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    End As A Hero
    End As A Hero
    End As A Hero
    Ebook52 pages44 minutes

    End As A Hero

    By Keith Laumer

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Granthan's mission was the most vital of the war. It would mean instant victory—but for whom?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPerennial Press
    Release dateMar 16, 2016
    ISBN9781531257446
    End As A Hero
    Author

    Keith Laumer

    John Keith Laumer (June 9, 1925 – January 23, 1993) was an American science fiction author. Prior to becoming a full-time writer, he was an officer in the United States Air Force and a diplomat in the United States Foreign Service. His older brother March Laumer was also a writer, known for his adult reinterpretations of the Land of Oz (also mentioned in Laumer's The Other Side of Time). Frank Laumer, their youngest brother, is a historian and writer.

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      Book preview

      End As A Hero - Keith Laumer

      END AS A HERO

      Keith Laumer

      PERENNIAL PRESS

      Thank you for reading. In the event that you appreciate this book, please consider sharing the good word(s) by leaving a review, or connect with the author.

      This book is a work of fiction; its contents are wholly imagined.

      All rights reserved. Aside from brief quotations for media coverage and reviews, no part of this book may be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thank you for supporting authors and a diverse, creative culture by purchasing this book and complying with copyright laws.

      Copyright © 2016 by Keith Laumer

      Interior design by Pronoun

      Distribution by Pronoun

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      I
      II
      III
      IV
      V
      VI
      VII

      I

      IN THE DREAM I was swimming in a river of white fire and the dream went on and on. And then I was awake—and the fire was still there, fiercely burning at me.

      I tried to move to get away from the flames, and then the real pain hit me. I tried to go back to sleep and the relative comfort of the river of fire, but it was no go. For better or worse, I was alive and conscious.

      I opened my eyes and took a look around. I was on the floor next to an unpadded acceleration couch—the kind the Terrestrial Space Arm installs in seldom-used lifeboats. There were three more couches, but no one in them. I tried to sit up. It wasn’t easy but, by applying a lot more will-power than should be required of a sick man, I made it. I took a look at my left arm. Baked. The hand was only medium rare, but the forearm was black, with deep red showing at the bottom of the cracks where the crisped upper layers had burst....

      There was a first-aid cabinet across the compartment from me. I tried my right leg, felt broken bone-ends grate with a sensation that transcended pain. I heaved with the other leg, scrabbled with the charred arm. The crawl to the cabinet dwarfed Hillary’s trek up Everest, but I reached it after a couple of years, and found the microswitch on the floor that activated the thing, and then I was fading out again....

      I came out of it clear-headed but weak. My right leg was numb, but reasonably comfortable, clamped tight in a walking brace. I put up a hand and felt a shaved skull, with sutures. It must have been a fracture. The left arm—well, it was still there, wrapped to the shoulder and held out stiffly by a power truss that would keep the scar tissue from pulling up and crippling me. The steady pressure as the truss contracted wasn’t anything to do a sense-tape on for replaying at leisure moments, but at least the cabinet hadn’t amputated. I wasn’t complaining.

      As far as I knew, I was the first recorded survivor of contact with the Gool—if I survived.

      I was still a long way from home, and I hadn’t yet checked on the condition of the lifeboat. I glanced toward the entry port. It was dogged shut. I could see black marks where my burned hand had been at work.

      I fumbled my way into a couch and tried to think. In my condition—with a broken leg and third-degree burns, plus a fractured skull—I shouldn’t have been able to fall out of bed, much less make the trip from Belshazzar’s CCC to the boat; and how had I managed to dog that port shut? In an emergency a man was capable of great exertions. But running on a broken

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