A MYSTERIOUS "FALL-OUT" PARALYZES CIVILIZATION! Mayfield was the typical college town. Nothing too unusual ever happened there until a mysterious comet was suddenly observed by the scientists on College Hill. The copper-yellow glow of the comet seemed to have brought the whole world to a grinding halt.
When a super-robot discovers how to build his own superbombs, it becomes obvious that Earth is by no means the safest place for him to be. Dr. Fitzhugh, his designer, and Leda Crannon, a child psychologist acting as Snookums' nursemaid, agree to set up Operation Brainchild, a plan to transport the robot to a far distant planet. Mike the Angel Gabriel, Power Design has devised the power plant that is to propel the space ship Branchell to its secret destination, complete with its unusual cargo.
"Kor was... is. God. Knowledge." He had tried to convey this to the small creatures who had invaded his world, but they did not heed. Their ill-equipped brains were trying futilely to comprehend the ancient race memory of his people. Now they would attempt further to discover the forbidden directives of Kor. Horng remembered, somewhere far back in the fossil layers of his thoughts, a warning. They must be stopped! If he had to, he would stamp out these creatures who were called "humans."
At 4 a. m., a ray of light had been observed on the disc of the planet Mars in or near the "terminator"; that is to say, the zone of twilight separating day from night. The news was doubly interesting to me, because a singular dream of "Sunrise in the Moon" had quickened my imagination as to the wonders of the universe beyond our little globe, and because of a never-to-be-forgotten experience of mine with an aged astronomer several years ago.
It's seldom that the fate of a shipful of men literally hangs by a thread--but it's also seldom that a device, every part of which has been thoroughly tested, won't work....
Child, it was, of the now ancient H-bomb. New. Untested. Would its terrible power sweep the stark Saturnian moon of Titan from space. or miraculously create a flourishing paradise-colony?
There are lots of things that are considered perfectly acceptable. provided they don't work. And of course everyone knows they really don't, which is why they're acceptable....