CHAPTER 1.

I found Nick Mavrocordatus scanning the bulletin board at the Haynes Shipping Office on Enterprize Asteroid, when I came back with a load of ore from the meteor swarms.

He looked at me with that funny curve on his lips, that might have been called a smile, and said, "Hi, Chet," as casually as though we'd seen each other within the last twenty-four hours.... "Queer laws they got in the Space Code, eh? The one that insists on the posting of casualty lists, for instance. You'd think the Haynes Company would like to keep such things dark." I didn't say anything for a moment, as my eyes went down those narrow, typed columns on the bulletin board: Joe Tiffany—dead—space armor defect.... Hermann Schmidt and Lan Harool—missing—vicinity of Pallas.... Irvin Davidson—hospitalized—space blindness....

There was a score of names of men I didn't know, in that space-blindness column. And beneath, there was a much longer line of common Earth-born and Martian John-Henrys, with the laconic tag added at the top—hospitalized—mental. Ditto marks saved the trouble of retyping the tag itself, after each name. One name caught my eye.

Ted Bradley was listed there. Ted Bradley from St. Louis, my and Nick Mavrocordatus' home town. It gave me a little jolt, and a momentary lump somewhere under my Adam's Apple. I knew the state Bradley would be in. Not a man any more—no longer keen and sure of himself. A year out here among the asteroids had changed all that forever.

Shoving from one drifting, meteoric lump to another, in a tiny space boat. Chipping at those huge, grey masses with a test hammer that makes no sound in the voidal vacuum. Crawling over jagged surfaces, looking for ores of radium and tantalum and carium—stuff fabulously costly enough to be worth collecting, for shipment back to the industries of Earth, at fabulous freight rates, on rocket craft whose pay-load is so small, and where every gram of mass is at premium.

No, Ted Bradley would never be himself again. Like so many others. It was an old story. The almost complete lack of gravity, out here among the asteroids, had disturbed his nerve-centers, while cosmic rays seeped through his leaded helmet, slowly damaging his brain.

There was more to it than the airlessness, and absence of weight, and the cosmic rays. There was the utter silence, and the steady stars, and the blackness between them, and the blackness of the shadows, like the fangs of devils in the blazing sunshine. All of this was harder than the soul of any living being.

And on top of all this, there was usually defeat and shattered hope. Not many futures were made among the asteroids by those who dug for their living. Prices of things brought from Earth in fragile, costly space craft were too high. Moments of freedom and company were too rare, and so, hard-won wealth ran like water.

Ted Bradley was gone from us. Call him a corpse, really. In the hospital here on Enterprize, he was either a raving maniac, or else—almost worse—he was like a little child, crooning over the wonder of his fingers.

It got me for a second. But then I shrugged. I'd been out here two years. An old timer. I knew how empires were built. I knew, better than most, how to get along out here. Be fatalistic and casual. Don't worry. Don't plan too much. That way I'd stayed right-side-up. I'd even had quite a lot of fun, being an adventurer, against that gigantic, awesome background of the void.

I didn't consider my thoughts about Ted Bradley worth mentioning to Nick Mavrocordatus. He was probably thinking about Ted, too, and that was enough.

"Come on, Nick," I said. "They've got my ore weighed and analyzed for content in the hopper rooms. I'm going into the pay-office and get my dough. Then we might shove off to the Iridium Circle, or some other joint, and have us a time, huh?"

Nick laughed, then, good-naturedly, triumphantly. I gave him a sharp glance, noticing that under his faintly bitter air, there seemed to be something big. Some idea that gripped him, confused him, thrilled him. His small, knotty body was taut with it; his dark eyes, under the curly black hair that straggled down his forehead, glowed with a far-away look.

Of course, he was still very young—only twenty-two, which to me, at twenty-five, with a six-months edge of asteroid-lore beyond his year and a half of experience, made me feel old and disillusioned and practical, by comparison.

"All right, Chet," he said at last. "Let's get your money. Celebrations are in order—on me, though. But I guess we'd better soft-pedal them some. I've got a lot to tell you, and more to do."

I didn't give his words proper attention, just then. I swaggered into the pay office, where a couple of stenogs clicked typewriters, and where Norman Haynes, acting head of the Haynes Shipping Company, sat at his desk, under the painted portrait of his uncle, that grizzled old veteran, Art Haynes, who had retired years ago, and who now lived on Earth.

I knew old Art only by reputation. But that was enough to arouse my deep respect. Between nephew and uncle there was a difference as great as between night and day. The one, the founder, unafraid to dirty his hands and face death, and build for the future. Tough, yes, but square, and willing to pay bonuses to miners even while he'd been struggling to expand his company, and open up vast, new space trails. The other, an arm-chair director, holding on tight, now, to an asteroid empire, legally free of his control, but whose full resources came eventually into his hands at the expense of others, because he controlled the fragile, difficult supply lines.

At sight of me, Norman Haynes arose from his chair. He was very tall, and he wore an immaculate business suit. He was smooth-shaven, with a neat haircut, in contrast to my shaggy locks and bristles. Across his face spread a smile of greeting as broad as it was false.

"Well—Chet Wallace," he said. "You've done some marvelous meteor mining, this trip: Nineteen hundred dollars' worth of radium-actinium ore! Splendid! Maybe you'll do even better next time!"

Yeah! I'd seen and heard Norman Haynes act and talk like this before. He handed out the same line to all of the miners. To me it was forever irritating. Always I'd wanted to turn that long nose of his back against his right ear. He and his words were both phony. Always he used a condescending tone. And I felt that he was a bloodsucker. My anger was further increased, now, because of Ted Bradley.

I guess I sneered. "Don't worry about those nineteen hundred dollars, Mr. Haynes," I said. "When I buy grub, and a few things I need, and have a little blow, you'll have the money all back."

Beside the office railing there was a machine—a cigarette vendor. Into a roller system at its top, I inserted two five-dollar bills from my pay. There was a faint whir as the robot photographic apparatus checked the denominations of the notes, and proved their authenticity. Two packs of cigarettes slipped down into the receiver arrangement.

"Five bucks apiece, Haynes," I said. "At a fair shipping rate, cigarettes brought out from Earth aren't worth much more than three bucks. But you're just a dirty chiseller, not satisfied with a fair profit. Costs here in the asteroids are naturally plenty steep; but you make a bad situation worse by charging at least twenty-five per-cent more than's reasonable! A Venutian stink-louse is more of a gentleman than you are, Haynes!"

Oh, there was a Satanic satisfaction in feeling the snarl in my throat, and seeing Haynes' face go purplish red, and then white with surprise and fury. Some other space men had entered the pay office, and they hid their grins of pleasure behind calloused palms.

First I thought Norman Haynes would swing at me. But he didn't. He lacked that kind of nerve. He began to sputter and curse under his breath, and I thought of a snake hissing. I felt the danger of it, though—danger that broods and plans, and doesn't come out into the open, but waits its chance to strike. Knowing that it was there, sizzling in Haynes' mind, gave me a thrill.

Casually I tossed one of the packs of cigarettes to Nick Mavrocordatus, who had come with me into the pay office. He gave me a nudge, which meant we'd better scram. When we were out of the building, he held me off from going to any of the few tawdry saloons there under the small, glassed-in airdome of Enterprize City, the one shabby scrap of civilization and excuse for comfort.

"No drinks now, Chet," Nick whispered. "Can't chance it. Got to keep on our toes. In one way I'm glad you talked down to that—whatever you want to call him. But you've made us the worst possible enemy we could have—now."

I shrugged. "What were you gonna tell me before, Nick?" I demanded. "I gathered you had something plenty big in view."

He answered me so abruptly that I didn't quite believe my ears at first. "Pa and Sis and Geedeh and I, have made good, Chet," he said. "We found—not just pickings—but a real fortune in ore, on planetoid 439. So rich is the deposit that we could buy our own smelting and purifying machinery, and hire ships under our own control, to take the refined metals back to Earth!"

"You're kidding, Nick," I said amazedly.

"Not a bit of it," he returned.

Then I was pumping his hand, congratulating him. Really good luck was a phenomenon among the asteroids. That friends of mine, among the thousands of hopeful ones that I didn't know, should grab the jack-pot, seemed almost impossible.

"I suppose you'll all be leaving us soon," I told him. "Going back to Earth, living the lives of millionaires. I'm glad for you all, kid. Your Pa can raise his flowers and grapes, instead of starting up in the truck-garden business again. Your sis, Irene, can study her painting and her music, like she wants to."

Anybody can see the way my thoughts were going just then. When you start out green for the Minor Planets, that's part of what's in your mind, first—get rich, come back to Earth.

Nick sighed heavily as we walked along. That funny smile was on his lips again. He glanced around, and the emerald light of the illuminators was on his young face.

Then he said, "I don't think it's quite safe to talk here, Chet. Better come to our old space jaloppy, the Corfu."

The Corfu was on the ways outside the dome. We put on space suits to reach it. Inside, the old crate smelled of cooking odors, some of them maybe accumulated over the eighteen months the Mavrocordatuses had been asteroid mining. Old ships are hard to ventilate, with their imperfect air-purifiers.

The instruments in the control room, were battered and patched; and from the living quarters to the rear, issued a duet of snores—one throaty and rattly, Pa Mavrocordatus' beyond doubt; and the other an intermittent hiss, originating unquestionably in the dust-filtering hairs in the larynx of Geedeh, the little Martian scientist, whom Nick had befriended.

"I can't figure you out, Nick," I said. "Rich, and not leaving this hell-hole of space. You're an idiot."

"So are you, Chet," he returned knowingly. "In my place, you wouldn't go either—at least not without regrets. In spite of all hell, there's something big here in space that gets you. You feel like nothing, yourself. But you feel that you're part of something terribly huge and terribly important. You'd be happy on Earth for a week; then you'd begin to smother inside. The Minor Planets have become our home, Chet. It's too late to break the ties."

Slowly it soaked into my mind that Nick was right.

"Not to say anything bad against old Mother Earth, Chet," he continued. "Far from it! That's just what's needed out here—a little touch of our native scene. Growing things. A piece of blue sky, maybe. Enough gravity to make a man believe in solid ground again."

Right then I began to smell Nick's plan, not only what it was, but all the impractical dreamer part of it.

I began to grin, but there was a kind of sadness in me, too. "Sure! Sure, Nick!" I chided. "The idea's as old as the hills! Rejuvenate some asteroid. Bring in soil and water and air from Earth. Install a big gravity-generating unit. Ha! Have you any idea how many ships it would take to bring those thousands and thousands of tons of stuff out here—even to get started?"

I was talking loud. My voice was booming through the rusty hull of the Corfu, making ringing echoes. So just about as I finished, they were all around me. Pa Mavrocordatus, in pajamas and ragged dressing gown, his handle-bar moustaches bristling. Geedeh, the tiny Martian, draped in a checkered Earthly blanket, his great eyes blinking, and his tiny fingers, with fleshy knobs at their ends instead of nails, twiddling nervously near the center of his barrel-chest. And Irene, too, standing straight and defiant and little, in her blue smock.

Irene hadn't been sleeping. Probably she'd been washing dishes, and straightening up the galley after supper. She still had a dish towel in her hands. Wealth hadn't altered the Mavrocordatus' mode of life, yet. Irene looked like a bold little kewpie, her dark head of tousled, curly hair, not up to my shoulder. She was exquisitely pretty; but now she was somewhat irritated.

She shook a finger up at me, angrily. "You think Nick has a dumb idea, eh, Chet Wallace?" she accused. "That's only because you don't know what you're talking about! We won't have to bring a drop of water, or a molecule of air or soil, out from Earth! You ask Geedeh!"

I turned toward the little Martian. The dark pupil-slits, and the yellow irises of his huge eyes, covered me. "Irene has spoken the truth, Chet," he told me in his slow, labored English. "The Asteroid Belt, the many hundreds of fragments that compose it, are the remains of a planet that exploded. So there is soil on many of the asteroids. Dried out—yes—after most of the water and air disappeared into space, following the catastrophe. But the soil can still be useful. And there is still water, not in free, liquid form, but combined in ancient rock strata; gypsum, especially. It is like on Mars, when the atmosphere began to get too thin for us to breathe, and the water very scarce on the dusty deserts."

I said nothing, wished I had kept silent.

"We roasted gypsum in atomic furnaces," Geedeh finished, "driving the water out as steam, and reclaiming it for our underground cities. The same can be done here among the Minor Planets. And since water is hydrogen dioxide, oxygen can be obtained from it, too, by electrolysis. Nitrogen and carbon dioxide, necessary to complete the new atmosphere, which will be prevented from leaking into space by the force of the artificial gravity, can be obtained from native nitrates, and other compounds. Only vital parts of the machinery need be brought out from Earth and Mars by rocket. The rest can be made here, from native materials."

Geedeh's voice, as he spoke to me, was a soft, sibilant whisper, like the rustle of red dust in a cold, thin, Martian wind.

"You bet," Pa Mavrocordatus enthused. "Nick's got a good idea. I'm gonna raise my flowers! I'm gonna raise tomatoes and cabbages and carrots, right here on one of them asteroids!"

It struck me as funny—asteroids—cabbages! Nothing I could think of, could seem quite that far apart. Black, airless vacuum, rough rocks, and raw, spacial sunshine! And things from a truck garden! It didn't match. But then, Pa Mavrocordatus didn't match the asteroids either! He'd had a truck garden once, outside of St. Louis. And yet he was out here in space, and had been for a year and a half!

Well, even if the idea was practical, I thought first that they were still just dreaming—kidding themselves that it would be a cinch to accomplish. And not being able to fight through.

Then I glanced back at Nick. That look on his face was there again. A strange mixture of confidence, worry, grimness, and vision. It came to me then that he was no kid at all.

"Let me in on the job?" I asked hopefully.

"Sure!" Nick returned. "We wouldn't be telling you all this, if we didn't want you. That's why we came back to Enterprize—hoping to find you around some place."

So I was in. Part of a wild scheme of progress—more thrilling and inspiring because it seemed so wild. An asteroid made into a tiny, artificial Earth! A boon to void-weary space men! A source of cheap food supplies, as well as a place to rest up. A new stage of colonization—empire building!

And then I thought I heard a sound—a faint clinking outside of the hull of the Corfu. At once, I was alert—taut. Maybe half of my sudden worry was intuition, or a form of telepathy. When you've been out in deep space, a million miles away from any other living soul, you feel a vast, hollow loneliness, that perhaps is mostly the absence of human telepathy waves from other minds. But when you have people around you once more, your sixth sense seems keener for the period of lack. That was why I was sure of an eavesdropper, sensing his presence. With proper sub-microphonic equipment, a man outside a space ship can hear every word spoken inside.

Nick felt it too. "But we'd better look and see," he whispered. "Norman Haynes keeps spies around. And he may have heard rumors. You can't keep a project like ours secret very long. It's too big."

My pulses jumped with fear, as I piled into my space suit. But when Nick and I got through the airlock together, there was nobody in sight. Only some footprints in the faint rocket dust of the ways, covering our own footprints, where we'd passed before, coming to the Corfu. Our flashlights showed them plainly.

"Having a rejuvenated asteroid in these parts, producing fresh food and so forth, would take a lot of trade away from the Haynes Shipping Company, wouldn't it?" I said when we were back in the cabin once more. "Norman Haynes wouldn't be practically boss of the Minor Planets anymore, would he? He wouldn't like that. He'll fight us."

"We need you, Chet," Irene said, her eyes appealing. That was enough for me.

"We'd better blast off right away," Nick added. "We're going to asteroid 487, Chet. Its new name is Paradise. It's the one we've picked."