“Indium — Flatinum — Gold — Osmium—”
“Gold!” the unseen speaker cut in.
“Gold!” responded Ken intelligently, into the microphone, and “which one is that?” in a hasty aside to Feth. The mechanic told him, also in a whisper. “There’s a sample in the torpedo. We can’t trade it off — I want to analyze it for traces of corrosion. Anyway it was melted a little while ago, and he’ll never get it out of the crucible. What’s the name for the stuff you get from them?”
“Tofacco.” Feth answered without thinking — but he started thinking immediately afterward. He remembered Drai’s promise of the fate of anyone who gave Ken information about “the stuff” obtained from Earth, and knew rather better then Sallman just how jocular Laj was likely to be. The memory made him itch, as though his hide were already coming loose. He wondered how he could keep news of his slip from reaching the higher levels, but had no time to get a really constructive idea. The speaker interrupted him again.
If the previous calls had been loud, this was explosive. The creature must have had his vocal apparatus within inches of the torpedo’s microphone, and been using full voice power to boot. The roar echoed for seconds through the shop and almost drowned out the clanking which followed — a sound which suggested something hard striking the hull of the torpedo. The native, for some reason, seemed to have become wildly excited.
At almost the same instant, Ken also gave an exclamation. The thermometer dial for the gold sample had ceased to register.
“The blasted savage is stealing my sample!” he howled, and snapped over the switch closing the cargo door. The switch moved, but the door apparently didn’t — at least, it failed to indicate “locked.” There was no way of telling whether or not it had stopped at some partly-closed position.
The native was still jabbering — more than ever, if that were possible. Ken switched back to “open” position, waited a moment, and tried to close again. This time it worked. The Sarrians wondered whether the relatively feeble motor which closed the portal had been able to cause any injury. There seemed little doubt about the cause of the first failure; if there had been any, the noise would have removed it.
“I don’t think he was trying to steal,” Feth said mildly. “After all, you repeated the name of the stuff more than once. He probably thought you were offering it to him.”
“I suppose you may be right.” Ken turned back to the microphone. “I’ll try to make clear that it’s market day, not a wedding feast.” He gave a chirruping whistle, then “Tofacco! tofacco! Gold — tofacco!” Feth shrivelled, internally. If he could only learn to keep his big diaphragm frozen—.