"Hafnium!" barked the mayor. "There's no hafnium on Ades! The ships are done, all but the fuel-catalyzers. The fuel is ready--all but the first catalyzation that prepares it to be put in a ship's tanks. We have to have hafnium to make catalyzers for the ships. We have to have hafnium to make the fuel! "We haven't got it! There's not an atom of it on the planet! We're so short of heavy elements, anyhow, that we make hammers out of magnesium alloy and put stones in 'em to give them weight so they'll strike a real blow! We haven't got an atom of hafnium and we can't make ships or run them either without it!" Kim blinked at the Colony Organizer for Terranova. "Here--" "No hafnium here either," said the Colony Organizer gloomily. "We analyzed a huge sample of ocean salts. If there were any on the planet there'd be a trace in the ocean. Naturally! So what do we do?" Kim spoke unhappily. "I wouldn't know. I'm a matter-transmitter technician. I can do things with power and, of course, I understand the _Starshine's_ engines. But there's no record of the early, primitive types that went before them--types that might work on other fuel. Maybe in some library on one of the older planets--But at that, the fuel the _Starshine_ used was so perfect that it would be recorded thousands of years back." "Take a year to find it," said the Mayor of Steadheim bitterly. "If we could search! And it might be no good then! We haven't got a year. Probably we haven't a month!" "We're beaten," mourned the Colony Organizer. "All we can do is get as many through the Transmitter from Ades as possible and go on half rations. But we'll starve." "We're _not_ beaten!" roared the Mayor of Steadheim. "We'll get hafnium and have a fighting fleet and fuel to power it! There's plenty of the blasted stuff somewhere in the Galaxy! Kim Rendell, if I find out where it is, will you go get it?" "The _Starshine_," said Kim grimly, "barely made it to port here. There's less than six hours' fuel left." "And who'd sell us hafnium?" demanded the Colony Organizer bitterly. "We're the men of Ades--the rebels, the outlaws! We were sent to Ades to keep us from contaminating the sheep who live under governments with disciplinary circuits and think they're men! We'd be killed on sight for breaking our exile on any planet in the First Galaxy! Who'd sell us hafnium?" "Who spoke of buying?" roared the mayor. "I was sent to Ades for murder! I'm not above killing again for the things I believe in! I've a wife on Ades, where there are ten men for every woman. I've four tall sons! D'you think I won't kill for them?" "You speak of piracy," said the Colony Organizer, distastefully. "Piracy! Murder! What's the difference? When my sons are in danger--" "What's this danger?" Kim said sharply. "It's bad enough to be grounded, as we seem to be. But you said just now--"