tly dreading what more he had to say.

"What did you do with such monstrous, expensive pieces of equipment?"
asked Goil. "Of what possible use could they be to you, especially out
here in space?"

"Willy," I said, "why don't you start right at the beginning so Mr.
Goil can get a complete picture?"

Willy looked behind and around me, gulped a couple of times, then
started.

"OK. Well, Martha's birthday--Martha is my wife, Mr. Goil--her
birthday is in a few days. And I missed her last birthday and she
never forgave me for that. And I almost missed this one too, except I
got an idea. And that was after reading about those private satellites
a lot of the rich people have going around Earth.

* * * * *

"It was too late for me to send any sort of a birthday present to
Martha; besides, what could I get her out here? Anyway, I got the idea
that what a wonderful birthday present it would be if I could get
Martha a private satellite. Not one of those prefabricated ones, but a
natural, real one. The more I thought about it the better the idea
sounded. Then I realized that I had everything here; a million
asteroids to choose from, and I could slip one of the gravity
generators in the middle of it. And I could hitch the drive from the
smashed tug to it, and install a sub-space energizer. Except for an
atmosphere generator it would be equipped enough for a start. I could
finish equipping it later. So I got an asteroid and took a sub-space
energizer and a gravity generator from supply--they are
expendable--and got the drive off the wrecked tug. I installed them on
the rock."

Willy ended his story abruptly.

Goil sat looking intently at Willy and drumming his fingers on the
desk top. Finally he said:

"We can recover those major items. Maybe it'll go easier with you,
Willy. If you can show us where this rock is--"

Willy hung his head again. And the silence became solid. Finally Willy
squeaked out:

"I can't. I sent it off yesterday."

"Just how and when did you determine the rock should be sent?" asked
Goil.

"I--I got a course tape," said Willy. I could almost feel his sense of
guilt as he virtually implicated one more of his friends.

"Don't you know," said Goil in an all-too-quiet, ominous voice, "that
a jury-rigged contraption like that could never get near Earth with
only a one-time course like that plotted for it? That it takes precise
computations to get something like that t