THE TERROR by Alfred Coppel The wars of nerves, the cold wars, of the early Twentieth Century pale into insignificance beside the fear that besets humanity when Jan Carvel returns from space! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Future combined with Science Fiction Stories November 1950. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] _From Quintus Bland's History of Mankind, Chapter XXIV "The Terror."_ These are the halcyon years. The awful goad of the Terror is gone and men can look into the sky without fear. The new colonies thrive among the low red hills of Mars, in the icy moraines of Io, Europa, and Titan. Starships are poised on the outer moons; perhaps soon Earth will wear a diadem of stars. Yet some of the bitterness of the fear-ridden years is with us still. Forgiveness does not come easily to those who have suffered the humiliation of the Terror; there are the blighted lives to remember, and the unfortunates who lived and died under the threat of annihilation from the sky. Jan Carvel's memory is accursed--for it was Carvel who brought the Terror. Of the man himself, little is known. He lived--and died--in the first decade of the Conquest of Space, or in the last decade of the Nationalist Era, since they coincide. A few short years had passed since the first successful Moon flights and the establishment of the Space Stations, and the tensions that had been mounting among the nations of Earth were nearing the breaking point. Lunaris was 'Moon Base' then, and the launching racks were pointed back toward Earth and not toward the planets. Intense activity had turned the Moon into an atomic arsenal--a focal point of all the destructive arts men had learned during and since the Second World War. The Old Countries, mainly the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and the United States of America, stood with weapons poised; the seemingly eternal Cold War steadily growing hotter. Moon Base was American, and the Space Stations were Russian; a parity of weapons had been reached and jingoists cried for war.