"Listen, Chief! There's a bunch of specks to the right of the sun. They're getting bigger fast. Must be a flock of space ships. Couldn't be any of yours. What'll we do?" I saw Haynes' weak features go sallow. Briefly my spirits rose. I couldn't imagine whom those ships could belong to. But they must be rescuers of some kind. They were coming to stop Norman Haynes' madness. But Haynes was clever, as he quickly proved. "Friends of Wallace here, I suppose. Maybe even Space Patrol boats," he said over his phone to the lookout party. "You'll all have to take a discomfort for a while. We'll use gravity on them, too! They'll never land successfully." Pa Mavrocordatus looked at me and Geedeh. "What's he mean--use gravity?" Geedeh was a bit quicker than I in giving the obvious answer. "Just as with us," he said. "Increase the output of the gravity generator here to a certain degree. From space, the increase will be practically unnoticeable. The rockets will try to land--but without taking into consideration the multiplied attractive force, they will crash!" "Many birds with one stone!" Haynes chuckled gleefully. "You will have a short reprieve, friends, while I take care of these intruders, whoever they are. I can't use too great a gravity on them at first. It might warn them, if they notice that their ships are accelerating too rapidly. They might as well be part of my 'accident', even if they do happen to be police. The Space Patrol has accidents now and then, just like anybody else!" Haynes started to work the manual controls of the generator. The area in which he and his several aides stood, was shielded against the greater attraction, having been thus arranged by us for testing purposes. The shrill hum of the machines grew louder. I felt the weight of my prone body increase suffocatingly. The heat increased too, as the great coils, gleaming in the glow of illuminators, gradually absorbed more power. And I knew that, out in space, those slender fingers of force were reaching and strengthening, invisible and treacherous. Our unknown friends were doomed. Not only were they doomed, but our whole idea was destined to failure. The dream that Nick had died for. The vast progress that it meant. Worlds out here--worlds with largely a self-sufficient production--real colonization. Fair play. Norman Haynes would resist all that, because progress would weaken his power here. He was master of the asteroids, because he was master of their imports and exports. And unless he could control the rejuvenated asteroids himself, they would never be. With him directing, they would not represent a real improvement--only another means of robbing from the colonists. And colonists weren't rich.