Carson knew he wasn't supposed to be deep-spacing without a partner. According to the med-techs you could go loopy drifting out in space with nobody to talk to but your ship's computer. But Big Chucky had crushed his arm clearing a jam from the ore separator and was stuck in an orbital hospital for three weeks. He was no great conversationalist anyway.

 

The quarter was almost up, and Carson's hold was half-empty: 10,580 tons of Grade B crystal, 22,680 tons of C, 110,068 of heavy metals and a scattering of rare Earth minerals. He needed to pack the hold and get back to MS-3 in less than a month or he'd default on his loan. The company could repossess his ship, leaving him with nothing.

 

So Carson fudged some forms, lied to the dispatcher and started fishing uncharted water beyond the Levantine asteroid field. Alone. He sent out scans hourly—but after four days of bupkis was starting to regret his gamble.

 

He watched some nudie holograms and tried to forget his frustration.

 

After a week, he'd killed off the ship's beer supply.

 

On the eighth day, he got a ping.

 

A big asteroid. Large enough to classify as a planetoid. The UV spectrum analysis came back heavier than magnesium, which was promising.

 

He set a course.

 

The planetoid was football-shaped and glossy black. Some 1,500 kilometers in diameter. And heavy. It was already pulling at the ship.

 

Carson turned the ship around, feathered the thrusters and brought her in for landing.

 

He flipped on the ship's exterior cameras, and his heart sank. The rocks around the ship were stacked in neat piles. Metal stuck up from the surface at clean right angles. Unmistakable alien ruins. He was in the middle of a damn archeological site.

 

In all the years mankind had been poking around the stars, no one had ever met a living alien. But remnants of their long-gone civilization could be found. All of it at least 60,000 years old.

 

The problem, for Carson, was this: If you found an extraterrestrial site, you had to report to the company. And they had to report to the government. Then somebody had to investigate. In three years or so, you could apply for mineral extraction rights.

 

Carson didn't have three years. He had less than two weeks.

 

Just to confirm suspicions, he sent out a drone. He drummed his fingers on the computer waiting for the report.

 

The numbers were ridiculous. Heavy metals, rare Earth in abundance. Grade A energy crystal off the freakin' charts. The motherload.

 

If the company found out, he was finito. But with that loan hanging over his head, what choice did he have?

 

Carson started flipping switches, powering up the automated mining bay.

 

At first, of course, he assumed it was a stupid accident. He'd donned a pressure suit and was climbing down into the bay when the airlock damn near slammed shut on his leg. He tumbled slowly to the floor at a quarter of Earth's gravity.

 

“Piece of junk!" Overdue for maintenance, he thought.

 

Carson busied himself starting up the conveyor belt, the crusher, the ore separator. He picked two of his highest capacity remote excavators and sent them after the probe.

 

As they rolled down the ramp, Carson glanced out at the planetoid's surface. It was a jumble of ancient metal bent into meaningless shapes. Hard to tell what this was, once upon a time. A city? A factory? Hell, maybe a mining operation? What those dead alien bastards did with all that primo crystal, he had no clue.

 

As he turned back into the ship, the arm of a crusher-roller swung into view and nearly caved in his skull.

 

Carson stumbled back to the airlock. He pulled off his helmet. There was a nick in the air line. He could hear the hiss.

 

“What the hell?” he gasped.

 

Sitting in the cockpit, Carson watched the payload numbers tick upward. He should have been dancing with glee. He was rapidly amassing a fortune. He couldn't get his mind off that crusher arm, though. Was the ship trying to kill him? Was he imagining things?

 

He grabbed another helmet and headed back to the mining bay. The conveyors were chugging along. Rocks were being smashed to dust. Glittering blue crystal was being funneled into the cargo hold.

 

Carson eyeballed the crusher-roller from a distance. It was silently doing its job.

 

One of the remote excavators bounced up the ramp and headed for the raw stockpile. From the corner of his eye, Carson caught a small blue flash. The excavator stopped, turned away from the stockpile.

 

Its laser drill sparked and shot a hole in the bulkhead next to Carson.

 

Carson shoved an ore cart in its way and ran for the upper decks.

 

Up in the cockpit he combed the ship's security camera footage. He watched, dumbfounded, as a crackling blue ball of energy rose up from the decking and into the remote excavator. Hours earlier, he saw the same blue ball merge into the crusher-roller just before it took a swing at him.

 

Back at the landing footage, he witnessed the energy sphere flicker its way out of some mangled alien structure and pass through the metal hull of his ship.

 

What the hell was it? An alien life form? Some ancient security device? Didn't really matter, really. It was taking over his ship, bit by bit. At least he wasn't crazy.

 

Carson fired up the ship's engines. Ignoring all safety checks, he pegged the thrusters.

 

Ten yards off the surface, the ship jerked to a halt.

 

It was in the engines. Or the nav-computer. What did it want? What was it after?

 

Carson's eyes flicked over to the computer panel: 210,000 tons and counting. Son of a—

 

His finger hovered over the button. The button faded from green to red. The screen above flashed: “PAYLOAD EJECT?” … He curled his fingers into a fist and dropped it like a rock.