Four-Day Planet

r and greeted

ho seemed slightly puzzled; the education Tom had been digging out for himself

replied. "Have you any little ne

g out a cigar and inspecting i

rtian Joe's, a while ago. Lumped the other man up pretty badly." He named the Javelin crewman, and the man who had been pounded. The latter was one of Steve Ravick's goons. "But not f

to the meeting, t

t supply around Hunters' Hall this evening. You know, of course, that Leo Belsher's coming in on the Peenemünde an

I thought; why, that would

that?" Tom asked,

figure. The only reason Leo Belsher ever comes to this Eden among planets is to

a ton. As far as Dad and I could find out, it was still bringing the same price on Terra as it always had. It looked to us as if Ravick and Leo Belsher, who was the Co-op representative on Terra, and Mort Hallstock w

kills about ten monsters a year. Well, at the price Belsher and Ravick were going to cut from, that would run a little short of a hundred and fifty thousand sols for a year. If you say it quick enough and don't think, that sounds like big money, but the upkeep and supplies for

a microscopically visible molecule is a curious-looking object, to say the least. They use the stuff to treat fabric for protective garments. It isn't

a ton, the hunters had been making good mo

a government here. Before long, he was secretary of the Hunters' Co-operative. Old Simon MacGregor, who had been president then, was a good hunter, but he was no businessman. He came to depend very heavily on Ravick, up till his ship, the Claymore, was lost with all hands down in Fitzwilliam Straits. I think that was a time bomb in the magazin

to take the entire output for the Co-op. That ended competitive wax buying, and when there was nobody to buy the wax but Kapstaad, you had to sell it through the Co-operative or you didn't sell it at all. After that, the price started going down. The Co-operative, for

the meeting this evening. I would be there to cover i

me of them almost printable. I had my eyes to my bino

," Tom was saying, "is about four fathoms of ha

when there is no order and the law itself is illegal. I'd always thought there was a

to be some better way

k of one?" To

heory, I could tune it to the telecast station and put what I was getting right on the air, and what I was doing was transmitting to the Times, to be recorded and 'cast later. Bec

ider being hauled in by a couple of gnats. I kept the butt of the camera to my shoulder, and whenever anything interesting happened, I'd squeeze the trigger. The first time I ever used a real submachine gun had bee

shoulder-stock telephoto to the big tripod job, because this was the best part of it. The ship was weightless, of course, but she had mass and an awful lot of it. If anybody g

ate. The Peenemünde settled down, turned slowly to get her port in line with the gate, and lurched off contragravity and

I come along? I can carry some of yo

ht; I finally got

looked like a big camera case and slung it over my shoulder. "But you'll

and we shook on it. T

ter all, Tom and I are just a couple of kids. If y

m too much. Bish shook his he

aboard, myself, to see a friend who is en route throug

mselves Doctor, and Watson and John aren't too improbable a combination, but I'd read Sherlock Holmes long ago, and the name h

fessor Hartzenbosch. There were a couple of spaceport cops at the gate, in olive-green uniforms that looked as though they had been sprayed on, and steel helmets. I wished we had a city police force like that. They were Odin Dock & Ship

r and waved us through. I thought they might give Bish an argument, but they just nodded and let him pass, to

ght gray hair, prematurely so, I thought, and a pleasant, noncommittal face. I'd have pegged him for a busin

ther young to

ll the time, but worst of all on the job. Maybe I am only going-on-

" Captain Marshak earned my gratitude by putting

his chapters. Then he wanted to know if I'd been born on Fenris. I saw I was going to have to g

l the next possible ship out of here; I only have two and a half to my next deadline. You w

d all ordinary assignments, I needed help to give him the full VIP treatme

and stiffens up. What I had was better than a recorder; it was a recording radio. Like the audiovisuals, it not only transmitted in to the Times, but made a recording as insurance against transmission failu

y could have. At the same time, I was watching Steve Ravick, Morton Hallstock and Leo Belsher at one side of the room, and Bish Ware at the other. Bish was

p!" this man s

me had originated on Fenris.

ping the other's hand. "You have

eting was prearranged, neither of them had ever met before, and they needed a recognition co

his alleged publishers right, he didn't know what a literary agent was and, after claiming to have been a newsman, he consistently used the expression

we have four or five hundred of them in Port Sandor and around among the small settlements in the archipelago, and even on the mainland. Most of them are in bars and cafes and cigar s

ey used printing presses as heavy as a spaceship's engines. That's why we still call ourselves the Press. Some of the old papers on Terra, like La

son" had disappeared, I supposed to the ship's bar, and Ravick and his accomplices had gotten through with their conspiracy to defraud the hunters. I turned Murell o

reeted them. "I'm represen

haven't time to bother w

a story from Mr.

s, when you're dry behind the ears,

eetly. "They want to read about the price of tallow-wax. What's this a

omething." He turned to me. "I don't know how this got out, but it's quite true," he said. He had a long face, like a horse's. At least, he look

here near as good as real Fenris tallow-wax, but try and tell the public that. So Kapstaad Chemical is b

ace, it isn't sold to the gullible public, it's sold to equipment manufacturers who have their own test engineers and who have to keep their products up to legal safety standards. He didn't know this balde

rs would start looking

ot a short audiovisual of Captain Marshak of the Peene

ted as Professor Hartzenbosch. I wondered, for an incredulous moment, if Tom had been trying

Mr. Murell is my big story." I reached into the front pocket of my "camera" case for the handphone, to shif

s," Tom said. "It's down on the

nding, while I was being lied to by Belsher. I didn't get it. There was just too much going on aro