Free Meet Me at Infinity by James Tiptree Jr. Page A

when—gentlemen, did it never cross your conniving minds that this is a general courts offense?” He reached out and laid his hand on the emergency starcall cradled between him and Imray. “My only sane course is to bring this to a halt right now—regardless.”
    He yanked the caller from its cradle.
    They gaped at him. Sylla’s ears folded back.
    “Lieutenant, no,” said Pomeroy.
    Quent fingered the starcall. His solemn face was corded.
    “What’s the nature of this emergency, Mr. Pomeroy?”
    “Some en-aitch trouble.” Pomeroy spread his hands. “Signal split before they got much. They gave the Jasper some stuff—”
    “Three argon cylinders, one case of mudbinds, one pan-venom kit,” said Miss Campbell from the shaftway. “And an incubator.”
    She placed a breakfast server on Quent’s console and departed.
    “You figure it, sir,” Pomeroy chuckled hopefully.
    Quent’s face did not soften. He tapped a square nail on the starcall, slowly, desperately. Nobody moved. Sylla’s leg muscles bunched; Quent’s free hand drifted to the laser. There was a faint slithering sound. Quent’s jaw jerked around to Svensk.
    The big saurian’s fingers came away from his vest and he stretched ostentatiously, jogging the computer.
     
    Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean, roll!
    Ten thousand fleets—
     
    Quent slapped it silent with the laser. He lifted the starcall.
    “No, son, no,” Imray protested.
    Quent drew a deep breath. For a moment the Jasper Banks nee Rosenkrantz fled on through the abyss in humming silence. The aroma of bacon drifted through her bridge. Quent’s strained face began to work convulsively.
    “Kavrots,” he muttered.
    He let out an inarticulate howl.
    Sylla’s reflexes carried him into the bow grips and Pomeroy dived under his board. They goggled at Quent. He was making a wild whooping noise which they could not at first identify.
    Then Pomeroy crawled out, grinning, and Imray’s shoulders started to quake.
    Quent roared on. His face was astounded, like a man who hasn’t heard himself guffawing wholeheartedly in years. Invisible around him, ghosts of the Adastra, Crux, Sirian shriveled and whirled away.
    “All right,” he gasped, sobering. He pushed the starcall and the laser back in place and reached for his breakfast.
    “Kavrots. So be it. Who’s on watch in this fugnest?”
     
    One night in 1967 or 1968, during the second season of Star Trek, Alice Sheldon happened to see an episode. She quickly became a fan and supporter of the show, writing letters to NBC and the sponsors thanking them for its existence (and later, taking them to task for its cancellation). As Tiptree, she wrote to Gene Roddenberry and Leonard Nimoy (praising Nimoy for his depiction of an alien, “the first real alien ever”).
    Tiptree even decided to try and write for Star Trek, and sent a story entitled “The Nowhere People” to Roddenberry on August 28, 1968. It was returned unread on September 20, with a letter stating that the studio could not “read or consider unsolicited literary material.” Tiptree wrote to Fred Pohl, Harry Harrison, and David Gerrold asking for advice on getting the story on the show.
    She eventually gave up on the idea of writing for the series, and it was canceled, anyway. “The Nowhere People,” after a couple title changes, was published as “Meet Me at Infinity” in the Star Trek fanzine Eridani Triad in 1972.
    Ideas for several other Star Trek stories went undeveloped, but while still trying to sell “The Nowhere People” to the show she created her own starship and crew, and plotted out four storylines for them (“two adventures, two deeper types”). Before writing them, though, she went back to do a story introducing the crew. This was submitted to John W. Campbell, Jr., at Analog on November 18, 1968, as “Happiness Is a Warm Spaceship” (the alternate titles” Two—Four-Six—Eight! Don’t Want To—’” and “The Shakedown Artists” were offered).