The Runaway Asteroid | Page 4

lieutenants: Gebbeth, Crass, Lather, Bolcher, and Slant.
In less than that time, Lurton Zimbardo was sitting at a table with the five other men. All but Zimbardo looked haggard. The pirates were demoralized and upset. Victory on Mars and beyond had been within their grasp, but it had all been blundered away. A band of several hundred men who had planned and worked for several years had been reduced to a few dozen. Their dreams of power and prominence, shaped and fueled by their captain Troy Putnam, had been utterly destroyed. Now Putnam was in custody on Mars, along with the rest of the pirates who had been captured by Earth's forces.
"Troy Putnam was a fool," Zimbardo announced in a quiet voice edged with steel. "His plan might have worked-might have worked, if I had had more part in planning-but he was no more than a conceited ignoramus! The Starmen walked in on him and took him completely by surprise! I can just imagine how his face must have looked as he realized his plan was over and he was led off to jail. A fool! We are better off without him!"
"Better off without him?" asked one man in a dull voice. "What do you mean, Lurton? Better off for what?"
"Don't be a fool yourself, Crass!" Zimbardo sneered. "You think we're finished here? We will still get what we want and it won't be very difficult! We don't need Putnam and we don't need a few hundred men, either! You can be thankful you're here instead of locked in a stone room in Eagle City eating square, plain, healthy meals off of a metal tray! The collapse of Putnam's big dream is the best thing that could have happened for us!"
A muscular, unsmiling man on Zimbardo's right swung his gaze to the speaker. "It sounds as if you have a plan, Mr. Zimbardo." The man was in his early thirties and resembled a street fighter. His carefully combed dark hair made him look almost strikingly handsome, but his eyes were black and humorless.
Zimbardo turned toward the man. "Yes, I have a plan. You, Gebbeth, will be my chief assistant and the pilot of the Tartarus, my personal ship. I can depend on you. Space Command's celebration on Mars will be extremely short-lived."
"You were always the strong one, Lurton," said another. "I kind of always figured you for the real leader, and I always wished it was you instead of Putnam."
"Now you got your wish, Bolcher. I've taken charge. I'm moving this asteroid out of its orbit into a place outside the Belt. Here's my plan."
Almost an hour later, the men left the meeting room, smiling, joking, and stepping lightly. Their fatigue was gone, their discouragement forgotten.
Lurton Zimbardo was the last to leave. Now that things were moving in the direction he wanted, he allowed his fatigue to take over. Encouraged by the support of his assistants, he felt he could rest at last. He walked down the halls, past various doors and entered an elevator. The display screen offered only the few floors in use by the pirates but Zimbardo had another destination in mind. Alone in the elevator, he punched in a special code which only he knew. When the proper sequence was displayed, he pressed "Enter." As the elevator began to move, the new leader of the pirates relaxed even further. The others would not know where he was, and he would be undisturbed.
He could barely sense the elevator's motion. He didn't know how far into the asteroid's interior he was moving, but he knew what he would find when he reached his destination. The door opened and Zimbardo stepped out. A quick walk down a short corridor brought him to a double door. Embossed on the doors was a huge, rich, golden symbol-a lush planet with about 80% blue oceans, a few continents, and thick cloud cover. Three small moons were arranged at the upper left, set at the points of an equilateral triangle. Zimbardo had been intrigued by the design when he'd first found it, but now he hastened through the doors without noticing it. He was eager to get into the Chamber beyond.
As Lurton stepped into the room, he gasped. His dozen prior visits still had not taken the surprise out of the room. Each time he stepped into the Chamber he seemed to be setting foot into another world; he knew he was still inside the asteroid but his senses told him otherwise.
Lurton seemed to be standing on a high mountain overlooking a vast plain on some forgotten planet. A pale blue sky was overhead and a light wind was blowing. Down below on the plain he saw a river snaking its way through a green forest; if he listened carefully he could hear the