at a
moment's notice to sink with a gurgle into the mud. Off to the right
across a mud flat one of the dredges apparently had done just that: a
swarm of men and natives were hard at work dragging it up again. Control
Tower was to the left, balanced precariously at a slight tilt in a sea
of mud.

The Piper Venusian Installation didn't look too much like a going
concern. It looked far more like a ghost town in the latter stages of
decay.

Inside the Administration shack Kielland found a weary-looking man
behind a desk, scribbling furiously at a pile of reports. Everything in
the shack was splattered with mud. The crude desk and furniture was
smeared; the papers had black speckles all over them. Even the man's
face was splattered, his clothing encrusted with gobs of still-damp mud.
In a corner a young man was industriously scrubbing down the wall with a
large brush.

The man wiped mud off Kielland and jumped up with a gleam of hope in his
tired eyes. "Ah! Wonderful!" he cried. "Great to see you, old man.
You'll find all the papers and reports in order here, everything ready
for you--" He brushed the papers away from him with a gesture of
finality. "Louie, get the landing craft pilot and don't let him out of
your sight. Tell him I'll be ready in twenty minutes--"

"Hold it," said Kielland. "Aren't you Simpson?"

The man wiped mud off his cheeks and spat. He was tall and graying.
"That's right."

"Where do you think you're going?"

"Aren't you relieving me?"

"I am not!"

"Oh, my." The man crumbled behind the desk, as though his legs had just
given way. "I don't understand it. They told me--"

"I don't care what they told you," said Kielland shortly. "I'm a trouble
shooter, not an administrator. When production figures begin to drop, I
find out why. The production figures from this place have never gotten
high enough to drop."

"This is supposed to be news to me?" said Simpson.

"So you've got troubles."

"Friend, you're right about that."

"Well, we'll straighten them out," Kielland said smoothly. "But first I
want to see the foreman who put that wretched landing platform
together."

Simpson's eyes became wary. "Uh--you don't really want to see him?"

"Yes, I think I do. When there's such obvious evidence of incompetence,
the time to correct it is now."

"Well--maybe we can go outside and see him."

"We'll see him right here." Kielland sank down on the bench near the
wall. A tiny headache was devel