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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Senior Controller Dag Fletcher was beginning to feel very angry with the whole pointless business. What had begun as a commercial and training flight aboard the old I.G.O. corvette Interstellar X had gathered such complications to itself that the mission was drifting towards a first class muddle. The planet looked bad enough. They were awkwardly placed in their makeshift silo. Land survey was not going to be a picnic. But he had to find a site and leave it equipped as the local consulate. Complications began straight away in the shape of Vernon Spencer, the Corporation Chairman's nephew. He was being given his last chance to shine. Then Vanora joined the ship ... This is the fifth book in the Dag Fletcher Galactic series.

eBook Publisher: Golden Apple, Wallasey, Published: UK, 1968
Fictionwise Release Date: April 2004

This eBook is part of the following series:

• John Rankine's Dag Fletcher Galactic Series

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [193 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [193 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [164 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [572 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [188 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [270 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [213 KB] , hiebook (KML) [437 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [232 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [154 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [191 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [232 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [248 KB]
Words: 56421
Reading time: 161-225 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

Senior Controller Dag Fletcher stubbed the repeat button, with a quick decisive jab, and settled back in his swivel chair to hear it all again. In the seconds it took to sort itself out, he turned away from his admin console and watched an incoming ship on to its pad. From this high window in the European Space Corporation H.Q. block, he had a panoramic view of the complex; an ant hill of some ten thousand personnel to keep the silver ships moving about the galaxy.

Against his knowledge of every aspect of space fleet operation, he had to evaluate the spiel from the psychological assessment lab. It was all meretricious stuff; but for his money it told only a tiny fraction of the human story. Psychometrics had its place. Centuries of experience underpinned its main theoretical predictions. Group wise, it was very good and could tell you a good deal about how an average man would behave. Its weakness lay in the fact that there was no average man, living or dead. The only acid test of any individual was what he made of a whole life and no test could simulate that. There was a valid point there, of course, you couldn't wait that long to find out.

By this time, the cool, precise voice of the records librarian was in full spate and he listened again to the breakdown of test results on Vernon Spencer. He spared a thought to wonder whether Paul V. Spencer, the Corporation's Chairman, had yet had this report on his nephew. Probably not, or he would have been down from his penthouse, gunning for somebody. It was certainly a stinker and hearing it twice produced no new, favourable nuance on any part of it. Stress tolerance below any acceptable level, suggestibility high, a cluster of attitude ratings which would have looked at home on a profile card for a criminal lunatic.

Fletcher had heard enough and from his memory of the young crewman did not believe a word of it. Even the accompanying picture record which was simultaneously screened for him was incongruous. Thin featured, dark, wiry build, the young Spencer had an "attack" at some of the traditional survival and command problems which belied the figures in the report. It was at this point in training that all the information came together. Either it went forward with his O.K. for the next stage or the man was out. It was a part of the job that he did not much like. The axeman. Playing God. Five years intensive work and a word from him made it pointless. But it was a function he would not delegate.