Any problem posed by one group of human beings can be resolved by any other group." That's what the Handbook said. But did that include primitive humans? Or the Bees? Or a.
Getting specimens for the interstellar zoo was no problem--they battled for the honor--but now I had to fight like a wildcat to keep a display from making a monkey of me!
The flight into space that made Pilot-Capt. Dan Barstow famous. He was one of the very first astronauts to leave the earth -- and what he found surprised even him. "Another world." Small and too dark to see from the earth -- but large enough to capture his spacecraft. Large enough to get trapped on it.
A world had collapsed around this man--a world that would never shout his praises again. The burned-out cities were still and dead, the twisted bodies and twisted souls giving him their last salute in death. And now he was alone, alone surrounded by memories, alone and waiting.
Fear cut through the unconscious mind of Wilbur Hawkes. With almost physical violence, it tightened his throat and knifed at his heart. It darted into his numbed brain, screaming at him.He was a soft egg in a vast globe of elastic gelatine. Two creatures swam menacingly through the resisting globe toward him. The gelatine fought against them, but they came on. One was near, and made a mystic pass. He screamed at it, and the gelatine grew stronger, throwing them back and away.