"Kingman," said Channing. "You've got your orders, Walt. When Kingman expects the market to go down, tell him it's still going up. We'll figure this out as we go along, but he won't like it at all."
There was silence for a few minutes, and then Don said: "Walt, Kingman's sent a message through the Northern Landing station now. He says: 'Dump a block to shake the suckers loose. This is pyramided so high that they should all climb on the sell-wagon; running the market down of their own weight. When it hits a new low, we'll buy, and this time end up by having control.' When he starts to run the market down, you buy at Terra."
Minutes later, the message hit the Terra market, and Kingman's agent started to unload. The stock started off at six hundred and nine, and it soon dropped to five-forty. It hovered there, and then took another gradual slide to four-seventy. Then a message came through the regular beam station which Walt intercepted, decoded with Terran Electric's own code book, and read as follows:
"I. C. Preferred coming in fast. Shall we wait?"
Walt chuckled and spoke into the driver modulator. "Kingman," he said, "some wiseacre is still buying. I. C. Preferred is running at seven-ninety! What now?"
In the Venus Equilateral radio, he said: "Don, I just fixed him."
From Venus, Wes said: "You sure did. He's just giving orders to drop some more stock. This is too dirty to be funny, but Kingman asked for it. I know him. He's got this set up so that no one can do a thing on this market program without orders from him. Too bad we can't withhold the Northern Landing quotations from him."
The Lunar Beam brought forth another message intended for Kingman's interceptor at Luna. "I. C. Preferred is dropping like a plummet. When can we buy?"
Walt smiled and said into Kingman's set-up: "Kingman! I. C. Preferred is now at eight hundred and seventy!"
Not many minutes later, Wes said: "That was foul, Walt. He's just given orders to run the market down at any cost."