ake sure the door of the
booth was secure. "I'm with some people, now. I'll call you back
later."

"Well, that's that, Joe," Oscar said, after Bish blanked the screen.
"The Ravick Co-op's stuck with the price cut. The only thing left to
do is get everybody out of it we can, and organize a new one."

"I guess that's so," Joe agreed. "I wonder, though if Ravick has
really got wise to Murell."

"Walt figured it out since the ship got in," Oscar said. "Belsher's
been on the ship with Murell for six months. Well, call it three;
everything speeds up about double in hyperspace. But in three months
he ought to see as much as Walt saw in a couple of hours."

"Well, maybe Belsher doesn't know what's suspicious, the way Walt
does," Tom said.

"I'm sure he doesn't," I said. "But he and Murell are both in the wax
business. I'll bet he noticed dozens of things I never even saw."

"Then we'd better take awfully good care of Mr. Murell," Tom said.
"Get him aboard as fast as we can, and get out of here with him. Walt,
you're coming along, aren't you?"

That was what we'd agreed, while Glenn Murell was still the famous
travel-book author. I wanted to get out of it, now. There wouldn't be
anything happening aboard the _Javelin_, and a lot happening here in
Port Sandor. Dad had the same idea, only he was one hundred per cent
for my going with Murell. I think he wanted me out of Port Sandor,
where I wouldn't get in the way of any small high-velocity particles
of lead that might be whizzing around.

7

ABOARD THE _JAVELIN_

We heard nothing more from Bish Ware that evening. Joe and Tom
Kivelson and Oscar Fujisawa slept at the _Times_ Building, and after
breakfast Dad called the spaceport hospital about Murell. He had
passed a good night and seemed to have thrown off all the poison he
had absorbed through his skin. Dad talked to him, and advised him not
to leave until somebody came for him. Tom and I took a car--and a
pistol apiece and a submachine gun--and went to get him. Remembering,
at the last moment, what I had done to his trousers, I unpacked his
luggage and got another suit for him.

He was grateful for that, and he didn't lift an eyebrow when he saw
the artillery we had with us. He knew, already, what the score was,
and the rules, or absence thereof, of the game, and accepted us as
members of his team. We dropped to the Bottom Level and went, avoiding
traffic, to where the wax was stored. There were close to a