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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, Slingshot, by Irving W. Lande, Illustrated by
+ Emsh
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: Slingshot
+
+
+Author: Irving W. Lande
+
+
+
+Release Date: August 30, 2007  [eBook #22462]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLINGSHOT***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 22462-h.htm or 22462-h.zip:
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/4/6/22462/22462-h/22462-h.htm)
+      or
+      (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/2/4/6/22462/22462-h.zip)
+
+
+
+
+
+SLINGSHOT
+
+by
+
+IRVING W. LANDE
+
+Illustrated by Emsh
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+
+
+            _The slingshot was, I believe, one of the few
+          weapons of history that wasn't used in the last war.
+            That doesn't mean it won't be used in the next!_
+
+
+"Got a bogey at three o'clock high. Range about six hundred miles."
+Johnson spoke casually, but his voice in the intercom was thin with
+tension.
+
+Captain Paul Coulter, commanding Space Fighter 308, 58th Squadron, 33rd
+Fighter Wing, glanced up out of his canopy in the direction indicated,
+and smiled to himself at the instinctive reaction. Nothing there but the
+familiar starry backdrop, the moon far down to the left. If the light
+wasn't right, a ship might be invisible at half a mile. He squeezed the
+throttle mike button. "Any IFF?"
+
+"No IFF."
+
+"O.K., let me know as soon as you have his course." Coulter squashed out
+his cigar and began his cockpit check, grinning without humor as he
+noticed that his breathing had deepened and his palms were moist on the
+controls. He looked down to make sure his radio was snug in its pocket
+on his leg; checked the thigh harness of his emergency rocket, wrapped
+in its thick belly pad; checked the paired tanks of oxygen behind him,
+hanging level from his shoulders into their niche in the "cradle." He
+flipped his helmet closed, locked it, and opened it again. He tossed a
+sardonic salute at the photograph of a young lady who graced the side of
+the cockpit. "Wish us luck, sugar." He pressed the mike button again.
+
+"You got anything yet, Johnny?"
+
+"He's going our way, Paul. Have it exact in a minute."
+
+Coulter scanned the full arch of sky visible through the curving panels
+of the dome, thinking the turgid thoughts that always came when action
+was near. His chest was full of the familiar weakness--not fear exactly,
+but a tight, helpless feeling that grew and grew with the waiting.
+
+His eyes and hands were busy in the familiar procedure, readying the
+ship for combat, checking and re-checking the details that could mean
+life and death, but his mind watched disembodied, yearning back to
+earth.
+
+Sylvia always came back first. Inviting smile and outstretched hands.
+Nyloned knees, pink sweater, and that clinging, clinging white silk
+skirt. A whirling montage of laughing, challenging eyes and tossing
+sky-black hair and soft arms tightening around his neck.
+
+Then Jean, cool and self-possessed and slightly disapproving, with
+warmth and humor peeping through from underneath when she smiled. A
+lazy, crinkly kind of smile, like Christmas lights going on one by one.
+He wished he'd acted more grown up that night they watched the rain
+dance at the pueblo. For the hundredth time, he went over what he
+remembered of their last date, seeing the gleam of her shoulder, and the
+angry disappointment in her eyes; hearing again his awkward apologies.
+She was a nice kid. Silently his mouth formed the words. "You're a nice
+kid."
+
+_I think she loves me. She was just mad because I got drunk._
+
+The tension of approaching combat suddenly blended with the memory,
+welling up into a rush of tenderness and affection. He whispered her
+name, and suddenly he knew that if he got back he was going to ask her
+to marry him.
+
+He thought of his father, rocking on the porch of the Pennsylvania farm,
+pipe in his mouth, the weathered old face serene, as he puffed and
+listened to the radio beside him. He wished he'd written him last night,
+instead of joining the usual beer and bull session in the wardroom. He
+wished--. He wished.
+
+"I've got him, Paul. He's got two point seven miles of RV on us. Take
+thirty degrees high on two point one o'clock for course to IP."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Automatically he turned the control wheel to the right and eased it
+back. The gyros recorded the turn to course.
+
+"Hold 4 G's for one six five seconds, then coast two minutes for initial
+point five hundred miles on his tail."
+
+"Right, Johnny. One sixty-five, then two minutes." He set the timer,
+advanced the throttle to 4 G's, and stepped back an inch as the
+acceleration took him snugly into the cradle. The Return-To-Station-Fuel
+and Relative-Velocity-To-Station gauges did their usual double takes on
+a change of course, as the ship computer recorded the new information.
+He liked those two gauges--the two old ladies.
+
+Mrs. RSF kept track of how much more fuel they had than they needed to
+get home. When they were moving away from station, she dropped in
+alarmed little jumps, but when they were headed home, she inched along
+in serene contentment, or if they were coasting, sneaked triumphantly
+back up the dial.
+
+Mrs. RVS started to get jittery at about ten mps away from home, and
+above fifteen, she was trembling steadily. He didn't blame the old
+ladies for worrying. With one hour of fuel at 5 G's, you didn't fire a
+single squirt unless there was a good reason for it. Most of their time
+on a mission was spent free wheeling, in the anxiety-laden boredom that
+fighting men have always known.
+
+_Wish the Red was coming in across our course._ It would have taken less
+fuel, and the chase wouldn't have taken them so far out. But then they'd
+probably have been spotted, and lost the precious element of surprise.
+
+He blessed the advantage of better radar. In this crazy "war," so like
+the dogfights of the first world war, the better than two hundred mile
+edge of American radar was more often than not the margin of victory.
+The American crews were a little sharper, a little better trained, but
+with their stripped down ships, and midget crewmen, with no personal
+safety equipment, the Reds could accelerate longer and faster, and go
+farther out. You had to get the jump on them, or it was just too bad.
+
+The second hand hit forty-five in its third cycle, and he stood loose in
+the cradle as the power died.
+
+_Sixty-two combat missions but the government says there's no war._ His
+mind wandered back over eight years in the service. Intelligence tests.
+Physical tests. Psychological tests. Six months of emotional adjustment
+in the screep. Primary training. Basic and advanced training. The pride
+and excitement of being chosen for space fighters. By the time he
+graduated, the United States and Russia each had several satellite
+stations operating, but in 1979, the United States had won the race for
+a permanent station on the Moon. What a grind it had been, bringing in
+the supplies.
+
+A year later the Moon station had "blown up." No warning. No survivors.
+Just a brand-new medium-sized crater. And six months later, the new
+station, almost completed, went up again. The diplomats had buzzed like
+hornets, with accusations and threats, but nothing could be
+proven--there _were_ bombs stored at the station. The implication was
+clear enough. There wasn't going to be any Moon station until one
+government ruled Earth. Or until the United States and Russia figured
+out a way to get along with each other. And so far, getting along with
+Russia was like trying to get along with an octopus.
+
+Of course there were rumors that the psych warfare boys had some gimmick
+cooked up, to turn the U. S. S. R. upside down in a revolution, the next
+time power changed hands, but he'd been hearing that one for years.
+Still, with four new dictators over there in the last eleven years,
+there was always a chance.
+
+Anyway, he was just a space jockey, doing his job in this screwball
+fight out here in the empty reaches. Back on Earth, there was no war.
+The statesmen talked, held conferences, played international chess as
+ever. Neither side bothered the other's satellites, though naturally
+they were on permanent alert. There just wasn't going to be any Moon
+station for a while. Nobody knew what there might be on the Moon, but if
+one side couldn't have it, then the other side wasn't going to have it
+either.
+
+And meanwhile, the struggle was growing deadlier, month by month, each
+side groping for the stranglehold, looking for the edge that would give
+domination of space, or make all-out war a good risk. They hadn't found
+it yet, but it was getting bloodier out here all the time. For a while,
+it had been a supreme achievement just to get a ship out and back, but
+gradually, as the ships improved, there was a little margin left over
+for weapons. Back a year ago, the average patrol was nothing but a
+sightseeing tour. Not that there was much to see, when you'd been out a
+few times. Now, there were Reds around practically every mission.
+
+_Thirteen missions to go, after today._ He wondered if he'd quit at
+seventy-five. Deep inside him, the old pride and excitement were still
+strong. He still got a kick out of the way the girls looked at the
+silver rocket on his chest. But he didn't feel as lucky as he used to.
+Twenty-nine years old, and he was starting to feel like an old man. He
+pictured himself lecturing to a group of eager kids.
+
+_Had a couple of close calls, those last two missions._ That Red had
+looked easy, the way he was wandering around. He hadn't spotted them
+until they were well into their run, but when he got started he'd made
+them look like slow motion, just the same. If he hadn't tried that
+harebrained sudden deceleration.... Coulter shook his head at the
+memory. And on the last mission they'd been lucky to get a draw. Those
+boys were good shots.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"We're crossing his track, Paul. Turn to nine point five o'clock and
+hold 4 G's for thirty-two seconds, starting on the count ...
+five--four--three--two--one--go!" He completed the operation in silence,
+remarking to himself how lucky he was to have Johnson. The boy loved a
+chase. He navigated like a hungry hawk, though you had to admit his
+techniques were a bit irregular.
+
+Coulter chuckled at the ad lib way they operated, remembering the
+courses, the tests, the procedures practiced until they could do them
+backwards blindfolded. When they tangled with a Red, the Solter
+co-ordinates went out the hatch. They navigated by the enemy. There were
+times during a fight when he had no more idea of his position than what
+the old ladies told him, and what he could see of the Sun, the Earth,
+and the Moon.
+
+And using "right side up" as a basis for navigation. He chuckled again.
+Still, the service had had to concede on "right side up," in designing
+the ships, so there was something to be said for it. They hadn't been
+able to simulate gravity without fouling up the ships so they had to
+call the pilot's head "up." There was something comforting about it.
+He'd driven a couple of the experimental jobs, one with the cockpit set
+on gimbals, and one where the whole ship rotated, and he hadn't cared
+for them at all. Felt disoriented, with something nagging at his mind
+all the time, as though the ships had been sabotaged. A couple of pilots
+had gone nuts in the "spindizzy," and remembering his own feelings as he
+watched the sky go by, it was easy to understand.
+
+Anyway, "right side up" tied in perfectly with the old "clock" system
+Garrity had dug out of those magazines he was always reading. Once they
+got used to it, it had turned out really handy. Old Doc Hoffman, his
+astrogation prof, would have turned purple if he'd ever dreamed they'd
+use such a conglomeration. But it worked. And when you were in a hurry,
+it worked in a hurry, and that was good enough for Coulter. He'd
+submitted a report on it to Colonel Silton.
+
+"You've got him, Paul. We're dead on his tail, five hundred miles back,
+and matching velocity. Turn forty-two degrees right, and you're lined up
+right on him." Johnson was pleased with the job he'd done.
+
+Coulter watched the pip move into his sightscreen. It settled less than
+a degree off dead center. He made the final corrections in course, set
+the air pressure control to eight pounds, and locked his helmet.
+
+"Nice job, Johnny. Let's button up. You with us, Guns?"
+
+Garrity sounded lazy as a well-fed tiger. "Ah'm with yew, cap'n."
+
+Coulter advanced the throttle to 5 G's. And with the hiss of power, SF
+308 began the deadly, intricate, precarious maneuver called a combat
+pass--a maneuver inherited from the aerial dogfight--though it often
+turned into something more like the broadside duels of the old sailing
+ships--as the best and least suicidal method of killing a spaceship. To
+start on the enemy's tail, just out of his radar range. To come up his
+track at 2 mps relative velocity, firing six .30 caliber machine guns
+from fifty miles out. In the last three or four seconds, to break out
+just enough to clear him, praying that he won't break in the same
+direction. _And to keep on going._
+
+_Four minutes and thirty-four seconds to the break._ Sixty seconds at 5
+G's; one hundred ninety-two seconds of free wheeling; and then, if they
+were lucky, the twenty-two frantic seconds they were out here
+for--throwing a few pounds of steel slugs out before them in one
+unbroken burst, groping out fifty miles into the darkness with steel and
+radar fingers to kill a duplicate of themselves.
+
+_This is the worst. These three minutes are the worst._ One hundred
+ninety-two eternal seconds of waiting, of deathly silence and deathly
+calm, feeling and hearing nothing but the slow pounding of their own
+heartbeats. Each time he got back, it faded away, and all he remembered
+was the excitement. But each time he went through it, it was worse. Just
+standing and waiting in the silence, praying they weren't
+spotted--staring at the unmoving firmament and knowing he was a
+projectile hurtling two miles each second straight at a clump of metal
+and flesh that was the enemy. Knowing the odds were twenty to one
+against their scoring a kill ... unless they ran into him.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+At eighty-five seconds, he corrected slightly to center the pip. The
+momentary hiss of the rockets was a relief. He heard the muffled
+yammering as Guns fired a short burst from the .30's standing out of
+their compartments around the sides of the ship. They were practically
+recoilless, but the burst drifted him forward against the cradle
+harness.
+
+And suddenly the waiting was over. The ship filled with vibration as
+Guns opened up. _Twenty-five seconds to target._ His eyes flicked from
+the sightscreen to the sky ahead, looking for the telltale flare of
+rockets--ready to follow like a ferret.
+
+_There he is!_ At eighteen miles from target, a tiny blue light
+flickered ahead. He forgot everything but the sightscreen, concentrating
+on keeping the pip dead center. The guns hammered on. It seemed they'd
+been firing for centuries. At ten-mile range, the combat radar kicked
+the automatics in, turning the ship ninety degrees to her course in one
+and a half seconds. He heard the lee side firing cut out, as Garrity
+hung on with two, then three guns.
+
+He held it as long as he could. Closer than he ever had before. At four
+miles he poured 12 G's for two seconds.
+
+They missed ramming by something around a hundred yards. The enemy ship
+flashed across his tail in a fraction of a second, already turned around
+and heading up its own track, yet it seemed to Paul he could make out
+every detail--the bright red star, even the tortured face of the pilot.
+Was there something lopsided in the shape of that rocket plume, or was
+he just imagining it in the blur of their passing? And did he hear a
+_ping_ just at that instant, feel the ship vibrate for a second?
+
+He continued the turn in the direction the automatics had started,
+bringing his nose around to watch the enemy's track. And as the shape of
+the plume told him the other ship was still heading back toward Earth,
+he brought the throttle back up to 12 G's, trying to overcome the lead
+his pass had given away.
+
+Guns spoke quietly to Johnson. "Let me know when we kill his RV. Ah may
+get another shot at him."
+
+And Johnny answered, hurt, "What do you think I'm doing down
+here--reading one of your magazines?"
+
+Paul was struggling with hundred-pound arms, trying to focus the
+telescope that swiveled over the panel. As the field cleared, he could
+see that the plume was flaring unevenly, flickering red and orange along
+one side. Quietly and viciously, he was talking to himself. "Blow!
+Blow!"
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+And she blew. Like a dirty ragged bit of fireworks, throwing tiny
+handfuls of sparks into the blackness. Something glowed red for a while,
+and slowly faded.
+
+_There, but for the grace of God...._ Paul shuddered in a confused
+mixture of relief and revulsion.
+
+He cut back to 4 G's, noting that RVS registered about a mile per second
+away from station, and suddenly became aware that the red light was on
+for loss of air. The cabin pressure gauge read zero, and his heart
+throbbed into his throat as he remembered that _pinging_ sound, just as
+they passed the enemy ship. He told Garrity to see if he could locate
+the loss, and any other damage, and was shortly startled by a low amazed
+whistle in his earphones.
+
+"If Ah wasn't lookin' at it, Ah wouldn't believe it. Musta been one of
+his shells went right around the fuel tank and out again, without
+hittin' it. There's at least three inches of tank on a line between the
+holes! He musta been throwin' curves at us. Man, cap'n, this is our
+lucky day!"
+
+[Illustration]
+
+Paul felt no surprise, only relief at having the trouble located. The
+reaction to the close call might not come till hours later. "This kind
+of luck we can do without. Can you patch the holes?"
+
+"Ah can patch the one where it came in, but it musta been explodin' on
+the way out. There's a hole Ah could stick mah head through."
+
+"That's a good idea." Johnson was not usually very witty, but this was
+one he couldn't resist.
+
+"Never mind, Guns. A patch that big wouldn't be safe to hold air."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+They were about eighty thousand miles out. He set course for Earth at
+about five and a half mps, which Johnson calculated to bring them in on
+the station on the "going away" side of its orbit, and settled back for
+the tedious two hours of free wheeling. For ten or fifteen minutes, the
+interphone crackled with the gregariousness born of recent peril, and
+gradually the ship fell silent as each man returned to his own private
+thoughts.
+
+Paul was wondering about the men on the other ship--whether any of them
+were still alive. Eighty thousand miles to fall. That was a little
+beyond the capacity of an emergency rocket--about 2 G's for sixty
+seconds--even if they had them. What a way to go home! He wondered what
+he'd do if it happened to him. Would he wait out his time, or just
+unlock his helmet.
+
+Guns' drawl broke into his reverie. "Say, cap'n, Ah've been readin' in
+this magazine about a trick they used to use, called skip bombin'.
+They'd hang a bomb on the bottom of one of these airplanes, and fly
+along the ground, right at what they wanted to hit. Then they'd let the
+bomb go and get out of there, and the bomb would sail right on into the
+target. You s'pose we could fix this buggy up with an A bomb or an H
+bomb we could let go a few hundred miles out? Stick a proximity fuse on
+it, and a time fuse, too, in case we missed. Just sittin' half a mile
+apart and tradin' shots like we did on that last mission is kinda hard
+on mah nerves, and it's startin' to happen too often."
+
+"Nice work if we could get it. I'm not crazy about those broadside
+battles myself. You'd think they'd have found something better than
+these thirty caliber popguns by now, but the odds say we've got to throw
+as many different chunks of iron as we can, to have a chance of hitting
+anything, and even then it's twenty to one against us. You wouldn't have
+one chance in a thousand of scoring a hit with a bomb at that distance,
+even if they didn't spot it and take off. What you'd need would be a
+rocket that could chase them, with the bomb for a head. And there's no
+way we could carry that size rocket, or fire it if we could. Some day
+these crates will come with men's rooms, and we'll have a place to carry
+something like that."
+
+"How big would a rocket like that be?"
+
+"Five, six feet, by maybe a foot. Weigh at least three hundred pounds."
+
+It was five minutes before Guns spoke again. "Ah been thinkin', cap'n.
+With a little redecoratin', Ah think Ah could get a rocket that size in
+here with me. We could weld a rail to one of the gun mounts that would
+hold it up to five or six G's. Then after we got away from station, Ah
+could take it outside and mount it on the rail."
+
+"Forget it, lad. If they ever caught us pulling a trick like that,
+they'd have us on hydroponic duty for the next five years. They just
+don't want us playing around with bombs, till the experts get all the
+angles figured out, and build ships to handle them. And besides, who do
+you think will rig a bomb like that, without anybody finding out? And
+where do you think we'd get a bomb in the first place? They don't leave
+those things lying around. Kovacs watches them like a mother hen. I
+think he counts them twice a day."
+
+"Sorry, cap'n. Ah just figured if you could get hold of a bomb, Ah know
+a few of the boys who could rig the thing up for us and keep their
+mouths shut."
+
+"Well, forget about it. It's not a bad idea, but we haven't any bomb."
+
+"Right, cap'n."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+But it was Paul who couldn't forget about it. All the rest of the way
+back to station, he kept seeing visions of a panel sliding aside in the
+nose of a sleek and gleaming ship, while a small rocket pushed its
+deadly snout forward, and then streaked off at tremendous acceleration.
+
+Interrogation was brief. The mission had turned up nothing new. Their
+kill made eight against seven for Doc Miller's crew, and they made sure
+Miller and the boys heard about it. They were lightheaded with the
+elation that followed a successful mission, swapping insults with the
+rest of the squadron, and reveling in the sheer contentment of being
+back safe.
+
+It wasn't until he got back to his stall, and started to write his
+father a long overdue letter, that he remembered he had heard Kovacs say
+he was going on leave.
+
+When he finished the letter, he opened the copy of "Lady Chatterley's
+Lover" he had borrowed from Rodriguez's limited but colorful library. He
+couldn't keep his mind on it. He kept thinking of the armament officer.
+
+Kovacs was a quiet, intelligent kid, devoted to his work. Coulter wasn't
+too intimate with him. He wasn't a spaceman, for one thing. One of those
+illogical but powerful distinctions that sub-divided the men of the
+station. And he was a little too polite to be easy company.
+
+Paul remembered the time he had walked into the Muroc Base Officer's
+Club with Marge Halpern on his arm. The hunger that had lain undisguised
+on Kovacs' face the moment he first saw them. Marge was a striking
+blonde with a direct manner, who liked men, especially orbit station
+men. He hadn't thought about the incident since then, but the look in
+Kovacs' eyes kept coming back to him as he tried to read.
+
+He wasn't sure how he got there, or why, when he found himself walking
+into Colonel Silton's office to ask for the leave he'd passed up at his
+fiftieth mission. He'd considered taking it several times, but the
+thought of leaving the squadron, even for a couple of weeks, had made
+him feel guilty, as though he were quitting.
+
+Once he had his papers, he started to get excited about it. As he
+cleaned up his paper work and packed his musette, his hands were
+fumbling, and his mind was full of Sylvia.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The vastness of Muroc Base was as incredible as ever. Row on uncounted
+row of neat buildings, each resting at the top of its own hundred-yard
+deep elevator shaft. A pulsing, throbbing city, dedicated to the long
+slow struggle to get into space and stay there. The service crew eyed
+them with studied indifference, as they writhed out of the small hatch
+and stepped to the ground. They drew a helijet at operations, and headed
+immediately for Los Angeles.
+
+Kovacs had been impressed when Paul asked if he'd care to room together
+while they were on leave. He was quiet on the flight, as he had been on
+the way down, listening contentedly, while Paul talked combat and women
+with Bob Parandes, another pilot going on leave.
+
+They parked the helijet at Municipal Field and headed for the public PV
+booths, picking up a coterie of two dogs and five assorted children on
+the way. The kids followed quietly in their wake, ecstatic at the sight
+of their uniforms.
+
+Paul squared his shoulders, as befitted a hero, and tousled a couple of
+uncombed heads as they walked. The kids clustered around the booths, as
+Kovacs entered one to locate a hotel room, and Paul another, to call
+Sylvia.
+
+"Honey, I've been so scared you weren't coming back. Where are you? When
+will I see you? Why didn't you write?..." She sputtered to a stop as he
+held up both hands in defense.
+
+"Whoa, baby. One thing at a time. I'm at the airport. You'll see me
+tonight, and I'll tell you the rest then. That is, if you're free
+tonight. And tomorrow. And the day after, and the day after that. Are
+you free?"
+
+Her hesitation was only momentary. "Well, I was going out--with a girl
+friend. But she'll understand. What's up?"
+
+He took a deep breath. "I'd like to get out of the city for a few days,
+where we can take things easy and be away from the crowds. And there is
+another guy I'd like to bring along."
+
+"We could take my helijet out to my dad's cottage at--_What did you
+say?_"
+
+It was a ticklish job explaining about Kovacs, but when she understood
+that he just wanted to do a friend a favor, and she'd still have Paul
+all to herself, she calmed down. They made their arrangements quickly,
+and switched off.
+
+He hesitated a minute before he called Marge. She was quite a dish to
+give up. Once she'd seen him with Sylvia, he'd be strictly _persona non
+grata_--that was for sure. It was an unhappy thought. Well, maybe it was
+in a good cause. He shrugged and called her.
+
+She nearly cut him off when she first heard his request, but he did some
+fast talking. The idea of several days at the cottage intrigued her, and
+when he described how smitten Kovacs had been, she brightened up and
+agreed to come. He switched off, adjusted the drape of his genuine silk
+scarf, and stepped out of the booth.
+
+Kovacs and the kids were waiting. The armament officer had apparently
+been telling them of Paul's exploits. They glowed with admiration. The
+oldest boy, about eleven, had true worship in his eyes. He hesitated a
+moment, then asked gravely: "Would you tell us how you kill a Red, sir?"
+
+Paul eyed the time-honored weapon that dangled from the youngster's
+hand. He bent over and tapped it with his finger. His voice was warm and
+confiding, but his eyes were far away.
+
+"I think next we're going to try a slingshot," he said.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ November 1955.
+Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright
+on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and typographical errors
+have been corrected without note.
+
+
+
+***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SLINGSHOT***
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