f, and had to talk it
all out to somebody.

"Good for you, Les," Nelsen enthused, relieved. "Only--well, skip it,
for now."

Two work periods later, he approached Rodan. "It will take months to
sift all this dust," he said. "I may not want to stay that long."

The pupils of Rodan's eyes flickered again. "Oh?" he said. "Per
contract, you can quit anytime. But I provide no transportation. Do you
want to walk eight hundred miles--to a Tovie station? On the Moon it is
difficult to keep hired help. So one must rely on practical
counter-circumstances. Besides, I wouldn't want you to be at Serenitatis
Base, or anywhere else, talking about my discovery, Nelsen. I'm afraid
you're stuck."

Now Nelsen had the result of his perhaps incautious test statement. He
knew that he was trapped by a dangerous tyrant, such as might spring up
in any new, lawless country.

"It was just a thought, sir," he said, being as placating as he dared,
and controlling his rising fury.

For there was something that hardened too quickly in Rodan. He had the
fame-and-glory bug, and could be savage about it. If you wanted to get
away, you had to scheme by yourself. There wasn't only Rodan to get
past; there was Dutch, the big ape with the dangling pistol.

Nelsen decided to work quietly, as before, for a while... There were a
few more significant finds--what might have been a nuclear-operated
clock, broken, of course, and some diamond drill bits. Though the long
lunar day dragged intolerably, there was the paradox of time seeming to
escape, too. Daylight ended with the sunset. Two weeks of darkness was
no period for any moves. At sunup, a second month was almost finished!
And ten acres of dust was less than half-sifted...

In the shop and supply dome, David Lester had been chemically analyzing
the dregs of various Martian containers for Rodan. In spare moments he
classified those scarce and incredibly hardy lunar growths that he found
in the foothills of the Arabian Range. Some had hard, bright-green
tendrils, that during daylight, opened out of woody shells full of
spongy hollows as an insulation against the fearsome cold of night. Some
were so small that they could only be seen under a microscope. Frank's
interest, here, however, palled quickly. And Lester, in his mumbling,
studious preoccupation, was no companionable antidote for loneliness.

Frank tried a new approach on Helen, who really was Rodan's daughter.

"Do you like poetry, Helen? I