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.

 Prev. P 15/16 next