The Gravity Business
By JAMES E. GUNN
Illustrated by ASHMAN
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy January 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
This little alien beggar could dictate his own terms, but how could he—and how could anyone find out what those terms might be?
The flivver descended vertically toward the green planet circling the old, orange sun.
It was a spaceship, but not the kind men had once dreamed about. The flivver was shaped like a crude bullet, blunt at one end of a fat cylinder and tapering abruptly to a point at the other. It had been slapped together out of sheet metal and insulation board, and it sold, fully equipped, for $15,730. It didn't behave like a spaceship, either.