by Robert Adams
Arsen sighed. "Don't count on it, Papa, and don't try holding your breath till they lock Uncle Boghos up, either. Medical folks don't do any kind of a decent job policing their own ranks, you know—that's why there're so damn many shitty, half-ass, inept or alcoholic or dope-addict doctors still crippling or killing their trusting patients. Besides, I heard the new thing is to just let nuts out of institutions, anyway, turn them all loose to be as nutty as they want to be with nobody to control them or take care of them. Don't ask me why, and don't ask the psychiatrists why, either—the reasons they all give make you wonder why they aren't locked up themselves."
"But, Papa, back to what I came for tonight. How much will about twenty-eight pounds of silver, about nine ounces of platinum, and maybe twice that much titanium cost, do you think? There's some other stuff I'll need, too, but I think most of it if not all of it is in your big lab at the complex."
"Hell, Arsen," declared Kogh, "I don't know anything about stuff like that. Last I heard, silver—bulk silver—was selling for five, six dollars a ounce, but it's going up with all this Ayrab-oil shit going on. I think platinum is a little more than gold a ounce, but I don't know and I doubt I could get firm figures before Monday morning, either. Titanium I don't know shit about. Why?"
"I need to make something else in your lab, Papa," replied Arsen. "The carrier has told me how to make it and what I'll be needing to make it and how much of what it'll take to make it. The gold I've got, but the rest of it you'll have to get for me, here."
"Look, you see if you can get the stuff for me. I'll write out a list and leave it with you. Then I'll take to projecting the carrier directly into your private office at the complex every night until I find you there with the stuff. Okay? But Papa, I need to get that stuff and build the device soon—the sooner the better. A whole lot of things for a whole hell of a lot of folks depends on getting it finished and operative, soon. You couldn't begin to imagine just how much is riding on it. And not just in this world, either."