ely to be fatal. On Earth, if a
man sticks his thumb in a punch press, he loses his thumb. Out here, if
a man's thumb is crushed off while he's in space, he loses his air and
his life long before he can bleed to death. Anything that disables a man
in space is deadly ninety-nine times out of a hundred.

"I can give you a parallel case. In the early days of oil drilling,
wells occasionally caught fire. One of the ways to put them out was to
literally blow them out with a charge of nitroglycerine. Naturally, the
nitroglycerine had to be transported from where it was made to where it
was to be used. Sensibly enough, it was not transported in tank-car
lots; it was carried in small special containers by a single man in an
automobile, who used the back roads and avoided traffic and stayed away
from thickly populated areas--which was possible in those days. In many
places these carriers were required to paint their cars red, and have
the words _Danger Nitroglycerine_ painted on the vehicle in yellow.

"Now, the interesting thing about that situation is that, whereas
insurance companies in those days were reluctant to give policies to
those men, even at astronomical premium rates, disability insurance cost
practically nothing--provided the insured would allow the insertion of a
clause that restricted the covered period to those times when he was
actually engaged in transporting nitroglycerine. You can see why."

"I am not familiar with explosives," Tarnhorst said. "I take it that the
substance is ... er ... easily detonated?"

"That's right," said Alhamid. "It's not only sensitive, but it's
unreliable. You might actually drop a jar of the stuff and do nothing
but shatter the jar. Another jar, apparently exactly similar, might go
off because it got jiggled by a seismic wave from a passing truck half a
mile away. But the latter was a great deal more likely than the former."

"Very well," said Tarnhorst after a moment, "I accept that analogy. I'd
like to know more about the work itself. What does the job entail,
exactly? What safety precautions are taken?"

It required the better part of three hours to explain exactly what an
anchor setter did and how he did it--and what safety precautions were
being taken. Through it all, Peter Danley just sat there, listening,
saying nothing.

Finally, Edway Tarnhorst said: "Well, thank you very much for your
information, Mr. Alhamid. I'd like to think this over. May I see you in
the morni