From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!CAD:tektronix!zehntel!zinfandel!berry
Newsgroups: net.sf-lovers
Title: Re: puns in SF - (nf)
Article-I.D.: zehntel.703
Posted: Mon Jan 17 13:21:21 1983
Received: Thu Jan 20 02:34:48 1983

#R:sri-arpa:-22400:zinfandel:10800006:000:851
zinfandel!berry    Jan 17 11:29:00 1983

The 'star mangled spanner' is from a story by Arthur C Clarke called
'Neutron Tide'.  I believe it was first published in Galaxy magazine around
1970.

The supercruiser 'Flatbush', led by Captain Karl van Rinderpest (hero of the
final assault on the unspeakable, but not unshriekable, !!Yeetch), was returning
from launcing a salvo of probability inverters against the Mucoid home planet
with the destroyers 'Lieutenant Kizhe', 'Chutzpah' and 'Insufferable' when
they ran straight into the gravity well of a neutron star.  They later 
calculated that the unfortunate 'Flatbush' passed within a dozen mile of the
"unthinkable concentration of mass."

The tool was the only identifiable fragment found.

More complete reportage will involve me in a copyright suit.

	Berry Kercheval
	Zehntel Inc.
	(decvax!sytek!zehntel!zinfandel!berry)
	(415)932-6900