8: The Starmen Strike!
ALMOST an hour had gone by since George St. George had begun to tell the three Starmen what he knew of the asteroid. Zip, Mark, and Joe had listened intently, plying the asteroid miner with detailed questions as he continued his narrative. At last, no one had anything else to say.
“No more questions?” Zip asked. Both Joe and Mark shook their heads. Their energy level had gone up appreciably since they had sat down with George. They had become spirited, now that they were determined to find a plan of escape.
“All right, then. It seems to me that this may be easier than we thought,” stated Zip.
“You have an idea already?” asked Joe, with a slight turn of his head.
“It seems obvious that this asteroid was not intended to house prisoners. This room we’re in is not a cell block—it’s a dormitory.”
“Right,” said Mark. “Therefore the locking mechanism is not original to the asteroid’s design. Is that where you’re going, Zip?”
Zip smiled. “Keep going,” he nodded.
“Whoever made this asteroid was far in advance of our science and it’ll probably be a long time before we, or anyone else, learn how to alter their design. But the locking mechanism was most likely put in by the pirates, probably on short notice. It can’t be too sophisticated a system. Again, since this is a dormitory and not a cell, the wiring is probably on this side of the door rather than in the hallway. Let’s find where the pirates rewired the door. Whatever they can do, we can undo.”
The Starmen leaped up and began to investigate the door and the walls near it very carefully. Now that they had some idea of what they were looking for, they hoped it would be easier to find an access panel of some kind which their previous general search had missed. Minutes passed with no result. The walls had no apparent seams, and the door was set into the framework so closely that there seemed to be no space between the door and the edge of the wall into which it slid.