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Updated: June 2, 2025
Always at hand were loaded rifles, because you never knew what kind of space-soured men who might once have been as tame as neighbors going for a drive on Sundays with their families might be around, even here. Neither Kuzak slept, if the other wasn't awake. They were watching Tiflin, whose bubb rode a little ahead of the others. He was ostracized, more or less.
But maybe, still in some bleak, fatalistic way it would be just as well in the end, for them both. "Sure, Nance," he said gently. "I'll call again the regular time..." Right after that he was talking, over a much greater span, to Art Kuzak. "First phase about completed, Art... Finger to thumb in spite of the troubles elsewhere. So let it roll...!"
So it was, until, near the end of a long ride, a cluster of bubbs was in view in the near distance, and Ramos and Nelsen could contact Art Kuzak themselves. "We've got Tiflin and his Tovie pal with us, Art," Frank Nelsen said. "They showed us the way, more or less because we made them. But Tif did give us the right position at the start. A favor, maybe. I don't know.
Baines, George?" "Here!" Two-and-Two responded, loud and plain in Frank Nelsen's phone, from the other rocket. "Hines, Walter?" One by one the names were called... "Kuzak, Arthur?... Kuzak, Joseph?..." "Okay the Mystic Nine, eh? Lash down!" They lay on their backs on the padded floors, and fastened the straps. Gimp Hines, next to Frank, seemed to have discarded his crutches, somewhere.
A friendly dog coming over to sniff, with a look of mild wonder in his eyes. "Laugh, you leather-heads!" Art Kuzak roared at the others. He grinned, wiping his muddy face. "We've got to learn, don't we? Only, it's like make-believe. Hell, I haven't played make-believe since I was four!
"Should we, Frank?" Ramos chuckled after a moment. "Possibly... We've got some collateral, Art. Lots more valuable per unit mass than any raw metal, I should think." "So you might want to work for us?" Art inquired blandly. "Not 'for'," Nelsen chuckled. "We might say 'with'." "Okay, Cuties," Art laughed. Joe Kuzak had just come back into the dwelling and office bubb.
Art Kuzak, one-time hunkie football player, was a power among the asteroids. His brother, Joe, had scarcely changed, personally. About himself, Nelsen got the most lost. What had he become, after his wrong guesses and his great luck, and the fact that he had managed to see more than most?
With luck, and if we get our applications for space-fitness tests mailed to Minneapolis within a week, at least some of us should get off Earth by next June. Now, shall we sign for the whole deal?" Art Kuzak hunched his shoulders and displayed white teeth happily. "I'm a pushover," he said. "Here I come. I like to see things roll." "Likewise," said his brother, Joe.
A kitchen, a terrace, a place for a garden, a place for kids, even... With a few personal touches, you've got it made. Better than the house trailer my dad used to hook onto the jalopy when I was ten... My Alice likes it, too, Chief that's the real signal! Tell your pals Kuzak that this is the Idea of the Century." Frank Nelsen kind of thought so, too, just then.
All this happened under the sardonic gaze of Glen Tiflin, and before the puzzled eyes of Joe Kuzak and Two-and-Two Baines. A dozen others were hovering near. Nelsen lowered his voice and called, "Nance?" She answered at once. "I'm all right, Frank. A few people to patch. Some beyond that. I'm in the hospital with Doc Forbes..."
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