Larry: "All I want to add is that I know the Judge would say okay. He really wants to help. And I really think he could carry it off."
Glen: "A point well taken. What does anybody else think?"
Ralph: "I'll go either way, because I don't know the gentleman. But I don't think we should throw the guy out just because he's old. After all, look who's in charge of this place - an old lady who's well over a hundred."
Glen: "Another point well taken."
Stu: "You sound like a tennis ref, baldy."
Sue: "Listen, Larry. What if he fools the dark man and then drops dead of a heart attack while he's busting his hump to get back here?"
Stu: "That could happen to just about anyone. Or an accident."
Sue: "I agree... but with an old man, the odds go way up."
Larry: "That's true, but you don't know the Judge, Sue. If you did, you'd see that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages. He's really smart. Defense rests."
Stu: "I think Larry's right. It's the sort of thing Flagg might not expect. I second the motion. Those in favor?"
Committee voted aye, 7-0.
Sue: "Well, I went along with yours, Larry - maybe you'll go along with mine."
Larry: "Yeah, this is politics, all right. note 8 Who is it?"
Sue: "Dayna."
Ralph: "Dayna who?"
Sue: "Dayna Jurgens. She's got more guts than any woman I ever knew. Of course, I know she isn't seventy, but I think if we put the idea to her, she'd go along."
Fran: "Yes - if we really have to do this, I think she'd be good. I second the nomination."
Stu: "Okay - it's been moved and seconded that we ask Dayna Jurgens along for the ride. Those in favor?"
Committee voted aye, 7-0.
Glen: "Okay - who's number three?"
Nick (read by Ralph): "If Fran disliked Larry's, I'm afraid she's really going to dislike mine. I nominate - "
Ralph: "Nick, you're crazy! You don't mean it!"
Stu: "Come on, Ralph, just read it."
Ralph: "Well... it says here he wants to nominate... Tom Cullen."
Uproar from the committee.
Stu: "Okay. Nick has the floor. He's been writin like a bastard, so you better read it, Ralph."
Nick: "First of all, I know Tom just as well as Larry knows the Judge, and probably better. He loves Mother Abagail. He'd do anything for her, including roasting over a slow fire. I really mean that - no hype. He'd set himself on fire for her, if she asked him to."
Fran: "Oh, Nick, nobody's arguing that, but Tom is - "
Stu: "Let it go, Fran - Nick's got the floor."
Nick: "My second point is the same one Larry made about the Judge. The Adversary is not going to expect us to send a retarded person as a spy. Your combined reactions to the idea are maybe the best argument in favor of the idea.
"My third - and last - point is that, while Tom may be retarded, he is not a halfwit. He saved my life once when a tornado came, and he reacted much faster than anyone else I know would have done. Tom is childish, but even a child can learn to do certain things if he is drilled and taught and then drilled some more. I see no problem at all in giving Tom a very simple story to memorize. In the end, they'll likely assume that we sent him away because - "
Sue: "Because we didn't want him polluting our gene-pool? Say, that's good."
Nick: " - because he is retarded. He can even say he's mad at the people who sent him away and would like to get back at them. The one imperative which would have to be drilled into him would be to never change his story, no matter what."
Fran: "Oh, no, I can't believe - "
Stu: "Come on, Nick has the floor. Let's keep it orderly."
Fran: "Yes - I'm sorry."
Nick: "Some of you may feel that, because Tom is retarded, it would be easier to shake him from his story than it would be someone with a wider intelligence, but - "
Larry: "Yeah."
Nick: " - but actually, the reverse is true. If I tell Tom he simply must stick to the story I give him, stick to it no matter what, he will. A so-called normal person could only stand up to so many hours of water torture or so many electric shocks or splinters under the fingernails - "
Fran: "It wouldn't come to that, would it? Would it? I mean, nobody really thinks it would come to that, do they?"
Nick: " - before saying, 'Okay, I give up. I'll tell you what I know.' Tom simply won't do that. If he goes over his story enough times, he won't just have it by heart; he'll come to almost believe it is true. Nobody will be able to shake him on it. I just want to make it clear that I think, in a number of ways, Tom's retardation is actually a plus in a mission like this. 'Mission' sounds like a pretentious word, but that's just what it is."
Stu: "Is that it, Ralph?"
Ralph: "There's a little more."
Sue: "If he actually starts to live his cover story, Nick, how in the hell will he know when it's time to come back?"
Ralph: "Pardon me, ma'am, but it looks like that's what some of this is about."