 Why didn’t the proton gun hurt the monsters?
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. The picture of Marnagan hunched huge over the control-console, wrenching levers, jamming studs with freckled fists. And out in the dark of the fore-part there was space and a star-sprinkling and this meteor coming like blazing fury. It made a spiked fist and knocked the rear-jets flat, and the ship spun like a cosmic merry-go-round. Hathaway only knew he was picked up and hurled against a lever-bank, and that Marnagan wasn't long in following, swearing loud words. A sweeter one still of Marnagan beating hell out of the controls and keeping his words to himself until just now. It got so quiet you could almost hear the asteroids rushing up, cold, blue and hard. "Is this what ?" yelled Marnagan inside his helmet. They both waited, thrust against the shipside and held by a hand of gravity; listening to each other's breathing hard in the earphones. Bouncing, it struck again. Hathaway felt himself grabbed; he and Marnagan rattled around—human dice in a croupier's cup. The shell of the ship burst, air and energy flung out. "Low angle shot; Interplanetary Patrolman emerges unscathed from asteroid crackup. They stood in the middle of a pocked, time-eroded meteor plain that stretched off, dipping down into silent indigo and a rash of stars. Overhead, the sun poised; black and stars all around it, making it look sick. Upon the sharp meteoric rocks Hathaway saw the tangled insides of the radio, the food supply mashed and scattered. "Damn that meteor!" said Marnagan, hotly. I took a picture of it, looked it right in the eye when it rolled at us, and it was poker-hot. Space-meteors are never hot and glowing. If it's proof you want, I've got it here, on film." "It's not proof we need now, Click. Oh, God, this would make great news-release stuff if we ever get back to Earth. There wasn't much to see, but it was better than standing still, waiting. We got fifty minutes to prove you're right. After that—right or wrong—you'll be Cosmic Films prettiest unmoving, unbreathin' genius. It's times like this when we all need words, any words, on our tongues.
 The monsters had thick, resistant skin.
 The monsters ran too fast.  The proton gun was damaged in the crash.  The monsters had thick, resistant skin.  Irish wanted to negotiate a peace.