The Galaxy Primes Part 42

"I know, Babe, I know--I could set that to music and sing it, with gestures. 'Chancellor Ferber is in conference and cannot be disturbed,'"

he mimicked, savagely. "Put him on now--but _quick_!"

The tri-di tank brightened up; Chancellor Ferber's image appeared. He was disheveled, surprised and angry, but Garlock gave him no chance to speak.

"Well, Fatso--at last! Where the _h.e.l.l_ have you been all morning? I want some stuff, just as fast as G.o.d will let you get it together," and he began to read off, as fast as he could talk, a long list of highly technical items.

Ferber tried for many seconds to break in, and Garlock finally allowed him to do so.

"Are you crazy, Garlock?" he shouted. "What in h.e.l.l's name are you bothering _me_ with _that_ stuff for? You know better than that--make out your requisitions and send them through channels!"

"Channels, h.e.l.l!" Garlock shouted back. "Hasn't it got through your four-inch-thick skull into your idiot's brain yet that I'm in a hurry? I don't want this stuff today; I want it day before yesterday--this d.a.m.ned junk-heap is apt to fall apart any minute. So quit goggling and s...o...b..ring at me, you wall-eyed, slimy, fat toad. Get that three hundred weight of suet into action. _Hump_ yourself!"

"You ... you ... Why, I was never so insulted...."

"Insulted? You?" Garlock out-roared him. "Listen, Fatso. If I ever set out to really insult you, you'll know it--it'll blister all the paint off the walls. All I'm trying to do now is get you off that fat b.u.t.t of yours and get some action."

Ferber became purple and pounded his desk in consuming anger.

Garlock yelled louder and pounded harder. "Start rounding up this stuff--but _fast_--or I'll come down there and take your job away from you and do it myself--and for your own greasy hide's sake you'd better believe I'm not just chomping my choppers, either."

"You'll _What?_" Ferber screamed. "_You're fired!_"

"_You_ fire _me_?" Garlock mimicked the scream. "And make it stick?

You'd better write that one up for the funnies. Why, you lard-brain, you couldn't fire a cap-pistol."

"Foster!" Ferber yelled. "Terminate Garlock as of now. Insubordination, and misconduct, abuse of position, incompetence, malfeasance--everything else you can think of. Blacklist him all over the System!"

At the word "fired" Belle, had leaped to her feet and had stopped laughing.

"Miss Bellamy!" Ferber snapped.

"Yes, sir?" she answered, sweetly.

"You are hereby promoted to be Head of the...."

"Oh, yeah?" Belle sneered, her voice cutting like a knife. "You unprincipled, lascivious, lecherous _Hitler!_ Have you got the unmitigated gall to take _me_ for a floozie? To think you can add _me_ to your collection of bootlicking, round-heeled tramps?"

"You're fired and blacklisted too!"

"How nice! You know, I don't know of _anything_ I'd rather have happen to me?"

"Get James on there--you, James...."

"You don't need to fire me, you fat-headed old goat," James said, contemptuously. "I've already quit--the exact second you fired Clee."

"No you didn't!" Ferber screamed. "Resignation not accepted. You're _Fired_! Dishonorably discharged--blacklisted everywhere--you'll _never_ get another job--_anywhere_! And here's your slip, too!" Miss Foster was very fast on the machines.

James 'ported his slip up into the _Pleiades_, just as Garlock and Belle had done with theirs, and disappeared with it as they had; reappearing almost instantly.

"Montandon!"

"Chancellor Ferber, are you completely out of your mind? You can't discharge either Miss Bellamy or me."

"I can't?" he gloated. "Why not?"

"Because neither of us is employed. By anybody."

"That's right, Fatso," Belle said. "We just came along. Just to keep the boys company. It's lonesome, you know, 'way out in deep s.p.a.ce."

Miss Foster ripped a half-filled-out termination form out of her machine and hurled it into a waste-basket. Ferber's jaw dropped and his eyes stared gla.s.sily, but he rallied quickly.

"I can blacklist her, though, and maybe you think I won't. Belle Bellamy will never get another job in this whole solar system as long as she lives, except through me! Maybe I'll hire her some day, for something, and maybe I won't. Are you listening, Bellamy?"

"Not only listening, I'm reveling in every word." Belle laughed derisively. "I hate to shatter such wonderful dreams--or do I? You see, the _Pleiades_ really works, and the Galaxians own her; lock, stock, and barrel. You wouldn't have any part of her, remember? Insisted on payment for every nut, wire, and service? Now, they want to hire us four for a big operation with this stars.h.i.+p. Since you only loaned Garlock and James to them, you might have made some legal trouble on that score, but now that you've fired them both--and in such _conclusive_ language!--we're all set. So when you blacklist us with the Society, _please_ let me know--I want to take a tri-di in technicolor of you doing it. How do you like _them_ parsnips, Your Royal Fatness?"

"I'll see about that!" Ferber stormed. "We'll have an injunction out in an hour!"

"Go ahead," Garlock said, with a wide grin. "Have fun--the Galaxians have legal eagles too, you know. One thing Belle forgot. Just in case you recover consciousness some time and want to steal our termination papers back--especially Belle's; what a howler _that_ was!--don't try it. They're in a Gunther-blocked safe."

Then, as comprehension began to dawn on Ferber's face:

"S-u-c-k-e-r," Garlock drawled.

The _Pleiades_ disappeared.

CHAPTER 9

The _Pleiades_ landed on Margonia's Galaxian Field, where the Tellurians found the project running smoothly, a little ahead of schedule. Delcamp and Fao were working at their fast and efficient pace, but the hairy pair from Thaker seemed to be, literally, everywhere at once.

"Hi, Belle." Fao 'ported up and shook hands warmly. "I thought I was going to have the first double-Prime baby, until _she_ appeared on the scene."

"Didn't it make you mad? I'd've been furious."

"Maybe a little at first, but not after I'd talked with her for half a minute. She'd never even thought of that angle. Besides, she thinks the whole galaxy is fairly crawling with double-Primes."

"That's funny--so does Clee. But there are other things--strictly not angles--that she hasn't thought of, too. If those coveralls were half an inch tighter they'd choke her to death. You'd think she'd...."

"Huh?" Fao interrupted. "_You_ should scream--oh, that ridiculous Tellurian prud...."

"It _isn't_ ridiculous!" Belle snapped. "And it isn't prudishness, either--not with me, anyway. It's just that," she ran an indicative glance over Fao's lean, trim flanks and hard, flat abdomen, "it spoils your figure. It's only temporary, of course, but...."