A PLANET FOR YOUR THOUGHTS
By JAMES NORMAN
With the grape-headed Uvans acting as the
brains of the Universe, Mankind no longer
needed to think for itself. So when a freebooter
like Bill Petrie began getting original ideas, he
caused a crisis that threatened the cosmos.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Winter 1941.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
The first of the things to pass below him had round yellow eyes in the top of its head. The next one had an eye on each side, just below the ears. Soon they came in droves, crowding into the fantastic market-place, staring up at Bill with quizzical curiosity. There seemed to be no regularity at all about where they wore the eyes on their heads.
Bill Petrie didn't attempt to move. He couldn't. His chafed neck and wrists were firmly clamped within the slots of a medieval pillory. As he hung there, sweltering in the heat, he wondered how long he had been unconscious and how long in the pillory. Somehow, it was hard to believe he actually was where he was.
"Uva, north-ecliptic tangent, electric buzzer," he muttered fuzzily.
The Uva part of it made sense all right, but that was all. In the fast-paced life of 2451 A.D., Uva, or Planetoid eighty-one in the Sirius north-ecliptic tangent, held a unique position in the universe. It was the most respected, yet least visited, body in the skies. People called it the brain-register of the universe just as a certain dimly storied Wall Street had once been the cash register of the Earth.