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For a long time Harley was silent. The Company was a hard headed, cold blooded concern. Anything that kept them from selling an asteroid must be terrible indeed.

His jaw set in a hard line. “You’ve been honest with me,” he said at length. “I appreciate it. Just the same–I still want to buy Z-40. Maybe I can oust the present tenant. I’m pretty good with a ray-pistol.”

“It would be poor policy for us to sell the asteroid. We don’t want to become known as a firm that trades in globes on which it is fatal to land.”

“Surely my fate is none of your worry?” urged Harley.

“The asteroid,” began the executive with an air of finality, “is not for–“

“Man, it’s got to be!” cried Harley. Then, with a perceptible effort he composed himself. “There’s a reason. The reason is a girl. I’m a poor man, and she’s heiress to fabulous–Well, frankly, she’s the daughter of 3W28W12 himself!” The executive started at mention of that universally known number. “I don’t want to be known as a fortune hunter; and my best bet is to find a potentially rich asteroid, cheap, and develop it–incidentally getting an exclusive estate for my bride and myself far out in space, away from the smoke and bustle of urban Earth. Z-40, save for the menace you say now has possession of it, seems to be just what I want. If I can clear it, it means the fulfillment of all my dreams. With that in view, do you think I’d hesitate to risk my neck?”

“No,” said the executive slowly, looking at the younger man’s powerful shoulders and square-set chin and resolute eyes. “I don’t think you would. Well, so be it. I’d greatly prefer not to sell you Z-40. But if you want to sign an agreement that we’re released of all blame or responsibility in case of your death, you can buy it.”

“I’ll sign any agreement you please,” snapped Harley. “Here is a down payment of a hundred and seventy thousand dollars. My name is Harley; sign 2Q14N20; unmarried–though I hope to change that soon, if I live–occupation, mining engineer, ten-bar degree; age, thirty-four. Now draw me up a deed for Z-40, and see that I’m given a stellar call number on the switchboard of the Radivision Corporation. I’ll drop around there later and get a receiving unit. Good day.” And, adjusting his gravity regulator to lighten his weight to less than a pound, he catapulted out the archway.

Behind him a prosaic business executive snatched a moment from a busy day to indulge in a sentimental flight of fancy. He had read once of curious old-time beings called knights, who had undertaken to fight and slay fire-eating things called dragons for the sake of an almost outmoded emotion referred to as love. It occurred to him that this brusque man of action might be compared to just such a being. He was undertaking to slay a dragon and win a castle for the daughter of 3W28W12–

The romantic thought was abruptly broken up by the numeral. It jarred so, somehow, that modern use of numbers instead of names, when thinking of sentimental passages of long ago. “The rose is fair; but in all the world there is no rose as fair as thou, my princess 3W28W12….” No, it wouldn’t do.

Cursing himself for a soft-headed fool, he went to deliver a stinging rebuke to somebody for not having blocked Z-40 off the asteroid chart weeks before.

* * * * *

“Harley 2Q14N20,” recited the control assistant at Landon Field. “Destination, asteroid Z-40. Red Belt, arc 31.3470. Sights corrected, flight period twelve minutes, forty-eight seconds past nine o’clock. All set, sir?”

Harley nodded. He stepped inside the double shell of his new Blinco Dart–that small but excellent quantity-production craft that had entirely replaced the cumbersome space ships of a decade ago–and screwed down the man-hole lid. Then, with his hand on the gravity bar, he gazed out the rear panel, ready to throw the lever at the control assistant’s signal.