"You know that, Steichner. That's why you're—"
Steichner's face mottled unhealthily. He said in a gray voice, "You are talking dangerously, Donovan. Be careful no 'accident' stops your wagging tongue."
"If anything happens to me," I promised him, "you'll receive a visit from the Space Patrol before you can stutter 'nebular hypothesis,' Steichner. That's been arranged."
His lips were a white slit through which he gritted, "I quite understand, Donovan. But don't underestimate Otto Steichner. Even for that eventuality I am prepared. Now—get out!"
"Moreover—" I began.
"I said—get out!"
"So," I concluded my story to the skipper and Lanse Biggs, "I scrammed across the bridge and over the lake and up to camp, here. And thus endeth my little attempt to buy more land. It just can't be done, boys and girls. That's a dead duck."
The Old Man frowned. He said, "Yeah, there's no use squawkin' about it; Steichner holds the whip hand. The worst of it is, he'll probably be able to kick us off Iris without doin' a thing to bring in the Patrol. I mean, we'll get the gate strictly legal. Because we still ain't found no sign of pumice, and we're pretty deep now—Well, Lancelot?"
Biggs had been thinking. You can always tell when he's thinking, because his feet shuttle from side to side like spectators' heads at a tennis-match. Now he said, "Across the what and over the what, Sparks?"