The Science Fiction Anthology

Andre Norton, Murray Leinster, Lester del Rey, Harry Harrison, Marion Zimmer Bradley, Fritz Leiber, Ben Bova, Pocket Classic, Philip K. Dick

• Publisher: Pocket Classic
• Year: 2022
• eBook ISBN: 9782380374247
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Urban Planning & Landscaping
• Index: Literature

This collection brings together some of the most incredible sci-fi stories ever told in one convenient, high-quality, Kindle volume! This book now contains several HTML tables of contents that will make reading a real pleasure! The Sentimentalists, by Murray Leinster The Girls from Earth, by Frank Robinson The Death Traps of FX-31, by Sewell Wright Song in a minor key, by C.L. Moore Sentry of the Sky, by Evelyn E. Smith Meeting of the Minds, by Robert Sheckley Junior, by Robert Abernathy Death Wish, by Ned Lang Dead World, by Jack Douglas Cost of Living, by Robert Sheckley Aloys, by R.A. Lafferty With These Hands, by C.M. Kornbluth What is POSAT?, by Phyllis Sterling-Smith A Little Journey, by Ray Bradbury Hunt the Hunter, by Kris Neville Citizen Jell, by Michael Shaara Operation Distress, by Lester Del Rey Syndrome Johnny, by Charles Dye Psychotennis, anyone?, by Lloyd Williams Prime Difference, by Alan Nourse Doorstep, by Keith Laumer The Drug, by C.C. MacApp An Elephant For the Prinkip, by L.J. Stecher License to Steal, by Louis Newman The Last Letter, by Fritz Lieber The Stuff, by Henry Slesar The Celestial Hammerlock, by Donald Colvin Always A Qurono, by Jim Harmon Jamieson, by Bill Doede A Fall of Glass, by Stanley Lee Shatter the Wall, by Sydney Van Scyoc Transfer Point, by Anthony Boucher Thy Name Is Woman, by Kenneth O'Hara Twelve Times Zero, by Howard Browne All Day Wednesday, by Richard Olin Blind Spot, by Bascom Jones Double Take, by Richard Wilson Field Trip, by Gene Hunter Larson's Luck, by Gerald Vance Navy Day, by Harry Harrison One Martian Afternoon, by Tom Leahy Planet of Dreams, by James McKimmey Prelude To Space, by Robert Haseltine Pythias, by Frederik Pohl Show Business, by Boyd Ellanby Slaves of Mercury, by Nat Schachner Sound of Terror, by Don Berry The Big Tomorrow, by Paul Lohrman The Four-Faced Visitors of…Ezekiel, by Arthur Orton The Happy Man, by Gerald Page The Last Supper, by T.D. Hamm The One and the Many, by Milton Lesser The Other Likeness, by James Schmitz The Outbreak of Peace, by H.B. Fyfe The Skull, by Philip K. Dick The Smiler, by Albert Hernhunter The Unthinking Destroyer, by Roger Phillips Two Timer, by Frederic Brown Vital Ingredient, by Charles De Vet Weak on Square Roots, by Russell Burton With a Vengeance, by J.B. Woodley Zero Hour, by Alexander Blade The Great Nebraska Sea, by Allan Danzig The Valor of Cappen Varra, by Poul Anderson A Bad Day for Vermin, by Keith Laumer Hall of Mirrors, by Frederic Brown Common Denominator, by John MacDonald Doctor, by Murray Leinster The Nothing Equation, by Tom Godwin The Last Evolution, by John Campbell A Hitch in Space, by Fritz Leiber On the Fourth Planet, by J.F. Bone Flight From Tomorrow, by H. Beam Piper Card Trick, by Walter Bupp The K-Factor, by Harry Harrison The Lani People, by J. F. Bone Advanced Chemistry, by Jack Huekels Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas, by R. A. Lafferty Keep Out, by Frederic Brown All Cats are Gray, by Andre Norton A Problem in Communication, by Miles J. Breuer The Terrible Tentacles of L-472, by Sewell Peaslee Wright Marooned Under the Sea, by Paul Ernst The Murder Machine, by Hugh B. Cave The Attack from Space, by Captain S. P. Meek The Knights of Arthur, by Frederik Pohl And All the Earth a Grave, by C.C. MacApp Citadel, by Algis Budrys Micro-Man, by Weaver Wright ....

The Lani People, by J. F. Bone

CHAPTER I

The boxed ad in the opportunities section of the Kardon Journal of Allied Medical Sciences stood out like a cut diamond in a handful of gravel. “Wanted,” it read, “Veterinarian—for residency in active livestock operation. Single recent graduate preferred. Quarters and service furnished. Well-equipped hospital. Five-year contract, renewal option, starting salary 15,000 cr./annum with periodic increases. State age, school, marital status, and enclose recent tri-di with application. Address Box V-9, this journal.”

Jac Kennon read the box a second time. There must be a catch to it. Nothing that paid a salary that large could possibly be on the level. Fifteen thousand a year was top pay even on Beta, and an offer like this for a new graduate was unheard of—unless Kardon was in the middle of an inflation. But Kardon wasn’t. The planet’s financial status was A-1. He knew. He’d checked that immediately after landing. Whatever might be wrong with Kardon, it wasn’t her currency. The rate of exchange was 1.2-1 Betan.

A five-year contract—hmm—that would be seventy-five thousand. Figure three thousand a year for living expenses, that would leave sixty-plenty of capital to start a clinic. The banks couldn’t turn him down if he had that much cash collateral.

Kennon chuckled wryly. He’d better get the job before he started spending the money he didn’t have. He had 231 credits plus a few halves, tenths, and hundredths, a diploma in veterinary medicine, some textbooks, a few instruments, and a first-class spaceman’s ticket. By watching his expenses he had enough money to live here for a month and if nothing came of his efforts to find a job on this planet, there was always his spaceman’s ticket and another world.

Another world! There were over six thousand planets in the Brotherhood of Man. At two months per planet, not figuring transit time, it would take more than a thousand Galactic Standard years to visit them all, and a man could look forward to scarcely more than five hundred at best. The habitat of Man had become too large. There wasn’t time to explore every possibility.

But a man could have certain standards, and look until he found a position that fitted. The trouble was—if the standards were too high the jobs were too scarce. Despite the chronic shortage of veterinarians throughout the Brotherhood, there was a peculiar reluctance on the part of established practitioners to welcome recent graduates. Most of the ads in the professional journals read “State salary desired,” which was nothing more than economic blackmail—a bald-faced attempt to get as much for as little as possible. Kennon grimaced wryly. He’d be damned if he’d sell his training for six thousand a year. Slave labor, that’s what it was. There were a dozen ads like that in the Journal. Well, he’d give them a trial, but he’d ask eight thousand and full GEA benefits. Eight years of school and two more as an intern were worth at least that.

He pulled the portable voicewrite to a comfortable position in front of the view wall and began composing another of the series of letters that had begun months ago in time and parsecs away in space. His voice was a fluid counterpoint to the soft hum of the machine.

And as he dictated, his eyes took in the vista through the view wall. Albertsville was a nice town, too young for slums, too new for overpopulation. The white buildings were the color of winter butter in the warm yellow sunlight as the city drowsed in the noonday heat. It nestled snugly in the center of a bowl-shaped valley whose surrounding forest clad hills gave mute confirmation to the fact that Kardon was still primitive, an unsettled world that had not yet reached the explosive stage of population growth that presaged maturity. But that was no disadvantage. In fact, Kennon liked it. Living could be fun on a planet like this.

It was abysmally crude compared to Beta, but the Brotherhood had opened Kardon less than five hundred years ago, and in such a short time one couldn’t expect all the comforts of civilization.

It required a high population density to supply them, and while Kardon was integrated its population was scarcely more than two hundred million. It would be some time yet before this world would achieve a Class I status. However, a Class II planet had some advantages. What it lacked in conveniences it made up in opportunities and elbow room.

A normal Betan would have despised this world, but Kennon wasn’t normal, although to the casual eye he was a typical representative of the Medico-Technological Civilization, long legged, fair haired, and short bodied with the typical Betan squint that left his eyes mere slits behind thick lashes and heavy brows. The difference was internal rather than external.

Possibly it was due to the fact that his father was the commander of a Shortliner and most of his formative years had been spent in space. To Kennon, accustomed to the timeless horror of hyper space, all planets were good, broad open places where a man could breathe unfiltered air and look for miles across distances unbroken by dually bulk heads and safety shields. On a planet there were spaciousness and freedom and after the claustrophobic confinement of a hyper ship any world was paradise. Kennon sighed, finished his letters, and placed them in the mail chute. Perhaps, this time, there would be a favorable reply.

CHAPTER II

Kennon was startled by the speed with which his letters were answered. Accustomed to the slower pace of Beta he had expected a week would elapse before the first reply, but within twenty-four hours nine of his twelve inquiries were returned. Five expressed the expected “Thank you but I feel that your asking salary is a bit high in view of your lack of experience.” Three were frankly interested and requested a personal interview. And the last was the letter, outstanding in its quietly ostentatious folder-the reply from Box V-9.

“Would Dr. Kennon call at 10 A.M. tomorrow at the offices of Outworld Enterprises Incorporated and bring this letter and suitable identifications?” Kennon chuckled. Would he? There was no question about it. The address, 200 Central Avenue, was only a few blocks away. In fact, he could see the building from his window, a tall functional block of durilium and plastic, soaring above the others on the street, the sunlight gleaming off its clean square lines. He eyed it curiously, wondering what he would find inside.

* * *

The receptionist took his I.D. and the letter, scanned them briefly, and slipped them into one of the message tubes beside her desk. “It will only be a moment, Doctor,” she said impersonally. “Would you care to sit down? ‘“

“Thank you,” he said. The minute, reflected, could easily be an hour. But she was right. It was only a minute until the message tube clicked and popped a capsule onto the girl’s desk. She opened it, and removed Kennon’s I.D. and a small yellow plastic rectangle. Her eyes widened at the sight of the plastic card.

“Here you are, Doctor. Take shaft number one. Slip the card into the scanner slot and you’ll be taken to the correct floor. The offices you want will be at the end of the corridor to the left. You’ll find any other data you may need on the card in case you get lost.” She looked at him with a curious mixture of surprise and respect as she handed him the contents of the message tube.

Kennon murmured an acknowledgment, took the card and his I.D., and entered the grav-shaft. There was the usual moment of heaviness as the shaft whisked him upward and deposited him in front of a thickly carpeted corridor.

Executive level, Kennon thought as he followed the receptionist’s directions. No wonder she had looked respectful. But what was he doing here? The employment of a veterinarian wasn’t important enough to demand the attention of a senior executive. The personnel section could handle the details of his application as well as not. He shrugged. Perhaps veterinarians were more important on Kardon. He didn’t know a thing about this world’s customs.

He opened the unmarked door at the end of the corridor, entered a small reception room, smiled uncertainly at the woman behind the desk, and received an answering smile in return.

Come right in, Dr. Kennon. Mr. Alexander is waiting for you.

Alexander! The entrepreneur himself! Why? Numb with surprise Kennon watched the woman open the intercom on her desk.

“Sir, Dr. Kennon is here,” she said.

“Bring him in,” a smooth voice replied from the speaker. Alexander X. M. Alexander, President of Outworld Enterprises—a lean, dark, wolfish man in his early sixties—eyed Kennon with a flat predatory intentness that was oddly disquieting. His stare combined the analytical inspection of the pathologist, the probing curiosity of the psychiatrist, and the weighing appraisal of the butcher. Kennon’s thoughts about Alexander’s youth vanished that instant. Those eyes belonged to a leader on the battlefield of galactic business.

Kennon felt the conditioned respect for authority surge through him in a smothering wave. Grimly he fought it down, knowing it was a sign of weakness that would do him no good in the interview which lay ahead.

“So you’re Kennon,” Alexander said. His lingua franca was clean and accentless. “I expected someone older.”

“Frankly, sir, so did I,” Kennon replied.

Alexander smiled, an oddly pleasant smile that transformed the hard straight lines in his face into friendly curves. “Business, Dr. Kennon, is not the sole property of age.”

“Nor is a veterinary degree,” Kennon replied.

“True. But one thinks of a Betan as someone ancient and sedate.”

“Ours is an old planet—but we still have new generations.”

“A fact most of us outsiders find hard to believe,” Alexander said. “I picture your world as an ironclad society crystallized by age and custom into something rigid and in flexible.”

“You would be wrong to do so,” Kennon said. “Even though we are cultural introverts there is plenty of dynamism within our society.”

“How is it that you happen to be out here on the edge of civilization?”

“I never said I was like my society,” Kennon grinned. “Actually I suppose I’m one of the proverbial bad apples.”

“There’s more to it than that,” Alexander said. “Your early years probably influenced you.”

Kennon looked sharply at the entrepreneur. How much did the man really know about him? “I suppose so,” he said indifferently.

Alexander looked pleased. “But even with your childhood experiences there must be an atavistic streak in you—a throwback to your adventurous Earth forebears who settled your world?”

Kennon shrugged. “Perhaps you’re right. I really don’t know. Actually, I’ve never thought about it. It merely seemed to me that an undeveloped world offered more opportunity.”

“It does,” Alexander said. “But it also offers more work. If you’re figuring that you can get along on the minimum physical effort required on the Central Worlds, you have a shock coming.”

“I’m not that innocent,” Kennon said. “But I am not so stupid that I can’t apply modifications of Betan techniques to worlds as new as this.”

Alexander chuckled. “I like you,” he said suddenly. “Here read this and see if you’d care to work for me.” He picked a contract form from one of the piles of paper...

Table of contents

• The Sentimentalists, by Murray Leinster
• The Girls from Earth, by Frank Robinson
• The Death Traps of FX-31, by Sewell Wright
• Song in a minor key, by C.L. Moore
• Sentry of the Sky, by Evelyn E. Smith
• Meeting of the Minds, by Robert Sheckley
• Junior, by Robert Abernathy
• Death Wish, by Ned Lang
• Dead World, by Jack Douglas
• Cost of Living, by Robert Sheckley
• Aloys, by R.A. Lafferty
• With These Hands, by C.M. Kornbluth
• What is POSAT?, by Phyllis Sterling-Smith
• A Little Journey, by Ray Bradbury
• Hunt the Hunter, by Kris Neville
• Citizen Jell, by Michael Shaara
• Operation Distress, by Lester Del Rey
• Syndrome Johnny, by Charles Dye
• Psychotennis, anyone?, by Lloyd Williams
• Prime Difference, by Alan Nourse
• Doorstep, by Keith Laumer
• The Drug, by C.C. MacApp
• An Elephant For the Prinkip, by L.J. Stecher
• License to Steal, by Louis Newman
• The Last Letter, by Fritz Lieber
• The Stuff, by Henry Slesar
• The Celestial Hammerlock, by Donald Colvin
• Always A Qurono, by Jim Harmon
• Jamieson, by Bill Doede
• A Fall of Glass, by Stanley Lee
• Shatter the Wall, by Sydney Van Scyoc
• Transfer Point, by Anthony Boucher
• Thy Name Is Woman, by Kenneth O’Hara
• Twelve Times Zero, by Howard Browne
• All Day Wednesday, by Richard Olin
• Blind Spot, by Bascom Jones
• Double Take, by Richard Wilson
• Field Trip, by Gene Hunter
• Larson’s Luck, by Gerald Vance
• Navy Day, by Harry Harrison
• One Martian Afternoon, by Tom Leahy
• Planet of Dreams, by James McKimmey
• Prelude To Space, by Robert Haseltine
• Pythias, by Frederik Pohl
• Show Business, by Boyd Ellanby
• Slaves of Mercury, by Nat Schachner
• Sound of Terror, by Don Berry
• The Big Tomorrow, by Paul Lohrman
• The Four-Faced Visitors of…Ezekiel, by Arthur Orton
• The Happy Man, by Gerald Page
• The Last Supper, by T.D. Hamm
• The One and the Many, by Milton Lesser
• The Other Likeness, by James Schmitz
• The Outbreak of Peace, by H.B. Fyfe
• The Skull, by Philip K. Dick
• The Smiler, by Albert Hernhunter
• The Unthinking Destroyer, by Roger Phillips
• Two Timer, by Frederic Brown
• Vital Ingredient, by Charles De Vet
• Weak on Square Roots, by Russell Burton
• With a Vengeance, by J.B. Woodley
• Zero Hour, by Alexander Blade
• The Great Nebraska Sea, by Allan Danzig
• The Valor of Cappen Varra, by Poul Anderson
• A Bad Day for Vermin, by Keith Laumer
• Hall of Mirrors, by Frederic Brown
• Common Denominator, by John MacDonald
• Doctor, by Murray Leinster
• The Nothing Equation, by Tom Godwin
• The Last Evolution, by John Campbell
• A Hitch in Space, by Fritz Leiber
• On the Fourth Planet, by J.F. Bone
• Flight From Tomorrow, by H. Beam Piper
• Card Trick, by Walter Bupp
• The K-Factor, by Harry Harrison
• The Lani People, by J. F. Bone
• Advanced Chemistry, by Jack Huekels
• Sodom and Gomorrah, Texas, by R. A. Lafferty
• Keep Out, by Frederic Brown
• All Cats are Gray, by Andre Norton
• A Problem in Communication, by Miles J. Breuer
• The Terrible Tentacles of L-472, by Sewell Peaslee Wright
• Marooned Under the Sea, by Paul Ernst
• The Murder Machine, by Hugh B. Cave
• The Attack from Space, by Captain S. P. Meek
• The Knights of Arthur, by Frederik Pohl
• And All the Earth a Grave, by C.C. MacApp
• Citadel, by Algis Budrys
• Micro-Man, by Weaver Wright
• Missing Link, by Frank Herbert
• People Soup, by Alan Arkin
• The Brain, by Alexander Blade
• The Judas Valley, by Gerald Vance
• The Moon is Green, by Fritz Leiber
• The Next Logical Step, by Ben Bova
• The Year When Stardust Fell, by Raymond Jones
• Toy Shop, by Harry Harrison
• Year of the Big Thaw, by Marion Zimmer Bradley