“It’s a devil's cauldron they've got me in,” said Ker. "I’m half-crazy these days. I dropped from His Planetship down to gooey dirt, Jonnie. I got only one shaftmate and that's you, Jonnie.”

“I don't know how or why you got yourself here, but-'

“It’s this.” Ker dove a dirty paw inside his torn shirt, oblivious of the fact that a more nervous Jonnie might have shot him. Jonnie could draw, if a trifle slowly, with his left hand. But Jonnie knew Ker.

Held before Jonnie's eyes was a bank note.

He took it with some curiosity. He had only seen these at a distance in the hands of Psychlos paying off wagers and he had never held one before. He knew they were a basic symbol of exchange and greatly valued.

It was about six inches wide and a foot long. The paper felt a bit rough but it seemed to glow. One side of it was printed in blue and the other side in orange. It had a nebula pattern and bright starburst on it. But the remarkable thing was that it was worded in what must be thirty languages: thirty numeral systems, thirty different types of lettering-ah, one of them was Psychlo. Jonnie could read that.

He read: “The Galactic Bank” and “One Hundred Galactic Credits” and “Guaranteed Legal Tender for All Transactions” and “Counterfeiters Will Be Vaporized” and “Certified Exchangeable at the Galactic Bank on

Presentation.”

It had a picture of somebody or something on the blue side. It looked like a humanoid, or maybe a Tolnep somebody had mistaken Dunneldeen for, or maybe...who knew? The face was very dignified, the very portrait of integrity. On the reverse it had a similar-sized picture of an imposing building with innumerable arches.

All very interesting, but Jonnie had determined to do other things today. He gave it back to Ker and started to fish out his own cap again. He felt sort of embarrassed with such a shaved head.

Ker looked a bit let down. “That's a hundred credits!” said Ker. “It isn't a Psychlo bank. The Psychlos and everybody else use those. It 's not counterfeit. I can tell. See how it glows? And these little fine lines here around the signature-”

“You trying to bribe me or something?” said Jonnie, discarding the cap he'd found and looking for a colored bandana instead.

“Why no!” said Ker, “Look, this money is no good to me now, Jonnie. Look!”

Jonnie propped himself more comfortably on the bureau edge and obediently looked.

Ker, with a glance at the door to make sure he had his back to it and that only Jonnie could see, dramatically threw aside his lapels and pulled the tattered tunic apart.

There was a brand on his chest.

“The three bars of denial,” said Ker. “The criminal scorch. I don't think it's any news to you I was a criminal. That's one of the holds Terl had on me. That's why he felt he could trust me to run around and teach you. If I was returned to Psychlo, having been found to hold false papers and employment, I’d be vaporized. If Psychlo recaptured this place they'd be sure those of us alive were renegades, and they'd examine us and find this. My papers are false. I won't burden you with my real name: not knowing it you can't be hit as an accessory. Got it?”

Jonnie didn't have it at all, especially since the Psychlos would kill him on sight and not be troubled at all about “accessory.” He nodded. All this wasn't getting anywhere. Where had Chrissie put the bandanas they'd found?

“And if in addition they found two billion Galactic credits on me, they'd do a slow vaporization!” said Ker.

“Two billion?”

Yes, well it seemed old Numph had been screwing the company for the whole thirty years of his duty tour here. Things not even Terl had dug up; things like commissions from the female administrators who charged; things like double prices on kerbango; maybe even selling ore to aliens who picked it up in space shifts...who knew? But Numph slept on four mattresses, and Ker thought it was funny they crinkled like that and he liked only one mattress, so he'd ripped open an end and there it was!

“Where?” said Jonnie. “Out in the hall,” said Ker.

The midget Psychlo closed his coat and Jonnie beckoned at the guard in the small door window. Ker darted out through the door, loose chains dragging, alarming everyone out there, and came back lugging a big box which he dumped. Then he rushed out and got another box. Although a midget, only a bit taller than Jonnie,

Ker was very strong. Before anybody stopped him and despite the flapping chains, Ker shortly had the room bulging with old kerbango boxes, and every one of them was overflowing with Galactic credits!

“There's more in his numbered accounts on Psychlo," said Ker, “but we can't get that.” He stood there panting a big smile, very proud of himself. “Now you can pay the renegades like the Chamcos in cash!”

Captain MacDuffhad been trying to tell Jonnie they'd checked the boxes while making sure there were no explosives and still ask what was this stuff? all the while wanting to know how Jonnie had sent a message to the compound without it being known to the sentries, and was it all right that they had let Ker bring it? He was flustered. He had a Pyschlo running around flapping chains and Jonnie was laughing.

“And you want-?” said Jonnie to Ker.

“I want out of that prison!” wailed Ker. “They hate me because I was over them. They hated me anyway, Jonnie. I know machines. Didn't I teach you to run every machine there is? I heard they have a machine school over at what you call the Academy. They don't know anything about those machines. Not like you and me do! Let me go help teach them like I did you!”

He stood there so pathetically, so pleadingly, he was so convinced he had done the right thing, that Jonnie laughed and laughed and shortly Ker's mouthbones started to grin.

“I think it's a great idea, Ker," said Jonnie. At that moment he looked up and saw a frosty Robert the Fox in the door. Jonnie shifted to English. “Sir Robert, I think we have a new instructor for the schoolmaster. It 's true he's a great machine operator and he knows them all.” He smiled at Ker and said in Psychlo, “Terms of employment, a quart of kerbango a day, full pay and bonuses, standard company contract omitting only burial on Pyschlo. Right?” He knew very well Ker probably had buried a few hundred thousand credits on his own.

Ker started bobbing his head emphatically. He had held a few hundred thousand against a rainy day. He held out a paw to bash paws with Jonnie. That done, he was about to leave when he turned and came very close to Jonnie, speaking with the Psychlo equivalent of whispering.

“I got one more thing for you, Jonnie. They put Terl in a cage. You watch Terl, Jonnie. He's up to something!”

When the midget Psychlo had left, Robert the Fox looked at these bales and bales of money.

“Job bribery,” said Jonnie, “comes high these days! Turn it over to the Council.” He was laughing.

“This is Galactic money, isn't it?” said Robert the Fox. "I’m going to contact a Scot named MacAdam at the university in the Highlands. He knows about money.”

But he was wondering at seeing Jonnie dressed. He was more than glad Jonnie had cheered up even though he thought the lad foolhardy for letting a Psychlo so close to him: one rake of a set of claws could cost one half his face. Then he realized Jonnie was hobbling forward, going out. He looked his question.

“I may not be able to hold the sky up,” said Jonnie, “but I don't have to wait forever for it to fall either. I’m headed for the compound.”

He had to talk to the Chamco brothers. He had heard they were making absolutely no progress on repairing the transshipment stage and without that they never would find out about Psychlo.