Part 12 (1/2)

Poli had a powerful battery lamp and, by unspoken agreement, Jason carried it. Crippled though he was, the old man was still a Pyrran when it came to handling a gun. They slowly made their way down the refuse-laden stairs.

”What a stench,” Jason grimaced.

At the foot of the stairs they looked around. There _had_ been books and records there at one time. They had been systematically chewed, eaten and destroyed for decades.

”I like the care you take with your old books,” Jason said disgustedly.

”They could have been of no importance,” Meta said coolly, ”or they would be filed correctly in the library upstairs.”

Jason wandered gloomily through the rooms. Nothing remained of any value. Fragments and sc.r.a.ps of writing and printing. Never enough in one spot to bother collecting. With the toe of one armored boot, he kicked angrily at a pile of debris, ready to give up the search. There was a glint of rusty metal under the dirt.

”Hold this!” He gave the light to Meta and began scratching aside the rubble. A flat metal box with a dial lock built into it, was revealed.

”Why that's a log box!” Meta said, surprised.

”That's what I thought,” Jason said.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

XI.

Resealing the cellar, they carried the box back to Jason's new office.

Only after spraying with decontaminant, did they examine it closely.

Meta picked out engraved letters on the lid.

”S. T. POLLUX VICTORY--that must be the name of the s.p.a.cer this log came from. But I don't recognize the cla.s.s, or whatever it is the initials _S. T._ stand for.”

”Stellar Transport,” Jason told her, as he tried the lock mechanism.

”I've heard of them but I've never seen one. They were built during the last wave of galactic expansion. Really nothing more than gigantic metal containers, put together in s.p.a.ce. After they were loaded with people, machinery and supplies, they would be towed to whatever planetary system had been chosen. These same tugs and one-shot rockets would brake the S. T.'s in for a landing. Then leave them there. The hull was a ready source of metal and the colonists could start right in building their new world. And they were _big_. All of them held at least fifty thousand people ...”

Only after he said it, did he realize the significance of his words.

Meta's deadly stare drove it home. There were now less people on Pyrrus than had been in the original settlement.

And human population, without rigid birth controls, usually increased geometrically. Jason dinAlt suddenly remembered Meta's itchy trigger finger.

”But we can't be sure how many people were aboard this one,” he said hurriedly. ”Or even if this is the log of the s.h.i.+p that settled Pyrrus.

Can you find something to pry this open with? The lock is corroded into a single lump.”

Meta took her anger out on the box. Her fingers managed to force a gap between lid and bottom. She wrenched at it. Rusty metal screeched and tore. The lid came off in her hands and a heavy book thudded to the table.

The cover legend destroyed all doubt.

LOG OF S. T. POLLUX VICTORY. OUTWARD BOUND--SETANI TO PYRRUS. 55,000 SETTLERS ABOARD.

Meta couldn't argue now. She stood behind Jason with tight-clenched fists and read over his shoulder as he turned the brittle, yellowed pages. He quickly skipped through the opening part that covered the sailing preparations and trip out. Only when he had reached the actual landing did he start reading slowly. The impact of the ancient words leaped out at him.