Operation InterstellarSmith, George O. (George Oliver)
Science
Operation Interstellar
Smith, George O. (George Oliver)
Interstellar communication -- Fiction; Life on other planets -- Fiction; Science fiction
Paul pondered. Identification might be possible by dental means, by
prints, by iris-matching, if the face distorted on his way back. There
was his refrigerating gear aboard the ship, Paul could stick the corpse
in there and hope that some light could be shed on this mystery.
Paul folded the lower, ruined portion of the space suit to preserve
whatever minute bit of air it contained, and packed it onto the jeep.
He shoved the body into the freezing cold of the storage bin with a
grimace of distaste and determined to dine on canned beans for the
duration. It annoyed him to hurl several pounds of fine, well-hung
tenderloin steak onto the bald sands of Proxima I to make room for an
un-hung corpse. But it had to be done.
Then, with the mystery still gnawing at his mind, Paul fixed the
drive-scope on Sol, made a few adjustments, and set his autodrive and
micro-timer according to the data supplied before his departure from
Terra. It was a corrected-for-duration course, the reverse of his
approaching orbit.
Paul clicked the drive and headed for Sol. When the ship dropped into
invisibility, he relaxed. Busy all the time of his stay on Proxima I,
he felt seedy. While still pondering the problem, Paul shucked his
clothing and showered. Water, both hot and then chilled, did not help
his memory any. Nor was it the memory of Nora Phillips that made him
lather his face and shave. Not entirely. For the three-day beard made
his face uncomfortable and it was personal comfort rather than White
Man's Burden that prompted Paul to reap his beard. Like most men,
shaving was not a pleasant occupation, and when no matter of personal
appearance insisted upon a smooth face, shaving was postponed and
indulged in only when the factors of discomfort balanced one another
equally and in diametrically opposite directions.
Paul grinned at his clean face in the mirror. "Y'know," he said to
himself in the glass, "You're vaguely familiar, too."
The idea hit him hard, then.
One of the reasons why a picture of one's self does not resemble one's
familiar appearance in a mirror is due to the lack of facial symmetry.
The left side of a mirror image is the right side of the face on a
photograph and the two seldom match.
Paul gulped and dressed quickly. Then he went to the freeze-locker and
hauled out the dead man.
It would take a third observer to tell. But so far as Paul Grayson
could tell, this man from Proxima I was his double!
"And that," he said in address to the corpse, "makes two of you!"
CHAPTER 7
Ten days later when Paul's ship dropped out of the realm of
invisibility, he was no nearer to the problem's solution. He did have a
course of action formulated, however. So his first telephone call was
not to Nora Phillips. It was to John Stacey, the detective.
"I'm back."
"Glad to hear it. Wha' hoppen?"
"I've got a corpse on my ship."
"Friend of yours?"
"Nope."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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