Wilding was as rich as Tantalus, and as tortured by the unattainable. Within sight, neatly packaged wealth circled with him about the giant radilume beacon. Many objects wrapped in reflector foil floated in and out of his ken as they found tiny orbits and worked out brief cycles of revolution about the giant atom flare which was the parent sun to the swarm of drifting particles. All the packages were rotating as rapidly as he, and light reflected from their metallic angularity made them resemble variable asteroids. Loot like the splendors of a luxury spaceliner was in those packages. More food than had haunted the hunger-dreams of his youth on Venus. Other necessities like water, oxygen, clothing. Luxuries such as wines and liquors, entertainment tapes of canned music and visual diversions. Even supplies of drugs and medicines that could be perverted to forbidden joys. It was all his, for the moment, by right of existing in the middle of it, by the fact that no other claimant was on the spot. It dangled before his eyes--but beyond reach of anything but his imagination. Wilding was circumscribed only by infinity. His sole problem was staying alive and sane. Be patient, they had warned, with calloused indifference to his fate. But patience, if it still existed, was like the flickering witchlights of the supply packages, out of reach. Eventually, if it occurred to them, some convicts might come out from the prison asteroid and pick him up. They might come, if he lasted long enough and they had nothing better to do for entertainment. For the first time in an otherwise grimly independent life, Wilding was completely dependent upon the whims of other people. He was helpless, unable to minister to his most elementary needs. His air might fail first, or he could starve to death in the midst of more food and drink than a man could debauch in a lifetime. His only hope was that the rich bait around him would attract other spoilers as desperate as himself. He waited to be rescued. * * * * * Beyond a limited air supply, he could not breathe. He had no food, no water. To sustain him, besides the spacesuit and the remaining energy of his body, there was only his anger and his plan. He was an unusual man, brave and tough, even resourceful, but this time his fate was out of his hands. Even his plan was worthless unless he could live long enough to implement it. Wilding swore grimly and silently, and waited. Even as men in ordinary circumstances measure such things, it was a long time. The initial velocity of his spin had begun to slow from occasional collision with one item or another of his useless wealth. One by one, the stars around him seemed to flicker and go out. For even the eternal stars exist only in the mind of man.