The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Planetoid Of Peril, by Paul Read online

  a thing, projecting about six inches above his He squared his shoulders. Whatever it

  forehead, and set in a light metal band that was, he was about to face it, man against

  encircled his head. Adjusting his gravity

  animal. He was reasonably certain his ray-gun regulator so he wouldn't inadvertently walk would down anything on two legs or ten. If it clear off into empty space—he calculated his didn't—well, there was nothing else that weight would be less than a twentieth of an could; and he'd certainly provide a meal for ounce here—he stepped out of the Dart and

  the creature, assuming it ate human flesh....

  gazed around at the little world.

  A mechanic tapped against the rear

  Before him was the tiny lake, of an

  view panel to recall his wandering attention.

  emerald green hue in the flashing sunlight.

  The control assistant held up his hands, Around its shores, and covering the adjacent, fingers outspread, to indicate that there were softly rolling countryside as far as eye could ten seconds left.

  reach, was a thick growth of carmine-tinted Harley's hand went to his throat, where

  vegetation: squat, enormous-leaved bushes; was hung a locket—a lovely but useless low, sturdy trees, webbed together by trinket of the kind once much worn by Earth innumerable vines. To left and right, miniature women—and his fingers tightened tenderly on mountains reared ragged crests over the

  it. It had belonged to Beatrice 3W28W12's

  abbreviated horizon, making the spot he was great-great-grandmother, and Beatrice had in a peaceful, lovely valley.

  given it to him as a token.

  He sighed. There was everything here

  "With luck, my dear," he whispered a man could wish for—provided he could win aloud. "With luck...."

  it! Loosening his ray-pistol in its holster, he There was a slight vibration. He threw

  started to walk slowly around the lake to

  the gravity bar over to the first notch. Earth choose a site for the house he intended to

  The Planetoid of Peril

  7

  build. On the opposite shore he found a place tapered down in a thick ridge; and this ridge that looked suitable.

  had a deep, horizontal cleft running along it which made it appear as though it were

  A FEW yards back from the water's edge,

  divided into two leg-like members. In the

  curling in a thick crescent like a giant sleeping center the mound swelled to resemble a

  on its side, was a precipitous outcropping of paunchy trunk with sagging shoulders. This rock; curious stuff, rather like granite, that was topped by a huge, nearly round ball that gleamed with dull opalescence in the brilliant looked for all the world like a head. There sunlight. With that as a sort of natural buttress were even rudimentary features. It was

  behind the house, and with the beautiful lake grotesque—one of those freak sculptures of as his front dooryard, he'd have a location that nature, Harley reflected, that made it seem as any man might envy.

  though the Old Girl had a mind and artistic He returned to his Dart, hopped back

  talent of her own.

  across the lake in it, and unloaded his Sco drill He scrambled through the brush till he

  [see endnote 1] . With this he planned to sink reached that part of the long mound that

  a shaft that would serve in the future as the looked like a head. There, as the sun began to cellar for his villa, and in the present as an stream the red lines of its descent over the sky, entrenchment against danger.

  he prepared to ascend for his view of the

  But now the swift night of Z-40 was

  surrounding landscape.

  almost upon him. The low slant of the

  He'd got within twenty feet of the

  descending sun warned him that he had less irregular ball, and had adjusted his gravity than ten minutes of light left, until the next regulator to enable him to leap to its top, when three-hour day should break over the eastern he stopped as abruptly as though he had been rim. He placed the drums and the flexible hose suddenly paralyzed. Over the two deep pits of the Sco drill so that he could begin that resembled nostrils in the grotesque mask operations with it as soon as the dawn broke, of a face he thought he had observed a quiver.

  and started to walk toward the precipitous The illusion had occurred in just the proper outcropping of quartziferous stone place for an eyelid. It was startling, to say the immediately behind the home-site he had least.

  picked. He would climb to the top of this for a

  "I'm getting imaginative," said Harley.

  short look around, and then return to the He spoke aloud as a man tends to do when he Dart—in which double-hulled, metal fortress is alone and uneasy. "I'd better get a tighter he thought he would be safe from anything.

  grip on my nerves, or—good God!"

  HE HAD almost reached the rock outcropping COINCIDENT with the sound of his voice in

  when the peculiarities of its outline struck him the thin, quiet air, the huge stumps that looked anew. He'd already observed that the craggy like legs stirred slightly. A tremor ran through mound rather resembled a sleeping, formless the entire mass of rock. And directly in front giant. The closer he got to it the more the of Harley, less than twenty feet from where he resemblance was heightened and the greater stood, a sort of half-moon-shaped curtain of grew his perplexity.

  rock slid slowly up to reveal an enormous, It sprang straight up from the carmine

  staring eye.

  underbrush, like a separate heap of stone cast Frozen with a terror such as he had

  there by some mighty hand. One end of it

  never felt before in a life filled with

  Astounding Stories

  8

  adventure, scarce breathing, Harley glared at away. The power was exhausted. It was only the monstrous spectacle transpiring before good for about ten seconds of such an him. A hill was coming to life, A granite cliff emergency, full-force discharge, after which it was growing animate. It was impossible, but it must be re-charged again. The ten seconds

  was happening.

  were up. And the gigantic creature against The half-moon curtains of rock that so

  which it had been directed had apparently felt eerily resembled eyelids, blinked heavily. He no injury from a beam that would have

  could hear a faint rasping like the rustle of annihilated ten thousand men.

  sandpaper, as they did so. One of the great leg The now useless ray-pistol slipped

  stumps moved distinctly, independent of the from his limp fingers. Stupefied with horror at other one. Three columnar masses of rock—

  the futility of the deadly Randchron ray

  arms, or tentacles, with a dozen hinging joints against this terrible adversary, he stood rooted in each—slowly moved away from the parent

  to the spot. Then the thing reached for him mass near the base of the head, and extended again; and his muscles were galvanized to

  toward the Earth man.

  action—to instinctive, stupid, reasonless

  Still in his trance, with his heart action.

  pounding in his throat till he thought it would Screaming incoherently, mad with

  burst, Harley watched the further awful horror of the stone claws that had clutched at developments. The eyelids remained opened, him, he turned and ran. In great leaps he

  disclosing two great, dull eyes like poorly bounded away from the accursed lake and

  polished agates, which stared expressionlessly made for the taller trees and thicker vegetation at him. There was a convulsion like a minor at a distance from the shore. It was the worst earthquake, and the mass shortened and thing he could have done. There was a chance heightened its bulk, raising itself to a sitting that he could have reached his Dart, had he posture. The three hinged, irregular arms thought of it, and soared aloft out of reach.


  suddenly extended themselves to the full in a But he thought of nothing. All he wanted to thrust that barely missed him. They were do, in that abysmal fear that can still make a tipped, those arms, with immense claws, like mindless animal out of a civilized man, was to interlocking, rough-hewn stone fingers. They run and hide—to get away from the fearful

  crashed emptily together within a few feet of monster that had risen up to glare at him with Harley. Then, and not till then, did the those stony, pitiless eyes, and to reach for him paralysis of horror loose its grip on the with two-fingered bands like grinding rock human.

  vises.

  He tore his ray-pistol from its holster

  and pointed it at the incredible body. An JUST AS the sun fell below the rim of the angry, blue-green cone of light leaped from asteroid, plunging it into a darkness only the muzzle, and played over the mighty torso.

  faintly relieved by the light of the stars, he Nothing happened. He squeezed the trigger

  crashed into the deeper underbrush. A trailing back to the guard. The blue-green beam creeper tripped him in his mad flight. He fell increased in intensity, and a crackling noise headlong, to lie panting, sobbing for breath, in was audible. Under that awful power the the thick carpet of blood-colored moss.

  monster should have disappeared, dissolved to Behind him, from the direction of the

  a greasy mist. But it didn't.

  lake, he heard a sudden clangor as of rock The light beam from the ray-gun died

  beating against metal. This endured only a

  The Planetoid of Peril

  9

  short time. Then the solid ground beneath him oxygen, and his tongue felt thick as though he shook slightly, and an appalling crash of trees were being strangled. Then he saw that his and underbrush to the rear told him that the oxygen concentrator had been knocked from

  stone colossus was on his trail.

  his head when he fell, and was dangling from He leaped to his feet and continued his

  a limb several feet away. It was almost out of great bounds over the sharply curved surface breathing range. Had it fallen on through the of the asteroid, banging against tree trunks, branches to the ground he would have died, in bruising himself against stones, falling in the his unconsciousness, in the rarified

  darkness to rise again and flee as before in a atmosphere. He reached for it; settled the band mad attempt to distance the crashing sound of around his head again.

  pursuit behind him.

  After once more listening and peering

  Then he felt himself writhing in thin

  around to make sure the rock colossus was not air as his flying course took him over the edge about, he descended the tree that had saved his of a cliff. Down, down he fell, to land in a life, and began to walk in the direction he dense bed of foliage far below. Something hit judged the lake to be. He would get into his his head with terrific force. Pinwheels of light Dart, cruise aloft out of harm's way, and

  flashed before his eyes, to fade into velvety perhaps think up some effective course of

  nothingness....

  action.

  SLOWLY, uncertainly he wavered back to

  HE WAS thinking clearly, now. And, in the

  consciousness. For a moment he was aware of glare of daylight, no longer an unreasoning nothing save that he was lying on some animal fleeing blindly over a dim-lit foreign surface that was jagged and uncomfortable, sphere, he was unable to understand his panic and that it was broad daylight. He opened his of the night. Afraid? Of course he had been eyes, and saw that he was reclining, across a afraid! What man wouldn't have been at sight springy bed formed of the top of a tree. Ahead of that monstrous thing? But that he, Harley of him loomed a cliff about a hundred feet 2Q14N20, should have lost his head

  high.

  completely and gone plunging off into the

  Remembrance suddenly came to him.

  brush like that, seemed unbelievable. To the The unreasoning rush through the underbrush.

  depths of his soul he felt ashamed. And to his The nightmare creature lumbering swiftly own soul he made the promise that he would after him. The fall over the cliff into the top of wipe out, in action, that hour of cowardice.

  this tree.

  As he wound his way through the

  With a cry, he sat up, expecting to see

  squat, carmine forest, he tried to figure out the the stone giant nearby and poised to leap. But nature of the thing that had crashed balefully it was nowhere in sight; nor, listen as intently after him in the black hours.

  as he would, could he hear the sounds of its It had seemed made of rock—a giant,

  crashing path through the brush. Somehow,

  primitive stone statue imbued with life. But it for the moment at least, he had been saved.

  was impossible that it should really be

  Perhaps his disappearance over the cliff edge fashioned of rock. At least it ought to be had thrown it off his track.

  impossible. Rock is inorganic, inanimate. It He became aware of the fact that it

  simply couldn't have the spark of life in it.

  was difficult for him to breathe. His lungs Harley had seen many strange creations, on were heaving in a vain effort to suck in more many strange planets, but never had he seen

  Astounding Stories

  10

  inorganic mineral matter endowed with distance it appeared to be all right; but as he animation. Nor had anyone else.

  drew near a cry rose involuntarily to his lips.

  In a dozen places the double hull of the

  Yet the thing looked as though made little space craft was battered in. The man-of stone. Of some peculiar, quartz-suffused hole lid was torn from its braces and bent granite—proving that the wan, white-haired double. The glass panels, unbreakable in

  man he had talked to in the sanitarium had not themselves, had been shoved clear into the been mad at all, but only too terribly sane. The cabin; their empty sash frames gaped at

  creature's very eyes had had a stony look. Its Harley like blinded eyes. Never again would eyelids had rasped like stone curtains rubbing that Blinco Dart speed through the heavens!

  together. Its awful, two-fingered hands, or He went to the spot where he had left

  claws, had ground together like stones his Sco drill, and a further evidence of the rubbing.

  thing's cold blooded ferocity was revealed.

  Was it akin to the lizards, the cold-

  The intricate mechanism had been wrenched

  blooded life of Earth? Was this rocky exterior into twisted pieces. The drums were battered merely a horny shell like that of a turtle? No.

  in and the flexible hose lengths torn apart in Horn is horn and rock is rock. The two can't shreds. The inventor himself couldn't have put be confused.

  it in working order again.

  The only theory Harley could form

  He was hopelessly trapped. He had no

  was that the great beast was in some strange means of fighting the colossus. He had no way way a link between the animal and the mineral of escaping into space, nor of returning to kingdoms. Its skeletal structure, perhaps, was Earth and trying to raise a loan that would silicate in substance, extending to provide an allow him to come back here with men and

  outside covering that had hardened into actual atomic guns. He hadn't even a way of

  stone, while forming an interior support to intrenching himself in the ground against the flesh that was half organic, half inorganic next attack.

  matter. Some such silicate construction was to be found in the sponge, of Earth. Could this be FOR AN instant his hair prickled in a flash of a gigantic relative of that lowly creature? He the blind panic that had seized him a few

  did not know, and couldn't guess. He wasn't a hours before. With a tremendous effort of will zoologist. All he knew was that the thing

  he fought it down. This—the destruction of appeared to be formed of living, impregnab
le his precious Dart and drill—was the result of stone. He knew, also, that this fabulous one siege of insensate fear. If he succumbed to creature was bent on destroying him.

  another one he might well dash straight into At this point in his reflections, the

  the arms of death. He sank to the ground and glint of water came to his eyes between the rested his chin on his fist, concentrating all his tree trunks ahead of him. He had come back to intellect on the hopeless problem that faced the lake.

  him.

  The surface of Z-40 was many square

  FOR moments he stood behind one of the

  miles in extent. But, if he tried to hide himself, larger trees on the fringe and searched around he knew it was only a question of time before the shore for sight of the rock giant. It was he would be hunted down. The asteroid was

  nowhere in evidence. Rapidly he advanced

  too tiny to give him indefinite concealment.

  from the forest and ran for the Dart. From a Flight, then, was futile.

  The Planetoid of Peril

  11

  But if he didn't try to conceal himself

  the next tree. It was a long jump. But

  in the sparse forest lands, it meant that he desperation lent abnormal power to his

  must stay to face the monster at once—which muscles, and the gravity regulator adjusted to was insanity. What could he do, bare-handed, extremely low pitch, was a great help. He

  against that thirty-foot, three-tentacled, made it safely. Another swinging leap into the silicate mass of incredible life!

  dark, to land sprawling in a second tree; a It was useless to run, and it was third; a fourth. Finally be crouched in a tangle madness to stay and confront the thing. What, of boughs, and listened. He was a quarter of a then, could he do? The sun had slid down the mile from the point where he had turned from sky and the red of another swift dusk was