by Paul Ernst
asteroid," began the executive with an air of finality, "is notfor--"
"Man, it's _got_ to be!" cried Harley. Then, with a perceptible efforthe composed himself. "There's a reason. The reason is a girl. I'm a poorman, and she's heiress to fabulous--Well, frankly, she's the daughter of3W28W12 himself!" The executive started at mention of that universallyknown number. "I don't want to be known as a fortune hunter; and my bestbet is to find a potentially rich asteroid, cheap, and developit--incidentally getting an exclusive estate for my bride and myself farout in space, away from the smoke and bustle of urban Earth. Z-40, savefor the menace you say now has possession of it, seems to be just what Iwant. If I can clear it, it means the fulfillment of all my dreams. Withthat in view, do you think I'd hesitate to risk my neck?"
"No," said the executive slowly, looking at the younger man's powerfulshoulders and square-set chin and resolute eyes. "I don't think youwould. Well, so be it. I'd greatly prefer not to sell you Z-40. But ifyou want to sign an agreement that we're released of all blame orresponsibility in case of your death, you can buy it."
"I'll sign any agreement you please," snapped Harley. "Here is a downpayment of a hundred and seventy thousand dollars. My name is Harley;sign 2Q14N20; unmarried--though I hope to change that soon, if Ilive--occupation, mining engineer, ten-bar degree; age, thirty-four. Nowdraw me up a deed for Z-40, and see that I'm given a stellar call numberon the switchboard of the Radivision Corporation. I'll drop around therelater and get a receiving unit. Good day." And, adjusting his gravityregulator to lighten his weight to less than a pound, he catapulted outthe archway.
Behind him a prosaic business executive snatched a moment from a busyday to indulge in a sentimental flight of fancy. He had read once ofcurious old-time beings called knights, who had undertaken to fight andslay fire-eating things called dragons for the sake of an almostoutmoded emotion referred to as love. It occurred to him that thisbrusque man of action might be compared to just such a being. He wasundertaking to slay a dragon and win a castle for the daughter of3W28W12--
The romantic thought was abruptly broken up by the numeral. It jarredso, somehow, that modern use of numbers instead of names, when thinkingof sentimental passages of long ago. "The rose is fair; but in all theworld there is no rose as fair as thou, my princess 3W28W12...." No, itwouldn't do.
Cursing himself for a soft-headed fool, he went to deliver a stingingrebuke to somebody for not having blocked Z-40 off the asteroid chartweeks before.
* * * * *
"Harley 2Q14N20," recited the control assistant at Landon Field."Destination, asteroid Z-40. Red Belt, arc 31.3470. Sights corrected,flight period twelve minutes, forty-eight seconds past nine o'clock. Allset, sir?"
Harley nodded. He stepped inside the double shell of his new BlincoDart--that small but excellent quantity-production craft that hadentirely replaced the cumbersome space ships of a decade ago--andscrewed down the man-hole lid. Then, with his hand on the gravity bar,he gazed out the rear panel, ready to throw the lever at the controlassistant's signal.
The move was unthinkingly, mechanically made. Too many times had he gonethrough this process of being aimed by astronomical calculation, andlaunched into the heavens, to be much stirred by the wonder of it. Thejourney to Z-40 in the Dart was no more disquieting than, a century anda half ago, before the United States had fused together into one vastcity, a journey from Chicago to Florida would have been in one of theinefficient gasoline-driven vehicles of that day.
All his thoughts were on his destination, and on a wonder as to whatcould be the nature of the thing that dwelt there.
He had just come from the sanitarium where the man who'd bought Z-40before him was recovering from nervous exhaustion. He'd gone there totry to get first hand information about the creature the executive atthe Celestial Developments Company had talked so vaguely of. And thetale the convalescent had told him of the thing on the asteroid was asfantastic as it was sketchy.
A tremendous, weirdly manlike creature looming in the dim night--a thingthat seemed a part of the planetoid itself, fashioned from the very dirtand rock from which it had risen--a thing immune to the ray-pistol, thatlatest and deadliest of man-made small-arms--a thing that moved like awalking mountain and stared with terrible, stony eyes at its prey! Thatwas what the fellow said he had faintly made out in the darkness beforehis nerves had finally given way.
He had impressed Harley as being a capable kind of a person, too; not atall the sort to distort facts, nor to see imaginary figures in thenight.
There was that matter of the stone splinter, however, which certainlyargued that the wan, prematurely white-haired fellow was a littleunbalanced, and hence not to be believed too implicitly. He'd handed itto Harley, and gravely declared it to be a bit of the monster's flesh.
"Why, it's only a piece of rock!" Harley had exclaimed before he couldcheck himself.
"Did you ever see rock like it before?"
Turning it over in his hands, Harley had been forced to admit that henever had. It was of the texture and roughness of granite, but moreheavily shot with quartz, or tridymite than any other granite he'd everseen. It had a dull opalescent sheen, too. But it was rock, all right.
"It's a piece of the thing's hide," the man had told him. "It flaked offwhen it tried to pry open the man-hole cover of ray Dart. A moment afterthat I got Radivision arc directions from London Field, aimed my sights,and shot for Earth. It was a miracle I escaped."
"But surely your ray-pistol--" Harley had begun, preserving a discreetsilence about the man's delusion concerning the stone splinter.
"I tell you it was useless as a toy! Never before have I seen any formof life that could stand up against a ray-gun. But _this_ thing _did_!"
This was another statement Harley had accepted with a good deal ofreservation. He had felt sure the weapon the man had used had a leak inthe power chamber, or was in need of recharging, or something of thekind. For it had been conclusively proved that all organic matterwithered and burned away under the impact of the Randchron ray.
Nevertheless, discounting heavily the convalescent's wild story, only afool would have clung to a conviction that the menace on Z-40 was atrivial one. There was _something_ on that asteroid, something largerand more deadly than Harley had ever heard of before in all hisplanetary wanderings.
He squared his shoulders. Whatever it was, he was about to face it, managainst animal. He was reasonably certain his ray-gun would downanything on two legs or ten. If it didn't--well, there was nothing elsethat could; and he'd certainly provide a meal for the creature, assumingit ate human flesh....
A mechanic tapped against the rear view panel to recall his wanderingattention. The control assistant held up his hands, fingers outspread,to indicate that there were ten seconds left.
Harley's hand went to his throat, where was hung a locket--a lovely butuseless trinket of the kind once much worn by Earth women--and hisfingers tightened tenderly on it. It had belonged to Beatrice 3W28W12'sgreat-great-grandmother, and Beatrice had given it to him as a token.
"With luck, my dear," he whispered aloud. "With luck...."
There was a slight vibration. He threw the gravity bar over to the firstnotch. Earth dropped, plummet-like, away from him. He pushed the bar tothe limit leg; and, at a rate of hundreds of miles a second, wasrepelled from Earth toward Z-40, and the thing that skulked there.
* * * * *
With a scarcely perceptible jar, he landed on the small sphere that, hehoped, was to be his future home. Before opening his man-hole lid, hewent from panel to panel of the Dart and cautiously reconnoitered. Hehad elected to land beside the little lake that was set like a threehundred-acre gem on the surface of Z-40, and it was more than possiblethat the enemy had its den nearby.
However, a careful survey of the curved landscape in all directionsfailed to reveal a glimpse of anything remotely threatening. He donnedhis oxygen concentrator--in appearance a simple tube of a thing,project
ing about six inches above his forehead, and set in a light metalband that encircled his head. Adjusting his gravity regulator so hewouldn't inadvertently walk clear off into empty space--he calculatedhis weight would be less than a twentieth of an ounce here--he steppedout of the Dart and gazed around at the little world.
Before him was the tiny lake, of an emerald green hue in the flashingsunlight. Around its shores, and covering the adjacent, softly rollingcountryside as far as eye could reach, was a thick growth ofcarmine-tinted vegetation: squat, enormous-leaved bushes; low, sturdytrees, webbed together by innumerable vines. To left and right,miniature mountains reared ragged crests over the abbreviated horizon,making the spot he was in a peaceful, lovely valley.
He sighed. There was