"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 once they were warmed to touchability.
Pop packed the cotton cloth in the container. He hurried a little,
because the men in the rocket were shaky and might not practice
patience. He took a small emergency-lamp from his spare spacesuit. He
carefully cracked its bulb, exposing the filament within. He put the
lamp on top of the cotton and sprinkled magnesium marking-powder over
everything. Then he went to the air-apparatus and took out a flask of
the liquid oxygen used to keep his breathing-air in balance. He poured
the frigid, pale-blue stuff into the cotton. He saturated it.
All the inside of the shack was foggy when he finished. Then he pushed
the cannister-top down. He breathed a sigh of relief when it was in
place. He'd arranged for it to break a frozen-brittle switch as it
descended. When it came off, the switch would light the lamp with its
bare filament. There was powdered magnesium in contact with it and
liquid oxygen all about.
He went out of the shack by the air lock. On the way, thinking about
Sattell, he suddenly recovered a completely new memory. On their first
wedding anniversary, so long ago, he and his wife had gone out to dinner
to celebrate. He remembered how she looked: the almost-smug joy they
shared that they would be together for always, with one complete year
for proof.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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