time?”
“Oh, it was. . . an experience,” Hunt answered automatically, but when he looked up he saw from the mischievous twinkle that danced in the eyes below the craggy brows that the question had been more than casual. He should have known. Caldwell never said or did anything without a reason.
“Know thyself,” Caldwell quoted softly. “And others too, maybe, huh?” He shrugged as if making light of the matter, but the twinkle still remained in his eyes.
Hunt’s brows knitted for a split second, and then his eyes slowly widened as the cryptic message behind this turn in the conversation became clear. It took perhaps two seconds for the de..
tails to click into place in his brain. In the early days of the Lunarian investigations, just after Hunt had moved to Houston from England, his relationship with Danchekker had been caustic. Progress toward unraveling the mystery was more often than not hampered because the two scientists dissipated their energies fruitlessly in personal conificts. But later on, in the wilderness of Luna and out in the void between Earth and Jupiter, all that had somehow been forgotten. It was then that the two scientists had begun to work in harmony, and the difficulties had crumbled before the powerful assault of their combined talents, which was what had been needed to solve the Lunanian problem. Hunt could see that clearly now. Suddenly, he also realized that this state of affairs had not come about through mere accident. He stared at Caldwell with new respect, and slowly nodded ungrudging approval.
“Gregg,” he said, in a tone of mock reproach. “You’ve been pulling strings again. You set us up.”
“I did?” Caldwell’s voice was suitably innocent.
“Chris and me. It was out there we began to see each other as people and learned to pool our marbles. That’s what cracked the Lunarian riddle. You knew it would happen. . .” Hunt pointed an accusing finger across the desk. “That’s why you did it.”
Caidwell compressed his heavy jowls momentarily into a tight-lipped grin of satisfaction. “So, you got more than your money’s worth,” he threw back. “Not complaining, are you?”
“Smooth operator,” Hunt complimented, raising his glass. “Okay, we’ve both had a good deal. That’s how I think business ought to be. But now to the present and the future-what have you got lined up next?”
Caidwell sat forward and rested his elbows on the desk. He exhaled a long stream of blue smoke. “What about this bunch of alien guys you brought back from Europe; are you still tied up most of the time with looking after them?”
“They’ve been introduced over at Westwood now,” Hunt told him. “They’re interested in the Lunarians and particularly want to have a look at Charlie over there. Chris Danchekker is handling that side of things, which leaves me fairly free for a while.”
“Fine. What I’d like you to start giving some thought to is a preliminary overview of Ganymean science,” Caidwell said. “What with this ZORAC machine of theirs and all the conferences
and discussions they’re having all over the place, there’s more information coming across than we can handle. When all the excitement dies down there’s going to be one hell of a lotta work to get through with all that. When you were coordinating the Charlie business you operated a pretty good network of channels to most of the leading scientific institutions and establishments around the world. I’d like you to use those channels again to make a start at cataloging and evaluating everything that’s new, especially things that could be of particular use to UNSA-like their gravitics. We may find we want to revise a lot of our own research programs in light of what these big guys have got to tell us. Now seems as good a time as any to begin.”
“The group stays intact for a while then?” Hunt guessed, referring to the team that he had headed during the Lunarian investigations and which had continued working under the supervision of his deputy, mainly to tidy up the unresolved details, during his time on Ganymede.
“Yep.” Caldwell nodded. “The way they work seems set up for the job. Have you said hello to them yet?”