"Ship?" I asked. The innocent line. "We don't have a ship."
He looked toward the rest of his gang. Two of them came up alongside of
me and grabbed my elbows.
"Do you hear that?" he complained. "They don't have any ship. They
walked all the way out here." He moved in close to me. His face wasn't
really rock or I could have seen the moss on it.
"Look, chum," he said. "Do you have to get wise? This ain't no game of
marbles. I'm telling you."
"Take it or leave it," I cracked. "What would we want with a ship? They
bring us out here and leave us, and a year later they come back to get
us and drop off the new crew." It sounded like a good way to run an
asteroid station at that.
He cursed. It had a horrible sound, in that muted rocky voice of his.
He faced Betty again. "That true?"
"Of course it's true!" The contempt in her voice would have withered
him, only stones don't wither.
I still couldn't see where we were getting. Hold him here until the
Patrol cruiser came in? That wouldn't work. If the Patrol boat came in
first they would think the Astra was the expedition ship, and Ed Day
would think it was the Patrol. And Stoneface here would sit back just
like a hunter in a duck blind and wait for an easy shot. If we could
figure out some way to signal. Come on, Denby, think it out. There's an
answer to everything.