The Vortex Blaster was met effusively at the dock by Manager Graves himself. The fat man was overwhelmingly sorry that Cloud had lost his arm, but assured him that the accident wouldn't lay him up very long. He, Graves, would get a Posenian surgeon over here so fast that—
If the manager was taken aback to learn that Cloud had had a Phillips treatment already, he scarcely showed it. He escorted the specialist to Deka's best hotel, where he introduced him largely and volubly. Graves took him to supper. Graves took him to a theater and showed him the town. Graves told the hotel management to give the specialist the best rooms and the best valet they had and that all of his activities whatever their nature, purpose, or extent, were to be charged to Tellurian Pharmaceuticals, Inc. Graves was a grand guy.
Cloud broke loose finally, however, and went to the dock to see about storing his flitter.
It had not been unloaded. There would be a slight delay, he was informed, because of the insurance inspections necessitated by the damage—and Cloud had not known that there had been any damage! When he had found out just what that beam had done to his little ship he swore viciously and sought out the liner's Chief Pilot.
"Why didn't you tell me that that damned pirate holed us?" he demanded hotly.
"Why didn't you ask?" the officer replied, honestly surprised. "I don't suppose that it occurred to anybody—I know it didn't to me—that you might be interested."
And that was, Cloud knew, strictly true. Passengers were not informed of such occurrences. He had been enough of an officer so that he could have learned everything if he had so wished, but not enough of one to have been informed of such matters as routine. Nor was it surprising that it had not come up in conversation. Damage to cargo meant nothing whatever to those in the liner's control room; a couple of easily-patched holes in the hull were not worth mentioning. From their standpoint the only real damage was done to the communicators, and Cloud himself had set them to rights. No, this delay was his own fault as much as anybody else's.
"You won't lose anything, though," the pilot said helpfully. "It's all covered by insurance, you know."