"Platinum."
Zitts shook his head. "Used for ballast in deep-sea diving and then dumped in the ocean. Have you any humorous writings, such as an ancient Congressional Record?"
"Never heard of anything like that," the woman replied. "Heard once there was some sort of record of congress which was destroyed because so many people died laughing over it."
"Exactly! Very dangerous," Zitts went on. "But I could trade it to the Martians to use in their war against Jupiter. Even a Jovian, who can endure so many more gravities than we, couldn't endure the weight of a Congressional Record. And if he could, he would either die laughing or become an epileptic. Have you got one?"
"No!" The woman shook her head sadly. "I have a private atmosphere-runabout, a house with seventeen rooms in Florida, a ranch in California with ten thousand domesticated descendants of movie stars grazing on it, a plantation on Venus where I keep a herd of poets, a million acres of arable land on Uranus, a crater on the moon, and a chunk of what's left of the ice at the North Pole. But I have nothing whatever valuable."
"No property on Mars?"
"A single canal, but it's worthless. It's filled with billions and billions of barrels of oil. Have tried to give it away, but no one is fool enough to take it."
"H—m." Zitts studied the woman with pity and understanding. "There should be some sort of charity to aid people in your poverty-ridden condition. I suppose I'll have to handle the case for nothing. I wouldn't do it for anybody else for less than a star of the sixth magnitude, but I do not believe in imposing on the poor."
"I have a nickel in ancient money," the woman said softly.