“You flatter me,” Rock said.
“There’s more to it than that,” the man assured him. He was still fairly young, although his blond hair was balding on top. He shifted his heavyweight frame, that filled the chair snugly, but with deliberate slowness dug through the inner pockets of his blue jacket and brought out a folded piece of paper.
At that moment Shep Dubois came into the dormitory aboard the space service station that was 25,000 miles above Earth. Centrifugal force, provided by the rotation of the station, gave an artificial gravity so that its occupants could walk about normally.
“What’s up, Rock?” Shep asked.
“I don’t know,” Rock answered. “I just got a message over the wall speaker that this Mr. Kalmus had come to the station to see me.”
Rock introduced the two formally. Then Kalmus gave Rock the piece of folded paper. Rock opened it up. It was a photostatic copy of a torn blank scrap of paper. Rock studied it for a moment, his heart gradually increasing its beat as he unconsciously felt that he was on the verge of a big discovery. The ragged edges of the photographed scraps looked strangely familiar. Then suddenly the answer came to him in a rush that sent his blood throbbing hard through his temples.
“I can’t believe it!” he exclaimed. “It’s the missing scrap from the Sagittarius!”
“You mean that after twenty years it’s turned up?” Shep said in amazement. “Now you may be able to find the Northern Cross, Rock!”
“That’s the reason I’m here,” Kalmus said. “I’ll leave you the photostat to compare with your own scraps, Merrill, and then you’ll know I have the missing piece for certain.”
“If you do have it, Mr. Kalmus, I’ll be indebted to you forever,” Rock said enthusiastically. “Ever since I first wanted to be a spaceman it’s been my ambition to look for my dad’s lost ship. But how did you know where to find me?”