“But how can a court of law find against a recorded contract?”

“The point is they’ll want to. Maybe they’ll decide that we’re both lying and the instruments really did go haywire. Maybe they’ll find a way to say the contract was illegal. But they’ll find against you. Want to make a side bet?”

“No. You have won. Come back.”

VI

The Core was a lovely multicolored jewel when it disappeared below the lens of the galaxy. I’d have liked to visit it someday, but there aren’t any time machines.

I’d penetrated nearly to the Core in something like a month. I took my time coming home, going straight up along galactic north and flying above the lens where there were no stars to bother me, and still made it in two. All the way I wondered why the puppeteer had tried to cheat me at the last. Long Shot’s publicity would have been better than ever, yet the regional president had been willing to throw it away just to leave me broke. I couldn’t ask why, because nobody was answering my hyperphone. Nothing I knew about puppeteers could tell me. I felt persecuted.

My come-hither brought me down at the base in the Farside End. Nobody was there. I took the transfer booth back to Sirius Mater, Jinx’s biggest city, figuring to contact General Products, turn over the ship, and pick up my pay.

More surprises awaited me.

1) General Products had paid 150,000 stars into my account in the Bank of Jinx. A personal note stated that whether I wrote my article was solely up to me.

2) General Products has disappeared. They are selling no more spacecraft hulls. Companies with contracts have had their penalty clauses paid off. It all happened two months ago, simultaneously on all known worlds.

3) The bar I’m in is on the roof of the tallest building in Sirius Mater, more than a mile above the streets. Even from here I can hear the stock market crashing. It started with the collapse of spacecraft companies with no hulls to build ships. Hundreds of others have followed. It takes a long time for an interstellar market to come apart at the seams, but, as with the Core novas, I don’t see anything that can stop the chain reaction.

4) The secret of the indestructible General Products hull is being advertised for sale. General Products’ human representatives will collect bids for one year, no bid to be less than one trillion stars. Get in on the ground floor, folks.

5) Nobody knows anything. That’s what’s causing most of the panic. It’s been a month since a puppeteer was seen on any known world. Why did they drop so suddenly out of interstellar affairs?

I know.