"You will like hell," barked Carlyle. "I've got a ship in the field already. That, according to the Universal Salvage Code, gives me prior rights. Find yourself another playground."
Larry watched the other ship-man's eyes dwindle to steely pin-points, but still he kept a grin on his wide mouth. Haggard was a powerfully built Swede, one of those laughing, blond-headed men who seem a throwback to the days when giants fought with seventy-pound broadswords and wore chain mail. His savagery belonged to another era, too. Men who had shipped with him never did so again, and thanked their stars they were still alive and more or less sane.
"All right, Carlyle," he chuckled, at last. "Round one is yours. You keep your boys toeing the mark and I'll try to do the same." His eyes dropped to Larry's face. "Got your course mapped out?"
Larry handed his captain the chart he had brought with him, and the man glanced at it with shrewd, faded blue eyes. He was a hard-case old-timer, leathery of skin, short coupled, and tough as oak. But he knew his business, and handed the sheet back directly.
"Fair enough," he gruffed. "That gives us room enough to turn around in."
"I guess we're agreed, then," Thaddeus Carlyle said curtly, extending a broad palm to Haggard. "Good luck."
They shook hands, and once more the glass ports were rolled back in place, the locks opened, and the ships drew apart.
"The damned liar," Carlyle said darkly, watching the Martian arch itself high above them and surge away. "We'll have trouble with him before two watches are down on the log."
IV