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eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: As Ernie Terrence guides his damaged sniper-class scout ship onto a Life Hutch planetoid, he expects the little rescue station he finds there to keep him comfortable while the Fleet responds to his distress signal. Instead, he is confronted by an unexpected adversary.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com, Published: 1956
Fictionwise Release Date: November 2000

70 Reader Ratings: Great Good OK Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: Adobe Acrobat (PDF) [73 KB], eReader (PDB) [28 KB], Palm Doc (PDB) [15 KB], Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [14 KB], Microsoft Reader (LIT) [37 KB] - PocketPC 1.0+ Compatible, Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [86 KB], hiebook (KML) [65 KB], Sony Reader (LRF) [40 KB], iSilo (PDB) [12 KB], Mobipocket (PRC) [16 KB], Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [43 KB], OEBFF Format (IMP) [26 KB]
Words: 4553
Reading time: 13-18 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Adobe Acrobat (PDF) Format:  Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

An unusual ANALOG-style hard-SF story from Ellison. Chilling, but absolutely first rate. -Robert J. Sawyer, Fictionwise Recommender

God bless you, little life hutch, Terrence had thought as he dropped the helmet and gloves. He had glanced around, noting the relay machines picking up messages from outside, sorting them, vectoring them off in other directions. He had seen the medicine chest clamped onto the wall; the refrigerator, he knew, would be well-stocked if a previous tenant hadn't been there before the stockman could refill it. He had seen the all-purpose robot, immobile in its duty-niche. And the wall-chronometer, its face smashed. All of it in a second's glance.

God bless, too, the gentlemen who thought up the idea of these little rescue stations, stuck all over the place for just such emergencies as this. He had started to walk across the room.

It was at this point that the service robot, that kept the place in repair between tenants and unloaded supplies from the ships, had moved clankingly across the floor, and with one fearful smash of a steel arm thrown Terrence across the room.