Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: April 30, 2025
He was on the planet of the shaggy beasts, acting as consultant on the cases of persons who arrived there and became emotionally disturbed because they could do as they pleased, instead of being forced by economic necessity to do otherwise. But this day Babs and Cochrane went together into the grand concourse of the Spaceways terminal. There were people everywhere.
Tom read over the application and looked up quickly. "Mr. Bush," said Tom, "you've stated here that you were once a messenger for the Spaceways Bonded Messenger Service and that you were dismissed. Why was that?" Ed Bush's mouth twitched as he played with his hat and stirred uneasily in his chair. "I was framed," he said finally. "Framed?" asked Tom. "Yeah, framed!" snapped Bush.
Jones was already off somewhere in a ship built according to his own notions. Officially he was doing research for Spaceways, Inc., but actually nobody told him what to do. He puttered happily with improbable contrivances and sometimes got even more improbable results. Holden was already off of Earth.
He stormed, to Babs, and ruthlessly cancelled appointments and abandoned or transferred enterprises, and made preparations for a more satisfactory way of life. They went, in time, to the Spaceways terminal, to take ship for the stars. The terminal was improvised, but it was busy. Already eighteen ships a day went away from there in Dabney fields. Eighteen others arrived.
Since Spaceways was being financed on sales of publicity which could be turned on this product and that, publicity-hounds cut into its revenue and capital. Back on Earth a crackpot inventor had a lawyer busily garnering free advertisement by press conferences about the injury done his client by Spaceways, Inc., who had stolen his invention to travel through space faster than light.
"I don't understand," Dane began and then swallowed the rest of his protest, knowing that Tau was not going to explain why he needed to have the hackneyed popular song of the spaceways played in a Khatkan swamp. As a Free Trader he had had quite a few odd jobs handed him during the past couple of years, but this was the first time he had been ordered to serve as a musician.
Then the publicity campaign broke. On orders from Cochrane, Jamison the extrapolating genius got slightly plastered, in company with the two news-association reporters in Lunar City. He confided that Spaceways, Inc., had been organized and was backed to develop the Dabney faster-than-light-signalling field into a faster-than-light-travel field. The news men pumped him of all his extrapolations.
There was an audible groan of sympathy from the thousands of spectators in the grandstands. In spite of every precaution for safety, death had visited the spaceways. Strong continued, "We have just received official confirmation from Luna City that the Paris-Venusport Transfer Company entry exploded in space soon after leaving Luna City.
"Good idea, sir," acknowledged Tom. "But I can't understand Devers' motive," said Connel. "What does he stand to gain if this project is a failure?" "He'll lose plenty if it's a success," Tom asserted. "Devers owns Jilolo Spaceways, the parent company of Universal Jet Trucking and Surface Transportation! If the projectiles worked, surface cargo delivery would be wiped out."
Cochrane matter-of-factly made the deal. There would be miniature extra-terrestrial animals on sale in all toy-shops within days. Spaceways, Inc., would collect a royalty on each toy sold. The rockets boomed, and lessened their noise, and wavered up and down again. Then there was that deliberate, crunching feel of the great landing-fins pressing into soil with all the ship's weight bearing down.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking