Joe remained on the flight deck, keeping careful watch on the instruments. He preserved the _Star Ranger_’s course precisely so that there would be no unnecessary delay in meeting the runaway asteroid. Before him was a scattering of white stars in the blackness. A few large ones stood out. “Mark would love this,” Joe thought, but he didn’t bother his friend. * * * * * The best minds of Starlight Enterprise and Space Command had been working for more than twenty-four hours on the problem of diverting the runaway asteroid, and had not even been able to restore power. Twenty-five ships had docked inside the landing area, and more than 300 men were inside the facility. Some had been detailed to explore and take an inventory of what was found, others had been ordered to provide temporary light and power using portable equipment from the ships, and still others worked under Jesus Madera-Cruz in the desperate attempt to restore power to the asteroid. From the communications center aboard the _Tempest_, Mr. Madera had been in contact with SE’s best engineers and the Starmen. SE’s best hope was in the Starmen since they had been aboard the asteroid and had walked through its power plant. By electronic communication, Mark had been able to provide some of the plans for the power plant to Mr. Madera, but the plant was simply too large and too complex for the plans to be of much use. George St. George had given Madera the proper combination of buttons in the elevators to give him access to the warehouse, but even after the portable units had restored power to the elevators they could not deliver men to the warehouse. The elevators would not descend beyond a certain level since Zip had previously destroyed all the panels when the pirates were pursuing them. Consequently, Madera had had to detail men to descend manually through the shaft to the warehouse floor and repair the controls at the warehouse level for one elevator. That had taken nearly eleven hours. Except for one brief nap, Madera had not slept since the _Tempest_ had landed. Once the elevator had been repaired, he went with about thirty men through the same passages that the Starmen had traversed. Since the temporary lighting and power had been set up only in the facility that the pirates had been using, Madera and his companions walked in darkness as deep as the inside of a cave. Madera hefted a huge but lightweight lamp for use in the power plant. To illumine their way through the warehouse and corridors, others carried personal flashlights. As they made their way through the facility, the lights they carried cleaved the darkness. But behind them, the absolute darkness closed up again.