"But Captain Hanson said to junk the spoiled vegetables."
"Junk. Not dump! They should have been thrown into the incinerator. You see, anything tossed out of the Saturn in free space just follows along with the ship." I grinned. "I'd hate to be one of the spaceport attendants on Earth when the Saturn comes in surrounded by twenty-four lead satellites full of garbage."
He picked me up on that one quick as a flash.
"But—but they won't be with us when we land, Sparks. As soon as we hit Earth's atmosphere, the friction will destroy the Forenzis and their contents."
I whistled softly.
"By golly, you're right. I clean forgot about that, and Hanson was so sore, he forgot it, too. That means we have to get those containers back into the ship before we hit the tropo, or we're going to lose a couple hundred bucks worth of equipment."
Biggs said meekly, "I—I'll be glad to go out and reclaim them, Sparks. Can you fix it up with the skipper?"
"I'll try," I told him.
So the next day I told Hanson about it. The Captain yanked his lower lip thoughtfully and agreed.
"Let him do it. That's better than giving him a free ride to Earth. And maybe he'll slip into the rocket blasts?"