The stock purchased under the name of Ralph Gantry was signed, sealed and delivered exactly fifteen minutes before the ticker projection on the grand wall of the Exchange showed the V.E. Preferred stock turn the bottom curve and start upward by hitting eighty-nine!
Back in the Terran Electric spaceship Kingman's ears were still beset by the roaring, alien music.
He was sitting in his chair with his head between his hands, and did not see the man approaching the instrument panel with a pair of side-cutters in one hand. The man reached the panel, lifted it slightly, and reached forward. Then Kingman, hearing a slight imperfection in the wail of the speaker, looked up, jumped from his chair, and tackled the engineer.
"You blasted fool!" blazed Kingman. "You idiot!"
The music stopped at his third word, and the scream of his voice in the silence of the room almost scared Kingman himself.
"Mark, I'm going nuts. I can't stand that racket."
"You're going to stand it. Unless you can get something to cut it out."
"I can't. I'm not brilliant enough to devise a circuit that will cut that noise and still permit the entry of your fellow on Luna."
"Then you'll live with it."
"Mark, why can't we take that relay apart and work on it?"