The Monster Maker
By RAY BRADBURY
"Get Gunther," the official orders read. It
was to laugh! For Click and Irish were
marooned on the pirate's asteroid—their only
weapons a single gun and a news-reel camera.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Spring 1944.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
Suddenly, it was there. There wasn't time to blink or speak or getscared. Click Hathaway's camera was loaded and he stood there listeningto it rack-spin film between his fingers, and he knew he was getting adamned sweet picture of everything that was happening.
The picture of Marnagan hunched huge over the control-console,wrenching levers, jamming studs with freckled fists. And out in thedark of the fore-part there was space and a star-sprinkling and thismeteor coming like blazing fury.
Click Hathaway felt the ship move under him like a sensitive animal'sskin. And then the meteor hit. It made a spiked fist and knocked therear-jets flat, and the ship spun like a cosmic merry-go-round.
There was plenty of noise. Too damned much. Hathaway only knew he waspicked up and hurled against a lever-bank, and that Marnagan wasn'tlong in following, swearing loud words. Click remembered hanging on tohis camera and gritting to keep holding it. What a sweet shot that hadbeen of the meteor! A sweeter one still of Marnagan beating hell out ofthe controls and keeping his words to himself until just now.
It got quiet. It got so quiet you could almost hear the asteroidsrushing up, cold, blue and hard. You could hear your heart kicking atom-tom between your sick stomach and your empty lungs.
Stars, asteroids revolved. Click grabbed Marnagan because he was thenearest thing, and held on. You came hunting for a space-raider and youended up cradled in a slab-sized Irishman's arms, diving at a hunk ofmetal death. What a fade-out!
"Irish!" he heard himself say. "Is this IT?"
"Is this what?" yelled Marnagan inside his helmet.
"Is this where the Big Producer yells CUT!?"
Marnagan fumed. "I'll die when I'm damned good and ready. And when I'mready I'll inform you and you can picture me profile for Cosmic Films!"
They both waited, thrust against the shipside and held by a hand ofgravity; listening to each other's breathing hard in the earphones.
The ship struck, once. Bouncing, it struck again. It turned end overand stopped. Hathaway felt himself grabbed; he and Marnagan rattledaround—human dice in a croupier's cup. The shell of the ship burst,air and energy flung out.
Hathaway screamed the air out of his lungs, but his brain was thinkingquick crazy, unimportant things. The best scenes in life never reachfilm, or an audience. Like this one, dammit! Like this one! Hisbrain spun, racketing like the instantaneous, flicking motions of hiscamera.
Silence came and engulfed all the noise, ate it up and swallowed it.Hathaway shook his head, instinctively grabbed at the camera lockedto his mid-belt. There was nothing but stars, twisted wreckage, coldthat pierced through his vac-suit, and silence. He wriggled out of thewreckage into that silence.
He didn't know what he was doing until he found the camera in hisfingers as if it had grown there when he was born. He stood there,thinking "Well, I'll at least have a few good scenes on film. I'll—"
A hunk of metal teetered, fell with a crash. Marnagan elev