Page:Fantastic Universe (1956-10; vol. 8, no. 3).djvu/15

32 by Raymond F. Jones


 * Why did Sleth Forander want everything in the ship turned absolutely backwards?

to a funeral parlor, an idle assembly line is probably the most depressing sight in the world. At least to a production man. Ordinarily, Mack Wilde, Factory Manager of Wilkinson Spacecraft, avoided a route that would take him past the lines that hadn't budged in over three months. But now he almost ran past them, with a smile on his face, as he went down the gallery that led from the front office to the Chief Engineer's bailiwick.

George Mahoney looked up from his idle sketching and leaned on the drawing board with his elbows while the somewhat portly Mack regained his breath.

"What's the matter?" he asked. "The phone company take out all our lines and the office boys get laid off?" It had been days since he'd known the Factory Manager to leave his office.

"I'll overlook that," said Mack as he caught a final deep breath that restored him fairly close to normal. "In fact I'll overlook most anything except your continued warming that

''The Ragalians were strictly from nightmares. Raymond F. Jones introduces us, in this exciting novelet, to the startling problems Wilkinson Spacecraft faced when the weird Ragalians, their particular needs in mind, wanted one hundred modified H 62’s, modified their way. There’d been times in his life when George Mahoney had cursed himself for his attempts at cleverness, and this seemed likely to be one of them, as Hugh Wilkinson went ahead, as they’d planned, risking all on the decision.''

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