Never Meet Again

By Algis Budrys

He is from a world where the Germans won World War II she lives in an alternate universe in a Russian occupied Berlin. Is there any escape from tyranny? Algis Budrys was the Hugo and Nebula award nominated author of Rogue Moon and Michaelmas.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Start Publishing LLC
• Release date: Oct 9, 2020
• ISBN: 9781649740373

Algis Budrys

Algis Budrys (1931–2008) was born in Königsberg, East Prussia, where his father served in the Lithuanian diplomatic corps. The family came to the United States when Budrys was five years old. A Renaissance man, he wrote stories and novels, and was an editor, critic, and reviewer, a teacher of aspiring writers, and a publisher. In the 1960s Budrys worked in public relations, advertising products such as pickles, tuna fish, and four-wheel-drive vehicles. His science fiction novels include Rogue Moon, Hard Landing, Falling Torch, and many others. His Cold War science fiction thriller Who? was adapted for the screen, and he received many award nominations for his work. Budrys was married to his wife, Edna, for almost fifty-four years.  

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Never Meet Again

by Algis Budrys

Start Publishing LLC

Copyright © 2020 by Start Publishing LLC

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever.

First Start Publishing eBook edition.

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ISBN 978-1-64974-037-3

The breeze soughed through the linden trees. It was warm and gentle as it drifted along the boulevard. It tugged at the dresses of the girls strolling with their young men and stirred their modishly cut hair. It set the banners atop the government buildings to flapping, and it brought with it the sound of a jet aircraft—a Heinkel or a Messerschmitt—rising into the sky from Tempelhof Aerodrome. But when it touched Professor Kempfer on his bench it brought only the scent of the Parisian perfumes and the sight of gaily colored frocks swaying around the girls’ long, healthy legs.

Doctor Professor Kempfer straightened his exhausted shoulders and raised his heavy head. His deep, strained eyes struggled to break through their now habitual dull stare.

It was spring again, he realized in faint surprise. The pretty girls were eating their lunches hastily once more, so that they and their young men could stroll along Unter Den Linden, and the young men in the broad-shouldered jackets were clear-eyed and full of their own awakening strength.

And of course Professor Kempfer wore no overcoat today. He was not quite the comic pedant who wore his galoshes in the sunshine. It was only that he had forgotten, for the moment. The strain of these last few days had been very great.

All these months—these years—he had been doing his government-subsidized research