Adventures in the Far Future & Tales of Outer Space — page 242: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

But what if Knut didn’t come back? What if that space warp had moved? The biggest one on record, Knut had said. Of course, there always were a lot of them one had to keep an eye on, but very few big enough to really worry about. Little whirlpools and eddies where the space-time continuum was wavering around, wondering which way it ought to jump. Not dangerous, just a bother. Had to be careful not to drive a puddle jumper into one. But a big one, if it started to move, might engulf the plant— Outside, the Candles were kicking up the dust, shuffling and hopping and flapping their arms. For the moment they were mountain folk back in the hills of Earth, having them a hoe down. But there was something grotesque about them— like scarecrows set to music. The plains of Mercury stretched away to the near horizon, rolling plains of bitter dust. The Sun was a monstrous thing of bright-blue flame in a sky of inky black, ribbons of scarlet curling out like snaky tentacles. Mercury was its nearest to the Sun—a mere twenty-nine million miles distant, and that probably explained the warp. The nearness to the Sun and the epidemic of sunspots. Although the sunspots may not have had anything to do with it. Nobody knew. Craig had forgotten Page until the man coughed, and then he turned away from the port and went back to the desk. “| hope,” said Page, “that you have reconsidered. This project of mine means a lot to me.” Craig was suddenly swept with anger at the mans’ persistence. “| gave you my answer once,” he snapped. “That is enough. When | say a thing, | mean it.” L CORniclooo SS (SO)