Part 15 (1/2)

”Take your time, Mark; I don't think we're in a hurry down here,” said Zip. For half an hour, Mark tried voice commands and combinations of keyboard strokes, but made no progress.

”This place is oppressive,” said one of the miners, after a long silence. ”I don't like being closed in by darkness.”

”Right,” said another. ”On the asteroids we can see for thousands of light years, but inside here it seems as if life is swallowed. I feel as if I'm in something's stomach.”

”Starman Foster,” said George St. George. ”I think we had better move on. We need to come to the end of this giant room and get back to light and living quarters of some kind. With all this excitement we've had, I think the men are just about completely exfluncted.”

Zip paused a moment and looked into the distance, then nodded. ”Okay,”

he agreed. ”This room can't go on forever. Let's find the end of it.”

Lurton Zimbardo was in the control center of the asteroid. A small group of his most trusted a.s.sistants stood silently by. Through the wall of gla.s.s on his right he could see the cavern where the pirates'

s.p.a.ces.h.i.+ps were anch.o.r.ed to the landing field. Five of them were out on a.s.signment in the Belt. As the work crew on the asteroid was able to produce sufficient sheathing, power, and propulsion units, a s.p.a.ce crew was a.s.signed the task of outfitting the asteroids that Lurton had previously chosen.

The first, under the leaders.h.i.+p of Cra.s.s, had returned that morning.

Another had gone out almost immediately afterward and one more would depart the next morning. By the end of the following day, the last two crews would be launched.

Cra.s.s' a.s.signment had included the destruction of the sats while he performed his task. Now that the pirates knew how easy and fast it was to complete the work, they did not bother to destroy the sats in the remaining four sites. Zimbardo knew that the destruction of the sats would alert s.p.a.ce Command, but the authorities would not be able to stop the project before his s.h.i.+ps returned. Once they learned what he was doing they would expect that he had only one asteroid to command.

The remaining four would be a shock to them and give him, Zimbardo, a powerful psychological edge. He would need it for his last demand. Even his most trusted lieutenants had no inkling of the enormity of his last ploy.

”Now in contact with G670,” uttered Zimbardo, referring to the asteroid that Cra.s.s and his crew had rigged. The screen was lit up before him.

”Two minutes and four seconds to go from right...now!” A countdown clock was set at his left. The pirate captain checked his figures one more time. He had plotted the orbit of Mars, the thrust and direction of the power units on G670, the speed of the red planet in its course and its rotation, the antic.i.p.ated acceleration of the asteroid, and the time delay involved in making adjustments to its course. He had checked his computations half a dozen times and then commanded three others to do so.

Three, two, one... read the countdown clock. Zero. Zimbardo pressed the b.u.t.ton. He remained motionless for at least ten seconds. Then he sat back and exhaled loudly. He had not noticed that he hadn't been breathing. Then he turned and smiled broadly to his audience.

”Five and a half days from now, everyone in the Earth-Moon-Mars system will know who we are!”

Oritz Konig was making another report to Richard Starlight. ”The s.p.a.ce Command s.h.i.+ps came onto the site and found no sign of human presence.

They quickly replaced the sats, got them activated, and then checked data. I don't know how to explain it, Richard, but an asteroid is missing. Other than that, there is nothing different in the area of the Belt that had gone dark, but obviously the pirates have done something with an asteroid. It's not a very big one-only about 100 yards in diameter, maybe a little more-but it's vanished.”

The Starmen and miners had been walking more than three hours, and covered a distance of about ten miles.

”A wall,” announced Zip. ”We've come to the end of it at last.”

”You'd think that a race that can make elevators go sideways could have come up with a way to traverse this gymnasium quicker and easier than walking,” grumbled Joe.

”Didn't I hear you say that this place is great?” inquired Zip.

”It is. Back then, I meant 'great' like 'magnificent'; but now it just feels like 'great' as in 'really big.'”

The company came up to the wall. There was a bank of elevators in front of them and several sets of doors to their right. In a large open gathering place, there were many platforms like flat beds, with rods coming out of one end and sticking up perpendicular to the beds.

”Joe,” said Mark, investigating one of the beds. ”Here's your easier way to travel. These things must be some sort of dolly or truck. I saw a lot of them where we first came out of the elevator, but I didn't recognize them.”

”And we didn't know how big the room is, either, so we didn't look for means of transportation,” added Zip.

”No wheels,” said Joe, peering at the apparatus, ”and doesn't need them. Magnetic, probably, with this iron floor. Man,” he said with exaggerated disgust, ”we could have floated in comfort the whole length of the place.”