"I Suggest You Don’t Try To Leave Until the Argument Is Settled."

"Death of an Asteroid."

By Sam Moskowitz (1920-97; Wikipedia HERE; the ISFDb HERE; and the SFE HERE).

First appearance: New York Inquirer, March 15, 1950.

Reprinted in The Saint Magazine, April 1967 (today's text).

Short short short story (5 pages).

Online at Archive.org (HERE).

   "The bleeding had been pretty bad when he pulled the knife out."

IS it a sign of progress when it gets harder and harder to commit murder in space and get away with it?

Principal characters:

~ Don Grant, Charlie, and the inspector.

Typo: "the inspector questioned?” [bad punctuation].

References:

- "a craggy, splintered asteroid" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "his magnetic shoes" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "a Geiger counter" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the little Martian moon Phobos" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "like most space miners" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "lead-lined boxes containing the uranium" (HERE; Wikipedia).

- "the asteroids were once a planet" (HERE; Wikipedia).

Resources:

- We first met Sam Moskowitz in his nonfiction mode: "The Sleuth in Science Fiction" and "The Super-Sleuths of Science Fiction" (both HERE). In a related article, Robert W. Lowndes took on "The Futuristic Detective" (HERE).

Artwork by Frank Kelly Freas

- Moskowitz edited an anthology of vintage SFF called Exploring Other Worlds (1963) (HERE; The Luminist Archives and HERE; ISFDb TOC) as well as a historical text entitled The Immortal Storm: A History of Science Fiction Fandom (1954) (HERE; also The Luminist Archives).

- There is an asteroid prowling around out there that you might want to enter into your day timer, just in case it decides to change its orbit (HERE; Wikipedia). You're not worried, you say? Just remember, it's happened before (HERE; EarthSky).

- Other stories involving asteroid mining that we've come across include (but definitely aren't limited to) Edmond Hamilton's "Murder Asteroid" (HERE), Donald E. Westlake's "The Risk Profession" (HERE; first story), and Isaac Asimov's "The Talking Stone" (HERE).

The bottom line:

NASA Phobos mission

Unless otherwise noted, all bibliographical data are derived from The FictionMags Index created by William G. Contento & edited by Phil Stephensen-Payne.

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