"Pay us?" Nick Sloan's face showed his sharp interest. "Pay us with what?"
For answer, Shan Kar reached beneath his quilted cloak and brought forth a curious object which he handed to them.
"We have heard that this metal is valuable, to you of the outer world."
Eric Nelson puzzledly examined the thing. It was a thick hoop of dull gray metal, a ring several inches in diameter. Mounted on opposite sides of the metal hoop were two small disks of quartz. There was something odd about the little quartz disks. Each was only an inch across, but each had a carven pattern of interlocking spirals that baffled and blurred the vision.
Lefty Wister whined scornfully, "The bleody beggar wants to hire us with a hoop of old iron!"
"Iron? No," grunted Van Voss. "I see that metal down in the Sumatra mines. It is platinum."
"Platinum? Let me see that!" exclaimed Sloan. He closely examined the gray metal hoop. "By heaven, it is!"
His tawny eyes narrowed as he looked up at the silent, watching stranger? "Where did this come from?"
"From L'Lan," answered Shan Kar. "There is more there — much more. All you can take away will be yours as pay."
Nick Sloan swung around on Nelson. "Nelson, this could be big. All the years you and I have been out here, we haven't had an opportunity like this."