The Project Gutenberg EBook of Stopover Planet, by Robert E. Gilbert

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Title: Stopover Planet

Author: Robert E. Gilbert

Illustrator: W. E. Terry

Release Date: September 17, 2009 [EBook #30015]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Illustration]

STOPOVER PLANET

_By
Robert E. Gilbert_

Early morning deliveries were part of
the Honeychile Bakery Service. But on this
particular morning the service was reversed!

At 2:34 a.m., Patrolman Louis Whedbee left the Zip Cab station. With
arch supports squeaking and night stick swinging, Whedbee walked east to
the call box at the corner of Sullivan and Cherokee. The traffic signal
suspended above the intersection blinked a cautionary amber. Not a car
moved on the silent streets.

Whedbee reached for the box. Then he swore softly and stepped off the
curb. "Pardon me," he said, for he believed that a policeman should be
courteous at all times, even when arresting a school zone speedster.
This, however, was not a speedster. It seemed to be a huge man standing
on top of a truck and cutting down the stop light. "What's going on
here?" Whedbee asked.

HONEYCHILE BAKERY was advertised on the side of the truck.
Instinctively, Whedbee jammed his whistle in his mouth when he realized
that the man on the truck wore something like a suit of long underwear
made of improbable black fur sprinkled with tiny red spots.

"What are you doing to the stop light?" Whedbee demanded.

The amber light quit blinking without the expected electrical display.
Sinuous as beheaded snakes, the wires and cables supporting the traffic
signal fell into the street. The unusual man pocketed his cutting
tool--a long thin tube--and lowered the stop light to the truck. He
looked at Whedbee. The corner street lamp reacted upon his eyes like a
flashlight thrown on a tomcat in an alley. The eyes gleamed green.

Whedbee's whistle arced to the end of the chain and clanked against his
met