Click on image to enlarge.

	Regular				Club
You Pay:	$0.99				$0.84

eBook Category: Science Fiction
eBook Description: Gunnderson was a hobo, a bum, shut out from society because of his unusual psi power. But even he did not know their full extent, and now Earth's military leaders have asked him to perform an unthinkable act.

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

47 Reader Ratings:

Great	Good	OK	Poor

Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [38 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [33 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [24 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [106 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [25 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [44 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [96 KB] , hiebook (KML) [88 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [53 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [21 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [26 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [54 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [40 KB]
Words: 7657
Reading time: 21-30 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

"Alf," said the bodiless voice from the rear of the darkened auditorium, "light that cigarette on the table. Put it in your mouth and make it light, Alf. Without a match."

Alf Gunnderson stood in the circle of light. He shifted from leg to leg on the blazing stage, and eyed the cylinder of white paper on the table.

It was starting again. The harrying, the testing, the staring with strangeness. He was different--even from the other accredited psioid types--and they would try to put him away. It had happened before, it was happening now. There was no real peace for him.

"I don't smoke," he said, which was not true. But this was brother kin to the uncountable police line-ups he had gone through, all the way across the American Continent, across Earth, and from A Centauri IX back here. It annoyed him, and it terrified him, for he knew he was trapped.

Except this time, there were no hard, rock-faced cops out there in the darkness beyond his sight. This time there were tough, rock-faced Bureau men, and SpaceCom officials.

Even Terrence, head of SpaceCom, was sitting in one of those pneumoseats, watching him steadily.

Daring him to be what he was!

He lifted the cylinder hesitantly, almost put it back.

"Smoke it, Alf!" snapped a different voice, deeper in tone, from the ebony before him.

He put the cigarette between his lips. They waited.

He seemed to want to say something, perhaps to object. Alf Gunnderson's heavy brows drew down. His blank eyes became--if it were possible--even blanker. A sharp, denting V appeared between the brows.

The cigarette flamed into life.

A tongue of fire leaped up from the tip. In an instant it had consumed tobacco, paper, filter and de-nicotizer in one roar. The fire slammed against Gunnderson's lips, searing them, lapping at his nose, his face.

He screamed, fell on his face and beat at the flames with his hands.