Transcriber's Note:
This etext was produced from Astounding Stories February 1932. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.
The Pygmy Planet
By Jack Williamson
"Nothing ever happens to me!" Larry Manahan grumbled under his breath,sitting behind his desk at the advertising agency which employed hisservices in return for the consideration of fifty a week. "All theadventure I know is what I see in the movies, or read about inmagazines. What wouldn't I give for a slice of real life!"
It paused, seeming to regard them with malevolenteyes.
Unconsciously, he tensed the muscles of his six feet of lean, hardbody. His crisp, flame-colored hair seemed to bristle; his blue eyesblazed. He clenched a brown hammer of a fist.
Larry felt himself an energetic, red-blooded square peg, badlyafflicted with the urge for adventure, miserably wedged in a roundhole. It is one of the misfortunes of our civilization that a youngman who, for example, might have been an excellent pirate a couple ofcenturies ago, must be kept chained to a desk. And that seemed to beLarry's fate.
"Things happen to other people," he muttered. "Why couldn't anadventure come to me?"
He sat, staring wistfully at a picture of a majestic mountainlandscape, soon to be used in the advertising of a railway companywhose publicity was handled by his agency, when the jangle of thetelephone roused him with a start.
"Oh, Larry—" came a breathless, quivering voice.
Then, with a click, the connection was broken.
The voice had been feminine and had carried a familiar ring. Larrytried to place it, as he listened at the receiver and attempted to getthe broken connection restored.
"Your party hung up, and won't answer," the operator informed him.
He replaced the receiver on the hook, still seeking to follow the thinthread of memory given him by the familiar note in that eager excitedvoice. If only the girl had spoken a few more words!
Then it came to him.
"Agnes Sterling!" he exclaimed aloud.
Agnes Sterling was a slender, elfish, dark-haired girl—lovely, he hadthought her, on the occasions of their few brief meetings. Larry knewher as the secretary and laboratory assistant of Dr. Travis Whiting, aretired college professor known for his work on the structure of theatom. Larry had called at the home-laboratory of the savant, monthsbefore, to check certain statistics to be used for advertisingpurposes and had met the girl there. Only a few times since had heseen her.
Now she had called him in a voice that fairly trembled withexcitement—and, he thought, dread! And she had been interruptedbefore she had time to give him any message.
For a few seconds Larry stared at the telephone. Then he rose abruptlyto his feet, crammed his hat on his head, and started for the door.
"The way to find adventure is to go after it," he murmure