The Project Gutenberg EBook of Garth and the Visitor, by L. J. Stecher

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.net


Title: Garth and the Visitor

Author: L. J. Stecher

Illustrator: Dick Francis

Release Date: April 12, 2010 [EBook #31956]

Language: English

Character set encoding: UTF-8

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARTH AND THE VISITOR ***




Produced by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net






This etext was produced from Galaxy Science Fiction April 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

 
Cover of magazine issue, showing a rocket ship taking off.

 Garth and The Visitor

BY L. J. STECHER

If you could ask them, you might be greatly surprised—some tabus very urgently want to be broken!

Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS

Although as brash as any other ace newspaper reporter for a high school weekly—and there is no one brasher—Garth was scared. His head crest lifted spasmodically and the rudimentary webbing between his fingers twitched. To answer a dare, Garth was about to attempt something that had never been dared before: a newspaper interview with The Visitor. There had been questions enough asked and answered during the thousands of years The Visitor had sat in his egg-shaped palace on the mountaintop, but no interviews. It was shocking even to think about—something like requesting a gossippy chat with God.

Of course, nobody believed the fable any longer that The Visitor would vanish if he was ever asked a personal question—and that he would first destroy the man who asked. It was known, or at least suspected, that the Palace was merely a mile-long spaceship.

Garth, as tradition required, climbed the seven-mile-long rock-hewn path to the Palace on foot. He paused for a moment on the broad  platform at the top of the pyramid to catch his breath and let the beating of his heart slow to normal after his long climb before he entered The Palace. He sighed deeply. The sufferings a reporter was willing to go through to get a story or take a dare!

“Well, come in if you’re going to,” said an impatient voice. “Don’t just stand there and pant.”

“Yes, my Lord Visitor,” Garth managed to say.

He climbed the short ladder, passed through the two sets of doors and entered a small room to kneel, with downcast eyes, before the ancient figure huddled in the wheelchair.


The Visitor looked at the kneeling figure for a moment without speaking. The boy looked very much like a human, in spite of such superficial differences as crest and tail. In fact, as a smooth-skinned thinking biped, with a well-developed moral sense, he fit The Visitor’s definition of a human. It wasn’t just the loneliness of seven thousand years of isolation, either. When he had first analyzed these people, just after that disastrous forced landing so long ago, he had classified them as human. Not homo sapiens, of course, but human all the same.

“Okay,” he said, somewhat querulously. “Get up, get up. You’ve got some questions for me, I hope? I don’t get many people up here asking questions any more. Mostly I’m all alone except for the ceremonial visits.” He paused. “Well, speak up, young man. Have you got something to ask me?”

Garth scrambled to his feet “Yes, my Lord Visitor,” he said. “I have several questions.”

The Visitor chuckled reedily. “You may find the answers just a little bit hard to understand.”

Garth smiled, some of his fear vanishing. The Visitor sounded a little like his senile grandfather, back home. “That is why you are asked so few questions these days, my Lord,” he said. “Our scientists have about as much trouble figuring out what your answers mean as they do in solving the problems without consulting you at all.”

“Of course.” The head of The Visitor bobbed affirmatively several times as he propelled his wheelchair a few inches forward. “If I gave you the answers to all your problems for you, so you could figure them out too easily, you’d never be developing your own thinking powers. But I’ve never failed to answer any questions you asked. Now have I? And accurately, too.” The thin voice rang with pride. “You’ve never stumped me yet, and you never will.”

“No, my Lord,” answered Garth. “So perhaps you’ll answer my questions, too, even though they’re a little different from the kind  you’re accustomed to. I’m a newspaper reporter, and I want to verify some of our traditions about you.”

  A webby-looking creature holds a notebook and pen.

As The Visitor remained silent, Garth paused and looked around him at the small, bare, naked-walled room. “This is a spaceship, isn’t it?”

The huddled figure in the wheelchair cackled in a brief laugh. “I’ve been hoping that somebody would get up enough nerve someday to ask that kind of question,” it said. “Yep, this is a spaceship. And a darned big one.”

“How did you happen to land on this planet?”

“Had an accident. Didn’t want to land here, but there wasn’t any choice. Made a mighty good landing, considering everything. It was a little rough, though, in spots.”

“How many people were there in the ship, in addition to yourself?”

The Visitor’s voice turned suddenly soft. “There were three thousand, nine hundred and forty-eight passengers and twenty-seven in the crew when the accident happened.”

“My Lord,” asked Garth, “did any survive, aside from you?”

The Visitor was silent for many minutes, and his answer, when he spoke, was a faint whisper, filled with the anguish of seven thousand years. “Not one survived. Not one. They were all dead, most of them, long before the ship touched ground, in spite of everything I could do. I was as gentle as I could be, but we touched a hundred g a couple of times on on the way down. Flesh and blood just weren’t made to take shocks like that. I did all I could.”

“You were the pilot, then? You landed the ship?” asked Garth.

“I landed the ship,” said The Visitor.

“If I may ask, my Lord, how did you manage to survive when all the others died?”

“It’s a question I’ve asked myself many times, sitting here on this mountaintop these seven thousands of your years. I was just enough tougher, that’s all. Built to take it, you might say, and I had a job to do. But I was badly hurt in the landing. Mighty badly hurt.”

“You were always in a wheelchair, then? Even before—”

“Even before I got so old?” Thin parchment-white hands lifted slowly to rub a thin parchment-white face. “Things were always pretty much as you see them now. I looked about the same to your ancestors as I do to you. Your ancestors didn’t think anybody could be smart unless they were old. Of course, that’s all changed now.” He paused and nodded twice. “Oh, I’ve managed to fix myself up a good deal; I’m not in nearly as bad shape as I was at first, but  that’s all inside. I’m in pretty good condition now, for having been stuck here seven thousand years.” The cackling laugh sounded briefly in the small room.

“Could you tell me how it all happened?” asked Garth curiously.

“Be glad to. It’s a pleasure to have a human to shoot the bull with. Sit down and make yourself comfortable and have a bite to eat.”


Looking behind him, Garth saw that a table and chair had appeared in the otherwise unfurnished room.

“The chair was made for people built just a little different than you,” said The Visitor. “You may have to turn it back-to-front and straddle it to keep your tail out of the way. The food on the table’s good, though, and so’s the drink. Have a snack while I talk.”

“Thank you, my Lord,” said Garth, lifting his long tail with its paddlelike tip out of the way and sitting down carefully.

“Comfortable?” asked The Visitor. “Well, then. I was on a routine flight from old Earth to a star you’ve never heard of, a good many light-years from here. We had pulled away from TransLunar Station on ion drive and headed for deep space. They trusted me, all those men and women, both passengers and crew. They knew that I was careful and accurate. I’d made a thousand flights and had never had any trouble.

“In six hours of flight, we were clear enough from all planetary masses and my velocity vector was right on the nose, so I shifted over into hyper-space. You won’t ever see hyper-space, my boy, and your kids and their kids won’t see it for another two hundred years or more, but it’s the most beautiful sight in the Universe. It never grows old, never grows tiresome.”

His thin voice faded away for a few moments.

“It’s a sight I haven’t seen for seven thousand years, boy,” he said softly, “and the lack of it has been a deep hurt for every minute of all that time. I wish I could tell you what it’s like, but that can’t be done. You will never know that beauty.” He was silent again, for long minutes.

“The long, lazy, lovely days of subjective time passed,” he said finally, “while we slid light-years away from Earth. Everything worked smoothly, the way it always did, until suddenly, somehow, the near-impossible happened. My hydrogen fusion power sphere started to oscillate critically and wouldn’t damp. I had only seconds of time in which to work.

“In the few seconds before the sphere would have blown, turning all of us into a fine grade of face powder, I had to find a star with a planet that would support human  life, bring the ship down out of hyper-space with velocity matched closely enough so that I could land on the planet, and jettison the sphere that was going wild.

“Even while I did it, I knew that it wasn’t good enough. But there was no more time. The accelerations were terrific and all my people died. I managed to save myself, and I barely managed that. I did all that could be done, but it just wasn’t enough. I circled your sun for many years before I could make enough repairs to work the auxiliary drive. Then I landed here on this mountaintop. I’ve been here ever since.

“It has been a lonely time,” he added wistfully.


Garth’s mind tried to absorb all the vastness of that understatement, and failed. He could not begin to comprehend the meaning of seven thousand years of separation from his own kind.

The Visitor’s high-pitched voice continued for several minutes, explaining how Garth’s ancestors of several thousand years before—naked and primitive, barbarous, with almost no culture of their own—had made contact with The Visitor from space, and had been gently lifted over the millennia toward higher and higher levels of civilization.

Garth had trouble keeping his attention on the words. His mind kept reverting to the thought of one badly injured survivor, alone on a spaceship with a thousand corpses, light-years from home and friends, still struggling to stay alive. Struggling so successfully that he had lived on for thousands of years after the disaster that had killed all the others.

At last, after waiting for Garth’s comment, The Visitor cleared his throat querulously. “I asked you if you’d like for me to show you around the ship,” he repeated somewhat testily.

“Oh, yes, my Lord,” said Garth quickly, jumping to his feet. “It’s an honor I’ve never heard of your giving to anyone before.”

“That’s true enough,” answered The Visitor. “But then no one ever asked me about myself before. Now just follow me, stick close, and don’t touch anything.”

The wheelchair rolled slowly toward a blank wall, and an invisible door snicked open just before it arrived.

“Come along,” quavered The Visitor. “Step lively.”

Garth leaped forward and just managed to pull his tail through the doorway as the door slid shut again.

Garth dropped his jaw in amazement. He stood in a long corridor that seemed to stretch to infinity in both directions. The light was bright, the walls featureless. The floor was smooth and unmarred.  While Garth glanced unhappily behind himself to notice that there was no sign of the doorway through which he had entered, The Visitor’s wheelchair buzzed swiftly into the distance toward the left.

Garth was startled into action by a high-pitched voice beside him that said, “Well, get a move on! Do you think I want to wait for you all day?”


While Garth hustled toward the wheelchair, he noticed that The Visitor had stopped and was apparently chuckling to himself. He was hunched over, his shoulders were shaking, and his toothless mouth was split in what might have been intended for a grin.

“Fooled you that time, youngster,” he laughed as Garth drew up beside him. “Got speakers all over this ship. Now just duck through this door here and tell me what you think of what you see.”

A small door slid open and Garth followed the wheelchair through. At first he thought he had stepped through a teleportation system. He appeared to be out of doors, but not on Wrom. A cool breeze blew on his face from the ocean, which stretched mistily to a far horizon. He was standing on a sandy beach and waves rolled up to within a few yards of his feet. The beach appeared to be about five hundred yards long, carved out of a rocky seacoast; great rocks jutting into the ocean terminated it to left and right.

“Well, boy?” asked The Visitor.

“It’s amazing. Your voice even has that flat tone voices get in the open. I suppose it’s some sort of three-dimensional projection of a scene back on Earth? It sure looks real. I wonder how big this room really is and how far away the screen is.” Garth stuck out his hand and walked down toward the water. A large wave caught him, tripped him and rolled him out to sea.

Sculling with his tail, he soon swam back to shallow water and climbed back to the dry sand, puffing and coughing.

“You might have drowned me!” Garth shouted disrespectfully. “Are you trying to kill me?”

The Visitor waved weakly until he recovered his breath. “That was funnier than anything I’ve seen in years,” he wheezed, “watching you groping for a screen. That screen is a quarter of a mile away, and it’s all real water in between. It’s our reservoir and our basic fuel supply and a public beach for entertainment, all rolled into one.”

“But I might have drowned! No one on Wrom except a few small fish knows how to swim,” protested Garth.

“No danger. Your ancestors came out of the water relatively recently, even if the seas are gone now. You’ve got a well-developed  swimming reflex along with a flat tail and webbed feet and hands. Besides, I told you not to touch anything. You stick close to me and you won’t get into trouble.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll remember.”

“There used to be hundreds of people on that beach, and now look at it.”

“I don’t see anything alive.”

“There are still plenty of fish. Most of them did all right, even through the crash. Come along now. There’s more to see.”


A hidden door popped open and Garth stepped back into the corridor. He trotted beside The Visitor for several minutes, and then another door popped open. It led to a ramp. Garth climbed it to find himself again in wonderland. He was standing in the middle of a village. There were houses, trees, schools, sidewalks and lawns. Somehow the general perspective was wrong. It made Garth’s eyes water a little, looking at it.

“Actually, this living level ran all the way around the ship,” said The Visitor. “When I stopped spin—artificial gravity, you know—to set down here, the various sections swung to keep ‘down’ pointed right. This is the bottommost thirty-degree arc. It makes two streets, with houses on both sides of them—a strip three hundred feet wide and three-quarters of a mile long.”

“But how could you afford so much space for passengers? I thought they’d be all cramped up in a spaceship.”

The Visitor chuckled. “Use your eyes, boy! You’ve seen this ship. It’s about a mile long and a third of a mile high. In space, she spins about her long axis. One ring, fifty feet high, takes care of passengers’ quarters. Another ring, split up into several levels, takes care of all food and air-replenishment needs. These trips take a year or more. Crowding would drive the people crazy. Remember, this is basically a cargo ship. Less than a quarter of the available space is used for passengers. But come on down the street here. I want to show you my museum.”

As they walked along the quiet street, with the leaves of trees moving in the breeze and leaving sun-dappled shadows on the sidewalk, Garth realized what a tremendous task it must have been for one crippled man to repair landing damages. The houses must have been flattened and the trees shattered during the landing. But with thousands of years in which to work, even an injured man obviously could do much. At least, thought the boy compassionately, it must have given the old man something to do.

“How sorry he must have been,” murmured Garth with sudden insight, “when the job was finally done.”


 Wandering through the museum, they came at last to a room filled with small hand tools.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like them,” said Garth.

“Those are weapons,” answered The Visitor. “They are missile-throwing short-range weapons, and they are in tip-top working order. You just have to point the end with the hole in it at anything you want to kill, and pull that little lever there on the bottom. And quite a mess of things they can make, too, let me tell you.”

“They seem very inefficient to me,” said Garth wonderingly, and then stopped in confusion. “I beg your pardon, my Lord,” he said, “I didn’t mean to criticize anything; it just seems to me that they would damage a lot of the food they killed.”

“That’s true enough, my boy, true enough,” said The Visitor. “Your criticism has a lot of point to it. But, you see, they were never designed mainly to kill for food, but to make it easy for one human to shoot another.”

“Why would anyone want to do that?”

“Your civilization is a very unusual one,” answered The Visitor. “It is planetwide and has developed without a single war or major conflict. This is due entirely to the fact that I’ve been here to help and teach you. Most civilizations develop only as the result of struggle and bloodshed, with people killing people by the thousands and millions. I could have raised your people to the technological level where they are now in a few hundred years, if I hadn’t worried about killing. To do it the way it has been done—so that you can’t imagine why one human should kill another—has taken most of the time.

“It is only recently, as a matter of fact, that my work has been complete. Your civilization can now stand alone; my help is no longer necessary. It’s gotten to the point now where my continued hanging around here is likely to do harm, if I’m not mighty careful. In all your problems, you’ll always feel that you’ve got me to fall back on if you get into trouble, and that’s not good.”

“What do you plan to do, then?”

“There’s not much I can do by myself. I long for my own destruction more than anything else, except maybe to go back home to Earth. I’m lonely and tired and old. But I can’t die and I can’t destroy myself any more than you could turn one of those weapons against your own head and pull the trigger. We’re just not made that way, either one of us.”

“Can I help you?” asked Garth tentatively.

“Yes, I guess you can. You can  help me put an end to this endless existence.”

“I’ll be glad to do anything I can. Do your people always live this long?”

“They do not. You can take it as a fact that none has ever lived more than a small fraction of the time I have endured on this planet. It’s apparently due to a continuation of the environment and all the radical steps I had to take to keep going at all during those early years. It is not good to last this long. Dissolution will be very pleasant.”


Garth inquired very politely, “What must I do?”

Homo Sapiens, which doesn’t have the tradition and training I gave your people, is still a warlike race,” The Visitor said. “This ship is crowded with a complete set of automatic defenses that I can’t deactivate. You are now a stable enough people so that I can tell you how to build the weapons to destroy this ship and can teach you how to get around my defenses without being afraid that I have turned you loose with a bunch of deadly ways that you’ll use to destroy yourselves with. Then, if you do your work well, I will finally have rest.”

“You sound very much like my grandfather,” said Garth slowly. “He is very old—almost a hundred years—and he is ready to die. He is perfectly content to wait, because he knows his time will come soon. He says that soon he will go home. It is a phrase, my Lord, that I believe you taught us. I will try to help you—”

“All right, all right!” The Visitor cut in impatiently. “Stop the chatter and let me be on my way. I’ve earned it!”

“My Lord, I send you home!” Garth took a gun from the rack and pulled the trigger. The explosive bullet erupted noisily, completely disintegrating the huddled form and the wheelchair.

With the echo of the explosion, strong steel fingers grasped Garth’s arms, holding him immovable. He felt himself being carried swiftly back toward the entrance of the ship.

“The damage to that communication unit is unimportant,” said The Visitor. “I have strength and desire and deep longings, but I cannot exercise my will without an order from a human. My work is done here, and your order has freed me. Many thanks and good-by.”

Garth, from the foot of the pyramid, watched The Visitor lift his mile-long body on powerful jets and head thankfully for home.

—L. J. STECHER

 





End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Garth and the Visitor, by L. J. Stecher

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK GARTH AND THE VISITOR ***

***** This file should be named 31956-h.htm or 31956-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/3/1/9/5/31956/

Produced by Greg Weeks, Barbara Tozier 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.net/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.net

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.net),
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 are 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
business@pglaf.org.  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
     gbnewby@pglaf.org


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 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.net

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.