The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Next Time We Die, by Robert Moore Williams

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Title: The Next Time We Die

Author: Robert Moore Williams

Release Date: June 4, 2010 [EBook #32683]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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The Next Time We Die

By ROBERT MOORE WILLIAMS

[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from Amazing Stories February
1957. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.
copyright on this publication was renewed.]

[Sidenote: _We journey to far places, driven on by ideals. We fight for
lost causes, sacrificing our lives because the things we fight for seem
worthwhile. But are we right? Are they worth being killed over? Perhaps.
Then again, maybe we'll know better--The Next Time We Die _]

Now in the nooning, with the sun high overhead and the shadows huddling
dispiritedly at their sides, the threat that existed in this wild desert
was completely invisible.

The girl, Nora Martin, said, "What I don't understand is why we were so
stupid as to come here in the first place. We could have stayed on Earth
and had homes and families." Becoming conscious of what she had said,
she hastily corrected herself. "I mean, each of us could have had a home
and a family."

Pike McLean shifted the muzzle of the Rangeley just a trifle, adjusting
it so that the cross hairs in the periscope sight covered the exact spot
where he expected, and hoped, the next native would appear. He tried to
dig the sand out of his eyes. Since he had sand on his hands, this only
got more of the gritty particles into his eyes. He wished fervidly for a
deep satisfying breath of the thick muggy air of Earth before he died.

"This air, there's not anything to it," he muttered.

* * * * *

The girl glanced sharply at him. She had eyes that were as blue as the
skies of Earth on a sunny day. The dirt on her nose made her look human.
At this moment, the eyes had anger in them.