ss you've quit claiming to be a practical man, Art,
you'll have to go along with helping them. You know what kind of
materials and equipment are needed, and how much we can supply, better
than I do. Or do I have to withdraw my fraction of the company in
goods? We'll take up the dispersal problem as soon as possible."

Art Kuzak could only sigh heavily, grin a lopsided grin, and produce.
Soon a great caravan of stuff was on the move.

There was another picture: Eileen Sands, the old Queen of Serene in a
not-yet-forgotten song, sitting on a lump of yellow alloy splashed up
from the surface of Pallas, where a chunk of mixed metal and stone had
struck at a speed of several miles per second, fusing the native alloy
and destroying her splendid _Second Stop_ utterly in a flash of
incandescence. Back in Archer, she looked almost as she used to look at
Hendricks'. Her smile was rueful.

"Shucks, I'm all right, Frank," she said. "Even if Insurance, with so
many disaster-claims, can't pay me--which they probably still can. The
boys'll keep needing entertainment, if it's only in a stellene space
tent. They won't let me just sit... For two bits, though, I'd move into
a nice, safe orbit, out of the Belt and on the other side of the sun
from the Earth, and build myself a retreat and retire. I'd become a
spacewoman, like I wanted to, in the first place."

"I'll bet," Nelsen joshed. "Otherwise, what have you heard and seen?
There's a certain fella..."

Right away, she thought he meant Ramos. "The damfool--why ask me,
Frank?" she sniffed, her expression sour and sad. "How long has he been
gone again, now? As usual he was proposing--for the first few days after
he set out. After that, there were a few chirps of messages. Then
practically nothing. Anyway, how long does it take to get way out to
Pluto and back, even if a whole man can have the luck to make it. And is
there much more than half of him left...? For two bits I'd--ah--skip
it!"

Nelsen smiled with half of his mouth. "I wanted to know about Ramos,
too, Eileen. Thanks. But I was talking about Tiflin."

"Umhmm--you're right. He and Pal Igor were both around at my place about
an hour before we were hit. I called him something worse than a bad
omen. He was edgy--almost like he used to be. He said that, one of these
days--be cavalier--I was going to get mine. He and Igor eeled away
before my customers could break their necks."

Nelsen showed his teeth. "Thanks again. I wonder