He stooped and scooped up handfuls of rubble.
“Get going!” he screamed at his brother.
Vernon was running. Running with long leaps toward the nearer edge of the planetoid, gaining speed at every leap. Then he shot upward, as if he had been catapulted from a gigantic sling shot. Up and up he went, out and out, until he was a speck against the blackness.
Bouncing along over the surface, Vince put all of his strength into a tremendous leap as he struck the rock beneath with both feet planted firmly. He seemed to be rushing out, away from the asteroid, at an express train speed. Rapidly the bloated space suit encasing his brother seemed to leap to meet him. Then he was floating free in space, looking back at the Twin rushing downward upon the slab of rock he had so recently quit. He could see that the rotary motion of the Twin, probably imparted to it when a meteor had struck with force enough, not only to knock it out of its orbit, but to also reverse its directional spin, had brought the Space Pup to the upper side. The two planetoids were so close now that the ship could not possibly be crushed between them. They were due to crash any moment now and the Space Pup was on top!
He clawed with his hands at empty space, swinging his body around until his back was toward the asteroid. Then with all his strength he heaved a rock straight away from him. With a rush his body moved backwards, slowed down, glided. Another thrown rock and another leap… another… another. Over his shoulder he could see out of the tail of his eye that he was proceeding in the right direction.
A short distance away he could see Vernon also heaving rocks.
Another rock…. but this time his body did not slow to a glide. It kept on moving. He realized that he was falling, that he was influenced by gravity!
Sudden fear assailed him. Had he miscalculated? Had he been captured again by the first asteroid before the Twin had struck? Or had the Twin already struck?
Desperately he attempted to twist about He succeeded and glimpsed jagged rock surface beneath him. The matter of landing without ripping his suit or cracking his helmets ports took all of his attention during the next few seconds.
He struck on his two feet, tumbled and rolled, his arms shielding his helmet. The ground seemed to be pitching and rocking. He could feel it quivering and moving beneath him. Like an earthquake. He gained his feet, but lost his balance again.