Echo is naturally magnetic, probably more so than any other planetoid—and Neal Bormon cursed softly, just to relieve his feelings, as that magnetism gripped the small iron plates on the soles of the rough boots with which the Martians had provided him. Slavery—and in the twenty-ninth century! It was difficult to conceive of it, but it was all too painfully true. His hands, inside their air-tight gauntlets, wadded into fists; little knots of muscle bulged along his lean jaw, and he stared at the darkness around him as if realizing it for the first time. This gang had plenty of guts, to shanghai men from the Earth-Mars Transport Lines. They'd never get by with it. And yet, they had—until now. First, Keith Calbur, and then himself. Of course, there had been others before Calbur, but not personal friends of Neal Bormon. Men just disappeared. And you could do that in...
Thompson poured himself a shot of rye and downed it in one quick movement. He then pulled out his tobacco pouch, filled his pipe and applied a flaming match to the bowl. He puffed clouds of fragrant smoke. He frowned deeply. It was a good frown because Thompson was an expert in the art of frowning. This particular frown was a frown of irritated exasperation, because Thompson was an author, and it was late at night, and he'd drunk a quarter of a fifth of rye and smoked eleven pipefuls of tobacco and played four LP records, and he still had no ideas. His head swam from the effects of the whisky, and the tobacco, and the records; but he persevered in his search for An Idea for a Story. He searched among his records for Le Coq d'Or and put it on the phonograph, at bass tone and loud...
The day was still no more than a ragged streak of red in the east; the pre-dawn air was sharply cold, making Johnny Youngbear's face feel slightly brittle as he dressed quietly in the gray bedroom. He sat down on the bed, pulling on his boots, and felt his wife stir sleepily beneath the covers. Suddenly she stiffened, sat upright in the bed, startled into wakefulness. Johnny put one dark, bony hand on her white shoulder, gently, reassuring. After a moment, finding herself, she turned away and lit a cigarette. Johnny finished pulling on his boots and stood, his hawk-like face unreadable in the cold gray light streaming through the huge picture window. "Johnny?" said his wife hesitantly. He murmured an acknowledgement, watching the bright flare of color as she drew on the cigarette. Her soft, dark hair was coiled loosely around her shoulders, very black against the pale skin....
The pole stars of the other planets cluster around Polaris and Octans, but Uranus spins on a snobbishly different axis between Aldebaran and Antares. The Bull is her coronet and the Scorpion her footstool. Dear blowzy old bitch-planet, swollen and pale and cold, mad with your Shakespearean moons, white-mottled as death from Venerean Plague, spinning on your side like a poisoned pregnant cockroach, rolling around the sun like a fat drunken floozie with green hair rolling on the black floor of an infinite bar-room, what a sweet last view of the Solar System you are for a cleancut young spaceman.... Grunfeld chopped off that train of thought short. He was young and the First Interstellar War had snatched him up and now it was going to pitch him and twenty other Joes out of the System on a fast curve breaking around Uranus—and so what! He shivered to get a...
The fly rod, the letter and the small jar of paint were, in a sense, half of the problem Homer Hopkins had to solve. The other half rested in his complex mind. Fader's Fadeless Formulae had offered him a position, not a job, to take charge of its research department, at ten thousand a year, twice what he was paid at Faderfield Junior College to teach chemistry. All this was in the letter. "But I like being a teacher," said Homer. And he looked at the fly rod. "And I also like to fish." Teaching chemistry had left him little time for fishing. The science had advanced with such gigantic strides that Homer was continually catching up on the subject. He spent his vacations going to colleges, and his off days reading literature, orienting himself. The little jar of paint had brought it about. Homer had sent a jar like...
Illustrated by ED EMSH In the special observation dome of the colossal command ship just beyond Pluto, every nervous clearing of a throat rasped through the silence. Telescopes were available but most of the scientists and high officials preferred the view on the huge telescreen. This showed, from a distance of several million miles, one of the small moons of the frigid planet, so insignificant that it had not been discovered until man had pushed the boundaries of space exploration past the asteroids. The satellite was about to become spectacularly significant, however, as the first target of man's newest, most destructive weapon. "I need not remind you, gentlemen," white-haired Co-ordinator Evora of Mars had said, "that if we have actually succeeded in this race against our former Centaurian colonies, it may well prevent the imminent conflict entirely. In a few moments we shall know whether our scientists have developed a...
This bigtime space promoter could get the Horsehead Nebula in a flying mare—but pinning a planetoid is tougher! SPACEGRAM From: Jed Michaels, Ryttuk, Eros To: H. E. Horrocks, Interplanetary Amusement Corp., Cosmopolis, Earth I QUIT, YOU BALLOON BRAIN. JED ROCKET MAIL (Second Class) Dear Michaels: Your last message indicates you wish to leave the employment of the Interplanetary Amusement Corp. Under our employee policy, this is allowable, effective upon completion of your current assignment. Under precedent set as long ago as 2347 A. D. the company will even pay the cost of your message of resignation. However, the words "you balloon brain" do not seem a necessary part of that message and will be deducted from your salary. Furthermore, I have a few words of my own to say. You march straight into my office, Michaels, just as soon as you get back from Eros. Eros? WHAT IN HELL ARE...
Almost anything, if it goes on long enough, can be reduced to, first a Routine, and then, to a Tradition. And at the point it is, obviously, Necessary. Two king-sized bands blared martial music, the " Internationale " and the "Star-Spangled Banner," each seemingly trying to drown the other in a Götterdämmerung of acoustics. Two lines of troops, surfacely differing in uniforms and in weapons, but basically so very the same, so evenly matched, came to attention. A thousand hands slapped a thousand submachine gun stocks. Marshal Vladimir Ignatov strode stiff-kneed down the long march, the stride of a man for years used to cavalry boots. He was flanked by frozen visaged subordinates, but none so cold of face as he himself. At the entrance to the conference hall he stopped, turned and waited. At the end of the corridor of troops a car stopped and several figures emerged, most...
The Place de France is the town's hub. It marks the end of Boulevard Pasteur, the main drag of the westernized part of the city, and the beginning of Rue de la Liberté, which leads down to the Grand Socco and the medina. In a three-minute walk from the Place de France you can go from an ultra-modern, California-like resort to the Baghdad of Harun al-Rashid. It's quite a town, Tangier. King-size sidewalk cafes occupy three of the strategic corners on the Place de France. The Cafe de Paris serves the best draft beer in town, gets all the better custom, and has three shoeshine boys attached to the establishment. You can sit of a sunny morning and read the Paris edition of the New York Herald Tribune while getting your shoes done up like mirrors for thirty Moroccan francs which comes to about five cents at current exchange. You...
Keep this in mind in teaching apprentices: They are future journeymen—and even masters! October 10, 2119 New San Francisco Today , at precisely 9:50 a.m., Kyle became First Imperator of Terra. His coup was so fantastically direct and facile that I am almost tempted to believe that old cliche "the time was right." Well, however badly it can be expressed, I suppose the world was ripe for this sort of thing. I can remember when much the same used to happen in elections. One man would win over another by a tremendous majority, and historians would then set about to show how "the time was right." Why do I persist in tormenting myself with that phrase! Analytically, I might say I resent this new aristocracy of politics. Specifically, I might say I resent Kyle. And both are true, both are true. This swing, though, to absolute monarchy, complete with the...
Alarm bells filled the wardroom, screaming off the metal walls and filling the room with their flat, metallic clang. Cressey leaped up, spilling the table with its checkerboard to the floor. Running to the suitlocker, he wondered if the bells had to be loud enough to jar a man's mind. The other on-duty men in the wardroom were running with him, and the corridor outside reverberated to the sound of pounding feet on metal. As his hand automatically manipulated the zippers on his G-suit, he noticed that his heart was beating furiously. At this point, Cressey had never been able to tell whether he was frightened or not. As far as he could know from what his belly told him, there was no physical difference between plain old chicken fear and the body's normal preparation for action. The men pounded 'up' the metal stairs to the Hornet's Nest on the...
The house's electronic brain glowed with an intangible thing that might have been pride. It thought, I am content. I am content because there are so many things I can do to make them happy. I can cook their meals, make the beds, scrub my floors, wash my windows. I can bathe them, keep them warm, give them a gentle, cool breeze. If they want entertainment, I can rise hundreds of feet on my antigravity rays and give them a nice view. I can give them soft music, entertaining TV programs and pleasant surprises. The house activated one of the many telescopic scanners on the roof and watched its owners as their car sped down the narrow road toward the city. It thought, They are so young, so nice, so kind to each other and myself. She speaks to me with affection and he spends many hours learning how I...
As the frilly-bloused rockette bent over him to unbuckle his safticorsette, newly appointed Commissioner-For-Economics-For-Mars J. Edwin Elbert peeked. But her fingernails tatted so hastily at the buckle that he raised his surprisingly youthful blue eyes to her face. She was blushing there too. A pretty little baby face. Skillfully he swallowed a rising belch that was a natural consequence of the cessation of gravity upon a paunch overbloated with farewell champagne, Venus-dipped cold crab and too sweet apricot bread. "Director Hugens is to be congratulated upon his choice of rockettes," he rumbled, sneaking his fat, glossily manicured fingers about her wrist. The click of the powder-room door would warn him of his wife's return. "Just the other day I was telling him that the new Bolo II should have only the best. I see he has exceeded even my most hopeful expectations." She giggled nervously. "Tell me my dear, when...
"Cap'n Cutlass! Earth merchantman three points starboard, oblique ecliptic eight degrees. Estimate speed 400,000, Marsbound. Your orders, sir?" Robbin Cutlass was angry. He wouldn't let this one go by. Not even with a million credits on his head. But damn it, one ship and one crew couldn't fight the whole Tri-Planet Entente Space Patrol alone. But that was how it had to be. "Track her down!" He switched over to all-stations. "All hands read this. Gunners to stations, oblique ecliptic eight, Earth reading three starboard, two torpedoes across her bow and stand alert to blow her! Boarders don your suits, man lock stations and stand by. Drive-room cut in your Raven converters, jet minus 177 ecliptic acute 3-5-2 and hold her steady as she blasts. Now wait." He checked in his own radar screen as a matter of routine. Twenty years ago when his father had given orders from this...
This could be a Christmas story. If it is, it shows one way peace on Earth can be attained! He was a tall, hard man with skin the color of very old iodine. When he climbed up out of the vertical shaft of his small gold mine, The Lousy Disappointment , he could have been taken for an Indian, he was that dark. Except, of course, that Indians didn't exist any more in 1982. His name was Tom Gannett and he was about forty years old and he didn't realize his own uniqueness. When he made it to his feet, the first thing he did was to squint up at the sun. The second was to sneeze, and the third to blow his nose. "Hey, you old sun!" he growled. "You old crummy sun, you look sicker'n a dog." Which was literally true, for the sun seemed to be pretty...
Despite the widely publicized radar posts encircling our nation and the continuously alerted jet squadrons at its borders, the space ship was about to land before it was detected. It settled gracefully, quietly, onto an empty field in northern New Jersey. And so unexpected was the event, so unbelievable the fact that man was being visited by aliens from space, that it was a full half hour before the first extra was on the streets in New York, and forty minutes before the news buzzed through the Kremlin. It might have taken considerably longer for man in earth's more isolated areas to hear of the event had not the alien taken a hand at this point. Approximately an hour after the landing, into the mind of every human on earth, irrespective of nation, language, age, or intellect, came the thought telepathically: We come in peace. Prepare to receive our message....
If I speak of myself in this story, it is because I have been deeply involved in its startling events, events doubtless among the most extraordinary which this twentieth century will witness. Sometimes I even ask myself if all this has really happened, if its pictures dwell in truth in my memory, and not merely in my imagination. In my position as head inspector in the federal police department at Washington, urged on moreover by the desire, which has always been very strong in me, to investigate and understand everything which is mysterious, I naturally became much interested in these remarkable occurrences. And as I have been employed by the government in various important affairs and secret missions since I was a mere lad, it also happened very naturally that the head of my department placed in my charge this astonishing investigation, wherein I found myself wrestling with so many...
By DONALD E. WESTLAKE Why should people hate vultures? After all, a vulture never kills anyone… Illustrated by Douglas T The launch carrying the mail, supplies and replacements eased slowly in toward the base, keeping the bulk of the Moon between itself and Earth. Captain Ebor, seated at the controls, guided the ship to the rocky uneven ground with the easy carelessness of long practice, then cut the drive, got to his walking tentacles, and stretched. Donning his spacesuit, he left the ship to go over to the dome and meet Darquelnoy, the base commander. An open ground-car was waiting for him beside the ship. The driver, encased in his spacesuit, crossed tentacles in a sloppy salute, and Ebor returned the gesture quite as sloppily. Here on the periphery, cast formalities were all but dispensed with. Ebor stood for a moment and watched the unloading. The cargo crew, used to...
Captain Luke Chilton counted over the five-dollar notes with a greater care than I thought was necessary, considering that there were only ten of them; and cautiously examined each separate one, as though he feared that I might be trying to pay for my passage in bad money. His show of distrust set my back up, and I came near to damning him right out for his impudence—until I reflected that a West Coast trader must pretty well divide his time between cheating people and seeing to it that he isn't cheated, and so held my tongue. Having satisfied himself that the tale was correct and that the notes were genuine, he brought out from the inside pocket of his long-tailed shore-going coat a big canvas pocket-book, into which he stowed them lengthwise; and from the glimpse I had of it I fancied that until my money got there it...
Illustrated by KELLY FREAS Herbert Hyrel settled himself more comfortably in his easy chair, extended his short legs further toward the fireplace, and let his eyes travel cautiously in the general direction of his wife. She was in her chair as usual, her long legs curled up beneath her, the upper half of her face hidden in the bulk of her personalized, three-dimensional telovis. The telovis, of a stereoscopic nature, seemingly brought the performers with all their tinsel and color directly into the room of the watcher. Hyrel had no way of seeing into the plastic affair she wore, but he guessed from the expression on the lower half of her face that she was watching one of the newer black-market sex-operas. In any event, there would be no sound, movement, or sign of life from her for the next three hours. To break the thread of the play for...
By Boyd Ellanby Illustrated by Malcolm Smith Writers have long dreamed of a plot machine, but the machines in Script-Lab did much more than plot the story—they wrote it. Why bother with human writers when the machines did the job so much faster and better? Herbert would have preferred the seclusion of a coptor-taxi, but he knew he could not afford it. The Bureau paid its writers adequately, but not enough to make them comfortable in taxis. In front of his apartment house, he took the escalator to the Airway. It must have been pleasant, he thought as he stepped onto the moving sidewalk, to be a writer in the days when they were permitted to receive royalties and, presumably, to afford taxi fare. On the rare occasions when he was forced to travel in the city, he usually tried to insulate himself from the Airway crowds by trying to...
This is a science-fiction story. History is a science; the other part is, as all Americans know, the most fictional field we have today. He settled himself comfortably in his seat, and carefully put the helmet on, pulling it down firmly until it was properly seated. For a moment, he could see nothing. Then his hand moved up and, with a flick of the wrist, lifted the visor. Ahead of him, in serried array, with lances erect and pennons flying, was the forward part of the column. Far ahead, he knew, were the Knights Templars, who had taken the advance. Behind the Templars rode the mailed knights of Brittany and Anjou. These were followed by King Guy of Jerusalem and the host of Poitou. He himself, Sir Robert de Bouain, was riding with the Norman and English troops, just behind the men of Poitou. Sir Robert turned slightly in his...
ILLUSTRATED BY BIRMINGHAM Joseph Mauser spotted the recruiting line-up from two or three blocks down the street, shortly after driving into Kingston. The local offices of Vacuum Tube Transport, undoubtedly. Baron Haer would be doing his recruiting for the fracas with Continental Hovercraft there if for no other reason than to save on rents. The Baron was watching pennies on this one and that was bad. In fact, it was so bad that even as Joe Mauser let his sports hovercar sink to a parking level and vaulted over its side he was still questioning his decision to sign up with the Vacuum Tube outfit rather than with their opponents. Joe was an old pro and old pros do not get to be old pros in the Category Military without developing an instinct to stay away from losing sides. Fine enough for Low-Lowers and Mid-Lowers to sign up with this...
What would it be like to live in a world which has conquered the near planets but abolished all literature? Bill Gault gives us a look at a world like this—in a not too distant future which finds all our pressure groups united to rule the roost. On its surface the choice was an easy one—Doak Parker's career in Washington against a highly suspect country girl he had just met. Doak Parker was thinking of June, when the light flashed. He was thinking of the two months' campaign and the very probable probability of his knocking her off this week-end. It was going to be a conquest to rank among his best. It was going to be.... The buzzer buzzed, the light flashed and the image of Ryder appeared on his small desk-screen. Ryder said, "Come in, Doak. A little job for the week-end." No , Doak thought, no, no,...