"Johnny!" Chip's voice lifted in a note of jubilant surprise. "Johnny Haldane—you old scoundrel! Where in the void did you drop from?"
The S.S.P. man chuckled and returned Chip's greeting with a bone-grinding handclasp.
"I might ask the same of you, chum! Lord, it's been ages since we've crossed 'jectory! When I saw you meandering across the Casino, you could have knocked me down with a jetblast! What's new? Is old Syd still with you?"
"We're still shipmates. But he's back at the spaceport. The jerry-crew is plating our crate with ek, and—"
"Ek! Plating a private cruiser!" Haldane stared at him in astonishment, then whistled. "Sweet Sacred Stars, you must be filthy with credits to be able to coat an entire ship with ekalastron!"
"You," boasted Chip, "ain't heard nothing yet!" And he told him how they had discovered an entire mountain of the previous new element, No. 97 in the periodic table, on frigid Titania, satellite of far Uranus. "It was touch-and-go for a while," he admitted, "whether we'd be the luckiest three guys in space—or the deadest! But we passed through the flaming caverns like old Shadrach in the Bible—remember?—and here we are!"[1]
Haldane was exuberant. "A mountain of ekalastron!" he gloated. "That's the greatest contribution to spaceflight since Biggs' velocity-intensifier!" It was no overstatement. "Element No. 97 was a metal so light that a man could carry in one hand enough to coat the entire hull of a battleship—yet so adamant that a gossamer film of it would deflect a meteor! A metal strong enough to crush diamonds to ash—but so resilient that, when properly treated, it would rebound like rubber! What are you going to do with it, Chip? Put it on the open market?"
Warren shook his head.
"Not exactly. We talked it over carefully—Syd and Salvation and I—and we decided there are some space-rats to whom it shouldn't be made available. Privateers and outlaws, you know. So we turned control of the mines over to the Space Patrol at Uranus, and visiphoned the Earth authorities we were bringing in one cargo—"
"Visiphoned!" interrupted Haldane sharply. "Did you say visiphoned?"