Slowly, memory of his original purpose in ordering Captain Foshag to throw a dance came back.
In the ballroom, Beecher would be strutting to win the favor of somebody's wife.
With a bit more success, Fayette would have a dozen young husbands circling her moth-like.
Intrigue, thought Unterzuyder, and subtlety, is ever the adventurer's most potent weapon. The great general indirectly entices the foe away from his own most strongly held point!
Several minutes later, he was fitting his pass-key into the door of the Beechers' stateroom. He closed the door, switched on the radi-lights. The efficiently furnished little rooms were brightly illumined.
The map. Where? Start at the beginning. At first glance, Tertium Organum was not in the bookcase. Then he reached in back of the row of lurid fiction titles and knew he had guessed correctly.
A little too correctly!
He felt one of the few cold chills of his life traveling on his spine. He opened the book and the map fell out. He sat down weakly. His fingers trembled as he smoothed out the heavy rag parchment.
A map of the Solar System. He dizzied. X marks the asteroid. Just as he remembered seeing it that long ago day when his great father showed it to him.
His father, that stern-faced giant in whom the valiant blood of the hibernating Unterzuyders flowed, had been most explicit. One of these years, the map would be given to Ralph. He would guard it with his blood. In the course of time, Ralph would give it to his son.