E-text prepared by Greg Weeks, Pat A. Benoy,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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Transcriber's Note:
Transcriber notes in thetext are identified by red dashed underlines.Hovering the cursor over the underlined text will reveal minor typographical errorspresent in the original text which have been corrected by the transcriber.
This etext was produced from Space Science Fiction, March, 1953. Extensiveresearch did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publicationwas renewed.
BREAKING
POINT
BY JAMES E. GUNN
ILLUSTRATED BY EBEL
The ship was proof against any test, but the men inside her could bestrained and warped, individually and horribly. Unfortunately, while themen knew that, they couldn't really believe it. The Aliens could—anddid.
[Pg 8]They sent the advance unit out to scout the new planet in theAmbassador, homing down on the secret beeping of a featurelessbox dropped by an earlier survey party. Then they sat back atGHQ and began the same old pattern of worry that followed everyadvance unit.
Not about the ship. The Ambassador was a perfect machine,automatic, self-adjusting, self-regulating. It was built to lastand do its job without failure under any and all conditions, aslong as there was a universe around it. And it could not fail.There was no question about that.
But an advance unit is composed of men. The factors of safetyare indeterminable; the duplications of their internalmechanisms are conjectural, variable. The strength of the unitis the sum of the strengths of its members. The weakness of theunit can be a single small failing in a single man.
Beep ... boop ...
"Gotcha!" said Ives. Ives was Communications. He had quick eyes, quickhands. He was huge, almost gross, but graceful. "On the nose," hegrinned, and turned up the volume.
Beep ... boop ...
"What else do you expect?" said Johnny. Johnny was the pilot—young,wide, flat. His movements were as controlled and decisive as those ofthe ship itself, in which he had an unshakeable faith. He slid into thebucket seat before the great master console.
Beep ... boop ...
"We expect the ship to do her job," said Hoskins, the Engineer. He wasmild and deft, middle-aged, with a domed head and wide, light-blue eyesbehind old fashioned spectacles. He shared Johnny's belief in themachine, but through understanding rather than through admiration. "Butit's always good to see her do it."
Beep ... boop ...
"Beautiful," said Captain Anderson softly, and he may have been talkingabout the way the ship was homing in on the tiny, featureless box thatSurvey had dropped on the unexplored planet, or about the planet itself,or even about the smooth integration of his crew.
Beep ... boop ...
Paresi said nothing. He had eyebrows and nostrils as