 Why does Starre lay claim to the asteroid?
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Summer 1945. "Now all we have to do is find out if she's made of tungsten, iron, quartz crystals, and cinnabar! "Better take it easy," he advised, "until I land the ship and we use the atomic whirl spectroscope to determine the composition of the asteroid." Moments later, they were outside the ship, with star-powdered infinity spread to all sides. And yet, if by some chance there was such a rigidly specified asteroid, their financial worries would be over. That they had actually discovered the asteroid, using their mass-detectors in a weight-elimination process, seemed like an incredible stroke of luck. For there are literally millions of asteroids in the asteroid belt, and they had been out in space only three weeks. Now it was a fad that was sweeping Earth, and Burnside wasn't the first rich man who had decided to hold a wedding on top of an asteroid. Now that he and Queazy had found the asteroid, they were desperate to get it to its destination, for fear that the Saylor brothers might get wind of what was going on, and try to beat them out of their profits. Now they scuffed along the smooth-plane topside of the asteroid, the magnets in their shoes keeping them from stepping off into space. He satisfied himself as to the exterior of the asteroid, and then sent the twin beams deep into its heart. The radiations from the sundered molecules traveled back up the beams to the atomic-whirl spectroscope. A cold, completely disagreeable feminine voice said, "May I ask what you interlopers are doing on my asteroid?" He and Queazy caught up with her on the side of the asteroid they hadn't yet examined. "You want to move this asteroid from its orbit and haul it back to Earth. About twenty steps away was her small dumbbell-shaped ship, so shiny and unscarred that it reflected starlight in highlights from its curved surface. You've taken a whim to stay on an asteroid that doesn't mean anything to you one way or another. If we don't take this asteroid to Earth before June 2, we go back to Satterfield City and work the rest of our lives in the glass factories. I'm staying here and—" she smiled sweetly "—it may interest you to know that if I let you have the asteroid you'll save your business, but I'll meet a fate worse than death!
 She's trying to delay her arranged marriage, by preventing the asteroid from ever being delivered.
 She's trying to get away from her life. She can't stand how stubborn her Grandfather is.  She's trying to delay her arranged marriage, by preventing the asteroid from ever being delivered.  She told her Grandfather about the asteroid and told him she would marry Mac on top of it.  She's Burnside's granddaughter and is protecting it for him.