The Happy Castaway
BY ROBERT E. McDOWELL
Being space-wrecked and marooned is tough
enough. But to face the horrors of such a
planet as this was too much. Imagine Fawkes'
terrible predicament; plenty of food—and
twenty seven beautiful girls for companions.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1945.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Jonathan Fawkes opened his eyes. He was flat on his back, and a girlwas bending over him. He detected a frightened expression on thegirl's face. His pale blue eyes traveled upward beyond the girl. Thesky was his roof, yet he distinctly remembered going to sleep on hisbunk aboard the space ship.
"You're not dead?"
"I've some doubt about that," he replied dryly. He levered himself tohis elbows. The girl, he saw, had bright yellow hair. Her nose waspert, tip-tilted. She had on a ragged blue frock and sandals.
"Is—is anything broken?" she asked.
"Don't know. Help me up." Between them he managed to struggle to hisfeet. He winced. He said, "My name's Jonathan Fawkes. I'm a space pilotwith Universal. What happened? I feel like I'd been poured out of aconcrete mixer."
She pointed to the wreck of a small space freighter a dozen feet away.Its nose was buried in the turf, folded back like an accordion. Ithad burst open like a ripe watermelon. He was surprised that he hadsurvived at all. He scratched his head. "I was running from Mars toJupiter with a load of seed for the colonists."
"Oh!" said the girl, biting her lips. "Your co-pilot must be in thewreckage."
He shook his head. "No," he reassured her. "I left him on Mars. Hehad an attack of space sickness. I was all by myself; that was thetrouble. I'd stay at the controls as long as I could, then lock her onher course and snatch a couple of hours' sleep. I can remember crawlinginto my bunk. The next thing I knew you were bending over me." Hepaused. "I guess the automatic deflectors slowed me up or I would havebeen a cinder by this time," he said.
The girl didn't reply. She continued to watch him, a faint enigmaticsmile on her lips. Jonathan glanced away in embarrassment. He wishedthat pretty women didn't upset him so. He said nervously, "Where am I?I couldn't have slept all the way to Jupiter."
The girl shrugged her shoulders.
"I don't know."
"You don't know!" He almost forgot his self-consciousness in hissurprise. His pale blue eyes returned to the landscape. A mile acrossthe plain began a range of jagged foothills, which tossed upwardhigher and higher until they merged with the blue saw-edge of a chainof mountains. As he looked a puff of smoke belched from a truncatedcone-shaped peak. A volcano. Otherwise there was no sign of life: justhe and the strange yellow-headed girl alone in the center of that vastrolling prairie.
"I was going to explain," he heard her say. "We think that we are on anasteroid."
"We?" he looked back at her.
"Yes. There are twenty-seven of us. We were on our way to Jupiter, too,only we were going to be wives for the colonists."
"I remember," he exclaimed. "Didn't the Jupiter Food-growersAssociation enlist you girls to go to the colonies?"
She nodded her head. "Only twenty-seven of us came through the crash."
"Everybody thought your space ship hit a meteor," he said.
"We hit this asteroid."
"But that was three years ago."
"Has it been that long? We lost track of time." She didn't take hereyes off him, not for a sec