The Project Gutenberg EBook of Salvage in Space, by John Stewart Williamson

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Salvage in Space

Author: John Stewart Williamson

Release Date: July 1, 2009 [EBook #29283]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SALVAGE IN SPACE ***

Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories March 1933.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Salvage in Space

By Jack Williamson

* * * * *

[Sidenote: To Thad Allen, meteor miner, comes the dangerous bonanza of
a derelict rocket-flier manned by death invisible.]

His "planet" was the smallest in the solar system, and the loneliest,
Thad Allen was thinking, as he straightened wearily in the huge,
bulging, inflated fabric of his Osprey space armor. Walking awkwardly
in the magnetic boots that held him to the black mass of meteoric
iron, he mounted a projection and stood motionless, staring moodily
away through the vision panels of his bulky helmet into the dark
mystery of the void.

His welding arc dangled at his belt, the electrode still glowing red.
He had just finished securing to this slowly-accumulated mass of iron
his most recent find, a meteorite the size of his head.

Five perilous weeks he had labored, to collect this rugged lump of
metal--a jagged mass, some ten feet in diameter, composed of hundreds
of fragments, that he had captured and welded together. His luck had
not been good. His findings had been heart-breakingly small; the
spectro-flash analysis had revealed that the content of the precious
metals was disappointingly minute.[1]

[Footnote 1: The meteor or asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars
and Jupiter, is "mined" by such adventurers as Thad Allen for the
platinum, iridium and osmium that all meteoric irons contain in small
quantities. The meteor swarms are supposed by some astronomer