The evening was dark, it was unlikely that the other even saw the circle of steel that was the mouth of the shotgun barrel, now resting on the car's window ledge.
"Who's it?" he growled.
Joe Prantera said softly, "Big Louis sent me, Al."
And he pressed the trigger.
And at that moment, the universe caved inward upon Joseph Marie Prantera.
There was nausea and nausea upon nausea.
There was a falling through all space and through all time. There was doubling and twisting and twitching of every muscle and nerve.
There was pain, horror and tumultuous fear.
And he came out of it as quickly and completely as he'd gone in.
He was in, he thought, a hospital. His second thought was Something went wrong. Big Louis, he ain't going to like this.
Author Biography
Dallas McCord "Mack" Reynolds (1917 - 1983) was an American science fiction writer. His pen names included Dallas Ross, Mark Mallory, Clark Collins, Dallas Rose, Guy McCord, Maxine Reynolds, Bob Belmont and Todd Harding. His work focused on socioeconomic speculation, usually expressed in thought-provoking explorations of utopian societies from a radical, sometime satiric perspective. He was a popular author from the 1950s to the 1970s, especially with readers of science fiction and fantasy magazines. Reynolds was the first author to write an original novel based upon the 1966-1969 NBC television series Star Trek. The book, Mission to Horatius (1968), was aimed at young readers.
