ter
another moment of indecision turned into the archway that led to the
concern's great main office. After all, it wouldn't hurt to inquire the
price, even though he knew in advance it would be beyond his humble
means.

* * * * *

A youngster in the pale green of the one-bar neophyte in business
promptly glided toward him.

"Something for you to-day, sir?" he asked politely.

"Yes," said Harley. "I'm looking around for a planetoid; want to get a
place of my own out a way from Earth. Something, you understand, that
may turn out to be a profitable investment as well as furnishing an
exclusive home-site. I see on your chart that you have a sphere left for
sale, in the Red Belt, so I came in to ask about it."

"Ah, you mean asteroid Z-40," said the youngster, gazing with envious
respect at the ten-bar insignia, with the crossed Sco drills, that
proclaimed Harley to be a mining engineer of the highest rank. "Yes,
that is still for sale. A splendid sphere, sir; and listed at a
remarkably low figure. Half a million dollars."

"Half a million dollars!" exclaimed Harley. It was an incredibly small
sum: scarcely the yearly salary of an unskilled laborer. "Are you sure
that's right?"

"Yes, that's the correct figure. Down payment of a third, and the
remaining two thirds to be paid out of the exploitation profits--"

* * * * *

Here the conversation was interrupted by an elderly, grey-haired man
with the six-bar dollar-mark insignia of a business executive on his
purple tunic. He had been standing nearby, and at the mention of
asteroid Z-40 had looked up alertly. He glided to the two with a frown
on his forehead, and spoke a few curt words to the neophyte, who slunk
away.

"Sorry, sir," he said to Harley. "Z-40 isn't for sale."

"But your young man just told me that it was," replied Hartley, loath to
give up what had begun to look like an almost unbelievable bargain.

"He was mistaken. It's not on the market. It isn't habitable, you see."

"What's wrong--hasn't it an atmosphere?"

"Oh, yes. One that is exceptionally rich in oxygen, as is true of all
the spheres we handle. With a late model oxygen concentrator, one would
have no trouble at all existing there."

"Is its speed of revolution too great?"

"Not at all. The days are nearly three hours long: annoying till you get
used to it, but nothing like the inferior asteroids of the Mars Company
where