When a particularly high-grade ore turned up in a batch, the whole ship hummed with excitement. “We take our chances, just like the independents,” the guard told them. “Each man gets his percentage of the earnings on every trip. Give us one big strike, and everybody on this ship will be rich.”
“Do you pick and choose your rocks?” Johnny asked.
“Oh, yes. We have prospectors working all over the belt, claiming the best-looking rocks for the company. When they hit something rich, an orbit ship moves in to work it.” The guard laughed. “You should hear the astronomers hoot at us, the ones that go for the incomplete-formation theory of the asteroids. They say well never hit a big strike because no such thing can exist. But we don’t pay any attention to them.”
Greg was familiar with the story. Every schoolboy on Mars knew about the two opposing theories of formation which attempted to solve once and for all the age-old mystery of how the Asteroid Belt had been formed. Many astronomers believed that the asteroids were fragments of a planet that had never formed completely, that while the other planets in the solar system were forming, these chunks of debris had been held apart and kept from coalescing into a planet by the overwhelming gravitational pull of the giant planet lying just beyond the belt. . . . Jupiter itself.
But an older theory held that the asteroids had once been a fully formed planet between Mars and Jupiter, a planet that had been blown apart geological ages before in a series of cataclysmic explosions. Gradually the fragments of those explosions had taken up their individual orbits as tiny planetoids in a wide belt around the sun where the parent planet had once been. What might have caused those explosions nobody could guess, nor could anyone guess what sort of planet it might have been.
Which theory was right, nobody knew. When the solar system was first explored, the asteroids had been eagerly studied in hopes that the true answer might be found. But as yet neither side could claim the answer. The mystery remained unsolved.
Greg had thought about it many times. If there had been a planet here, hundreds of thousands of years ago, what had it been like? Had it been warm, as Earth was now, with an atmosphere, perhaps even with life on it? Or was it a barren rock, free of atmosphere, as dead and lifeless as Earth’s moon? What could have caused it to explode? There were no answers, and the fragments, the asteroids themselves, had never yielded a clue.
Now Greg watched as the scout ship moved in to the orbit ship’s side with its net. Whatever the origin of the asteroids, these fragments of rock contained rich metal waiting to be taken by the men who could find it. Watching the Jupiter Equilateral ship in operation, Greg felt his heart sink. Here was a huge, powerful organization, with all the equipment and men and know-how they could ever need. How could one man, or two or even a team of three hope to compete with them? For the independent miner, the only hope was the big strike, the single lode that could make him rich. He might work all his life without finding it, and then stumble upon it by sheer chance.
But if he couldn’t keep it when he found it, what then? What if the great mining company became so strong that they could be their own law in the belt? What if they grew strong enough and powerful enough to challenge the United Nations on Mars itself, and gain control of the entire mining industry? What chance would the independent miner have then?
It was a frightening picture. Suddenly something began to make sense to Greg; he realized something about his father that he had never known before. Roger Hunter had been a miner, yes. But he had been something else too, something far more important than just a miner. Roger Hunter had been a fighter, fighting to the end for something he believed in.
The scout ship shot out its grappling cables as Greg and Johnny watched in the view screen. Merrill Tawney was in the observation room, watching too. The first scout ship moored and secured; from another direction another ship came in with a loaded net. Tawney rubbed his hands together.
“Quite an operation,” he said.
Greg looked at him. “So I see.”
“And very efficient, too. Our men have everything they need to work with. We can mine at far less cost than anyone else.”
“But you still can’t stand the idea of independent miners working the belt,” Greg said.
Tawney’s eyebrows went up. “Why not? There’s lots of room out here. Our operation with Jupiter Equilateral is no different from an independent miner’s operation. We aren’t different kinds of people.” He smiled. “When you get right down to it, we’re both exactly the same thing—scavengers in space, vultures picking over the dead remains to see what we can find. We come out to the asteroids, and we bring back what we want and leave the rest behind. And it doesn’t matter whether we’ve got one ship working or four hundred, we’re still scavengers.”
“With just one difference,” Greg said, turning away from the view screen.
“Difference?”
Greg nodded. “Even vultures don’t kill their prey,” he said.
Later, when they were again alone in their quarters, Greg and Johnny stared at each other gloomily. For all its luxurious appointments, the place was a prison. The only sound was the intermittent whir of the ventilator fan in the wall. The single hatchway was locked, and they knew that the guard was stationed in the corridor outside.
Johnny had even found a microphone pickup hidden in one of the chair cushions; he had carefully disconnected it, and they had poked and probed to find any others that might be there. But the rest of the furniture was innocent enough; except for the fine metal grill over the ventilator shaft the walls were featureless.
“Didn’t you see anything that might help us?” Greg asked.
“Not much. For an orbit ship, this place is a fortress. I got a good look at that scout ship coming in. It was armed to the teeth. Prob’bly they all are. And they’re keepin’ a guard now at every airlock.”
“So we’re sewed up tight,” Greg said.
“Looks that way. They’ve got us, boy, and I think Tawney’s patience is wearing thin, too. We’re either going to have to produce or else.”
“But what can we do?”
“Start bluffin’.”
“It seems to me we’re fust about bluffed out.”
“I mean talk business,” Johnny said. “Tell Tawney what he wants to know.”
“When we don’t know any more than he does? How?”
Johnny Coombs scratched his jaw. “I’ve been thinking about that,” he said slowly, “and I wonder if we don’t know a whole lot more than we think we do.”
“Like what?” Greg said.
“We’ve all been looking for the same thing—a big strike, a bonanza lode. Tawney’s men have raked over every one of your dad’s claims, and they haven’t turned up a thing.” Johnny looked at Greg. “Makes you wonder a little, doesn’t it? Your dad was smart, but he was no magician. And how does a man go about hidin’ somethin’ like a vein of ore?”
“I don’t know,” Greg said. “It doesn’t seem possible.”
“It isn’t possible,” Johnny said flatly. “There’s only one possible explanation, and we’ve been missin’ it all along.
Whatever he found, it wasn’t an ore strike. It was somethin’ else, something far different from anything we’ve been thinkin’ of.”