OUT OF THE IRON WOMB!
By POUL ANDERSON
Behind a pale Venusian mask lay hidden the
arch-humanist, the anti-tech killer ... one of
those who needlessly had strewn Malone blood
across the heavens from Saturn to the sun.
Now—on distant Trojan asteroids—the
rendezvous for death was plainly marked.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Summer 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The most dangerous is not the outlawed murderer, who only slays men,but the rebellious philosopher: for he destroys worlds.
Darkness and the chill glitter of stars. Bo Jonsson crouched on awhirling speck of stone and waited for the man who was coming to killhim.
There was no horizon. The flying mountain on which he stood wastoo small. At his back rose a cliff of jagged rock, losing its ownblackness in the loom of shadows; its teeth ate raggedly across theMilky Way. Before him, a tumbled igneous wilderness slanted crazilyoff, with one long thin crag sticking into the sky like a grotesquebowsprit.
There was no sound except the thudding of his own heart, the harsh raspof his own breath, locked inside the stinking metal skin of his suit.Otherwise ... no air, no heat, no water or life or work of man, only agranite nakedness spinning through space out beyond Mars.
Stooping, awkward in the clumsy armor, he put the transparent plasticof his helmet to the ground. Its cold bit at him even through theinsulating material. He might be able to hear the footsteps of hismurderer conducted through the ground.
Stillness answered him. He gulped a heavy lungful of tainted airand rose. The other might be miles away yet, or perhaps very close,catfooting too softly to set up vibrations. A man could do that whengravity was feeble enough.
The stars blazed with a cruel wintry brilliance, over him, aroundhim, light-years to fall through emptiness before he reached one. Hehad been alone among them before; he had almost thought them friends.Sometimes, on a long watch, a man found himself talking to Vega orSpica or dear old Beetle Juice, murmuring what was in him as if theremote sun could understand. But they didn't care, he saw that now. Tothem, he did not exist, and they would shine carelessly long after hewas gone into night.
He had never felt so alone as now, when another man was on the asteroidwith him, hunting him down.
Bo Jonsson looked at the wrench in his hand. It was long and massive,it would have been heavy on Earth, but it was hardly enough to unscrewthe stars and reset the machinery of a universe gone awry. He smiledstiffly at the thought. He wanted to laugh too, but checked himself forfear he wouldn't be able to stop.
Let's face it, he told himself. You're scared. You're scaredsweatless. He wondered if he had spoken it aloud.
There was plenty of room on the asteroid. At least two hundred squaremiles, probably more if you allowed for the rough surface. He couldskulk around, hide ... and suffocate when his tanked air gave out. Hehad to be a hunter, too, and track down the other man, before he died.And if he found his enemy, he would probably die anyway.
He looked about him. Nothing. No sound, no movement, nothing but thestreaming of the constellations as the asteroid spun. Nothing had evermoved here, since the beginning of time when moltenness congealed intodeath. Not till men came and hunted each other.
Slowly he forced himself to move. The thrust of his foot sent himup, looping over