clean by insects. He'd ask Ben Rainsford; Ben ought to know.

Half an hour later, the scanner gave him another interruption pattern. He
laid it aside and took up the small vibrohammer. This time it was a large
bean, light pink in color, He separated it from its matrix of flint and
rubbed it, and instantly it began glowing.

"Ahhh! This is something like it, now!"

He rubbed harder; warmed further on his pipe bowl, it fairly blazed.
Better than a thousand sols, he told himself. Good color, too. Getting his
gloves off, he drew out the little leather bag from under his shirt,
loosening the drawstrings by which it hung around his neck. There were a
dozen and a half stones inside, all bright as live coals. He looked at
them for a moment, and dropped the new sunstone in among them, chuckling
happily.

* * * * *

Victor Grego, listening to his own recorded voice, rubbed the sunstone on
his left finger with the heel of his right palm and watched it brighten.
There was, he noticed, a boastful ring to his voice--not the suave,
unemphatic tone considered proper on a message-tape. Well, if anybody
wondered why, when they played that tape off six months from now in
Johannesburg on Terra, they could look in the cargo holds of the ship that
had brought it across five hundred light-years of space. Ingots of gold
and platinum and gadolinium. Furs and biochemicals and brandy. Perfumes
that defied synthetic imitation; hardwoods no plastic could copy. Spices.
And the steel coffer full of sunstones. Almost all luxury goods, the only
really dependable commodities in interstellar trade.