All at once, he heard a tapping sound coming from a big bronze pipe which had probably carried water or refuse from one of the offices upstairs. "Someone's alive in there," a youngster next to Hardesty said. He ran over with a pick-ax and began to hack furiously at the rubble. The block captain rushed to the spot and said, "Are you crazy or something? There's no air in there. Give them a couple of hours and they'll be dead. Are you forgetting your ordinances, boy?" "But we can save them!" the youngster said in some confusion. "We got too many mouths to feed as it is. Anyhow, you want them contesting the booty? If they survive, they're liable to claim it all." "I--I'm sorry." The youngster stopped hacking away with his pick-ax. He seemed genuinely contrite, but you never knew about that type. He might come back tonight and dig in private. By then, fortunately, it would be too late. But the city hospitals were full of just such people who couldn't adjust to the rigors of war. Hardesty had heard about a proposed bill which would have them all killed painlessly. That was no way to die, without pain, but it served them right. Of course, thought Hardesty bitterly, the city would claim all their booty--which was another matter entirely. * * * * * Five minutes later, Hardesty found a dismembered arm. It was already frozen with the cold and seemed more like wax than flesh. The arm was too muscular to have belonged to a woman. The man had worn a ring and a gold-plated wristwatch which, between them, might bring eighty or ninety million dollars on the black market. Hardesty got the watch loose and was working the ring off the frozen fingers when the block captain spotted him. "I saw that," he said. He had a big beefy face with eyes so close together they seemed to be forever staring at the tip of his nose. "You think you're in business for yourself?" "I'm sorry," Hardesty said lamely. "Habit. I'm a scavenger by occupation. Here. Here's the ring." The beefy-faced man scrutinized the ring and pocketed it. "The wristwatch," he said, "There must be some mistake." "I saw you put it in your pocket." "No, you must have been imagining things." What would it bring on the black market? Fifty million dollars in a quick sale? Decent living for a month. Hardesty was damned if the block captain would get it. "Fork it over, wise guy." The other diggers had stopped their work to watch Hardesty's growing--and now perilous--discomfort. "Let's just get on with the work," Hardesty suggested. He had placed the sawed-off shotgun down near the curb when he started digging. He saw it there now, with one of the Red Cross teen-agers staring at it covetously. He wondered if he could reach it in time and blast the beefy block captain's face in. He decided the shovel would be quicker and every bit as effective. "For the last time ..." began the block captain.