Out of the Iron Womb!
()
About this ebook
Poul Anderson
Poul Anderson (1926–2001) grew up bilingual in a Danish American family. After discovering science fiction fandom and earning a physics degree at the University of Minnesota, he found writing science fiction more satisfactory. Admired for his “hard” science fiction, mysteries, historical novels, and “fantasy with rivets,” he also excelled in humor. He was the guest of honor at the 1959 World Science Fiction Convention and at many similar events, including the 1998 Contact Japan 3 and the 1999 Strannik Conference in Saint Petersburg, Russia. Besides winning the Hugo and Nebula Awards, he has received the Gandalf, Seiun, and Strannik, or “Wanderer,” Awards. A founder of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of America, he became a Grand Master, and was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame. In 1952 he met Karen Kruse; they married in Berkeley, California, where their daughter, Astrid, was born, and they later lived in Orinda, California. Astrid and her husband, science fiction author Greg Bear, now live with their family outside Seattle.
Read more from Poul Anderson
Brain Wave Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Three Hearts and Three Lions Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Star Fox Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Boat of a Million Years Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5War of the Gods Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Tau Zero Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Fire Time Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5After Doomsday Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Starfarers Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5World Without Stars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Avatar Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Hrolf Kraki's Saga Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Midsummer Tempest Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Broken Sword Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Orbit Unlimited Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Orion Shall Rise Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Mother of Kings Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Dancer from Atlantis Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Merman's Children Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5There Will Be Time Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Three Tales of Time and Space: There Will Be Time, The Enemy Stars, and Fire Time Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5New America Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Two Novels of Far-Future Apocalypse: The Winter of the World and Twilight World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Corridors of Time Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5Genesis Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Operation Chaos and Operation Luna Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNo World of Their Own Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Makeshift Rocket Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Vault of the Ages Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5The Enemy Stars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Related to Out of the Iron Womb!
Related ebooks
Out of the Iron Womb! Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsB-12's Moon Glow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Lonely Ones Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsB-12's Moon Glow Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsPapa Lucy & the Boneman Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsFly Me to the Moon Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Gift For Terra Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBob Honey Sings Jimmy Crack Corn Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5The Splendid Quest Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Avatar Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5By Earthlight Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsEasy Money Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Passing of Ku Sui Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsSleeping Unruly: Dispelled Lineage, #3 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Blue-Spangled Blue Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNight Waves: Something Has Been Set Free Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsHamburger Zen Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNow as it is Forever Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsA Sword Above the Night (The John Lymington SciFi/Horror Library #5) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsKoby's Treasure Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsThe Desecrated Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsTerror in the Cosmos Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsMayan Calendar Girls: Digital Version Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsBirth Of A God: Godstone Chronicles, #2 Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsLeashing the Tempest Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Beyond the Banyans (Cryptofiction Classics - Weird Tales of Strange Creatures) Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsScience Fiction Forever Rating: 0 out of 5 stars0 ratingsNot the End of the World Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Pinion Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Toff Breaks In Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5
Science Fiction For You
Wool: Book One of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Alchemist: A Graphic Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Kindred: A Graphic Novel Adaptation Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A Psalm for the Wild-Built Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5This Is How You Lose the Time War Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Silo Series Collection: Wool, Shift, Dust, and Silo Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Ocean at the End of the Lane: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Warrior of the Light: A Manual Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Sarah J. Maas: Series Reading Order - with Summaries & Checklist Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Authority: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Perelandra: (Space Trilogy, Book Two) Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook for Surviving Medieval England: Secret Projects, #2 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Flowers for Algernon Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Contact Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5How High We Go in the Dark: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Institute: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Troop Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Shift: Book Two of the Silo Series Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Am Legend Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Frankenstein: Original 1818 Uncensored Version Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Annihilation: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Rendezvous with Rama Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5I Who Have Never Known Men Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Oona Out of Order: A Novel Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Animal Farm And 1984 Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Light From Uncommon Stars Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5
Reviews for Out of the Iron Womb!
0 ratings0 reviews
Book preview
Out of the Iron Womb! - Poul Anderson
Out of the Iron Womb!
by Poul Anderson
Start Publishing LLC
Copyright © 2015 by Start Publishing LLC
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.
First Start Publishing eBook edition July 2015
Start Publishing is a registered trademark of Start Publishing LLC
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
ISBN 13: 978-1-68299-561-7
Table of Contents
Out of the Iron Womb!
II
III
IV
V
VI
Out of the Iron Womb!
by Poul Anderson
Darkness and the chill glitter of stars. Bo Jonsson crouched on a whirling speck of stone and waited for the man who was coming to kill him.
There was no horizon. The flying mountain on which he stood was too small. At his back rose a cliff of jagged rock, losing its own blackness in the loom of shadows; its teeth ate raggedly across the Milky Way. Before him, a tumbled igneous wilderness slanted crazily off, with one long thin crag sticking into the sky like a grotesque bowsprit.
There was no sound except the thudding of his own heart, the harsh rasp of his own breath, locked inside the stinking metal skin of his suit. Otherwise…no air, no heat, no water or life or work of man, only a granite nakedness spinning through space out beyond Mars.
Stooping, awkward in the clumsy armor, he put the transparent plastic of his helmet to the ground. Its cold bit at him even through the insulating material. He might be able to hear the footsteps of his murderer conducted through the ground.
Stillness answered him. He gulped a heavy lungful of tainted air and rose. The other might be miles away yet, or perhaps very close, catfooting too softly to set up vibrations. A man could do that when gravity was feeble enough.
The stars blazed with a cruel wintry brilliance, over him, around him, light-years to fall through emptiness before he reached one. He had been alone among them before; he had almost thought them friends. Sometimes, on a long watch, a man found himself talking to Vega or Spica or dear old Beetle Juice, murmuring what was in him as if the remote sun could understand. But they didn’t care; he saw that now. To them, he did not exist, and they would shine carelessly long after he was gone into night.
He had never felt so alone as now, when another man was on the asteroid with him, hunting him down.
Bo Jonsson looked at the wrench in his hand. It was long and massive; it would have been heavy on Earth, but it was hardly enough to unscrew the stars and reset the machinery of a universe gone awry. He smiled stiffly at the thought. He wanted to laugh, too, but checked himself for fear he wouldn’t be able to stop.
Let’s face it, he told himself. You’re scared. You’re scared shitless. He wondered if he had spoken it aloud.
There was plenty of room on the asteroid. At least two hundred square miles, probably more if you allowed for the rough surface. He could skulk around, hide…and suffocate when his tanked air gave out. He had to be a hunter, too, and track down the other man, before he died. And if he found his enemy, he would probably die anyway.
He looked about him. Nothing. No sound, no movement, nothing but the streaming of the constellations as the asteroid spun. Nothing had ever moved here, since the beginning of time when moltenness congealed into death. Not till men came and hunted each other.
Slowly