Silver droplets were pouring through the cellar hatch.
'That's not water!' screamed Pin, standing up.
The drops ran together, became a steady stream. It splashed oddly and mounded up under the hatch, but more liquid poured on top of it and spread out across the floor.
Pin and Tulip backed against the far wall.
'That's hot lead,' said Pin. They print their paper with it!'
'How --ing much is there going to be?'
'Down here? Can't end up more than a couple of inches, can it?'
At the other side of the cellar Otto's bench started to smoulder as the pool touched it.
'We need something to stand on,' said Pin. 'Just while it cools! It won't take long in this chill!'
'Yeah, but there's nothing here but us! We're --ing trapped*.'
Mr Pin put his hand over his eyes for a moment and took a deep breath of air that was already getting very warm in the soft silver rain. you'd better come back to the office with me,' said William. 'After all, you've been carrying him around while you've been selling the papers, haven't you?'
Too dangerous now,' said Deep Bone.
'Would it be less dangerous for another fifty dollars?' said William.
'Another fifty dollars?' said Arnold Sideways. That'll make it fifteen dollars!'
'A hundred dollars,' said William wearily. 'You do realize, don't you, that this is in the public interest?'
The crew craned their necks.
'Don't see anyone watching,' said Coffin Henry.
William stepped forward, quite accidentally knocking over his tea.
'Come on, then,' he said.
Mr Tulip was beginning to worry now. This was unusual. In the area of worry, he had tended to be the cause rather than the recipient. But Mr Pin was not acting right, and since Mr Pin was the man who did the thinking this was a matter of some concern. Mr Tulip was good at thinking in split-seconds, and when it came to art appreciation he could easily think in centuries, but he was not happy over middle distances. He needed Mr Pin for that.
But Mr Pin was talking to himself, and kept staring at shadows.
'We'll be heading off now?' said Mr Tulip, in the hope of directing matters. 'We've got the --ing payment with a --ing big bonus, no --ing point in hanging around?'
He was also worried about the way Mr Pin had acted with the --ing lawyer. It wasn't like him to point a weapon at someone and then not use it. The New Firm didn't go round threatening people. They were the threat. All that --ing stuff about 'letting you live for today'... that was amateur stuff.
'I said, are we heading--'
'What do you think happens to people when they die, Tulip?'
Mr Tulip was taken aback. 'What kind of --ing question is that? You &«owwhat happens!'
'Do I?'
'Certainly. Remember when we had to leave that guy in that --ing barn and it was a week before we got to bury him properly? Remember how his--'
'I don't mean bodies!'
'Ah. Religion stuff, then?'