"It's N. G.," said the insolent clerk. "Credit disapproved."
"I've got the money now," added Kellog. But the clerk shook his head and walked away. Over his shoulder he flung:
"You gotta get Wolf's O. K. He stopped it—personally."
"Oh," said Kellog. So he wouldn't be permitted to develop his invention on Titan even if he had money! Carmichael held the reins—the supply house, the shops, the power plant, transportation. Kellog walked slowly back to his laboratory, thinking on the way what his next step would be.
The following day he had better luck. When he looked from his antichron onto the clamoring mob of Wall Street brokers he knew at once that something unusual was afoot. Pandemonium reigned, and often awed faces would turn to stare up at the quotation board with its ever-changing symbols of good and bad news. Kellog read the last bulletin hurriedly.
"Following the suicide early this morning of Charles Bean, general manager of Venus Exploitation, rumors persist that the company's billion-dollar investment in mimil plantations has had to be written off as a total loss. The stock opened at 240, but fell off over a hundred points in the first few minutes of trading. The last sale was at 97—"
Kellog waited, tense. He watched Exploitation sink rapidly to 60, 50, then 40. A gong rang and the screen lighted up again.
"A correction to the last bulletin," it said. "President Aalman has made a statement. He says that Bean's suicide was due entirely to domestic difficulties. The mimil venture has been tremendously successful. So much so that the board of directors announce a one hundred percent stock dividend and an equal amount in cash. He further states that he will buy personally all the stock that is offered under 500."
At once the tumult on the floor increased to a howling typhoon of sound as the brokers suddenly reversed their position and began hunting sellers as fervidly as they had previously been hunting buyers. The bidding was wild, leaping by bounds to ever-higher figures. Exploitation rose from its depths like a soaring skyrocket—up into the hundreds, past the five-hundred mark of Aalman's bid, on to a thousand and upward.
Another gong. Another announcement.