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                            Captain PEABODY

                            BY ROG PHILLIPS

            _He carried the monkey of fear on his back for
            all to see; and until he could shake the beast
            he knew he would be a captain in name only...._

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
             Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1957.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


The gavel rapped sharply, and the murmur of conversation throughout
the banquet room drifted into hushed silence. The occasion was
the seventy-fifth meeting of RETSCAP, the organization of Retired
Space Captains; the place, a banquet room in the Empire Club on the
hundred and sixty-fourth floor of the New Empire State Building in
Manhattan; the time, approximately ni