The Project Gutenberg eBook of Treasure of Triton 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 will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: Treasure of Triton Author: Charles A. Baker Illustrator: Hannes Bok Release date: April 19, 2020 [eBook #61872] Language: English Credits: Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREASURE OF TRITON *** Produced by Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net TREASURE OF TRITON By CHARLES A. BAKER The Space Patrol and the terrible guards of Triton pursued Wolf Larsen. But the black pirate had two aces in the hole--creation's richest prize, and a ray-death route to freedom. [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories Spring 1941. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] Triton was a dead world. The hydrogen snow that covered the illimitable desolation of the plain glowed a weird green in the dying Neptune-light. Above it, grim and black, towered the west wall of the great Temple of Triton. The evening gale had drifted the snow high against its east wall, but here, in its lee, the ground was bare. The faint light struck sparks of color from the gravel, the stones, the boulders--gravel that was ruby and sapphire, stones that were giant moissonites, boulders that were titanic diamonds. The _Wolf Cub_ rested on that gravel, its beryllium sides a sickly green. In all that world, only Wolf Larsen lived and moved and breathed. An alien might have correctly supposed that this world had been dead for untold ages, that the builders of its Temple had perished incalculably long ago, that nothing would ever live here again. Wolf Larsen knew better. In a few hours, it would be dawn, and the strange life of Triton would revive. That was the reason for his haste. The job had taken longer than he had expected. The Temple was built of cyclopean blocks of bort--black diamond, the hardest of all substances. The life-span of a Tritonian is ten times that of a human, but no one would ever know how many generations it had taken the Tritonians, with their primitive technique, to hew those innumerable blocks. Nor did the Tritonians themselves know for how long they had worshiped at that fane. Most authorities agreed that it must have been old before the Pyramids of Egypt were begun. The Temple was windowless, and had only one door, some six feet square. Set in the middle of the west face, it was hewn from a single gigantic block of bort. With that door, Larsen had been struggling ever since the evening gale died down. It had proved harder to blast a hole through the bort than he had anticipated. And its thickness had amazed him. He had been unable to get at its lock; if, indeed, it had a lock. In fact, he might as well have tried to blast through the wall itself. Triton, Neptune's moon, keeps one face always turned toward that planet, and the Temple was built directly beneath it. While Larsen toiled, the slender crescent of the primary had broadened to the full, ten times brighter than earth's moon, and now was dwindling once more. Larsen had not slept for over sixty hours; and despite his vacuum-walled, electrically heated space-suit, he was chilled to the bone, his hands numbed with a cold but a few degrees above absolute zero. Not in twenty years in the mines of Mercury had he toiled as he had done in those sixty hours. First, he had burned holes in the bort. Then he had filled them with cartridges of the fine hydrogen snow, intimately mixed with solid oxygen pulverized equally fine. Finally he had exploded the mixture with a micro-wave, and cleared out the shattered bort. Where the tough stuff had merely crackled, he had pried it out with a crowbar, until the bar, brittle with cold, had snapped short. But now the worst of his task was finished. At long last, he had holed through the door. Larsen emerged from the _Wolf Cub_ carrying his oxy-hydrogen cutting torch, a heavy load even in the light gravity of Triton. A star of blue light flared from it, and snowflakes dropped from the star, as the products of its combustion condensed in the cold. If he once extinguished that torch, its fuel would freeze solid, and there would be no lighting it again. For all his weariness, and for all the cold, a fierce exultation fired him. His long planning, his months-long voyage through the void, were about to bring fruit. The most priceless jewel in the solar system was within his grasp. Larsen had done many things for jewels. He had violated every law of every world. He had killed more men than he himself could remember. He had stolen meteoric diamonds from Mars, and rubies from Ganymede; emeralds from Titan, and priceless moissonites from Oberon. And these he had hidden well on a nameless asteroid, and they could stay there till the end of time for all Larsen, or anyone else, cared. By the time the Interplanetary Patrol caught up with him, and he served a twenty-year term in the mines of Mercury, the spacemen had reached Triton. And there they had found rubies and emeralds, diamonds and moissonites and every gemstone known in the solar system, as common as clay or lime on earth, and Larsen's carefully hidden jewels were worth as much as so many pebbles. * * * * * At first, Larsen had come very near to killing himself, when he learned that. But a scheme had come to him. There was the Eye of Triton, the great stone which people of Neptune's moon had worshiped for untold Neptunian ages. It was clearly unique on Triton, where all other gems were so abundant. It must be unique in the system; certainly in its historical value. What value the Tritonians themselves set on it could be judged from the immense strength of the Temple they had built to guard it. Tradition held that the Eye had dropped from the heavens; a meteor, perhaps torn from the heart of Neptune; perhaps from another system. Few humans had ever seen it, and those only from a distance, and in the worst of lights. But they agreed that it was transparent white, like a diamond. Moreover, it was set as the eye of a life-sized statue of a Tritonian--and the eye of a Tritonian is upwards of five inches in diameter. A certain plutocrat of Cyrene had offered Larsen a cool million for the Eye, even if it turned out to be nothing but a diamond. For a million, you could buy everything that Cyrene had to offer and Cyrene, the pleasure-dome on the far side of earth's moon, offered every pleasure and every luxury that mankind had ever developed. Men could prolong their lives, and their vigor, indefinitely nowadays if they could afford to pay for all the resources of modern medicine. Best of all, the I.P.P. had no jurisdiction in Cyrene, and the local authorities never bothered any resident of the little planet provided he was supplied with money enough. It would be doubly pleasant to win such a fortune at the expense of the Tritonians. To be sure, they had never been known to harm anyone. But it was precisely such inoffensive beings that Larsen loathed and despised most bitterly. Besides, he blamed them for the discovery of the gems which had made his own valueless. In any case, he had gone too far to back down now. Landing on Triton without a license, as he had done, was itself a violation of Interplanetary Law. Attempted violation of a Tritonian temple was a serious offense. If the Patrol caught him, he would spend the rest of his life in the mines of Mercury. And they would be sure to catch him if he failed to get the Eye. It wasn't like the good old days, when an outlaw could always keep a million miles ahead of the Patrol. Now every port where he might obtain supplies was too closely watched. Only Cyrene offered a place of refuge, and there only to a man with plenty of money. Larsen smiled grimly. Whatever happened, he was not going back to the mines. There was always one very sure way of cheating the law! He pushed the torch ahead of him through the hole, cautiously. Its exhaust condensed to ice on the cold bort. A few projections of the bort barred his way. Larsen turned up the torch, directed it on them. The bort glowed yellow in the fierce heat, as the pure carbon burned, which condensed to dry ice on his space-suit. When those obstructions were gone, Larsen crawled past into the Temple, and stood up. A thin powder of snow covered everything. The bluish glare of the torch, reflected from it, suggested but faintly the vastness of the place. Before him crouched a monstrous figure, human sized, but lobster shaped, its head enormous, its dozen legs many jointed. Many similar figures lay on the floor, as stiffly motionless, each grasping a massive double-headed ax. Larsen had to turn up his torch before he could be sure that the crouching figure was indeed the idol he sought, and those others its guardian priests, frozen in the death-like sleep of their kind. Not till dawn could anything awaken them. Dawn, he knew, could not be far off. But he reckoned that it would take some time for its reviving warmth to penetrate the immense thickness of those walls. Cautiously, he wiped the snow off the single enormous eye that occupied the center of the idol's forehead. The eye flashed fire at him; blue-white, transparent, lustrous as a diamond. It had been cut, diamond fashion, in many facets, to resemble the many-lensed, insect-like eyes of the Tritonians themselves. The eye was set in a band of cement. Larsen tested that cement with a chisel. He cursed. It was almost as hard as the bort from which the idol had been hewn. He dared take no chances on scratching the Eye. He turned on his torch full blast, and began to cut into the bort around the cement, careful to keep the flame away from the Eye. Sudden heating might crack that mysterious stone. * * * * * Larsen worked feverishly, forgetful of time, sweating despite the chill, until he felt a draught on his back; a cold that bit through his space-suit to his very marrow. Snowflakes were swirling around him. The dawn-wind, blowing through the hole in the door! On Triton, the hydrogen atmosphere froze every night. From either side, winds rushed in to fill the vacuum, but themselves froze before they had gone far. The Eye seemed loose in its socket. Larsen turned down the torch. Cautiously, he grasped the cement. The Eye came away in his hand. He was used, by now, to the low gravity of Triton, but the lightness of the stone surprised him. It seemed as light as pumice. Larsen looked up just in time. The Tritonians were stirring! The wind, so cold to him, was warm to them; it meant air to them. Those great pale eyes--one to each Tritonian--were fixed on him, glaring with a phosphorescent luster. There was no expression on their gargoyle faces. Their cavernous mouths gaped open; toothless, but rimmed with razor-sharp horn, like the jaws of a snapping turtle. The snow dropped from them; their lobster-segmented shells were dull black, like the bort of the statue. They were closing in on him. He could not tell their numbers; behind those visible, more kept crowding out of the shadows. As the Tritonians neared him, he saw that they turned their heads away. Those enormous eyes, adapted to the faint sunlight of Triton, could not bear the glare of the torch. An ax rose over a helmeted head, grasped by four tentacular arms. Larsen put down the Eye, and turned up the torch, aiming it at the dragon's head, looming behind those arms. It shriveled, turned from black to red. Its owner slumped to the floor, its limbs still writhing feebly. Larsen picked up the Eye again, and started for the door. He moved deliberately, spraying death around him. The Tritonians could not face the blazing heat of the torch, or its blinding glare. Some fled in panic, some retired more slowly, some stood, as if bewildered, in his very path, until he burned them out of it. At the door, he wheeled to face them, turning down the torch. They started to close in again, and he turned it up, sweeping them at close range. Half a dozen fell, the others broke. The torch was flickering now, as its fuel ran low. In frantic haste, Larsen unsnapped its carrying strap, dropped it, and plunged into the hole he had blasted. In utter blackness, he clawed through it, expecting, every instant, to feel monstrous jaws or talons seize him from behind. He emerged into the blinding white smother of the dawn blizzard. Thin as the air was, the force of it hurled his light body back against the door as he tried to rise. He dropped on all fours, and crawled forward, dead into the freezing wind, the Eye still clutched in one hand. The twenty yards to the _Wolf Cub_ seemed twenty miles; he had about given up all hope when suddenly he bumped into it. * * * * * Larsen groped along its smooth side until he found the air-lock door. As he opened it, the light inside went on automatically. * * * * * At that precise instant, steely arms wrapped themselves around him, a monstrous face loomed over him, open-jawed. In a frenzy, Larsen thrust out his right hand. Those jaws closed on his wrist. A blazing agony shot up his arm. His own scream, echoing from his helmet, deafened him. The pain was gone as abruptly as it had come. The face of the Tritonian seemed to melt, to explode. Those arms went limp, the thing collapsed like a punctured balloon. There was no feeling at all in Larsens' hand now. Not daring to look at it, he stumbled through the air-lock, into the cabin. Even now, he was careful to put the Eye of Triton in the velvet-lined jewel-case he had prepared for it, before strapping himself into his pilot's seat. Awkwardly, with his left hand, he opened the throttle of the rocket-tube, gave the _Wolf Cub_ three gravities acceleration. That was agony to his weary body. But the warmth of the cabin offset the pain. Gingerly, Larsen looked at his right hand. The glove had been torn clean off it. It was dead white, swollen. The swelling, extending to the wrist, had prevented much air escaping from his suit, before he could get inside the cabin. The skin was covered with fine, bloodless cracks, but the jaws of the Tritonian had never touched it. The inconceivable cold had instantly frozen every drop of blood and lymph in it, bursting every blood-vessel, every capillary, every cell. His hand was dead. Presently, as it thawed, it would rot, turn black, and drop off. Before that, he must get a tourniquet on it. On the other hand, the warm air from his space-suit, escaping into the jaws of the Tritonian, had been as fatal to it as the breath of a blast furnace would have been to a human. He had been lucky, after all. The surgeons of Cyrene could graft on a new hand--for a price. And he would have that price! In fifteen minutes, awkward with his left hand, Larsen had the _Wolf Cub_ on her course to Luna, and could shut off his rocket-jet. His right arm was beginning to throb, as the nerves thawed. It would give him hell, in the months of voyaging before him, and he knew his slender stock of drugs would never last. But, as he fixed the tourniquet, the thought of his million was more soothing than any narcotic could have been. Larsen unstrapped himself, and shoved over to the jewel case. He blinked down at it incredulously. The charred ring of cement was there. But it no longer enclosed the Eye of Triton. Instead, the case was half filled with a transparent liquid. Larsen dipped a trembling finger into it. It was cold. He carried the finger to his lips. The walls of the tiny cabin echoed to his mad laughter. The Eye of Triton, the one priceless gem on a world of gems, had been a block of ice--the only ice on Triton. The warmth of the cabin had melted it to water, worth exactly as much as any other water. Suddenly, Larsen realized that he was parched with a feverish thirst. He lifted the jewel case to his lips, and drained it in one single prodigious gulp. He had spent plenty of money on liquor before, he reflected. But this must be the first time in history a man had drunk up a million at one draught. His arm hurt like fire now, the ache of it mingling with the ache of his weary body, the ache of his sick brain. With his left hand, he began to spin the handle of the Kingston valve. The last sound Wolf Larsen heard was the hiss of the air, as it rushed out of the cabin. That, and the laugh with which his last breath left his lungs. There was always one sure way to cheat Interplanetary Law. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TREASURE OF TRITON *** 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™ electronic works to protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG™ concept and trademark. Project Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you charge for an eBook, except by following the terms of the trademark license, including paying royalties for use of the Project Gutenberg trademark. If you do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the trademark license is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and research. Project Gutenberg eBooks 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™ 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™ License available with this file or online at www.gutenberg.org/license. Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg™ electronic works 1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg™ 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™ electronic works in your possession. If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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™ electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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™ mission of promoting free access to electronic works by freely sharing Project Gutenberg™ works in compliance with the terms of this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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™ work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning the copyright status of any work in any country other than 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™ License must appear prominently whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg™ 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 will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. 1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ 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™ trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. 1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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™ License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg™. 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™ 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™ work in a format other than “Plain Vanilla ASCII” or other format used in the official version posted on the official Project Gutenberg™ website (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™ 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™ 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™ electronic works provided that: • You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from the use of Project Gutenberg™ works calculated using the method you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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™ 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™ works. 1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg™ electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the manager of the Project Gutenberg™ 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™ collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg™ 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™ trademark, and any other party distributing a Project Gutenberg™ 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™ electronic works in accordance with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg™ 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™ work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any Project Gutenberg™ work, and (c) any Defect you cause. Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg™ Project Gutenberg™ 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™’s goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg™ 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™ 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 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 website and official page at www.gutenberg.org/contact Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation Project Gutenberg™ depends upon and cannot survive without widespread 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™ electronic works Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg™ concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared with anyone. For forty years, he produced and distributed Project Gutenberg™ eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. Project Gutenberg™ 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 website which has the main PG search facility: www.gutenberg.org. This website includes information about Project Gutenberg™, 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.