The Runaway Asteroid Part 13

When all the prisoners had pa.s.sed by, Zimbardo turned his head down in disgust. Lather opened a file and brought out another disk. "I've got-"

he began.

"You fool!!" spat out Zimbardo through gritted teeth. "I don't need to see any more! I know who we've got now! How could you miss seeing that the three Starmen who completely destroyed our plans on Mars were your pa.s.sengers for three days! How could you miss it??" He was shouting now. "They've been on the news for two weeks! How-" Zimbardo paused and tried hard to get control of himself. "They were our prisoners! -and now they've escaped! They're loose inside this asteroid, and we don't know where!"

"But sir," inserted Lather when Zimbardo paused to take a breath and clutch the air. "There aren't many places they can hide. There's not much to the inside of the complex-only five floors."

Zimbardo turned to the s.h.i.+p captain. With words that smoldered, he said, "The complex of this asteroid is far larger than you think! I have barely begun to explore, and St. George knows more than I do!"

Back in control now, Zimbardo punched his desk communicator. "Gene! Get a search party together and have them scour every part of the asteroid they can find." He filled in the details about the Starmen. But he knew that neither the miners nor the Starmen would be found. With George St.

George leading them, they could be anywhere-anywhere but where his men would be able to search.

Mark came out of a deep sleep into a light doze. He knew he was sleeping, but he was also mindful of his surroundings. It gradually washed through him that he was hearing voices. Two voices were conversing in very low tones, far away. He had a feeling that the air was thick and the sound had to struggle to get to him. He became aware of his eyelids, and they fluttered. Fully conscious but deeply relaxed now, he slowly opened his eyes. He saw only darkness, but it was not absolute.

He turned his head slowly to the left. Through an open door, about twenty feet away along a corridor were two tall, vaguely humanoid beings wrapped in shadows. Mark's heart leaped and began to race, but outwardly he showed no trace that he was alert. His eyes narrowed in an attempt to see more clearly. He knew instinctively that the creatures were alien. They walked in utter silence and stepped into the room.

Mark lay frozen. They looked around for a few seconds, then went back into the corridor to the place where he had first seen them. They manifested no ill intent toward the sleepers.

The figures began conversing in low voices. Mark sensed a deep sadness in their tone. He strained to hear what they were saying, what their words sounded like.

Suddenly he heard something that sounded familiar. "A coincidence," he thought to himself. They couldn't have said "Zimbardo." After several more exchanges, one of the figures pressed a series of b.u.t.tons on the wall, next to a blank screen. It came alive with a dull silver glow.

Bright green lines appeared in the configuration of a map or blueprint.

Mark strove to see as well as to hear. Slender fingers pointed to one part of the screen or another as the conversation continued.

Then he heard it again, this time clearly. "Zimbardo." Mark lifted his head a little and turned so he could observe the screen better. "A plan of the surface control center," he thought. He recognized the floor plan by its telltale great doors through which the prisoners had been marched.

The scene changed as one of the figures pressed a b.u.t.ton. A series of diagrams appeared, diagrams that indistinctly suggested a power plant to Mark. One of the tall figures began talking animatedly, pointing to various locations and repeating the word "Zimbardo" frequently.

Suddenly Mark understood what was going on: the aliens were talking about shutting down the power plant! Mark strained to get a closer look at the diagram they were examining. "The aliens!" His mind raced. "They must be the builders of this base! Shutting down the power plant-why, they must want to stop Zimbardo! They're on our side!"

Then the other figure spoke up. He seemed to agree with the animated one, but his voice had a sorrowful tone to it. He pressed a few b.u.t.tons on the screen and a picture of a wars.h.i.+p appeared. As the alien pointed to the s.h.i.+p and talked, all the life seemed to drain out of his companion and he began looking hopeless and despondent. He turned the screen off.

Mark didn't understand-what was that s.h.i.+p? Why did it bring such hopelessness?

As the panel went dark, Mark realized with a crushed heart that, for some reason, the aliens were not going to deactivate the power plant after all. He buried his face in his hands. Something was stopping them, something having to do with the s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p that had appeared on the screen last.

Mark looked up and saw that the figures had vanished!

10: Both Sides Move

THE GREAT AIRLOCK on the pirates' asteroid opened. From the depths of the abyss five s.h.i.+ps came forth. Emerging from the stone tunnel, they moved into formation and then headed for the Asteroid Belt. Lurton Zimbardo's lieutenant Cra.s.s held the authority over the small fleet.

Each s.h.i.+p was sheathed with the radar bender, making it invisible to the normal means of detection used by Starlight Enterprise, s.p.a.ce Command, and other Earth-based ent.i.ties.

As the s.h.i.+ps came into the Belt, Cra.s.s gave the command to the other four pilots. "The target asteroid has been located. Proceed with the destruction of the sats." The sats were small, unmanned electronic satellite observers, distributed throughout the Asteroid Belt to aid in research and navigation. They monitored movement in the Belt and provided constantly updated information on the location, speed, and direction of major asteroids.

The four s.h.i.+ps moved into pre-determined areas in the quadrants around a small, heavy, black, iron asteroid that was speeding smoothly along on its course.

Cra.s.s stood on the deck of his s.h.i.+p and gazed out at the small asteroid. He spoke as if to himself. "There it is, the first of five surprise packages for our beloved Mars." The pirate leader waited patiently for the pilots of the four companion s.h.i.+ps to report back. He expected that their a.s.signment would take about 45 minutes-maybe as long as an hour. The first report came in 42 minutes later.

"Mr. Cra.s.s, this is Slant. We located three sats in quadrant two and destroyed them all." The other reports came in only moments later. A total of fourteen sats had been located within 600 miles of the asteroid where Cra.s.s was waiting, and all had been destroyed. Cra.s.s opened the intercom on his own s.h.i.+p.

"We're clear. Go to it."

Over a dozen s.p.a.ce-suited men spilled out of the airlock. They had been waiting for the order from Cra.s.s. Each carried a large crate, nearly weightless in the Asteroid Belt. They maneuvered easily through s.p.a.ce and floated gently to the surface of the asteroid-a dark 100-yard wide clump of dirty rock. Immediately the men began to distribute the crates evenly over the surface of the rock.

The grim, forbidding, pocked asteroid became the site of frenzied work.

The crewmen removed sheet after sheet of dark metal from the crates and fastened them to the floating chunk of iron. Tiny flames showed where the irregular metal of the asteroid was being shaped to fit the plates the pirates were anchoring to its surface.

In one hemisphere three other men were attaching power and propulsion units. They sank holes several feet deep and inserted tubes, fuel tanks, and a control mechanism. At one place near the asteroid's equator a technician was installing a communications unit.

The four companion s.h.i.+ps had returned and remained on guard less than a quarter mile from the asteroid. In less than two hours the work on the asteroid was completed and the crewmen reentered their s.h.i.+p.

"Take us home," ordered Cra.s.s. The five s.h.i.+ps left the Belt and began the quick journey back to their port. Cra.s.s smiled most of the way back.

On Mars in the communications tower of Eagle City, technician Mel Golden was puzzled. Some of his data had just dried up. Mel was responsible for monitoring the sats in a large segment of the Asteroid Belt, and a section over a thousand miles in diameter had gone dark. He called to his superior.

"Will, I've got something curious here." A slender, middle-aged man with long gray hair walked over to the console.

"What is it, Mel?"

"Look at this. You asked us to report anything out of the ordinary.

Well, occasionally one sat will malfunction, but it looks as if at least a dozen have stopped reporting all at once. I haven't plotted out the details yet, but there's an entire section of the Belt where nothing's happening."

"When did it start?"

"Just a moment ago. So whatever occurred out there happened about..."-he thought for a second-"about eleven minutes ago."

"Thanks, Mel. This could be the surprise we've been waiting for. I'll report this immediately." Will went over to the master communicator in the tower and sent a top priority message to s.p.a.ce Command's headquarters on Mars, describing the situation. s.p.a.ce Command headquarters forwarded the information to its centers on Earth and the Moon, as well as to Oritz Konig, SE's Head of Security in Mars Base.

Konig's report to Richard Starlight included these words: "It looks probable that the pirates have taken some sort of action in the Belt.

There are no population centers of any size within 10,000 miles of the place, and no known solitary miners. It's a completely dead spot, and sats are s.p.a.ced very thinly there. Yet fourteen sats in a sphere at least a thousand miles in diameter were put out within a ten-minute period. No natural phenomenon can explain that. s.p.a.ce Command has the closest s.h.i.+p, but it won't get to the site for a little more than 22 hours. The nearest backup s.h.i.+p is more than three hours after that. SE doesn't have a s.h.i.+p of any kind at all within four days of the site, so we'll have to depend on s.p.a.ce Command for the first reports."

"Wake up! Everybody wake up!" Starman Joe Taylor was shouting.

"What is it? What's wrong?" Voices came from several men, jerked awake by Joe's outburst.

"Food! There's food here!" he burst out. "And water! Someone brought us food and water! Lots of it!"

Within seconds everyone was up and crowding around Joe. Now that he had roused his companions, he was bent over a half dozen large boxes, one of which was partially open. He reached in and took out a container filled with fruit. He handed it to one of George St. George's men, reached into the box again, and withdrew a vessel with water in it. It had a spigot on it as if it were made for traveling. The men began pa.s.sing it around, drinking deeply. Joe dug in again and brought out another box. He opened it and held it up so that others could see. It contained several layers of items like large crackers.

"Where did it come from, Joe?" Zip asked.

"I don't know, Zip! I woke up before anyone else and noticed these crates. I jumped up, looked around but didn't see anybody. I opened the first one and saw the fruit. That's the whole story."