Except with Garth. Garth knew that all the precious metals in all the asteroids would not suffice to buy his freedom. * * * * * The two men stepped from their sleeping quarters out onto the metal platform which had been Garth's world for twenty-three years, Prokle's for two. It was a tiny world, extending in each direction for a mere quarter of a mile to end abruptly at the edge of the eternal darkness. Man-made, glass-domed, it was the tiniest of all the Salvage Stations. Garth had been stationed there at his own request, defiantly, alone at first. He had worked alone pirating the spaceways, not liking the company of many men. He still didn't. But he did like the single men they sent out to him now when necessary. And it was frequently necessary. The trouble was, either their sentences expired too quickly, or they did! Garth's last two partners had done that--one stumbling clumsily over a precipice while exploring, shattering his oxygen helmet; the other being crushed in his solo cruiser between two asteroid masses from which Garth himself only narrowly escaped. And Prokle he liked perhaps best of all. Prokle was the reckless type and it was those who always, somehow, managed to survive. It was Prokle, too, who had hung the name "Hype" on Garth and made him like it. He had first called him "hyper" because of that amazing, premonitory sensitivity of his; then shortened it to "Hype." Garth had at first resented it, then bore it laughingly, then liked it. And it was not only at the receptube that his strange "awareness" was in evidence. He used to tell Prokle an hour or two in advance when a supply ship was arriving at their Station--and they were supposed to arrive in secret! He could uncannily sense the proximity of dangerous chasms on the asteroids they explored. And once, just before boarding a derelict freighter, Garth had told Prokle to wait; they waited, and five minutes later the freighter was torn asunder by a terrific explosion, caused by seeping fumes. Now, as they crossed over to the safety lock where their cruiser waited, Garth told Prokle the content of the message. But all the latter heard was "uncharted swarm." There was a gleam in his eyes Garth had seen before, which caused him to say abruptly: "Look here, Prokle, that gold lust is going to be your finish some day. I can see it coming." "What else is there to live for out here?" Prokle flared up. "Work. First of all we're going to follow instructions implicitly. Later we'll have plenty of time to explore and prospect; this swarm is our exclusive property. But just remember old man Chiswell's with that missing party, and that might mean plenty, to you anyway, if we can find 'em." Prokle's mind came back from its flight. "Yeah, that's right. That _is_ an angle." He seemed to consider it for the first time. "That _is_ an angle," he repeated. "Say, how many are supposed to be in that missing party, anyway?"