MS-33 I will describe. I felt an unconscionable hatred for him at
once. I can not say why, except that he hung about his master
obsequiously, power pack smoothly purring, and he was slim limbed,
nickel-plated, and wore, I thought, a smug expression on his
viziplate. He represented the new order; the ones who had displaced us
on Earth. He knew too much, and showed it at every opportunity.
We did not go far that first morning. The half-track was driven to the
edge of the Dumps. Within the Dumps one walks--or does not go. Phobos
is an airless world, and yet so small that rockets are impractical.
The terrain is broken and littered with the refuse of half a dozen
worlds, but the Dumps themselves--that is different.
Imagine, if you can, an endless vista of death, a sea of rusting
corpses of space ships, and worn-out mining machinery, and of those of
my race whose power packs burned out, or who simply gave up, retiring
into this endless, corroding limbo of the barrens. A more sombre sight
was never seen.
But this fat ghoul, Langley, sickened me. This shame of the Builder
race, this atavism--this beast--rubbed his fat, impractical hands
together with an ungod-like glee. "Excellent," he said. "Far, far
better, in fact, than I had hoped." He did not elucidate.