Jack Williamson - Salvage in Space.pdf

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Salvage in Space
Williamson, Jack
Published: 1933
Type(s): Short Fiction, Science Fiction
Source: http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/29283
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About Williamson:
John Stewart Williamson (April 29, 1908–November 10, 2006), who
wrote as Jack Williamson (and occasionally under the pseudonym Will
Stewart) was a U.S. writer often referred to as the "Dean of Science
Fiction".
Source: Wikipedia
Also available on Feedbooks for Williamson:
• The Pygmy Planet (1932)
Copyright: Please read the legal notice included in this e-book and/or
check the copyright status in your country.
Note: This book is brought to you by Feedbooks.
Strictly for personal use, do not use this file for commercial purposes.
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1933. Extens-
ive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.
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His "planet" was the smallest in the solar system, and the loneliest, Thad
Allen was thinking, as he straightened wearily in the huge, bulging, in-
flated fabric of his Osprey space armor. Walking awkwardly in the mag-
netic boots that held him to the black mass of meteoric iron, he mounted
a projection and stood motionless, staring moodily away through the
vision panels of his bulky helmet into the dark mystery 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 iron his
most recent find, a meteorite the size of his head.
Five perilous weeks he had labored, to collect this rugged lump of
metal—a jagged mass, some ten feet in diameter, composed of hundreds
of fragments, that he had captured and welded together. His luck had
not been good. His findings had been heart-breakingly small; the
spectro-flash analysis had revealed that the content of the precious
metals was disappointingly minute. 1
On the other side of this tiny sphere of hard-won treasure, his Millen
atomic rocket was sputtering, spurts of hot blue flame jetting from its ex-
haust. A simple mechanism, bolted to the first sizable fragment he had
captured, it drove the iron ball through space like a ship.
Through the magnetic soles of his insulated boots, Thad could feel the
vibration of the iron mass, beneath the rocket's regular thrust. The
magazine 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 his Os-
prey suit. How could he outfit himself again, if he returned with no more
metal than this? There were men who averaged a thousand tons of iron a
month. Why couldn't fortune smile on him?
He knew men who had made fabulous strikes, who had captured
whole planetoids of rich metal, and he knew weary, white-haired men
who had braved the perils of vacuum and absolute cold and bullet-swift
meteors for hard years, who still hoped.
1.The meteor or asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is "mined" by
such adventurers as Thad Allen for the platinum, iridium and osmium that all met-
eoric irons contain in small quantities. The meteor swarms are supposed by some as-
tronomers to be fragments of a disrupted planet, which, according to Bode's Law,
should occupy this space.
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But sometime fortune had to smile, and then… .
The picture came to him. A tower of white metal, among the low red
hills near Helion. A slim, graceful tower of argent, rising in a fragrant
garden of flowering Martian shrubs, purple and saffron. And a girl wait-
ing, at the silver door—a trim, slender girl in white, with blue eyes and
hair richly brown.
Thad had seen the white tower many times, on his holiday tramps
through the hills about Helion. He had even dared to ask if it could be
bought, to find that its price was an amount that he might not amass in
many years at his perilous profession. But the girl in white was yet only
a glorious dream… .
The strangeness of interplanetary space, and the somber mystery of it,
pressed upon him like an illimitable and deserted ocean. The sun was a
tiny white disk on his right, hanging between rosy coronal wings; his
native Earth, a bright greenish point suspended in the dark gulf below it;
Mars, nearer, smaller, a little ocher speck above the shrunken sun. Above
him, below him, in all directions was vastness, blackness, emptiness.
Ebon infinity, sprinkled with far, cold stars.
Thad was alone. Utterly alone. No man was visible, in all the supernal
vastness of space. And no work of man—save the few tools of his daring
trade, and the glittering little rocket bolted to the black iron behind him.
It was terrible to think that the nearest human being must be tens of mil-
lions of miles away.
On his first trips, the loneliness had been terrible, unendurable. Now
he was becoming accustomed to it. At least, he no longer feared that he
was going mad. But sometimes… .
Thad shook himself and spoke aloud, his voice ringing hollow in his
huge metal helmet:
"Brace up, old top. In good company, when you're by yourself, as Dad
used to say. Be back in Helion in a week or so, anyhow. Look up Dan
and 'Chuck' and the rest of the crowd again, at Comet's place. What price
a friendly boxing match with Mason, or an evening at the teleview
theater?
"Fresh air instead of this stale synthetic stuff! Real food, in place of
these tasteless concentrates! A hot bath, instead of greasing yourself!
"Too dull out here. Life—" He broke off, set his jaw.
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