The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Good Neighbors, by Edgar Pangborn

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Title: The Good Neighbors

Author: Edgar Pangborn

Release Date: September 5, 2008 [EBook #26536]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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| Transcriber's note. |
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| This story was published in _Galaxy_ magazine, June 1960. |
| Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the |
| U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. |
| |
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By EDGAR PANGBORN

The Good Neighbors

You can't blame an alien for
a little inconvenience--as
long as he makes up for it!

Illustrated by WOOD

The ship was sighted a few times, briefly and without a good fix. It was
spherical, the estimated diameter about twenty-seven miles, and was in
an orbit approximately 3400 miles from the surface of the Earth. No one
observed the escape from it.

The ship itself occasioned some excitement, but back there at the
tattered end of the 20th century, what was one visiting spaceship more
or less? Others had appeared before, and gone away discouraged--or just
not bothering. 3-dimensional TV was coming out of the experimental
stage. Soon anyone could have Dora the Doll or the Grandson of Tarzan
smack in his own living-room. Besides, it was a hot summer.

The first knowledge of the escape came when the region of Seattle
suffered an eclipse of the sun, which was not an eclipse but a near
shadow, which was not a shadow but a thing. The darkness drifted out of
the northern Pacific. It generated thunder without lightning and without
rain. When it had moved eastward and the hot sun reappeared, w