CHAPTER 1Quick Montage: Trouble on the Moon
Von Zorn was about to make a speech. The chief of Nine Planets Films, Inc., sat rigidly at his semi-circular glass desk, staring at the televisor eye a few feet away. In a moment his small, simian face would be reproduced on receiver-screens all over the System—for this was an interplanetary hook-up. Once each week Nine Planets took the air, but, though stars and singers and comedians performed often, it was seldom indeed that the chief condescended to speak.
Anthony Quade, camera expert, had arranged his large body comfortably in a nearby chair, and was sketching a libelous caricature of Von Zorn on a convenient pad. He was wondering why the chief had sent for him. Something had gone wrong, of course.
He didn’t know what, but when anything we
