But it was foolish to be afraid of meteors, he told himself. He had greater and more immediate worries.
There were less than eight hours of air left in the tanks of his space suit. He had no idea where he was, although he knew that many miles of rugged, fearsome country stretched between him and Asteroid City.
The space suit carried no food and no water, but that was of minor moment, he realized, for his air would give out long before he felt the pangs of thirst or hunger.
He sat down on a massive boulder and tried to think. There wasn't much to think about. Everywhere his thoughts met black walls. The situation, he told himself, was hopeless.
If only he hadn't come to Asteroid City in the first place! Or having come, if he had only minded his business, this never would have happened. If he hadn't been so anxious to show off what he knew about card dealing tricks. If only he hadn't agreed to be sworn in as marshal. If he'd swallowed his pride and left when Hoffman told him to.
He brushed away such thoughts as futile, took stock of his surroundings.
The cliff on the right hand side was undercut, overhanging several hundred feet of level ground.
Ponderously, he heaved himself off the boulder, wandered aimlessly up the wider tongue of plateau. The undercut, he saw, grew deeper, forming a deep cleft, as if someone had furrowed out the mountain side. Heavy shadows clung within it.
Suddenly he stopped, riveted to the ground, scarcely daring to breathe.
Something was moving in the deep shadow of the undercut. Something that seemed to glint faintly with reflected light.