Decay. Ross stood on the traders’ ramp, overlooking the Yards, and the word kept bobbing to the top of his mind. Decay. About all of Halsey’s Planet there was the imperceptible reek of decay. The clea...

They were all naked. Why not? There’s no weather in a space ship. All of them laughed when Ross and Marconi came in through the lock except the baby, who was nursing at the breast of a handsome woman....

“Wake up, Ross,” Marconi was saying, joggling him. “Come on, wake up.” Ross thrust himself up on an elbow and opened his eyes. He said with a tongue the size of his forearm in a dust-lined mouth: “Wha...

Picture Leif’s longboat bobbing in the swells outside Ambrose Light, while the twentieth-century liners steam past; a tiny, ancient thing, related to the new giants only as the Eohippus resembles the ...

Ross was lucky. The second listed inhabited planet was still inhabited. He had not quite stopped shuddering from the first when the approach radar caught him. The first planet was given in the master ...

From birth to puberty you were an infant. From puberty to Dobermann’s age, a junior. For ten years after that you went to school, learning the things you had neither the need nor the right to know bef...

They were well within detection range of Azor’s radar, if any, and yet there had been no beeping signal that the planet’s G.C.A. had taken over and would pilot them down. Another blank? He studied the...

“Stupid old bat,” Ross muttered. They were walking aimlessly down Fifteen Street, the nicely-landscaped machine tool works behind them. Helena said timidly: “You really shouldn’t talk that way, Ross. ...

The guard spat disgustedly. “Fine lot of wrecks we’re getting,” she complained. “Not like the old days. They used to send real men here.” She glowered at Ross and Bernie, holding their commitment pape...

It took Ross a while to learn a lesson, but when he learned it, it stuck. This time, he promised himself, no spaceport. They sneaked into the solar system that held fabulous old Earth from far outside...

The doctor said with weak belligerence, “Who do you think I am? Jones? I had to leave your friends behind. I had enough trouble getting those hoods to let me take you along. After all, I’m not a mirac...

Ross awoke, clearheaded and alert. Helena and Bernie were looking at him apprehensively. He understood and said grudgingly, “Sorry I flipped. I didn’t mean to scare you. Everything seemed to go black⁠...

Their second day on the bum they accumulated a great deal of change and crowded into a telephone booth. The plan was to try to locate their starship and find out what, if anything, could be done for S...

There was a home base, a gigantic island called Australia, to which they took Ross and Doc Jones in a little car that sprouted no wings and flashed no rockets, but flew. They lived underground there, ...