The Project Gutenberg EBook of Ullr Uprising, by Henry Beam Piper

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Title: Ullr Uprising

Author: Henry Beam Piper

Release Date: January 2, 2007 [EBook #19370]
[This file was first posted on September 25, 2006]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction, February and
March, 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the
U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

ULLR UPRISING

A STORY IN TWO PARTS

[Illustration]

BY H. BEAM PIPER

ILLUSTRATED BY ORBAN

[Illustration]

"The heathen geeks, they wear no breeks," the Terrans
sang. But on a crazy world like Ullr, clothes didn't
make the fighting man. There both red and yellow
meant danger--and blood!

* * * * *

I

The big armor-tender vibrated, gently and not unpleasantly, as the
contragravity field alternated on and off. Sometimes it rocked
slightly, like a boat on the water, and, in the big screen which
served in lieu of a window at the front of the control-cabin, the
dingy-yellow landscape would seem to tilt a little. The air was
faintly yellow, the sky was yellow with a greenish cast, and the
clouds were green-gray.

No human had ever set foot on the surface, or breathed the air, of
Niflheim. To have done so would have been instant death; the air was a
mixture of free fluorine and fluoride gasses, the soil was metallic
fluorides, damp with acid rains, and the river was pure hydrofluoric
acid. Even the ordinary spacesuit would have been no protection; the
glass and rubber and plastic would have disintegrated in a matter of
minutes. People came to Niflheim, and worked the mines and uranium
refineries and chemical plants, but