The Greatest Sci-Fi Works (Illustrated Edition). Mack Reynolds

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The Greatest Sci-Fi Works (Illustrated Edition) - Mack  Reynolds

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       Mack Reynolds

      The Greatest Sci-Fi Works

      (Illustrated Edition)

      Ultima Thule, Black Man's Burden, Border, Breed nor Birth, Frigid Fracas, Adaptation

      Published by

      Books

      - Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -

       [email protected]

      2019 OK Publishing

      EAN 4064066053307

      Table of Contents

       Ultima Thule

       Black Man's Burden

       Border, Breed nor Birth

       Frigid Fracas

       Status Quo

       Dogfight – 1973

       Potential Enemy

       Off Course

       After Some Tomorrow

       Happy Ending

       Unborn Tomorrow

       I'm a Stranger Here Myself

       Summit

       Revolution

       Combat

       Medal of Honor

       Gun for Hire

       Freedom

       Farmer

       Mercenary

       Subversive

       The Common Man

       Expediter

       Spaceman on a Spree

       Adaptation

      Ultima Thule

       Table of Contents

      At least he'd got far enough to wind up with a personal interview. It's one thing doing up an application and seeing it go onto an endless tape and be fed into the maw of a machine and then to receive, in a matter of moments, a neatly printed rejection. It's another thing to receive an appointment to be interviewed by a placement officer in the Commissariat of Interplanetary Affairs, Department of Personnel. Ronny Bronston was under no illusions. Nine out of ten men of his age annually made the same application. Almost all were annually rejected. Statistically speaking practically nobody ever got an interplanetary position. But he'd made step one along the path of a lifetime ambition.

      He stood at easy attention immediately inside the door. At the desk at the far side of the room the placement officer was going through a sheaf of papers. He looked up and said, “Ronald Bronston? Sit down. You'd like an interplanetary assignment, eh? So would I.”

      Ronny took the chair. For a moment he tried to appear alert, earnest, ambitious but not too ambitious, fearless, devoted to the cause, and indispensable. For a moment. Then he gave it up and looked like Ronny Bronston.

      The other looked up and took him in. The personnel official saw a man of averages. In the late twenties. Average height, weight and breadth. Pleasant of face in an average sort of way, but not handsome. Less than sharp in dress, hair inclined to be on the undisciplined side. Brown of hair, dark of eye. In a crowd, inconspicuous. In short, Ronny Bronston.

      The personnel officer grunted. He pushed a button, said something into his order box. A card slid into the slot and he took it out and stared gloomily at it.

      “What're your politics?” he said.

      “Politics?” Ronny Bronston said. “I haven't any politics. My father and grandfather before me have been citizens of United Planets. There hasn't been any politics in our family for three generations.”

      “Family?”

      “None.”

      The other grunted and marked the card. “Racial prejudices?”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      “Do you have any racial prejudices? Any at all.”

      “No.”

      The personnel officer said, “Most people answer that way at first, these days, but some don't at second. For instance, suppose you had to have a blood transfusion. Would you have any objection to it being blood donated by, say, a Negro, a Chinese, or, say, a Jew?”

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