keep
you from going out there. There was no proof to uncover and no bonanza
lode for you to find. There never was a bonanza lode."

The twins looked at each other, and then at the Major. "Why didn't you
tell us?" Greg said.

"Would you have listened? Would telling you have kept you from going out
there? There was no point to telling you, I knew you would have to find
out for yourselves, however painfully. But what I'm telling you now is
the truth."

"As far as it goes," Tom Hunter said. "But if this is really the truth,
there's one thing that doesn't fit into the picture."

Slowly Tom pulled the gun case from his pack and set it down on the
Major's desk. "It doesn't explain what Dad was doing with this."

13. Pinpoint in Space

Tom knew now that it was the right thing to do. There was no question,
after the Major's story, of what Dad had been doing out in the Belt at
the time he had been killed. He had been doing a job that was more
important to him than asteroid mining ... but he had found something
more important than his own life, and had no chance to send word of what
he had found back to Major Briarton on Mars. That had been the
unforeseeable part of the trap.

But now, of course, the Major had to know.

The Mars Coordinator looked at the thing on the desk for a long moment
before he reached out to touch it. The bright metal gleamed in the
light, pale gray, lustrous. The Major picked it up, balanced it expertly
in his hand, and a puzzled frown clouded his face. He examined it
minutely.

"What is this thing?" he said.

"Suppose you tell us," Johnny Coombs said from across the room.

"It looks like a gun."

"That's what it is, all right."

"You've fired it?"

"Yes ... but I wouldn't fire it in here, if I were you," Johnny said.
"You were wondering how we wrecked Tawney's orbit-ship so thoroughly.
That's your answer right there." He told about the hole in the bulkhead,
the way the ship's generators had melted like clay under the powerful
blast of the weapon.

The Major could hardly control his excitement. "Where did you get it?"
he asked, turning to Tom.

"From the space pack that you turned over to us. I didn't even look at
it, until we needed a gun in a hurry. I just assumed it was Dad's
revolver."

"And your father found it somewhere in the Belt," the Major said softly.
He looked at the weapon again, shaking his head. "There isn't any such
gun," he said finally. "These things you say