re no
problems in space. And Willy constantly worked miracles.

The question of what value a mobile asteroid would be among swarms of
non-mobile asteroids way out in space where there was no place to go
never seemed to have entered Willy's mind.

(Now when I speak of "night" and "day," I speak of those periods of
the twenty-four hour clock set forth as working and non-working
periods. The working part was the "day" part of the twenty-four hours,
during which we all engaged in our contracted occupations. The rest of
the time until the twenty-four hour period ended was considered
"night." Naturally, among the asteroids there was no rising and
setting of the sun to help designate the passage of time. The
reference to night and day is a habit which persists with space men no
matter which part of the system they happen to be in.)

A few days after Willy had finished installing the drive unit in his
asteroid, a small company speedster came to a near-halt at the outer
fringes of our section of the asteroid belt. For the next eighty hours
it felt its way by radar through the belt, dodging and going around
the larger bodies, and slowing its speed whenever it became necessary
to shoulder its way through masses of smaller debris and dust.

Finally it had our station in sight visually, and in a matter of hours
later, it was edging its sleek sixty feet of length into a side gantry
attached to the station.

Mr. Garfield Goil disembarked from the speedster with a small
retinue. He was greeted on the inside of the lock by Mr. Orrin, our
station manager. As operations engineer-foreman, I was there with
Orrin to greet Mr. Goil.

Mr. Goil's presence had been expected for the past several days, but
not especially looked forward to. His status and stature with the
Extraterrestrial Mining Company was well known to all of us, and
certainly respected. His volatile temperament was well known also; it
commanded our concern. And if ever Mr. Goil's temperament was to be
put to a test, it was during one of his inspection visits. And that
was what he had come for--his first to this station.

As I remember, there had always been conjecture on whether Mr. Goil's
temperament was the result of his physical topography, or whether his
physical topography had been altered by his temperament. In either
case, Mr. Garfield Goil was representative of that only appellation
inevitable to him because of his facial features and his name. And Mr.
Goil was