Wheels

This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Alph Agar is a director with authority, status, and one crippling secret: he cannot fly the very Fly-Wheels his company builds. When his sly assistant Ker Kermit maneuvers him into a prestigious exhibition for visiting Betelgeusians, Agar is trapped by a forgotten company rule requiring top executives to hold a license, and by a bureaucracy that treats failure as a capital offense. What begins as a humiliation becomes a deadly ordeal, with the worst performer condemned to execution unless he can somehow master the machines in time. As Agar struggles through secret lessons, disastrous practice flights, and the sharp-edged scrutiny of his secretary Jean-Jean, the pressure exposes his loneliness, ambition, and growing attraction to her. Help arrives from the skilled pilot Lar Lerry, but Agar's pride and fear keep him off balance. When he tries to resign, he discovers that resignation itself means death, and that even the Law and Policy Machine only confirms the system's merciless logic. In the end, absurdity turns on itself: Jean-Jean's courage, Agar's defiance, and the Betelgeusians' own contradictory rules force a reckoning. This satirical science-fiction comedy skewers corporate hierarchy, ritualized cruelty, and deadening procedure, while celebrating common sense, courage, and the stubborn human will to survive.