The Project Gutenberg EBook of Oomphel in the Sky, by Henry Beam Piper

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Title: Oomphel in the Sky

Author: Henry Beam Piper

Release Date: February 23, 2007 [EBook #20649]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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OOMPHEL ...
... IN THE SKY

By H. BEAM PIPER

+--------------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| Transcriber's Note |
| |
| This etext was produced from Analog Science Fact--Science |
| Fiction, November 1960. Extensive research did not uncover |
| any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was |
| renewed. |
| |
+--------------------------------------------------------------+

[Illustration]

_Since Logic derives from postulates, it never has, and never will,
change a postulate. And a religious belief is a system of
postulates ... so how can a man fight a native superstition with
logic? Or anything else...?_

Illustrated by Bernklau

Miles Gilbert watched the landscape slide away below him, its quilt of
rounded treetops mottled red and orange in the double sunlight and, in
shaded places, with the natural yellow of the vegetation of Kwannon. The
aircar began a slow swing to the left, and Gettler Alpha came into view,
a monstrous smear of red incandescence with an optical diameter of two
feet at arm's length, slightly flattened on the bottom by the western
horizon. In another couple of hours it would be completely set, but by
that time Beta, the planet's G-class primary, would be at its
midafternoon hottest. He glanced at his watch. It was 1005, but that was
Galactic Standard Time, and had no relevance to anything that was
happening in the local sky. It did mean, though, that it was five
minutes short of two hour