“Small as this cargo is …”
“This cargo’s a very small portion of what’s easily availableif you know where and how to look for it.”
“And you do?” Torkel challenged him.
Satok contented himself with a smug smile. “I can show you enough lode-bearing sites to make your eyes bug out.”
Torkel jerked his head at the girl, wondering if Satok should be so blatant. Satok merely shrugged. Then his expression changed so abruptly that Torkel drew back in surprise; as Satok was raising a weapon, Torkel was already reaching for his own side arm, but Satok was not shooting at him. He was aiming out the shuttle door at small darting orange figures, and firing until the clip was empty.
“Hate them bloody orange mothers!” His face was a rictus of an intense hatred. He calmly slammed another magazine into the hand weapon, and then gave a surprised exclamation. “What the …”
Torkel looked around to see the slatternly girl racing toward the cover of the trees, her sobs trailing back like the sounds of a lost soul, a tail protruding from one side of her body. But there were no corpses of orange cats on the groundand that surprised Torkel as much as it did Satok.
“Frag it, I can’t have missed!” Satok was shouting as he stared about. He jumped to the ground to peer under the shuttle’s slanting prow.
“Forget them, Satok. They’re unimportant.”
“Yeah?” Satok snarled. His loss of poise gave Torkel a chance to seize control of the situation.
“Yeah! I want to see more of this sort of stuff,” he told Satok. “And I want to see it as fast as you can get me to these mother lodes you rave about. But, first, I’ve got to go back to the village for a moment …” And Torkel cursed the necessity. He pegged Satok as an opportunist and unreliable. But if he’d come to find Torkel Fiske, he must also know that Torkel was the best officer at SpaceBase to deal with.
“Yeah, yeah, I guess so. But do we have a deal?” The man’s eyes glittered with greedy anticipation.
Torkel assumed a casual pose. “That depends on how accessible this ore is.”
“Far more accessible than you’ve any idea, Captain dear,” Satok replied with the oily smile Torkel would have liked to wipe off his face.
”If that’s the case, you may be sure that Intergal will be appreciative.’
“As always?” The sneer was back as Satok leaned against the door frame.
“Why don’t you accompany me to town?” Torkel began, adding quickly when he saw the apprehension flash in Satok’s eyes, “There’s woods enough to hide you from prying eyes while I make my farewells … And there’s no one to hear us talk out here.” He gestured at the open clearing, the forests deserted even by small animals after the arrival of the shuttle.
Satok punched the button to close the shuttle door and gestured ironically for Torkel to lead the way.
During their walk, Satok mentioned that there were sixteen different locations where ore had been collected, claiming that all the deposits were extremely rich and, furthermore, were so accessible that the company had simply over looked them time and time again. The man wouldn’t be more specific, but the hold full of ore was proof in itself.
Torkel was both delighted and infuriated. If the deposits had all been there, and so accessible, why had the best geological teams of Intergal failed where this miserable excuse for a man succeeded?
He left Satok on the edge of the village while he went on, resuming his attempt to brush the mud off his clothing as he walked. This time Torkel took the boardwalks, which were noticeably empty of pedestrians, and the long way around to Aigur’s house. The damned cats were back, he noticed. As well he’d left Satok screened from the village and the tempting display of orange cats, or the man’s hatred of the beasts might have over come any sense he had.
Torkel noticed a mud scraper on the first step of the house and dutifully used it on his shoes. He heard some odd scurryings inside the house, and it seemed to him that he also heard a faint hissing over head. Too late now. He rapped on the door: courtesy was always appreciated.