United States or Moldova ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !


Rip centered the top of the instrument's vertical hairline on Alpha Centauri, then waited until Koa was almost out of sight over the asteroid's horizon, which was only a few hundred yards away. He turned up the volume on his helmet communicator. "Koa, move about ten feet to your left." Koa did so. Rip sighted past the vertical hairline at the belt light. "That's a little too far.

Though trembling under the strain of conversing with this machine on which his life depended, he did not overlook a single point. "But the asteroid's gravital pull would hold us close to it," he said. "Is there a way of breaking free from it?" "You'll find the space-suits are equipped with small generators and gravity-plates which I helped Ku Sui develop.

To move the asteroid into a new orbit, they were going to fire nuclear bombs. Most of the highly radioactive fission products would be blown into space, but some would be drawn back by the asteroid's slight gravity. The craters would be highly radioactive, and some radioactive debris was certain to be scattered around, too. Every particle would add to the problem.

And 'What! said I to Sante, 'the nets already spread at this hour? 'Nothing to be done to-day, my Father', he answered, and explained that he had attempted to pick up a stone before his door, and it had burned him: he showed it me: it had the appearance of a piece of ferruginous rock, stuck with pieces of dirty glass; and it had burned Sante on the midnight of the asteroid's scattering.

Ku has no reason to bother with a long journey in a space-suit. I think the asteroid's close down, hidden by that distant ridge in the direction from which they came. I'm going to find it. When I do, I'll tell you where to come meet me. Inform me at once if Ku Sui leaves or if anything unusual happens. Understood?" The assenting voices rang back to him simultaneously.

I waved from the turret window, and Snap's cheery gesture answered me. His voice carried down through the silver moonlight: "Land us safely, Gregg. These weird amateur navigators!" Within the hour I had us dropping into the asteroid's atmosphere. The ship heated steadily. The pressure went up. It kept me busy with the instruments and the calculations.

Had I missed my cue? Whatever my part, it seemed now that I must have horribly misacted it. The crescent Earth was presently swinging over our bow. We rocketed out of the asteroid's shadow. The glowing, flaming Sun appeared, making a crescent of the Earth. With the glass I could see our tiny Moon, visually seeming to hug the limb of its parent Earth. We were on our course to the Moon.

There was a shudder within me as I sat in that turret, docilely guiding us out through the asteroid's atmosphere, heading us upon our course for the Moon. "Try again. By the infernal, Snap Dean, if you do anything to balk us, you die!" Miko scanned the apparatus with keen eyes. How much technical knowledge of signaling instruments did this brigand leader have?

Still, even in this moment of horror, their presence of mind, or at least their consciousness, never abandoned them. Barbican had grasped each of his friends by the hand, and all three tried as well as they could to watch through half-closed eyelids the white-hot asteroid's rapid approach. They could utter no word, they could breathe no prayer.

Rip took the wired igniter from him and thrust it into the tube Dominico had given him. As the crystal came around again, the process was repeated. The hole was undamaged. There was more time to get clear because of the asteroid's slower speed. The second tube slowed the rock even more, so that they had to wait long minutes while the crystal came around again. Rip did some estimating.