Noble Redman, Jesse F. Bone [best pdf ebook reader TXT] 📗

to Abie was my fault for lifting him and getting him out of town. After he got my twenty kilos he still figured I owed him twelve—and so I've never made it back. Every time I get a stake he grabs it, and what with the interest, I still owe him twelve.

But I still keep trying, because there's still a chance. You see, when Redman probed around in my mind to learn how to run the spaceship, he was in a hurry. He must have done something to my brain, because when he left me on that asteroid, as he turned and waved at me, I could hear him thinking that the Patrol would not be able to stop hyperships, and if he made it to Earth his people could emigrate to some clean world and stop having to inject their kids, and while they couldn't make the grade themselves, their kids could crash the Galaxy without any trouble. I got the impression that it wouldn't be too much trouble to empty Earth. Seems as though there wasn't many more than a million people left. The red color wasn't complete protection apparently.

And there's another thing. About a month after I got the reward, there was a minor complaint from Centaurus V about one of their officials who disappeared on a vacation trip to Mars. His ship was a Starflite class, Serial CY 122439. Get the idea?

So I keep watching all the incoming tourists like you. Someday I figure I'm going to run into a decolorized Earthman. They won't be able to stay away any more than the other peoples of the Galaxy. Old Mother Earth keeps dragging them back even though they've been gone for over a thousand years. Don't get the idea they want to see Mars. It's Earth that draws them. And it'll draw an Earthman's kids. And I figure that if I could read Redman's mind, I can read theirs, too even though I haven't read a thought since. It figures, does it not?

Hey! Hold on! There's no need to run. All I want to do is collect a fifty year old bill—plus interest. Your folks owe me that much.

THE END End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Noble Redman, by Jesse Franklin Bone