but with the backing of the Board I'm not too worried about the
outcome. If it goes against us, I'll take it to the highest court in
the land, and the backing of the Board carries plenty of weight there
too.
Eventually I forgave Commander Littlefield.
"I'm a hard man, Ralph," he said, standing in the starlight outside
the Port Administration Section with a crumpled sheet of paper in his
hand, right after he'd received assurances from Earth he'd be placed in
command of a new sky ship. "I did what I did because I am what I am. I
knew that her life hung in the balance, that every word we exchanged
increased the danger. But when I weighed that against the future of
the Colony--I felt I had no choice. I knew what a full confession would
mean to us."
I never saw Nurse Cherubin again. She married her doctor and they were
honeymoon passengers on the next scheduled Earth trip, which took place
while I was busy making sure that the whole Wendel Combine would come
apart at the seams. It was a little like watching a volcanic explosion
and keeping the lava flow channeled with the full weight of the Board's
authority.
Joan and I have become Martian Colony residents for the duration. I
mean by that there will always be new battles to be fought in a war
that will never end ... as long as Man stays a part of the universe.
There's something embattled about him that you don't find in any other
species. Maybe it's good and maybe it's bad, but it helps to explain
why he keeps building for the future, He never knows--and just not
knowing makes him want to build as sturdily as he can.
You never prize anything so much as when you feel you're about to lose
it. So you fight to preserve it, and when you've done that you've built
up enough excess energy to want to make a stab at something better. And
when that's threatened you'll fight again and so on until the final
curtain.
It's just the way things are.
THE END
* * * * *
FOR SCIENCE FICTION FANS
A space-age collection of startling adventures
WORLDS OF WHEN
Groff Conklin. Five short novels of improbable todays and
possible tomorrows. (F733)
VENUS PLUS X
Theodore Sturgeon. He woke up in a world of strange creatures
and nearly went mad. (F732)
THE CASTLE OF IRON
L. Sprague de Camp & Fletcher Pratt. They disappeared Into a
world of wizards, werewolves, and magic spells. (F722)
THE WALL AROUND THE WORLD
Theodore R. Cogswell. Amazing stories from spaceships to flying
broomsticks. (F703)
THE HAUNTED STARS
Edmond Hamilton. A tense tale of the near future and of Man's
destiny. (F698)
THE FALLING TORCH
Algis Budrys. He had to free an enslaved planet or die. (F693)
NAKED TO THE STARS
Gordon R. Dickson. Soldiers of Space fight Earth's wars on the
far planets. (F682)
A WAY HOME
Theodore Sturgeon. Tales of sky-high imagination and chilling
impact. (F673)
THE STAINLESS STEEL RAT
Harry Harrison. The saga of an interstellar con man and crook.
(F672)
EACH BOOK ONLY 40c
(plus 5c handling charge)
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* * * * *
Planet In Danger!
There was trouble brewing on Mars--_bad_ trouble. Two giant industrial
empires fought for control there, and their struggle imperiled the
whole Mars colony. Civil war--atomic civil war--could break out any
second, leaving Earth's only foothold in Space a mass of radio-active
rubble.
But both antagonists were too politically powerful for the Colonization
Board to take a direct hand. One man was needed to take charge--one man
who could act fast and decisively, brutally if he had to.
Ralph Graham got the job.
And then people began dying around him....
In MARS IS MY DESTINATION, veteran author Frank Long
spins a fast suspense story in the classic tradition of "action"
science-fiction--a story of Tomorrow and a crisis in the advance into
Space.
A PYRAMID BOOK 40c
Cover Painting: John Schoenherr
Printed In U.S.A.
End of Project Gutenberg's Mars is my Destination, by Frank Belknap Long