MONSTER OF THE ASTEROID By RAY CUMMINGS They might gamble, but win or lose the take was death for these two new slaves of the Master of that pitted Devil's Isle of outer space. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Winter 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The amazing thing began that summer evening of 1965 while I was sitting with Dora Franklin on the third ramp at the crossroads, listening to the outdoor public-music. We were on the fringe of the crowd in a secluded little place where there was a small bench under the overhanging branches of a tree. It was a romantic scene with the audience seated in crescent rows under the strings of colored tubelights. My arm went around Dora, with her head against my shoulder as we listened to the soft exotic music. Around us, countless other couples were also listening in silence. A pair of young lovers. I realize now that was doubtless what first attracted the furtive man to us. How long he and his weird little companion had been watching us I have no idea. I was aware of the two dark shapes in the shadow under a nearby tree--a tall blob and a short one. Then the tall one came forward; the short one lurked in the deep shadows a few feet away. "The music is very pretty?" a guttural voice said. It was a man in a long, dull-black cloak. His black peaked hat had a fringe almost in woman fashion which dangled past his ears and shrouded his face so that I could hardly see it. With his mumbled greeting he sidled up and dropped to the bench beside me, peering past me at Dora as though he were infinitely more interested in her rather than me which was not in itself a surprising fact. "Yes," I agreed. Dora and I sat up and shifted reluctantly to give him room. The little figure ten feet away, stood impassive. I recall that I stared with a sudden startled astonishment; and then with a vague shudder stabbing into me. The silent shape was no more than five feet tall, so that with a quick glance here in the dimness one might have thought it a half grown boy. A man's long black overcoat fell from the top of its head almost to the ground, as though a boy had the overcoat hung on his head, with all of him shrouded inside it. But the top of the overcoat was limp, sagging. I had the sudden crazy thought that the thing was headless--an overcoat hanging on wide square shoulders without any head above them! I shuddered involuntarily. "You and the young lady like music?" the man beside me was saying. "It is romantic. You are engaged maybe? Or honeymooning?" His voice was almost too solicitous.