Various authors

“ If we grant that interplanetary travel will one day come and people will travel as blithely to Mars or Venus as we do now across our oceans, we can realize that the adventures encountered in such journey will be one of the most extraordinary kind. A wreck on an ocean liner for example means merely the taking to life boats, or the awaiting of rescue but a few hours away. But in empty space tens of millions of miles from the nearest world and possibly millions from any other ship, an interplanetary wreck would be replete with occurrences of the most amazing nature. ”

“ Graham for that moment had been so absorbed he had forgotten himself. He was suddenly aware of an object passing close to him—slowly passing. He twisted to view it. Gruesome horror! The body of a man! One of the ship's crew, flung out here with the outrushing air through the break in the bow at the time of the collision. The body floated quietly past. It was twisted; huddled. He saw for an instant, its face. Gruesomely bloated; crimson-skinned where the blood had welled out through the pores—
The body went calmly by, down the length of the Comet in a circular path, and around the ship's end. ”

“ Graham turned. "Alma—" He was aware that he had clutched her. He heard the doomed Comet's interior resounding with bells; the danger siren starting its shriek. An instant of chaos. The ship lurched upward, its rocket exhausts working furiously! Too late! A blinding flash of light enveloping everything. A smashing tearing impact. The universe quivering, staggering.
Graham's senses slid into an abyss of soundless blackness—
IV.
A Dead World! ”

“ Three human beings isolated in the immensities of space—death from starvation and suffocation nears. Who will weaken first!
The central glassite dome of the Comet was rolled back. From where he stood, amidships in the peak of the vessel's superstructure, Graham could see down past the main cabin roof to the narrow side-deck where the passengers were coming up the incline from the landing stage. Beneath and beyond the stage lay the lights of the great Martian city, the oval roofs and spires and minarets of its buildings interspersed with the giant mushroom growth of its trees. ”

“ He staggered into Graham's cubby. His face was green-grey with fear. He was uninjured. But he knew as well as Graham, their situation, and the terror of impending death was on him.
"Can you get help, Trent? The radio—"
"It isn't working."
"Then the helio-senders—"
"I was just getting ready to try them."
Kol was tremblingly eager to help. "It must work, Trent. It must! Marooned here! To die, slowly day by day suffocating here—Good God—"
Alma suddenly laughed. It was quavering, half hysterical. Graham touched her.
"Quiet, Alma. Don't let yourself start—like that. We're all right. ”

“ But, save for this upper network of ladders and bridges, Graham's cubby and the nearby Captain's rooms, the ship was devoid of air! A dead ship. It lay now, silent—gruesome—
Graham stood listening to it. None of the mechanisms were operating. A derelict in space, the doomed Comet hung poised. A little broken world, floating in the grip of all the myriad balanced forces of the universe.
The ship's interior air-pressure had been maintained at some fifteen or sixteen pounds to the square inch. The bow dome had cracked. ”

“ Graham twisted and saw, behind him two hundred feet away, the wrecked broken side of the Comet. The ship lay as though cradled in water. A vague pang shot past him. He had loved this ship. It had throbbed beneath him for so many hours, so many voyages. It lay now wrecked; dying. Unbreathing, save up there in the one bulkhead area which encompassed his own tiny cubby where Alma was imprisoned; the catwalk where Kol the Martian lurked ”

“ He bent over the operator hardly aware of Alma's existence.
"Do your best, Trent. I am a rich man. Riches are yours if you save me."
The instinct for life comes first. But the man's cowardice after his former proud attitude was nauseating.
"Let go of me," Graham said irritably. "If you want to help, let me alone. Keep your mouth shut." He shook off the Martian's clutch. "Sit over there out of the way." This was no time for the regard of social positions. Danger strips us down to elementals.
Kol moved aside like a frightened child— The helio flashed the call of distress over and over again. ”

“ He told her swiftly.
"I think I can get around outside the ship. Into the pressure porte behind the Captain's cabin. If I can get in there—get another rifle—"
But Kol could see them now through the door-pane. He would be forewarned—Graham took a sheet from his bed. He and Alma draped it over the door; and Kol watched them with a sardonic grin.
"Good!" muttered Graham. "He misunderstands us. Alma, listen—after I've gone you pull aside a corner of this sheet. Cautiously! Make sure he is out there. If he starts away, shout at him. Talk to him. Keep him occupied. And talk to me, Alma! ”

“ Graham leaped up. At the door he was just in time to see a man's figure disappearing past the Captain's cabin.
"What is it, Graham?"
"That damned Martian—that Kol—eavesdropping on us! Sit quiet, Alma! By Heaven—"
He got no further. Beyond the network of bridges the firmament was visible through the ship's bow dome-peak. Graham caught a glimpse of a huge black shape out there; a great whirling rock dashing through space. The sunlight and starlight edged it, as in the blackness it suddenly became visible—forbidding—menacing—It had been a thousand miles away a minute before ”

“ But Alma clung. "No! Graham, no! Not murder—"
She held him just a moment too long. It flashed to Graham that Kol had run toward the Captain's rooms. And in the chart-room was the Captain's arsenal of weapons hanging in a rack on the wall.
"Alma, let me go!"
He tore from her. But on the bridge outside the helio room he was halted. A bullet sang by him and flattened itself against the heavy metal wall plate of the cubby. Then another. The two reports reverberated through the dome-space; and in the doorway of the chart room he saw the crouching figure of Kol, with leveled rifle. ”

“ But man is always man—ho matter if he is in a large city or adrift in interplanetary space. He will carry with him his old fears and prejudices and lusts. And if as might easily happen, three people are obliged to fight out their existence adrift in the emptiness of the heavens, he may easily give way in a violent fashion to these lusts—and provide as he does in this case by the master hand of Ray Cummings, the material for the most dramatic of stories! ”

“ Graham made his calculations. The air renewers were not operating. But the air here would last them for a week or more. Though there was no food and no water here he was hopeful. One may live weeks without food, and days without water.
"I can summon help," he told the white-faced girl. "There will be a patrol-ship somewhere between here and Mars. Or I can raise Ferrok-Shahn—I had them a few hours ago with the radio. In two days at the most, help will come to us."
She watched him while in the starlit little cubby, with the silent dead ship beneath them, he sat at his call-key. ”

“ Alma sat down, gazing out of the window. Its glassite pane was merged here with the dome. There were two doors to the room, both of which had transparent glassite panes. One gave directly onto a pressure chamber and then to open space—an exit porte for use only to ventilate the room when the ship was in the atmosphere or an emergency exit into space. The other door, on the opposite side, was the one by which Graham and Alma had just entered from the catwalk. They left it open; the room was fairly hot.
"Like my quarters?" said Graham. "You do get a marvelous view. Don't you think so? ”