The Project Gutenberg EBook of Turnover Point, by Alfred Coppel

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Title: Turnover Point

Author: Alfred Coppel

Illustrator: Emsh

Release Date: February 16, 2010 [EBook #31287]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Amazing Stories April-May 1953. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.

TURNOVER POINT

By ALFRED COPPEL

Illustrator: EMSH

_Every era in history has had its Pop Ganlon's. Along in
years and not successful and not caring much anyway. A
matter of living out their years, following an obscure path
to oblivion._

_It was that way in ancient Egypt, just as it will be when
the Solar System shrinks to our size. And once in a while
such men are given an opportunity to contribute to the
society that has forgotten them...._

* * * * *

Pop Ganlon was no hero--he was only a spaceman. A spaceman and a
father. In fact, Pop was rather no-account, even in a profession that
abounded with drifters. He had made a meagre living prospecting
asteroids and hauling light freight and an occasional passenger out
in the Belt Region. Coffee and cakes, nothing more. Not many people
knew Pop had a son in the Patrol, and even fewer knew it when the boy
was blasted to a cinder in a back alley in Lower Marsport.

Pop went on eating and breathing, but his life was over after that. He
hit the bottle a little harder and his ship, _The Luck_, grew rustier
and tackier, and those were the only outward signs that Pop Ganlon was
a living dead man. He kept on grubbing among the cold rocks and
pushing _The Luck_ from Marsport to Callisto and back with whatever
low-mass payloads he could pick up. He might have lived out his string
of years like that, obscure