ACTION ON AZURA By ROBERTSON OSBORNE The Others--the Nameless Ones--had tried to conquer this fair and gentle world, searing the very sky with vicious flame, drenching the natives with death. They failed. Then came the Terrans, with a new idea ... a different weapon.... [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Fall 1949. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] On the thirty-third day out of Earth Central, the _Special Agent_ heterodyned itself out of w-space and re-entered the normal continuum. The little 1400-ton vessel fell free toward the fifth planet of Procyon for half an hour before planetary drive was applied to slow it into an orbit. Allan Stuart, linguist, in this maiden mission of CONTACT INCORPORATED, felt seasick again during the period of free fall. Of the six men aboard, he was the only one who hadn't spent at least one hitch in the Solar System Patrol. He was doggedly trying to steady his nerves by floating a row of dictionaries in midair when the intercom startled him. It was the voice of James Gordon, ship's captain and head of the new firm. "All hands! We start spiraling in shortly and we should land on Azura in about five hours. Nestor, relieve White in the drive room. The rest of you come on up to Control for a final briefing." The bony little linguist sighed, put away his books, and unstrapped himself. Nausea made him hiccup. Detouring sadly around the intricate, day-old wreckage of what had been a beautiful cephaloid unit, he swung stiffly out of the lab. In the corridor he had to squeeze past a badly torn-up wall. Dan Rogers, one of the two planetary scouts, shut off a welding torch and coasted along with him. "Little old piece of nickel-iron sure raised heck, didn't it, Mr. Stuart?" drawled the scout. "Come out into normal space for two minutes to get a bearing, and--WHAM!" He propelled himself along with the effortless efficiency of a man accustomed to doing without gravity. Stuart, correcting course with some difficulty, took a moment to answer. "Hm? Oh, the meteor! Yes, indeed it did. My leg is still stiff, and of course half my equipment is just junk now. But I guess we were rather fortunate at that, since none of us was killed. All the way to Procyon ... three point four parsecs. Dear me!" He clucked, shaking his head, and wondered again how the other five men in the crew could take these things so casually. He drifted into the control room with Rogers and hovered near the desk. Brettner, the other scout, came in playing some outlandish sort of guitar; White, engineer and assistant astrogator, joined him in a final caterwauling chorus of "The Demon of Demos."