Well, Norton's artifact was older, but had had no contact with the girl. Probably wasn't even on the same planet as her until shortly before the day she broke into its owner's household to steal something else entirely.

Not that someone else's couldn't do that. 0:)

Me, I became a writer as much to get the ideas out of my head and onto the paper as to avoid word-deprivation. (Really! Just because we were going on vacation, we had to return all our books to the library a week before, and do without any new ones!)