“Children, eh? Maybe if you can work with them and get rid of the adults you could find things out more easily. They should be easier to fool.”
“Something like that crossed my mind, too,” Ken said. “Perhaps we ought to make a few more collection boxes to take down; I could give them to the kids to fill while I was having another language lesson, and then when they came back I’d have a good excuse to talk it over with each in turn. Something might very well crop up if the parents don’t interfere.”
“Parents? How do you know?”
“I don’t, of course; but it seems likely. But what do you think of the idea?”
“Very good, I should say. Can you get enough boxes for all the children ready by their next morning?”
“I’m not going down that soon. I was making allowances for what Feth told me was the effect of tofacco on the system, and thought I might not be able to make it.” Drai paused long enough to do some mental arithmetic.
“You’re probably right. We’ll have to go back to One to get your dose, too; I somehow can’t bring myself to keep the stuff around where it might fall into the wrong hands.” He smiled, with the same ugly undertone that was making Ken hate the drug-runner a little more each time he saw it.
17
“Dad, will you kindly tell me just how on Earth you worked that?” Don stared at the Sarrian radio, which was all that was visible of the aliens by the time he got back from giving the trade signal. Roger chuckled.
“He didn’t work it. He spends all afternoon teaching the thing to talk English, and just as it’s going it turns around and puts this on the ground. ‘Carry’ it booms, and takes off. What do you suppose it is, Dad?”