Asleep in Armageddon
By RAY BRADBURY
Avoid Planetoid 787. Lush and sunny, with fine
air and no dangerous beasts, it'll tempt you to
curve in for some nice solid-ground sleep. DON'T!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1948.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
You don't want death and you don't expect death. Something goes wrong, your rocket tilts in space, a planetoid jumps up, blackness, movement, hands over the eyes, a violent pulling back of available power in the fore-jets, the crash....
The darkness. In the darkness, the senseless pain. In the pain, the nightmare.
He was not unconscious.
Your name? asked hidden voices. Sale, he replied in whirling nausea. Leonard Sale. Occupation, cried the voices. Spaceman! he cried, alone in the night. Welcome, said the voices. Welcome, welcome. They faded.
He stood up in the wreckage of his ship. It lay like a folded, tattered garment around him.