"V. E. Preferred coming in fast. Shall we wait?"
Walt chuckled and spoke into the driver modulator. "Kingman," he said, "some wiseacre is still buying. V. E. 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 giving orders to drop 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. "V. E. Preferred is dropping like a plummet. When can we buy?"
Walt smiled and said into Kingman's set-up: "Kingman! V. E. 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."
"O.K.," said Walt. "But he's going to go nuts when the Northern Landing Exchange starts down without ever getting to that mythical nine hundred."
"Let him wonder. Meanwhile, fellows, let's run ourselves a slide on Terran Electric. Sell the works!"
Terran Electric started down just as V. E. Preferred took its third drop. It passed three hundred, and started down the two hundred numbers. Walt shook his head and said to Kingman: "Kingman, we're getting results now. She's dropped back again—to six hundred and three." Then he said: "Kingman, someone is playing hob with T. E. Preferred. She's up to two hundred and fifty-one."