"Four thousand Earth credits! For a hunk of ground you could cover with
a handkerchief? Ridiculous! We won't pay any such price--"
"It's no skin off our nose, Skipper," I reminded him. "The
Corporation's paying for it."
Hanson nodded slowly.
"We-e-ell, maybe you got something there. We can't do no diggin' for
soap without something to dig in. O.Q. Go ahead and make the deal,
Sparks."
"And I," chimed in Biggs, "will organize the men and get to work on the
digging--"
"No!" said Hanson hastily. "You mustn't exert yourself like that, boy.
Remember your--"
He stopped abruptly. Lancelot glanced at him.
"What? Remember my _what_, Dad?"
"Nothin'. You stay here and direct the men; I'll get 'em onto the job."
So we became possessors of a bit of Iris terrain and set forth on the
adventure which--we hoped--was to bring an end to Otto Steichner's rule
over the tiny planetoid.
* * * * *
Of course you know that Iris is only a little hunk of cosmic debris,
about three hundred miles in diameter, busting along in the planetoid
Belt, just one of myriad specks which are all that remain of what was
once upon a time a planet like Earth in the space-sector between Mars
and Jupiter. It has no atmosphere of its own, so when you leave the
domed cities and villages you have to wear your bulger, and since its
gravitational attraction is about as strong as a two-day old kitten,
you have to wear clinch-plates in your sandals.
But our boys are a tough crew, accustomed to working under even worse
conditions than these, and I'm not bragging too much when I say that
in two shakes of a rocket's tail we had staked out our property and
buckled down to our task.
Our "task" was, of course, just plain digging. From that
grayish-looking topsoil we had to peel away the crumbling layers which
would lead us to the basaltic depths beneath. From this substratum we
must extract a quantity of the pumice which was to justify our presence
here. A simple thing.
Only it didn't turn out that way. It took us three days to scrape off
the detritus layer. Then we reached rock. But it wasn't exactly the
sort of rock we had expected to find: obsidian or basalt, lava flow. It
was sandstone. Gray shale.
Lancelot Biggs looked at samples of this rock and shook his head. He
said, "Hmmm! That's funny! Sandstone is not an igneous formation. You
know--"
"I don't know nothin'," said the Old Man, "except we ain't got too much
time to spare. Let's get on with our job."
So we kept on digging. We had to use atomotors. The rock layer was
tougher than a blue-plate steak, but slowly our blaster chunked its way
through ... to a layer of slate!
Cap Hanson said worriedly, "You reckon they might of made a mistake
back on Earth, Lanse, boy? This here roofing material don't look like
what we was supposed to find. Maybe there's pumice underneath, but--"
"Frankly," I said, "I doubt it. Pumice is the result of air bubbles
mixing with an uncooled lava mixture. Slate is a sedimentary deposit. I
think we've stumbled across a punk piece of ground, myself. We'd better
go buy another hunk of property. Eh, Biggs?"
Lancelot Biggs said soberly, "If we want to locate pumice, I'm afraid
so. I've been reading up on geological structure, and all the evidence
indicates that--"
"Go see what you can do, then, Sparks," ordered the Old Man. "You're
the only one of us which can talk Irisian. See if you can buy a nice
soap-mine somewhere."
So I went. And I got nowhere--fast. The Irisian from whom we had bought
this piece of property was nowhere to be found. He had "disappeared."
No other native of the tiny planet would even listen to my pleas. The
moment I started talking shop, they covered their fuzzy ears with furry
claws and scuttled away.
Things began to make sense. In this maze of mystery I detected the fine
touch of Otto Steichner. So I sought him in the armed citadel he called
his gubernatorial White House. I put the question to him bluntly ...
which does not necessarily mean "boldly," because to tell the truth my
knees were shaking like a bowl of unchilled jello when I marched into
his guarded study.
* * * * *
"Land?" repeated Steichner, "Land, Mr. Donovan? I'm afraid there is no
property for sale on Iris. You see, everything here is owned by the
government. Private individuals cannot buy or sell land."
I said, "But only five days ago we bought a piece of property from an
Irisian named Tswrrrl. At the time, he mentioned that he had other
properties for sale. But now I cannot seem to find him--"
"Tswrrrl? Tswrrrl? Ah, yes--" said the governor thoughtfully--"Tswrrrl!
I remember now. An unfortunate incident. So careless of Tswrrrl. He
was killed in an--er--accident a few days ago. Just the day before the
Irisian government passed the new law forbidding the further sale of
private properties, you know--"
"In other words," I said, "your bunch of thugs did him in? Is that it,
Steichner?"
Steichner said silkily, "You do us an injustice, Mr. Donovan. We who
control the government of Iris operate _within_ the law at all times.
That is why we find no need of allowing the Space Patrol within our
sphere. Now, if you will excuse me? I am very busy--"
"In short," I said, "you don't intend to let us buy any more land. Is
that it?"
"In short," replied Steichner, dropping his pretenses for a moment and
giving me a stare which would have curdled a bottle of cream, "no! You
have been given every legal opportunity, Mr. Donovan. You have been
here on Iris exactly five and one half Solar Constant days. If, within
ten days after your arrival, you have not demonstrated your ability to
produce a commercial commodity heretofore undeveloped on this planet,
you will be asked to leave."
I rose. "O.Q., Steichner," I told him grimly. "You hold the chips, now.
But let me tell you this--if we _do_ find what we're looking for, and
gain the right to remain on Iris, our _first move_ will be to call in
the Space Patrol to protect our property. And you know what that means.
It means the end of you and your gang ... the end of your use of Iris
as a base for marauding expeditions.
"You know that, Steichner. That's why you're--"
Steichner's face mottled unhealthily. He said in a gray voice, "You are
talking dangerously, Donovan. Be careful no 'accident' stops _your_
wagging tongue."
"If anything happens to me," I promised him, "you'll receive a visit
from the Space Patrol before you can stutter 'nebular hypothesis,'
Steichner. That's been arranged."
His lips were a white slit through which he gritted, "I quite
understand, Donovan. But don't underestimate Otto Steichner. Even for
_that_ eventuality I am prepared. Now--get out!"
"Moreover--" I began.
"I said--_get out_!"
* * * * *
"So," I concluded my story to the skipper and Lanse Biggs, "I scrammed
across the bridge and over the lake and up to camp, here. And thus
endeth my little attempt to buy more land. It just can't be done, boys
and girls. That's a dead duck."
The Old Man frowned. He said, "Yeah, there's no use squawkin' about it;
Steichner holds the whip hand. The worst of it is, he'll probably be
able to kick us off Iris without doin' a thing to bring in the Patrol.
I mean, we'll get the gate strictly legal. Because we still ain't found
no sign of pumice, and we're pretty deep now--Well, Lancelot?"
Biggs had been thinking. You can always tell when he's thinking,
because his feet shuttle from side to side like spectators' heads at
a tennis-match. Now he said, "Across the _what_ and over the _what_,
Sparks?"
"Seriatim," I told him, "bridge and lake. So what's that got to do with
the present situation? The problem before the board is--"
"I was just wondering," commented Biggs, "how there should be a _lake_
on the planetoid Iris--and why? As we know, there are no natural bodies
of water on this tiny orb. Therefore they must be artificial--"
"All right," growled the skipper, "so they're phoney! Maybe Steichner's
got a sense of beauty!"
"Sure," I agreed. "What he likes best is a lovely dagger, attractively
decorated with nice, fresh blood. Cap's right, Biggs. We're not here to
marvel at the scenic wonders of Iris. We've got a job to do, and we're
getting nowhere--fast!"
"You mean," said Biggs, "our excavations? I've been thinking about
that, too. And it is beginning to make sense to me. You know my motto,
Sparks: 'Get the theory first!' I think I've solved the theory, now.
The only thing which still remains is to put it into practice. But
that lake--"
"You've solved it, Lanse, son?" broke in the Old Man eagerly. "Fine!
Fine! I knew you wouldn't let us down. So what do we do?"
"Well, we must ask McMurtrie to rig up a hydraulic drill, first of all.
Then we must--"
"Drill! To dig pumice? Son, you must be--"
Biggs shuffled embarrassedly.
"Well, it was only an idea, sir. Of course if you'd rather we can delve
into the matter of that lake--"
"Never mind," said the Old Man hastily. "The drill it is. Anything to
get your mind off that damn lagoon, O.Q. Issue the orders, Sparks."
So that was how we started boring instead of digging into the soil of
Iris. And of course the shift of operations consumed still more of
our ever-dwindling allotment of time. It took McMurtrie and his black
gang a full day to rig up the hydraulic drill, and another day to set
the cast so it would ram true. The next day we spent watching the
diamondhead romp up and down in its casing, interrupting the steady
_chug-chug!_ every once in a while so Lancelot Biggs, who was watching
the operation with the care and feverish attention of a mamma duck,
could study the bore-facing.
He wiped his hand around the friction-heated facing and studied the
granules. I craned over his shoulder and got a glimpse. I moaned.
"No go, Lanse. That _still_ isn't pumice. I'm afraid Steichner wins.
We've only got a little over one day to go, and it's no soap--hard _or_
soft!"
* * * * *
But there was no discouragement in the eyes of Biggs. Instead, he
was muttering with a sort of satisfaction, "Just as I thought. First
shale ... then slate ... then this diatomaceous conglomerate.
It is phenomenal, but it must be so. Sparks--" He turned to me
suddenly--"Call Earth! Tell the authorities to dispatch fighting units
of the Space Patrol immediately--to protect our property!"
"Our--?"
"Hurry! There's no time to waste. And--warn them to be very careful in
approaching this planetoid. They must make no attempt to land until we
signal them the way is clear. Understand?"
"Of--of course," I stammered. "You mean you think Steichner will pit up
a scrap rather than let them in. But are you sure you know what you're
doing, Lanse? After all, a handful of grit--"
Biggs laughed triumphantly.
"But what grit, Sparks! What grit! See those bits of whitish colored
substance?"
I looked again more closely at the powdery substance in the palm of his
hand. I said, "Rock-measles?"
"Fossils, Sparks!"
"Fossils? But what have fossils got to do with--?"
"I can't tell you now. There is too much to be done, I've got to go
down, for one thing, and have a look at that artificial lake beside the
governor's mansion."
Cap Hanson, who had been off supervising the boring operations came up
behind him just in time to overhear these final words. He asked.
"Still talkin' about that lake, Lancelot? What for? Why do you have to
go down there and snoop around?"
"Because," explained Biggs, "I've been worrying about it, and I've just
decided why it was built."
"Well?"