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CODGERSPACE

Alan Dean Foster
This book is an Ace original edition, and has never been previously published.
CODGERSPACE
An Ace Book / published by arrangement with the author PRINTING HISTORY
Ace edition / July All rights reserved. Copyright ┬й 1992 by Alan Dean Foster.
Cover art by David Mattingly.
This book may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by mimeograph or any other means, without
permission.
For information address: The Berkley Publishing Group, Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016.
ISBN: 0-441-71851-
Ace Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group, 200 Madison Avenue, New York, New
York 10016.
The name "ACE" and the "A" logo are trademarks belonging to Charter Communications, Inc.
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA


In memory of Brett Goodman

Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanityтАж
тАФHORACE MANN


I

THE astonishing sequence of events which affected the entire civilized galaxy, including not only the
many leagues, alliances, temporary interworld liaisons, and independent worlds but also directly the lives
of billions of individual human beings, began with a left-over cheese sandwich.
Actually the sandwich was not so much left over as it was forgotten. Its original owner, a highly
skilled, well-paid, but often equally absent-minded process reintegrate technician (PRET) name of
Tunbrew Wah-chang, was called away from lunch on an emergency that like so many of its kind wasn't,
thereby causing him to leave his food behind in a place that normally would have been perfectly safe but
in this singular instance was anything but.
The fact that the emergency call involved not a crisis of process reintegration (a highly delicate and
rarefied specialty), but rather a piece of equipment which someone had neglected to plug in, deprived
Wah-chang not only of his lunch but his precious midday privacy time. This aroused the normally
mild-mannered and unexcitable technician to the point where he completely forgot leaving the apocalyptic
sandwich behind. In fact, he forgot ever having acquired it from the plant commissary.
As a matter of historical veracity, it is perhaps worth noting (for sake of completeness) that the
layered meal in question consisted of three slabs of naturally processed Shintaro domestic cheese, aligned
sequentially between two slices of wheat-nut bread (self-toasting) and at the time of abandonment,
decidedly blackened as a result of neglect (particularly along the edges). This resulted in greater than
usual softening of the cheese, which while enhancing its taste and culinary esthetic, would not normally
have been regarded as a condition critical to galactic stability. Or as Einstein might have said, "God
doesn't play dice with the universe, but for all we know he might have a thing for cheese sandwiches.
Especially those on wheat-nut bread (self-toasting)."
Then again, he might not.
Such speculation aside, it remained that PRET Tunbrew Wah-chang, his brain having consigned his
lunch to dead storage (of which his mind contained more than adequate volume), concluded his day in an