Free The Star by Arthur C. Clarke

swiftly away; within seconds we could see no sign at all of the buildings and instruments we had so laboriously erected and which future explorers would one day use.
    The homeward voyage had begun. We returned to Earth in uneventful discomfort, joined the already half-dismantled Goddard beside Space Station Three, and were quickly ferried down to the world we had left seven months before.
    Seven months : that, as Williams had pointed out, was the all-important figure. We had been on the moon for more than half a financial year—and for all of us, it had been the most profitable year of our lives.
    Sooner or later, I suppose, this interplanetary loop-hole will be plugged; the Department of Inland Revenue is still fighting a gallant rear-guard action, but we seem neatly covered under Section 57, paragraph 8 of the Capital Gains Act of 1972. We wrote our books and articles on the moon—and until there’s a lunar government to impose income tax, we’re hanging on to every penny.
    And if the ruling finally goes against us—well, there’s always Mars….

The Pacifist
    First published in Fantastic Universe , October 1956
    Collected in Tales from the White Hart

    John Christopher and John Wyndham flit briefly across the stage as Harry Purvis spins another yarn at the White Hart, this time telling the story of a very early, ingenious computer virus…

    I got to the ‘White Hart’ late that evening, and when I arrived everyone was crowded into the corner under the dartboard. All except Drew, that is: he had not deserted his post, but was sitting behind the bar reading the collected T. S. Eliot. He broke off from The Confidential Clerk long enough to hand me a beer and to tell me what was going on.
    ‘Eric’s brought in some kind of games machine—it’s beaten everybody so far. Sam’s trying his luck with it now.’
    At that moment, a roar of laughter announced that Sam had been no luckier than the rest, and I pushed my way through the crowd to see what was happening.
    On the table lay a flat metal box the size of a checkerboard, and divided into squares in a similar way. At the corner of each square was a two-way switch and a little neon lamp: the whole affair was plugged into the light socket (thus plunging the dartboard into darkness) and Eric Rodgers was looking round for a new victim.
    ‘What does the thing do?’ I asked.
    ‘It’s a modification of naughts and crosses—what the Americans call ticktacktoe. Shannon showed it to me when I was over at Bell Labs. What you have to do is to complete a path from one side of the board to the other—call it north to south—by turning these switches. Imagine the thing forms a grid of streets, if you like, and these neons are the traffic lights. You and the machine take turns making moves. The machine tries to block your path by building one of its own in the east-west direction—the little neons light up to tell you which way it wants to make a move. Neither track need be a straight line: you can zigzag as much as you like. All that matters is that the path must be continuous, and the one to get across the board first wins.’
    ‘Meaning the machine, I suppose?’
    ‘Well, it’s never been beaten yet.’
    ‘Can’t you force a draw, by blocking the machine’s path, so that at least you don’t lose?’
    ‘That’s what we’re trying: like to have a go?’
    Two minutes later I joined the other unsuccessful contestants. The machine had dodged all my barriers and established its own track from east to west. I wasn’t convinced that it was unbeatable, but the game was clearly a good deal more complicated than it looked.
    Eric glanced round his audience when I had retired. No one else seemed in a hurry to move forward.
    ‘Ha!’ he said. ‘The very man. What about you, Purvis? You’ve not had a shot yet.’
    Harry Purvis was standing at the back of the crowd, with a faraway look in his eye. He jolted back to earth as Eric addressed him, but didn’t answer the