ship blasted off from Darius without a couple of drunken spacemen being hustled aboard at the last moment ; with the job Holloway must have done , Kellogg should look just right as a drunken spaceman . The twenty -five thousand sols ' bond could be written off ; that was pennies to the Company . No , that would still leave them stuck with the Holloway trial .
"You want me out of here when the others come , Victor ? " Emmert asked , popping another canape into his mouth .
"No , no ; sit still . This will be the last chance we'll have to get everybody together ; after this , we'll have to avoid any- thing that'll look like collusion ."
"Well , anything I can do to help ; you know that , Victor , ” Emmert said .
Yes , he knew that . If worst came to utter worst and the Company charter were invalidated , he could still hang on here , doing what he could to salvage something out of the wreckage if not for the Company , then for Victor Grego . But if Zarathustra were reclassified , Nick would be finished . His title , his social position , his sinecure , his grafts and per- quisites , his alias - shrouded Company expense account -all out the airlock . Nick would be counted upon to do anything he could- however much that would be .
He looked across the room at the levitated globe , revolving imperceptibly in the orange spotlight. It was full dark on Beta Continent now, where Leonard Kellogg had killed a Fuzzy named Goldilocks and Jack Holloway had killed a gun- man named Kurt Borch . That angered him , too ; hell of a gunman ! Clear shot at the broad of a man's back , and still got himself killed . Borch hadn't been any better choice than Kellogg himself . What was the matter with him ; couldn't he pick men for jobs any more ? And Ham O'Brien ! No , he didn't have to blame himself for O'Brien . O'Brien was one of Nick Emmert's boys . And he hadn't picked Nick, either .
The squawk -box on the desk made a premonitory noise , and a feminine voice advised him that Mr. Coombes and his party had arrived .
"All right ; show them in."
Coombes entered first , tall , suavely elegant , with a calm , untroubled face . Leslie Coombes would wear the same se- rene expression in the midst of a bombardment or an earth- quake . He had chosen Coombes for chief attorney , and think- ing of that made him feel better . Mohammed Ali O'Brien was neither tall , elegant nor calm . His skin was almost black
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