Jane (@penguinchris), it’s becoming clear that Bubba conspired against us with Toecutter. That dirty little scout!
There are more names coming up. Washington? Blazer? Could they be in on this? Could there still be another of Toecutter’s collaborators in our convoy?
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We all go to hell in our own way, Bubba. I would not rob you of your dignity by throwing myself in your path at the last. In that moment, I believed my loyal friend and companion already dead… or wishing to be so.
I think in this instance it may be you who already possess something far more valuable than revenge, though you do not yet realize it. I must be allowed to inspect that which you fight so very hard to protect. Is that so much to ask? How much damage could I possibly cause to your convoy, especially with you there to mark my every move?
I need only safe passage in and out. The entire thing should take fewer than ten minutes. If I am wrong about what you’re taking north, then we can go our separate ways if you like, with no more harm befalling you or your new friends than that which falls with the rain. If I am right, however, I truly believe you’ll want to be with me. The odds against your convoy, at that point, will be well-nigh insurmountable.
Because my friends and I can always inspect the cargo at our leisure… once you and your friends have ceased to be in the way. If that’s the way you’d prefer to play it.
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Hello, Washington.
I think you know who I am. I have a proposition for you.
I know you don’t have a particularly high opinion of me. Certainly Blazer has poisoned the well for me among all his compatriots, and he would have you believe I’m some kind of sociopath who would leave someone strung up and naked to perish in the elements, just so I could drive away with five of his gallons of gasoline. There was a time when such an opinion of me would not have been far from the truth. But you know as well as I do that much has changed in recent times.
When it comes down to it, I confess I feel your talents and potential are being wasted in Cougar’s company as well. She uses you and your blind loyalty to further her insane ambitions, babysitting that ridiculous rocket and paying you in stamped tin to haul her payload out to the desert… and for what? So you can go with her on her doomed trip to another planet? Where all of you would die a cold, lonely, unpleasant death thirty-seven million miles from home, assuming you don’t simply die on the way?
You’re smarter than that. And, I think, more humane. You see, people like you and me, we’re not the only people left on this planet. I put to you that there are a great many people, thousands, maybe millions, who don’t deserve to be left behind to expire on a dying planet. There are still children here.
But what can we do for all those unfortunates? Well, that’s a valid question. And one for which I believe I have an answer.
The Marion crawler-transporter underneath the rocket. Cougar probably hasn’t told you, but that crawler bears a secret payload far more important to the survival of the human race than any mere rocket ship. That secret could, if used properly by the right people, save our home planet from ultimate destruction. Nobody would need to leave. Everything could be fixed right here, and the planet restored to its former good health of a century ago.
You may think me mad, but remember: I am not the one contemplating moving away to the Red Planet, to live among the little green men.
Help me to infiltrate the crawler, and extract the power source. Nobody need get hurt. Nobody need know.
Think of the children.
I await your confidential reply.
–Toecutter
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