Asteroid Man

by R. L. Fanthorpe

  Done for, he thought to himself, quite, quite done for— finished. Quite finished. His life seemed to flash before his eyes, like the life of a drowning man. This is it; this is the exodus. He remembered saying goodbye to his friends long ago before the ship crashed. Oddly, in a befuddled way, he tried to say goodbye to himself. Greg, he managed to mutter his own name. Greg is going. I am going. I'm Greg and I'm going… More pictures from his own infancy, and then a last despairing effort flashed across his mind, that the air in the tunnel, if it was air, might be breathable. He knew that he couldn't get that cylinder on in time. But he might, he just might be able to get the face-piece of his helmet up. To lie still was certain death. To open the face-piece was probably even more dangerous. But it did present just the faintest possible hope. Awkward, numbing fingers would never undo the valve latch; they might just click the face-piece up—if it hadn't stuck. He dragged his hand round toward his helmet. It seemed to take a year to get there, a year in which more of his life came and went. I can't do it, he muttered to himself.

  He had his hand over the face catch, fumbling with thick, awkward, metal-gauntleted fingers, a catch that stuck and wouldn't respond.

  He took a long, desperate, struggling breath, and something went "click" in front of his face. As he passed out, he was aware of something cool and fresh pouring around the suit as the hot foul air rushed out. He heaved a great sigh and sucked in lungfuls of the cool, fragrant, life-giving air! It was scented very faintly with a pine-like fragrance, sweet and delicious like the water of a mountain stream.

  He had never tasted air so good! He just lay there flat on his back, sucking it in, lungful after lungful. Not oxygen. Not some bottled apology for breathing mixture, but air; real, purified, conditioned air! It was delicious, sweet beyond description to a man who had been so close to suffocation. He thought of the lines of Rudyard Kipling's poem, "Gunga Din."

  "It was filthy, green, and stank

  But of all the drinks I've drank,

  None was sweeter than that drink from

  Gunga Din."

  He thought to himself that if the air he had now been breathing in had been filthy, green and poisonous, it would still have been better than the suffocation of the suit. He wasn't suffocating. It had seemed to be a one-fifth oxygen, four-fifths nitrogen mixture. It suited his lungs admirably. It was wholesome and clean. It put new life into him. But the desire to sleep became overwhelmingly strong. Something deep down inside himself told him that he mustn't sleep there, not right there where the roof had caved in a short way behind him. He had to find somewhere to hide. If whoever or whatever had built that tunnel came along to repair the hole, they'd find him there. He was asking for trouble by lying there. He had to move. Where could he move to? He knew nothing about this strange asteroid labyrinth. He only knew he had to find somewhere that was not in a direct line of approach to the tunnel. He put his hand into the assortment of tools, weapons and equipment that hung on the belt of the suit. There was an incandescent beam there, a device not unlike an electric torch. It was actually a miniature matter-energy converter, about the only practical use that anybody had found for the equation. It would throw a beautiful beam of pure white light as long as you could keep the back fed with gas. It converted hydrogen or helium into light energy, by a simple, yet devilishly powerful, transformation process. The phial of gas he had put in years ago was by no means exhausted. Normally these torches lasted a lifetime—he switched it on, and the white beam stabbed out, as powerful as ever. He heaved a sigh of relief. Why hadn't he thought of it before as he groped on through the blackness of the tunnel?

  He realized then how badly he needed sleep. His mind was not working at even one tenth efficiency. It was screaming out for rest, every fibre of it. Every muscle, every nerve, every sinew, every drop of blood in every vein and artery wanted to sleep, to sleep, to sleep! It had become a crazy obsession. He had to find somewhere safe first. The two obsessions blended into one. He made his way along the Stygian darkness of the tunnel, step after step. The silver pencil of pure white radiance went before him, like the sword of some medieval knight, cutting into the very entrails of a dragon—the dragon of darkness. There was scarcely any reflection, but it saved him from crashing down a shaft that might lie in wait. It saved him striking his head on any possible protuberance from the roof. He kept moving. How he did so he didn't know. His legs had given up long ago. He was walking on his will power, walking with the automatic swing of a man who has no muscle left; only bone and nerve, and guts…

  He kept on going, on and on and on, and suddenly he saw what he wanted, a glittering object reflecting up above him in the tunnel. Something was reflecting! What was it? It had to be metal of some kind—but what? Rungs of a ladder? It was difficult to tell at that distance. The light was exceptionally tricky. That hyper-powered beam of white brilliance cast no reflection around it. Something flashed back at the whiteness with almost as bright a light as the beam itself.

  What the devil could it be? he asked himself over and over again. Only the length of the torch beam separated him from his objective now. He drew closer, and closer still. Then he recognized the peculiar gleaming object for what it was—a door handle!

  A door handle! Quite unmistakably, yet as he saw it his heart missed a beat, for on closer inspection it was quite obvious that handle had never been intended to be turned by a human hand. It was the wrong shape. It was fixed at the wrong angle, yet there was no doubt of its being a device by which the mechanism of that mysterious portal to which it was attached was to be opened.

  Greg could feel the short hairs standing vertically at the back of his neck, icy trickles of fear running down his spine. His hand rested on the butt of the gun. To open or not to open? he asked himself. He hesitated for two or three seconds, and then, gun at the ready, he seized the strange projection and twisted. There was no response.

  It has to be a handle, he told himself; it couldn't have any other purpose. He wondered if it should be pulled directly toward him. But again, no response. He tried lifting, sliding, turning and pressing. No response. Finally he reholstered his gun, put two hands under the strangely curved bar, placed his feet on the floor and strained with all his might. Very reluctantly the handle began to move, and the door slid open. Beyond it he saw a network of passageways, faintly visible in the practically nonexistent reflection of his brilliant torch. He moved through and pulled the resisting door fast behind him. The realization was borne in upon him that the creature or creatures for whom that handle had been designed were as much stronger than men as men are stronger than a child. His efforts to move it reminded him of his own infant days, when he had marveled at the ease with which his father's strong hand could turn a stiff door key. He remembered as a schoolboy taking jammed fountain-pens and ink bottles with stiff stoppers for the strong hands of the teacher to undo. Suddenly he felt small and frightened.

  Then, like a whisper from the long-dead past, he remembered the name of Masterson. Remembered his remote ancestor, his distant relative. Remembered that Bat would never have backed away, or backed down from anything or anybody, if it had been twenty feet high! He knew that he couldn't either. He cast a quick glance toward the multi-branching passages, with their million hiding holes; there didn't seem to be anything to choose between them. They might all be semi-derelict, and they might all be visited frequently—he had no means of knowing. Apart from that hideous monstrosity he had glimpsed as he slipped into the hole—he had no knowledge at all as to what manner of creature inhabited this labyrinthine asteroid, and he continued to stand gazing down the passages, wondering whether to turn to the right or to the left or go straight ahead. Finally he branched off to the right, walked about twelve yards down the passage and decided whichever way he went, Fate would have to take a pretty big hand in the game. He slumped down as comfortably as it was possible to slump in the suit, and then realized that he didn't need the suit any more. It occurred to him that it would make a pretty good decoy.
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  Accordingly he rose wearily to his feet, unbuckled it, took the gun belt and strapped it around his own waist, tucked the suit a few yards into one of the other passages, just out of sight of the door, retreating to his original sanctuary and went into a light, troubled dose.

  He was awakened by the sound of footsteps.

  He wasn't sure at first that they were footsteps; he was just aware that he was in the dark and something was coming.

  Who or what was coming, he had no idea. The footsteps were not as heavy as he might have anticipated from the size of the door lock. They could have been human, and approximated something human in size.

  He waited and wondered.

  In the distance he could see a light. He wasn't sure what the light meant. It was completely unlike his own—it was a cold, faintly green light…

  CHAPTER VI

  The sleep, light though it had been, had given Greg a new lease on life. He was himself again, alert, active, swift, silent, and, if necessary, deadly. He crouched like a great proud jungle cat, waiting for whatever may come, ready to do battle with anything from a Colossus to a robot. The hand that held the gun was as steady as a rock. Masterson was in a fighting mood!

  His great square jaw was as set as a rugged granite cliff. His eyes grew into slits of danger. Every nerve was alert. He was more like a tightly coiled steel spring than a man. This was the real Masterson tradition. He waited breathlessly. The footsteps grew closer and closer still. Something about their lightness told him intuitively that there was something quite small, quite delicate, almost dainty, but he knew that even the small, the delicate and the dainty can also be dangerous. His grip on the trigger never relaxed. It required only a micro-pressure to release a charge of blazing, explosive death. The green light came closer.

  Masterson, himself no mean scientist—which in 23rd century terms spoke of very high achievement indeed— was puzzled. He was familiar with the principles of hydrogen-light conversion, but he was not familiar with this green light principle.

  It seemed almost phosphorescent. The beam seemed almost to have some peculiar life force of its own. It had an odd power of going round the corners of those unreflected walls. It seemed as though the green light were like a cloud of gaseous, green, luminescent vapor. It was the ideal lumination medium in this strange, nonreflective space.

  He remembered the prehistoric stage effects that had been achieved with "black" lighting. This seemed something akin to it, something far more highly developed. The atmosphere was intense, vital, electric. You could have heard a pin drop a thousand miles away! Everything was deathly still, as quiet as a windless desert; as silent as a becalmed ocean…

  Masterson felt as though he had suddenly found himself transposed into the center of some two-dimensional painting in which there was no movement. Not a breath stirred, nothing except that moving light, and the very faint tapping of footsteps.

  The green luminescence floated round the corner, came toward him—he found himself enveloped in it. He wondered for a second whether it was some kind of paralyzer beam; whether the light was itself some weird kind of life force. He decided it wasn't. It was only light.

  The footsteps drew closer, closer still, and suddenly he stabbed his own light on. It cut through the greenness, as a red-hot knife cuts through butter. The greenness seemed to take it up, to reflect it. There was a startled ciy. Masterson caught his breath in sudden bewilderment…

  The voice was a woman's voice. He took three steps swiftly forward and grabbed. He put his hand over her mouth before she could utter a sound. She looked at him with wild, frightened eyes, eyes that blinked in the powerful gleam of his torch. Her sheer beauty took Masterson's breath away. She was more like a Dresden shepherdess than anything he had ever expected to see clothed in real flesh and blood. She was beautiful, lovely, exquisite. Her jet-black hair cascaded over ivory shoulders over which a simple, toga-like garment was draped, secured at the waist with a gold clasp. The tunic ended above her knees. The perfect contours of her figure were revealed in the sharp glare of his torch. She was the most magnificent woman Masterson had ever seen.

  She was like something out of a dream, like a Venus come suddenly to life. Her eyes, as black as her hair, were set in the most finely moulded face that any sculptor or painter could ever dream of. She was a Madonna, a Mona Lisa, an aristocrat, a princess. Every inch of her bespoke her noble breeding as clearly as though she wore a crown. Masterson relaxed his grip and put a warning finger to his lips for silence. She made no sound. She looked at him thoughtfully. There was no longer any fear in those noble eyes; just a great loneliness, sadness and longing. The spaceman felt his heart going out to her. She seemed somehow like a frightened deer, trapped by the hunter, like a baffled Eve in a strange subterranean Eden.

  "Can you understand my language?" he whispered very softly.

  She nodded. "I understand all languages."

  Her voice, now that she had recovered from her fright, was mellow, exciting. It had, at one end of its register, the fascinating huskiness of a Negro "blues" singer; at the other end it tinkled with the silver magic of a mountain stream. The purity and clarity of her voice seemed to be an expression of the immaculately perfect self which was this strange woman. "How do you understand?" asked Masterson, curiosity overcoming all other instincts. "How? Are you from earth?"

  She took her head; the beautiful hair rippling over the shoulders made him think of a mountain torrent, tumbling over smooth, graceful rocks. "No, I am not from earth, if that is the name of your planet. What are you doing here? Does the Master know you are here?"

  "The Master?" Masterson raised one incredulous eyebrow. "Who the devil is he?"

  "Then he does not know you are here."

  He shook his head. "I think I'd better tell you my story first," he said. "It will be simpler. Do you know the solar system at all? Are you from any of the planets of our star: earth, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus?" At each she shook her head.

  "I do not know the system of which you speak."

  "Jumping Jupiter," said Masterson. "Then you're one of the Out-worlders—"

  "The Out-worlders?" Again she shook her head. "I do not know what you mean."

  "Never mind; I'll try and put my bit in first. I'll tell you a bit about my system—if I do you may be able catch onto it. There are nine planets and that asteroid belt. The first one is called Mercury in our language. It's fifty-seven million miles from my home world and has a diameter of about three thousand miles and a rather thin atmosphere. It's devilishly hot; you need an escape velocity of seven thousand nine hundred miles an hour to get off the place, and it has a year of eighty-eight days, and no moons. The second planet as you travel outward from the sun in Venus, it's twenty-six million miles from my planet, the earth. It has a diameter of seven thousand six hundred miles; the atmosphere is filled with choking dust, and the escape velocity you need is twenty-three thousand four hundred miles an hour. It has a year of two hundred and twenty-four days and, again, no satellite. The third planet is my home; we call it earth. It has a diameter of eight thousand miles, an atmosphere almost exactly like this one, because I'm breathing this without a pressure suit, and has an escape velocity of twenty-five thousand miles an hour; there are three hundred and sixty-five days in its year, and it has one satellite which we call the moon. That satellite is two hundred and thirty-eight thousand miles from our planet. It has no atmosphere. To get a ship from it you would need an escape velocity of five thousand two hundred miles; it completes its year in twenty-seven days; and it itself, of course, has no subsidiary satellites. The fourth planet out from the sun is Mars. It's about forty-eight million miles on an average from our own earth, has a diameter of four thousand two hundred miles, thin atmosphere, which is just breathable after you've been carefully conditioned. It has an escape velocity of twelve thousand miles an hour. There's six hundred and eighty-seven days in its year, and two moons.

  "Next you come to the asteroid belt, which is whe
re I thought we were. There's a collection of two thousand eight hundred and twelve, or rather eight hundred and thirteen, including this thing, asteroids or minor planets. They've all got very eccentric orbits. After you get past them you come to Jupiter, and then you're beginning to get some distance out. It's three hundred and ninety million miles away from us, from my home planet. It has a diameter of eighty-five thousand miles; it's a giant. The atmosphere is poisonous. Methane and various other ammoniates. You need an escape velocity of a hundred and thirty-three thousand miles an hour—it's got a terrific gravity. Its year is twelve earth years, and it has twelve moons. Saturn, which is seven hundred and ninety-three million miles from the earth, has a diameter of seventy-five thousand miles; it's another giant. Again it has the poisonous giant planet atmosphere of methane, marsh gas and the like. You need an escape velocity of seventy-nine thousand miles an hour to get clear of the place, and its year is twenty-nine earth years long. It has a ring system composed of dust particles and small meteorites, and nine satellites proper. Uranus, another giant as you travel out, is one thousand six hundred and eighty-nine million miles from earth, has a diameter of thirty-two thousand miles, the atmosphere is poisonous, and it has an escape velocity of fifty-seven thousand miles an hour. The length of its year is fifty-four earth years, and it has five moons. Neptune, the last of the giants, is two thousand six hundred and ninety-six million miles from earth. It has a diameter of thirty-three thousand miles, its atmosphere is poisonous: as with the other giants, you'd need an escape velocity of fifty-one thousand five hundred miles an hour. Its year is one hundred and sixty-four earth years long, and it has two moons. Pluto, the outermost planet, is three million five hundred and eighty-two thousand miles from earth. Its diameter is three thousand seven hundred miles—it's only a dwarf. Its atmosphere is frozen; its escape velocity, if you're on board a ship, would be about eleven thousand miles an hour. Its year is the equivalent of two hundred and eighty-four earthly years, and it has no moons. That's just giving you a rough guide to our solar system. Can you translate it into any terms which you understand?" She looked very thoughtful for a few moments.