THE WAILING ASTEROID by Murray Leinster An Avon Original AVON BOOK DIVISION The Hearst Corporation 959 Eighth Avenue New York 19, New York Copyright, 1960, by Murray Leinster. Published by arrangement with the author. Printed in the U.S.A. [Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] * * * * * There was no life on the asteroid, but the miles of rock-hewn corridors through which the earth party wandered left no doubt about the purpose of the asteroid. It was a mighty fortress, stocked with weapons of destruction beyond man's power to understand. And yet there was no life here, nor had there been for untold centuries. What race had built this stronghold? What unimaginable power were they defending against? Why was it abandoned? There was no answer, all was dead. But--not quite all. For in a room above the tomb-like fortress a powerful transmitter beamed its birdlike, fluting sounds toward earth. Near it, on a huge star-map of the universe, with light-years measured by inches, ten tiny red sparks were moving, crawling inexorably toward the center. Moving, at many times the speed of light, with the acquired mass of suns ... moving, on a course that would pass through the solar system. The unknown aliens would not even see our sun explode from the force of their passing, would not even notice the tiny speck called Earth as it died.... * * * * * Chapter 1 The signals from space began a little after midnight, local time, on a Friday. They were first picked up in the South Pacific, just westward of the International Date Line. A satellite-watching station on an island named Kalua was the first to receive them, though nobody heard the first four or five minutes. But it is certain that the very first message was picked up and recorded by the monitor instruments. The satellite-tracking unit on Kalua was practically a duplicate of all its fellows. There was the station itself with a vertical antenna outside pointing at the stars. There were various lateral antennae held two feet above ground by concrete posts. In the instrument room in the building a light burned over a desk, three or four monitor lights glowed dimly to indicate that the self-recording instruments were properly operating, and there was a multiple-channel tape recorder built into the wall. Its twin tape reels turned sedately, winding a brown plastic ribbon from one to the other at a moderate pace.