Translation of chapter one of Clark Carrados Battlefield, translated from Spanish to English by Fred Patten. The full text is omitted for reasons of copyright, but in summary:
We are introduced to Patrol Ship 220-A, her captain Lewis Frehan, and the six men of his crew. Heading in through the asteroid belt towards Mars, from an otherwise routine patrol (unlike the last one which involved Plutonian diamond smugglers) they come across an unknown ship, apparently hiding on an asteroid. After reporting this to headquarters, they approach only to have the unknown ship explode! They report this development to headquarters, and Captain Frehan decides to go investigate that nearby asteroid.
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What will daring young Captain Frehan find on the mysterious asteroid? The ruins of an exploded starship? Alien invaders? More Plutonian diamond smugglers? Don't miss next week's Apa L for Chapter 2 of this exciting interplanetary epic!
Dian Pelz -- How do you like the above for building up our page count? I can go on reprinting this stuff at a chapter a week indefinitely, or until someone turns me in for copyright violation, at least.
Chuck Crayne -- Moving sidewalks and roadways were used at least as far back as Jules Verne (in The Begum's Fortune, I think). There was one in operation at the Paris Exhibition of 1900, where it was generally referred to as one of Verne's inventions brought-to-life. (So were several other "inventions of the next century" exhibited there; I haven't been able to find out if Verne actually rode on it or not.) The moving roadway is a lot more practical idea than the motorized roller skates proposed by Gernsback in Ralph 124C 41+ later on; I can't recall any other stf author proposing that one seriously.
Sally Crayne -- Your note about dentists needing patients for their state dental exams reminds me of something my dentist said to me about a year ago. "It looks like I'm going to have to pull a couple of teeth out, here." "What!? Why??" "Don't worry, you won't feel anything, and you'll get replacements so good that you won't even remember that they aren't the real thing." "What's wrong with the teeth I've got now? They aren't bothering me!" "Yes, but they won't come out by themselves; I'll have to pull them to get rid of them." "Why in God's name should I want to get rid of any of my teeth? I like 'em firmly attached in my mouth." "Now, don't worry; it's not going to hurt a bit..." It took him about five minutes to stop just repeating "Don't worry, you won't feel anything," and tell me why he wanted to pull them; I was beginning to think he was just determined to make me a customer for some of his false teeth, whether I needed them or not. I still have all my real teeth, by the way; it turned out that he just wanted to pull a couple of perfectly good rear teeth so that there wouldn't be any danger of my wisdom teeth impacting when they came in, and I told him I'd worry about that if and when they impacted. They didn't.
