Expanded Universe (Robert A. Heinlein) читать бесплатно онлайн полную версию книги

FOREWORD

When the USSR refused our proposals for controlling the A - bomb, I swore off "World - Saving." No more preaching. No more attempts to explain the mortal peril we were in. No, sir!

A year and a half later, late '47, I backslid. If it could not be done by straightforward exposition, perhaps it could be dramatized as fiction.

Again I fell flat on my face.

Fifteen years later there was a tremendous flap over Soviet medium - range missiles in Cuba. Then they were removed - or so we were told - and the flap died out. Why? Why both ways? For years we have had Soviet submarines on both coasts; are they armed with slingshots? Or powder puffs?

This story is more timely today, over thirty years later, than it was when it was written; the danger is enormously greater.

And again this warning will be ignored. But it won't take much of your time; it's a short - short, a mere 2200 words.