Arden smiled. "Walt and Christine will be wild. Serves 'em right."
Farrell shrugged. "Going to tell 'em?"
"Nope. For one thing, they're honeymooning where no one knows. And so we'll just leave quietly and when they come back, they'll find that Venus Equilateral is a large empty house. Run off on us, will they!"
"Making any public announcements?" asked Keg.
Don shook his head. "Why bother?" he asked. "People will know sooner or later, and besides, these days I'd prefer to keep the coupled-crystal idea secret as long as possible. We'll get more royalty, because once it is known, the duplicators will go crazy again. So long as Venus Equilateral—the generic term—maintains interplanetary communications, that's all that is necessary. Though Venus Equilateral as an identity is no more, the name of the interplanetary communications company shall be known as Venus Equilateral as a fond tribute to a happy memory of a fine place. And—"
"And now we can haul off and have a four-alarm holiday brawl," said Arden.
Farrell noted the thermometers that measured the temperature of the cold room. "About all we'd have to do is to hold the door open and Venus Equilateral will have its first snow storm."
"Just like Mars," said Jim. "No wonder Christine eloped with Walt. Bet they're money-hooning on Venus."
"Well," said Channing, "turn up the gain on that ice-cream freezer of Walt's, and we'll have our winter snowstorm. A white Christmas, by all that's good and holy!"
Farrell grinned widely and reached up to the servo panel. He twisted the master control dial all the way clockwise and the indicators read high on their scales. Imperceptibly, the recording thermometers started to creep downward—though it would take a day or so before the drop became evident.