"I'll come right to the point, Tee," he said, as soon as the door had closed. "I just talked to the local prison administrator for Hades." He looked closely at Tee. "What's that got to do with me?" asked Tee, belligerently. "Wait until I finish," said Jenner, curtly. "I hired you to test-hop our new ship because you were the best pilot available. I'm not interested in [136] your past, but most of the company's resources are sunk in that ship. If something goes wrong because the test pilot is disturbed or nervous, the company will be bankrupt. I'm not saying you're an escaped prisoner, but if you were, you'd have nothing to worry about." [136] "What do you mean?" "The administrator told me he has no jurisdiction over escaped prisoners, so you see, if you had escaped, you'd have nothing to fear here. You're out of their jurisdiction." Tee began to laugh wildly. "Out of their jurisdiction! Out of their jurisdiction! So that's the way they put it. Out of their jurisdiction!" "Stop it!" said Jenner, sharply. "Do you want to tell me now?" Tee drew in a gasping breath and sobered. "What would I have to tell you? So I'm the nervous type. So you hired me to test-hop your new ship. So I'll test-hop it. That's all we agreed on. What more do you want?" Jenner sighed. "Roj, Tee, if that's the way you want it, but I wish—" The visiphone buzzed, and when Tee flipped the switch, the worried face of the chief mechanic sprang into focus. "Oh, there you are, Mr. Jenner. Glad I caught you before you left. We've run into trouble." "Well, out with it," barked Jenner. "What is it?" The mechanic cleared his throat nervously. "We were testing the main gyroscope when it threw a blade." "How bad is it?" asked Jenner. "Pretty bad, I'm afraid. It tore up the subetherscope unit so bad we'll have to replace it. We can't get any on Aurora either. We'll have to send to Lennix, and that'll take close to a month." "Roj! Knock off until I get there," barked Jenner. He slammed over the switch, viciously. "Of all the rotten luck!"
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