Security
By Poul William Anderson
In a world where Security is all-important, nothing can ever be secure. A mountain-climbing vacation may wind up in deep Space. Or loyalty may prove to be high treason. But it has its rewards.
It had been a tough day at the lab, one of those days when nothing seemed to go right. And, of course, it had been precisely the day Hammond, the Efficiency
inspector, would choose to stick his nose in. Another mark in his little notebook—and enough marks like that meant a derating, and Control had a habit of sending derated laymen to Venus. That wasn’t a criminal punishment, but it amounted to the same thing. Allen Lancaster had no fear of it for himself; the sector chief of a Project was under direct Control jurisdiction rather than Efficiency, and Control was friendly to him. But he’d hate to see young Rogers get it—the boy had been married only a week now.
To top the day off, a report had come to Lancaster’s desk from Sector Seven of the Project. Security had finally cleared it for general transmission to sector chiefs—and it was the complete design of an electronic valve on which some of the best men in Lancaster’s division, Sector Thirteen, had been sweating for six months. There went half a year’s work down the drain, all for nothing, and Lancaster would have that much less to show at the next Project reckoning.
He had cursed for several minutes straight, drawing the admiring glances of his assistants. It was safe enough for a high-ranking lab man to gripe about Security it was more or less expected. Scientists had their privileges.
One of these was a private three-room apartment. Another was an extra liquor ration. Tonight, as he came home, Lancaster decided to make a dent in the latter. He’d eaten at the commissary, as usual, but hadn’t stayed to talk. All the way home in the tube, he’d been thinking of that whiskey and soda.
Read or download Book
Poul William Anderson
Poul William Anderson (November 25, 1926 – July 31, 2001) was an American fantasy and science fiction author who was active from the 1940s until he died in 2001. Anderson also wrote historical novels. His awards include seven Hugo Awards and three Nebula Awards.
Biography
Poul Anderson was born on November 25, 1926, in Bristol, Pennsylvania to Scandinavian parents. Soon after his birth, his father, Anton Anderson, relocated the family to Texas, where they lived for more than ten years. After Anton Anderson’s death, his widow took the children to Denmark. The family returned to the United States after the beginning of World War II, settling eventually on a Minnesota farm.
While he was an undergraduate student at the University of Minnesota, Anderson’s first stories were published by editor John W. Campbell in the magazine Astounding Science Fiction: “Tomorrow’s Children” by Anderson and F. N. Waldrop in March 1947 and a sequel, “Chain of Logic” by Anderson alone, in July. He earned his BA in physics with honors but became a freelance writer after he graduated in 1948. His third story was printed in the December Astounding.
Anderson married Karen Kruse in 1953 and relocated with her to the San Francisco Bay area. Their daughter Astrid (later married to science fiction author Greg Bear) was born in 1954. They made their home in Orinda, California. Over the years Poul gave many readings at The Other Change of Hobbit bookstore in Berkeley; his widow later donated his typewriter and desk to the store.
In 1954, he published the fantasy novel The Broken Sword, one of his most known works.
In 1965, Algis Budrys said that Anderson “has for some time been science fiction’s best storyteller”. He was a founding member of the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA) in 1966 and of the Swordsmen and Sorcerers’ Guild of America (SAGA), also during the mid-1960s. The latter was a group of Heroic fantasy authors organized by Lin Carter, originally eight in number, with entry by credentials as a fantasy writer alone. Anderson was the sixth President of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, taking office in 1972.
Robert A. Heinlein dedicated his 1985 novel The Cat Who Walks Through Walls to Anderson and eight of the other members of the Citizens’ Advisory Council on National Space Policy. The Science Fiction Writers of America made Anderson its 16th SFWA Grand Master in 1998 and 2000’s fifth class, he was inducted into the Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame as one of two deceased and two living writers. He died of prostate cancer on July 31, 2001, after a month in the hospital. A few of his novels were first published posthumously.
Poul William Anderson
