The Project Gutenberg eBook, Breaking Point, by James E. Gunn

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: Breaking Point

Author: James E. Gunn

Release Date: July 2, 2007 [eBook #21988]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BREAKING POINT***

E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, Pat A. Benoy, and the Project Gutenberg
Online Distributed Proofreading Team (http://www.pgdp.net)

Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 21988-h.htm or 21988-h.zip:
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/1/9/8/21988/21988-h/21988-h.htm)
or
(http://www.gutenberg.net/dirs/2/1/9/8/21988/21988-h.zip)

+------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Transcriber's note: |
| |
| Illustration captions were added by transcriber. |
| |
| Three obvious typographical errors were corrected: |
| undertsood//understood, detectible//detectable, |
| and loosend//loosened. |
| |
| This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction, |
| March, 1953. Extensive research did not uncover any |
| evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication |
| was renewed. |
| |
+------------------------------------------------------------+

BREAKING POINT

by

JAMES E. GUNN

Illustrated by Ebel

[Illustration: Frontispiece: spaceman studying a chess board.]

[Illustration: Spider and rat in outer space surrounded by planets.]

The ship was proof against any test, but the men inside her could be
strained and warped, individually and horribly. Unfortunately, while the