Project Gutenberg's The Return, by H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: The Return

Author: H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

Release Date: September 1, 2006 [EBook #19158]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE RETURN ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from The Science-Fictional Sherlock
Holmes, 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence
that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

THE RETURN

by

H. Beam Piper and John J. McGuire

* * * * *

I

Altamont cast a quick, routine glance at the instrument panels
and then looked down through the transparent nose of the
helicopter at the yellow-brown river five hundred feet below.
Next he scraped the last morsel from his plate and ate it.

"What did you make this out of, Jim?" he asked. "I hope you kept
notes while you were concocting it. It's good."

"The two smoked pork chops left over from yesterday evening,"
Loudons said, "and that bowl of rice that's been taking up space
in the refrigerator the last couple of days, together with a
little egg powder and some milk. I ground the chops up and mixed
them with the rice and other stuff. Then added some bacon, to
make grease to fry it in."

Altamont chuckled. That was Loudons, all right: he could take a
few left-overs, mess them together, pop them in the skillet, and
have a meal that would turn the chef back at the Fort green with
envy. He filled his cup and offered the pot.

"Caffchoc?" he asked.

Loudons held his cup out to be filled, blew on it, sipped, and
then hunted on the ledge under the desk for the butt of the cigar
he had half-smoked the evening before.

"Did you ever drink coffee, Monty?" the socio-psychologist asked,
getting the cigar drawing to his taste.

"Coffee? No. I've read about it, of course. We'll have to
organize an expedition to Brazil, some