There was nothing to say. The two young miners at first did not realize the true significance of this visit from Robinson. It all came so suddenly that it was impossible to think clearly, impossible to grasp the true possibilities of the situation.
“You damned robber!” said Vernon bitterly.
He felt his brother’s hand upon his arm, squeezing with a vicelike grip.
“Men don’t talk like that to Max Robinson,” the voice came coolly, unflustered, “and get away with it”.
Warned by the pressure on his arm, Vernon did not reply.
The two stood silently, watching the great craft settle slowly to a berth only a short distance from where the Space Pup lay. Through the lighted ports they could see men in the ship, while here and there heads were outlined against the circles of light, men off duty looking out upon the tiny world where they had landed.
Smoothly a gangplank came down and the outer door of an air chamber swiftly unscrewed and swung free.
“Come into my ship,” said the voice of Robinson,” and come peaceably.”
There was a horrible threat in the words. The two knew there never would be a moment, except perhaps when they were actually in the air chamber, that they would not be under the guns of the vessel.
In long hops they moved forward and set foot on the gangplank of the pirate ship. There they halted to unfasten the ropes about their waists.
“What are you stopping for?” growled Robinson.
“To unfasten our safety cables,” Vince explained. “The gravity is so low here we anchored ourselves to our ship.”
Robinson chuckled.
“Bright idea,” he applauded. “I’ll never forget the time one of my men jumped off one of these lousy little worlds. We scouted around for hours before we picked him up. He was dead.”
They could hear the raider chuckle again, deep in his throat
“Scared to death,” he explained.
The brothers did not answer; neither of them at the moment could find anything particularly funny about a man being frightened to a point where death claimed him. With their ropes free they stepped up the gangplank into the air chamber. Noiselessly the door swung against the port, spinning into the threads. There was a sharp hissing, continuing for several minutes, then the inner door slipped its threads and swung open.
Vernon again felt the warning pressure of his brother’s hand as they stepped out of the air chamber into the interior of the ship. Several members of the crew sprang toward them, ran swift hands over their inflated suits.
“That’s all right,” said Vernon, “we have no guns.”
The men dropped back and the brothers unfastened their helmets and swung them back on their rear hinges. They closed the air tank valves and the suits went limp, hanging loosely about them.
Their eyes, roving over the ship, saw that it was extremely modern, equipped with many of the new inventions for comfort and safe space travel.
Six members of the crew stood in the room with them. They were a hardfaced lot; scum drafted from all the infamous space ports of the worlds; perhaps many of them criminals hiding from justice.
“The captain wants to see you immediately,” said one of them.
“Mind if we take off our suits?” asked Vernon. “They aren’t comfortable after you’ve worn them for a while.”
“Don’t see that would hurt any,” grunted the man. “Hurry about it, though.”
Quickly they unfastened the suits and stepped from them, leaving them on the floor.
“The captain ain’t one to be kept waiting,” the man explained.
The two followed the man along a central corridor to the forward end of the ship. Before a door their guide stopped and knocked.
“Come in,” commanded the voice they had heard over their receiving sets.
The guide swung open the door and motioned the others to step forward. As they did so, the door closed behind them and they stood alone, face to face with Max Robinson, cruelest, and most hunted space raider of the system.
They saw a man attired in a colorful uniform of powder blue, adorned with gold buttons, and with a red circle as a breast insignia. His forehead was high and his chin square, but not over-emphasized. A squat nose hulked above the slightest suggestion of a mustache and the lips were full and well formed. It was such a face as might have belonged to an ordinary, everyday business man of the Earth…..until one looked at the eyes, and there the brothers saw cold calculation and insane cruelty.
He sat behind a large desk of beautiful carved stone, which was at once recognized as Martian art. Perhaps the desk had been part of the loot taken from some flaming homestead upon which Robinson and his crew of vandals descended to obtain a cargo of food. Upon the walls of the room hung paintings, specimens of the best art of the world. Held in wall brackets were other works of art, vases and statues. A heavy rug carpeted the floor.
“You like my office?” queried Robinson. “It is appointed more tastefully than I would have imagined,” replied Vince and the implication of his words was not lost upon the man behind the desk.
“When you become more thoroughly acquainted with me,” he purred, “you will receive many surprises.”
“Doubtless,” said Vince.
Robinson’s eyes narrowed. He seemed on the point of speaking sharply, then appeared to change his mind. “Doing some mining?” he asked.
“No exploring,” lied Vince.
“Find anything?”
“A little lead.”
Robinson clucked with mock sympathy.
“Too bad,” he said, “too bad. Funny you would stay on one asteroid so long when all you found was a little lead. We saw you here 20 days ago when we passed by. When we picked you up again this time we thought you might have found something, so we dropped down.”
Vince said nothing. There was nothing to say.
“Been doing a lot of blasting, too,” observed the pirate. “In one place. That’s funny. Seems to me you would blast a lot of test pits if you were just exploring.”
“We were hopeful of finding something really worthwhile,” explained Vernon. “Had just decided to quit. If we find nothing from this last shot we won’t do any more exploring here. We’ve wasted too much time here as it is.”
“You’re right,” said Robinson and his voice was silky. “You won’t do any more exploring…..here or on any other asteroid.”
“What do you mean?” asked Vernon.
Robinson did not seem to hear the question. He leaned forward over the desk and beat a clenched fist on its polished top.
“What did you find?” he bellowed.
“Lead,” declared Vince.
The pirate picked up a small hammer and tapped a gong which squatted on his desk. The door opened and the man who had escorted the brothers to his captain stepped into the room.
“Make these gentlemen comfortable,” commanded Robinson, “I am going out to have a look at their lead mine.”
With an evil grin the man beckoned to the two, led the way out of the door and down the corridor. Far in the rear of the ship he halted and with a key opened a heavy door.
“In you go,” he said.
The brothers stepped inside and the door creaked to, behind them. A moment later the key grated in the lock.
The room was bare of furniture except for four steel beds bolted to the floor. They were in the prison room of the Star Wanderer.
Vernon sat down heavily on one of the beds.
“What do we do now?” he asked.
“We have to wait and watch our chance,” said Vince. “Maybe a chance will never come, but if it does, we’ll make the most of it. We have to try not to antagonize Robinson, but we must stand upon our dignity. We must not let him believe for a moment we are afraid of him or afraid of what he might do to us. We have told our story and we are going to stick to it. We explored and we found lead. No matter if he takes tons of gold out of the place, it will always be lead to us.”