ASTEROID of FEAR
By RAYMOND Z. GALLUN
[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories March1951. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The space ship landed briefly, and John Endlich lifted the hugeAsteroids Homesteaders Office box, which contained everything from aprefabricated house to toothbrushes for his family, down from thehold-port without help or visible effort.
In the tiny gravity of the asteroid, Vesta, doing this was no trouble atall. But beyond this point the situation was—bitter.
His two kids, Bubs, seven, and Evelyn, nine—clad in space-suits thatwere slightly oversize to allow for the growth of young bodies—wereboth bawling. He could hear them through his oxygen-helmet radiophones.
Around him, under the airless sky of space, stretched desolation thathe'd of course known about beforehand—but which now had assumed thatspecial and terrible starkness of reality.
At his elbow, his wife, Rose, her heart-shaped face and grey eyes framedby the wide face-window of her armor, was trying desperately to chokeback tears, and be brave.
"Remember—we've got to make good here, Johnny," she was saying."Remember what the Homesteaders Office people told us—that with modernequipment and the right frame of mind, life can be nice out here. It'sworked on other asteroids. What if we are the first farmers to come toVesta?... Don't listen to those crazy miners! They're just kidding us!Don't listen to them! And don't, for gosh sakes, get sore...."
Rose's words were now like dim echoes of his conscience, and of hisrecent grim determination to master his hot temper, his sensitiveness,his wanderlust, and his penchant for poker and the socialglass—qualities of an otherwise agreeable and industrious nature, that,on Earth, had always been his undoing. Recently, back in Illinois, hehad even spent six months in jail for all but inflicting murder with hisbare fists on a bullying neighbor whom he had caught whipping a horse.Sure—but during those six months his farm, the fifth he'd tried to runin scattered parts of North America, had gone to weeds in spite ofRose's valiant efforts to take care of it alone....
Oh, yes—the lessons of all that past personal history should be strongin his mind. But now will power and Rose's frightened tones of wisdomboth seemed to fade away in his brain, as jeering words from anothersource continued to drive jagged splinters into the weakest portion ofhis soul:
"Hi, you hydroponic pun'kin-head!... How yuh like your new claim?...Nice, ain't it? How about some fresh turnips?... Good luck, yuhgreenhorn.... Hiyuh, papa! Tied to baby's diaper suspenders!... Let thepoor dope alone, guys.... Snooty.... Won't take our likker, hunh? Won'ttake our money.... Wifey's boy! Let's make him sociable....Haw-Haw-haw.... Hydroponic pun'kin-head!..."
It was a medley of coarse voices and laughter, matching the row of adozen coarse faces and grins that lined the view-ports of the ship.These men were asteroid miners, space-hardened and space-twisted. They'dbeen back to Earth for a while, to raise hell and freshen up, and spendthe money in their then-bulging pockets. Coming out again from Earth,across the orbit of Mars to the asteroid belt, they had had the Endlichsas fellow passengers.
John Endlich h