"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? I gulped again. * * * * * "Take it easy," Gramps advised us. "Now, just you both relax. There has to be a way outa this, only we ain't found it yet." The only part of his statement I could agree with was the very last, only I had to admit he had a point there. Just wasn't any use, as Gramps would say, for Clair and me to go running around like a couple of chickens without their heads, the way we'd been doing for the past few hours. "Okay," I said. "Let's look at this thing. Let's see exactly where we stand." "More like it," Gramps nodded his head. Clair said, "Whoever they are, they landed here illegally. And they want our copper...." I brightened, but only for a moment. "No. I think you're off the beam, honey. If it's our claim alone they're after, why just this stinking little asteroid? There are lots bigger and lots richer, yet they chose this one. They want something else. But what?" Clair said we'd come back to that later. "First," she said, "just what can we expect them to do? I mean now, or in the immediate future." I considered. "Well, temporarily at least, they probably won't do a thing. Or will they?" "You're durned right they won't," Gramps said. "They won't bust this dome up right away to get at us, nossir. First they'll see if they can get us without doing that." It made good sense. Whatever their purpose, both domes could be a valuable asset, and maybe they'd play with us, cat and mouse, before they applied the disintegrators to our dome. "Sure," said Gramps. "Just like the old days of the East-West war when it spread out to the planets. An army can't be everyplace at once, 'specially not all over the System. Right?" "Right," Clair said, and I nodded.