Asteroid of Fear Page 5

a hunch, anidea of a possibility. So he went with his children. He passed through agarden, where a pool had been, and where the blackened remains of plantsstill projected from beds of dried soil set in odd stone-work. He passedinto chambers far too low for comfortable human habitation. And what didhe know of the uses of most of what he saw there? The niches in thestone walls? The slanting, ramplike object of blackened wood, besidewhich three weird corpses lay? The glazed plaque on the wall, whichcould have been a religious emblem, a calendar of some kind, adecoration, or something beyond human imagining? Yeah--leave such stufffor Cousin Ernest, the school teacher--if he ever got here.

  In the cylindrical stone shed nearby, John Endlich had a look at thecar--low slung, three-wheeled, a tiller, no seats. Just a flat platform.All he could figure out about the motor was that steam seemed the linkbetween atomic energy and mechanical motion.

  Beyond the car was what might be a small tractor. And a lot of oddtools. But the thing which interested him most was the pattern of copperribbons, insulated with a heavy glaze, similar to that which he had seentraversing walls and ceiling in the first building he had entered. Here,as before, they connected with queer apparatus which might be stoves andnon-rotary motors, for all he knew. And also with the globes overhead.

  The suggestiveness of all this was plain. And now, at the far end ofthat cylindrical shed, John Endlich found the square, black-enamelledcase, where all of those copper ribbons came together.

  * * * * *

  It was sealed, and apparently self-contained. Nothing could have damagedit very much, in the frigid stillness of millions of years. Its secretswere hidden within it. But they could not be too unfamiliar. And itspresence was logical. A small, compact power unit. Nervously, he turneda little wheel. A faint vibration was transmitted to his gloved hand.And the globe in the ceiling began to glow.

  He shut the thing off again. But how long did it take him to run back tohis sagging creation of clear plastic, while the kids howled gleefullyaround him, and return with the end of a long cable, and pliers? Howlong did it take him to disconnect all of the glazed copper ribbons, andsubstitute the wires of the cable--attaching them to queerterminal-posts? No--not long.

  The power was not as great as that which his own large atomic batterywould have supplied. But it proved sufficient. And the current wasdirect--as it was supposed to be. The electrolysis apparatus bubbledvigorously. Slowly the tentlike roof began to rise, under the beginningsof a tiny gas-pressure.

  "That does it, Pops!" Bubs shrilled.

  "Yeah--maybe so," John Endlich agreed almost optimistically. He feltreally tender toward his kids, just then. They'd really helped him, foronce.

  Yes--almost he was hopeful. Until he glanced at the rapidly decliningsun. An all-night vigil. No. Probably worse. Oh Lord--how long could helast like this? Even if he managed to keep Neely and Company at bay?Night after night.... All that he had accomplished seemed useless. Hejust had so much more that could be wrecked--pushed over with a harshlaugh, as if it really was something funny.

  John Endlich's flesh crawled. And in his thinking, now, he went a littleagainst his own determinations. Probably because, in the present stateof his disgust, he needed a drink--bad.

  "Nuts!" he growled lugubriously. "If I'd only been a little moresociable.... That was where the trouble started. I might have got broke,but I would've made friends. They think I'm snooty."

  Rose's jaw hardened, as if she took his regrets as an accusation thatshe had led him along the straight and narrow path, which--by anexasperating shift in philosophical principle--now seemed the shortestroute to destruction. But he felt very sorry for her, too; and he didn'tbelieve that what he had just said was entirely the truth.

  So he added: "I don't mean it, Honey. I'm just griping."

  She softened. "You've got to eat, Johnny," she said. "You haven't eatenall day. And tonight you've got to sleep. I'll keep watch. Maybe it'llbe all right...."

  Well, anyway it was nice to know that his wife was like that.Yeah--gentle, and fairminded. After they had all eaten supper, he triedhard to keep awake. Fear helped him to do so more than ever. Their tentwas now covered by the rising plastic roof--but beyond the clearsubstance, he could still watch for starlight to be stopped by prowlingforms, out there at the jagged rim of Vesta. It was hell to feel yourskin puckering, and yet to have exhaustion pushing your eyelids downinexorably....

  Somewhere he lost the hold on himself. And he dreamed that Alf Neely andhe were fighting with their fists. And he was being beaten to a pulp.But he was wishing desperately that he could win. Then they could have adrink, and maybe be friends. But he knew hopelessly that things weren'tquite that simple, either.

  * * * * *

  He awoke to blink at blazing sunshine. Then his whole body became clammywith perspiration, as he thought of his lapse from responsibility;glancing over, he saw that Rose was sleeping as soundly as the kids. Hiswide eyes searched for the disaster that he knew he'd find....

  But the wide roof was all the way up, now--intact. It made a great,squarish bubble, the skin of which was specially treated to stop thehard and dangerous part of the ultra-violet rays of the sun, and alsothe lethal portion of the cosmic rays. It even had an inter-skin layerof gum that could seal the punctures that grain-of-sand-sized meteorsmight make. But meteors, though plentiful in the asteroid belt, werecuriously innocuous. They all moved in much the same direction as thelarge asteroids, and at much the same velocity--so their relative speedhad to be low.

  The walls of the small tent around Endlich sagged, where they had bulgedtautly before--showing that there was now a firm and equal pressurebeyond them. The electrolysis apparatus had been left active all night,and the heating units. This was the result.

  John Endlich was at first almost unbelieving when he saw that nothinghad been wrecked during the night. For a moment he was elated. He wokeup his family by shouting: "Look! The bums stayed away! They didn'tcome! Look! We've got five acres of ground, covered by air that we canbreathe!"

  His sense of triumph, however, was soon dampened. Yes--he'd been leftunmolested--for one night. But had that been done only to keep him at afruitless and sleepless watch? Probably. Another delicate form ofhazing. And it meant nothing for the night to come--or for those tofollow. So he was in the same harrowing position as before, pursued onlyby a wild and defenseless drive to get things done. To find some slightillusion of security by working to build a sham of normal, Earthly life.To shut out the cold vacuum, and a little of the bluntness of the voidalstars. To make certain reassuring sounds possible around him.

  "Got to patch up the pieces of the house, first, and bolt 'em together,Rose," he said feverishly. "Kids--maybe you could help by setting outsome of the hydroponic troughs for planting. We gotta break plainground, too, as soon as it's thawed enough. We gotta...." His wordsraced on with his flying thoughts.

  * * * * *

  It was a mad day of toil. The hours were pitifully short. They couldn'tbe stretched to cover more than a fraction of all the work that Endlichwanted to get done. But the low gravity reduced the problem of heavylifting to almost zero, at least. And he did get the house assembled--sothat Rose and the kids and he could sleep inside its sealed doors.Sealed, that is, if Neely or somebody didn't use a blaster or anexplosive cap or bullet--in an orgy of perverted humor.... He still hadno answer for that.

  Rose and the children toiled almost as hard as he did. Rose even managedto find a couple of dozen eggs, that--by being carefully packed towithstand a spaceship's takeoff--had withstood the effects of Neely'sidea of fun. She set up an incubator, and put them inside, to behatched.

  But, of course, sunset came again--with the same pendent threat asbefore. Nerve-twisting. Terrible. And a vigil was all but impossible.John Endlich was out on his feet--far more than just dog-tired....

  "That damned Neely," he groaned, almost too weary even to swallow hisfood, in spite of the luxury of a real, p
ullman-style supper table. "Hedoesn't lose sleep. He can pick his time to come here and raise hob!"

  Rose's glance was strange--almost guilty. "Tonight I think he might haveto stay home--too," she said.

  John Endlich blinked at her.

  "All right," she answered, rather defensively. "So to speak, Johnny, Icalled the cops. Yesterday--with the small radio transmitter. When youand Bubs and Evelyn were up in those old buildings. I reported Neely andhis companions."

  "Reported them?"

  "Sure. To Mr. Mahoney, the boss at the mining camp. I was glad to findout that there is a little law and order around here. Mr. Mahoney wasnice. He said that he wouldn't be surprised if they were cooled in thecan for a few days, and then confined to the camp area. Matter of fact,I radioed him again last night. It's been