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Fantasy Digest, v. 1, issue 6, August-September 1939
13
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FANTASY DIGEST 13 light, visible only on the side of the earth away from the sun, bent back by radiated force like a comet's tail. We're on the right tangent. With a snarl the metal monster wheeled, focusing his glassy eyes at the telltale light, then reached over to snap off the ethervisor. I grunted appreciatively. "I think I see him now, sir," I reported elatedly. "Just a mere speck-far ahead, but it's shifting across the starfield. Sooner or later we'll overhaul him. We can come down out of his blind sunside before he knows it." Two sleepless days later we had crawled closer and closer to the dark, piratical hulk, and were approaching the dangerous regions of the asteroid belt. Warning screams of planetoidal fragments sounded in the static instruments. We were close enough to our prey to be able to peer down into his port-holes of transparent glassite. "We'll have to take it slow," I said reluctantly. "We've got to do that, for safety's sake! But if he gets into those treacherous channels of the asteroids, he may get away. I felt sorry for old Merrit in that moment. During those intervening hours he hadn't eaten a scrap. His eyes were red-rimmed and he tottered as he stood by the forward detron gun station. His clutching hands slipped over the release handle and began adjusting the leveler-sights. He was biting his lips until they showed scarlet lines. "Thanks, Remy," he whispered. "We're officers of the Guard, and I won't forget! But you know that it's mouthed about that the Robot Pirate is not a mechanical thing of malign intelligence, but is really a man, camouflaged by a metallic garb. And we're going to find out!" Poignant moments those! Nearer and nearer our two spacecraft were racing toward the river of streaming particles ahead, a collision with any of which meant death. I felt my muscles rippling in waves of premonitory weakness, stared down fascinatedly at the ring of glassite to ports that circled the belly of the black pirate vessel. Wrinkled fingers did not waver on the controls. Outside the prow the recoil mechanisms were jabbing back as though berserk, sending streamers of bullets slicing down across the intervening space. One by one the glassite windows were shattered by the bombardment, transformed into splintery [illegible]. If it were a robot, the loss of air would mean nothing. On the other hand, if the clutching hand at those controls was of flesh and blood, only a few minutes of air, at best, could remain for him. The silver visor panel was flickering again, very feebly. Old Merrit limped forward, dragging with horror, and thoughts of that wayward boy whose escapades had added years to the bent old shoulders burned through my brain. I would have given an arm to have been able to destroy the etherphone in that instant. I think I shouted hoarsely. Ahead, leaping out of nowhere, loomed a jagged meteorite hurtling with majestic silence and violence out of the abyss, straight across our pathway. In that agonizing instant had come the supreme test. If a metal mechanism hovered over those forward controls, a flick of tentacles would avoid certain destruction. I saw the spacecraft strike headlong, crumple along a seam into a wrinkly ball as though it were a handful of tinfoil. In that extended second of time I watched it totter in a cruel spire that had completely spiked through the wreckage. Tottering slowly, it finally shot off in a new direction. Moving automatically, I swung our ship up in a steep curve and circled around. How long old Merrit stood there, I don't know; his grey face was mummified & impassive, & the crimson eyes were fixed on
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FANTASY DIGEST 13 light, visible only on the side of the earth away from the sun, bent back by radiated force like a comet's tail. We're on the right tangent. With a snarl the metal monster wheeled, focusing his glassy eyes at the telltale light, then reached over to snap off the ethervisor. I grunted appreciatively. "I think I see him now, sir," I reported elatedly. "Just a mere speck-far ahead, but it's shifting across the starfield. Sooner or later we'll overhaul him. We can come down out of his blind sunside before he knows it." Two sleepless days later we had crawled closer and closer to the dark, piratical hulk, and were approaching the dangerous regions of the asteroid belt. Warning screams of planetoidal fragments sounded in the static instruments. We were close enough to our prey to be able to peer down into his port-holes of transparent glassite. "We'll have to take it slow," I said reluctantly. "We've got to do that, for safety's sake! But if he gets into those treacherous channels of the asteroids, he may get away. I felt sorry for old Merrit in that moment. During those intervening hours he hadn't eaten a scrap. His eyes were red-rimmed and he tottered as he stood by the forward detron gun station. His clutching hands slipped over the release handle and began adjusting the leveler-sights. He was biting his lips until they showed scarlet lines. "Thanks, Remy," he whispered. "We're officers of the Guard, and I won't forget! But you know that it's mouthed about that the Robot Pirate is not a mechanical thing of malign intelligence, but is really a man, camouflaged by a metallic garb. And we're going to find out!" Poignant moments those! Nearer and nearer our two spacecraft were racing toward the river of streaming particles ahead, a collision with any of which meant death. I felt my muscles rippling in waves of premonitory weakness, stared down fascinatedly at the ring of glassite to ports that circled the belly of the black pirate vessel. Wrinkled fingers did not waver on the controls. Outside the prow the recoil mechanisms were jabbing back as though berserk, sending streamers of bullets slicing down across the intervening space. One by one the glassite windows were shattered by the bombardment, transformed into splintery [illegible]. If it were a robot, the loss of air would mean nothing. On the other hand, if the clutching hand at those controls was of flesh and blood, only a few minutes of air, at best, could remain for him. The silver visor panel was flickering again, very feebly. Old Merrit limped forward, dragging with horror, and thoughts of that wayward boy whose escapades had added years to the bent old shoulders burned through my brain. I would have given an arm to have been able to destroy the etherphone in that instant. I think I shouted hoarsely. Ahead, leaping out of nowhere, loomed a jagged meteorite hurtling with majestic silence and violence out of the abyss, straight across our pathway. In that agonizing instant had come the supreme test. If a metal mechanism hovered over those forward controls, a flick of tentacles would avoid certain destruction. I saw the spacecraft strike headlong, crumple along a seam into a wrinkly ball as though it were a handful of tinfoil. In that extended second of time I watched it totter in a cruel spire that had completely spiked through the wreckage. Tottering slowly, it finally shot off in a new direction. Moving automatically, I swung our ship up in a steep curve and circled around. How long old Merrit stood there, I don't know; his grey face was mummified & impassive, & the crimson eyes were fixed on
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