The Project Gutenberg EBook of Measure for a Loner, by James Judson Harmon 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: Measure for a Loner Author: James Judson Harmon Release Date: September 14, 2007 [EBook #22596] Language: English Character set encoding: ASCII *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEASURE FOR A LONER *** Produced by Greg Weeks, Stephen Blundell and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net _You can measure everything these days--heat, light, gravity, reflexes, force-fields, star-drives. And now I know there even is a ..._ MEASURE FOR A LONER By JIM HARMON So, General, I came in to tell you I've found the loneliest man in the world for the Space Force. How am I supposed to rate his loneliness for you? In Megasorrows or Kilofears? I suspect I know quite a library on the subject, but you know more about stripes and bars. Don't try to stop me this time, General. Now that you mention it, I'm not drunk. I had to have something to back me up so I stopped off at the dispensary and stole a needle. I want you to get off my back with that kind of talk. I've got enough there--it bends me over like I had bad kidneys. It isn't any of King Kong's little brothers. They over rate the stuff. It isn't the way you've been riding me either. Never mind what I'm carrying. Whatever it is--and believe me, it _is_--I have to get rid of it. Let me tell it, for God's sake. Then for Security's sake? I thought you would let me tell it, General. I've been coming in here and giving you pieces of it for months but now I want to let you be drenched in the whole thing. You're going to take it all. There were the two of them, the two lonely men, and I found them for you. You remember the way I found them for you. The intercom on my blond desk made an electronic noise at me and the words I had been arranging in my mind for the morning letters splattered into alphabet soup like a printer dropping a prepared slug of type. I made the proper motion to still the sound. "Yes," I grunted. My secretary cleared her throat on my time. "Dr. Thorn," she said, "there's a Mr. Madison here to see you. He lays claim to be from the Star Project." He could come in and file his claim, I told the girl. I rummaged in the wastebasket and uncrumpled the morning's facsimile newspaper. It was full of material about the Star Project. We were building Man's first interstellar spaceship. * * * * * A surprising number of people considered it important. Flipping from the rear to page one, Wild Bill Star in the comics who had been blasting all the way to forty-first sub-space universe for decades was harking back to the good old days of Man's first star flight (which he had made himself through the magic of time travel), the editor was calling the man to make the jaunt the Lindbergh of Space, and the staff photographer displayed a still of a Space Force pilot in pressure suit up front with his face blotted out by an air-brushed interrogation mark. Who was going to be the Lindbergh of Space? We had used up the Columbus of Space, the Magellan of Space, the Van Reck of Space. Now it was time for the Lone Eagle, one man who would wait out the light years to Alpha Centauri. I remembered the first Lindbergh. I rode a bus fifty miles to see him at an Air Force Day celebration when I was a dewy-eared kid. It's funny how kids still worship heroes who did everything before they were even born. Uncle Max had told me about standing outside the hospital with a bunch of boys his own age the evening Babe Ruth died of cancer. Lindbergh seemed like an old man to me when I finally saw him, but still active. Nobody had forgotten him. When his speech was over I cheered him with the rest just as if I knew what he had been talking about. But I probably knew more about what he meant then as a boy than I did feeling the reality of the newspaper in my hands. Grown-up, I could only smile at myself for wanting to go to the stars myself. Madison rapped on my office door and breezed in efficiently. I've always thought Madison was a rather irritating man. Likable but irritating. He's too good looking in an unassuming masculine way to dress so neatly--it makes him look like a mannequin. That polite way of his of using small words slowly and distinctly proves that he loves his fellow man--even if his fellow always does have less brains or authority than Madison himself. That belief would be forgivable in him if it wasn't so often true. Madison folded himself into the canary yellow client's chair at my direction, and took a leather-bound pocket secretary from inside his almost-too-snug jacket. "Dr. Thorn," he said expansively, "we need you to help us locate an atavism." I flicked professional smile No. Three at him lightly. "I'm a historical psychologist," I told him. "That sounds in my line. Which of your ancestors are you interested in having me analyze?" "I used the word 'atavism' to mean a reversion to the primitive." I made a pencil mark on my desk pad. I could make notes as well as he could read them. "Yes, I see," I murmured. "We don't use the term that way. Perhaps you don't understand my work. It's been an honest way to make a living for a few generations but it's so specialized it might sound foolish to someone outside the psychological industry. I psychoanalyze historical figures for history books (of course), and scholars, interested descendants, what all, and that's _all_ I do." "All you _have_ done," Madison admitted, "but your government is certain that you can do this new work for them--in fact, that you are one of the few men prepared to locate this esoteric--that is, this odd aberration since I understand you often have to deal with it in analyzing the past. Doctor, we want you to find us a lonely man." I laid my chrome yellow pencil down carefully beside the cream-colored pad. "History is full of loneliness--most of the so-called great men were rather neurotic--but I thought, Madison, that introspection was pretty much of a thing of the, well, past." The government representative inhaled deeply and steepled his manicured fingers. "Our system of childhood psycho-conditioning succeeds in burying loneliness in the subconscious so completely that even the records can't reveal if it was ever present." * * * * * I cleared my throat in order to stall, to think. "I'm not acquainted with _contemporary_ psychology, Madison. This comes as news to me. You mean people aren't really well-adjusted today, that they have just been conditioned to _act_ as if they were?" He nodded. "Yes, that's it. It's ironic. Now we need a lonely man and we can't find him." "To pilot the interstellar spaceship?" "For the _Evening Star_, yes," Madison agreed. I picked up my pencil and held it between my two index fingers. I couldn't think of a damned thing to say. "The whole problem," Madison was saying, "goes back to the early days of space travel. Men were confined in a small area facing infinite space for measureless periods in freefall. Men cracked--and ships, they cracked up. But as space travel advanced ships got larger, carried more people, more ties and reminders of human civilization. Pilots became more _normal_." I made myself look up at the earnest young man. "But now," I said, "now you want me to find you an abnormal pilot who is used to being alone, who can stand it, maybe even like it?" "Right." I constructed a genuine smile for him for the first time. "Madison, do you really think _I_ can find your man when evidently all the government agencies have failed?" The government representative pocketed his notebook deftly and then spread his hands clumsily for an instant. "At least, Doctor," he said, "you may _know_ it if you do find him." * * * * * It was a lonely job to find a lonely man, General, and maybe it was a crooked job to walk a crooked mile to find a crooked man. I had to do it alone. No one else had enough experience in primitive psychology to recognize the phenomenon of loneliness, even as Madison had said. The working conditions suited me. I had to think by myself but I had a comfortable staff to carry out my ideas. I liked my new office and the executive apartment the government supplied me. I had authority and respect and I had security. The government assured me they would find further use for my services after I found them their man. I knew this was to keep me from dragging my tracks. But nevertheless I got right down to work. I found Gordon Meyverik exactly five weeks from the day Madison first visited me in my old office. "Of course, I planned the whole thing, Dr. Thorn," Gordon said crisply. I knew what he meant although I hadn't guessed it before. He could tell it to me himself, I decided. "Doesn't seem much to brag about," I said. "Anybody who can make up a grocery list should be able to figure out how to isolate himself on Seal Island." He sat forward, a lean Viking with a hot Latin glance, very confident of himself. "I reckoned on you locating me, on you hustling me back to pilot the _Evening Star_. That's why I holed in there." "I can't accept your story," I lied cheerfully. "Nobody is going to maroon himself on an island for three years because of a wild possibility like that." Meyverik smiled and his sureness swelled out until it almost jabbed me in the stomach. "I took a broad gamble," he said, "but it hit the wire, didn't it?" I didn't reply, but he had his answer. Instead I scanned the report Madison had given me from Intelligence concerning the man's unorthodox behavior. Meyverik had quit his post-graduate studies and passed by the secured job that had been waiting for him eighteen months in a genial government office to barricade himself in an old shelter on Seal Island. It was hard to know what to make of it. He had brought impressive stores of food with him, books, sound and vision tapes but not telephone or television. For the next three years he had had no contact with humanity at all. And he said he had planned it all. "Sure," he drawled. "I knew the government was looking for somebody to steer the interstellar ship that's been gossip for decades. That job," he said distinctly, "is one I would give a lot to settle into." I looked at him across my unlittered brand new desk and accepted his irritating blond masculinity, disliked him, admired him, and continued to examine him to decide on my _final_ evaluation. "You've given three years already," I said, examining the sheets of the report with which I was thoroughly familiar. He twitched. He didn't like that, not spending three years. It was spendthrift, even if a good buy. He was planning on winding up somewhere important and to do it he had to invest his years properly. "You are trying to make me believe you deliberately extrapolated the government's need for a man who could stand being alone for long periods, and then tried to phoney up references for the work by staying on that island?" "I don't like that word 'phoney'," Meyverik growled. "No? You name your word for it." Meyverik unhinged to his full height. "It was _proof_," he said. "A test." "A man can't test himself." "A lot you know," the big blond snorted. "I _know_," I told him drily. "A man who isn't a hopeless maniac depressive can't consciously create a test for himself that he knows he will fail. You proved you could stay alone on an island, buster. You didn't prove you could stay alone in a spaceship out in the middle of infinity for three years. Why didn't you rent a conventional rocket and try looking at some of our local space? It all looks much the same." Meyverik sat down. "I don't know why I didn't do that," he whispered. * * * * * Probably for the first time since he had got clever enough to beat up his big brother Meyverik was doubting himself, just a little, for just a time. I don't know whether it was good or bad for him--contemporary psychology isn't in my line--but I knew I couldn't trust a cocky kid. But I had to find out if he could still hit the target uncocked. * * * * * Stan Johnson was our second lonely man, remember, General? He was stubborn. I questioned him for a half hour the first day, two hours the second and on the third I turned him over to Madison. Then as I was having my lunch I suddenly thought of something and made steps back to my office. I got there just in time to grab Madison's bony wrist. The thing in his fist was silver and sharp, a hypodermic needle. Johnson's forearm was tanned below the torn pastel sleeve. Two sad-faced young men were holding him politely by the shoulders in the canvas chair. Johnson met my glance expressionlessly. I tugged on Madison's arm sharply. "What's in that damned sticker?" "Polypenthium." Madison's face was as blank as Johnson's--only his body seemed at once tired and taut. "What's it for?" I rasped. "You're the psychologist," he said sharply. I met his eyes and held on but it was impossible to stare him down. "I don't know about physical methods, I told you. I've been dealing with people in books, films, tapes all my life, not living men up till now, can't you absorb that?" "Apparently I've had more experience with these things than you then, Doctor. Shall I proceed?" "You shall not," I cried omnisciently. "I know enough to understand we can't get the results the government wants by drugs. You going to put that away?" Madison nodded once. "All right," he said. I unshackled my fingers and he put the shiny needle away in its case, in his suitcoat pocket. "You understand, Thorn," he said, "that the general won't like this." I turned around and looked at him. "Did he order you to drug Johnson?" The government agent shook his head. "I didn't think so." I was beginning to understand government operations. "He only wanted it done. Get out." Madison and his assistants marched out in orthodox Euclidian triangle formation. The doors hissed shut. "You know what?" The words jerked out from Johnson. "I think the bunch of you are crazy. _Crazy._" I decided to treat him like a client. Maybe that was the way contemporary psychologists handled their men. * * * * * I sat on the edge of the desk jauntily, confidently, and tried to let the domino mask up a father image. "You may as well get it straight, Stan. The government needs you and it's pointless for you to say that need is unconstitutional or anything. Bring it up and it won't be long. When survival is outside the rules, the rules change." The eyes of Johnson were strikingly like Meyverik's, dark and unsettled. Only this boy, younger, smaller than the Nordic, had an appropriate skin tone, stained by the tropical sun somewhere in his ancestral past. He dropped his gaze, expelled his breath mightily and pounded one angular knee with a half-closed fist. "I'm not complaining about conscription without representation, Doctor, but I can't make any sense out of these fool questions you keep firing at me. What in blazes are you trying to get at? What kind of reason are you after for my staying by myself? I just do it because I _like_ it that way." With a galvanic jolt, I realized he was telling the painfully simple truth. I groaned at the realization. Meyverik had convinced all of us that in our well-adjusted or at any rate well-conditioned world somebody had to have some purposeful _reason_ in loneliness, solitude, so on that one instance our thinking had already been patterned, discarding all the other evidence of generations that the lonely man was only a personality type, like Johnson. I felt I had achieved at least the quantum state of a fool. Johnson silently studied the half-cupped hands laying in his lap. "The hunting lodge in the Andes seemed as good a place as any to live after mother and father were killed. You might think it was lonesome at night in the mountains, but it isn't at all. You aren't alone when you can watch the burning worlds shadow the bow of God...." I cleared my throat. The poor kid sounded like he would begin spouting something akin to poetry next. "So I believe you," I told him. "That doesn't finish it. We have to convince _them_. I don't like this, but the simplest way would be to volunteer for their hibitor injection. I've found out Madison and his crowd don't believe men awake, only assorted dopes." Johnson deflated his area of the room with his breath intake. "Okay," he said at last. "I guess so." * * * * * When Johnson gave us what we needed to clear the problem, it didn't take me long to finish processing the rest of the handful of possible loners we had located. Unlike Johnson, all the rest had _reasons_ for their self-imposed loneliness. Unlike Meyverik none of their reasons were associated with the interstellar flight. They instead involved literary research, swindles, isolated paranoid insanity and other things in which the government had no interest. Suddenly I found my job was done and that we had located only the two of them. Madison read my final report braced on the edge of my desk, his hand comradely on my shoulder. "Good job, Doc," he vouched replacing the papers on my blotter with a final rustle. "Now I've got news for you. The government wants you to _test_ these boys for us now that you've found 'em for us." I closed my jaw. "That's completely out of line--_my_ line. I know you need a contemporary man for that job." Madison punched me on the bicep, fast enough to hurt. "Doc, after this project you know more about contemp' stuff than any professor who got his degree studying the textbooks _you_ wrote." It was impossible to dislike Madison except for practiced periods--that was probably one reason he had his job. "All right," I growled. "Get your dirty pants off my clean desk and I'll get out the bottle. We'll--celebrate, huh?" But you know how I felt, General? You remember how I tried to get out of it. I felt like I had led in the lambs and now I had to help shear them. As a part-time historian I can tell you there's a word for that--Judas goat. Give or take a word. * * * * * "It isn't the real thing, Doc," Madison spelled out for me, wearing a lemon twist of smile. I looked at the twin banks of gauge-facings and circuit housings in which centered TV screens picturing either Meyverik or Johnson. Red and sea-green lights chased each other around the control boards, died, were born again. On the screens the three color negatives mixed to purple, shifted through a series of wrong combinations and settled to normal as the stereo-oscillation echoed, convexed insanely, and deepened to hold. Video reception is lousy from five hundred thousand miles out. I was too eye-heavy to be surprised. "Don't tell me this is _The Strange Flight of Richard Clayton_ all over again?" Madison clapped me on the shoulder and breathed mint at me, eyes on twittering round faces. "Who wrote that? Poe? No, no mock-up to fake space conditions for them but calculate the cost of the _real_ interstellar ship. We couldn't trust either of them with it yet. You didn't really think we could afford _two_ ships. Why do you think we haven't told one man about his opposite in a second ship? No safety margin allowable in our appropriation, Doc. Or so they tell me. There's enough fuel and food to take Johnson and Meyverik a long way but not the distance." He shook his lean head almost wistfully. "Damn it, Madison, do you mean I've been beating my lobes out for weeks for _nothing_? I tested them. I checked them out. Either was capable of making the flight successfully--for their own different reasons." Madison took his hand off my shoulder and made a fist of it. "I'm not questioning your decision! Will you ram that through your obscene skull, Thorn!" "Who is?" I whispered. "Not me. Not I, not I." "The general," I announced. "Just not me." Was he actually trembling? But it wasn't concern about what I thought of him. Somebody closer, maybe. Things were building up for him. He jammed his nose almost up against the glass dial surfaces, swaying gently in his cups, staring slightly cross-eyed at the arrowed numbers. "You'll continue your tests from here," Madison said. "Tell them they are going to die." My face was at once cool and damp. "That's a tough examination," I gasped. "A lie," Madison told me. "The boys at Psychicentre worked out the problems." "You told me you wanted me!" I screamed at him furiously. "Control your passionate, dainty voice. You worked well with those two. The experts could work through you better." "Right through me, like a razor blade through margarine," I said. "It's not fair." "No, it's science. Psychology as a science, not an art. Don't damn me--I'm not the inventor," Madison continued. "I'm one of them," I murmured, "but I'd just as rather you didn't blame me either." Madison punched the button for me with a palsied, manicured thumb. "Guess what, Meyverik?" I said viciously. "You're going to die." "What the blazes are you babbling about?" the blond doll snapped at me from the box of the video screen. * * * * * I scanned the typed, stiff-backed Idiot Prompters Madison shoved into my fist. "It's--true. You can't get out alive." "What's happened?" His face perfectly blank. "Nothing out of the ordinary," I said. "They have just informed me it was planned this way. It wasn't possible to build a round-trip rocket yet. You need a lot of fuel to make course adjustments for the curvature of space, so forth. The radio will send back your reports on the Alpha Centaurian planets. Undoubtedly by all rules of probability they won't support life without a mass of equipment. They suckered me too, Meyverik, I swear. You turning back?" "No," he said almost immediately. "I thought you were after the rewards, trained to get them. You won't be able to enjoy them posthumously." The video blanked. He had turned off his camera. "I guess I thought so," Meyverik's voice said. "But I kind of like it out here--alone. I like people but back there there's no one to _touch_. They smother you but you can't reach them. I can't do anything better back there than I can do here." * * * * * Madison got a bottle and he and I got sloppily drunk, leaning on each other, singing innocently obscene songs of our youth. The technicians, good government men, were openly disgusted with us. Two hours after we had contacted Meyverik, I left Madison snoring on the desk and lurched to the control board, bunching my soiled shirt at the throat with my hand. I called Johnson. "Going to die, Johnson. Tricked you. Can't get back, Johnson. Not ever. No fuel. Ha, you can't ever go home again, Johnson. Like that, you damned runny-nosed little poet?" His dark face worked weakly. Ha, he sure as thunderation _didn't_ like it. He asked for the bloody details and I fed them to him. "Turning back, aren't you?" I jeered. "I just wanted a place and a time for thinking," he said across the Solar System. "But I'll die and I don't know if you can dream in death." "Just what I thought," I sneered. "I'm not turning back," he said slowly. "People need me. I've got a job to do. Haven't I? Haven't I?" "_No_," I screamed at him. "You're just using that as an excuse to kill yourself. Don't try to tell me you're not weak! Don't you try to make me think you're strong! Hear me, Johnson, hear me?" But he couldn't hear me. One of the government technicians had broken the contact before that last spurt. * * * * * "This is good," Madison said, pawing fuzzily at his pocket. "Really--_good_." I studied the three or four watchdials wobbling up and down my elongated wrist. They seemed to say it was almost sunrise. I leered at Madison. "Yeah, yeah, what is it? Huh, huh?" He shoved a crumpled card into my lax fingers. "Now," he said, "now tell them--" "Yeah, yeah." "Tell them the whole thing is useless." * * * * * My stomach retched drily, grinding the sober pills to dust between its ulcerating walls. "Meyverik," I said to the empty video tube, "they made a mistake. They underestimated curvature. You can't reach Alpha Centauri. You can't correct enough. Free space is all you'll hit. Ever. You may as well come home." The soft voice came out of nowhere, from nothing. "I don't want to come back. I like it here. This is what I've always been trying to get and I never knew it." Madison grabbed my arm with pronged fingers. "Shut up, Doc. That's just the way the government wants him to be." "Johnson," I said to the creased face in the screen, "they made a mistake. They underestimated curvature. You can't reach Alpha Centauri. You can't correct enough. Free space is all you'll hit. Ever. You may as well come--back." Johnson sighed, a whisper of breath across the miles. "I'll keep going. No one has ever been so far out before. I can report valuable things." I stood there. The textbooks report it takes muscular effort to frown, more so than to smile. But my face seemed to flow into the lines of pain so hard it ached without any effort of my will. And I knew it would _hurt_ to smile. "They passed the final test," Madison said at my side. "Tell them it was a test." I would do it for him. I didn't need to do it for myself. I motioned the technician to open both channels. "The ship you are in," I said, with no need to tell them of each other, "is not the real _Evening Star_. It will _not_ take you to the stars. This has been only a _test_ to credit your fitness to pilot the real interstellar craft of the Star Project. You must return to the Lunar Satellite. This is a direct order." The two screens remained blank. Only the windless silence of space echoed over Johnson's channel, but the tapes later proved that I actually did hear a whispered laugh from Meyverik. I faced Madison. "They won't come back. They could have passed any test except the fact that what we put them through was only a test. For their own reasons, they will keep going. As far as they can." Madison took out his notebook and seemed to look for vital information. Except that he never cracked the cover. "Of course, we can't get them back if they won't come," he said. "If cybernetic remotes functioned operationally at this distance we wouldn't have to send men at all." He replaced the pocket secretary and looked at me edgewise, speculatively. I touched his arm. "Let's find another bottle," I said. He stepped back. "You found them. You tested them. You killed them." And the government man walked away and left me standing with a murderer. * * * * * You see it now, don't you, General? What I'm carrying around on my back is guilt. Not guilt complex, not guilt fixation, just plain old Abel-Cain _guilt_. In this nice, well-ordered age I'm a killer and everybody knows it. You see our mistake, General. We sent men with variable amounts of loneliness. These amounts could alter. But now we have a golden opportunity. The _Evening Star_ is waiting and I have found for you a man with the true measure of loneliness. It is impossible for this man to become any more or any less lonely. It isn't the Ultimate Possible Loneliness, understand that, General. It's just that by himself or with others he is always in a crowd of three, no more, no less. The interstellar ship is waiting. So tell me, General, have you ever seen a lonelier man than me, your humble servitor, Dr. Thorn? No, I mean it. Have you? THE END Transcriber's Note This etext was produced from _Amazing Science Fiction Stories_ March 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 Project Gutenberg's Measure for a Loner, by James Judson Harmon *** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MEASURE FOR A LONER *** ***** This file should be named 22596.txt or 22596.zip ***** This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/2/5/9/22596/ Produced by Greg Weeks, 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.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, 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 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.