Roger Stone handed down a Solomon's decision. From the gross proceeds would be subtracted Meade's percentage for singing; the twins would be reimbursed for the trade goods that had been commandeered; the balance would be split three ways among the twins and Lowell - all to be settled after they had traded high grade for refined metal at Ceres, then sold their load at Luna.
In the meantime he agreed to advance the twins' money to operate further. Fries having promised to honor his sight draft on Luna City National.
But for once the twins found no immediate way to invest money. They toyed with the idea of using their time to prospect on their own, but a few trips out in the scooter convinced them that it was a game for experts and one in which even the experts usually made only a bare living. It was the fixed illusion that the next mass would be 'the glory rock' - the one that would pay for years of toil - that kept the old rockmen going. The twins knew too much about statistics now, and they believed in their ability rather than their luck. Finding a glory rock was sheer gamble.
"They made one fairly long trip into the thickest part of the node, fifteen hundred miles out and back taking all one day and the following night to do it. They got the scooter up to a dawdling hundred and fifty miles per hour and let it coast, planning to stop and investigate if they found promising masses having borrowed a stake-out beacon from Fries with the promise that they would pay for it they kept it
They did notneed it. Time after time they would spot a major blip in the stereo radar, only to have someone else's beacon wink on when they got within thirty miles of the mass. At the far end they did find a considerable collection of rock travelling loosely in company; they matched, shackled on their longest lines (their father had emphatically forbidden free jumping) and investigated. Having neither experience nor a centrifuge, their only way of checking on specific gravity was by grasping a mass and clutching it to them vigorously, then getting a rough notion of its inertia by its resistance to being shoved around. A Geiger counter (borrowed) had shown no radioactivity; they were searching for the more valuable core material.
Two hours of this exercise left them tired but no richer. "Grandpa," announced Pollux, "this is a lot of left-over country rock."
"Not even that. Most of it's pumice, I'd say."
"Get for home?"
"Check."
They turned the scooter around by flywheel and homed on the City Hall beacon, boosting it up to four hundred miles per hour before. letting it coast, that being the top maneuver they could figure on for the juice they had left in their tanks. They would have preferred to break the speed limit, being uneasily aware that they were late - and being anxious to get home; the best designed suit is not comfortable for too long periods. They knew that their parents would not be especially worried; while they were out of range for their suit radios, they had reported in by the gossip grapevine earlier.
Their father was not worried. But the twins spent the next week under hatches, confined to the ship for failing to get back on time.
For a longer period nothing more notable took place than the incident in which Roger Stone lost his breathing mask while taking a shower and almost drowned (so he claimed) before he could find the water cut-off valve. There are very few tasks easier to do in a gravity field than in free fall, but bathing is one of them.
Dr. Stone continued her practice, now somewhat reduced. Sometimes she was chauffeured by the miner assigned to that duty; sometimes the twins took her around. One morning following her office hours in City Hall she came back into the Stone looking for the twins. "Where are the boys?"
"Haven't seen them since breakfast," answered Hazel. "Why?"
Dr. Stone frowned slightly. "Nothing, really. I'll ask Mr. Fries to call a scooter for me."
"Got to make a call? I'll take you unlessthose lunks have taken our scooter."
"You needn't, Mother Hazel."
"I'd enjoy it. I've been promising Lowell a ride for weeks. Or will it take too long?"
"Shouldn't. It's only eight hundred miles or so out." The doctor was not held down to the local speed limit in her errand of mercy.
"Do it in two hours, with juice to spare." Off they went, with Buster much excited. Hazel allotted one-fourth her fuel as safety margin, allotted the working balance for maximum accelerations, figuring the projected mass-ratios in her head. Quite aside from the doctor's privilege to disregard the law, high speed was not dangerous in the sector they would be in, it being a 'thin' volume of the node.
Their destination was an antiquated winged rocket, the wings of which had been torched off and welded into a tent-shaped annex to give more living room. Hazel thought that it had a shanty-town air -but so did many of the ships in Rock City. She was pleased enough to go inside and have a sack of tea and let Lowell out of his spacesuit for a time. The patient, Mr. Bakers, was in a traction splint; his wife could not pilot their scooter, which was why Dr. Stone granted the house call. Dr. Stone received a call by radio while they were there; she came back into the general room looking troubled. "'S matter?" inquired Hazel.
"Mrs Silva. I'm not really surprised; it's her first child."
"Did you get the co-ordinates and beacon pattern? I'll run you right-"
"Lowell?"
"Oh. Oh, yes," It would be a long time in a suit for a youngster.
Mrs Eakers suggested that they leave the child with her.
Before Lowell could cloud up at the suggestion Dr. Stone said, "Thanks, but it isn't necessary. Mr. Silva is on his way here. What I was trying to say, Mother Hazel, is that I probably had better go with him and let you and Lowell go back alone. Do you mind?"
"Of course not. Pipe down, Lowell! I'll have us home in three-quarters of an hour and Lowell can have his nap or his spanking on time, as the case may be."
She gave Dr. Stone one of two spare oxygen bottles before she left; Dr. Stone refused to take both of them. Hazel worked the new mass figures over; with Edith, her suit, and the spare bottle subtracted she had spare fuel. Better hit it up pretty fast and get home before the brat got cranky -
She lined up on City Hall by flywheel and stereo, spun on that axis to get the sun out of her eyes, clutched her gyros, and gave it the gun.
The next thing she knew she was tumbling like a liner in free fall. She remembered from long habit to cut the throttle but only after a period of aimless acceleration, for she had been chucked around in her saddle, thrown against her belts, and could not at first find the throttle.
When they were in free fall again she remembered to laugh. "Some ride, eh, Lowell?"
"Do it again, Grandma!"
"I hope not." Quickly she checked things over. There was not much that could go wrong with the little craft, it being only a rocket motor, an open rack with saddles and safety harness, and a minimum of instruments and controls. It was the gyros, of course; the motor had been sweet and hot. They were hunting the least bit, she found, that being the only evidence that they had just tumbled violently. Delicately she adjusted them by hand, putting her helmet against the case so that she could hear what she was doing.
Only then did she try to find where they were and where they were going. Let's see - the Sun is over there and that's Betelgeuse over yonder - so City Hall must be out that way. She ducked her helmet into the hemispherical 'eye shade' of the stereo. Yup! there she be!
The Eakers place was the obvious close-by point on which to measure her vector. She looked around for it, was startled to discover how far away it was. They must have coasted quite a distance while she was fiddling with the gyros. She measured the vector in amount and direction, then whistled. There were, she thought, few grocery shops out that way - darn few neighbours of any sort. She decided that it might be smart to call Mrs Eakers and tell her what had happened and ask her to call City Hall - just in case.