Not many people watching in at this hour, but the Missionary's words were being faithfully recorded in every home owning a Bronsco Newsbeam set. And during supper, when people switched on the news, there'd be a lot of Martian-owning or Martian-supported fathers and husbands who'd get indigestion and have to be restrained from busting up the set. They'd flash a protest to the Newsbeam; they'd record an indignant tape to the government.
More to the point, they'd squawk to Kemmerdygn. Which reminded Scat that he had business. "While I'm gone, you take orders from him," he told the staff, indicating Click-Click. "Any question you got, he'll write you an answer."
He walked out without waiting for the reaction. A small boy was soaping Bugs on the glastic. It begins, thought Scat. He tossed an old news-spool at the boy and hopped in the car.
He passed up the skylon housing the front offices of Kemmerdygn Mining Interests and headed straight for Ten Mile. If they were going to give him the runaround, it might as well be on the spot.
Outside city limits, the trafficway skirted Bugtown. He parked to get pix. Some shots of those miserable burrows and those apathetic black forms—so spiritless in comparison with a healthy, psychically sound, enlightened Martian like Click-Click—would fit nicely into an article he was doing for the Free Martian Monthly. And maybe something for the Newsbeam Sunday Supplement—if the new ownership lasted that long.
Why, there were only two refrigerators for the whole community, and the measly vacuum shack was inadequate even for mating purposes. But owners didn't worry about the interminable process of Martian gestation and maturation—not while Outer Spaceways was running the theoretically illegal Bug Trade wide open.
With an almost savage flirt of his fingers, he switched in the smell-getter. Might as well give the owners of sets with olfactory reception a whiff of sick Martian while he was at it.
A rangy, loose-jawed man slouched out of the bushes on the other side of the trafficway. A tarnished squirt gun was stuck conspicuously in the belt of his smock. "What might you be doing, Mister?" he drawled.
"Admiring the scenery," Scat replied harshly. "Bronsco should be proud!"