Stoneface ground around on his heel and began grating out orders. "Slats and Joker, you tie up the girl till I decide what to do with her. Tubby, see what they've got to eat in this shack. Trigger--back to the ship and tell the boys we'll relieve them in an hour and they're to keep their eyes open in the meantime. Bring back a couple of bottles of juice with you. Karns, you keep a rod on this monkey in case he didn't understand what I told him." In a few minutes they were all sitting around the mess table washing down about a week's supply of Expedition rations with raw juice. When they had finished Stony belched vigorously, stood up, and walked over to look out of one of the portholes. I followed him with my eyes, and was surprised to see that it was night outside. I hadn't realized how short these six-hour days would be. Stony began talking again. "Slats, you and Karns get back to the ship and let the other boys come over here and stretch their legs and get some chow. After that we all got to get busy and ditch the ship and set up the artillery on the ground to get ready for that Patrol boat when it shows up. Me, I got some other business on hand." He walked over to Betty and picked her up under one arm, chair and all. "Put the girl down!" I told him. He set her down on the deck again and came at me, balling up one of his cobblestone fists. "I said I was going to take you apart if you didn't act nice," he snarled. "Well, here goes!" "Wait a minute," I said. "I know what you want and I know where to get it." That stopped him. "What do you mean?" he growled. "I mean a new power slug. I saw how sloppy your jet was when you came in. You haven't got one G-hour left. You might take off from a little rock like this, but you'd never make Venus again and you know it. That's why you're willing to wait around here for six months on the slim chance of being able to shoot down a Patrol cruiser and salvage a slug out of it." He blinked when I mentioned Venus, but I didn't let him see I noticed it. My mind was beginning to click now. This wasn't the way I would have preferred to handle the matter, but I didn't see anything else to do. Stony ground his teeth at me. "Well?" "I know where you can get a new slug just for picking it up." One of his hands reached out and wrapped around my neck, and he started shaking. "Where is it then!" he gritted. "Out with it!" "I didn't say I was going to tell you," I reminded him, as soon as I started breathing again. "I'm willing to talk about it, though." "I'm listening. But talk fast, chum." "Cut the girl loose, and me too." Stoneface waved a command, and in a moment we were rubbing the circulation back into our wrists. Betty wasn't looking at me.