Extraterrestrial beings -- Fiction; Human-alien encounters -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Space travelers -- Fiction
_The fey Mr. Young continues his scholarly researches
in the scientific origins of our myth and legend
with this tale of an agile--and avaricious--one-man_
BOARDING PARTY
By ROBERT F. YOUNG
Illustrated by FINLAY
[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Amazing Stories September 1963
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]
(Translator's note: _The original of the following report was recently
acquired by the Terran Industrial Library through the Interstellar
Historical Exchange Society, into whose illustrious fold the member
nations of the Terran Economic Bloc have at last been admitted. The
narrative is of primary interest to the library officials because
it provides unequivocable proof that, long before the Interstellar
Economic Community took official cognizance of our existence, several
articles of Community Commerce found their way into our culture. To
the layman, however, the narrative is of primary interest because
it provides an intriguing parallel to a narrative of an altogether
different nature._)
* * * * *
TO: Interstellar Nurseries, Frimm 4
FROM: Captain of the Greenship _Uxurient_, Urtz 2
SUBJECT(S): (1) Why the _Uxurient_ put in to an out-of-bounds system
during the Frimm 4-Urtz 2 run; (2) how a boarding party of one
gained the greendeck and made off with a Uterium 5 snirk bird, a toy
friddlefork, and two containers of yellow trading disks; (3) why the
_Uxurient's_ flexible ship-to-ground capillary tube is ten exids
shorter than it used to be.
(1)
_Why the Uxurient put in to an Out-of-Bounds System during the
Frimm 4-Urtz 2 Run_
Two light-cycles out from Frimm 4, the first shoots of the yumquat
trees broke through the greendeck precisely on schedule. A little
over a light-cycle farther out I noticed during one of my periodic
inspections that the young leaves were beginning to turn yellow, and
subsequent tests of several greendeck soil samples revealed an acute
deficiency of mineral elements D-2 and Z-1, plus an advanced aridity.
I immediately retired to the greenship's subdeck, where I found the
contents of the soil-solution vat to be at a shockingly low level. An
analysis of the contents indicated a near-total absence of mineral
elements D-2 and Z-1.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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