ASTEROID JUSTICE
By V. E. THIESSEN
What was Sam Knox up to now—drifting helplessly
in a tiny eggshell across black oceans of space
with two weeks' grub? Was this the way the
great man-hunter deftly snagged his prey?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1947.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Sam Knox touched a button in the control room of the Wanderer, and the draperies slid back from her transparent nose. He stood a moment, a sturdy compact figure, gazing into the dark.
"Look at them!" he said bitterly. "They hang there like stars."
Before the Wanderer he could see the mining fleet at the edge of the Asteroid Belt, their identification lights twinkling out from the enshrouding ebon mantle of space.
They might as well be stars, for all the progress he had made with them. He had been here a week, spreading his nets for asteroid fragments like the rest of them, and never a sign of his presence had they shown. They hung there, cold and aloof—almost suspicious, he would have thought, had they any reason to be suspicious.
Not that they were unfriendly by nature, these men who spread their nets to trap the errant meteors; but they were a clannish tribe, known to one another from season to season, more snobbish than any social ruling class. They were close-knit, bound together by bonds of danger and hazard, and the dream of sudden wealth.