The Project Gutenberg EBook of Next Door, Next World, by Robert Donald Locke

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Title: Next Door, Next World

Author: Robert Donald Locke

Illustrator: Douglas

Release Date: August 6, 2008 [EBook #26205]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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NEXT
DOOR,
NEXT
WORLD

By ROBERT
DONALD
LOCKE

_Almost any phenomenon can be
used--or act--for good or ill.
Mutation usually brings ill--but
it also brings greatness. Change
can go any direction._

Illustrated by Douglas

Hungrily, the cradled vessel's great steel nose pointed up to the
distant stars. She was the _Cosmos XII_, newest and sleekest of the
Space Service's rapidly-expanding wing of interstellar scout ships, and
she was now ready for operational work.

Major Lance Cooper, a big man with space-tanned features, stood in the
shadow of the control bunker and watched the swarm of ground crewmen
working at last-minute speed atop the loading tower. Inside him burned a
hunger, too.

Hunger, and another emotion--pride.

The pride swelled Lance's open-collared khaki shirt, as he envisioned
himself at the ship's controls within a few minutes. Finally, after long
years of study, sweat and dedication, he'd made it to the Big League. No
more jockeying those tubby old rocket-pots to Luna! From here on, he was
going to see, taste, feel what the universe was like way, way out--in
Deep Space. The _Cosmos XII_, like her earlier sisters, was designed to
plow through that shuddery nowhere the cookbooks identified as
"hyperspace."

Lance's glance shifted upward, scanning the velvet backdrop of frosty
white points of light against which the slender, silverish, almost
wingless form stood framed. More stars than a man could visit in a
lifetime! And some already within grasp!

His exultant feeling grew, and Lance kept his head tilted backward.
Alpha Centauri, the most popular target, was not visible at this
latitude; and Barnard's star, besides being fa