lf Stanley Martin had carefully plotted the orbit
of this particular planetoid and then let his spaceboat coast in without
using any detection equipment except the visual. It had been necessary,
but very risky.

Had the people here seen his boat? If so, had they recognized it, in spite
of the heavy camouflage? And, even if they only suspected, what would be
their reaction?

He waited.

It takes nerve and patience to wait for thirteen solid hours without
moving more than an occasional flexure of muscles, but he managed that
long before the instrument case waggled a meter needle at him. The one
relieving factor was the low gravity; on an asteroid, the problem of
sleeping on a bed of nails is caused by the likelihood of accidentally
throwing oneself off the bed. The probability of puncture or discomfort
from the points is almost negligible.

When the needle on the instrument panel flickered, he got to his feet and
began moving. He was almost certain that he had not been detected.

Walking was out of the question. This was a silicate-alumina rock, not a
nickel-iron one. The group that occupied it had deliberately chosen it
that way, so that there would be no chance of its being picked out for
slicing by one of the mining teams in the Asteroid Belt. Granted, the
chance of any given metallic planetoid's being selected was very small,
they had not even wanted to take that chance. Therefore, without any
magnetic field to hold him down, and only a very tiny gravitic field, the
man had to use different tactics.

It was more like mountain climbing than anything else, except that there
was no danger of falling. He crawled over the surface in the same way that
an Alpine climber might crawl up the side of a steep slope--seeking
handholds and toeholds and using them to propel himself onward. The only
difference was that he covered distance a great deal more rapidly than a
mountain climber could.

When he reached the spot he wanted, he carefully concealed himself beneath
a craggy overhang. It took a little searching to find exactly the right
spot, but when he did, he settled himself into place in a small pit and
began more elaborate preparations.

Self-hypnosis required nearly ten minutes. The first five or six minutes
were taken up in relaxing from his exertion. Gravity notwithstanding, he
had had to push his hundred and eighty pounds of mass over a considerable
distance. When he was completely relaxed and completely hypnotiz