What was Sam Knox up to now—drifting helplessly
in a tiny eggshell across black oceans of space
with two weeks' grub? Was this the way the
great man-hunter deftly snagged his prey?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sam Knox touched a button in the control room of the Wanderer, andthe draperies slid back from her transparent nose. He stood a moment, asturdy compact figure, gazing into the dark.
"Look at them!" he said bitterly. "They hang there like stars."
Before the Wanderer he could see the mining fleet at the edge ofthe Asteroid Belt, their identification lights twinkling out from theenshrouding ebon mantle of space.
They might as well be stars, for all the progress he had made withthem. He had been here a week, spreading his nets for asteroidfragments like the rest of them, and never a sign of his presence hadthey shown. They hung there, cold and aloof—almost suspicious, hewould have thought, had they any reason to be suspicious.
Not that they were unfriendly by nature, these men who spread theirnets to trap the errant meteors; but they were a clannish tribe, knownto one another from season to season, more snobbish than any socialruling class. They were close-knit, bound together by bonds of dangerand hazard, and the dream of sudden wealth.
Perhaps it is only a matter of time, he thought. Perhaps time will makeme one of them. He must win their friendship soon, if he were to findPell.
And that was his job, to find Pell. His was not the hunt for wealthin the heart of some fragment of asteroid. Yet the excitement of thesearch had long been a part of his life. What Sam Knox hunted he found.Sam Knox hunted men.
He had two bosses. The most lenient of these was the Department ofTerran Justice. His other boss lay deep inside himself, demandingmuch—expecting everything.
Through the left lower quadrant of the transparent nose he saw one ofthe nets flare into quick acceleration. It was too far away to be hisown, and he watched it, each corner of the net a flaming ribbon ofrocket fire in the velvet black of space.
A moment later he knew whose net it was, for the mining shipFleetblast slid by him in pursuit, controlling the rocket-powered netfrom the remote controls in her maw. The Fleetblast sped on, unableto equal the instant acceleration that the touch of the meteor sentinto the rockets of the net.
But she was soon catching up. With her remote controls she wasslowing the rockets of the net, as she increased her own speed. In afew minutes both ship and netted meteor would be hanging motionlessalongside, the meteor caught and halted just as a small boy catches aswift ball in his cap.
Sam grimaced. What would it contain when they melted it open with theheat rod? Probably nothing. Possibly mineral ore, to be refined intometal for new heat rod tips, for from this the miner fishers of theAsteroid Belt eked out their precarious existence.
But perhaps—PERHAPS—there was wealth and fortune. Here might be thedream come true. Here by the luck of space, might lie one of the rarejewels of the asteroids, spawned in some once-fiery sun, and flung intospace in the heart of a fragment. For this the eternal hope of manyearned, and men spent their lives fishing and mining here. For thisthey risked the swift and horrible infections of life in the AsteroidBelt.
The visaphone sprang into life. Sam recognized the voice as that of awoman.... "Fleetblast calling Aeries...."<