"They call him the interplanetary screwball."
"Not on this expedition, they don't, McCracken. You will please keep a
civil tongue in your head."
"There's nothing wrong in what I'm saying. Kalinoff _is_ a screwball,
and you know it, Captain. He's always playing practical jokes. Look at
how he got that Martian senator into the same cage with a moon-snake,
and locked the door on him. The senator had a fit. How was he to know
the snake was harmless?"
"You don't think Kalinoff would play jokes when his own life was at
stake, do you?"
"Once a screwball," insisted McCracken firmly, "always a screwball."
Lamoureux lost patience. "Once an idiot, always an idiot. Get over to
the ship and help with the unpacking. And remember, if we don't find
Kalinoff, it'll be your fault, and God help you."
* * * * *
Having, he hoped, left McCracken feeling properly ashamed of himself,
Lamoureux walked away. The responsibility was beginning to weigh him
down. The other nineteen men in the expedition thought they were merely
trying to rescue an intrepid explorer for the sake of human life, which
was supposed to be sacred. They didn't know that, behind his screwball
surface, Kalinoff was as shrewd as they came. He had made some valuable
discoveries--and promptly staked out a claim to them.
He had run across large quantities of stable isotopes of metals whose
atomic numbers ranged from 95 to 110. These had remarkable and useful
properties.
They were, to begin with, of unusual value as catalysts in chemical
reactions. For example, element 99, in the presence of air, was a more
powerful oxidizing agent than platinum or palladium was a reducing
agent, in the presence of hydrogen. And the oxidations could be
controlled beautifully, could be made to affect almost any part of a
complicated organic molecule at a time. Element 99 was recoverable, and
could be used again and again. A few hundred grams of it alone might
very well pay for the cost of the entire expedition.
Add the value of a few kilos of elements 101 to 110, and Kalinoff had
discovered enough to make him and a few other people rich for life.
Lamoureux wanted to be one of those other people. He had three kids he
wanted to send through Lunar Tech; he had a wife with expensive tastes
in robot servants; and he had relatives. Let him get Kalinoff off this
God-forsaken planet, where he had been marooned for the past year, and
even an interplanetary screwball might be expected to show some feeling
of gratitude. Combine this feeling of gratitude with a reasonably fair
contract already printed, and needing only the explorer's scrawl to
give it validity, and Lamoureux could almost feel the money in his
pocket. If only McCracken had not spoiled everything by his stupidity--
Lamoureux shuddered to think that by the time they got to him
Kalinoff might be dead, and they would have to do business with his
heirs--heirs who had no sense of gratitude to impair their business
judgment. He felt suddenly poor again. But he put the gloomy thought
out of his head, and went on with his work.
* * * * *
Unpacking would be finished in a couple of hours at most. Meanwhile
there was some preliminary exploring to be done. The neighboring
ground must be surveyed, and landmarks noted, so that they would
have a suitable base from which to start their search. Kalinoff had
talked about two mountains with a saddlelike ridge joining them. Those
two mountains shouldn't be too difficult to recognize--if ever the
expedition ran across them.
McCracken, obeying orders, was lending a hand at the unloading. What
with Mercury's low gravity, and his own strength, he had no difficulty
in wrestling around the five hundred pound crates in which their
supplies had been packed. However, he was of little help in getting the
work done. With what Lamoureux decided was characteristic stupidity, he
seemed to be mostly in everyone else's way.