In the ten hours that followed, Venus Equilateral stock went down and
down, passed through a deep valley, and started up again. Kingman's
crowd was offering twice the market for the preferred stock, and there
was little to have. It took a short-time dip at three hundred, and the
few minutes of decline smoked a lot of stock out of the hands of people
who looked upon this chance as the right time to make their money and
get out.
Then the stock began to climb again, and those people who thought that
the price had been at its peak and passed were angrily trying to buy in
again. That accelerated the climb, but Kingman's crowd, operating on
Venus and on Mars and on Terra, were buying only, and selling not one
share of Venus Equilateral.
Terran Electric stock took a gradual slide, for Kingman's crowd
needed additional money. But the slide was slow, and controlled, and
manipulated only for the purpose of selling short. Terran Electric
stock eventually remained in the hands of Kingman's crowd, though its
value was lessened.
Venus Equilateral Preferred hit four hundred and sixty-eight, and
hovered. It vacillated around that point for another hour, and the
market closed at four hundred and sixty-nine and three-eighths.
Kingman looked at his watch and smiled. He reached forth and cut the
dinning sound of the cacophony with a vicious twist of the gain knob.
Silence reigned in the spaceship; grand, peaceful silence. Kingman,
his nerves frayed by the mental activity and the brain-addling
music-from-nowhere, took a hot shower and went to bed.
He locked the panel of the control room first, however. He wanted no
engineer tinkering with his pet relay.
* * * * *
Cartwright came into Channing's living room with a long face. "It's
bad," he said. "Bad."
"What's bad?"
"Oh, I, like the rest of the fools, got caught in his trap."
"Whose trap?"
"The wild man who is trying to rock Venus Equilateral on its axis."
"Well, how?"
"They started to buy like mad, and I held out. Then the thing dropped a
few points, and I tried to make a bit of profit, so that we could go on
bolstering the market. They grabbed off my stock, and then, just like
_that!_ the market was on the way up again and I couldn't find more
than a few odd shares to buy back."
"Don't worry," said Channing, "I don't think anyone is big enough to
really damage us. Someone is playing fast and loose, making a killing.
When this is over, we'll still be in business."
"I know, Don, but whose business will it be? Ours, or theirs?"
"Is it that bad?"
"I'm afraid so. One more flurry like today, and they'll be able to tow
Venus Equilateral out and make Mars Equilateral out of it, and we won't
be able to say a word."
"H-m-m-m. You aren't beaten?"
"Not until the last drop. I'm not bragging when I say that I'm as good
an operator as the next. My trouble today was not being a mind reader.
I'd been doing all right, so far. I've been letting them ride it up and
down with little opposition, and taking off a few here and there as I
rode along. Guessing their purpose, I could count on their next move.
But this banging the market sky-high has me stumped, or had me stumped
for just long enough for me to throw our shirt into the ring. They took
that quick--our shirt, I mean."
"That's too bad. What are you leading up to?"
"There are a lot of unstable stocks that a guy could really play hob
with; therefore their only reason to pick on us is to gain control!"
"Pirates?"
"Something like that."
"Well," said Channing in a resigned voice, "about all we can do is
do our best and hope we are smart enough to outguess 'em. That's
your job, Cartwright. A long time ago Venus Equilateral made their
decision concerning the executive branch of this company, and they
elected to run the joint with technical men. The business aspects and
all are under the control of men who know what they are fighting. We
hire business men, just like business men hire engineers, and for the
opposite purpose. You're the best we could get, you know that. If those
guys get Venus Equilateral, they'll get you, too. But if you do your
best and fail, we can't shoot you in the back for it. We'll all go down
together. So keep pitching, and remember that we're behind you all the
way!"
"Can we float a bit of a loan?"
"Sure, if it's needed. I'd prefer Interplanetary Transport. Keg Johnson
will do business with us. We've been in the way of helping them out a
couple of million dollar losses; they might be anxious to reciprocate."
"O.K. I have your power of attorney, anyway. If I get in a real crack,
I'll scream for I. T. to help. Right?"
"Right!"
Cartwright left, and as he closed the door, Channing's face took on a
deep, long look. He was worried. He put his head between his hands and
thought himself into a tight circle from which he could not escape. He
did not hear Walt Franks enter behind Arden and Christine.
"Hey!" said Walt. "Why the gloom? I bear glad tidings!"
Channing looked up. "Spill," he said with a glum smile. "I could use
some glad tidings right now."
"The lab just reported that that hunk of copper wire was impure. Got a
couple of traces of other metals in it. They've been concocting other
samples with more and less of the impurities, and Wes has been trying
them as they were ready. We've got the detector working to the point
where Freddie has taken the _Relay Girl_ out for a run around the
station at about five hundred miles and Wes is still getting responses!"
"Is he? How can he know?"
"Chuck rigged the _Relay Girl's_ drivers with a voice modulator, and
Freddie is jerking his head off because the acceleration is directly
proportional to the amplitude of his voice, saying: 'One, two, three,
four, test.' Don, have you ever figured out why an engineer can't count
above four?"
"Walt, does it take a lot of soup to modulate a driver?" asked Arden.
"Peanuts," grinned Franks. "This stuff is not like the good old radio;
the power for driving the spaceship is derived mostly, from the total
disintegration of the cathode and the voltage applied to the various
electrodes is merely for the purpose of setting up the proper field
conditions. They draw quite a bit of current, but nothing like that
which would be required to lift a spaceship at two G for a hundred
hours flat."