The Project Gutenberg EBook of Vampires of Space, by Sewell Peaslee Wright

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Title: Vampires of Space

Author: Sewell Peaslee Wright

Release Date: July 8, 2009 [EBook #29353]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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[Transcriber's Note:

This etext was produced from Astounding Stories, March 1932. Extensive
research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this
publication was renewed.]

[Illustration: _Our sprays met them in mid air._]

Vampires of Space

By Sewell Peaslee Wright

Commander John Hanson recounts his harrowing adventure with
the Electites of space.

Sometimes, I know, I must seem a crotchety old man. "Old John Hanson,"
they call me, and roll their eyes as though to say, "Of course, you have
to forgive him on account of his age."

But the joke isn't always on me. Not infrequently I gain much amusement
observing these cocky youngsters who strut in the blue-and-silver
uniforms of the Service in which, until more or less recently, I bore
the rank of Commander.

There is young Clippen, for instance, a nice, clean youngster; third
officer, I believe, on the _Caliobre_, one of the newest ships of the
Special Patrol Service. He drops in to see me as often as he has leave
here at Base, to give me the latest news, and to coax a yarn, if he can,
of the old days. He is courteous, respectful ... and yet just a shade
condescending. The condescension of youth.

"Something new under the sun after all, sir," he commented the other
day. That, incidentally, is a saying of Earth, whence the larger part of
the Service's officer personnel has always been drawn. Something new
under the sun! The saying probably dates back to an age long before man
mastered space.

"Yes?" I leaned back more comfortably, happy, as always, to hear my
native Earth tongue, and to speak it. The Universal language has its
obvious advantages, but the speech of one's fathers wings thought
straightest to the mind. "What now?"

"Creatures of space