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"Safe flights, Newton," and the admiral started calling the spaceport. "You'll get your orders in a day or two about going back to Algon with the commission," Newton told Hanlon. "Might as well stay here until then." After affectionate farewells he started out, then stopped, bursting into a laugh. "What's the gag, Dad?"
Nor were there any longer any native birds or animals left on Algon he could use he had learned that the men had killed them off soon after they arrived. "No, I'll just have to keep on trying, and get what dope I can without exposing myself. With a month and a half I should be able to get a lot more, and with what I already know, the Corps top brass will take steps, but fast!"
George Hanlon's young hand was shaking as he took the mike, but his voice was steady and crisp. "Admiral Ferguson, sir, this is George Hanlon of the Secret Service. I was detailed to the Simonidean affair. I've just returned from a planet I know both as 'Algon' and as 'Guddu. The planetographers are checking now for its exact location.
They would have to question him skillfully to make him think of the things Hanlon so desperately needed to know. "They certainly are building a great fleet Sire, on a planet they call 'Algon'," Hanlon stated crisply, and almost gave a yell of glee as, the emperor's mind fleetingly called up a picture distorted as though it had only been described to him of one of the Greenies.
"I was right," he told himself almost smugly. The six hour shift was finally ended without any further show of resistance. That is, it was six hours by Algonian time, but about eight by Terra standards. For on Algon, while the day had been divided by the humans into twenty-four hours, the same as on Earth, each hour was almost seventy-eight minutes long.
He realized his limitations one young, inexperienced man against twenty ruthless, wealth-and-power greedy ruffians ... and that only here, at this one mine. No telling how many others there were on Algon, besides all those back on Simonides, and who knew what other planets, who were in on this plot. His heart clamored for swift action his brain counselled caution and careful planning.
But at the same time we must be trying to find out what planet or system Bohr came from, and take steps to see they can't harm us. That means we've got to exert every effort to get every single person who was working with or for Bohr, and especially to find out if he had any superiors." "Right. The fleet should be here in another two days, and then Ferguson will want to blast for Algon.
But about your job," he continued after a moment, "we had no idea you could get so much. We merely hoped you might find a lead or two for us to work on. But you've practically wrapped this up for us." "Unh-uh," his son demurred. "It's far from finished. We've got to get to Algon and grab those ships.
"But I know you're right in part at least, that will probably be the case in time. Just as it will with the other planets as their best and younger top-notchers go out to open up still more worlds." In the middle of that first night on Algon something, perhaps his sub-conscious, brought George Hanlon wide awake, his every mental faculty clear and alert. Click! Click!
Hanlon flushed, but there was a sureness in his voice as he answered, that only the bitter experiences through which he had so recently passed, and which had matured him so greatly, could have brought. "We've got to liberate Algon and capture those new battleships as quickly as possible, of course.