asterite n.

Encased in armor that was proof against their most destructive weapons, Alura and I went among the Asterites, who were determined to annihilate Martian civilization and conquer Mars for themselves.

She was a native asterite, accustomed to the annihilating threat of contraterrene matter.

I was born on a pebble-size planet, millions of kilometers from the nearest doctor. I’m just a native asterite—even if I have learned spatial engineering and got to be acting director of the Interplanet lab.

I met this asterite engineer, Jim Drake, and listened to his schemes.

He was a third-generation asterite, a gaunt, crease-cheeked, prematurely balding man who remembered too well the brother he had lost in the revolution.

‘Find anything, chief?’ inquired the Venusian when he was finished. Star shrugged. ‘Nothing, really,’ he said, rather ruefully. ‘The pearls have no magnetic charge, are not radioactive—outside of their unexpected weight, there’s nothing odd about them except their rarity. Mineralogy knows nothing of such stones... only the lost Asterites mined them, I guess.’

Three men came by together; their walk and posture, black kilts and silver-filigree breastplates, comparatively brusque manner and loud speech, said they were from Mars. Asterites were scarce and less readily identifiable. Terrans numbered perhaps three out of ten.