Free Asteroid Man by R. L. Fanthorpe

next—there were five more—that made fourteen gone. I reached the fourth wreck, still hoping that maybe I wasn't alone. There were five more as dead as mutton and as mangled and smashed as a human body can be and still be recognizable. Then I reached the last one, and by that time I wasn't hoping, and I was right not to hope, because they were all dead, too. So there 1 was, alone on an asteroid, except for five wrecks and twenty-four bodies; an asteroid that pulled us to it as though by some kind of super gravity or electro magnetism. Only it wasn't electro magnetism, because our ships aren't affected by any kind of magnetism. We're not so technologically stupid that we'd be caught in that old trick. I got to hating this asteroid. I was tired, I was shaken, I was shocked. Every nerve in my body was screaming out for action, and there was nothing I could do except walk. But my nerves kept on screaming out for action, so I decided I'd give them some. There was nothing I could hit to hurt. The only thing I could hit was the asteroid, so I fired a shot into it, and I blew a hole, as I expected to do—yet not what I expected to do, because just as our ship was crashing, we let go some three-megaton bombs. Now they by rights should have blown half this place to John o' Groats, but they didn't. They didn't go off."
    "No," she agreed sadly. "They wouldn't."
    "And yet my gun—which works on the same principle —did go off." There was an edge to his voice. "And I couldn't figure out—and I still can't, although I've got a theory that doesn't make sense."
    "It's probably the true one," she said sadly. "Go on—"
    "Well, I'd just blown this hole in the place, only the hole was bigger than it should have been, because what I'd done by a chance in a million was to uncover the top of one of the ventilator shafts for these tunnels that honey-comb this place."
    "I heard the alarm go off a few hours back," she said, "to show that a tunnel was punctured—"
    "I did that, and stood trying to figure it out when I heard footsteps; you know how that gravel stuff on the surface crunches and thuds when anybody walks on it. The auditory equipment on my suit was switched on, and I heard this thudding crunch and felt the ground vibrating under my feet. When I looked up, there coming towards me like something out of a cave man's nightmare was a thing with slime and scales and great purple eyes and claws." He shuddered as if to shut out some horrible memory. "Oh, man, it was like nothing on earth! So I went down the only place I knew I could go. I knew I couldn't outrun it, so I dropped down the shaft I had blown in the crust of this little world. I landed at the bottom, and it was a lot deeper than I thought, and I reckoned I was done for. Looked up and saw this thing scratching for me, like a cat scratching for a mouse. I let him have it with the gun, and he dragged what was left of his claw out of the hole. He went back. But he wasn't as stupid as he looked. There must have been some smattering of a brain inside that scaly head, because next thing I knew, he was shoveling stones down on top of me."
    The girl nodded. "I see; please go on."
    "Well, I managed to crawl out from under the stone bombardment and got into one of these tunnels. I dragged on as long as I could; then my oxygen gave out, and before I could get the cylinder changed I started to black out, and I knew I was done for. I hadn't enough strength left to change the cylinder, so I had to flip my helmet open. It was either quick death or slow death. Then I found I could still breathe. The air was cool and sweet and fresh. It was lovely, like a drink from a mountain stream or the bottom of a well. After that I just dragged on till I came to a door, and I saw that door wasn't meant to be opened by a human hand."
    Now it was the girl who shuddered.
    "You're right," she said. "It isn't. Could you open it?"
    "I'm pretty tough," answered Masterson; "otherwise I wouldn't be here now. I