Epistolary fiction; Science fiction; Short stories
Produced by Greg Weeks, Sankar Viswanathan, and the Online
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Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Amazing Stories January 1951. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the copyright on this
publication was renewed.
[Illustration:]
OPERATION R.S.V.P.
By
H. Beam Piper
_Vladmir N. Dzhoubinsky, Foreign Minister, Union of East European
Soviet Republics, to Wu Fung Tung, Foreign Minister, United Peoples'
Republics of East Asia_:
15 Jan. 1984
Honored Sir:
Pursuant to our well known policy of exchanging military and
scientific information with the Government, of friendly Powers, my
Government takes great pleasure in announcing the completely
successful final tests of our new nuclear-rocket guided missile
_Marxist Victory_. The test launching was made from a position south
of Lake Balkash; the target was located in the East Siberian Sea.
In order to assist you in appreciating the range of the new guided
missile _Marxist Victory_, let me point out that the distance from
launching-site to target is somewhat over 50 percent greater than the
distance from launching-site to your capital, Nanking.
My Government is still hopeful that your Government will revise its
present intransigeant position on the Khakum River dispute.
I have the honor, etc., etc., etc.,
V. N. Dzhoubinsky
[Illustration:]
_Wu Fung Tung, to Vladmir N. Dzhoubinsky_:
7 Feb., 1984
Estimable Sir:
My Government was most delighted to learn of the splendid triumph of
your Government in developing the new guided missile _Marxist
Victory_, and at the same time deeply relieved. We had, of course,
detected the release of nuclear energy incident to the test, and
inasmuch as it had obviously originated in the disintegration of a
quantity of Uranium 235, we had feared that an explosion had occurred
at your Government's secret uranium plant at Khatanga. We have long
known of the lax security measures in effect at this plant, and have,
as a consequence, been expecting some disaster there.
I am therefore sure that your Government will be equally gratified to
learn of the perfection, by my Government, of our own new guided
missile _Celestial Destroyer_, which embodies, in greatly improved
form, many of the features of your own Government's guided missile
_Marxist Victory_. Naturally, your own scientific warfare specialists
have detected the release of energy incident to the explosion of our
own improved thorium-hafnium interaction bomb; this bomb was exploded
over the North Polar ice cap, about two hundred miles south of the
Pole, on about 35 degrees East Longitude, almost due north of your
capital city of Moscow. The launching was made from a site in Thibet.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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