Odal found himself enveloped in darkness. Only gradually did his eyes adjust. He was in a spacesuit. For several minutes he stood motionless, peering into the darkness, every sense alert, every muscle coiied for instant actionDimly he could see the outlines of jagged rock against a background of innumerable stars. Experimentally, he lifted one foot. It stuck, tacky, to the surface. Magnetized boots. This must be a planetoid.
As his eyes grew accustomed to the dimness he saw that he was right. It was a small planetoid, perhaps a mile or so in diameter, he judged. Almost zero gravity. Airless.
Odal swiveled his head inside the fish-bow! helmet of his suit and saw, over his right shoulder, the figure of Hector—lank and ungainly even with the bully suit. For a moment, Odal puzzled over the weapon to be used. Then Hector bent down, picked up a loose stone, straightened, and tossed it softly past Odal’s head. He watched it sail by and off into the darkness of space, never to return. A warning shot.
Pebbles? Odal thought to himself. Pebbles for a weapon? He must be insane. Then he remembered that inertial mass was unaffected by gravity, or the lack of it. On this planetoid a fifty-ldlogram rock might be easier to carry, but it would be just as hard to throw—and it would do just as much damage when it hit, regardless of its gravitational “weight.”
Odal crouched down and selected a stone the size of is fist. He rose carefully, sighted Hector standing a hundred meters or so away, and threw as hard as he could.