nd in the manufacture of jewelry. Later, it
had been coined as money.

It had always been relatively rare, but now, weight for weight, atom for
atom, it was the most valuable element on Earth. Indeed, the most
valuable in the known universe.

The metal was Element Number Seventy-nine--gold.

To the collective mind of the Empire, gold was the prime object in any
kind of mining exploration. The idea of drilling for petroleum, even if
it had been readily available, or of mining coal or uranium would have
been dismissed as impracticable and even worse than useless.

Throughout the Empire, research laboratories worked tirelessly at the
problem of transmuting commoner elements into Gold-197, but thus far
none of the processes was commercially feasible. There was still, after
thousands of years, only one way to get the power metal: extract it from
the ground.

So it was that, across the great gulf between the worlds, ship after
ship moved in search of the metal that would hold the far-flung colonies
of the Empire together. Every adventurer who could manage to get aboard
was glad to be cooped up on a ship during the long months it took to
cross the empty expanses, was glad to endure the hardships on alien
terrain, on the chance that his efforts might pay off a thousand or ten
thousand fold.

Of these men, a mere handful were successful, and of these one or two
stand well above the rest. And for sheer determination, drive, and
courage, for the will to push on toward his goal, no matter what the
odds, a certain Commander Frank had them all beat.

II

Before you can get a picture of the commander--that is, as far as his
personality goes--you have to get a picture of the man physically.

He was enough taller than the average man to make him stand out in a
crowd, and he had broad shoulders and a narrow waist to match. He wasn't
heavy; his was the hard, tough, wirelike strength of a steel cable. The
planes of his tanned face showed that he feared neither exposure to the
elements nor exposure to violence; it was seamed with fine wrinkles and
the thin white lines that betray scar tissue. His mouth was
heavy-lipped, but firm, and the lines around it showed that it was
unused to smiling. The commander could laugh, and often did--a sort of
roaring explosion that burst forth suddenly whenever something struck
him as particularly uproarious. But he seldom just smiled; Commander
Frank rarely went halfway in anything.

Hi