down to a soothing purr. I began to add three and three hoping to get nine. Right now I needed a gestalt of something whose whole would be a lot greater than the sum of its parts. The parts I believe I had, and the sum I think was due to come up soon.

I went out and headed for the computer room. Artie was in there trying to listen to a dozen news reports at one time. He wouldn't miss any of them, for a flock of recorders were going all at once.

I grabbed him by a shoulder and spun him around and looked as hard and serious as I could.

"Artie," I said, "I know damned well you computed a course for Willy the other day, for an asteroid to orbit just outside Earth. I want you to give me the exact course, where and when. And I want it now. This is official business, Artie."

I must have looked extremely convincing, for Artie paled a little and did not try to deny anything.

"—I can't, Sam," he said. "I gave the original tapes and sheets to Willy. I threw away the duplicates."

"Dammit, Artie!" I shouted, now really mad. "Then you'd better start remembering pretty good, because you're going to sit right down here and I'm going to sit with you, and you are going to give me as nearly as you can the course of Willy's asteroid."

This was just about an impossible request. I knew it, and Artie knew it. But he sat down at the console of the computer and said:

"I'll do the best I can, Sam."

I went to Willy's room and banged on the door then threw it open. He wasn't there. For sure then he would be someplace he wasn't supposed to be. So I headed for one likely place.

Willy was there all right. The chef shuffled around nervously, probably wondering if I'd just chew him out for letting Willy in the galley, or tell Orrin. He offered me ham and eggs. I refused sharply.

"Elmer," I said, "blast off."

Elmer did.

As soon as Willy and I were alone, I said, "Willy, you got me and Mr. Orrin in a pack of trouble. Why don't you tell me where the generator and the converter are. If we can get them back to the stock room, nothing can be proved."

Willy couldn't look me in the face. He added three too many spoons of sugar to his coffee then stirred it so fast it spilled over the edge of the cup.

"Come on, Willy. Where?"

Willy spent the next minute trying to turn inside out. He finally squeaked. "I can't, Sam."

"Why not, Willy?"

It was my turn to be silent for a minute. It seemed a lot longer. I said, "I think you better tell me all about it, Willy."

He did.

I went back to the recreation room.

The trideo was on and some narrator's voice was explaining and showing the course of the ship on a chart, and just where it would go.

The ship was still unaccountably out of control. The plotted course showed that it would intercept Mars. And a map of Mars showed precisely where the ship would strike the surface.

Of all the barren areas on Mars where the ship could strike and do a little less surface damage, it was headed instead straight for the only densely populated, industrial area.

I looked at Goil and saw that his morale could be trod on. He probably already had computed his own monetary loss as well as the company losses. But he wasn't saying a word. He was keeping his misery to himself.

Let him stew until morning, I thought. By then he should be ripe for the little package I was planning to hand him.

By morning, the confidence that I had the night before had pretty much dissipated. Nevertheless, I followed Goil from the dining hall to his quarters, giving him only time to complete any personal necessities before knocking on his door.

Some of my confidence returned when I entered the room. He looked as if he hadn't slept any at all. The impending doom of his Mars holdings had apparently dwelt with him most intimately the past night.

Goil said, "What's on your mind, Mr. Weston?"

"I had a talk with Willy last night. He wants to tell you everything."

Goil brightened slightly. "Fine," he said.

"I've taken the liberty of asking him to come here," I said.

Goil nodded.

This was a good chance for me to needle him a little more, so I said, "The news reports are not good this morning. That freighter will have to be abandoned sometime this evening if they don't get it off the course it's on now."

Goil dimmed again. He said, "I heard the news."

"There is no way they can jettison that cargo either. Strange, isn't it. Of all the other points in and around space, that ship has got to pick Mars to smack into, and the only densely populated part of Mars at that. Fate, I guess."

"Not so strange," said Goil. "It was enroute to Mars."

"Sure," I said, "but a course usually includes a series of corrections for a haul like that."

Goil said, "No navigator-computer combination is good enough to plan a one-shot course like that. It's just an unfortunate coincidence that the industrial area is to be hit."

And those last words were just what I wanted to hear from him.

Willy knocked on the door and entered at Goil's request. Willy's face was long, and the few steps that carried him into the room seemed to draw on his last reserves of energy. He seemed a little grateful when Goil bade him be seated.

Goil said, "All right, Willy. Sam says you have something to tell me."

"Yes, sir," Willy said dolefully, shifting his gaze so that he did not have to look directly at Goil or me. He hesitated for moments, then when the silence was too thick, he continued.

"I—I took that generator and that energizer as I told you yesterday." Again he paused, patently dreading what more he had to say.

"What did you do with such monstrous, expensive pieces of equipment?" asked Goil. "Of what possible use could they be to you, especially out here in space?"

"Willy," I said, "why don't you start right at the beginning so Mr. Goil can get a complete picture?"

Willy looked behind and around me, gulped a couple of times, then started.

"OK. Well, Martha's birthday—Martha is my wife, Mr. Goil—her birthday is in a few days. And I missed her last birthday and she never forgave me for that. And I almost missed this one too, except I got an idea. And that was after reading about those private satellites a lot of the rich people have going around Earth.

"It was too late for me to send any sort of a birthday present to Martha; besides, what could I get her out here? Anyway, I got the idea that what a wonderful birthday present it would be if I could get Martha a private satellite. Not one of those prefabricated ones, but a natural, real one. The more I thought about it the better the idea sounded. Then I realized that I had everything here; a million asteroids to choose from, and I could slip one of the gravity generators in the middle of it. And I could hitch the drive from the smashed tug to it, and install a sub-space energizer. Except for an atmosphere generator it would be equipped enough for a start. I could finish equipping it later. So I got an asteroid and took a sub-space energizer and a gravity generator from supply—they are expendable—and got the drive off the wrecked tug. I installed them on the rock."

Willy ended his story abruptly.

Goil sat looking intently at Willy and drumming his fingers on the desk top. Finally he said:

"We can recover those major items. Maybe it'll go easier with you, Willy. If you can show us where this rock is—"

Willy hung his head again. And the silence became solid. Finally Willy squeaked out:

"I can't. I sent it off yesterday."

"Just how and when did you determine the rock should be sent?" asked Goil.

"I—I got a course tape," said Willy. I could almost feel his sense of guilt as he virtually implicated one more of his friends.

"Don't you know," said Goil in an all-too-quiet, ominous voice, "that a jury-rigged contraption like that