“That’s exactly it; nobody that they could get hold of knows his real pattern at all. All we’ve got that we can depend on are his retinals. That shows the kind of operator he is. So if you get a chance, blast him, but leave at least one eye whole and bring it in, in deep-freeze. Nothing else at the moment, is there?”
“Not that I know of. Clear ether, Phil!”
“Clear ether, Storm!”
The plate went black and Cloud turned soberly to Joan.
“Well, that clears Fairchild up, but doesn’t help with the real mystery. So, unless we can dig some more dope out of this stuff on the chart, we can’t do much until we get that finetooth.”
Joan left the room, and Cloud, after racking his brain for an hour, got up, shook himself, and went down the corridor to his “private” office—which had long since ceased to be private, as far as his friends were concerned—where he found Vesta and Thlaskin talking busily in spaceal. Or, rather, the Vegian was talking; the pilot was listening attentively.
“. . . think I’m built, you ought to’ve seen this tomato,” Vesta was narrating blithely. “What I mean, she’s a dish!” She went into a wrigglesome rhythm which, starting at the neck, flowed smoothly down her splendidly-modeled body to the ankles. “Stacked? She’s stacked like Gilroy’s Tower, Buster—an honest-to-god DISH, believe me, and raring to go. We were on one of those long-week-end jaunts around the system—you know, one of those deals where things are pretty apt to get just a hair off the green at times. . . .”
“But hey!” Thlaskin protested. “You said yourself a while back you wasn’t old enough for that kind of monkey-business!”
“Oh, I wasn’t,” Vesta agreed, candidly enough. “I still ain’t. I just went along for the ride.”
“And your folks let you?” Thlaskin was shocked.