Roger Hunter's claim number beneath it. The other was
white, so close to the first that even at full magnification it was
barely distinguishable.

_But it was there._

Tom's hands were trembling with excitement; he nearly dropped the phone
receiver as he punched the buttons to ring the apartment. Greg's face
appeared on the screen, puffy with sleep. "What's that? Thought you were
in bed...."

"You've got to get down here," Tom said.

Greg blinked, waking up. "What's the matter? Where are you?"

"In the Map Room. Wake Johnny up and get down here. And try to get hold
of the Major."

"You've found something," Greg said, excited now.

"I've found something," Tom said. "I've found where Dad hid his
strike ... and I know how we can find it! We've got the answer, Greg."

14. The Missing Asteroid

It had been a wild twelve hours since Tom Hunter's call to his brother
from the Map Room in Sun Lake City. The Major had arrived first, still
buttoning his shirt and wiping sleep from his eyes. Johnny and Greg came
in on his heels. They had found Tom waiting for them, so excited he
could hardly keep his words straight.

He told them what he had found, and they wondered why they had not
thought of it from the first moment. "We knew there had to be an
answer," Tom said, "some place Dad could have used for a hiding place,
some place nobody would even think to look. Dad must have realized that
he didn't have much time. When he saw his chance, he took it."

And it was pure, lucky chance. Tom showed them the section of the Map he
had examined, with the pinpoint of light representing Roger Hunter's
asteroid claim. Then the Map Control officer ... much more alert when he
saw Major Briarton ... brought an armload of films up and loaded them
into the projector. They stared at the screen, and saw the two pinpoints
of light where one was now.

"What was the date of this?" the Major asked sharply.

"Two days before Dad died," Tom said. "There's quite a distance between
them there ... but watch. One frame for every hour. Watch what happens."

He began running the film, the record taken from the Map itself,
accurate as clockwork. The white dot was moving in toward the red dot at
a forty-degree angle. For an instant it looked as though the two were
colliding ... and then the distance between them began to widen again.
Slowly, hour by hour, the white dot was moving away, off the screen
altogether....

The Major looked up at