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Even before we did that, there wasn't much hope.

That inbound boat had to be pirates.

Sander took the news with a look of grim resignation on his face. He didn’t say, “I told you so,” though he certainly could have. In retrospect, it’s pretty obvious that he
knew
what kind of trouble the claim submission would bring us.

My parents tried to send me away while they talked about what to do, but I raised hell until they finally gave in and let me listen. An obvious strategy would have been to hide the alien boat, but it was too big to fit into any of our existing tunnels. We couldn't enlarge one enough in the time we had. Looked like we had two choices: One, hide ourselves and let them take the artifact. Two, stay out and fight.

If we chose the first, we could try to trace the pirates and hope we could convince one of the belt communities to help us go out and take the artifact back. Theoretically, the pirates would be easy to trace because they couldn't change direction without using their thrusters and thrusters generate a megahertz signal that’s easy to track. In reality they could match with a small 'roid and attach to it with a cable. Then they’d use thrusters to build up angular acceleration around the rock. After turning off the thrusters they could release the cable and fly off going any direction. If they coasted for a few weeks before they fired up their thrusters again, nobody’d know it was them.

Besides, most of the belt communities weren't going to go chasing pirates on our behalf.

Option two wasn't very appealing either. We had two mining torches and the construction lasers that made pretty good weapons, but we were going to be working against some people who presumably really
did
know how to fight, had real armaments and only had to make us keep our heads down until they’d applied boost to the artifact.

You know the saying about, "Either go in with your head up and fight like hell (if you think you can win) or put your tail between your legs and run like hell (if you think you'll lose).”

Of course, we decided on a crappy combination of the two.

Dad enlarged the mouth of one of our tunnels. We laid the alien boat into it and Mom covered it with some foam steel. Then she put on a layer of slag that kind of looked like the surface of the Rock and was supposed to act as camouflage. That took her most of the 18 hours.

Dad set us up down in a deep tunnel. He set up hard wired connections to the surface so we could remote control our "weapons" from down in our hidey hole. Sander generally helped out everywhere. I remember thinking that his suggestions for laser placement were downright scary 'cause they suggested he'd been through this kinda stuff before.

We’d generally agreed that the artifact wasn't worth losing a life over so we were going to fight a remote battle even though we wouldn't have very good control. We sent out messages to the belt communities asking for help and got a few "wish we coulds.”  This was even when we promised big money from the artifact for help. No one thought we had any chance in hell of keeping it, so to them it would be a bleak investment.

When zero hour arrived, we all clambered down into our hide, deep inside the 'roid and got ready to man our "battle stations" on the remotes. Sander ran up to his room at the last minute to "get something he'd forgotten".

I was worried about my hero and so I monitored his room sensor to be sure he got there and started back in time. On the monitor he arrived, pulled a flat case out of his locker, opened it and pulled out a vest. When he put it on I recognized it as a "power jacket" by the flat 'puter compartments on the front and the single large disk of a fusion generator on the back. A generator like that was probably capable of producing something like 10-20 megawatts. He hooked up its output leads to the front compartments and then pulled out a ring interfacer. He slipped the ring onto the back of his head and plugged it into the front compartments of the jacket. I'd never seen a skull ring interfacer before, but knew what it was right away. Invented by an evil genius pirate known only as “the Sandman,” a ring interfacer allowed 'puter interface by brain wave monitoring, and required intense concentration to control superfluous wave formation. Everyone dreamed of being able to use them, but supposedly only 20 to 30 people had ever proved to have that kind of control. Even most of them could only do it as kind of a party trick, not as something really effective.

Dad musta heard me suck in my breath 'cause I heard him start swearing softly. I turned and saw him staring at my screen.

Sander pulled out a final piece of equipment and headed for the lock. He grabbed his suit, snapped out the standard HUD (Heads Up Display) and put in the one he'd just brought from his room. He was in that suit and out the lock faster than anyone I've ever seen suit up, before or since.

Sure enough 30 seconds later not a single one of our remotes controlled a thing. I'd seen power jackets before and seen people run equipment with them. I'd even heard of people with enough computer and broadcast power to take over other peoples 'bots. It was supposedly a favorite pirate trick—especially the Sandman's—to turn your own equipment against you, but it's supposed to take time and hypothetically it’s impossible against hardwired equipment. We’d hardwired everything and instructed the 'bots to ignore broadcast signals.

At the time I assumed that he must have sabotaged our hard wires and our "ignore broadcasts," so he could access our system. With what I know now, I doubt it. I think he just used those megawatts to induce currents in our hardwires, currents that overrode our own commands.

Well his equipment was obviously pirate equipment and all our misgivings about his past were no longer uncertain. We were, however, mystified about why he bothered to call in his buddies when he could easily have done the dirty work himself and used our own boat to push his prize wherever he wanted it. Dad was still swearing softly and pounding his fist on his console. Mom had tears welling up and breaking off the ends of her lashes when she blinked. Gen was pale as a ghost and probably would’ve been screaming if she could have got her breath.

For some reason I wasn't scared this time. I think at that point I was only feeling betrayed and depressed.

The same guy I’d been admiring and looking up to, he’d just been confirmed as a malevolent criminal. Sure, I’d been worried about him when we’d discovered the artifact, but at that time there’d only been the
possibility
that even a nice guy like him might kill us all in order to take the alien spaceship for himself.

The pirate shut down thrusters, made a few small correction pushes and tight beamed us. "Cooperate and live. Fight and die! What’s it gonna be?"

Their boat was a skeletal frame of foam steel beams in the shape of a cube. At each of the eight corners were big, gimbal mounted thrusters so that four or five of them could push simultaneously in any chosen direction. This allowed sudden course deflections, useful for fighting, but not for much else. There were life modules scattered throughout the frame as well as laser modules around the periphery and load points for the attachment of prizes and booty. I know now that each module was set up to be completely self-contained and able to work independently. In theory, you could shoot out all but one thruster, one life module, and one laser and that ship could
still
kill you and take your valuables, though it’d be slow moving with only one thruster.

The ugly thing started to drift toward the Rock with all of the big lasers that could train on us—even some from the other side, aiming through gaps in the open frame—pointed our way. It was hard to see the details of its structure because it had a good light and radar absorptive coat on it to make it hard to track. I had no doubt there was a good laser reflective coat right under the absorptive one.

I was wondering how long it would take them to burn the artifact out of Mom's hiding place. I figured only an hour or so with Sander to show them where to cut. There really wasn't much we could do. We wouldn't even be able to try to track them since Sander would surely destroy all our tracking equipment. They’d probably take our boat. It’d keep us from chasing them and provide a little more prize money, a win-win for them.

Then we’d need a rescue, something we’d have to pay through the nose for. In a period of just a few days we’d gone from moderately well-off, to unbelievably wealthy, and now down to dirt poor.

Sander's voice came on the radio. "That you Jonesy? Looks like your piece of crap boat. This is Sandman."

There was a period of silence, then a suspicious tone "Sandman?! How did you get here?!” There was a little pause, then, “And
where
the hell have you been?"

"I turned respectable. I'm a miner.
This
is where I work now."

The guy on the other end chortled, "Sure Sandman. Well I'll tell you what. I'll let you in for a standard cut even if you
did
piss out on us."

Sander's voice sounded like large bubble foam-steel grating against a 'roid. "Maybe you didn't hear me. I turned respectable. My cut of the artifact is 25%, which is, I must point out, a hell of a lot bigger than your ‘standard’ cut." Sarcasm was dripping by the end of the sentence.

"Standard cut’s a lot bigger than 25% of nothing."

"I've got my 'caster.”

"Shit!"

Sander said, “You boys need to shove off ‘fore you get hurt."

I was stunned, there’d been a tremor in the pirate’s voice.

Sander's voice took on a kind of hopeful tone. "Go on home. No hard feelings."

The pirate's lasers opened up… At least some of them did. My screen went blank indicating that the laser I was supposedly controlling had just been burned out.

One second later the battle was over. Not only did all of our lasers discharge, but about two thirds of the pirates’ lasers pivoted and fired on the ones that Sander didn't already have in his control. The thrusters on the pirate gimbaled over and opened up. A few minutes later the pirate was spinning at hundreds of RPM. A few modules tore loose and flew off into space and the ship itself began to drift away.

My brain was spinning at the same speed as the pirate ship. The Sandman?!?!

To me the Sandman was the ultimate tale of genius gone bad. The only 'roid pirate whose name was a household word. He supposedly could control ten 'puters simultaneously by age five. He’d practically invented power-casters himself and, after inventing the skull ring interfacer, became an irresistible menace. Tales of piracy, plunder, fast living and loose morals were abundant.

Maybe you’re thinking that a name like “Sander” should have been a tipoff, but I would never even have considered the Sandman and the quiet little man who'd been living with us in the same frame of reference.

Sander's voice came back on the radio with a tone of sad weariness. "Sorry folks. I don't really need any money from your artifact. I'll hang close for a while to help you out in case any more pirates come to visit, then I'll be moving on."

A minute later his voice came back on, this time by tight beam laser. I realized that he’d used radio for all of his previous communications so that everyone, including other pirates and belters, would know what was going on. He spoke in a near monotone this time. To my parents, he said, "Bob, Evelyn, I've truly enjoyed the hospitality you provided and my time with your family. You’ve confirmed for me that there really
are
decent people out there in this ol’ universe. As I said, I don’t need my share of whatever comes from the artifact. But, I'd appreciate your using my 25% in a good cause or donating it to some charity.

He spoke to my little sister next, “Gen, I hope you’ll always stay as sweet and friendly as you’ve been to me.”

There was a pause, long enough that I felt disappointed that he didn’t have any words for me. This was even though I thought that perhaps being ignored by the Sandman might be a good thing. Then he said hoarsely, “Jimbo…" and the memory of him singling me out of the family through the emotion in his voice still chills me. He paused again. When he continued, he said "The money from that artifact is gonna make you rich and let you do things very few other people can do. You're young and you’re gonna use the power that money brings you unwisely sometimes.” He sighed, “
No one
can stop that from happening. But, I want you to try to take some advice from your old friend Sander. When I was
far
too young to use it wisely, I also got a lot of power and money. I
destroyed
a million things that meant the world to me by abusing the power that was given to me…” his voice cracked again. “I used the power I had for all kinds of terrible things kid. Things I’m… so ashamed of. Things that drove away the people I loved. Things that ruined the lives of countless good people.”

There was a long pause. During that time my mind went around in circles about whether I should reply to Sander, the man I’d looked up to for so long, or freeze out the Sandman, a man I thought was vile. I looked at my parents, thinking they’d give me some indication what to do, but their wide eyes made it look like they didn’t have a clue.

Sander’s voice came back on, “Money and power kid, they’re not all they’re cracked up to be. They won’t make you handsome; they won’t make you tall; they won’t buy you love; they won’t win you respect… If you want to be loved and respected; and believe me, we
all
do…” His voice became even throatier, “You’ve got to
be
lovable, and
act
respectably. I’ve learned to love you Jimbo, like the son I could never have. I’ve learned to admire you and your family for your human decency. I’ve hoped that you’ve loved and respected ol’ Sander… even though no sane human being could respect… the man I
used
to be. But, if you ever did have any esteem for ol’ Sander, I hope you’ll take this bit of advice—
don’t
go down the path I traveled."

At this point, with tears in my eyes I finally tried to reply. I don’t remember what I said. I don’t know if he shut off his receiver or just didn’t want to talk any more, but he didn’t answer me. We beamed and radioed him constantly for a while, but he never answered. He simply loaded a few of his things in his little boat and vectored off a ways. Then, as promised, he waited while we loaded up the alien artifact and followed us a while until he must’ve figured we were safely on our way back to Earth.