e, he
strained and tugged at the dead, unyielding weight in front of him.
Then, slowly, he straightened up and returned to the veranda.

"You're right," he said grudgingly. "I couldn't lift it."

Delman nodded. "Considering it's more than ten times the weight of lead,
that's not surprising."

"Anyhow, there's one consolation," said Jason Tarsh. "We weren't on that
spaceboat."

The lawyer regarded him with pity. "No, we weren't," he said, "but
whether it's a consolation remains to be seen."

"What are you driving at?" demanded Walter Pellinger. "They'll send a
rescue party. They must know there's something wrong."

"Oh, yes," Delman agreed. "But they don't know what and we can't tell
them. And, even if they did know, what could they do?" He began to
stroll up and down the veranda. "As far as they're concerned, Ross
hasn't reported to Algon. Perhaps his transmitter failed. Perhaps he
blew up in space. There are plenty of possibilities. If they treat the
matter as an emergency, the relief boat may get here in twenty-eight
days instead of thirty. But it can't land and it can't hover, so what
good is it to us?"

"Now wait, Delman. You know the reputation of Rejuvenal Enterprises. A
company like that can't afford to take a risk. They'll send for a patrol
ship--"

"And those patrol ships are equipped with heli-cars," Tarsh interjected.
"They can launch a couple and pick us up in no time. It's not
difficult."

Pellinger nodded in agreement. "There you are. And Jason ought to know;
he's spent most of his life dodging them."

* * * * *

Delman looked at Tarsh with distaste. "I remember now. You were the man
who shipped girls to Mercury and got run in under Section 7 of the White
Slavery Act. Ten years, wasn't it?"

"That's right," Jason Tarsh answered, "but there's no need to be nasty
about it. Just fulfilling the old commercial custom of supply and
demand." His thin lips broke into a smile. "Know what they used to call
me in the camps? 'The Miner's Best Friend.' Nice of them, eh?"

"Was it? They gave the same name to their canaries in the old days--and
most of those were killed by fire-damp. But to get back to your mythical
patrol ship--where do you expect it to come from? You know as well as I
do, they keep to the main spaceways. We're tucked away in a remote
corner of the Galaxy. There's one chance in a thousand that a patrol
ship is within forty-five days of here."

The color