Under the bright fluorescent over my work-table, the chunks of metal torn from a random bulkhead of the starship gleamed like pale silver; those strange little whorls that I had noticed on the outer hull were there too, like tiny magnetic lines of force, making the surface of the metal seem to dance. I held the stuff in my bare hand. It had a yellowish tinge, and it was heavier....
Even as I watched, the metal grew yellower, and the hand that held it grew bone weary, little tongues of fatigue licking up my forearm. Suddenly terrified, I dropped the chunk as though it were white hot. It struck the table with a dull thud and lay there, a rich yellow lump of metallic lustre.
For a long while I just sat and stared. Then I began testing, trying all the while to quiet the trembling of my hands. I weighed it on a balance. I tested it with acids. It had changed unquestionably. It was no longer the same as when I had carried it into my quarters. The whorls of force were gone. It was no longer alive with a questing vibrancy ... it was inert, stable. From somewhere, somehow, it had drawn the energy necessary for transmutation. The unknown metal—the stuff of which that whole mammoth spaceship from the stars was built—was now....
Gold!
I scarcely dared believe it, but there it was staring at me from my table-top. Gold!
I searched my mind for an explanation. Contra-terrene matter, perhaps, from some distant island universe where matter reacted differently ... drawing energy from somewhere, the energy it needed to find stability in its new environment. Stability as a terrene element—wonderfully, miraculously gold!
And outside, in the void beyond the Maid's ports there were tons of this metal that could be turned into treasure. My laughter must have been a wild sound in those moments of discovery....
A slight sound behind me made me spin around in my chair. Framed in the doorway was the heavy figure of my Third Officer, Spinelli. His black eyes were fastened hungrily on the lump of yellow metal on the table. He needed no explanation to tell him what it was, and it seemed to me that his very soul reached out for the stuff, so sharp and clear was the meaning of the expression on his heavy face.
"Mister Spinelli!" I snapped, "In the future knock before entering my quarters!"