"Kid, don't you read your history?"
"He goes in for lurid novels," Clair said.
"Waal, it's like this. Right at the end of the war it was rumored the Ruskies developed a super-duper weapon. Something really hot, that would make the atom-bomb look like a kid's squirt gun. They didn't have a chance to use it, and when the war was over they hid it out here in the Belt somewheres, thinking maybe they'd get another chance. So them guys think this is the place. Hmm-m, maybe they're right, and if we could find that weapon before them.... Oh boy!"
I shook my head. It was a pretty little story, with one major flaw. "There's no such weapon," I said. "I remember the history part of it, all right. But I also remember what followed. Government sent out hundreds of ships, in ten years they combed the Belt. No secret asteroid. No Ruskie cache. No weapon. No nothing."
"Well, these guys are looking—"
I told him, "On Earth, people still look for Captain Kid's treasure, and for sea serpents, too. They just won't find either. There aren't any. Nope, Gramps—there's just a lot of copper on this asteroid, that's all. If we could convince our visitors of that, they'd get out quick."
"Well, we can't," Clair said. "You heard those two guys. Their boss is as sure of finding that weapon here as he's sure of anything."
I began to smile, and I think I even laughed a little, because they both looked at me queerly. "That's it," I said.
"That's what?" Evidently, my enthusiasm had not carried to Clair.
"The way we'll do it. We'll use Gramps' idea, the war of nerves...."