* * * * *
She never finished the sentence. Something jarred the ground under me
like a miniature earthquake, and I sat down hard.
"A ship," Gramps said. "Clair saw a ship coming in on the other side!"
"Now it's landed," Clair told us. It wasn't necessary. That jar could
only have been produced by a ship or a man-sized meteor.
"So what?" I wanted to know. "So someone made a mistake and landed
here. Our claim's already in. When their claim goes through, Vesta'll
tell them."
"Sure," Gramps brightened.
Clair smiled too, as if to say, you're right, so what are we worrying
about?
Only my enthusiasm didn't last long. My reasoning was tilted. It was
warped. Crazy. "Uh-uh," I shook my head. "It isn't as simple as that.
First place, Vesta was supposed to beam a broadcast all over the Belt,
telling who landed where."
"Hmm-m," Gramps mumbled.
"Maybe," Clair said. "Maybe. And that ship, Jerry, it was too big. Much
too big to be one of the family ships. One of those long, tapering,
narrow-finned cruisers, brand new."
I was trying to digest this latest bit of information, when Clair
popped her helmet back on her head and ran for the airlock. I called
to her, but she couldn't hear me--she was going to see just who our
visitors were.
"Fiery young thing!" Gramps snorted, but I hardly heard him. I
zipped myself inside my suit as fast as I could and started to run
for the lock. Only I didn't. I flew. I had forgotten to snap on the
grav-plates, and once again I had that agonizing sensation of floating
groundward.
I made it, cursing, then I tore through the lock, in record time. When
I reached the Karden, Clair came darting around its other side and ran
toward me, out of breath, half stumbling. We got back inside the dome,
and I said:
"Well?"
"Oh, Jerry. Jerry!"
"What is it, hon?" Clair got excited easily, but not this way.
"Some men were out of the ship and I hailed them. Someone shot at me--"
"_What?_"
"Yes! He didn't say a word. He just lifted an ugly-looking gun and
fired. A big column of rock disappeared right next to me, Jerry.
Just like this." She snapped her fingers. "He shot at me with a
disintegrator. A _disintegrator_, Jerry...."
I gulped. How would you feel being trapped on a rock less than half a
mile across, without any weapons, with your radio shot to hell, without
enough fuel in your ship to get you half way to any other asteroid,
when you knew that around on the night side were maybe a dozen armed
men, claim jumpers, ready to kill you on sight?