…’
‘Don’t be a fool!’ DuQuesne snapped. ‘You can’t get a thing on either of them – not even a frame!’
‘You misunderstand, doctor. You can get a handle on anyman living, if you know enough about him. Not necessarily in his past; present or future is oftentimes better. Money … power … position … fame … women – have you considered women in this case?’
‘Women, bah!’ DuQuesne snorted. ‘Crane’s been chased so long he’s woman-proof, and Seaton is worse. He’s engaged to Dorothy Vaneman, so he’s stone blind.’
‘Better and better. There’s your perfect handle, gentlemen; not only to the solution, but to everything else you want after Seaton and Crane have been taken out of circulation.’
Brookings and DuQuesne looked at each other in perplexity. Then DuQuesne said, ‘All right, Perkins, after the way I popped off I’m perfectly willing to let you have a triumph. Draw us a sketch.’
‘Build a spaceship from Seaton’s own plans and carry her off in it. Take her up out of sight – of course you’ll have to have plenty of witnesses that it was a spaceship and that it did go straight up out of sight – then hide her in one of our places – say with the Spencer girl – then tell Seaton and Crane she’s on Mars and will stay there till she rots if they don’t come across. They’ll wilt – and they wouldn’t dare take a story like that to the cops. Any holes in that?’
‘Not that I can see at the moment …’ Brookings drummed his fingers abstractedly on the desk. ‘Would it make any difference if they chased us in their ship – in the condition it will be in?’
‘Not a bit,’ DuQuesne declared. ‘All the better – they’ll be gone, and in a wreck that will be so self-explanatory that nobody would think of making a metallurgical post-mortem.’
‘That’s true. Who’s going to drive the ship?’
‘I am,’ DuQuesne said. ‘I’ll need help, though. One man from the inner circle. You or Perkins. Perkins, I’d say.’
‘Is it safe?’ Perkins asked.
‘Absolutely. It’s worked out to the queen’s taste.’
‘I’ll go along, then. Is that all?’
No,’ Brookings replied. ‘You mentioned Spencer. Haven’t you got that stuff away from her yet?’
‘No, she’s stubborn as a mule.’
‘Time’s running out. Take her along, and don’t bring her back. We’ll get the stuff back some other way.’
Perkins left the room; and after a long discussion of details, DuQuesne and Brookings left the restaurant, each by a different route.
X
The great steel forgings which were to form the frameworkof the
Skylark
arrived and were hauled into the testing room, where ralium-capsule X-raying revealed flaws in every member. Seaton, after mapping the imperfections by orthometric projection, spent an hour with calipers and slide rule.
‘Strong enough to stand shipment and fabrication, and maybe a little to spare – perhaps one G of acceleration while we’re in the air. Any real shot of power, though, or any sudden turn, and
pop
! She collapses like a soap bubble. Want to recheck my figures?’
‘No. I told you not to bother about analysis. We want sound metal, not junk.
‘Ship ’em back, then – with an inspector?’
‘No.’ At Seaton’s look of surprise, Crane went on. ‘I’ve been thinking about this possibility for a long time. If we reject these forgings, they will – immediately – try to kill us some other way; and they may well succeed. On the other hand, if we go ahead all unsuspectingly and use them, they will let us alone until the
Skylark
is done. That will give us months of free, undisturbed time. Expensive time, I grant; but worth every dollar.’
‘Maybe so. As the money man, you’re the judge of that. But we
can’t
fly a heap of scrap, Mart!’
‘No, but while we are going ahead with this just as though we meant it, we can build another one, about four times its size, in complete secrecy.’
‘Mart! You’re talking like