Page:Fantastic Universe (1956-10; vol. 8, no. 3).djvu/20

Rh to have something to tell him!" Hugh leaned forward and bashed his fist against the desk top. "That means you. Can we build him the the kind of ship he wants out of an H-62? I told him we couldn't. He says Monarch and Apex told him the same thing regarding their similar models."

"So that's why we got a bid for the job!" George exclaimed. "I knew it had to be something like that!"

"You haven't answered my question."

George turned from the window. "Let's not give an answer just yet. 'We'd have to see-saw it back and forth with the cost-accounting department to determine whether a whole new ship or a modified 62 would be cheaper. I'd say that either way it would double the cost."

"He says Monarch or Apex would do it for one point sixtenths."

"They could—" George said bitterly.

"But Sleth Forander isn't authorized to pay more than our standard H-62 price."

Mark stirred again. "Then he'd better take his pretty little import license to some other galaxy! He's not going to do business here. What a chance it would have been to get on our feet and stand up to Monarch and Apex!"

"Now wait a minute—" George snapped each word with slow, brittle emphasis. "Everybody was so steamed up about this being our royal chance to get out of the hole and trying to convince me that it was so. All right, I got convinced. Just because we run into a little difficulty on modifications is no reason for junking the whole deal. Let's try to salvage it."

For the first time, Hugh Wilkinson smiled. His face beamed. "That's the kind of talk I like to hear! Now if I had a Factory Manager that was capable of looking on the bright side of things once in a while—"

Mark spread his palms and groaned.

"What ideas have you got as to how we can do this salvaging?" Hugh asked George.

"I haven't any," said George. "I want to see Sleth Forander. Out in space. I want to know just why he has to have his ships upside down and backwards!"

The first meeting with the foreign emissary produced little results for George. He didn't even get to see much of Sleth Forander, packaged, as the latter was, in a hermetically sealed can of blueish vapor. But from pictures on the library tape he knew what the creatures looked like.

The Ragalians were strictly from nightmares. They had a kind of pear-shaped torso, big end on top. A dozen fin-like appendages on the bottom served as feet. When they were in atmosphere suits, however, they just rolled about on little