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Interstellar Patrol

Christopher Anvil

Edited byEric Flint

This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are

fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental.

"Strangers to Paradise" was first published in Analog, October 1966. "The Dukes of

Desire" was first published in Analog, June 1967. "The King's Legions" was first

published in Analog, September 1967. (These three stories were later combined and

issued as the novel Strangers in Paradise , Tower 1969.) "A Question of Attitude" was

first published in Analog, December 1967. "The Royal Road" was first published in

Analog, June 1968. "The Nitrocellulose Doormat" was first published in Analog, June

1969. "Basic" was first published in Venture Science Fiction, November 1969. "Test

Ultimate" was first published in Analog, October 1969. "Compound Interest" was first

published in Analog, July 1967. "Experts in the Field" was first published in Analog,

May 1967. "The Hunch" was first published in Analog, July 1961. "Star Tiger" was first

published in Astounding, June 1960. "Revolt!" was first published in Astounding, April

1958. "Stranglehold" was first published in Analog, June 1966.

form.

A Baen Books Original

Baen Publishing Enterprises

P.O. Box 1403

Riverdale, NY 10471

www.baen.com

ISBN: 0-7434-3600-8

Cover art by Mark Hennessey-Barratt

First printing, April 2003

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Anvil, Christopher.

Interstellar patrol / by Christopher Anvil ; compiled and edited by Eric Flint.

p. cm.

ISBN 0-7434-3600-8

1. Life on other planets—Fiction. 2. Space warfare—Fiction. 3. Space

ships—Fiction.

I. Flint, Eric. II. Title.

PS3551.N9I58 2003

813'.54—dc21

2003040348

Distributed by Simon & Schuster

1230 Avenue of the Americas

New York, NY 10020

Production by Windhaven Press, Auburn, NH

Printed in the United States of America

Introduction

by David Weber

I'm delighted that someone is making Christopher Anvil's work available once again. Especially the

Interstellar Patrol stories. Vaughan Roberts, Morrissey, and Hammell have always been three of my very

favorite characters, and I've always loved Anvil's . . . peculiar sense of humor.

I suppose, if I'm going to be honest, that Roberts' J-class ship is another of my favorite characters. In

fact, although I hadn't realized it until I sat down to write this introduction, I suspect that there was a lot of

the Patrol boat's computer hiding somewhere in the depths of my memory when I created Dahak for the

Mutineers' Moon series. After all, Dahak is simply another self-aware ship kidnapping itself a captain on

a somewhat larger scale. They even have a few personality traits in common.

The characters themselves are always a delight in an Anvil story or novel. Like most good character

builders, Anvil creates his memorable people for the reader through their interactions, and the edge of

zaniness which seems to creep into almost everything he writes only makes them even more interesting.

His pronounced gift for building larger-than-life planets and environments for them to interact in

sometimes seems to slip past almost unnoticed, yet it is a constant in almost all of his stories, and I think it

is one of his strongest building blocks. He also has more than a touch of the Eric Frank Russell school of

"poor aliens" in his work, because whoever sets out to oppose or overcome one of his characters has all

unknowingly set his foot on the first slippery step of the slope of doom. The only question is how big a

splat the villain is going to make at the foot of the cliff. This shows strongly in the first volume of Anvil's

work from Baen Books, Pandora's Legions , but it makes its appearance in this volume, as well. In this

instance, however, most of the "poor aliens" are actually "poor humans," with a sizable smattering of

unfortunate master computers, robotic police units, and nasty extraterrestrial fauna thrown in for good

measure.

In many ways, Anvil's storytelling style has always reminded me of the historical romance novels by

Georgette Heyer or Lois Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan stories. Like Heyer and Bujold, Anvil's characters

always have a perfectly logical reason for everything they do, yet they slide inevitably from one

catastrophe to another in a slither which rapidly assumes avalanche proportions. A Keith Laumer

character triumphs through an unflinching refusal to yield which transforms him, permits him to break

through to some higher level of capability or greatness. An Anvil character triumphs by shooting the

rapids, by caroming from one obstacle to another, adapting and overcoming as he goes. In many ways,

his characters are science-fiction descendents of Odysseus, the scheming fast thinker who dazzles his

opponents with his footwork. Of course, sometimes it's a little difficult to tell whether they're dazzling an

opponent with their footwork, or skittering across a floor covered in ball bearings. But Anvil has the

technique and the skill to bring them out triumphant in the end, and watching them dance is such a

delightful pleasure.

The stories in this volume are science-fiction in the grand, rip-roaring tradition. Anvil throws around

powerful bureaucracies like the PDA, huge space navies like the Space Force, and deviously capable

guardians of the Right and Good (although said guardians may be just a mite tarnished around the edges)

like the Interstellar Patrol. He delights in creating obscure, complex, often many-sided conundrums for his

characters, and then taking us with him as they unravel the problem one strand at a time. I see a lot of the

Golden Age in his stories, echoes of Williamson's Legion of Space , or of John Campbell's Arcot, Wade,

and Morey in the scale and the sweeping, half-laughing scope of the problems he inflicts upon his

characters. And most delightfully of all, in our post Star Trek universe, there isn't a trace of the Prime

Directive. There are only characters with wit, humor, courage, and rather more audacity than is good for

them.

While it is inevitable that any volume which is going to deal with Vaughan Roberts & Co. has to start

with "Strangers to Paradise," that story—excellent as it is—was never really my favorite Interstellar

Patrol story. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's because the "want-generator" is a bit too much like

Williamson's AKKA super weapon in the Legion of Space stories. Or perhaps it's because the

"want-generator" is a little too much of the one aspect of Anvil's stories which sometimes disturbs me on

a philosophical level. His characters, by their nature, are the sort of people who set out to fix problems,

yet sometimes the means they embrace fringe just a little too closely upon a sort of intellectual

totalitarianism. Not in terms of ideology per se, but in the willingness to manipulate and control in ways

which cannot be resisted. At the same time, however, Anvil is always careful to show the pitfalls of such

an approach, as in "Strangers to Paradise" itself, when the subjects of our heroes' "mind control"

stubbornly persist in doing something their controllers never counted on.

Yet whether or not "Strangers to Paradise" would make my own list of top five Anvil stories, it is

most definitely the direct and necessary progenitor of what undoubtedly are my two favorite IP stories:

"The King's Legions," which is included in this volume, and the short novel Warlord's World , which is not

but which I hope and expect will be along shortly. It's always seemed to me that, just as Laumer's novella

"The Night of the Trolls" captures the essential Laumer hero perfectly, "The King's Legions" and

Warlord's World capture the essential Anvil.

For those of us who have known Anvil for years, this book is a most welcome reunion with old

friends. For those not already familiar with him, it offers an introduction to a writer and to characters very

much worth knowing. In some ways, I rather envy the reader who is about to experience his or her first,

concentrated dose of Anvil-dom. If you're one of those newcomers, welcome aboard. Whichever Anvil

tale winds up your favorite, at least you'll have a rich and varied selection to choose from. This volume

contains many of my favorites, but there's a lot more Anvil out there, and I hope that Baen will bring

more of it to us. In the meantime, you hold in your hands an excellent starting point.

Buckle up tight. It's going to be an . . . energetic ride.

Editor's Preface

Without a doubt, Christopher Anvil's richest and most developed setting was what he and John

Campbell—who edited Astounding/Analog magazine where most of the stories originally

appeared—called "the Colonization series." Anvil wrote over thirty stories in that setting, ranging in length

from short stories to the novel Warlord's World.

At the heart of the Colonization series are the stories concerning the Interstellar Patrol, which are the

best known. But Anvil wrote a number of stories in the same setting, in which the Interstellar Patrol does

not figure directly. These stories often involved such organizations as the Space Force, the Planetary

Development Authority and the Stellar Scouts, the Space Navy—and a wide range of civilians, from big

businessmen to merchant spacemen to colonists on the ground.

Often enough, characters who appear in cameo or minor roles in the Interstellar Patrol stories are the

protagonists of other stories. An example is the ruthless businessman Nels Krojac, who is only mentioned

in passing in "The King's Legions" and "The Royal Road" but is a central figure in "Compound Interest"

and "Experts in the Field."

In this volume, we are reissuing the first two major episodes of Anvil's Interstellar Patrol adventures,

as well as—in Part III—a number of stories which give the reader a sense of the setting as a whole.

—Eric Flint

Part I: Paradise

STRANGERS TO PARADISE

Vaughan Nathan Roberts, captain of the fast interstellar transport Orion, stood in the huge room

amidst all the wheeled and antennaed metal shapes, large and small, and thought of his ship orbiting the

planet with its drive knocked out. The idea of coming to this place, he told himself stubbornly, was to get

repairs. Not to get eaten alive, mobbed, or bundled around by roboid functionaries, but to get repairs.

The question was, how?

Roberts was flanked by metal boxes nearly as tall as himself, much wider and thicker, with whip

antennas on top, bicycle wheels below, and the words "Law Enforcement" blazoned on them front and

back.

Directly in front of Roberts stood a far larger metal box, on low massive wheels, with a variety of

antennas sticking up, and mouthpieces, viewscreens, and receptor heads thrust out toward him under the

glowing letters: CRIMINAL COURT.

From this maze of screens and speakers, a voice was murmuring: " . . . Fingerprints, palm prints,

retinal patterns, total body index: not on record. Conclusion unavoidable that this individual is not native

to this planet."

"I've been trying to tell you," said Roberts, "we had gravitor trouble. We headed for the nearest

repair facility, got here crippled, couldn't raise any response on the communicator, and half-a-dozen of us

came down in the ship's tender. The tender cracked up in a forest forty miles from the spaceport. Three

of my men were badly hurt. One of us stayed with them, and two of us hiked out for help. When we

reached your city, here, we got garbage dumped on us, tin cans and chunks of cement slung at us, a gang

of kids went for us, and then your iron gendarmes arrested us for causing a riot."

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