“And the food they gave us is not too different from what we’re used to. And think about this: they put fresh fruit in those food packages. They must have a hydroponic orchard somewhere in this asteroid. There must be a huge portion of this complex that no human has ever seen—and maybe can’t get into! This place is big enough to house an entire city. Maybe there are thousands of them here! George said that he only explored a tiny part of the inhabitable region when he was here. Everything we’ve seen tells me that they’re a lot like us.”
“That might tell us something about the nature of the universe, Joe. I like to wonder about things like that.”
“And look, these spacecraft have wings. They’re not just for travel in the void; they’re made for flight on a planet with an atmosphere.”
Zip came over the joined the conversation. “If they helped us get from the warehouse area to this hangar, why aren’t they helping us get into the spaceships?”
“Maybe there’re only two of them—the two I saw last night,” suggested Mark. “Maybe they’re caretakers or something like that, and not spacemen. Maybe they don’t know much more than we do how to get into these beauties.”
“Well, whatever the reason, I guess we’re on our own, at least for the time being.”
“Looks like some sort of laser here,” said Joe, picking up an object that resembled a flashlight. It had two dials on it with signs of calibration, and a button that was probably intended to activate it. “If it is a laser, and if these dials move the power from low to high, who knows which end is which?”
“Take it into the power plant and aim it at the floor. An instrument that small can’t have too much power and won’t hurt a half mile of solid iron. See what happens,” suggested Mark.
Joe shrugged. “Okay.” He went over to the door through which they had come a half hour before. He was back in a few minutes.
“It’s a laser, all right. This dial here changes the intensity of the beam from low to high, and this one—well, watch. There’s a barrel of powder over here. Talcum or something.” He reached in, took a handful of the dust, and dropped it back into the barrel. A cloud of dust rose up. He activated the laser through it. A bright blue beam appeared. He turned a dial and the beam became a brilliant green.