Publisher's Synopsis
On Terra or Baldur or Freya or Ishtar, a single cut of polished sunstone was worth a small fortune. Even here, they brought respectable prices from the Zarathustra Company's gem buyers. Keeping his point of expectation safely low, he got a smaller vibrohammer from the toolbox and began chipping cautiously around the foreign object, until the flint split open and revealed a smooth yellow ellipsoid, half an inch long. -Worth a thousand sols-if it's worth anything, - he commented. A deft tap here, another there, and the yellow bean came loose from the flint. Picking it up, he rubbed it between gloved palms. -I don't think it is.- He rubbed harder, then held it against the hot bowl of his pipe. It still didn't respond. He dropped it. -Another jellyfish that didn't live right.
