Asteroid of Fear Part 3

"And we need to use heat-coils to thaw the ground, Johnny," Rose said.

"And to keep the place warm. And to bring nitrogen gas up out of the soil. The few cylinders of the compressed stuff that we've got won't be enough to make a start. And the carbon dioxide...."

So John Endlich had to try to repair that main battery. He thought, after a while, that he might succeed--in time. But then Rose opened the airlock, and the kids came in to bother him. With all the triumph of a favorite puppy dragging an over-ripe bone into the house, Bubs bore a crooked piece of a black substance, hard as wood and more gruesome than a dried and moldy monkey-pelt.

"A tentacle!" Evelyn shrilled. "We were up to those old buildings! We found the people! What's left of them! And lots of stuff. We saw one of their cars! And there was lots more. Dad--you gotta come and see!..."

Hara.s.sed as he was, John Endlich yielded--because he had a hunch, an idea of a possibility. So he went with his children. He pa.s.sed through a garden, where a pool had been, and where the blackened remains of plants still projected from beds of dried soil set in odd stone-work. He pa.s.sed into chambers far too low for comfortable human habitation. And what did he know of the uses of most of what he saw there? The niches in the stone walls? The slanting, ramplike object of blackened wood, beside which three weird corpses lay? The glazed plaque on the wall, which could have been a religious emblem, a calendar of some kind, a decoration, or something beyond human imagining? Yeah--leave such stuff for Cousin Ernest, the school teacher--if he ever got here.

In the cylindrical stone shed nearby, John Endlich had a look at the car--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 link between atomic energy and mechanical motion.

Beyond the car was what might be a small tractor. And a lot of odd tools. But the thing which interested him most was the pattern of copper ribbons, insulated with a heavy glaze, similar to that which he had seen traversing walls and ceiling in the first building he had entered. Here, as before, they connected with queer apparatus which might be stoves and non-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 of that cylindrical shed, John Endlich found the square, black-enamelled case, where all of those copper ribbons came together.

It was sealed, and apparently self-contained. Nothing could have damaged it very much, in the frigid stillness of millions of years. Its secrets were hidden within it. But they could not be too unfamiliar. And its presence was logical. A small, compact power unit. Nervously, he turned a 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 to his sagging creation of clear plastic, while the kids howled gleefully around him, and return with the end of a long cable, and pliers? How long did it take him to disconnect all of the glazed copper ribbons, and subst.i.tute the wires of the cable--attaching them to queer terminal-posts? No--not long.

The power was not as great as that which his own large atomic battery would have supplied. But it proved sufficient. And the current was direct--as it was supposed to be. The electrolysis apparatus bubbled vigorously. Slowly the tentlike roof began to rise, under the beginnings of a tiny gas-pressure.

"That does it, Pops!" Bubs shrilled.

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

Yes--almost he was hopeful. Until he glanced at the rapidly declining sun. An all-night vigil. No. Probably worse. Oh Lord--how long could he last like this? Even if he managed to keep Neely and Company at bay?

Night after night.... All that he had accomplished seemed useless. He just had so much more that could be wrecked--pushed over with a harsh laugh, as if it really was something funny.

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

"Nuts!" he growled lugubriously. "If I'd only been a little more sociable.... 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 that she had led him along the straight and narrow path, which--by an exasperating s.h.i.+ft in philosophical principle--now seemed the shortest route to destruction. But he felt very sorry for her, too; and he didn't believe 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 eaten all day. And tonight you've got to sleep. I'll keep watch. Maybe it'll be 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 tried hard to keep awake. Fear helped him to do so more than ever. Their tent was now covered by the rising plastic roof--but beyond the clear substance, he could still watch for starlight to be stopped by prowling forms, out there at the jagged rim of Vesta. It was h.e.l.l to feel your skin puckering, and yet to have exhaustion pus.h.i.+ng your eyelids down inexorably....

Somewhere he lost the hold on himself. And he dreamed that Alf Neely and he were fighting with their fists. And he was being beaten to a pulp.

But he was wis.h.i.+ng desperately that he could win. Then they could have a drink, and maybe be friends. But he knew hopelessly that things weren't quite that simple, either.

He awoke to blink at blazing suns.h.i.+ne. Then his whole body became clammy with perspiration, as he thought of his lapse from responsibility; glancing over, he saw that Rose was sleeping as soundly as the kids. His wide 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 the hard and dangerous part of the ultra-violet rays of the sun, and also the lethal portion of the cosmic rays. It even had an inter-skin layer of gum that could seal the punctures that grain-of-sand-sized meteors might make. But meteors, though plentiful in the asteroid belt, were curiously innocuous. They all moved in much the same direction as the large asteroids, and at much the same velocity--so their relative speed had to be low.

The walls of the small tent around Endlich sagged, where they had bulged tautly before--showing that there was now a firm and equal pressure beyond 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 nothing had been wrecked during the night. For a moment he was elated. He woke up his family by shouting: "Look! The b.u.ms stayed away! They didn't come! Look! We've got five acres of ground, covered by air that we can breathe!"

His sense of triumph, however, was soon dampened. Yes--he'd been left unmolested--for one night. But had that been done only to keep him at a fruitless and sleepless watch? Probably. Another delicate form of hazing. And it meant nothing for the night to come--or for those to follow. So he was in the same harrowing position as before, pursued only by a wild and defenseless drive to get things done. To find some slight illusion 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 voidal stars. To make certain rea.s.suring 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 out some of the hydroponic troughs for planting. We gotta break plain ground, too, as soon as it's thawed enough. We gotta...." His words raced on with his flying thoughts.

It was a mad day of toil. The hours were pitifully short. They couldn't be stretched to cover more than a fraction of all the work that Endlich wanted to get done. But the low gravity reduced the problem of heavy lifting to almost zero, at least. And he did get the house a.s.sembled--so that 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 an explosive cap or bullet--in an orgy of perverted humor.... He still had no answer for that.

Rose and the children toiled almost as hard as he did. Rose even managed to find a couple of dozen eggs, that--by being carefully packed to withstand a s.p.a.ces.h.i.+p's takeoff--had withstood the effects of Neely's idea of fun. She set up an incubator, and put them inside, to be hatched.

But, of course, sunset came again--with the same pendent threat as before. Nerve-twisting. Terrible. And a vigil was all but impossible.

John Endlich was out on his feet--far more than just dog-tired....

"That d.a.m.ned Neely," he groaned, almost too weary even to swallow his food, in spite of the luxury of a real, pullman-style supper table. "He doesn'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 have to stay home--too," she said.

John Endlich blinked at her.

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

"Reported them?"

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

John Endlich's vast sigh of relief was slightly tainted by the idea that to call on a policing power for protection was a little bit on the timid side.

"Oh," he grunted. "Thanks. I never thought of doing that."

"Johnny."

"Yeah?"

"I kind of got the notion, though--from between the lines of what Mr.

Mahoney said--that there was heavy trouble brewing at the camp. About conditions, and home-leaves, and increased profit-sharing. Maybe there's danger of riots and what-not, Johnny. Anyhow, Mr. Mahoney said that we should 'keep on exercising all reasonable caution.'"

"Hmm-m--Mr. Mahoney is _very_ nice, ain't he?" Endlich growled.

"You stop that, Johnny," Rose ordered.