Christopher Anvil
A Tourist Named Death
( Dec. 30, 2019)
"Exactly. Truth is inhabited. The inhabitants look much like us, and they're very highly developed technologically, though there is no sign that they use space travel in any form. The problem is that Galactic's cargo ships will pass close enough to Truth so that the inhabitants—call them Truthians—will eventually detect them and may or may not like the idea. Galactic's worry is that after sinking a lot of money into the development of Triax, and just as it's about to make a profit on the planet, these Truthians may blossom out with a fleet of commerce raiders, or else claim sovereignty over all contiguous space and land Galactic in a big court fight." Kielgaard glanced at Dan with a smile. "Suppose you were running Galactic and had this problem. What would you do?"
"Try to vary the route. But subspace being what it is, a mild variation of the starting point can produce an abrupt shift in the place where they come out."
"What's this Truth look like?"
"Earth-type, with cities and towns scattered over its surface at random, some of the cities remarkably advanced, some antique, with forest and wilderness in between, and only haphazard communications between cities."
"Try to vary the route. But subspace being what it is, a mild variation of the starting point can produce an abrupt shift in the place where they come out."
"What's this Truth look like?"
"Earth-type, with cities and towns scattered over its surface at random, some of the cities remarkably advanced, some antique, with forest and wilderness in between, and only haphazard communications between cities."