Astounding Science Fiction (UK Edition) — page 35: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

BEAM PIRATE 33 sub-etheric transmission at C* and beating the Northern Landing market. And did you get the latest bit of luck? Kingman still is unaware of the fact that we are onto him—and have perfected this C? trans- mission. Here’s where he gets caught in his own trap!” - “How?” ““We’re not in too bad shape for making good, honest two-days out of this sub-ether stuff.. Kingman is still behind because he hasn’t got a return line back to Terra—he must be using our beams, which gives us a return edge.” “Why not get him tossed into the clink?” asked Walt. “That’s practical. Besides, we’re sitting in a great big pile of gravy right now. We can prove Kingman has been violating the law to embezzle, mulct, steal, commit grand larceny, and so on. We're going to take a swing at Mr. Kingman and at Terran Elec- tric that they won’t forget. We can’t lose, because I’m not a good sportsman when I find that I’ve been tricked. We’re going after Kingman in our own fashion—and if we lose, we're going to go tinhorn and cry for the gendarmes. I’m not proud.” “What do you plan?” “We'll put a horde of folks on the de- coupler files with the code Terran Electric filed with the government office. We can. get the code, and I’m of the opinion that Kingman wouldn’t take time to figure out a new code, so he'll be using the old one. As soon as we find a message in that code that is either addressed to Terran Electric or pertains to I. C. Preferred stock, we'll Start to intercept all such messages and use "em for our own good.” “That’s illegal.” “Yup. But who’s gonna holler? Kingman can’t.” “But suppose we lose—” “Kingman will not know we've been tricking him. Besides, we can’t lose with two ways to get ahead of his one. Come on, fellows, we’ve got to help get the extra re- ceivers together.” “How are we going to cut through the Channing Layer?” “Easy. That’s where we'll use the relay stations at Luna, Deimos, and the six port- ables that circle Venus.” “I get it. O.K., Don, let’s get to work.” “Right. And we'd better leave a guy here to collect any more interesting mes- sages from Kingman’s crowd. We can tune ‘It right on to Kingman’s alloy, and that’ll make that music take the back seat. We need narrower selectivity.” “Charley’s gang will find that if it is to be found,” smiled Walt. “We're really on the track this time.” A dead-black spaceship drifted across the face of Luna slowly, and its course, though apparently aimless, was the course of a ship or a man hunting something. It darted swiftly, poised, and then zigzagged forward, each straight-side of the jagged course shorter than the one before. It passed over a small crater and stopped short. Below, there was a spaceship parked beside a driver tube anchored in the pumice. The black ship hovered above the parked ship, and then dropped sharply, ramming the observation dome on top with its harder, smaller bottom. The two ships tilted and fell, crushing the ground near the poised driver tube. Space-suited men as- saulted the damaged ship, broke into the bent and battered plates and emerged with three men who were still struggling to get their suits adjusted properly. Channing’s men took over the poised driver tube, and in their own ship, Walt spoke over a sub-ether radio of a different type. “Don, we got him.” Don answered from Venus Equilateral, and his voice had no more delay than if he had been within a hundred yards of the crater on Luna. “Good. Stay there; you can contact the Lunar Relay Station from there. Wes is all ready on Station 3 above Northern Land- ing with his set, and Jim Baler is: at the Deimos Station.” “Hi, Walt,” came Wes’ voice. “Hi,” said Jim Baler. “Hello, fellows,’ said Walt. “Well, what cooks?” _ “Kingman,” said Channing. “You’ve got your orders, Walt. When Kingman expects the market to go down, tell him it’s still going up. We'll figure this out as we go along, but he won't like it at all.” There was silence for a few minutes, and then Don said: “Walt, Kingman’s sent a message through the Northern Landing station now. He says: ‘Dump a block to shake the suckers loose. This is pyramided so high that they should all climb on the sell-wagon; running the market down of their own weight. When it hits a new low, Ccomiclooks.€c©