and we—ah—formed a union, with me as leader. I'd like to discuss the idea of a general wage increase for every one of the exhibits here."

"Higgins, you blackmailer, how can I afford—"

"Easy," he said. "You'd hate to lose a few weeks' gross, wouldn't you?"

"You mean you'd call a strike?"

He shrugged. "If you leave me no choice, how else can I protect my members' interests?"

After about half an hour of haggling, he sweated me into an across-the-board increase for the entire mob, with a distinct hint of further raises to come. But he also casually let me know the price he's asking to call off the hounds. He wants a partnership in the Institute; a share in the receipts.

If he gets that, it makes him a member of management, and he'll have to quit as union leader. That way I won't have him to contend with as a negotiator.

But I will have him firmly embedded in the organization, and once he gets his foot in the door, he won't be satisfied until he's on top—which means when I'm out.

But I'm not licked yet! Not after a full lifetime of conniving and swindling! I've been over and over the angles and there's one thing you can always count on—a trickster will always outsmart himself if you give him the chance. I did it with Higgins. Now he's done it with me.

He'll be back here in half an hour to find out whether he gets his partnership or not. Well, he'll get his answer. I'm going to affirm, as per the escape clause in the standard exhibit contract he signed, that he is no longer of scientific value, and the Feds will pick him up and deport him to his home world.

That leaves him two equally nasty choices.

Those fake documents of his were good enough to get him admitted to Earth as a legitimate alien. How the World Police get him back there is their headache—and his.

If he admits the papers were phony, the only way he'll get out of prison will be when it collapses of old age.

So I'll give him a third choice: He can sign an undated confession, which I will keep in my safe, as guarantee against future finagling.

I don't expect to be around forever, you see, though, with that little secret I picked up on Rimbaud II, it'll be a good long time, not even barring accidents, and I've been wondering whom to leave the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science to. Higgins will make a fine successor.

Oh, one more thing he will have to sign. It remains the Corrigan Institute as long as the place is in business.

Try to outcon me, will he?

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Birds of a Feather, by Robert Silverberg