My laughter was a crazy shriek inside my helmet. I looked wildly at the gleaming walls that had sucked the youth and strength from these men. The walls were stable, at rest. They were purest gold ... gold ... gold! I ran from that place still screaming with the horror of it. My hands burned like fire! Age was in them, creeping like molten lead through my veins, ghastly and sure.... I reached the Maid and threw every scrap of that alien metal into space as I streaked madly away from that golden terror in the sky and its load of ancient evil.... * * * * * On Callisto I was relieved of my command. The Admiralty Court acquitted me of the charges of negligence, but the Foundation refused me another ship. It was my ... illness. It spread from my hands, as you can see. Slowly, very slowly. So what remains for me? A hospital cot and a spaceman's pension. Those tons of gold in the sky are cursed, like most great treasures. Somewhere, out in the deeps between the stars, the dust of my crew guards that golden derelict. It belongs to them now ... all of it. But the price we pay for treasure is this. Look at me. I look eighty! I'm thirty two. And the bitterest part of the story is that people laugh at me when I tell what happened. They laugh and call me my nickname. Have you heard it? It's ... Captain Midas.