"Your dotard king couldn't rule without Zaspar Makann, and Makann couldn't rule without me, and neither can you," he said. "Shoot this gang of turncoats, and I'll rule Marduk for you." He looked at Trask again. "Who are you?" he demanded. "I don't know you."
Trask slipped the pistol from his holster, thumbing off the safety.
"I am Lucas Trask. You've heard that name before," he said. "Stand away from behind him, you people."
"Oh, yes; the poor fool who thought he was going to marry Elaine Karvall. Well, you won't, Lord Trask of Traskon. She loves me, not you. She's waiting for me now, on Gram...."
Trask shot him through the head. Dunnan's eyes widened in momentary incredulity; then his knees gave way, and he fell forward on his face. Trask thumbed on the safety and holstered the pistol, and looked at the body on the concrete.
It hadn't made the least difference. It had been like shooting a snake, or one of the nasty scorpion-things that infested the old buildings in Rivington. Just no more Andray Dunnan.
"Take that carrion and stuff it in a mass-energy converter," he said. "And I don't want anybody to mention the name of Andray Dunnan to me again."
I can think of several more people besides Osama bin Laden to shoot in the head and thereby make the world a better place for the rest of us. As another science fiction writer, H.G. Wells, said about a century ago: "People who cannot live happily and freely in the world without spoiling the lives of others are better out of it."
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