OUT OF MIND
By WILLIAM W. STUART
Nirva was a real bore. The food was
always great, the climate tediously
fine, the view monotonously lovely,
the girls relentlessly amiable.
But, oddly, everybody went there!
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1961.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
"Vacation trip to Nirva?!?" snapped Secad Screed—Galactic Sector Administrator J. Gomer Screed, a serious-minded man who rarely lost his temper. That was a pity; it was a lousy temper. "A mindless excursion, and completely outside my Sector at that! Woman, are both you and Garten out of your minds? Who do you think is going to run my administration with both Garten and I on a childish vacation to this absurd 'Dream Planet' of yours?"
"Well—there is Deputy Assistant Prinot and—"
"Ha! And then what do you suppose would be left of my record here and my prospects of promotion—after Depast Prinot and the others put in five solid weeks wrecking all my work?"
Secast Garten, short, a little chubby, the opposite of his chief (who looked like a deep-thinking, bald stork scheduled for delivery of Siamese quintuplets in a typhoon,) grinned. He was seated out of the direct line of verbal fire, on a rock-hard hassock at one side of the barely furnished Screed apartment. He grinned, knowing what Secad Screed would do with a similar opportunity at Division Hq.