But they were not forced to fall back on Hazel’s uninspired cooking. Fries had the Stone warped into contact with City Hall and a passenger tube sealed from the Stone’s lock to an unused hatch of the bigger ship; when Dr Stone was away they ate in his restaurant Mrs Fries was an excellent cook and she raised a great variety in her hydroponics garden.
While they were rigging the scooter the twins had time to mull over the matter of the flat cats. It had dawned on them that here in Rock City was a potential, unexploited market for flat cats. The question was: how best to milk it for all the traffic would bear?
Pol suggested that they peddle them in the scooter; he pointed out that a man’s sales resistance was lowest, practically zero, when he actually had a flat cat in his hands. His brother shook his head ‘No good, Junior.’
‘Why not?’
‘One, the Captain won’t let us monopolize the scooter; you know he regards it as ship’s equipment, built by the crew, namely us. Two, we would burn up our profits in scooter fuel. Three, it’s too slow; before we could move a third of them, some idiot would have fed our first sale too much, it has kittens — and there you are, with the market flooded with flat cats. The idea is to sell them as nearly as possible all at one time.’
‘We could stick up a sign in the store — One-Price would let us — and sell them right out of the Stone.’
‘Better but not good enough. Most of these rats shop only every three or four months. No, sir, we’ve got to build that better mouse trap and make the world beat a path to our door.’
‘I’ve never been able to figure out why anybody would want to trap a mouse. Decompress a compartment and you kill all of them, every time.’
‘Just a figure of speech, no doubt. Junior, what can we do to make Rock City flat-cat conscious?’
They found a way. The Belt, for all its lonely reaches — or because of them — was as neighbourly as a village. They gossiped among themselves, by suit radio. Out in the shining blackness it was good to know that, if something went wrong, there was a man listening not five hundred miles away who would come and investigate if you broke off and did not answer.
They gossiped from node to node by their more powerful ship’s radios. A rumor of death, of a big strike, or of accident, would bounce around the entire belt, relayed from rockman to rockman, at just short of the speed of light. Heartbreak node was sixty-six light minutes away, following orbit; big news often reached it in less than two hours, including numerous manual relays.
Rock City even had its own broadcast. Twice a day One-Price picked up the news from Earthside, then re-broadcast it with his own salty comments. The twins decided to follow it with one of their own, on the same wave length — a music & chatter show, with commercials. Oh, decidedly with commercials. They had hundreds of spools in stock which they could use, then sell, along with the portable projectors they had bought on Mars.
They started in; the show never was very good, but, on the other hand, it had no competition and it was free. Immediately following Fries’ sign-off Castor would say, ‘Don’t go away, neighbours! Here we are again with two hours of fun and music — and a few tips on bargains. But first, our theme — the warm and friendly purr of a Martian flat cat.’ Pollux would hold Fuzzy Britches up to the microphone and stroke it; the good-natured little creature would always respond with a loud buzz. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice to come home to? And now for some music: Harry Weinstein’s Sunbeam Six in “High Gravity”. Let me remind you that this tape, like all other music on this program, may be purchased at an amazing saving in Flat Cat Alley, right off the City Hall — as well as Ajax three-way projectors in the Giant, Jr. model, for sound, sight, and stereo. The Sunbeam Six — hit it, Harry!’