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one heel, as she saw her father.
There was an expression of relief on his face. You had me worried, he said. I ve been here for more
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than an hour. My dear, all is well! Our screens are back to working; everything is the way it was ...
before. We re safe.
B-but, said the girl, where s Steve?
... It was earlier. Hanardy had the impression that he was remembering a forgotten experience on the
Ungarnmeteor-ite a time before the arrival of Sween-Madro and the second group of Dreeghs.
The Great Galacticof thatearlier time, he who had been William Leigh, bent over Hanardy where he lay
on the floor.
He said with a friendly, serious smile, You and that girl make quite a combination. You with so much
owed to you, and she with that high ability for foolhardiness. We re going to have another look at such
energy debts. Maybe that way we ll find our salvation.
He broke off. Steve, there are billions of open channels in the solar system. Awareness of the genius in
them is the next step up for intelligence. Because you ve had some feedback, if you take that to heart you
might even get the girl.
Leigh s words ended abruptly. For at that instant he touched the spaceman s shoulder.
The memory faded
12
It was several weeks later.
On the desk of the Port Authority lay the report on the illness which had suddenly affected 193 persons.
Among other data, the report stated:
It develops that these people were all individuals who during the past fifteen years have taken advantage
of a certain low I.Q. person named Steve Hanardy. As almost everyone in Spaceport is aware,
Hanardy who shows many evidences ofmentalretardation has year after year been by his own
simple-minded connivance swindled out of his entire income from the space freighter, ECTON-66 (a
type classification) which he owns and operates.
In this manner so much money has been filched from Hanardy that, first one person, then another, then
many, set themselves up in business at their victim s expense. And as soon as they were secure, each
person in turn discarded the benefactor. For years now, while one human leech after an-other climbed
from poverty to affluence, Hanardy himself has remained at the lowest level.
The afflicted are slowly recovering, and most are in a sur-prisingly cheerful frame of mind. One man even
said to me that he had a dream that he was paying a debt by becoming ill; and in the dream he was
greatly relieved.
There s some story around that Hanardy has married the daughter of ProfessorUngarn.But to accept
that would be like believing that everything that has happened has been a mere background to a love
story.
I prefer to discount that rumor and prefer to say only that it is not known exactly where Hanardy is at
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present.
The Science Fiction Books of
A. E. Van
Vogt
thebooks areusted in chronological order of publication. The publisher of the first world edition is given,
and where this was an American edition this is indicated by (US). Following this, all British editions are
listed.
Short stories are indicated by (collection), Omnibus Editions have a list of contents and these are
cross-indexed by the use of In: references. All reissues of a book under a different title are listed with the
original title.
Books published in hardcover are indicated by (hd) while all others are paperbacks. The date for each
edition is also given. An asterisk (*) indicates that the edition was in print when this list was compiled in
1974.
Bibliography
SLAN
Arkham House (US hd), 1946;Weidenfeld & Nicolson (hd), 1953; Panther, 1960*.
In:Triad, 1959, andvanVogtOmnibus 2, 1971.
THE WEAPON MAKERS
Hadley Publishing (US hd), 1946;Weidenfeld & Nicolson (hd), 1954; Digit, 1961; New English
Library, 1970*.
Title change:One Against Eternity.
Ace (US), 1955.
THE BOOK OF PTATH
Fantasy Press (US hd), 1947; Panther, 1969*.
In:An A. E. vanVogtOmnibus, 1967.
Title change:Two Hundred Million A.D.
Paperback Library (US), 1964.
THE WORLD OF NULL-A
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Simon & Schuster (US hd), 1948; Dobson (hd), 1970*; Sphere, 1971*.
In:Triad, 1959.
OUT OF THE UNKNOWN (withE. M.Hull) (collection)
Fantasy Publishing (US hd), 1948; New English Library, 1970.
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