On the table before the two was a glittering pile of the most beautiful quolla stones Yancey had ever seen. Dozens of them. A small fortune lying quietly on that table in the humidi-hut. Here were the black stones that Yancey had dreamed of finding. Here was the answer to all his hopes.
But the answer lay in another man's hands, the hands that now caressed Selo!
"I won't be long in Athens," Brian was saying. "There's at least sixty or seventy thousand credits worth of quolla stones there. I'll take what they'll offer me in the market, Selo, and then I'll come back for you."
The woman pressed closer to Daniels. "Don't leave me here even for a little while—with him."
Brian's arms went around her. "This is the best way, Selo. He'll make trouble. It's not going to be pleasant. Let me get rid of the stones first and then you and I can start out together."
She buried her face in his chest. "I'm so afraid—here alone with him."
Brian tilted her chin up to face him. "There's no reason to be afraid of him. I know his kind. He only talks about things he could do. He won't hurt you. He wouldn't dare."
They were lost in each other's arms as Yancey turned and silently slipped back through the vac-lock. When he noisily re-entered a half hour later his plans were made.
If Brian was surprised by Yancey's sudden change in attitude, he gave no indication. He accepted Yancey's solicitous interest as lightly as he had his surly resentment earlier.
Dinner, the evening before Brian was to set out for Athens, was an hilarious affair on the surface. Yancey insisted on toasting Brian, on exacting a promise that he would come back to visit them. He assured the prospector that they would miss him and that he must consider the humidi-hut his home when he was on Venus.