Konig manifested an extremely rare
combination of being a "people person" as well as having a supremely
disciplined and task-oriented mind.
"We interrogated the pirates while you were in the Asteroid Belt. We
started with Troy Putnam, of course, but he won't say a word. He's got
a strange kind of strength to him-genial in a lot of ways, but utterly
inflexible and unbreakable when he doesn't want to cooperate.
"We questioned other pirate leaders, too, of course, and a lot of the
rank and file. Not all of them cooperated, but enough did that we
learned that they have a base in the Belt. It's no ordinary base. Most
of the pirates don't know its origin but they can describe what it
looks like.
"It's a fairly good-sized chunk of hard stone, mostly iron. It's
hollow, and the base is inside. The access port is concealed. More to
the point, it cannot be detected by radar.
"Some of the toughest of the pirates sneered that we'd never find
it-that it couldn't be seen even if you were right on top of it."
Joe jumped in. "But sir, this technology is not new. There have been
craft since the late twentieth century that were invisible to radar.
There are other ways to find them-gravitational influences, to name
one."
"Of course, Starman Taylor. This asteroid, however, appears to be the
work of some advanced race, other than Earth.
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