u may be interested in knowing, B-12, that I had
to arrest him to get him here. This had better be good."

"It is all bad," I said, "very bad--but necessary." I turned to
Langley. "It is said that your present survey is being made with the
purpose of condemning all of Phobos, the dead and the living alike, to
the blast furnaces and the metal shops of Earth. Is this true?"

"Why you impudent, miserable piece of tin! What if I am making a scrap
survey? What are you going to do about it. You're nothing but a ro--"

"So it is true! But you will tell the salvage ships not to come. It is
yours to decide, and you will decide that we are not worth bothering
with here on Phobos. You will save us."

"I?" blustered Langley.

"You will." I took the thing out of my breastplate container and
showed it to him. He grew pale.

Jon said, "Well, I'll be damned!"

It was a picture of Langley and another. I gave it to Jon. "His wife,"
I said. "His real wife. I am sure of it, for you will note the
inscription on the bottom."

"Then Vera--?"

"Is not his wife. You wonder that he was camera shy?"

"Housebreaker!" roared Langley. "It's a plot; a dirty, reactionary
plot!"

"It is what is called blackmail," I said. I turned to Jon. "I am
correct about this?"

"You are." Jon said.

"You are instructed to leave Phobos," I said to Langley, "and you will
allow my friend here to keep his job as peace officer, for without it
he would be lost. I have observed that in these things the Builders
are hardly more adaptable than their children, the metal people. You
will do all this, and in return, we will not send the picture that Jon
took today to your wife, nor otherwise inform her of your
transgression. For I am told that this is a transgression."

"It is indeed," agreed Jon gravely. "Right, Langley?"

"All right," Langley snarled. "You win. And the sooner I get out of
this hole the better." He got up to go, squeezing his fat form through
the door into the bar, past the gaping miners and the metal people,
heedless of the metal people. We watched him go with some
satisfaction.

"It is no business of mine," I said to Jon, "but I have seen you look
with longing upon the she that was not Langley's wife. Since she does
not belong to him, there is nothing to prevent you from having her.
Should not that make you happy?"

"Are you kidding?" he snarled.

Which proves that I have still much to learn about his race.

Out front, Langley spie