bes against the scratch. The
machine clicked and Meta jumped as the antitoxin needle stabbed down.
She realized for the first time what Jason was doing.

"Thank you," she said.

Poli had a powerful battery lamp and, by unspoken agreement, Jason
carried it. Crippled though he was, the old man was still a Pyrran when
it came to handling a gun. They slowly made their way down the
refuse-laden stairs.

"What a stench," Jason grimaced.

At the foot of the stairs they looked around. There _had_ been books and
records there at one time. They had been systematically chewed, eaten
and destroyed for decades.

"I like the care you take with your old books," Jason said disgustedly.

"They could have been of no importance," Meta said coolly, "or they
would be filed correctly in the library upstairs."

Jason wandered gloomily through the rooms. Nothing remained of any
value. Fragments and scraps of writing and printing. Never enough in one
spot to bother collecting. With the toe of one armored boot, he kicked
angrily at a pile of debris, ready to give up the search. There was a
glint of rusty metal under the dirt.

"Hold this!" He gave the light to Meta and began scratching aside the
rubble. A flat metal box with a dial lock built into it, was revealed.

"Why that's a log box!" Meta said, surprised.

"That's what I thought," Jason said.

[Illustration]

XI.

Resealing the cellar, they carried the box back to Jason's new office.
Only after spraying with decontaminant, did they examine it closely.
Meta picked out engraved letters on the lid.

"S. T. POLLUX VICTORY--that must be the name of the spacer this log came
from. But I don't recognize the class, or whatever it is the initials
_S. T._ stand for."

"Stellar Transport," Jason told her, as he tried the lock mechanism.
"I've heard of them but I've never seen one. They were built during the
last wave of galactic expansion. Really nothing more than gigantic metal
containers, put together in space. After they were loaded with people,
machinery and supplies, they would be towed to whatever planetary system
had been chosen. These same tugs and one-shot rockets would brake the
S. T.'s in for a landing. Then leave them there. The hull was a ready
source of metal and the colonists could start right in building their
new world. And they were _big_. All of them held at least fifty thousand
people ..."

Only after he said it, did he realize the significance of his w