FORGOTTEN WORLD

By EDMOND HAMILTON

[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Thrilling Wonder Stories Winter 1946. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]

CHAPTER I

Stranger from the Stars

Carlin was the only one of the four hundred passengers on the "Larkoom" who hated the star-ship and everything about it.

He was bored with the vessel and everyone aboard. A pack of chattering idiots! For the hundredth time since leaving Canopus, he told himself that he was a monumental fool to let that psychotherapist talk him into this crazy trip.

A blond girl from Altair Four came tripping along the deck and favored Laird Carlin with the bright smile that all the younger feminine tourists had practised on the tall, dark, dour-looking young man.

The blonde from Altair Four favored the tall dour-looking young man with a bright smile.

"Oh, Mr, Carlin, the annunciators just said that we're only eight hours from Sol. By night, we'll be on Earth! Isn't it thrilling?"

"Just what is thrilling about it?" Carlin asked sourly.

The girl was a little dumfounded. "Why, I mean, Earth! All the ancient history we study in schools, about how men first came from there two thousand years ago. Or was it twenty-one hundred?"

She prattled on, voicing all the appropriate clichés.

"Just think, all of us in this ship came from different stars and worlds, yet long ago all our ancestors lived on that one little world Earth. And they say it's still much the same as it was then. Isn't it wonderful?"

Carlin could not see anything wonderful about it, and a little wearily he said so.

The girl flushed in exasperation. "Then why are you going to Earth at all?"

Why indeed, Carlin wondered savagely? Why the devil wasn't he back on the other side of the galaxy where he belonged, 

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