want?" he snapped.

Bigger Bailes smiled, introduced himself. Unterzuyder looked around as if ready to make a break for it. Bailes stood in front of him. He shook his head.

"I'm not going to hurt you, Mr. Unterzuyder."

At mention of the name, Unterzuyder smiled arrogantly.

"Really, does one have no privacy? But perhaps one of your caliber is well acquainted with the advantages of using an alias!"

"There are advantages," Bigger nodded. "Your advantage lies in heading a group of settlers who don't know you're using them to help you find the asteroid where your ancestors have been sleeping for the past eighty-odd years."

Unterzuyder's cane whipped around nervously. "I know nothing about a map!"

Bigger's jowls quivered with mirth. "Seven weeks ago," he pointed out, "your father died. He told you the map was hidden in an old book called Tertium Organum, A Key To The Enigmas Of The World. By somebody named Ouspensky."

Unterzuyder's eyes moved desperately to the street, down which a single gyromobile moved.

"I have an appointment," he said stiffly. "Now if you will permit me to be on my way before they turn the rain-makers on—"

"It won't rain for ten minutes. Better let me finish—if you don't want your precious settlers to know who you really are!

"As soon as your aunt heard about your father's death, she put the old Unterzuyder house up for auction to pay your father's creditors. The furniture went mostly to junk-dealers, the rest to museums. All the books, some ten thousand of them, were bought by a big New York used-book company, Frangy & Sons, Ltd.

"Half of these books, the ones whose titles all began with the letters of the alphabet up through 'M', were kept in their New York branch. The remainder were sent to open a book store in Marsport. By the time you got to Marsport from Earth, the book was reported already sold—to a person unknown. That's all true, isn't it?

"After having failed to find the map, Mr. Unterzuyder, you then sent the story to a newspaper—anonymously."

"I did?" Unterzuyder looked arrogantly at Bailes.

 Prev. P 2/27 next