H. Beam Piper - Federation 02, page 18
“You know, I don’t think you like Fenris.”
“I don’t. If I were a drinking man, this planet would have made a drunkard of me. Now, you forget about these six years chopped out of your busy life. When you get back here, with an education, you’ll be a kid of twenty-four, with a big long life ahead of you and your mind stocked with things you don’t have now that will help you make something—and more important, something enjoyable—out of it.”
* * *
There was a huge crowd at the spaceport to see us off, Tom and Bish Ware and me. Mostly, it was for Bish. If I don’t find a monument to him when I get back, I’ll know there is no such thing as gratitude. There had been a big banquet for us the evening before, and I think Bish actually got a little tipsy. Nobody can be sure, though; it might have been just the old actor back in his role. Now they were all crowding around us, as many as could jam in, in the main lounge of the Peenemünde. Joe Kivelson and his wife. Dad and Julio and Mrs. Laden, who was actually being cordial to Bish, and who had a bundle for us that we weren’t to open till we were in hyperspace. Lillian Arnaz, the girl who was to take my place as star reporter. We were going to send each other audiovisuals; advice from me on the job, and news from the Times from her. Glenn Murell, who had his office open by now and was grumbling that there had been a man from Interstellar Import-Export out on the Cape Canaveral, and if the competition got any stiffer the price of tallow-wax would be forced up on him to a sol a pound. And all the Javelin hands who had been wrecked with us on Hermann Reuch’s Land, and the veterans of the Civil War, all but Oscar and Cesário, who will be at the dock to meet us when we get to Terra.
I wonder what it’ll be like, on a world where you go to bed every time it gets dark and get up when it gets light, and can go outdoors all the time. I wonder how I’ll like college, and meeting people from all over the Federation, and swapping tall stories about our home planets.
And I wonder what I’ll learn. The long years ahead, I can’t imagine them now, will be spent on the Times, and I ought to learn things to fit me for that. But I can’t get rid of the idea about carniculture growth of tallow-wax. We’ll have to do something like that. The demand for the stuff is growing, and we don’t know how long it’ll be before the monsters are hunted out. We know how fast we’re killing them, but we don’t know how many there are or how fast they breed. I’ll talk to Tom about that; maybe between us we can hit on something, or at least lay a foundation for somebody else who will.
The crowd pushed out and off the ship, and the three of us were alone, here in the lounge of the Peenemünde, where the story started and where it ends. Bish says no story ends, ever. He’s wrong. Stories die, and nothing in the world is deader than a dead news story. But before they do, they hatch a flock of little ones, and some of them grow into bigger stories still. What happens after the ship lifts into the darkness, with the pre-dawn glow in the east, will be another, a new, story.
But to the story of how the hunters got an honest co-operative and Fenris got an honest government, and Bish Ware got Anton Gerrit the slaver, I can write
“The End.”
* * *
THE WORLDS OF H. BEAM PIPER
FOUR-DAY PLANET … where the killing heat of a thousand-hour “day” drives men underground, and the glorious hundred-hour sunset is followed by a thousand-hour night so cold that only an Extreme Environment Suit can preserve the life of anyone caught outside.
and
LONE STAR PLANET … a planet-full of Texans—they firmly believe they live on the biggest, strongest, best planet in the galaxy. They herd cattle the size of boxcars for a living, and they defy the Solar League to prove that New Texas has even the slightest need of the “protection” that a bunch of diplomatic sissies can offer.
BRAVE NEW WORLDS FROM
THE CREATOR OF “LITTLE FUZZY”
—TOGETHER IN ONE VOLUME—
* * *
Also by H. Beam Piper
LITTLE FUZZY
FUZZY SAPIENS
SPACE VIKING
THE COSMIC COMPUTER
all from Ace Science Fiction
ACE
SCIENCE
FICTION
* * *
Four-Day Planet
Fenris isn’t a hell planet, but it’s nobody’s bargain. With 2,000-hour days and an 8,000-hour year, it alternates blazing heat with killing cold. A planet like that tends to breed a special kind of person: tough enough to stay alive and smart enough to make the best of it. When that kind of person discovers he’s being cheated of wealth he’s risked his life for, that kind of planet is ripe for revolution.
Lone Star Planet
New Texas: its citizens figure that name about says it all. The Solar League ambassador to the Lone Star Planet has the unenviable task of convincing New Texans that a s’Srauff attack is imminent, and dangerous. Unfortunately it’s common knowledge that the s’Srauff are evolved from canine ancestors—and not a Texan alive is about to be scared of a talking dog! But unless he can get them to act, and fast, there won’t be a Texan alive, scared or otherwise!
* * *
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