calling myself
a murderer ever since I let you have Z-40, Mr. 2Q14N20," he concluded.
"I was sure we'd get here only to find you'd been killed. But I see
you've managed to escape from the creature so far--though by the look of
you, it must have been a narrow shave."
At this Harley shook off some of the gathering dizziness that hazed his
mind. He threw back his shoulders. "Managed to _escape_? I did better
than that. I got rid of the thing forever! Yes, I'll return to Earth
with you, but only because I need a new Blinco Dart. I'm coming back to
Z-40 at once. Perfect little paradise, now that I've got rid of
that--animated--rock pile--"
The belated rescuers caught him as he collapsed.
[Footnote 1: This implement, invented by Blansco 9X247A in 2052, is not
so much a "drill" as a compressor. It is somewhat superficially defined
in the Universal Dictionary, 2061 edition, as "a portable mechanism
which, by alternating gaseous blasts of extreme heat and cold, breaks
down the atoms of inorganic matter, causing them to collapse together in
dense compression." Thus a cubic yard of earth can be reduced in size,
in a few moments, to a pebble no larger than a pea; which pebble would
weigh, on Earth, close to a ton.]
End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Planetoid of Peril, by Paul Ernst
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PLANETOID OF PERIL ***
***** This file should be named 29771.txt or 29771.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/7/7/29771/
Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may u
|