Under normal conditions a whole person has a decided advantage over a handicapped one. But out in deep space the normal may be reversed--for humans at any rate.
It was, as usual, a decision on which the question of peace or atomic war depended. The Council of the Western Defense Alliance, as usual, had made the decision. And, as usual, the WDA Coordinator had to tell the Com Ambassador that the Coms had won again. The WDA would not risk atomic war over a minor boundary. Some hundreds of light-years away, the Survey ship Lotus floated in space over the third planet of the system, a planet exactly like Earth, only there was absolutely NO life on it.
Logic's a wonderful thing; by logical analysis, one can determine the necessary reason for the existence of a dead city of a very high order on an utterly useless planet. Obviously a shipping transfer point! Necessarily...
He knew the theory of repairing the gizmo all right. He had that nicely taped. But there was the little matter of threading a wire through a too-small hole while under zero-g, and working in a spacesuit!
Where are we going? What will the world be like in the days--perhaps not too distant--when we have tested and tested the bombs to the finite degree? Joe L. Hensley, attorney in Madison, Indiana, and increasingly well known in SF, returns with this challenging story of that Tomorrow.
Some men just haven't got good sense. They just can't seem to learn the most fundamental things. Like when there's no use trying--when it's time to give up because it's hopeless....
Two Timer in the February 1954 issue of Galaxy Science Fiction. Here is a brace of vignettes by the Old Vignette Master. short and sharp. like a hypodermic! - Experiment - Sentry