"I _said_, what's with _you_, Edison? You've been sitting there with
a dopey look on your face for half an hour. You haven't heard a word
we've been saying, have you?"
Shoemaker made a quick recovery. "I was thinking, bird-brain. That's a
little pastime us intellectuals indulge in. I'd teach it to you, but I
don't think you'd like it."
Burford looked at him sharply. Shoemaker began to sweat. Was it showing
on him already?
Burford said casually, "No offense. Well, think I'll turn in. Big day
tomorrow." He strolled out, closing the door behind him.
Shoemaker got up to go a few minutes later, but Davies said, "Say, Jim,
there was something I wanted to ask you. I know. Now just what was it?
Wait a minute, it'll come back to me. Oh, yes. Jim, do you think--now,
you understand, I just want a rough guess on this--do you reckon if we
were to use up all the mercury we got, we could scout around and get us
some of this sand, or maybe some ore from lower down--"
When he finally got it out, it appeared that he wanted to know if
Shoemaker thought they'd be able to refine some local mineral enough to
put it through the transmutator without blowing themselves up.
Exasperated, Shoemaker said, "Sure, easy. It would only take us five or
six years to dig up the stuff, build a refinery, get hold of a couple
of tons of reagents from Lord knows where, and adjust the trans-M to
take the final product. Just a nice little rest-cure, and then we can
all go home to glory and show off our long gray beards."
That started the old argument all over again. Davies said, "Now, Jim,
don't excite yourself. Don't you see the thing is, if we go home with
nothing but some mud and moss that we could have picked up anywhere, or
some pictures that we could have faked, why, the Supreme Council will
want to know what they spent all that money for. You know we'll get
disciplined, sure as--"
Shoemaker's nerves got jumpier by the minute. Finally he said, "Oh,
blow it out a porthole!" and slammed the galley door behind him.
He met Burford down the corridor, just turning in to his cubby.
"Where have _you_ been?" he demanded.
"Where do you think?" Burford said rudely.
Shoemaker was half undressed when a horrible thought struck him. In his
stocking feet, he hurried up to the compartment where his liquor was
hidden. The patch was lying propped against the bulkhead; the concealed
space was empty. A crowbar lay on the deck, fragments of real solder
from other patches clinging to its edge.
Burning, he went back to the engine-room.
Burford had been thorough. The microspectrograph had been carefully
pried off and disconnected from the rest of the transmutation
rig. Without it, the setup was useless for either the designer's
purpose--making fissionable plutonium--or Shoemaker's--the manufacture
of 200-proof happy water.
Shoemaker didn't have to look to know that the spares were gone, too.
Luckily, he had about five quarts of the stuff hidden for emergencies
in a canister marked "Hydrochloric Acid" down in the shop. With
rationing, it would do. It would have to. Green men or no, he couldn't
go dry. He'd been a quart-a-day man for as long as he could remember,
and it would take more than a spook or two to scare him off it.
* * * * *
He had to admit to a certain apprehension, though, as he sat on watch
in the sallyport the next evening. Land, sea and sky were the same
slimy monotone; the occasional breath of wind that came in from the
ocean bore the same broad hint of decaying marine life. It had been
just about this time last night when that--
Restless, he got up and tramped around the ship. On the seaward side,
beyond the huge muzzles of the rocket tubes, the greenish sand sloped
downward abruptly in a six-foot embankment to the stagnant edge of the
water. There was nothing out there, not even a ripple.
To landward, there was nothing but mud.
He sat down again, looked dubiously at his half-finished quart, decided
to let it rest awhile. The glass had a green tinge from the sand around
it. Resolutely, he turned his mind to the exploring party, tramping
around in that godforsaken wilderness again. Well, what do you think,
Shoemaker? he asked himself. How long will it take those supermen
to give up their little paper-chase? Two more days? Three? A week?
Shoemaker, he answered, I don't know and at this point I don't give a
damn. I got more important things to worry about.
That seemed to settle that. He stared gloomily at the bottle, then
picked it up and drank.
When he lowered the bottle again, pushing the cap shut with his thumb,
the little green man was there.
No, it was a different one this time. Rigid with shock, he could still
see that this one was fatter around the middle and had shorter whiskers.
But the expression was the same. Like a fiend on his way to a
dismemberment party.