"It'll wait—for a while," he said stiffly and opened the door and went into the outer office. Bone-faced, he walked toward the transveyor belt.
"Mr. Kent—Mr. Kent!" The big man's Mercurian secretary rose out of a chair near the door, his voice quacking from the speaker set into his fishbowl helmet.
"Yes?"
"They tolt me that you hat gone to Mr. Caradac's office, sir. I've been trying to finte you all morning, sir. A laty, sir, on the visiphone. She has callt many times—many times—"
"Thank you," Kent said tonelessly. "I know who it is."
Joe Caradac stared in astonishment at the door. First Sarah—now Kent. This seemed to be the day for everybody to blast in orbits ... well, hell ... he shrugged his shoulders and called Miss Kal back out of her office. She dropped into her chair with a sigh and they picked up the day's business from where it had fallen.
San-Vika of Saturn Enterprises was threatening all kinds of things if he didn't receive his shipment of ato-rotors on the very next flight. Joe didn't waste much time with that. One of the many things that made him a top executive was that he knew how to deal with phonies. He told San-Vika—via spacephone—that he could go stick his heads in a waste eliminator and push the button, and that if he wanted to get nasty, M. I. and E. had an army of lawyers hanging around just itching to get their teeth into last year's insurance double-deal.
"We let everybody get away with it—once!" Joe told him and cut the suddenly fawning image off the screen. M. I. and E.'s investigators, he thought absently, could certainly give the Sol Secret Service a run for their credits. Now that he had tactfully gotten San-Vika straightened out, he might as well release those ato-rotors to be shipped.
At twelve fifteen an audiogram came from Sarah. I don't feel well enough to come. Love, S. Well, at least it was an improvement in tone.