“There’ll be little chance of that. Your guards are being continually increased.”
“You underestimate the power of greed,” said the Sack.
Siebling was to learn how correct that comment was.
At the end of his fourteenth month on duty, a half year after Senator Horrigan had been defeated for re-election, there appeared a questioner who spoke to the Sack in an exotic language known to few men—the Prdl dialect of Mars. Siebling’s attention had already been drawn to the man because of the fact that he had paid a million credits an entire month in advance for the unprecedented privilege of questioning the Sack for ten consecutive minutes. The conversation was duly recorded, but was naturally meaningless to Siebling and to the other attendants at the station. The questioner drew further attention to himself by leaving at the end of seven minutes, thus failing to utilize three entire minutes, which would have sufficed for learning how to make half a dozen small fortunes. He left the asteroid immediately by private ship.
The three minutes had been reserved, and could not be utilized by any other private questioner. But there was nothing to prevent Siebling, as a government representative, from utilizing them, and he spoke to the Sack at once.
“What did that man want?”
“Advice as to how to steal me.”
Siebling’s lower jaw dropped. “ What? ”
The Sack always took such exclamations of amazement literally. “Advice as to how to steal me,” it repeated.
“Then—wait a minute—he left three minutes early. That must mean that he’s in a hurry to get started. He’s going to put the plan into execution at once!”