“Feels like a little less to me,” answered Mark. “We’ll have to step up our exercises if we’re going to maintain muscle tone.” “Nothing fancy, but everything we need,” said one of St. George’s men after a quick look around the rooms. “For a long stay, maybe,” said another. “‘K’intrishian’ means ‘wait,’ if I remember correctly, Mark,” said Joe. “That’s thirty-three points for you,” responded the tall Starman. * * * * * Time passed. From the window in the wall of the asteroid, the three Starmen looked down and saw a buzz of activity. About two dozen ships were docked on the field, and workers were still hovering around tables in the work center. “Here comes another one,” said Joe, as a spacecraft passed into view from the large tunnel that led to the outside. “How many is that since we’ve been here?” asked Mark. “Six?” “Yes, six in less than twenty-four hours,” stated Zip. The Starmen chafed under the burden of their powerlessness. They had already scoured the rooms carefully and found no sign of weakness they could exploit. Their food was delivered through an automated shaft that they could find no way of using as an escape route. They had neither seen nor spoken to anyone since Spelford had brought them to their prison. Once again Zip looked out the window. “This place is amazing! This could not have been anticipated by anyone! It must have been quite a shock when you found this asteroid, George.” “Oh yes, I was awestruck, completely, absolutely electrified! Imagine stepping into a remnant of an astounding civilization like this. When I found it, it was abandoned. It seemed as if no one had been in it for probably thousands of years.” “Tell us everything you know about this place,” ordered Zip, looking intently at the asteroid miner and drawing him over to the nearest table. Zip gently eased the miner into a chair, then turned another chair around and sat in it, folding his arms over its back and facing George. The asteroid miner told the Starmen the story of his discovery of the asteroid and how Troy Putnam had learned about it. They had already heard a brief version of the story from Oritz Konig back at Mars Base. “Of course, I didn’t know this Putnam was a bad egg at the time. He just seemed like a friendly, curious spaceman to me.” “What about the asteroid?” pressed Joe. “What have you figured out about the race that built it?” “As I said, the asteroid was abandoned when I ran across it, but whoever built it couldn’t have been too different from us. Same body type, same size, that’s obvious. Look around you--beds, chairs, everything, just the way we’d make them. Their language was quite different, though. Took me a long time to learn how to use some of their stuff.” “How’d you learn your way around here?”