THE HAPPY HERD
BY BRYCE WALTON
Everyone was thoughtful, considerate, kind
and very happy. But where was the right of
dignity or individuality? It was like being
dropped into the middle of a nightmare. The
kind that finds you running naked in a crowd.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1956.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The Captain told Kane to take his cushion pills, that they were contacting the pits at La Guardia within half an hour.
"I still can't figure you," the Captain said. "Up there, just you and your wife for sixteen years. That's a hell of a long time."
Kane smiled. He had been almost completely out of touch with the world for sixteen years, and it surprised him a little that anyone thought it remarkable in any way. Particularly the Captain who spent most of his time, too, alone.
But the Captain was genuinely perturbed about it. The authorities had abandoned the space-station project. Abandoned the Martian project. They had taken away the other three ships from the Moon-run, and there was no explanation for it at all.