THE FIRST
By EDWARD LUDWIG
"Man will need signposts to
guide the way to infinity." That's
a quotation from—and a description
of—this inspiring story
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Infinity Science Fiction, November 1955.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The city was enchanted. It was a colossal music box blaring forth a thousand chants of victory. It was a rainbow torn down from the sky and poured over the earth. It was a magic nursery through which eager-eyed children swarmed to behold a sparkling new toy.
Three spacemen, three conquerors-to-be, sat stiffly in the back seat of a blue-bannered convertible. The car moved snail-like toward the Capitol steps, escorted by a hundred bands, eight hundred flowered floats, and ten thousand marching men.
In its front seat, standing, waving to the crowd, was Captain George Everson. Everson—the legless man. Everson—the bronzed giant whose first rocketship had exploded at take-off, and yet who had lived to walk on artificial legs, to build a second rocket, and to infect all the world with his square-jawed determination.