“What about the greegles?” asked Mark, with a slight edge of defensiveness in his tone. “Did it seem to either of you that Vly would betray a friend to save himself? And did you see any sign of advanced weaponry at Montezuma’s Castle?” “What are you saying, Mark?” asked Joe. “I’m saying that we shouldn’t discount an old tale just because it sounds foolish or superstitious. George knew we were coming. He couldn’t have known unless Montezuma sent him a message, even though we warned him against doing so. If he sent George a message, he wasn’t taken over by the pirates. These aren’t the same ships. These are another part of Zimbardo’s fleet sent out to find George St. George. They must have tracked him down through the message Vly sent--not because they landed on the Castle and threatened him.” Zip looked deeply thoughtful. Joe looked incredulous. “Mark, you can’t be serious!” “It’s not a matter of being serious or not, Joe; it’s a matter of being open-minded.” “George described it himself! He’s been out in the vacuum too long.” “I don’t think George strikes me as an unbalanced man. Unusual, for sure. But not unbalanced. Not unbalanced at all.” Mark looked over his shoulder. George had his arms around two of his men and was talking to them in a low voice. The rest of them were gathered around, paying close attention to what he was saying. Already the atmosphere was one of peace. No one seemed afraid now. Through the window beyond, a portion of the vast arm of the Milky Way spread out in its eternal beauty. The Starmen were silently wondering the same things: How long would it be before they met Lurton Zimbardo? Would he recognize them? Why did he want St. George alive? 6: Battle Lines THE PIRATES’ ASTEROID swung in a smooth, private orbit about a thousand miles beyond the farthest extremity of the Asteroid Belt. Lurton Zimbardo was in his private sanctum, a well-equipped workroom with precision astronomical equipment, sky charts, and an enormous inventory of computer files. As he turned his telescanner toward the Inner Planets, he saw the spread of the Belt before him. Countless celestial bodies moved in an incredibly slow pattern like a stately dance. Reflected sunlight glinted from oblique surfaces into the light-gathering lenses of the telescanner. When the occasional crystalline surface or frozen lake on a passing asteroid caught the radiance just right, an intense but transitory sparkling brilliance was generated, and created a pattern of astonishing beauty on the scanner’s computer screen. Zimbardo entered a few more bits of data into the criteria of his search pattern and then said, “Enter.” Within seconds several asteroids were marked in his files. He brought their profiles up one by one. M253. Shape: oblong. Maximum length: 0.683 miles. Maximum width: 0.307 miles. Composition: 90.568% iron, 6.443% tin, 0.752% ice, 2.237% trace elements; click here for details.