The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Eel, by Miriam Allen DeFord

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Title: The Eel

Author: Miriam Allen DeFord

Illustrator: Dillon

Release Date: April 14, 2010 [EBook #31981]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction April 1958.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

the eel

BY MIRIAM ALLEN DeFORD

Illustrated by DILLON

_The punishment had to fit more than just the crime--it had
to suit every world in the Galaxy!_

* * * * *

He was intimately and unfavorably known everywhere in the Galaxy, but
with special virulence on eight planets in three different solar
systems. He was eagerly sought on each; they all wanted to try him and
punish him--in each case, by their own laws and customs. This had been
going on for 26 terrestrial years, which means from minus ten to plus
280 in some of the others. The only place that didn't want him was
Earth, his native planet, where he was too smart to operate--but, of
course, the Galactic Police were looking for him there too, to deliver
him to the authorities of the other planets in accordance with the
Interplanetary Constitution.

For all of those years, The Eel (which was his Earth monicker;
elsewhere, he was known by names indicating equally squirmy and slimy
life-forms) had been gayly going his way, known under a dozen
different aliases, turning up suddenly here, there, everywhere,
committing his gigantic depredations, and disappearing as quickly and
silently when his latest enterprise had succeeded. He specialized in
enormous, unprecedented thefts. It was said that he despised stealing
anything under the value of 100 million terrestrial units, and most of
his thefts were much larger than that.

He had no recogniz