nt the next twenty or so hours following
that up, and heard about your man Devis straining his back. He found
out what Devis did on the _Javelin_, and that gave him the idea that
whatever the sabotage was, it would be something to the engines. What
did happen, by the way?"

A couple of us told him, interrupting one another. He nodded.

"That was what Nip Spazoni thought when he looked at the ship. Well,
after that he talked to your father and to me, and then your father
began calling and we heard from Nip."

You could see that it absolutely hurt Joe Kivelson to have to owe his
life to Bish Ware.

"Well, it's lucky anybody listened to him," he grudged. "I wouldn't
have."

"No, I guess maybe you wouldn't," Oscar told him, not very cordially.
"I think he did a mighty sharp piece of detective work, myself."

I nodded, and then, all of a sudden, another idea, under _Bish Ware,
Reformation of_, hit me. Detective work; that was it. We could use a
good private detective agency in Port Sandor. Maybe I could talk him
into opening one. He could make a go of it. He had all kinds of
contacts, he was handy with a gun, and if he recruited a couple of
tough but honest citizens who were also handy with guns and built up a
protective and investigative organization, it would fill a long-felt
need and at the same time give him something beside Baldur honey-rum
to take his mind off whatever he was drinking to keep from thinking
about. If he only stayed sober half the time, that would be a fifty
per cent success.

Ramon Llewellyn was wanting to know whether anybody'd done anything
about Al Devis.

"We didn't have time to bother with any Al Devises," Oscar said. "As
soon as Bish figured out what had happened aboard the _Javelin_, we
knew you'd need help and need it fast. He's keeping an eye on Al for
us till we get back."

"That's if he doesn't get any drunker and forget," Joe said.

Everybody, even Tom, looked at him in angry reproach.

"We better find out what he drinks and buy you a jug of it, Joe,"
Oscar's gunner told him.

The _Helldiver_, which had been closest to us when our signal had
been picked up, was the first ship in. She let down into the ravine,
after some maneuvering around, and Mohandas Feinberg and half a dozen
of his crew got off with an improvised stretcher on a lifter and a lot
of blankets. We got our broken-leg case aboard, and Abdullah Monnahan,
and the man with the broken wrist. There were more ships co