"Promise?" whined Linna.
"Yes," said Keg wearily. "It's a promise. I've got to make an option payment immediately. From then on in, the place will be mine."
"But if you gamble and lose?" asked Linna worriedly. "I'll lose my jewelry."
"I can't lose."
"But if the economic structure falls?"
"I can't miss. All I want to do is get out what I need before the bottom falls out. Inflation of the worst kind will set in, and the wheels will stop dead—except at Fabriville. That's where I enter the picture."
"Good," said Linna in a bored voice. "As long as I am assured of my jewelry, I don't care how you play the market. Run along, Keg. I've got a dinner engagement. May I have just a few, though? I'll feel naked without at least a ring."
"Take what you need," said Keg, and was immediately appalled at the necessities of life.
An hour later, Keg Johnson was making some quiet trading and slowly but surely gaining control over the manufacturing village of Fabriville. The market was steady and strong. The traders worked noisily and eagerly, tossing millions back and forth with the flick of a finger. It was a normal scene, this work of theirs, and when it was done, they would take their usual way home to a quiet evening beside a roaring fireplace.
But this was surface quiet. Deep down below there was a miniscule vortex that churned and throbbed, and other equally minute forces fought the vortex—and strove in a battle that was lost before it began.