The Project Gutenberg EBook of Shock Treatment, by Stanley Mullen

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Title: Shock Treatment

Author: Stanley Mullen

Release Date: June 6, 2010 [EBook #32709]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Shock Treatment

By Stanley Mullen

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from If Worlds of Science
Fiction September 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: _"I'll give you the cure for the most horrible disease,"
Songeen said. "The sickness of life itself." Newlin replied, "Fine. But
first, give me a couple of minutes to kill your husband. Then we'll go
on from there."_]

In Venusport, on payday-night, it is difficult to tell for certain where
the town leaves off and the pink elephants begin. It is difficult to
tell about other things, too. Spud Newlin had heard that a man could
sometimes get rich overnight just tending bar on such occasions, and he
was putting the rumor to the test. Not many bartenders had lasted long
enough to find out.

The night had had a good start. Clock hands over the bar in the
Spacebell registered 1:18 Venus-time, and considering, things were
almost dull at the moment. The place had been jumping earlier, but
hilarity had worn itself out, the dead had been removed and excitement
dulled. No relatives or widows of the dead sportsmen had yet appeared;
all corpses-elect had died clean, with the minimum of messy violence
and, surprisingly, only three more or less innocent bystanders had been
burned down in the proceedings. After shattering uproar, such calm was
disturbing. Newlin was actually getting bored. Then _she_ came in--and
he was no longer bored. But, perversely, he resented the surge of
interest that ran through him at sight of this out-of-place girl.

At a casual glance, she might seem ordinary, but Newlin was never
superficial. Her kind of beauty was something to be sensed, not
catalogued