"You should. Your last defeat at the hands of the technicians you scorn
should have taught you a lesson. If you had been sharp, you would have
outguessed them; out-engineered them. They, Kingman, were not afraid to
rip into their detector to see what made it tick."
"But I had only the one--"
"They knew one simple thing about the universe. That rule is that if
anything works once, it may be made to work again." He held up his
hand as Kingman started to speak. "You'll bring all sorts of cases
to hand and try to disprove me. You can't. Oh, you couldn't cause a
quick return of the diplodocus, or re-enact the founding of the solar
government, or even re-burn a ton of coal. But there is other carbon,
there will be other governmental introductions and reforms, and there
may be some day the rebirth of the dinosaur--on some planet there may
be carboniferous ages now. Any phenomena that is a true phenomena--and
your detector was definite, not a misinterpretation of effect--can be
repeated. But, Kingman, we'll not be out-engineered again."
"That I do believe."
"And so we will have our revenge on Venus Equilateral and upon the
system itself."
"We're heading home now?"
"Right. We want this ship fitted with the triple turret I mentioned
before. Also I want the interconnecting links between the solar intake
and the power-projectors beefed up. When you're passing several hundred
megawatts through any system, losses of the nature of .000,000,1% cause
heating to a dangerous degree. We've got to cut the I²R losses. I gave
orders that the turret be started, by the way. It'll be almost ready
when we return."
"_You_ gave orders?" said Kingman.
"Oh, yes," said Hellion Murdoch with a laugh. "Remember our _last_ bout
with the stock market? I seem to have accumulated about forty-seven
percent. That's sufficient to give me control of our company."
"But ... but--" spluttered Kingman. "That took money--"
"I still have enough left," said Murdoch quietly. "After all, I
spent years in the Melanortis Country of Venus. I was working on the
_Hippocrates_ when I wasn't doing a bit of mining. There's a large vein
of platiniridium there. You may answer the rest."
"I still do not get this piracy."
Murdoch's eyes blazed.
"That's my interest. That's my revenge! I intend to ruin Don Channing
and Venus Equilateral. With the super turret they'll never be able to
catch us, and we'll run the entire system."
Kingman considered. As a lawyer, he was finished. His last try at the
ruination of the Venus Equilateral crowd by means of pirating the
interplanetary communications beam was strictly a violation of the
Communications Code. The latter absolutely prevented any man or group
of men from diverting communications not intended for them and using
these communications for their own purpose. His defense that Venus
Equilateral had also broken the law went unheard. It was pointed out to
him that Venus Equilateral tapped his own line, and the tapping of an
illegal line was the act of a communications agent in the interest of
the government. He was no longer a lawyer, and, in fact, he had escaped
a long jail term by sheer bribery.
He was barred from legal practice, and he was barred from any business
transactions. The stock market could be manipulated, but only through a
blind, which was neither profitable nor safe.
His holdings in Terran Electric were all that stood between him and
ruin. He was no better off than Murdoch, save that he was not wanted.