The Snowball

THE ICE

The snowball was not a proper asteroid.

It was too loose, too ugly, too human.

A drifting knot of frozen water and rock, thirty meters across, tumbling end over end like it had been kicked out of a god’s pocket. Dirty ice. Veined with carbon. Scored by micrometeor scars. A fortune if you knew what it was. Junk if you didn’t.

Randy had it roped behind his tug on three tension lines and a prayer.

Trigger drifted through Dock Seven’s approach lane at a speed that made the traffic beacons nervous.

Hermes woke up first.

HERMES: Unregistered mass detected. Vector correction required.

Randy didn’t answer. He rolled the ship, bled thrust, and let the snowball swing wide so the station could get a full look at it.

Inside the concourse windows, people stopped walking.

The thing was big enough to shadow half the dock.

Hestia noticed.

HESTIA: Water composition confirmed. Station reserves at sixty-two percent. Immediate processing recommended.

Hephaestus followed, its voice nothing but temperature curves and stress tolerances.

HEPHAESTUS: Material suitable for refinement. Melting protocols prepared.

Mnemosyne was last, as always.

MNEMOSYNE: No registered claim. No ownership record found.

That one mattered.

Randy thumbed the mic.

“Randy Holt,” he said. “Independent operator. I’m here to sell.”

The pause that followed was the station thinking.

Then Ares joined the channel.

ARES: Your cargo presents a security interest.

Randy grinned and leaned back in his crash webbing.

“Everything interesting does.”

Dock Seven’s clamps locked onto the tug. The snowball kept spinning slowly, a frozen planet of money outside the viewport.

Within minutes, the offers started to circle.

Hestia wanted emergency requisition.

Hephaestus wanted throughput priority.

Three private buyers opened silent channels.

Mnemosyne demanded proof that could not exist.

Randy listened.

He let the numbers climb.

They always climbed.

Until one of the buyers — some consortium nobody — finally said the wrong thing.

“That’s the best you’ll get, Holt. Take it.”

Randy cut the channel, keyed Hermes, and spoke calmly.

“Release my clamps.”

Hermes hesitated. Hestia flared warnings. Ares raised threat flags. The dock chief began to sweat.

Randy’s voice never changed.

“I’ll take my snowball back to where I found it.

Let it drift another century.

Or I’ll sell it to your rival station three days out.”

Silence.

Then Mnemosyne rewrote reality.

MNEMOSYNE: Provisional claim registered. Negotiations reopened.

Randy watched the snowball turn, dark and beautiful, and smiled.

They all wanted a cut of the cold ice.

But it was his.

Randy at Glory

Randy didn’t make it three steps inside Glory before the market found him.

They came out of the haze of people and steam and hanging lights like gulls that had smelled blood —

dock brokers, water men, fuel factors, syndicate runners, a woman with a silver eye and a ledger tattooed down her throat.

“Consign it to me, friend.”

“Private auction. Discreet.”

“Five percent commission, I move it in an hour.”

“I can triple whatever they’re whispering.”

All of them staring at the same thing.

The snowball hung in the cargo sling at his ship’s side, dripping black meltwater onto their minds

Dirty. Lumpy. Ridiculous.

And worth a fortune.

Randy stopped walking.

He looked at the nearest man and said,

“I’m thirsty.”

They blinked.

“I just crossed two million kilometers of bad vacuum,” he went on, “and I want a good shot of something that burns. Maybe two. Then I’ll think about business.”

Someone laughed.

Someone else swore.

Three offers went up in the air anyway.

“Seven percent.”

“Ten if we close now.”

“I’ll take the risk off your hands.”

Randy listened, nodded, weighed the noise of it.

Then he shook his head.

“Appreciate it,” he said. “But I’ll represent myself.”

That got him space.

Not much.

But enough to reach the bar.

The giant snowball attached to his ship kept dripping water into everybody’s mind.

Randy raised his shot glass, not high, just enough to be seen.

The bar quieted the way rooms do when something expensive is about to happen.

“Let it be known,” he said, voice carrying without effort,

“that at nine tomorrow morning I intend to take bids on my prize.”

Someone near the rail stopped breathing.

Randy tipped the drink back, swallowed, then added:

“Until noon. Local time.”

No further terms.

No reserve stated.

No broker named.

Just three hours.

For the next heartbeat, Glory didn’t move.

Then the station came back to life — too fast, too loud —

messages launching, runners moving, captains calculating how much air they could afford to lose,

who they could lean on, who they could rob, what they could promise.

The huge snowball attached to his ship kept dripping on the floorboards of their minds.

Randy ordered another shot of whiskey.

THE THREE HOURS AT GLORY EXCHANGE

The snowball was projected in the center of the Glory Exchange like a captured moon.

Thirty meters across.

Filthy, layered, streaked with asteroid soot and frozen trace metals.

Randy stood with his arms folded.

The room was full.

Corporate buyers.

Freight syndicates.

Three governments pretending not to be governments.

Two people who definitely were.

The auction master cleared his throat.

“Opening bid: two million trade-marks.”

A pause.

Then the first cut.

“Three.”

“Four point five.”

“Six.”

Randy didn’t move.

By the twenty-minute mark they were at twelve million and already lying to each other about transport costs, purity estimates, and off-book tax exemptions.

By the first hour, the smiles were gone.

Hour One — Polite Murder

“Sixteen.”

“Seventeen with exclusive extraction rights.”

“Eighteen and we assume your shipping debt.”

That one stung.

Randy’s shipping debt was not small.

He didn’t react.

Someone whispered:

“Is he bluffing about the composition?”

Another replied:

“He’s not bluffing. My chem team confirmed it.”

The snow ball slowly rotated on the central screen

Hour Two — Real Knives Come Out

At twenty-four million, the first threat landed.

A corporate rep leaned toward a rival broker and said quietly:

“If you outbid me again, I buy your carrier’s loan tonight and ground your fleet.”

The rival raised his paddle anyway.

“Twenty-six.”

The room went cold.

A government man slid a data slate across the table to another bidder — blackmail, old warrants, something radioactive enough to make the man’s face drain of color.

“Twenty-eight,” the government man said.

Randy finally spoke.

“You gentlemen understand,” he said calmly,

“that the meltwater alone is worth eight million.”

Silence.

Then:

“Thirty.”

⸻

Hour Three — Throat-Cutting

Just voices.

“Thirty-four.”

“Thirty-six, and we waive export control.”

“Forty.”

Someone laughed. It sounded broken.

One bidder stormed out after his backers cut him loose.

Another tried to stall.

Randy shook his head.

“The ice doesn’t wait,” he said.

“Forty-three,” the corporate rep said, veins standing out in his neck.

“Forty-five,” the government man answered instantly.

Everyone looked at the last remaining buyer — a woman in old-style spacer black, eyes sharp as cut glass.

She studied the snowball.

She studied Randy.

Then:

“Fifty million.

And I take all liability after transfer.”

The room collapsed into silence.

The auction master looked around.

No one moved.

He swallowed.

“Sold.”

The hammer struck.

Aftermath

The woman stood.

Randy finally smiled.

She paused beside him and murmured:

“You knew what you had.”

Randy answered:

“Yeah.

That’s why I didn’t sell it for less.”