"By golly, you're right. I clean forgot about that, and Hanson was so
sore, he forgot it, too. That means we have to get those containers
back into the ship before we hit the tropo, or we're going to lose a
couple hundred bucks worth of equipment."
Biggs said meekly, "I--I'll be glad to go out and reclaim them, Sparks.
Can you fix it up with the skipper?"
"I'll try," I told him.
So the next day I told Hanson about it. The Captain yanked his lower
lip thoughtfully and agreed.
"Let him do it. That's better than giving him a free ride to Earth. And
maybe he'll slip into the rocket blasts?"
I passed the order on to Biggs; then went back to the radio room.
Joe Marlowe was calling me from Lunar Three. And what he had to say
drove all other thoughts from my mind. His message came right from
Corporation headquarters.
"Please report," it said, "exact amount and probable value of cargo.
Must have immediate reply."
I shot through an O.K. and passed the message up to the skipper. Then,
my curiosity aroused, I contacted Joe on our private conversation band
and asked him how come and why. He answered cautiously.
"Stock market taking nosedive in New York, Bert," he told me. "Corp.
bonds fading. Need this cargo badly."
Boy, there was bad news! It was a private message, but I figured the
Old Man ought to know it. So when he came in I passed it along. He
stared at me.
"Hell's bells, Sparks! Then in that case, I can't send _this_!"
"This" was the message he had intended to relay: It said, succinctly,
"Cargo ruined. Value zero."
"If you do," I told him, "we'll all be studying the want ads as soon
as we hit port. Stock markets are screwy. This can't be a bad panic,
or a fifty thousand buck cargo wouldn't be that important. But if the
Corporation's under suspicion, and they learn the _Saturn's_ cargo is
worthless--"
"What will we do then?"
"Stall," I suggested. "Maybe by the time we get in, the situation will
be cleared up."
So we framed a message that wouldn't upset the apple cart too soon. It
said, "Value of cargo estimated at Sun City spaceport as $50,000." And
_that_ was true enough....
* * * * *
Biggs, with his unerring faculty for selecting the wrong moment, chose
this time to come bouncing into my radio room. He had taken off his
_quartzite_ headpiece, but he was still wearing his bulger, and its
deflated folds hung around him like the poorly draped carcass of a
Venusian mammoth.