Out here in the broad borderland between Sol system and interstellar space, Julian Forward had found a stony mass the size of a middling asteroid. From a distance it seemed untouched by technology: a lopsided spheroid, rough-surfaced and dirty white. Closer in, flecks of metal and bright paint showed like randomly placed jewels. Air locks, windows, projecting antennae, and things less identifiable. A lighted disk with something projecting from the center: a long metal arm with half a dozen ball joints in it and a cup on the end. I studied that one, trying to guess what it might be…and gave up.

I brought Hobo Kelly to rest a fair distance away. To Ausfaller I said, “You’ll stay aboard?”

“Of course. I will do nothing to disabuse Dr. Forward of the notion that the ship is empty.”

We crossed to Forward Station on an open taxi: two seats, a fuel tank, and a rocket motor. Once I turned to ask Carlos something and asked instead, “Carlos? Are you all right?”

His face was white and strained. “I’ll make it.”

“Did you try closing your eyes?”

“It was worse. Futz, I made it this far on hypnosis. Bey, it’s so empty.”

“Hang on. We’re almost there.”

The blond Belter was outside one of the air locks in a skintight suit and a bubble helmet. He used a flashlight to flag us down. We moored our taxi to a spur of rock—the gravity was almost nil—and went inside.

“I’m Harry Moskowitz,” the Belter said. “They call me Angel. Dr. Forward is waiting in the laboratory.”

The interior of the asteroid was a network of straight cylindrical corridors, laser-drilled, pressurized, and lined with cool blue light strips. We weighed a few pounds near the surface, less in the deep interior. Angel moved in a fashion new to me: a flat jump from the floor that took him far down the corridor to brush the ceiling, push back to the floor, and jump again. Three jumps and he’d wait, not hiding his amusement at our attempts to catch up.

“Doctor Forward asked me to give you a tour,” he told us.

I said, “You seem to have a lot more corridor than you need. Why didn’t you cluster all the rooms together?”

“This rock was a mine once upon a time. The miners drilled these passages. They left big hollows wherever they found air-bearing rock or ice pockets. All we had to do was wall them off.”