Asteroid of Fear Read online

gotta do what we gotta do--"

  The youngsters seemed to join up with his mood. As he tore the pinchbar,which had been conveniently attached to the side of the box, free of itsstaples, and proceeded to break out supplies, their whimsical musingsfell close to what he was thinking.

  "Vesta," Evelyn said. "They told us at school--remember? Vesta was theold Roman goddess of hearth and home. Funny--hunh--Dad?"

  Bubs' fancy was vivid, too. "Look, Pop!" he said again, pointing to aribbon of what might be concrete, cracked and crumpled as by a terrificquake, curving away toward the hills, and the broken mountains beyond."That was a road! Can't you almost hear some kinda cars and trucks goin'by?"

  John Endlich's wife, helping him open the great box, also had things tosay, in spite of the worry showing in her face. She touched thedessicated soil with a gauntleted hand. "Johnny," she remarkedwonderingly. "You can see the splash-marks of the last rain that everfell here--"

  "Yeah," Endlich growled without any further comment. Inside himself, hewas fighting the battle of lost things. The blue sky. The shiftingbeauty of clouds in sunshine. The warm whisper of wind in trees. Therattle of traffic. The babble of water. The buzz of insects. The smellof flowers. The sight of grass waving.... In short, all the evidences oflife.

  "A lot of things that was here once, we'll bring back, won't we, Pop?"Bubs questioned with astonishing maturity.

  "Hope so," John Endlich answered, keeping his doubts hidden behindgruffness. Maybe it was a grim joke that here and now every force inhimself was concentrated on substantial objectives--to the exclusion ofhis defects. The drive in him was to end the maddening silence, and torub out the mood of harsh barrenness, and his own aching homesickness,by struggling to bring back a little beauty of scenery, and a little ofliving motion. It was a civilized urge, a home-building urge, maybe anarrow urge. But how could anybody stand being here very long, unlesssuch things were done? If they ever could be. Maybe, willfully, he hadled himself into a grimmer trap than it had even seemed to be--or thanhe had ever wanted....

  * * * * *

  Inside his space suit, he had begun to sweat furiously. And it was morebecause of the tension of his nerves than because of the vigor withwhich he plied his pinchbar, doing the first task which had to be done.Steel ribbons were snapped, nails were yanked silently from the greatbox, boards were jerked loose.

  In another minute John Endlich and his wife were setting up an airtighttent, which, when the time came, could be inflated from compressed-airbottles. They worked somewhat awkwardly, for their instruction periodhad been brief, and they were green; but the job was speedily finished.The first requirement--shelter--was assured.

  Digging again into the vast and varied contents of the box, John Endlichfound some things he had not expected--a fine rifle, a pistol andammunition. At which moment an ironic imp seemed to sit on his shoulder,and laugh derisively. Umhm-m--the Asteroids Homesteaders Office hadfilled these boxes according to a precise survey of the needs of apeaceful settler on Vesta.

  It was like Bubs, with the inquisitiveness of a seven-year-old, to ask:"What did they think we needed guns for, when they knew there was norabbits to shoot at?"

  "I guess they kind of suspected there'd be guys like Alf Neely, son,"John Endlich answered dryly. "Even if they didn't tell us about it."

  The next task prescribed by the Homesteaders' School was to secure asupply of air and water in quantity. Again, following the instructionsthey had received, the Endlichs uncrated and set up an atom-drivendrill. In an hour it had bored to a depth of five-hundred feet. Haulingup the drill, Endlich lowered an electric heating unit on a cable froman atomic power-cell, and then capped the casing pipe.

  Yes, strangely enough there was still sufficient water beneath thesurface of Vesta. Its parent planet, like the Earth, had had water inits crust, that could be tapped by means of wells. And so suddenly hadVesta been chilled in the cold of space at the time of the parent body'sexplosion, that this water had not had a chance to dissipate itself asvapor into the void, but had been frozen solid. The drying soil above ithad formed a tough shell, which had protected the ice beneath fromdisappearance through sublimation...

  Drill down to it, melt it with heat, and it was water again, ready to bepumped and put to use.

  And water, by electrolysis, was also an easy source of oxygen tobreathe.... The soil, once thawed over a few acres, would also yieldconsiderable nitrogen and carbon dioxide--the makings of many cubicmeters of atmosphere. The A.H.O. survey expeditions, here on Vesta andon other similar asteroids which were crustal chips of the originalplanet, had done their work well, pathfinding a means of survival here.

  When John Endlich pumped the first turbid liquid, which immediatelyfroze again in the surface cold, he might, under other, bettercircumstances, have felt like cheering. His well was a success. But histense mind was racing far ahead to all the endless tasks that were yetto be done, to make any sense at all out of his claim. Besides, theshort day--eighteen hours long instead of twenty-four, and already faradvanced at the time of his tumultuous landing--was drawing to a close.

  "It'll be dark here mighty quick, Johnny," Rose said. She was lookingscared, again.

  * * * * *

  John Endlich considered setting up floodlights, and working on throughthe hours of darkness. But such lights would be a dangerous beacon forprowlers; and when you were inside their area of illumination, it wasdifficult to see into the gloom beyond.

  Still, one did not know if the mask of darkness did not afford a greaterinvitation to those with evil intent. For a long moment, Endlich was inan agony of indecision. Then he said:

  "We'll knock off from work now--get in the tent, eat supper, maybesleep..."

  But he was remembering Neely's promise to return tonight.

  In another minute the small but dazzling sun had disappeared behind thebroken mountains, as Vesta, unspherical and malformed, tumbled ratherthan rotated on its center of gravity. And several hours later, amidheavy cooking odors inside the now inflated plastic bubble that was thetent, Endlich was sprawled on his stomach, unable, through well-foundedworry, even to remove his space suit or to allow his family to do so,though there was breathable air around them. They lay with their helmetface-windows open. Rose and Evelyn breathed evenly in peaceful sleep.

  Bubs, trying to be very much a man, battled slumber and yawns, and kepthis dad company with scraps of conversation. "Let 'em come, Pop," hesaid cheerfully. "Hope they do. We'll shoot 'em all. Won't we, pop? Yougot the rifle and the pistol ready, Pop...."

  Yes, John Endlich had his guns ready beside him, all right--for what itwas worth. He wished wryly that things could be as simple as hishero-worshipping son seemed to think. Thank the Lord that Bubs was sotrusting, for his own peace of mind--the prankish and savage nature ofcertain kinds of men, with liquor in their bellies, being what it was.For John Endlich, having been, on occasion, mildly kindred to such men,was well able to understand that nature. And understanding, now, chilledhis blood.

  Peering from the small plastic windows of the tent, he kept watching forhulking black shapes to silhouette themselves against the stars. And helistened on his helmet phones, for scraps of telltale conversation,exchanged by short-range radio by men in space armor. Once, he thoughthe heard a grunt, or a malicious chuckle. But it may have been justvagrant static.

  Otherwise, from all around, the stillness of the vacuum was absolute. Itwas unnerving. On this airless piece of a planet, an enemy could sneakup on you, almost without stealth.

  Against that maddening silence, however, Bubs presently had a helpfuland unprompted suggestion: "Hey, Pop!" he whispered hoarsely. "Put theside of your helmet against the tent-floor, and listen!"

  John Endlich obeyed his kid. In a second cold sweat began to break outon his body, as intermittent thudding noises reached his ear. In theabsence of an atmosphere, sounds could still be transmitted through thesolid substance of the asteroid.

  It took End
lich a moment to realize that the noises came, not fromnearby, but from far away, on the other side of Vesta. The thudding wasvibrated straight through many miles of solid rock.

  "It's nothing, Bubs," he growled. "Nothing but the blasting in themines."

  Bubs said "Oh," as if disappointed. Not long thereafter he was asleep,leaving his harrassed sire to endure the vigil alone. Endlich dared notdoze off, to rest a little, even for a moment. He could only wait. If anevil visitation came--as he had been all but sure it must--that would bebad, indeed. If it didn't come--well--that still meant a sleeplessnight, and the postponement of the inevitable. He couldn't win.

  Thus the hours slipped away, until the luminous dial of the clock in thetent--it had been synchronized to Vestal time--told him that dawn wasnear. That was when, through