The Project Gutenberg EBook of Miracle by Price, by Irving E. Cox

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most
other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of
the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at
www.gutenberg.org.  If you are not located in the United States, you'll have
to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this ebook.

Title: Miracle by Price

Author: Irving E. Cox

Release Date: January 19, 2019 [EBook #58730]

Language: English

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRACLE BY PRICE ***

Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

MIRACLE BY PRICE

BY IRVING E. COX, JR.

They said old Doctor Price was an inventive
genius but no miracle worker. Yet—if he didn't
work miracles in behalf of an over-worked
little guy named Cupid, what was he doing?

Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1954.
Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

Memo to: Clayton, Croyden and Hammerstead, Attorneys
Attention: William Clayton
From: Walter Gordon

Dear Bill:

Enclosed is the itemized inventory of the furnishings of the late Dr. Edward Price's estate. As you requested, I personally examined the laboratory. Candidly, Bill, you needed a psychiatrist for the job, not a graduate physicist. Dr. Price was undoubtedly an inventive genius a decade ago when he was still active in General Electronics, but his lab was an embarrassing example of senile clutter.

You had an idea, Bill, that before he died Price might have been playing around with a new invention which the estate could develop and patent. I found a score of gadgets in the lab, none of them finished and none of them built for any functional purpose that I could discover.

Only two seemed to be completed. One resembled a small, portable radio. It was a plastic case with two knobs and a two-inch speaker grid. There was no cord outlet. The machine may have been powered by batteries, for I heard a faint humming when I turned the knobs. Nothing else. Dr. Price had left a handwritten card on the box. He intended to call it a Semantic-Translator, but he had noted that the word combination was awkward for commercial exploitation, and I suppose he held up a patent application until he could think of a catchier name. One sentence on that card would have amused you, Bill. Price wrote, "Should wholesale for about three-fifty per unit." Even in his dotage, he had an eye for profit.

The Semantic-Translator—whatever that may mean—might have had possibilities. I fully intended to take it back with me to General Electronics and examine it thoroughly.

The second device, which Price had labeled a Transpositor, was large and rather fragile. It was a hollow cylinder of very small wires, perhaps a foot in diameter, fastened to an open-faced console crowded with a weird conglomeration of vacuum tubes, telescopic lenses and mirrors. The cylinder of wires was so delicate that the motion of my body in the laboratory caused it to quiver. Standing in front of the wire coil were two brass rods. A kind of shovel-like chute was fixed to one rod (Price called it the shipping board). Attached to the second rod was a long-handled pair of tongs which he called the grapple.

The Transpositor was, I think, an outgrowth of Price's investigation of the relationship between light and matter. You may recall, Bill, the brilliant technical papers he wrote on that subject when he was still working in the laboratories of General Electronics. At the time Price was considered something of a pioneer. He believed that light and matter were different forms of the same basic element; he said that eventually science would learn how to change one into the other.

I seriously believe that the Transpositor was meant to do precisely that. In other words, Price had expected to transpose the atomic structure of solid matter into light, and later to reconstruct the original matter again. Now don't assume, Bill, that Price was wandering around in a senile delusion of fourth dimensional nonsense. The theory may be sound. Our present knowledge of the physical world makes the basic structure of matter more of a mystery than it has ever been.

Not that I think Price achieved the miracle. Even in his most brilliant and productive period he could not have done it. As yet our accumulation of data is too incomplete for such an experiment. I believe that Price created no more than a very realistic illusion with his arrangement of lenses and mirrors.

I saw the illusion, too; I used the machine.

There were two dials on the front of the console. One was lettered "time", and the other "distance". The "time" dial could be set for eons, centuries or hours, depending upon the position of a three-way switch beneath it; the "distance" dial could be adjusted to light years, thousand-mile units, or kilometers by a similar device. Since there was no indication which position would produce what results, I left the dials untouched. I plugged the machine into an electric outlet and pushed the starter button. The coil of wire blazed with light and the chute slid rapidly in and out of the cylinder.

That was all, at first. The starter button was labeled "the shipper", and I gathered that Price had visualized the practical application of the Transpositor as a device for transporting goods from one point to another.

I looked around the lab for something I could put into the chute. There was a card, written in red, warning me not to load beyond the dimensional limits of the chute. The only thing I saw that was small enough was the little radio-like gadget Price had called a Semantic-Translator. Loaded horizontally, it just barely fit the chute.

I pushed the shipper button a second time. Again there was a blaze of light, brighter than before, which temporarily blinded me. For a moment I saw the Semantic-Translator in the heart of the fragile, wire cylinder. It had the glow of molten steel, pouring from a blast furnace.

Then it was gone. The chute shot back to the front of the machine. The tray was empty.

Was it an illusion? I believe that, Bill, because later on, when I thought of using the grapple....

Miss Bertha Kent walked back the gravel trail from the dressing room. The early morning sun was bright and warm, but she held her woolen robe tight across her throat. She tried to avoid looking at the other camps—at the sleepy-eyed women coming out of tents, and the men starting morning fires in the stone rings.

Bitterness was etched in acid in her soul. She made herself believe it was because she hated Yosemite. The vacation had been such a disappointment. She had expected so much and—as usual—it had all gone wrong.

Her hope had been so high when school closed; this year was going to be different!

"Are you going anywhere this summer?" Miss Emmy asked after the last faculty meeting in June.

"To Yosemite for a couple of weeks, I think."

"The Park's always crowded. You ought to meet a nice man up there, Bertha."

"I'm not interested in men," Miss Kent had replied frostily. "I'm a botany teacher and it helps me professionally if I spend part of the summer observing the phenomenon of nature."

"Don't kid me, Bertha. You can drop the fancy lingo, too; school's out. You want a man as much as I do."

That was true, Miss Kent admitted—in the quiet of her own mind. Never aloud; never to anyone else. Six years ago, when Bertha Kent had first started to teach, she had been optimistic about it. She wanted to marry; she wanted a family of her own—instead of wasting her lifetime in a high school classroom playing baby sitter for other people's kids. She had saved her money for all sorts of exotic summer vacations—tours, cruises, luxury hotels—but somehow something always went wrong.

To be sure, she had met men. She was pretty; she danced well; she was never prudish; she liked the out-of-doors. All positive qualities: she knew that. The fault lay always with the men. When she first met a stranger, everything was fine. Then, slowly, Miss Kent began to see his faults. Men were simply adult versions of the muscle-bound knot-heads the administration loaded into her botany classes.

Bertha Kent wanted something better, an ideal she had held in her mind since her childhood. The dream-man was real, too. She had met him once and actually talked to him when she was a child. She couldn't remember where; she couldn't recall his face. But the qualities of his personality she knew as she did her own heart. If they had existed once in one man, she would find them again, somewhere. That was the miracle she prayed for every summer.

She thought the miracle had happened again when she first came to Yosemite.

She found an open campsite by the river. While she was putting up her tent, the man from the camp beside hers came to help. At first he seemed the prototype of everything she hated—a good-looking, beautifully co-ordinated physical specimen, as sharp-witted as a jellyfish. The front of his woolen shirt hung carelessly unbuttoned. She saw the mat of dark hair on his chest, the sculpted curves of sun-tanned muscle. No doubt he considered himself quite attractive.

Then, that evening after the fire-fall, the young man asked her to go with him to the ranger's lecture at Camp Curry. Bertha discovered that he was a graduate physicist, employed by a large, commercial laboratory. They had at least the specialized area of science in common. By the time they returned from the lecture, they were calling each other by first names. The next day Walt asked her to hike up the mist trail with him to Nevada Falls.

The familiar miracle began to take shape. She lay awake a long time that night, looking at the dancing pattern of stars visible through the open flap of her tent. This was it; Walt was the reality of her dream. She made herself forget that every summer for six years the same thing had happened. She always believed she had found her miracle; and always something happened to destroy it.

For two days the idyll lasted. The inevitable awakening began the afternoon they drove along the Wawona highway to see the Mariposa Grove of giant sequoias. They left their car in the parking area and walked through the magnificent stand of cathedral trees. The trail was steep and sometimes treacherous. Twice Walt took her arm to help her. For some reason that annoyed her; finally she told him,

"I'm quite able to look after myself, Walt."

"So you've told me before."

"After all, I've been hiking most of my life. I know exactly what to do—"

"There isn't much you can't take care of for yourself, is there, Bertha?" His voice was suddenly very cold.

"I'm not one of these rattle-brained clinging vines, if that's what you mean. I detest a woman who is always yelping to a man for help."

"Independence is one thing, Bertha; I like that in a woman. But somehow you make a man feel totally inadequate. You set yourself up as his superior in everything."

"That's nonsense, Walt. I'm quite ready to grant that you know a good deal more about physics than I do."

"Say it right, Bertha. You respect the fact that I hold a PhD." He smiled. "That isn't the same thing as respecting me for a person. I knew you didn't need my help on the trail, but it was a normal courtesy to offer it. It seems to me it would be just as normal for you to accept it. Little things like that are important in relations between people."

"Forget it, Walt." She slipped her hand through his. "There, see? I'll do it just the way you want."

She was determined not to quarrel over anything so trivial, though what he said seemed childish and it tarnished the dream a little. But the rest was still good; the miracle could still happen.

Yet, in spite of all her effort, they disagreed twice more before they left the Mariposa Grove. Bertha began to see Walt as he was: brilliant, no doubt, in the single area of physical science, but basically no different from any other man. She desperately wished that she could love him; she earnestly wished that the ideal, fixed so long in her mind, might be destroyed.

But slowly she saw the miracle slip away from her. That night, after the fire-fall, Walt did not ask her to go with him to the lecture. Miserable and angry, Bertha Kent went into her tent, but not to sleep.

She lay staring at the night sky, and thinking how ugly the pin-point lights of distant suns were on the velvet void. As the hours passed, she heard the clatter of pans and voices as people at the other campsites retired. She heard Walt when he returned, whistling tunelessly. He banged around for nearly an hour in the camp next to hers. He dropped a stack of pans; he overturned a box of food; he tripped over a tent line. She wondered if he were drunk. Had their quarreling driven him to that? Walt must have loved her, then.

After a time all the Coleman lanterns in the camp were out. Still Bertha Kent did not sleep. The acid grief and bitterness tormented her with the ghost of another failure, another shattered dream. She listened to the soft music of the flowing stream, the gentle whisper of summer wind in the pines, but it gave her no peace.

Suddenly she heard quiet footsteps and the crackling of twigs behind her tent. She was terrified. It must be Walt. If he had come home drunk, he could have planned almost any kind of violence by way of revenge.

The footsteps moved closer. Bertha shook off the paralysis of fear and reached for her electric lantern. She flashed the beam into the darkness. She saw the black bulk of a bear who was pawing through her food box.

She was so relieved she forgot that a bear might also be a legitimate cause of fear. She ran from the tent, swinging the light and shooing the animal away as she would have chased a puppy. The bear swung toward her, roaring and clawing at the air. She backed away. The bear swung its paws again, and her food box shattered on the ground, in a crescendo of sound.

Bertha heard rapid footsteps under the pines. In the pale moonlight she saw Walt. He was wearing only a pair of red-striped boxer shorts. He was swinging his arms and shouting, but the noise of the falling box had already frightened the bear away.

Walt stood in the moonlight, smiling foolishly.

"I guess I came too late," he said.

"I'm quite sure the bear would have left of its own accord, Walt. They're always quite tame in the national parks, you know." As soon as she said it, she knew it was a mistake. Even though he had done nothing, it would have cost her little to thank him. The words had come instinctively; she hadn't thought how her answer would affect him. Walt turned on his heel stiffly and walked back to his tent.

With a little forethought—a little kindness—Bertha might even then have rescued her miracle. She knew that. She knew she had lost him now, for good. For the first time in her life she saw the dream as a barrier to her happiness, not an ideal. It held her imprisoned; it gave her nothing in exchange.

She slept fitfully for the rest of the night. As soon as the sun was up, she pulled on her woolen robe and went to the dressing room to wash. She walked back along the gravel path, averting her eyes from the other camps and the men hunched over the smoking breakfast fires. She hated Yosemite. She hated all the people crowded around her. She had made up her mind to pack her tent and head for home. This was just another vacation lost, another year wasted.

She went into her tent and put on slacks and a bright, cotton blouse. Then she sat disconsolate at her camp table surveying the mess the bear had made of her food box. There was nothing that she could rescue. She could drive to the village for breakfast, but the shops wouldn't open for another hour.

Behind her she heard Walt starting his Coleman stove. Yesterday he would have offered her breakfast; now he'd ignored her. All along the stream camp fires were blazing in the stone rings. Bertha wondered if she could ask the couple on the other side of her campsite for help. They had attempted to be friendly once before, and Bertha hadn't responded with a great deal of cordiality. They weren't the type she liked—a frizzy-headed, coarse-voiced blonde, and a paunchy old man who hadn't enough sense to know what a fool he looked parading around camp in the faded bathing trunks he wore all day.

Suddenly a light flashed in Bertha's face. A metal shovel slid out of nothingness and deposited a tiny, rectangular box on the table. For a long minute she stared at the box stupidly, vaguely afraid. Her mind must be playing her tricks. Such things didn't happen.

She reached out timidly and touched the box. It seemed real enough. A miniature radio of some sort, with a two-inch speaker. She turned the dials. She heard a faint humming.

The coarse-voiced blonde came toward the table.

"We just heard what happened last night, Miss Kent," she said. "Me and George. About the bear, I mean."

Bertha forced a smile. "It made rather a shambles, didn't it?"

"Gee, you can't make breakfast out of a mess like this. Why don't you come and eat with us?"

The blonde went on talking, apologizing for what she was serving and at the same time listing it with a certain pride. Strangely, Miss Kent heard not one voice, but two. The second came tinnily from the little box on the table,

"You poor, dried-up old maid. That guy who's been hanging around would have been over long before this, if you knew the first thing about being nice to a man."

Bertha gasped. "Really, if that's the way you feel—"

"Why, honey, I just asked you over for breakfast," the blonde answered; at the same time the voice from the machine said,

"I suppose George and me ain't good enough for you. O.K. by me, sister. I didn't really want you to come anyway."

Trembling, Miss Kent stood up. "I've never been so insulted!"

"What's eating you, Miss Kent?" The blonde seemed genuinely puzzled, but again the voice came from the plastic box,

"The old maid's off her rocker. You'd think she was reading my mind."

Switching her trim little hips, the blonde walked back to her own camp. Bertha Kent dropped numbly on the bench, staring at the ugly box. "Reading my mind," the woman had said. Somehow the machine had done precisely that, translating the blonde's spoken words into the real, emotional meaning behind them. It was a terrifying gadget. Bertha was hypnotized by its potential horror—like the brutal, devastating truth spoken by a child.

A camper walked past on the road, waving at Miss Kent and calling out a cheerful good morning. But again the machine read the real meaning behind the pleasant words.

"So you've finally lost your man, Miss Kent. The way you dished out the orders, it's a wonder he stayed around as long as he did. And a pity: you're an attractive woman. You should make some man a good wife."

They all thought that. The whole camp had been watching her, laughing at her. Bertha felt helpless and alone. She needed—wanted—someone else; it surprised her when she faced that fact.

Then it dawned on her: the camper was right; the blonde was right. She had lost Walt through her own ridiculous bull-headedness. In order to assert herself. To be an individualist, she had always thought. And what did that matter, if it imposed this crushing loneliness?

For a moment a kind of madness seized her. It was the diabolical machine that was tormenting her, not the truth it told. She snatched a piece of her broken food box and struck at the plastic case blindly. There was a splash of fire; the gadget broke.

She saw Walt look up from his stove. She saw him move toward her. But she stood paralyzed by a shattering trauma of pain. The voice still came from the speaker, and this time it was her own. Her mind was stripped naked; she saw herself whole, unsheltered by the protective veneer of rationalization.

And she knew the pattern of the dream-man she had loved since her childhood; she knew why the dream had been self-defeating.

For the idealization was her own father. That impossible paragon created by the worship of a child.

The shock was its own cure. She was too well-balanced to accept the tempting escape of total disorientation. Grimly she fought back the tide of madness, and in that moment she found maturity. She ran toward Walt, tears of gratitude in her eyes. She felt his arms around her, and she clung to him desperately.

"I was terrified; I needed you, Walt; I never want to be alone again."

"Needed me?" he repeated doubtfully.

"I love you." After a split-second's hesitation, she felt his lips warm on hers.

From the corner of her eye she saw a chute dart out of nowhere and scoop up the broken plastic box from the camp table. They both vanished again. That was a miracle, too, she supposed; but not nearly as important as hers.

Then the reason of a logical mind asserted its own form of realism: of course, none of it had happened. The mind-reading gadget had been a device created in her own subconscious, a psychological trick to by-pass the dream that had held her imprisoned. She knew enough psychology to understand that.

She ran her fingers through Walt's dark hair and repeated softly,

"I love you, Walt Gordon."

Was it an illusion? I believe that, Bill, because later on, when I thought of using the grapple, I brought the Semantic-Translator back from nowhere. Apparently the smaller gadget had been in the console or behind it. I hadn't seen it when I searched, because my eyes had been hurt by the glare of light.

In the process the Translator somehow got twisted around, for the chute dragged it back vertically through the coil of wire. It touched the wall of the cylinder, and the whole machine exploded.

It was impossible to save anything from the wreckage. But as a physicist I assure you, Bill, the transposition of matter into light is, in terms of our present science, a physical impossibility. It is certainly not the sort of invention that could have been produced by a senile old man, pottering around in a home laboratory. The only thing I regret is that I had no opportunity to examine the Semantic-Translator, but I'm sure it would have proved just as much nonsense.

I'm going up to Yosemite tomorrow for a couple of weeks. If you want any further details on the Price inventory, look me up at the office when I come home.

Yours,
Walt Gordon

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Miracle by Price, by Irving E. Cox

*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MIRACLE BY PRICE ***

***** This file should be named 58730-h.htm or 58730-h.zip *****
This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
        http://www.gutenberg.org/5/8/7/3/58730/

Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net

Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will
be renamed.

Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright
law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,
so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United
States without permission and without paying copyright
royalties. Special rules, set forth in the General Terms of Use part
of this license, apply to copying and distributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm
concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark,
and may not be used if you charge for the eBooks, unless you receive
specific permission. If you do not charge anything for copies of this
eBook, complying with the rules is very easy. You may use this eBook
for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports,
performances and research. They may be modified and printed and given
away--you may do practically ANYTHING in the United States with eBooks
not protected by U.S. copyright law. Redistribution is subject to the
trademark license, especially commercial redistribution.

START: FULL LICENSE

THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK

To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full
Project Gutenberg-tm License available with this file or online at
www.gutenberg.org/license.

Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works

1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all
the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or
destroy all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your
possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a
Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound
by the terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the
person or entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph
1.E.8.

1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be
used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few
things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See
paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this
agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works. See paragraph 1.E below.

1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the
Foundation" or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection
of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual
works in the collection are in the public domain in the United
States. If an individual work is unprotected by copyright law in the
United States and you are located in the United States, we do not
claim a right to prevent you from copying, distributing, performing,
displaying or creating derivative works based on the work as long as
all references to Project Gutenberg are removed. Of course, we hope
that you will support the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting
free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm
works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the
Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with the work. You can easily
comply with the terms of this agreement by keeping this work in the
same format with its attached full Project Gutenberg-tm License when
you share it without charge with others.

1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are
in a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States,
check the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this
agreement before downloading, copying, displaying, performing,
distributing or creating derivative works based on this work or any
other Project Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no
representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any
country outside the United States.

1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:

1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other
immediate access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear
prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work
on which the phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the
phrase "Project Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed,
performed, viewed, copied or distributed:

  This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
  most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no
  restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it
  under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this
  eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the
  United States, you'll have to check the laws of the country where you
  are located before using this ebook.

1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is
derived from texts not protected by U.S. copyright law (does not
contain a notice indicating that it is posted with permission of the
copyright holder), the work can be copied and distributed to anyone in
the United States without paying any fees or charges. If you are
redistributing or providing access to a work with the phrase "Project
Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the work, you must comply
either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 or
obtain permission for the use of the work and the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any
additional terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms
will be linked to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works
posted with the permission of the copyright holder found at the
beginning of this work.

1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.

1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
Gutenberg-tm License.

1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including
any word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access
to or distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format
other than "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official
version posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site
(www.gutenberg.org), you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense
to the user, provide a copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means
of obtaining a copy upon request, of the work in its original "Plain
Vanilla ASCII" or other form. Any alternate format must include the
full Project Gutenberg-tm License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.

1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.

1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
provided that

* You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
  the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
  you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed
  to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he has
  agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments must be paid
  within 60 days following each date on which you prepare (or are
  legally required to prepare) your periodic tax returns. Royalty
  payments should be clearly marked as such and sent to the Project
  Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the address specified in
  Section 4, "Information about donations to the Project Gutenberg
  Literary Archive Foundation."

* You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
  you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
  does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
  License. You must require such a user to return or destroy all
  copies of the works possessed in a physical medium and discontinue
  all use of and all access to other copies of Project Gutenberg-tm
  works.

* You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of
  any money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
  electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days of
  receipt of the work.

* You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
  distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.

1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work or group of works on different terms than
are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing
from both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and The
Project Gutenberg Trademark LLC, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm
trademark. Contact the Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.

1.F.

1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
works not protected by U.S. copyright law in creating the Project
Gutenberg-tm collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may
contain "Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate
or corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other
intellectual property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or
other medium, a computer virus, or computer codes that damage or
cannot be read by your equipment.

1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH 1.F.3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
DAMAGE.

1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you
received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium
with your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you
with the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in
lieu of a refund. If you received the work electronically, the person
or entity providing it to you may choose to give you a second
opportunity to receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If
the second copy is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing
without further opportunities to fix the problem.

1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO
OTHER WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT
LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.

1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of
damages. If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement
violates the law of the state applicable to this agreement, the
agreement shall be interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or
limitation permitted by the applicable state law. The invalidity or
unenforceability of any provision of this agreement shall not void the
remaining provisions.

1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in
accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the
production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm
electronic works, harmless from all liability, costs and expenses,
including legal fees, that arise directly or indirectly from any of
the following which you do or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this
or any Project Gutenberg-tm work, (b) alteration, modification, or
additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any
Defect you cause.

Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm

Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of
computers including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It
exists because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations
from people in all walks of life.

Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
assistance they need are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project
Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future
generations. To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation and how your efforts and donations can help, see
Sections 3 and 4 and the Foundation information page at
www.gutenberg.org

Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation

The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
number is 64-6221541. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent permitted by
U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.

The Foundation's principal office is in Fairbanks, Alaska, with the
mailing address: PO Box 750175, Fairbanks, AK 99775, but its
volunteers and employees are scattered throughout numerous
locations. Its business office is located at 809 North 1500 West, Salt
Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887. Email contact links and up to
date contact information can be found at the Foundation's web site and
official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact

For additional contact information:

    Dr. Gregory B. Newby
    Chief Executive and Director
    gbnewby@pglaf.org

Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
Literary Archive Foundation

Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations
($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
status with the IRS.

The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations
where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To SEND
DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any particular
state visit www.gutenberg.org/donate

While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
approach us with offers to donate.

International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.

Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other
ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations. To
donate, please visit: www.gutenberg.org/donate

Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works.

Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project
Gutenberg-tm concept of a library of electronic works that could be
freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and
distributed Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of
volunteer support.

Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
editions, all of which are confirmed as not protected by copyright in
the U.S. unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not
necessarily keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper
edition.

Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search
facility: www.gutenberg.org

This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.