As they worked, they brought each other up to date. Ross told him about the man who had tangled with a dud land mine. Cargraves paid little attention until Ross told him about the crates that had been opened. Cargraves laid down his tools and wiped sweat from his face. “I want the details on that,” he stated.
“What’s the matter, Doc? Nothing was hurt.”
“You figure the dead man had been breaking into the stuff?”
“Well, I thought so until I remembered that the Ranger had said flatly that this bozo was already buzzard meat before our stuff arrived.”
Cargraves looked worried and stood up. “Where to, Doc?”
“You go ahead with the job,” the scientist answered absently. “I’ve got to see Art.”
Ross started to speak, thought better of it, and went back to work.
“Art,” Cargraves started in, “what are you and Morrie doing now?”
“Why, we’re going over his astrogation instruments. I’m tracing out the circuits on the acceleration integrator. The gyro on it seems to be off center, by the way.”
“It has to be. Take a look in the operation manual. But never mind that. Could you rig an electric-eye circuit around this place?”
“I could if I had the gear.”
“Never mind what you might do `if’ — what can you do with the stuff you’ve got?”
“Wait a minute, Uncle Don,” the younger partner protested. “Tell me what you want to do — I’ll tell you if I can wangle it.”
“Sorry. I want a prowler circuit around the ship and cabin. Can you do it?”
Art scratched his ear. “Let me see. I’d need photoelectric cells and an ultraviolet light. The rest I can piece together. I’ve got two light meters in my photo kit; I could rig them for the cells, but I don’t know about UV light. If we had a sun lamp, I could filter it. How about an arc? I could jimmy up an arc.”
Cargraves shook his head. “Too uncertain. You’d have to stay up all night nursing it. What else can you do?”
“Mmmm. . . . Well, we could use thermocouples maybe. Then I could use an ordinary floodlight and filter it down to infra-red.”
“How long would it take? Whatever you do, it’s got to be finished by dark, even if it’s only charging the top wire of the fence.”
“Then I’d better do just that,” Art agreed, “if that — Say!”
“Say what?”
“Instead of giving the fence a real charge and depending on shocking anybody that touches it, I’ll just push a volt or two through it and hook it back in through an audio circuit with plenty of gain. I can rig it so that if anybody touches the fence it will howl like a dog. How’s that?”
“That’s better. I want an alarm right now. Get hold of Morrie and both of you work on it.” Cargraves went back to his work, but his mind was not on it. The misgivings which he had felt at the time of the mystery of the missing `blunt instrument’ were returning. Now more mysteries — his orderly mind disliked mysteries.
He started to leave the rocket about an hour later to see how Art was making out. His route led him through the hold into the pilot compartment. There he found Morrie. His eyebrows went up. “Hi, sport,” he said. “I thought you were helping Art.”
Morrie looked sheepish. “Oh, that!” he said. “Well, he did say something about it. But I was busy.” He indicated the computer, its cover off.
“Did he tell you I wanted you to help him?”
“Well, yes — but he didn’t need my help. He can do that sort of work just as well alone.”
Cargraves sat down. “Morrie,” he said slowly, “I think we had better have a talk. Have you stopped to think who is going to be second-in-command of this expedition?”
Morrie did not answer. Cargraves went on. “It has to be you, of course. You’re the other pilot. If anything happens to me the other two will have to obey you. You realize that?”
“Art won’t like that.” Morrie’s voice was a mutter.