The Project Gutenberg EBook of Instant of Decision, by Gordon Randall Garrett

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Title: Instant of Decision

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Illustrator: Ebel

Release Date: April 22, 2010 [EBook #32088]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK INSTANT OF DECISION ***

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction May 1953. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.

INSTANT OF DECISION

BY RANDALL GARRETT

ILLUSTRATED BY EBEL

How could a man tell the difference if all the reality of
Earth turned out to be a cosmic hoax? Suppose it turned out
that this was just a stage set for students of history?

* * * * *

When the sharp snap of a pistol shot came from the half-finished
building, Karnes wasn't anywhere near the sandpile that received the
slug. He was fifteen feet away, behind the much more reliable
protection of a neat stack of cement bags that provided cover all the
way to a window in the empty shell of brick and steel before him.

Three hundred yards behind him, the still-burning inferno of what had
been the Assembly Section of Carlson Spacecraft sent a reddish,
unevenly pulsating light over the surrounding territory, punctuating
the redness with intermittent flashes of blue-white from flaring
magnesium.

For an instant, Karnes let himself hope that the shot might be heard
at the scene of the blaze, but only for an instant. The roar of fire,
men, and machine would be too much for a little pop like that.

He moved quietly along the stacked cement bags, and eased himself over
the sill of the gaping window into the building. He was in a little
hallway. Somewhere ahead and to his left would be a door that would
lead into the main hallway where James Avery, alias James Harvey,
alias half-a-dozen other names, was w