There’s a point in every long-haul spaceman’s life when the stars lose their shine. The uniforms itch, the regulations grate, and the dream of returning to Earth begins to feel like the only dream worth having. In A. Bertram Chandler’s “The Ultimate Vice,” that quiet dissatisfaction takes a dangerous turn when one officer stumbles across something on a remote world that promises more than wealth, more than status, more than escape. It promises exactly what he wants—without effort, without delay, without limit.
At first, it looks harmless. It isn’t swallowed, injected, or smoked. It simply reflects back the deepest desires of the mind that stares into it. But the cost is not measured in credits. As one man sees opportunity and another sees danger, a partnership fractures under the strain of greed and denial. What begins as a scheme to outsmart the market becomes a private trap no lawman needs to spring. The question is not whether the vice can be sold—it is whether the seller can ever look away.
A. Bertram Chandler brings the hard-earned authenticity of a professional seaman to his spacefaring fiction. Before becoming a full-time writer, he served in the merchant marine and rose to the rank of ship’s captain, experience that shaped the believable shipboard hierarchies and restless officers who populate his stories. He is best known for the long-running John Grimes “Rim World” series, published through houses such as Ace Books, and for numerous short stories that appeared in magazines including Astounding Science Fiction and Analog. Chandler’s work often explores the frustrations of career spacemen who dream of something better—and the price they pay when they chase it.
