The Colors of Space

Bart Steele had thought that, a long time ago, when he first saw it. He had been just a kid then; twelve years old, and all excited about seeing Earth for the first time--Earth,...

For a moment, pulled off balance in the fat stranger's hug, Bart remained perfectly still, while the man repeated in that loud, jovial voice, "How you've grown!" He let him go,...

At the top of the ramp, a Lhari glanced briefly at his papers, motioned him through. Bart passed through the airlock, and into a brightly lit corridor half full of passengers. T...

Bart felt cold. He stirred, moved his head in drowsy protest; then memory came flooding back, and in sudden panic he sat up, flinging out his arms as if to ward away anyone who...

For a moment the words swirled before Bart's still-watering eyes. He wiped them, trying to steady himself. Had he so soon reached the end of his dangerous quest? Somehow he had...

For a moment Bart stared, frozen, unable to move, his very ears refusing the words he heard. Had this all been another cruel trick, then, a trap, a betrayal? He rose and looked...

Bart smiled under the muffling layers of bandage around his face. His hands were bandaged, too, and he had not been permitted to look in a mirror. But the transition had been su...

He saw the girl again next day, when they checked in for blastoff. She was seated at a small desk, triangular like so much of the Lhari furniture, checking a register as they ca...

The crews of repairmen were working down in the hull, and the _Swiftwing_ was a hell of clanging noise and shuddering heat. Maintenance was working overtime, but the rest of the...

The green-sun Meristem lay far behind them. Karol's burns had healed; only a faint pattern on Ringg's forehead showed where six stitches had closed the ugly wound in his skull....

But although he thought he had settled all the conflict, he found that it returned when he was lying in his bunk, or when he stood in the dome and watched the stars, while they...

The man lowered the weapon and put it away. "You nearly got yourself cut down," he said. "Did you make it all right?" He crossed behind Bart, inspecting the fastenings of the bu...

Ringg was still bending over Meta's hand when Vorongil came into the cabin. He started to speak, then noticed Ringg. "I might have known," he growled, "if there was anything to...

The low rainbow building of Eight Colors, near the spaceport of Procyon Alpha, had not changed; and when Bart went in, as he had done a year ago, it seemed that the same varnish...