Passage to anywhere
- 1 online resource : multiple file formats
- Produced from Fantastic Universe, February 1956 (Vol. 5, No. 1.). .
- Produced from Fantastic Universe, February 1956 (Vol. 5, No. 1.). .
Release date is 2026-01-16
Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) Tom Trussel (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)
Passage to anywhere by Jr. Sam Merwin is a science fiction short story written in the mid-20th century. It explores the disruptive promise of instantaneous matter transmission and the political, economic, and ethical storms that swirl around a breakthrough that could upend global transport while opening a practical path to space.
The story follows Park Hamilton of Science Projects Research as he scrambles to contain fallout after inventor Sven Ryan, fresh from testing a working matter-transmitter, goes on a drunken spree in New York and talks too freely. With help from Hamilton’s capable assistant Nancy Alderman, they fend off a heavy-handed seizure attempt by U.S. power broker Charles Forsythe and bring UN liaison Ian Harris into a tense truce. In Antarctica, Ryan’s device proves it can send objects flawlessly—but only line-of-sight over short ranges, not through Earth’s curvature. While Forsythe and Harris fear global economic chaos, Hamilton reframes the invention as the missing logistics link for off-world bases: no curvature blocks a beam to the Moon. The crisis dissolves into a new vision—use the transmitter to supply a lunar station—and the tale closes on a hopeful pivot from terrestrial panic to interplanetary purpose, with a quiet nod to Hamilton’s partnership with Nancy. (This is an automatically generated summary.)