"Halleck! Gately! Sterns!" Simms cried. "What the devil are you doing here?"
The taller of the men held the door open wider. "Come in, Simms," he said. "We've been expecting you."
Inside the spherical room the air was warm and dry. Simms unhooked his dehydration mask and surveyed the three quietly.
They weren't a lovely trio. Halleck was tall and swarthy with dark eyes and thin lips. He wore a stained rain-helmet and flexible swamp boots. Gately undoubtedly had Martian blood in his veins. And Sterns, a typical space-rat from the slums of Venus City, bore an old heat-gun scar across his face.
"I thought the Halleck Development Company was heading north," Simms said. "That's what you told the Commandante at Post One."
Halleck smiled. "We told your Commandante a lot of things that suited our purpose."
Simms stirred uneasily. "You also said you were geologists, looking for sedimentary deposits."
"Part of which is quite true." Halleck lit a cigarette deliberately, then nodded to Gately who drew from his pocket a small bag. The man jerked the draw string and permitted a dozen yellowish lumps to spill out on the table.
"Deleon Salts," Halleck said shortly.
Ice touched Simms' spine. He had of course seen these ochre crystals before, while on patrol duty in native Kamali villages. But in the possession of Earth men....