He said, "This is the fifth time I've been through this. Every guy that Westley Marks sends up here asks the same questions. Sure you could lift it with a derrick if the derrick was big enough. Do you have any idea of what it'd cost to bring a derrick of that size to Mars? "And that's not the only thing, either. These zloors are gentle as lambs, but they hate to be confined against their will. That derrick'd have to have some awfully strong equipment to keep the zloor from breaking loose and ambling off. There's other angles there, too. Suppose your derrick did lift him into the shuttle. When you got the shuttle up to the space station, how'd you move the zloor from the shuttle to the station and then from the station to the rocket for Terra?" He go up from the bed and went over to a little table to return with a bottle and a couple of glasses. He poured two drinks and handed me one. "Here," he said, "you look like you could use a quick one. Have a hair of a dog that's going to bite kert out of you before you ever leave Mars." I grated, "I could stand the rest of it, but what burns me up is that _makron_ Westley Marks. Here he is getting rich on the project. Besides what he makes from the government, he's bet every one of us so much that we'll all be out our life savings when we go back." "Brother Nap, you have said it," Mike Holiday said feelingly. He tilted the glass to his lips and drank deeply. I was right behind him. * * * * * It was more than two years later when I walked into the office of Westley Marks. I noted with pleasure that he still looked as aristocratic as ever. "Ah," he said, "Mr. _Napoleon_ Prescott. As I recall, the last time we met you objected to my calling your namesake a 'bust.' Don't tell me that we have an additional bust in--" I loved it. I loved every word of it. And he must have seen that I did. "What are you grinning about?" he barked. It was the first time I had seen his poise disturbed. "Frankie," I told him, "is at the spaceport right now. Johnny will be down on the next shuttle. As you can imagine, the shuttle was pretty well strained to capacity to bring even one at a time. It was no trouble in space of course, since they were weightless in free fall, but entering the gravitational--" He put his hands on the top of the desk and half came to his feet. His eyes were wide. "Who are _Frankie_ and Johnny?" I feigned surprise. "Frankie and Johnny are sweethearts--a couple of zloors, in this case. Remember? You sent me for them. I thought a male and a female would be best." He slumped back in his chair. "You aren't lying?" I didn't say anything. "How ... did you do it?" "With peach pits," I said. "Peach pits!" "Peach pits. They like apricot pits too, and sometimes prune seeds." "What in the world are you talking about, Prescott? Have you lost your mind?"