Asteroid Man Read Online Free PDF Page A

can—or get away from the radiation…
    Automatically he reached down and took up the geiger counter, knotted the broken strap and slung it over his shoulder. He turned the volume down, so that the chattering was less distracting.
    What else would he need? Guns! Yes, of course, he would want guns… as many as he could comfortably carry. He stooped beside the nest of the bodies. It was Dan Richards, looking strangely peaceful in death, with his mysterious eyes wide open, staring up into the thoughtless mystery of space. Poor old Dan, thought Greg to himself. That blasted asteroid has a lot to answer for. Dan's vivid red hair was stained now a darker red with his own blood. He picked up his dead companion's gun and thrust it into the empty holster on the left-hand side of his belt. He checked his own weapon. They were both in working order. That was something to be thankful for… not that he expected to need them, and yet he was completely at a loss to understand what had happened and how it had happened. Unless… unless… no! That was fantastic—he would have to see what he could find. Time for theories later. There weren't enough facts to build a theory on. There weren't enough facts to build anything on. He moved slowly, like a man in a dream, looking more like a robot. Slowly, jerkily, like an automation, searching in the wreckage. He had guns; he had better have some more oxygen… He unplugged the cylinder from Richard's corpse, unstrapped it and put it into the spare clamp on his own back. He'd better pick up another couple of cylinders if he was going to move any distance from the wreckage. He had strong nerves, but he couldn't stand the sight of those bodies. It wouldn't have mattered so much if they had been other people's bodies, but these were his friends, his pals, his messmates, men he had lived and fought and worked with—for years, some of them. He looked at young Sparks. A kid straight from college. Poor little devil, what chance had he had? Yet he had had as much guts as any of them. Quiet and strong to the end. A real man in spite of his boyish face. Rest in peace, whispered Greg, the lot of you, God have mercy on your souls.
    He staggered away out of the wreckage, moving slowly and ponderously in the suit, not really knowing where he was going or why; just feeling instinctively that he had to get away from that heap of charnel wreckage.
    The asteroid was small as asteroids go, and yet he realized it must be several miles in diameter. He couldn't make out the gravity effect. It seemed to be the same as earth normal, about 1G. That didn't make sense either; too soon for theorizing. There should be practically no gravity here. Mentally he judged the size of the asteroid against the earth. Why, it should take him up to two or three miles at a bound—yet it didn't. Something to do with that force that had brought them crashing onto it, no doubt. This thing wasn't obeying the laws of time and space. It wasn't abiding by the rules; it wasn't playing the game. There was something wrong with the thing, something fiendishly wrong. He took a deep breath, sucking in lungfuls of the life-saving oxygen. It made him feel better. It cleared his head. He took another and another. He squared his shoulders inside the narrow confines of the suit. Better start thanking heaven, or Providence, or God, or whatever it was that had kept him alive… No good being bitter about the others. He couldn't understand why he was alive. They had all been standing so close together. It was just one of those odd freaks of chance. Twisting fuselage had missed him and gotten his pals. That was all there was to it. His name hadn't been written on any of those jagged sections of fuselage. Funny, life was like that. He realized that it was only in the face of death that he had begun to understand life. He had better go and check on the other ships; the last thing he had heard over the intercom was that they were coming down, too. He hadn't