Under Biggs' directions, McMurtrie's men got going. Their first move was to dump a holdful of ordinary tablesalt, residue of a cargo we had never completely discharged, into the lake. That was screwy enough, and drew a murmur from the Old Man. His murmur changed to a moan when they followed this move by dumping into the lake those bins of silver ore which Biggs had mentioned.
Then came the whackiest part of all. Biggs implanted one of the two metal uprights MCMurtrie had forged for him in the southernmost extremity of the lake. Then—with the help of a tractor crew, of course; the things were twenty feet long—he set its mate at the other end of the lake, connected wires from the posts to the hypatomic motors of our ship.
All this took time, naturally. A lot of time. Maybe too much time. Because he had scarcely finished these preparations when there came a message from the commandant of the S.P. flagship:
"Ahoy, Iris! S.P. Cruiser Pollux approaching. Clear cradles for official landing!"
Our physical labor completed, we were back in my radio turret now. As we picked up this omniwave call, Biggs spun to me excitedly.
"Sparks—contact Steichner immediately!"
I twisted the dials, finally succeeded in picking up the wavelength of the submerged Irisian governor's set. Biggs spoke clearly over the audio.
"Governor Steichner, this is Lt. Lancelot Biggs aboard the Saturn. Can you hear me?"
Steichner's reply shot back savagely.
"I can, Lieutenant. Have patience. I will take care of you when this other little matter has been attended to."