BY R.R. BEDFORD

There are times in life when you just know, I mean really just know, you are unhappy straight down to your soul. Tonight, for Nash Hudson, was one of those times. Autras was a strange planet to begin with. A place of smugglers, dens of iniquity and alleys where cheap lives are quickly spent.

Hudson had come looking for adventure. Then, when his money and luck ran out, he stayed in his despiration to prove his "I told you so" sister back home wrong. "Go to the frontier," she had said, "you'll be broke or dead or both within a month," she said. She had been wrong, but only by five days.

Thirty six days on his own and Nash Hudson was neither a made man nor a Horace Greely success story. He was, rather, a cleaner of defelope droppings from the cage runs where the racing rodents of Autras were penned. Barely enough credits to rent a dingy room, in a dingier rooming house, in the dingiest part of a dingy frontier town.

There, in the pile of shed fur and excrement, something shiny glowed. Nash bent to pick it up and found it to be a key. A key to a safety deposit box in the only bank in this wild town. Pocketing the key, Nash finished his work and his shift, cashed out for the day and left the pen area.

Passing a scant few trainers, security men and track hangers on Hudson shuffled through the tunnel from the pens under the grandstand and to the exit gate. A brief wave of the hand to the last guard and he was free for the rest of the day. Feeling the key in his pocket, nash with drew it and looked at the numbers 180564. He suddenly smiled, May 18th '64 was his date of birth. Coincidence? Hudson did not think so. this key must be meant for him and him alone.

The bank had not yet closed. He entered in and presented the key. Despite his rough appearance the clerk warmly welcomed him and showed him to a private cubicle. She brought the box in shortly thereafter and discretely left him alone to open it in privacy.

Open it he did. A small orb, made of a crystaline substance lay within. Exposed to light it began to take on a life of its own. A warm glow eminated to fill the cubicle and to awe Nash Hudson. Reaching in Nash took the orb in one hand and extracted it from the safety deposit box. He looked but the coins, or letters of credit or jewels he hoped would be resting inside with the orb were not there.
He felt the orb heat in his hand and shifted it to the other one. Deciding to put the orb back into the box, Nash then placed both hands onto it to center it in the safety deposit box. The charge, like an electric shock passed through him. He found himself growing weaker and yet unable to remove his hands from the orb, nor could he call out, his voice seemed to die in his throat.

Suddenly, it was as if the orb had sucked him, first into the safety deposit box and then into the orb itself. The lid closed on the box, the interior darkened. A while later, wondering where the key holder had gone, the clerk put box 160564 back into its appointed slot.

There are times in your life when you just know, I mean really just know you are unhappy straight down to your soul. Tonight, for Cheryll Miller, was one of those times. Autras was a strange planet to begin with. A place of smugglers, dens of iniquity and alleys were cheap life is quickly spent.

END...or is it...