Asteroids -- Fiction; Science fiction; Short stories; Weddings -- Fiction
_Received your advertising literature a week ago. Would like to
state that yes I would like an asteroid in my back yard. Must meet
following specifications: 506 feet length, long enough for wedding
procession; 98 feet at base, tapering to 10 feet at apex; 9-12
feet thick; topside smooth-plane, underside rough-plane; composed
of iron ore, tungsten, quartz crystals, and cinnabar. Must be in
my back yard before 11:30 A.M. my time, for important wedding
June 2, else order is void. Will pay $5.00 per ton._
* * * * *
Bob Parker had received that ethergram three weeks ago. And if The
Interplanetary Hauling & Moving Co., hadn't been about to go on the
rocks (chiefly due to the activities of Saylor & Saylor, a rival firm)
neither Bob nor Queazy would have thought of sending an answering
ethergram to Burnside stating that they would fill the order. It
was, plainly, a hair-brained request. And yet, if by some chance
there was such a rigidly specified asteroid, their financial worries
would be over. That they had actually discovered the asteroid, using
their mass-detectors in a weight-elimination process, seemed like
an incredible stroke of luck. For there are literally millions of
asteroids in the asteroid belt, and they had been out in space only
three weeks.
The "asteroid in your back yard" idea had been Bob Parker's originally.
Now it was a fad that was sweeping Earth, and Burnside wasn't the first
rich man who had decided to hold a wedding on top of an asteroid.
Unfortunately, other interplanetary moving companies had cashed in on
that brainstorm, chiefly the firm of the Saylor brothers--which persons
Bob Parker intended to punch in the nose some day. And would have
before this if he hadn't been lanky and tall while they were giants.
Now that he and Queazy had found the asteroid, they were desperate to
get it to its destination, for fear that the Saylor brothers might get
wind of what was going on, and try to beat them out of their profits.
Which was not so far-fetched, because the firm of Saylor & Saylor made
no pretense of being scrupulous.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account