PLANET FOR TEXANS (D-299), and a longer entirely self-authored novel
SPACE VIKING (F-225).

THE COSMIC COMPUTER

(Original Title: Junkyard Planet)

H. BEAM PIPER

ACE BOOKS, INC.

1120 Avenue of the Americas

New York, N.Y. 10036

THE COSMIC COMPUTER (JUNKYARD PLANET)

Copyright, 1963, by H. Beam Piper

An Ace Book, by arrangement with G. P. Putnam's Sons

All Rights Reserved

Printed in U.S.A.

I

Thirty minutes to Litchfield.

Conn Maxwell, at the armor-glass front of the observation deck,
watched the landscape rush out of the horizon and vanish beneath the
ship, ten thousand feet down. He thought he knew how an hourglass must
feel with the sand slowly draining out.

It had been six months to Litchfield when the _Mizar_ lifted out of La
Plata Spaceport and he watched Terra dwindle away. It had been two
months to Litchfield when he boarded the _City of Asgard_ at the port
of the same name on Odin. It had been two hours to Litchfield when the
_Countess Dorothy_ rose from the airship dock at Storisende. He had
had all that time, and now it was gone, and he was still unprepared
for what he must face at home.

Thirty minutes to Litchfield.

The words echoed in his mind as though he had spoken them aloud, and
then, realizing that he never addressed himself as sir, he turned. It
was the first mate.

He had a clipboard in his hand, and he was wearing a Terran Federation
Space Navy uniform of forty years, or about a dozen regulation-changes,
ago. Once Conn had taken that sort of thing for granted. Now it was
obtruding upon him everywhere.

"Thirty minutes to Litchfield, sir," the first officer repeated, and
gave him the clipboard to check the luggage list. Valises, two;
trunks, two; microbook case, one. The last item fanned a small flicker
of anger, not at any person, not even at himself, but at the whole
infernal situation. He nodded.

"That's everything. Not many passengers left aboard, are there?"

"You're the only one, first class, sir. About forty farm laborers on
the lower deck." He dismissed them as mere cargo. "Litchfield's the
end of the run."

"I know. I was born there."

The mate looked again at his name on the list and grinned.

"Sure; you're Rodney Maxwell's son. Your father's been giving us a lot
of freight lately. I guess I don't have to tell you about Litchfield."

"Maybe you do. I've been away for six years. Tell me, are they having
labor trouble now?"

"