by Paul Ernst
theuniverse were battling each other. He felt himself turned over and over,buffeted, torn at, in a mad aerial whirlpool. The whirlpool calmed asthe abruptly created vacuum, caused by the monster's rapid drive upward,passed after it into space. Far overhead there was one fleeting glimpseof a pinpoint of dull opalescence reflecting the rays of the dying sun.Then the pinpoint disappeared in fathomless space. With his gravityregulator adjusted to the point where it almost neutralized his weight,he fell slowly back toward the ground....
* * * * *
Almost immediately after he had landed in the darkness that blanketedthe surface of the planetoid, a big space yacht settled down near him. Asearchlight bored a hole in the blackness, to bathe him in cold light.Down the beam came a band of men from Earth, pushing atomic cannon andgazing apprehensively about them. In the lead was an elderly man withthe six-bar dollar-mark insignia of a business executive on his purpletunic.
He hastened to Harley's side. Harley only dimly heard what he said.Something to the effect that the man had been worried after selling thefatal asteroid. Had got in touch with the Radivision Corporation andlearned that this call number was dead. Had come with men and big gunsto rescue him, if it wasn't too late, and take him back to Earth. Hadcruised for half an hour before locating him. "I've been calling myselfa murderer ever since I let you have Z-40, Mr. 2Q14N20," he concluded."I was sure we'd get here only to find you'd been killed. But I seeyou've managed to escape from the creature so far--though by the look ofyou, it must have been a narrow shave."
At this Harley shook off some of the gathering dizziness that hazed hismind. He threw back his shoulders. "Managed to _escape_? I did betterthan that. I got rid of the thing forever! Yes, I'll return to Earthwith you, but only because I need a new Blinco Dart. I'm coming back toZ-40 at once. Perfect little paradise, now that I've got rid ofthat--animated--rock pile--"
The belated rescuers caught him as he collapsed.
[Footnote 1: This implement, invented by Blansco 9X247A in 2052, is notso much a "drill" as a compressor. It is somewhat superficially definedin the Universal Dictionary, 2061 edition, as "a portable mechanismwhich, by alternating gaseous blasts of extreme heat and cold, breaksdown the atoms of inorganic matter, causing them to collapse together indense compression." Thus a cubic yard of earth can be reduced in size,in a few moments, to a pebble no larger than a pea; which pebble wouldweigh, on Earth, close to a ton.]