The verbal contract was made quickly, and Jonner cut the Commission monitor into the line to make it binding. That was done often when rival ships, even of the same line, were bidding for the services of crewmen.
"Blastoff time is 2100 tonight," he said, ending the interview. "Be here."
Jonner left the personnel office and walked down the hall. At the elevator, Deveet and Kruger hurried out, almost colliding with him.
"Jonner, we've run into trouble!" exclaimed Deveet. "Space Fuels won't sell us any hydrazine and nitric acid to refill the tanks. They say they have a new contract with Marscorp that takes all their supply."
"Contract, hell!" snorted Jonner. "Marscorp owns Space Fuels. What can be done about it, Kruger?"
Kruger shook his head.
"I'm all for you, but Space Control has no jurisdiction," he said. "If a private firm wants to restrict its sales to a franchised line, there's nothing we can do about it. If you had a franchise, we could force them to allot fuel on the basis of cargo handled, since Space Fuels has a monopoly here. But you don't have a franchise yet."
Jonner scratched his grey head thoughtfully.
It was a serious situation. The atom-powered Radiant Hope could no more make a planetary landing than the chemically-powered ships. Its power gave a low, sustained thrust that permitted it to accelerate constantly over long periods of time. To beat the powerful pull of planetary surface gravity, the terrific burst of quick energy from the streamlined G-boats, the planetary landing craft, was needed.
"We can still handle it," Jonner said at last. "With only twenty tons return cargo, we can take it up this trip. Add some large parachutes to that, Deveet. We'll shoot the end of the cable down by signal rocket, out in the lowlands, and stop the winch when we've made contact, long enough to attach the rest of the cargo to the cable. Pull it down with the cable and, with Mars' low gravity, the parachutes will keep it from being damaged."