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deposits. After the first thousand virgin kilometers he
had stopped watching for the mother lode.
    Even here the immediate perception remained the same, except
that the contour lines of the rift spread out till they became lost
in those of the hell plain beyond the Shadowline’s end. But
there was one eye-catcher on his main display, a yellowness that
grew more intense as the eye moved to examine the feedback on the
territory ahead.
    Near his equipment’s reliable sensory limits it became a
flaming intense orange.
    Yellow. Radioactivity. Shading to orange meant there was so much
of it that it was generating heat. He glared at the big screen. He
was over the edge of the stain, taking an exposure through the
floor of his rig.
    He started pounding on his computer terminal, demanding
answers.
    The idiot box had had hours to play with the data. It had a
hypothesis ready.
    “What the hell?” Frog did not like it. “Try
again.”
    The machine refused. It knew it was right.
    The computer said there was a thin place in the planetary mantle
here. A finger of magma reached toward the surface. Convection
currents from the deep interior had carried warmer radioactives
into the pocket. Over the ages a fabulous lode had formed.
    Frog fought it, but believed. He wanted to believe. He had to
believe. This was what he had given his life to find. He was
rich . . . 
    The practicalities began to occur to him when the euphoria wore
off. Radioactivity would have to be overcome. Six kilometers of
mantle would have to be penetrated. A way to beat the sun would
have to be found because the lode was centered beyond the
Shadowline’s end . . . Mining it would
require nuclear explosives, masses of equipment, legions of shadow
generators, logistics on a military scale. Whole divisions of men
would have to be assembled and trained. New technologies would have
to be invented to draw the molten magma from the
earth . . . 
    His dreams, like smoke, wafted away along the long, still
corridors of eternity. He was Frog. He was one little man. Even
Blake did not have the resources to handle this. It would take a
decade of outrageous capitalization, with no return, just to
develop the needed technologies.
    “Damn!” he snarled. Then he laughed. “Well,
you was rich for one minute there, Frog. And it felt goddamned good
while it lasted.” He had a thought. “File a claim
anyway. Maybe someday somebody’ll want to buy an exploitation
franchise.”
    No, he thought. No way. Blake was the only plausible franchisee.
He was not going to make those people any richer. He would keep the
whole damned thing behind his chin.
    But it was something to think about. It really was.
    Piqued by the futility of it all, he ordered his computer to
lock out any memories relating to the lode.
     
----

----

Eleven: 3031 AD
    Cassius stepped into the study. Mouse remained behind him.
    “You wanted me?”
    Storm cased the clarinet, adjusted his eyepatch, nodded.
“Yes. My sons are protecting me again, Cassius.”
    “Uhm?” Cassius was a curiosity in the family. Not
only was he second in command, he was both Storm’s
father-in-law and son-in-law. Storm had married his daughter
Frieda. Cassius’s second wife was Storm’s oldest
daughter, by a woman long dead. The Storms and their captains were
bound together by convolute, almost incestuous relationships.
    “There’s a yacht coming in,” Storm said.
“A cruiser is chasing her. Both ships show Richard’s
IFF. The boys have activated the mine fields against
them.”
    Cassius’s cold face turned colder still. He met
Storm’s gaze, frowned, rose on his toes, said, “Michael
Dee. Again.”
    “And my boys are determined to keep him away from
me.”
    Cassius kept his counsel as to the wisdom of their effort. He
asked, “He’s coming back? After kidnapping Pollyanna?
He has more gall than I thought.”
    Storm chuckled. He killed it when Cassius frowned. “Right.
It’s no laughing matter.”
    Pollyanna Eight