MacLeod went around the table, behind Kato Sugihara and Farida Khouroglu and Heym ben-Hillel, and stood looking down at the man he had killed. He dropped the automatic within a few inches of the dead renegade"s outstretched hand, then turned to face the others.
"I regret," he addressed them, his voice and face blank of expression, "to announce that our distinguished colleague, Dr. Adam Lowiewski, has committed suicide by shooting, after a nervous collapse resulting from overwork."
Sir Neville Lawton looked critically at the motionless figure on the floor.
"I"m afraid we"ll have trouble making that stick, Dunc," he said. "You shot him at about five yards; there isn"t a powder mark on him."
"Oh, sorry; I forgot." MacLeod"s voice was mockingly contrite. "It was Dr. Lowiewski"s expressed wish that his remains be cremated as soon after death as possible, and that funeral services be held over his ashes. The big electric furnace in the metallurgical lab will do, I think."
"But ... but there"ll be all sorts of formalities--" the Englishman protested.
"Now you forget. Our contract," MacLeod reminded him. "We stand upon our contractual immunity: we certainly won"t allow any stupid bureaucratic interference with our deceased colleague"s wishes. We have a regular M.D. on our payroll, in case anybody has to have a death certificate to keep him happy, but beyond that--" He shrugged.
"It burns me up, though!" Suzanne Maillard cried. "After the s.p.a.ceship is built, and the Moon is annexed to the Western Union, there will be publicity, and people will eulogize this species of an Iscariot!"
Heym ben-Hillel, who had been staring at MacLeod in shocked unbelief, roused himself.
"Well, why not? Isn"t the creator of the Lowiewski function transformations and the rules of inverse probabilities worthy of eulogy?" He turned to MacLeod. "I couldn"t have done what you did, but maybe it was for the best. The traitor is dead; the mathematician will live forever."
"You miss the whole point," MacLeod said. "Both of you. It wasn"t a question of revenge, like gangsters b.u.mping off a double-crosser. And it wasn"t a question of whitewashing Lowiewski for posterity. We are the MacLeod Research Team. We owe no permanent allegiance to, nor acknowledge the authority of, any national sovereignty or any combination of nations. We deal with national governments as with equals. In consequence, we must make and enforce our own laws.
"You must understand that we enjoy this status only on sufferance. The nations of the world tolerate the Free Scientists only because they need us, and because they know they can trust us. Now, no responsible government official is going to be deceived for a moment by this suicide story we"ve confected. It will be fully understood that Lowiewski was a traitor, and that we found him out and put him to death. And, as a corollary, it will be understood that this Team, as a Team, is fully trustworthy, and that when any individual Team member is found to be untrustworthy, he will be dealt with promptly and without public scandal. In other words, it will be understood, from this time on, that the MacLeod Team is worthy of the status it enjoys and the responsibilities concomitant with it."