“It looks flawless!” breathed Joe.
“Looks it, but isn’t. Its flaws are its greatest treasure. Watch this; you haven’t seen anything yet.” Vly picked up a small cutting tool with a laser guide at the end. He turned off the lights and then pointed the laser at the crystal sphere. The beam struck the surface and then scattered throughout the interior of the globe, igniting sparks of spectacular glory. Mark could feel tears come into his eyes from the unearthly beauty the light created. Many dozens of flakes, invisible to the naked eye, were revealed when the laser beam pierced the near-perfect sphere. They exploded in glorious colors—gold, orange, deep red, flaming yellow, silver; even a few brilliant green, deep blue, and violet sparks traced across the inner world.
The Starmen were speechless. They couldn’t take their eyes off the resplendent glory of the sphere under the laser light. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” asked Vly, gently. There was no need to answer.
“Where do the colors come from?” asked Mark. “Laser light has only one wavelength, so it can’t be refracting in there.”
“The crystal’s impurities are almost invisible to the unaided eye,” answered Vly, “but the laser hits the impurities and causes secondary emissions of light of all sorts of color—the more impurities, the more colors. It lights up better than a fire opal.”
As he moved the laser beam slowly around the globe, the interior lights changed—first one, then another “flaw” taking the light and surging into radiance.
All too soon, he switched off the laser and turned the room lights back on. It was almost as if a spell had been broken.
“C’mon,” he said. “I’ll show you just where George is on the chart.” He moved back down the hall, the Starmen following. When they were back in the room they had first entered, Vly reached up into a recess where there were several rolled sheets of paper. “Move aside,” he said quietly, pushing a reluctant koalang over and pulling out a large roll. He unrolled it over a rock polisher and gestured for the Starmen to take the corners. It was a map of a portion of the asteroid belt.
“Here’s where we are,” said Vly, pointing to a spot on the map, “and here’s where George is.” His finger swept across the map to where a tiny dot had been placed. “It’s a mining operation of moderate size called Z25. He runs it there with a fair-sized crew—maybe a dozen men.” There were equations, sketches, and notes scribbled all over the sheet.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Vly,” said Mark, “but I don’t follow you. I’m used to plotting coordinates and thinking in three dimensions.”