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Read Ebook: Tolliver's Orbit by Fyfe H B Horace Bowne Bernklau Illustrator
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Ebook has 173 lines and 8133 words, and 4 pages
The manager's jowled features twisted into an expression of welcome as jovial as that of a hungry crocodile.
"Miss Koslow!" he beamed, like a politician the day before the voting. "It certainly is an honor to have you on Ganymede with us! That's all, Tolliver, you can go. Yes, indeed! Mr. Koslow--the president, that is: your father--sent a message about you. I repeat, it will be an honor to show you the ropes. Did you want something else, Tolliver?"
"Never mind him, Mr. Jeffers," snapped the girl, in a tone new to Tolliver. "We won't be working together, I'm afraid. You've already had enough rope."
Jeffers seemed to stagger standing still behind his desk. His loose lips twitched uncertainly, and he looked questioningly to Tolliver. The pilot stared at Betty, trying to recall pictures he had seen of the elder Koslow. He was also trying to remember some of the lies he had told en route from the spaceport.
"Wh-wh-what do you mean, Miss Koslow?" Jeffers stammered.
He darted a suspicious glare at Tolliver.
"Mr. Jeffers," said the girl, "I may look like just another spoiled little blonde, but the best part of this company will be mine someday. I was not allowed to reach twenty-two without learning something about holding on to it."
Tolliver blinked. He had taken her for three or four years older. Jeffers now ignored him, intent upon the girl.
"You can't prove anything," declared Jeffers hoarsely.
"Oh, can't I? I've already seen certain evidence, and the rest won't be hard to find. Where are your books, Mr. Jeffers? You're as good as fired!"
The manager dropped heavily to his chair. He stared unbelievingly at Betty, and Tolliver thought he muttered something about "just landed." After a moment, the big man came out of his daze enough to stab an intercom button with his finger. He growled at someone on the other end to come in without a countdown.
Tolliver, hardly thinking about it, expected the someone to be a secretary, but it turned out to be three members of Jeffers' headquarters staff. He recognized one as Rawlins, a warehouse chief, and guessed that the other two might be his assistants. They were large enough.
"No stupid questions!" Jeffers ordered. "Lock these two up while I think!"
Tolliver started for the door immediately, but was blocked off.
"Where should we lock--?" the fellow paused to ask.
Tolliver brought up a snappy uppercut to the man's chin, feeling that it was a poor time to engage Jeffers in fruitless debate.
In the gravity of Ganymede, the man was knocked off balance as much as he was hurt, and sprawled on the floor.
The fallen hero, upon arising, had to content himself with grabbing Betty. The others were swarming over Tolliver. Jeffers came around his desk to assist.
Tolliver found himself dumped on the floor of an empty office in the adjoining warehouse building. It seemed to him that a long time had been spent in carrying him there.
He heard an indignant yelp, and realized that the girl had been pitched in with him. The snapping of a lock was followed by the tramp of departing footsteps and then by silence.
After considering the idea a few minutes, Tolliver managed to sit up.
He had his wind back. But when he fingered the swelling lump behind his left ear, a sensation befuddled him momentarily.
"I'm sorry about that," murmured Betty.
Tolliver grunted. Sorrow would not reduce the throbbing, nor was he in a mood to undertake an explanation of why Jeffers did not like him anyway.
"I think perhaps you're going to have a shiner," remarked the girl.
"Thanks for letting me know in time," said Tolliver.
The skin under his right eye did feel a trifle tight, but he could see well enough. The abandoned and empty look of the office worried him.
"What can we use to get out of here?" he mused.
"Why should we try?" asked the girl. "What can he do?"
"You'd be surprised. How did you catch on to him so soon?"
"Your paycheck," said Betty. "As soon as I saw that ridiculous amount, it was obvious that there was gross mismanagement here. It had to be Jeffers."
Tolliver groaned.
"Then, on the way over here, he as good as admitted everything. You didn't hear him, I guess. Well, he seemed to be caught all unaware, and seemed to blame you for it."
"Sure!" grumbled the pilot. "He thinks I told you he was grafting or smuggling, or whatever he has going for him here. That's why I want to get out of here--before I find myself involved in some kind of fatal accident!"
"What do you know about the crooked goings-on here?" asked Betty after a startled pause.
"Nothing," retorted Tolliver. "Except that there are some. There are rumors, and I had a halfway invitation to join in. I think he sells things to the mining colonies and makes a double profit for himself by claiming the stuff lost in transit. You didn't think you scared him that bad over a little slack managing?"
The picture of Jeffers huddled with his partners in the headquarters building, plotting the next move, brought Tolliver to his feet.
There was nothing in the unused office but an old table and half a dozen plastic crates. He saw that the latter contained a mess of discarded records.
"Better than nothing at all," he muttered.
He ripped out a double handful of the forms, crumpled them into a pile at the doorway, and pulled out his cigarette lighter.
"What do you think you're up to?" asked Betty with some concern.
"This plastic is tough," said Tolliver, "but it will bend with enough heat. If I can kick loose a hinge, maybe we can fool them yet!"
He got a little fire going, and fed it judiciously with more papers.
"You know," he reflected, "it might be better for you to stay here. He can't do much about you, and you don't have any real proof just by yourself."
"I'll come along with you, Tolliver," said the girl.
"No, I don't think you'd better."
"Why not?"
"Well ... after all, what would he dare do? Arranging an accident to the daughter of the boss isn't something that he can pull off without a lot of investigation. He'd be better off just running for it."
"Let's not argue about it," said Betty, a trifle pale but looking determined. "I'm coming with you. Is that stuff getting soft yet?"
Tolliver kicked at the edge of the door experimentally. It seemed to give slightly, so he knocked the burning papers aside and drove his heel hard at the corner below the hinge.
The plastic yielded.
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