perpetually bitter and approached the world--any world--with
a chip welded to his shoulder.

* * * * *

I tagged along as Orrin escorted Goil to his quarters and broke the
seal on a bottle of bourbon he had been saving for this particular
occasion.

It had been the wrong thing to do. Goil promptly informed Orrin that
not only was he (Goil) a teetotaler, but also that he was opposed to
drinking by anyone else, especially by company employees during duty
hours, and in a place other than an authorized area such as the
recreation room or the station bar. He told him further that he would
not condone such practices while he was around; his immediate job was
to inspect operations personally. His accompanying teams would dig
deeply into other matters such as personnel, supplies, overall
operations efficiency, and so on. Work would begin as soon as
possible.

Goil then excused himself coldly and left for the VIP quarters.

Point number one for the opposition, I thought. Why hadn't someone
warned us about the peculiarities of the man?

I hoped nothing would go wrong with the inspection. If things went
well, Goil and his cohorts could get their business over with and get
away from here that much faster. I was more than a little concerned
about Willy and what he was doing.

Willy had spent two days, mostly off-duty time, visiting and working
on the asteroid he had adopted, his two miles of irregular
monstrosity. In his spurt of activity to install the drive unit, he
had over-calculated a charge of explosives and blown out too much of
the end section of the asteroid. That caused him some concern for a
little while. In a flash of what he probably considered to be pure
genius, he solved that minor problem by deciding to fill in the hole
by installing a sub-space energizer. This first flash of genius was
apparently followed by another inspirational flash. He could, with
both installations, and some additional work, send the thing back to
Earth. He must have been proud of the thought, for private satellites
around Earth were all the rage now; no one who was Anyone was without
one. Besides that, it would make a wonderful birthday present for his
wife. Her birthday was only a matter of days away.

* * * * *

Goil's first request was to observe a day's operation. I had made what
few arrangements were necessary, and Goil and I started out early so
we could get into p