"Exactly. Pull in beside the devil. I'm going to speak him."
The _Friar Bacon_ rolled and wallowed as the message was flashed to
the engine room. Larry braced himself against the forward lurch of
his body. The ship owner stood with legs spread wide, fists on hips,
watching the _Martian_ shoot ahead, seemingly, until it was nearly
even with them. Its stern jets, firing pale columns of flame, did not
slacken.
"Send up a flare," ordered Carlyle. "I'm going to the air-lock. And by
the way, tell Murphy to cut his ship loose right now."
"Yes, sir." The bridge door clanged shut and Larry sprang to his
round of duties, sending up a purple flare--"we wish to speak you"
signal--relaying the message to Murphy to drop away in the scout ship
with his two-man crew, swinging the ship over until the _Martian_ was
so close they could see the faces at the ports.
The purple answering flare went up, and Larry moved to maneuver the
ship alongside, so that air-lock was to air-lock. The other pilot was
an expert, handling his ship like a toy in the hands of a giant. The
shock was almost imperceptible.
Larry left the bridge just after he saw Murphy, Stoller, and Cass
silently pull away, keeping the tiny scout in the umbra of the _Friar
Bacon_, hidden from Brand Haggard's eyes.
He found Carlyle waiting for him. Together they closed themselves
into the tube. The outer end was now locked firmly against the glass
door of the _Martian's_ air-lock. Forms shifted eerily behind the
double-thickness glass. At a tap on the glass, Carlyle swung his own
window back. The other ship's master did the same.
Then, suddenly, they were standing face to face, Haggard and Thaddeus
Carlyle, Larry and the captain of the other craft.
Carlyle was not one to spar for openings.
"Let's have an understanding right now, Haggard," he snapped. "You've
cut yourself in on this deal but you'll play it according to the rules.
Make one misstep and it's war to the last man. Is that clear?"
Haggard chuckled. "I think I get it," he said. "Well, it's okay by
me, mister. I'll work this section and you work the other side of the
field."
"You will like hell," barked Carlyle. "I've got a ship in the field
already. That, according to the Universal Salvage Code, gives me prior
rights. Find yourself another playground."
Larry watched the other ship-man's eyes dwindle to steely pin-points,
but still he kept a grin on his wide mouth. Haggard was a powerfully
built Swede, one of those laughing, blond-headed men who seem a
throwback to the days when giants fought with seventy-pound broadswords
and wore chain mail. His savagery belonged to another era, too. Men who
had shipped with him never did so again, and thanked their stars they
were still alive and more or less sane.
"All right, Carlyle," he chuckled, at last. "Round one is yours. You
keep your boys toeing the mark and I'll try to do the same." His eyes
dropped to Larry's face. "Got your course mapped out?"
Larry handed his captain the chart he had brought with him, and the
man glanced at it with shrewd, faded blue eyes. He was a hard-case
old-timer, leathery of skin, short coupled, and tough as oak. But he
knew his business, and handed the sheet back directly.
"Fair enough," he gruffed. "That gives us room enough to turn around
in."
"I guess we're agreed, then," Thaddeus Carlyle said curtly, extending a
broad palm to Haggard. "Good luck."
They shook hands, and once more the glass ports were rolled back in
place, the locks opened, and the ships drew apart.
"The damned liar," Carlyle said darkly, watching the _Martian_ arch
itself high above them and surge away. "We'll have trouble with him
before two watches are down on the log."