Free E.E. 'Doc' Smith SF Gateway Omnibus: The Skylark of Space, Skylark Three, Skylark of Valeron, Skylark DuQuesne by E. E. (Doc) Smith

which DuQuesne had pressed. He did not press the button, but, deep in thought, went home to get a few hours of sleep before reporting to Crane next morning.
    Both men were waiting when he appeared. Shiro, with a heavily-bandaged head, had insisted that he was perfectly able to work, and was ceremoniously ordering out of the kitchen the man who had been hired to take his place.
    ‘Well, gentlemen, your compass did the trick,’ and Prescott reported in full.
    ‘I’d like to beat him to death with a club,’ Seaton said, savagely. ‘The chair’s too good for him.’
    ‘Not that he is in much danger of the chair.’ Crane’s expression was wry.
    ‘Why, we know he did it! Surely we can prove it?’
    ‘Knowing a thing and proving it to a jury are two entirely different breeds of cats. We haven’t a shred of evidence. If we asked for an indictment we’d be laughed out of court. Check, Mr Crane?’
    ‘Check.’
    ‘I’ve bucked Steel before. They account for half my business, and for ninety-nine percent of my failures. The same thing goes for all the other agencies in town. The cops have hit them time after time with everything they’ve got, and simply bounced. So has the F.B.I. All any of us has been able to get is an occasional small fish.’
    ‘You think it’s hopeless, then?’
    ‘Not exactly. I’ll keep on working, on my own.I owe them something for killing my men, as well as for other favors they’ve done me in the past. But I don’t believe in holding out false hopes.’
    ‘Optimistic cuss, ain’t he?’ Seaton remarked as Prescott went out.
    ‘He has cause to be, Dick. Report has it that they use murder, arson, and anything else useful in getting what they want; but they have not been caught yet.’
    ‘Well, now that we know, we’re in the clear. They can’t possibly get a monopoly—’
    ‘No? You aren’t getting the point. If we should both happen to die – accidentally, of course – then what?’
    ‘They couldn’t get away with it, Mart; you’re too big. I’m small fry, but you are M. Reynolds Crane.’
    ‘No good, Dick; no good at all. Jets still crash; and so, occasionally, do egg-beaters. Worse – it does not seem to have occurred to you that World Steel is making the heavy forgings and plates for the
Skylark.’
    ‘Hades’– brazen – bells!’ Seaton was dumbfounded. ‘And what – if anything – can we do about
that?’
    ‘Very little, until after the parts get here, beyond investigating independent sources of supply.’
    DuQuesne and Brookings met in the Perkins Café.
    ‘How did your independent engineers like the power plant?’
    ‘The report was very favorable, doctor. The stuff is all you said it was. But until we get the rest of the solution – by the way, how is the search for more X progressing?’
    ‘Just as I told you it would – flat zero. X
can’t
exist naturally on any planet having any significant amount of copper. Either the copper will go or the planet will, or both. Seaton’s X was meteoric. It was all in one lot of platinum; and probably that one X meteor was all there ever was. However, the boys are still looking, just in case.’
    ‘Well, we’d have to get Seaton’s, some day, anyway. Have you decided how to get it?’
    ‘No. That solution is in the safest safe-deposit vault in the world, probably in Crane’s name, and both keys to that box are in another one, and so on,
ad infinitum.
He’s got to get it
himself,
and
willingly.
Not that it’d be any easier to force Seaton; but can you imagine anything strong enough to make M. Reynolds cave in now?’
    ‘I can’t say that I can … no. But you remarked once that your forte is direct action. How about talking with Perkins … no, he flopped on three tries.’
    ‘Yes, call him in. It’s on execution he’s weak, not planning. I’m not.’
    Perkins was called in, and studied the problem for many minutes. Finally he said, ‘There’s only one way. We’ll have to get a handle