also indifferent now, when the enfeebled and exhausted lad at last got up and slowly plodded along the hacked surface of the steel planetoid lost in the depths of space, created by a wild madness of his ancestors whom he had never known. as he had never known their war.
The light column of the manometer indicating the pressure level in the sole oxygen bottle was inexorably descending to zero. He was now going at random, without making attempts to seek out some familiar reference points. The ambient landscape was uniform and was formed of an infinite conglomeration of various superstructures of ancient interstellar spaceships. Occasionally he crossed spots of bare, darkened armor or a real thicket of antennas among which were hidden concave bowls of radars and the sloping cupolas of control rooms.
Noticing that one of them was punctured, Simeon glanced into it through the shell-hole. His lantern's ray lit up some control panels, a partially broken a fissured survey screen and a row of seats. The last one in the row was occupied by a dead astronaut, turning to Simeon half-way. The corpse hadn't decayed due to the vacuum conditions.
A stroke of luck? He squeezed through the shell-hole and bent over the figure hanging from the seat. Alas, both oxygen bottles were empty. The pressure helmet had cracked after an impact against the console, the reservoirs had gotten crumpled, and all oxygen volatilized many years before, at the moment of catastrophe. Simeon sighed and turned back. No sooner had a hope gleamed than it was dashed. The sight of a dead man didn’t provoke any emotion in him: all spaceships forming the spheroid were filled with bodies floating far and wide. Before the death of Simeon's father the corpses had not presented for the lad any association with such notion as life , they had simply been part of the interior.
He left the control room and stopped for a while, examining wearily and indifferently an impulse rifle he'd picked up near a seat. The charge counter was fixed at mark 5 . It was a good weapon, but too heavy and bulky for a boy of twelve. Simeon turned, with the intention of putting down his find, and at that moment a salvo of three vacuum machine-guns came sideways at him, a miraculous escape, having been protected by a ledge of superstructure immediately gone up in the squall of fire. Simeon recoiled under the protection of a cupola, having had time to notice the ugly outlines of a Planetary Scout.
He shouted. Angrily, hoarsely, not like a child at all. Any woman might have gone mad if she had looked through the transparent visor of his helmet – such inhuman torment could be read on the distorted features of the lad.
Awoken fury multiplied by a skill trained to reflex level produced their effect: the barrel of the heavy pulse gun traced a short half-circle and started energetically, spitting out five hollow charges – the whole magazine at the robot.
The plasma generators' turrets were smashed to smithereens, the platform swayed, the splinters of its destroyed armor flew in all directions, falling amidst a fragile forest of antennas and crushing under itself the location system of an ancient spaceship. Two machine-guns choked, only the third continued with mechanical regularity to spew bullet after bullet into the inflexible armor of a control room.
"Be sugared!" The lad swore through clenched teeth, picking up his MG .
The rest of the Scout sank into a silent light-blue flash. Simeon turned round and walked away. The momentary combat had made him concentrate, and his depression receded. He had to fight! The glance he took at the oxygen pressure indicator forced him to quicken his pace: the air mixture reserve would suffice for a couple of hours, and within this time limit he had to find a full reservoir. He came up to the nearest hatch, looked once more at the icy grapes of stars and got downwards with desperate determination.
An unpleasant surprise awaited him inside this ship. The store
The light column of the manometer indicating the pressure level in the sole oxygen bottle was inexorably descending to zero. He was now going at random, without making attempts to seek out some familiar reference points. The ambient landscape was uniform and was formed of an infinite conglomeration of various superstructures of ancient interstellar spaceships. Occasionally he crossed spots of bare, darkened armor or a real thicket of antennas among which were hidden concave bowls of radars and the sloping cupolas of control rooms.
Noticing that one of them was punctured, Simeon glanced into it through the shell-hole. His lantern's ray lit up some control panels, a partially broken a fissured survey screen and a row of seats. The last one in the row was occupied by a dead astronaut, turning to Simeon half-way. The corpse hadn't decayed due to the vacuum conditions.
A stroke of luck? He squeezed through the shell-hole and bent over the figure hanging from the seat. Alas, both oxygen bottles were empty. The pressure helmet had cracked after an impact against the console, the reservoirs had gotten crumpled, and all oxygen volatilized many years before, at the moment of catastrophe. Simeon sighed and turned back. No sooner had a hope gleamed than it was dashed. The sight of a dead man didn’t provoke any emotion in him: all spaceships forming the spheroid were filled with bodies floating far and wide. Before the death of Simeon's father the corpses had not presented for the lad any association with such notion as life , they had simply been part of the interior.
He left the control room and stopped for a while, examining wearily and indifferently an impulse rifle he'd picked up near a seat. The charge counter was fixed at mark 5 . It was a good weapon, but too heavy and bulky for a boy of twelve. Simeon turned, with the intention of putting down his find, and at that moment a salvo of three vacuum machine-guns came sideways at him, a miraculous escape, having been protected by a ledge of superstructure immediately gone up in the squall of fire. Simeon recoiled under the protection of a cupola, having had time to notice the ugly outlines of a Planetary Scout.
He shouted. Angrily, hoarsely, not like a child at all. Any woman might have gone mad if she had looked through the transparent visor of his helmet – such inhuman torment could be read on the distorted features of the lad.
Awoken fury multiplied by a skill trained to reflex level produced their effect: the barrel of the heavy pulse gun traced a short half-circle and started energetically, spitting out five hollow charges – the whole magazine at the robot.
The plasma generators' turrets were smashed to smithereens, the platform swayed, the splinters of its destroyed armor flew in all directions, falling amidst a fragile forest of antennas and crushing under itself the location system of an ancient spaceship. Two machine-guns choked, only the third continued with mechanical regularity to spew bullet after bullet into the inflexible armor of a control room.
"Be sugared!" The lad swore through clenched teeth, picking up his MG .
The rest of the Scout sank into a silent light-blue flash. Simeon turned round and walked away. The momentary combat had made him concentrate, and his depression receded. He had to fight! The glance he took at the oxygen pressure indicator forced him to quicken his pace: the air mixture reserve would suffice for a couple of hours, and within this time limit he had to find a full reservoir. He came up to the nearest hatch, looked once more at the icy grapes of stars and got downwards with desperate determination.
An unpleasant surprise awaited him inside this ship. The store
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