Walking up the wall had not been easy. But walking across the ceiling was turning out to be completely impossible. Until I realized that I was going about it the wrong way. It seemed obvious when I thought about it. When I held onto the ceiling with my hands I could not move my feet. So I switched off the molebind gloves and swung down, hanging only from the soles of my boots. The blood rushed to my head-as well it might bringing with it a surge of nausea and a sensation of great unease.

What was I doing here, hanging upside down from the ceiling of the Mint, watching the machine below stamp out five-hundred-thousand-credit coins? They jingled and fell into the waiting baskets-so the answer to that question was pretty obvious. I nearly fell after them as I cut the power on one foot. f swung it forward in a giant step and slammed it solidly against the ceiling again as I turned the binding energy back on. A generator in the boot emitted a field of the same binding energy that holds molecules together, making my foot, at least temporarily, a part of the ceiling. As long as the power was on.

A few more long steps and I was over the baskets. I fumbled at my waist, trying to ignore the dizziness, and pulled out the cord from my oversized belt buckle. Bending double until could reach up to the ceiling, I pushed the knob at the end against the plaster and switched it on. The molebind field damped hard and I released my feet. To hang, swinging, right side up now, while the blood seeped out of my florid face.

"Come on Jim — no hanging about," I advised myself. "The alarm will go off any second now."

Right on cue the sirens screamed, the lights blinked, while a gargantuan hooter thundered through the walls. I did not tell myself that I told me so. No time. Thumb on the power button so that the immensely strong, almost invisible, single-molecule cord whirred out of the buckle and dropped me swiftly down. When my outstretched hands clinked among the coins I stopped. Opened my attache case and dragged it clanking through the coins until it was full of the shining, shimmering beauties.