"Yes, sir. All ready, Mister Jerill."
"Good." Turning from the hatch, he inverted his cell, poured out the uranium ore in a thick stream from the open hatch back across the hold toward the scrambling mass of cats upon the now empty rows of cells.
But he never reached the beasts.
A brawling torrent of animals leaped toward him. Hurling the container into their mass, he leaped to one side. They lunged into the trail of ore. Rolled, leaped, darted along the line. At the hatch edge, a pyramiding mass of cats paused a moment. Then plummeted over. Scott fell back against the bulkhead, his eyes fixed on the cats still scavenging among the empty cells.
Then these too were darting for the trail of ore. The uranium was scattered now. Cats plunged toward the new radiation in the box beyond the hold entrance.
The inarticulate cheers of Durval and his men rang in Scott's helmet. But his mind was already working at the next step of the problem.
"Durval," he ordered. "Get a decontamination unit in here. Clean this place out." Cats poured in a frenzied stream from the ship. "Call Mister Vaugn. Start purification of his ore as soon as it arrives."
Past the hatch, he saw the swift flash of the lead top dropping over the box. Excitement pounded hotly in his throat.
"I'm going to get rid of these cats once and for all," he called. "Be back in an hour."
"But what about the Kastil?"