"Depends on their boss," said Kevin. "If he figures we can be scared
off, he'll land. Otherwise, maybe he'll go away."
"Not that little stinker," Teejay told him. "Not Schuyler Barling. He
won't go away. Will the fact that we're here first matter? It will
not, for Schuyler knows we can't prove it. You ought to know better
than to hope for that, Kevin. No, we can figure that Schuyler will move
in on us."
"What happens then?" Steve demanded.
Teejay shrugged her bare, beautiful shoulders. "That I don't know.
Schuyler may be a stinker and may be predictable, but he's not _that_
predictable. Hey, it looks like the _Frank Buck_ is coming down!"
The big ship, Steve saw, was doing precisely that. Its jets had been
cut, and the ship fell like a stone. Twice its length separated it from
the rubble-strewn pumice when the pilot kicked his jets over again, and
something seemed to slap the _Frank Buck_ back up toward the starry
sky. The result was a first-rate landing.
"That would be Schuyler showing off," said Teejay wearily. "He must
have been born in a tube and weaned on jet-slag, and he sure lets you
know it."
Fifteen minutes later, Schuyler Barling and three of his officers
entered the _Gordak_.
Barling got out of his vac-suit first, a tall, handsome man of about
thirty, with short-cropped blond hair, pale blue eyes and petulant
lips. "Captain Moore," he said, bowing slightly from the waist. Making
fun of Teejay.
"Mr. Barling." As ever, the woman seemed cool and unruffled.
"With us," said Schuyler Barling, "it's in the family. I work for my
father. Obviously, it means something to me whether he succeeds or
not. But you, Captain Moore, you're a hired hand. You work for Brody
Carmical, on a paycheck. Therefore, your loyalty could not possibly be
as strong as mine, and--"
"Get to the point!"
"We arrived here on Ganymede almost simultaneously. One of us will have
to leave."
"It didn't look simultaneous to me."
Barling ignored her. "Yes, one will have to leave, because the
anthrovac is frightened off easily and unless a hunt is carried on with
the utmost precision and timing, no one will catch any anthrovacs."
"Go on," said Teejay. She spoke quietly, but Steve knew the woman well
enough to realize her temper was coming to a boil, inside.
"My _Frank Buck_ got here first," Barling told her blandly. "Therefore,
you will leave."
"That's a stinking lie!" Teejay cried. "We were here first and you know
it."
"Who can prove it? The _Frank Buck_ landed first." Barling's hand
flashed down to his waist, came up gripping a neutron gun. "If we have
to, we'll force you to leave."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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