Week Seven

"Kaylee?" Mal complained, making me look up from my own digging. "Gorram dirtblower's cut out, and this time I can't start it by bangin' on it."

I considered for a moment. "Wouldn't it be faster for you to just join us with old-fashioned hand tools, sir? We're almost finished, after all."

Zoe cocked her head at each of us in turn. "Actually, I think you're both right. Mal will keep working while you do your magic, of course... but you'd better take a look at the thing. Mal's done more than the rest of us put together, using that contraption - and anyway, we probably can't cover up this hole believably without it. More than speed, that's the important point."

"Alright, I'm on it," I said, handing my spade to Mal and accepting the 'blower in exchange. Now, did I bring out a tool-belt? No, I guess it hadn't occured to me that I might need one. The dirt blower was a fairly simple contraption, with a battery-powered mower that ran both the digging blades and the blowing fan. Dead battery? Wouldn't Mal a- checked on that before he started? Well, knowing Mal, maybe and maybe not. Considering the sort of conditions we were using the thing in, was quite possible that something had gotten badly jammed, or maybe a connection had come loose...

Not sure if you'd figured this out by now, but we were in the middle of burying the silver hoard - had already dug out the hole and put the loot inside, and were trying to get it well covered up now before anybody spotted the whole business. Mal and Zoe had picked a deserted patch of the moon for this, plenty of fine white sand, which hadn't been too hard to dig through and hopefully would be easy to spread out without leaving any sign of where it had been disturbed.

Oh, one small point I wanted to mention - it's surprising how small a hundred and eighty cubic feet worth of solid silver looks when it's at the bottom of a ten foot deep hole.

So, I brought a tool kit outside so that I could at least keep Wash and the others company as they kept digging awa