The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Stoker and the Stars, by
Algirdas Jonas Budrys (AKA John A. Sentry)
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: The Stoker and the Stars
Author: Algirdas Jonas Budrys (AKA John A. Sentry)
Illustrator: van Dongen
Release Date: October 12, 2007 [EBook #22967]
Language: English
*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STOKER AND THE STARS ***
Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Stephen Blundell
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net
[Illustration]
THE STOKER
AND THE STARS
BY JOHN A. SENTRY
_When you've had your ears pinned
back in a bowknot, it's sometimes hard
to remember that an intelligent people
has no respect for a whipped enemy ...
but does for a fairly beaten enemy._
Illustrated by van Dongen
Know him? Yes, I know him--_knew_ him. That was twenty years ago.
Everybody knows him now. Everybody who passed him on the street knows
him. Everybody who went to the same schools, or even to different
schools in different towns, knows him now. Ask them. But I knew him. I
lived three feet away from him for a month and a half. I shipped with
him and called him by his first name.
What was he like? What was he thinking, sitting on the edge of his bunk
with his jaw in his palm and his eyes on the stars? What did he think he
was after?
Well ... Well, I think he-- You know, I think I never did know him,
after all. Not well. Not as well as some of those people who're writing
the books about him seem to.
I couldn't really describe him to you. He had a duffelbag in his hand
and a packed airsuit on his back. The skin of his face had been dried
out by ship's air, burned by ultraviolet and broiled by infra red. The
pupils of his eyes had little cloudy specks in them where the cosmic
rays had shot through them. But his eyes were steady and his body was
hard. What did he look like? He looked like a man.
* * * * *
It was after the war, and we were beaten. There used to be a school of
thought among us that deplored our combativeness; before we had ever met
any people from off Earth, even, you could hear people saying we were
toughest, cruelest life-form in the Universe, unfit to mingle with the
gentler wiser races in the stars, and a sure bet to steal their galaxy
and corrupt it forever. Where these people got their information, I
don't know.
We were beaten. We moved out beyond Centaurus, and Sirius, and then we
met the Jeks, the Nosurwey, the Lud. We tried Terrestrial know-how, we
tried Production Miracles, we tried patriotism, we tried damning the
torpedoes and full speed ahead ... and we were smashed back like
mayflies in the wind. We died in droves, and we retreated from the
guttering fires of a dozen planets, we dug in, we fought through the
last ditch, and we were dying on Earth itself before Baker mutinied,
shot Cope, and surrendered the remainder of the human race to the wiser,
gentler races in the stars. That way, we lived. That way, we were
permitted to carry on our little concerns, and mind our manners. The
Jeks and the Lud and the Nosurwey returned to their own affairs, and we
knew they would leave us alone so long as we didn't bother them.
We liked it that way. Understand me--we didn't accept it, we didn't
knuckle under with waiting murder in our hearts--we _liked_ it. We were
grateful just to be left alone again. We were happy we hadn't been wiped
out like the upstarts the rest of the Universe thought us to be. When
they let us keep our own solar system and carry on a trickle of trade
with the outside, we accepted it for the fantastically generous gift it
was. Too many of our best men were dead for us to have any remaining
claim on these things in our own right. I know how it was. I was there,
twenty years ago. I was a little, pudgy man with short breath and a
high-pitched voice. I was a typical Earthman.
* * * * *
We were out on a God-forsaken landing field on Mars, MacReidie and I,
loading cargo aboard the _Serenus_. MacReidie was First Officer. I was
Second. The stranger came walking up to us.
"Got a job?" he asked, looking at MacReidie.
Mac looked him over. He saw the same things I'd seen. He shook his head.
"Not for you. The only thing we're short on is stokers."
You wouldn't know. There's no such thing as a stoker any more, with
automatic ships. But the stranger knew what Mac meant.
_Serenus_ had what they called an electronic drive. She had to run with
an evacuated engine room. The leaking electricity would have broken any
stray air down to ozone, which eats metal and rots lungs. So the engine
room had the air pumped out of her, and the stokers who tended the dials
and set the cathode attitudes had to wear suits, smelling themselves for
twelve hours at a time and standing a good chance of cooking where they
sat when the drive arced. _Serenus_ was an ugly old tub. At that, we
were the better of the two interstellar freighters the human race had
left.
"You're bound over the border, aren't you?"
MacReidie nodded. "That's right. But--"
"I'll stoke."
MacReidie looked over toward me and frowned. I shrugged my shoulders
helplessly. I was a little afraid of the stranger, too.
The trouble was the look of him. It was the look you saw in the bars
back on Earth, where the veterans of the war sat and stared down into
their glasses, waiting for night to fall so they could go out into the
alleys and have drunken fights among themselves. But he had brought that
look to Mars, to the landing field, and out here there was something
disquieting about it.
He'd caught Mac's look and turned his head to me. "I'll stoke," he
repeated.
I didn't know what to say. MacReidie and I--almost all of the men in the
Merchant Marine--hadn't served in the combat arms. We had freighted
supplies, and we had seen ships dying on the runs--we'd had our own
brushes with commerce raiders, and we'd known enough men who joined the
combat forces. But very few of the men came back, and the war this man
had fought hadn't been the same as ours. He'd commanded a fighting ship,
somewhere, and come to grips with things we simply didn't know about.
The mark was on him, but not on us. I couldn't meet his eyes. "O.K. by
me," I mumbled at last.
I saw MacReidie's mouth turn down at the corners. But he couldn't
gainsay the man any more than I could. MacReidie wasn't a mumbling man,
so he said angrily: "O.K., bucko, you'll stoke. Go and sign on."
"Thanks." The stranger walked quietly away. He wrapped a hand around the
cable on a cargo hook and rode into the hold on top of some freight. Mac
spat on the ground and went back to supervising his end of the loading.
I was busy with mine, and it wasn't until we'd gotten the _Serenus_
loaded and buttoned up that Mac and I even spoke to each other again.
Then we talked about the trip. We didn't talk about the stranger.
* * * * *
Daniels, the Third, had signed him on and had moved him into the empty
bunk above mine. We slept all in a bunch on the _Serenus_--officers and
crew. Even so, we had to sleep in shifts, with the ship's designers
giving ninety per cent of her space to cargo, and eight per cent to
power and control. That left very little for the people, who were
crammed in any way they could be. I said empty bunk. What I meant was,
empty during my sleep shift. That meant he and I'd be sharing work
shifts--me up in the control blister, parked in a soft chair, and him
down in the engine room, broiling in a suit for twelve hours.
But I ate with him, used the head with him; you can call that rubbing
elbows with greatness, if you want to.
He was a very quiet man. Quiet in the way he moved and talked. When we
were both climbing into our bunks, that first night, I introduced myself
and he introduced himself. Then he heaved himself into his bunk, rolled
over on his side, fixed his straps, and fell asleep. He was always
friendly toward me, but he must have been very tired that first night. I
often wondered what kind of a life he'd lived after the war--what he'd
done that made him different from the men who simply grew older in the
bars. I wonder, now, if he really did do anything different. In an odd
way, I like to think that one day, in a bar, on a day that seemed like
all the rest to him when it began, he suddenly looked up with some new
thought, put down his glass, and walked straight to the Earth-Mars
shuttle field.
He might have come from any town on Earth. Don't believe the historians
too much. Don't pay too much attention to the Chamber of Commerce
plaques. When a man's name becomes public property, strange things
happen to the facts.
* * * * *
It was MacReidie who first found out what he'd done during the war.
I've got to explain about MacReidie. He takes his opinions fast and
strong. He's a good man--is, or was; I haven't seen him for a long
while--but he liked things simple.
MacReidie said the duffelbag broke loose and floated into the middle of
the bunkroom during acceleration. He opened it to see whose it was. When
he found out, he closed it up and strapped it back in its place at the
foot of the stoker's bunk.
MacReidie was my relief on the bridge. When he came up, he didn't
relieve me right away. He stood next to my chair and looked out through
the ports.
"Captain leave any special instructions in the Order Book?" he asked.
"Just the usual. Keep a tight watch and proceed cautiously."
"That new stoker," Mac said.
"Yeah?"
"I knew there was something wrong with him. He's got an old Marine
uniform in his duffel."
I didn't say anything. Mac glanced over at me. "Well?"
"I don't know." I didn't.
I couldn't say I was surprised. It had to be something like that, about
the stoker. The mark was on him, as I've said.
It was the Marines that did Earth's best dying. It had to be. They were
trained to be the best we had, and they believed in their training. They
were the ones who slashed back the deepest when the other side hit us.
They were the ones who sallied out into the doomed spaces between the
stars and took the war to the other side as well as any human force
could ever hope to. They were always the last to leave an abandoned
position. If Earth had been giving medals to members of her forces in
the war, every man in the Corps would have had the Medal of Honor two
and three times over. Posthumously. I don't believe there were ten of
them left alive when Cope was shot. Cope was one of them. They were a
kind of human being neither MacReidie nor I could hope to understand.
"You don't know," Mac said. "It's there. In his duffel. Damn it, we're
going out to trade with his sworn enemies! Why do you suppose he wanted
to sign on? Why do you suppose he's so eager to go!"
"You think he's going to try to start something?"
"Think! That's exactly what he's going for. One last big alley fight.
One last brawl. When they cut him down--do you suppose they'll stop with
him? They'll kill us, and then they'll go in and stamp Earth flat! You
know it as well as I do."
"I don't know, Mac," I said. "Go easy." I could feel the knots in my
stomach. I didn't want any trouble. Not from the stoker, not from Mac.
None of us wanted trouble--not even Mac, but he'd cause it to get rid of
it, if you follow what I mean about his kind of man.
Mac hit the viewport with his fist. "Easy! Easy--nothing's easy. I hate
this life," he said in a murderous voice. "I don't know why I keep
signing on. Mars to Centaurus and back, back and forth, in an old rust
tub that's going to blow herself up one of these--"
* * * * *
Daniels called me on the phone from Communications. "Turn up your
Intercom volume," he said. "The stoker's jamming the circuit."
I kicked the selector switch over, and this is what I got:
"_--so there we were at a million per, and the air was gettin' thick.
The Skipper says 'Cheer up, brave boys, we'll--'_"
He was singing. He had a terrible voice, but he could carry a tune, and
he was hammering it out at the top of his lungs.
"_Twas the last cruise of the_ Venus, _by God you should of seen us! The
pipes were full of whisky, and just to make things risky, the jets were
..._"
The crew were chuckling into their own chest phones. I could hear
Daniels trying to cut him off. But he kept going. I started laughing
myself. No one's supposed to jam an intercom, but it made the crew feel
good. When the crew feels good, the ship runs right, and it had been a
long time since they'd been happy.
He went on for another twenty minutes. Then his voice thinned out, and I
heard him cough a little. "Daniels," he said, "get a relief down here
for me. _Jump to it!_" He said the last part in a Master's voice.
Daniels didn't ask questions. He sent a man on his way down.
He'd been singing, the stoker had. He'd been singing while he worked
with one arm dead, one sleeve ripped open and badly patched because the
fabric was slippery with blood. There'd been a flashover in the drivers.
By the time his relief got down there, he had the insulation back on,
and the drive was purring along the way it should have been. It hadn't
even missed a beat.
He went down to sick bay, got the arm wrapped, and would have gone back
on shift if Daniels'd let him.
Those of us who were going off shift found him toying with the theremin
in the mess compartment. He didn't know how to play it, and it sounded
like a dog howling.
"Sing, will you!" somebody yelled. He grinned and went back to the "Good
Ship _Venus_." It wasn't good, but it was loud. From that, we went to
"Starways, Farways, and Barways," and "The Freefall Song." Somebody
started "I Left Her Behind For You," and that got us off into
sentimental things, the way these sessions would sometimes wind up when
spacemen were far from home. But not since the war, we all seemed to
realize together. We stopped, and looked at each other, and we all began
drifting out of the mess compartment.
And maybe it got to him, too. It may explain something. He and I were
the last to leave. We went to the bunkroom, and he stopped in the middle
of taking off his shirt. He stood there, looking out the porthole, and
forgot I was there. I heard him reciting something, softly, under his
breath, and I stepped a little closer. This is what it was:
"_The rockets rise against the skies,
Slowly; in sunlight gleaming
With silver hue upon the blue.
And the universe waits, dreaming._
"_For men must go where the flame-winds blow,
The gas clouds softly plaiting;
Where stars are spun and worlds begun,
And men will find them waiting._
"_The song that roars where the rocket soars
Is the song of the stellar flame;
The dreams of Man and galactic span
Are equal and much the same._"
What was he thinking of? Make your own choice. I think I came close to
knowing him, at that moment, but until human beings turn telepath, no
man can be sure of another.
He shook himself like a dog out of cold water, and got into his bunk. I
got into mine, and after a while I fell asleep.
* * * * *
I don't know what MacReidie may have told the skipper about the stoker,
or if he tried to tell him anything. The captain was the senior ticket
holder in the Merchant Service, and a good man, in his day. He kept
mostly to his cabin. And there was nothing MacReidie could do on his own
authority--nothing simple, that is. And the stoker had saved the ship,
and ...
I think what kept anything from happening between MacReidie and the
stoker, or anyone else and the stoker, was that it would have meant
trouble in the ship. Trouble, confined to our little percentage of the
ship's volume, could seem like something much more important than the
fate of the human race. It may not seem that way to you. But as long as
no one began anything, we could all get along. We could have a good
trip.
MacReidie worried, I'm sure. I worried, sometimes. But nothing happened.
When we reached Alpha Centaurus, and set down at the trading field on
the second planet, it was the same as the other trips we'd made, and the
same kind of landfall. The Lud factor came out of his post after we'd
waited for a while, and gave us our permit to disembark. There was a Jek
ship at the other end of the field, loaded with the cargo we would get
in exchange for our holdful of goods. We had the usual things; wine,
music tapes, furs, and the like. The Jeks had been giving us light
machinery lately--probably we'd get two or three more loads, and then
they'd begin giving us something else.
But I found that this trip wasn't quite the same. I found myself looking
at the factor's post, and I realized for the first time that the Lud
hadn't built it. It was a leftover from the old colonial human
government. And the city on the horizon--men had built it; the touch of
our architecture was on every building. I wondered why it had never
occurred to me that this was so. It made the landfall different from all
the others, somehow. It gave a new face to the entire planet.
* * * * *
Mac and I and some of the other crewmen went down on the field to handle
the unloading. Jeks on self-propelled cargo lifts jockeyed among us,
scooping up the loads as we unhooked the slings, bringing cases of
machinery from their own ship. They sat atop their vehicles, lean and
aloof, dashing in, whirling, shooting across the field to their ship
and back like wild horsemen on the plains of Earth, paying us no notice.
We were almost through when Mac suddenly grabbed my arm. "Look!"
The stoker was coming down on one of the cargo slings. He stood upright,
his booted feet planted wide, one arm curled up over his head and around
the hoist cable. He was in his dusty brown Marine uniform, the scarlet
collar tabs bright as blood at his throat, his major's insignia
glittering at his shoulders, the battle stripes on his sleeves.
The Jeks stopped their lifts. They knew that uniform. They sat up in
their saddles and watched him come down. When the sling touched the
ground, he jumped off quietly and walked toward the nearest Jek. They
all followed him with their eyes.
"We've got to stop him," Mac said, and both of us started toward him.
His hands were both in plain sight, one holding his duffelbag, which was
swelled out with the bulk of his airsuit. He wasn't carrying a weapon of
any kind. He was walking casually, taking his time.
Mac and I had almost reached him when a Jek with insignia on his
coveralls suddenly jumped down from his lift and came forward to meet
him. It was an odd thing to see--the stoker, and the Jek, who did not
stand as tall. MacReidie and I stepped back.
The Jek was coal black, his scales glittering in the cold sunlight, his
hatchet-face inscrutable. He stopped when the stoker was a few paces
away. The stoker stopped, too. All the Jeks were watching him and paying
no attention to anything else. The field might as well have been empty
except for those two.
"They'll kill him. They'll kill him right now," MacReidie whispered.
They ought to have. If I'd been a Jek, I would have thought that uniform
was a death warrant. But the Jek spoke to him:
"Are you entitled to wear that?"
"I was at this planet in '39. I was closer to your home world the year
before that," the stoker said. "I was captain of a destroyer. If I'd had
a cruiser's range, I would have reached it." He looked at the Jek.
"Where were you?"
"I was here when you were."
"I want to speak to your ship's captain."
"All right. I'll drive you over."
The stoker nodded, and they walked over to his vehicle together. They
drove away, toward the Jek ship.
"All right, let's get back to work," another Jek said to MacReidie and
myself, and we went back to unloading cargo.
* * * * *
The stoker came back to our ship that night, without his duffelbag. He
found me and said:
"I'm signing off the ship. Going with the Jeks."
MacReidie was with me. He said loudly: "What do you mean, you're going
with the Jeks?"
"I signed on their ship," the stoker said. "Stoking. They've got a
micro-nuclear drive. It's been a while since I worked with one, but I
think I'll make out all right, even with the screwball way they've got
it set up."
"Huh?"
The stoker shrugged. "Ships are ships, and physics is physics, no matter
where you go. I'll make out."
"What kind of a deal did you make with them? What do you think you're up
to?"
The stoker shook his head. "No deal. I signed on as a crewman. I'll do a
crewman's work for a crewman's wages. I thought I'd wander around a
while. It ought to be interesting," he said.
"On a Jek ship."
"Anybody's ship. When I get to their home world, I'll probably ship out
with some people from farther on. Why not? It's honest work."
MacReidie had no answer to that.
"But--" I said.
"What?" He looked at me as if he couldn't understand what might be
bothering me, but I think perhaps he could.
"Nothing," I said, and that was that, except MacReidie was always a
sourer man from that time up to as long as I knew him afterwards. We
took off in the morning. The stoker had already left on the Jek ship,
and it turned out he'd trained an apprentice boy to take his place.
* * * * *
It was strange how things became different for us, little by little
after that. It was never anything you could put your finger on, but the
Jeks began taking more goods, and giving us things we needed when we
told them we wanted them. After a while, _Serenus_ was going a little
deeper into Jek territory, and when she wore out, the two replacements
let us trade with the Lud, too. Then it was the Nosurwey, and other
people beyond them, and things just got better for us, somehow.
We heard about our stoker, occasionally. He shipped with the Lud, and
the Nosurwey, and some people beyond them, getting along, going to all
kinds of places. Pay no attention to the precise red lines you see on
the star maps; nobody knows exactly what path he wandered from people to
people. Nobody could. He just kept signing on with whatever ship was
going deeper into the galaxy, going farther and farther. He messed with
green shipmates and blue ones. One and two and three heads, tails, six
legs--after all, ships are ships and they've all got to have something
to push them along. If a man knows his business, why not? A man can live
on all kinds of food, if he wants to get used to it. And any nontoxic
atmosphere will do, as long as there's enough oxygen in it.
I don't know what he did, to make things so much better for us. I don't
know if he did anything, but stoke their ships and, I suppose, fix them
when they were in trouble. I wonder if he sang dirty songs in that bad
voice of his, to people who couldn't possibly understand what the songs
were about. All I know is, for some reason those people slowly began
treating us with respect. We changed, too, I think--I'm not the same
man I was ... I think--not altogether the same; I'm a captain now, with
master's papers, and you won't find me in my cabin very often ...
there's a kind of joy in standing on a bridge, looking out at the stars
you're moving toward. I wonder if it mightn't have kept my old captain
out of that place he died in, finally, if he'd tried it.
So, I don't know. The older I get, the less I know. The thing people
remember the stoker for--the thing that makes him famous, and, I think,
annoys him--I'm fairly sure is only incidental to what he really did. If
he did anything. If he meant to. I wish I could be sure of the exact
answer he found in the bottom of that last glass at the bar before he
worked his passage to Mars and the _Serenus_, and began it all.
So, I can't say what he ought to be famous for. But I suppose it's
enough to know for sure that he was the first living being ever to
travel all the way around the galaxy.
THE END
Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from _Astounding Science Fiction_ February
1959. 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 of The Stoker and the Stars, by
Algirdas Jonas Budrys (AKA John A. Sentry)
*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE STOKER AND THE STARS ***
***** This file should be named 22967.txt or 22967.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/9/6/22967/
Produced by Greg Weeks, Bruce Albrecht, Stephen Blundell
and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
http://www.pgdp.net
Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
will be renamed.
Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules,
set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project
Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you
do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is
subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
redistribution.
*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
http://gutenberg.org/license).
Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works
1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works. See paragraph 1.E below.
1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the
collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an
individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in
a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check
the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning
the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
States.
1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
copied or distributed:
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
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
1.E.9.
1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked
to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.
1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or
distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
that
- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is
owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments
must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License. You must require such a user to return or
destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
Project Gutenberg-tm works.
- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
of receipt of the work.
- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the
Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
1.F.
1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
your equipment.
1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.
1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with
the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy
is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
opportunities to fix the problem.
1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any
provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists
because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
people in all walks of life.
Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
Foundation
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
http://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at
809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
[email protected]. Email contact links and up to date contact
information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
page at http://pglaf.org
For additional contact information:
Dr. Gregory B. Newby
Chief Executive and Director
[email protected]
Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation
Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.
The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To
SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
particular state visit http://pglaf.org
While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.
International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
works.
Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily
keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
http://www.gutenberg.org
This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.
