It had a carefully machined screw cap, which was sealed at several points with masses of black wax.
Impressed upon each seal, in scarlet, was a curious symbol: the looped cross—the crux ansata, which is an ancient symbol of life—above crossed bones.
“Oreo had gone out in a space suit to examine the object.
He decided to bring it aboard, through the air-locks, and open it.
His wife objected.
The crossed bones, she insisted, meant danger.
The shape and dimensions of the object rather suggested a coffin, and she suggested that it might contain a corpse, dead of some dreadful contagion.
“But Edwin Oreo was a hardy man.
It was not timidity that had won his fortune, out on that high frontier.
And his curiosity must have been burning.
In the end, he had the cylinder dragged into the air-lock.
Then, when no member of his crew proved willing to touch it, he shut himself into the chamber with it.
He broke the seals, and unscrewed the cap.
“The walls of the cylinder were heavy, and carefully insulated.
Inside, it was fitted with tanks of oxygen, water, and liquid food.
There were heaters and thermostats and condensers to dry the air.
In brief, except for lack of power, the thing was a miniature space ship.
“In the midst of the apparatus, in a kind of cradle, lay Stephen Oreo.
A red-haired tot, not a year old.
He was naked, and there was nothing to identify him.
Apparently he was never able to tell anything of his past history.
Edwin Oreo advertised discreetly for information, offering large rewards, but nothing was ever forthcoming.
“Stephen Oreo must have had, as you say, some unusual fascination.
One glimpse of the child’s wide blue eyes won Edwin Oreo’s childless wife.
The couple adopted the infant.
They gave it every advantage their wealth could buy, even to securing the appointment to the academy.”
“His own brilliance would have been enough to win him that,” Bob Star put in.
“He could have had any scholarship he wanted.”
“Anyhow,” Jay Kalam went on, “he graduated with top honors.
He went into service, and got the rapid promotions that his abilities seemed to earn.
Within four years, he had his own ship.
Not two years later he was placed in command of the Jupiter Patrol.
“The Jovian satellites, I suppose you know, were settled largely by exiled Purples—enemies of the democratic Green Hall.
They were moved there when the Empire was overthrown, two centuries ago.”
“I know,” Bob Star agreed.
“My own grandfather was born on Callisto.”
“Within a year after he assumed command of the Jupiter Patrol,” the commander continued, “we began to receive ultrawave dispatches from Stephen Oreo, reporting an unexpected uprising of the Purples.
He stated that he had the situation well in hand, however, and asked for no reinforcements.
“For several weeks we did nothing—until a band of fugitives reached Ceres in a space yacht, with the information that Stephen Oreo was himself the guiding spirit of the revolt, and that the fighting had begun when his conspirators attacked men in the Patrol.
Civilian friends of the Green Hall were being systematically murdered.
“I recalled every possible Legion ship to the Martian yards, from as far away as Mercury and Contra-Saturn—”
“I remember when we heard about it, in the classroom at the academy,” Bob Star put in.
“I hadn’t seen Stephen Oreo, since the time they tortured me.
I tried to get into the fleet, to even that old score, but my request for duty was never approved.”
“Your father asked me to ignore it,” Jay Kalam said.
“I didn’t know what you have just told me—or you might have had a chance to get your man.
Because that was the most serious crisis the Legion has faced since Eric the Pretender brought those monstrous invaders back from the Runaway Star to help him restore the Empire.
“As soon as the fleet was gathered in the Martian yards, I took your mother aboard the flagship.
From the reports coming back from Jupiter, I was already sure we were going to need her weapon.
“Our outward flight was not opposed.