ve called for more than two men--with Sattell as a
third. According to the economics of crime, it was feasible. Anyhow it
was being done.

Pop reached the dust-heap which was his shack and went in the air lock.
Inside, he went to the vision-phone and called the mine-colony down in
the Crack. He gave the message he'd been told to pass on. Sattell to
come up, with what diamonds had been dug since the regular cannister was
sent up for the Lunar City ship that would be due presently. Otherwise
the ship on the landing strip would destroy shack and Pop and the colony
together.

"I'd guess," said Pop painstakingly, "that Sattell figured it out. He's
probably got some sort of gun to keep you from holding him down there.
But he won't know his friends are here--not right this minute he won't."

A shaking voice asked questions from the vision-phone.

"No," said Pop, "they'll do it anyhow. If we were able to tell about
'em, they'd be chased. But if I'm dead and the shacks smashed and the
cable burnt through, they'll be back on Earth long before a new cable's
been got and let down to you. So they'll do all they can no matter what
I do." He added, "I wouldn't tell Sattell a thing about it, if I were
you. It'll save trouble. Just let him keep on waiting for this to
happen. It'll save you trouble."

Another shaky question.

"Me?" asked Pop. "Oh, I'm going to raise what hell I can. There's some
stuff in that ship I want."

He switched off the phone. He went over to his air apparatus. He took
down the cannister of diamonds which were worth five millions or more
back on Earth. He found a bucket. He dumped the diamonds casually into
it. They floated downward with great deliberation and surged from side
to side like a liquid when they stopped. One-sixth gravity.

Pop regarded his drawings meditatively. A sketch of his wife as he now
remembered her. It was very good to remember. A drawing of his two
children, playing together. He looked forward to remembering much more
about them. He grinned.

"That stair-rail," he said in deep satisfaction. "That'll do it!"

He tore bed linen from his bunk and worked on the emptied cannister. It
was a double container with a thermware interior lining. Even on Earth
newly-mined diamonds sometimes fly to pieces from internal stress. On
the Moon, it was not desirable that diamonds be exposed to repeated
violent changes of temperature. So a thermware-lined cannister kept them
at mine-temperature onc