SPACE OASIS
By RAYMOND Z. GALLUN
Space-weary rocketmen dreamed of an
asteroid Earth. But power-mad Norman
Haynes had other plans—and he
spread his control lines in a
doom-net for that oasis in space.
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Planet Stories Fall 1942.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
I found Nick Mavrocordatus scanning the bulletin board at the Haynes Shipping Office on Enterprize Asteroid, when I came back with a load of ore from the meteor swarms.
He looked at me with that funny curve on his lips, that might have been called a smile, and said, "Hi, Chet," as casually as though we'd seen each other within the last twenty-four hours.... "Queer laws they got in the Space Code, eh? The one that insists on the posting of casualty lists, for instance. You'd think the Haynes Company would like to keep such things dark."
I didn't say anything for a moment, as my eyes went down those narrow, typed columns on the bulletin board: Joe Tiffany—dead—space armor defect.... Hermann Schmidt and Lan Harool—missing—vicinity of Pallas.... Irvin Davidson—hospitalized—space blindness....
There was a score of names of men I didn't know, in that space-blindness column. And beneath, there was a much longer line of common Earth-born and Martian John-Henrys, with the laconic tag added at the top—hospitalized—mental. Ditto marks saved the trouble of retyping the tag itself, after each name.