Ryeland's

For all of Ryeland's life the Planner had been watching him.

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963

Ron Donderevo had come to Earth as a student of space medicine at the great technological institute where Ryeland's father was a mathematics professor.

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963

Machine Major Chatterji got up, smiling blankly through his gleaming glasses, waving a copy of Ryeland's orders from the Machine.

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963

Ryeland's mind was teeming with jetless drives and the steady-state hypothesis and three missing days and Major Chatterji is authorized to reconsider and the fact that the Planner had known about his interview with Donna in her bath.

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963

On one table was a man of Ryeland's approximate build, with a great sighing bellows box pumping air through a complicated nest of piping.

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963

And Ryeland's guess, based on Algol's cycle and a careful recollection of how they had slept and eaten, was that no less than six months had already passed.

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963

The little man's condition was clearly not good but, in truth, it was not Oporto that was on Ryeland's mind just then.

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963

Could he remove Ryeland's collar-here in the reefs, without all the elaborate surgical facilities that had been available at the stockpile?

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963

Ryeland's mathematician's mind fitted pieces together; the spaceling, he thought, must form a capsule which instantly shapes itself to meet the resistance-forming the perfect streamline shape for its needs, blunt teardrop at a hundred miles an hour, needle as it approached sound's speed, probably wasp-waisted area-rule profile at higher speeds.

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963

It was as though he had read Ryeland's thoughts-easy enough, Ryeland realized.

Starchild Omnibus Pohl, Frederik & Williamson, Jack 1963