THE RUNAWAY ASTEROID 2 THE STARMAN SERIES by Michael D. Cooper MUTINY ON MARS THE RUNAWAY ASTEROID JOURNEY TO THE TENTH PLANET DESCENT INTO EUROPA THE LOST RACE OF MARS DOOMSDAY HORIZON (The seventh book, THE STARLIGHT MANEUVER, and other volumes are in preparation.) The short stories— The Flight of the Olympia, The City of Dust, SETI, A Matter of Time, and Return to Europa— are available in the first five issues of the Inter*Stellar, the fanzine for the Starman series. A novelette outside the main storyline, The Lost Tomorrow, is serialized in “The Starman Chronicles.” All items may be ordered through the Starman web site at www.StarmanSeries.com. 3 4 David Foster Number Two THE RUNAWAY ASTEROID by Michael D. Cooper Artwork by Nick Baumann A David Foster Starman Adventure Copyright © 2004 David Baumann, Jon Cooper, and Mike Dodd all rights reserved ABCDE “A Baumann-Cooper-Dodd Enterprise” 5 The Starman Team dedicates this book to Fred Woodworth a rare and gifted individual who practices generosity in a world of acquisitiveness, courage in a world of indifference, honesty in a world of opportunism, and personal responsibility in a world of buck-passing; an artist and craftsman few in this era know how to appreciate; who has done as much as any and more than most to advance the cause of series books; and whose genius has abundantly proven that the books deplored by librarians of a previous age are treasures that shaped several generations and made their readers better people. To Fred Woodworth of Tucson, Arizona, the series book world owes a debt that can never be repaid. 6 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Starman team wishes to thank STEPHEN AVERY for coining the term “greegles.” Though these remarkable beings will probably not reappear for several books, their place in the Starman series is an essential part of the saga. TOM NARWID, amateur astronomer, for supplying the photo- graph which we used for the endpapers. The scene was taken through his backyard telescope in Cottonwood, Arizona. KEVIN ANETSBERGER for preparing Tom’s spectacular, multi- colored original photograph for publication by reducing it to two colors. ⌧ ⌧ ⌧ The number of fans of the Starman series is growing each day, and we appreciate the contributions many of them have made to the project. Their assistance, encouragement, and technical support have helped to improve the storyline and scientific accuracy of the Starman adventures. 7 INTRODUCTION The Starman Team dedicated its first book, Assault On Mars, to Joseph Greene, the late author of the Dig Allen series which was the inspiration for the Starman series. A complimentary copy was sent to his son Paul, who was moved by the tribute. We then asked Paul to write an in- troduction to The Runaway Asteroid. The following is his response—surely one of the most unusual introductions in any book anywhere, and one we are privileged to share with our readers. Dear Dad, A most remarkable invention is weaving the world together in a way we never anticipated while you were on Earth, and it netted your writing. Fans of your books for juveniles, The Digby Allen series, were able to connect to each other, share their enthusiasm for your novels, and were inspired to con- tinue the voyage. Led by Jonathan Cooper, the intrepid mas- termind of the creative crew, they made a commitment to write their own vision of the future. Thoughtfully, they credit you as having shoulders broad enough for them to stand on and see the centuries beyond. The invention that has made this possible is called the internet. There seems no need to explain what it is here, but part of its magic is that it can permit people to connect to each other independently of time and space. The themes of Dig Allen from the 1960’s have worked like the internet in that they functioned independently of time and space, only much more slowly. You presented your ideas in books as ideas are posted on the internet. The authors of Star- man were drawn to the themes in your books and then each other in cyberspace, which acts as both the bookshelf and café 8 for today’s ideas and authors. The creators of Starman saw value in your stories and tried to get the publisher to renew the series. Sadly, your old publisher ignored them and blocked the revival, as though they were so much space junk. No one owns a theme. But the creators of Starman have shown that they share some of the beliefs that you express in your subjects. Their young men of the stars prove that they too are brave, adventurous and willing to sacrifice for freedom and justice. With a loyalty toward each other that would cre- ate envy in every generation, they test themselves against cunning scoundrels. As they conquer villains, they, and we along with them, learn whether they measure up. Will they prove themselves worthy as young people have done for all time? Young readers can have a chance to preview something about their own lives and the world they will live in. And just as you believed, somehow the human race survives. If the world of Starman is an accurate guess on the future, then the good guys, the ones in the white spacesuits, will continue to prevail and produce more young people to keep the dream alive. I hope that some of the next generation of courageous young people will read this series. Your fans don’t know that you started writing seriously rela- tively early in life, in the 1920’s and ’30’s, first as a teen for your personal pleasure and then on your school newspaper at New Utrecht High School in Brooklyn, New York. Did hav- ing to learn the English language after speaking Russian until the age of seven help you become a better writer? Were your poems and letters to Mom valuable both to her and to your professional development? Did the comic books you authored during the Golden Age of comics give you a better sense of story-telling and dialogue or did it degrade your love of lan- guage? I know that writing television scripts and other crea- tive projects supported the family during the difficult years of the 1950’s, but how did it affect your later work with Digby 9 Allen? So many of your themes are repeated and reworked in several of your creations right through to the late 1980’s. Who would guess that you once wrote a paper on the use of the raven in several of Shakespeare’s plays? Or that you wrote biology text to accompany a new medium, slides made from strips of 35-mm film? Would admirers realize that you were most interested in world events, but read the sports section of the New York Times first, everyday? I’m certain your fans wouldn’t have read the American Elsewhen Almanac, a com- pilation of bits of Americana and commentary that you pub- lished in the 1980’s. I want to thank the authors of Starman for giving me the op- portunity to write the introduction to their second novel. If there is a way to communicate to you across the veil between our dimensional world and the one in which you now reside, then it must be through the pages of a book. After the love of family, I don’t believe anything was more precious to you than books, so maybe this letter will be able to cross the di- vide. Just as I proofread the drafts of Digby Allen before you sent them to the publisher, your granddaughter and grandson proofread this. Perhaps that will act like a mystical booster rocket to get these pages to you. And to future space pioneers, may the solar winds be at your back. Love, Paul October 20, 2000 10 THE RUNAWAY ASTEROID 11 12 1: Controlled Fury “THEY’RE getting closer! They’re almost on us! We won’t make it into the Belt on time!” The navigator of the Silver Spear was on the verge of panic. His frenzied hands moved over the controls. “Keep going! Keep up full speed! Make sure that we get there ahead of them!” Lurton Zimbardo’s voice was even and controlled, but it was obvious that he was barely con- taining his volatile fury. His commands were not to be questioned. His nostrils flared, the muscles around his lips were taut, he kept his fists clenched and pounded a persis- tent rhythm on his ship’s control panel. His breath sounded as if he could inhale and exhale the room’s entire atmos- phere. It was only his iron self-control that kept his crew from giving in to their fears. Behind them just moments away Starman David “Zip” Foster’s ship, the Star Ranger, was closing the gap. The pursuit had been going on for two days, since the Silver Spear had blasted off from Eagle City on Mars and escaped while the rest of the pirates were rounded up by Earth’s forces. Zip Foster, accompanied by Starmen Mark Seaton and Joe Taylor and their companion Steve Cliff, had fol- lowed less than fifteen minutes later. The brief lead that Lurton Zimbardo’s ship had was enough to keep the Silver Spear out of the clutches of their pursuers, but not by much. The crew of the Spear was suffering acutely from sleeplessness and mounting anxiety. Only days earlier, Lurton Zimbardo had been second-in- command under Troy Putnam. Together they had organized 13 over 500 men and attempted to take control of the capital city of Mars in a sudden attack.