The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Hitch in Space
    
This ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world 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. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.

Title: A Hitch in Space

Author: Fritz Leiber

Illustrator: Sol Dember
        Gray Morrow

Release date: September 13, 2016 [eBook #53042]

Language: English

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


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HITCH IN SPACE ***




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









                      [Illustration: book cover]




                            A HITCH IN SPACE

                            BY FRITZ LEIBER

                          ILLUSTRATED BY GRAY

                      My Space-partner was a good
                      reliable sidekick—but _his_
                      partner was something else!


Once when I was doing a hitch with the Shaulan Space Guard out Scorpio
way, my partner Jeff Bogart developed just about the most harmless
psychosis you could imagine: he got himself an imaginary companion.

And the imaginary companion turned out to be me.

Well, I’m a pretty nice guy and so having two of me in the ship didn’t
seem a particularly bad idea. At first. In fact there’d be advantages of
it, I thought. For instance, Jeff liked to talk a weary lot ... and the
imaginary Joe Hansen could spell me listening to him, while I projected
a book or just harkened to the wheels going around in my own head
against the faint patter of starlight on the hull.

I met Jeff first at a space-rodeo, oddly enough, but now the two of us
were out on a servicing check of the orbital beacons and relays and
rescue depots of the five planets of the Shaulan system. A completely
routine job, its only drawback that it was lengthy. Our ship was an
ionic jeep that looked like a fancy fountain pen, but was very roomy for
three men—one of them imaginary.

I caught on to Jeff’s little mania by overhearing him talking to me. I’d
be coming back from the head or stores or linear accelerator or my bunk,
and I’d hear him yakking at me. It embarrassed me the first time, how to
go back into the cabin when the other me was there. But I just swam in,
and without any transition-strain at all that I could observe Jeff
looked around at me, smiling sort of glaze-eyed, and said warmly, “Joe.
My buddy Joe. Am I glad they paired us.”

If Jeff had a major fault, as opposed to a species of nuttiness, it was
that he was strictly a speak-only-good, positive-thinking guy who always
deferred to me. Even idolized me, if you can imagine that. He’d give me
such fulsome praise I’d be irked ten times an orbit.

Another thing that helped me catch on was that he always called the
other me Joseph.

                  *       *       *       *       *

At first I thought the whole thing might be a gag, or maybe a deliberate
way of letting off steam against me without violating his
always-a-sweet-guy code—like happy husbands cursing in the bathroom—but
then came the scrambled eggs.

I’d slept late and when I squinted into the cabin there was Jeff
hovering over a plate of yellow fluff and shaking his finger at my empty
seat and saying, “Dammit, Joseph, eat your scrambled eggs, I cooked ’em
’specially for you,” and when he crawfished out toward the galley a
couple seconds later he was saying, “Now you start on those eggs,
Joseph, before I get back.”

I thought for a bit and then I slid into my place and polished them off.

When he floated in with the coffee he gave me another of those
glaze-eyed God-fearing looks—but just a mite disappointed, I thought—and
said, “Dammit, Joe, you’re perfect! You always clean your plate.”

Apparently when I was there, Joseph just didn’t exist for Jeff. And vice
versa. It was sort of eerie, especially with the hum of space in my ears
like a seashell and nobody else for five million miles.

Beginning with the scrambled eggs, I discovered that Jeff didn’t exactly
idolize Joseph—or even take with him the attitude of “My buddy can do no
wrong,” like he did with me. I overheard him criticizing Joseph.
Reasonably at first; then I heard him chewing him out—next bullying him.

It made me wistful, that last, thinking how good it would feel to be
full-bloodedly cursed to my face once in a while instead of all the
sweetness and light. And right there I got the idea for some amateur
therapy, Shaula-Deva help me.

I waited for a moment when we were both relaxed and then I said, “Jeff,
the trouble with you is you’re too nice. You ought to criticize things
more. For a starter, criticize me. Tell me my faults. Go ahead.”

He flushed a little and said, “Dammit, Joe, how can I? You’re perfect!”

“No man is perfect, Jeff,” I told him solemnly, feeling pretty foolish.

“But you’re my buddy I always can trust,” he protested, squirming a bit.
“I wish you wouldn’t talk this way.”

                  *       *       *       *       *

“Jeff, you can’t trust anybody too far,” I said. “Even good guys can do
bad things. When I was a boy there was a kid named Harry I practically
worshipped. We lived on a pioneer world of Fomalhaut that had good snow,
and we’d hitch rides with our sleds off little airscrew planes taking
off. We’d each have a long white line on his sled and loop it beforehand
around the plane’s tail-gear and back to the sled. Then we’d hide. As
soon as the pilot got aboard we’d jump on our sleds and each grab the
free end of his line and have one comet of a ride, until the plane took
off. Then we’d quick let go.

“Well, one frosty morning I let go and nothing happened, except I
started to rise. Harry had tied the free end of my line tight to my
sled.

“I could have just rolled off, I suppose, but I didn’t want to lose my
sled or my line either. Luckily I had a sheath knife handy and I used
it. I even made a whizeroo of a landing. But ever afterwards my feelings
toward Harry—”

“Stop it, please, Joe!” Jeff interrupted, very red in the face and
shaking a little. “That boy Harry was utterly evil. And I don’t want to
hear any more about this, or anything like it, ever again. Understand?”

I told him sure I did. Heck, I could see I’d gone the wrong way about
it. I even begged his pardon.

After that I just sweated it out. But I found I couldn’t spend much time
on books or my thoughts, I’d keep listening for what Jeff was saying to
Joseph. And sometimes when he’d pause for Joseph’s reply I’d catch
myself waiting for the imaginary me to make one. So I took to staying in
the same cabin as Jeff as much as I could.

That seemed to make him uncomfortable after a while, though he pretended
to glory in it. He’d ask me questions like, “Tell me about life, Joe. So
I’ll know how to handle myself if we’re ever parted.”

But the weariest things come to an end, even duty orbits around Shaula.
And so the time came when we were servicing our last beacon—outside the
planet Shaula-by, it was. Next step would be a fast interplanetary orbit
for Base at Shaula-near.

I was out working—on a safety line of course, but suit-jetting around
more than I needed to, just for the pure joy of it, so that my suit tank
was almost dry. I’d switched my suit radio off for a bit, because,
working in space, Jeff had taken to just gabbling to me nervously all
the time—maybe because he figured there couldn’t be room for Joseph with
him in his suit.

[Illustration: space walk]

I finished up and paused for a last look at the ship. She was sweetly
slim from her conical living quarters to the taper-tail of her ionic
jet, but she had more junk on her than an amateur asteroid prospector
hangs on his suit the first time out. Every duty orbit, fifty scientists
come with permission from the Commandant to hang some automatic research
gadget on the hull. The craziest one this time was a huge flattened band
of gold-plated aluminum, little more than foil-thick, attached crosswise
just in front of the tail and sticking out twenty feet on each side. I
don’t know what it was there for—maybe to measure the effects of space
on a Moebius strip—but it looked like a wedding ring that had been
stepped on. So Jeff and I called it Trompled Love.

But in spite of the junk, the ship looked mighty sweet against the
saffron steppes and baby-blue seas of Shaula-by with Shaula herself, old
Lambda Scorpii, flaming warm and wildly beyond, and with “United States”
standing out big as life on the ship’s living quarters. United States of
Shaula, of course.

                  *       *       *       *       *

I was almost dreaming out there, thinking how it hadn’t been such a
terrible duty after all, when I saw the ship begin to slide past Shaula.

Poking out of her tail, ghostlier than the flame over a cafe royale, was
the evil blue glow of her jet. In an instant I’d guessed exactly what
had happened and was beating myself on the head for not having
anticipated it. Joseph had swum into the cabin right after Jeff. And
Jeff had yelled at him. “It’s about time, you lazy lunkhead! Everything
secure? Okay, I’m switching on the beam!” And I’d probably brought the
whole thing about by telling him that damfool sled story—and then
sticking to him so close he just had to get rid of me, so as to be with
Joseph.

Meanwhile the ship was gathering speed in her sneaky way and the wavy
safety line between me and the airlock was starting to straighten.

As you know, an ionic jet’s only good space-to-space. It’s not for
heavy-G work; ours could deliver only one-half G at max and was doing
less than one-quarter now. Which meant the ship was starting off slower
than most ground cars.

But the beam would fire for hours, building up to a terminal velocity of
fifteen miles a second and carrying the ship far, far away from lonely
Joe Hansen.

Except that we were tied together, of course.

I was very grateful then for the weeks I’d practiced space-roping,
though I’d never won any prizes with it, because without thinking I
started to whip my line very carefully. And on the third try, just as it
was getting pretty straight, I managed to settle it in a notch in one
outside end of Trompled Love. After that I took up strain on the line as
gradually as I could, letting it friction through my gloves for as long
as I could before putting all my mass on it—because although one-quarter
G isn’t much, it piles up in a few seconds to quite a jerk. I spread
that jerk into several little ones.

Well, the last jerk came and the line didn’t part and Trompled Love
didn’t crumple much, though the Shaula-light showed me several very
nasty-looking wrinkles in it. And there I was trailing along after the
ship, though out to one side, and feeling about as much strain on the
line as if I were hanging from a cliff on the moon, and knowing I was
going about five feet a second faster every second.

                  *       *       *       *       *

My idea wanting to be out to the side (and bless my impulses for
realizing it was the one important thing!) was to keep my line and
myself out of the beam. An ionic jet doesn’t look hot from the side. But
from straight on it’s a lot brighter than an arc light—it’s almost as
tight as a laser beam—and I didn’t want to think about what it would do
to me, even trailing as I was a hundred yards aft.

Though of course long before it had ruined me, it would have
disintegrated my line.

My being out to the side was putting the ship off balance on its jet and
presumably throwing its course toward base and Shaula-near little by
little into error. But that was the least of my worries, believe me.

I thought for a bit and remembered I could talk to Jeff over my suit
radio. I decided to try it, not without misgivings.

I tongued it on and said, “Jeff. Oh, Jeff. I’m out here. You forgot me.”

I was going to say some more, but just then he broke in, angry and so
loud it made my helmet ring, with, “Joseph! Did you hear anything then?”
A pause, then, “Well, clean the wax out of your ears, stupid, because I
did! I think we got an enemy out there!”

Another and longer pause, while my blood curdled a bit thicker, then,
“Well, okay, Joseph, I’ll go along with you this time. But if I hear the
enemy once more, I’m going to suit up and take a rifle and sit in the
airlock door until I’ve potted him.”

I tongued the radio off quick, fearful I’d sneeze or something. I had
only one faint consolation: Joseph seemed to be a bit on my side, or
maybe he was just lazy.

I thought some more, a mite frantic-like now, and after a while I said
to myself, _Been going five minutes now, so I’m doing about a quarter of
a mile a second—that’s fifteen miles a minute, wow!—but out here
velocities are purely relative. My suit does a little better than a
quarter G full on. Okay. I’ll jet to the ship._

No sooner said than acted on—I was beginning to rely too much on impulse
now. The suit jet killed my false weight at once and I was off, mighty
careful to aim myself along my line or a little outside it, so as not to
wander over into the beam.

Pretty soon the tail and Trompled Love were getting noticeably bigger.

Then a lot bigger.

Then my suit fuel ran out.

                  *       *       *       *       *

I’d built up enough velocity so that I was still gaining on the ship for
a few seconds. In fact, I almost made it. My gauntlet was about to close
on Trompled Love when the ship started slowly to pull away. Oh, it was
frustrating!

I remembered then what I should have a lot earlier, and grabbed for the
ship-end of my line so as not to lose the distance I’d gained—and in my
haste I knocked it away from me. The only good thing was that I didn’t
knock it out of the notch.

Now I was losing space to the ship faster and faster. Yet all I could do
was reel in the me-end of the line as fast as I could. Suddenly the
whole line straightened and gave me a bigger jerk than I’d intended. I
could see Trompled Love crumple a little. And I was swinging just a bit,
like a pendulum.

I used a glove-friction to spread the rest of the jerk, but still I was
at the end of my line and Trompled Love had crumpled a bit more before I
was coasting along with the ship again.

My side of Trompled Love was bent back maybe twenty degrees. The eye of
the beam shone at me from the tail like a pale blue moon. For quite a
while it brightened and dimmed as I tick-tock swung.

Meanwhile I was beating my skull for not having thought earlier of the
obvious slow-but-safe way of doing it, instead of that lunatic
suit-jetting. I once heard a psychologist say we’re mental slaves to
power-machinery and I guess he had something.

Clearly all I had to do was climb hand-over-hand up the line to the
ship. At moon gravity that would be easy. If I should get tired I only
had to clamp on and rest.

So I waited for my emotions to settle a bit, and then I reached along
the line and gave a smooth, medium-strength heave.

Maybe there is something to ESP—at least in a devilish sort of
way—because I picked the exact moment when Jeff decided to feed the beam
more juice.

There was a _big_ jerk and I saw Trompled Love crumple a lot, so that it
was pointing more than forty-five degrees aft.

Now there was a steady pull on the line like I was hanging from a cliff
on Mars. And the eye of the beam was a blue moon not so pale—in fact
more like a sizzling blue sun seen through a light fog.

After that I just didn’t have the heart to try the climb again. Once I
started to draw myself up, very cautious, but on the first handhold I
seemed to feel along the line Trompled Love crumpling some more and I
quit for good.

I figured that at this boost Jeff would be up to proper speed for
Shaula-near in less than two hours. Well, I had suit-oxy and
refrigeration for longer than that.

Of course if Jeff decided not to cut the beam on schedule, maybe with
the idea of eloping with Joseph to the next solar system—well, I’d
discover then whether suit-oxy running out would stimulate me to try the
climb again alongside the beam.

(Or I could wait until he got her up near the speed of light, when by
the General Theory of Relativity the line ought to be shortened enough
so that I could hop aboard if I were sudden enough about it.... _No, Joe
Hansen, you quit that_, I told myself, _you don’t want to die with the
gears in your head all stripped_.)

Thinking about the beam got me wondering exactly how close I was to it.
I unshipped my suit-antenna and pulled it out to full length—about eight
feet—and fished around with it in the direction of the beam.

Nothing seemed to happen to it. It didn’t glow or anything; but I
suddenly got a little electric shock, and when I drew it back I could
see three inches of the tip were gone and the next couple inches were
pitted. So much for curiosity.

Next I reattached the antenna to my suit—which turned out to be a lot
more troublesome job than unshipping it—and tongued on the radio with
the idea of listening in on Jeff.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Right away I heard him say, “Wake up, Joseph! I’m going to tell you your
faults again. I got a new way of cataloguing them—chronologically. Begin
with childhood. You hitched sled-rides on airplanes. That was bad,
Joseph, that was against the law. If the man had caught you doing it, if
he’d seen you whizzing along there back of him, he’d have had every
right to shoot you down in cold blood. Life is hard, Joseph, life is
merciless....”

Right then I felt a tickle in my throat.

I tried quick to shut off the radio, but it is remarkably difficult to
tongue anything when you have a cough coming. It came out finally in a
series of squeaky glubs.

“Snap to, Joseph, and listen hard,” I heard Jeff say. “It’s started
again. Animal noises this time. You know if they make spacesuits for
black panthers, Joseph?”

I tongued off the radio quick, before the follow-up cough came.

I didn’t have anything left to do now but think. So I thought about
Jeff—how there seemed to be one Jeff who hated my guts and another Jeff
who idolized me and another Jeff sneaking around in a jungle of
sabertooth tigers and ... heck, there was probably a good twenty Jeffs
sitting around inside his skull, some in light, some in darkness, but
all of them watching each other and arguing together all the time. It
was an odd way to think of a personality—a sort of perpetual
_Kaffeeklatsch_—but it had its points. Maybe some of the little guys
weren’t Jeffs at all, but his father and mother and a caveman ancestor
or two and maybe some great-great-grandchild butting in now and then
from the future....

Well, I saw that speculation was getting out of hand so, taking a tip
from Jeff, I began to count my own sins.

It took quite a while. Some of them were pretty interesting reading,
almost enough to take my mind off my predicament, but I tired of it
finally.

Then I began to count the stars.

It was really the longest two hours plus I ever spent, except maybe the
time my first big girl disappeared. But I don’t know. The experiences
are hard to compare.

I was about halfway through the stars when I went weightless. For an
awful instant I thought the line had parted at last, but then I looked
toward the ship and saw the bright little moon was gone.

                  *       *       *       *       *

Right away I gave a couple of tugs on the line and began to close slowly
with the tail. No trouble at all—actually my only difficulty was
resisting the temptation to build up more momentum, which would have
resulted in a crash landing.

I softed-in on Trompled Love okay, except there was a big spark. The
beam must have charged me good. Then I worked my way to the true hull.
After that there were handholds.

Finally I got to a porthole in the living quarters, and I looked in, and
there was Jeff jawing away at my empty seat. I put my helmet against the
hull and very faintly I heard him say, “Joseph, I’m still worried about
the enemy. I keep thinking I hear him or it. I’m going to make us some
coffee, so we’ll stay real alert. You break out the guns.”

I don’t suppose anyone ever moved quite so quietly _and_ so quickly in a
spacesuit as I did then. I got in the airlock, I got her up to pressure,
I got unsuited—and all in less than five minutes, I’m sure. Maybe less
than four.

I swam to the cabin. It was empty. I slid into my seat just as Jeff
floated in with the coffee.

He went real pale when he spotted me. I saw there might be some trouble
this time with the Joseph-Joe transition. But I knew the only way to
play it was real cool. I nested there in my seat as if I hadn’t a worry
or urge in the world—though my nerves and throat were just screaming for
a squirt of that coffee.

“Joe!” he squeaked at last. “Migod, you gave me an awful scare. I
thought you’d done a bunk, I thought, you’d spaced yourself, I kept
picturing you outside the ship.”

“Why no, Jeff,” I answered quietly. “One way or another, I’ve been in
this seat ever since take-off.”

His brow wrinkled as he thought about that.

I looked at the board and noticed that our terminal trip-velocity read
fifteen miles a second. My, my.

Finally Jeff said, “That’s right, you have.” And then, just a shade
unhappily, “I might have known. You always tell the truth, Joe—you’re
perfect.”


                                  END




                           TRANSCRIBER’S NOTE


This etext was produced from Worlds of Tomorrow, August 1963. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.

Punctuation has been normalized. Spelling and hyphenation have been
retained as they were in the original book.

Italicized phrases are presented by surrounding the text with
_underscores_.







*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A HITCH IN SPACE ***


    

Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law 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™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following
the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use
of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for
copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very
easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation
of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project
Gutenberg eBooks may be modified and printed and given away—you may
do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks not protected
by U.S. copyright law. 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™ 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™ License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™
electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™
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™ electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™
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™ electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law 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™ mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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™ work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country other than 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™ License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ 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 in the United States and most
    other parts of the world 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. If you
    are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws
    of the country where you are located before using this eBook.
  
1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (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™
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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™
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™.

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™ 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™ work in a format
other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website
(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™ 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™ 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™ electronic works
provided that:

    • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
        the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method
        you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
        to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ 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™
        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™
        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™ works.
    

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of
the Project Gutenberg™ 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
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™
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™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg™ 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 1.F.3. 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 MERCHANTABILITY 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™ electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™
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™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™

Project Gutenberg™ 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™’s
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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 information page at www.gutenberg.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. 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 business office is located at 809 North 1500 West,
Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up
to date contact information can be found at the Foundation’s website
and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread
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 www.gutenberg.org/donate.

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: www.gutenberg.org/donate.

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg™ electronic works

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg™ eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright 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 website which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org.

This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™,
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.