Then they went back to the big metal house, and it was lunchtime. They gave him and Diamond estee-fee to eat. For a long time after lunch Pappy Vic and the others made talk. It was Big One talk, and Little Fuzzy understood very little of it, but it seemed to be about the work that was being done here. He and Diamond played on the floor, and he smoked his pipe. Diamond didn’t smoke; he didn’t like it.

In the afternoon, Pappy Vic took them up in an aircar to watch his friends making blast. He knew all about that. The Big Ones put something in the ground and got far away from it, and it went off like a gun only much-much louder, and there was smoke and dust and big rocks flew high up. It made digging easier, but it was dangerous to be close to it; and, while Big Ones didn’t mind it, it made bumps in the ground that hurt Fuzzies’ feet. That was why Pappy Vic took him and Diamond up in the aircar while it was happening. As soon as the blasts were done, the Big Ones all moved in again with their machines and started digging.

Pappy Vic took him and Diamond back to the big metal house, and they ate more estee-fee, and played with Diamond’s things. And then it was Diamond’s nap-time, and he lay down on his blankets and went to sleep.

Little Fuzzy lay down beside Diamond and tried to sleep too, but he couldn’t. He was too excited about all the things he had seen. He thought about all Pappy Vic’s friends helping him dig, and all the machines they had to work with, and then he thought about all the pretty shining-stones he had seen, all the colors there were, and bright like hot coals in a fire. He wanted a shining-stone himself, to take back to Wonderful Place and show to the others there.

He knew that Pappy Vic would give him one if he asked for it, but Pappy Jack had told him that he must never ask people for things when he was away from home. Well, maybe he could find one for himself. Of course, all the shining-stones here belonged to Pappy Vic, but if he found one himself and asked if he could keep it, that would be different from asking for one Pappy Vic had found. He thought of asking Diamond about this, but Diamond was asleep, and it was never right to bother people who were sleeping unless something was wrong or there was danger.

So he decided to go out by himself and look for one. He put on his shoulder bag and picked up his chopper-digger, because he might find a land-prawn, and went out, going in the direction of the edge of the deep-place, away from where the Big Ones were working. He found much black-rock in a place where they had been digging a little once and had stopped, and looked all around, but he found no shining-stones. Maybe they had found all the shining-stones that were here. He went to the edge of the deep place and looked down, and away down at the bottom he saw more black-rock.

He knew that Pappy Vic and Diamond had both said that he was to stay out of the deep-place, but this was far away from where the Big Ones were throwing the top of the mountain down into it; it would not be dangerous here. He started to climb down.

It was hard climbing, and much farther down than he had thought, and several times he was tempted to turn back, but he could see black-rock at the bottom and kept on. He wanted to find a shining-stone for himself. There was much loose rock, and he had to be careful where he put his feet. He had to use his chopper-digger to help him and cling to small bushes that grew on the steep side of the deep-place, and there were bushes and even trees that had been dug up and thrown over when the Big Ones had been digging above. He had to be very careful among them.

Finally, he was down to the very edge of the river; it was fast and foamed among rocks, and he began to wish he had not come down here. The black hard-rock he found was all broken into little pieces, none bigger than his body, and he knew now that there would be no shining-stones. He knew what the Big Ones did; they broke the black-rock small and put a thing Pappy Vic called a scanner on the pieces, and it told if there were shining stones inside.

For a moment he looked at the broken black-rock, and then he said, “Sunnabish-go-hell-goddamn!” He didn’t know what these words meant, but Big Ones always said them when things went wrong. Then he started along the edge of the river, looking for a less steep place to go up again, farther away from where Pappy Vic’s friends were throwing rock down. Looking around, he saw a nice flat rock, and another rock just above it, and a bush he could hold to above that.

He jumped down from the uprooted tree onto which he had climbed, onto the flat rock. As soon as his feet touched it, the other rocks around him were sliding, too. He struggled to regain his balance, and the chopper-digger flew out of his hand; he heard it fall with a clink among the rocks above him. Then he was sliding toward the river, and he was more frightened than he had ever been, even when a bush-goblin had almost caught him long ago — and then he was in the water.

Something heavy hit him from behind. He clutched at it…

JACK HOLLOWAY LEANED forward for his tobacco pouch, his eyes still on the microbook-screen. The Fuzzies on the floor in front of him were also looking at the screen, yeeking softly to one another; they had long ago learned not to make talk with Big One voices around Pappy Jack when he was reading. They were reading, or trying to, too; at least, they were identifying the letters and spelling out the words aloud, and arguing about what they meant. They probably missed Little Fuzzy; whenever they were stumped on anything, they always asked him. Jack blew through his pipe stem, and began refilling the pipe from the pouch.

The communication-screen buzzed. He finished refilling the pipe and zipped the pouch shut. The Fuzzies were saying, “Pappy Jack; screeno.” He said, “Quiet, kids,” and snapped it on. As soon as they saw Victor Grego’s face in it, they began yelling, “Heyo, Pappy Vic!”

“Hello, Victor.” Then he saw Grego’s face, and stopped, apprehension stabbing him. “What is it, Victor?” he asked.

“Little Fuzzy,” Grego began. His face twitched. “Jack, if you want a shot at me, you’re entitled to it.”

“Don’t talk like a fool; what’s wrong?” By now, he was frightened.

Grego said, “We think he’s gone into the river,” as though every word were being pulled out of him with red-hot pincers.

Jack’s mind’s eye saw the Yellowsand River rushing down through the canyon. He felt a chill numbness spread through him.

“You ‘think.’ Aren’t you sure? What happened?”

“He’s been missing since between 1530 and 1700,” Grego said. “He and Diamond lay down for a nap in the afternoon. When Diamond woke, he was gone; he’d taken his shoulder bag and his chopper-digger with him. Diamond went out to look for him, and couldn’t find him. He came back while some of us were having cocktails and told me. I supposed he’d just gone out to look for a land-prawn, but I didn’t want him running around the diggings alone. Harry Steefer called the captain on duty at the police but and had a general alert put out — just everybody keep an eye open for him.

“He didn’t show up by dinner-time, and I began to get worried. I ordered a search and took Diamond up in a supervisory jeep, with a loudspeaker to call him, and we hunted all over the area. Diamond assured me that he’d warned him against going down in the canyon, but we began looking there. After it got dark, we put up lorries with floodlights in the canyon. Maybe I should have called you then, but we were expecting to find him every minute.”

“Wouldn’t have done any good. I couldn’t have done anything but worry, and you were doing that already.”

“Well, about half an hour ago, a couple of cops in a jeep were going along the edge of the river, and one of them saw a glint of metal among the rocks. He looked at it with binoculars, and it was Little Fuzzy’s chopper-digger. He called in right away. I went down; I’ve just come back from there. That’s all there was, just the chopper-digger. The place is all loose rock that’s been thrown down from above; it’s right under where we made one of the prospect digs. We think the loose rock started to slide and he threw the chopper-digger out of his hand, trying to catch himself, and the slide took him down… Jack, the whole damn thing’s my fault…”