"Then just don't bother me for a while. I'm going to be busy. Watching
TV."
An hour later Kielland was in Control Tower, watching the pale screen as
the little remote-controlled explorer circled the installation. Three TV
cameras were in operation as he settled down behind the screen. He told
Sparks what he wanted to do, and the ship whizzed off in the direction
the Mud-pup raiders had taken.
At first, there was nothing but dreary mud flats sliding past the
cameras' watchful eyes. Then they picked up a flicker of movement, and
the ship circled in lower for a better view. It was a group of
natives--a large group. There must have been fifty of them working
busily in the mud, five miles away from the Piper Installation. They
didn't look so carefree and happy-go-lucky now. They looked very much
like desperately busy Mud-pups with a job on their hands, and they were
so absorbed they didn't even see the small craft circling above them.
They worked in teams. Some were diving with small containers; some were
handling lines attached to the containers; still others were carrying
and dumping. They came up full, went down empty, came up full. The
produce was heaped in a growing pile on a small semisolid island with a
few scraggly trees on it. As they worked the pile grew and grew.
It took only a moment for Kielland to tell what they were doing. The
color of the stuff was unmistakable. They were mining piles of blue-gray
mud, just as fast as they could mine it.
With a gleam of satisfaction in his eye, Kielland snapped off the screen
and nodded at Sparks to bring the cameras back. Then he rang Simpson
again.
"Did you tell them?"
Simpson's voice was uneasy. "Yeah--yeah, I told them. They left in a
hurry. Quite a hurry."
"Yes, I imagine they did. Where are your men now?"
"Out working on Number Six, trying to get it up."
"Better get them together and pack them over to Control Tower, fast,"
said Kielland. "I mean everybody. Every man in the Installation. We may
have this thing just about tied up, if we can get out of here soon
enough--"
Kielland's chair gave a sudden lurch and sailed across the room,
smashing into the wall. With a yelp he tried to struggle up the sloping
floor; it reared and heaved over the other way, throwing Kielland and
Sparks to the other wall amid a heap of instruments. Through the windows
they could see the gray mud flats careening wildly below them. It took
only an instant to realize what was happening. Kielland shouted, "Let's
get out of here!" and headed down the stairs, clinging to the railing
for dear life.
Control Tower was sinking in the mud. They had moved faster than he had
anticipated, Kielland thought, and snarled at himself all the way down
to the landing platform below. He had hoped at least to have time to
parley, to stop and discuss the whys and wherefores of the situation
with the natives. Now it was abundantly clear that any whys and
wherefores that were likely to be discussed would be discussed later.