won't make
much more in a year than Dad and I make out of the Times.
Chemically, tallow-wax isn't like anything else in the known Galaxy.
The molecules are huge; they can be seen with an ordinary optical
microscope, and 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 anything like collapsium, of course, but
a suit of waxed coveralls weighing only a couple of pounds will stop as
much radiation as half an inch of lead.
Back when they were getting fifteen hundred a ton, the hunters had
been making good money, but that was before Steve Ravick's time.
It was slightly before mine, too. Steve Ravick had showed up on Fenris
about twelve years ago. He'd had some money, and he'd bought shares
in a couple of hunter-ships and staked a few captains who'd had bad
luck and got them in debt to him. He also got in with Morton Hallstock,
who controlled what some people were credulous enough to take for 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
magazine, but I have a low and suspicious mind. Professor
Hartzenbosch has told me so repeatedly. After that, Steve Ravick was
president of the Co-op. He immediately began a drive to increase the
membership. Most of the new members had never been out in a
hunter-ship in their lives, but they could all be depended on to vote the
way he wanted them to.
First, he jacked the price of wax up, which made everybody but the
wax buyers happy. Everybody who wasn't already in the Co-op hurried
up and joined. Then he negotiated an exclusive contract with Kapstaad
Chemical Products, Ltd., in South Africa, by which they agreed 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 which read Steve
Ravick, had a sales representative on Terra, Leo Belsher. He wrote all
the contracts, collected all the money, and split with Ravick. What was
going on was pretty generally understood, even if it couldn't be proven,
but what could anybody do about it?
Maybe somebody would try to do something about it at the meeting
this evening. I would be there to cover it. I was beginning to wish I
owned a bullet-proof vest.
Bish and Tom were exchanging views on the subject, some of them
almost printable. I had my eyes to my binoculars, watching the tugs go
up to meet the Peenemünde.
"What we need for Ravick, Hallstock and Belsher," Tom was saying,
"is about four fathoms of harpoon line apiece, and something to haul up
to."
That kind of talk would have shocked Dad. He is very strong for law
and order, even when there is no order and the law itself is illegal. I'd
always thought there was a lot of merit in what Tom was suggesting.
Bish Ware seemed to have his doubts, though.
"Mmm, no; there ought to be some better way of doing it than that."
"Can you think of one?" Tom challenged.
I didn't hear Bish's reply. By that time, the tugs were almost to the ship.
I grabbed up the telephoto camera and aimed it. It has its own power
unit, and transmits directly. In theory, 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. Because
it's not a hundred per cent reliable, though, it makes its own audiovisual
record, so if any of what I was sending didn't get through, it could be
spliced in after I got back.
I got some footage of the tugs grappling the ship, which was now
completely weightless, and pulling her down. Through the finder, I
could see that she had her landing legs extended; she looked like a big
overfed spider 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 been to kill a blue slasher that had gotten into one
of the ship pools at the waterfront. I used
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