THE ROOM was smaller than the Starmen had anticipated. Its small size
was accentuated by being packed to the ceiling with a variety of items.
Hand tools identical to those used by rock hounds for centuries lay on
tables and on shelves. Stacks of paper, most of which showed signs of
being bound by hand, covered much of the remaining space. On one shelf
was a large, clear sphere on an ornately shaped stand. The eyes of all
three Starmen were drawn to it.
“Have a seat,” offered their host.
There were three chairs. Montezuma sat in one placed before a desk and
swiveled to face his visitors. Zip and Joe took the other chairs and
Mark sat on a short stack of crates filled with rock samples. A thick
book rested on a table in the center of the room. Mark glanced at the
title, turning his head slightly to do so. It was _The Flying Carpet_,
by Richard Halliburton. There was a bookmark about halfway through the
book.
The asteroid miner leaned forward. “What about George?” he asked.
Zip filled him in. Montezuma Vly paid close attention. His eyes never
wavered from Zip’s face as he spoke. When Zip was finished, Vly nodded.
“Mm hmm,” he murmured. “This could be bad for George. I’ll tell you
where to find him. I expect that you’ll be able to keep him out of the
clutches of the space vultures. You’ve got an enemy to be reckoned with
in this Zimbardo psychopath, but I believe you can handle him.”
“You seem to know a lot about our recent exploits, Mr. Vly,” said Joe,
conversationally.
“I’m not the complete recluse people think, Mr. Taylor. People have a
lot of wrong ideas about me. I don’t want to be listed in the Register
of Peoples, and I don’t want people butting into my business or telling
me how to live, but I keep up with the news. If I hadn’t recognized you,
you wouldn’t have been allowed to land on my asteroid. You’re not
wearing Starman’s red, you know.”
“We’re grateful to you, Mr. Vly,” nodded Zip.
“May I ask--” began Mark, then hesitated.
“Yes, you may ask. Go on.”
Mark turned his head toward the sphere. “The sphere...”
“Oh yes. It’s pure crystal, all right.”
The Starmen gasped. “_Pure...crystal...?_” stammered Mark. “Why, there
can’t be a larger one in the Solar System! It’s priceless!”
“Next largest was in the Smithsonian Institution, a little more than
twelve inches in diameter. This one’s sixteen and three-quarters inches.
Found it myself on Adamant--that’s the parent asteroid from which this
sliver I live on was busted off a few millennia ago.” Mark knew he was
referring to what he had called a “worthless chunk” before they landed.
Vly went on. “Shaped it myself in those old machines you saw coming in
here. Had to redesign some of ’em to fit a crystal this size, but we did
it.”
“It looks flawless!” breathed Joe.
“Looks it, but isn’t. Its flaws are its greatest treasure. Watch this;
you haven’t seen anything yet.” Vly picked up a small cutting tool with
a laser guide at the end. He turned off the lights and then pointed the
laser at the crystal sphere. The beam struck the surface and then
scattered throughout the interior of the globe, igniting sparks of
spectacular glory. Mark could feel tears come into his eyes from the
unearthly beauty the light created. Many dozens of flakes, invisible to
the naked eye, were revealed when the laser beam pierced the
near-perfect sphere. They exploded in glorious colors--gold, orange,
deep red, flaming yellow, silver; even a few brilliant green, deep blue,
and violet sparks traced across the inner world.
The Starmen were speechless. They couldn’t take their eyes off the
resplendent glory of the sphere under the laser light. “Beautiful, isn’t
it?” asked Vly, gently. There was no need to answer.
“Where do the colors come from?” asked Mark. “Laser light has only one
wavelength, so it can’t be refracting in there.”
“The crystal’s impurities are almost invisible to the unaided eye,”
answered Vly, “but the laser hits the impurities and causes secondary
emissions of light of all sorts of color--the more impurities, the more
colors. It lights up better than a fire opal.”
As he moved the laser beam slowly around the globe, the interior lights
changed--first one, then another “flaw” taking the light and surging
into radiance.
All too soon, he switched off the laser and turned the room lights back
on. It was almost as if a spell had been broken.
“C’mon,” he said. “I’ll show you just where George is on the chart.” He
moved back down the hall, the Starmen following. When they were back in
the room they had first entered, Vly reached up into a recess where
there were several rolled sheets of paper. “Move aside,” he said
quietly, pushing a reluctant koalang over and pulling out a large roll.
He unrolled it over a rock polisher and gestured for the Starmen to take
the corners. It was a map of a portion of the asteroid belt.
“Here’s where we are,” said Vly, pointing to a spot on the map, “and
here’s where George is.” His finger swept across the map to where a tiny
dot had been placed. “It’s a mining operation of moderate size called
Z25. He runs it there with a fair-sized crew--maybe a dozen men.” There
were equations, sketches, and notes scribbled all over the sheet.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Vly,” said Mark, “but I don’t follow you. I’m used to
plotting coordinates and thinking in three dimensions.”
“See these figures?” asked Vly. “They’re your coordinates. It is a
three-dimensional map, in a manner of speaking. If it weren’t, I
couldn’t get around. I’ll write down what you need. But you’ll find
George on that little plunk of a rock. He’s been there several months
now and won’t be hard to find, once I point it out to you. I just spoke
to him a few hours ago and I’ll get ahold of him again and tell him
you’ll be coming.” He began to write some notes down for Mark.
“Must take a lot of power to run your operation here, Mr. Vly,” observed
Mark while he waited for Montezuma to finish writing. “Don’t you have to
conserve energy?”
“Haven’t had to conserve energy since I developed a new process for
drawing energy directly from the sun.”
“But out here the solar radiation is so weak. You can’t get much energy
from solar panels, no matter how efficient--certainly not enough to run
your machines without some sort of supplement.”
“I don’t use solar panels any more, Mr. Seaton. I mine energy from the
sun directly with an entirely new process. I can pull in and store about
four gigawatts. Gives me all I need and plenty left over.”
“Four _giga_watts?”
“Four gigawatts. That’s a four with nine zeroes after it.”
Mark almost shouted. “I know how much it is! Mr. Vly! You amaze me!
There’s nothing like that anywhere else in the Solar System! _Nobody_
has anything like that, nobody! Not even Starlight Enterprise! You could
make a _fortune_ if you sell your design!!”
“Really?” said Mr. Vly, lifting his eyebrows slightly, handing him the
sheet with his notes on it. “Excuse me a moment while I write that down,
so the next time I want to turn my whole life over to lawyers and
businessmen I’ll know just what to do.”
“But, but...” Mark spluttered. Joe laughed and Zip smiled.
“Thank you, Mr. Vly,” said Zip, extending his hand. “It has been a
remarkable visit, and we appreciate very much your letting us drop in.”
Montezuma shook Zip’s hand. “Wait a minute, Starmen. Let me give you
something to help you while away the long hours in space.” He turned and
rummaged through a box, then scanned a shelf behind him. After a moment
he pulled out a gold disc in a flat, clear container.
“Take this,” he said, handing it to Zip. “It’s a recording of the entire
works of Johann Sebastian Bach. That’s more than 1,200 compositions. The
music is so complex that some of its mysteries weren’t even discovered
until the computer age. Lily made this disk. She’s an expert in the
music of the Renaissance. Does research all the time.”
“Lily?”
“Lily and I have been partners out here for over twenty years. Us and
the koalangs.”
Zip put the disk into his pocket. “Thank you, sir. Best wishes to you.”
“You too. An occasional visit once in a while is welcome, especially
when people respect my way of life. Most don’t understand. I think you
three do. Just protect George. He’s a good friend, and they’re hard to
find.”
* * * * *
About 56 hours later, the _Vigilant Warrior_ came into the proximity of
Z25. Joe eased the ship through a scattering of moderate-sized asteroids
and then came into a space where there were relatively few chunks of
stone and iron moving through space. On the far side of the open area
was an asteroid nearly twenty miles long and half as wide.
“There it is,” announced Joe. “Z25.”
Zip gave a nod to Mark, and Mark opened communications.
“_Vigilant Warrior_ calling Z25. We have arrived in your area and seek
permission to land.”
“You made good time, friends,” came a voice instantly. “Come on in and
welcome.”
The Starmen had spoken to St. George once during their journey from
Montezuma’s Castle, but only briefly. The communications were encrypted,
but even the encryption could be a tipoff to an enemy who might be
listening in.
As they made their final approach, the Starmen had a good view of Z25’s
horizon near the time of local sunset. The surface was dark because of
the oblique illumination, but several boulders caught the sunlight and
appeared as bright sentinels on the landscape. The brightest of the
boulders, just to the upper right of a deeply shadowed crater in the
foreground, marked the landing area. A cluster of artificial structures
was visible nearby, and several spaceships were parked in an informal
array. A dome covered the buildings, and reflected the sun in a burst of
brightness. Mark had a quick memory of dewdrops in the garden of his
home on Earth when he was a child. He recalled thinking that each
dewdrop held a small sun.
In moments the Starmen were sitting in George St. George’s study. He was
a man in his middle-fifties, of average height and weight, with a full
head of wavy blond hair. It was obvious that he cut his own hair, but
long practice had made him skilled at it. Though his eyes were ice-blue,
he exuded warmth. He had a ready smile. The Starmen were sitting in a
makeshift room under a temporary atmosphere dome on an isolated
asteroid, but St. George’s courtliness and genuine respect for his
visitors made them feel as if they were in a manor house. On his desk
lay a thick book with the title _Commentary on the Letter to the
Romans_, and several sheets of paper and a pen were set beside it where
he had obviously been doing some study.
“I hope you men won’t mind waiting for refreshments. It’s almost
dinnertime and the crew will be coming up for a meal in about half an
hour. Of course, you’ll join us, won’t you?”
“Thank you Mr. St. George,” responded Zip. “We’d be pleased to meet your
men and see your operation.”
“Monty tells me you three are real ripstavers, and he doesn’t say that
very often about anybody. You must have impressed him!” St. George was
full of smiles.
“May we sit down, Mr. St. George? Our business is rather urgent!” Zip
continued.
“Of course, of course. Please forgive me! We don’t get visitors of any
kind out here and I’m just not used to entertaining. Please forgive me!”
St. George rushed busily setting out chairs, bringing in two from a room
next door. “And please call me George.”
Once they were settled, Zip began to tell George about the pirates and
Zimbardo’s likely determination to find and eliminate the one man who
knew where the pirates’ asteroid could be found. Before he got too far
into the story, George lifted a hand and smiled. “Yes, yes, I know,” he
said. “Monty told me all about it.”
The Starmen leaped out of their chairs, absolutely stunned. Before they
had left Montezuma’s Castle Zip had impressed upon Vly how vital it was
for St. George’s safety that they not communicate until his friend was
safe. Zip had begged him to send just a quick, encrypted message that
Z25 was to expect three visitors who had Vly’s seal of approval--no
more.
“George!” gasped Joe. “That message could have been intercepted by the
pirates! They _must_ be looking for you!”
“We told Vly not to communicate with you! It could mean your life!”
continued Mark, suddenly heartsick with anxiety.
George chuckled. “Don’t worry, Starmen! The pirates already tried to
find me through Monty, but the greegles protected him, and the
pirates’ll never find me without cooperation from Monty--which they’ll
never get. There’s really no need to worry. We’re completely safe here.
We’ll have dinner, you’ll stay here to sleep, I’ll show you around the
operation, and you can go back to Ceres.”
The Starmen were speechless for a moment. Joe’s eyes nervously scanned
the room and Mark stared at George with his mouth agape. Then Zip spoke.
“What are greegles, George?”
George chuckled again. “You haven’t heard of this ‘asteroid miner’s
legend’? Most people think it’s in a class with leprechauns and
mermaids, the story of the greegles, but it’s all true. The greegles are
the inhabitants of the asteroids. Don’t know if they’re alive or not.
They’re made of metal--some kind of metal--or maybe they just wear a
metal suit. They’re about a foot high. Now, don’t stare at me like that;
you’re looking thoroughly obflisticated, probably thinking I’ve been out
in the vacuum too long, but I’ve seen them! They’re little and they’re
old, very old, but they’re powerful! No one can beat them! Usually no
one ever sees them and they don’t have any need to interfere with human
beings. They don’t mind it too much, though, if a solitary asteroid
miner sees them once in a while.”
“And wh--, what do they have to do with Montezuma?” asked Zip, keeping
his voice steady.
“Why, a short time after you left the Castle, about five ships tried to
land on the Castle by force--pirates, for sure. No doubt they wanted to
force Monty to tell ’em where I am. But Monty knows how to contact the
greegles. There’s a lot of greegles on Adamant.” George chuckled again.
“Those poor fellows--the pirates, that is! When the pirates told Monty
they were going to land whether he wanted them to or not, why, he just
called the greegles for help. They cut four of the ships into pieces in
a matter of seconds, leaving the crew floating in their spacesuits. Then
they grabbed them with some sort of invisible grappling beam or
something and herded them toward the fifth ship. That ship gathered them
in and took off.”
Now George laughed out loud. “They got the message real fast! _Go away
and don’t come back!_ And they scrammed! Never even set foot on
Montezuma’s Castle. Monty will make good use of the floating space junk
the pirates left. Serves ’em right!”
Just then a gentle buzz sounded. “That’s the call for dinner, friends.
Come meet the others!”
Almost immediately another sound came through the communications
system--an urgent clangor. St. George’s face became taut and a look of
surprise and anxiety came over his features.
“What’s that?” asked Zip.
“It’s the alarm,” St. George whispered. “It’s never sounded before.” The
alarm abruptly shut off and an excited, panic-stricken voice came
through the intercom.
“Five ships approaching! Coming in fast! They’re commanding all hands to
come to the landing field and threatening to destroy the whole operation
if we don’t cooperate! They’ve already started to destroy the base!”