om the book of his more worthy sire, and
perhaps more particularly an attempt to counteract the consequences of
his bad business judgment, personally.

The fear of one who sees how his haste and breed can be called
punishable criminal negligence, was in his face. The things that had
been human, sprawled stiff before him, accusing him. But the worst was
the presence of those grim, silent men, who might add him forcibly to
the death-list. That moment held crystallized in it the conflict of an
urge to win vast profits, with the payment in human lives that had
been exacted this time.

Near-dead Titan was the present step in mankind's outward march of
colonial dominion toward the stars. Titan itself was rich in the
radioactive ores that has become the fuel, the moving force, not only
of the rockets of Earth's expanding space-commerce, but of the wheels
of industry and comfort at home. And richer in those elements were the
Rings of Saturn, nearby, those stupendous, whirling bands of dust,
wreckage of a broken satellite in which, as in any other planet or
moon most of those heaviest, costliest metals had originally sunk to
its center, far out of reach of mining operations. But in the Rings,
all this incalculable wealth of uranium, radium, osmium, and so forth,
not to mention millions of tons of useless gold, was uniquely exposed
as easily accessible dust.

Oh, yes. And the S.C.S.--Space Colonists' Supply--wanted its cut for
providing equipment, as received elsewhere in the past. Bert Kraskow
knew that this must remain dapper Trenton Lauren's aim, in spite of a
vast and possibly ruinous investment in manufactured goods that could
turn out to be obsolete and unmarketable, in addition to its poor
quality.

Bert studied Lauren from between narrowed eyelids, weighing his
qualities further, judging, ever predicting. Trenton Lauren might hate
himself some for the deaths that were his responsibility. Yet Bert bet
that he hated himself more for having to explain the failure of one of
his airdomes to these crude colonists. It hurt his ego. Lauren was
full of fear; he was a stuffy, visionless conservative, but he was
wily, too.

Bert saw his lips tighten, as he marshalled his forces to smooth down
the fury of the men before him.

"I'm deeply sorry that these people had to die," he said in his
high-pitched voice. "But chance-taking is part of any new
space-venture. And all who use airdomes, spacesuits, or other S.C.S.
equipment,