The Runaway Asteroid, Michael D. Cooper [mobi reader android TXT] 📗

"What do you mean, 'and then'? I got bored with it and moved on. I'm a miner, not an explorer or a settler or a scientist. There's nothing here but iron. I told a few people about it but nobody much believed me or cared until this Troy Putnam fellow I met in Yellow City. He's the only person who got excited about it, so when he asked me to bring him here, I did it, as I said. Why not? He paid my expenses for the trip, and a little more besides for my time. He was impressed with the place, as was I. Then I went looking for uranium and he went back to Ceres. Never saw him again."

Zip pursed his lips, and his brow furrowed under his red hair-a common expression for the leader of the Starman team. "This has to explain why Zimbardo was looking for you," he said. "No one outside the pirates knows as much as you about his asteroid. That didn't seem to bother Troy Putnam, but Zimbardo must consider you a threat. But I can't understand why he has taken us prisoner. Zimbardo has no heart of mercy whatever. I would have expected him just to silence you for good. Obviously he is preparing this place for some new and big enterprise and is probably occupied, but now I think we'll be hearing from him before too long. Before that happens, I think we'd better be gone."

"Escape? You talking about escape, Zip? From here?" asked Joe with amazement.

Zip addressed St. George. "Tell us everything you know about how this asteroid works. Leave out no detail whatever. Everything you can remember. Joe and Mark, pay close attention! We have to come up with a plan!"

A full day had passed since Richard Starlight had called the special meeting in his office in the towers of Starlight Enterprise. Now he sat silent and alone in one of the chairs around the great table. Suddenly he spun the chair around and stared through the clear wall in front of him. His gaze went far past the lunar mountains into the distant sky where Mars was just rising, a tiny red point.

The President had issued his commands earlier that morning. A secret communication had been issued to the commanding officers of all the bases of Space Command. A similar message had been sent to the heads of large commercial enterprises such as Starlight Enterprise and Nolan Mining Enterprise, as well as the local authorities of population centers in the Asteroid Belt and on Mars. The communication had provided what information was known about the threat that the pirates manifested. It ordered Space Command and urged the private parties to keep the information secret so as to avoid panic and to prevent the pirates from learning that their sheathing apparatus had been observed in action, and advised all parties to prepare for any attack the pirates may launch. They were put on high alert for visual attack and to be ready for instant defensive response.

In Amundsen City, Keith Seaton sat at his desk, scanning the Asteroid Belt with his telescope. His strong build filled the chair in which he sat.

"There's Ceres," he said quietly as the image of the Belt's largest asteroid came up on the screen. Charlie Taylor and Allen Foster, who were sitting next to him, nodded. The fathers of the three Starmen weren't conversing much that night, but all were greatly comforted by each other's presence.

On Ceres, Sim Sala Bim received the encrypted message on tight beam, and felt immense sadness come over him as he read it. "Where are those three young Starmen now?" he wondered.

In the laboratories of Starlight Enterprise's main center on the Moon, scientists were working around the clock to devise a method by which their ships could track distant objects by sight instead of radar. Additionally, under a very rare Presidential command, technicians were working frantically under Earth's pre-eminent astrophysicist, Stephen Hoshino, trying to devise an advanced means of detecting a ship that was invisible to radar.

The Inner Planetary system was waiting for a strike which its defenders knew would surely come-but not when, where, or how.

8: The Starmen Strike!

ALMOST an hour had gone by since George St. George had begun to tell the three Starmen what he knew of the asteroid. Zip, Mark, and Joe had listened intently, plying the asteroid miner with detailed questions as he continued his narrative. At last, no one had anything else to say.

"No more questions?" Zip asked. Both Joe and Mark shook their heads.
Their energy level had gone up appreciably since they had sat down with
George. They had become spirited, now that they were determined to find
a plan of escape.

"All right, then. It seems to me that this may be easier than we thought," stated Zip.

"You have an idea already?" asked Joe, with a slight turn of his head.

"It seems obvious that this asteroid was not intended to house prisoners. This room we're in is not a cell block-it's a dormitory."

"Right," said Mark. "Therefore the locking mechanism is not original to the asteroid's design. Is that where you're going, Zip?"

Zip smiled. "Keep going," he nodded.

"Whoever made this asteroid was far in advance of our science and it'll probably be a long time before we, or anyone else, learn how to alter their design. But the locking mechanism was most likely put in by the pirates, probably on short notice. It can't be too sophisticated a system. Again, since this is a dormitory and not a cell, the wiring is probably on this side of the door rather than in the hallway. Let's find where the pirates rewired the door. Whatever they can do, we can undo."

The Starmen leaped up and began to investigate the door and the walls near it very carefully. Now that they had some idea of what they were looking for, they hoped it would be easier to find an access panel of some kind which their previous general search had missed. Minutes passed with no result. The walls had no apparent seams, and the door was set into the framework so closely that there seemed to be no space between the door and the edge of the wall into which it slid.

"Try the floor," suggested Joe. Mark dropped down and scanned the floor minutely. Joe moved farther to the right and Zip to the left of the door, their fingers moving gently over the surface looking for some kind of irregularity.

St. George watched them with a mix of curiosity and amazement on his face. His men sat at the tables playing games, paying the Starmen little heed. Once in a while one looked up, then turned back to his game. Others napped on the sofas.

"Look here," said Mark. Zip and Joe came over to see what he had found.
"What do you see?" he asked them, sitting back on his heels.

"Where?" asked Joe.

"You find it-see if I'm right," answered Mark.

Joe pursed his lips and squinted. Zip watched carefully. George appeared almost impassive, but inside his heart was beating faster.

"I see it," observed Joe after a minute.

"What?" burst out St. George, then looked almost sheepish for showing his excitement.

"The light reflects off this patch here just a little differently from the rest of the floor. It's a perfect square about, oh, fifteen inches on a side."

"Right," said Mark.

"How do we open it-if it's a panel, that is?" asked Joe. He pushed the corners, tried sliding the panel in every direction, bounced the square with his fingers, all with no result.

"Let me try," said Mark. He laid his hand gently on top. In a few seconds there was a click and the square lifted up an inch, supported by a small, spring-loaded shaft in the center. Mark lifted the panel off and revealed a recess filled with finely detailed circuit boards. Over and around them were a few dark wires that obviously did not belong to the original design.

Joe snorted. "How did you do that?"

"Well, I thought that it had to be some sort of radiation that would open it. There were no obvious signs of physical fasteners like screws. So I figured it had to be magnetism, or light, or maybe heat. I thought body heat would be the easiest to try, so I laid my hand on it, concentrated, and made it warm, and it opened!"

"Good work, Mark, but let's not waste time! We're in a hurry now," urged Zip. "What do you see in there Joe?" By now George and several of his men had come over and were watching over the shoulders of the Starmen.

"Yeah, really simple circuit. I can disconnect it in a minute even without tools and we can be out the door." Joe reached in.

"Wait!" Zip grabbed Joe's wrist. "Is there any evidence that the circuit is tied into a larger system, like a master computer, that would tip anyone off that the door has been opened?"

Joe peered into the aperture and carefully traced the wiring.

"Sorry, Zip. Sorry, everybody," he said, chagrined. "You're right. There is. But I can fix that too." He reached in and twisted two wires together. "Okay, that should bypass the door circuit and tell the master computer that the door is still closed. I can open the door now. Are you ready?"

Zip stood up. "There are fourteen of us. We don't know where to go once we're free, so I'd like George to lead us. He's been through the asteroid. Take us somewhere, George, where we won't be found easily."

George shook his head in a big arc. "Now Zip, I haven't been on this chunk for over fifteen years. I'm not real sure where to go!"

"George, no one else has been on the asteroid at all. There's no one but you."

The asteroid miner looked down, dejected. "I don't like any of this. But you're right. Okay. We'll go out the door and back to the elevators. We'll take the one on the left. I'll take us to a floor one level down, then through a huge storeroom. On the other side are other corridors. I've been through there, and there are places to hide and more elevators to get us other places on the asteroid. After that I'm not sure. Maybe I'll remember when we get there."

"Everyone got that?" said Zip. "Stay together and move quickly." No one had anything else to say. Zip turned to Joe.

"Let's go," decreed Zip. Joe removed one end of a black wire and touched it to another terminal. The door slid open.

Outside was a scene that none of the Starmen had expected. Two pirates, dressed in their gray and black uniforms, were seated opposite one another at a small table on the far side of the corridor. The one on the right was a well-muscled, large man with dark hair, weighing well over 200 pounds; the other was blond, of medium build. He was leaning on his elbow, pondering his next move in a board game. When the door slid open, they both looked up, utter surprise written over their faces.

Both the Starmen and the pirates froze for a split second, then both sides moved at once. Mark charged for the big man and Joe for the blond. Simultaneously the huge pirate bellowed and threw the table toward the charging Starmen, scattering the game pieces. Mark stopped the flying table without slowing his pace and slammed it hard back at the pirates, legs first. The blond man managed to evade the table, but the big pirate took two table legs on his left thigh and upper chest. He groaned, and the laser pistol he had been drawing was caught behind the table. Mark quickly threw the table upside-down to his left, reached with both hands for the pirate's right arm, and pulled the man quickly down and toward himself. His right knee came up and caught the man in the solar plexus. The pirate went down with a whoosh of air and lay still. Mark picked up his pistol.

Meanwhile, the blond pirate had screamed for help in a panicky voice, turned, and was dashing down the corridor toward the elevators. Joe took hold of the table's leg nearest him and skated the table forcefully down the corridor after the escaping pirate. It caught the man behind his left ankle as he was running. In the low gravity, the pirate turned almost completely over, his pistol flying. Joe caught up with him and delivered a quick punch that rendered the man