“Come here, Gene,” he ordered as his fingers flew over the keyboard. The man he addressed quickly came to stand by the pirate leader. He was a well-built young man in his late twenties with short curly brown hair, finely chiseled features, and an obvious desire to please. He was well trained in the technology of space control systems. After he had proven his competence in the field, Troy Putnam had made him his chief control officer. Zimbardo continued. “Follow these coordinates at this speed. Don’t alter the course for any reason without my permission.” Gene looked at the planning board where the numbers were posted in a pleasant green light. “That course will take us out of the Belt, Mr. Zimbardo. Is that what you want?” “That’s what I want. It’s time to move away from here. If anything out of the ordinary happens, let me know immediately. Find me by using my personal code on the communicator--no general announcement. Keep watch especially for any spacecraft--especially _any_ spacecraft!” “Yes sir!” Gene took his place and the others returned to their duties. Once he saw that the crew members were well settled, he picked up the intercom and ordered his leaders to assemble in a meeting room in five minutes. From the few dozen pirates left, he had hand-selected five competent leaders to be his 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!”