Sam grimaced. What would it contain when they melted it open with the heat rod? Probably nothing. Possibly mineral ore, to be refined into metal for new heat rod tips, for from this the miner fishers of the Asteroid Belt eked out their precarious existence. But perhaps--PERHAPS--there was wealth and fortune. Here might be the dream come true. Here by the luck of space, might lie one of the rare jewels of the asteroids, spawned in some once-fiery sun, and flung into space in the heart of a fragment. For this the eternal hope of man yearned, and men spent their lives fishing and mining here. For this they risked the swift and horrible infections of life in the Asteroid Belt. * * * * * The visaphone sprang into life. Sam recognized the voice as that of a woman.... "_Fleetblast calling Aeries...._" The _Fleetblast_ lay some fifty miles ahead, a speck of light, where the chase of her net had led her. Just to her right, closer, lay the only near ship, the _Aeries_. "_Aeries speaking--go ahead...._" Before the _Aeries_ her net spurted four ribbons of flame. In a surge of power the _Aeries_ was off, acceleration full, straining like a hound after a rabbit. There would be no more conversation from the _Aeries_, Sam knew, until the catch was landed. The woman was unaware of this development, unaware that the _Aeries'_ flaming jets were bearing her far away. "... _father is hurt ... an open wound and we have no more penicillin X...._" No penicillin X! No ship took to ether for the "Belt" without a supply of that important penicillin derivative. Sam touched the controls. This was the break, this was the luck of Sam Knox. The jets responded with a trail of flame. He pulled alongside the _Fleetblast_ in a few minutes. He could spare a hundred thousand units of the drug, he figured. He got it from the storeroom. He was quite close to the other ship, so decided against using the ship's lifeboat, a tiny space-dory, and simply donned his space-suit. He then yelled into the visaphone, "_Fleetblast_--open your port ... I'm bringing the drug." He saw the lock open on the _Fleetblast_ and opened his own, propelling himself into space and across the void. A few guiding blasts of his hand rocket and he was inside the lock of the other ship. A woman helped him out of the space-suit. "Come quickly," she urged. Sam had time to note that she was young and had red hair as he followed her to the living quarters. An old man lay there on a bed. His trouser had been cut away from his right leg, revealing a crushed and bleeding condition below the knee. Already the leg was beginning to show the faint greyness that indicated the start of the quick infection. The miner's name, Sam found as he treated the leg, was Timas Rorke. There was a faint trace of Irish blood in him, responsible perhaps for the red hair of his daughter. He lay back in the bed, complaining at the foolishness that had put him there.