"Your Company be damned!" roared Steichner, his neck thickening darkly.
"I control Iris, and I want no busybodies interfering with my--"
Biggs moved forward to the visor plate. When I say moved, I mean
exactly that. Even his best friend could never honestly describe his
peculiar means of locomotion as walking. His lanky frame lurches
along in a cross between a gallop and a trot ... a sort of a
bowlegged-pig-in-a-mirror-maze motion. He coughed embarrassedly, and
his liquescent larynx performed incredible involutions.
He said, "Er--this is most distressing, Governor Steichner. Of course
you realize that if we are not permitted to effect a landing we will be
obliged to report the matter to our employers? And they, in turn, will
naturally report it to the Space Patrol--"
* * * * *
Well, that did it. Steichner was playing a cautious, tricky game.
Trying to get by within the barest shadow of the Law. In order to
_bar_ the Space Patrol from his domain, he had to live up to certain
interplanetary regulations which forbade their marching in on him.
His eyes flashed dangerously, but he gave in.
"Very well, gentlemen. You may land. But remember! You have only ten
days in which to prove there are natural resources upon Iris which
you can develop commercially. If in that length of time you have not
succeeded, you must leave."
"We understand that," said Biggs. "Thank you, sir!"
And so, unwanted guests of a most unwilling host, we laid the _Saturn_
down in the lair of an acknowledged band of space-pirates. It was a
piece of daring which, had I had time to consider it, would have given
me more goose-pimples than a Siberian fan-dancer. But as it happened,
I was too busy to bother about it. For, as Biggs was maneuvering the
_Saturn_ to its cradle, my bug started chattering, and it was Joe
Marlowe calling from Lunar III. What he had to say was puh-lenty.
"That you, Donovan?" he tap-tapped. "Greetings, pal! They ache today?"
"What," I shot back, "are you talking about?"
"Your feet, of course. We just got the reports from the medical
examiners. They say your tootsies are as flat as a pair of toed
flounders. That makes you the same at both ends, doesn't it?"