"Ned bland de döda männen" , en novelette av William Tenn , också svaret på den gamla frågan # ; först publicerad i Galaxy Science Fiction , juni 1954 , tillgänglig på Internetarkiv . Betraktar någon av dessa omslag känt? Med tanke på att du läste den i en paperback omkring 30 år sedan, kanske denna antologi är mest sannolikt.
"Fortunately," I whispered, "it wasn’t a wound that showed." Weinstein started to ask me something, decided against it and sat back. But I had told him what he wanted to know.
"A nucleonic howitzer. The way it was figured later, it had been a defective shell. Bad enough to kill half the men on our second-class cruiser. I wasn't killed, but I was in range of the backblast."
"That backblast.” Lamehd was thinking aloud. “That backblast will sterilize anybody within two hundred feet, unless he's wearing—"
"And I wasn't." I had stopped sweating. It was over. My crazy little precious secret was out. I took a deep breath. "So you see—well, anyway, I know they haven't solved that problem yet." Roger Grey stood up and said, "Hey!" He held out his hand. I shook it. It felt like any normal guy's hand. Stronger, maybe.
"Slingshot personnel," I went on, "are all volunteers. Except for two categories—the commanders and soldier surrogates." "Figuring, I guess," Weinstein asked, "that the human race can spare them most easily?"
"Right," I said. "Figuring that the human race can spare them most easily."
He nodded.
"Well, I'll be damned!" Yussuf Lamehd laughed as he got up and shook my hand too. "Welcome to our city."
"Thanks," I said, "son."