 Why were Parker and Queazy voyaging on the trip looking for an asteroid?
Bob Parker, looking through the photo-amplifiers at the wedge-shaped asteroid, was plainly flabbergasted. While Queazy—so called because his full name was Quentin Zuyler—dropped the ship straight down to the smooth surface of the asteroid, and clamped it tight with magnetic grapples, Bob flung open the lazarette, brought out two space-suits. Moments later, they were outside the ship, with star-powdered infinity spread to all sides. And if The Interplanetary Hauling & Moving Co., hadn't been about to go on the rocks (chiefly due to the activities of Saylor & Saylor, a rival firm) neither Bob nor Queazy would have thought of sending an answering ethergram to Burnside stating that they would fill the order. 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. Unfortunately, other interplanetary moving companies had cashed in on that brainstorm, chiefly the firm of the Saylor brothers—which persons Bob Parker intended to punch in the nose some day. 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. By the naked eye, they could see iron ore, quartz crystals, cinnabar, but he had the spectroscope and there was no reason why he shouldn't use it. 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. 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. The big ship had landed, and little blue sparks crackled between the hull and the asteroid as the magnetic clamps took hold. A few seconds later, the airlocks swung down, and five men let themselves down to the asteroid's surface and stood surveying the three who faced them.
 From the request of Andrew Burnside to purchase it
 The Interplanetary Hauling & Moving Co. was in difficult competition with Saylor & Saylor to get to it first.  The Interplanetary Hauling & Moving Co. had to have it to prove their business was legitimate.  From the request of Andrew Burnside to purchase it  From the request of Andrew Burnside to destroy it