The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Graveyard of 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: The Graveyard of Space

Author: Stephen Marlowe

Illustrator: Harold W. McCauley

Release date: April 25, 2010 [eBook #32133]

Language: English

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

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAVEYARD OF SPACE ***

Transcriber's note:

This etext was produced from Imagination April 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.

Illustrated by H. W. McCauley Illustrated by H. W. McCauley

Nobody knew very much about the Sargasso area of the void; only one
thing was certain: if a ship was caught there it was doomed  in—

The Graveyard Of Space

by

Milton Lesser

He lit a cigarette, the last one they had, and asked his wife "Want to share it?"

"No. That's all right." Diane sat at the viewport of the battered old Gormann '87, a small figure of a woman hunched over and watching the parade of asteroids like tiny slow-moving incandescent flashes.

Ralph looked at her and said nothing. He remembered what it was like when she had worked by his side at the mine. It had not been much of a mine. It had been a bust, a first class sure as hell bust, like everything else in their life together. And it had aged her. Had it only been three years? he thought. Three years on asteroid 4712, a speck of cosmic dust drifting on its orbit in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. Uranium potential, high—the government had said. So they had leased the asteroid and prospected it and although they had not finished the job, they were finished. They were going home and now there were lines on Diane's face although she was hardly past twenty-four. And there was a bitterness, a bleakness, in her eyes.

The asteroid had ruined them, had taken something from them and given nothing in return. They were going home and, Ralph Meeker thought, they had left more than their second-hand mining equipment on asteroid 4712. They had left the happy early days of their marriage as a ghost for whomever tried his luck next on 4712. They had never mentioned the word divorce; Diane had merely said she would spend some time with her sister in Marsport instead of going on to Earth....

"We'd be swinging around to sunward on 4712," Ralph mused.

"Please. That's over. I don't want to talk about the mine."

"Won't it ever bother you that we never finished?"

"We finished," Diane said.

He smoked the cigarette halfway and offered it to her. She shook her head and he put the butt out delicately, to save it.

Then a radar bell clanged.

"What is it?" Ralph asked, immediately alert, studying the viewport. You had to be alert on an old tub like the Gormann '87. A hundred tonner, it had put in thirty years and a billion and some miles for several owners. Its warning devices and its reflexes—it was funny, Ralph thought, how you ascribed something human like reflexes to a hundred tons of battered metal—were unpredictable.

"I don't see anything," Diane said.

He didn't either. But you never knew in the asteroid belt. It was next to impossible to thread a passage without a radar screen—and completely impossible with a radar screen on the blink and giving you false information. You could shut it off and pray—but the odds would still be a hundred to one against you.

"There!" Diane cried. "On the left! The left, Ralph—"

He saw it too. At first it looked like a jumble of rocks, of dust as the asteroid old-timers called the gravity-held rock swarms which pursued their erratic, dangerous orbits through the asteroid belt.

But it was not dust.

"Will you look at that," Diane said.

The jumble of rocks—which they were ready to classify as dust—swam up toward them. Ralph waited, expecting the automatic pilot to answer the radar warning and swing them safely around the obstacle. So Ralph watched and saw the dark jumble of rocks—silvery on one side where the distant sunlight hit it—apparently spread out as they approached it. Spread out and assume tiny shapes, shapes in miniature.

"Spaceships," Diane said. "Spaceships, Ralph. Hundreds of them."

They gleamed like silver motes in the sun or were black as the space around them. They tumbled slowly, in incredible slow motion, end over end and around and around each other, as if they had been suspended in a slowly boiling liquid instead of the dark emptiness of space.

"That's the sargasso," Ralph said.

"But—"

"But we're off course. I know it. The radar was probably able to miss things in our way, but failed to compensate afterwards and bring us back to course. Now—"

Suddenly Ralph dived for the controls. The throbbing rockets of the Gormann '87 had not responded to the radar warning. They were rocketing on toward the sargasso, rapidly, dangerously.

"Hold on to something!" Ralph hollered, and punched full power in the left rockets and breaking power in the right forward rockets simultaneously, attempting to stand the Gormann '87 on its head and fight off the deadly gravitational attraction of the sargasso.

The Gormann '87 shuddered like something alive and Ralph felt himself thrust to the left and forward violently. His head struck the radar screen and, as if mocking him the radar bell clanged its warning. He thought he heard Diane scream. Then he was trying to stand, but the gravity of sudden acceleration gripped him with a giant hand and he slumped back slowly, aware of a wetness seeping from his nose, his ears—

All of space opened and swallowed him and he went down, trying to reach for Diane's hand. But she withdrew it and then the blackness, like some obscene mouth as large as the distance from here to Alpha Centauri, swallowed him.

"Are you all right, Diane?" he asked.

He was on his knees. His head ached and one of his legs felt painfully stiff, but he had crawled over to where Diane was down, flat on her back, behind the pilot chair. He found the water tank unsprung and brought her some and in a few moments she blinked her eyes and looked at him.

"Cold," she said.

He had not noticed it, but he was still numb and only half conscious, half of his faculties working. It was cold. He felt that now. And he was giddy and growing rapidly more so—as if they did not have sufficient oxygen to breathe.

Then he heard it. A slow steady hissing, probably the sound feared most by spacemen. Air escaping.

Diane looked at him. "For God's sake, Ralph," she cried. "Find it."

He found it and patched it—and was numb with the cold and barely conscious when he had finished. Diane came to him and squeezed his hand and that was the first time they had touched since they had left the asteroid. Then they rested for a few moments and drank some of the achingly cold water from the tank and got up and went to the viewport. They had known it, but confirmation was necessary. They looked outside.

They were within the sargasso.

The battered derelict ships rolled and tumbled and spun out there, slowly, unhurried, in a mutual gravitational field which their own Gormann '87 had disturbed. It was a sargasso like the legendary Sargasso Seas of Earth's early sailing days, becalmed seas, seas without wind, with choking Sargasso weed, seas that snared and entrapped....

"Can we get out?" Diane asked.

He shrugged. "That depends. How strong the pull of gravity is. Whether the Gormann's rocket drive is still working. If we can repair the radar. We'd never get out without the radar."

"I'll get something to eat," she said practically. "You see about the radar."

Diane went aft while he remained there in the tiny control cabin. By the time she brought the heated cans back with her, he knew it was hopeless. Diane was not the sort of woman you had to humor about a thing like that. She offered him a can of pork and beans and looked at his face, and when he nodded she said:

"It's no use?"

"We couldn't fix it. The scopes just wore out, Diane. Hell, if they haven't been replaced since this tub rolled off the assembly line, they're thirty years old. She's an '87."

"Is there anything we can do?"

He shrugged. "We're going to try. We'll check the air and water and see what we have. Then we start looking."

"Start looking? I don't understand."

"For a series eighty Gormann cruiser."

Diane's eyes widened. "You mean—out there?"

"I mean out there. If we find a series eighty cruiser—and we might—and if I'm able to transfer the radarscopes after we find out they're in good shape, then we have a chance."

Diane nodded slowly. "If there are any other minor repairs to make, I could be making them while you look for a series eighty Gormann."

But Ralph shook his head. "We'll probably have only a few hours of air to spare, Diane. If we both look, we'll cover more ground. I hate to ask you, because it won't be pretty out there. But it might be our only chance."

"I'll go, of course. Ralph?"

"Yes?"

"What is this sargasso, anyway?"

He shrugged as he read the meters on the compressed air tanks. Four tanks full, with ten hours of air, for two, in each. One tank half full. Five hours. Five plus forty. Forty-five hours of air.

They would need a minimum of thirty-five hours to reach Mars.

"No one knows for sure about the sargasso," he said, wanting to talk, wanting to dispel his own fear so he would not communicate it to her as he took the spacesuits down from their rack and began to climb into one. "They don't think it's anything but the ships, though. It started with a few ships. Then more. And more. Trapped by mutual gravity. It got bigger and bigger and I think there are almost a thousand derelicts here now. There's talk of blasting them clear, of salvaging them for metals and so on. But so far the planetary governments haven't co-operated."

"But how did the first ships get here?"

"It doesn't make a hell of a lot of difference. One theory is ships only, and maybe a couple of hunks of meteoric debris in the beginning. Another theory says there may be a particularly heavy small asteroid in this maze of wrecks somewhere—you know, superheavy stuff with the atoms stripped of their electrons and the nuclei squeezed together, weighing in the neighborhood of a couple of tons per square inch. That could account for the beginning, but once the thing got started, the wrecked ships account for more wrecked ships and pretty soon you have—a sargasso."

Diane nodded and said, "You can put my helmet on now."

"All right. Don't forget to check the radio with me before we go out. If the radio doesn't work, then you stay here. Because I want us in constant radio contact if we're both out there. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir, captain," she said, and grinned. It was her old grin. He had not seen her grin like that for a long time. He had almost forgotten what that grin was like. It made her face seem younger and prettier, as he had remembered it from what seemed so long ago but was only three years. It was a wonderful grin and he watched it in the split-second which remained before he swung the heavy helmet up and in place over her shoulders.

Then he put on his own helmet awkwardly and fingered the outside radio controls. "Hear me?" he said.

"I can hear you." Her voice was metallic but very clear through the suit radios.

"Then listen. There shouldn't be any danger of getting lost. I'll leave a light on inside the ship and we'll see it through the ports. It will be the only light, so whatever you do, don't go out of range. As long as you can always see it, you'll be O.K. Understand?"

"Right," she said as they both climbed into the Gormann '87's airlock and waited for the pressure to leave it and the outer door to swing out into space. "Ralph? I'm a little scared, Ralph."

"That's all right," he said. "So am I."

"What did you mean, it won't be pretty out there?"

"Because we'll have to look not just for series eighty Gormanns but for any ships that look as old as ours. There ought to be plenty of them and any one of them could have had a Gormann radarscope, although it's unlikely. Have to look, though."

"But what—won't be pretty?"

"We'll have to enter those ships. You won't like what's inside."

"Say, how will we get in? We don't have blasters or weapons of any kind."

"Your suit rockets," Ralph said. "You swing around and blast with your suit rockets. A porthole should be better than an airlock if it's big enough to climb through. You won't have any trouble."

"But you still haven't told me what—"

"Inside the ships. People. They'll all be dead. If they didn't lose their air so far, they'll lose it when we go in. Either way, of course, they'll be dead. They've all been dead for years, with no food. But without air—"

"What are you stopping for?" Diane said. "Please go on."

"A body, without air. Fifteen pounds of pressure per square inch on the inside, and zero on the outside. It isn't pretty. It bloats."

"My God, Ralph."

"I'm sorry, kid. Maybe you want to stay back here and I'll look."

"You said we only have ten hours. I want to help you."

All at once, the airlock swung out. Space yawned at them, black enormous, the silent ships, the dead sargasso ships, floating slowly by, eternally, unhurried....

"Better make it eight hours," Ralph said over the suit radio. "We'd better keep a couple of hours leeway in case I figured wrong. Eight hours and remember, don't get out of sight of the ship's lights and don't break radio contact under any circumstances. These suit radios work like miniature radar sets, too. If anything goes wrong, we'll be able to track each other. It's directional beam radio."

"But what can go wrong?"

"I don't know," Ralph admitted. "Nothing probably." He turned on his suit rockets and felt the sudden surge of power drive him clear of the ship. He watched Diane rocketing away from him to the right. He waved his hand in the bulky spacesuit. "Good luck," he called. "I love you, Diane."

"Ralph," she said. Her voice caught. He heard it catch over the suit radio. "Ralph, we agreed never to—oh, forget it. Good luck, Ralph. Good luck, oh good luck. And I—"

"You what."

"Nothing, Ralph. Good luck."

"Good luck," he said, and headed for the first jumble of space wrecks.

It would probably have taken them a month to explore all the derelicts which were old enough to have Gormann series eighty radarscopes. Theoretically, Ralph realized, even a newer ship could have one. But it wasn't likely, because if someone could afford a newer ship then he could afford a better radarscope. But that, he told himself, was only half the story. The other half was this: with a better radarscope a ship might not have floundered into the sargasso at all....

So it was hardly possible to pass up any ship if their life depended on it—and the going was slow.

Too slow.

He had entered some dozen ships in the first four hours turning, using his shoulder rockets to blast a port hole out and climb in through there. He had not liked what he saw, but there was no preventing it. Without a light it wasn't so bad, but you needed a light to examine the radarscope....

They were dead. They had been dead for years but of course there would be no decomposition in the airless void of space and very little even if air had remained until he blasted his way in, for the air was sterile canned spaceship air. They were dead, and they were bloated. All impossibly fat men, with white faces like melons and gross bodies like Tweedle Dee's and limbs like fat sausages.

By the fifth ship he was sick to his stomach, but by the tenth he had achieved the necessary detachment to continue his task. Once—it was the eighth ship—he found a Gormann series eighty radarscope, and his heart pounded when he saw it. But the scope was hopelessly damaged, as bad as their own. Aside from that one, he did not encounter any, damaged or in good shape, which they might convert to their own use.

Four hours, he thought. Four hours and twelve ships. Diane reported every few moments by intercom. In her first four hours she had visited eight ships. Her voice sounded funny. She was fighting it every step of the way he thought. It must have been hell to her, breaking into those wrecks with their dead men with faces like white, bloated melons—

In the thirteenth ship he found a skeleton.

He did not report it to Diane over the intercom. The skeleton made no sense at all. The flesh could not possibly have decomposed. Curious, he clomped closer on his magnetic boots. Even if the flesh had decomposed, the clothing would have remained. But it was a skeleton picked completely clean, with no clothing, not even boots—

As if the man had stripped of his clothing first.

He found out why a moment later, and it left him feeling more than a little sick. There were other corpses aboard the ship, a battered Thompson '81 in worse shape than their own Gormann. Bodies, not skeletons. But when they had entered the sargasso they had apparently struck another ship. One whole side of the Thompson was smashed in and Ralph could see the repair patches on the wall. Near them and thoroughly destroyed, were the Thompson's spacesuits.

The galley lockers were empty when Ralph found them. All the food gone—how many years ago? And one of the crew, dying before the others.

Cannibalism.

Shuddering, Ralph rocketed outside into the clear darkness of space. That was a paradox, he thought. It was clear, all right, but it was dark. You could see a great way. You could see a million million miles but it was darker than anything on Earth. It was almost an extra-dimensional effect. It made the third dimension on earth, the dimension of depth, seem hopelessly flat.

"Ralph!"

"Go ahead, kid," he said. It was their first radio contact in almost half an hour.

"Oh, Ralph. It's a Gormann. An eighty-five. I think. Right in front of me. Ralph, if its scopes are good—oh, Ralph."

"I'm coming," he said. "Go ahead inside. I'll pick up your beam and be along." He could feel his heart thumping wildly. Five hours now. They did not have much time. This ship—this Gormann eighty-five which Diane had found—might be their last chance. Because it would certainly take him all of three hours to transfer the radarscope, using the rockets from one of their spacesuits, to their own ship.

He rocketed along now, following her directional beam, and listened as she said: "I'm cutting through the porthole now, Ralph. I—"

Her voice stopped suddenly. It did not drift off gradually. It merely ceased, without warning, without reason. "Diane!" he called. "Diane, can you hear me?"

He tracked the beam in desperate silence. Wrecks flashed by, tumbling slowly in their web of mutual gravitation. Some were molten silver if the wan sunlight caught them. Some were black, but every rivet, every seam was distinct. The impossible clarity of blackest space....

"Ralph?" Her voice came suddenly.

"Yes, Diane. Yes. What is it?"

"What a curious thing. I stopped blasting at the port hole. I'm not going in that way. The airlock, Ralph."

"What about the airlock?"

"It opened up on me. It swung out into space, all of a sudden. I'm going in, Ralph."

Fear, unexpected, inexplicable, gripped him. "Don't," he said. "Wait for me."

"That's silly, Ralph. We barely have time. I'm going in now, Ralph. There. I'm closing the outer door. I wonder if the pressure will build up for me. If it doesn't, I'll blast the outer door with my rockets and get out of here.... Ralph! The light's blinking. The pressures building. The inner door is beginning to open, Ralph. I'm going inside now."

He was still tracking the beam. He thought he was close now, a hundred miles perhaps. A hundred miles by suit rocket was merely a few seconds but somehow the fear was still with him. It was that skeleton, he thought. That skeleton had unnerved him.

"Ralph. It's here, Ralph. A radarscope just like ours. Oh, Ralph, it's in perfect shape."

"I'm coming," he said. A big old Bartson Cruiser tumbled by end over end, a thousand tonner, the largest ship he had seen in here so far. At some of the portholes as he flashed by he could see faces, dead faces staring into space forever.

Then Diane's voice suddenly: "Is that you, Ralph?"

"I'm still about fifty miles out," he said automatically, and then cold fear, real fear, gripped him. Is that you, Ralph?

"Ralph, is that—oh, Ralph. Ralph—" she screamed, and was silent.

"Diane! Diane, answer me."

Silence. She had seen someone—something. Alive? It hardly seemed possible. He tried to notch his rocket controls further toward full power, but they were straining already—

The dead ships flashed by, scores of them, hundreds, with dead men and dead dreams inside, waiting through eternity, in no hurry to give up their corpses and corpses of dreams.

He heard Diane again then, a single agonized scream. Then there was silence, absolute silence.

Time seemed frozen, frozen like the faces of the dead men inside the ships, suspended, unmoving, not dropping into the well of the past. The ships crawled by now, crawled. And from a long way off he saw the Gormann eighty-five. He knew it was the right ship because the outer airlock door had swung open again. It hung there in space, the lock gaping—

But it was a long way off.

He hardly seemed to be approaching it at all. Every few seconds he called Diane's name, but there was no answer. No answer. Time crawled with the fear icy now, as cold as death, in the pit of his stomach, with the fear making his heart pound rapidly, with the fear making it impossible for him to think. Fear—for Diane. I love you, Di, he thought. I love you. I never stopped loving you. We were wrong. We were crazy wrong. It was like a sargasso, inside of us, an emptiness which needed filling—but we were wrong. Diane—

He reached the Gormann and plunged inside the airlock, swinging the outer door shut behind him. He waited. Would the pressure build up again, as it had built up for Diane? He did not know. He could only wait—

A red light blinked over his head, on and off, on and off as pressure was built. Then it stopped.

Fifteen pounds of pressure in the airlock, which meant that the inner door should open. He ran forward, rammed his shoulder against it, tumbled through. He entered a narrow companionway and clomped awkwardly toward the front of the ship, where the radarscope would be located.

He passed a skeleton in the companionway, like the one he had seen in another ship. For the same reason, he thought. He had time to think that. And then he saw them.

Diane. On the floor, her spacesuit off her now, a great bruise, blue-ugly bruise across her temple. Unconscious.

And the thing which hovered over her.

At first he did not know what it was, but he leaped at it. It turned, snarling. There was air in the ship and he wondered about that. He did not have time to wonder. The thing was like some monstrous, misshapen creature, a man—yes, but a man to give you nightmares. Bent and misshapen, gnarled, twisted like the roots of an ancient tree, with a wild growth of beard, white beard, heavy across the chest, with bent limbs powerfully muscled and a gaunt face, like a death's head. And the eyes—the eyes were wild, staring vacantly, almost glazed as in death. The eyes stared at him and through him and then he closed with this thing which had felled Diane.

It had incredible strength. The strength of the insane. It drove Ralph back across the cabin and Ralph, encumbered by his spacesuit, could only fight awkwardly. It drove him back and it found something on the floor, the metal leg of what once had been a chair, and slammed it down across the faceplate of Ralph's spacesuit.

Ralph staggered, fell to his knees. He had absorbed the blow on the crown of his skull through the helmet of the suit, and it dazed him. The thing struck again, and Ralph felt himself falling....

Somehow, he climbed to his feet again. The thing was back over Diane's still form again, looking at her, its eyes staring and vacant. Spittle drooled from the lips—

Then Ralph was wrestling with it again. The thing was almost protean. It all but seemed to change its shape and writhe from Ralph's grasp as they struggled across the cabin, but this time there was no weapon for it to grab and use with stunning force.

Half-crazed himself now, Ralph got his fingers gauntleted in rubberized metal, about the sinewy throat under the tattered beard. His fingers closed there and the wild eyes went big and he held it that way a long time, then finally thrust it away from him.

The thing fell but sprang to its feet. It looked at Ralph and the mouth opened and closed, but he heard no sound. The teeth were yellow and black, broken, like fangs.

Then the thing turned and ran.

Ralph followed it as far as the airlock. The inner door was slammed between them. A light blinked over the door.

Ralph ran to a port hole and watched.

The thing which once had been a man floated out into space, turning, spinning slowly. The gnarled twisted body expanded outward, became fat and swollen, balloon-like. It came quite close to the porthole, thudding against the ship's hull, the face—dead now—like a melon.

Then, after he was sick for a moment there beside the airlock, he went back for Diane.

They were back aboard the Gormann '87 now, their own ship. Ralph had revived Diane and brought her back—along with the other Gormann's radarscope—to their battered tub. The bruise on her temple was badly discolored and she was still weak, but she would be all right.

"But what was it?" Diane asked. She had hardly seen her attacker.

"A man," Ralph said. "God knows how long that ship was in here. Years, maybe. Years, alone in space, here in the sargasso, with dead men and dead ships for company. He used up all the food. His shipmates died. Maybe he killed them. He needed more food—"

"Oh, no. You don't mean—"

Ralph nodded. "He became a cannibal. Maybe he had a spacesuit and raided some of the other ships too. It doesn't matter. He's dead now."

"He must have been insane like that for years, waiting here, never seeing another living thing...."

"Don't talk about it," Ralph said, then smiled. "Ship's ready to go, Diane."

"Yes," she said.

He looked at her. "Mars?"

She didn't say anything.

"I learned something in there," Ralph said. "We were like that poor insane creature in a way. We were too wrapped up in the asteroid and the mine. We forgot to live from day to day, to scrape up a few bucks every now and then maybe and take in a show on Ceres or have a weekend on Vesta. What the hell, Di, everybody needs it."

"Yes," she said.

"Di?"

"Yes, Ralph?"

"I—I want to give it another try, if you do."

"The mine?"

"The mine eventually. The mine isn't important. Us, I mean." He paused, his hands still over the controls. "Will it be Mars?"

"No," she said, and sat up and kissed him. "A weekend on Vesta sounds very nice. Very, very nice, darling."

Ralph smiled and punched the controls. Minutes later they had left the sargasso—both sargassos—behind them.

THE END

*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GRAVEYARD OF 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.