Futures Past Read Online Free PDF Page B

made to deliver their tiny modicum of thrust whether they were alive or dead and, even with their ability to seal themselves inside a hard coating, the propulsion controllers had not lived for very long—they also were expendable. But in dying they had helped an organic starship carrying a few hundred of their fellows to achieve escape velocity from their doomed planet and its sun.
       "... I don't know how they intended to position the bird for reentry," Conway went on admiringly, "but atmospheric heating was intended to trigger the organic melting process when they had braked sufficiently, allowing the barnacles to pull free of the bird and fly to the surface under their own wing-power. In my hurry to get rid of the coating I applied heat over a wide area of the forward section, which simulated re-entry conditions and—"
       "Yes, yes," said O'Mara testily. "A masterly exercise in medical deduction and sheer blasted luck! And now, I suppose, you will leave me to clean up after you by devising a method of communicating with these beasties and arranging for their transport to their intended destination. Or was there something else you wanted?"
       Conway nodded. "Brenner tells me that his scoutship flotilla, using an extension of the search procedure for overdue ships, could cover the volume of space between the home and destination stars. There are probably other birds, perhaps hundreds of them—"
       O'Mara opened his mouth and looked ready to emulate a bombardier beetle. Conway added hastily, "I don't want them brought here, sir. The Corps can take them where they are going, melt them on the surface to avoid re-entry casualties, and explain the situation to them.
       "They're colonists, after all—not patients."

COMMUTER

       THE suspect was disheveled and, if he was contused as well, the sergeant had left his marks in places where they did not show. Never a very pleasant man at the best of times, Sergeant Greer was completely lacking in charm when he was angry. One of the things that made him very angry was the kind of crime that this suspect had almost certainly been intending to commit, and another was suspects who tried to be smart when they had been caught trying to commit them.
       In this instance Inspector Michaelson agreed with his sergeant.
       "This could be a very serious charge," said Michaelson. "Why wouldn't you give the sergeant your name and address?"
       Michaelson kept his tone firm but friendly, suggesting that the other's lack of cooperation had been due to an understandable dislike of the arresting officer, which need not, however, include the inspector. If the other did not give his name at once he should at least begin to talk—if only to demand details of the charge he was being held on, or to make formal complaint about his rough handling or to ask for a lawyer. But the suspect remained silent.
       Irritated, Michaelson said, "I take it he speaks English?"
        "Fluently," said Greer.
       "I see."
       "No, sir," said the sergeant, "not four-letter fluent. When I was sure he wasn't armed I eased my hold on him —that was when he became fluent. When he saw that I wasn't believing any of the stories he was trying on me he said that he wasn't carrying much money but that I was welcome to it if I let him go and that he had not intended harming the old lady, just watching her. I told him that attempting to bribe a police officer would get him into worse trouble and since then he hasn't said a word."
       "He may not have known that you were a policeman when he offered the money," said Michaelson coldly, "and he stopped doing so as soon as you identified yourself."
       Greer, who was long used to the Inspector's unorthodox interrogations during which he sometimes gave the impression that he was giving his subordinates a harder time than the suspects, played his part by looking surly.
       "But it isn't very polite," he went on to She suspect, "talking about you as if