She took back the stone and held it up to the sun for a moment. “And this one?” She grabbed up a fist-sized rock and pushed it at him, but he was quick enough to see her slip the first stone into her pouch. “It’s lucky that Nielsen kid’s only our apprentice. All this is—ours—too!”

“We’ll,”—Steve had not missed Avril’s quick alteration—“have to be careful not to glut the market.” He put the big stone into the scanner with eager and not quite steady fingers. “It is indeed black diamond. Around four hundred carats and relatively unflawed. Congratulations, my dear, you’ve struck it rich.”

She grimaced at his mocking tone and snatched the diamond from him, clasping it against her almost protectively. “It can’t all be black diamond,” she muttered. “Can it?”

“Why not? There’s nothing to keep diamonds from being hatched from a volcano, if you have the right ingredients and sufficient pressure at some point in time. I grant you, this might be the only beach composed of black diamond, or any diamond, in the universe, but that’s what”—Stev’s grin was pure malice—“you have here.”

She glanced at him, her eyes wary, and managed an easy smile. “What we have, Stev.” She leaned into him, her skin warm against his. “This is the most exciting moment of my life.” She wound her free hand about his neck and kissed him passionately, her body pressing against him until he felt the diamond gouging his ribs.

“Not even diamonds must come between us, my love,” he murmured, taking it from her resisting fingers and dropping it behind him into the open sled.

Stev was not unduly surprised the next morning when he found that both Avril and the fastest sled were gone from their Big Island mining camp. He made a second check in the rock hollow where he knew Avril secreted the more spectacular gemstones that had been found. It was empty.

Stev grinned maliciously. She might have ignored the mayday from Landing, but he had not. He had followed what was happening on the southern continent, and kept an eye to the east whenever a cloud appeared. He had made contingency plans. He doubted that Avril had. He would have liked to see her expression when she found out that Landing was swarming with industrious people, the takeoff grid crammed with sleds and technicians. So he roared with amusement when one of their apprentices anxiously reported that she could not find Avril anywhere.

Nabhi Nabol was not at all pleased.