"Yeah, she was sure a bargain," said the taxi driver. "Cheap, too. They don't make slaves like that anymore. Her turn-in value would be almost as high as the original price. You want I should ever trade her in on a new model?"

"Never!" I said firmly. "Not even if they come out with a new rear end."

We were drawing close to the villa. There seemed to be a number of cars parked on the road outside it. The taxi driver found a place to stop.

Creakily, I got out. I went through the gate.

The yard was full of men!

My reflexes, after all I had been through, were not very quick. I didn't get any chance to retreat.

A hulking brute stepped behind me!

Another hulking brute stalked up to me and used my Turkish Earth-name. "You Sultan Bey?"

"That's him," said another. "I know him!"

Another jumped in front of me. "I'm from the American Oppress Company! Here is your bill. It's overdue!"

Another shouldered through. "I'm from the Dunner's Club. Here is your bill."

Yet another shouldered through. "I'm from Masker-Charge! What are you going to do about this bill?"

Still another crowded up. "I'm from the Squeeza Credit Card Corporation. One month interest on your first month's purchases is already more than the original amount!"

In chorus, a very menacing one, they yelled, "When are we going to get paid?"

I staggered back. I couldn't stagger very far as they were hemming me in. They were all waving bills!

It hit me! Utanc had gotten credit cards on my apparently affluent name and position before we left. She had done the whole trip on CREDIT CARDS!

I saw some of the amounts they were waving. HUGE! The best hotels, all first-class travel, all the best shops...

Weak as I was, I still had some wits to gather about me. My gold! Painful though it might be, I would have to part with some gold.

I held up a bandaged hand. "Enough!" I cried. "You will be paid!" I would save the old homestead!

I rushed across the yard, across the house patio, into my bedroom, into the closet and through the secret door.

There it was, the stack of boxes in the corner of my secret room, all marked as "dangerously radioactive" to keep people away.

Ignoring the pain to my hands and the agony it caused to bend over, I ripped the lid off a box. Glittering yellow! I picked up a fifty-pound bar. It would weigh 41.6+ pounds on Earth. At twelve ounces Troy to the pound, that was 499.99+ ounces. Gold was above $700 when I last looked. This bar should be worth more than $349,999.99! That should hold them!

I struggled out with it. They gaped when I reappeared on the lawn. I dropped it in front of them. "This gold, if you cash it in, should take care of everything. And be sure to credit me with the difference."

They fought their way to it. One hulking brute got possession. He took out a pen knife and cut into the bar.

He stared.

He showed the others.

I stared.

The sliver he had cut off was lead!

"Sultan," he said in a low and menacing voice, "that bar is just lead painted with gilt paint! Are you trying to put us off?"

I couldn't believe it!

I checked it myself. Just lead with a coat of gilt paint on it.

The creditors instantly started grabbing rugs out of the house!

"Wait! Wait!" I cried.

I struggled back to my secret room.

I began to open boxes and lift out bars. Nine cases. Seventeen more fifty-pound bars. Eight hundred and fifty more pounds of lifting. A frantic knife cutting slivers!

They were all lead with a gilt coat of paint! But it had been real gold before I had left for New York! I had checked it!

Aching and battered, the bandages on my hands coming apart, I regained the lawn.

Not only did they have piles of rugs and furniture stacking up, they were now also herding the domestic staff out. They began to put ankle cuffs on them and connect them together on a long chain. One hulking brute cried, "They'll bring a good price in the slave markets of Arabia!"

"Wait! Wait!" I begged. "I will pay you! It's just that I have a slight headache."

The taxi driver was still there. I leaped into his cab. I would still save the old homestead. "Mudlick Construction Company!" I cried, "And to Hells with the camels!"

At great cost to my bruises from the bumps, we went careening back to Afyon. With screaming brakes we skidded to a stop at Mudlick.

I rushed in. The manager said, "I've been expecting you." He went right over to the safe, opened it and took out stacks of U.S. dollar bank notes. It was really painful to see those going into a sack and know I would never be able to caress them.

A quarter of a million dollars! My half of the kickback on that construction cost. I signed the receipt.

We went tearing back to the villa.

In agony from the bumps, I got out of the smoking taxi.

I stalked into the yard.

They had waited. The rugs were still piled up. The staff, in leg irons, was still standing there.

Triumphantly, I threw the sack of bank notes at them.

They all tore it apart and began to count it.

Then the Dunner's Club man cried, "There's only a quarter of a million dollars here!" He turned his back on it. He got a piece of paper from an aide. He waved it. "Here is my order for foreclosure! Get a padlock on those gates!"

"Wait! Wait!" I screamed. "I will pay! I will pay!" Ye Gods, how much were those bills?

I turned to the taxi again. "To Faht Bey's office!" I would save the old homestead in spite of Hells!

With engine roaring and my bruises shrieking, we braked in front of the International Agricultural Training Center for Peasants. I went reeling into the Base Commander's office.

Faht Bey looked at me. "I've been expecting you," he said, a deadly look on his fat face.

"Give me a million dollars!" I said.

"Can't do it!" he said.

I was astonished. "Look," I said. "I started this hospital project. You have two hundred gangsters coming in here to get their faces remodelled. At $100,000 each, that's $20,000,000! The buildings only cost a million. You got $19,000,000 clear! What do you mean, you can't? Look at that profit!"

"Little enough to compensate for all the damage you do. Besides, the demand for drugs from Lombar Hisst is out of sight in tonnage. We're barely making both ends meet."

"I'm in trouble!" I wailed.

"When weren't you?" said Faht Bey. "But I have a proposition for you. If you will agree to certain terms, you can have a quarter of a million."

"The terms?" I begged.

"When the credit card bills began to come in, I made up my mind and wrote it all out for you to sign. Here it is."

I read it:

I, Soltan Gris, hereby swear and affirm to stop grafting, chiselling and embezzling monies from the Earth Base Treasury. I will demand not one more cent after this final payoff and I will absolutely undertake to place no more contracts for construction so I can get a kickback from the contractors as I have been doing.

Sign, Sworn, Attested, Witnessed.

I was desperate. But this was horrible!

Faht Bey said, "If you refuse to sign it, I will simply let those credit card people tear you to pieces."

He had the quarter of a million in stacks, right there.

I signed! He got his wife and the security guard to witness it.

Stuffing the packets of bank notes in a handy sack, I regained the cab. We went scorching back to the villa.

I staggered out of the taxi. I made my way to the waiting mob. I flung the bag at them.

They pounced on it. They tore it apart. They counted it.

"Aha!" said the American Oppress man. "He has covered the first month of bills!"

They agreed. They got the shackles off the staff. They brushed them off. They put the rugs and furniture back in place.