"Talk to our pilot, Lame Fella," said the job scout. "But you must be suicidal nuts to be around here at all."
The others leapt to help Nelsen, Ramos, Gimp and Lester strip and pack their gear. Ramos' and Gimp's drums were loaded into the job scout's rocket. Nelsen's and Lester's went into Rodan's.
Gloved hands clasped gloved hands all around. The Bunch, the Planet Strappers, were breaking up.
"So long, you characters--see you around," said Art Kuzak. "It won't be ten years, before you all wind up in the Belt."
"Bring back the Mystery of Mars, Mitch!" Frank was saying.
"When you get finished Mooning, come to Venus, Lover Lad," Reynolds told Ramos. "But good luck!"
"Jeez--I'm gonna get sentimental," Two-and-Two moaned. "Luck everybody. Come on, Charlie--let's roll! I don't want to slobber!"
"I'll catch up with you all--watch!" Gimp promised.
"_Hasta luego_, Gang." This was all Ramos, the big mouth, had to say. He wasn't glum, exactly. But he was sort of preoccupied and impatient.
The five remaining rings--a wonderful sight, Frank thought--began to move out of orbit. Ships with sails set for far ports. No--mere ships of the sea were nothing, anymore. But would all of the Bunch survive?
Charlie Reynolds, the cool one, the most likely to succeed, waved jauntily and carelessly from his rotating, accelerating ring. Two-and-Two wagged both arms stiffly from his.
Mitch Storey's bubb, lightest loaded, was jumping ahead. But you could hear him playing _Old Man River_ on his mouth organ, inside his helmet.
The Kuzaks' bubbs, towing massive loads, were accelerating slowest, with the ex-gridiron twins riding the rigging. But their rings would dwindle to star specks before long, too.
The job scout's rocket, carrying Ramos and Gimp, began to flame for a landing at Serene.
In the airtight cabin of Xavier Rodan's vehicle, Frank Nelsen and David Lester had read and signed their contracts and had received their copies.
Rodan didn't smile. "Now we'll go down and have a look at the place I'm investigating," he said.
Frank Nelsen's view of empire-building on the Moon was brief, all encompassing, and far too sketchy to be very satisfying, as Rodan--turned about in his universal-gimbaled pilot seat--spiralled his battered rocket down backwards, with the small nuclear jets firing forward in jerky, tooth-cracking bursts, to check speed further.