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Asteroid of Fear

Somewhere he lost the hold on himself. And he dreamed that Alf Neely and he were fighting with their fists. And he was being beaten to a pulp. But he was wishing desperately that he could win. Then they could have a drink, and maybe be friends. But he knew hopelessly that things weren't quite that simple, either. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> He awoke to blink at blazing sunshine. Then his whole body became clammy with perspiration, as he thought of his lapse from responsibility; glancing over, he saw that Rose was sleeping as soundly as the kids. His wide eyes searched for the disaster that he knew he'd find.... But the wide roof was all the way up, now—intact. It made a great, squarish bubble, the skin of which was specially treated to stop the hard and dangerous part of the ultra-violet rays of the sun, and also the lethal portion of the cosmic rays. It even had an inter-skin layer of gum that could seal the punctures that grain-of-sand-sized meteors might make. But meteors, though plentiful in the asteroid belt, were curiously innocuous. They all moved in much the same direction as the large asteroids, and at much the same velocity—so their relative speed had to be low. The walls of the small tent around Endlich sagged, where they had bulged tautly before—showing that there was now a firm and equal pressure beyond them. The electrolysis apparatus had been left active all night, and the heating units. This was the result. John Endlich was at first almost unbelieving when he saw that nothing had been wrecked during the night. For a moment he was elated. He woke up his family by shouting: "Look! The bums stayed away! They didn't come! Look! We've got five acres of ground, covered by air that we can breathe!" His sense of triumph, however, was soon dampened. Yes—he'd been left unmolested—for one night. But had that been done only to keep him at a fruitless and sleepless watch? Probably. Another delicate form of hazing. And it meant nothing for the night to come—or for those to follow. So he was in the same harrowing position as before, pursued only by a wild and defenseless drive to get things done. To find some slight illusion of security by working to build a sham of normal, Earthly life. To shut out the cold vacuum, and a little of the bluntness of the voidal stars. To make certain reassuring sounds possible around him. "Got to patch up the pieces of the house, first, and bolt 'em together, Rose," he said feverishly. "Kids—maybe you could help by setting out some of the hydroponic troughs for planting. We gotta break plain ground, too, as soon as it's thawed enough. We gotta...." His words raced on with his flying thoughts. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> It was a mad day of toil. The hours were pitifully short. They couldn't be stretched to cover more than a fraction of all the work that Endlich wanted to get done. But the low gravity reduced the problem of heavy lifting to almost zero, at least. And he did get the house assembled—so that Rose and the kids and he could sleep inside its sealed doors. Sealed, that is, if Neely or somebody didn't use a blaster or an explosive cap or bullet—in an orgy of perverted humor.... He still had no answer for that. Rose and the children toiled almost as hard as he did. Rose even managed to find a couple of dozen eggs, that—by being carefully packed to withstand a spaceship's takeoff—had withstood the effects of Neely's idea of fun. She set up an incubator, and put them inside, to be hatched. But, of course, sunset came again—with the same pendent threat as before. Nerve-twisting. Terrible. And a vigil was all but impossible. John Endlich was out on his feet—far more than just dog-tired.... "That damned Neely," he groaned, almost too weary even to swallow his food, in spite of the luxury of a real, pullman-style supper table. "He doesn't lose sleep. He can pick his time to come here and raise hob!" Rose's glance was strange—almost guilty. "Tonight I think he might have to stay home—too," she said. John Endlich blinked at her. "All right," she answered, rather defensively. "So to speak, Johnny, I called the cops. Yesterday—with the small radio transmitter. When you and Bubs and Evelyn were up in those old buildings. I reported Neely and his companions." "Reported them?" "Sure. To Mr. Mahoney, the boss at the mining camp. I was glad to find out that there is a little law and order around here. Mr. Mahoney was nice. He said that he wouldn't be surprised if they were cooled in the can for a few days, and then confined to the camp area. Matter of fact, I radioed him again last night. It's been done." John Endlich's vast sigh of relief was slightly tainted by the idea that to call on a policing power for protection was a little bit on the timid side. "Oh," he grunted. "Thanks. I never thought of doing that." "Johnny." "Yeah?" "I kind of got the notion, though—from between the lines of what Mr. Mahoney said—that there was heavy trouble brewing at the camp. About conditions, and home-leaves, and increased profit-sharing. Maybe there's danger of riots and what-not, Johnny. Anyhow, Mr. Mahoney said that we should 'keep on exercising all reasonable caution.'" "Hmm-m—Mr. Mahoney is very nice, ain't he?" Endlich growled. "You stop that, Johnny," Rose ordered. But her husband had already passed beyond thoughts of jealousy. He was thinking of the time when Neely would have worked out his sentence, and would be free to roam around again—no doubt with increased annoyance at the Endlich clan for causing his restraint. If a riot or something didn't spring him, beforehand. John Endlich itched to try to tear his head off. But, of course, the same consequences as before still applied.... <hr style="width: 45%;" /> As it turned out, the Endlichs had a reprieve of two months and fourteen days, almost to the hour and figured on a strictly Earth-time scale. For what it was worth, they accomplished a great deal. In their great plastic greenhouse, supported like a colossal bubble by the humid, artificially-warmed air inside it, long troughs were filled with pebbles and hydroponic solution. And therein tomatoes were planted, and lettuce, radishes, corn, onions, melons—just about everything in the vegetable line. There remained plenty of ground left over from the five acres, so John Endlich tinkered with that fifty-million-year-old tractor, figured out its atomic-power-to-steam principle, and used it to help harrow up the ancient soil of a smashed planet. He added commercial fertilizers and nitrates to it—the nitrates were, of course, distinct from the gaseous nitrogen that had been held, spongelike, by the subsoil, and had helped supply the greenhouse with atmosphere. Then he harrowed the ground again. The tractor worked fine, except that the feeble gravity made the lugs of its wheels slip a lot. He repeated his planting, in the old-fashioned manner. Under ideal conditions, the inside of the great bubble was soon a mass of growing things. Rose had planted flowers—to be admired, and to help out the hive of bees, which were essential to some of the other plants, as well. Nor was the flora limited to the Earthly. Some seeds or spores had survived, here, from the mother world of the asteroids. They came out of their eons of suspended animation, to become root and tough, spiky stalk, and to mix themselves sparsely with vegetation that had immigrated from Earth, now that livable conditions had been restored over this little piece of ground. But whether they were fruit or weed, it was difficult to say. Sometimes John Endlich was misled. Sometimes, listening to familiar sounds, and smelling familiar odors, toward the latter part of his reprieve, he almost imagined that he'd accomplished his basic desires here on Vesta—when he had always failed on Earth. There was the smell of warm soil, flowers, greenery. He heard irrigation water trickling. The sweetcorn rustled in the wind of fans he'd set up to circulate the air. Bees buzzed. Chickens, approaching adolescence, peeped contentedly as they dusted themselves and stretched luxuriously in the shadows of the cornfield. For John Endlich it was all like the echo of a somnolent summer of his boyhood. There was peace in it: it was like a yearning fulfilled. An end of wanderlust for him, here on Vesta. In contrast to the airless desolation outside, the interior of this five-acre greenhouse was the one most desirable place to be. So, except for the vaguest of stirrings sometimes in his mind, there was not much incentive to seek fun elsewhere. If he ever had time. And there was a lot of the legendary, too, in what his family and he had accomplished. It was like returning a little of the blue sky and the sounds of life to this land of ruins and roadways and the ghosts of dead beauty. Maybe there'd be a lot more of all that, soon, when the rumored major influx of homesteaders reached Vesta. "Yes, Johnny," Rose said once. "'Legendary' is a lot nicer word than 'ghostly'. And the ghosts are changing their name to legends." Rose had to teach the kids their regular lessons. That children would be taught was part of the agreement you had to sign at the A. H. O. before you could be shipped out with them. But the kids had time for whimsy, too. In make-believe, they took their excursions far back to former ages. They played that they were "Old People." Endlich, having repaired his atomic battery, didn't draw power anymore from the unit that had supplied the ancient buildings. But the relics remained. From a device like a phonograph, there was even a bell-like voice that chanted when a lever was pressed. And it was the kids who found the first "tay-tay bug," a day after its trills were heard from among the new foliage. "Ta-a-a-ay-y-y—ta-a-a-a-ay-y-yy-y—" The sound was like that of a little wheel, humming with the speed of rotation, and then slowing to a scratchy stop. A one-legged hopper, with a thin but rigid gliding wing of horn. Opalescent in its colors. It had evidently hatched from a tiny egg, preserved by the cold for ages. Wise enough not to clutch it with his bare hands, Bubs came running with it held in a leaf. It proved harmless. It was ugly and beautiful. Its great charm was that it was a vocal echo from the far past. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Sure. Life got to be fairly okay, in spite of hard work. The Endlichs had conquered the awful stillness with life-sounds. Growing plants kept the air in their greenhouse fresh and breathable by photosynthesis. John Endlich did a lot of grinning and whistling. His temper never flared once. Deep down in him there was only a brooding certainty that the calm couldn't last. For, from all reports, trouble seethed at the mining camp. At any time there might be a blowup, a reign of terror that would roll over all of Vesta. A thing to release pent-up forces in men who had seen too many hard stars, and had heard too much stillness. They were like the stuff inside a complaining volcano. The Endlichs had sought to time their various crops, so that they would all be ready for market on as nearly as possible the same day. It was intended as a trick of advertising—a dramatically sudden appearance of much fresh produce. So, one morning, in a jet-equipped space-suit, Endlich arced out for the mining camp. Inside the suit he carried samples from his garden. Six tomatoes. Beauties. "Have luck with them, Johnny! But watch out!" Rose flung after him by helmet phone. With a warm laugh. Just for a moment he felt maybe a little silly. Tomatoes! But they were what he was banking on, and had forced toward maturity, most. The way he figured, they were the kind of fruit that the guys in the camp—gagged by a diet of canned and dehydrated stuff, because they were too busy chasing mineral wealth to keep a decent hydroponic garden going—would be hungriest for. Well—he was rather too right, in some ways, to be fortunate. Yeah—they still call what happened the Tomato War. Poor Johnny Endlich. He was headed for the commissary dome to display his wares. But vague urges sidetracked him, and he went into the recreation dome of the camp, instead. And into the bar. The petty sin of two drinks hardly merits the punishing trouble which came his way as, at least partially, a result. With his face-window open, he stood at the bar with men whom he had never seen before. And he began to have minor delusions of grandeur. He became a little too proud of his accomplishments. His wariness slipped into abeyance. He had a queer idea that, as a farmer with concrete evidence of his skills to show, he would win respect that had been denied him. Dread of consequences of some things that he might do, became blurred. His hot temper began to smolder, under the spark of memory and the fury of insult and malicious tricks, that, considering the safety of his loved ones, he had had no way to fight back against. Frustration is a dangerous force. Released a little, it excited him more. And the tense mood of the camp—a thing in the very air of the domes—stirred him up more. The camp—ready to explode into sudden, open barbarism for days—was now at a point where nothing so dramatic as fresh tomatoes and farmers in a bar was needed to set the fireworks off. John Endlich had his two drinks. Then, with calm and foolhardy detachment, he set the six tomatoes out in a row before him on the synthetic mahogany. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> He didn't have to wait at all for results. Bloodshot eyes, some of them belonging to men who had been as gentle as lambs in their ordinary lives on Earth, turned swiftly alert. Bristly faces showed swift changes of expression: surprise, interest, greed for possession—but most of all, aggressive and Satanic humor. "Jeez—tamadas!" somebody growled, amazed. Under the circumstances, to be aware of opportunity was to act. Big paws, some bare and calloused, some in the gloves of space suits, reached out, grabbed. Teeth bit. Juice squirted, landing on hard metal shaped for the interplanetary regions. So far, fine. John Endlich felt prouder of himself—he'd expected a certain fierceness and lack of manners. But knowing all he did know, he should have taken time to visualize the inevitable chain-reaction. "Thanks, pal.... You're a prince...." Sure—but the thanks were more of a mockery than a formality. "Hey! None for me? Whatsa idea?..." "Shuddup, Mic.... Who's dis guy?... Say, Friend—you wouldn't be that pun'kin-head we been hearin' about, would you?... Well—my gracious—bet you are! Dis'll be nice to watch!..." "Where's Alf Neely, Cranston? What we need is excitement." "Seen him out by the slot-machines. The bar is still out of bounds for him. He can't come in here." "Says who? Boss Man Mahoney? For dis much sport Neely can go straight to hell! And take Boss Man with him on a pitchfork.... Hey-y-y!... Ne-e-e-e-l-y-y-y!..." The big man whose name was called lumbered to the window at the entrance to the bar, and peered inside. During the last couple of months he'd been in a perpetual grouch over his deprivation of liberty, which had rankled him more as an affront to his dignity. When he saw the husband of the authoress of his woes—the little bum, who, being unable to guard his own, had allowed his woman to holler "Cop!"—Neely let out a yell of sheer glee. His huge shoulders hunched, his pendulous nose wobbled, his squinty eyes gleamed and he charged into the bar. John Endlich's first reaction was curiously similar to Neely's. He felt a flash of savage triumph under the stimulus of the thought of immediate battle with the cause of most of his troubles. Temper blazed in him. Belatedly, however, the awareness came into his mind that he had started an emotional avalanche that went far beyond the weight and fury of one man like Neely. Lord, wouldn't he ever learn? It was tough as hell to crawl, but how could a man put his wife and kids in awful jeopardy at the hands of a flock of guys whom space had turned into gorillas? Endlich tried for peace. It was to his credit that he did so quite coolly. He turned toward his charging adversary and grinned. "Hi, Neely," he said. "Have a drink—on me." The big man stopped short, almost in unbelief that anyone could stoop so low as to offer appeasement. Then he laughed uproariously. "Why, I'd be delighted, Mr. Pun'kins," he said in a poisonous-sweet tone. "Let bygones be bygones. Hey, Charlie! Hear what Pun'kins says? The drinks are all on him! And how is the Little Lady, Mrs. Pun'kins? Lonesome, I bet. Glad to hear it. I'm gonna fix that!" With a sudden lunge Neely gripped Endlich's hand, and gave it a savage if momentary twist that sent needles of pain shooting up the homesteader's arm. It was a goading invitation to battle, which grim knowledge of the sequel now compelled Endlich to pass up. "Don't call him Pun'kins, Neely!" somebody yelled. "It ain't polite to mispronounce a name. It's Mr. Tomatoes. I just saw. Bet he's got a million of 'em, out there on the farm!" <hr style="width: 45%;" /> The whole crowd in the bar broke into coarse shouts and laughs and comments. "... We ain't good neighbors—neglecting our social duties. Let's pay 'em a visit.... Pun'kins! What else you got besides tamadas? Let's go on a picnic!... Hell with the Boss Man!... Yah-h-h—We need some diversion.... I'm not goin' on shift.... Come on, everybody! There's gonna be a fight—a moider!... Hell with the Boss Man...." Like the flicker of flame flashing through dry gunpowder, you could feel the excitement spread. Out of the bar. Out of the rec-dome. It would soon ignite the whole tense camp. John Endlich's heart was in his mouth, as his mind pictured the part of all this that would affect him and his. A bunch of men gone wild, kicking over the traces, arcing around Vesta, sacking and destroying in sheer exuberance, like brats on Hallowe'en. They would stop at nothing. And Rose and the kids.... This was it. What he'd been so scared of all along. It was at least partly his own fault. And there was no way to stop it now. "I love tomatoes, Mr. Pun'kins," Neely rumbled at Endlich's side, reaching for the drink that had been set before him. "But first I'm gonna smear you all over the camp.... Take my time—do a good job.... Because y'didn't give me any tomatoes...." Whereat, John Endlich took the only slender advantage at hand for him—surprise. With all the strength of his muscular body, backed up by dread and pent-up fury, he sent a gloved fist crashing straight into Neely's open face-window. Even the pang in his well-protected knuckles was a satisfaction—for he knew that the damage to Neely's ugly features must be many times greater. The blow, occurring under the conditions of Vesta's tiny gravity, had an entirely un-Earthly effect. Neely, eyes glazing, floated gently up and away. And Endlich, since he had at the last instant clutched Neely's arm, was drawn along with the miner in a graceful, arcing flight through the smoky air of the bar. Both armored bodies, lacking nothing in inertia, tore through the tough plastic window, and they bounced lightly on the pavement of the main section of the rec-dome. Neely was as limp as a wet rag, sleeping peacefully, blood all over his crushed face. But that he was out of action signified no peace, when so many of his buddies were nearby, and beginning to seethe, like a swarm of hornets. So there was an element of despair in Endlich's quick actions as he slammed Neely's face-window and his own shut, picked up his enemy, and used his jets to propel him in the long leap to the airlock of the dome. He had no real plan. He just had the ragged and all but hopeless thought of using Neely as a hostage—as a weapon in the bitter and desperate attempt to defend his wife and children from the mob that would be following close behind him.... Tumbling end over end with his light but bulky burden, he sprawled at the threshold of the airlock, where the guard, posted there, had stepped hastily out of his way. Again, capricious luck, surprise, and swift action were on his side. He pressed the control-button of the lock, and squirmed through its double valves before the startled guard could stop him. Then he slammed his jets wide, and aimed for the horizon. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> It was a wild journey—for, to fly straight in a frictionless vacuum, any missile must be very well balanced; and the inertia and the slight but unwieldy weight of Neely's bulk disturbed such balance in his own jet-equipped space suit. The journey was made, then, not in a smooth arc, but in a series of erratic waverings. But what Endlich lacked in precise direction, he made up in sheer reckless, dread-driven speed. From the very start of that wild flight, he heard voices in his helmet phones: "Damn pun'kin-head greenhorn! Did you see how he hit Neely, Schmidt? Yeah—by surprise.... Yeah—Kuzak. I saw. He hit without warning.... Damn yella yokel.... Who's comin' along to get him?..." Sure—there was another side to it—other voices: "Shucks—Neely had it coming to him. I hope the farmer really murders that big lunkhead.... You ain't kiddin', Muir. I was glad to see his face splatter like a rotten tamata...." Okay—fine. It was good to know you had some sensible guys on your side. But what good was it, when the camp as a whole was boiling over from its internal troubles? There were more than enough roughnecks to do a mighty messy job—fast. Panting with tension, Endlich swooped down before his greenhouse, and dragged Neely inside through the airlock. For a fleeting instant the sights and sounds and smells that impinged on his senses, as he opened his face-window once more, brought him a regret. The rustle of corn, the odor of greenery, the chicken voices—there was home in all of this. Something pastoral and beautiful and orderly—gained with hard work. And something brought back—restored—from the remote past. The buzzing of the tay-tay bug was even a real echo from that smashed yet undoubtedly once beautiful world of antiquity. But these were fragile concerns, beside the desperate question of the immediate safety of Rose and the kids.... Already cries and shouts and comments were coming faintly through his helmet phones again: "Get the yokel! Get the bum!... We'll fix his wagon good...." The pack was on the way—getting closer with every heartbeat. Never in his life had Endlich experienced so harrowing a time as this; never, if by some miracle he lived, could he expect another equal to it. To stand and fight, as he would have done if he were alone, would mean simply that he would be cut down. To try the peacemaking of appeasement, would have probably the same result—plus, for himself, the dishonor of contempt. So, where was there to turn, with grim, unanswering blankness on every side? <hr style="width: 45%;" /> John Endlich felt mightily an old yearning—that of a fundamentally peaceful man for a way to oppose and win against brutal, overpowering odds without using either serious violence or the even more futile course of supine submission. Here on Vesta, this had been the issue he had faced all along. In many ages and many nations—and probably on many planets throughout the universe—others had faced it before him. To his straining and tortured mind the trite and somewhat mocking answers came: Psychology. Salesmanship. The selling of respect for one's self. Ah, yes. These were fine words. Glib words. But the question, "How?" was more bitter and derisive than ever. Still, he had to try something—to make at least a forlorn effort. And now, from certain beliefs that he had, coupled with some vague observations that he had made during the last hour, a tattered suggestion of what form that effort might take, came to him. As for his personal defects that had given him trouble in the past—well—he was lugubriously sure that he had learned a final lesson about liquor. For him it always meant trouble. As for wanderlust, and the gambling and hell-raising urge—he had been willing to stay put on Vesta, named for the goddess of home, for weeks, now. And he was now about to make his last great gamble. If he lost, he wouldn't be alive to gamble again. If, by great good-fortune, he won—well he was certain that all the charm of unnecessary chance-taking would, by the memory of these awful moments, be forever poisoned in him. Now Rose and the youngsters came hurrying toward him. "Back so soon, Johnny?" Rose called. "What's this? What happened?" "Who's the guy, Pop?" Evelyn asked. "Oh—Baloney Nose.... What are you doing with him?" But by then they all had guessed some of the tense mood, and its probable meaning. "Neely's pals are coming, Honey," Endlich said quietly. "It's the showdown. Hide the kids. And yourself. Quick. Under the house, maybe." Rose's pale eyes met his. They were comprehending, they were worried, but they were cool. He could see that she didn't want to leave him. Evelyn looked as though she might begin to whimper; but her small jaw hardened. Bubs' lower lip trembled. But he said valiantly: "I'll get the guns, Pop, I'm stayin' with yuh." "No you're not, son," John Endlich answered. "Get going. Orders. Get the guns to keep with you—to watch out for Mom and Sis." Rose took the kids away with her, without a word. Endlich wondered how to describe what was maybe her last look at him. There were no fancy words in his mind. Just Love. And deep concern. Alf Neely was showing signs of returning consciousness. Which was good. Still dragging him, Endlich went and got a bushel basket. It was filled to the brim with ripe, red tomatoes, but he could carry its tiny weight on the palm of one hand, scarcely noticing that it was there. For an instant Endlich scanned the sky, through the clear plastic roof of the great bubble. He saw at least a score of shapes in space armor, arcing nearer—specks in human form, glowing with reflected sunlight, like little hurtling moons among the stars. Neely's pals. In a moment they would arrive. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> Endlich took Neely and the loaded basket close to the transparent side of the greenhouse, nearest the approaching roughnecks. There he removed Neely's oxygen helmet, hoping that, maybe, this might deter his friends a little from rupturing the plastic of the huge bubble and letting the air out. It was a feeble safeguard, for, in all probability, in case of such rupture, Neely would be rescued from death by smothering and cold and the boiling of his blood, simply by having his helmet slammed back on again. Next, Endlich dumped the contents of the basket on the ground, inverted it, and sat Neely upon it. The big man had recovered consciousness enough to be merely groggy by now. Endlich slapped his battered face vigorously, to help clear his head—after having, of course, relieved him of the blaster at his belt. Endlich left his own face-window open, so that the sounds of Neely's voice could penetrate to the mike of his own helmet phone, thus to be transmitted to the helmet phones of Neely's buddies. Endlich was anything but calm inside, with the wild horde, as irresponsible in their present state of mind as a pack of idiot baboons, bearing down on him. But he forced his tone to be conversational when he spoke. "Hello, Neely," he said. "You mentioned you liked tomatoes. Maybe you were kidding. Anyhow I brought you along home with me, so you could have some. Here on the ground, right in front of you, is a whole bushel. The regular asteroids price—considering the trouble it takes to grow 'em, and the amount of dough a guy like you can make for himself out here, is five bucks apiece. But for you, right now, they're all free. Here, have a nice fresh, ripe one, Neely." The big man glared at his captor for a second, after he had looked dazedly around. He would have leaped to his feet—except that the muzzle of his own blaster was leveled at the center of his chest, at a range of not over twenty inches. For a fleeting instant, Neely looked scared and prudent. Then he saw his pals, landing like a flock of birds, just beyond the transparent side of the greenhouse. And he heard their shouts, coming loudly from Endlich's helmet-phones: "We come after you, Neely! We'll get the damn yokel off your neck.... Come on, guys—let's turn the damn place upside down!..." Neely grew courageous—yes, maybe it did take a certain animal nerve to do what he did. His battered and bloodied lip curled. "Whatdayuh think you're up to, Pun'kin-head!" he snarled slowly, his tone dripping contempt for the insanely foolish. He laughed sourly, "Haw-haw-haw." Then his face twisted into a confident and mocking leer. To carry the mockery farther, a big paw reached out and grabbed the proffered tomato from Endlich's hand. "Sure—thanks. Anything to oblige!" He took a great bite from the fruit, clowning the action with a forced expression of relish. "Ummm!" he grunted. In danger, he was being the showman, playing for the approval of his pals. He was proving his comic coolness—that even now he was master of the situation, and was in no hurry to be rescued. "Come on, punk!" he ordered Endlich. "Where is the next one, seeing you're so generous? Be polite to your guest!" Endlich handed him a second tomato. But as he did so, it seemed all the things he dreaded would happen were breathing down his back. For the faces that he glimpsed beyond the plastic showed the twisted expressions that betray the point where savage humor imperceptibly becomes murderous. A dozen blasters were leveled at him. But the eyes of the men outside showed, too, the kind of interest that any odd procedure can command. They stood still for a moment, watching, commenting: "Hey—Neely! See if you can down the next one with one bite!... Don't eat 'em all, Neely! Save some for us!..." Endlich was following no complete plan. He had only the feeling that somewhere here there might be a dramatic touch that, by a long chance, would yield him a toehold on the situation. Without a word, he gave Neely a third tomato. Then a fourth and a fifth.... Neely kept gobbling and clowning. Yeah—but can this sort of horseplay go on until one man has consumed an entire bushel of tomatoes? The question began to shine speculatively in the faces of the onlookers. It began to appeal to their wolfish sense of comedy. And it started to betray itself—in another manner—in Neely's face. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> After the fifteenth tomato, he burped and balked. "That's enough kiddin' around, Pun'kin-head," he growled. "Get away with your damned garden truck! I should be beatin' you to a grease-spot right this minute! Why—I—" Then Neely tried to lunge for the blaster. As Endlich squeezed the trigger, he turned the weapon aside a trifle, so that the beam of energy flicked past Neely's ear and splashed garden soil that turned incandescent, instantly. John Endlich might have died in that moment, cut down from behind. That he wasn't probably meant that, from the position of complete underdog among the spectators, his popularity had risen some. "Neely," he said with a grin, "how can you start beatin', when you ain't done eatin'? Neely—here I am, trying to be friendly and hospitable, and you aren't co-operating. A whole bushel of juicy tomatoes—symbols of civilization way the hell out here in the asteroids—and you haven't even made a dent in 'em yet! What's the matter, Neely? Lose your appetite? Here! Eat!..." Endlich's tone was falsely persuasive. For there was a steely note of command in it. And the blaster in Endlich's hand was pointed straight at Neely's chest. Neely's eyes began to look frightened and sullen. He shifted uncomfortably, and the bushel basket creaked under his weight. "You're yella as any damn pun'kin!" he said loudly. "You don't fight fair!... Guys—what's the matter with you? Get this nut with the blaster offa me!..." "Hmm—yella," Endlich seemed to muse. "Maybe not as yella as you were once—coming around here at night with a whole gang, not so long ago—" "Call me yella?" Nelly hollered. "Why, you lousy damn yokel, if you didn't have that blaster—" Endlich said grimly, "But I got it, friend!" He sent a stream of energy from the blaster right past Neely's head, so close that a shock of the other's hair smoked and curled into black wisps. "And watch your language—my wife and kids can hear you—" Neely's thick shoulders hunched. He ducked nervously, rubbing his head—and for the first time there was a hint of genuine alarm in his voice. "All right," he growled, "all right! Take it easy—" Something deep within John Endlich relaxed—a cold tight knot seemed to unwind—for, at that moment, he knew that Neely was beginning to lose. The big man's evident discomfort and fear were the marks of weakness—to his followers at least; and with them, he could never be a leader, again. Moreover, he had allowed himself to be maneuvered into the position of being the butt of a practical joke, that, by his own code, must be followed up, to its nasty, if interesting, outcome. The spectators began to resemble Romans at the circus, with Neely the victim. And the victim's downfall was tragically swift. "Come on, Neely! You heard what Pun'kins said," somebody yelled. "Jeez—a whole bushel. Let's see how many you can eat, Neely.... Damned if this ain't gonna be rich! Don't let us down, Neely! Nobody's hurtin' yuh. All you have to do is eat—all them nice tamadas.... Hey, Neely—if that bushel ain't enough for you, I'll personally buy you another, at the reg'lar price. Haw-haw-haw.... Lucky Neely! Look at him! Having a swell banquet. Better than if he was home.... Haw-haw-haw.... Come on, Pun'kins—make him eat!..." Yeah, under certain conditions human nature can be pretty fickle. Wonderingly, John Endlich felt himself to be respected—the Top Man. The guy who had shown courage and ingenuity, and was winning, by the harsh code of men who had been roughened and soured by space—by life among the asteroids. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> For a little while then, he had to be hard. He thrust another tomato toward Neely, at the same time directing a thin stream from the blaster just past the big nose. Neely ate six more tomatoes with a will, his eyes popping, sweat streaming down his forehead. Endlich's next blaster-stream barely missed Neely's booted toe. The persuasive shot was worth fifty-five more dollars in garden fruit consumed. The crowd gave with mock cheers and bravos, and demanded more action. "That makes thirty-two.... Come on, Neely—that's just a good start. You got a long, long ways to go.... Come on, Pun'kins—bet you can stuff fifty into him...." To goad Neely on in this ludicrous and savage game, Endlich next just scorched the metal at Neely's shoulder. It isn't to be said that Endlich didn't enjoy his revenge—for all the anguish and real danger that Neely had caused him. But as this fierce yet childish sport went on, and the going turned really rough for the big asteroid miner, Endlich's anger began to be mixed with self-disgust. He'd always be a hot-tempered guy; he couldn't help that. But now, satisfaction, and a hopeful glimpse of peace ahead, burned the fury out of him and touched him with shame. Still, for a little more, he had to go on. Again and again, as before, he used that blaster. But, as he did so, he talked, ramblingly, knowing that the audience, too, would hear what he said. Maybe, in a way, it was a lecture; but he couldn't help that: "Have another tomato, Neely. Sorry to do things like this—but it's your own way. So why should you complain? Funny, ain't it? A man can get even too many tomatoes. Civilized tomatoes. Part of something most guys around here have been homesick for, for a long time.... Maybe that's what has been most of the trouble out here in the asteroids. Not enough civilization. On Earth we were used to certain standards—in spite of being rough enough there, too. Here, the traces got kicked over. But on this side of Vesta, an idea begins to soak in: This used to be nice country—blue sky, trees growing. Some of that is coming back, Neely. And order with it. Because, deep in our guts, that's what we all want. And fresh vegetables'll help.... Have another tomato, Neely. Or should we call it enough, guys?" <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div class="figcenter"> <ANTIMG src="images/illus.jpg" alt=""/></div> <h3>Endlich's voice was steely ... "Sorry to do things like this—but it's your way!"</h3> <hr style="width: 65%;" /> "Neely, you ain't gonna quit now?" somebody guffawed. "You're doin' almost good. Haw-haw!" Neely's face was purple. His eyes were bloodshot. His mouth hung partly open. "Gawd—no—please!" he croaked. An embarrassed hush fell over the crowd. Back home on Earth, they had all been more-or-less average men. Finally someone said, expressing the intrusion among them of the better dignity of man: "Aw—let the poor dope go...." Then and there, John Endlich sold what was left of his first bushel of tomatoes. One of his customers—the once loud-mouthed Schmidt—even said, rather stiffly, "Pun'kins—you're all right." And these guys were the real roughnecks of the mining camp. Is it necessary to mention that, as they were leaving, Neely lost his pride completely, soiling the inside of his helmet's face-window so that he could scarcely see out of it? That, amid the raucous laughter of his companions, which still sounded slightly self-conscious and pitying. Thus Alf Neely sank at last to the level of helpless oblivion and nonentity. <hr style="width: 45%;" /> A week of Vestal days later, in the afternoon, Rose and the kids came to John Endlich, who was toiling over his cucumbers. "Their name is Harper, Pop!" Bubs shouted. "And they've got three children!" Evelyn added. John Endlich, straightened, shaking a kink out of his tired back. "Who?" he questioned. "The people who are going to be our new neighbors, Johnny," Rose said happily. "We just picked up the news on the radio—from their ship, which is approaching from space right now! I hope they're nice folks. And, Johnny—there used to be country schools with no more than five pupils...." "Sure," John Endlich said. Something felt warm around his heart. Leave it to a woman to think of a school—the symbol of civilization, marching now across the void. John Endlich thought of the trouble at the mining camp, which his first load of fresh vegetables, picked up by a small space boat, had perhaps helped to end. He thought of the relics in this strange land. Things that were like legends of a lost pastoral beauty. Things that could come back. The second family of homesteaders was almost here. Endlich was reconciled to domesticity. He felt at home; he felt proud. Bees buzzed near him. A tay-tay bug from a perished era, hummed and scraped out a mournful sound. "I wonder if the Harper kids'll call you Mr. Pun'kins, Pop," Bubs remarked. "Like the miners still do." John Endlich laughed. But somehow he was prouder than ever. Maybe the name would be a legend, too. <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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