Lamoureux wanted to be one of those other people. He had three kids he wanted to send through Lunar Tech; he had a wife with expensive tastes in robot servants; and he had relatives. Let him get Kalinoff off this God-forsaken planet, where he had been marooned for the past year, and even an interplanetary screwball might be expected to show some feeling of gratitude. Combine this feeling of gratitude with a reasonably fair contract already printed, and needing only the explorer's scrawl to give it validity, and Lamoureux could almost feel the money in his pocket. If only McCracken had not spoiled everything by his stupidity-- Lamoureux shuddered to think that by the time they got to him Kalinoff might be dead, and they would have to do business with his heirs--heirs who had no sense of gratitude to impair their business judgment. He felt suddenly poor again. But he put the gloomy thought out of his head, and went on with his work. * * * * * Unpacking would be finished in a couple of hours at most. Meanwhile there was some preliminary exploring to be done. The neighboring ground must be surveyed, and landmarks noted, so that they would have a suitable base from which to start their search. Kalinoff had talked about two mountains with a saddlelike ridge joining them. Those two mountains shouldn't be too difficult to recognize--if ever the expedition ran across them. McCracken, obeying orders, was lending a hand at the unloading. What with Mercury's low gravity, and his own strength, he had no difficulty in wrestling around the five hundred pound crates in which their supplies had been packed. However, he was of little help in getting the work done. With what Lamoureux decided was characteristic stupidity, he seemed to be mostly in everyone else's way. Lamoureux called, "McCracken!" "Yes, sir." "Let go those crates. The others will handle them. I want you--" Lamoureux stopped suddenly. A distant sound had come to his ears--the explosion of a bullet. There was a sudden silence that was so absolute, Lamoureux could hear his men breathe. Another bullet exploded, then another--and silence again. Somebody whispered, "The natives don't have guns. It must be Kalinoff!" "What luck to find him this way!" Lamoureux had run for his own gun. He fired ten shots into the air and waited. But there was no reply. Lamoureux spat out his orders with machine-gun speed. "McCracken, you, Carvalho, and Haggard set out to the right. The shots seemed to be coming from that direction. But we'll take no chances. Gronski, Terrill and Cannoni, go straight ahead. Marsden and Blaine, to the left; Robinson and Sprott, to the rear. Spread out fast and keep your eyes peeled. Don't go any further away than the sound of a bullet. Uncover every damned white-bush, and tear up every desert-cat hill, but don't come back without Kalinoff. Now get going!" * * * * *