Roger D. Aycock

“ She cornered Wesley one morning just after Miriam had driven away to school in her coupe.
"It's high time you stopped mooning around with the stars, Wesley Filburn," his Aunt Jessica said, "and took stock of yourself. You're thirty-two years old, you've no income except the miserable dribble you get from your wild stories and you've no more responsibility than a wild goat in the hills. It's time you settled down." ”

“ Clelling, completely telepathic among his own kind and nearly so with humanity—as witness his instant grasp of English—anticipated Wesley's questions with answers that left him dizzier than before.
"The galaxy is a more populous place than you imagine," Clelling said. "And civilized to a degree beyond your comprehension. Transportation and trade among so many differing worlds is a complex business occupying the attention of millions. My wife and I deal in travel for pleasure—we are what you would call tourist agents."
A vision of seeing Aldhafera at first hand electrified Wesley. ”

“ His Aunt Jessica had brought him up from childhood after the death of his parents, who had owned his half of the inn before him; he owed her a great deal for her care and affection, as he had been told often enough to remove any lingering doubt, and the least he could do now was heed her wiser counsel.
"I'm too old and worn to keep the inn as it should be kept," his Aunt Jessica went on firmly. "I'm ready to retire and live with my widowed sister in California, but I can't go until you're safely settled with someone who will see that you take care of your own interests. ”

“ To distract resentful thought Wesley turned to his Adventure again, forgetting in the fascination of his third brochure that, for him, doom rhymed with June. The locale this time was a planet called Porizinia, circling Alpha Bootis—Arcturus. No life existed upon the surface of Porizinia because of her primary's tremendous heat, but the subterranean world below was something else again. The planet was largely igneous and so translucent, clear enough to let Arcturus light with fairy luminescence the endless labyrinth of caverns and tunnels that made up a nether environment all their own. ”

“ Wesley hefted his packet. "What do you mean?"
"You know what I mean," Charlie said. "When Miss Jessica retires you'll really have it made, with Miriam looking after the inn while you pull in big money writing."
He stretched his underlip with thumb and forefinger and let it snap back. "It could be as good for a man with a job like mine, if he had a half interest in a place like this to begin with. I'd jump at it just like you did."
Wesley was amazed and chilled. "You'd marry for convenience?" ”

“ On these luxurious clouds, in sylvan groves and orchid gardens and dew-bright dells, lived a benevolent race of humanoids further advanced in the gentle art of keeping the peace with one another than humanity was ever likely to be. ”

“ Enclosed was another check that would have made Wesley drunk with triumph but for the knowledge that June was only three weeks away.
The Porizinian story was mailed. Another brochure arrived, and another; life became a predictable routine; half labor, half escape. Wesley wrote and dreamed and talked briefly over the gate with Charlie Birdsall. Now and then, too tired to sit longer at his typewriter, he sat on the verandah at night with his Aunt Jessica and Miriam. ”

“ But he lacked the nerve, and knew it—how ever to explain it all to his Aunt Jessica?—and settled on the brochure as compensation in itself. It solved his difficulties with Aldhaferian story before he had finished the first two pages. The second planet of Aldhafera's major twin was precisely what he had needed for his space-rover's utopia, but with innovations wonderful to behold. ”

“ She seemed to be so much smaller than any
child would be, turned out with a fragile
perfection more doll-like than human....
Roger Dee returns to these pages with the story of Wesley Filburn—diffident, gentle, dreaming Wesley Filburn—whom it seemed life had passed by, until something strange and wonderful happened to him over on Sampson's Creek, and Wesley became aware of new and wonderful worlds—particularly wonderful Sonimuira! A new life had begun! ”

“ Below lay an ocean world dotted with green-and-coral archipelagoes, inhabited by a satisfactorily savage species of non-humanoids whose evolutionary line had worked the flotation principle into its own makeup. ”