Was it a wild talent that MacReedy had, or was it just prophetic genius that led him to figure out new, improved ordnance weapons and make models of them--before the armed forces had them? Whichever it was, MacReedy was both valuable and dangerous--and when the general saw MacReedy's final figure, the weapons following the mobile rocket A-missile launcher....
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.
Why did everybody step off the ship in this strange valley and promptly drop dead? How could a well-equipped corps of tough spacemen become a field of rotting skeletons in this quiet world of peace and contentment? It was a mystery Peter and Sherri had to solve. If they could live long enough!
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
Tom's extraordinary machine glowed--and the years were banished from Old Crompton's body. But there still remained, deep-seated in his century-old mind, the memory of his crime.