Challenge 84

Derring-Do and a Wet Rag

We’ll have two Challenges this time: the first for veterans, the second for newcomers. Bewildering Stories likes to have something for everybody.

Readers who have been following Michael Tyzuk’s serials, Moonshadow and The Dilemma, know that both stories take place in the same universe: a fairly distant future in which a human Federation has encountered a few spacefaring alien species. In fact, both stories may well be taking place at exactly the same time.

The Moonshadow has a new crew and a new mission: it will be a privateer patrolling the rough-and-ready spaceways against pirates. Elsewhere, high-ranking naval officers Jeff Richardson and Cale Sandorsen have their hands full with space navy admirals on one side and bioengeneering rebels on another.
1. Sandorsen hasn’t yet told even his close friend Jeff what his suspicions are. What do you think they might be?
2. How might the Moonshadow and her crew tie in with Sandorsen’s plans? They’re pretty fast on the draw when it comes to shootouts, but so is the space navy. Might they serve better as spies? For whom, and in what way?
Here’s an easy one. Gerald Sheagren’s “Fried” ends:
With an anguished cry, Kelly brought up the wet rag with which he had been mopping the bar and plopped it against his throbbing head.
Doesn’t Kelly overreact a little to the television news bulletin he’s just heard? Is he affected by the highly improbable coincidences? Or is something else troubling him?