 What would have happened if Click’s camera broke in the crash?
For Click and Irish were marooned on the pirate's asteroid—their only weapons a single gun and a news-reel camera. Click Hathaway's camera was loaded and he stood there listening to it rack-spin film between his fingers, and he knew he was getting a damned sweet picture of everything that was happening. 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. "Is this what ?" yelled Marnagan inside his helmet. Hathaway felt himself grabbed; he and Marnagan rattled around—human dice in a croupier's cup. 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. Upon the sharp meteoric rocks Hathaway saw the tangled insides of the radio, the food supply mashed and scattered. 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. Hathaway made it first, Marnagan bellowing just behind him. Click's voice gasped it out, as Marnagan squeezed his two-hundred-fifty pounds beside him. Instinctively, Hathaway added, "Asteroid monsters! You're doing nothing but sitting, looking like a little boy locked in a bedroom closet, so take me a profile shot of the beasties and myself." When Click finished filming, Irish sat down to save oxygen, and used it up arguing about Gunther. Super-gravity and a couple of well-tossed meteors. From it, Gunther strikes unseen; ships simply crash, that's all. "People crashing here die from air-lack, no food, or from wounds caused at the crackup. Looks like accidental death instead of murder, if the Patrol happens to land and finds us. The first light struck film-surface, destroyed one chemical, leaving imprints; the second exposure simply hardened, secured the impressions. Hathaway grabbed the camera, gasped, squinted, and gasped again: Pictures in montage; Marnagan sitting down, chatting conversationally with nothing ; Marnagan shooting his gun at nothing ; Marnagan pretending to be happy in front of nothing .
 They would have continued to believe the monsters were real.
 Irish would have died on impact.  They would have returned immediately to Luna Base.  They would have caught Gunther faster.  They would have continued to believe the monsters were real.