Produced by Greg Weeks, LN Yaddanapudi and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net +------------------------------------------------+ | Yes, Earth may be a sort of fenced-off area, | | so far as other intelligent races of the | | galaxy are concerned. But not for the | | grandiose reasons that some have imagined.... | +------------------------------------------------+ [Illustration] STAIRWAY TO THE STARS By Larry Shaw +--------------------------------------------------------------+ | It was a stairway leading down, but it also led out into | | space--indirectly. And the situation had the aspects of a | | burlesque on Grand Hotel, but.... | +--------------------------------------------------------------+ John Andrew Farmer scowled at the octopus that sprawled on his living-room couch, rubbed his stubbly jaw with a stubby fist, and said, "I love you." Farmer was uncomfortable. He was almost always uncomfortable, for various reasons; though it rarely if ever occurred to him, as he considered each individual irritant, that this was his normal state of existence. Right now he was acutely conscious of how ridiculous it must look for him to be making love to an octopus, but he was even more conscious of the very real pains of unrequited love. It wasn't even a respectable, ordinary-looking octopus. To be accurate, it would have to be called a nonapus; each of the nine tentacles had a lobsterish claw at its tip, and there were various other unusual appendages. It would be hard enough to explain an earthly octopus in his living-room if the necessity arose, Farmer reflected for the teenteenth time--but how in the name of Neptune could he ever explain _this_? It had all started with Judge Ray. Ray had not been a real judge, obviously, but had used the title in lieu of any other first name. That was the first of the inexplicable things; Farmer would have expected the odd little old man to call himself a professor of something or other. But Ray insisted on Judge. Ray had come to the office of the _Stein, Fine, Bryans Publishing Co._, where Farmer was working as an assistant editor, and announced that he was about to write the greatest book of the age. And yes, he wanted an advance against royalties--it didn't have to be large; Ray lived simply--to tide him over while doing the actual writing, which shouldn't take more than a very few weeks.