spacegram n.

In his hand he clutched a small square of blue paper which I instantly recognized as a spacegram. [...] I stared at it, swiftly perused it for some explanation to the horror. DEC 2012 INTERPLANETARY EARTHPORT IMPORTANT STOP DETAIN ALL SPACECRAFT LEAVING EARTH WITHIN TWENTY-FOUR HOURS STOP CLOUD OF STRANGE ELECTRO METEORITES BRUSHED PAST EROS CAUSING VIOLENT ELECTRICAL DISPLAY STOP SPACE CRUISER VALONDINE REFUELING AT EROS WITHIN THE HOUR AND LEAVING FOR EARTH COMMANDER MARSPORT

‘Sweet shades of Luna!’ exclaimed Dale Scott, reporter extraordinary, as he finished decoding the last word of the tersely worded spacegram. ‘That guy would put a brass monkey to shame!’ Again he read the matter-of-fact sentences: NEW INVENTION TO BE DEMONSTRATED BEFORE MARTIAN COUNCIL TODAY. GET ALL PARTICULARS AND FORWARD, NO EARTHMEN ALLOWED ENTRANCE. Signed: PEARSALL

Pardon my velocity, rocketeers, but I’ll have to be reaching for the next spacegram. Well, dip me twice into the Red Spot of Jupiter if it isn’t another fan magazine announcement. If this ink-slinging fever keeps up, the three non-editing fans will join the Army and then you’ll all be editors.

‘Reading my mail?’ asked Channing cheerfully. The average spacegram was about as secret as a postcard, so Channing didn’t mind. He turned the page over and read: HOPE YOU’RE WELL FILLED WITH GRAVANOL AND ADHESIVE TAPE FOR YOUR JUMP FROM TERRA TO STATION. SHALL TAKE GREAT DELIGHT IN RIPPING ADHESIVE TAPE OFF YOUR MEASLY BODY. LOVE. ARDEN

‘Don’t worry, though. We don’t miss on these big ones.’ Twenty-one hours later, he was staring at another spacegram, remembering his comforting words of the day before. The heading was EMERGENCY; the spacegram was direct from the Stag Head detector station. METEOR 842M2055 OUT OF CONTACT. EAST STATION INOPERATIVE, STAG HEAD STATION HORIZONED. LAST ACCURATE ORBIT—

‘Oh, by the way, a space gram came for you a while ago.’ He reached over to one corner of his desk and dug the gram out from under some prints.

Well, this time, my mother-in-law, God bless her (for a change) got sick just two days before I reached Marsport; and the night before landing, I got a spacegram from Hilda saying she would stay on Earth with her mother and wouldn’t meet me this one time.

Carson answered by filling in a spacegram form. The lady smiled sweetly as she read it and franked the right amount. Carson paid. The gram said: ‘Captain Mike Jose, GG HQ, Perivale. Having fine time. Saw you on tv. Keep the ball in the air.’ The lady prodded with a finger. ‘Glad to know you’re having a good time as soon as you land, son. But aren’t you going to sign it?’ ‘No. Costs extra. Anyway, they’ll know who it’s from.’

He told me what had happened: he’d called home and gotten no answer. He’d gone to the house, and it hadn’t been lived in for months. His space gram was unopened, his letters still sealed. Neighbors told him she’d often come home staggering; they thought she’d been drinking. Once they’d found her sitting on the lawn, crying for her daddy and mommy. She’d thought she was back on Scrag...

More weeks passed and the spacegrams kept coming and the last one said it was the last one because music critic and correspondent Arthur was no longer employed and Jon Arthur did not give a damn.

Then I received a cryptic message. It was a spacegram from Jupiter: Do you have it? It was signed ‘Q,’ with no return address or other identification.

Lawson Gage sat in the central office of Venus Development, Inc., and stared down at a sheet of yellow paper. The two-day-old Spacegram had been waiting for him on his return from a survey trip to the new radium mines, and now, reading its terse message for the third time, he realized he had but thirty minutes to make his decision.

In the meantime, between feasts—every meal on Easole was a feast—he had the usual humdrum administrative tasks to take care of. He sat scowling at a spacegram he had just received. ‘Damn!’ he muttered, dropped it onto his desk, and then picked it up and read it again.