was brought across the sea from another
country, and the name of that country was Brinn."

Dranigo frowned, as though he had never heard the name before.
"Brinn." Salvadro's eyes widened. "Brinn, Dranigo! Do you think that
might be Britain?"

Dranigo straightened, staring, "It might be! Britain was a great
nation, once; the last nation to join the Terran Federation, in the
Third Century Pre-Interstellar. And they had a king, and a crown with
a great diamond...."

"The story of where it was made," Rand offered, "or who made it, has
been lost. I suppose the first people brought it to this world when
they came in starships."

"It's more wonderful than that, Keeper," Salvadro said. "It was made
on this world, before the first starship was built. This world is
Terra, the Mother-World; didn't you know that, Keeper? This is the
world where Man was born."

He hadn't known that. Of course, there had to be a world like that,
but a great world in the middle of everything, like Dremna. Not this
old, forgotten world.

"It's true, Keeper," Dranigo told him. He hesitated slightly, then
cleared his throat. "Keeper, you're young no longer, and some day you
must die, as your father and his father did. Who will care for the
Crown then?"

Who, indeed? His woman had died long ago, and she had given him no
sons, and the daughters she had given him had gone their own ways with
men of their own choosing and he didn't know what had become of any of
them. And the village people--they would start picking the Crown apart
to sell the jewels, one by one, before the ashes of his pyre stopped
smoking.

"Let us have it, Keeper," Salvadro said. "We will take it to Dremna,
where armed men will guard it day and night, and it will be a trust
upon the Government of the Empire forever."

He recoiled in horror. "Man! You don't know what you're saying!" he
cried. "This is the Crown, and I am the Keeper; I cannot part with it
as long as there is life in me."

"And when there is not, what? Will it be laid on your pyre, so that it
may end with you?" Dranigo asked.

"Do you think we'd throw it away as soon as we got tired looking at
it?" Salvadro exclaimed. "To show you how we'll value this, we'll give
you ... how much is a thousand imperials in trade-tokens, Dranigo?"

"I'd guess about twenty thousand."

"We'll give you twenty thousand Government trade-tokens," Salvadro
said. "If it costs us that much, you'll believe that we'll take care
of it