Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1933. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
Salvage in Space
By Jack Williamson
To Thad Allen, meteor miner, comes the dangerous bonanza ofa derelict rocket-flier manned by death invisible.
His "planet" was the smallest in the solar system, and the loneliest,Thad Allen was thinking, as he straightened wearily in the huge,bulging, inflated fabric of his Osprey space armor. Walking awkwardlyin the magnetic boots that held him to the black mass of meteoriciron, he mounted a projection and stood motionless, staring moodilyaway through the vision panels of his bulky helmet into the darkmystery of the void.
His welding arc dangled at his belt, the electrode still glowing red.He had just finished securing to this slowly-accumulated mass of ironhis most recent find, a meteorite the size of his head.
Five perilous weeks he had labored, to collect this rugged lump ofmetal—a jagged mass, some ten feet in diameter, composed of hundredsof fragments, that he had captured and welded together. His luck hadnot been good. His findings had been heart-breakingly small; thespectro-flash analysis had revealed that the content of the preciousmetals was disappointingly minute.[1]
[1] The meteor or asteroid belt, between the orbits of Marsand Jupiter, is "mined" by such adventurers as Thad Allen for theplatinum, iridium and osmium that all meteoric irons contain in smallquantities. The meteor swarms are supposed by some astronomers to befragments of a disrupted planet, which, according to Bode's Law,should occupy this space.
On the other side of this tiny sphere of hard-won treasure, his Millenatomic rocket was sputtering, spurts of hot blue flame jetting fromits exhaust. A simple mechanism, bolted to the first sizable fragmenthe had captured, it drove the iron ball through space like a ship.
Through the magnetic soles of his insulated boots, Thad could feel thevibration of the iron mass, beneath the rocket's regular thrust. Themagazine of uranite fuel capsules was nearly empty, now, he reflected.He would soon have to turn back toward Mars.
Turn back. But how could he, with so slender a reward for his efforts?Meteor mining is expensive. There was his bill at Millen and Helion,Mars, for uranite and supplies. And the unpaid last instalment on hisOsprey suit. How could he outfit himself again, if he returned with nomore metal than this? There were men who averaged a thousand tons ofiron a month. Why couldn't fortune smile on him?
He knew men who had made fabulous strikes, who had captured wholeplanetoids of rich metal, and he knew weary, white-haired men who hadbraved the perils of vacuum and absolute cold and bullet-swift meteorsfor hard years, who still hoped.
But sometime fortune had to smile, and then....
The picture came to him. A tower of white metal, among the low redhills near Helion. A slim, graceful tower of argent, rising in afragrant garden of flowering Martian shrubs, purple and saffron. And agirl waiting, at the silver door—a trim, slender girl in white, withblue eyes and hair richly brown.
Thad had seen the white tower many times, on his holiday trampsthrough th