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"Exactly. For the sake of Earth and what it did to me. It's no place to live. Why didyou come out here?"
"It's a long story, I'm afraid. You needn't look alarmed. I won't tell it. I bought this asteroid long ago as a
place for small vacations, and I grew to like it. I kept enlarging the room space, brought furniture and
book films from Earth little by little. Eventually I found I had all I needed here. So why not stay here
permanently? I asked myself. And I did stay here permanently."
"Sure. Why not? You're smart. Back there it's a mess. Too many people. Too many rut jobs. Next to
impossible to get out to the planets, and if you do, it means a job of manual labor. No opportunity for a
man any more unless he comes to the asteroids. I'm not old enough to settle
70 LUCKY STARR
down like you. But for a young fellow it's a free life and an exciting one. There's room to be boss."
"The ones who are already boss don't like young fellows with boss notions in their head. Anton, for
instance. I've seen him and I know."
"Maybe, but so far he's kept his word," said Lucky. "He said if I came out winner over this Dingo, I'd
have my chance to join the men of the asteroids. It looks as though I'm getting the chance."
"It looks as though you're here, that's all. What if he returns with proof, or what he calls proof, that
you're a government man."
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He won t.
"And if he does? Just to get rid of you?"
Lucky's face darkened and again Hansen looked at him curiously, frowning a bit.
Lucky said, "He wouldn't. He can use a good man and he knows it. Besides, why are you preaching to
me? You're out here yourself playing ball with them."
Hansen looked down. "It's true. I shouldn't interfere with you. It's just that being alone here so long, I'm
apt to talk too much when a person does come along, just to hear the sound of voices. Look, it's about
time for dinner. I would be glad to have you eat with me in silence, if you'd rather. Or else we'll talk
about anything you choose."
"Well, thanks, Mr. Hansen. No hard feelings."
"Good."
Lucky followed Hansen through a door into a small pantry lined with canned food and concentrates of
all sorts. None of the brand names familiar to Lucky were
WHAT THE HERMIT KNEW 71
represented. Instead the contents of each can were described in brightly colored etchings that were
themselves integral parts of the metal.
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.
72 LUCKY STARR
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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
WHAT THE HERMIT KNEW 73
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?"
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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.
74 LUCKY STARR
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 hermitsand 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
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