The Project Gutenberg eBook of Underground Movement 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: Underground Movement Author: Allen Kim Lang Illustrator: Robert Engle Release date: June 20, 2022 [eBook #68358] Most recently updated: October 18, 2024 Language: English Original publication: United States: Royal Publications, Inc Credits: Greg Weeks, Mary Meehan and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT *** UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT By ALLEN K. LANG Illustrated by ENGLE A mangled corpse held them captive in that dark tunnel beneath the Earth's surface--and taught them a lesson about what freedom really means! [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Infinity, December 1956. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.] The hatch to the front compartment swung open for the first time. One man came out. He turned at once to make sure that the air-tight door behind him had locked. Satisfied that it had, he turned again to look down the cabin at us. His face showed that insolence we'd learned to know as the uniform of the "Bupo", the State Secret Police. The man from Bupo walked down the aisle between the passengers toward the rear of the car. He swept his eyes right and left like a suspecting-machine, catching every detail of us on his memory. People leaned toward the walls as he approached, like children shrinking back from a big animal, and relaxed as he went by. He was out of sight in the galley at the rear for a moment, then was back, carrying a pitcher of water in one hand and the key to the front compartment in the other. A battering-ram hammered into my belly. I slammed bent, hitting my head against the knees of the man sitting across from me. The capsule shuddered, smearing some obstruction against its outer wall. There was an instant when I weighed nothing. Then my head snapped back with hangman's violence as the capsule bounced forward a few meters. Then we were still. From the shock to the silence was a matter of ten seconds. I pulled myself up from the floor. Surprisingly, my skeleton still hinged at the joints and nowhere else. The Bupo man was flat in the aisle, bleeding black splotches into the green carpet. He still had hold of a piece of the water-pitcher's handle. I ignored him, while my brain began to push out explanations for this impossible accident. Something had gotten into the Tube, that slick intestine we'd ridden through under the Andes, below the Matto Grosso, out under the pampas. Something had got in the way of the hundred hurricanes that pushed us. The eyes and ears and un-man-like senses I'd helped build into this five thousand kilometers of metal gut had stopped the pumps. The vacuum inviting our capsule on had filled with air, no longer tugging us to the terminal nest by the Atlantic. We were abandoned, fifteen meters under God-knows-where. Mrs. Swaime, who knew that I'd helped in the Tube's engineering, turned to me for explanation. "What happened?" she asked. "What did we hit?" The foreigner across the aisle, Mr. Rhinklav'n, smiled, a curious effect. "A cow on the track, I believe," he said, his voice brassy with the accent of Mars. "How did a cow get in here?" Anna demanded. She was the girl whose girl-ness had snagged the eyes and riled the hormones of every male in the car. "The gentleman is joking," I assured Anna. I glanced toward Surgeon-General Raimazan, the man whose knees had hammered my forehead. He was clutching his right forearm, his eyes squeezed shut by pain. "What happened, Doctor?" I demanded, laying my hand on his shoulder. "Fractured my arm, my ulna. Get my case under the seat. I want to look at him." The doctor nodded toward the Bupo man, who was struggling to sit up. I got out the doctor's bag. "Morphine?" I asked, finding it. "Codeine, next tray, will be plenty." I dropped three of the pills into Dr. Raimazan's left hand. He swallowed them without water. I used my newspaper for a splint, rolling it tight and bandaging it to the doctor's forearm. Then I hammocked the arm in a sling made of a triangular bandage. "OK?" I asked. "You could make a fortune in orthopedics," Dr. Raimazan said. "Let's get our friend out of the aisle." I stepped out and pulled the policeman toward a sitting position. He groaned and opened his eyes. Though he'd fallen into the fragments of the broken pitcher, he'd suffered damage only to his dignity and his lower lip. A line of red dashes below the lip showed where his teeth had bitten through. He shook his head at our offers of tape and antiseptic and struggled to his feet. Holding the key to the front compartment before him like a dagger, he shuffled up there. He unlocked the door. Shouting something violent, he ducked into the compartment and slammed the door behind him. * * * * * I lent my hands to the Surgeon-General's instructions, patching up the cuts and sprains the passengers had gotten. In a moment Miss Barrie, the stewardess, took the bandages out of my hands and finished the job with fewer knots and less adhesive. The passengers sat quiet in the dim light of the capsule, as though afraid that panic might constitute a security-violation. The lovely Anna pouted. Though she was unhurt herself, her precious radio was shattered. It lay under her seat, its antenna snapped like a slender idiot's-neck, its electronic guts spilling from its belly. "Whatever else happens, we're rid of that puling nuisance," Don Raffe growled, looking at the ex-radio. His mouth settled into creases, a satisfied line between parentheses. He picked up his magazine and leafed through it, to prove himself superior to these chance joltings-about. The lights maliciously dropped till only the bulbs at either end of the aisle were glowing. These died till they were yellow coils, magnifying the dark that fogged us. In the top tray of my test kit was a flashlight. I broke it out to sweep the light in a quick survey of the car. Anna's eyes squinted at my beam, her mouth loose with fear for a moment, like a drawstring bag. Then she squared off, sat straight, stared defiantly into my light. Without looking down she snapped her purse open and took a tiny automatic pistol from it. She laid this on the seat beside her, out of sight. "I've got a right to defend myself," Anna said, grim as a suffragette. I laughed out loud at this tableau of maidenhood-at-bay. She smoothed her hair back with both hands, making a double cantilever of her arms to lift her breasts, demonstrating the noble architecture of woman, mocking me. I stopped laughing. I jumped the beam over her to help Miss Barrie break out the emergency lights. Those lamps were lit, and glowed in the cabin with their chilly blue light. Mrs. Swaime asked of the woman beside her, as though it were an afterthought, "Why did we stop?" "I don't know," Mrs. Grimm admitted. I knew her. She was the wife of the Minister of Agriculture, a man who'd acquired a reputation for integrity in a government that didn't use the word. "For me the Tube has always been just a link between home and Albert's office at Bahia. I didn't think that link could break." Miss Barrie was knocking at the door up front. It opened a reluctant inch to show the eye of the Bupo cop. He growled some answer to the stewardess' question, then slammed and relocked his door. Miss Barrie hurried back to me. "A man was pulled out of that compartment," she said. "He unlocked the entry hatch and was blown out into the Tube by cabin pressure." "Like a beetle blasted off a bush by a garden hose," Don Raffe murmured. "I expect my baggage is strung out from here to Havana," Anna pouted. "Doesn't the State have regulations to keep prisoners from killing themselves on public property?" "Suicide?" Mrs. Swaime asked, soft as a prayer. "Must have been," Don Raffe snapped. He twisted his magazine into a club, underlining his words with thumps against his open palm. "Some weakling not worthy to stand with us in war, he was. A conscientious objector, probably." Don Raffe said "conscientious objector" exactly as he'd have said the name of a sexual perversion. "We're all going to the Capital on the Leader's business. Some of us have been called to the Leader's actual presence." He glowed pride, giving his secret away. "There is no place in the Leader's new society for weaklings. They are better where this one is, underground, dead." "Many of us are pained by the thought of war," the Martian said. "Not in the pain of weakness, but that of pity for men lost in battle who might have grown strong in peace." "A peace-monger!" Don Raffe's was the tone of a Puritan finding a red zuchetto under his pastor's hat. "Surely you don't expect our Leader to bear forever the insults of the Yellow Confederacy? Of course," Don Raffe's eyes widened in anticipation of delicious violence, "you men from Mars are yellow, too." The foreigner, whose skin was in fact the color of lemon-peel, smiled and made no comment. "I wish you men wouldn't talk so much about war," Mrs. Swaime broke in. "Talking about ugly things just helps them to happen. Rafiel, my boy, is in the Continental Guard. He says we'll have no war. He says that the Confederacy is too afraid of our airpower to risk a war. Rafiel is a flier." "Of course," Don Raffe smiled, his smile not reaching up to his eyes. "The Yellow Confederacy is so afraid of our flying defenders that we're forced to travel like moles, so as not to confuse our own radar guns. Our skies are closed to us. Everything that flies across two continents, from Tierra del Fuego to Medicine Hat, is shot from the air as an enemy. We must take to these caves for a ten-hour trip. Ten hours for a capsule to be blown from Bogota to the coast, a trip a rocket could clip off in minutes! That's why our leader will take us to war, to get back the freedom of our own blue skies." Don Raffe finished, a little breathless. "I wonder who the poor man was," Mrs. Swaime said, ignoring him. Miss Barrie shook her head, wondering the same thing. Without saying anything, she went back to the galley to call a surface station on the capsule's radio-telephone. While she was back there, Miss Barrie took a lamp and peered through the glass window in the rear hatch. She saw what becomes of a man caught between a pistoning capsule and its tube. After being sick, she came to tell us that the surface station had determined that we were just east of the village of Rabanan. My mental map of the route the Tube followed showed Rabanan as a dot fifteen kilometers from the nearest exit hatch. Miss Barrie smiled on courage. "A rescue party will be here before long," she assured the others. "Would anyone care for sandwiches or coffee while we wait?" Her stomach must have cringed at the thought. "Tea would be nice," Mr. Rhinklav'n volunteered. Then he realized his blunder: tea came from Confederacy countries. "I mean coffee, of course!" he said. "I'll help you get it ready," Mrs. Grimm said to Miss Barrie. "Oh, no," the hostess protested, without much conviction in her voice. Mrs. Grimm smiled and led the way back to the galley. In a moment she had the water for our coffee steaming on the chemical burner. The stewardess meanwhile was smearing the current butter-substitute on slivers of bread and arranging the buttered triangles into Maltese crosses on our plates. Thus Miss Barrie brought us tiffin. The Martian took his coffee black. He sat looking into it as he sipped, as though apologizing for his alien presence. Mrs. Swaime, more practiced than the rest of us in this act of informal refection, took a slice of bread and a cup of sugar-thick coffee and talked. She steered clear of the grim topics around us, turning her attention instead to Mr. Rhinklav'n, who sparkled back at her like a grateful mirror. "Is this your first visit to Earth?" she asked him. "No, indeed. I spent several years at your excellent University at Sao Paulo," the yellow man said. "That was some time ago, of course." He refrained from saying just how long ago. The Martian lifespan makes humanity's scant three-score and ten look feeble. The Surgeon-General asked me quietly, "Why, exactly, are we held here?" "As long as the body is back there the pumps can't run. Safety devices prevent the capsule from moving so long as there's a foreign body in the Tube." I stopped, suddenly aware of my clumsy, accidental pun. "All right," Dr. Raimazan said. "We'll have to move the corpse into the capsule, and take it to Bahia with us." "It will be the worst sort of job," I said. "If the repair crew takes more than a day, we're in for trouble anyway." He was right. This was February, our hottest month. "You have a strong stomach?" he asked. "No." I hurried forward to tell Miss Barrie of our decision. She gave us a lamp and a blanket, and phoned the surface to tell them what we were doing. The doctor and I locked the air-tight door of the galley behind us. * * * * * At this end of the capsule there was a second air-tight hatch, exactly like that in front, the one the body had hurtled through. At its middle, like a glass navel, was a dial showing the pressure outside. It read 975 millibars. I spun the wheel to unlock the door from its frame, stubbornly resisting the temptation to anticipate through the window, to see what waited us out there. The hatch swung out. I turned the lamplight on the walls outside. It was bad. The tube was bulged at the top a little way back, like a vein about to rupture. Its surface was smeared with red. It smelled like a place where they slaughter chickens. The body lay about twenty meters back. I took the blanket from Dr. Raimazan and walked back along the slippery shaft, trying to dull my eyes and nose to what I was about to do. The doctor, one arm trussed to his chest by my crude sling, could lend me only moral support. I looked down at the corpse. One arm had been torn off at the shoulder, and was held to the body by the handcuffs between the wrists. The man had been cut and burned and broken before he'd thrown himself out of the capsule. I rolled the thing into the blanket and dragged it behind me to the capsule. It took ten minutes for me to force it through the hatch. Inside, we rolled the body under the galley sink, then washed our shoes and ourselves. We dogged the hatch shut and phoned topside, telling them to let the winds take hold again. As we made ready to go back into the cabin, the light of my lamp glinted off a bit of metal lying on the floor. It had fallen from our horrible package under the sink. Dr. Raimazan picked it up. He held it near the lamp, examining it. He was going to say something to me when the door to the cabin, which we'd unlocked, burst open. "What in hell's name are you doing?" the Bupo man demanded. "We've cleared the Tube," I said very softly, shoving before his face the card that showed with my face and fingerprints that I was a Tube Engineer. The Surgeon-General stared at the policeman as though he were something wet and stinking from a swamp. "Who was the man who jumped from your compartment?" the doctor asked. "State business!" the Bupo snapped. "Keep your mouth shut!" Too late, he recognized the Surgeon-General's uniform, and became silent. "Watch your long tongue," Dr. Raimazan growled. "I have an audience with the Leader: you may find yourself envying the poor devil under the sink his blanket." The Bupo, wavering between anger and apology, settled on an attitude of injured dignity. He turned and stalked down the aisle toward his private cabin up front. I followed him with my eyes, memorizing him. In case I should ever meet him again, I wanted to complete wrecking his face where the accident had left off. The capsule jumped onto its plunger of wind. Only the brilliance of the ceiling lights showed that we were again flashing toward the coast and the Capital. I sat beside the Surgeon-General. "What was it that you picked up back there?" I asked him. He handed me the thing. It was a Medal of Honor. Its ribbon was a scrap of silk, and the medal itself was bent as though it had been clamped in a vise and hammered. Turning it over, I read the engraved legend through a smear of blood. "To Doctor Noah Raimazan, for devotion to his profession, his people, and his Leader." A curt congratulation, I thought. After a moment I asked, "A brother?" "My oldest son. He saved hundreds in the ruins of Managua, in the plague that followed the Revolution there." Dr. Raimazan took the medal from me and sat rocking back and forth, staring at the laurel-garnished star in his hand. "Why did they kill him?" he asked. "It wasn't suicide?" "It was escape. You saw what they'd done to him, with their little knives, their pliers and electrodes. Noah was a hero, set by Imperial order on a pedestal. He looked directly at the Leader, man to man, his physician. He wasn't as strong as I am, this son of mine. Noah couldn't watch men killed for their ideas, defending his silence with the argument that he was a doctor, set somewhere above grubby politics." Dr. Raimazan's voice was loud enough that anyone in the car who wished could have heard him. "Your son died for talking plain," I whispered to the doctor. * * * * * We sat in silence. The Capital of the Leader of our hemisphere was only an hour away. After a moment the Surgeon-General sat straight. He brushed his uniform with his left hand, and smoothed the sling under his right arm. Then he crossed the aisle to the seat where Anna sat. I stared at him. "Do you mind if I sit beside you?" he smiled down at the girl, as gallant as though they were at a military ball. "As you wish, General," Anna answered. She was pleased, I saw, that a man with such a uniform and such position should notice her. The doctor talked to Anna the way a pretty girl expects to be talked to, emphasizing what he was saying by an occasional avuncular pat. After a while, Anna grew a little bored with a playmate who was older than her father. As the car began to slow, caught by resistance coils in the walls of the Tube, I saw the Surgeon-General pat the girl playfully once more, and pick up something she'd laid beside her in the darkness. She didn't notice. We halted on the shores of the Bay of All Saints, Bahia, the Capital. We saw no more of the Bupo man, since his compartment held the exit hatch. He was out first, scurrying somewhere with the news of Noah Raimazan's suicide, news which would either lift him a notch in his profession or push his head onto the chopping-block. The rest of us lined up, passed through the front compartment, out onto the platform. The station sparkled like a diamond tiara, glittering with slogans and brass and reminders that we'd reached the greatest city in our half of the world. A gray sedan stood on the ramp, waiting for those the Leader had singled out for audience. Its door bore those interlocked commas, the yin-yang symbol that the Leader had taken from the enemy to make his cypher. Dr. Raimazan nodded good-bye to me. Accompanied by Don Raffe, he walked over to the Imperial limousine. The Surgeon-General replied to the salutes of the bodyguards with his left hand, turning aside their references to his injury with a grin. The doors slammed shut, and the sedan roared off, carrying Don Raffe and Surgeon-General Raimazan to meet the Leader. And carrying, under the doctor's sling, the little pistol I'd seen him steal from Anna. *** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT *** 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.