NEVER COME MIDNIGHT by CHRISTOPHER GRIMM Illustrated by DILLON [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction May 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Across the void came a man who could not ever have been born--from a world that could never have been conceived--to demand his birthright of an Earth that would have to die to pay it! I Jan Shortmire smiled. "You didn't know I had a son, did you, Peter? Well, neither did I--until quite recently." "I see." However, Peter Hubbard knew that Jan Shortmire had never married in all of his hundred and fifty-five years. In that day and age, unmarried people did not have children; science, the law, and public sophistication had combined to make the historical "accident" almost impossible. Yet, if some woman of one of the more innocent planets had deliberately conceived in order to trap Shortmire, surely he would have learned of his son's existence long before. "I'm glad it turns out that I have an heir," Shortmire went on. "Otherwise, the government might get its fists on what little I have--and it's taken enough from me." Although the old man's estate was a considerable one, it did seem meager in terms of the money he must have made. What _had_ become of the golden tide that had poured in upon the golden youth, Hubbard wondered. Could anyone have squandered such prodigious sums upon the usual mundane dissipations? For, by the time the esoteric pleasures of the other planets had reached Earth--the byproduct of Shortmire's own achievement--he must have already been too old to enjoy them. At Hubbard's continued silence, Shortmire said defensively, "If they'd let me sell my patents to private industry, as Dyall was able to do, I'd be leaving a _real_ fortune!" His voice grew thick with anger. "When I think how much money Dyall made from those factory machines of his...." But when you added the priceless extra fifty years of life to the money Shortmire had made, it seemed to Hubbard that Shortmire had been amply rewarded. Although, of course, he had heard that Nicholas Dyall had been given the same reward. No point telling Shortmire, if he did not know already. Hubbard could never understand why Shortmire hated Dyall so; it could not be merely the money--and as for reputation, he had a shade the advantage. "That _toymaker_!" Shortmire spat. * * * * * Hubbard tactfully changed the subject. "What's your boy like, Jan?" But of course Jan Shortmire's son could hardly be a boy; in fact, he was probably almost as old as Hubbard was.