The Project Gutenberg EBook of Attrition, by Jim Wannamaker

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Title: Attrition

Author: Jim Wannamaker

Illustrator: Roy G. Krenkel

Release Date: January 14, 2008 [EBook #24282]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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ATTRITION

By JIM WANNAMAKER

_Of course if Man is to survive, he must be adaptable,
as any life form must. But that's not enough; he must
adapt faster than the competing forms. And on new
planets, that can be tricky...._

[Illustration]

Illustrated by Krenkel

The faxgram read: REPORT MA IS INSTANTER GRAVIS. The news obelisk just
off the express strip outside Mega Angeles' Galactic Survey Building was
flashing: ONE OF OUR STAR SHIPS IS MISSING!

Going up in the lift, I recalled what I had seen once scrawled upon the
bulkhead of a GS trainer: _Space is kind to those who respect her._ And
underneath, in different handwriting: Fear _is the word, my boy_.

The look given me by the only other passenger, a husky youngster in GS
gray, when I punched Interstel's level, didn't help. It was on the tip
of my tongue to retaliate: _Yes, and I'd turn in my own mother if she
were a star chaser and I caught her doing something stupid._ But I let
it ride; obviously, it was a general-principles reaction; he couldn't
have known the particulars of my last assignment: the seldom kind that
had given Interstel its reputation.

The lumer over the main entrance glowed: INTERSTELLAR SECURITY,
INVESTIGATION, AND SPECIAL SERVICES BRANCH, GALACTIC SURVEY, NORTH
AMERICAN FEDERATION.

At the end of the long corridor between offices was a door labeled:
CHIEF SPECIAL AGENT.

Gravis hadn't changed a bit in the thirty-six hours since I'd last seen
him: a large, rumpled man who showed every year of the twenty he'd spent
in Interstel.

"It's a nasty job, Ivy."

"Always has been," I said, completing the little interchange that had
been reiterated so often that it had become almost a shibboleth.

I took advantage of his momentary silence. I'd had an hour dur