Art grinned wryly at Nelsen and Ramos. His hint was plain. He had seen the museum pieces that they had brought in. "Should we, Frank?" Ramos chuckled after a moment. "Possibly... We've got some collateral, Art. Lots more valuable per unit mass than any raw metal, I should think." "So you might want to work for us?" Art inquired blandly. "Not 'for'," Nelsen chuckled. "We might say 'with'." "Okay, Cuties," Art laughed. Joe Kuzak had just come back into the dwelling and office bubb. "Don't let my twin sell you any rotten apples, fellas," he warned lightly. "He might be expecting you to transport your collateral to Pallastown. Naturally anybody trying to strangle this Post will be blocking the route. You might get robbed again. Also murdered." Ramos' gaunt face still had its daring grin. "Frank and I know that," he said. "I'm past bragging. But we've had experience. Now, we might be smart enough to get through. A few more days out there won't hurt. How about it, Frank?" "Ten hours sleep and breakfast," Frank said. "Then a little camouflage material, new weapons, a pair of Archers in condition--got any left?" "Five in stock," Joe answered. "Settled, then?" Art asked. "Here, it is," Ramos answered, and Nelsen nodded. It would have been rough going for them to try to sleep in beds. They had lost the habit. They slept inside their new Archer Fives. Afterwards they painted their armor a dark grey, like chunks of mesoderm stone. They did likewise to the two bundles in which they wrapped their relics. They were as careful as possible to get away from the post without being observed, visually or by radar. But of course you could never be sure. Huddled up to resemble stray fragments, they curved out of the Belt--toward the Pole Star, north of its orbital plane. Moving in a parallel course, they proceeded toward Pallastown. The only thing that would seem odd was that they were moving contrary to the general orbital rotation of most of the permanent bodies of the solar system. Of course they and their bundles _might_ have been stray meteors from deep in space. Four watchful, armored figures seemed to notice the peculiarity of their direction, and to become suspicious. These figures seemed too wary for honesty as they approached. They got within twenty-five miles. Even without the memory that Tiflin might make guesses about what they meant to do, Nelsen and Ramos would have taken no chances. They had to be brutal. Homing darts pierced armor. The four went to sleep. VI The asteroid, Pallas, was a chunk of rich core material, two hundred-some miles in its greatest dimension. It had a mottled, pinkish shine, partly from untarnished lead, osmium, considerable uranium, some iron, nickel, silver, copper. The metals were alloyed, here; almost pure, there. There was even a little rock. But thirty-five percent of Pallas' roughly spherical mass was said to be gold.