The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Inhabited, by Richard Wilson

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Title: The Inhabited

Author: Richard Wilson

Illustrator: Ashman

Release Date: February 25, 2010 [EBook #31392]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction January 1953.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.

[Illustration: _Containing a foe is sound military thinking--unless
it's carried out so literally that everybody becomes
an innocent Trojan Horse!_]

The Inhabited

By

RICHARD WILSON

Illustrated by ASHMAN

* * * * *

Two slitted green eyes loomed up directly in front of him. He plunged
into them immediately.

He had just made the voyage, naked through the dimension stratum, and
he scurried into the first available refuge, to hover there, gasping.

The word "he" does not strictly apply to the creature, for it had no
sex, nor are the words "naked," "scurried," "hover" and "gasping"
accurate at all. But there are no English words to describe properly
what it was and how it moved, except in very general terms. There are
no Asiatic, African or European words, though perhaps there are
mathematical symbols. But, because this is not a technical paper, the
symbols have no place in it.

He was a sort of spy, a sort of fifth-columnist. He had some of the
characteristics of a kamikaze pilot, too, because there was no telling
if he'd get back from his mission.

Hovering in his refuge and gasping for breath, so to speak, he tried
to compose his thoughts after the terrifying journey and adjust
himself to his new environment, so he could get to work. His job, as
first traveler to this new world, the Earth, was to le