"I'm doing the thinking around here, Johnson!"
"It's a cinch you ain't doing much of the shooting! Letting fancy-brains, here, tell you—"
Jon heard the sudden sound of bone crunching against bone; there was a choked yelp of pain, and the sound of a man falling heavily. Then Stine was talking again, softly.
"Anyone else here who prefers muscle to brain power?"
"Sir—Johnson's—you—"
"Bury him later, and listen to me now! I want the Gravity-Justifier in Procyon smashed so that the Tinkers can't do a thing with it—but so that he can! Do you understand, Haine?"
"I can smash it up so that we couldn't put it back together in a million years."
"You'll be responsible. Let's get this man aboard the New World and be ready to up-ship within an hour. We're going to have our cake, gentlemen, and eat it, too! Unless, of course, our friend Kane, here, will be able to watch ten billion people die as an entire planetary system breaks up, and do nothing about it! All right, let's get going!"
And then there was the sound of another man coming into the already crowded cubicle.
"Senator Stine, sir! Look what we found coming down the ladder! And in a shooting mood, too! I'll need a new space rig—"