The Project Gutenberg EBook of Thin Edge, by Gordon Randall Garrett

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Title: Thin Edge

Author: Gordon Randall Garrett

Illustrator: John Schoenherr

Release Date: January 6, 2010 [EBook #30869]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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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