"How is communication with this race possible?" Barnes asked Nelson.

Shure moved forward. "It doesn't matter. We have nothing to say to them. They know they are illegally here. It's the cargo we're interested in."

He pushed past the Adharan commander. The group of Adharans made way for him. He entered the ship, Nelson and Barnes following after him.

The interior of the Adharan ship reeked and dripped with slime. The passages were narrow and dark, like long tunnels. The floor was slippery underfoot. A few crew members scuttled around in the darkness, their claws and antennae waving nervously. Shure flashed his light down one of the corridors.

"This way. It looks like the main passage."

The Adharan commander followed close behind them. Shure ignored him. Outside, the cruiser had landed nearby. Nelson could see Terran soldiers standing around on the surface.

Ahead of them a metal door closed off the corridor. Shure indicated the door, making an opening motion.

"Open it."

The Adharan commander retreated, making no move to open the door. A few more Adharans scuttled up, all of them with weapon tubes.

"They may fight yet," Nelson said calmly.

Shure raised his Slem rifle at the door. "I'll have to blast it."

The Adharans clicked excitedly. None of them approached the door.

"All right," Shure said grimly. He fired. The door dissolved, smoking into ruins. It sank down, leaving an opening wide enough to pass through. The Adharans rushed around wildly, clicking to each other. More of them left the hull and poured into the ship, flocking around the three Terrans.

"Come on," Shure said, stepping through the gaping hole. Nelson and Barnes followed him, Slem rifles ready.

The passage led down. The air was heavy and thick, and as they walked down the passage, Adharans pressed behind them.

"Get back." Shure spun, his rifle up. The Adharans halted. "Stay back. Come on. Let's go."

The Terrans turned a corner. They were in the hold. Shure advanced cautiously, moving with care. Several Adharan guards stood with drawn weapon tubes.

"Get out of the way." Shure waved his Slem rifle. Reluctantly, the guards moved aside. "Come on!"

The guards separated. Shure advanced.

And stopped, amazed.

Before them was the cargo of the ship. The hold was half-filled with carefully stacked orbs of milky fire, giant jewels like immense pearls. Thousands of them. As far back as they could see. Disappearing back into the recesses of the ship, endless stacks of them. All glowing with a soft radiance, an inner illumination that lit up the vast hold of the ship.

"Incredible!" Shure muttered.

"No wonder they were willing to slip in here without permission." Barnes took a deep breath, his eyes wide. "I think I'd do the same. Look at them!"

"Big, aren't they?" Nelson said.

They glanced at each other.

"I've never seen anything like it," Shure said, dazed. The Adharan guards were watching them warily, their weapon tubes ready. Shure advanced toward the first row of jewels, stacked neatly with mathematical precision. "It doesn't seem possible. Jewels piled up like – like a warehouse full of doorknobs."

"They may have belonged to the Adharans at one time," Nelson said thoughtfully. "Maybe they were stolen by the city-builders of the Sirius system. Now they're getting them back."

"Interesting," Barnes said. "Might explain why the Adharans found them so easily. Perhaps charts or maps existed."

Shure grunted. "In any case they're ours, now. Everything in the Sirius system belongs to Terra. It's all been signed, sealed and agreed on."

"But if these were originally stolen from the Adharans -"

"They shouldn't have agreed to the closed-system treaties. They have their own system. This belongs to Terra." Shure reached up toward one of the jewels. "I wonder how it feels."

"Careful, Captain. It may be radioactive."

Shure touched one of the jewels.

The Adharans grabbed him, throwing him back. Shure struggled. An Adharan caught hold of his Slem rifle and twisted it out of his hands.

Barnes fired. A group of Adharans puffed out of existence.

Nelson was down on one knee, firing at the passage entrance. The passage was choked with Adharans. Some were firing back. Thin heat beams cut over Nelson's head.

"They can't get us," Barnes gasped. "They're afraid to fire. Because of the jewels."

The Adharans were retreating into the passage, away from the hold. Those with weapons were being ordered back by the commander.

Shure snatched Nelson's rifle and blasted a knot of Adharans into particles. The Adharans were closing the passage. They rolled heavy emergency plates into position and welded them rapidly into place.

"Burn a hole," Shure barked. He turned his gun on the wall of the ship. "They're trying to seal us in here."

Barnes turned his gun on the wall. The two Slem beams ate into the side of the ship. Abruptly the wall gave way, a circular hole falling out.

Outside the ship Terran soldiers were fighting with the Adharans. The Adharans were retreating, making their way back as best they could, firing and hopping. Some of them hopped up onto their ship. Others turned and fled, throwing their guns down. They milled about in helpless confusion, running and leaping in all directions, clicking wildly.

The parked cruiser glowed into life, its heavy guns lowering into position.

"Don't fire," Shure ordered through his phone. "Leave their ship alone. It isn't necessary."

"They're finished," Nelson gasped, jumping onto the ground. Shure and Barnes leaped after him, out of the Adharan ship onto the surface. "They don't have a chance. They don't know how to fight."

Shure waved a group of Terran soldiers over to him. "Over here! Hurry up, damn it."

Milky jewels were spilling out of the ship onto the ground, rolling and bouncing through the hole. Part of the containing struts had been blasted away. Stacks of jewels cascaded down and rolled around their feet, getting in their way.

Barnes scooped one up. It burned his gloved hand faintly, tingling his fingers. He held it to the light. The globe was opaque. Vague shapes swam in the milky fire, drifting back and forth. The globe pulsed and glowed, as if it were alive.

Nelson grinned at him. "Really something, isn't it?"

"Lovely." Barnes picked up another. On the hull of the ship an Adharan fired down at him futilely. "Look at them all. There must be thousands of them."

"We'll get one of our merchant ships here and have them loaded up," Shure said. "I won't feel safe until they're on their way back to Terra."

Most of the fighting had ceased. The remaining Adharans were being rounded up by the Terran soldiers.

"What about them?" Nelson said.

Shure didn't answer. He was examining one of the jewels, turning it over and over. "Look at it," he murmured. "Brings out different colors each way you hold it. Did you ever see anything like it?"

The big Terran freighter bumped to a landing. Its loading hatches dropped down. Jitney cars rumbled out, a fleet of stubby trucks. The jitney cars crossed to the Adharan ship. Ramps dropped into place, as robot scoops prepared to go to work.

"Shovel them up," Silvanus Fry rambled, crossing over to Captain Shure. The Manager of Terran Enterprises wiped his forehead with a red handkerchief. "Astonishing haul, Captain. Quite a find." He put out his moist palm and they shook.

"I can't understand how we could have missed them," Shure said. "The Adharans walked in and picked them up. We watched them going from one planet to the next, like some sort of honey bee. I don't know why our own teams didn't find them."

Fry shrugged. "What does it matter?" He examined one of the jewels, tossing it up in the air and catching it. "I imagine every woman on Terra will have one of these around her neck – or will want one of these around her neck. In six months they won't know how they ever lived without them. That's the way people are, Captain." He put the globe into his briefcase, snapping it shut. "I think I'll take one home to my own wife."