they went through the ship, compartment by compartment. I must have passed out from the fumes when they melted their way in-anyhow I woke up while they were bringing me here.'
'I see.' Oscar sat a while and thought, his knees pulled up under his chin. 'This is your first time on Venus, Stinky?'
'Well, yes.'
'I thought so. It's apparent that you didn't know just how stubborn and difficult the Little People can be if you start pushing them around.'
Burke looked wry. 'I know now. That's why I distinctly called for a regiment of marines. I can't imagine what the Department was thinking about, to send three cadets and a watch officer. Of all the brass-hatted stupidity! My old man will raise plenty of Cain about it when I get back.'
Tex gave a snort of disgust. 'Did you think the Patrol was invented to keep a jughead like you from having to pay for his fun?'
'Why, you-'
'Quiet, Burke. And never mind the side remarks, Tex. This is an investigation, not a debate. You know the Patrol never sends marines until they've tried negotiation, Burke.'
'Sure, that's why I specified marines. I wanted them to cut the red tape and get some action.'
'You were kidding yourself. And there's no point in talking about what you'll do when you get back. We don't know yet that we can get back.'
'That's true.' Burke chewed his lip and thought about it. 'Look here, Jensen, you and I were never very chummy in school, but that's unimportant now; we're in the same boat and we've got to stick together. I've got a proposition. You know these frogs better than I do-'
'People, not 'frogs.''
'Okay, you know the natives. If you can manage to square this and get me out of here, I can cut you in on-'
'Careful there, Burke!'
'Don't get on your high horse. Just hear me out, will you? Just listen. Do I have free speech or don't I?'
'Let him talk, Oz,' advised Tex. 'I like to watch his tonsils.' :
Oscar held his tongue, Burke went on, 'I wasn't going to suggest anything that would smirch your alabaster character. After all, you're here to get me out of this; it's my business if I want to offer a reward. Now this swamp we staked out is loaded with the stuff-trans-uranics, all the way from element 97 through 104. I don't have to tell you what that means-101 and 103 for jet-lining alloys; 100 for cancer therapy-not to mention the catalyzing uses. Why, there's millions in catalysts alone. I'm no hog; I'll cut you all in ... say for ten per cent apiece.'
'Is that all you have to say?'
'Not quite. If you can work it so that they'll let us go and leave us alone while we jury-rig some repairs on the Gary so that we can get away with a load this trip, I'll make it twenty per cent. You'll like the Gary; she's the sweetest job in the System. But if that won't work and you can get me back in your ship it's still worth ten per cent.'
'Are you through?'
'Yes.'
'I can answer for all of us. If I didn't consider the source, I'd be insulted.'
'Fifteen per cent. There's no need to get shirty; after all, it's absolutely free just for doing what you were ordered down here to do anyhow.'
'Oz,' said Matt, 'do we have to listen to this tripe?'
'Not any more of it,' decided Jensen. 'He's had his say. Burke, I'll keep this factual and leave my personal opinions out of it. You can't hire the Patrol, you know that. In-'
'I wasn't offering to hire you, I was just trying to do you a favor, show my appreciation.'
'I've got the floor. In the second place, we haven't got a ship, not at present.'
'Huh? What's that?' Burke seemed startled. . Oscar gave him a quick resume of the fate of the jeep. Burke looked both amazed and terribly, bitterly disappointed. 'Well, of all the gang of stupes! Just forget that offer; you haven't got anything to sell,'
'I've already forgotten it and you had better be glad I have. Let me point out that we wouldn't have been making a jet landing in a jungle if you hadn't made an ass of yourself and then called for help. However, we hope to
recover the jeep if I can manage to smooth out the trouble you've caused- and that's no small job.'
'Well, of course if you can square things and get your ship back, the offer stands.'
'Stop talking about that clumsy piece of bribery! We can't possibly promise you anything, even if we wanted to. We've got our mission to carry out.'
'Okay-your mission is to get me out of here. It comes to the same thing; I was just being generous.'
'Our mission isn't anything of the sort. Our prime mission is what the prime mission of the Patrol always is: to keep the peace. Our orders read to investigate a reported native uprising-there isn't any-and keep the peace.' There's not a word about springing Girard Burke from the local jail and giving him a free ride home.'
'But-'
'I'm not through. You know how the Patrol works as well as I do. It acts in remote places and a Patrol officer has to use his own judgment, being guided by the Tradition-'
'Well, if it's precedent you're looking for, you've got to-'
'Shut up! Precedent is merely the assumption that somebody else, in the past with less information, nevertheless knows better than die man on the spot. If you had gotten any use out of the time you spent as a cadet, you'd know that the Tradition is something very different. To follow a tradition means to do things in the same grand style as your predecessors; it does not mean to do the same things.'
'Okay, okay-you can skip the lecture.'
'I need some information from you. Had the Little People here ever seen a man before you came along?'
'Uh . . . why, they knew about men, a little anyhow. Of course there was Stevens.'
'Who was Stevens?'
'Mineralogist, working for my old man. He did the quickie survey that caused us to bring the Gary in. Oh, there was his pilot, too.'
'And those are the only men these natives have encountered, aside from the crew of the Gary?'
'So far as I know, yes.'
'Have they ever heard of the Patrol?'
'I doubt it-yes, they have, too. At least the boss mother seemed to know the native word for it.'
'Hmm . . . that rather surprises me. So far as I know the Patrol has never had any occasion to land this near the equator-and if it had I think Captain Yancey would have briefed us about it.' .
Burke shrugged. Oscar went on, 'It affects what we're to do. You've stirred up a mess, Burke. With the discovery of valuable minerals here, there will be more men coming along. The way you've started things off there could be more and more trouble, until there was nothing but guerrilla warfare between the natives and the men, everywhere you looked. It might even spread to the poles. It's the Patrol's business to stamp out such things before they get started and that's what I construe our mission here to be. I've got to apologize and smooth it over and do my darnedest to correct a first bad impression. Can you give me any more information, anything at all, that might help me when I try it?'
'I don't think so. But go ahead, soft-soap the old girl any way you can. You can even pretend to take me away from here under arrest if it will do any good. Say, that might be a good idea! I'll be agreeable to it just as long as I get out.'
Oscar shook his head. 'I might take you out under arrest, if she wants it that way. But as far as I can see you are a perfectly legal prisoner here for a crime under the local customs.'
'What in the world are you talking about?'
'I might point oat that what you've admitted doing is a crime anywhere. You can be tried for it on Terra if she wants it that way. But it really doesn't matter to me, one-way or the other. It's no business of the Patrol.'
'But you can't leave me here!'
Oscar shrugged. 'That's the way I see it. Lieutenant Thurlow might snap out of it at any time, then you could take it up with him. As long as I'm in charge I'm not
