Hansen said, "I used to keep fresh meat in a special freeze room. You can get the temperature down all the way on an asteroid, you know, but it's been two years since I could get that kind of supplies."

He chose half a dozen cans off the shelves, plus a container of milk concentrate. At his suggestion Lucky took up a sealed gallon container of water from a lower shelf.

The hermit set the table quickly. The cans were of the self-heating type that opened up into dishes with enclosed cutlery.

Hansen said, with some amusement, indicating the cans, "I've got a whole valley on the outside brim-filled with these things. Discarded ones, that is. A twenty years' accumulation."

The food was good, but strange. It was yeast-base material, the kind only the Terrestrial Empire produced. Nowhere else in the Galaxy was the pressure of population so great, the billions of people so numerous, that yeast culture had been developed. On Venus, where most of the yeast products were grown, almost any variety of food imitation could be produced: steaks, nuts, butter, candy. It was as nourishing as the real thing, too. To Lucky, however, the flavor was not quite Venusian. There was a sharper tang to it.

"Pardon me for being nosy," he said, "but all this takes money, doesn't it?"

"Oh yes, and I have some. I have investments on Earth. Quite good ones. My checks are always honored, or at least they were until not quite two years ago."

"What happened then?"

"The supply ships stopped coming. Too risky on account of the pirates. It was a bad blow. I had a good backlog of supplies in most things, but I can imagine how it must have been for the others."

"The others?"

"The other hermits. There are hundreds of us. They're not all as lucky as I am. Very few can afford to make their worlds quite this comfortable, but they can manage the essentials. It's usually old people like myself, with wives dead, children grown up, the world strange and different, who go off by themselves. If they have a little nest egg, they can get a little asteroid started. The government doesn't charge. Any asteroid you want to settle on, if it's less than five miles in diameter, is yours. Then if they want they can invest in a sub-etheric receiver and keep up with the universe. If not, they can have book films, or can arrange to have news transcripts brought in by the supply ships once a year, or they can just eat, rest, sleep, and wait to die if they'd rather. I wish, sometimes, I'd got to know some of them."

"Why haven't you?"

"Sometimes I've felt willing, but they're not easy people to know. After all, they've come here to be alone, and for that matter, so have I."

"Well, what did you do when the supply ships stopped coming?"

"Nothing at first. I thought surely the government would clean up the situation and I had enough supplies for months. In fact, I could have skimped along for a year, maybe. But then the pirate ships came."

"And you threw in with them?"

The hermit shrugged. His eyebrows drew together in a troubled frown and they finished their meal in silence.

At the end he gathered the can plates and cutlery and placed them in a wall container in the alcove that led to the pantry. Lucky heard a dim grating noise of metal on metal that diminished rapidly.

Hansen said, "The pseudo-grav field doesn't extend to the disposal tube. A puff of air and they sail out to the valley I told you of, even though it's nearly a mile away."

"It seems to me," said Lucky, "that if you'd try a little harder ptaff, you'd get rid of the cans altogether."

"So I would. I think most hermits do that. Maybe they all do. I don't like the idea, though. It's a waste of air, and of metal too. We might reclaim those cans someday. Who knows? Besides even though most of the cans would scatter here and there, I'm sure that some would circle this asteroid like little moons and it's undignified to think of being accompanied on your orbit by your garbage… Care to smoke? No? Mind if I do?"

He lit a cigar and with a contented sigh went on. "The men of the asteroids can't supply tobacco regularly, so this is becoming a rare treat for me."

Lucky said, "Do they furnish you the rest of your supplies?"

"That's right. Water, machine parts and power-pack renewals. It's an arrangement."

"And what do you do for them?"

The hermit studied his cigar's lighted end. "Not much. They use this world. They land their ships on it and I don't report them. They don't come in here and what they do elsewhere on the rock isn't my business. I don't want to know. It's safer that way. Men are left here sometimes, like yourself, and are picked up later. I have an idea they stop for minor repairs sometimes. They bring me supplies in return."

"Do they supply all the hermits?"

"I wouldn't know. Maybe."

"It would take an awful lot of supplies. Where would they get them from?"

"They capture ships."

"Not enough to supply hundreds of hermits and themselves. iSnean, it would take an awful lot of ships."

"I wouldn't know."

"Aren't you interested? It's a soft life you have here, but maybe the food we just ate came off a ship whose crew are frozen corpses circling some other asteroid like human garbage. Do you ever think of that?"

The hermit flushed painfully. "You're getting your revenge for my having preached to you earlier. You're right, but what can I do? I didn't abandon or betray the government. They abandoned and betrayed me. My estate on Earth pays taxes. Why am I not protected then? I registered this asteroid with the Terrestrial Outer World Bureau in good faith. It's part of the Terrestrial dominion. I have every right to expect protection against the pirates. If that's not forthcoming; if my source of supply coolly says that they can bring me nothing more at any price, what am I supposed to do?

"You might say I could have returned to Earth, but how could I abandon all this? I have a world of my own here. My book films, the great classics that I love. I even have a copy of Shakespeare; a direct filming of the actual pages of an ancient printed book. I have food, drink, privacy. I could find nowhere as comfortable as this anywhere else in the Universe.

"Don't think it's been an easy choice, though. I have a sub-etheric transmitter. I could communicate with Earth. I've got a little ship that can make the short haul to Ceres. The men of the asteroids know that, but they trust me. They know I have no choice. As I told you when we first met, I'm an accessory after the fact.

"I've helped them. That makes me legally a pirate. It would be jail, execution, probably, if I return. If not, if they free me provided I turn state's evidence, the men of the asteroids won't forget. They would find me no matter where I went, unless I could be guaranteed complete government protection for life."

"It looks like you're in a bad way," said Lucky.

"Am I?" said the hermit. "I might be able to get that complete protection with the proper help."

It was Lucky's turn. "I wouldn't know," he said.

"I think you would."

I don t get you.

"Look, I'll give you a word of warning in return for help."

"There's nothing Z can do. What's your word?"

"Get off the asteroid before Anton and his men come back."

"Not on your life. I came here to join them, not to go home."

"If you don't leave, you'll stay forever. You'll stay as a dead man. They won't let you on any crew. You won't qualify, mister."

Lucky's face twisted in anger. "What in space are you talking about, old-timer?"

"There it is again. When you get angry, I see it plainly. You're not Bill Williams, son. What's your relationship to Lawrence Starr of the Council of Science? Are you Starr's son?"