Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell, and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net [Illustration: He had lost all sense of right or wrong. Justice and injustice were the same, and his only thought was, kill--kill--kill!] THE JUDAS VALLEY By GERALD VANCE _Why did everybody step off the ship in this strange valley and promptly drop dead? How could a well-equipped corps of tough spacemen become a field of rotting skeletons in this quiet world of peace and contentment? It was a mystery Peter and Sherri had to solve. If they could live long enough!_ Peter Wayne took the letter out of the machine, broke the seal, and examined it curiously. It was an official communication from the Interstellar Exploration Service. It read: FROM: Lieutenant General Martin Scarborough, I.E.S. TO: Captain Peter Wayne, Preliminary Survey Corps Report immediately to this office for assignment to I.E.S. _Lord Nelson_. Full briefing will be held at 2200 hours, 14 April 2103. By order of the Fleet Commandant. It was short, brief, and to the point. And it gave no information whatsoever. Peter Wayne shrugged resignedly, put the letter down on his bed, walked over to the phone, and dialed a number. A moment later, a girl's face appeared--blonde-haired, with high cheekbones, deep blue-green eyes, and an expression of the lips that intriguingly combined desirability and crisp military bearing. "Lieutenant James speaking," she said formally. Then, as Wayne's image appeared on her screen, she grinned. "Hi, Pete. What's up?" "Listen, Sherri," Wayne said quickly. "I'm going to have to cancel that date we had for tomorrow night. I just got my orders." The girl laughed. "I was just going to call _you_, I got a fac-sheet too. Looks as though we won't see each other for a while, Pete." "What ship are you getting?" "The _Lord Nelson_." It was Wayne's turn to laugh. "It looks as though we _will_ be seeing each other. That's my ship too. We can keep our date in the briefing room." Her face brightened. "Good! I'll see you there, then," she said. "I've got to get my gear packed." "Okay," Wayne said. "Let's be on time, you know how General Scarborough is." She smiled. "Don't worry, Peter. I'll be there. So long for now." "Bye, Sherri." He cut the connection, watched the girl's face melt away into a rainbow-colored diamond of light, and turned away. There were a lot of things to do before he would be ready to leave Earth for an interstellar tour of duty. He wondered briefly as he started to pack just what was going on. There was usually much more notice on any big jump of this order. Something special was up, he thought, as he dragged his duffle-bag out of the closet. * * * * *