Sam Truman became so fascinated by the difficulties of the problem that he forgot entirely his recent fight with the captain and lost sight of his own anomalous position on board. The vision of the immensely valuable, yet quite inaccessible, Estrella Verde, was a challenge to his professional pride. He found himself avidly wanting to go down to the wreck and make fast a line to it. The greed that so strongly motivated Varms did not enter into his calculations—he needed money, certainly, who doesn’t?—but the thing that piqued him was being so near and yet so far from that mess of crumpled alloy that they all wanted to take hold of.
Estrella VerdeHe glanced through the log and took off from figures—figures of the compensators consumption, and rocket use. He plotted curves. They were not rea
