Closed System

table, looked at Pat squintingly. 'Soundpickups in the ceiling,' he said, throwing a glanceupward. 'Table'll block 'em. I'll make this quick. Ican't show you the stone I know you'll want most. You'll have to take my word for it. I'll deliver it toyou aboard your ship tonight.'

Pat reached for a stone under the table, got his head under. It wasn't beyond logic, on a totalitar­ian planet, for there to be listening devices in theceiling. 'I don't like the sound of that,' he said.

'It will be my offense, not yours.'

Murphy picked up two stones, dropped one ner­vously. 'I want off this planet, Captain. I've got a diamond, adiamond, mind you. Biggest one sincethe Capella Glory. Half of it is yours. I don't wantyour drugs. Let Capcor have every damned one ofthem. They'll pay you the most. I just want pas­sage out. I'll come to your ship in the dark, after midnight. You get half the diamond. I get a rideout.'

'Murphy,' T. O'Shields yelled, from his placetoward the back of the line, 'pick up your rocksand quit wasting our time.'

'Why do you want off this planet so badly?' Pat asked, with the little warning bells going off in hishead.

'I got just a few years left. I got me a diamondbig enough so's I can enjoy 'em on a civilizedplanet. You get rich, too.' He gathered up the laststone. 'Deal?'

Pat held three emeralds in his hand. The manhad a king's ransom in gemstones if he had beenon a civilized planet. He was offering them for onecase of stress relievers.

'Them things are a dime a dozen on Taratwo,'Murphy said, as if reading his mind. 'It's the dia­mond, man. The diamond. It's enough for both ofus.'

'What would the local law have to say aboutyou visiting me onboard ship?' Pat asked.

'It's legal,' Murphy said. 'They won't care about me leaving, either. Come and go as you please, butthe trouble is there might not be another ship forfive years.'

'Mr. Murphy, I'll keep an open mind,' Pat said,thinking of a huge diamond. He didn't know justhow big the Capella Glory had been, but he re­membered reading about it, and it was bigger thanany other quality diamond found to date on any planet.

Pat wrote down Murphy's offer. The old mangathered his stones and shuffled away. The othertraders

filed past one by one, displaying their gems,not many of them as fine as Murphy's had been.The traders bartered without hope, fully expectinghim to hand over all his cargo to the smirking O'Shields.

He was tempted to take O'Shields's offer. TheCapcor man opened a fancy velvet-lined case builtto carry uncut gems, displaying them to their bestadvantage. He did, indeed, have some beauties.Pat looked at tray after tray of uncut emeralds andrubies, and there were four small diamonds, allunder one carat.

'Not too many diamonds on Tara?' he asked.Murphy's words were haunting him. Bigger thanthe Capella Glory? Pat's brain dredged back intomemory. The Capella Glory was still uncut. It was on display at the Museum of Galactic Natural His­tory on Old Earth, which was a museum planet initself, what with all the archaeological digs andunderwater searches which went on year after year,century after century, as man tried, mostly in vain,to search for his roots.

'The problem is that this is a very young planet,and still in upheaval,' O'Shields said. 'You locate a likely diamond pipe, start digging, and there's aquake and you lose all the work you've done. A fewdiamonds have been found near the surface, likethe other stones. If there are any big ones, we'llhave to find a way to dig through earthquakes toget to them.'

'Still, you have a few here,' Pat said.

'Capcor is the government monopoly,' O'Shieldssaid. 'We own all the diamondiferous areas onthis planet.'

Curious, Pat thought, as he tallied up all theoffers. Either the old man was lying or there was adiamond producing pipe somewhere unknown toCapcor.

Capcor's bid, written in the neat, precise hand ofT. O'Shields, listed sizes and weights, so that itwasn't necessary for Pat to tabulate. He worked onall the other offers and grinned when he saw thatby splitting the cargo into small lots, giving someof the independent traders a share, he'd bestO'Shields offer by a few carats, even if some of thestones were of lesser quality. He wasn't greedy.For some reason emeralds and rubies were com­mon on most UP planets. He wasn't going to be­ come independently wealthy on this deal. It wouldbe a nice bonus, as he'd hoped, but that was all.Too many rubies and emeralds, beautiful as theywere.

But diamonds. The rarest. The king of stones.

Pat had a sudden flash of insight. T. O'Shieldsreminded him of his department head back atXanthos U. That clinched it for him.

'All right, gentlemen,' he called out. 'I've ac­cepted the following offers. By lot number here weare. . . .'

Before Pat could finish reading off the names,O'Shields pushed his way through the grinning, back-slapping independents. 'Dammit,' O'Shieldssputtered. 'You can call for a second round ofbidding and I'll top these boonie rats.'

'Where I come from,' Pat said, meeting O'Shield'sgaze with a smile, 'an honest trader makes his top offer first time around.' That was an outright lie, for all traders lived to haggle, but he didn't care if O'Shields knew it was a lie.

The knight in shining armor, soaring around the galaxy rooting for the underdog.

Pat accepted John Hook's official-sounding invi­tation to have lunch. The restaurant windows over­looked the not very scenic space port. The restaurantwas a popular place, crowded with executive types in business dress, a few of the independent traders in their worn outdoor clothing, working-class peo­ple in neat blue uniforms.

Taratwo's women seemed to average on theskinny side, with the predominant hair coloringsbeing shades of red and black. The men were alsouniformly spare, solemn, mostly unsmiling, butthen there didn't seem to be much to smile abouton Tara, planet of ashes, smoke, half-light. But thegreen salad was tangy. the dressing good sourcream, the meat slightly tough but well flavored.

Hook's conversation between bites was banal.He hoped that the morning's trading had beenprofitable. Pat assured him that it had been. Hookmentioned that there was no export tax on gem-stones. Pat said that was good news indeed. With­out a government bite into his profits he just mightbe able to pay for a complete refitting of theSkim­mer,make her more comfortable, put in a new storage capsule in the library, decontaminate thecloud chambers in the cranky computer.

Pat thought only once that afternoon of the oldman. He tended to believe T. O'Shields, especially when he asked Hook about diamonds and was toldthat Taratwo wasn't a good diamond planet. The chances of Murphy's having a king-size diamondseemed slim. Maybe the old man was a victim oftoo many nights alone in Taratwo's dismal outback,a little mixed up in the head.

Pat asked Hook a few questions about local con­ditions, and as long as his curiosity did not touchon politics, personal freedom, or the quality oflife-style he was answered. Hook's response to asensitive question was to cough, look away, andchange the subject immediately.

Pat had finished his meal and was having a taste of a very good local brandy. 'Excellent,' he said.'Very good.'

'Grapes like a volcanic soil,' Hook said.

'Make a good export, this.'

Hook laughed. 'First we have to make enoughfor local consumption.'

The buzz of conversation died around them. Thesudden silence was a silence of attention. Pat lookedup, saw that all eyes were directed to the win­dows. A sleek, modern atmospace yacht was waftingdown onto the largest space-port pad.

'The Man,' someone at a nearby table said.

'Not likely,' someone else said.

'We'll know soon enough.'

'More likely the Man's redheaded friend.'

'The Man's whore, you mean.'

John Hook shifted nervously. He cast a glaretoward the voice, then looked quickly away. Thevoices died into whispers. Then there was silencethroughout the dining room as the port of thesleek yacht hissed open and a female figure dressedin purple skirts emerged and walked gracefully to a luxurious ground

car. 'Definitely not the Man,' someone said, andthere was a burst of relieved, nervous laughter. 'The Leader's yacht?' Pat asked Hook. 'But not Himself. He values his privacy. He's seldom seen in public these days.' He pushed him­self