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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thin Edge, by Gordon Randall Garrett 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: Thin Edge Author: Gordon Randall Garrett Illustrator: John Schoenherr Release Date: January 6, 2010 [EBook #30869] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THIN EDGE *** Produced by Sankar Viswanathan, Greg Weeks, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact & Fiction December 1963. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed. THIN EDGE There are inventions of great value that one type of society can use--and that would, for another society, be most nastily deadly! BY JOHNATHAN BLAKE MAC KENZIE ILLUSTRATED BY JOHN SCHOENHERR * * * * * I "Beep!" said the radio smugly. "_Beep! Beep! Beep!_" "There's one," said the man at the pickup controls of tugship 431. He checked the numbers on the various dials of his instruments. Then he carefully marked down in his log book the facts that the radio finder was radiating its beep on such-and-such a frequency and that that frequency and that rate-of-beep indicated that the asteroid had been found and set with anchor by a Captain Jules St. Simon. The direction and distance were duly noted. That information on direction and distance had already been transmitted to the instruments of the tugship's pilot. "Jazzy-o!" said the pilot. "Got 'im." He swiveled his ship around until the nose was in line with the beep and then jammed down on the forward accelerator for a few seconds. Then he took his foot off it and waited while the ship approached the asteroid. In the darkness of space, only points of light were visible. Off to the left, the sun was a small, glaring spot of whiteness that couldn't be looked at directly. Even out here in the Belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, that massive stellar engine blasted out enough energy to make
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