{
    "52995": "SPACEMAN ON A SPREE\nBY MACK REYNOLDS\n\n\n Illustrated by Nodel\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of Tomorrow June 1963\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nWhat's more important\u2014Man's conquest\n\n of space, or one spaceman's life?\nI\n\n\n They gave him a gold watch. It was meant to be symbolical, of course.\n In the old tradition. It was in the way of an antique, being one of the\n timepieces made generations past in the Alpine area of Eur-Asia. Its\n quaintness lay in the fact that it was wound, not electronically by\n power-radio, but by the actual physical movements of the bearer, a free\n swinging rotor keeping the mainspring at a constant tension.\n\n\n They also had a banquet for him, complete with speeches by such\n bigwigs of the Department of Space Exploration as Academician Lofting\n Gubelin and Doctor Hans Girard-Perregaux. There was also somebody\n from the government who spoke, but he was one of those who were\n pseudo-elected and didn't know much about the field of space travel\n nor the significance of Seymour Pond's retirement. Si didn't bother to\n remember his name. He only wondered vaguely why the cloddy had turned\n up at all.\n\n\n In common with recipients of gold watches of a score of generations\n before him, Si Pond would have preferred something a bit more tangible\n in the way of reward, such as a few shares of Variable Basic to add to\n his portfolio. But that, he supposed, was asking too much.\n\n\n The fact of the matter was, Si knew that his retiring had set them\n back. They hadn't figured he had enough shares of Basic to see him\n through decently. Well, possibly he didn't, given their standards.\n But Space Pilot Seymour Pond didn't have their standards. He'd had\n plenty of time to think it over. It was better to retire on a limited\n crediting, on a confoundedly limited crediting, than to take the two or\n three more trips in hopes of attaining a higher standard.\n\n\n He'd had plenty of time to figure it out, there alone in space on the\n Moon run, there on the Venus or Mars runs. There on the long, long\n haul to the Jupiter satellites, fearfully checking the symptoms of\n space cafard, the madness compounded of claustrophobia, monotony,\n boredom and free fall. Plenty of time. Time to decide that a one\n room mini-auto-apartment, complete with an autochair and built-in\n autobar, and with one wall a teevee screen, was all he needed to\n find contentment for a mighty long time. Possibly somebody like\n Doc Girard-Perregaux might be horrified at the idea of living in a\n mini-auto-apartment ... not realizing that to a pilot it was roomy\n beyond belief compared to the conning tower of a space craft.\n\n\n No. Even as Si listened to their speeches, accepted the watch and\n made a halting little talk of his own, he was grinning inwardly. There\n wasn't anything they could do. He had them now. He had enough Basic to\n keep him comfortably, by his standards, for the rest of his life. He\n was never going to subject himself to space cafard again. Just thinking\n about it, now, set the tic to going at the side of his mouth.\n\n\n They could count down and blast off, for all he gave a damn.\nThe gold watch idea had been that of Lofting Gubelin, which was\n typical, he being in the way of a living anachronism himself. In fact,\n Academician Gubelin was possibly the only living man on North America\n who still wore spectacles. His explanation was that a phobia against\n having his eyes touched prohibited either surgery to remould his\n eyeballs and cure his myopia, or contact lenses.\n\n\n That was only an alibi so far as his closest associate, Hans\n Girard-Perregaux, was concerned. Doctor Girard-Perregaux was convinced\n Gubelin would have even worn facial hair, had he but a touch more\n courage. Gubelin longed for yesteryear, a seldom found phenomenon under\n the Ultrawelfare State.\n\n\n Slumped in an autochair in the escape room of his Floridian home,\n Lofting Gubelin scowled at his friend. He said, acidly, \"Any more\n bright schemes, Hans? I presume you now acknowledge that appealing to\n the cloddy's patriotism, sentiment and desire for public acclaim have\n miserably failed.\"\n\n\n Girard-Perregaux said easily, \"I wouldn't call Seymour Pond a cloddy.\n In his position, I am afraid I would do the same thing he has.\"\n\n\n \"That's nonsense, Hans. Zoroaster! Either you or I would gladly take\n Pond's place were we capable of performing the duties for which he has\n been trained. There aren't two men on North America\u2014there aren't two\n men in the world!\u2014who better realize the urgency of continuing our\n delving into space.\" Gubelin snapped his fingers. \"Like that, either of\n us would give our lives to prevent man from completely abandoning the\n road to his destiny.\"\n\n\n His friend said drily, \"Either of us could have volunteered for pilot\n training forty years ago, Lofting. We didn't.\"\n\n\n \"At that time there wasn't such a blistering percentage of funkers\n throughout this whole blistering Ultrawelfare State! Who could\n foresee that eventually our whole program would face ending due to\n lack of courageous young men willing to take chances, willing to face\n adventure, willing to react to the stimulus of danger in the manner our\n ancestors did?\"\n\n\n Girard-Perregaux grunted his sarcasm and dialed a glass of iced tea\n and tequila. He said, \"Nevertheless, both you and I conform with the\n present generation in finding it far more pleasant to follow one's\n way of life in the comfort of one's home than to be confronted with\n the unpleasantness of facing nature's dangers in more adventurous\n pastimes.\"\n\n\n Gubelin, half angry at his friend's argument, leaned forward to snap\n rebuttal, but the other was wagging a finger at him negatively. \"Face\n reality, Lofting. Don't require or expect from Seymour Pond more\n than is to be found there. He is an average young man. Born in our\n Ultrawelfare State, he was guaranteed his fundamental womb-to-tomb\n security by being issued that minimum number of Basic shares in our\n society that allows him an income sufficient to secure the food,\n clothing, shelter, medical care and education to sustain a low level\n of subsistence. Percentages were against his ever being drafted\n into industry. Automation being what it is, only a fraction of the\n population is ever called up. But Pond was. His industrial aptitude\n dossier revealed him a possible candidate for space pilot, and it was\n you yourself who talked him into taking the training ... pointing out\n the more pragmatic advantages such as complete retirement after but six\n trips, added shares of Basic so that he could enjoy a more comfortable\n life than most and the fame that would accrue to him as one of the\n very few who still participate in travel to the planets. Very well.\n He was sold. Took his training, which, of course, required long years\n of drudgery to him. Then, performing his duties quite competently, he\n made his six trips. He is now legally eligible for retirement. He was\n drafted into the working force reserves, served his time, and is now\n free from toil for the balance of his life. Why should he listen to\n our pleas for a few more trips?\"\n\n\n \"But has he no spirit of adventure? Has he no feeling for....\"\nGirard-Perregaux was wagging his finger again, a gesture that,\n seemingly mild though it was, had an astonishing ability to break off\n the conversation of one who debated with the easy-seeming, quiet spoken\n man.\n\n\n He said, \"No, he hasn't. Few there are who have, nowadays. Man has\n always paid lip service to adventure, hardships and excitement, but in\n actuality his instincts, like those of any other animal, lead him to\n the least dangerous path. Today we've reached the point where no one\n need face danger\u2014ever. There are few who don't take advantage of the\n fact. Including you and me, Lofting, and including Seymour Pond.\"\n\n\n His friend and colleague changed subjects abruptly, impatiently. \"Let's\n leave this blistering jabber about Pond's motivation and get to the\n point. The man is the only trained space pilot in the world. It will\n take months, possibly more than a year, to bring another novitiate\n pilot to the point where he can safely be trusted to take our next\n explorer craft out. Appropriations for our expeditions have been\n increasingly hard to come by\u2014even though in\nour\nminds, Hans, we are\n near important breakthroughs, breakthroughs which might possibly so\n spark the race that a new dream to push man out to the stars will take\n hold of us. If it is admitted that our organization has degenerated\n to the point that we haven't a single pilot, then it might well be\n that the Economic Planning Board, and especially those cloddies\n on Appropriations, will terminate the whole Department of Space\n Exploration.\"\n\n\n \"So....\" Girard-Perregaux said gently.\n\n\n \"So some way we've got to bring Seymour Pond out of his retirement!\"\n\n\n \"Now we are getting to matters.\" Girard-Perregaux nodded his agreement.\n Looking over the rim of his glass, his eyes narrowed in thought as his\n face took on an expression of Machiavellianism. \"And do not the ends\n justify the means?\"\n\n\n Gubelin blinked at him.\n\n\n The other chuckled. \"The trouble with you, Lofting, is that you have\n failed to bring history to bear on our problem. Haven't you ever read\n of the sailor and his way of life?\"\n\n\n \"Sailor? What in the name of the living Zoroaster has the sailor got to\n do with it?\"\n\n\n \"You must realize, my dear Lofting, that our Si Pond is nothing more\n than a latter-day sailor, with many of the problems and view-points,\n tendencies and weaknesses of the voyager of the past. Have you never\n heard of the seaman who dreamed of returning to the village of his\n birth and buying a chicken farm or some such? All the long months at\n sea\u2014and sometimes the tramp freighters or whaling craft would be out\n for years at a stretch before returning to home port\u2014he would talk\n of his retirement and his dream. And then? Then in port, it would be\n one short drink with the boys, before taking his accumulated pay and\n heading home. The one short drink would lead to another. And morning\n would find him, drunk, rolled, tattooed and possibly sleeping it off in\n jail. So back to sea he'd have to go.\"\n\n\n Gubelin grunted bitterly. \"Unfortunately, our present-day sailor\n can't be separated from his money quite so easily. If he could, I'd\n personally be willing to lure him down some dark alley, knock him over\n the head and roll him myself. Just to bring him back to his job again.\"\n\n\n He brought his wallet from his pocket, and flicked it open to his\n universal credit card. \"The ultimate means of exchange,\" he grunted.\n \"Nobody can spend your money, but you, yourself. Nobody can steal it,\n nobody can, ah,\ncon\nyou out of it. Just how do you expect to sever\n our present-day sailor and his accumulated nest egg?\"\n\n\n The other chuckled again. \"It is simply a matter of finding more modern\n methods, my dear chap.\"\nII\n\n\n Si Pond was a great believer in the institution of the spree. Any\n excuse would do. Back when he had finished basic education at the age\n of twenty-five and was registered for the labor draft, there hadn't\n been a chance in a hundred that he'd have the bad luck to have his\n name pulled. But when it had been, Si had celebrated.\n\n\n When he had been informed that his physical and mental qualifications\n were such that he was eligible for the most dangerous occupation in\n the Ultrawelfare State and had been pressured into taking training\n for space pilot, he had celebrated once again. Twenty-two others had\n taken the training with him, and only he and Rod Cameroon had passed\n the finals. On this occasion, he and Rod had celebrated together. It\n had been quite a party. Two weeks later, Rod had burned on a faulty\n take-off on what should have been a routine Moon run.\n\n\n Each time Si returned from one of his own runs, he celebrated. A spree,\n a bust, a bat, a wing-ding, a night on the town. A commemoration of\n dangers met and passed.\n\n\n Now it was all over. At the age of thirty he was retired. Law prevented\n him from ever being called up for contributing to the country's labor\n needs again. And he most certainly wasn't going to volunteer.\n\n\n He had taken his schooling much as had his contemporaries. There wasn't\n any particular reason for trying to excell. You didn't want to get the\n reputation for being a wise guy, or a cloddy either. Just one of the\n fellas. You could do the same in life whether you really studied or\n not. You had your Inalienable Basic stock, didn't you? What else did\n you need?\n\n\n It had come as a surprise when he'd been drafted for the labor force.\n\n\n In the early days of the Ultrawelfare State, they had made a mistake\n in adapting to the automation of the second industrial revolution.\n They had attempted to give everyone work by reducing the number of\n working hours in the day, and the number of working days in the week.\n It finally became ludicrous when employees of industry were working\n but two days a week, two hours a day. In fact, it got chaotic. It\n became obvious that it was more practical to have one worker putting in\n thirty-five hours a week and getting to know his job well, than it was\n to have a score of employees, each working a few hours a week and none\n of them ever really becoming efficient.\n\n\n The only fair thing was to let the technologically unemployed remain\n unemployed, with their Inalienable Basic stock as the equivalent of\n unemployment insurance, while the few workers still needed put in a\n reasonable number of hours a day, a reasonable number of weeks a year\n and a reasonable number of years in a life time. When new employees\n were needed, a draft lottery was held.\n\n\n All persons registered in the labor force participated. If you\n were drawn, you must need serve. The dissatisfaction those chosen\n might feel at their poor luck was offset by the fact that they were\n granted additional Variable Basic shares, according to the tasks\n they fulfilled. Such shares could be added to their portfolios, the\n dividends becoming part of their current credit balance, or could be\n sold for a lump sum on the market.\n\n\n Yes, but now it was all over. He had his own little place, his own\n vacuum-tube vehicle and twice the amount of shares of Basic that most\n of his fellow citizens could boast. Si Pond had it made. A spree was\n obviously called for.\n\n\n He was going to do this one right. This was the big one. He'd\n accumulated a lot of dollars these past few months and he intended\n to blow them, or at least a sizeable number of them. His credit card\n was burning a hole in his pocket, as the expression went. However, he\n wasn't going to rush into things. This had to be done correctly.\n\n\n Too many a spree was played by ear. You started off with a few drinks,\n fell in with some second rate mopsy and usually wound up in a third\n rate groggery where you spent just as much as though you'd been in the\n classiest joint in town. Came morning and you had nothing to show for\n all the dollars that had been spent but a rum-head.\n\n\n Thus, Si was vaguely aware, it had always been down through the\n centuries since the Phoenecian sailor, back from his year-long trip to\n the tin mines of Cornwall, blew his hard earned share of the voyage's\n profits in a matter of days in the wine shops of Tyre. Nobody gets\n quite so little for his money as that loneliest of all workers, he who\n must leave his home for distant lands, returning only periodically and\n usually with the salary of lengthy, weary periods of time to be spent\n hurriedly in an attempt to achieve the pleasure and happiness so long\n denied him.\n\n\n Si was going to do it differently this time.\n\n\n Nothing but the best. Wine, women, song, food, entertainment. The\n works. But nothing but the best.\nTo start off, he dressed with great care in the honorable\n retirement-rank suit he had so recently purchased. His space pin he\n attached carefully to the lapel. That was a good beginning, he decided.\n A bit of prestige didn't hurt you when you went out on the town. In\n the Ultrawelfare State hardly one person in a hundred actually ever\n performed anything of value to society. The efforts of most weren't\n needed. Those few who did contribute were awarded honors, decorations,\n titles.\n\n\n Attired satisfactorily, Si double-checked to see that his credit\n card was in his pocket. As an after-thought, he went over to the\n auto-apartment's teevee-phone, flicked it on, held the card to the\n screen and said, \"Balance check, please.\"\n\n\n In a moment, the teevee-phone's robot voice reported, \"Ten shares of\n Inalienable Basic. Twelve shares of Variable Basic, current value, four\n thousand, two hundred and thirty-three dollars and sixty-two cents\n apiece. Current cash credit, one thousand and eighty-four dollars.\" The\n screen went dead.\n\n\n One thousand and eighty-four dollars. That was plenty. He could safely\n spend as much as half of it, if the spree got as lively as he hoped it\n would. His monthly dividends were due in another week or so, and he\n wouldn't have to worry about current expenses. Yes, indeedy, Si Pond\n was as solvent as he had ever been in his thirty years.\n\n\n He opened the small, closet-like door which housed his vacuum-tube\n two-seater, and wedged himself into the small vehicle. He brought down\n the canopy, dropped the pressurizer and considered the dial. Only one\n place really made sense. The big city.\n\n\n He considered for a moment, decided against the boroughs of Baltimore\n and Boston, and selected Manhattan instead. He had the resources. He\n might as well do it up brown.\n\n\n He dialed Manhattan and felt the sinking sensation that presaged his\n car's dropping to tube level. While it was being taken up by the robot\n controls, being shuttled here and there preparatory to the shot to his\n destination, he dialed the vehicle's teevee-phone for information on\n the hotels of the island of the Hudson. He selected a swank hostelry\n he'd read about and seen on the teevee casts of society and celebrity\n gossip reporters, and dialed it on the car's destination dial.\n\n\n \"Nothing too good for ex-Space Pilot Si Pond,\" he said aloud.\n\n\n The car hesitated for a moment, that brief hesitation before the\n shot, and Si took the involuntary breath from which only heroes could\n refrain. He sank back slowly into the seat. Moments passed, and the\n direction of the pressure was reversed.\n\n\n Manhattan. The shuttling began again, and one or two more traversing\n sub-shots. Finally, the dash threw a green light and Si opened the\n canopy and stepped into his hotel room.\n\n\n A voice said gently, \"If the quarters are satisfactory, please present\n your credit card within ten minutes.\"\n\n\n Si took his time. Not that he really needed it. It was by far the most\n swank suite he had ever seen. One wall was a window of whatever size\n the guest might desire and Si touched the control that dilated it to\n the full. His view opened in such wise that he could see both the\n Empire State Building Museum and the Hudson. Beyond the river stretched\n the all but endless city which was Greater Metropolis.\n\n\n He didn't take the time to flick on the menu, next to the auto-dining\n table, nor to check the endless potables on the autobar list. All that,\n he well knew, would be superlative. Besides, he didn't plan to dine\n or do much drinking in his suite. He made a mock leer. Not unless he\n managed to acquire some feminine companionship, that was.\n\n\n He looked briefly into the swimming pool and bath, then flopped\n himself happily onto the bed. It wasn't up to the degree of softness\n he presently desired, and he dialed the thing to the ultimate in that\n direction so that with a laugh he sank almost out of sight into the\n mattress.\n\n\n He came back to his feet, gave his suit a quick patting so that it\n fell into press and, taking his credit card from his pocket, put it\n against the teevee-phone screen and pressed the hotel button so that\n registration could be completed.\n\n\n For a moment he stood in the center of the floor, in thought. Take it\n easy, Si Pond, take it all easy, this time. No throwing his dollars\n around in second-class groggeries, no eating in automated luncheterias.\n This time, be it the only time in his life, he was going to frolic in\n the grand manner. No cloddy was Si Pond.\n\n\n He decided a drink was in order to help him plan his strategy. A drink\n at the hotel's famous Kudos Room where celebrities were reputed to be a\n dime a dozen.\n\n\n He left the suite and stepped into one of the elevators. He said,\n \"Kudos Room.\"\n\n\n The auto-elevator murmured politely, \"Yes, sir, the Kudos Room.\"\nAt the door to the famous rendezvous of the swankiest set, Si paused a\n moment and looked about. He'd never been in a place like this, either.\n However, he stifled his first instinct to wonder about what this was\n going to do to his current credit balance with an inner grin and made\n his way to the bar.\n\n\n There was actually a bartender.\n\n\n Si Pond suppressed his astonishment and said, offhand, attempting an\n air of easy sophistication, \"Slivovitz Sour.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n The drinks in the Kudos Room might be concocted by hand, but Si noticed\n they had the routine teevee screens built into the bar for payment.\n He put his credit card on the screen immediately before him when the\n drink came, and had to quell his desire to dial for a balance check, so\n as to be able to figure out what the Sour had cost him.\n\n\n Well, this was something like it. This was the sort of thing he'd\n dreamed about, out there in the great alone, seated in the confining\n conning tower of his space craft. He sipped at the drink, finding it up\n to his highest expectations, and then swiveled slightly on his stool to\n take a look at the others present.\n\n\n To his disappointment, there were no recognizable celebrities. None\n that he placed, at least\u2014top teevee stars, top politicians of the\n Ultrawelfare State or Sports personalities.\n\n\n He turned back to his drink and noticed, for the first time, the girl\n who occupied the stool two down from him. Si Pond blinked. He blinked\n and then swallowed.\n\n\n \"\nZo-ro-as-ter\n,\" he breathed.\n\n\n She was done in the latest style from Shanghai, even to the point of\n having cosmetically duplicated the Mongolian fold at the corners of her\n eyes. Every pore, but\nevery\npore, was in place. She sat with the easy\n grace of the Orient, so seldom found in the West.\n\n\n His stare couldn't be ignored.\n\n\n She looked at him coldly, turned to the bartender and murmured, \"A Far\n Out Cooler, please, Fredric.\" Then deliberately added, \"I thought the\n Kudos Room was supposed to be exclusive.\"\n\n\n There was nothing the bartender could say to that, and he went about\n building the drink.\n\n\n Si cleared his throat. \"Hey,\" he said, \"how about letting this one be\n on me?\"\n\n\n Her eyebrows, which had been plucked and penciled to carry out her\n Oriental motif, rose. \"Really!\" she said, drawing it out.\n\n\n The bartender said hurriedly, \"I beg your pardon, sir....\"\n\n\n The girl, her voice suddenly subtly changed, said, \"Why, isn't that a\n space pin?\"\n\n\n Si, disconcerted by the sudden reversal, said, \"Yeah ... sure.\"\n\n\n \"Good Heavens, you're a spaceman?\"\n\n\n \"Sure.\" He pointed at the lapel pin. \"You can't wear one unless you\n been on at least a Moon run.\"\n\n\n She was obviously both taken back and impressed. \"Why,\" she said,\n \"you're Seymour Pond, the pilot. I tuned in on the banquet they gave\n you.\"\n\n\n Si, carrying his glass, moved over to the stool next to her. \"Call me\n Si,\" he said. \"Everybody calls me Si.\"\n\n\n She said, \"I'm Natalie. Natalie Paskov. Just Natalie. Imagine meeting\n Seymour Pond. Just sitting down next to him at a bar. Just like that.\"\n\n\n \"Si,\" Si said, gratified. Holy Zoroaster, he'd never seen anything\n like this rarified pulchritude. Maybe on teevee, of course, one of the\n current sex symbols, but never in person. \"Call me Si,\" he said again.\n \"I been called Si so long, I don't even know who somebody's talking to\n if they say Seymour.\"\n\n\n \"I cried when they gave you that antique watch,\" she said, her tone\n such that it was obvious she hadn't quite adjusted as yet to having\n met him.\n\n\n Si Pond was surprised. \"Cried?\" he said. \"Well, why? I was kind of\n bored with the whole thing. But old Doc Gubelin, I used to work under\n him in the Space Exploration department, he was hot for it.\"\n\n\n \"\nAcademician\nGubelin?\" she said. \"You just call him\nDoc\n?\"\n\n\n Si was expansive. \"Why, sure. In the Space Department we don't have\n much time for formality. Everybody's just Si, and Doc, and Jim. Like\n that. But how come you cried?\"\nShe looked down into the drink the bartender had placed before her,\n as though avoiding his face. \"I ... I suppose it was that speech\n Doctor Girard-Perregaux made. There you stood, so fine and straight in\n your space-pilot uniform, the veteran of six exploration runs to the\n planets....\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" Si said modestly, \"two of my runs were only to the Moon.\"\n\n\n \"... and he said all those things about man's conquest of space. And\n the dream of the stars which man has held so long. And then the fact\n that you were the last of the space pilots. The last man in the whole\n world trained to pilot a space craft. And here you were, retiring.\"\n\n\n Si grunted. \"Yeah. That's all part of the Doc's scheme to get me to\n take on another three runs. They're afraid the whole department'll be\n dropped by the Appropriations Committee on this here Economic Planning\n Board. Even if they can find some other patsy to train for the job,\n it'd take maybe a year before you could even send him on a Moon hop.\n So old man Gubelin, and Girard-Perregaux too, they're both trying to\n pressure me into more trips. Otherwise they got a Space Exploration\n Department, with all the expense and all, but nobody to pilot their\n ships. It's kind of funny, in a way. You know what one of those\n spaceships costs?\"\n\n\n \"Funny?\" she said. \"Why, I don't think it's funny at all.\"\n\n\n Si said, \"Look, how about another drink?\"\n\n\n Natalie Paskov said, \"Oh, I'd love to have a drink with you, Mr....\"\n\"Si,\" Si said. He motioned to the bartender with a circular twist of\n the hand indicating their need for two more of the same. \"How come you\n know so much about it? You don't meet many people who are interested\n in space any more. In fact, most people are almost contemptuous, like.\n Think it's kind of a big boondoggle deal to help use up a lot of\n materials and all and keep the economy going.\"\n\n\n Natalie said earnestly, \"Why, I've been a space fan all my life. I've\n read all about it. Have always known the names of all the space pilots\n and everything about them, ever since I was a child. I suppose you'd\n say I have the dream that Doctor Girard-Perregaux spoke about.\"\n\n\n Si chuckled. \"A real buff, eh? You know, it's kind of funny. I was\n never much interested in it. And I got a darn sight less interested\n after my first run and I found out what space cafard was.\"\n\n\n She frowned. \"I don't believe I know much about that.\"\n\n\n Sitting in the Kudos Room with the most beautiful girl to whom he had\n ever talked, Si could be nonchalant about the subject. \"Old Gubelin\n keeps that angle mostly hushed up and out of the magazine and newspaper\n articles. Says there's enough adverse publicity about space exploration\n already. But at this stage of the game when the whole ship's crammed\n tight with this automatic scientific apparatus and all, there's\n precious little room in the conning tower and you're the only man\n aboard. The Doc says later on when ships are bigger and there's a whole\n flock of people aboard, there won't be any such thing as space cafard,\n but....\" Of a sudden the right side of Si Pond's mouth began to tic\n and he hurriedly took up his drink and knocked it back.",
    "63477": "IMAGE OF SPLENDOR\nBy LU KELLA\nFrom Venus to Earth, and all the way between,\n \nit was a hell of a world for men ... and\n \nApprentice Burnerman O'Rielly particularly.\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Summer 1955.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe intercom roared fit to blow O'Rielly back to Venus. \"Burner Four!\"\n\n\n \"On my way, sir!\"\n\n\n At the first flash of red on the bank of meters Apprentice Burnerman\n O'Rielly had slammed the safety helmet on his head; he was already\n throwing open the lock to the burner room. The hot, throbbing rumble\n whipped around him and near crushed his breath away. Power! Power of\n the universe trapped here and ready to destroy its captors given one\n chance! Swiftly O'Rielly unlocked the controls and reset them. The\n throbbing rumble changed tone.\n\n\n Old Callahan's voice crackled now through the helmet's ear contact.\n \"Well, Mr. O'Rielly?\"\n\n\n \"Fusion control two points low, sir.\"\n\n\n O'Rielly wondered had Callahan passed out, was so long before the old\n Burner Chief demanded hoarsely, \"Didn't you lock them controls before\n blast-off?\"\n\n\n \"If every control hadn't been locked in correct setting,\" O'Rielly\n answered from his own angry bewilderment, \"the error would have\n registered before blast-off\u2014wouldn't it, sir?\"\n\n\n \"So a control reset itself in flight, hey?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know yet, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Well, Mr. O'Rielly, you better know before we orbit Earth!\"\n\n\n The icy knot in O'Rielly's stomach jerked tighter. A dozen burners on\n this ship; why did something crazy have to happen to O'Rielly's? In a\n hundred years, so the instructors\u2014brisk females all\u2014had told O'Rielly\n in pre-flight school, no control had ever been known to slip. But one\n had moved here. Not enough to cause serious trouble this far out from\n Earth. On blast-down, though, with one jet below peak, the uneven\n thrust could throw the ship, crash it, the whole lovely thing and all\n aboard gone in a churning cloud.\n\n\n Sweat pouring off him, O'Rielly prowled around his burner. Design of\n the thing had been bossed by dames of course; what on Earth wasn't any\n more? Anyway, nobody could get to a burner except through its watch\n room. Anyone entered or left there, a bell clanged, lights flashed\n and a meter registered beside the Burnerman's bunk and on the Burner\n Chief's console up in the flight room full of beautifully efficient\n officers. Ever since Venus blast-off O'Rielly had been in Four's watch\n room. Nobody had passed through. O'Rielly knew it. Callahan knew it.\n By now the Old Woman herself, Captain Millicent Hatwoody, had probably\n inquired what was in charge of Burner Four.\n\n\n Well, ma'am, O'Rielly searched every cranny where even a three-tailed\n mouse of Venus could have stowed away. His first flight, and O'Rielly\n saw himself washed out, busted to sweeper on the blast-off stands of\n some God-forsaken satellite. He staggered back into his watch room. And\n his brain was suddenly taken apart and slapped together again. Felt\n that way.\n\n\n She was sitting on his bunk. No three-tailed mouse. No Old Woman\n either. Oh, she was a female human, though, this creature at which\n O'Rielly stood gaping. Yes, ma'am!\n\n\n \"I was in your burner room.\" Her voice matched the rest of her, a blend\n of loveliness unlike anything outside a guy's most secret dreams. \"I\n couldn't stand the heat any longer and I couldn't open that big door.\n So I moved one of your controls a tiny bit. All the noise in there,\n naturally you couldn't hear me walk out while your back was turned\n resetting the control.\"\nO'Rielly suddenly felt like turning her over his knee and whaling her\n until she couldn't sit for a year. This, mind you, he felt in an age\n where no Earth guy for a thousand years had dared raise so much as a\n breath against woman's supremacy in all matters. That male character\n trait, however, did not seem to be the overpowering reason why\n O'Rielly, instead of laying violent hands upon this one's person, heard\n himself saying in sympathetic outrage, \"A shame you had to go to all\n that bother to get out here!\"\n\n\n \"You're so kind. But I'm afraid I became rather sticky and smelly in\n there.\"\n\n\n \"They ought to cool the air in there with perfume! I'll drop a\n suggestion in the Old Woman's box first chance I get.\"\n\n\n \"You're so thoughtful. And do you have bathing facilities?\"\n\n\n \"That door right there. Oh, let me open it for you!\"\n\n\n \"You're so sweet.\" Her big dark eyes glowed with such pure innocence\n that O'Rielly could have torn down the universe and rebuilt it just for\n her.\n\n\n Yes, ma'am, O'Rielly was floating on a pink cloud with heavenly music\n in his head. Never felt so fine before. Except on the Venus layover\n when he'd been roped into a dice game with a bunch of Venus lads who\n had a jug to cheer one's parting with one's money.\n\n\n A bell suddenly clanged fit to wake the dead while the overhead lights\n flashed wildly. Only the watch room door. Only Callahan here now. Old\n buzzard had a drooped nose like a pick, chin like a shovel.\n\n\n When he talked he was like digging a hole in front of himself. \"Well,\n what about that control?\"\n\n\n \"What control?\"\n\n\n \"Your fusion control that got itself two points low!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, that little thing.\"\n\n\n Callahan said something through his teeth, then studied O'Rielly\n sharply. \"Hey, you been wetting your whistle on that Venus vino again?\n Lemme smell your breath! Bah. Loaded yourself full of chlorophyll\n again probably. All right, stand aside whilst I see your burner.\"\n\n\n \"Charmed to, Burner Chief Callahan, sir,\" O'Rielly said while bowing\n gracefully.\n\n\n \"Higher than a swacked skunk's tail again,\" Callahan muttered, then\n snapped back over his shoulder, \"Use your shower!\"\n\n\n O'Rielly stood considering his shower door. Somehow he doubted that\n Burner Chief Terrence Callahan's mood, or Captain Millicent Hatwoody's,\n would be improved by knowledge of she who was in O'Rielly's shower now.\n Not that the dear stowaway was less than charming. Quite the contrary.\n Oh, very quite!\n\n\n \"You rockhead!\" Only Callahan back from the burner. \"Didn't I tell you\n to shower the stink off yourself? Old Woman's taking a Venus bigwig\n on tour the ship. Old Woman catches you like you been rassling skunks\n she'll peel both our hides off. Not to mention what she'll do anyway\n about your fusion control!\"\n\n\n \"Burner Chief Callahan, sir,\" O'Rielly responded courteously, \"I have\n been thinking.\"\n\n\n \"With what? Never mind, just keep on trying whilst I have a shower for\n myself here.\" Wherewith Callahan reached hand for O'Rielly's shower\n door.\n\n\n \"Venus dames,\" O'Rielly said dreamily, \"don't boss anything, do they?\"\n\n\n Callahan yelped like he'd been bit in the pants by a big Jupiter ant.\n \"O'Rielly! You trying to get both of us condemned to a Uranus moon?\"\n Callahan also shot a wild look to the intercom switch. It was in OFF\n position; the flight room full of fancy gold-lace petticoats could not\n have overheard from here. Nevertheless Callahan's eyes rolled like the\n devil was behind him with the fork ready. \"O'Rielly, open your big ears\n whilst for your own good and mine I speak of certain matters.\n\n\n \"Thousand years ago, it was, the first flight reached Venus. Guys\n got one look at them dames. Had to bring some home or bust. So then\n everybody on Earth got a look, mostly by TV only of course. That did\n it. Every guy on Earth began blowing his fuse over them dames. Give up\n the shirt off his back, last buck in the bank, his own Earth dame or\n family\u2014everything.\n\n\n \"Well, that's when Earth dames took over like armies of wild cats\n with knots in their tails. Before the guys who'd brought the Venus\n dames to Earth could say anything they was taken apart too small to\n pick up with a blotter. Earth dames wound up by flying the Venus ones\n back where they come from and serving notice if one ever set foot on\n Earth again there wouldn't be enough left of Venus to find with an\n electron microscope.\n\"Venus boys rared up and served notice that if Earth ever got any funny\n notions, right away there wouldn't be enough Earth left to hide in an\n atom's eyebrow. Touchy as hornets on a hot griddle, them Venus guys.\n Crazier than bed bugs about war. Could smell a loose dollar a million\n light years away too. Finagled around until they finally cooked up a\n deal.\n\n\n \"No Venus dames allowed within fifty miles of their port. Earth guys\n stay inside the high-voltage fence. Any dame caught trying to leave\n Venus thrown to the tigers for supper. Same for any Earth guy caught\n around a Venus dame. In return, Earth could buy practically everything\n at bargain basement prices.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I was shown the history films in pre-flight,\" O'Rielly said, still\n dreamily. \"But not a peek of any Venus dame.\"\n\n\n \"Pray heaven you'll never lay eyes on one nor have one get within ten\n foot of you! Even though you'd know she'd be your damnation wouldn't\n make a whit difference\u2014you'd still act sappier than thirty-seven\n angels flying on vino.\" Callahan suddenly stared at O'Rielly. \"Holy\n hollering saints!\"\n\n\n \"Now, now, Burner Chief Callahan, sir,\" O'Rielly responded with an airy\n laugh. \"No Earth guy for a hundred twenty-five years been near one and\n lived to tell it, has he?\"\n\n\n \"So the whispers run,\" Callahan murmured with a queer flame dancing\n into his eyes. \"So the old whispers still run.\"\n\n\n \"Never a name, though. Never how it was done.\" O'Rielly snorted.\n \"Probably just a goofy tale set loose by some old space bum.\"\n\n\n \"Oh?\" Callahan bristled up like a bad name had been bandied about.\n \"Seen them ditty bags Venus bigwigs have, ain't you? Some big enough to\n stuff a cow in. Notice how nobody ever dares question a bigwig's bags,\n even through customs? Just run 'em through the big Geiger that tells\n whether there's any fusionable junk inside. Well, our boy got himself\n one of them bags, stuffed himself inside and joined a bigwig's pile of\n 'em.\n\n\n \"Didn't pull it whilst on the Venus port during a layover either, when\n a crew check would of turned him up missing. Pulled it on vacation.\n Started on the Earth end. Made himself a pair of beards to paste on his\n ears of course. Wove Jupiter wiggle worms in to keep the beards moving.\n Wasn't like the real thing, but good enough to flimflam Venus guys.\"\n\n\n With suddenly enlivened interest O'Rielly looked at Callahan. \"Hey, how\n come you know so much?\"\n\n\n \"Hah? What?\" Callahan blinked like waking from a trance; even groaned\n to himself, something that sounded like, \"Blabbering like I'd had\n a nip myself\u2014or one of them dillies was radiating nearby.\" Then\n Callahan glared fit to drill holes in O'Rielly's head. \"Look! I was\n a full Burnerman before you was born. Been flying the spaces hundred\n twenty-five years now. Had more chances to hear more\u2014just hear more,\n you hear! Only tried to clear your mind about Venus dames so you could\n put your brain on your control mess. So now put it! If you ain't high\n on vino and ain't been made nuts by a Venus dame, what answer do we\n feed the Old Woman?\"\n\n\n \"Search me,\" Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly responded cheerfully.\n\n\n \"Of all the loony apprentices I ever had to answer the Old Woman for!\n Awp, lemme out where I can think of something to save me own neck at\n least!\"\n\n\n Was all O'Rielly could do to keep from rolling on the deck with glee.\n Old Callahan had been flimflammed for fair! The dear little stowaway\n was saved! And O'Rielly would now think of grand ways to save her\n lovely neck and his own forever.\n\n\n O'Rielly's shower door, however, opened abruptly. O'Rielly had not\n opened it. O'Rielly, however, suffered a cruel stab of dismay. Surely\n his dear stowaway had been listening through the door. Why didn't she\n have brains enough to stay hid until Callahan was gone!\n\n\n At sight of her, of course, Callahan's eyes near popped from his old\n head. \"Berta!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I'm Trillium,\" she assured Callahan sweetly. \"But Grandmamma's\n name is Berta and people say I'm just like she was a hundred and\n twenty-five years ago.\"\n\"Hah? What?\" Callahan blinked like his brain had been taken apart and\n was being slapped together again. \"O'Rielly! Awp, you angel-faced\n pirate, couldn't you hide her somewheres better than that? Shut up,\n you don't have to explain to me, but God help the whole universe if we\n don't flimflam the Old Woman!\" With which ominous remark, rendered in\n a zesty devil-may-care manner, however, Callahan threw himself into\n O'Rielly's shower.\n\n\n O'Rielly stood looking thoughtfully at lovely, womanly, exquisite\n Trillium. Just like that, O'Rielly felt as sparkling of mind as a\n spiral nebula. \"My locker!\" he crowed with inspiration and yanked open\n the doors under his bunk. He glimpsed a black ditty bag, also the cap\n and coverall uniform of a baggage boy.\n\n\n \"I threw them in there before you came on duty before blast-off,\"\n Trillium explained. \"I knew the burner room would be warm.\"\n\n\n Trillium\u2014with her shape\u2014passing as a boy hustling bags through this\n ship. O'Rielly chortled as he tucked her under his bunk. \"Now don't you\n worry about another thing!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I'm not,\" she assured him happily. \"Everything is going just the\n way Grandmamma knew it would!\"\n\n\n O'Rielly's shower opened and Callahan, glowing like a young bucko,\n bounced onto the bunk. \"Well, did you hide her good this time? No,\n don't tell me! I want to be surprised if the Old Woman ever finds her.\"\n\n\n \"If what old woman finds whom?\" a voice like thin ice crackling wanted\n to know.\n\n\n The watch room's door had opened. Wouldn't think the Old Woman was a\n day over seventy-five, let alone near two hundred. Cut of her uniform\n probably lent a helping hand or three to the young snap of her figure.\n Frosty blue of fancy hair-do, she was, though, and icy of eye as she\n looked at O'Rielly and Callahan still lolling on the bunk.\n\n\n Her voice was an iceberg exploding. \"At attention!\"\n\n\n Never in his right mind would any crewman dare fail to come stiffly\n erect the instant the Old Woman appeared. Behind her stood a colorfully\n robed specimen of Venus man. Handsome as the devil himself. Fit to snap\n lesser men in two with his highly bejeweled hands. Fuzzy beards trailed\n from his ears and kept twitching lazily as he sneered at the spectacle\n of two men meekly acknowledging the superiority of a woman.\n\n\n She was fit to put frost on a hydrogen burner. \"Mr. Callahan, I asked\n you a question, did I not?\"\n\n\n \"Believe you did, ma'am,\" Callahan responded cheerfully. \"And the\n answer is, ma'am, that Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly and me was\n discussing\u2014ah\u2014matrimony, ma'am. Mr. Apprentice Burnerman O'Rielly\n here is considering it, ma'am.\"\n\n\n Wasn't too bad a fib. The more O'Rielly thought of Trillium, the more\n ideas he got of doing things he'd never dreamt of before in his life.\n Yes, ma'am!\n\n\n \"Wasting your time talking nonsense!\" Old Woman's look was fit to\n freeze O'Rielly's brain, then she gave Callahan the look. \"I sent you\n down here to find the answer to that fusion control slippage!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, you'll have the best answer you ever heard of before long, ma'am!\"\n Callahan assured her heartily. \"The subject of nonsense\u2014I mean,\n women\u2014merely chanced to arise whilst we was scientifically analyzing\n the control phenomenon, ma'am. Naturally I offered this innocent young\n Burnerman the benefit of me long years of experience. Why,\" Callahan\n said with a jaunty laugh, \"dames mean nothing to me. Indeed 'twouldn't\n bother me none if there wasn't one of the things left in the world!\n Present company excepted, of course,\" Callahan hastened to say with a\n courtly bow.\n\n\n \"Stay at attention!\" Old Woman sniffed the air near Callahan's face,\n then in O'Rielly's vicinity. \"Smothered it with chlorophyll probably,\"\n she muttered through her teeth, \"if it is that vino.\" Something\n horrible as a plague flickered in her eyes, then the old ice was there\n again. \"Apprentice Burnerman, don't you know what your shower is for?\n Then use it! Mr. Callahan, remain at attention while I inspect this\n burner!\" She tendered a cool glance at the Venus bigwig. \"Care to join\n me, Your Excellency?\"\n\n\n \"May as well.\" His Excellency glanced at O'Rielly and Callahan much as\n he might at a couple of worms. Could bet your last old sox no female\n ever told any Venus man what to do.\n\n\n The shower units were equipped so no Burnerman need be more than two\n steps from his responsibility. To keep the Old Woman from possibly\n blowing her gaskets completely, O'Rielly simply stepped in, shut the\n door, flipped a switch and tingled as he was electronically cleansed\n of person and clothes. By time he finished, the Old Woman and His\n Excellency were already coming out of the burner room, dripping with\n sweat.\n\n\n Old Woman opened the shower with her customary commanding air. \"You\n first, Your Excellency.\"\n\n\n \"My dear Captain,\" His Excellency replied like a smoothly drawn dagger,\n \"always the lesser gender enjoys precedence.\"\n\n\n No Earth dame ever admitted any guy was even equal to any female. Old\n Woman, a prime symbol of her gender's superiority, whipped a razor edge\n onto her own words. \"Facilities of the Captain's quarters are more\n satisfactory.\"\n\n\n \"No more so than those of the Ambassadorial Suite.\"\nSeeming to grind her teeth, the Old O Woman turned abruptly to leave\n O'Rielly's watch room. Was all O'Rielly could do to keep from busting\n out laughing for joy.\n\n\n Old Woman had been flimflammed for fair! Dear Trillium was saved! And\n betwixt O'Rielly's grand brain and Callahan's great experience she'd be\n happy forever.\n\n\n A fine loud \"thump,\" however, was now heard. Old Woman whirled back and\n yanked open the doors under O'Rielly's bunk.\n\n\n \"Of all the sappy hiding places!\" Callahan yelped, in surprise of\n course.\n\n\n \"Trillium?\" His Excellency bellowed as if stung by one of the\n sabre-tailed hornets of his native planet. \"Trillium!\"\n\n\n \"Trillium,\" O'Rielly pleaded in loving anguish, \"why do you have to\n keep coming out of hiding just when nobody's going to find you?\"\n\n\n Her eyes merely became deep pools in which O'Rielly would have gladly\n drowned himself if he could.\n\"There are rewards,\" the Old Woman said with the deadly coldness of\n outer space, \"for Earthmen found in a Venus woman's company, and for\n her leaving her planet.\"\n\n\n \"Shut up!\" His Excellency's ear beards were standing straight out\n sideways. \"I'll handle this!\"\n\n\n \"May I remind His Excellency,\" the Old Woman snapped, \"that I represent\n Earth and her dominion of space gained by right of original flight!\"\n\n\n \"May I remind the Captain,\" His Excellency declared fit to be heard\n back to his planet, \"that I am the Personal Ambassador of the President\n of Venus and this thing can mean war!\"\n\n\n \"Yes! War in which people will actually die!\" As His Excellency paled\n at that grisly remark, the Old Woman spoke through her teeth at\n O'Rielly, Callahan and Trillium. \"All right, come along!\"\n\n\n O'Rielly joined the death march gladly. He felt the way Callahan\n looked: ready to wrap his arms around Trillium's brave loveliness and\n protect it to his last breath of life.\n\n\n Old Woman led the way to her office. Jabbed some buttons on her desk.\n Panels on opposite walls lit up.\n\n\n \"Presidents of Earth and Venus, please,\" the Old Woman stated evenly.\n \"Interplanetary emergency.\"\n\n\n Highly groomed flunkies appeared on the panels and were impersonally\n pleasant.\n\n\n \"Madame President's office. She is in a Cabinet meeting.\"\n\n\n \"Mr. President's office. He is in personal command of our glorious war\n efforts.\"\n\n\n Old Woman sighed through her teeth. \"Venus woman aboard this ship.\n Stowaway. Rattle that around your belfries.\"\n\n\n The flunkies' faces went slack with shock, then were replaced by a\n blizzard of scrambled faces and torrents of incoherent voices.\n\n\n Finally on the Earth panel appeared the famous classic features. \"The\n facts, if you please, Captain Hatwoody.\"\n\n\n The Venus panel finally held steady on universally notorious features,\n that were as fierce as an eagle's, in a fancy war helmet. \"Trillium! My\n own granddaughter? Impossible! Dimdooly,\" Mr. President roared at his\n Excellency, \"what's this nonsense?\"\n\n\n \"Some loud creature is interfering,\" Madame President snapped with\n annoyance.\n\n\n \"Blasted fools still have the circuits crossed,\" Mr. President swore.\n \"Some silly female cackling now!\"\n\n\n The parties in the panels saw each other now. Each one's left hand on a\n desk moved toward a big red button marked, ROCKETS.\n\n\n \"So,\" Mr. President said evenly. \"Another violation by your Earthmen.\"\n\n\n \"By your granddaughter, at least,\" Madame President replied coolly.\n\n\n \"An innocent child,\" Mr. President snapped, \"obviously kidnapped by\n those two idiotic Earthmen there!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, no, Grandpapa,\" Trillium said swiftly; \"I stole away all by\n myself, and Mr. O'Rielly and Callahan have been very helpful.\"\n\n\n \"Impossible!\" Grandpapa President's ear beards stood near straight up\n as he roared, \"You couldn't have stolen away by yourself! Trillium,\n tell the truth!\"\n\n\n \"Very well. Grandmamma told me how.\"\n\"Obviously Trillium's poor little brain has been drugged,\" His\n Excellency Dimdooly declared. \"Grandmamma Berta wouldn't know the first\n thing about such things!\"\n\n\n \"Impossible!\" Grandpapa President agreed. \"I've been married to her\n for a hundred and twenty-four and a half years and she's the finest\n rattle-brain I ever knew!\"\n\n\n \"She learned,\" Trillium stated emphatically, \"a hundred and twenty-five\n years ago.\"\n\n\n \"Hundred twenty-five,\" Grandpapa president growled like a boiling\n volcano. \"The year some Earthman.... Never did catch the devil....\n Berta? Impossible!\"\n\n\n Madame President's shapely finger now rested full on the button that\n could launch the fleets of war rockets that had been pre-aimed for a\n thousand years. \"I'm afraid your Ambassador is unwelcome now,\" Madame\n President stated coolly. \"Your granddaughter's actions have every mark\n of an invasion tactic by your government.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean, her actions?\" Grandpapa President's finger now lay\n poised on the button that had been waiting a thousand years to blow\n Earth out of the universe. \"My grandchild was kidnapped by men under\n your official command! Weren't you, Trillium dear?\"\n\n\n \"No. One of us stowing away was the only way we Venus women could bring\n our cause to the attention of Earth's President. If Earth will only\n stop buying from Venus, you won't have any money to squander on your\n wars any longer no matter what happens to we revolutionaries!\"\n\n\n \"Revolutionaries? Such claptrap! And what's wrong with my wars? People\n have to have something to keep their minds off their troubles! Nobody\n around here gets hurt. Oh, maybe a few scratches here and there. But\n nobody on Venus dies from the things any more.\"\n\n\n \"But Venus men are so excited all the time about going to war they\n haven't time for us women. That's why we always radiated such a fatal\n attraction for Earthmen. We want to be loved! We want our own men home\n doing useful work!\"\n\n\n \"Well, they do come home and do useful work! Couple weeks every ten\n months. Proven to be a highly efficient arrangement.\"\n\n\n \"More boys to run off to your old wars and more girls to stay home and\n be lonely!\"\n\n\n \"Now you just listen to me, Trillium!\" Grandpapa President was all\n Venus manhood laying down the law. \"That's the way things have been on\n Venus for ten thousand years and all the women in the universe can't\n change it!\"\n\n\n \"I have been in constant contact with my Cabinet during these\n conversations,\" Madame President said crisply. \"Earth is terminating\n all trade agreements with Venus as of this instant.\"\n\n\n \"What?\" Grandpapa's beards near pulled his ears off. \"It's not legal!\n You can't get away with this!\"\n\n\n \"Take your finger off that trigger, boy!\" a heavenly voice similar to\n Trillium's advised from the Venus panel.\n\n\n Whereupon Grandpapa glared to one side. \"Berta! What are you doing\n here? I am deciding matters of the gravest interplanetary nature!\"\n\n\n \"Were.\" Features more beautifully mature than Trillium's crowded onto\n the panel too. \"From now on I'm doing the deciding.\"\n\n\n \"Nonsense! You're only my wife!\"\n\n\n \"And new President of Venus, elected by unanimous vote of all women.\"\n\n\n \"Impossible! The men run Venus! Nobody's turning this planet into\n another Earth where a man can't even sneeze unless some woman says so!\"\n\n\n \"Take him away, girls,\" Berta ordered coolly, whereupon her spouse was\n yanked from view.\n\n\n His bellows, however, could be heard yet. \"Unhand me, you fool\n creatures! Guards! Guards!\"\n\n\n \"Save your breath,\" Berta advised him. \"And while you're in the cooler,\n enjoy this latest batch of surrender communiques. We women are in\n control everywhere now.\"\n\n\n \"Dimmy,\" Trillium was saying firmly to His Excellency, \"you have beat\n around the bush with me long enough. Now say it!\"\nDimdooly\u2014the mighty, the lordly, who had sneered at the sight of mere\n Earthmen kowtowing to a mere woman\u2014swelled up fit to blow his gaskets,\n then all the gas went out of him. His ear beards, however, still had\n enough zip left to flutter like butterflies. \"Yes, Trillium dear. I\n love only you. Please marry me at your earliest convenience.\"\n\n\n \"Well, Grandmamma,\" Trillium said with a highly self-satisfied air, \"it\n works. And just like you said, Earthmen meant nothing once I knew we\n Venus women had our own men in our power.\"\n\n\n \"Those crewmen there,\" Grandmamma President said, \"seem to be proof\n enough that we Venus women no longer radiate any threat to Earth's\n tranquility.\"\n\n\n Yes, ma'am, O'Rielly sure felt like proof of something all of a sudden.\n Worse than the hangover from that crap game with Venus vino. He looked\n away from Trillium and took a look at Callahan. Old guy looked away\n from Grandmamma President like he was packing the second biggest\n headache in history.\n\n\n \"Hmmmm, yes,\" Madame President of Earth observed. \"Reactions agree\n perfectly with the psychoanalytical research project we have been\n conducting on the subject of the Venus female influence. Madame\n President of Venus, congratulations on your victory!\n\n\n \"Long may the superior sex reign on Venus too! We shall be delighted to\n receive an Ambassadoress to discuss a new trade treaty at your earliest\n convenience.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you for cancelling the old trade agreements at the psychological\n moment,\" Grandmamma President said cordially. \"What with the\n communications mixup, we managed to have the scenes on these panels\n broadcast throughout all Venus. When the rug went out from under the\n top man, the tide really turned in our favor. Now, Trillium, you take\n over Dimmy's credentials.\"\n\n\n \"The Ambassadorial Suite, too,\" Madame President of Earth said\n graciously. \"Anything else now, Berta?\"\n\n\n \"I should like,\" Grandmamma President Berta said charmingly, \"that\n Mr. O'Rielly and Mr. Callahan be suitably rewarded for assisting our\n revolution better than they knew.\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" Madame President of Earth was delighted to oblige. \"No\n doubt Captain Hatwoody knows what reward would satisfy their needs\n best.\"\n\n\n The Madame Presidents switched to a private circuit, Trillium dragged\n Dimdooly off somewhere and the Old Woman eyed O'Rielly and Callahan.\n Especially she eyed Callahan, like running chilled drills through his\n old conniving brain. \"I award the pair of you five minutes leisure\n before returning to your stations.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, well,\" O'Rielly muttered, once he and Callahan were safely beyond\n earshot, \"could have been rewarded worse, I suppose.\"\n\n\n \"What you expect for being flimflammed by a foreign dame, the rings of\n Saturn? Lucky we ain't programmed to be hung, shot and thrown to the\n crows for breakfast.\" Callahan's old pick-and-shovel face wore a little\n grin like the cat that nobody could prove ate the canary.\n\n\n \"You\u2014I mean, that Earth guy a hundred twenty-five years ago,\" O'Rielly\n said in sudden thought. \"If Venus dames wanted to be loved so bad, why\n did Trillium's Grandmamma let him go?\"\n\n\n \"Venus guys wasn't so busy playing war all the time,\" Callahan mumbled,\n like to himself, \"they'd of found out the answer centuries ago. Yep,\n guess our boy was the only guy on Earth or Venus to find out and live.\n Dames bossing both planets now, though, his old secret won't be one\n much longer. Venus dames could of let it out centuries ago themselves\n but didn't, just to spite Earth probably. Later, was part of organizing\n to take over Venus, I guess.\"\n\n\n O'Rielly still had memories of the way he had felt about Trillium\n before her revolution. \"All right, Callahan, why did 'our boy' leave\n Grandmamma?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, ma'am,\" Callahan sighed like he hadn't heard a word O'Rielly\n said, \"you could sweet-talk 'em, kiss 'em and hold 'em tighter'n\n Billy-be-damned. And that's all.\"\n\n\n \"I'm not sure,\" O'Rielly said, \"what you mean by, 'that's all.'\"\n\n\n \"Anybody ever seen anybody but a Venus guy come built with ear beards?\n Course not.\"\n\n\n \"But I thought our boy was wearing the best fakes ever.\"\n\n\n \"Ain't nothing can match the natural growed-on variety, no, ma'am.\n Venus guy kisses a Venus dame, his beards grabs her roundst the ears.\"\n\n\n \"So what?\"\n\n\n \"Tickles 'em, boy, tickles 'em!\"",
    "61007": "IT WAS A DULL, ROUTINE LITTLE\n\n WORLD. IT DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A\n\n CITY. EVERYTHING IT HAD WAS\nIN THE GARDEN\nBY R. A. LAFFERTY\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1961.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe protozoic recorder chirped like a bird. Not only would there be\n life traces on that little moon, but it would be a lively place. So\n they skipped several steps in the procedure.\n\n\n The chordata discerner read\nPositive\nover most of the surface. There\n was spinal fluid on that orb, rivers of it. So again they omitted\n several tests and went to the cognition scanner. Would it show Thought\n on the body?\n\n\n Naturally they did not get results at once, nor did they expect to; it\n required a fine adjustment. But they were disappointed that they found\n nothing for several hours as they hovered high over the rotation. Then\n it came\u2014clearly and definitely, but from quite a small location only.\n\n\n \"Limited,\" said Steiner, \"as though within a pale. As though there were\n but one city, if that is its form. Shall we follow the rest of the\n surface to find another, or concentrate on this? It'll be twelve hours\n before it's back in our ken if we let it go now.\"\n\n\n \"Let's lock on this one and finish the scan. Then we can do the rest of\n the world to make sure we've missed nothing,\" said Stark.\n\n\n There was one more test to run, one very tricky and difficult of\n analysis, that with the Extraordinary Perception Locator. This was\n designed simply to locate a source of superior thought. But this might\n be so varied or so unfamiliar that often both the machine and the\n designer of it were puzzled as to how to read the results.\n\n\n The E. P. Locator had been designed by Glaser. But when the Locator\n had refused to read\nPositive\nwhen turned on the inventor himself,\n bad blood developed between machine and man. Glaser knew that he had\n extraordinary perception. He was a much honored man in his field. He\n told the machine so heatedly.\n\n\n The machine replied, with such warmth that its relays chattered, that\n Glaser did\nnot\nhave extraordinary perception; he had only ordinary\n perception to an extraordinary degree. There is a\ndifference\n, the\n machine insisted.\n\n\n It was for this reason that Glaser used that model no more, but built\n others more amenable. And it was for this reason also that the owners\n of Little Probe had acquired the original machine so cheaply.\n\n\n And there was no denying that the Extraordinary Perception Locator (or\n Eppel) was a contrary machine. On Earth it had read\nPositive\non a\n number of crack-pots, including Waxey Sax, a jazz tootler who could not\n even read music. But it had also read\nPositive\non ninety per cent of\n the acknowledged superior minds of the Earth. In space it had been a\n sound guide to the unusual intelligences encountered. Yet on Suzuki-Mi\n it had read\nPositive\non a two-inch-long worm, only one of them out of\n billions. For the countless identical worms no trace of anything at all\n was shown by the test.\n\n\n So it was with mixed expectations that Steiner locked onto the area\n and got a flick. He then narrowed to a smaller area (apparently one\n individual, though this could not be certain) and got very definite\n action. Eppel was busy. The machine had a touch of the ham in it, and\n assumed an air of importance when it ran these tests.\n\n\n Finally it signaled the result, the most exasperating result it ever\n produces: the single orange light. It was the equivalent of the shrug\n of the shoulders in a man. They called it the \"You tell\nme\nlight.\"\n\n\n So among the intelligences there was at least one that might be\n extraordinary, though possibly in a crackpot way. It is good to be\n forewarned.\n\"Scan the remainder of the world, Steiner,\" said Stark, \"and the rest\n of us will get some sleep. If you find no other spot then we will go\n down on that one the next time it is in position under us, in about\n twelve hours.\"\n\n\n \"You don't want to visit any of the other areas first? Somewhere away\n from the thoughtful creature?\"\n\n\n \"No. The rest of the world may be dangerous. There must be a reason\n that thought is in one spot only. If we find no others then we will go\n down boldly and visit this.\"\n\n\n So they all, except Steiner, went off to their bunks then: Stark, the\n Captain; Gregory Gilbert, the executive officer; Wolfgang Langweilig,\n the engineer; Casper Craig, super-cargo, tycoon and 51% owner of the\n Little Probe, and F. R. Briton, S.J., a Jesuit priest who was linguist\n and checker champion of the craft.\n\n\n Dawn did not come to the moon-town. The Little Probe hovered stationary\n in the light and the moon-town came up under the dawn. Then the Probe\n went down to visit whatever was there.\n\n\n \"There's no town,\" said Steiner. \"Not a building. Yet we're on the\n track of the minds. There's nothing but a meadow and some boscage, a\n sort of fountain or pool, and four streams coming out of it.\"\n\n\n \"Keep on towards the minds,\" said Stark. \"They're our target.\"\n\n\n \"Not a building, not two sticks or stones placed together. That looks\n like an Earth-type sheep there. And that looks like an Earth-lion,\n I'm almost afraid to say. And those two ... why, they could well be\n Earth-people. But with a difference. Where is that bright light coming\n from?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know, but they're right in the middle of it. Land here. We'll\n go to meet them at once. Timidity has never been an efficacious tool\n with us.\"\n\n\n Well, they were people. And one could only wish that all people were\n like them. There was a man and a woman, and they were clothed either\n in very bright garments or in no garments at all, but only in a very\n bright light.\n\n\n \"Talk to them, Father Briton,\" said Stark. \"You are the linguist.\"\n\n\n \"Howdy,\" said the priest.\n\n\n He may or may not have been understood, but the two of them smiled at\n him, so he went on.\n\n\n \"Father Briton from Philadelphia,\" he said, \"on detached service. And\n you, my good man, what is your handle, your monicker, your tag?\"\n\n\n \"Ha-Adamah,\" said the man.\n\n\n \"And your daughter, or niece?\"\n\n\n It may be that the shining man frowned momentarily at this; but the\n woman smiled, proving that she was human.\n\n\n \"The woman is named Hawwah,\" said the man. \"The sheep is named sheep,\n the lion is named lion, the horse is named horse and the hoolock is\n named hoolock.\"\n\n\n \"I understand. It is possible that this could go on and on. How is it\n that you use the English tongue?\"\n\n\n \"I have only one tongue; but it is given to us to be understood by all;\n by the eagle, by the squirrel, by the ass, by the English.\"\n\n\n \"We happen to be bloody Yankees, but we use a borrowed tongue. You\n wouldn't have a drink on you for a tubful of thirsty travellers, would\n you?\"\n\n\n \"The fountain.\"\n\n\n \"Ah\u2014I see.\"\nBut the crew all drank of the fountain to be sociable. It was water,\n but water that excelled, cool and with all its original bubbles like\n the first water ever made.\n\n\n \"What do you make of them?\" asked Stark.\n\n\n \"Human,\" said Steiner. \"It may even be that they are a little more than\n human. I don't understand that light that surrounds them. And they seem\n to be clothed, as it were, in dignity.\"\n\n\n \"And very little else,\" said Father Briton, \"though that light trick\n does serve a purpose. But I'm not sure they'd pass in Philadelphia.\"\n\n\n \"Talk to them again,\" said Stark. \"You're the linguist.\"\n\n\n \"That isn't necessary here, Captain. Talk to them yourself.\"\n\n\n \"Are there any other people here?\" Stark asked the man.\n\n\n \"The two of us. Man and woman.\"\n\n\n \"But are there any others?\"\n\n\n \"How would there be any others? What other kind of people could there\n be than man and woman?\"\n\n\n \"But is there more than one man or woman?\"\n\n\n \"How could there be more than one of anything?\"\n\n\n The captain was a little puzzled by this, but he went on doggedly:\n \"Ha-Adamah, what do you think that we are? Are we not people?\"\n\n\n \"You are not anything till I name you. But I will name you and then\n you can be. You are named Captain. He is named Priest. He is named\n Engineer. He is named Flunky.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks a lot,\" said Steiner.\n\n\n \"But are we not people?\" persisted Captain Stark.\n\n\n \"No. We are the people. There are no people but two. How could there be\n other people?\"\n\n\n \"And the damnest thing about it,\" muttered Langweilig, \"is, how are you\n going to prove him wrong? But it does give you a small feeling.\"\n\n\n \"Can we have something to eat?\" asked the Captain.\n\n\n \"Pick from the trees,\" said Ha-Adamah, \"and then it may be that you\n will want to sleep on the grass. Being not of human nature (which does\n not need sleep or rest), it may be that you require respite. But you\n are free to enjoy the garden and its fruits.\"\n\n\n \"We will,\" said Captain Stark.\n\n\n They wandered about the place, but they were uneasy. There were the\n animals. The lion and lioness were enough to make one cautious, though\n they offered no harm. The two bears had a puzzling look, as though they\n wanted either to frolic with you or to mangle you.\n\n\n \"If there are only two people here,\" said Casper Craig, \"then it may be\n that the rest of the world is not dangerous at all. It looked fertile\n wherever we scanned it, though not so fertile as this central bit. And\n those rocks would bear examining.\"\n\n\n \"Flecked with gold, and possibly with something else,\" said Stark. \"A\n very promising site.\"\n\n\n \"And everything grows here,\" added Steiner. \"Those are Earth-fruits and\n I never saw finer. I've tasted the grapes and plums and pears. The figs\n and dates are superb, the quince is as flavorsome as a quince can be,\n the cherries are excellent. And I never did taste such oranges. But I\n haven't yet tried the\u2014\" and he stopped.\n\n\n \"If you're thinking what I'm afraid to think,\" said Gilbert, \"then it\n will be the test at least: whether we're having a pleasant dream or\n whether this is reality. Go ahead and eat one.\"\n\n\n \"I won't be the first to eat one. You eat.\"\n\n\n \"Ask him first. You ask him.\"\n\n\n \"Ha-Adamah, is it allowed to eat the apples?\"\n\n\n \"Certainly. Eat. It is the finest fruit in the garden.\"\n\"Well, the analogy breaks down there,\" said Stark. \"I was almost\n beginning to believe in the thing. But if it isn't that, then what.\n Father Briton, you are the linguist, but in Hebrew does not Ha-Adamah\n and Hawwah mean\u2014?\"\n\n\n \"Of course they do. You know that as well as I.\"\n\n\n \"I was never a believer. But would it be possible for the exact same\n proposition to maintain here as on Earth?\"\n\n\n \"All things are possible.\"\n\n\n And it was then that Ha-Adamah, the shining man, gave a wild cry: \"No,\n no. Do not approach it. It is not allowed to eat of that one!\"\n\n\n It was the pomegranate tree, and he was warning Langweilig away from it.\n\n\n \"Once more, Father,\" said Stark, \"you should be the authority; but does\n not the idea that it was the apple that was forbidden go back only to a\n medieval painting?\"\n\n\n \"It does. The name of the fruit is not mentioned in Genesis. In Hebrew\n exegesis, however, the pomegranate is usually indicated.\"\n\n\n \"I thought so. Question the man further, Father. This is too\n incredible.\"\n\n\n \"It is a little odd. Adam, old man, how long have you been here?\"\n\n\n \"Forever less six days is the answer that has been given to me. I never\n did understand the answer, however.\"\n\n\n \"And have you gotten no older in all that time?\"\n\n\n \"I do not understand what 'older' is. I am as I have been from the\n beginning.\"\n\n\n \"And do you think that you will ever die?\"\n\n\n \"To die I do not understand. I am taught that it is a property of\n fallen nature to die, and that does not pertain to me or mine.\"\n\n\n \"And are you completely happy here?\"\n\n\n \"Perfectly happy according to my preternatural state. But I am taught\n that it might be possible to lose that happiness, and then to seek it\n vainly through all the ages. I am taught that sickness and ageing and\n even death could come if this happiness were ever lost. I am taught\n that on at least one other unfortunate world it has actually been lost.\"\n\n\n \"Do you consider yourself a knowledgeable man?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, since I am the only man, and knowledge is natural to man. But I\n am further blessed. I have a preternatural intellect.\"\n\n\n Then Stark cut in once more: \"There must be some one question you could\n ask him, Father. Some way to settle it. I am becoming nearly convinced.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, there is a question that will settle it. Adam, old man, how about\n a game of checkers?\"\n\n\n \"This is hardly the time for clowning,\" said Stark.\n\n\n \"I'm not clowning, Captain. How about it, Adam? I'll give you choice of\n colors and first move.\"\n\n\n \"No. It would be no contest. I have a preternatural intellect.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I beat a barber who was champion of Germantown. And I beat the\n champion of Morgan County, Tennessee, which is the hottest checker\n center on Earth. I've played against, and beaten, machines. But I\n never played a preternatural mind. Let's just set up the board, Adam,\n and have a go at it.\"\n\n\n \"No. It would be no contest. I would not like to humble you.\"\nThey were there for three days. They were delighted with the place.\n It was a world with everything, and it seemed to have only two\n inhabitants. They went everywhere except into the big cave.\n\n\n \"What is there, Adam?\" asked Captain Stark.\n\n\n \"The great serpent lives there. I would not disturb him. He has long\n been cranky because plans he had for us did not materialize. But we\n are taught that should ever evil come to us, which it cannot if we\n persevere, it will come by him.\"\n\n\n They learned no more of the real nature of the sphere in their time\n there. Yet all but one of them were convinced of the reality when they\n left. And they talked of it as they took off.\n\n\n \"A crowd would laugh if told of it,\" said Stark, \"but not many would\n laugh if they had actually seen the place, or them. I am not a gullible\n man, but I am convinced of this: that this is a pristine and pure world\n and that ours and all the others we have visited are fallen worlds.\n Here are the prototypes of our first parents before their fall. They\n are garbed in light and innocence, and they have the happiness that\n we have been seeking for centuries. It would be a crime if anyone\n disturbed that happiness.\"\n\n\n \"I too am convinced,\" said Steiner. \"It is Paradise itself, where the\n lion lies down with the lamb, and where the serpent has not prevailed.\n It would be the darkest of crimes if we or others should play the part\n of the serpent, and intrude and spoil.\"\n\n\n \"I am probably the most skeptical man in the world,\" said Casper Craig\n the tycoon, \"but I do believe my eyes. I have been there and seen it.\n It is indeed an unspoiled Paradise; and it would be a crime calling to\n the wide heavens for vengeance for anyone to smirch in any way that\n perfection.\n\n\n \"So much for that. Now to business. Gilbert, take a gram: Ninety\n Million Square Miles of Pristine Paradise for Sale or Lease. Farming,\n Ranching, exceptional opportunities for Horticulture. Gold, Silver,\n Iron, Earth-Type Fauna. Terms. Special Rates for Large Settlement\n Parties. Write, Gram, or call in person at any of our planetary offices\n as listed below. Ask for Brochure\u2014Eden Acres Unlimited.\"\nDown in the great cave that Old Serpent, a two-legged one among whose\n names were \"Snake-Oil Sam,\" spoke to his underlings:\n\n\n \"It'll take them fourteen days to get back with the settlers. We'll\n have time to overhaul the blasters. We haven't had any well-equipped\n settlers for six weeks. It used to be we'd hardly have time to strip\n and slaughter and stow before there was another batch to take care of.\"\n\n\n \"I think you'd better write me some new lines,\" said Adam. \"I feel like\n a goof saying those same ones to each bunch.\"\n\n\n \"You are a goof, and therefore perfect for the part. I was in show\n business long enough to know never to change a line too soon. I did\n change Adam and Eve to Ha-Adamah and Hawwah, and the apple to the\n pomegranate. People aren't becoming any smarter\u2014but they are becoming\n better researched, and they insist on authenticity.\n\n\n \"This is still a perfect come-on here. There is something in human\n nature that cannot resist the idea of a Perfect Paradise. Folks will\n whoop and holler to their neighbors to come in droves to spoil and mar\n it. It isn't greed or the desire for new land so much\u2014though that is\n strong too. Mainly it is the feverish passion to befoul and poison what\n is unspoiled. Fortunately I am sagacious enough to take advantage of\n this trait. And when you start to farm a new world on a shoestring you\n have to acquire your equipment as you can.\"\n\n\n He looked proudly around at the great cave with its mountains and tiers\n of materials, heavy machinery of all sorts, titanic crates of foodstuff\n space-sealed; wheeled, tracked, propped, vaned and jetted vehicles; and\n power packs to run a world.\n\n\n He looked at the three dozen space ships stripped and stacked, and at\n the rather large pile of bone-meal in one corner.\n\n\n \"We will have to have another lion,\" said Eve. \"Bowser is getting old,\n and Marie-Yvette abuses him and gnaws his toes. And we do have to have\n a big-maned lion to lie down with the lamb.\"\n\n\n \"I know it, Eve. The lion is a very important prop. Maybe one of the\n crackpot settlers will bring a new lion.\"\n\n\n \"And can't you mix another kind of shining paint? This itches. It's\n hell.\"\n\n\n \"I'm working on it.\"\nCasper Craig was still dictating the gram:\n\n\n \"Amazing quality of longevity seemingly inherent in the locale. Climate\n ideal. Daylight or half-light. All twenty-one hours from Planet\n Delphina and from Sol. Pure water for all industrial purposes. Scenic\n and storied. Zoning and pre-settlement restrictions to insure congenial\n neighbors. A completely planned globular settlement in a near arm of\n our own galaxy. Low taxes and liberal credit. Financing our specialty\u2014\"\n\n\n \"And you had better have an armed escort when you return,\" said Father\n Briton.\n\n\n \"Why in cosmos would we want an armed escort?\"\n\n\n \"It's as phony as a seven-credit note!\"\n\n\n \"You, a man of the cloth doubt it? And us ready skeptics convinced by\n our senses? Why do you doubt?\"\n\n\n \"It is only the unbelieving who believe so easily in obvious frauds.\n Theologically unsound, dramaturgically weak, philologically impossible,\n zoologically rigged, salted conspicuously with gold and shot through\n with anachronisms. And moreover he was afraid to play me at checkers.\"\n\n\n \"What?\"\n\n\n \"If I have a preternatural intellect I wouldn't be afraid of a game of\n checkers with anyone. Yet there was an unusual mind there somewhere; it\n was just that he chose not to make our acquaintance personally.\"\n\n\n \"They looked at the priest thoughtfully.\n\n\n \"But it was Paradise in one way,\" said Steiner at last.\n\n\n \"How?\"\n\n\n \"All the time we were there the woman did not speak.\"",
    "62349": "The Blue Behemoth\nBy LEIGH BRACKETT\nShannon's Imperial Circus was a jinxed\n\n space-carny leased for a mysterious tour\n\n of the inner worlds. It made a one-night\n\n pitch on a Venusian swamp-town\u2014to\n\n find that death stalked it from the\n\n jungle in a tiny ball of flame.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories May 1943.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nBucky Shannon leaned forward across the little hexagonal table. He\n knocked over the pitcher of\nthil\n, but it didn't matter. The pitcher\n was empty. He jabbed me in the breastbone with his forefinger, not\n very hard. Not hard enough to jar the ribs clean loose, just enough to\n spring them.\n\n\n \"We,\" he said, \"are broke. We are finished, through. Washed up and\n down the drain.\" He added, as an afterthought, \"Destitute.\"\n\n\n I looked at him. I said sourly, \"You're kidding!\"\n\n\n \"Kidding.\" Shannon put his elbows on the table and peered at me through\n a curtain of very blond hair that was trying hard to be red. \"He says\n I'm kidding! With Shannon's Imperial Circus, the Greatest Show in\n Space, plastered so thick with attachments....\"\n\n\n \"It's no more plastered than you are.\" I was sore because he'd been a\n lot quicker grabbing the pitcher. \"The Greatest Show in Space. Phooey!\n I've wet-nursed Shannon's Imperial Circus around the Triangle for\n eleven years, and I know. It's lousy, it's mangy, it's broken-down!\n Nothing works, from the ship to the roustabouts. In short, it stinks!\"\n\n\n I must have had the pitcher oftener than I thought. Nobody insults\n Buckhalter Shannon's Imperial Circus to Buckhalter Shannon's face\n unless he's tired and wants a long rest in a comfy fracture-frame.\n\n\n Shannon got up. He got up slowly. I had plenty of time to see his\n grey-green eyes get sleepy, and hear the quarter-Earth-blood Martian\n girl wailing about love over by the battered piano, and watch the\n slanting cat-eyes of the little dark people at the tables swing round\n toward us, pleased and kind of hungry.\n\n\n I had plenty of time to think how I only weigh one-thirty-seven to\n Shannon's one-seventy-five, and how I'm not as young as I used to be.\n\n\n I said, \"Bucky. Hold on, fella. I....\"\n\n\n Somebody said, \"Excuse me, gentlemen. Is one of you Mister Buckhalter\n Shannon?\"\n\n\n Shannon put his hands down on his belt. He closed his eyes and smiled\n pleasantly and said, very gently:\n\n\n \"Would you be collecting for the feed bill, or the fuel?\"\n\n\n I shot a glance at the newcomer. He'd saved me from a beating, even if\n he was a lousy bill-collecter; and I felt sorry for him. Bucky Shannon\n settled his shoulders and hips like a dancer.\n\n\n The stranger was a little guy. He even made me look big. He was dressed\n in dark-green synthesilk, very conservative. There was a powdering of\n grey in his hair and his skin was pink, soft, and shaved painfully\n clean. He had the kind of a face that nice maiden-ladies will trust\n with their last dime. I looked for his strong-arm squad.\n\n\n There didn't seem to be any. The little guy looked at Shannon with pale\n blue eyes like a baby, and his voice was softer than Bucky's.\n\n\n He said, \"I don't think you understand.\"\n\n\n I felt cold, suddenly, between the shoulders. Somebody scraped a chair\n back. It sounded like he'd ripped the floor open, it was so quiet. I\n got my brassies on, and my hands were sweating. Bucky Shannon sighed,\n and let his fist start traveling, a long, deceptive arc.\n\n\n Then I saw what the little guy was holding in his hand.\n\n\n I yelled and knocked the table over into Bucky. It made a lot of noise.\n It knocked him sideways and down, and the little dark men jumped up,\n quivering and showing their teeth. The Martian girl screamed.\n\n\n Bucky heaved the table off his lap and cursed me. \"What's eating you,\n Jig? I'm not going to hurt him.\"\n\n\n \"Shut up,\" I said. \"Look what he's got there. Money!\"\n\n\n The little guy looked at me. He hadn't turned a hair. \"Yes,\" he said.\n \"Money. Quite a lot of it. Would you gentlemen permit me to join you?\"\n\n\n Bucky Shannon got up. He grinned his pleasantest grin. \"Delighted. I'm\n Shannon. This is Jig Bentley, my business manager.\" He looked down at\n the table. \"I'm sorry about that. Mistaken identity.\"\n\n\n The little guy smiled. He did it with his lips. The rest of his face\n stayed placid and babyish, almost transparent. I realized with a start\n that it wasn't transparent at all. It was the most complete dead-pan I\n ever met, and you couldn't see into those innocent blue eyes any more\n than you could see through sheet metal.\n\n\n I didn't like him. I didn't like him at all. But he had money. I said,\n \"Howdy. Let's go find a booth. These Marshies make me nervous, looking\n like hungry cats at a mouse-hole.\"\n\n\n The little guy nodded. \"Excellent idea. My name is Beamish. Simon\n Beamish. I wish to\u2014ah\u2014charter your circus.\"\nI looked at Bucky. He looked hungrier than the Marshies did. We didn't\n say anything until we got Beamish into a curtained booth with a fresh\n pitcher of\nthil\non the table. Then I cleared my throat.\n\n\n \"What exactly did you have in mind, Mr. Beamish?\"\n\n\n Beamish sipped his drink, made a polite face, and put it down. \"I have\n independent means, gentlemen. It has always been my desire to lighten\n the burden of life for those less fortunate....\"\n\n\n Bucky got red around the ears. \"Just a minute,\" he murmured, and\n started to get up. I kicked him under the table.\n\n\n \"Shut up, you lug. Let Mister Beamish finish.\"\n\n\n He sat down, looking like a mean dog waiting for the postman. Beamish\n ignored him. He went on, quietly,\n\n\n \"I have always held that entertainment, of the right sort, is the most\n valuable aid humanity can have in its search for the alleviation of\n toil and boredom....\"\n\n\n I said, \"Sure, sure. But what was your idea?\"\n\n\n \"There are many towns along the Venusian frontiers where no\n entertainment of the\u2014\nproper\nsort has been available. I propose to\n remedy that. I propose to charter your circus, Mister Shannon, to make\n a tour of several settlements along the Tehara Belt.\"\n\n\n Bucky had relaxed. His grey-green eyes began to gleam. He started to\n speak, and I kicked him again.\n\n\n \"That would be expensive, Mister Beamish,\" I said. \"We'd have to cancel\n several engagements....\"\n\n\n He looked at me. I was lying, and he knew it. But he said,\n\n\n \"I quite understand that. I would be prepared....\"\n\n\n The curtains were yanked back suddenly. Beamish shut up. Bucky and I\n glared at the head and shoulders poking in between the drapes.\n\n\n It was Gow, our zoo-man\u2014a big, ugly son-of-a-gun from a Terran\n colony on Mercury. I was there once. Gow looks a lot like the\n scenery\u2014scowling, unapproachable, and tough. His hands, holding the\n curtains apart, had thick black hair on them and were not much larger\n than the hams of a Venusian swamp-rhino.\n\n\n He said, \"Boss, Gertrude's actin' up again.\"\n\n\n \"Gertrude be blowed,\" growled Bucky. \"Can't you see I'm busy?\"\n\n\n Gow's black eyes were unpleasant. \"I'm tellin' you, Boss, Gertrude\n ain't happy. She ain't had the right food. If something....\"\n\n\n I said, \"That'll all be taken care of, Gow. Run along now.\"\n\n\n He looked at me like he was thinking it wouldn't take much timber to\n fit me for a coffin. \"Okay! But Gertrude's unhappy. She's lonesome,\n see? And if she don't get happier pretty soon I ain't sure your tin-pot\n ship'll hold her.\"\n\n\n He pulled the curtains to and departed. Bucky Shannon groaned. Beamish\n cleared his throat and said, rather stiffly,\n\n\n \"Gertrude?\"\n\n\n \"Yeah. She's kind of temperamental.\" Bucky took a quick drink. I\n finished for him.\n\n\n \"She's the star attraction of our show, Mr. Beamish. A real blue-swamp\n Venusian\ncansin\n. The only other one on the Triangle belongs to Savitt\n Brothers, and she's much smaller than Gertrude.\"\n\n\n She was also much younger, but I didn't go into that. Gertrude may be\n a little creaky, but she's still pretty impressive. I only hoped she\n wouldn't die on us, because without her we'd have a sicker-looking\n circus than even I could stand.\n\n\n Beamish looked impressed. \"A\ncansin\n. Well, well! The mystery\n surrounding the origin and species of the\ncansin\nis a fascinating\n subject. The extreme rarity of the animal....\"\n\n\n We were getting off the subject. I said tactfully, \"We'd have to have\n at least a hundred U.C.'s.\"\n\n\n It was twice what we had any right to ask. I was prepared to dicker.\n Beamish looked at me with that innocent dead pan. For a fraction of a\n second I thought I saw something back of his round blue eyes, and my\n stomach jumped like it was shot. Beamish smiled sweetly.\n\n\n \"I'm not much of a bargainer. One hundred Universal Credits will be\n agreeable to me.\" He dragged out a roll as big as my two fists, peeled\n off half a dozen credit slips, and laid them on the table.\n\n\n \"By way of a retainer, gentleman. My attorney and I will call on you in\n the morning with a contract and itinerary. Good night.\"\n\n\n We said good night, trying not to drool. Beamish went away. Bucky made\n grab for the money, but I beat him to it.\n\n\n \"Scram,\" I said. \"There are guys waiting for this. Big guys with clubs.\n Here.\" I gave him a small-denomination slip I'd been holding out. \"We\n can get lushed enough on this.\"\n\n\n Shannon has a good vocabulary. He used it. When he got his breath back\n he said suddenly,\n\n\n \"Beamish is pulling some kind of a game.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah.\"\n\n\n \"It may be crooked.\"\n\n\n \"Sure. And he may be screwball and on the level. For Pete's sake!\" I\n yelled. \"You want to sit here till we all dry up and blow away?\"\n\n\n Shannon looked at me, kind of funny. He looked at the bulge in my tunic\n where the roll was. He raked back his thick light hair.\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" he said. \"I hope there'll be enough left to bribe the jury.\" He\n poked his head outside. \"Hey, boy! More\nthildatum\n!\"\nIt was pretty late when we got back to the broken-down spaceport where\n Shannon's Imperial Circus was crouching beneath its attachments. Late\n as it was, they were waiting for us. About twenty of them, sitting\n around and smoking and looking very ugly.\n\n\n It was awfully lonesome out there, with the desert cold and restless\n under the two moons. There's a smell to Mars, like something dead and\n dried long past decay, but still waiting. An unhappy smell. The blown\n red dust gritted in my teeth.\n\n\n Bucky Shannon walked out into the glare of the light at the entrance to\n the roped-off space around the main lock. He was pretty steady on his\n feet. He waved and said, \"Hiya, boys.\"\n\n\n They got up off the steps, and the packing cases, and came toward us. I\n grinned and got into my brassies. We felt we owed those boys a lot more\n than money. It grates on a man's pride to have to sneak in and out of\n his own property through the sewage lock. This was the first time in\n weeks we'd come in at the front door.\n\n\n I waved the money in their faces. That stopped them. Very solemnly,\n Bucky and I checked the bills, paid them, and pocketed the receipts.\n Bucky yawned and stretched sleepily.\n\n\n \"Now?\" he said.\n\n\n \"Now,\" I said.\n\n\n We had a lot of fun. Some of the boys inside the ship came out to join\n in. We raised a lot of dust and nobody got killed, quite. We all went\n home happy. They had their money, and we had their blood.\n\n\n The news was all over the ship before we got inside. The freaks and the\n green girl from Tethys who could roll herself like a hoop, and Zurt the\n muscle man from Jupiter, and all the other assorted geeks and kinkers\n and joeys that make up the usual corny carnie were doing nip-ups in the\n passageways and drooling over the thought of steer and toppings.\n\n\n Bucky Shannon regarded them possessively, wiping blood from his nose.\n \"They're good guys, Jig. Swell people. They stuck by me, and I've\n rewarded them.\"\n\n\n I said, \"Sure,\" rather sourly. Bucky hiccoughed.\n\n\n \"Let's go see Gertrude.\"\n\n\n I didn't want to see Gertrude. I never got over feeling funny going\n into the brute tank, especially at night or out in space. I'm a city\n guy, myself. The smell and sound of wildness gives me goose bumps. But\n Bucky was looking stubborn, so I shrugged.\n\n\n \"Okay. But just for a minute. Then we go beddy-bye.\"\n\n\n \"You're a pal, Jif. Bes' li'l' guy inna worl'....\"\n\n\n The fight had just put the topper on him. I was afraid he'd fall down\n the ladder and break his neck. That's why I went along. If I hadn't....\n Oh, well, what's a few nightmares among friends?\n\n\n It was dark down there in the tank. Way off at the other end, there was\n a dim glow. Gow was evidently holding Gertrude's hand. We started down\n the long passageway between the rows of cages and glassed-in tanks and\n compression units.\n\n\n Our footsteps sounded loud and empty on the iron floor. I wasn't\n near as happy as Shannon, and my skin began to crawl a little. It's\n the smell, I think; rank and sour and wild. And the sound of them,\n breathing and rustling in the dark, with the patient hatred walled\n around them as strong as the cage bars.\n\n\n Bucky Shannon lurched against me suddenly. I choked back a yell, and\n then wiped the sweat off my forehead and cursed. The scream came again.\n A high, ragged, whistling screech like nothing this side of hell,\n ripping through the musty darkness. Gertrude, on the wailing wall.\n\n\n It had been quiet. Now every brute in the place let go at the same\n time. My stomach turned clear over. I called Gertrude every name I\n could think of, and I couldn't hear myself doing it. Presently a great\n metallic clash nearly burst my eardrums, and the beasts shut up. Gow\n had them nicely conditioned to that gong.\nBut they didn't quiet down. Not really. They were uneasy. You can feel\n them inside you when they're uneasy. I think that's why I'm scared of\n them. They make me feel like I'm not human as I thought\u2014like I wanted\n to put my back-hair up and snarl. Yeah. They were uneasy that night,\n all of a sudden....\n\n\n Gow glared at us as we came up into the lantern light. \"She's gettin'\n worse,\" he said. \"She's lonesome.\"\n\n\n \"That's tough,\" said Bucky Shannon. His grey-green eyes looked like an\n owl's. He swayed slightly. \"That's sure tough.\" He sniffled.\n\n\n I looked at Gertrude. Her cage is the biggest and strongest in the tank\n and even so she looked as though she could break it open just taking a\n deep breath. I don't know if you've ever seen a\ncansin\n. There's only\n two of them on the Triangle. If you haven't, nothing I can say will\n make much difference.\n\n\n They're what the brain gang calls an \"end of evolution.\" Seems old\n Dame Nature had an idea that didn't jell. The\ncansins\nwere pretty\n successful for a while, it seems, but something gummed up the works and\n now there's only a few left, way in the deep-swamp country, where even\n the Venusians hardly ever go. Living fossils.\n\n\n I wouldn't know, of course, but Gertrude looks to me like she got stuck\n some place between a dinosaur and a grizzly bear, with maybe a little\n bird blood thrown in. Anyway, she's big.\n\n\n I couldn't help feeling sorry for her. She was crouched in the cage\n with her hands\u2014yeah, hands\u2014hanging over her knees and her snaky head\n sunk into her shoulders, looking out. Just looking. Not at anything.\n Her eyes were way back in deep horny pits, like cold green fire.\n\n\n The lantern light was yellow on her blue-black skin, but it made the\n mane, or crest, of coarse wide scales that ran from between her eyes\n clear down to her flat, short tail, burn all colors. She looked like\n old Mother Misery herself, from way back before time began.\n\n\n Gow said softly, \"She wants a mate. And somebody better get her one.\"\n\n\n Bucky Shannon sniffled again. I said irritably, \"Be reasonable, Gow!\n Nobody's ever seen a male\ncansin\n. There may not even be any.\"\n\n\n Gertrude screamed again. She didn't move, not even to raise her head.\n The sadness just built up inside her until it had to come out. That\n close, the screech was deafening, and it turned me all limp and cold\n inside. The loneliness, the sheer stark, simple pain....\n\n\n Bucky Shannon began to cry. I snarled, \"You'll have to snap her out of\n this, Gow. She's driving the rest of 'em nuts.\"\n\n\n He hammered on his gong, and things quieted down again. Gow stood\n looking out over the tank, sniffing a little, like a hound. Then he\n turned to Gertrude.\n\n\n \"I saved her life,\" he said. \"When we bought her out of Hanak's wreck\n and everybody thought she was too hurt to live, I saved her. I know\n her. I can do things with her. But this time....\"\n\n\n He shrugged. He was huge and tough and ugly, and his voice was like a\n woman's talking about a sick child.\n\n\n \"This time,\" he said, \"I ain't sure.\"\n\n\n \"Well for Pete's sake, do what you can. We got a charter, and we need\n her.\" I took Shannon's arm. \"Come to bed, Bucky darlin'.\"\n\n\n He draped himself over my shoulder and we went off. Gow didn't look at\n us. Bucky sobbed.\n\n\n \"You were right, Jig,\" he mumbled. \"Circus is no good. I know it. But\n it's all I got. I love it, Jig. Unnerstan' me? Like Gow there with\n Gertrude. She's ugly and no good, but he loves her. I love....\"\n\n\n \"Sure, sure,\" I told him. \"Stop crying down my neck.\"\n\n\n We were a long way from the light, then. The cages and tanks loomed\n high and black over us. It was still. The secret, uneasy motion all\n around us and the scruffing of our feet only made it stiller.\n\n\n Bucky was almost asleep on me. I started to slap him. And then the mist\n rose up out of the darkness in little lazy coils, sparkling faintly\n with blue, cold fire.\n\n\n I yelled, \"Gow! Gow, the Vapor snakes! Gow\u2014for God's sake!\"\n\n\n I started to run, back along the passageway. Bucky weighed on me, limp\n and heavy. The noise burst suddenly in a deafening hell of moans and\n roars and shrieks, packed in tight by the metal walls, and above it all\n I could hear Gertrude's lonely, whistling scream.\n\n\n I thought, \"\nSomebody's down here. Somebody let 'em out. Somebody wants\n to kill us!\n\" I tried to yell again. It strangled in my throat. I\n sobbed, and the sweat was thick and cold on me.\n\n\n One of Bucky's dragging, stumbling feet got between mine. We fell. I\n rolled on top of him, covering his face, and buried my own face in the\n hollow of his shoulder.\n\n\n The first snake touched me. It was like a live wire, sliding along the\n back of my neck. I screamed. It came down along my cheek, hunting my\n mouth. There were more of them, burning me through my clothes.\n\n\n Bucky moaned and kicked under me. I remember hanging on and thinking,\n \"This is it. This is it, and oh God, I'm scared!\"\n\n\n Then I went out.\nII\n\n\n Kanza the Martian croaker, was bending over me when I woke up. His\n little brown face was crinkled with laughter. He'd lost most of his\n teeth, and he gummed\nthak\n-weed. It smelt.\n\n\n \"You pretty, Mis' Jig,\" he giggled. \"You funny like hell.\"\n\n\n He slapped some cold greasy stuff on my face. It hurt. I cursed him and\n said, \"Where's Shannon? How is he?\"\n\n\n \"Mis' Bucky okay. You save life. You big hero, Mis' Jig. Mis' Gow come\n nickuhtime get snakes. You hero. Haw! You funny like hell!\"\n\n\n I said, \"Yeah,\" and pushed him away and got up. I almost fell down\n a couple of times, but presently I made it to the mirror over the\n washstand\u2014I was in my own cell\u2014and I saw what Kanza meant. The damned\n snakes had done a good job. I looked like I was upholstered in Scotch\n plaid. I felt sick.\n\n\n Bucky Shannon opened the door. He looked white and grim, and there was\n a big burn across his neck. He said:\n\n\n \"Beamish is here with his lawyer.\"\n\n\n I picked up my shirt. \"Right with you.\"\n\n\n Kanza went out, still giggling. Bucky closed the door.\n\n\n \"Jig,\" he said, \"those vapor worms were all right when we went in.\n Somebody followed us down and let them out. On purpose.\"\n\n\n I hurt all over. I growled, \"With that brain, son, you should go far.\n Nobody saw anything, of course?\" Bucky shook his head.\n\n\n \"Question is, Jig, who wants to kill us, and why?\"\n\n\n \"Beamish. He realizes he's been gypped.\"\n\n\n \"One hundred U.C.'s,\" said Bucky softly, \"for a few lousy swampedge\n mining camps. It stinks, Jig. You think we should back out?\"\n\n\n I shrugged. \"You're the boss man. I'm only the guy that beats off the\n creditors.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" Bucky said reflectively. \"And I hear starvation isn't a\n comfortable death. Okay, Jig. Let's go sign.\" He put his hand on the\n latch and looked at my feet. \"And\u2014uh\u2014Jig, I....\"\n\n\n I said, \"Skip it. The next time, just don't trip me up, that's all!\"\n\n\n We had a nasty trip to Venus. Gertrude kept the brute tank on edge,\n and Gow, on the rare occasions he came up for air, went around looking\n like a disaster hoping to happen. To make it worse, Zurt the Jovian\n strong-man got hurt during the take-off, and the Mercurian cave-cat had\n kittens.\n\n\n Nobody would have minded that, only one of 'em had only four legs. It\n lived just long enough to scare that bunch of superstitious dopes out\n of their pants. Circus people are funny that way.\n\n\n Shannon and I did a little quiet sleuthing, but it was a waste of time.\n Anybody in the gang might have let those electric worms out on us. It\n didn't help any to know that somebody, maybe the guy next to you at\n dinner, was busy thinking ways to kill you. By the time we hit Venus, I\n was ready to do a Brodie out the refuse chute.\n\n\n Shannon set the crate down on the edge of Nahru, the first stop on our\n itinerary. I stood beside him, looking out the ports at the scenery. It\n was Venus, all right. Blue mud and thick green jungle and rain, and a\n bunch of ratty-looking plastic shacks huddling together in the middle\n of it. Men in slickers were coming out for a look.\n\n\n I saw Beamish's sleek yacht parked on a cradle over to the left, and\n our router's runabout beside it. Bucky Shannon groaned.\n\n\n \"A blue one, Jig. A morgue if I ever saw one!\"\n\n\n I snarled, \"What do you want, with this lousy dog-and-pony show!\" and\n went out. He followed. The gang was converging on the lock, but they\n weren't happy. You get so you can feel those things. The steamy Venus\n heat was already sneaking into the ship.\n\n\n While we passed the hatchway to the brute tank, I could hear Gertrude,\n screaming.\nThe canvasmen were busy setting up the annex, slopping and cursing in\n the mud. The paste brigade was heading for the shacks. Shannon and I\n stood with the hot rain running off our slickers, looking.\n\n\n I heard a noise behind me and looked around. Ahra the Nahali woman was\n standing in the mud with her arms up and her head thrown back, and her\n triangular mouth open like a thirsty dog. She didn't have anything on\n but her blue-green, hard scaled hide, and she was chuckling. It didn't\n sound nice.\n\n\n You find a lot of Nahali people in side-shows, doing tricks with\n the electric power they carry in their own bodies. They're Venusian\n middle-swampers, they're not human, and they never forget it.\n\n\n Ahra opened her slitted red eyes and looked at me and laughed with\n white reptilian teeth.\n\n\n \"Death,\" she whispered. \"Death and trouble. The jungle tells me. I can\n smell it in the swamp wind.\"\n\n\n The hot rain sluiced over her. She shivered, and the pale skin under\n her jaw pulsed like a toad's, and her eyes were red.\n\n\n \"The deep swamps are angry,\" she whispered. \"Something has been taken.\n They are angry, and I smell death in the wind!\"\n\n\n She turned away, laughing, and I cursed her, and my stomach was tight\n and cold. Bucky said,\n\n\n \"Let's eat if they have a bar in this dump.\"\n\n\n We weren't half way across the mud puddle that passed as a landing\n field when a man came out of a shack on the edge of the settlement. We\n could see him plainly, because he was off to one side of the crowd.\n\n\n He fell on his knees in the mud, making noises. It took him three or\n four tries to get our names out clear enough to understand.\n\n\n Bucky said, \"Jig\u2014it's Sam Kapper.\"\n\n\n We started to run. The crowd, mostly big unshaken miners, wheeled\n around to see what was happening. People began to close in on the man\n who crawled and whimpered in the mud.\n\n\n Sam Kapper was a hunter, supplying animals to zoos and circuses and\n carnivals. He'd given us good deals a couple of times, when we weren't\n too broke, and we were pretty friendly.\n\n\n I hadn't seen him for three seasons. I remembered him as a bronzed,\n hard-bitten guy, lean and tough as a twist of tung wire. I felt sick,\n looking down at him.\n\n\n Bucky started to help him up. Kapper was crying, and he jerked all over\n like animals I've seen that were scared to death. Some guy leaned over\n and put a cigarette in his mouth and lighted it for him.\n\n\n I was thinking about Kapper, then, and I didn't pay much attention. I\n only caught a glimpse of the man's face as he straightened up. I didn't\n realize until later that he looked familiar.\n\n\n We got Kapper inside the shack. It turned out to be a cheap bar, with a\n couple of curtained booths at the back. We got him into one and pulled\n the curtain in a lot of curious faces. Kapper dragged hard on the\n cigarette. The man that gave it to him was gone.\n\n\n Bucky said gently, \"Okay, Sam. Relax. What's the trouble?\"\nKapper tried to straighten up. He hadn't shaved. The lean hard lines\n of his face had gone slack and his eyes were bloodshot. He was covered\n with mud, and his mouth twitched like a sick old man's.\n\n\n He said thickly, \"I found it. I said I'd do it, and I did. I found it\n and brought it out.\"\n\n\n The cigarette stub fell out of his mouth. He didn't notice it. \"Help\n me,\" he said simply. \"I'm scared.\" His mouth drooled.\n\n\n \"I got it hidden. They want to find out, but I won't tell 'em. It's\n got to go back. Back where I found it. I tried to take it, but they\n wouldn't let me, and I was afraid they'd find it....\"\n\n\n He reached suddenly and grabbed the edge of the table. \"I don't know\n how they found out about it, but they did. I've got to get it back.\n I've got to....\"\n\n\n Bucky looked at me. Kapper was blue around the mouth. I was scared,\n suddenly. I said, \"Get what back where?\"\n\n\n Bucky got up. \"I'll get a doctor,\" he said. \"Stick with him.\" Kapper\n grabbed his wrist. Kapper's nails were blue and the cords in his hands\n stood out like guy wires.\n\n\n \"Don't leave me. Got to tell you\u2014where it is. Got to take it back.\n Promise you'll take it back.\" He gasped and struggled over his\n breathing.\n\n\n \"Sure,\" said Bucky. \"Sure, well take it back. What is it?\"\n\n\n Kapper's face was horrible. I felt sick, listening to him fight for\n air. I wanted to go for a doctor anyway, but somehow I knew it was no\n use. Kapper whispered,\n\n\n \"\nCansin\n. Male. Only one. You don't know...! Take him back.\"\n\n\n \"Where is it, Sam?\"\n\n\n I reached across Bucky suddenly and jerked the curtain back. Beamish\n was standing there. Beamish, bent over, with his ear cocked. Kapper\n made a harsh strangling noise and fell across the table.\n\n\n Beamish never changed expression. He didn't move while Bucky felt\n Kapper's pulse. Bucky didn't need to say anything. We knew.\n\n\n \"Heart?\" said Beamish finally.\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" said Bucky. He looked as bad as I felt. \"Poor Sam.\"\n\n\n I looked at the cigarette stub smoldering on the table. I looked at\n Beamish with his round dead baby face. I climbed over Shannon and\n pushed Beamish suddenly down into his lap.\n\n\n \"Keep this guy here till I get back,\" I said.\n\n\n Shannon stared at me. Beamish started to get indignant. \"Shut up,\" I\n told him. \"We got a contract.\" I yanked the curtains shut and walked\n over to the bar.\n\n\n I began to notice something, then. There were quite a lot of men in the\n place. At first glance they looked okay\u2014a hard-faced, muscular bunch\n of miners in dirty shirts and high boots.\n\n\n Then I looked at their hands. They were dirty enough. But they never\n did any work in a mine, on Venus or anywhere else.\n\n\n The place was awfully quiet, for that kind of a place. The bartender\n was a big pot-bellied swamp-edger with pale eyes and thick white hair\n coiled up on top of his bullet head. He was not happy.\n\n\n I leaned on the bar. \"\nLhak\n,\" I said. He poured it, sullenly, out of a\n green bottle. I reached for it, casually.\n\n\n \"That guy we brought in,\" I said. \"He sure has a skinful. Passed out\n cold. What's he been spiking his drinks with?\"\n\n\n \"\nSelak\n,\" said a voice in my ear. \"As if you didn't know.\"\n\n\n I turned. The man who had given Kapper the cigarette was standing\n behind me. And I remembered him, then.",
    "63109": "Doctor Universe\nBy CARL JACOBI\nGrannie Annie, who wrote science fiction\n\n under the nom de plume of Annabella C. Flowers,\n\n had stumbled onto a murderous plot more\n\n hair-raising than any she had ever concocted.\n\n And the danger from the villain of the piece\n\n didn't worry her\u2014I was the guy he was shooting at.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Fall 1944.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI was killing an hour in the billiard room of the\nSpacemen's Club\nin Swamp City when the Venusian bellboy came and tapped me on the\n shoulder.\n\n\n \"Beg pardon, thir,\" he said with his racial lisp, \"thereth thome one to\n thee you in the main lounge.\" His eyes rolled as he added, \"A lady!\"\n\n\n A woman here...! The\nSpacemen's\nwas a sanctuary, a rest club where\n in-coming pilots and crewmen could relax before leaving for another\n voyage. The rule that no females could pass its portals was strictly\n enforced.\n\n\n I followed the bellhop down the long corridor that led to the main\n lounge. At the threshold I jerked to a halt and stared incredulously.\n\n\n Grannie Annie!\n\n\n There she stood before a frantically gesticulating desk clerk, leaning\n on her faded green umbrella. A little wisp of a woman clad in a\n voluminous black dress with one of those doily-like caps on her head,\n tied by a ribbon under her chin. Her high-topped button shoes were\n planted firmly on the varpla carpet and her wrinkled face was set in\n calm defiance.\n\n\n I barged across the lounge and seized her hand. \"Grannie Annie! I\n haven't seen you in two years.\"\n\n\n \"Hi, Billy-boy,\" she greeted calmly. \"Will you please tell this\n fish-face to shut up.\"\n\n\n The desk clerk went white. \"Mithter Trenwith, if thith lady ith a\n friend of yourth, you'll have to take her away. It'th abtholutely\n againth the ruleth....\"\n\n\n \"Okay, okay,\" I grinned. \"Look, we'll go into the grille. There's no\n one there at this hour.\"\n\n\n In the grille an equally astonished waiter served us\u2014me a lime rickey\n and Grannie Annie her usual whisky sour\u2014I waited until she had tossed\n the drink off at a gulp before I set off a chain of questions:\n\n\n \"What the devil are you doing on Venus? Don't you know women aren't\n allowed in the\nSpacemen's\n? What happened to the book you were\n writing?\"\n\n\n \"Hold it, Billy-boy.\" Laughingly she threw up both hands. \"Sure, I knew\n this place had some antiquated laws. Pure fiddle-faddle, that's what\n they are. Anyway, I've been thrown out of better places.\"\n\n\n She hadn't changed. To her publishers and her readers she might be\n Annabella C. Flowers, author of a long list of science fiction novels.\n But to me she was still Grannie Annie, as old-fashioned as last year's\n hat, as modern as an atomic motor. She had probably written more drivel\n in the name of science fiction than anyone alive.\n\n\n But the public loved it. They ate up her stories, and they clamored for\n more. Her annual income totaled into six figures, and her publishers\n sat back and massaged their digits, watching their earnings mount.\n\n\n One thing you had to admit about her books. They may have been dime\n novels, but they weren't synthetic. If Annabella C. Flowers wrote a\n novel, and the locale was the desert of Mars, she packed her carpet bag\n and hopped a liner for Craterville. If she cooked up a feud between two\n expeditions on Callisto, she went to Callisto.\n\n\n She was the most completely delightful crackpot I had ever known.\n\n\n \"What happened to\nGuns for Ganymede\n?\" I asked. \"That was the title of\n your last, wasn't it?\"\nGrannie spilled a few shreds of Martian tobacco onto a paper and deftly\n rolled herself a cigarette.\n\n\n \"It wasn't\nGuns\n, it was\nPistols\n; and it wasn't\nGanymede\n, it was\nPluto\n.\"\n\n\n I grinned. \"All complete, I'll bet, with threats against the universe\n and beautiful Earth heroines dragged in by the hair.\"\n\n\n \"What else is there in science fiction?\" she demanded. \"You can't have\n your hero fall in love with a bug-eyed monster.\"\n\n\n Up on the wall a clock chimed the hour. The old woman jerked to her\n feet.\n\n\n \"I almost forgot, Billy-boy. I'm due at the\nSatellite\nTheater in ten\n minutes. Come on, you're going with me.\"\n\n\n Before I realized it, I was following her through the lounge and out to\n the jetty front. Grannie Annie hailed a hydrocar. Five minutes later we\n drew up before the big doors of the\nSatellite\n.\n\n\n They don't go in for style in Swamp City. A theater to the grizzled\n colonials on this side of the planet meant a shack on stilts over the\n muck,\nzilcon\nwood seats and dingy atobide lamps. But the place was\n packed with miners, freight-crew-men\u2014all the tide and wash of humanity\n that made Swamp City the frontier post it is.\n\n\n In front was a big sign. It read:\nONE NIGHT ONLY\n\n DOCTOR UNIVERSE AND HIS\n\n NINE GENIUSES\n\n THE QUESTION PROGRAM OF\n\n THE SYSTEM\n\n\n As we strode down the aisle a mangy-looking Venusian began to pound a\n tinpan piano in the pit. Grannie Annie pushed me into a seat in the\n front row.\n\n\n \"Sit here,\" she said. \"I'm sorry about all this rush, but I'm one of\n the players in this shindig. As soon as the show is over, we'll go\n somewhere and talk.\" She minced lightly down the aisle, climbed the\n stage steps and disappeared in the wings.\n\n\n \"That damned fossilized dynamo,\" I muttered. \"She'll be the death of me\n yet.\"\n\n\n The piano struck a chord in G, and the curtain went rattling up. On the\n stage four Earthmen, two Martians, two Venusians, and one Mercurian\n sat on an upraised dais. That is to say, eight of them sat. The\n Mercurian, a huge lump of granite-like flesh, sprawled there, palpably\n uncomfortable. On the right were nine visi sets, each with its new\n improved pantascope panel and switchboard. Before each set stood an\n Earthman operator.\nA tall man, clad in a claw-hammer coat, came out from the wings and\n advanced to the footlights.\n\n\n \"People of Swamp City,\" he said, bowing, \"permit me to introduce\n myself. I am Doctor Universe, and these are my nine experts.\"\n\n\n There was a roar of applause from the\nSatellite\naudience. When it had\n subsided, the man continued:\n\n\n \"As most of you are familiar with our program, it will be unnecessary\n to give any advance explanation. I will only say that on this stage are\n nine visi sets, each tuned to one of the nine planets. At transmitting\n sets all over these planets listeners will appear and voice questions.\n These questions, my nine experts will endeavor to answer. For every\n question missed, the sender will receive a check for one thousand\nplanetoles\n.\n\n\n \"One thing more. As usual we have with us a guest star who will match\n her wits with the experts. May I present that renowned writer of\n science fiction, Annabella C. Flowers.\"\n\n\n From the left wing Grannie Annie appeared. She bowed and took her place\n on the dais.\n\n\n The Doctor's program began. The operator of the Earth visi twisted his\n dials and nodded. Blue light flickered on the pantascope panel to\n coalesce slowly into the face of a red-haired man. Sharp and dear his\n voice echoed through the theater:\n\n\n \"\nWho was the first Earthman to titter the sunward side of Mercury?\n\"\n\n\n Doctor Universe nodded and turned to Grannie Annie who had raised her\n hand. She said quietly:\n\n\n \"Charles Zanner in the year 2012. In a specially constructed\n tracto-car.\"\n\n\n And so it went. Questions from Mars, from Earth, from Saturn flowed in\n the visi sets. Isolated miners on Jupiter, dancers in swank Plutonian\n cafes strove to stump the experts. With Doctor Universe offering\n bantering side play, the experts gave their answers. When they failed,\n or when the Truthicator flashed a red light, he announced the name of\n the winner.\n\n\n It grew a little tiresome after a while and I wondered why Grannie had\n brought me here. And then I began to notice things.\n\n\n The audience in the\nSatellite\nseemed to have lost much of its\n original fervor. They applauded as before but they did so only at the\n signal of Doctor Universe. The spell created by the man was complete.\n\n\n Pompous and erect, he strode back and forth across the stage like a\n general surveying his army. His black eyes gleamed, and his thin lips\n were turned in a smile of satisfaction.\n\n\n When the last question had been answered I joined the exit-moving\n crowd. It was outside under the street marquee that a strange incident\n occurred.\n\n\n A yellow-faced Kagor from the upper Martian desert country shuffled by,\n dragging his cumbersome third leg behind him. Kagors, of course, had an\n unpleasant history of persecution since the early colonization days of\n the Red Planet. But the thing that happened there was a throw back to\n an earlier era.\n\n\n Someone shouted, \"Yah, yellow-face! Down with all Kagors!\" As one\n man the crowd took up the cry and surged forward. The helpless Kagor\n was seized and flung to the pavement. A knife appeared from nowhere,\n snipped the Martian's single lock of hair. A booted foot bludgeoned\n into his mouth.\n\n\n Moments later an official hydrocar roared up and a dozen I.P. men\n rushed out and scattered the crowd. But a few stragglers lingered to\n shout derisive epithets.\n\n\n Grannie Annie came out from behind the box office then. She took my arm\n and led me around a corner and through a doorway under a sign that read\n THE JET. Inside was a deep room with booths along one wall. The place\n was all but deserted.\n\n\n In a booth well toward the rear the old lady surveyed me with sober\n eyes.\n\n\n \"Billy-boy, did you see the way that crowd acted?\"\n\n\n I nodded. \"As disgraceful an exhibition as I've ever seen. The I.P. men\n ought to clamp down.\"\n\n\n \"The I.P. men aren't strong enough.\"\n\n\n She said it quietly, but there was a glitter in her eyes and a harsh\n line about her usually smiling lips.\n\n\n \"What do you mean?\"\nFor a moment the old lady sat there in silence; then she leaned back,\n closed her eyes, and I knew there was a story coming.\n\n\n \"My last book,\nDeath In The Atom\n, hit the stands last January,\"\n she began. \"When it was finished I had planned to take a six months'\n vacation, but those fool publishers of mine insisted I do a sequel.\n Well, I'd used Mars and Pluto and Ganymede as settings for novels, so\n for this one I decided on Venus. I went to Venus City, and I spent six\n weeks in-country. I got some swell background material, and I met Ezra\n Karn....\"\n\n\n \"Who?\" I interrupted.\n\n\n \"An old prospector who lives out in the deep marsh on the outskirts of\n Varsoom country. To make a long story short, I got him talking about\n his adventures, and he told me plenty.\"\n\n\n The old woman paused. \"Did you ever hear of the Green Flames?\" she\n asked abruptly.\n\n\n I shook my head. \"Some new kind of ...\"\n\n\n \"It's not a new kind of anything. The Green Flame is a radio-active\n rock once found on Mercury. The\nAlpha\nrays of this rock are similar\n to radium in that they consist of streams of material particles\n projected at high speed. But the character of the\nGamma\nrays has\n never been completely analyzed. Like those set up by radium, they are\n electromagnetic pulsations, but they are also a strange combination of\nBeta\nor cathode rays with negatively charged electrons.\n\n\n \"When any form of life is exposed to these\nGamma\nrays from the Green\n Flame rock, they produce in the creature's brain a certain lassitude\n and lack of energy. As the period of exposure increases, this condition\n develops into a sense of impotence and a desire for leadership or\n guidance. Occasionally, as with the weak-willed, there is a spirit of\n intolerance. The Green Flames might be said to be an inorganic opiate,\n a thousand times more subtle and more powerful than any known drug.\"\n\n\n I was sitting up now, hanging on to the woman's every word.\n\n\n \"Now in 2710, as you'd know if you studied your history, the three\n planets of Earth, Venus, and Mars were under governmental bondage. The\n cruel dictatorship of Vennox I was short-lived, but it lasted long\n enough to endanger all civilized life.\n\n\n \"The archives tell us that one of the first acts of the overthrowing\n government was to cast out all Green Flames, two of which Vennox had\n ordered must be kept in each household. The effect on the people was\n immediate. Representative government, individual enterprise, freedom\n followed.\"\n\n\n Grannie Annie lit a cigarette and flipped the match to the floor.\n\n\n \"To go back to my first trip to Venus. As I said, I met Ezra Karn, an\n old prospector there in the marsh. Karn told me that on one of his\n travels into the Varsoom district he had come upon the wreckage of\n an old space ship. The hold of that space ship was packed with Green\n Flames!\"\n\n\n If Grannie expected me to show surprise at that, she was disappointed.\n I said, \"So what?\"\n\n\n \"So everything, Billy-boy. Do you realize what such a thing would mean\n if it were true? Green Flames were supposedly destroyed on all planets\n after the Vennox regime crashed. If a quantity of the rock were in\n existence, and it fell into the wrong hands, there'd be trouble.\n\n\n \"Of course, I regarded Karn's story as a wild dream, but it made\n corking good story material. I wrote it into a novel, and a week after\n it was completed, the manuscript was stolen from my study back on\n Earth.\"\n\n\n \"I see,\" I said as she lapsed into silence. \"And now you've come to the\n conclusion that the details of your story were true and that someone is\n attempting to put your plot into action.\"\n\n\n Grannie nodded. \"Yes,\" she said. \"That's exactly what I think.\"\n\n\n I got my pipe out of my pocket, tamped Martian tobacco into the bowl\n and laughed heartily. \"The same old Flowers,\" I said. \"Tell me, who's\n your thief ... Doctor Universe?\"\n\n\n She regarded me evenly. \"What makes you say that?\"\n\n\n I shrugged.\n\n\n \"The way the theater crowd acted. It all ties in.\"\n\n\n The old woman shook her head. \"No, this is a lot bigger than a simple\n quiz program. The theater crowd was but a cross-section of what is\n happening all over the System. There have been riots on Earth and Mars,\n police officials murdered on Pluto and a demand that government by\n representation be abolished on Jupiter. The time is ripe for a military\n dictator to step in.\n\n\n \"And you can lay it all to the Green Flames. It seems incredible that a\n single shipload of the ore could effect such a wide ranged area, but in\n my opinion someone has found a means of making that quantity a thousand\n times more potent and is transmiting it\nen masse\n.\"\n\n\n If it had been anyone but Grannie Annie there before me, I would\n have called her a fool. And then all at once I got an odd feeling of\n approaching danger.\n\n\n \"Let's get out of here,\" I said, getting up.\nZinnng-whack!\n\"All right!\"\n\n\n On the mirror behind the bar a small circle with radiating cracks\n appeared. On the booth wall a scant inch above Grannie's head the\n fresco seemed to melt away suddenly.\n\n\n A heat ray!\n\n\n Grannie Annie leaped to her feet, grasped my arm and raced for the\n door. Outside a driverless hydrocar stood with idling motors. The old\n woman threw herself into the control seat, yanked me in after her and\n threw over the starting stud.\n\n\n An instant later we were plunging through the dark night.\nSix days after leaving Swamp City we reached Level Five, the last\n outpost of firm ground. Ahead lay the inner marsh, stretching as far as\n the eye could reach. Low islands projected at intervals from the thick\n water. Mold balls, two feet across, drifted down from the slate-gray\n sky like puffs of cotton.\n\n\n We had traveled this far by\nganet\n, the tough little two headed pack\n animal of the Venus hinterland. Any form of plane or rocket would have\n had its motor instantly destroyed, of course, by the magnetic force\n belt that encircled the planet's equator. Now our drivers changed to\n boatmen, and we loaded our supplies into three clumsy\njagua\ncanoes.\n\n\n It was around the camp fire that night that Grannie took me into her\n confidence for the first time since we had left Swamp City.\n\n\n \"We're heading directly for Varsoom country,\" she said. \"If we find\n Ezra Karn so much the better. If we don't, we follow his directions to\n the lost space ship. Our job is to find that ore and destroy it. You\n see, I'm positive the Green Flames have never been removed from the\n ship.\"\n\n\n Sleep had never bothered me, yet that night I lay awake for hours\n tossing restlessly. The thousand sounds of the blue marsh droned\n steadily. And the news broadcast I had heard over the portable visi\n just before retiring still lingered in my mind. To a casual observer\n that broadcast would have meant little, a slight rebellion here, an\n isolated crime there. But viewed from the perspective Grannie had\n given me, everything dovetailed. The situation on Jupiter was swiftly\n coming to a head. Not only had the people on that planet demanded that\n representative government be abolished, but a forum was now being held\n to find a leader who might take complete dictatorial control.\n\n\n Outside a whisper-worm hissed softly. I got up and strode out of my\n tent. For some time I stood there, lost in thought. Could I believe\n Grannie's incredible story? Or was this another of her fantastic plots\n which she had skilfully blended into a novel?\n\n\n Abruptly I stiffened. The familiar drone of the marsh was gone. In its\n place a ringing silence blanketed everything.\n\n\n And then out in the gloom a darker shadow appeared, moving in\n undulating sweeps toward the center of the camp. Fascinated, I watched\n it advance and retreat, saw two hyalescent eyes swim out of the murk.\n It charged, and with but a split second to act, I threw myself flat.\n There was a rush of mighty wings as the thing swept over me. Sharp\n talons raked my clothing. Again it came, and again I rolled swiftly,\n missing the thing by the narrowest of margins.\n\n\n From the tent opposite a gaunt figure clad in a familiar dress\n appeared. Grannie gave a single warning:\n\n\n \"Stand still!\"\n\n\n The thing in the darkness turned like a cam on a rod and drove at us\n again. This time the old woman's heat gun clicked, and a tracery of\n purple flame shot outward. A horrible soul-chilling scream rent the\n air. A moment later something huge and heavy scrabbled across the\n ground and shot aloft.\nGrannie Annie fired with deliberate speed.\nI stood frozen as the diminuendo of its wild cries echoed back to me.\n\n\n \"In heaven's name, what was it?\"\n\n\n \"Hunter-bird,\" Grannie said calmly. \"A form of avian life found here\n in the swamp. Harmless in its wild state, but when captured, it can be\n trained to pursue a quarry until it kills. It has a single unit brain\n and follows with a relentless purpose.\"\n\n\n \"Then that would mean...?\"\n\n\n \"That it was sent by our enemy, the same enemy that shot at us in the\n cafe in Swamp City. Exactly.\" Grannie Annie halted at the door of her\n tent and faced me with earnest eyes. \"Billy-boy, our every move is\n being watched. From now on it's the survival of the fittest.\"\nThe following day was our seventh in the swamp. The water here\n resembled a vast mosaic, striped and cross-striped with long winding\n ribbons of yellowish substance that floated a few inches below the\n surface. The mold balls coming into contact with the evonium water of\n the swamp had undergone a chemical change and evolved into a cohesive\n multi-celled marine life that lived and died within a space of hours.\n The Venusians paddled with extreme care. Had one of them dipped his\n hand into one of those yellow streaks, he would have been devoured in\n a matter of seconds.\n\n\n At high noon by my Earth watch I sighted a low white structure on one\n of the distant islands. Moments later we made a landing at a rude\n jetty, and Grannie Annie was introducing me to Ezra Karn.\n\n\n He was not as old a man as I had expected, but he was ragged and\n unkempt with iron gray hair falling almost to his shoulders. He was\n dressed in\nvarpa\ncloth, the Venus equivalent of buckskin, and on his\n head was an enormous flop-brimmed hat.\n\n\n \"Glad to meet you,\" he said, shaking my hand. \"Any friend of Miss\n Flowers is a friend of mine.\" He ushered us down the catwalk into his\n hut.\n\n\n The place was a two room affair, small but comfortable. The latest\n type of visi set in one corner showed that Karn was not isolated from\n civilization entirely.\n\n\n Grannie Annie came to the point abruptly. When she had explained the\n object of our trip, the prospector became thoughtful.\n\n\n \"Green Flames, eh?\" he repeated slowly. \"Well yes, I suppose I could\n find that space ship again. That is, if I wanted to.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean?\" Grannie paused in the act of rolling herself a\n cigarette. \"You know where it is, don't you?\"\n\n\n \"Ye-s,\" Karn nodded. \"But like I told you before, that ship lies in\n Varsoom country, and that isn't exactly a summer vacation spot.\"\n\n\n \"What are the Varsoom?\" I asked. \"A native tribe?\"\n\n\n Karn shook his head. \"They're a form of life that's never been seen by\n Earthmen. Strictly speaking, they're no more than a form of energy.\"\n\n\n \"Dangerous?\"\n\n\n \"Yes and no. Only man I ever heard of who escaped their country outside\n of myself was the explorer, Darthier, three years ago. I got away\n because I was alone, and they didn't notice me, and Darthier escaped\n because he made 'em laugh.\"\n\n\n \"Laugh?\" A scowl crossed Grannie's face.\n\n\n \"That's right,\" Karn said. \"The Varsoom have a strange nervous reaction\n that's manifested by laughing. But just what it is that makes them\n laugh, I don't know.\"\n\n\n Food supplies and fresh drinking water were replenished at the hut.\n Several mold guns were borrowed from the prospector's supply to arm the\n Venusians. And then as we were about to leave, Karn suddenly turned.\n\n\n \"The Doctor Universe program,\" he said. \"I ain't missed one in months.\n You gotta wait 'til I hear it.\"\n\n\n Grannie frowned in annoyance, but the prospector was adamant. He\n flipped a stud, twisted a dial and a moment later was leaning back in a\n chair, listening with avid interest.\n\n\n It was the same show I had witnessed back in Swamp City. Once again I\n heard questions filter in from the far outposts of the System. Once\n again I saw the commanding figure of the quiz master as he strode back\n and forth across the stage. And as I sat there, looking into the visi\n screen, a curious numbing drowsiness seemed to steal over me and lead\n my thoughts far away.\nHalf an hour later we headed into the unknown. The Venusian boatmen\n were ill-at-ease now and jabbered among themselves constantly. We\n camped that night on a miserable little island where insects swarmed\n about us in hordes. The next day an indefinable wave of weariness and\n despondency beset our entire party. I caught myself musing over the\n futility of the venture. Only the pleadings of Grannie Annie kept me\n from turning back. On the morrow I realized the truth in her warning,\n that all of us had been exposed to the insidious radiations.\n\n\n After that I lost track of time. Day after day of incessant rain ... of\n steaming swamp.... But at length we reached firm ground and began our\n advance on foot.\n\n\n It was Karn who first sighted the ship. Striding in the lead, he\n suddenly halted at the top of a hill and leveled his arm before him.\n There it lay, a huge cigar-shaped vessel of blackened\narelium\nsteel,\n half buried in the swamp soil.\n\n\n \"What's that thing on top?\" Karn demanded, puzzled.\n\n\n A rectangular metal envelope had been constructed over the stern\n quarters of the ship. Above this structure were three tall masts. And\n suspended between them was a network of copper wire studded with white\n insulators.\n\n\n Grannie gazed a long moment through binoculars. \"Billy-boy, take three\n Venusians and head across the knoll,\" she ordered. \"Ezra and I will\n circle in from the west. Fire a gun if you strike trouble.\"\n\n\n But we found no trouble. The scene before us lay steeped in silence.\n Moments later our two parties converged at the base of the great ship.\n\n\n A metal ladder extended from the envelope down the side of the vessel.\n Mid-way we could see a circular hatch-like door.\n\n\n \"Up we go, Billy-boy.\" Heat gun in readiness, Grannie Annie began to\n climb slowly.\n\n\n The silence remained absolute. We reached the door and pulled it open.\n There was no sign of life.\n\n\n \"Somebody's gone to a lot of trouble here,\" Ezra Karn observed.\n\n\n Somebody had. Before us stretched a narrow corridor, flanked on the\n left side by a wall of impenetrable stepto glass. The corridor was\n bare of furnishings. But beyond the glass, revealed to us in mocking\n clarity, was a high panel, studded with dials and gauges. Even as we\n looked, we could see liquid pulse in glass tubes, indicator needles\n swing slowly to and fro.\n\n\n Grannie nodded. \"Some kind of a broadcasting unit. The Green Flames in\n the lower hold are probably exposed to a\ntholpane\nplate and their\n radiations stepped up by an electro-phosicalic process.\"\n\n\n Karn raised the butt of his pistol and brought it crashing against the\n glass wall. His arm jumped in recoil, but the glass remained intact.\n\n\n \"You'll never do it that way,\" Grannie said. \"Nothing short of an\n atomic blast will shatter that wall. It explains why there are no\n guards here. The mechanism is entirely self-operating. Let's see if the\n Green Flames are more accessible.\"\n\n\n In the lower hold disappointment again confronted us. Visible in\n the feeble shafts of daylight that filtered through cracks in the\n vessel's hull were tiers of rectangular ingots of green iridescent ore.\n Suspended by insulators from the ceiling over them was a thick metal\n plate.\n\n\n But between was a barrier. A wall of impenetrable stepto glass.\n\n\n Grannie stamped her foot. \"It's maddening,\" she said. \"Here we are at\n the crux of the whole matter, and we're powerless to make a single\n move.\"",
    "62324": "GRIFTERS' ASTEROID\nBy H. L. GOLD\nHarvey and Joe were the slickest con-men ever\n\n to gyp a space-lane sucker. Or so they thought!\n\n Angus Johnson knew differently. He charged them\n\n five buckos for a glass of water\u2014and got it!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories May 1943.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nCharacteristically, Harvey Ellsworth tried to maintain his dignity,\n though his parched tongue was almost hanging out. But Joe Mallon, with\n no dignity to maintain, lurched across the rubbish-strewn patch of land\n that had been termed a spaceport. When Harvey staggered pontifically\n into the battered metalloy saloon\u2014the only one on Planetoid 42\u2014his\n tall, gangling partner was already stumbling out, mouthing something\n incoherent. They met in the doorway, violently.\n\n\n \"We're delirious!\" Joe cried. \"It's a mirage!\"\n\n\n \"What is?\" asked Harvey through a mouthful of cotton.\n\n\n Joe reeled aside, and Harvey saw what had upset his partner. He stared,\n speechless for once.\n\n\n In their hectic voyages from planet to planet, the pair of panacea\n purveyors had encountered the usual strange life-forms. But never had\n they seen anything like the amazing creature in that colonial saloon.\n\n\n Paying no attention to them, it was carrying a case of liquor in two\n hands, six siphons in two others, and a broom and dustpan in the\n remaining pair. The bartender, a big man resembling the plumpish\n Harvey in build, was leaning negligently on the counter, ordering this\n impossible being to fill the partly-emptied bottles, squeeze fruit\n juice and sweep the floor, all of which the native did simultaneously.\n\n\n \"Nonsense,\" Harvey croaked uncertainly. \"We have seen enough queer\n things to know there are always more.\"\n\n\n He led the way inside. Through thirst-cracked lips he rasped:\n \"Water\u2014quick!\"\n\n\n Without a word, the bartender reached under the counter, brought out\n two glasses of water. The interplanetary con-men drank noisily, asked\n for more, until they had drunk eight glasses. Meanwhile, the bartender\n had taken out eight jiggers and filled them with whiskey.\n\n\n Harvey and Joe were breathing hard from having gulped the water so\n fast, but they were beginning to revive. They noticed the bartender's\n impersonal eyes studying them shrewdly.\n\n\n \"Strangers, eh?\" he asked at last.\n\n\n \"Solar salesmen, my colonial friend,\" Harvey answered in his usual\n lush manner. \"We purvey that renowned Martian remedy,\nLa-anago\n Yergis\n, the formula for which was recently discovered by ourselves in\n the ancient ruined city of La-anago. Medical science is unanimous in\n proclaiming this magic medicine the sole panacea in the entire history\n of therapeutics.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah?\" said the bartender disinterestedly, polishing the chaser\n glasses without washing them. \"Where you heading?\"\n\n\n \"Out of Mars for Ganymede. Our condenser broke down, and we've gone\n without water for five ghastly days.\"\n\n\n \"Got a mechanic around this dumping ground you call a port?\" Joe asked.\n\n\n \"We did. He came near starving and moved on to Titan. Ships don't land\n here unless they're in trouble.\"\n\n\n \"Then where's the water lead-in? We'll fill up and push off.\"\n\n\n \"Mayor takes care of that,\" replied the saloon owner. \"If you gents're\n finished at the bar, your drinks'll be forty buckos.\"\n\n\n Harvey grinned puzzledly. \"We didn't take any whiskey.\"\n\n\n \"Might as well. Water's five buckos a glass. Liquor's free with every\n chaser.\"\n\n\n Harvey's eyes bulged. Joe gulped. \"That\u2014that's robbery!\" the lanky man\n managed to get out in a thin quaver.\n\n\n The barkeeper shrugged. \"When there ain't many customers, you gotta\n make more on each one. Besides\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Besides nothing!\" Joe roared, finding his voice again. \"You dirty\n crook\u2014robbing poor spacemen! You\u2014\"\n\"You dirty crook!\" Joe roared. \"Robbing honest spacemen!\"\nHarvey nudged him warningly. \"Easy, my boy, easy.\" He turned to the\n bartender apologetically. \"Don't mind my friend. His adrenal glands are\n sometimes overactive. You were going to say\u2014?\"\nThe round face of the barkeeper had assumed an aggrieved expression.\n\n\n \"Folks are always thinkin' the other feller's out to do 'em,\" he said,\n shaking his head. \"Lemme explain about the water here. It's bitter\n as some kinds of sin before it's purified. Have to bring it in with\n buckets and make it sweet. That takes time and labor. Waddya think\u2014I\n was chargin' feller critters for water just out of devilment? I charge\n because I gotta.\"\n\n\n \"Friend,\" said Harvey, taking out a wallet and counting off eight\n five-bucko bills, \"here is your money. What's fair is fair, and you\n have put a different complexion on what seemed at first to be an\n unconscionable interjection of a middleman between Nature and man's\n thirst.\"\n\n\n The saloon man removed his dirty apron and came around the bar.\n\n\n \"If that's an apology, I accept it. Now the mayor'll discuss filling\n your tanks. That's me. I'm also justice of the peace, official\n recorder, fire chief....\"\n\n\n \"And chief of police, no doubt,\" said Harvey jocosely.\n\n\n \"Nope. That's my son, Jed. Angus Johnson's my name. Folks here just\n call me Chief. I run this town, and run it right. How much water will\n you need?\"\n\n\n Joe estimated quickly. \"About seventy-five liters, if we go on half\n rations,\" he answered. He waited apprehensively.\n\n\n \"Let's say ten buckos a liter,\" the mayor said. \"On account of the\n quantity, I'm able to quote a bargain price. Shucks, boys, it hurts me\n more to charge for water than it does for you to pay. I just got to,\n that's all.\"\n\n\n The mayor gestured to the native, who shuffled out to the tanks with\n them. The planetoid man worked the pump while the mayor intently\n watched the crude level-gauge, crying \"Stop!\" when it registered the\n proper amount. Then Johnson rubbed his thumb on his index finger and\n wetted his lips expectantly.\n\n\n Harvey bravely counted off the bills. He asked: \"But what are we to\n do about replenishing our battery fluid? Ten buckos a liter would be\n preposterous. We simply can't afford it.\"\n\n\n Johnson's response almost floored them. \"Who said anything about\n charging you for battery water? You can have all you want for nothing.\n It's just the purified stuff that comes so high.\"\n\n\n After giving them directions that would take them to the free-water\n pool, the ponderous factotum of Planetoid 42 shook hands and headed\n back to the saloon. His six-armed assistant followed him inside.\n\n\n \"Now do you see, my hot-tempered colleague?\" said Harvey as he and Joe\n picked up buckets that hung on the tank. \"Johnson, as I saw instantly,\n is the victim of a difficult environment, and must charge accordingly.\"\n\n\n \"Just the same,\" Joe griped, \"paying for water isn't something you can\n get used to in ten minutes.\"\n\n\n In the fragile forest, they soon came across a stream that sprang from\n the igneous soil and splashed into the small pond whose contents,\n according to the mayor, was theirs for the asking. They filled their\n buckets and hauled them to the ship, then returned for more.\nIt was on the sixth trip that Joe caught a glimpse of Jupiter-shine on\n a bright surface off to the left. The figure, 750, with the bucko sign\n in front of it, was still doing acrobatics inside his skull and keeping\n a faint suspicion alive in him. So he called Harvey and they went to\n investigate.\n\n\n Among the skimpy ground-crawling vines, they saw a long slender mound\n that was unmistakably a buried pipe.\n\n\n \"What's this doing here?\" Harvey asked, puzzled. \"I thought Johnson had\n to transport water in pails.\"\n\n\n \"Wonder where it leads to,\" Joe said uneasily.\n\n\n \"It leads\nto\nthe saloon,\" said Harvey, his eyes rapidly tracing the\n pipe back toward the spaceport. \"What I am concerned with is where it\n leads\nfrom\n.\"\n\n\n Five minutes later, panting heavily from the unaccustomed exertion of\n scrambling through the tangle of planetorial undergrowth, they burst\n into the open\u2014before a clear, sparkling pool.\n\n\n Mutely, Harvey pointed out a pipe-end jutting under the water.\n\n\n \"I am growing suspicious,\" he said in a rigidly controlled voice.\n\n\n But Joe was already on his knees, scooping up a handful of water and\n tasting it.\n\n\n \"Sweet!\" he snarled.\n\n\n They rushed back to the first pool, where Joe again tasted a sample.\n His mouth went wry. \"Bitter! He uses only one pool, the sweet one! The\n only thing that needs purifying around here is that blasted mayor's\n conscience.\"\n\n\n \"The asteroidal Poobah has tricked us with a slick come-on,\" said\n Harvey slowly. His eyes grew cold. \"Joseph, the good-natured artist in\n me has become a hard and merciless avenger. I shall not rest until we\n have had the best of this colonial con-man! Watch your cues from this\n point hence.\"\n\n\n Fists clenched, the two returned to the saloon. But at the door they\n stopped and their fists unclenched.\n\n\n \"Thought you gents were leaving,\" the mayor called out, seeing them\n frozen in the doorway. \"Glad you didn't. Now you can meet my son, Jed.\n Him and me are the whole Earthman population of Johnson City.\"\n\n\n \"You don't need any more,\" said Harvey, dismayed.\n\n\n Johnson's eight-foot son, topped by a massive roof of sun-bleached hair\n and held up by a foundation that seemed immovable, had obviously been\n born and raised in low gravity. For any decent-sized world would have\n kept him down near the general dimensions of a man.\n\n\n He held out an acre of palm. Harvey studied it worriedly, put his own\n hand somewhere on it, swallowed as it closed, then breathed again when\n his fingers were released in five units instead of a single compressed\n one.\n\n\n \"Pleased to meet you,\" piped a voice that had never known a dense\n atmosphere.\n\n\n The pursuit of vengeance, Harvey realized, had taken a quick and\n unpleasant turn. Something shrewd was called for....\n\n\n \"Joseph!\" he exclaimed, looking at his partner in alarm. \"Don't you\n feel well?\"\n\n\n Even before the others could turn to him, Joe's practiced eyes were\n gently crossing. He sagged against the door frame, all his features\n drooping like a bloodhound's.\n\n\n \"Bring him in here!\" Johnson cried. \"I mean, get him away! He's coming\n down with asteroid fever!\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" replied Harvey calmly. \"Any fool knows the first symptoms\n of the disease that once scourged the universe.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean,\nonce\n?\" demanded Johnson. \"I come down with it\n every year, and I ain't hankering to have it in an off-season. Get him\n out of here!\"\n\n\n \"In good time. He can't be moved immediately.\"\n\n\n \"Then he'll be here for months!\"\n\n\n Harvey helped Joe to the counter and lifted him up on it. The mayor and\n his gigantic offspring were cowering across the room, trying to breathe\n in tiny, uncontaminating gasps.\n\n\n \"You'll find everything you want in the back room,\" Johnson said\n frantically, \"sulfopyridine, mustard plasters, rubs, inhalers, suction\n cups\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Relics of the past,\" Harvey stated. \"One medication is all modern man\n requires to combat the dread menace, asteroid fever.\"\n\n\n \"What's that?\" asked the mayor without conviction.\n\n\n Instead of replying, Harvey hurried outside to the ungainly second-hand\n rocket ship in the center of the shabby spaceport. He returned within a\n few minutes, carrying a bottle.\nJoe was still stretched out on the bar, panting, his eyes slowly\n crossing and uncrossing. Harvey lifted the patient's head tenderly,\n put the bottle to his lips and tilted it until he was forced to drink.\n When Joe tried to pull away, Harvey was inexorable. He made his partner\n drink until most of the liquid was gone. Then he stepped back and\n waited for the inevitable result.\n\n\n Joe's performance was better than ever. He lay supine for several\n moments, his face twisted into an expression that seemed doomed\n to perpetual wryness. Slowly, however, he sat up and his features\n straightened out.\n\n\n \"Are\u2014are you all right?\" asked the mayor anxiously.\n\n\n \"Much better,\" said Joe in a weak voice.\n\n\n \"Maybe you need another dose,\" Harvey suggested.\n\n\n Joe recoiled. \"I'm fine now!\" he cried, and sprang off the bar to prove\n it.\n\n\n Astonished, Johnson and his son drew closer. They searched Joe's face,\n and then the mayor timidly felt his pulse.\n\n\n \"Well, I'll be hanged!\" Johnson ejaculated.\n\n\n \"\nLa-anago Yergis\nnever fails, my friend,\" Harvey explained. \"By\n actual test, it conquers asteroid fever in from four to twenty-three\n minutes, depending on the severity of the attack. Luckily, we caught\n this one before it grew formidable.\"\n\n\n The mayor's eyes became clouded mirrors of an inward conflict. \"If you\n don't charge too much,\" he said warily, \"I might think of buying some.\"\n\n\n \"We do not sell this unbelievable remedy,\" Harvey replied with dignity.\n \"It sells itself.\"\n\n\n \"'Course, I'd expect a considerable reduction if I bought a whole\n case,\" said Johnson.\n\n\n \"That would be the smallest investment you could make, compared with\n the vast loss of time and strength the fever involves.\"\n\n\n \"How much?\" asked the mayor unhappily.\n\n\n \"For you, since you have taken us in so hospitably, a mere five hundred\n buckos.\"\n\n\n Johnson did not actually stagger back, but he gave the impression of\n doing so. \"F-four hundred,\" he offered.\n\n\n \"Not a red cent less than four seventy-five,\" Harvey said flatly.\n\n\n \"Make it four fifty,\" quavered Johnson.\n\n\n \"I dislike haggling,\" said Harvey.\n\n\n The final price, however, was four hundred and sixty-nine buckos and\n fifty redsents. Magnanimously, Harvey added: \"And we will include,\ngratis\n, an elegant bottle-opener, a superb product of Mercurian\n handicraftsmanship.\"\n\n\n Johnson stabbed out a warning finger. \"No tricks now. I want a taste of\n that stuff. You're not switching some worthless junk on me.\"\n\n\n Harvey took a glass from the bar and poured him a generous sample. The\n mayor sniffed it, grimaced, then threw it down his gullet. The ensuing\n minute saw a grim battle between a man and his stomach, a battle which\n the man gradually won.\n\n\n \"There ain't no words for that taste,\" he gulped when it was safe to\n talk again.\n\n\n \"Medicine,\" Harvey propounded, \"should taste like medicine.\" To Joe he\n said: \"Come, my esteemed colleague. We must perform the sacred task to\n which we have dedicated ourselves.\"\n\n\n With Joe stumbling along behind, he left the saloon, crossed the\n clearing and entered the ship. As soon as they were inside, Joe dropped\n his murderous silence and cried:\n\n\n \"What kind of a dirty trick was that, giving me poison instead of that\n snake oil?\"\n\n\n \"That was not poison,\" Harvey contradicted quietly. \"It was\nLa-anago\n Yergis\nextract, plus.\"\n\n\n \"Plus what\u2014arsenic?\"\n\n\n \"Now, Joseph! Consider my quandary when I came back here to manufacture\n our specific for all known ailments, with the intention of selling\n yonder asteroidal tin-horn a bill of medical goods\u2014an entire case,\n mind you. Was I to mix the extract with the water for which we had been\n swindled to the tune of ten buckos a liter? Where would our profit have\n been, then? No; I had to use the bitter free water, of course.\"\n\n\n \"But why use it on me?\" Joe demanded furiously.\n\n\n Harvey looked reprovingly at his gangling partner. \"Did Johnson ask to\n taste it, or did he not? One must look ahead, Joseph. I had to produce\n the same\nmedicine\nthat we will now manufacture. Thus, you were a\n guinea pig for a splendid cause.\"\n\n\n \"Okay, okay,\" Joe said. \"But you shoulda charged him more.\"\n\n\n \"Joseph, I promise you that we shall get back every redsent of which\n that swindler cheated us, besides whatever other funds or valuables he\n possesses. We could not be content with less.\"\n\n\n \"Well, we're starting all right,\" admitted Joe. \"How about that thing\n with six arms? He looks like a valuable. Can't we grab him off?\"\n\n\n Harvey stopped filling bottles and looked up pensively.\n\n\n \"I have every hope of luring away the profitable monstrosity.\n Apparently you have also surmised the fortune we could make with him.\n At first I purpose to exhibit him on our interplanetary tours with our\n streamlined panacea; he would be a spectacular attraction for bucolic\n suckers. Later, a brief period of demonstrating his abilities on the\n audio-visiphone. Then our triumph\u2014we shall sell him at a stupendous\n figure to the zoo!\"\nJoe was still dazed by that monetary vista when he and Harvey carried\n the case of medicine to the saloon. The mayor had already cleared a\n place of honor in the cluttered back room, where he told them to put it\n down carefully. Then he took the elaborate bottle-opener Harvey gave\n him, reverently uncorked a bottle and sampled it. It must have been at\n least as good as the first; he gagged.\n\n\n \"That's the stuff, all right,\" he said, swallowing hard. He counted\n out the money into Harvey's hand, at a moderate rate that precariously\n balanced between his pleasure at getting the fever remedy and his pain\n at paying for it. Then he glanced out to see the position of Jupiter,\n and asked: \"You gents eaten yet? The restaurant's open now.\"\n\n\n Harvey and Joe looked at each other. They hadn't been thinking about\n food at all, but suddenly they realized that they were hungry.\n\n\n \"It's only water we were short of,\" Harvey said apprehensively. \"We've\n got rations back at the ship.\"\n\n\n \"\nH-mph!\n\" the mayor grunted. \"Powdered concentrates. Compressed pap.\n Suit yourselves. We treat our stomachs better here. And you're welcome\n to our hospitality.\"\n\n\n \"Your hospitality,\" said Harvey, \"depends on the prices you charge.\"\n\n\n \"Well, if that's what's worrying you, you can stop worrying,\" answered\n the mayor promptly. \"What's more, the kind of dinner I serve here you\n can't get anywhere else for any price.\"\n\n\n Swiftly, Harvey conned the possibilities of being bilked again. He saw\n none.\n\n\n \"Let's take a look at the menu, anyhow, Joe,\" he said guardedly.\n\n\n Johnson immediately fell into the role of \"mine host.\"\n\n\n \"Come right in, gents,\" he invited. \"Right into the dining room.\"\n\n\n He seated them at a table, which a rope tied between posts made more or\n less private, though nobody else was in the saloon and there was little\n chance of company.\n\n\n Genius, the six-armed native, appeared from the dingy kitchen with\n two menus in one hand, two glasses of water in another, plus napkins,\n silverware, a pitcher, plates, saucers, cups, and their cocktails,\n which were on the house. Then he stood by for orders.\n\n\n Harvey and Joe studied the menu critically. The prices were\n phenomenally low. When they glanced up at Johnson in perplexity, he\n grinned, bowed and asked: \"Everything satisfactory, gents?\"\n\n\n \"Quite,\" said Harvey. \"We shall order.\"\n\n\n For an hour they were served amazing dishes, both fresh and canned, the\n culinary wealth of this planetoid and all the system. And the service\n was as extraordinary as the meal itself. With four hands, Genius played\n deftly upon a pair of mellow Venusian\nviotars\n, using his other two\n hands for waiting on the table.\n\n\n \"We absolutely must purchase this incredible specimen,\" Harvey\n whispered excitedly when Johnson and the native were both in the\n kitchen, attending to the next course. \"He would make any society\n hostess's season a riotous success, which should be worth a great sum\n to women like Mrs. van Schuyler-Morgan, merely for his hire.\"\n\n\n \"Think of a fast one fast,\" Joe agreed. \"You're right.\"\n\n\n \"But I dislike having to revise my opinion of a man so often,\"\n complained Harvey. \"I wish Johnson would stay either swindler or honest\n merchant. This dinner is worth as least twenty buckos, yet I estimate\n our check at a mere bucko twenty redsents.\"\n\n\n The mayor's appearance prevented them from continuing the discussion.\n\n\n \"It's been a great honor, gents,\" he said. \"Ain't often I have\n visitors, and I like the best, like you two gents.\"\n\n\n As if on cue, Genius came out and put the check down between Joe and\n Harvey. Harvey picked it up negligently, but his casual air vanished in\n a yelp of horror.\n\n\n \"What the devil is this?\" he shouted.\u2014\"How do you arrive at this\n fantastic, idiotic figure\u2014\nthree hundred and twenty-eight buckos\n!\"\nJohnson didn't answer. Neither did Genius; he simply put on the table,\n not a fingerbowl, but a magnifying glass. With one of his thirty\n fingers he pointed politely to the bottom of the menu.\n\n\n Harvey focused on the microscopic print, and his face went pasty with\n rage. The minute note read: \"Services and entertainment, 327 buckos 80\n redsents.\"\n\n\n \"You can go to hell!\" Joe growled. \"We won't pay it!\"\n\n\n Johnson sighed ponderously. \"I was afraid you'd act like that,\" he said\n with regret. He pulled a tin badge out of his rear pocket, pinned it on\n his vest, and twisted his holstered gun into view. \"Afraid I'll have to\n ask the sheriff to take over.\"\n\n\n Johnson, the \"sheriff,\" collected the money, and Johnson, the\n \"restaurateur,\" pocketed it. Meanwhile, Harvey tipped Joe the sign to\n remain calm.\n\n\n \"My friend,\" he said to the mayor, and his tones took on a\n schoolmasterish severity, \"your long absence from Earth has perhaps\n made you forget those elements of human wisdom that have entered the\n folk-lore of your native planet. Such as, for example: 'It is folly\n to kill a goose that lays golden eggs,' and 'Penny wise is pound\n foolish.'\"\n\n\n \"I don't get the connection,\" objected Johnson.\n\n\n \"Well, by obliging us to pay such a high price for your dinner, you put\n out of your reach the chance of profiting from a really substantial\n deal. My partner and I were prepared to make you a sizable offer for\n the peculiar creature you call Genius. But by reducing our funds the\n way you have\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Who said I wanted to sell him?\" the mayor interrupted. He rubbed his\n fingers together and asked disinterestedly: \"What were you going to\n offer, anyhow?\"\n\n\n \"It doesn't matter any longer,\" Harvey said with elaborate\n carelessness. \"Perhaps you wouldn't have accepted it, anyway.\"\n\n\n \"That's right,\" Johnson came back emphatically. \"But what would your\n offer have been which I would have turned down?\"\n\n\n \"Which one? The one we were going to make, or the one we can make now?\"\n\n\n \"Either one. It don't make no difference. Genius is too valuable to\n sell.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, come now, Mr. Johnson. Don't tell me no amount of money would\n tempt you!\"\n\n\n \"Nope. But how much did you say?\"\n\n\n \"Ah, then you will consider releasing Genius!\"\n\n\n \"Well, I'll tell you something,\" said the mayor confidentially. \"When\n you've got one thing, you've got one thing. But when you've got money,\n it's the same as having a lot of things. Because, if you've got money,\n you can buy this and that and this and that and\u2014\"\n\n\n \"This and that,\" concluded Joe. \"We'll give you five hundred buckos.\"\n\n\n \"Now, gents!\" Johnson remonstrated. \"Why, six hundred would hardly\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You haven't left us much money,\" Harvey put in.\n\n\n The mayor frowned. \"All right, we'll split the difference. Make it\n five-fifty.\"\n\n\n Harvey was quick to pay out, for this was a genuine windfall. Then he\n stood up and admired the astonishing possession he had so inexpensively\n acquired.\n\n\n \"I really hate to deprive you of this unique creature,\" he said to\n Johnson. \"I should imagine you will be rather lonely, with only your\n filial mammoth to keep you company.\"\n\n\n \"I sure will,\" Johnson confessed glumly. \"I got pretty attached to\n Genius, and I'm going to miss him something awful.\"\n\n\n Harvey forcibly removed his eyes from the native, who was clearing off\n the table almost all at once.\n\n\n \"My friend,\" he said, \"we take your only solace, it is true, but in his\n place we can offer something no less amazing and instructive.\"\n\n\n The mayor's hand went protectively to his pocket. \"What is it?\" he\n asked with the suspicion of a man who has seen human nature at its\n worst and expects nothing better.\n\n\n \"Joseph, get our most prized belonging from the communications room of\n the ship,\" Harvey instructed. To Johnson he explained: \"You must see\n the wondrous instrument before its value can be appreciated. My partner\n will soon have it here for your astonishment.\"\n\n\n Joe's face grew as glum as Johnson's had been. \"Aw, Harv,\" he\n protested, \"do we have to sell it? And right when I thought we were\n getting the key!\"\n\n\n \"We must not be selfish, my boy,\" Harvey said nobly. \"We have had our\n chance; now we must relinquish Fate to the hands of a man who might\n have more success than we. Go, Joseph. Bring it here.\"\n\n\n Unwillingly, Joe turned and shuffled out.\nOn a larger and heavier world than Planetoid 42, Johnson's curiosity\n would probably have had weight and mass. He was bursting with\n questions, but he was obviously afraid they would cost him money. For\n his part, Harvey allowed that curiosity to grow like a Venusian amoeba\n until Joe came in, lugging a radio.\n\n\n \"Is that what you were talking about?\" the mayor snorted. \"What makes\n you think I want a radio? I came here to get away from singers and\n political speech-makers.\"\n\n\n \"Do not jump to hasty conclusions,\" Harvey cautioned. \"Another word,\n and I shall refuse you the greatest opportunity any man has ever had,\n with the sole exceptions of Joseph, myself and the unfortunate inventor\n of this absolutely awe-inspiring device.\"\n\n\n \"I ain't in the market for a radio,\" Johnson said stubbornly.\n\n\n Harvey nodded in relief. \"We have attempted to repay our host, Joseph.\n He has spurned our generosity. We have now the chance to continue our\n study, which I am positive will soon reward us with the key to an\n enormous fortune.\"\n\n\n \"Well, that's no plating off our bow,\" Joe grunted. \"I'm glad he did\n turn it down. I hated to give it up after working on it for three whole\n years.\"\n\n\n He picked up the radio and began walking toward the door.\n\n\n \"Now, hold on!\" the mayor cried. \"I ain't\nsaying\nI'll buy, but what\n is it I'm turning down?\"\n\n\n Joe returned and set the instrument down on the bar. His face\n sorrowful, Harvey fondly stroked the scarred plasticoid cabinet.\n\n\n \"To make a long story, Mr. Johnson,\" he said, \"Joseph and I were among\n the chosen few who knew the famous Doctor Dean intimately. Just before\n his tragic death, you will recall, Dean allegedly went insane.\" He\n banged his fist on the bar. \"I have said it before, and I repeat again,\n that was a malicious lie, spread by the doctor's enemies to discredit\n his greatest invention\u2014this fourth dimensional radio!\"\n\n\n \"This what?\" Johnson blurted out.\n\n\n \"In simple terms,\" clarified Harvey, \"the ingenious doctor discovered\n that the yawning chasm between the dimensions could be bridged by\n energy of all quanta. There has never been any question that the\n inhabitants of the super-dimension would be far more civilized than\n ourselves. Consequently, the man who could tap their knowledge would\n find himself in possession of a powerful, undreamt-of science!\"\n\n\n The mayor looked respectfully at the silent box on the bar.\n\n\n \"And this thing gets broadcasts from the fourth dimension?\"\n\n\n \"It does, Mr. Johnson! Only charlatans like those who envied Doctor\n Dean's magnificent accomplishments could deny that fact.\"\n\n\n The mayor put his hands in his pockets, unswiveled one hip and stared\n thoughtfully at the battered cabinet.\n\n\n \"Well, let's say it picks up fourth dimensional broadcasts,\" he\n conceded. \"But how could you understand what they're saying? Folks up\n there wouldn't talk our language.\"\n\n\n Again Harvey smashed his fist down. \"Do you dare to repeat the scurvy\n lie that broke Dean's spirit and drove him to suicide?\"\n\n\n Johnson recoiled. \"No\u2014no,\nof course not\n. I mean, being up here, I\n naturally couldn't get all the details.\"\n\n\n \"Naturally,\" Harvey agreed, mollified. \"I'm sorry I lost my temper.\n But it is a matter of record that the doctor proved the broadcasts\n emanating from the super-dimension were in English! Why should that be\n so difficult to believe? Is it impossible that at one time there was\n communication between the dimensions, that the super-beings admired\n our language and adopted it in all its beauty, adding to it their own\n hyper-scientific trimmings?\"\n\n\n \"Why, I don't know,\" Johnson said in confusion.\n\n\n \"For three years, Joseph and I lost sleep and hair, trying to detect\n the simple key that would translate the somewhat metamorphosed\n broadcasts into our primitive English. It eluded us. Even the doctor\n failed. But that was understandable; a sensitive soul like his could\n stand only so much. And the combination of ridicule and failure to\n solve the mystery caused him to take his own life.\"\n\n\n Johnson winced. \"Is that what you want to unload on me?\"\n\n\n \"For a very good reason, sir. Patience is the virtue that will be\n rewarded with the key to these fourth dimensional broadcasts. A man who\n could devote his life to improving this lonely worldlet is obviously a\n person with unusual patience.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" the mayor said grudgingly, \"I ain't exactly flighty.\"\n\n\n \"Therefore, you are the man who could unravel the problem!\"\n\n\n Johnson asked skeptically: \"How about a sample first?\"",
    "62569": "The Monster Maker\nBy RAY BRADBURY\n\"Get Gunther,\" the official orders read. It\n\n was to laugh! For Click and Irish were\n\n marooned on the pirate's asteroid\u2014their only\n\n weapons a single gun and a news-reel camera.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Spring 1944.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nSuddenly, it was there. There wasn't time to blink or speak or get\n scared. Click Hathaway's camera was loaded and he stood there listening\n to it rack-spin film between his fingers, and he knew he was getting a\n damned sweet picture of everything that was happening.\n\n\n The picture of Marnagan hunched huge over the control-console,\n wrenching levers, jamming studs with freckled fists. And out in the\n dark of the fore-part there was space and a star-sprinkling and this\n meteor coming like blazing fury.\n\n\n Click Hathaway felt the ship move under him like a sensitive animal's\n skin. And then the meteor hit. It made a spiked fist and knocked the\n rear-jets flat, and the ship spun like a cosmic merry-go-round.\n\n\n There was plenty of noise. Too damned much. Hathaway only knew he was\n picked up and hurled against a lever-bank, and that Marnagan wasn't\n long in following, swearing loud words. Click remembered hanging on to\n his camera and gritting to keep holding it. What a sweet shot that had\n been of the meteor! A sweeter one still of Marnagan beating hell out of\n the controls and keeping his words to himself until just now.\n\n\n It got quiet. It got so quiet you could almost hear the asteroids\n rushing up, cold, blue and hard. You could hear your heart kicking a\n tom-tom between your sick stomach and your empty lungs.\n\n\n Stars, asteroids revolved. Click grabbed Marnagan because he was the\n nearest thing, and held on. You came hunting for a space-raider and you\n ended up cradled in a slab-sized Irishman's arms, diving at a hunk of\n metal death. What a fade-out!\n\n\n \"Irish!\" he heard himself say. \"Is this IT?\"\n\n\n \"Is this\nwhat\n?\" yelled Marnagan inside his helmet.\n\n\n \"Is this where the Big Producer yells CUT!?\"\n\n\n Marnagan fumed. \"I'll die when I'm damned good and ready. And when I'm\n ready I'll inform you and you can picture me profile for Cosmic Films!\"\n\n\n They both waited, thrust against the shipside and held by a hand of\n gravity; listening to each other's breathing hard in the earphones.\n\n\n The ship struck, once. Bouncing, it struck again. It turned end over\n and stopped. Hathaway felt himself grabbed; he and Marnagan rattled\n around\u2014human dice in a croupier's cup. The shell of the ship burst,\n air and energy flung out.\n\n\n Hathaway screamed the air out of his lungs, but his brain was thinking\n quick crazy, unimportant things. The best scenes in life never reach\n film, or an audience. Like this one, dammit! Like\nthis\none! His\n brain spun, racketing like the instantaneous, flicking motions of his\n camera.\nSilence came and engulfed all the noise, ate it up and swallowed it.\n Hathaway shook his head, instinctively grabbed at the camera locked\n to his mid-belt. There was nothing but stars, twisted wreckage, cold\n that pierced through his vac-suit, and silence. He wriggled out of the\n wreckage into that silence.\n\n\n He didn't know what he was doing until he found the camera in his\n fingers as if it had grown there when he was born. He stood there,\n thinking \"Well, I'll at least have a few good scenes on film. I'll\u2014\"\n\n\n A hunk of metal teetered, fell with a crash. Marnagan elevated seven\n feet of bellowing manhood from the wreck.\n\n\n \"Hold it!\" cracked Hathaway's high voice. Marnagan froze. The camera\n whirred. \"Low angle shot; Interplanetary Patrolman emerges unscathed\n from asteroid crackup. Swell stuff. I'll get a raise for this!\"\n\n\n \"From the toe of me boot!\" snarled Marnagan brusquely. Oxen shoulders\n flexed inside his vac-suit. \"I might've died in there, and you nursin'\n that film-contraption!\"\n\n\n Hathaway felt funny inside, suddenly. \"I never thought of that.\n Marnagan die? I just took it for granted you'd come through. You always\n have. Funny, but you don't think about dying. You try not to.\" Hathaway\n stared at his gloved hand, but the gloving was so thick and heavy he\n couldn't tell if it was shaking. Muscles in his bony face went down,\n pale. \"Where are we?\"\n\n\n \"A million miles from nobody.\"\n\n\n They stood in the middle of a pocked, time-eroded meteor plain that\n stretched off, dipping down into silent indigo and a rash of stars.\n Overhead, the sun poised; black and stars all around it, making it look\n sick.\n\n\n \"If we walk in opposite directions, Click Hathaway, we'd be shaking\n hands the other side of this rock in two hours.\" Marnagan shook his mop\n of dusty red hair. \"And I promised the boys at Luna Base this time I'd\n capture that Gunther lad!\"\n\n\n His voice stopped and the silence spoke.\n\n\n Hathaway felt his heart pumping slow, hot pumps of blood. \"I checked\n my oxygen, Irish. Sixty minutes of breathing left.\"\n\n\n The silence punctuated that sentence, too. Upon the sharp meteoric\n rocks Hathaway saw the tangled insides of the radio, the food supply\n mashed and scattered. They were lucky to have escaped. Or\nwas\nsuffocation a better death...?\nSixty minutes.\nThey stood and looked at one another.\n\n\n \"Damn that meteor!\" said Marnagan, hotly.\n\n\n Hathaway got hold of an idea; remembering something. He said it out:\n \"Somebody tossed that meteor, Irish. I took a picture of it, looked\n it right in the eye when it rolled at us, and it was poker-hot.\n Space-meteors are never hot and glowing. If it's proof you want, I've\n got it here, on film.\"\n\n\n Marnagan winced his freckled square of face. \"It's not proof we need\n now, Click. Oxygen. And then\nfood\n. And then some way back to Earth.\"\n\n\n Hathaway went on saying his thoughts: \"This is Gunther's work. He's\n here somewhere, probably laughing his guts out at the job he did us.\n Oh, God, this would make great news-release stuff if we ever get back\n to Earth. I.P.'s Irish Marnagan, temporarily indisposed by a pirate\n whose dirty face has never been seen, Gunther by name, finally wins\n through to a triumphant finish. Photographed on the spot, in color, by\n yours truly, Click Hathaway. Cosmic Films, please notice.\"\nThey started walking, fast, over the pocked, rubbled plain toward a\n bony ridge of metal. They kept their eyes wide and awake. There wasn't\n much to see, but it was better than standing still, waiting.\n\n\n Marnagan said, \"We're working on margin, and we got nothin' to sweat\n with except your suspicions about this not being an accident. We got\n fifty minutes to prove you're right. After that\u2014right or wrong\u2014you'll\n be Cosmic Films prettiest unmoving, unbreathin' genius. But talk all\n you like, Click. It's times like this when we all need words, any\n words, on our tongues. You got your camera and your scoop. Talk about\n it. As for me\u2014\" he twisted his glossy red face. \"Keeping alive is me\n hobby. And this sort of two-bit death I did not order.\"\n\n\n Click nodded. \"Gunther knows how you'd hate dying this way, Irish.\n It's irony clean through. That's probably why he planned the meteor and\n the crash this way.\"\n\n\n Marnagan said nothing, but his thick lips went down at the corners, far\n down, and the green eyes blazed.\n\n\n They stopped, together.\n\n\n \"Oops!\" Click said.\n\n\n \"Hey!\" Marnagan blinked. \"Did you feel\nthat\n?\"\n\n\n Hathaway's body felt feathery, light as a whisper, boneless and\n limbless, suddenly. \"Irish! We lost weight, coming over that ridge!\"\n\n\n They ran back. \"Let's try it again.\"\n\n\n They tried it. They scowled at each other. The same thing happened.\n \"Gravity should not act this way, Click.\"\n\n\n \"Are you telling me? It's man-made. Better than that\u2014it's Gunther! No\n wonder we fell so fast\u2014we were dragged down by a super-gravity set-up!\n Gunther'd do anything to\u2014did I say\nanything\n?\"\n\n\n Hathaway leaped backward in reaction. His eyes widened and his hand\n came up, jabbing. Over a hill-ridge swarmed a brew of unbelievable\n horrors. Progeny from Frankenstein's ARK. Immense crimson beasts with\n numerous legs and gnashing mandibles, brown-black creatures, some\n tubular and fat, others like thin white poisonous whips slashing along\n in the air. Fangs caught starlight white on them.\n\n\n Hathaway yelled and ran, Marnagan at his heels, lumbering. Sweat broke\n cold on his body. The immense things rolled, slithered and squirmed\n after him. A blast of light. Marnagan, firing his proton-gun. Then, in\n Click's ears, the Irishman's incredulous bellow. The gun didn't hurt\n the creatures at all.\n\n\n \"Irish!\" Hathaway flung himself over the ridge, slid down an incline\n toward the mouth a small cave. \"This way, fella!\"\n\n\n Hathaway made it first, Marnagan bellowing just behind him. \"They're\n too big; they can't get us in here!\" Click's voice gasped it out,\n as Marnagan squeezed his two-hundred-fifty pounds beside him.\n Instinctively, Hathaway added, \"Asteroid monsters! My camera! What a\n scene!\"\n\n\n \"Damn your damn camera!\" yelled Marnagan. \"They might come in!\"\n\n\n \"Use your gun.\"\n\n\n \"They got impervious hides. No use. Gahh! And that was a pretty chase,\n eh, Click?\"\n\n\n \"Yeah. Sure.\nYou\nenjoyed it, every moment of it.\"\n\n\n \"I did that.\" Irish grinned, showing white uneven teeth. \"Now, what\n will we be doing with these uninvited guests at our door?\"\n\n\n \"Let me think\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Lots of time, little man. Forty more minutes of air, to be exact.\"\nThey sat, staring at the monsters for about a minute. Hathaway felt\n funny about something; didn't know what. Something about these monsters\n and Gunther and\u2014\n\n\n \"Which one will you be having?\" asked Irish, casually. \"A red one or a\n blue one?\"\n\n\n Hathaway laughed nervously. \"A pink one with yellow ruffles\u2014Good God,\n now you've got\nme\ndoing it. Joking in the face of death.\"\n\n\n \"Me father taught me; keep laughing and you'll have Irish luck.\"\n\n\n That didn't please the photographer. \"I'm an Anglo-Swede,\" he pointed\n out.\n\n\n Marnagan shifted uneasily. \"Here, now. You're doing nothing but\n sitting, looking like a little boy locked in a bedroom closet, so take\n me a profile shot of the beasties and myself.\"\n\n\n Hathaway petted his camera reluctantly. \"What in hell's the use? All\n this swell film shot. Nobody'll ever see it.\"\n\n\n \"Then,\" retorted Marnagan, \"we'll develop it for our own benefit; while\n waitin' for the U.S. Cavalry to come riding over the hill to our\n rescue!\"\n\n\n Hathaway snorted. \"U.S. Cavalry.\"\n\n\n Marnagan raised his proton-gun dramatically. \"Snap me this pose,\" he\n said. \"I paid your salary to trot along, photographing, we hoped,\n my capture of Gunther, now the least you can do is record peace\n negotiations betwixt me and these pixies.\"\n\n\n Marnagan wasn't fooling anybody. Hathaway knew the superficial palaver\n for nothing but a covering over the fast, furious thinking running\n around in that red-cropped skull. Hathaway played the palaver, too, but\n his mind was whirring faster than his camera as he spun a picture of\n Marnagan standing there with a useless gun pointed at the animals.\n\n\n Montage. Marnagan sitting, chatting at the monsters. Marnagan smiling\n for the camera. Marnagan in profile. Marnagan looking grim, without\n much effort, for the camera. And then, a closeup of the thrashing death\n wall that holed them in. Click took them all, those shots, not saying\n anything. Nobody fooled nobody with this act. Death was near and they\n had sweaty faces, dry mouths and frozen guts.\n\n\n When Click finished filming, Irish sat down to save oxygen, and used it\n up arguing about Gunther. Click came back at him:\n\n\n \"Gunther drew us down here, sure as Ceres! That gravity change we felt\n back on that ridge, Irish; that proves it. Gunther's short on men. So,\n what's he do; he builds an asteroid-base, and drags ships down. Space\n war isn't perfect yet, guns don't prime true in space, trajectory\n is lousy over long distances. So what's the best weapon, which\n dispenses with losing valuable, rare ships and a small bunch of men?\n Super-gravity and a couple of well-tossed meteors. Saves all around.\n It's a good front, this damned iron pebble. From it, Gunther strikes\n unseen; ships simply crash, that's all. A subtle hand, with all aces.\"\n\n\n Marnagan rumbled. \"Where is the dirty son, then!\"\n\n\n \"He didn't have to appear, Irish. He sent\u2014them.\" Hathaway nodded at\n the beasts. \"People crashing here die from air-lack, no food, or from\n wounds caused at the crackup. If they survive all that\u2014the animals\n tend to them. It all looks like Nature was responsible. See how subtle\n his attack is? Looks like accidental death instead of murder, if the\n Patrol happens to land and finds us. No reason for undue investigation,\n then.\"\n\n\n \"I don't see no Base around.\"\nClick shrugged. \"Still doubt it? Okay. Look.\" He tapped his camera and\n a spool popped out onto his gloved palm. Holding it up, he stripped\n it out to its full twenty inch length, held it to the light while it\n developed, smiling. It was one of his best inventions. Self-developing\n film. The first light struck film-surface, destroyed one chemical,\n leaving imprints; the second exposure simply hardened, secured the\n impressions. Quick stuff.\n\n\n Inserting the film-tongue into a micro-viewer in the camera's base,\n Click handed the whole thing over. \"Look.\"\n\n\n Marnagan put the viewer up against the helmet glass, squinted. \"Ah,\n Click. Now, now. This is one lousy film you invented.\"\n\n\n \"Huh?\"\n\n\n \"It's a strange process'll develop my picture and ignore the asteroid\n monsters complete.\"\n\n\n \"What!\"\n\n\n Hathaway grabbed the camera, gasped, squinted, and gasped again:\n Pictures in montage; Marnagan sitting down, chatting conversationally\n with\nnothing\n; Marnagan shooting his gun at\nnothing\n; Marnagan\n pretending to be happy in front of\nnothing\n.\n\n\n Then, closeup\u2014of\u2014NOTHING!\n\n\n The monsters had failed to image the film. Marnagan was there, his hair\n like a red banner, his freckled face with the blue eyes bright in it.\n Maybe\u2014\n\n\n Hathaway said it, loud: \"Irish! Irish! I think I see a way out of this\n mess! Here\u2014\"\n\n\n He elucidated it over and over again to the Patrolman. About the film,\n the beasts, and how the film couldn't be wrong. If the film said the\n monsters weren't there, they weren't there.\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" said Marnagan. \"But step outside this cave\u2014\"\n\n\n \"If my theory is correct I'll do it, unafraid,\" said Click.\n\n\n Marnagan scowled. \"You sure them beasts don't radiate ultra-violet or\n infra-red or something that won't come out on film?\"\n\n\n \"Nuts! Any color\nwe\nsee, the camera sees. We've been fooled.\"\n\n\n \"Hey, where\nyou\ngoing?\" Marnagan blocked Hathaway as the smaller man\n tried pushing past him.\n\n\n \"Get out of the way,\" said Hathaway.\n\n\n Marnagan put his big fists on his hips. \"If anyone is going anywhere,\n it'll be me does the going.\"\n\n\n \"I can't let you do that, Irish.\"\n\n\n \"Why not?\"\n\n\n \"You'd be going on my say-so.\"\n\n\n \"Ain't your say-so good enough for me?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. Sure. Of course. I guess\u2014\"\n\n\n \"If you say them animals ain't there, that's all I need. Now, stand\n aside, you film-developing flea, and let an Irishman settle their\n bones.\" He took an unnecessary hitch in trousers that didn't exist\n except under an inch of porous metal plate. \"Your express purpose on\n this voyage, Hathaway, is taking films to be used by the Patrol later\n for teaching Junior Patrolmen how to act in tough spots. First-hand\n education. Poke another spool of film in that contraption and give me\n profile a scan. This is lesson number seven: Daniel Walks Into The\n Lion's Den.\"\n\n\n \"Irish, I\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Shut up and load up.\"\n\n\n Hathaway nervously loaded the film-slot, raised it.\n\n\n \"Ready, Click?\"\n\n\n \"I\u2014I guess so,\" said Hathaway. \"And remember, think it hard, Irish.\n Think it hard. There aren't any animals\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Keep me in focus, lad.\"\n\n\n \"All the way, Irish.\"\n\n\n \"What do they say...? Oh, yeah. Action. Lights. Camera!\"\n\n\n Marnagan held his gun out in front of him and still smiling took one,\n two, three, four steps out into the outside world. The monsters were\n waiting for him at the fifth step. Marnagan kept walking.\n\n\n Right out into the middle of them....\nThat was the sweetest shot Hathaway ever took. Marnagan and the\n monsters!\n\n\n Only now it was only Marnagan.\n\n\n No more monsters.\n\n\n Marnagan smiled a smile broader than his shoulders. \"Hey, Click, look\n at me! I'm in one piece. Why, hell, the damned things turned tail and\n ran away!\"\n\n\n \"Ran, hell!\" cried Hathaway, rushing out, his face flushed and\n animated. \"They just plain vanished. They were only imaginative\n figments!\"\n\n\n \"And to think we let them hole us in that way, Click Hathaway, you\n coward!\"\n\n\n \"Smile when you say that, Irish.\"\n\n\n \"Sure, and ain't I always smilin'? Ah, Click boy, are them tears in\n your sweet grey eyes?\"\n\n\n \"Damn,\" swore the photographer, embarrassedly. \"Why don't they put\n window-wipers in these helmets?\"\n\n\n \"I'll take it up with the Board, lad.\"\n\n\n \"Forget it. I was so blamed glad to see your homely carcass in one\n hunk, I couldn't help\u2014Look, now, about Gunther. Those animals are part\n of his set-up. Explorers who land here inadvertently, are chased back\n into their ships, forced to take off. Tourists and the like. Nothing\n suspicious about animals. And if the tourists don't leave, the animals\n kill them.\"\n\n\n \"Shaw, now. Those animals can't kill.\"\n\n\n \"Think not, Mr. Marnagan? As long as we believed in them they could\n have frightened us to death, forced us, maybe, to commit suicide. If\n that isn't being dangerous\u2014\"\n\n\n The Irishman whistled.\n\n\n \"But, we've got to\nmove\n, Irish. We've got twenty minutes of oxygen.\n In that time we've got to trace those monsters to their source,\n Gunther's Base, fight our way in, and get fresh oxy-cannisters.\" Click\n attached his camera to his mid-belt. \"Gunther probably thinks we're\n dead by now. Everyone else's been fooled by his playmates; they never\n had a chance to disbelieve them.\"\n\n\n \"If it hadn't been for you taking them pictures, Click\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Coupled with your damned stubborn attitude about the accident\u2014\" Click\n stopped and felt his insides turning to water. He shook his head and\n felt a film slip down over his eyes. He spread his legs out to steady\n himself, and swayed. \"I\u2014I don't think my oxygen is as full as yours.\n This excitement had me double-breathing and I feel sick.\"\n\n\n Marnagan's homely face grimaced in sympathy. \"Hold tight, Click. The\n guy that invented these fish-bowls didn't provide for a sick stomach.\"\n\n\n \"Hold tight, hell, let's move. We've got to find where those animals\n came from! And the only way to do that is to get the animals to come\n back!\"\n\n\n \"Come back? How?\"\n\n\n \"They're waiting, just outside the aura of our thoughts, and if we\n believe in them again, they'll return.\"\n\n\n Marnagan didn't like it. \"Won't\u2014won't they kill us\u2014if they come\u2014if\n we believe in 'em?\"\n\n\n Hathaway shook a head that was tons heavy and weary. \"Not if we believe\n in them to a\ncertain point\n. Psychologically they can both be seen and\n felt. We only want to\nsee\nthem coming at us again.\"\n\n\n \"\nDo\nwe, now?\"\n\n\n \"With twenty minutes left, maybe less\u2014\"\n\n\n \"All right, Click, let's bring 'em back. How do we do it?\"\n\n\n Hathaway fought against the mist in his eyes. \"Just think\u2014I will see\n the monsters again. I will see them again and I will not feel them.\n Think it over and over.\"\n\n\n Marnagan's hulk stirred uneasily. \"And\u2014what if I forget to remember\n all that? What if I get excited...?\"\n\n\n Hathaway didn't answer. But his eyes told the story by just looking at\n Irish.\n\n\n Marnagan cursed. \"All right, lad. Let's have at it!\"\n\n\n The monsters returned.\nA soundless deluge of them, pouring over the rubbled horizon, swarming\n in malevolent anticipation about the two men.\n\n\n \"This way, Irish. They come from this way! There's a focal point, a\n sending station for these telepathic brutes. Come on!\"\n\n\n Hathaway sludged into the pressing tide of color, mouths, contorted\n faces, silvery fat bodies misting as he plowed through them.\nMarnagan was making good progress ahead of Hathaway. But he stopped and\n raised his gun and made quick moves with it. \"Click! This one here!\n It's real!\" He fell back and something struck him down. His immense\n frame slammed against rock, noiselessly.\n\n\n Hathaway darted forward, flung his body over Marnagan's, covered the\n helmet glass with his hands, shouting:\n\n\n \"Marnagan! Get a grip, dammit! It's not real\u2014don't let it force into\n your mind! It's not real, I tell you!\"\n\n\n \"Click\u2014\" Marnagan's face was a bitter, tortured movement behind glass.\n \"Click\u2014\" He was fighting hard. \"I\u2014I\u2014sure now. Sure\u2014\" He smiled.\n \"It\u2014it's only a shanty fake!\"\n\n\n \"Keep saying it, Irish. Keep it up.\"\n\n\n Marnagan's thick lips opened. \"It's only a fake,\" he said. And then,\n irritated, \"Get the hell off me, Hathaway. Let me up to my feet!\"\n\n\n Hathaway got up, shakily. The air in his helmet smelled stale, and\n little bubbles danced in his eyes. \"Irish,\nyou\nforget the monsters.\n Let me handle them, I know how. They might fool you again, you might\n forget.\"\n\n\n Marnagan showed his teeth. \"Gah! Let a flea have all the fun? And\n besides, Click, I like to look at them. They're pretty.\"\n\n\n The outpour of animals came from a low lying mound a mile farther on.\n Evidently the telepathic source lay there. They approached it warily.\n\n\n \"We'll be taking our chances on guard,\" hissed Irish. \"I'll go ahead,\n draw their attention, maybe get captured. Then,\nyou\nshow up with\nyour\ngun....\"\n\n\n \"I haven't got one.\"\n\n\n \"We'll chance it, then. You stick here until I see what's ahead. They\n probably got scanners out. Let them see me\u2014\"\n\n\n And before Hathaway could object, Marnagan walked off. He walked about\n five hundred yards, bent down, applied his fingers to something, heaved\n up, and there was a door opening in the rock.\n\n\n His voice came back across the distance, into Click's earphones. \"A\n door, an air-lock, Click. A tunnel leading down inside!\"\n\n\n Then, Marnagan dropped into the tunnel, disappearing. Click heard the\n thud of his feet hitting the metal flooring.\n\n\n Click sucked in his breath, hard and fast.\n\n\n \"All right, put 'em up!\" a new harsh voice cried over a different\n radio. One of Gunther's guards.\n\n\n Three shots sizzled out, and Marnagan bellowed.\n\n\n The strange harsh voice said, \"That's better. Don't try and pick that\n gun up now. Oh, so it's you. I thought Gunther had finished you off.\n How'd you get past the animals?\"\n\n\n Click started running. He switched off his\nsending\naudio, kept his\nreceiving\non. Marnagan, weaponless.\nOne\nguard. Click gasped. Things\n were getting dark. Had to have air. Air. Air. He ran and kept running\n and listening to Marnagan's lying voice:\n\n\n \"I tied them pink elephants of Gunther's in neat alphabetical bundles\n and stacked them up to dry, ya louse!\" Marnagan said. \"But, damn you,\n they killed my partner before he had a chance!\"\n\n\n The guard laughed.\nThe air-lock door was still wide open when Click reached it, his head\n swimming darkly, his lungs crammed with pain-fire and hell-rockets. He\n let himself down in, quiet and soft. He didn't have a weapon. He didn't\n have a weapon. Oh, damn, damn!\n\n\n A tunnel curved, ending in light, and two men silhouetted in that\n yellow glare. Marnagan, backed against a wall, his helmet cracked,\n air hissing slowly out of it, his face turning blue. And the guard, a\n proton gun extended stiffly before him, also in a vac-suit. The guard\n had his profile toward Hathaway, his lips twisting: \"I think I'll let\n you stand right there and die,\" he said quietly. \"That what Gunther\n wanted, anway. A nice sordid death.\"\n\n\n Hathaway took three strides, his hands out in front of him.\n\n\n \"Don't move!\" he snapped. \"I've got a weapon stronger than yours. One\n twitch and I'll blast you and the whole damned wall out from behind\n you! Freeze!\"\n\n\n The guard whirled. He widened his sharp eyes, and reluctantly, dropped\n his gun to the floor.\n\n\n \"Get his gun, Irish.\"\n\n\n Marnagan made as if to move, crumpled clumsily forward.\n\n\n Hathaway ran in, snatched up the gun, smirked at the guard. \"Thanks for\n posing,\" he said. \"That shot will go down in film history for candid\n acting.\"\n\n\n \"What!\"\n\n\n \"Ah: ah! Keep your place. I've got a real gun now. Where's the door\n leading into the Base?\"\n\n\n The guard moved his head sullenly over his left shoulder.\n\n\n Click was afraid he would show his weak dizziness. He needed air.\n \"Okay. Drag Marnagan with you, open the door and we'll have air. Double\n time! Double!\"\n\n\n Ten minutes later, Marnagan and Hathaway, fresh tanks of oxygen on\n their backs, Marnagan in a fresh bulger and helmet, trussed the guard,\n hid him in a huge trash receptacle. \"Where he belongs,\" observed Irish\n tersely.\n\n\n They found themselves in a complete inner world; an asteroid nothing\n more than a honey-comb fortress sliding through the void unchallenged.\n Perfect front for a raider who had little equipment and was\n short-handed of men. Gunther simply waited for specific cargo ships to\n rocket by, pulled them or knocked them down and swarmed over them for\n cargo. The animals served simply to insure against suspicion and the\n swarms of tourists that filled the void these days. Small fry weren't\n wanted. They were scared off.\n\n\n The telepathic sending station for the animals was a great bank of\n intricate, glittering machine, through which strips of colored film\n with images slid into slots and machine mouths that translated them\n into thought-emanations. A damned neat piece of genius.\n\n\n \"So here we are, still not much better off than we were,\" growled\n Irish. \"We haven't a ship or a space-radio, and more guards'll turn\n up any moment. You think we could refocus this doohingey, project the\n monsters inside the asteroid to fool the pirates themselves?\"\n\n\n \"What good would that do?\" Hathaway gnawed his lip. \"They wouldn't fool\n the engineers who created them, you nut.\"\n\n\n Marnagan exhaled disgustedly. \"Ah, if only the U.S. Cavalry would come\n riding over the hill\u2014\"\n\"Irish!\" Hathaway snapped that, his face lighting up. \"Irish. The U.S.\n Cavalry it is!\" His eyes darted over the machines. \"Here. Help me.\n We'll stage everything on the most colossal raid of the century.\"\n\n\n Marnagan winced. \"You breathing oxygen or whiskey?\"\n\n\n \"There's only one stipulation I make, Irish. I want a complete picture\n of Marnagan capturing Raider's Base. I want a picture of Gunther's face\n when you do it. Snap it, now, we've got rush work to do. How good an\n actor are you?\"\n\n\n \"That's a silly question.\"\n\n\n \"You only have to do three things. Walk with your gun out in front of\n you, firing. That's number one. Number two is to clutch at your heart\n and fall down dead. Number three is to clutch at your side, fall down\n and twitch on the ground. Is that clear?\"\n\n\n \"Clear as the Coal Sack Nebula....\"\n\n\n An hour later Hathaway trudged down a passageway that led out into a\n sort of city street inside the asteroid. There were about six streets,\n lined with cube houses in yellow metal, ending near Hathaway in a\n wide, green-lawned Plaza.\n\n\n Hathaway, weaponless, idly carrying his camera in one hand, walked\n across the Plaza as if he owned it. He was heading for a building that\n was pretentious enough to be Gunther's quarters.\n\n\n He got halfway there when he felt a gun in his back.\n\n\n He didn't resist. They took him straight ahead to his destination and\n pushed him into a room where Gunther sat.\n\n\n Hathaway looked at him. \"So you're Gunther?\" he said, calmly. The\n pirate was incredibly old, his bulging forehead stood out over sunken,\n questioningly dark eyes, and his scrawny body was lost in folds of\n metal-link cloth. He glanced up from a paper-file, surprised. Before he\n could speak, Hathaway said:\n\n\n \"Everything's over with, Mr. Gunther. The Patrol is in the city now and\n we're capturing your Base. Don't try to fight. We've a thousand men\n against your eighty-five.\"\n\n\n Gunther sat there, blinking at Hathaway, not moving. His thin hands\n twitched in his lap. \"You are bluffing,\" he said, finally, with a firm\n directness. \"A ship hasn't landed here for an hour. Your ship was the\n last. Two people were on it. The last I saw of them they were being\n pursued to the death by the Beasts. One of you escaped, it seemed.\"\n\n\n \"Both. The other guy went after the Patrol.\"\n\n\n \"Impossible!\"\n\n\n \"I can't respect your opinion, Mr. Gunther.\"\n\n\n A shouting rose from the Plaza. About fifty of Gunther's men, lounging\n on carved benches during their time-off, stirred to their feet and\n started yelling. Gunther turned slowly to the huge window in one side\n of his office. He stared, hard.\n\n\n The Patrol was coming!\n\n\n Across the Plaza, marching quietly and decisively, came the Patrol.\n Five hundred Patrolmen in one long, incredible line, carrying paralysis\n guns with them in their tight hands.\n\n\n Gunther babbled like a child, his voice a shrill dagger in the air.\n \"Get out there, you men! Throw them back! We're outnumbered!\"\n\n\n Guns flared. But the Patrol came on. Gunther's men didn't run, Hathaway\n had to credit them on that. They took it, standing.\n\n\n Hathaway chuckled inside, deep. What a sweet, sweet shot this was.\n His camera whirred, clicked and whirred again. Nobody stopped him\n from filming it. Everything was too wild, hot and angry. Gunther was\n throwing a fit, still seated at his desk, unable to move because of his\n fragile, bony legs and their atrophied state.\n\n\n Some of the Patrol were killed. Hathaway chuckled again as he saw three\n of the Patrolmen clutch at their hearts, crumple, lie on the ground and\n twitch. God, what photography!\n\n\n Gunther raged, and swept a small pistol from his linked corselet. He\n fired wildly until Hathaway hit him over the head with a paper-weight.\n Then Hathaway took a picture of Gunther slumped at his desk, the chaos\n taking place immediately outside his window.\n\n\n The pirates broke and fled, those that were left. A mere handful. And\n out of the chaos came Marnagan's voice, \"Here!\"",
    "55933": "PEGGY FINDS THE THEATER\nI\nDramatic Dialogue\n\u201cOf course, this is no surprise to us,\u201d Thomas Lane\n said to his daughter Peggy, who perched tensely on\n the edge of a kitchen stool. \u201cWe could hardly have\n helped knowing that you\u2019ve wanted to be an actress\n since you were out of your cradle. It\u2019s just that decisions\n like this can\u2019t be made quickly.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut, Dad!\u201d Peggy almost wailed. \u201cYou just finished\n saying yourself that I\u2019ve been thinking about\n this and wanting it for years! You can\u2019t follow that by\n calling it a quick decision!\u201d She turned to her mother,\n her hazel eyes flashing under a mass of dark chestnut\n curls. \u201cMother, you understand, don\u2019t you?\u201d\n\n\n Mrs. Lane smiled gently and placed her soft white\n hand on her daughter\u2019s lean brown one. \u201cOf course\n I understand, Margaret, and so does your father. We\n both want to do what\u2019s best for you, not to stand in\n your way. The only question is whether the time is\n right, or if you should wait longer.\u201d\n\n2\n\n \u201cWait! Mother\u2014Dad\u2014I\u2019m years behind already!\n The theater is full of beginners a year and even two\n years younger than I am, and girls of my age have\n lots of acting credits already. Besides, what is there to\n wait for?\u201d\n\n\n Peggy\u2019s father put down his coffee cup and leaned\n back in the kitchen chair until it tilted on two legs\n against the wall behind him. He took his time before\n answering. When he finally spoke, his voice was\n warm and slow.\n\n\n \u201cPeg, I don\u2019t want to hold up your career. I don\u2019t\n have any objections to your wanting to act. I think\u2014judging\n from the plays I\u2019ve seen you in at high\n school and college\u2014that you have a real talent. But\n I thought that if you would go on with college for\n three more years and get your degree, you would\n gain so much worth-while knowledge that you\u2019d use\n and enjoy for the rest of your life\u2014\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut not acting knowledge!\u201d Peggy cried.\n\n\n \u201cThere\u2019s more to life than that,\u201d her father put in.\n \u201cThere\u2019s history and literature and foreign languages\n and mathematics and sciences and music and art\n and philosophy and a lot more\u2014all of them fascinating\n and all important.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNone of them is as fascinating as acting to me,\u201d\n Peggy replied, \u201cand none of them is nearly as important\n to my life.\u201d\n\n3\n\n Mrs. Lane nodded. \u201cOf course, dear. I know just\n how you feel about it,\u201d she said. \u201cI would have answered\n just the same way when I was your age, except\n that for me it was singing instead of acting. But\u2014\u201d and\n here her pleasant face betrayed a trace of\n sadness\u2014\u201cbut I was never able to be a singer. I guess\n I wasn\u2019t quite good enough or else I didn\u2019t really\n want it hard enough\u2014to go on with all the study and\n practice it needed.\u201d\n\n\n She paused and looked thoughtfully at her daughter\u2019s\n intense expression, then took a deep breath before\n going on.\n\n\n \u201cWhat you must realize, Margaret, is that you may\n not quite make the grade. We think you\u2019re wonderful,\n but the theater is full of young girls whose parents\n thought they were the most talented things\n alive; girls who won all kinds of applause in high-school\n and college plays; girls who have everything\n except luck. You may be one of these girls, and if you\n are, we want you to be prepared for it. We want you\n to have something to fall back on, just in case\n you ever need it.\u201d\n\n\n Mr. Lane, seeing Peggy\u2019s hurt look, was quick to\n step in with reassurance. \u201cWe don\u2019t think you\u2019re going\n to fail, Peg. We have every confidence in you and\n your talents. I don\u2019t see how you could miss being the\n biggest success ever\u2014but I\u2019m your father, not a\n Broadway critic or a play producer, and I could be\n wrong. And if I am wrong, I don\u2019t want you to be\n hurt. All I ask is that you finish college and get a\n teacher\u2019s certificate so that you can always find\n useful work if you have to. Then you can try your\n luck in the theater. Doesn\u2019t that make sense?\u201d\n\n4\n\n Peggy stared at the faded linoleum on the floor for\n a few moments before answering. Then, looking first\n at her mother and then at her father, she replied\n firmly, \u201cNo, it doesn\u2019t! It might make sense if we\n were talking about anything else but acting, but\n we\u2019re not. If I\u2019m ever going to try, I\u2019ll have a better\n chance now than I will in three years. But I can see\n your point of view, Dad, and I\u2019ll tell you what\u2014I\u2019ll\n make a bargain with you.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat sort of bargain, Peg?\u201d her father asked curiously.\n\n\n \u201cIf you let me go to New York now, and if I can get\n into a good drama school there, I\u2019ll study and try to\n find acting jobs at the same time. That way I\u2019ll still be\n going to school and I\u2019ll be giving myself a chance.\n And if I\u2019m not started in a career in one year, I\u2019ll go\n back to college and get my teacher\u2019s certificate before\n I try the theater again. How does that sound to\n you?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt sounds fair enough,\u201d Tom Lane admitted, \u201cbut\n are you so confident that you\u2019ll see results in one\n year? After all, some of our top stars worked many\n times that long before getting any recognition.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t expect recognition in one year, Dad,\u201d\n Peggy said. \u201cI\u2019m not that conceited or that silly. All\n I hope is that I\u2019ll be able to get a part in that time,\n and maybe be able to make a living out of acting.\n And that\u2019s probably asking too much. If I have to,\n I\u2019ll make a living at something else, maybe working\n in an office or something, while I wait for parts. What\n I want to prove in this year is that I can act. If I can\u2019t,\n I\u2019ll come home.\u201d\n\n5\n\n \u201cIt seems to me, Tom, that Margaret has a pretty\n good idea of what she\u2019s doing,\u201d Mrs. Lane said. \u201cShe\n sounds sensible and practical. If she were all starry-eyed\n and expected to see her name in lights in a few\n weeks, I\u2019d vote against her going, but I\u2019m beginning\n to think that maybe she\u2019s right about this being the\n best time.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, Mother!\u201d Peggy shouted, jumping down from\n the stool and throwing her arms about her mother\u2019s\n neck. \u201cI knew you\u2019d understand! And you understand\n too, don\u2019t you, Dad?\u201d she appealed.\n\n\n Her father replied in little puffs as he drew on his\n pipe to get it started. \u201cI ... never said ... I didn\u2019t\n ... understand you ... did I?\u201d His pipe satisfactorily\n sending up thick clouds of fragrant smoke, he\n took it out of his mouth before continuing more\n evenly.\n\n\n \u201cPeg, your mother and I are cautious only because\n we love you so much and want what\u2019s going to make\n you happy. At the same time, we want to spare you\n any unnecessary unhappiness along the way. Remember,\n I\u2019m not a complete stranger to show business.\n Before I came out here to Rockport to edit the\nEagle\n,\n I worked as a reporter on one of the best papers in\n New York. I saw a lot ... I met a lot of actors and\n actresses ... and I know how hard the city often\n was for them. But I don\u2019t want to protect you from\n life. That\u2019s no good either. Just let me think about it\n a little longer and let me talk to your mother some\n more.\u201d\n\n6\n\n Mrs. Lane patted Peggy\u2019s arm and said, \u201cWe won\u2019t\n keep you in suspense long, dear. Why don\u2019t you go\n out for a walk for a while and let us go over the situation\n quietly? We\u2019ll decide before bedtime.\u201d\n\n\n Peggy nodded silently and walked to the kitchen\n door, where she paused to say, \u201cI\u2019m just going out to\n the barn to see if Socks is all right for the night. Then\n maybe I\u2019ll go down to Jean\u2019s for a while.\u201d\n\n\n As she stepped out into the soft summer dusk she\n turned to look back just in time to see her mother\n throw her a comically exaggerated wink of assurance.\n Feeling much better, Peggy shut the screen door behind\n her and started for the barn.\n\n\n Ever since she had been a little girl, the barn had\n been Peggy\u2019s favorite place to go to be by herself and\n think. Its musty but clean scent of straw and horses\n and leather made her feel calm and alive. Breathing\n in its odor gratefully, she walked into the half-dark to\n Socks\u2019s stall. As the little bay horse heard her coming,\n she stamped one foot and softly whinnied a greeting.\n Peggy stopped first at the bag that hung on the wall\n among the bridles and halters and took out a lump of\n sugar as a present. Then, after stroking Socks\u2019s silky\n nose, she held out her palm with the sugar cube.\n Socks took it eagerly and pushed her nose against\n Peggy\u2019s hand in appreciation.\n\n\n As Peggy mixed some oats and barley for her pet\n and checked to see that there was enough straw in\n the stall, she thought about her life in Rockport and\n the new life that she might soon be going to.\n\n7\n\n Rockport, Wisconsin, was a fine place, as pretty a\n small town as any girl could ask to grow up in. And\n not too small, either, Peggy thought. Its 16,500 people\n supported good schools, an excellent library, and two\n good movie houses. What\u2019s more, the Rockport Community\n College attracted theater groups and concert\n artists, so that life in the town had always been stimulating.\n And of course, all of this was in addition to the\n usual growing-up pleasures of swimming and sailing,\n movie dates, and formal dances\u2014everything that a\n girl could want.\n\n\n Peggy had lived all her life here, knew every tree-shaded\n street, every country road, field, lake, and\n stream. All of her friends were here, friends she had\n known since her earliest baby days. It would be hard\n to leave them, she knew, but there was no doubt in\n her mind that she was going to do so. If not now, then\n as soon as she possibly could.\n\n\n It was not any dissatisfaction with her life, her\n friends, or her home that made Peggy want to leave\n Rockport. She was not running away from anything,\n she reminded herself; she was running\nto\nsomething.\n\n\n To what? To the bright lights, speeding taxis, glittering\n towers of a make-believe movie-set New York?\n Would it really be like that? Or would it be something\n different, something like the dreary side-street\n world of failure and defeat that she had also seen in\n movies?\n\n8\n\n Seeing the image of herself hungry and tired, going\n from office to office looking for a part in a play,\n Peggy suddenly laughed aloud and brought herself\n back to reality, to the warm barn smell and the big,\n soft-eyed gaze of Socks. She threw her arm around\n the smooth bay neck and laid her face next to the\n horse\u2019s cheek.\n\n\n \u201cSocks,\u201d she murmured, \u201cI need some of your horse\n sense if I\u2019m going to go out on my own! We\u2019ll go\n for a fast run in the morning and see if some fresh air\n won\u2019t clear my silly mind!\u201d\n\n\n With a final pat, she left the stall and the barn behind,\n stepping out into the deepening dusk. It was\n still too early to go back to the house to see if her parents\n had reached a decision about her future. Fighting\n down an impulse to rush right into the kitchen to\n see how they were coming along, Peggy continued\n down the driveway and turned left on the slate sidewalk\n past the front porch of her family\u2019s old farmhouse\n and down the street toward Jean Wilson\u2019s\n house at the end of the block.\n\n\n As she walked by her own home, she noticed with\n a familiar tug at her heart how the lilac bushes on\n the front lawn broke up the light from the windows\n behind them into a pattern of leafy lace. For a moment,\n or maybe a little more, she wondered why she\n wanted to leave this. What for? What could ever be\n better?\n\n9\nII\nDramatic Decision\nUpstairs at the Wilsons\u2019, Peggy found Jean swathed\n in bath towels, washing her long, straight red hair,\n which was now white with lather and piled up in a\n high, soapy knot.\n\n\n \u201cYou just washed it yesterday!\u201d Peggy said. \u201cAre\n you doing it again\u2014or still?\u201d\n\n\n Jean grinned, her eyes shut tight against the soapsuds.\n \u201cAgain, I\u2019m afraid,\u201d she answered. \u201cMaybe it\u2019s\n a nervous habit!\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s a wonder you\u2019re not bald, with all the rubbing\n you give your hair,\u201d Peggy said with a laugh.\n\n\n \u201cWell, if I do go bald, at least it will be with a\n clean scalp!\u201d Jean answered with a humorous crinkle\n of her freckled nose. Taking a deep breath and puffing\n out her cheeks comically, she plunged her head\n into the basin and rinsed off the soap with a shampoo\n hose. When she came up at last, dripping-wet\n hair was tightly plastered to the back of her head.\n\n\n \u201cThere!\u201d she announced. \u201cDon\u2019t I look beautiful?\u201d\n\n10\n\n After a brisk rubdown with one towel, Jean rolled\n another dry towel around her head like an Indian\n turban. Then, having wrapped herself in an ancient,\n tattered, plaid bathrobe, she led Peggy out of the\n steamy room and into her cozy, if somewhat cluttered,\n bedroom. When they had made themselves\n comfortable on the pillow-strewn daybeds, Jean came\n straight to the point.\n\n\n \u201cSo the grand debate is still going on, is it? When\n do you think they\u2019ll make up their minds?\u201d she asked.\n\n\n \u201cHow do you know they haven\u2019t decided anything\n yet?\u201d Peggy said, in a puzzled tone.\n\n\n \u201cOh, that didn\u2019t take much deduction, my dear\n Watson,\u201d Jean laughed. \u201cIf they had decided against\n the New York trip, your face would be as long as\n Socks\u2019s nose, and it\u2019s not half that long. And if the answer\n was yes, I wouldn\u2019t have to wait to hear about it!\n You would have been flying around the room and\n talking a mile a minute. So I figured that nothing was\n decided yet.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cYou know, if I were as smart as you,\u201d Peggy said\n thoughtfully, \u201cI would have figured out a way to convince\n Mother and Dad by now.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, don\u2019t feel bad about being dumb,\u201d Jean said in\n mock tones of comfort. \u201cIf I were as pretty and talented\n as you are, I wouldn\u2019t need brains, either!\u201d\n With a hoot of laughter, she rolled quickly aside on\n the couch to avoid the pillow that Peggy threw at\n her.\n\n\n A short, breathless pillow fight followed, leaving\n the girls limp with laughter and with Jean having to\n retie her towel turban. From her new position, flat on\n the floor, Peggy looked up at her friend with a rueful\n smile.\n\n11\n\n \u201cYou know, I sometimes think that we haven\u2019t\n grown up at all!\u201d she said. \u201cI can hardly blame my\n parents for thinking twice\u2014and a lot more\u2014before\n treating me like an adult.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNonsense!\u201d Jean replied firmly. \u201cYour parents\n know a lot better than to confuse being stuffy with\n being grown-up and responsible. And, besides, I\n know that they\u2019re not the least bit worried about your\n being able to take care of yourself. I heard them talking\n with my folks last night, and they haven\u2019t got a\n doubt in the world about you. But they know how\n hard it can be to get a start as an actress, and they\n want to be sure that you have a profession in case\n you don\u2019t get a break in show business.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI know,\u201d Peggy answered. \u201cWe had a long talk\n about it this evening after dinner.\u201d Then she told her\n friend about the conversation and her proposed \u201cbargain\u201d\n with her parents.\n\n\n \u201cThey both seemed to think it was fair,\u201d she concluded,\n \u201cand when I went out, they were talking it\n over. They promised me an answer by bedtime, and\n I\u2019m over here waiting until the jury comes in with its\n decision. You know,\u201d she said suddenly, sitting up\n on the floor and crossing her legs under her, \u201cI bet\n they wouldn\u2019t hesitate a minute if you would only\n change your mind and decide to come with me and\n try it too!\u201d\n\n12\n\n After a moment\u2019s thoughtful silence, Jean answered\n slowly, \u201cNo, Peg. I\u2019ve thought this all out before,\n and I know it would be as wrong for me as it is\n right for you. I know we had a lot of fun in the dramatic\n groups, and I guess I was pretty good as a\n comedienne in a couple of the plays, but I know I\n haven\u2019t got the real professional thing\u2014and I know\n that you have. In fact, the only professional talent I\n think I do have for the theater is the ability to recognize\n talent when I see it\u2014and to recognize that it\u2019s\n not there when it isn\u2019t!\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut, Jean,\u201d Peggy protested, \u201cyou can handle\n comedy and character lines as well as anyone I\n know!\u201d\n\n\n Jean nodded, accepting the compliment and seeming\n at the same time to brush it off. \u201cThat doesn\u2019t\n matter. You know even better than I that there\u2019s a lot\n more to being an actress\u2014a successful one\u2014than\n reading lines well. There\u2019s the ability to make the\n audience sit up and notice you the minute you walk\n on, whether you have lines or not. And that\u2019s something\n you can\u2019t learn; you either have it, or you\n don\u2019t. It\u2019s like being double-jointed. I can make an\n audience laugh when I have good lines, but you can\n make them look at you and respond to you and be\n with you all the way, even with bad lines. That\u2019s\n why you\u2019re going to go to New York and be an actress.\n And that\u2019s why I\u2019m not.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut, Jean\u2014\u201d Peggy began.\n\n13\n\n \u201cNo buts!\u201d Jean cut in. \u201cWe\u2019ve talked about this\n enough before, and I\u2019m not going to change my\n mind. I\u2019m as sure about what I want as you are about\n what you want. I\u2019m going to finish college and get my\n certificate as an English teacher.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cAnd what about acting? Can you get it out of\n your mind as easily as all that?\u201d Peggy asked.\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s the dark and devious part of my plan,\u201d\n Jean answered with a mysterious laugh that ended in\n a comic witch\u2019s cackle and an unconvincing witch-look\n that was completely out of place on her round,\n freckled face. \u201cOnce I get into a high school as an\n English teacher, I\u2019m going to try to teach a special\n course in the literature of the theater and maybe another\n one in stagecraft. I\u2019m going to work with the\n high-school drama group and put on plays. That way,\n I\u2019ll be in a spot where I can use my special talent of\n recognizing talent. And that way,\u201d she added, becoming\n much more serious, \u201cI have a chance really to\n do something for the theater. If I can help and encourage\n one or two people with real talent like yours,\n then I\u2019ll feel that I\u2019ve really done something worth\n while.\u201d\n\n\n Peggy nodded silently, not trusting herself to\n speak for fear of saying something foolishly sentimental,\n or even of crying. Her friend\u2019s earnestness about\n the importance of her work and her faith in Peggy\u2019s\n talent had touched her more than she could say.\n\n14\n\n The silence lasted what seemed a terribly long\n time, until Jean broke it by suddenly jumping up and\n flinging a last pillow which she had been hiding behind\n her back. Running out of the bedroom, she\n called, \u201cCome on! I\u2019ll race you down to the kitchen\n for cocoa! By the time we\u2019re finished, it\u2019ll be about\n time for your big Hour of Decision scene!\u201d\nIt was nearly ten o\u2019clock when Peggy finally felt\n that her parents had had enough time to talk things\n out. Leaving the Wilson house, she walked slowly\n despite her eagerness, trying in all fairness to give her\n mother and father every minute she could. Reaching\n her home, she cut across the lawn behind the lilac\n bushes, to the steps up to the broad porch that\n fronted the house. As she climbed the steps, she\n heard her father\u2019s voice raised a little above its normal\n soft, deep tone, but she could not make out the\n words.\n\n\n Crossing the porch, she caught sight of him\n through the window. He was speaking on the telephone,\n and now she caught his words.\n\n\n \u201cFine. Yes.... Yes\u2014I think we can. Very\n well, day after tomorrow, then. That\u2019s right\u2014all\n three of us. And, May\u2014it\u2019ll be good to see you again,\n after all these years! Good-by.\u201d\n\n\n As Peggy entered the room, her father put down\n the phone and turned to Mrs. Lane. \u201cWell, Betty,\u201d\n he said, \u201cit\u2019s all set.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s all set, Dad?\u201d Peggy said, breaking into a\n run to her father\u2019s side.\n\n15\n\n \u201cEverything\u2019s all set, Peg,\u201d her father said with a\n grin. \u201cAnd it\u2019s set just the way you wanted it! There\u2019s\n not a man in the world who can hold out against\n two determined women.\u201d He leaned back against the\n fireplace mantel, waiting for the explosion he felt\n sure was to follow his announcement. But Peggy just\n stood, hardly moving a muscle. Then she walked\n carefully, as if she were on the deck of a rolling ship,\n to the big easy chair and slowly sat down.\n\n\n \u201cWell, for goodness\u2019 sake!\u201d her mother cried.\n \u201cWhere\u2019s the enthusiasm?\u201d\n\n\n Peggy swallowed hard before answering. When\n her voice came, it sounded strange, about two tones\n higher than usual. \u201cI ... I\u2019m trying to be sedate ... and\n poised ... and very grown-up,\u201d she said.\n \u201cBut it\u2019s not easy. All I want to do is to\u2014\u201d and she\n jumped out of the chair\u2014\u201cto yell\nwhoopee\n!\u201d She\n yelled at the top of her lungs.\n\n\n After the kisses, the hugs, and the first excitement,\n Peggy and her parents adjourned to the kitchen, the\n favorite household conference room, for cookies and\n milk and more talk.\n\n\n \u201cNow, tell me, Dad,\u201d Peggy asked, her mouth full\n of oatmeal cookies, no longer \u201csedate\u201d or \u201cpoised,\u201d\n but her natural, bubbling self. \u201cWho was that on the\n phone, and where are the three of us going, and\n what\u2019s all set?\u201d\n\n16\n\n \u201cOne thing at a time,\u201d her father said. \u201cTo begin\n with, we decided almost as soon as you left that we\n were going to let you go to New York to try a year\u2019s\n experience in the theater. But then we had to decide\n just where you would live, and where you should\n study, and how much money you would need, and a\n whole lot of other things. So I called New York to talk\n to an old friend of mine who I felt would be able to\n give us some help. Her name is May Berriman, and\n she\u2019s spent all her life in the theater. In fact, she was\n a very successful actress. Now she\u2019s been retired for\n some years, but I thought she might give us some\n good advice.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cAnd did she?\u201d Peggy asked.\n\n\n \u201cWe were luckier than I would have thought possible,\u201d\n Mrs. Lane put in. \u201cIt seems that May bought a\n big, old-fashioned town house and converted it into\n a rooming house especially for young actresses. She\n always wanted a house of her own with a garden in\n back, but felt it was foolish for a woman living alone.\n This way, she can afford to run a big place and at\n the same time not be alone. And best of all, she says\n she has a room that you can have!\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, Mother! It sounds wonderful!\u201d Peggy exulted.\n \u201cI\u2019ll be with other girls my own age who are actresses,\n and living with an experienced actress! I\u2019ll bet she\n can teach me loads!\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m sure she can,\u201d her father said. \u201cAnd so can\n the New York Dramatic Academy.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cDad!\u201d Peggy shouted, almost choking on a cooky.\n \u201cDon\u2019t tell me you\u2019ve managed to get me accepted\n there! That\u2019s the best dramatic school in the country!\n How\u2014?\u201d\n\n17\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t get too excited, Peg,\u201d Mr. Lane interrupted.\n \u201cYou\u2019re not accepted anywhere yet, but May\n Berriman told me that the Academy is the best place\n to study acting, and she said she would set up an\n audition for you in two days. The term starts in a\n couple of weeks, so there isn\u2019t much time to lose.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cTwo days! Do you mean we\u2019ll be going to New\n York day after tomorrow, just like that?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, no,\u201d her mother answered calmly. \u201cWe\u2019re going\n to New York tomorrow on the first plane that we\n can get seats on. Your father doesn\u2019t believe in wasting\n time, once his mind is made up.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cTomorrow?\u201d Peggy repeated, almost unable to believe\n what she had heard. \u201cWhat are we sitting here\n talking for, then? I\u2019ve got a million things to do! I\u2019ve\n got to get packed ... I\u2019ve got to think of what to\n read for the audition! I can study on the plane, I\n guess, but ... oh! I\u2019ll be terrible in a reading unless\n I can have more time! Oh, Mother, what parts\n will I do? Where\u2019s the Shakespeare? Where\u2019s\u2014\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhoa!\u201d Mr. Lane said, catching Peggy\u2019s arm to\n prevent her from rushing out of the kitchen. \u201cNot\n now, young lady! We\u2019ll pack in the morning, talk\n about what you should read, and take an afternoon\n plane to New York. But tonight, you\u2019d better think\n of nothing more than getting to bed. This is going to\n be a busy time for all of us.\u201d\n\n\n Reluctantly, Peggy agreed, recognizing the sense\n of what her father said. She finished her milk and\n cookies, kissed her parents good night and went upstairs\n to bed.\n\n\n But it was one thing to go to bed and another to\n go to sleep.\n\n18\n\n Peggy lay on her back, staring at the ceiling and\n the patterns of light and shade cast by the street\n lamp outside as it shone through the leaves of the big\n maple tree. As she watched the shifting shadows,\n she reviewed the roles she had played since her first\n time in a high-school play. Which should she refresh\n herself on? Which ones would she do best? And\n which ones were most suited to her now? She recognized\n that she had grown and developed past some\n of the roles which had once seemed perfectly suited\n to her talent and her appearance. But both had\n changed. She was certainly not a mature actress\n yet, from any point of view, but neither was she a\n schoolgirl. Her trim figure was well formed; her face\n had lost the undefined, simple cuteness of the early\n teens, and had gained character. She didn\u2019t think she\n should read a young romantic part like Juliet. Not\n that she couldn\u2019t do it, but perhaps something\n sharper was called for.\n\n\n Perhaps Viola in\nTwelfth Night\n? Or perhaps not\n Shakespeare at all. Maybe the people at the Academy\n would think she was too arty or too pretentious?\n Maybe she should do something dramatic and full of\n stormy emotion, like Blanche in\nA Streetcar Named\n Desire\n? Or, better for her development and age, a\n light, brittle, comedy role...?\n\n19\n\n Nothing seemed quite right. Peggy\u2019s thoughts\n shifted with the shadows overhead. All the plays she\n had ever seen or read or acted in melted together in\n a blur, until the characters from one seemed to be\n talking with the characters from another and moving\n about in an enormous set made of pieces from two or\n three different plays. More actors kept coming on in\n a fantastic assortment of costumes until the stage was\n full. Then the stage lights dimmed, the actors joined\n hands across the stage to bow, the curtain slowly\n descended, the lights went out\u2014and Peggy was fast\n asleep.",
    "61499": "MONOPOLY\nBy Vic Phillips and Scott Roberts\nSheer efficiency and good management can\n\n make a monopoly grow into being. And once\n\n it grows, someone with a tyrant mind is\n\n going to try to use it as a weapon if he can\u2014\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Astounding Science-Fiction April 1942.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\n\"That all, chief? Gonna quit now?\"\n\n\n Brian Hanson looked disgustedly at Pete Brent, his lanky assistant.\n That was the first sign of animation he had displayed all day.\n\n\n \"I am, but you're not,\" Hanson told him grimly. \"Get your notes\n straightened up. Run those centrifuge tests and set up the still so we\n can get at that vitamin count early in the morning.\"\n\n\n \"Tomorrow morning? Aw, for gosh sakes, chief, why don't you take a day\n off sometime, or better yet, a night off. It'd do you good to relax.\n Boy, I know a swell blonde you could go for. Wait a minute, I've got\n her radiophone number somewhere\u2014just ask for Myrtle.\"\n\n\n Hanson shrugged himself out of his smock.\n\n\n \"Never mind Myrtle, just have that equipment set up for the morning.\n Good night.\" He strode out of the huge laboratory, but his mind was\n still on the vitamin research they had been conducting, he barely heard\n the remarks that followed him.\n\n\n \"One of these days the chief is going to have his glands catch up with\n him.\"\n\n\n \"Not a chance,\" Pete Brent grunted.\n\n\n Brian Hanson wondered dispassionately for a moment how his assistants\n could fail to be as absorbed as he was by the work they were doing,\n then he let it go as he stepped outside the research building.\n\n\n He paused and let his eyes lift to the buildings that surrounded the\n compound. This was the administrative heart of Venus City. Out here,\n alone, he let his only known emotion sweep through him, pride. He had\n an important role in the building of this great new city. As head of\n the Venus Consolidated Research Organization, he was in large part\n responsible for the prosperity of this vigorous, young world. Venus\n Consolidated had built up this city and practically everything else\n that amounted to anything on this planet. True, there had been others,\n pioneers, before the company came, who objected to the expansion of the\n monopolistic control. But, if they could not realize that the company's\n regime served the best interests of the planet, they would just have to\n suffer the consequences of their own ignorance. There had been rumors\n of revolution among the disgruntled older families.\n\n\n He heard there had been killings, but that was nonsense. Venus\n Consolidated police had only powers of arrest. Anything involving\n executions had to be referred to the Interplanetary Council on Earth.\n He dismissed the whole business as he did everything else that did not\n directly influence his own department.\n\n\n He ignored the surface transport system and walked to his own\n apartment. This walk was part of a regular routine of physical exercise\n that kept his body hard and resilient in spite of long hours spent in\n the laboratory. As he opened the door of his apartment he heard the\n water running into his bath. Perfect timing. He was making that walk\n in precisely seven minutes, four and four-fifths seconds. He undressed\n and climbed into the tub, relaxing luxuriously in the exhilaration of\n irradiated water.\n\n\n He let all the problems of his work drift away, his mind was a peaceful\n blank. Then someone was hammering on his head. He struggled reluctantly\n awake. It was the door that was being attacked, not his head. The\n battering thunder continued persistently. He swore and sat up.\n\n\n \"What do you want?\"\n\n\n There was no answer; the hammering continued.\n\n\n \"All right! All right! I'm coming!\" He yelled, crawled out of the tub\n and reached for his bathrobe. It wasn't there. He swore some more and\n grabbed a towel, wrapping it inadequately around him; it didn't quite\n meet astern. He paddled wetly across the floor sounding like a flock of\n ducks on parade.\n\n\n Retaining the towel with one hand he inched the door cautiously open.\n\n\n \"What the devil\u2014\" He stopped abruptly at the sight of a policeman's\n uniform.\n\n\n \"Sorry, sir, but one of those rebels is loose in the Administration\n Center somewhere. We're making a check-up of all the apartments.\"\n\n\n \"Well, you can check out; I haven't got any blasted rebels in here.\"\n The policeman's face hardened, then relaxed knowingly.\n\n\n \"Oh, I see, sir. No rebels, of course. Sorry to have disturbed you.\n Have a good\u2014Good night, sir,\" he saluted and left.\n\n\n Brian closed the door in puzzlement. What the devil had that flat-foot\n been smirking about? Well, maybe he could get his bath now.\nHanson turned away from the door and froze in amazement. Through the\n open door of his bedroom he could see his bed neatly turned down as\n it should be, but the outline under the counterpane and the luxuriant\n mass of platinum-blond hair on the pillow was certainly no part of his\n regular routine.\n\n\n \"Hello.\" The voice matched the calm alertness of a pair of deep-blue\n eyes. Brian just stared at her in numbed fascination. That was what the\n policeman had meant with his insinuating smirk.\n\n\n \"Just ask for Myrtle.\" Pete Brent's joking words flashed back to him.\n Now he got it. This was probably the young fool's idea of a joke. He'd\n soon fix that.\n\n\n \"All right, joke's over, you can beat it now.\"\n\n\n \"Joke? I don't see anything funny, unless it's you and that suggestive\n towel. You should either abandon it or get one that goes all the way\n round.\"\n\n\n Brian slowly acquired a complexion suitable for painting fire plugs.\n\n\n \"Shut up and throw me my dressing gown.\" He gritted.\n\n\n The girl swung her legs out of bed and Brian blinked; she was fully\n dressed. The snug, zippered overall suit she wore did nothing to\n conceal the fact that she was a female. He wrapped his bathrobe\n austerely around him.\n\n\n \"Well, now what?\" she asked and looked at him questioningly.\n\n\n \"Well, what do you think?\" he burst out angrily. \"I'm going to finish\n my bath and I'd suggest you go down to the laboratory and hold hands\n with Pete. He'd appreciate it.\" He got the impression that the girl was\n struggling heroically to refrain from laughing and that didn't help his\n dignity any. He strode into the bathroom, slammed the door and climbed\n back into the bath.\n\n\n The door opened a little.\n\n\n \"Well, good-by now.\" The girl said sweetly. \"Remember me to the police\n force.\"\n\n\n \"Get out of here!\" he yelled and the door shut abruptly on a rippling\n burst of laughter. Damn women! It was getting so a man had to pack\n a gun with him or something. And Pete Brent. He thought with grim\n satisfaction of the unending extra work that was going to occur around\n the laboratory from now on. He sank back into the soothing liquid\n embrace of the bath and deliberately set his mind loose to wander in\n complete relaxation.\n\n\n A hammering thunder burst on the outer door. He sat up with a groan.\n\n\n \"Lay off, you crazy apes!\" he yelled furiously, but the pounding\n continued steadily. He struggled out of the bath, wrapped his damp\n bathrobe clammily around him and marched to the door with a seething\n fury of righteous anger burning within him. He flung the door wide, his\n mouth all set for a withering barrage, but he didn't get a chance. Four\n police constables and a sergeant swarmed into the room, shoving him\n away from the door.\n\n\n \"Say! What the\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Where is she?\" the sergeant demanded.\n\n\n \"Wherethehell's who?\"\n\n\n \"Quit stallin', bud. You know who. That female rebel who was in here.\"\n\n\n \"Rebel? You're crazy! That was just ... Pete said ... rebel? Did you\n say rebel?\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, I said rebel, an' where is she?\"\n\n\n \"She ... why ... why ... she left, of course. You don't think I was\n going to have women running around in here, do you?\"\n\n\n \"She wuz in his bed when I seen her, sarge,\" one of the guards\n contributed. \"But she ain't there now.\"\n\n\n \"You don't think that I\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Listen, bud, we don't do the thinkin' around here. You come on along\n and see the chief.\"\n\n\n Brian had had about enough. \"I'm not going anywhere to see anybody.\n Maybe you don't know who I am. You can't arrest me.\"\nBrian Hanson, Chief of Research for Venus Consolidated, as dignified as\n possible in a damp bathrobe, glared out through the bars at a slightly\n bewildered Pete Brent.\n\n\n \"What the devil do you want? Haven't you caused enough blasted trouble\n already?\"\n\n\n \"Me? For gosh sakes, chief\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Yes, you! If sending that damn blonde to my apartment and getting me\n arrested is your idea of a joke\u2014\"\n\n\n \"But, my gosh, I didn't send anybody, chief. And this is no joke.\n That wasn't Myrtle, that was Crystal James, old man James' daughter.\n They're about the oldest family on Venus. Police have been after her\n for months; she's a rebel and she's sure been raising plenty of hell\n around here. She got in and blew out the main communications control\n panel last night. Communications been tied up all day.\" Pete lowered\n his voice to an appreciative whisper, \"Gosh, chief, I didn't know you\n had it in you. How long have you been in with that bunch? Is that girl\n as good-looking as they say she is?\"\n\n\n \"Now listen here, Brent. I don't know\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Oh, it's all right, chief. You can trust me. I won't give you away.\"\n\n\n \"There's nothing to give away, you fool!\" Brian bellowed. \"I don't know\n anything about any damn rebels. All I want is to get out of here\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Gotcha, chief,\" Brent whispered understandingly. \"I'll see if I can\n pass the word along.\"\n\n\n \"Come here, you idiot!\" Brian screamed after his erstwhile assistant.\n\n\n \"Pipe down there, bud,\" a guard's voice cut in chillingly.\n\n\n Brian retired to his cell bunk and clutched his aching head in\n frustrated fury.\n\n\n For the nineteenth time Brian Hanson strode to the door of his cell and\n rattled the bars.\n\n\n \"Listen here, guard, you've got to take a message to McHague. You can't\n hold me here indefinitely.\"\n\n\n \"Shut up. Nobody ain't takin' no message to McHague. I don't care if\n you are\u2014\"\n\n\n Brian's eyes almost popped out as he saw a gloved hand reach around\n the guard's neck and jam a rag over his nose and mouth. Swift shadows\n moved expertly before his astonished gaze. Another guard was caught and\n silenced as he came around the end of the corridor. Someone was outside\n his cell door, a hooded figure which seemed, somehow, familiar.\n\n\n \"Hello, pantless!\" a voice breathed.\n\n\n He knew that voice!\n\n\n \"What the devil are you doing here?\"\n\n\n \"Somebody by the name of Pete Brent tipped us off that you were in\n trouble because of me. But don't worry, we're going to get you out.\"\n\n\n \"Damn that fool kid! Leave me alone. I don't want to get out of here\n that way!\" he yelled wildly. \"Guards! Help!\"\n\n\n \"Shut up! Do you want to get us shot?\"\n\n\n \"Sure I do. Guards! Guards!\"\n\n\n Someone came running.\n\n\n \"Guards are coming,\" a voice warned.\n\n\n He could hear the girl struggling with the lock.\n\n\n \"Damn,\" she swore viciously. \"This is the wrong key! Your goose is sure\n cooked now. Whether you like it or not, you'll hang with us when they\n find us trying to get you out of here.\"\n\n\n Brian felt as though something had kicked him in the stomach. She was\n right! He had to get out now. He wouldn't be able to explain this away.\n\n\n \"Give me that key,\" he hissed and grabbed for it.\n\n\n He snapped two of the coigns off in the lock and went to work with the\n rest of the key. He had designed these escape-proof locks himself. In a\n few seconds the door swung open and they were fleeing silently down the\n jail corridor.\n\n\n The girl paused doubtfully at a crossing passage.\n\n\n \"This way,\" he snarled and took the lead. He knew the ground plan of\n this jail perfectly. He had a moment of wonder at the crazy spectacle\n of himself, the fair-haired boy of Venus Consolidated, in his flapping\n bathrobe, leading a band of escaping rebels out of the company's best\n jail.\n\n\n They burst around a corner onto a startled guard.\n\n\n \"They're just ahead of us,\" Brian yelled. \"Come on!\"\n\n\n \"Right with you,\" the guard snapped and ran a few steps with them\n before a blackjack caught up with him and he folded into a corner.\n\n\n \"Down this way, it's a short cut.\" Brian led the way to a heavily\n barred side door.\n\n\n The electric eye tripped a screaming alarm, but the broken key in\n Brian's hands opened the complicated lock in a matter of seconds. They\n were outside the jail on a side street, the door closed and the lock\n jammed immovably behind them.\n\n\n Sirens wailed. The alarm was out! The street suddenly burst into\n brilliance as the floodlights snapped on. Brian faltered to a stop and\n Crystal James pushed past him.\n\n\n \"We've got reinforcements down here,\" she said, then skidded to a halt.\n Two guards barred the street ahead of them.\n\n\n Brian felt as though his stomach had fallen down around his ankles\n and was tying his feet up. He couldn't move. The door was jammed shut\n behind them, they'd have to surrender and there'd be no explaining\n this break. He started mentally cursing Pete Brent, when a projector\n beam slashed viciously by him. These guards weren't fooling! He heard\n a gasping grunt of pain as one of the rebels went down. They were\n shooting to kill.\n\n\n He saw a sudden, convulsive movement from the girl. A black object\n curved out against the lights. The sharp, ripping blast of an atomite\n bomb thundered along the street and slammed them to the ground. The\n glare left them blinded. He struggled to his feet. The guards had\n vanished, a shallow crater yawned in the road where they had been.\n\n\n \"We've got to run!\" the girl shouted.\n\n\n He started after her. Two surface transport vehicles waited around the\n corner. Brian and the rebels bundled into them and took away with a\n roar. The chase wasn't organized yet, and they soon lost themselves in\n the orderly rush of Venus City traffic.\nThe two carloads of rebels cruised nonchalantly past the Administration\n Center and pulled into a private garage a little beyond.\n\n\n \"What are we stopping here for?\" Brian demanded. \"We've got to get\n away.\"\n\n\n \"That's just what we're doing,\" Crystal snapped. \"Everybody out.\"\n\n\n The rebels piled out and the cars pulled away to become innocuous parts\n of the traffic stream. The rebels seemed to know where they were going\n and that gave them the edge on Brian. They followed Crystal down into\n the garage's repair pit.\n\n\n She fumbled in the darkness a moment, then a darker patch showed as\n a door swung open in the side of the pit. They filed into the solid\n blackness after her and the door thudded shut. The beam of a torch\n stabbed through the darkness and they clambered precariously down a\n steep, steel stairway.\n\n\n \"Where the dickens are we?\" Brian whispered hoarsely.\n\n\n \"Oh, you don't have to whisper, we're safe enough here. This is one of\n the air shafts leading down to the old mines.\"\n\n\n \"Old mines? What old mines?\"\n\n\n \"That's something you newcomers don't know anything about. This whole\n area was worked out long before Venus Consolidated came to the planet.\n These old tunnels run all under the city.\"\n\n\n They went five hundred feet down the air shaft before they reached a\n level tunnel.\n\n\n \"What do we do? Hide here?\"\n\n\n \"I should say not. Serono Zeburzac, head of McHague's secret police\n will be after us now. We won't be safe anywhere near Venus City.\"\n\n\n \"Don't be crazy. That Serono Zeburzac stuff is just a legend McHague\n keeps up to scare people with.\"\n\n\n \"That's what you think,\" Crystal snapped. \"McHague's legend got my\n father and he'll get all of us unless we run the whole company right\n off the planet.\"\n\n\n \"Well, what the dickens does he look like?\" Brian asked doubtfully.\n\n\n \"I don't know, but his left hand is missing. Dad did some good shooting\n before he died,\" she said grimly.\n\n\n Brian was startled at the icy hardness of her voice.\n\n\n Two of the rebels pulled a screening tarpaulin aside and revealed\n one of the old-type ore cars that must have been used in the ancient\n mines. A brand-new atomic motor gleamed incongruously at one end. The\n rebels crowded into it and they went rumbling swiftly down the echoing\n passage. The lights of the car showed the old working, rotten and\n crumbling, fallen in in some places and signs of new work where the\n rebels had cleared away the debris of years.\n\n\n Brian struggled into a zippered overall suit as they followed a\n twisting, tortuous course for half an hour, switching from one tunnel\n to another repeatedly until he had lost all conception of direction.\n Crystal James, at the controls, seemed to know exactly where they were\n going.\n\n\n The tunnel emerged in a huge cavern that gloomed darkly away in every\n direction. The towering, massive remains of old machinery, eroded and\n rotten with age crouched like ancient, watching skeletons.\n\n\n \"These were the old stamp mills,\" the girl said, and her voice seemed\n to be swallowed to a whisper in the vast, echoing darkness.\n\n\n Between two rows of sentinel ruins they came suddenly on two slim\n Venusian atmospheric ships. Dim light spilled over them from a ragged\n gash in the wall of the cavern. Brian followed Crystal into the smaller\n of the two ships and the rest of the rebels manned the other.\n\n\n \"Wait a minute, how do we get out of here?\" Brian demanded.\n\n\n \"Through that hole up there,\" the girl said matter-of-factly.\n\n\n \"You're crazy, you can't get through there.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, yeah? Just watch this.\" The ship thundered to life beneath them\n and leaped off in a full-throttled take-off.\n\n\n \"We're going to crash! That gap isn't wide enough!\"\n\n\n The sides of the gap rushed in on the tips of the stubby wings. Brian\n braced himself for the crash, but it didn't come. At the last possible\n second, the ship rolled smoothly over. At the moment it flashed through\n the opening it was stood vertically on edge.\nCrystal held the ship in its roll and completed the maneuver outside\n the mountain while Brian struggled to get his internal economy back\n into some semblance of order.\n\n\n \"That's some flying,\" he said as soon as he could speak.\n\n\n Crystal looked at him in surprise. \"That's nothing. We Venusians fly\n almost as soon as we can walk.\"\n\n\n \"Oh\u2014I see,\" Brian said weakly and a few moments later he really did\n see. Two big, fast, green ships, carrying the insignia of the Venus\n Consolidated police, cruised suddenly out from a mountain air station.\n\n\n An a\u00ebrial torpedo exploded in front of the rebel ship. Crystal's face\n set in grim lines as she pulled the ship up in a screaming climb. Brian\n got up off the floor.\n\n\n \"You don't have to get excited like that,\" he complained. \"They weren't\n trying to hit us.\"\n\n\n \"That's what you think,\" Crystal muttered. \"Those children don't play\n for peanuts.\"\n\n\n \"But, girl, they're just Venus Consolidated police. They haven't got\n any authority to shoot anyone.\"\n\n\n \"Authority doesn't make much difference to them,\" Crystal snapped\n bitterly. \"They've been killing people all over the planet. What do you\n think this revolution is about?\"\n\n\n \"You must be mistak\u2014\" He slumped to the floor as Crystal threw the\n ship into a mad, rolling spin. A tremendous crash thundered close\n astern.\n\n\n \"I guess that was a mistake!\" Crystal yelled as she fought the controls.\n\n\n Brian almost got to his feet when another wild maneuver hurled him back\n to the floor. The police ship was right on their tail. The girl gunned\n her craft into a snap Immelmann and swept back on their pursuers,\n slicing in close over the ship. Brian's eyes bulged as he saw a long\n streak of paint and metal ripped off the wing of the police ship. He\n saw the crew battling their controls in startled terror. The ship\n slipped frantically away and fell into a spin.\n\n\n \"That's them,\" Crystal said with satisfaction. \"How are the others\n doing?\"\n\n\n \"Look! They're hit!\" Brian felt sick.\nThe slower rebel freight ship staggered drunkenly as a torpedo caught\n it and ripped away half a wing. It plunged down in flames with the\n white flowers of half a dozen parachutes blossoming around it. Brian\n watched in horror as the police ship came deliberately about. They\n heard its forward guns go into action. The bodies of the parachutists\n jerked and jumped like crazy marionettes as the bullets smashed into\n them. It was over in a few moments. The dead rebels drifted down into\n the mist-shrouded depths of the valley.\n\n\n \"The dirty, murdering rats!\" Brian's voice ripped out in a fury of\n outrage. \"They didn't have a chance!\"\n\n\n \"Don't get excited,\" Crystal told him in a dead, flat voice. \"That's\n just normal practice. If you'd stuck your nose out of your laboratory\n once in a while, you'd have heard of these things.\"\n\n\n \"But why\u2014\" He ducked away instinctively as a flight of bullets spanged\n through the fuselage. \"They're after us now!\"\n\n\n Crystal's answer was to yank the ship into a rocketing climb. The\n police were watching for that. The big ship roared up after them.\n\n\n \"Just follow along, suckers,\" Crystal invited grimly.\n\n\n She snapped the ship into a whip stall. For one nauseating moment they\n hung on nothing, then the ship fell over on its back and they screamed\n down in a terminal velocity dive, heading for the safety of the lower\n valley mists. The heavier police ship, with its higher wing-loading,\n could not match the maneuver. The rebel craft plunged down through the\n blinding fog. Half-seen, ghostly fingers of stone clutched up at them,\n talons of gray rock missed and fell away again as Crystal nursed the\n ship out of its dive.\n\n\n \"\nPhew!\n\" Brian gasped. \"Well, we got away that time. How in thunder\n can you do it?\"\n\n\n \"Well, you don't do it on faith. Take a look at that fuel gauge! We\n may get as far as our headquarters\u2014or we may not.\"\nFor twenty long minutes they groped blindly through the fog, flying\n solely by instruments and dead reckoning. The needle of the fuel gauge\n flickered closer and closer to the danger point. They tore loose from\n the clinging fog as it swung firmly to \"Empty.\" The drive sputtered and\n coughed and died.\n\n\n \"That's figuring it nice and close,\" Crystal said in satisfaction. \"We\n can glide in from here.\"\n\n\n \"Into where?\" Brian demanded. All he could see immediately ahead was\n the huge bulk of a mountain which blocked the entire width of the\n valley and soared sheer up to the high-cloud level. His eyes followed\n it up and up\u2014\n\n\n \"Look! Police ships. They've seen us!\"\n\n\n \"Maybe they haven't. Anyway, there's only one place we can land.\"\n\n\n The ship lunged straight for the mountain wall!\n\n\n \"Are you crazy? Watch out\u2014we'll crash!\"\n\n\n \"You leave the flying to me,\" Crystal snapped.\n\n\n She held the ship in its glide, aiming directly for the tangled foliage\n of the mountain face. Brian yelped and cowered instinctively back. The\n lush green of the mountainside swirled up to meet them. They ripped\n through the foliage\u2014there was no crash. They burst through into a\n huge, brilliantly lighted cavern and settled to a perfect landing. Men\n came running. Crystal tumbled out of her ship.\n\n\n \"Douse those lights,\" she shouted. \"The police are outside.\"\n\n\n A tall, lean man with bulbous eyes and a face like a startled horse,\n rushed up to Crystal.\n\n\n \"What do you mean by leading them here?\" he yelled, waving his hands.\n\n\n \"They jumped us when we had no fuel, and quit acting like an idiot.\"\n\n\n The man was shaking, his eyes looked wild. \"They'll kill us. We've got\n to get out of here.\"\n\n\n \"Wait, you fool. They may not even have seen us.\" But he was gone,\n running toward a group of ships lined up at the end of the cavern.\n\n\n \"Who was that crazy coot and what is this place?\" Brian demanded.\n\n\n \"That was Gort Sterling, our leader,\" the girl said bitterly. \"And\n this is our headquarters.\" One of the ships at the back of the cavern\n thundered to life, streaked across the floor and burst out through the\n opening Crystal's ship had left. \"He hasn't got a chance! We'll be\n spotted for sure, now.\"\n\n\n The other rebels waited uncertainly, but not for long. There was the\n crescendoing roar of ships in a dive followed by the terrific crash of\n an explosion.\n\n\n \"They got him!\" Crystal's voice was a moan. \"Oh, the fool, the fool!\"\n\n\n \"Sounded like more than one ship. They'll be after us, now. Is there\n any other way of getting out of this place?\"\n\n\n \"Not for ships. We'll have to walk and they'll follow us.\"\n\n\n \"We've got to slow them down some way, then. I wonder how the devil\n they traced us? I thought we lost them in that fog.\"\n\n\n \"It's that Serono Zeburzac, the traitor. He knows these mountains as\n well as we do.\"\n\n\n \"How come?\"\n\n\n \"The Zeburzacs are one of the old families, but he sold out to McHague.\"\n\n\n \"Well, what do we do now? Just stand here? It looks like everybody's\n leaving.\"\n\n\n \"We might as well just wait,\" Crystal said hopelessly. \"It won't do us\n any good to run out into the hills. Zeburzac and his men will follow.\"\n\n\n \"We could slow them down some by swinging a couple of those ships\n around so their rocket exhausts sweep the entrance to the cavern,\"\n Brian suggested doubtfully. She looked at him steadily.\n\n\n \"You sound like the only good rebel left. We can try it, anyway.\"\nThey ran two ships out into the middle of the cavern, gunned them\n around and jockeyed them into position\u2014not a moment too soon.\n\n\n Half a dozen police showed in brief silhouette as they slipped\n cautiously into the cavern, guns ready, expecting resistance. They met\n a dead silence. A score or more followed them without any attempt at\n concealment. Then Brian and Crystal cut loose with the drives of the\n two ships.\n\n\n Startled screams of agony burst from the crowded group of police as\n they were caught in the annihilating cross fire of roaring flame.\n They crisped and twisted, cooked to scorched horrors before they\n fell. A burst of thick, greasy smoke rushed out of the cavern. Two of\n the police, their clothes and flesh scorched and flaming, plunged as\n shrieking, living torches down the mountainside.\n\n\n Crystal was white and shaking, her face set in a mask of horror, as she\n climbed blindly from her ship.\n\n\n \"Let's get away! I can smell them burning,\" she shuddered and covered\n her face with her hands.\n\n\n Brian grabbed her and shook her.\n\n\n \"Snap out of it,\" he barked. \"That's no worse than shooting helpless\n men in parachutes. We can't go, yet; we're not finished here.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, let them shoot us! I can't go through that again!\"\n\n\n \"You don't have to. Wait here.\"\n\n\n He climbed back into one of the ships and cut the richness of the fuel\n mixture down till the exhaust was a lambent, shuddering stutter,\n verging on extinction. He dashed to the other ship and repeated the\n maneuver, fussing with the throttle till he had the fuel mixture\n adjusted to critical fineness. The beat of the stuttering exhaust\n seemed to catch up to the other and built to an aching pulsation. In\n a moment the whole mass of air in the cavern hit the frequency with a\n subtle, intangible thunder of vibration.\n\n\n Crystal screamed. \"Brian! There's more police cutting in around the\n entrance.\"\n\n\n Brian clambered out of the ship and glanced at the glowing points\n in the rock where the police were cutting their way through outside\n the line of the exhaust flames. The pulsating thunder in the cavern\n crescendoed to an intolerable pitch. A huge mass of stalactites crashed\n to the floor.\n\n\n \"It's time to check out,\" Brian shouted.\n\n\n Crystal led the way as they fled down the escape tunnel. The roaring\n crash of falling rock was a continuous, increasing avalanche of sound\n in the cavern behind them.\n\n\n They emerged from the tunnel on the face of the mountain, several\n hundred yards to the east of the cavern entrance. The ground shook and\n heaved beneath them.\n\n\n \"The whole side of the mountain's sliding,\" Crystal screamed.\n\n\n \"Run!\" Brian shoved her and they plunged madly through the thick tangle\n of jungle away from the slide.\n\n\n Huge boulders leaped and smashed through the matted bush around them.\n Crystal went down as the ground slipped from under her. Brian grabbed\n her and a tree at the same time. The tree leaned and crashed down the\n slope, the whole jungle muttered and groaned and came to life as it\n joined the roaring rush of the slide. They were tumbled irresistibly\n downward, riding the edge of the slide for terrifying minutes till\n it stilled and left them bruised and shaken in a tangle of torn\n vegetation.\n\n\n The remains of two police ships, caught without warning in the rush as\n they attempted to land, stuck up grotesquely out of the foot of the\n slide. The dust was settling away. A flock of brilliant blue, gliding\n lizards barking in raucous terror, fled down the valley. Then they were\n gone and the primeval silence settled back into place.\n\n\n Brian and Crystal struggled painfully to solid ground. Crystal gazed\n with a feeling of awe at the devastated mountainside.\n\n\n \"How did you do it?\"\n\n\n \"It's a matter of harmonics,\" Brian explained. \"If you hit the right\n vibratory combination, you can shake anything down. But now that we've\n made a mess of the old homestead, what do we do?\"\n\n\n \"Walk,\" Crystal said laconically. She led the way as they started\n scrambling through the jungle up the mountainside.\n\n\n \"Where are we heading for?\" Brian grunted as he struggled along.\n\n\n \"The headquarters of the Carlton family. They're the closest people we\n can depend on. They've kept out of the rebellion, but they're on our\n side. They've helped us before.\"",
    "63899": "THE GIANTS RETURN\nBy ROBERT ABERNATHY\nEarth set itself grimly to meet them with\n\n corrosive fire, determined to blast them\n\n back to the stars. But they erred in thinking\n\n the Old Ones were too big to be clever.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Fall 1949.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nIn the last hours the star ahead had grown brighter by many magnitudes,\n and had changed its color from a dazzling blue through white to the\n normal yellow, of a GO sun. That was the Doppler effect as the star's\n radial velocity changed relative to the\nQuest III\n, as for forty hours\n the ship had decelerated.\n\n\n They had seen many such stars come near out of the galaxy's glittering\n backdrop, and had seen them dwindle, turn red and go out as the\nQuest\n III\ndrove on its way once more, lashed by despair toward the speed of\n light, leaving behind the mockery of yet another solitary and lifeless\n luminary unaccompanied by worlds where men might dwell. They had grown\n sated with the sight of wonders\u2014of multiple systems of giant stars, of\n nebulae that sprawled in empty flame across light years.\n\n\n But now unwonted excitement possessed the hundred-odd members of the\nQuest III's\ncrew. It was a subdued excitement; men and women, they\n came and stood quietly gazing into the big vision screens that showed\n the oncoming star, and there were wide-eyed children who had been born\n in the ship and had never seen a planet. The grownups talked in low\n voices, in tones of mingled eagerness and apprehension, of what might\n lie at the long journey's end. For the\nQuest III\nwas coming home; the\n sun ahead was\nthe\nSun, whose rays had warmed their lives' beginning.\nKnof Llud, the\nQuest III's\ncaptain, came slowly down the narrow\n stair from the observatory, into the big rotunda that was now the main\n recreation room, where most of the people gathered. The great chamber,\n a full cross-section of the vessel, had been at first a fuel hold. At\n the voyage's beginning eighty per cent of the fifteen-hundred-foot\n cylinder had been engines and fuel; but as the immense stores were\n spent and the holds became radioactively safe, the crew had spread\n out from its original cramped quarters. Now the interstellar ship was\n little more than a hollow shell.\n\n\n Eyes lifted from the vision screens to interrogate Knof Llud; he met\n them with an impassive countenance, and announced quietly, \"We've\n sighted Earth.\"\n\n\n A feverish buzz arose; the captain gestured for silence and went on,\n \"It is still only a featureless disk to the telescope. Zost Relyul has\n identified it\u2014no more.\"\n\n\n But this time the clamor was not to be settled. People pressed round\n the screens, peering into them as if with the naked eye they could\n pick out the atom of reflected light that was Earth, home. They wrung\n each other's hands, kissed, shouted, wept. For the present their fears\n were forgotten and exaltation prevailed.\n\n\n Knof Llud smiled wryly. The rest of the little speech he had been about\n to make didn't matter anyway, and it might have spoiled this moment.\n\n\n He turned to go, and was halted by the sight of his wife, standing at\n his elbow. His wry smile took on warmth; he asked, \"How do\nyou\nfeel,\n Lesra?\"\n\n\n She drew an uncertain breath and released it in a faint sigh. \"I don't\n know. It's good that Earth's still there.\" She was thinking, he judged\n shrewdly, of Knof Jr. and Delza, who save from pictures could not\n remember sunlit skies or grassy fields or woods in summer....\n\n\n He said, with a touch of tolerant amusement, \"What did you think might\n have happened to Earth? After all, it's only been nine hundred years.\"\n\n\n \"That's just it,\" said Lesra shakily. \"Nine hundred years have gone\n by\u2014\nthere\n\u2014and nothing will be the same. It won't be the same world\n we left, the world we knew and fitted in....\"\n\n\n The captain put an arm round her with comforting pressure. \"Don't\n worry. Things may have changed\u2014but we'll manage.\" But his face had\n hardened against registering the gnawing of that same doubtful fear\n within him. He let his arm fall. \"I'd better get up to the bridge.\n There's a new course to be set now\u2014for Earth.\"\n\n\n He left her and began to climb the stairway again. Someone switched\n off the lights, and a charmed whisper ran through the big room as the\n people saw each other's faces by the pale golden light of Earth's own\n Sun, mirrored and multiplied by the screens. In that light Lesra's eyes\n gleamed with unshed tears.\n\n\n Captain Llud found Navigator Gwar Den looking as smug as the cat\n that ate the canary. Gwar Den was finding that the actual observed\n positions of the planets thus far located agreed quite closely with\n his extrapolations from long unused charts of the Solar System. He had\n already set up on the calculator a course that would carry them to\n Earth.\n\n\n Llud nodded curt approval, remarking, \"Probably we'll be intercepted\n before we get that far.\"\n\n\n Den was jolted out of his happy abstraction. \"Uh, Captain,\" he said\n hesitantly. \"What kind of a reception do you suppose we'll get?\"\n\n\n Llud shook his head slowly. \"Who knows? We don't know whether any\n of the other\nQuests\nreturned successful, or if they returned at\n all. And we don't know what changes have taken place on Earth. It's\n possible\u2014not likely, though\u2014that something has happened to break\n civilization's continuity to the point where our expedition has been\n forgotten altogether.\"\nHe turned away grim-lipped and left the bridge. From his private\n office-cabin, he sent a message to Chief Astronomer Zost Relyul to\n notify him as soon as Earth's surface features became clear; then he\n sat idle, alone with his thoughts.\n\n\n The ship's automatic mechanisms had scant need of tending; Knof Llud\n found himself wishing that he could find some back-breaking task for\n everyone on board, himself included, to fill up the hours that remained.\n\n\n There was an extensive and well-chosen film library in the cabin, but\n he couldn't persuade himself to kill time that way. He could go down\n and watch the screens, or to the family apartment where he might find\n Lesra and the children\u2014but somehow he didn't want to do that either.\n\n\n He felt empty, drained\u2014like his ship. As the\nQuest III's\nfuel stores\n and the hope of success in man's mightiest venture had dwindled, so the\n strength had gone out of him. Now the last fuel compartment was almost\n empty and Captain Knof Llud felt tired and old.\n\n\n Perhaps, he thought, he was feeling the weight of his nine hundred\n Earth years\u2014though physically he was only forty now, ten years older\n than when the voyage had begun. That was the foreshortening along the\n time axis of a space ship approaching the speed of light. Weeks and\n months had passed for the\nQuest III\nin interstellar flight while\n years and decades had raced by on the home world.\n\n\n Bemusedly Llud got to his feet and stood surveying a cabinet with\n built-in voice recorder and pigeonholes for records. There were about\n three dozen film spools there\u2014his personal memoirs of the great\n expedition, a segment of his life and of history. He might add that to\n the ship's official log and its collections of scientific data, as a\n report to whatever powers might be on Earth now\u2014if such powers were\n still interested.\n\n\n Llud selected a spool from among the earliest. It was one he had made\n shortly after leaving Procyon, end of the first leg of the trip. He\n slid it onto the reproducer.\n\n\n His own voice came from the speaker, fresher, more vibrant and\n confident than he knew it was now.\n\n\n \"One light-day out from Procyon, the thirty-third day by ship's time\n since leaving Earth.\n\n\n \"Our visit to Procyon drew a blank. There is only one huge planet, twice\n the size of Jupiter, and like Jupiter utterly unfit to support a colony.\n\n\n \"Our hopes were dashed\u2014and I think all of us, even remembering the\n Centaurus Expedition's failure, hoped more than we cared to admit. If\n Procyon had possessed a habitable planet, we could have returned after\n an absence of not much over twenty years Earth time.\n\n\n \"It is cheering to note that the crew seems only more resolute. We go\n on to Capella; its spectrum, so like our own Sun's, beckons. If success\n comes there, a century will have passed before we can return to Earth;\n friends, relatives, all the generation that launched the\nQuest\nships\n will be long since dead. Nevertheless we go on. Our generation's dream,\n humanity's dream, lives in us and in the ship forever....\"\n\n\n Presently Knof Llud switched off that younger voice of his and leaned\n back, an ironic smile touching his lips. That fervent idealism seemed\n remote and foreign to him now. The fanfares of departure must still\n have been ringing in his ears.\n\n\n He rose, slipped the record back in its niche and picked out another,\n later, one.\n\n\n \"One week since we passed close enough to Aldebaran to ascertain that\n that system, too, is devoid of planets.\n\n\n \"We face the unpleasant realization that what was feared is probably\n true\u2014that worlds such as the Sun's are a rare accident, and that we\n may complete our search without finding even one new Earth.\n\n\n \"It makes no difference, of course; we cannot betray the plan....\n This may be man's last chance of escaping his pitiful limitation to\n one world in all the Universe. Certainly the building of this ship\n and its two sisters, the immense expenditure of time and labor and\n energy stores that went into them, left Earth's economy drained and\n exhausted. Only once in a long age does mankind rise to such a selfless\n and transcendent effort\u2014the effort of Egypt that built the pyramids,\n or the war efforts of the nations in the last great conflicts of the\n twentieth century.\n\n\n \"Looked at historically, such super-human outbursts of energy are\n the result of a population's outgrowing its room and resources, and\n therefore signalize the beginning of the end. Population can be\n limited, but the price is a deadly frustration, because growth alone is\n life.... In our day the end of man's room for growth on the Earth was\n in sight\u2014so we launched the\nQuests\n. Perhaps our effort will prove as\n futile as pyramid-building, less practical than orgies of slaughter to\n reduce pressure.... In any case, it would be impossible to transport\n very many people to other stars; but Earth could at least go into\n its decline with the knowledge that its race went onward and upward,\n expanding limitlessly into the Universe....\n\n\n \"Hopeless, unless we find planets!\"\nKnof Llud shook his head sorrowfully and took off the spool. That\n was from the time when he had grown philosophical after the first\n disappointments.\n\n\n He frowned thoughtfully, choosing one more spool that was only four\n years old. The recorded voice sounded weary, yet alive with a strange\n longing....\n\n\n \"We are in the heart of Pleiades; a hundred stars show brilliant on\n the screens, each star encircled by a misty halo like lights glowing\n through fog, for we are traversing a vast diffuse nebula.\n\n\n \"According to plan, the\nQuest III\nhas reached its furthest point from\n Earth. Now we turn back along a curve that will take us past many more\n stars and stellar systems\u2014but hope is small that any of those will\n prove a home for man, as have none of the thousands of stars examined\n already.\n\n\n \"But what are a few thousand stars in a galaxy of billions? We have\n only, as it were, visited a handful of the outlying villages of the\n Universe, while the lights of its great cities still blaze far ahead\n along the Milky Way.\n\n\n \"On flimsy excuses I have had Zost Relyul make observations of the\n globular cluster Omega Centauri. There are a hundred thousand stars\n there in a volume of space where one finds a few dozen in the Sun's\n neighborhood; there if anywhere must circle the planets we seek! But\n Omega Centauri is twenty thousand light years away....\n\n\n \"Even so\u2014by expending its remaining fuel freely, the\nQuest III\ncould\n achieve a velocity that would take us there without dying of senility\n of aging too greatly. It would be a one-way journey\u2014even if enough\n fuel remained, there would be little point in returning to Earth after\n more than forty thousand years. By then our civilization certainly, and\n perhaps the human race itself, would have perished from memory.\n\n\n \"That was why the planners limited our voyage, and those of the other\nQuests\n, to less than a thousand years Earth time. Even now, according\n to the sociodynamic predictions made then, our civilization\u2014if the\n other expeditions failed also\u2014will have reached a dangerously unstable\n phase, and before we can get back it may have collapsed completely from\n overpopulation.\n\n\n \"Why go back, then with the news of our failure? Why not forget about\n Earth and go on to Omega Centauri? What use is quixotic loyalty to a\n decree five thousand years old, whose makers are dead and which may be\n forgotten back there?\n\n\n \"Would the crew be willing? I don't know\u2014some of them still show signs\n of homesickness, though they know with their minds that everything that\n was once 'home' has probably been swept away....\n\n\n \"It doesn't matter. Today I gave orders to swing the ship.\"\n\n\n Savagely Knof Llud stabbed the button that shut off the speaker. Then\n he sat for a time with head resting in his hands, staring into nothing.\n\n\n The memory of that fierce impulse to go on still had power to shake\n him. A couple of lines of poetry came into his head, as he read them\n once in translation from the ancient English....\n... for my purpose holds\nTo sail beyond the sunset, and the baths\nOf all the western stars, until I die.\nLlud sighed. He still couldn't say just why he had given the order to\n turn back. The stars had claimed his heart\u2014but he was still a part of\n Earth, and not even nine hundred years of space and time had been able\n to alter that.\n\n\n He wondered if there would still be a quiet stream and a green\n shady place beside it where a death-weary man, relieved at last of\n responsibility, could rest and dream no more.... Those things went\n on, if men didn't change them. And a pine forest where he and young\n Knof could go camping, and lie on their backs at night and gaze at the\n glittering constellations, far away, out of reach.... He wasn't sure he\n would want to do that, though.\n\n\n Suddenly a faint cushioned jar went through the great ship; it seemed\n to falter one moment in flight.\nThe captain was on his feet instantly, but then his movements became\n unhurried. Whatever it had been was past, and he had a good idea\n what it had been\u2014a meteoroid, nothing unusual in the vicinity of\n the Sun, though in interstellar space and around planetless stars\n such collisions were rare to the vanishing point. No harm could have\n been done. The\nQuest III's\ncollision armor was nonmaterial and for\n practical purposes invulnerable.\n\n\n Just as he took his finger off the button that opened the door, the\n intercommunication phone shrilled imperatively. Knof Llud wheeled,\n frowning\u2014surely a meteoroid impact wasn't that serious. Coincidence,\n maybe\u2014it might be Zost Relyul calling as instructed.\n\n\n He reached the phone at the moment when another, heavier jolt shook\n the vessel. Llud snatched up the receiver with the speed of a scalded\n cat.\n\n\n \"Captain?\" It was Gwar Den's voice, stammering a little. \"Captain,\n we're being attacked!\"\n\n\n \"Sound the alarm. Emergency stations.\" He had said it automatically,\n then felt a curious detached relief at the knowledge that after all\n these years he could still respond quickly and smoothly to a crisis.\n There was a moment's silence, and he heard the alarm start\u2014three\n short buzzes and repeat, ringing through all the great length of the\n interstellar ship. Knowing that Gwar Den was still there, he said,\n \"Now\u2014attacked by what?\"\n\n\n \"Ships,\" said Gwar Den helplessly. \"Five of them so far. No, there's a\n sixth now.\" Repeated blows quivered the\nQuest III's\nframework. The\n navigator said, obviously striving for calm, \"They're light craft, not\n fifty feet long, but they move fast. The detectors hardly had time to\n show them before they opened up. Can't get a telescope beam on them\n long enough to tell much.\"\n\n\n \"If they're that small,\" said Knof Llud deliberately, \"they can't carry\n anything heavy enough to hurt us. Hold to course. I'll be right up.\"\n\n\n In the open doorway he almost fell over his son. Young Knof's eyes were\n big; he had heard his father's words.\n\n\n \"Something's happened,\" he judged with deadly twelve-year-old\n seriousness and, without wasting time on questions, \"Can I go with you,\n huh, Dad?\"\n\n\n Llud hesitated, said, \"All right. Come along and keep out of the way.\"\n He headed for the bridge with strides that the boy could not match.\n\n\n There were people running in the corridors, heading for their posts.\n Their faces were set, scared, uncomprehending. The\nQuest III\nshuddered, again and again, under blows that must have had millions\n of horsepower behind them; but it plunged on toward Earth, its mighty\n engines still steadily braking its interstellar velocity.\n\n\n To a man, the ship's responsible officers were already on the bridge,\n most of them breathless. To a man they looked appeal at Captain Knof\n Llud.\n\n\n \"Well?\" he snapped. \"What are they doing?\"\n\n\n Gwar Den spoke. \"There are thirteen of them out there now, sir, and\n they're all banging away at us.\"\n\n\n The captain stared into the black star-strewn depths of a vision screen\n where occasional blue points of light winked ominously, never twice\n from the same position.\n\n\n Knof Jr. flattened himself against the metal wall and watched silently.\n His young face was less anxious than his elders'; he had confidence in\n his father.\n\n\n \"If they had anything heavier,\" surmised the captain, \"they'd have\n unlimbered it by now. They're out to get us. But at this rate, they\n can't touch us as long as our power lasts\u2014or until they bring up some\n bigger stuff.\"\nThe mild shocks went on\u2014whether from projectiles or energy-charges,\n would be hard to find out and it didn't matter; whatever was hitting\n the\nQuest III's\nshell was doing it at velocities where the\n distinction between matter and radiation practically ceases to exist.\n\n\n But that shell was tough. It was an extension of the gravitic drive\n field which transmitted the engines' power equally to every atom of\n the ship; forces impinging on the outside of the field were similarly\n transmitted and rendered harmless. The effect was as if the vessel and\n all space inside its field were a single perfectly elastic body. A\n meteoroid, for example, on striking it rebounded\u2014usually vaporized by\n the impact\u2014and the ship, in obedience to the law of equal and opposite\n forces, rebounded too, but since its mass was so much greater, its\n deflection was negligible.\n\n\n The people in the\nQuest III\nwould have felt nothing at all of\n the vicious onslaught being hurled against them, save that their\n inertialess drive, at its normal thrust of two hundred gravities,\n was intentionally operated at one half of one per cent efficiency to\n provide the illusion of Earthly gravitation.\n\n\n One of the officers said shakily, \"It's as if they've been lying in\n wait for us. But why on Earth\u2014\"\n\n\n \"That,\" said the captain grimly, \"is what we have to find out. Why\u2014on\n Earth. At least, I suspect the answer's there.\"\n\n\n The\nQuest III\nbored steadily on through space, decelerating. Even if\n one were no fatalist, there seemed no reason to stop decelerating or\n change course. There was nowhere else to go and too little fuel left\n if there had been; come what might, this was journey's end\u2014perhaps\n in a more violent and final way than had been anticipated. All around\n wheeled the pigmy enemies, circling, maneuvering, and attacking,\n always attacking, with the senseless fury of maddened hornets. The\n interstellar ship bore no offensive weapons\u2014but suddenly on one of the\n vision screens a speck of light flared into nova-brilliance, dazzling\n the watchers for the brief moment in which its very atoms were torn\n apart.\n\n\n Knof Jr. whooped ecstatically and then subsided warily, but no one was\n paying attention to him. The men on the\nQuest III's\nbridge looked\n questions at each other, as the thought of help from outside flashed\n into many minds at once. But Captain Llud said soberly, \"It must have\n caught one of their own shots, reflected. Maybe its own, if it scored\n too direct a hit.\"\n\n\n He studied the data so far gathered. A few blurred pictures had been\n got, which showed cylindrical space ships much like the\nQuest III\n,\n except that they were rocket-propelled and of far lesser size. Their\n size was hard to ascertain, because you needed to know their distance\n and speed\u2014but detector-beam echoes gave the distance, and likewise, by\n the Doppler method, the velocity of directly receding or approaching\n ships. It was apparent that the enemy vessels were even smaller than\n Gwar Den had at first supposed\u2014not large enough to hold even one man.\n Tiny, deadly hornets with a colossal sting.\n\n\n \"Robot craft, no doubt,\" said Knof Llud, but a chill ran down his spine\n as it occurred to him that perhaps the attackers weren't of human\n origin. They had seen no recognizable life in the part of the galaxy\n they had explored, but one of the other\nQuests\nmight have encountered\n and been traced home by some unhuman race that was greedy and able to\n conquer.\nIt became evident, too, that the bombardment was being kept up by a\n constant arrival of fresh attackers, while others raced away into\n space, presumably returning to base to replenish their ammunition. That\n argued a planned and prepared interception with virulent hatred behind\n it.\n\n\n Elsuz Llug, the gravitic engineer, calculated dismally, \"At the rate\n we're having to shed energy, the fuel will be gone in six or eight\n hours.\"\n\n\n \"We'll have reached Earth before then,\" Gwar Den said hopefully.\n\n\n \"If they don't bring out the heavy artillery first.\"\n\n\n \"We're under the psychological disadvantage,\" said the captain, \"of not\n knowing why we're being attacked.\"\n\n\n Knof Jr. burst out, spluttering slightly with the violence of a\n thought too important to suppress, \"But we're under a ps-psychological\n advantage, too!\"\n\n\n His father raised an eyebrow. \"What's that? I don't seem to have\n noticed it.\"\n\n\n \"They're mad and we aren't, yet,\" said the boy. Then, seeing that he\n hadn't made himself clear, \"In a fight, if a guy gets mad he starts\n swinging wild and then you nail him.\"\n\n\n Smiles splintered the ice of tension. Captain Llud said, \"Maybe you've\n got something there. They seem to be mad, all right. But we're not in\n a position to throw any punches.\" He turned back to the others. \"As I\n was going to say\u2014I think we'd better try to parley with the enemy. At\n least we may find out who he is and why he's determined to smash us.\"\n\n\n And now instead of tight-beam detectors the ship was broadcasting on an\n audio carrier wave that shifted through a wide range of frequencies,\n repeating on each the same brief recorded message:\n\n\n \"Who are you? What do you want? We are the interstellar expedition\nQuest III\n....\" And so on, identifying themselves and protesting that\n they were unarmed and peaceful, that there must be some mistake, and\n querying again, \"Who are\nyou\n?\"\n\n\n There was no answer. The ship drove on, its fuel trickling away under\n multiplied demands. Those outside were squandering vastly greater\n amounts of energy in the effort to batter down its defenses, but\n converting that energy into harmless gravitic impulses was costing the\nQuest III\ntoo. Once more Knof Llud had the insidious sense of his own\n nerves and muscles and will weakening along with the power-sinews of\n his ship.\n\n\n Zost Relyul approached him apologetically. \"If you have time,\n Captain\u2014I've got some data on Earth now.\"\n\n\n Eagerly Llud took the sheaf of photographs made with the telescope. But\n they told him nothing; only the continental outlines were clear, and\n those were as they had been nine hundred years ago.... He looked up\n inquiringly at Zost Relyul.\n\n\n \"There are some strange features,\" said the astronomer carefully.\n \"First of all\u2014there are no lights on the night side. And on the\n daylight face, our highest magnification should already reveal traces\n of cities, canals, and the like\u2014but it does not.\n\n\n \"The prevailing color of the land masses, you see, is the normal\n green vegetation. But the diffraction spectrum is queer. It indicates\n reflecting surfaces less than one-tenth millimeter wide\u2014so the\n vegetation there can't be trees or grass, but must be more like a fine\n moss or even a coarse mold.\"\n\n\n \"Is that all?\" demanded Llud.\n\n\n \"Isn't it enough?\" said Zost Relyul blankly. \"Well\u2014we tried\n photography by invisible light, of course. The infra-red shows nothing\n and likewise the ultraviolet up to the point where the atmosphere is\n opaque to it.\"\n\n\n The captain sighed wearily. \"Good work,\" he said. \"Keep it up; perhaps\n you can answer some of these riddles before\u2014\"\n\n\n \"\nWe know who you are\n,\" interrupted a harshly crackling voice with a\n strange accent, \"\nand pleading will do you no good.\n\"\nKnof Llud whirled to the radio apparatus, his weariness dropping from\n him once more. He snapped, \"But who are you?\" and the words blended\n absurdly with the same words in his own voice on the still repeating\n tape.\n\n\n He snapped off the record; as he did so the speaker, still crackling\n with space static, said, \"It may interest you to know that you are the\n last. The two other interstellar expeditions that went out have already\n returned and been destroyed, as you will soon be\u2014the sooner, if you\n continue toward Earth.\"\n\n\n Knof Llud's mind was clicking again. The voice\u2014which must be coming\n from Earth, relayed by one of the midget ships\u2014was not very smart; it\n had already involuntarily told him a couple of things\u2014that it was not\n as sure of itself as it sounded he deduced from the fact it had deigned\n to speak at all, and from its last remark he gathered that the\nQuest\n III's\nponderous and unswerving progress toward Earth had somehow\n frightened it. So it was trying to frighten them.\n\n\n He shoved those facts back for future use. Just now he had to know\n something, so vitally that he asked it as a bald question, \"\nAre you\n human?\n\"\n\n\n The voice chuckled sourly. \"We are human,\" it answered, \"but you are\n not.\"\n\n\n The captain was momentarily silent, groping for an adequate reply.\n Behind him somebody made a choked noise, the only sound in the stunned\n hush, and the ship jarred slightly as a thunderbolt slammed vengefully\n into its field.\n\n\n \"Suppose we settle this argument about humanity,\" said Knof Llud\n woodenly. He named a vision frequency.\n\n\n \"Very well.\" The tone was like a shrug. The voice went on in its\n language that was quite intelligible, but alien-sounding with the\n changes that nine hundred years had wrought. \"Perhaps, if you realize\n your position, you will follow the intelligent example of the\nQuest\n I's\ncommander.\"\n\n\n Knof Llud stiffened. The\nQuest I\n, launched toward Arcturus and the\n star cloud called Berenice's Hair, had been after the\nQuest III\nthe\n most hopeful of the expeditions\u2014and its captain had been a good friend\n of Llud's, nine hundred years ago.... He growled, \"What happened to\n him?\"\n\n\n \"He fought off our interceptors, which are around you now, for some\n time,\" said the voice lightly. \"When he saw that it was hopeless, he\n preferred suicide to defeat, and took his ship into the Sun.\" A short\n pause. \"The vision connection is ready.\"\n\n\n Knof Llud switched on the screen at the named wavelength, and a\n picture formed there. The face and figure that appeared were ugly,\n but undeniably a man's. His features and his light-brown skin showed\n the same racial characteristics possessed by those aboard the\nQuest\n III\n, but he had an elusive look of deformity. Most obviously, his head\n seemed too big for his body, and his eyes in turn too big for his head.\n\n\n He grinned nastily at Knof Llud. \"Have you any other last wishes?\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" said Llud with icy control. \"You haven't answered one question.\n Why do you want to kill us? You can see we're as human as you are.\"\n\n\n The big-headed man eyed him with a speculative look in his great\n eyes, behind which the captain glimpsed the flickering raw fire of a\n poisonous hatred.\n\n\n \"It is enough for you to know that you must die.\"",
    "63919": "CAPTAIN CHAOS\nBy D. ALLEN MORRISSEY\nScience equipped David Corbin with borrowed time;\n \nsent him winging out in a state of suspension to future\n \ncenturies ... to a dark blue world whose only defense\n \nwas to seal tight the prying minds of foolish interlopers.\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories November 1952.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI heard the voice as I opened my eyes. I was lying down, still not\n aware of where I was, waiting for the voice.\n\n\n \"Your name is David Corbin. Do you understand?\"\n\n\n I looked in the direction of the sound. Above my feet a bulkhead\n loomed. There were round dials set in a row above a speaker. Over the\n mesh-covered speaker, two knobs glowed red. I ran the words over in\n my sluggish mind, thinking about an answer. The muscles in my throat\n tightened up in reflex as I tried to bring some unity into the jumble\n of thoughts and ideas that kept forming. One word formed out of the\n rush of anxiety.\n\n\n \"No.\"\n\n\n I shouted a protest against the strangeness of the room. I looked to\n the right, my eyes following the curving ceiling that started at the\n cot. The curve met another straight bulkhead on the left. I was in a\n small room, gray in color, like dull metal. Overhead a bright light\n burned into my vision. I wondered where in the universe I was.\n\n\n \"Your name is David Corbin. If you understand, press button A on your\n right.\"\n\n\n I stared at the speaker in the wall. The mesh-covered hole and the two\n lights looked like a caricature of a face, set in a panel of dials. I\n twisted my head to look for the button. I pushed away from the close\n wall but I couldn't move. I reached down to the tightness that held my\n body, found the wide strap that held me and fumbled with the buckle.\n I threw it off and pushed myself up from the hard cot. I heard myself\n yell in surprise as I floated up towards the light overhead.\n\n\n I was weightless.\n\n\n How do you describe being weightless when you are born into a world\n bound by gravity. I twisted and shut my eyes in terror. There was no\n sensation of place, no feeling of up or down, no direction. My back\n bumped against the ceiling and I opened my eyes to stare at the cot and\n floor. I was concentrating too hard on remembering to be frightened for\n long. I pushed away from the warm metal and the floor moved up to meet\n me.\n\n\n \"If you understand, press button A on your right.\"\n\n\n What should I understand? That I was floating in a room that had a\n curved wall ... that nothing was right in this hostile room?\n\n\n When I reached the cot I held it and drew myself down. I glanced at the\n planes of the room, trying to place it with other rooms I could see in\n my mind. Gray walls with a crazy curved ceiling ... a door to my left\n that appeared to be air tight.\n\n\n I stared at my familiar hands. I rubbed them across my face, feeling\n the solidity of flesh and bone, afraid to think too hard about myself.\n\n\n \"My name ... my name is....\"\n\n\n \"Your name is David Corbin.\"\n\n\n I stared at the speaker. How long did this go on? The name meant\n nothing to me, but I thought about it, watching the relentless lights\n that shone below the dials. I stood up slowly and looked at myself. I\n was naked except for heavy shorts, and there was no clue to my name in\n the pockets. The room was warm and the air I had been breathing was\n good but it seemed wrong to be dressed like this. I didn't know why. I\n thought about insanity, and the room seemed to fit my thoughts. When\n the voice repeated the message again I had to act. Walking was like\n treading water that couldn't be seen or felt.\n\n\n I floated against the door, twisting the handle in fear that it\n wouldn't turn. The handle clanged as I pushed it down and I stared at\n the opposite wall of a narrow gray passageway. I pushed out into it and\n grasped the metal rail that ran along the wall. I reasoned it was there\n to propel yourself through the passageway in this weightless atmosphere.\n\n\n It was effortless to move. I turned on my side like a swimmer and went\n hand over hand, shooting down the corridor. I braced against forward\n motion and stopped against a door at the end. Behind me I could see the\n opened door I had left, and the thought of that questioning voice made\n me want to move. I swung the door open, catching a glimpse of a room\n crowded with equipment and....\nI will always remember the scream of terror, the paralyzing fright of\n what I saw through the portholes in the wall of the room. I saw the\n blackest night, pierced by brilliance that blinded me. There was no\n depth to the searing brightness of countless stars. They seemed to\n press against the glass, blobs of fire against a black curtain burning\n into my eyes and brain.\n\n\n It was space.\n\n\n I looked out at deep space, star systems in clusters. I shut my eyes.\n When I looked again I knew where I was. Why the little room had been\n shaped like quarter round. Why I drifted weightlessly. Why I was....\n\n\n David Corbin.\n\n\n I knew more of the puzzle. Something was wrong. After the first shock\n of looking out, I accepted the fact that I was in a space ship, yet I\n couldn't read the maps that were fastened to a table, nor understand\n the function or design of the compact machinery.\n\n\n WHY, Why, Why? The thought kept pounding at me. I was afraid to touch\n anything in the room. I pressed against the clear window, wondering if\n the stars were familiar. I had a brief vivid picture of a night sky on\n Earth. This was not the same sky.\n\n\n Back in the room where I had awakened, I touched the panel with the\n glowing eyes. It had asked me if I understood. Now it must tell me why\n I didn't. It had to help me, that flat metallic voice that repeated the\n same words. It must tell me....\n\n\n \"Your name is David Corbin. If you understand, press button A on your\n right.\"\n\n\n I pressed the button by the cot. The red lights blinked out as I stood\n in patient attention, trying to outguess the voice. I recalled a\n phrase ... some words about precaution.\n\n\n Precaution against forgetting.\n\n\n It was crazy, but I trusted the panel. It was the only thing I saw that\n could help me, guard me against another shock like seeing outside of\n the clear portholes.\n\n\n \"It is assumed the experiment is a success,\" the voice said.\n\n\n What experiment?\n\n\n \"You have been removed from suspension. Assume manual control of this\n ship.\"\n\n\n Control of a ship? Going where?\n\n\n \"Do not begin operations until the others are removed from suspension.\"\n\n\n What others? Tell me what to do.\n\n\n \"Rely on instructions for factoring when you check the coordinates.\n Your maximum deviation from schedule cannot exceed two degrees. Adopt\n emergency procedures as you see fit. Good luck.\"\n\n\n The voice snapped off and I laughed hysterically. None of it had made\n sense, and I cursed whatever madness had put me here.\n\n\n \"Tell me what to do,\" I shouted wildly. I hammered the hard metal until\n the pain in my hands made me stop.\n\n\n \"I can't remember what to do.\"\n\n\n I held my bruised hands to my mouth, and I knew that was all the\n message there was. In blind panic I pushed away from the panel.\n Something tripped me and I fell back in a graceless arc. I pushed away\n from the floor, barely feeling the pain in my leg, and went into the\n hall.\n\n\n Pain burned along my leg but I couldn't stop. In the first panic of\n waking up in strangeness I had missed the other doors in the passage.\n The first swung back to reveal a deep closet holding five bulky suits.\n The second room was like my own. A dark haired, deep chested man lay on\n the cot. His muscular body was secured by a wide belt. He was as still\n as death, motionless without warmth or breath as I hovered over him.\n\n\n I couldn't remember his face.\n\n\n The next room held another man. He was young and wiry, like an athlete\n cast in marble, dark haired and big jawed. A glassy eye stared up when\n I rolled back his eyelid. The eyelid remained open until I closed it\n and went on. Another room ... another man ... another stranger. This\n man was tall and raw boned, light of skin and hair, as dead as the\n others.\n\n\n A flat, illogical voice had instructed me to revive these men. I\n shivered in spite of the warmth of the room, studying the black box\n that squatted on a shelf by his head. My hand shook when I touched\n the metal. I dared not try to operate anything. Revive the others ...\n instructions without knowledge were useless to me. I stopped looking\n into the doors in the passageway and went back to the room with the\n portholes. Everything lay in readiness, fastened down star charts,\n instruments, glittering equipment. There was no feeling of disorder or\n use in the room. It waited for human hands to make it operate.\n\n\n Not mine. Not now.\n\n\n I went past the room into another, where the curves were more sharp. I\n could visualize the tapering hull leading to the nose of the ship. This\n room was filled with equipment that formed a room out of the bordered\n area I stood in. I sat in the deep chair facing the panel of dials and\n instruments, in easy reach. I ran my hands over the dials, the rows of\n smooth colored buttons, wondering.\n\n\n The ports on the side were shielded and I stared out at static energy,\n hung motionless in a world of searing light. There was no distortion,\n no movement outside and I glanced back at the dials. What speeds were\n they recording? What speeds and perhaps, what distance? It was useless\n to translate the markings. They stood for anything I might guess, and\n something kept pricking my mind, telling me I had no time to guess. I\n thought of time again. I was supposed to act according to ... plan. Did\n that mean ... in time ... in time. I went back down the passageway.\nThe fourth small room was the same. Except for the woman. She lay on a\n cot, young and beautiful, even in the death-like immobility I had come\n to accept. Her beauty was graceful lines of face and her figure\u2014smooth\n tapering legs, soft curves that were carved out of flesh colored stone.\n Yet not stone. I held her small hand, then put it back on the cot. Her\n attire was brief like the rest of us, shorts and a man's shirt. Golden\n hair curled up around her lovely face. I wondered if she would ever\n smile or move that graceful head. I rolled back her eyelid and looked\n at a deep blue eye that stared back in glassy surprise. Four people in\n all, depending on a blind helpless fool who didn't know their names or\n the reason for that dependence. I sat beside her on the cot until I\n could stand it no longer.\n\n\n Searching the ship made me forget my fear. I hoped I would find some\n answers. I went from the nose to the last bulkhead in a frenzy of\n floating motion, looking behind each door until I went as far as I\n could. There were two levels to the ship. They both ended in the lead\n shield that was set where the swell of the curve was biggest. It meant\n the engine or engines took up half the ship, cut off from the forward\n half by the instrument studded shield. I retraced my steps and took a\n rough estimate of size. The ship, as I called it, was at least four\n hundred feet long, fifty feet in diameter on the inside.\n\n\n The silence was a force in itself, pressing down from the metal walls,\n driving me back to the comforting smallness of the room where I had\n been reborn. I laughed bitterly, thinking about the aptness of that. I\n had literally been reborn in this room, equipped with half ideas, and\n no point to start from, no premise to seek. I sensed the place to start\n from was back in the room. I searched it carefully.\n\n\n Minutes later I realized the apparatus by the cot was different. It\n was the same type of black box, but out from it was a metal arm, bent\n in a funny angle. At the tip of the arm, a needle gleamed dully and I\n rubbed the deep gash on my leg. I bent the arm back until the angle\n looked right. It was then I realized the needle came to a spot where it\n could have hit my neck when I lay down. My shout of excitement rang out\n in the room, as I pictured the action of the extended arm. I lost my\n sudden elation in the cabin where the girl lay. The box behind her head\n was completely closed, and it didn't yield to the pressure I applied.\n It had a cover, but no other opening where an arm could extend. I ran\n my fingers over the unbroken surface, prying over the thin crack at\n the base helplessly. If some sort of antidote was to be administered\n manually I was lost. I had no knowledge of what to inject or where to\n look for it. The chamber of the needle that had awakened me was empty.\n That meant a measured amount.\n\n\n In the laboratory on the lower level I went over the rows of cans and\n tubes fastened to the shelves. There were earths and minerals, seeds\n and chemicals, testing equipment in compact drawers, but nothing marked\n for me. I wondered if I was an engineer or a pilot, or perhaps a doctor\n sent along to safeguard the others. Complete amnesia would have been\n terrible enough but this half knowledge, part awareness and association\n with the ship was a frightening force that seemed ready to break out of\n me.\n\n\n I went back to the cabin where the powerful man lay. I had to risk\n failure with one of them. I didn't want it to be the girl. I fought\n down the thought that he might be the key man, remembering the voice\n that had given the message. It was up to me, and soon. The metal in the\n box would have withstood a bullet. It couldn't be pried apart, and I\n searched again and again for a release mechanism.\n\n\n I found it.\n\n\n I swung the massive cover off and set it down. The equipment waited for\n the touch of a button and it went into operation. I stepped back as the\n tubes glowed to life and the arm swung down with the gleaming needle.\n The needle went into the corded neck of the man. The fluid chamber\n drained under pressure and the arm moved back.\n\n\n I stood by the man for long minutes. Finally it came. He stirred\n restlessly, closing his hands into fists. The deep chest rose and fell\n unevenly as he breathed. Finally the eyes opened and he looked at me.\n I watched him adjust to the room. It was in his eyes, wide at first,\n moving about the confines of the room back to me.\n\n\n \"It looks like we made it,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Yes.\"\n\n\n He unfastened the belt and sat up. I pushed him back as he floated up\n finding little humor in the comic expression on his face.\n\n\n \"No gravity,\" he grunted and sat back.\n\n\n \"You get used to it fast,\" I answered. I thought of what to say as he\n watched me. \"How do you feel?\"\n\n\n He shrugged at the question. \"Fine, I guess. Funny, I can't remember.\"\n\n\n He saw it in my face, making him stop. \"I can't remember dropping off\n to sleep,\" he finished.\n\n\n I held his hard arm. \"What else? How much do you remember?\"\n\n\n \"I'm all right,\" he answered. \"There aren't supposed to be any effects\n from this.\"\n\n\n \"Who is in charge of this ship?\" I asked.\n\n\n He tensed suddenly. \"You are, sir. Why?\"\n\n\n I moved away from the cot. \"Listen, I can't remember. I don't know your\n name or anything about this ship.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean? What can't you remember?\" he asked. He stood up\n slowly, edging around towards the door. I didn't want to fight him. I\n wanted him to understand. \"Look, I'm in trouble. Nothing fits, except\n my name.\"\n\n\n \"You don't know me?\"\n\n\n \"No.\"\n\n\n \"Are you serious?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, yes. I don't know why but it's happened.\"\n\n\n He let his breath out in a whistle. \"For God's sake. Any bump on your\n head?\"\n\n\n \"I feel all right physically. I just can't place enough.\"\n\n\n \"The others. What about the others?\" he blurted.\n\n\n \"I don't know. You're the first besides myself. I don't know how I\n stumbled on the way to revive you.\"\n\n\n He shook his head, watching me like I was a freak. \"Let's check the\n rest right away.\"\n\n\n \"Yes. I've got to know if they are like me. I'm afraid to think they\n might be.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe it's temporary. We can figure something out.\"\nII\n\n\n The second man, the dark haired one, opened his eyes and recognized us.\n He asked questions in rapid fire excitement. The third man, the tall\n Viking, was all right until he moved. The weightless sensation made him\n violently sick. We put him back on the cot, securing him again with\n the belt, but the sight of us floating made him shake. He was retching\n without results when we drifted out. I followed him to the girl's\n quarters.\n\n\n \"What about her. Why is she here?\" I asked my companion.\n\n\n He lifted the cover from the apparatus. \"She's the chemist in the crew.\"\n\n\n \"A girl?\"\n\n\n \"Dr. Thiesen is an expert, trained for this,\" he said.\n\n\n I looked at her. She looked anything but like a chemist.\n\n\n \"There must be men who could have been sent. I've been wondering why a\n girl.\"\n\n\n \"I don't know why, Captain. You tried to stop her before. Age and\n experience were all that mattered to the brass.\"\n\n\n \"It's a bad thing to do.\"\n\n\n \"I suppose. The mission stated one chemist.\"\n\n\n \"What is the mission of this ship?\" I asked.\n\n\n He held up his hand. \"We'd better wait, sir. Everything was supposed to\n be all right on this end. First you, then Carl, sick to his stomach.\"\n\n\n \"Okay. I'll hold the questions until we see about her.\"\n\n\n We were out of luck with the girl. She woke up and she was frightened.\n We questioned her and she was coherent but she couldn't remember. I\n tried to smile as I sat on the cot, wondering what she was thinking.\n\n\n \"How do you feel?\" I asked.\n\n\n Her face was a mask of wide-eyed fear as she shook her head.\n\n\n \"Can you remember?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know.\" Blue eyes stared at me in fear. Her voice was low.\n\n\n \"Do you know my name?\"\n\n\n The question frightened her. \"Should I? I feel so strange. Give me a\n minute to think.\"\n\n\n I let her sit up slowly. \"Do you know your name?\"\n\n\n She tightened up in my arms. \"Yes. It's....\" She looked at us for help,\n frightened by the lack of clothing we wore, by the bleak room. Her eyes\n circled the room. \"I'm afraid,\" she cried. I held her and she shook\n uncontrollably.\n\n\n \"What's happened to me?\" she asked.\n\n\n The dark haired man came into the room, silent and watchful. My\n companion motioned to him. \"Get Carl and meet us in Control.\"\n\n\n The man looked at me and I nodded. \"We'll be there in a moment. I'm\n afraid we've got trouble.\"\n\n\n He nodded and pushed away from us. The girl screamed and covered her\n face with her hands. I turned to the other man. \"What's your name?\"\n\n\n \"Croft. John Croft.\"\n\n\n \"John, what are your duties if any?\"\n\n\n \"Automatic control. I helped to install it.\"\n\n\n \"Can you run this ship? How about the other two?\"\n\n\n He hit his hands together. \"You fly it, sir. Can't you think?\"\n\n\n \"I'm trying. I know the ship is familiar, but I've looked it over.\n Maybe I'm trying too hard.\"\n\n\n \"You flew her from earth until we went into suspension,\" he said.\n\n\n \"I can't remember when,\" I said. I held the trembling girl against me,\n shaking my head.\n\n\n He glanced at the girl. \"If the calculations are right it was more than\n a hundred years ago.\"\n\n\n We assembled in the control room for a council. We were all a little\n better for being together. John Croft named the others for me. I\n searched each face without recognition. The blond man was Carl Herrick,\n a metallurgist. His lean face was white from his spell but he was\n better. Paul Sample was a biologist, John said. He was lithe and\n restless, with dark eyes that studied the rest of us. I looked at the\n girl. She was staring out of the ports, her hands pressed against the\n transparent break in the smooth wall. Karen Thiesen was a chemist, now\n frightened and trying to remember.\n\n\n I wasn't in much better condition. \"Look, if it comes too fast for me,\n for any of us, we'll stop. John, you can lead off.\"\n\n\n \"You ask the questions,\" he said.\n\n\n I indicated the ship. \"Where in creation are we going?\"\n\n\n \"We set out from Earth for a single star in the direction of the center\n of our Galaxy.\"\n\n\n \"From Earth? How could we?\"\n\n\n \"Let's move slowly, sir,\" he said. \"We're moving fast. I don't know if\n you can picture it, but we're going about one hundred thousand miles an\n hour.\"\n\n\n \"Through space?\"\n\n\n \"Yes.\"\n\n\n \"What direction?\"\n\n\n Paul cut in. \"It's a G type star, like our own sun in mass and\n luminosity. We hope to find a planetary system capable of supporting\n life.\"\n\n\n \"I can't grasp it. How can we go very far in a lifetime?\"\n\n\n \"It can be done in two lifetimes,\" John said quietly.\n\n\n \"You said I had flown this ship. You meant before this suspension.\"\n\n\n \"Yes. That's why we can cross space to a near star.\"\n\n\n \"How long ago was it?\"\n\n\n \"It was set at about a hundred years, sir. Doesn't that fit at all?\"\n\n\n \"I can't believe it's possible.\"\n\n\n Carl caught my eye. \"Captain, we save this time without aging at all.\n It puts us near a calculated destination.\"\n\n\n \"We've lost our lifetime.\" It was Karen. She had been crying silently\n while we talked.\n\n\n \"Don't think about it,\" Paul said. \"We can still pull this out all\n right if you don't lose your nerve.\"\n\n\n \"What are we to do?\" she asked.\n\n\n John answered for me. \"First we've got to find out where we are. I know\n this ship but I can't fly it.\"\n\n\n \"Can I?\" I asked.\nWe set up a temporary plan of action. Paul took Karen to the laboratory\n in an effort to help her remember her job. Carl went back to divide the\n rations.\n\n\n I was to study the charts and manuals. It was better than doing\n nothing, and I went into the navigation room and sat down. Earth was\n an infinitesimal point somewhere behind us on the galactic plane, and\n no one else was trained to navigate. The ship thundered to life as I\n sat there. The blast roared once ... twice, then settled into a muted\n crescendo of sound that hummed through the walls. I went into the\n control room and watched John at the panel.\n\n\n \"I wish I knew what you were doing,\" I said savagely.\n\n\n \"Give it time.\"\n\n\n \"We can't spare any, can we?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"I wish we knew. What about her\u2014Dr. Thiesen?\"\n\n\n \"She's in the lab. I don't think that will do much good. She's got to\n be shocked out of a mental state like that.\"\n\n\n \"I guess you're right,\" he said slowly. \"She's trained to administer\n the suspension on the return trip.\"\n\n\n I let my breath out slowly. \"I didn't think about that.\"\n\n\n \"We couldn't even get part way back in a lifetime,\" he said.\n\n\n \"How old are you, John?\"\n\n\n \"Twenty-eight.\"\n\n\n \"What about me?\"\n\n\n \"Thirty.\" He stared at the panel in thought for a minutes. \"What about\n shock treatment? It sounds risky.\"\n\n\n \"I know. It's the only thing I could think of. Why didn't everyone\n react the same?\"\n\n\n \"That had me wondering for a while. I don't know. Anyway how could you\n go about making her remember?\"\n\n\n \"Throw a crisis, some situation at her, I guess.\"\n\n\n He shrugged, letting his sure hands rest on the panel of dials. I\n headed back towards the lab. If I could help her I might help myself.\n I was past the rooms when the horn blasted through the corridor. I\n turned automatically with the sound, pushing against the rail, towards\n the control room. Deep in my mind I could see danger, and without\n questioning why I knew I had to be at Control when the sound knifed\n through the stillness. John was shouting as I thrust my way into the\n room.\n\"Turn the ship. There's something dead ahead.\"\n\n\n I had a glimpse of his contorted face as I dove at the control board.\n My hands hit buttons, thumbed a switch and then a sudden force threw me\n to the right. I slammed into the panel on the right, as the pressure\n of the change dimmed my vision. Reflex made me look up at the radar\n control screen.\n\n\n It wasn't operating.\n\n\n John let go of the padded chair, grinning weakly. I was busy for a few\n seconds, feeding compensation into the gyros. Relief flooded through me\n like warm liquid. I hung on the intercom for support, drawing air into\n my heaving lungs.\n\n\n \"What\u2014made you\u2014think of that,\" I asked weakly.\n\n\n \"Shock treatment.\"\n\n\n \"I must have acted on instinct.\"\n\n\n \"You did. Even for a sick man that was pretty fast,\" he laughed.\n\n\n \"I can think again, John. I know who I am,\" I shouted. I threw my arms\n around his massive shoulders. \"You did it.\"\n\n\n \"You gave me the idea, Mister, talking about Dr. Thiesen.\"\n\n\n \"It worked. I'm okay,\" I said in giddy relief.\n\n\n \"I don't have to tell you I was scared as hell. I wish you could have\n seen your face, the look in your eyes when I woke up.\"\n\n\n \"I wouldn't want to wake up like that again.\"\n\n\n \"You're all right now?\" he asked. I grinned and nodded an answer. I saw\n John as he was at the base, big and competent, sweating in the blazing\n sun.\n\n\n I thought about the rest of the crew too. \"We're heading right for a\n star....\"\n\n\n \"It's been dead ahead for hours,\" he grunted. I leaned over and threw\n the intercom to open. \"This is control. Listen ... everyone. I'm over\n it. Disregard the warning siren ... we were testing the ship.\"\n\n\n The lab light blinked on as Paul cut in. \"What was it ... hey, you said\n you're all right.\"\n\n\n \"John did it. He hit the alarm figuring I would react. Listen, Paul. Is\n any one hurt?\"\n\n\n \"No. Carl is here too. His stomach flopped again but he's okay. What\n about food. We're supposed to be checked before we eat.\"\n\n\n \"We'll have to go ahead without it. Any change?\"\n\n\n \"No, I put her to bed. Shall I bring food?\"\n\n\n I glanced at John. He rubbed his stomach. \"Yes,\" I answered. \"Bring it\n when you can. I've got to find out where we are.\"\n\n\n We had to get off course before we ran into the yellow-white star that\n had been picked for us. Food was set down by me, grew cold and was\n carried away and I was still rechecking the figures. We were on a line\n ten degrees above the galactic plane. The parallactic baseline from\n Earth to the single star could be in error several degrees, or we could\n be right on the calculated position of the star. The radar confirmed\n my findings ... and my worst fears. When we set it for direction and\n distance, the screen glowed to life and recorded the star dead ahead.\n\n\n In all the distant star clusters, only this G type star was thought to\n have a planetary system like our own. We were out on a gamble to find\n a planet capable of supporting life. The idea had intrigued scientists\n before I had first looked up at the night sky. When I was sure the\n electronically recorded course was accurate for time, I checked\n direction and speed from the readings and plotted our position. If I\n was right we were much closer than we wanted to be. The bright pips on\n the screen gave us the distance and size of the star while we fed the\n figures into the calculator for our rate of approach.\n\n\n Spectroscopic tests were run on the sun and checked against the figures\n that had been calculated on Earth. We analyzed temperature, magnetic\n fields, radial motion, density and luminosity, checking against the\n standards the scientists had constructed. It was a G type star like our\n own. It had more density and temperature and suitable planets or not,\n we had to change course in a hurry. Carl analyzed the findings while we\n came to a decision. Somewhere along an orbit that might be two hundred\n miles across, our hypothetical planet circled this star. That distance\n was selected when the planets in Earth's solar system had proved to be\n barren. If the observations on this star were correct, we could expect\n to find a planet in a state of fertility ... if it existed ... if it\n were suitable for colonization ... if we could find it.",
    "52844": "THE LONG REMEMBERED THUNDER\nBY KEITH LAUMER\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of Tomorrow April 1963\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nHe was as ancient as time\u2014and as strange as\n\n his own frightful battle against incredible odds!\nI\n\n\n In his room at the Elsby Commercial Hotel, Tremaine opened his luggage\n and took out a small tool kit, used a screwdriver to remove the bottom\n cover plate from the telephone. He inserted a tiny aluminum cylinder,\n crimped wires and replaced the cover. Then he dialed a long-distance\n Washington number and waited half a minute for the connection.\n\n\n \"Fred, Tremaine here. Put the buzzer on.\" A thin hum sounded on the\n wire as the scrambler went into operation.\n\n\n \"Okay, can you read me all right? I'm set up in Elsby. Grammond's boys\n are supposed to keep me informed. Meantime, I'm not sitting in this\n damned room crouched over a dial. I'll be out and around for the rest\n of the afternoon.\"\n\n\n \"I want to see results,\" the thin voice came back over the filtered\n hum of the jamming device. \"You spent a week with Grammond\u2014I can't\n wait another. I don't mind telling you certain quarters are pressing\n me.\"\n\n\n \"Fred, when will you learn to sit on your news breaks until you've got\n some answers to go with the questions?\"\n\n\n \"I'm an appointive official,\" Fred said sharply. \"But never mind\n that. This fellow Margrave\u2014General Margrave. Project Officer for the\n hyperwave program\u2014he's been on my neck day and night. I can't say I\n blame him. An unauthorized transmitter interfering with a Top Secret\n project, progress slowing to a halt, and this Bureau\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Look, Fred. I was happy in the lab. Headaches, nightmares and all.\n Hyperwave is my baby, remember? You elected me to be a leg-man: now let\n me do it my way.\"\n\n\n \"I felt a technical man might succeed where a trained investigator\n could be misled. And since it seems to be pinpointed in your home\n area\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You don't have to justify yourself. Just don't hold out on me. I\n sometimes wonder if I've seen the complete files on this\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You've seen all the files! Now I want answers, not questions! I'm\n warning you, Tremaine. Get that transmitter. I need someone to hang!\"\nTremaine left the hotel, walked two blocks west along Commerce Street\n and turned in at a yellow brick building with the words ELSBY\n MUNICIPAL POLICE cut in the stone lintel above the door. Inside, a\n heavy man with a creased face and thick gray hair looked up from behind\n an ancient Underwood. He studied Tremaine, shifted a toothpick to the\n opposite corner of his mouth.\n\n\n \"Don't I know you, mister?\" he said. His soft voice carried a note of\n authority.\n\n\n Tremaine took off his hat. \"Sure you do, Jess. It's been a while,\n though.\"\n\n\n The policeman got to his feet. \"Jimmy,\" he said, \"Jimmy Tremaine.\" He\n came to the counter and put out his hand. \"How are you, Jimmy? What\n brings you back to the boondocks?\"\n\n\n \"Let's go somewhere and sit down, Jess.\"\n\n\n In a back room Tremaine said, \"To everybody but you this is just a\n visit to the old home town. Between us, there's more.\"\n\n\n Jess nodded. \"I heard you were with the guv'ment.\"\n\n\n \"It won't take long to tell; we don't know much yet.\" Tremaine covered\n the discovery of the powerful unidentified interference on the\n high-security hyperwave band, the discovery that each transmission\n produced not one but a pattern of \"fixes\" on the point of origin. He\n passed a sheet of paper across the table. It showed a set of concentric\n circles, overlapped by a similar group of rings.\n\n\n \"I think what we're getting is an echo effect from each of these\n points of intersection. The rings themselves represent the diffraction\n pattern\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Hold it, Jimmy. To me it just looks like a beer ad. I'll take your\n word for it.\"\n\n\n \"The point is this, Jess: we think we've got it narrowed down to this\n section. I'm not sure of a damn thing, but I think that transmitter's\n near here. Now, have you got any ideas?\"\n\n\n \"That's a tough one, Jimmy. This is where I should come up with the\n news that Old Man Whatchamacallit's got an attic full of gear he says\n is a time machine. Trouble is, folks around here haven't even taken\n to TV. They figure we should be content with radio, like the Lord\n intended.\"\n\n\n \"I didn't expect any easy answers, Jess. But I was hoping maybe you had\n something ...\"\n\n\n \"Course,\" said Jess, \"there's always Mr. Bram ...\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Bram,\" repeated Tremaine. \"Is he still around? I remember him as a\n hundred years old when I was kid.\"\n\n\n \"Still just the same, Jimmy. Comes in town maybe once a week, buys his\n groceries and hikes back out to his place by the river.\"\n\n\n \"Well, what about him?\"\n\n\n \"Nothing. But he's the town's mystery man. You know that. A little\n touched in the head.\"\n\n\n \"There were a lot of funny stories about him, I remember,\" Tremaine\n said. \"I always liked him. One time he tried to teach me something\n I've forgotten. Wanted me to come out to his place and he'd teach me.\n I never did go. We kids used to play in the caves near his place, and\n sometimes he gave us apples.\"\n\"I've never seen any harm in Bram,\" said Jess. \"But you know how this\n town is about foreigners, especially when they're a mite addled. Bram\n has blue eyes and blond hair\u2014or did before it turned white\u2014and he\n talks just like everybody else. From a distance he seems just like an\n ordinary American. But up close, you feel it. He's foreign, all right.\n But we never did know where he came from.\"\n\n\n \"How long's he lived here in Elsby?\"\n\n\n \"Beats me, Jimmy. You remember old Aunt Tress, used to know all about\n ancestors and such as that? She couldn't remember about Mr. Bram. She\n was kind of senile, I guess. She used to say he'd lived in that same\n old place out on the Concord road when she was a girl. Well, she died\n five years ago ... in her seventies. He still walks in town every\n Wednesday ... or he did up till yesterday anyway.\"\n\n\n \"Oh?\" Tremaine stubbed out his cigarette, lit another. \"What happened\n then?\"\n\n\n \"You remember Soup Gaskin? He's got a boy, name of Hull. He's Soup all\n over again.\"\n\n\n \"I remember Soup,\" Tremaine said. \"He and his bunch used to come in\n the drug store where I worked and perch on the stools and kid around\n with me, and Mr. Hempleman would watch them from over back of the\n prescription counter and look nervous. They used to raise cain in the\n other drug store....\"\n\n\n \"Soup's been in the pen since then. His boy Hull's the same kind. Him\n and a bunch of his pals went out to Bram's place one night and set it\n on fire.\"\n\n\n \"What was the idea of that?\"\n\n\n \"Dunno. Just meanness, I reckon. Not much damage done. A car was\n passing by and called it in. I had the whole caboodle locked up here\n for six hours. Then the sob sisters went to work: poor little tyke\n routine, high spirits, you know the line. All of 'em but Hull are back\n in the streets playin' with matches by now. I'm waiting for the day\n they'll make jail age.\"\n\n\n \"Why Bram?\" Tremaine persisted. \"As far as I know, he never had any\n dealings to speak of with anybody here in town.\"\n\n\n \"Oh hoh, you're a little young, Jimmy,\" Jess chuckled. \"You never knew\n about Mr. Bram\u2014the young Mr. Bram\u2014and Linda Carroll.\"\n\n\n Tremaine shook his head.\n\n\n \"Old Miss Carroll. School teacher here for years; guess she was retired\n by the time you were playing hookey. But her dad had money, and in\n her day she was a beauty. Too good for the fellers in these parts. I\n remember her ridin by in a high-wheeled shay, when I was just a nipper.\n Sitting up proud and tall, with that red hair piled up high. I used to\n think she was some kind of princess....\"\n\n\n \"What about her and Bram? A romance?\"\nJess rocked his chair back on two legs, looked at the ceiling,\n frowning. \"This would ha' been about nineteen-oh-one. I was no more'n\n eight years old. Miss Linda was maybe in her twenties\u2014and that made\n her an old maid, in those times. The word got out she was setting\n her cap for Bram. He was a good-looking young feller then, over six\n foot, of course, broad backed, curly yellow hair\u2014and a stranger to\n boot. Like I said, Linda Carroll wanted nothin to do with the local\n bucks. There was a big shindy planned. Now, you know Bram was funny\n about any kind of socializing; never would go any place at night. But\n this was a Sunday afternoon and someways or other they got Bram down\n there; and Miss Linda made her play, right there in front of the town,\n practically. Just before sundown they went off together in that fancy\n shay. And the next day, she was home again\u2014alone. That finished off\n her reputation, as far as the biddies in Elsby was concerned. It was\n ten years 'fore she even landed the teaching job. By that time, she was\n already old. And nobody was ever fool enough to mention the name Bram\n in front of her.\"\n\n\n Tremaine got to his feet. \"I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your ears\n and eyes open for anything that might build into a lead on this, Jess.\n Meantime, I'm just a tourist, seeing the sights.\"\n\n\n \"What about that gear of yours? Didn't you say you had some kind of\n detector you were going to set up?\"\n\n\n \"I've got an oversized suitcase,\" Tremaine said. \"I'll be setting it up\n in my room over at the hotel.\"\n\n\n \"When's this bootleg station supposed to broadcast again?\"\n\n\n \"After dark. I'm working on a few ideas. It might be an infinitely\n repeating logarithmic sequence, based on\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Hold it, Jimmy. You're over my head.\" Jess got to his feet. \"Let me\n know if you want anything. And by the way\u2014\" he winked broadly\u2014\"I\n always did know who busted Soup Gaskin's nose and took out his front\n teeth.\"\nII\n\n\n Back in the street, Tremaine headed south toward the Elsby Town\n Hall, a squat structure of brownish-red brick, crouched under yellow\n autumn trees at the end of Sheridan Street. Tremaine went up the\n steps and past heavy double doors. Ten yards along the dim corridor,\n a hand-lettered cardboard sign over a black-varnished door said\n \"MUNICIPAL OFFICE OF RECORD.\" Tremaine opened the door and went in.\n\n\n A thin man with garters above the elbow looked over his shoulder at\n Tremaine.\n\n\n \"We're closed,\" he said.\n\n\n \"I won't be a minute,\" Tremaine said. \"Just want to check on when the\n Bram property changed hands last.\"\n\n\n The man turned to Tremaine, pushing a drawer shut with his hip. \"Bram?\n He dead?\"\n\n\n \"Nothing like that. I just want to know when he bought the place.\"\n\n\n The man came over to the counter, eyeing Tremaine. \"He ain't going to\n sell, mister, if that's what you want to know.\"\n\n\n \"I want to know when he bought.\"\n\n\n The man hesitated, closed his jaw hard. \"Come back tomorrow,\" he said.\n\n\n Tremaine put a hand on the counter, looked thoughtful. \"I was hoping\n to save a trip.\" He lifted his hand and scratched the side of his jaw.\n A folded bill opened on the counter. The thin man's eyes darted toward\n it. His hand eased out, covered the bill. He grinned quickly.\n\n\n \"See what I can do,\" he said.\n\n\n It was ten minutes before he beckoned Tremaine over to the table where\n a two-foot-square book lay open. An untrimmed fingernail indicated a\n line written in faded ink:\n\n\n \"May 19. Acreage sold, One Dollar and other G&V consid. NW Quarter\n Section 24, Township Elsby. Bram. (see Vol. 9 & cet.)\"\n\n\n \"Translated, what does that mean?\" said Tremaine.\n\n\n \"That's the ledger for 1901; means Bram bought a quarter section on the\n nineteenth of May. You want me to look up the deed?\"\n\n\n \"No, thanks,\" Tremaine said. \"That's all I needed.\" He turned back to\n the door.\n\n\n \"What's up, mister?\" the clerk called after him. \"Bram in some kind of\n trouble?\"\n\n\n \"No. No trouble.\"\n\n\n The man was looking at the book with pursed lips. \"Nineteen-oh-one,\"\n he said. \"I never thought of it before, but you know, old Bram must be\n dern near to ninety years old. Spry for that age.\"\n\n\n \"I guess you're right.\"\n\n\n The clerk looked sideways at Tremaine. \"Lots of funny stories about\n old Bram. Useta say his place was haunted. You know; funny noises and\n lights. And they used to say there was money buried out at his place.\"\n\n\n \"I've heard those stories. Just superstition, wouldn't you say?\"\n\n\n \"Maybe so.\" The clerk leaned on the counter, assumed a knowing look.\n \"There's one story that's not superstition....\"\n\n\n Tremaine waited.\n\n\n \"You\u2014uh\u2014paying anything for information?\"\n\n\n \"Now why would I do that?\" Tremaine reached for the door knob.\n\n\n The clerk shrugged. \"Thought I'd ask. Anyway\u2014I can swear to this.\n Nobody in this town's ever seen Bram between sundown and sunup.\"\nUntrimmed sumacs threw late-afternoon shadows on the discolored stucco\n facade of the Elsby Public Library. Inside, Tremaine followed a\n paper-dry woman of indeterminate age to a rack of yellowed newsprint.\n\n\n \"You'll find back to nineteen-forty here,\" the librarian said. \"The\n older are there in the shelves.\"\n\n\n \"I want nineteen-oh-one, if they go back that far.\"\n\n\n The woman darted a suspicious look at Tremaine. \"You have to handle\n these old papers carefully.\"\n\n\n \"I'll be extremely careful.\" The woman sniffed, opened a drawer, leafed\n through it, muttering.\n\n\n \"What date was it you wanted?\"\n\n\n \"Nineteen-oh-one; the week of May nineteenth.\"\n\n\n The librarian pulled out a folded paper, placed it on the table,\n adjusted her glasses, squinted at the front page. \"That's it,\" she\n said. \"These papers keep pretty well, provided they're stored in the\n dark. But they're still flimsy, mind you.\"\n\n\n \"I'll remember.\" The woman stood by as Tremaine looked over the front\n page. The lead article concerned the opening of the Pan-American\n Exposition at Buffalo. Vice-President Roosevelt had made a speech.\n Tremaine leafed over, reading slowly.\n\n\n On page four, under a column headed\nCounty Notes\nhe saw the name Bram:\n\n\n Mr. Bram has purchased a quarter section of fine grazing land,\n north of town, together with a sturdy house, from J. P. Spivey of\n Elsby. Mr. Bram will occupy the home and will continue to graze a\n few head of stock. Mr. Bram, who is a newcomer to the county, has\n been a resident of Mrs. Stoate's Guest Home in Elsby for the past\n months.\n\n\n \"May I see some earlier issues; from about the first of the year?\"\n\n\n The librarian produced the papers. Tremaine turned the pages, read the\n heads, skimmed an article here and there. The librarian went back to\n her desk. An hour later, in the issue for July 7, 1900, an item caught\n his eye:\n\n\n A Severe Thunderstorm. Citizens of Elsby and the country were much\n alarmed by a violent cloudburst, accompanied by lightning and\n thunder, during the night of the fifth. A fire set in the pine\n woods north of Spivey's farm destroyed a considerable amount of\n timber and threatened the house before burning itself out along\n the river.\n\n\n The librarian was at Tremaine's side. \"I have to close the library now.\n You'll have to come back tomorrow.\"\n\n\n Outside, the sky was sallow in the west: lights were coming on in\n windows along the side streets. Tremaine turned up his collar against a\n cold wind that had risen, started along the street toward the hotel.\n\n\n A block away a black late-model sedan rounded a corner with a faint\n squeal of tires and gunned past him, a heavy antenna mounted forward\n of the left rear tail fin whipping in the slipstream. Tremaine stopped\n short, stared after the car.\n\n\n \"Damn!\" he said aloud. An elderly man veered, eyeing him sharply.\n Tremaine set off at a run, covered the two blocks to the hotel, yanked\n open the door to his car, slid into the seat, made a U-turn, and headed\n north after the police car.\nTwo miles into the dark hills north of the Elsby city limits, Tremaine\n rounded a curve. The police car was parked on the shoulder beside the\n highway just ahead. He pulled off the road ahead of it and walked back.\n The door opened. A tall figure stepped out.\n\n\n \"What's your problem, mister?\" a harsh voice drawled.\n\n\n \"What's the matter? Run out of signal?\"\n\n\n \"What's it to you, mister?\"\n\n\n \"Are you boys in touch with Grammond on the car set?\"\n\n\n \"We could be.\"\n\n\n \"Mind if I have a word with him? My name's Tremaine.\"\n\n\n \"Oh,\" said the cop, \"you're the big shot from Washington.\" He shifted\n chewing tobacco to the other side of his jaw. \"Sure, you can talk to\n him.\" He turned and spoke to the other cop, who muttered into the mike\n before handing it to Tremaine.\n\n\n The heavy voice of the State Police chief crackled. \"What's your beef,\n Tremaine?\"\n\n\n \"I thought you were going to keep your men away from Elsby until I gave\n the word, Grammond.\"\n\n\n \"That was before I knew your Washington stuffed shirts were holding out\n on me.\"\n\n\n \"It's nothing we can go to court with, Grammond. And the job you were\n doing might have been influenced if I'd told you about the Elsby angle.\"\n\n\n Grammond cursed. \"I could have put my men in the town and taken it\n apart brick by brick in the time\u2014\"\n\n\n \"That's just what I don't want. If our bird sees cops cruising, he'll\n go underground.\"\n\n\n \"You've got it all figured, I see. I'm just the dumb hick you boys use\n for the spade work, that it?\"\n\n\n \"Pull your lip back in. You've given me the confirmation I needed.\"\n\n\n \"Confirmation, hell! All I know is that somebody somewhere is punching\n out a signal. For all I know, it's forty midgets on bicycles, pedalling\n all over the damned state. I've got fixes in every county\u2014\"\n\n\n \"The smallest hyperwave transmitter Uncle Sam knows how to build weighs\n three tons,\" said Tremaine. \"Bicycles are out.\"\n\n\n Grammond snorted. \"Okay, Tremaine,\" he said. \"You're the boy with all\n the answers. But if you get in trouble, don't call me; call Washington.\"\nBack in his room, Tremaine put through a call.\n\n\n \"It looks like Grammond's not willing to be left out in the cold, Fred.\n Tell him if he queers this\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I don't know but what he might have something,\" the voice came back\n over the filtered hum. \"Suppose he smokes them out\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't go dumb on me, Fred. We're not dealing with West Virginia\n moonshiners.\"\n\n\n \"Don't tell me my job, Tremaine!\" the voice snapped. \"And don't try out\n your famous temper on me. I'm still in charge of this investigation.\"\n\n\n \"Sure. Just don't get stuck in some senator's hip pocket.\" Tremaine\n hung up the telephone, went to the dresser and poured two fingers of\n Scotch into a water glass. He tossed it down, then pulled on his coat\n and left the hotel.\n\n\n He walked south two blocks, turned left down a twilit side street. He\n walked slowly, looking at the weathered frame houses. Number 89 was a\n once-stately three-storied mansion overgrown with untrimmed vines, its\n windows squares of sad yellow light. He pushed through the gate in the\n ancient picket fence, mounted the porch steps and pushed the button\n beside the door, a dark panel of cracked varnish. It was a long minute\n before the door opened. A tall woman with white hair and a fine-boned\n face looked at him coolly.\n\n\n \"Miss Carroll,\" Tremaine said. \"You won't remember me, but I\u2014\"\n\n\n \"There is nothing whatever wrong with my faculties, James,\" Miss\n Carroll said calmly. Her voice was still resonant, a deep contralto.\n Only a faint quaver reflected her age\u2014close to eighty, Tremaine\n thought, startled.\n\n\n \"I'm flattered you remember me, Miss Carroll,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Come in.\" She led the way to a pleasant parlor set out with the\n furnishings of another era. She motioned Tremaine to a seat and took a\n straight chair across the room from him.\n\n\n \"You look very well, James,\" she said, nodding. \"I'm pleased to see\n that you've amounted to something.\"\n\n\n \"Just another bureaucrat, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\n \"You were wise to leave Elsby. There is no future here for a young man.\"\n\n\n \"I often wondered why you didn't leave, Miss Carroll. I thought, even\n as a boy, that you were a woman of great ability.\"\n\n\n \"Why did you come today, James?\" asked Miss Carroll.\n\n\n \"I....\" Tremaine started. He looked at the old lady. \"I want some\n information. This is an important matter. May I rely on your\n discretion?\"\n\n\n \"Of course.\"\n\n\n \"How long has Mr. Bram lived in Elsby?\"\nMiss Carroll looked at him for a long moment. \"Will what I tell you be\n used against him?\"\n\n\n \"There'll be nothing done against him, Miss Carroll ... unless it needs\n to be in the national interest.\"\n\n\n \"I'm not at all sure I know what the term 'national interest' means,\n James. I distrust these glib phrases.\"\n\n\n \"I always liked Mr. Bram,\" said Tremaine. \"I'm not out to hurt him.\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Bram came here when I was a young woman. I'm not certain of the\n year.\"\n\n\n \"What does he do for a living?\"\n\n\n \"I have no idea.\"\n\n\n \"Why did a healthy young fellow like Bram settle out in that isolated\n piece of country? What's his story?\"\n\n\n \"I'm ... not sure that anyone truly knows Bram's story.\"\n\n\n \"You called him 'Bram', Miss Carroll. Is that his first name ... or his\n last?\"\n\n\n \"That is his only name. Just ... Bram.\"\n\n\n \"You knew him well once, Miss Carroll. Is there anything\u2014\"\n\n\n A tear rolled down Miss Carroll's faded cheek. She wiped it away\n impatiently.\n\n\n \"I'm an unfulfilled old maid, James,\" she said. \"You must forgive me.\"\n\n\n Tremaine stood up. \"I'm sorry. Really sorry. I didn't mean to grill\n you. Miss Carroll. You've been very kind. I had no right....\"\n\n\n Miss Carroll shook her head. \"I knew you as a boy, James. I have\n complete confidence in you. If anything I can tell you about Bram will\n be helpful to you, it is my duty to oblige you; and it may help him.\"\n She paused. Tremaine waited.\n\n\n \"Many years ago I was courted by Bram. One day he asked me to go with\n him to his house. On the way he told me a terrible and pathetic tale.\n He said that each night he fought a battle with evil beings, alone, in\n a cave beneath his house.\"\n\n\n Miss Carroll drew a deep breath and went on. \"I was torn between pity\n and horror. I begged him to take me back. He refused.\" Miss Carroll\n twisted her fingers together, her eyes fixed on the long past. \"When\n we reached the house, he ran to the kitchen. He lit a lamp and threw\n open a concealed panel. There were stairs. He went down ... and left me\n there alone.\n\n\n \"I waited all that night in the carriage. At dawn he emerged. He tried\n to speak to me but I would not listen.\n\n\n \"He took a locket from his neck and put it into my hand. He told me to\n keep it and, if ever I should need him, to press it between my fingers\n in a secret way ... and he would come. I told him that until he would\n consent to see a doctor, I did not wish him to call. He drove me home.\n He never called again.\"\n\n\n \"This locket,\" said Tremaine, \"do you still have it?\"\n\n\n Miss Carroll hesitated, then put her hand to her throat, lifted a\n silver disc on a fine golden chain. \"You see what a foolish old woman I\n am, James.\"\n\n\n \"May I see it?\"\n\n\n She handed the locket to him. It was heavy, smooth. \"I'd like to\n examine this more closely,\" he said. \"May I take it with me?\"\n\n\n Miss Carroll nodded.\n\n\n \"There is one other thing,\" she said, \"perhaps quite meaningless....\"\n\n\n \"I'd be grateful for any lead.\"\n\n\n \"Bram fears the thunder.\"\nIII\n\n\n As Tremaine walked slowly toward the lighted main street of Elsby a car\n pulled to a stop beside him. Jess leaned out, peered at Tremaine and\n asked:\n\n\n \"Any luck, Jimmy?\"\n\n\n Tremaine shook his head. \"I'm getting nowhere fast. The Bram idea's a\n dud, I'm afraid.\"\n\n\n \"Funny thing about Bram. You know, he hasn't showed up yet. I'm getting\n a little worried. Want to run out there with me and take a look around?\"\n\n\n \"Sure. Just so I'm back by full dark.\"\n\n\n As they pulled away from the curb Jess said, \"Jimmy, what's this about\n State Police nosing around here? I thought you were playing a lone hand\n from what you were saying to me.\"\n\n\n \"I thought so too, Jess. But it looks like Grammond's a jump ahead of\n me. He smells headlines in this; he doesn't want to be left out.\"\n\n\n \"Well, the State cops could be mighty handy to have around. I'm\n wondering why you don't want 'em in. If there's some kind of spy ring\n working\u2014\"\n\n\n \"We're up against an unknown quantity. I don't know what's behind this\n and neither does anybody else. Maybe it's a ring of Bolsheviks ...\n and maybe it's something bigger. I have the feeling we've made enough\n mistakes in the last few years; I don't want to see this botched.\"\n\n\n The last pink light of sunset was fading from the clouds to the west as\n Jess swung the car through the open gate, pulled up under the old trees\n before the square-built house. The windows were dark. The two men got\n out, circled the house once, then mounted the steps and rapped on the\n door. There was a black patch of charred flooring under the window, and\n the paint on the wall above it was bubbled. Somewhere a cricket set up\n a strident chirrup, suddenly cut off. Jess leaned down, picked up an\n empty shotgun shell. He looked at Tremaine. \"This don't look good,\" he\n said. \"You suppose those fool boys...?\"\n\n\n He tried the door. It opened. A broken hasp dangled. He turned to\n Tremaine. \"Maybe this is more than kid stuff,\" he said. \"You carry a\n gun?\"\n\n\n \"In the car.\"\n\n\n \"Better get it.\"\n\n\n Tremaine went to the car, dropped the pistol in his coat pocket,\n rejoined Jess inside the house. It was silent, deserted. In the kitchen\n Jess flicked the beam of his flashlight around the room. An empty plate\n lay on the oilcloth-covered table.\n\n\n \"This place is empty,\" he said. \"Anybody'd think he'd been gone a week.\"\n\n\n \"Not a very cozy\u2014\" Tremaine broke off. A thin yelp sounded in the\n distance.\n\n\n \"I'm getting jumpy,\" said Jess. \"Dern hounddog, I guess.\"\n\n\n A low growl seemed to rumble distantly. \"What the devil's that?\"\n Tremaine said.\n\n\n Jess shone the light on the floor. \"Look here,\" he said. The ring of\n light showed a spatter of dark droplets all across the plank floor.\n\n\n \"That's blood, Jess....\" Tremaine scanned the floor. It was of broad\n slabs, closely laid, scrubbed clean but for the dark stains.\n\n\n \"Maybe he cleaned a chicken. This is the kitchen.\"\n\n\n \"It's a trail.\" Tremaine followed the line of drops across the floor.\n It ended suddenly near the wall.\n\n\n \"What do you make of it. Jimmy?\"\n\n\n A wail sounded, a thin forlorn cry, trailing off into silence. Jess\n stared at Tremaine. \"I'm too damned old to start believing in spooks,\"\n he said. \"You suppose those damn-fool boys are hiding here, playing\n tricks?\"\n\n\n \"I think.\" Tremaine said, \"that we'd better go ask Hull Gaskin a few\n questions.\"\nAt the station Jess led Tremaine to a cell where a lanky teen-age boy\n lounged on a steel-framed cot, blinking up at the visitor under a mop\n of greased hair.\n\n\n \"Hull, this is Mr. Tremaine,\" said Jess. He took out a heavy key, swung\n the cell door open. \"He wants to talk to you.\"\n\n\n \"I ain't done nothin,\" Hull said sullenly. \"There ain't nothin wrong\n with burnin out a Commie, is there?\"\n\n\n \"Bram's a Commie, is he?\" Tremaine said softly. \"How'd you find that\n out, Hull?\"\n\n\n \"He's a foreigner, ain't he?\" the youth shot back. \"Besides, we\n heard....\"\n\n\n \"What did you hear?\"\n\n\n \"They're lookin for the spies.\"\n\n\n \"Who's looking for spies?\"\n\n\n \"Cops.\"\n\n\n \"Who says so?\"\n\n\n The boy looked directly at Tremaine for an instant, flicked his eyes to\n the corner of the cell. \"Cops was talkin about 'em,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Spill it, Hull,\" the policeman said. \"Mr. Tremaine hasn't got all\n night.\"\n\n\n \"They parked out east of town, on 302, back of the woodlot. They called\n me over and asked me a bunch of questions. Said I could help 'em get\n them spies. Wanted to know all about any funny-actin people around\n hers.\"\n\n\n \"And you mentioned Bram?\"\n\n\n The boy darted another look at Tremaine. \"They said they figured the\n spies was out north of town. Well, Bram's a foreigner, and he's out\n that way, ain't he?\"\n\n\n \"Anything else?\"\n\n\n The boy looked at his feet.",
    "61405": "DOWN TO THE WORLDS OF MEN\nBY ALEXEI PANSHIN\nThe ancient rule was sink or swim\u2014swim\n\n in the miasma of a planet without\n\n spaceflight, or sink to utter destruction!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1963.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI\n\n\n The horses and packs were loaded before we went aboard the scoutship.\n The scout bay is no more than a great oversized airlock with a dozen\n small ships squatting over their tubes, but it was the last of the Ship\n that I might ever see, so I took a long final look from the top of the\n ramp.\n\n\n There were sixteen of us girls and thirteen boys. We took our places\n in the seats in the center of the scout. Riggy Allen made a joke that\n nobody bothered to laugh at, and then we were all silent. I was feeling\n lost and just beginning to enjoy it when Jimmy Dentremont came over to\n me. He's red-headed and has a face that makes him look about ten. An\n intelligent runt like me.\n\n\n He said what I expected. \"Mia, do you want to go partners if we can get\n together when we get down?\"\n\n\n I guess he thought that because we were always matched on study I liked\n him. Well, I did when I wasn't mad at him, but now I had that crack\n he'd made about being a snob in mind, so I said, \"Not likely. I want to\n come back alive.\" It wasn't fair, but it was a good crack and he went\n back to his place without saying anything.\n\n\n My name is Mia Havero. I'm fourteen, of course, or I wouldn't be\n telling this. I'm short, dark and scrawny, though I don't expect that\n scrawniness to last much longer. Mother is very good looking. In the\n meantime, I've got brains as a consolation.\n\n\n After we were all settled, George Fuhonin, the pilot, raised the ramps.\n We sat there for five minutes while they bled air out of our tube and\n then we just ... dropped. My stomach turned flips. We didn't have to\n leave that way, but George thinks it's fun to be a hot pilot.\n\n\n Thinking it over, I was almost sorry I'd been stinking to Jimmy D. He's\n the only competition I have my own age. The trouble is, you don't go\n partners with the competition, do you? Besides, there was still that\n crack about being a snob.\n\n\n The planet chosen for our Trial was called Tintera. The last contact\n the Ship had had with it\u2014and we were the ones who dropped them\u2014was\n almost 150 years ago. No contact since. That had made the Council\n debate a little before they dropped us there, but they decided it was\n all right in the end. It didn't make any practical difference to us\n kids because they never tell you anything about the place they're going\n to drop you. All I knew was the name. I wouldn't have known that much\n if Daddy weren't Chairman of the Council.\n\n\n I felt like crawling in a corner of the ship and crying, but nobody\n else was breaking down, so I didn't. I did feel miserable. I cried when\n I said good-by to Mother and Daddy\u2014a real emotional scene\u2014but that\n wasn't in public.\nIt wasn't the chance of not coming back that bothered me really,\n because I never believed that I wouldn't. The thought that made me\n unhappy was that I would have to be on a planet for a whole month.\n Planets make me feel wretched.\n\n\n The gravity is always wrong, for one thing. Either your arches and\n calves ache or every time you step you think you're going to trip on\n a piece of fluff and break your neck. There are vegetables everywhere\n and little grubby things just looking for\nyou\nto crawl on. If you\n can think of anything creepier than that, you've got a real nasty\n imagination. Worst of all, planets stink. Every single one smells\u2014I've\n been on enough to know that. A planet is all right for a Mud-eater, but\n not for me.\n\n\n We have a place in the Ship like that\u2014the Third Level\u2014but it's only a\n thousand square miles and any time it gets on your nerves you can go up\n a level or down a level and be back in civilization.\n\n\n When we reached Tintera, they started dropping us. We swung over the\n sea from the morning side and then dropped low over gray-green forested\n hills. Finally George spotted a clear area and dropped into it. They\n don't care what order you go in, so Jimmy D. jumped up, grabbed his\n gear and then led his horse down the ramp. I think he was still\n smarting from the slap I'd given him.\n\n\n In a minute we were airborne again. I wondered if I would ever see\n Jimmy\u2014if he would get back alive.\n\n\n It's no game we play. When we turn fourteen, they drop us on the\n nearest colonized planet and come back one month later. That may sound\n like fun to you, but a lot of us never come back alive.\n\n\n Don't think I was helpless. I'm hell on wheels. They don't let us grow\n for fourteen years and then kick us out to die. They prepare us. They\n do figure, though, that if you can't keep yourself alive by the time\n you're fourteen, you're too stupid, foolish or unlucky to be any use to\n the Ship. There's sense behind it. It means that everybody on the Ship\n is a person who can take care of himself if he has to. Daddy says that\n something has to be done in a closed society to keep the population\n from decaying mentally and physically, and this is it. And it helps to\n keep the population steady.\n\n\n I began to check my gear out\u2014sonic pistol, pickup signal so I could be\n found at the end of the month, saddle and cinches, food and clothes.\n Venie Morlock has got a crush on Jimmy D., and when she saw me start\n getting ready to go, she began to check her gear, too. At our next\n landing, I grabbed Ninc's reins and cut Venie out smoothly. It didn't\n have anything to do with Jimmy. I just couldn't stand to put off the\n bad moment any longer.\n\n\n The ship lifted impersonally away from Ninc and me like a rising bird,\n and in just a moment it was gone. Its gray-blue color was almost the\n color of the half-overcast sky, so I was never sure when I saw it last.\nII\n\n\n The first night was hell, I guess because I'm not used to having the\n lights out. That's when you really start to feel lonely, being alone in\n the dark. When the sun disappears, somehow you wonder in your stomach\n if it's really going to come back. But I lived through it\u2014one day in\n thirty gone.\n\n\n I rode in a spiral search pattern during the next two days. I had three\n things in mind\u2014stay alive, find people and find some of the others.\n The first was automatic. The second was to find out if there was a slot\n I could fit into for a month. If not, I would have to find a place to\n camp out, as nasty as that would be. The third was to join forces,\n though not with that meatball Jimmy D.\n\n\n No, he isn't really a meatball. The trouble is that I don't take\n nothing from nobody, especially him, and he doesn't take nothing from\n nobody, especially me. So we do a lot of fighting.\n\n\n I had a good month for Trial. My birthday is in November\u2014too close to\n Year End Holiday for my taste, but this year it was all right. It was\n spring on Tintera, but it was December in the Ship, and after we got\n back we had five days of Holiday to celebrate. It gave me something to\n look forward to.\n\n\n In two days of riding, I ran onto nothing but a few odd-looking\n animals. I shot one small one and ate it. It turned out to taste pretty\n good, though not as good as a slice from Hambone No. 4, to my mind the\n best meat vat on the Ship. I've eaten things so gruey-looking that I\n wondered that anybody had the guts to try them in the first place and\n they've turned out to taste good. And I've seen things that looked good\n that I couldn't keep on my stomach. So I guess I was lucky.\n\n\n On the third day, I found the road. I brought Ninc down off the\n hillside, losing sight of the road in the trees, and then reaching\n it in the level below. It was narrow and made of sand spread over a\n hard base. Out of the marks in the sand, I could pick out the tracks\n of horses and both narrow and wide wheels. Other tracks I couldn't\n identify.\n\n\n One of the smartest moves in history was to include horses when\n they dropped the colonies. I say \"they\" because, while we did the\n actual dropping, the idea originated with the whole evac plan back on\n Earth. Considering how short a time it was in which the colonies were\n established, there was not time to set up industry, so they had to have\n draft animals.\n\n\n The first of the Great Ships was finished in 2025. One of the eight,\n as well as the two that were being built then, went up with everything\n else in the Solar System in 2041. In that sixteen years 112 colonies\n were planted. I don't know how many of those planets had animals that\ncould\nhave been substituted but, even if they had, they would have\n had to be domesticated from scratch. That would have been stupid. I'll\n bet that half the colonies would have failed if they hadn't had horses.\nWe'd come in from the west over the ocean, so I traveled east on the\n road. That much water makes me nervous, and roads have to go somewhere.\n\n\n I came on my first travelers three hours later. I rounded a tree-lined\n bend, ducking an overhanging branch, and pulled Ninc to a stop. There\n were five men on horseback herding a bunch of the ugliest creatures\n alive.\n\n\n They were green and grotesque. They had squat bodies, long limbs and\n knobby bulges at their joints. They had square, flat animal masks for\n faces. But they walked on their hind legs and they had paws that were\n almost hands, and that was enough to make them seem almost human. They\n made a wordless, chilling, lowing sound as they milled and plodded\n along.\n\n\n I started Ninc up again and moved slowly to catch up with them. All the\n men on horseback had guns in saddle boots. They looked as nervous as\n cats with kittens. One of them had a string of packhorses on a line\n and he saw me and called to another who seemed to be the leader. That\n one wheeled his black horse and rode back toward me.\n\n\n He was a middle-aged man, maybe as old as my Daddy. He was large and he\n had a hard face. Normal enough, but hard. He pulled to a halt when we\n reached each other, but I kept going. He had to come around and follow\n me. I believe in judging a person by his face. A man can't help the\n face he owns, but he can help the expression he wears on it. If a man\n looks mean, I generally believe that he is. This one looked mean. That\n was why I kept riding.\n\n\n He said, \"What be you doing out here, boy? Be you out of your head?\n There be escaped Losels in these woods.\"\n\n\n I told you I hadn't finished filling out yet, but I hadn't thought it\n was that bad. I wasn't ready to make a fight over the point, though.\n Generally, I can't keep my bloody mouth shut, but now I didn't say\n anything. It seemed smart.\n\n\n \"Where be you from?\" he asked.\n\n\n I pointed to the road behind us.\n\n\n \"And where be you going?\"\n\n\n I pointed ahead. No other way to go.\n\n\n He seemed exasperated. I have that effect sometimes. Even on Mother and\n Daddy, who should know better.\n\n\n We were coming up on the others now, and the man said, \"Maybe you'd\n better ride on from here with us. For protection.\"\n\n\n He had an odd way of twisting his sounds, almost as though he had a\n mouthful of mush. I wondered whether he were just an oddball or whether\n everybody here spoke the same way. I'd never heard International\n English spoken any way but one, even on the planet Daddy made me visit\n with him.\n\n\n One of the other outriders came easing by then. I suppose they'd been\n watching us all the while. He called to the hard man.\n\n\n \"He be awfully small, Horst. I doubt me a Losel'd even notice him at\n all. We mought as well throw him back again.\"\n\n\n The rider looked at me. When I didn't dissolve in terror as he\n expected, he shrugged and one of the other men laughed.\n\n\n The hard man said to the others, \"This boy will be riding along with us\n to Forton for protection.\"\n\n\n I looked down at the plodding, unhappy creatures they were driving\n along and one looked back at me with dull, expressionless golden eyes.\n I felt uncomfortable.\n\n\n I said, \"I don't think so.\"\n\n\n What the man did then surprised me. He said, \"I do think so,\" and\n reached for the rifle in his saddle boot.\n\n\n I whipped my sonic pistol out so fast that he was caught leaning over\n with the rifle half out. His jaw dropped. He knew what I held and he\n didn't want to be fried.\n\n\n I said, \"Ease your rifles out and drop them gently to the ground.\"\n\n\n They did, watching me all the while with wary expressions.\n\n\n When all the rifles were on the ground, I said, \"All right, let's go.\"\n\n\n They didn't want to move. They didn't want to leave the rifles. I\n could see that. Horst didn't say anything. He just watched me with\n narrowed eyes. But one of the others held up a hand and in wheedling\n tones said, \"Look here, kid....\"\n\n\n \"Shut up,\" I said, in as mean a voice as I could muster, and he did. It\n surprised me. I didn't think I sounded\nthat\nmean. I decided he just\n didn't trust the crazy kid not to shoot.\n\n\n After twenty minutes of easy riding for us and hard walking for the\n creatures, I said, \"If you want your rifles, you can go back and get\n them now.\" I dug my heels into Ninc's sides and rode on. At the next\n bend I looked back and saw four of them holding their packhorses and\n the creatures still while one beat a dust-raising retreat down the road.\n\n\n I put this episode in the \"file and hold for analysis\" section in my\n mind and rode on, feeling good. I think I even giggled once. Sometimes\n I even convince myself that I'm hell on wheels.\nIII\n\n\n When I was nine, my Daddy gave me a painted wooden doll that my\n great-grandmother brought from Earth. The thing is that inside it,\n nestled one in another, are eleven more dolls, each one smaller than\n the last. I like to watch people when they open it for the first time.\n\n\n My face must have been like that as I rode along the road.\n\n\n The country leveled into a great rolling valley and the trees gave\n way to great farms and fields. In the fields, working, were some of\n the green creatures, which surprised me since the ones I'd seen before\n hadn't seemed smart enough to count to one, let alone do any work.\n\n\n But it relieved me. I thought they might have been eating them or\n something.\n\n\n I passed two crossroads and started to meet more people, but nobody\n questioned me. I met people on horseback, and twice I met trucks moving\n silently past. And I overtook a wagon driven by the oldest man I've\n seen in my life. He waved to me, and I waved back.\n\n\n Near the end of the afternoon I came to the town, and there I received\n a jolt that sickened me.\n\n\n By the time I came out on the other side, I was sick. My hands were\n cold and sweaty and my head was spinning, and I wanted to kick Ninc to\n a gallop.\n\n\n I rode slowly in, looking all around, missing nothing. The town was all\n stone, wood and brick. Out of date. Out of time, really. There were\n no machines more complicated than the trucks I'd seen earlier. At the\n edge of town, I passed a newspaper office with a headline pasted in the\n window\u2014INVASION! I remember that. I wondered about it.\n\n\n But I looked most closely at the people. In all that town, I didn't\n see one girl over ten years old and no grown-up women at all. There\n were little kids, there were boys and there were men, but no girls. All\n the boys and men wore pants, and so did I, which must have been why\n Horst and his buddies assumed I was a boy. It wasn't flattering; but\n I decided I'd not tell anybody different until I found what made the\n clocks tick on this planet.\n\n\n But that wasn't what bothered me. It was the kids. My God! They\n swarmed. I saw a family come out of a house\u2014a father and\nfour\nchildren. It was the most foul thing I've ever seen. It struck me\n then\u2014these people were Free Birthers! I felt a wave of nausea and I\n closed my eyes until it passed.\nThe first thing you learn in school is that if it weren't for idiot and\n criminal people like these, Earth would never have been destroyed. The\n evacuation would never have had to take place, and eight billion people\n wouldn't have died. There wouldn't have\nbeen\neight billion people.\n But, no. They bred and they spread and they devoured everything in\n their path like a cancer. They gobbled up all the resources that Earth\n had and crowded and shoved one another until the final war came.\n\n\n I am lucky. My great-great-grandparents were among those who had enough\n foresight to see what was coming. If it hadn't been for them and some\n others like them, there wouldn't be any humans left anywhere. And I\n wouldn't be here. That may not scare you, but it scares me.\n\n\n What happened before, when people didn't use their heads and wound up\n blowing the Solar System apart, is something nobody should forget. The\n older people don't let us forget. But these people had, and that the\n Council should know.\n\n\n For the first time since I landed on Tintera, I felt\nreally\nfrightened. There was too much going on that I didn't understand. I\n felt a blind urge to get away, and when I reached the edge of town, I\n whomped Ninc a good one and gave him his head.\n\n\n I let him run for almost a mile before I pulled him down to a walk\n again. I couldn't help wishing for Jimmy D. Whatever else he is, he's\n smart and brains I needed.\n\n\n How do you find out what's going on? Eavesdrop? That's a lousy method.\n For one thing, people can't be depended on to talk about the things you\n want to hear. For another, you're likely to get caught. Ask somebody?\n Who? Make the mistake of bracing a fellow like Horst and you might wind\n up with a sore head and an empty pocket. The best thing I could think\n of was to find a library, but that might be a job.\n\n\n I'd had two bad shocks on this day, but they weren't the last. In the\n late afternoon, when the sun was starting to sink and a cool wind was\n starting to ripple the tree leaves, I saw the scoutship high in the\n sky. The dying sun colored it a deep red. Back again? I wondered what\n had gone wrong.\n\n\n I reached down into my saddlebag and brought out my contact signal.\n The scoutship swung up in the sky in a familiar movement calculated to\n drop the stomach out of everybody aboard. George Fuhonin's style. I\n triggered the signal, my heart turning flips all the while. I didn't\n know why he was back, but I wasn't really sorry.\n\n\n The ship swung around until it was coming back on a path almost over my\n head, going in the same direction. Then it went into a slip and started\n bucking so hard that I knew this wasn't hot piloting at all, just plain\n idiot stutter-fingered stupidity at the controls. As it skidded by me\n overhead, I got a good look at it and knew that it wasn't one of ours.\n Not too different, but not ours.\nOne more enigma. Where was it from? Not here. Even if you know how, and\n we wouldn't tell these Mud-eaters how, a scoutship is something that\n takes an advanced technology to build.\nI felt defeated and tired. Not much farther along the road, I came to\n a campsite with two wagons pulled in for the night, and I couldn't\n help but pull in myself. The campsite was large and had two permanent\n buildings on it. One was a well enclosure and the other was little more\n than a high-walled pen. It didn't even have a roof.\n\n\n I set up camp and ate my dinner. In the wagon closest to me were a man,\n his wife and their three children. The kids were running around and\n playing, and one of them ran close to the high-walled pen. His father\n came and pulled him away.\n\n\n The kids weren't to blame for their parents, but when one of them said\n hello to me, I didn't even answer. I know how lousy I would feel if I\n had two or three brothers and sisters, but it didn't strike me until\n that moment that it wouldn't even seem out of the ordinary to these\n kids. Isn't that horrible?\n\n\n About the time I finished eating, and before it grew dark, the old man\n I had seen earlier in the day drove his wagon in. He fascinated me. He\n had white hair, something I had read about in stories but had never\n seen before.\n\n\n When nightfall came, they started a large fire. Everybody gathered\n around. There was singing for awhile, and then the father of the\n children tried to pack them off to bed. But they weren't ready to go,\n so the old man started telling them a story. In the old man's odd\n accent, and sitting there in the campfire light surrounded by darkness,\n it seemed just right.\n\n\n It was about an old witch named Baba Yaga who lived in the forest in\n a house that stood on chicken legs. She was the nasty stepmother of a\n nice little girl, and to get rid of the kid, she sent her on a phony\n errand into the deep dark woods at nightfall. I could appreciate the\n poor girl's position. All the little girl had to help her were the\n handkerchief, the comb and the pearl that she had inherited from her\n dear dead mother. But, as it turned out, they were just enough to\n defeat nasty old Baba Yaga and bring the girl safely home.\n\n\n I wished for the same for myself.\n\n\n The old man had just finished and they were starting to drag the kids\n off to bed when there was a commotion on the road at the edge of the\n camp. I looked but my eyes were adjusted to the light of the fire and I\n couldn't see far into the dark.\n\n\n A voice there said, \"I'll be damned if I'll take another day like this\n one, Horst. We should have been here hours ago. It be your fault we're\n not.\"\n\n\n Horst growled a retort. I decided that it was time for me to leave the\n campfire. I got up and eased away as Horst and his men came up to the\n fire, and cut back to where Ninc was parked. I grabbed up my blankets\n and mattress and started to roll them up. I had a pretty good idea now\n what they used the high-walled pen for.\n\n\n I should have known that they would have to pen the animals up for the\n night. I should have used my head. I hadn't and now it was time to take\n leave.\n\n\n I never got the chance.\nI was just heaving the saddle up on Ninc when I felt a hand on my\n shoulder and I was swung around.\n\n\n \"Well, well. Horst, look who we have here,\" he called. It was the one\n who'd made the joke about me being beneath the notice of a Losel. He\n was alone with me now, but with that call the others would be up fast.\n\n\n I brought the saddle around as hard as I could and then up, and he\n went down. He started to get up again, so I dropped the saddle on him\n and reached inside my jacket for my gun. Somebody grabbed me then from\n behind and pinned my arms to my side.\n\n\n I opened my mouth to scream\u2014I have a good scream\u2014but a rough smelly\n hand clamped down over it before I had a chance to get more than a\n lungful of air. I bit down hard\u20145000 lbs. psi, I'm told\u2014but he\n didn't let me go. I started to kick, but Horst jerked me off my feet\n and dragged me off.\n\n\n When we were behind the pen and out of earshot of the fire, he stopped\n dragging me and dropped me in a heap. \"Make any noise,\" he said, \"and\n I'll hurt you.\"\n\n\n That was a silly way to put it, but somehow it said more than if he'd\n threatened to break my arm or my head. It left him a latitude of things\n to do if he pleased. He examined his hand. There was enough moonlight\n for that. \"I ought to club you anyway,\" he said.\n\n\n The one I'd dropped the saddle on came up then. The others were putting\n the animals in the pen. He started to kick me, but Horst stopped him.\n\n\n \"No,\" he said. \"Look through the kid's gear, bring the horse and what\n we can use.\"\n\n\n The other one didn't move. \"Get going, Jack,\" Horst said in a menacing\n tone and they stood toe to toe for a long moment before Jack finally\n backed down. It seemed to me that Horst wasn't so much objecting to me\n being kicked, but was rather establishing who did the kicking in his\n bunch.\n\n\n But I wasn't done yet. I was scared, but I still had the pistol under\n my jacket.\n\n\n Horst turned back to me and I said, \"You can't do this and get away\n with it.\"\n\n\n He said, \"Look, boy. You may not know it, but you be in a lot of\n trouble. So don't give me a hard time.\"\n\n\n He still thought I was a boy. It was not time to correct him, but I\n didn't like to see the point go unchallenged. It was unflattering.\n\n\n \"The courts won't let you get away with this,\" I said. I'd passed\n a courthouse in the town with a carved motto over the doors: EQUAL\n JUSTICE UNDER THE LAW or TRUTH OUR SHIELD AND JUSTICE OUR SWORD or\n something stuffy like that.\n\n\n He laughed, not a phony, villian-type laugh, but a real laugh, so I\n knew I'd goofed.\n\n\n \"Boy, boy. Don't talk about the courts. I be doing you a favor. I be\n taking what I can use of your gear, but I be letting you go. You go to\n court and they'll take everything and lock you up besides. I be leaving\n you your freedom.\"\n\n\n \"Why would they be doing that?\" I asked. I slipped my hand under my\n jacket.\n\n\n \"Every time you open your mouth you shout that you be off one of the\n Ships,\" Horst said. \"That be enough. They already have one of you brats\n in jail in Forton.\"\n\n\n I was about to bring my gun out when up came Jack leading Ninc, with\n all my stuff loaded on. I mentally thanked him.\n\n\n He said, \"The kid's got some good equipment. But I can't make out what\n this be for.\" He held out my pickup signal.\n\n\n Horst looked at it, then handed it back. \"Throw it away,\" he said.\n\n\n I leveled my gun at them\u2014Hell on Wheels strikes again! I said, \"Hand\n that over to me.\"\n\n\n Horst made a disgusted sound.\n\n\n \"Don't make any noise,\" I said, \"or you'll fry. Now hand it over.\"\n\n\n I stowed it away, then paused with one hand on the leather horn of the\n saddle. \"What's the name of the kid in jail in Forton.\"\n\n\n \"I can't remember,\" he said. \"But it be coming to me. Hold on.\"\n\n\n I waited. Then suddenly my arm was hit a numbing blow from behind\n and the gun went flying. Jack pounced after it and Horst said, \"Good\n enough,\" to the others who'd come up behind me.\n\n\n I felt like a fool.\n\n\n Horst stalked over and got the signal. He dropped it on the ground and\n said in a voice far colder than mine could ever be, because it was\n natural and mine wasn't, \"The piece be yours.\" Then he tromped on it\n until it cracked and fell apart.\n\n\n Then he said, \"Pull a gun on me twice. Twice.\" He slapped me so hard\n that my ears rang. \"You dirty little punk.\"\n\n\n I said calmly, \"You big louse.\"\n\n\n It was a time I would have done better to keep my mouth shut. All I can\n remember is a flash of pain as his fist crunched against the side of my\n face and then nothing.\n\n\n Brains are no good if you don't use them.",
    "63640": "JUPITER'S JOKE\nBy A. L. HALEY\nCasey Ritter, the guy who never turned\n \ndown a dare, breathed a prayer to the gods\n \nof idiots and spacemen, and headed in toward\n \nthe great red spot of terrible Jupiter.\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Fall 1954.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThose methane and ammonia planets, take it from me, they're the\n dead-end of creation, and why the Old Man ever thought them up I'll\n never know. I never thought I'd mess around any of them, but things\n can sure happen. A man can get himself backed into a corner in this\n little old solar system. It just ain't big enough for a gent of scope\n and talent; and the day the Solar System Customs caught me red-handed\n smuggling Kooleen crystals in from Mars, I knew I was in that corner,\n and sewed up tight.\n\n\n Sure, the crystals are deadly, but I was smuggling them legitimately,\n in a manner of speaking, for this doctor to experiment with. He wasn't\n going to sell them for dope. But\u2014and this was the 'but' that was\n likely to deprive the System of my activities\u2014even experimenting with\n them was illegal even if it needed to be done; also, I had promised not\n to rat on him before taking the job.\n\n\n Well, Casey Ritter may be a lot of things we won't mention, but he\n doesn't rat on his clients. So there I was, closeted with the ten\n members of the S.S. Customs Court, getting set to hear the gavel\n fall and the head man intone the sentence that would take me out of\n circulation for a long, long time. And instead, blast me, if they\n didn't foul me with this trip to good old Jupiter.\n\n\n I didn't get it at first. I'd argued with 'em, but inside I'd been all\n set for the sentence, and even sort of reconciled to it. I could even\n hear the words in my mind. But they didn't match what the judge was\n saying. I stood there gaping like a beached fish while I sorted it out.\n Then I croaked, \"Jupiter! What for? Are you running outa space in stir?\n Want to choke me to death in chlorine instead?\" Being civil to the\n court didn't seem important just then. Jupiter was worse than the pen,\n a lot worse. Jupiter was a death sentence.\n\n\n The senior judge rapped sharply with his gavel. He frowned me down and\n then nodded at the judge on his right. This bird, a little old hank of\n dried-up straw, joined his fingertips carefully, cleared his scrawny\n throat, and told me what for.\n\n\n \"You've no doubt heard tales of the strange population of Jupiter,\"\n he said. \"Every spaceman has, I am sure. Insect-like creatures who\n manifestly migrated there from some other system and who inhabit\n the Red Spot of the planet, floating in some kind of artificial\n anti-gravity field in the gaseous portion of the atmosphere\u2014\"\n\n\n I snorted. \"Aw, hell, judge, that's just one of those screwy fairy\n tales! How could any\u2014\"\n\n\n The senior judge rapped ferociously, and I skidded to a halt. Our\n little story teller patiently cleared his skinny throat again.\n \"I assure you it is no fairy tale. We possess well-authenticated\n photographs of these inhabitants, and if you are prepared to visit them\n and in some way worm from them the secret of their anti-gravity field,\n the government stands ready to issue you a full pardon as well as a\n substantial monetary reward. Your talents, Mr. Ritter, seem, shall we\n say, eminently suited to the task.\"\nHe beamed at me. I looked around. They were all beaming. At me!\n Suddenly I smelled a rat as big as an elephant. That whole Kooleen\n caper: Had it been just a trap to lead me straight to this? I hadn't\n been able to figure how they'd cracked my setup....\n\n\n At the thought my larynx froze up tight. This was worse than I'd\n thought. Government men trapping me and then beaming at me. And a full\n pardon. And a reward. Oh, no! I told myself, it wasn't possible. Not\n when I already had more counts against me than a cur has fleas. Not\n unless it was a straight suicide mission!\n\n\n I feebly massaged my throat. \"Pictures?\" I whispered. \"Show me 'em.\"\n Crude, but it was all I could squeeze out.\n\n\n I squeezed out more when I saw those pictures, though. Those\n inhabitants were charming, just charming if you like scorpions. Well,\n a cross between a scorpion and a grasshopper, to be accurate. Floating\n among that red stuff, they showed up a kind of sickly purple turning to\n gangrene around the edges.\n\n\n The bleat of anguish that accompanied my first view of those beauties\n had taken my voice again. \"How big?\" I whispered.\n\n\n He shrugged, trying for nonchalance. \"About the size of a man, I\n believe.\"\n\n\n I raised my shrinking head. \"Take me to jail!\" I said firmly, and\n collapsed onto my chair.\n\n\n A crafty-eyed buzzard across the table leaned toward me. \"So this is\n the great Casey Ritter, daredevil of the Solar System!\" he sneered.\n \"Never loses a bet, never turns down a dare!\"\n\n\n I shuddered. \"You're telling that one! And besides, a man's got to draw\n the line somewhere. And I'm drawing it right here. Take me to jail!\"\n\n\n They were really stumped. They hadn't expected me to take this attitude\n at all. No doubt they had it figured that I'd gratefully throw myself\n into a sea of ammonia among man-size scorpions just for the hell of\n it. Nuts! After all, in the pen a man can eat and breathe, and a guard\n won't reach in and nip off an arm or leg while he's got his back\n turned. How stupid could they get?\n\n\n When I finally wore them down and got to my little cell, I looked\n around it with a feeling of real coziness. I even patted the walls\n chummily and snapped a salute at the guard. It makes me grind my molars\n now to think of it. The way that bunch of stuffed shirts in the S.S.C.\n made a gold-barred chimpanzee out of me has broken my spirit and\n turned me into an honest trader. Me, Casey Ritter, slickest slicker in\n the Solar System, led like a precious infant right where I'd flatly\n refused to go! In plain English, I underestimated the enemy. Feeling\n safe and secure in the grip of the good old Iron College, I relaxed.\n\n\n At this strategic point, the enemy planted a stoolie on me. Not in my\n cell block. They were too smart for that. But we met at recreation, and\n his mug seemed familiar, like a wisp of smoke where no smoke has got a\n right to be; and after awhile I braced him.\n\n\n I was right. I'd met the shrimp before when I was wound up in an\n asteroid real estate racket. Pard Hoskins was his alias, and he had the\n tag of being a real slick operator. We swapped yarns for about a week\n when we met, and then I asked him what's his rap this trip.\n\n\n \"Oh, a pretty good jolt if they can keep hold of me,\" he says. \"I just\n made a pass at the Killicut Emeralds, that's all, and got nabbed.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, no!\" I moaned. \"What were you trying to do, start a feud between\n us and Mars?\"\n\n\n He shrugged, but his little black-currant eyes began to sparkle with\n real passion, the high voltage kind that only a woman in a million, or\n a million in a bank, can kindle in a guy. \"Buddy,\" he said reverently,\n \"I'd start more than that just to get me mitts on them stones again!\n Why, you ain't never seen jools till you've seen them! Big as hen's\n eggs, an even dozen of 'em; and flawless, I'm a-shoutin', not a flaw!\"\n His eyes watered at the memory, yearning like a hound-dog's over a\n fresh scent.\n\n\n I couldn't believe it. Those emeralds were in the inner shrine of the\n super-sacred, super-secret temple of the cavern-dwelling tribe of\n Killicuts on Mars\u2014the real aborigines. Bleachies, we call them, sort\n of contemptuously; but those Bleachies are a rough lot when they're\n mad, and if Pard had really got near those emeralds, he should be\n nothing but a heap of cleaned bones by now. Either he was the world's\n champion liar or its bravest son, and either way I took my hat off to\n him.\n\n\n \"How'd you make the getaway?\" I asked, taking him at his word.\n\n\n He looked loftily past me. \"Sorry. Gotta keep that a secret. Likewise\n where I cached 'em.\"\n\n\n \"Cached what?\"\n\n\n \"The rocks, stupe.\"\n\n\n I hardly heard the cut. \"You mean you really did get away with them?\"\n My jaw must've been hanging down a foot, because I'd just been playing\n along with him, not really believing him, and now all of a sudden I\n somehow knew that he'd really lifted those emeralds. But how? It was\n impossible. I'd investigated once myself.\n\n\n He nodded and then moved casually away. I looked up and saw a guard\n coming.\n\n\n That night I turned on my hard prison cot until my bones were so much\n jelly, trying to figure that steal. The next morning I got up burning\n with this fever for information, only to find that Pard had got himself\n put in solitary for mugging a guard, and that really put the heat on\n me. I chewed my fingernails down to the quick by the time he got out a\n week later.\nBy that time he really had me hooked. I'd of sworn he was leveling\n with me. But he wouldn't tell me how he'd worked the steal. Instead,\n he opened up on the trade he'd booked for the string. He said, \"When I\n chisel me way outa this squirrel cage, I'm gonna hit fer good old Jupe\n and sell 'em to Akroida. She's nuts about jools. What that old girl\n won't give me fer 'em\u2014\" He whistled appreciatively, thinking about it.\n\n\n \"Jupiter!\" I goggled at him. \"Akroida! Who's she?\"\n\n\n He looked at me as if I hadn't yet got out from under the rock where he\n was sure I'd been born. \"Don't you know nothin', butterhead?\"\n\n\n From him I took it. I even waited patiently till the master spoke\n again. The memory still makes me fry.\n\n\n \"Akroida,\" he explained in his own sweet time, \"is the queen-scorp\n of them idiotic scorpions that lives on Jupiter. I sold her the\n Halcyon Diamond that disappeared from the World Museum five years ago,\n remember?\" He winked broadly. \"It come from Mars in the first place,\n you know. Mars! What a place fer jools! Damn desert's lousy with 'em,\n if it wasn't so much trouble to dig 'em out\u2014\" He went off into a dream\n about the rocks on Mars but I jerked him back.\n\n\n \"You mean those scorpions have really got brains?\"\n\n\n \"Brains!\" he snorted. \"Have they got brains! Why, they're smarter than\n people! And not ferocious, neither, in spite of how they look, if you\n just leave 'em alone. That's all they want, just to be left alone.\n Peace an' quiet, and lots of methane and ammonia and arsenic, that's\n fer them. Besides, the space suit rig you got to wear, they can't bite\n you. Akroida's not a bad old girl. Partial to arsenic on her lettuce,\n so I brought her a hundred pounds of the stuff, an' she went fer that\n almost like it was diamonds, too. Did I rate around there fer awhile!\"\n He sighed regretfully. \"But then I went and made her mad, an' I'm kinda\n persona non grata there right now. By the time I gnaw outa this here\n cheese trap, though, I figger she'll be all cooled off and ready fer\n them emeralds.\"\n\n\n I went back to my cot that night, and this time instead of biting my\n nails, I bit myself. So I faced it. Casey Ritter lost his nerve, and\n along with it, the chance of a lifetime. A better man than me had\n already penetrated the Great Red Spot of old Jupiter and come out\n alive. That thought ate me to the quick, and I began to wonder if it\n was too late, after all. I could hardly wait for morning to come, so\n that I could pry more information out of Pard Hoskins.\n\n\n But I didn't see Pard for a few days. And then, a week later, a group\n of lifers made a break that didn't jell, and the whole bunch was locked\n up in the blockhouse, the special building reserved for escapees. Pard\n Hoskins was in the bunch. He'd never get out of there, and he knew it.\n So did I.\n\n\n For three more days I worked down my knuckles, my nails being gone,\n while I sat around all hunched up, wondering feverishly if Pard would\n make a deal about those emeralds. Then I broke down and sent out a\n letter to the S.S.C.\n\n\n The Big Sneer of the conference table promptly dropped in on me,\n friendly as a bottle of strychnine. But for a lad headed for Jupiter\n that was good training, so I sneered right back at him, explained the\n caper, and we both paid a visit to Pard. In two days the deal was made\n and the caper set up. There were a few bits of info that Pard had to\n shell out, like where the emeralds were, and how to communicate with\n those scorpions, and how he'd made Akroida mad.\n\n\n \"I put on a yeller slicker,\" he confessed sadly. \"That there ammonia\n mist was eatin' into the finish on my spacesuit, so I draped this\n here slicker around me to sorta fancy up the rig before goin' in to\n an audience with the old rip.\" He shook his head slowly. \"The kid\n that took me in was colorblind, so I didn't have no warning at all.\n I found out that them scorpions can't stand yeller. It just plain\n drives them nuts! Thought they'd chaw me up and spit me out into the\n chlorine before I could get outa the damn thing. If my colorblind pal\n hadn't helped me, they'd of done it, too. And Akroida claimed I done it\n a-purpose to upset her.\"\n\n\n Then he winked at me. \"But then I got off in a corner and cooked up\n some perfume that drives them nuts the other way; sorta frantic with\n ecstasy, like the book says. Didn't have a chance to try it on Akroida,\n though. She wouldn't give me another audience. It's in the stuff they\n cleaned outa me room: a poiple bottle with a bright green stopper.\"\n\n\n He ruminated a few minutes. \"Tell you what, chump. Make them shell out\n with a green an' poiple spacesuit\u2014them's the real Jupiter colors\u2014an'\n put just a touch o' that there perfume on the outside of it. Akroida'll\n do anything fer you if she just gets a whiff. Just anything! But\n remember, don't use but a drop. It's real powerful.\"\nII\n\n\n Real powerful, said the man. What an understatement! But the day I was\n set adrift in that sea of frozen ammonia clouds mixed with nice cozy\n methane gas I sure prayed for it to be powerful, and I clutched that\n tiny bottle like that boy Aladdin clutching his little old lamp.\n\n\n I'd had a lot of cooperation getting that far. An Earth patrol had\n slipped down onto the Red Desert of Mars and picked up the Killicut\n Emeralds from where Pard Hoskins had cached them; and safe out in space\n again, we had pored over that string of green headlights practically\n slobbering. But the Big Sneer of the S.S.C., the fellow that had got\n me into this caper, was right there to take the joy out of it all and\n to remind me that this was public service, strictly.\n\n\n \"These\u2014\" he had proclaimed with a disdainful flourish, like a placer\n miner pointing to a batch of fool's gold\u2014\"These jewels are as nothing,\n Ritter, compared with the value of the secret you are to buy with\n them. And be assured that if you're man enough to effect the trade\u2014\"\n He paused, his long nose twitching cynically\u2014\"IF you succeed, your\n reward will be triple what you could get for them in any market. Added\n to which, IF you succeed, you will be a free man.\"\n\n\n That twitch of the nose riled me no little. \"I ain't failed yet!\" I\n snarled at him. \"Just you wait till I do, feller!\" I slipped the string\n of emeralds back into its little safe. \"Instead of sniping at me, why\n don't you get that brain busy and set our rendezvous?\"\n\n\n With that we got down to business and fixed a meeting point out on\n Jupiter's farthest moon; then they took me in to the edge of Jupiter's\n ice-cloud and turned me loose in a peanut of a space boat with old Jupe\n looming ahead bigger than all outdoors and the Red Spot dead ahead. I\n patted my pretty enameled suit, which was a study in paris green and\n passionate purple.\n\n\n I patted the three hundred pounds of arsenic crystals for Akroida and\n anyone else I might have to bribe. I anxiously examined my suit's air\n and water containers and the heating unit that would keep them in\n their proper state. I had already gone over the space boat. Yeah, I\n was as nervous as a cat with new kittens. Feeling again for my little\n bottle of horrid stench, I breathed a prayer to the god of idiots and\n spacemen, and headed in. The big ship was long gone, and I felt like a\n mighty small and naked microbe diving into the Pacific Ocean.\n\n\n That famous Red Spot was that big, too. It kept expanding until the\n whole universe was a fierce, raw luminous red. Out beyond it at first\n there had been fringes of snow-white frozen ammonia, but now it was all\n dyed redder than Mars. Then I took the plunge right into it. Surprise!\n The stuff was plants! Plants as big as meadows, bright red, floating\n around in those clouds of frozen ammonia like seaweed! Then I noticed\n that the ammonia around them wasn't frozen any more and peeked at the\n outside thermometer I couldn't believe it. It was above zero. Then I\n forgot about the temperature because it dawned on me that I was lost. I\n couldn't see a thing but drifting ammonia fog and those tangles of red\n floating plants like little islands all around. Cutting down the motor,\n I eased along.\n\n\n But my green boat must have showed up like a lighthouse in all that\n red, because it wasn't long until I spotted a purple and green\n hopper-scorp traveling straight toward me, sort of rowing along with\n a pair of stubby wings. He didn't seem to be making much effort, even\n though he was climbing vertically up from the planet. In fact, he\n didn't seem to be climbing at all but just going along horizontally.\n There just wasn't any up or down in that crazy place. It must be that\n anti-grav field, I concluded. The air was getting different, too, now\n that I was further in. I'm no chemist, and I couldn't have gotten out\n there to experiment if I had been, but those plants were certainly\n doing something to that ammonia and methane. The fog thinned, for one\n thing, and the temperature rose to nearly forty.\n\n\n Meanwhile the hopper-scorp reached the ship. Hastily I squirted some of\n my Scorpion-Come-Hither lure on the chest of my spacesuit, opened the\n lock, and popped out, brave as could be. Face to face with that thing,\n though, I nearly lost my grip on the handle. In fact, I'd have fainted\n dead away right there if Pard Hoskins hadn't been there already and\n lived. If that little shrimp could do it, I could, too.\n\n\n I braced up and tapped out the greeting Pard had taught me. My\n fiendish-looking opponent tapped right back, inquiring why the hell\n I was back so soon when I knew that Akroida was all set to carve me\n into steaks for just any meal. But the tone was friendly and even\n intimate\u2014or rather, the taps were. There was even a rather warm\n expression discernible in the thing's eyes, so I took heart and decided\n to ignore the ferocious features surrounding those eyes. After all, the\n poor sinner's map was made of shell, and he wasn't responsible for its\n expression.\n\n\n I tapped back very politely that he must be mistaking me for someone\n else. \"I've never been here before, and so I've never met the charming\n lady,\" I informed him. \"However, I have something very special in the\n way of jewels\u2014not with me, naturally\u2014and the rumor is that she might\n be interested.\"\n\n\n He reared back at that, and reaching up, plucked his right eye out of\n the socket and reeled it out to the end of a two-foot tentacle, and\n then he examined me with it just like an old-time earl with one of\n those things they called monocles. Pard hadn't warned me about those\n removable eyes, for reasons best known to himself. I still wake up\n screaming....\n\n\n Anyway, when that thing pulled out its eye and held it toward me, I\n backed up against the side of the ship like I'd been half-electrocuted.\n Then I gagged. But I could still remember that I had to live in that\n suit for awhile, so I held on. Then that monstrosity reeled in the eye,\n and I gagged again.\n\n\n My actions didn't bother him a bit. \"Jewels, did you say?\" he tapped\n out thoughtfully, just like an ordinary business man, and I managed to\n tap out yes. He drifted closer; close enough to get a whiff....\nA shudder of ecstasy stiffened him. His head and eyes rolled with it,\n and he wafted closer still. Right there I began to harbor a premonition\n that there might be such a thing as being too popular in Scorpdom, but\n I thrust this sneak-thief idea back into limbo.\n\n\n Taking advantage of his condition, I boldly tapped out, \"How's about\n taking me on a guided tour through this red spinach patch to Akroida,\n old pal?\" Or words to that effect.\n\n\n He lolled his hideous cranium practically on my shoulder. \"Anything!\n Just anything you desire, my dearest friend.\"\n\n\n I tried to back off from him a bit, but the ship stopped me. \"I'm Casey\n Ritter. What's your label, chum?\"\n\n\n \"Attaboy,\" he ticked coyly.\n\n\n \"Attaboy?\" Things blurred around me. It couldn't be. It was just plain\n nuts. Then I got a glimmer through my paralyzed gray matter. \"Who named\n you that?\"\n\n\n He simpered. \"My dear friend, Pard Hoskins.\"\n\n\n I breathed again. How simple could I get? He'd already mistaken me for\n Pard, hadn't he? Then I remembered something else. \"How come you aren't\n mad at him? Don't you hate yellow, too?\"\n\n\n He hung his silly head. \"I fear I am colorblind,\" he confessed sadly.\n\n\n Right there I forgave him for pulling that eye on me. He was the guide\n I needed, the one who had got Pard out alive. I almost hugged him.\n \"Lead off, old pal,\" I sang out, and then had to tap it. \"I'll follow\n in my boat.\"\n\n\n Well, I'd met the first of the brood and was still alive. Not only\n alive but loved and cherished, thanks to Pard's inventiveness and to\n a kindly fate which had sent Pard's old pal my way. A great man, Pard\n Hoskins. How had he made friends with the brute in the first place?\n\n\n Being once more inside my spaceboat, I raised my helmet, which was like\n one of those head-pieces they used to put on suits of armor instead of\n the usual plastic bubble. And it was rigged out with phony antennae and\n mandibles and other embellishments calculated to interest my hosts.\n Whether it interested them or not, it was plenty uncomfortable for me.\n\n\n Peeking out the porthole I saw that my guide was fidgeting and looking\n over his shoulder at my ship, so I eased in the controls and edge after\n him. To my surprise a vapor shot out of a box that I had taken for a\n natural lump on his back, and he darted away from me. I opened the\n throttle and tore after him among the immense red blobs that were now\n beginning to be patterned with dozens of green-and-purple scorpions,\n all busy filling huge baskets with buds and tendrils, no doubt.\n\n\n Other scorpions oared and floated about in twos and threes in a free\n and peaceable manner that almost made me forget that I was scared to\n death of them, and they stared at my boat with only a mild interest\n that would have taught manners to most of my fellow citizens of Earth.\n\n\n It wasn't until we had covered some two hundred miles of this that\n something began to loom out of the mist, and I forgot the playboys and\n the field workers. It loomed higher and higher. Then we burst out into\n a clearing several miles in diameter, and I saw the structure clearly.\n It was red, like everything else in this screwy place, and could only\n have been built out of compressed blocks of the red plant.\n\n\n In shape it was a perfect octagon. It hung poised in the center of the\n cleared space, suspended on nothing. It had to be at least a mile in\n diameter, and its sides were pierced with thousands of openings through\n which its nightmare occupants appeared and disappeared, drifting in\n and out like they had all the time in the world. I stared until my\n eyeballs felt paralyzed.\n\n\n Pard was right again. These critters had brains. And my S.S.C.\n persecutor was right, too. That anti-grav secret was worth more than\n any string of rocks in the system, including the Killicut Emeralds.\n\n\n Then I swallowed hard. Attaboy was leading me straight across to a\n window. Closing my helmet, my fingers fumbled badly. My brain was\n fumbling, too. \"Zero hour, chump!\" it told me, and I shuddered. Picking\n up the first hundred pounds of the arsenic, I wobbled over to the\n airlock.\nIII\n\n\n That palace was like nothing on earth. Naturally, you'll say, it's\n on Jupiter. But I mean it was even queerer than that. It was like no\n building on any planet at all. And, in fact, it wasn't on a planet; it\n was floating up there only two hundred miles in from the raw edge of\n space.\n\n\n In that building everything stayed right where it was put. If it was\n put twelve or fifty feet up off the floor, it stayed there. Not that\n there wasn't gravity. There was plenty of gravity to suit me\u2014just\n right, in fact\u2014and still they had furniture sitting around in the air\n as solid as if on a floor. Which was fine for flying hopper-scorps, but\n what about Casey Ritter, who hadn't cultivated even a feather?\n\n\n Attaboy, however, had the answers for everything. Towing me from the\n airlock to the window ledge, he again sniffed that delectable odor on\n my chest, caressed me with his front pair of legs while I manfully\n endured, and then without warning tossed me onto his back above the\n little box and flew off with me along a tunnel with luminous red walls.\n\n\n We finally came to the central hall of the palace, and at the sight\n of all that space dropping away, I clutched at his shell and nearly\n dropped the arsenic. But he didn't have any brakes I could grab, so he\n just flew out into mid-air in a room that could have swallowed a city\n block, skyscrapers and all. It was like a mammoth red cavern, and it\n glowed like the inside of a red light.\n\n\n No wonder those scorpions like green and purple. What a relief from all\n that red!\n\n\n A patch in the middle of the hall became a floating platform holding up\n a divan twenty feet square covered with stuff as green as new spring\n grass, and in the center of this reclined Akroida. It had to be. Who\n else could look like that? No one, believe me, boys and girls, no one!\n\n\n Our little Akroida was a pure and peculiarly violent purple\u2014not a\n green edge anywhere. She was even more purple than my fancy enameled\n space suit, and she was big enough to comfortably fill most of that\n twenty-foot couch. To my shrinking eyes right then she looked as big as\n a ten-ton cannon and twice as mean and dangerous. She was idly nipping\n here and there as though she was just itching to take a hunk out of\n somebody, and the way the servants were edging away out around her, I\n could see they didn't want to get in range. I didn't blame them a bit.\n Under the vicious sag of her Roman nose, her mandibles kept grinding,\n shaking the jewels that were hung all over her repulsive carcass, and\n making the Halcyon Diamond on her chest blaze like a bonfire.\n\n\n Attaboy dumped me onto a floating cushion where I lay clutching and\n shuddering away from her and from the void all around me, and went\n across to her alone with the arsenic.\n\n\n Akroida rose up sort of languidly on an elbow that was all stripped\n bone and sharp as a needle. She pulled an eyeball out about a yard and\n scanned Attaboy and the box. He closed in to the couch all hunched\n over, ducked his head humbly half-a-dozen times, and pushed the box\n over beside her. Akroida eased her eyeball back, opened the box and\n sniffed, and then turned to Attaboy with a full-blown Satanic grin. I\n could hear her question reverberate away over where I was.\n\n\n \"Who from?\" asked Akroida.\n\n\n That conversation was telegraphed to me blow by blow by the actions of\n those hopper-scorps. I didn't need their particular brand of Morse Code\n at all.\n\n\n \"Who from?\" Attaboy cringed lower and blushed a purple all-over blush.\n \"Dear lady, it is from an interspace trader who possesses some truly\n remarkable jewels,\" he confessed coyly.\n\n\n Akroida toyed with the Halcyon Diamond and ignored the bait. \"His\n name?\" she demanded. And when he told her, with a bad stutter in\n his code, she reared up higher on her skinny elbow and glared in my\n direction. \"Casey Ritter? Never heard of him. Where's he from?\"\n\n\n Well, after all, she wasn't blind. He had to confess. \"I\u2014uh\u2014the\n stones were so amazing, Royal Akroida, that I didn't pay much attention\n to the\u2014uh\u2014trader. He does seem to resemble an\u2014ah\u2014earthman.\" He\n ducked his head and fearfully waited.\n\n\n A sort of jerking quiver ran through Akroida. She reared up even\n higher. Her mean Roman nose twitched. \"An earthman? Like Pard Hoskins?\"\n\n\n Attaboy shrank smaller and smaller. He could only nod dumbly.\n\n\n The storm broke, all right. That old dame let out a scream like a\n maddened stallion and began to thrash around and flail her couch with\n that dragon's tail of hers.",
    "61139": "THE MADMAN FROM EARTH\nBY KEITH LAUMER\nYou don't have to be crazy to be an earth\n\n diplomat\u2014but on Groac it sure helps!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1962.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI\n\n\n \"The Consul for the Terrestrial States,\" Retief said, \"presents his\n compliments, et cetera, to the Ministry of Culture of the Groacian\n Autonomy, and with reference to the Ministry's invitation to attend a\n recital of interpretive grimacing, has the honor to express regret that\n he will be unable\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You can't turn this invitation down,\" Administrative Assistant Meuhl\n said flatly. \"I'll make that 'accepts with pleasure'.\"\n\n\n Retief exhaled a plume of cigar smoke.\n\n\n \"Miss Meuhl,\" he said, \"in the past couple of weeks I've sat through\n six light-concerts, four attempts at chamber music, and god knows how\n many assorted folk-art festivals. I've been tied up every off-duty\n hour since I got here\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You can't offend the Groaci,\" Miss Meuhl said sharply. \"Consul Whaffle\n would never have been so rude.\"\n\n\n \"Whaffle left here three months ago,\" Retief said, \"leaving me in\n charge.\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" Miss Meuhl said, snapping off the dictyper. \"I'm sure I don't\n know what excuse I can give the Minister.\"\n\n\n \"Never mind the excuses,\" Retief said. \"Just tell him I won't be\n there.\" He stood up.\n\n\n \"Are you leaving the office?\" Miss Meuhl adjusted her glasses. \"I have\n some important letters here for your signature.\"\n\n\n \"I don't recall dictating any letters today, Miss Meuhl,\" Retief said,\n pulling on a light cape.\n\"I wrote them for you. They're just as Consul Whaffle would have wanted\n them.\"\n\n\n \"Did you write all Whaffle's letters for him, Miss Meuhl?\"\n\n\n \"Consul Whaffle was an extremely busy man,\" Miss Meuhl said stiffly.\n \"He had complete confidence in me.\"\n\n\n \"Since I'm cutting out the culture from now on,\" Retief said, \"I won't\n be so busy.\"\n\n\n \"Well!\" Miss Meuhl said. \"May I ask where you'll be if something comes\n up?\"\n\n\n \"I'm going over to the Foreign Office Archives.\"\n\n\n Miss Meuhl blinked behind thick lenses. \"Whatever for?\"\n\n\n Retief looked thoughtfully at Miss Meuhl. \"You've been here on Groac\n for four years, Miss Meuhl. What was behind the coup d'etat that put\n the present government in power?\"\n\n\n \"I'm sure I haven't pried into\u2014\"\n\n\n \"What about that Terrestrial cruiser? The one that disappeared out this\n way about ten years back?\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Retief, those are just the sort of questions we\navoid\nwith the\n Groaci. I certainly hope you're not thinking of openly intruding\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Why?\"\n\n\n \"The Groaci are a very sensitive race. They don't welcome outworlders\n raking up things. They've been gracious enough to let us live down\n the fact that Terrestrials subjected them to deep humiliation on one\n occasion.\"\n\n\n \"You mean when they came looking for the cruiser?\"\n\n\n \"I, for one, am ashamed of the high-handed tactics that were employed,\n grilling these innocent people as though they were criminals. We try\n never to reopen that wound, Mr. Retief.\"\n\n\n \"They never found the cruiser, did they?\"\n\n\n \"Certainly not on Groac.\"\n\n\n Retief nodded. \"Thanks, Miss Meuhl,\" he said. \"I'll be back before\n you close the office.\" Miss Meuhl's face was set in lines of grim\n disapproval as he closed the door.\nThe pale-featured Groacian vibrated his throat-bladder in a distressed\n bleat.\n\n\n \"Not to enter the Archives,\" he said in his faint voice. \"The denial of\n permission. The deep regret of the Archivist.\"\n\n\n \"The importance of my task here,\" Retief said, enunciating the glottal\n dialect with difficulty. \"My interest in local history.\"\n\n\n \"The impossibility of access to outworlders. To depart quietly.\"\n\n\n \"The necessity that I enter.\"\n\n\n \"The specific instructions of the Archivist.\" The Groacian's voice rose\n to a whisper. \"To insist no longer. To give up this idea!\"\n\n\n \"OK, Skinny, I know when I'm licked,\" Retief said in Terran. \"To keep\n your nose clean.\"\n\n\n Outside, Retief stood for a moment looking across at the deeply carved\n windowless stucco facades lining the street, then started off in the\n direction of the Terrestrial Consulate General. The few Groacians on\n the street eyed him furtively, veered to avoid him as he passed. Flimsy\n high-wheeled ground cars puffed silently along the resilient pavement.\n The air was clean and cool.\n\n\n At the office, Miss Meuhl would be waiting with another list of\n complaints.\n\n\n Retief studied the carving over the open doorways along the street.\n An elaborate one picked out in pinkish paint seemed to indicate the\n Groacian equivalent of a bar. Retief went in.\n\n\n A Groacian bartender was dispensing clay pots of alcoholic drink from\n the bar-pit at the center of the room. He looked at Retief and froze in\n mid-motion, a metal tube poised over a waiting pot.\n\n\n \"To enjoy a cooling drink,\" Retief said in Groacian, squatting down at\n the edge of the pit. \"To sample a true Groacian beverage.\"\n\n\n \"To not enjoy my poor offerings,\" the Groacian mumbled. \"A pain in the\n digestive sacs; to express regret.\"\n\n\n \"To not worry,\" Retief said, irritated. \"To pour it out and let me\n decide whether I like it.\"\n\n\n \"To be grappled in by peace-keepers for poisoning of\u2014foreigners.\" The\n barkeep looked around for support, found none. The Groaci customers,\n eyes elsewhere, were drifting away.\n\n\n \"To get the lead out,\" Retief said, placing a thick gold-piece in the\n dish provided. \"To shake a tentacle.\"\n\n\n \"The procuring of a cage,\" a thin voice called from the sidelines. \"The\n displaying of a freak.\"\nRetief turned. A tall Groacian vibrated his mandibles in a gesture\n of contempt. From his bluish throat coloration, it was apparent the\n creature was drunk.\n\n\n \"To choke in your upper sac,\" the bartender hissed, extending his eyes\n toward the drunk. \"To keep silent, litter-mate of drones.\"\n\n\n \"To swallow your own poison, dispenser of vileness,\" the drunk\n whispered. \"To find a proper cage for this zoo-piece.\" He wavered\n toward Retief. \"To show this one in the streets, like all freaks.\"\n\n\n \"Seen a lot of freaks like me, have you?\" Retief asked, interestedly.\n\n\n \"To speak intelligibly, malodorous outworlder,\" the drunk said. The\n barkeep whispered something, and two customers came up to the drunk,\n took his arms and helped him to the door.\n\n\n \"To get a cage!\" the drunk shrilled. \"To keep the animals in their own\n stinking place.\"\n\n\n \"I've changed my mind,\" Retief said to the bartender. \"To be grateful\n as hell, but to have to hurry off now.\" He followed the drunk out the\n door. The other Groaci released him, hurried back inside. Retief looked\n at the weaving alien.\n\n\n \"To begone, freak,\" the Groacian whispered.\n\n\n \"To be pals,\" Retief said. \"To be kind to dumb animals.\"\n\n\n \"To have you hauled away to a stockyard, ill-odored foreign livestock.\"\n\n\n \"To not be angry, fragrant native,\" Retief said. \"To permit me to chum\n with you.\"\n\n\n \"To flee before I take a cane to you!\"\n\n\n \"To have a drink together\u2014\"\n\n\n \"To not endure such insolence!\" The Groacian advanced toward Retief.\n Retief backed away.\n\n\n \"To hold hands,\" Retief said. \"To be palsy-walsy\u2014\"\n\n\n The Groacian reached for him, missed. A passer-by stepped around him,\n head down, scuttled away. Retief backed into the opening to a narrow\n crossway and offered further verbal familiarities to the drunken local,\n who followed, furious. Retief backed, rounded a corner into a narrow\n alley-like passage, deserted, silent ... except for the following\n Groacian.\n\n\n Retief stepped around him, seized his collar and yanked. The Groacian\n fell on his back. Retief stood over him. The downed native half-rose;\n Retief put a foot against his chest and pushed.\n\n\n \"To not be going anywhere for a few minutes,\" Retief said. \"To stay\n right here and have a nice long talk.\"\nII\n\n\n \"There you are!\" Miss Meuhl said, eyeing Retief over her lenses. \"There\n are two gentlemen waiting to see you. Groacian gentlemen.\"\n\n\n \"Government men, I imagine. Word travels fast.\" Retief pulled off his\n cape. \"This saves me the trouble of paying another call at the Foreign\n Ministry.\"\n\n\n \"What have you been doing? They seem very upset, I don't mind telling\n you.\"\n\n\n \"I'm sure you don't. Come along. And bring an official recorder.\"\n\n\n Two Groaci wearing heavy eye-shields and elaborate crest ornaments\n indicative of rank rose as Retief entered the room. Neither offered a\n courteous snap of the mandibles, Retief noted. They were mad, all right.\n\n\n \"I am Fith, of the Terrestrial Desk, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mr.\n Consul,\" the taller Groacian said, in lisping Terran. \"May I present\n Shluh, of the Internal Police?\"\n\n\n \"Sit down, gentlemen,\" Retief said. They resumed their seats. Miss\n Meuhl hovered nervously, then sat on the edge of a comfortless chair.\n\n\n \"Oh, it's such a pleasure\u2014\" she began.\n\n\n \"Never mind that,\" Retief said. \"These gentlemen didn't come here to\n sip tea today.\"\n\n\n \"So true,\" Fith said. \"Frankly, I have had a most disturbing report,\n Mr. Consul. I shall ask Shluh to recount it.\" He nodded to the police\n chief.\n\n\n \"One hour ago,\" The Groacian said, \"a Groacian national was brought\n to hospital suffering from serious contusions. Questioning of this\n individual revealed that he had been set upon and beaten by a\n foreigner. A Terrestrial, to be precise. Investigation by my department\n indicates that the description of the culprit closely matches that of\n the Terrestrial Consul.\"\n\n\n Miss Meuhl gasped audibly.\n\n\n \"Have you ever heard,\" Retief said, looking steadily at Fith, \"of a\n Terrestrial cruiser, the\nISV Terrific\n, which dropped from sight in\n this sector nine years ago?\"\n\n\n \"Really!\" Miss Meuhl exclaimed, rising. \"I wash my hands\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Just keep that recorder going,\" Retief snapped.\n\n\n \"I'll not be a party\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You'll do as you're told, Miss Meuhl,\" Retief said quietly. \"I'm\n telling you to make an official sealed record of this conversation.\"\n\n\n Miss Meuhl sat down.\n\n\n Fith puffed out his throat indignantly. \"You reopen an old wound,\n Mr. Consul. It reminds us of certain illegal treatment at Terrestrial\n hands\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Hogwash,\" Retief said. \"That tune went over with my predecessors, but\n it hits a sour note with me.\"\n\n\n \"All our efforts,\" Miss Meuhl said, \"to live down that terrible\n episode! And you\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Terrible? I understand that a Terrestrial task force stood off Groac\n and sent a delegation down to ask questions. They got some funny\n answers, and stayed on to dig around a little. After a week they left.\n Somewhat annoying to the Groaci, maybe\u2014at the most. If they were\n innocent.\"\n\n\n \"IF!\" Miss Meuhl burst out.\n\n\n \"If, indeed!\" Fith said, his weak voice trembling. \"I must protest\n your\u2014\"\n\"Save the protests, Fith. You have some explaining to do. And I don't\n think your story will be good enough.\"\n\n\n \"It is for you to explain! This person who was beaten\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Not beaten. Just rapped a few times to loosen his memory.\"\n\n\n \"Then you admit\u2014\"\n\n\n \"It worked, too. He remembered lots of things, once he put his mind to\n it.\"\n\n\n Fith rose; Shluh followed suit.\n\n\n \"I shall ask for your immediate recall, Mr. Consul. Were it not for\n your diplomatic immunity, I should do more\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Why did the government fall, Fith? It was just after the task force\n paid its visit, and before the arrival of the first Terrestrial\n diplomatic mission.\"\n\n\n \"This is an internal matter!\" Fith cried, in his faint Groacian voice.\n \"The new regime has shown itself most amiable to you Terrestrials. It\n has outdone itself\u2014\"\n\n\n \"\u2014to keep the Terrestrial consul and his staff in the dark,\" Retief\n said. \"And the same goes for the few terrestrial businessmen you've\n visaed. This continual round of culture; no social contacts outside the\n diplomatic circle; no travel permits to visit out-lying districts, or\n your satellite\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Enough!\" Fith's mandibles quivered in distress. \"I can talk no more of\n this matter\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You'll talk to me, or there'll be a task force here in five days to do\n the talking,\" Retief said.\n\n\n \"You can't!\" Miss Meuhl gasped.\n\n\n Retief turned a steady look on Miss Meuhl. She closed her mouth. The\n Groaci sat down.\n\n\n \"Answer me this one,\" Retief said, looking at Shluh. \"A few years\n back\u2014about nine, I think\u2014there was a little parade held here. Some\n curious looking creatures were captured. After being securely caged,\n they were exhibited to the gentle Groaci public. Hauled through the\n streets. Very educational, no doubt. A highly cultural show.\n\n\n \"Funny thing about these animals. They wore clothes. They seemed to\n communicate with each other. Altogether it was a very amusing exhibit.\n\n\n \"Tell me, Shluh, what happened to those six Terrestrials after the\n parade was over?\"\nFith made a choked noise and spoke rapidly to Shluh in Groacian. Shluh\n retracted his eyes, shrank down in his chair. Miss Meuhl opened her\n mouth, closed it and blinked rapidly.\n\n\n \"How did they die?\" Retief snapped. \"Did you murder them, cut their\n throats, shoot them or bury them alive? What amusing end did you figure\n out for them? Research, maybe? Cut them open to see what made them\n yell....\"\n\n\n \"No!\" Fith gasped. \"I must correct this terrible false impression at\n once.\"\n\n\n \"False impression, hell,\" Retief said. \"They were Terrans! A simple\n narco-interrogation would get that out of any Groacian who saw the\n parade.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Fith said weakly. \"It is true, they were Terrestrials. But there\n was no killing.\"\n\n\n \"They're alive?\"\n\n\n \"Alas, no. They ... died.\"\n\n\n Miss Meuhl yelped faintly.\n\n\n \"I see,\" Retief said. \"They died.\"\n\n\n \"We tried to keep them alive, of course. But we did not know what\n foods\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Didn't take the trouble to find out, either, did you?\"\n\n\n \"They fell ill,\" Fith said. \"One by one....\"\n\n\n \"We'll deal with that question later,\" Retief said. \"Right now, I want\n more information. Where did you get them? Where did you hide the ship?\n What happened to the rest of the crew? Did they 'fall ill' before the\n big parade?\"\n\n\n \"There were no more! Absolutely, I assure you!\"\n\n\n \"Killed in the crash landing?\"\n\n\n \"No crash landing. The ship descended intact, east of the city. The ...\n Terrestrials ... were unharmed. Naturally, we feared them. They were\n strange to us. We had never before seen such beings.\"\n\n\n \"Stepped off the ship with guns blazing, did they?\"\n\n\n \"Guns? No, no guns\u2014\"\n\n\n \"They raised their hands, didn't they? Asked for help. You helped them;\n helped them to death.\"\n\n\n \"How could we know?\" Fith moaned.\n\n\n \"How could you know a flotilla would show up in a few months looking\n for them, you mean? That was a shock, wasn't it? I'll bet you had a\n brisk time of it hiding the ship, and shutting everybody up. A close\n call, eh?\"\n\n\n \"We were afraid,\" Shluh said. \"We are a simple people. We feared the\n strange creatures from the alien craft. We did not kill them, but we\n felt it was as well they ... did not survive. Then, when the warships\n came, we realized our error. But we feared to speak. We purged our\n guilty leaders, concealed what had happened, and ... offered our\n friendship. We invited the opening of diplomatic relations. We made\n a blunder, it is true, a great blunder. But we have tried to make\n amends....\"\n\n\n \"Where is the ship?\"\n\n\n \"The ship?\"\n\n\n \"What did you do with it? It was too big to just walk off and forget.\n Where is it?\"\n\n\n The two Groacians exchanged looks.\n\n\n \"We wish to show our contrition,\" Fith said. \"We will show you the\n ship.\"\n\n\n \"Miss Meuhl,\" Retief said. \"If I don't come back in a reasonable length\n of time, transmit that recording to Regional Headquarters, sealed.\" He\n stood, looked at the Groaci.\n\n\n \"Let's go,\" he said.\nRetief stooped under the heavy timbers shoring the entry to the cavern.\n He peered into the gloom at the curving flank of the space-burned hull.\n\n\n \"Any lights in here?\" he asked.\n\n\n A Groacian threw a switch. A weak bluish glow sprang up.\n\n\n Retief walked along the raised wooden catwalk, studying the ship. Empty\n emplacements gaped below lensless scanner eyes. Littered decking was\n visible within the half-open entry port. Near the bow the words 'IVS\n Terrific B7 New Terra' were lettered in bright chrome duralloy.\n\n\n \"How did you get it in here?\" Retief asked.\n\n\n \"It was hauled here from the landing point, some nine miles distant,\"\n Fith said, his voice thinner than ever. \"This is a natural crevasse.\n The vessel was lowered into it and roofed over.\"\n\n\n \"How did you shield it so the detectors didn't pick it up?\"\n\n\n \"All here is high-grade iron ore,\" Fith said, waving a member. \"Great\n veins of almost pure metal.\"\n\n\n Retief grunted. \"Let's go inside.\"\n\n\n Shluh came forward with a hand-lamp. The party entered the ship.\n\n\n Retief clambered up a narrow companionway, glanced around the interior\n of the control compartment. Dust was thick on the deck, the stanchions\n where acceleration couches had been mounted, the empty instrument\n panels, the litter of sheared bolts, scraps of wire and paper. A thin\n frosting of rust dulled the exposed metal where cutting torches had\n sliced away heavy shielding. There was a faint odor of stale bedding.\n\n\n \"The cargo compartment\u2014\" Shluh began.\n\n\n \"I've seen enough,\" Retief said.\n\n\n Silently, the Groacians led the way back out through the tunnel and\n into the late afternoon sunshine. As they climbed the slope to the\n steam car, Fith came to Retief's side.\n\n\n \"Indeed, I hope that this will be the end of this unfortunate affair,\"\n he said. \"Now that all has been fully and honestly shown\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You can skip all that,\" Retief said. \"You're nine years late. The\n crew was still alive when the task force called, I imagine. You killed\n them\u2014or let them die\u2014rather than take the chance of admitting what\n you'd done.\"\n\n\n \"We were at fault,\" Fith said abjectly. \"Now we wish only friendship.\"\n\n\n \"The\nTerrific\nwas a heavy cruiser, about twenty thousand tons.\"\n Retief looked grimly at the slender Foreign Office official. \"Where is\n she, Fith? I won't settle for a hundred-ton lifeboat.\"\nFith erected his eye stalks so violently that one eye-shield fell off.\n\n\n \"I know nothing of ... of....\" He stopped. His throat vibrated rapidly\n as he struggled for calm.\n\n\n \"My government can entertain no further accusations, Mr. Consul,\"\n he said at last. \"I have been completely candid with you, I have\n overlooked your probing into matters not properly within your sphere of\n responsibility. My patience is at an end.\"\n\n\n \"Where is that ship?\" Retief rapped out. \"You never learn, do you?\n You're still convinced you can hide the whole thing and forget it. I'm\n telling you you can't.\"\n\n\n \"We return to the city now,\" Fith said. \"I can do no more.\"\n\n\n \"You can and you will, Fith,\" Retief said. \"I intend to get to the\n truth of this matter.\"\n\n\n Fith spoke to Shluh in rapid Groacian. The police chief gestured to his\n four armed constables. They moved to ring Retief in.\n\n\n Retief eyed Fith. \"Don't try it,\" he said. \"You'll just get yourself in\n deeper.\"\n\n\n Fith clacked his mandibles angrily, eye stalks canted aggressively\n toward the Terrestrial.\n\n\n \"Out of deference to your diplomatic status, Terrestrial, I shall\n ignore your insulting remarks,\" Fith said in his reedy voice. \"Let us\n now return to the city.\"\n\n\n Retief looked at the four policemen. \"I see your point,\" he said.\n\n\n Fith followed him into the car, sat rigidly at the far end of the seat.\n\n\n \"I advise you to remain very close to your consulate,\" Fith said. \"I\n advise you to dismiss these fancies from your mind, and to enjoy the\n cultural aspects of life at Groac. Especially, I should not venture out\n of the city, or appear overly curious about matters of concern only to\n the Groacian government.\"\n\n\n In the front seat, Shluh looked straight ahead. The loosely-sprung\n vehicle bobbed and swayed along the narrow highway. Retief listened to\n the rhythmic puffing of the motor and said nothing.\nIII\n\n\n \"Miss Meuhl,\" Retief said, \"I want you to listen carefully to what I'm\n going to tell you. I have to move rapidly now, to catch the Groaci off\n guard.\"\n\n\n \"I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about,\" Miss Meuhl snapped,\n her eyes sharp behind the heavy lenses.\n\n\n \"If you'll listen, you may find out,\" Retief said. \"I have no time\n to waste, Miss Meuhl. They won't be expecting an immediate move\u2014I\n hope\u2014and that may give me the latitude I need.\"\n\n\n \"You're still determined to make an issue of that incident!\" Miss\n Meuhl snorted. \"I really can hardly blame the Groaci. They are not a\n sophisticated race; they had never before met aliens.\"\n\n\n \"You're ready to forgive a great deal, Miss Meuhl. But it's not what\n happened nine years ago I'm concerned with. It's what's happening now.\n I've told you that it was only a lifeboat the Groaci have hidden out.\n Don't you understand the implication? That vessel couldn't have come\n far. The cruiser itself must be somewhere near by. I want to know\n where!\"\n\n\n \"The Groaci don't know. They're a very cultured, gentle people. You can\n do irreparable harm to the reputation of Terrestrials if you insist\u2014\"\n\n\n \"That's my decision,\" Retief said. \"I have a job to do and we're\n wasting time.\" He crossed the room to his desk, opened a drawer and\n took out a slim-barreled needler.\n\n\n \"This office is being watched. Not very efficiently, if I know the\n Groaci. I think I can get past them all right.\"\n\n\n \"Where are you going with ... that?\" Miss Meuhl stared at the needler.\n \"What in the world\u2014\"\n\n\n \"The Groaci won't waste any time destroying every piece of paper in\n their files relating to this thing. I have to get what I need before\n it's too late. If I wait for an official Inquiry Commission, they'll\n find nothing but blank smiles.\"\n\n\n \"You're out of your mind!\" Miss Meuhl stood up, quivering with\n indignation. \"You're like a ... a....\"\n\n\n \"You and I are in a tight spot, Miss Meuhl. The logical next move for\n the Groaci is to dispose of both of us. We're the only ones who know\n what happened. Fith almost did the job this afternoon, but I bluffed\n him out\u2014for the moment.\"\n\n\n Miss Meuhl emitted a shrill laugh. \"Your fantasies are getting the\n better of you,\" she gasped. \"In danger, indeed! Disposing of me! I've\n never heard anything so ridiculous.\"\n\n\n \"Stay in this office. Close and safe-lock the door. You've got food and\n water in the dispenser. I suggest you stock up, before they shut the\n supply down. Don't let anyone in, on any pretext whatever. I'll keep in\n touch with you via hand-phone.\"\n\n\n \"What are you planning to do?\"\n\n\n \"If I don't make it back here, transmit the sealed record of this\n afternoon's conversation, along with the information I've given you.\n Beam it through on a mayday priority. Then tell the Groaci what you've\n done and sit tight. I think you'll be all right. It won't be easy to\n blast in here and anyway, they won't make things worse by killing you.\n A force can be here in a week.\"\n\n\n \"I'll do nothing of the sort! The Groaci are very fond of me! You ...\n Johnny-come-lately! Roughneck! Setting out to destroy\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Blame it on me if it will make you feel any better,\" Retief said, \"but\n don't be fool enough to trust them.\" He pulled on a cape, opened the\n door.\n\n\n \"I'll be back in a couple of hours,\" he said. Miss Meuhl stared after\n him silently as he closed the door.\nIt was an hour before dawn when Retief keyed the combination to the\n safe-lock and stepped into the darkened consular office. He looked\n tired.\n\n\n Miss Meuhl, dozing in a chair, awoke with a start. She looked at\n Retief, rose and snapped on a light, turned to stare.\n\n\n \"What in the world\u2014Where have you been? What's happened to your\n clothing?\"\n\n\n \"I got a little dirty. Don't worry about it.\" Retief went to his desk,\n opened a drawer and replaced the needler.\n\n\n \"Where have you been?\" Miss Meuhl demanded. \"I stayed here\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I'm glad you did,\" Retief said. \"I hope you piled up a supply of food\n and water from the dispenser, too. We'll be holed up here for a week,\n at least.\" He jotted figures on a pad. \"Warm up the official sender. I\n have a long transmission for Regional Headquarters.\"\n\n\n \"Are you going to tell me where you've been?\"\n\n\n \"I have a message to get off first, Miss Meuhl,\" Retief said sharply.\n \"I've been to the Foreign Ministry,\" he added. \"I'll tell you all about\n it later.\"\n\n\n \"At this hour? There's no one there....\"\n\n\n \"Exactly.\"\n\n\n Miss Meuhl gasped. \"You mean you broke in? You burgled the Foreign\n Office?\"\n\n\n \"That's right,\" Retief said calmly. \"Now\u2014\"\n\n\n \"This is absolutely the end!\" Miss Meuhl said. \"Thank heaven I've\n already\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Get that sender going, woman!\" Retief snapped. \"This is important.\"\n\n\n \"I've already done so, Mr. Retief!\" Miss Meuhl said harshly. \"I've been\n waiting for you to come back here....\" She turned to the communicator,\n flipped levers. The screen snapped aglow, and a wavering long-distance\n image appeared.\n\n\n \"He's here now,\" Miss Meuhl said to the screen. She looked at Retief\n triumphantly.\n\n\n \"That's good,\" Retief said. \"I don't think the Groaci can knock us off\n the air, but\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I have done my duty, Mr. Retief,\" Miss Meuhl said. \"I made a full\n report to Regional Headquarters last night, as soon as you left this\n office. Any doubts I may have had as to the rightness of that decision\n have been completely dispelled by what you've just told me.\"\n\n\n Retief looked at her levelly. \"You've been a busy girl, Miss Meuhl. Did\n you mention the six Terrestrials who were killed here?\"\n\n\n \"That had no bearing on the matter of your wild behavior! I must say,\n in all my years in the Corps, I've never encountered a personality less\n suited to diplomatic work.\"\nThe screen crackled, the ten-second transmission lag having elapsed.\n \"Mr. Retief,\" the face on the screen said, \"I am Counsellor Pardy,\n DSO-1, Deputy Under-secretary for the region. I have received a\n report on your conduct which makes it mandatory for me to relieve you\n administratively, vice Miss Yolanda Meuhl, DAO-9. Pending the findings\n of a Board of Inquiry, you will\u2014\"\n\n\n Retief reached out and snapped off the communicator. The triumphant\n look faded from Miss Meuhl's face.\n\n\n \"Why, what is the meaning\u2014\"\n\n\n \"If I'd listened any longer, I might have heard something I couldn't\n ignore. I can't afford that, at this moment. Listen, Miss Meuhl,\"\n Retief went on earnestly, \"I've found the missing cruiser.\"\n\n\n \"You heard him relieve you!\"\n\n\n \"I heard him say he was\ngoing\nto, Miss Meuhl. But until I've heard\n and acknowledged a verbal order, it has no force. If I'm wrong, he'll\n get my resignation. If I'm right, that suspension would be embarrassing\n all around.\"\n\n\n \"You're defying lawful authority! I'm in charge here now.\" Miss Meuhl\n stepped to the local communicator.\n\n\n \"I'm going to report this terrible thing to the Groaci at once, and\n offer my profound\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't touch that screen,\" Retief said. \"You go sit in that corner\n where I can keep an eye on you. I'm going to make a sealed tape for\n transmission to Headquarters, along with a call for an armed task\n force. Then we'll settle down to wait.\"\n\n\n Retief ignored Miss Meuhl's fury as he spoke into the recorder.\n\n\n The local communicator chimed. Miss Meuhl jumped up, staring at it.\n\n\n \"Go ahead,\" Retief said. \"Answer it.\"\n\n\n A Groacian official appeared on the screen.\n\n\n \"Yolanda Meuhl,\" he said without preamble, \"for the Foreign Minister of\n the Groacian Autonomy, I herewith accredit you as Terrestrial Consul\n to Groac, in accordance with the advices transmitted to my government\n direct from the Terrestrial Headquarters. As consul, you are requested\n to make available for questioning Mr. J. Retief, former consul, in\n connection with the assault on two peace keepers and illegal entry into\n the offices of the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.\"\n\n\n \"Why, why,\" Miss Meuhl stammered. \"Yes, of course. And I do want to\n express my deepest regrets\u2014\"\nRetief rose, went to the communicator, assisted Miss Meuhl aside.\n\n\n \"Listen carefully, Fith,\" he said. \"Your bluff has been called. You\n don't come in and we don't come out. Your camouflage worked for nine\n years, but it's all over now. I suggest you keep your heads and resist\n the temptation to make matters worse than they are.\"\n\n\n \"Miss Meuhl,\" Fith said, \"a peace squad waits outside your consulate.\n It is clear you are in the hands of a dangerous lunatic. As always, the\n Groaci wish only friendship with the Terrestrials, but\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't bother,\" Retief said. \"You know what was in those files I looked\n over this morning.\"\n\n\n Retief turned at a sound behind him. Miss Meuhl was at the door,\n reaching for the safe-lock release....\n\n\n \"Don't!\" Retief jumped\u2014too late.\n\n\n The door burst inward. A crowd of crested Groaci pressed into the room,\n pushed Miss Meuhl back, aimed scatter guns at Retief. Police Chief\n Shluh pushed forward.\n\n\n \"Attempt no violence, Terrestrial,\" he said. \"I cannot promise to\n restrain my men.\"\n\n\n \"You're violating Terrestrial territory, Shluh,\" Retief said steadily.\n \"I suggest you move back out the same way you came in.\"\n\n\n \"I invited them here,\" Miss Meuhl spoke up. \"They are here at my\n express wish.\"\n\n\n \"Are they? Are you sure you meant to go this far, Miss Meuhl? A squad\n of armed Groaci in the consulate?\"\n\n\n \"You are the consul, Miss Yolanda Meuhl,\" Shluh said. \"Would it not be\n best if we removed this deranged person to a place of safety?\"\n\n\n \"You're making a serious mistake, Shluh,\" Retief said.\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Miss Meuhl said. \"You're quite right, Mr. Shluh. Please escort\n Mr. Retief to his quarters in this building\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I don't advise you to violate my diplomatic immunity, Fith,\" Retief\n said.\n\n\n \"As chief of mission,\" Miss Meuhl said quickly, \"I hereby waive\n immunity in the case of Mr. Retief.\"\n\n\n Shluh produced a hand recorder. \"Kindly repeat your statement, Madam,\n officially,\" he said. \"I wish no question to arise later.\"\n\n\n \"Don't be a fool, woman,\" Retief said. \"Don't you see what you're\n letting yourself in for? This would be a hell of a good time for you to\n figure out whose side you're on.\"\n\n\n \"I'm on the side of common decency!\"\n\n\n \"You've been taken in. These people are concealing\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You think all women are fools, don't you, Mr. Retief?\" She turned to\n the police chief and spoke into the microphone he held up.\n\n\n \"That's an illegal waiver,\" Retief said. \"I'm consul here, whatever\n rumors you've heard. This thing's coming out into the open, whatever\n you do. Don't add violation of the Consulate to the list of Groacian\n atrocities.\"\n\n\n \"Take the man,\" Shluh said.",
    "63631": "\"Phone Me in Central Park\"\nBy JAMES McCONNELL\nThere should be an epitaph for every\n\n man, big or little, but a really grand\n\n and special one for Loner Charlie.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Fall 1954.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nCharles turned over on his side to look at her. She lay quietly in the\n other bed, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She was blonde to\n perfection, exquisitely shaped, and the rich promise of her body was\n exposed to his view.\n\n\n \"Why?\" he thought as he looked at her. \"Why did it have to happen like\n this?\"\n\n\n The whole thing was still like a dream to him, and as yet he couldn't\n decide whether it was a good or a bad dream. A year ago she had been\n unattainable, a face to conjure with in erotic dreams, far beyond his\n ken. A year ago she had been a public idol, the most popular actress of\n the day. And he had been a nobody, full of a nobody's idle hopes and\n schemes.\n\n\n And now he was lying in the bed next to hers in her swank Manhattan\n apartment in the most exclusive hotel in town. The unrealness of the\n situation overwhelmed him. His mind was a picture of confused thoughts.\n Meanings and answers to his questions slithered out of his reach.\n\n\n \"God,\" he said. It was not an exclamation, nor yet an expletive. It was\n a mere statement of fact.\n\n\n A thought teased at him. Charles looked at the woman again and decided\n that she still looked beautiful in spite of the harshness of the\n room's lighting. He touched buttons by the edge of the bed and the\n illumination quieted to a soft glow, wrapping her in a radiant halo.\n Charles smiled wanly and got up. He stood by the bed looking at her.\n\n\n \"I could have fallen in love with you once. A year ago, perhaps, or\n longer. But not now. Not now.\" He turned away and walked to the window.\n \"Now the world is dead. The whole world is dead.\"\n\n\n New York lay quietly below him. It was the hour of indecision when\n day has not quite made up its mind to leave and night has not yet\n attacked in force. The streetlights were already on, making geometric\n patterns through the dusk of Central Park. Some of the billboards were\n shining, their relays activated by darkness-sensitized solenoids. A\n reddish-orange pallor hung from the sky.\n\n\n It had been very pleasant that afternoon. She had given of herself\n freely, warmly, and Charles had accepted. But then he had known\n that she would. It was not him, it was the circumstances. Under the\n circumstances, she would have given herself to any man\u2014\n\n\n \"Why did it have to be her\u2014or me? Why should it have to happen to\n anybody! Why!\"\nShe would have given herself to any man\u2014\nHis thoughts beat a rapid crescendo, activating emotions, stimulating\n sensations of angry rage. He wanted to cry, to weep angry tears of\n protest.\n\n\n To any man, WHO HAPPENED TO BE THE LAST MAN ON EARTH!\n\n\n Charles picked up a heavy book end off the table and crashed it through\n the thick pane of window glass.\n\n\n A gust of wind from the outside breezed through the shattered opening,\n attacking his olfactory patch with the retching smell of decaying\n flesh. Charles ignored it. Even smells had lost their customary\n meanings.\n\n\n He felt the rage build up inside again, tearing at his viscera. His\n stomach clenched up like an angry fist.\n\n\n \"But I don't want to be the last man alive!\" he shouted. \"I don't know\n what to do! I don't know where to go, how to act! I just don't know\u2014\"\n\n\n A paroxysm of sobbing shook his body. Trembling, he dropped to his\n knees, his head against the cold firmness of the sill, his hands\n clutched tightly around the jagged edges of the window pane. In spite\n of the sharp pain that raced through his system, in spite of the\n bright, warm, red stream that trickled down his face, he knelt by the\n window for several minutes.\n\n\n \"\nMaybe I'm not the last!\n\"\n\n\n The thought struck him with suddenness, promisingly, edged with\n swelling comfort to fill his emptiness.\n\n\n Charles got up slowly, noticing for the first time that his fingers\n were badly cut. He wrapped a handkerchief around them and forgot them.\n He had to know\u2014he had to find out.\nAs he turned to leave, he noticed again the woman lying in radiant\n state upon the bed. He walked to her side and leaned over, kissing her\n gently on the forehead. As he straightened up, his leg caught against\n her arm, pushing it slightly. The woman's arm slipped from its position\n and dangled from the edge of the bed like a crazy pendulum. Charles\n picked it up and folded it across her now cold breasts. He started\n to pull the sheet over her nude form, then stopped, smiling at his\n conventionality. After all, it didn't make any difference now.\n\n\n The phonograph was near the door. On sudden impulse he switched it\n on, turned the volume up full, and in grim jest left it playing\n Rachmaninoff's\nIsle of the Dead\non full automatic. The music haunted\n him down the hall to the elevator that he had to run himself.\n\n\n The lobby was littered with debris, human and otherwise. Charles\n ignored it. The street that led towards the Bureau of Vital Statistics\n was a mess of desolate carnage. Charles overlooked it. Shop fronts\n smashed, stores looted, gyro-cars wrecked, proud buildings defaced.\n\n\n \"That was it,\" he said to himself. \"Pride. We called this the 'Proud\n Era.' Everything was better and bigger and nicer to have. Buildings\n were taller, men were healthier, most of the problems of humanity\n seemed licked, or nearly so. It was a time of free power, each small\n unit of population, each section of town operating on perpetual,\n ever-lasting, automatic atomic piles.\n\n\n \"We were free. We seemed, almost, to have accomplished something. The\n world was running well. No wonder we called it the 'Proud Era.' Life\n was fun, just a bowl of cherries, until....\"\n\n\n Two years ago the animals had started dying. Strangely enough the\n rats had gone first, to anybody's notice. Sales of poison dropped,\n scientific laboratories chained to a perpetual rodent-cycle began to\n complain bitterly.\n\n\n Then the lovers who hunted out and haunted the lonely lanes through the\n countryside began to remark that the locusts were late that year. The\n Southern states joyously reported that mosquito control was working to\n an unprecedented degree. The largest cotton crop ever was forecast and\n rumors from Mexico had it that no one had died from scorpion bite in\n several weeks.\n\n\n A month later the meat animals, the birds and the household pets\n began dropping as rapidly as the flies which had dropped earlier.\n Congress was called into special session, as were all of the national\n governments around the world. The U.N. met at emergency sessions to\n cope with the situation. The president of the world-wide Society for\n the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals committed suicide.\n\n\n Within a year it was obvious to everyone that man was the only animal\n left on earth.\n\n\n The panic which had begun with the death of the animals was quieted\n somewhat by the fact that humans seemed immune to the pandemic. But the\n lakes full of dead fish caused a great stink and residents along the\n coasts began to move inland. Sales of perfumes and deodorants soared.\n\n\n Then just one year ago, the first human became infected with the\n strange malady. Within six months, half of the world's population was\n gone. Less than a month ago no more than a few thousand people remained\n in New York. And now....\n\n\n \"I've got to find out,\" Charles told himself. He meant it, of course,\n but in a sense he was afraid\u2014afraid that his trip to the Bureau might\n give him an answer he didn't dare listen to. \"But I've got to try.\" He\n walked on down the bloody street.\n\n\n Before the plague the Bureau of Vital Statistics had been one of man's\n crowning achievements. Housed as it was in a huge metallic globe of\n a building, it contained computers which kept exact account of every\n human on earth.\n\n\n Compulsory registration and the classification of each individual by\n means of the discrete patterns of his brain waves had accomplished for\n man what no ordinary census could have. The machine knew who was alive,\n who was dead, and where everybody was.\n\n\n Once a year the Bureau issued The Index, an exact accounting of Earth's\n four billion inhabitants. Four billion names and addresses, compressed\n into microprint, a tremendous achievement even for the \"Proud Era.\"\n In all of his life, Charles had never once glanced at The Index.\n The average person had little necessity to do so since the Bureau\n information service would answer questions free of charge at any time.\n\n\n Reaching the gigantic building, Charles pushed aside the body of a\n young man and walked into the main foyer. Passing behind once-guarded\n doors, he entered the giant computer room and paused in admiration.\nOnly once, before the plague, had he seen the interior of this room.\n But he still remembered it and he still recalled the powerful emotional\n experience it had been those many years ago.\n\n\n All children had to have a brain-wave recording made by the Bureau\n during the first month of their life. And again at the age of 10 each\n child returned to the Bureau for a recheck. It was for this latter\n recording that Charles had come to the Bureau some twenty-two years\n before and a friendly guard had let him peep briefly into the computer\n room. The impression of intense activity, of organized confusion, of\n mechanical wonder had remained with him the rest of his life.\n\n\n \"So different now,\" he thought, surveying the room. \"Now it's empty, so\n empty.\" The machine seemed to reflect the stillness, the very deadness\n of the world. The silence became unbearable.\n\n\n Charles walked to the master control panel. With newly acquired\n dexterity he switched the computer screens on and watched them glow\n to life. All around the world sensitive receiving stations pulsed to\n activity, sending out searching fingers, hunting for elusive patterns\n of neutral energy, mapping and tabulating the results.\n\n\n The main computer screen dominated one wall of the room. Other smaller\n screens clustered around it. On these screens could be graphed the\n population of any and every part of the globe. An illuminated counter\n immediately above it would give the numerical strength of the area\n being sampled while the screen would show population density by\n individual pinpoints of light that merged to form brightness patterns.\n\n\n \"I'll try New York first,\" he said to himself, knowing that he was a\n coward, afraid to check the whole world from the start. \"I'll start\n with New York and work up.\"\n\n\n Charles activated the switches that would flash a schematic map of New\n York on the screen. \"There's bound to be somebody else left here. After\n all, there were at least twenty of us just a couple of days ago.\" And\n one of them, a beautiful woman, had invited him up to her apartment,\n not because she liked him, but because....\n\n\n The main screen focused itself, the patterns shifting into a\n recognizable perceptual image.\n\n\n \"Why, it was just yesterday (or was it the day before?) that ten of\n us, at least, met here to check the figures. There were lots of us\n alive then.\" Including the blond young woman who had died just this\n afternoon....\n\n\n Charles stopped talking and forced his eyes upwards. Peripheral vision\n caught first the vague outlines of the lower part of the map. His eyes\n continued to move, slowly, reluctantly. They caught the over-all relief\n of Greater New York City\u2014and then concentrated on the single, shining\n dot at the very heart of the map\u2014and he understood.\n\n\n His eyes stabbed quickly for the counter above the screen.\n\n\n One.\n\n\n He gasped.\n\n\n The counter read\none\n.\n\n\n Charles was by himself, the last person alive in all of New York City.\n\n\n He began to tremble violently. The silence of the room began to press\n quickly in on him. His frantic fingers searched for the computer\n controls.\n\n\n New York State. One.\n\n\n The entire United States. One.\n\n\n The western hemisphere, including islands.\n\n\n (Was that a point of light in Brazil? No. Just a ghost image).\n\n\n One.\n\n\n The Pacific area, Asia, Australia, Asia Minor, Russia and the Near\n East, Africa and then Europe.\n\n\n England!\n\n\n There was a light in England! Someone else still lived! The counter\n clicked forward.\n\n\n Two!\n\n\n His trembling stopped. He breathed again.\n\n\n \"Of course. London was at least as populous as New York City before the\n plague. It's only logical that\u2014\"\n\n\n He stopped. For even as he spoke, the light winked out! The counter\n clicked again.\n\n\n One.\n\n\n Alone.\n\n\n Alone!\n\n\n Charles screamed.\n\n\n The bottom dropped out from under him!\nWhy?\n\n\n Such a simple question, but in those three letters lay the essence of\n human nature. Why. The drive of curiosity. Stronger, in a way, than\n the so-called \"basic\" drives: hunger, thirst, sex, shelter, warmth,\n companionship, elimination. Certainly more decisive in the history of\n the race. Man began to think, to differentiate himself from the other\n animals, when he first asked the question: \"Why?\"\n\n\n But thinking about \"why\" didn't answer the question itself, Charles\n thought. He looked around him. He was sitting on a bench in Central\n Park, alone except for a few stray corpses. But the park was fairly\n free of bodies.\n\n\n \"You've got about ten minutes warning,\" he said to himself. \"I guess\n that most people wanted to die inside of something\u2014inside of anything.\n Not out in the unprotected open.\"\n\n\n The silence was like a weight hanging around his neck. Not an insect\n noise, not the chirp of a bird, not the sound of a car nor the scream\n of a plane. Not even a breeze to whisper among the leaves, he thought.\n Civilization equals life equals noise. Silence equals....\n\n\n Why. His mind kept returning to the question. Of all the people on\n earth, me. The last. Why me?\n\n\n Average, that's what he was. Height: 5'11\". Weight: 165. Age: 32.\n Status: Married, once upon a time.\n\n\n The Norm, with no significant departures, all down the line. Church\n member, but not a good one. Could that be it? Could the most normal be\n the most perfect? Had he led the best of all possible lives? Was that\n it? Had God, in His infinite wisdom and mercy, spared his life, saved\n him, singled him out because he was most nearly a saint, most nearly\n Christ-like, most nearly....\n\n\n Lies\u2014His mind snapped back to reality. He half smiled. Saint? Christ?\n The Second Coming?\n\n\n He was no saint.\n\n\n Charles sighed.\n\n\n What about\u2014?\nChance. That was it! The laws of probability, the bell-shaped curve,\n normal distribution, rectilinear regression. More people per square\n foot in New York than elsewhere. The first person who died was from New\n York, so the last person who gave way to the disease should come from\n here too. Spin the wheel; throw the dice; toss the coin.\n\n\n So simple to explain by the laws of chance. No need for any underlying\n assumptions about good and evil, no need for teleological arguments\n concerning cause and effect. Simply explain it by chance. Somebody had\n to be the last to go and that was\u2014\n\n\n \"No,\" Charles said, standing up in the quiet of the spring evening.\n \"No, chance won't do it. No man can reckon with chance. The mind\n rejects such things. There must be something beyond mere accident.\n There must be!\"\n\n\n He sighed slowly.\n\n\n \"So now I'm a hermit, whether or not I like it,\" he said in derision to\n the gravel path as he walked along it. \"A hermit in the midst of a city\n of millions of\u2014No, I forgot. There aren't any more people, are there?\"\n It was hard to realize, even now. \"A hermit, alone\u2014and I haven't even\n got a cave....\"\n\n\n Charles stopped walking suddenly. No cave, he thought. No place to\n sleep out the long one, no place to rest while time came to change\n things around and make them for the better. No place to hide.\n\n\n And suddenly it was the most important thing in life to him to find his\n \"cave.\"\n\n\n It took him almost an hour to find the proper tools, and better than\n two hours more of hard, nighttime work to get the hole dug to his\n satisfaction. It took almost three hours to find the right sort of\n casket, durable but not too heavy for one man to handle. He carted it\n out to a grassy plot close to the center of the park where the grave\n was. He let the coffin down slowly into the depression, then piled up\n loose dirt on the sloping sides of the hole so that the rain would wash\n it down over him.\n\n\n \"I can't very well bury myself,\" he said. \"I guess it will rain after\n I'm gone.\" He looked carefully down at the metallic container.\n\n\n Wait now. There was something wrong, something missing. It was\u2014oh,\n yes, he caught it. It was the stone. There wasn't any stone to go at\n the head of the grave. \"I'll have to fix that.\"\n\n\n A sheet of metal, bent double, served for the monument proper. A nearby\n tool shed yielded up a can of paint and a brush. By the glow of one of\n the streetlights Charles worked out the inscription.\n\n\n \"It ought to be something impressive,\" he thought out loud. \"Something\n fitting the occasion.\"\n\n\n What did one say on these situations? There was so little chance to\n practice up for things like this. But it ought to be good, it ought to\n be proper.\n\n\n \"'In this now hallowed corner of the planet Earth\u2014' No. That sounds\n too ... too....\"\n\n\n Make it simple, he thought. And he finally wrote:\nHERE LIES THE BODY OF\n\n THE LAST MAN ON EARTH\n\n\n Yes. That was it. Simple. Let whoever came afterwards figure out the\n rest. Let them decide. He smiled and finished the painting.\n\n\n Charles was hungry. He got up and started for one of the restaurants\n near the park. Later on, when there was more time, he'd find a piece\n of granite and move it to the plot. He could spend his free time\n carving on it, copying the inscription. He would make it into a real\n shrine; maybe he would practice up a bit and try to carve a statue to\n go with the stone.\n\n\n Somehow, though, since things were ready and it didn't make too much\n difference, it seemed to Charles that he'd probably have a long time\n to wait. \"Maybe it's just a disease, and I'm immune. I was immune to\n smallpox. The vaccination never took. That's probably it.\"\n\n\n He smiled. Strange, but now he wanted very much to go on living,\n alone or not. There were things he could do, ways to keep occupied.\n He wouldn't mind it so much. But he wanted more and more desperately\n with each passing second to retain his foothold on the tenuous path of\n physical existence.\n\n\n The tantalizing thought of \"why\" puzzled its way back into his mind.\n But it seemed less pressing now that he had almost come to the\n conclusion that he would live for a long time. Later, in a few days\n perhaps, he would think about it. In a little while he'd have plenty of\n opportunity for hunting down the answer. This seemed good to him, for\n now he thought he almost had the answer, if there were an answer. He\n thought he had seen the solution peering out at him from the recesses\n of his mind, and he didn't like the expression on its face. Better to\n forget.\nCharles reached the broad boulevard. There was a large cafe just across\n from him, its front window caved in by a large truck. He stumbled and\n almost fell as he stepped from the curb.\n\n\n \"Look at me, nervous as a cat.\"\n\n\n He was trembling noticeably as he started across the street.\n\n\n \"I\u2014\" He started to say something, to think something. But some hidden\n part of his mind clamped down, obscuring the thought, rejecting the\n concept.\n\n\n The tremor turned to a shake before he reached the far curb, and the\n first burst of wild pain came as he laid his shoulder against the door\n to the restaurant. This was the way the plague began, but\u2014His mind\n quickly repressed the idea. It couldn't be the plague. He was immune!\n\n\n Another burst of pulsating, shattering pain crashed through his body,\n tearing down the defenses of his mind, putting an end of his thoughts\n of immunity. Colors flared before his eyes, a persistent, irresistible\n susurrus flooded his ears.\n\n\n He wanted to protest, but there was no one to listen to him. He\n appealed to every divinity he knew, all the time knowing it would be\n useless. His body, out of his voluntary control, tried to run off in\n all directions at once.\n\n\n Charles struggled to end his body's disorganized responses, to\n channelize all his energy into one direction. His mind came back into\n action. He set up his goal; everything else seemed irrelevant: he had\n to get back to the park, to his hermit's cave, to his long, narrow\n home. He couldn't die until then.\n\n\n Ten minutes.\n\n\n He was allotted ten minutes before the end.\n\n\n It could have been ten years or ten seconds, for now objective time\n meant nothing to him. It was not a matter of measuring seconds and\n minutes. It was a matter of forgetting time and measuring space.\n\n\n He concentrated on the grave; he forced his body to become an unwilling\n machine. While he could, he walked, forcing himself on. When his legs\n gave way, he crawled. When his knees buckled, he rolled. When his\n stomach protested, he vomited. It made no difference.\n\n\n Charles refused to think. Machines, especially half-broken machines, do\n not think; they only work. Sweating, straining, bleeding, retching, he\n pushed himself towards his goal, trying to add one final touch of grace\n and custom to the rude irrationalness of it all.\n\n\n His eyes gave out a few feet from the pit. He felt his way towards it.\n Convulsions shook his body like a cat shakes a captive mouse. He humped\n his body forward between the seizures, hands outstretched, searching\n for the grave.\n\n\n And then he was upon it. One arm reached out for grass, and clutched\n bare space instead.\n\n\n He was home.\n\n\n He gathered energy from his final reservoirs of strength for one final\n movement that would throw him headlong into the shallow grave. He\n tensed his muscles, pulled his limbs up under him and started to roll\n into the hole.\n\n\n Instantly the thought struck him with paralyzing devastation. The\n answer to it all poked its face out from the recesses of his mind and\n sapped the last bit of his energy, corroding his nerves and dying\n muscles. Now he knew, and the knowing was the end of it.\n\n\n He collapsed at the edge of the pit. Only one arm hung loosely down\n into it, swinging senseless in the air, pointing accusingly at the\n empty coffin.\n\n\n The world will end, not with a bang, nor with a whimper, but with the\n last man's anguished cry at the unreasonableness of it all.\n\n\n Charles screamed.\nThe large, invisible, ovular being that hung suspended over the Empire\n State Building rested from its exertion. Soon it was approached by\n another of its kind.\n\n\n \"It is finished?\" asked the second.\n\n\n \"Yes. Just now. I am resting.\"\n\n\n \"I can feel the emptiness of it.\"\n\n\n \"It was very good. Where were you?\"\n\n\n \"On the next planet out. No beauty to it at all; no system. How was\n yours?\"\n\n\n \"Beautiful,\" said the first. \"It went according to the strictest\n semantic relationship following the purest mathematical principles.\n They made it easy for me.\"\n\n\n \"Good.\"\n\n\n \"Well, where to now?\"\n\n\n \"There's another system about four thoughts away. We're due there soon.\"\n\n\n \"All right. Let's go.\"\n\n\n \"What's that you have there?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, this?\" replied the first. \"It's a higher neural order compendium\n the Things here made up. It's what I used.\"\n\n\n \"You can't take it with you, you know. They don't allow souvenirs.\"\n\n\n \"I know.\"\n\n\n \"Well?\"\n\n\n \"All right, all right. You're so good, see if you can compute the\n scatter probability.\"\n\n\n The first being moved imperceptably and the heavy plastoid binding of\n the book disappeared. The thousands of pages dropped softly, caught\n at the wind like hungry sails, separated, and pulled by the fingers of\n gravity, went their disparate ways.\nHere a page scuttled into a broken window of the Chrysler Building\n (read the names: Aabat, Aabbs, Aabbt).\n\n\n Here a page landed upright on the head of one of the library lions\n and sloughed softly to the ground (read the names: Looman, Loomana,\n Loomanabsky).\n\n\n Here another page crept in between the cracks of a pier on the\n riverfront, dropping gently to the caressing eddies of the water (read\n the names: Smith, Smitha, Smitj).\n\n\n And here two pages danced down into Central Park, pirouetted,\n promenaded, and finally came to rest against a propped-up piece of\n metal (read the names: Whit, Whita, Whitacomb).\n\n\n It was not until the dusty morning sun stirred up the breezes that they\n fluttered down into the shallow hole beneath, unnoticed. The writing on\n the metal, until then partially obscured by the papers, became legible:\nHERE LIES THE BODY OF\n\n THE LAST MAN ON EARTH\u2014\n\n CHARLES J. ZZYZST\n\n GO TO HELL!",
    "52326": "THE\n\n RADIO\n\n PLANET\nRalph Milne Farley\nI\n\u201cIt\u2019s too bad that Myles Cabot can\u2019t see this!\u201d\n I exclaimed, as my eye fell on the following item:\nSIGNALS FROM MARS FAIL TO REACH HARVARD\nCambridge, Massachusetts, Wednesday. The Harvard\n College Radio Station has for several weeks been in receipt\n of fragmentary signals of extraordinarily long wave-length,\n Professor Hammond announced yesterday. So far as it has\n been possible to test the direction of the source of these\n waves, it appears that the direction has a twenty-four hour\n cycle, thus indicating that the origin of these waves is some\n point outside the earth.\nThe university authorities will express no opinion as to\n whether or not these messages come from Mars.\nMyles, alone of all the radio engineers of my acquaintance,\n was competent to surmount these difficulties, and\n thus enable the Cambridge savants to receive with clearness\n the message from another planet.\n\n6\n\n Twelve months ago he would have been available, for\n he was then quietly visiting at my farm, after five earth-years\n spent on the planet Venus, where, by the aid of radio,\n he had led the Cupians to victory over their oppressors,\n a human-brained race of gigantic black ants. He had driven\n the last ant from the face of continental Poros, and had\n won and wed the Princess Lilla, who had borne him a son\n to occupy the throne of Cupia.\n\n\n While at my farm Cabot had rigged up a huge radio\n set and a matter-transmitting apparatus, with which he had\n (presumably) shot himself back to Poros on the night of the\n big October storm which had wrecked his installation.\n\n\n I showed the newspaper item to Mrs. Farley, and lamented\n on Cabot\u2019s absence. Her response opened up an\n entirely new line of thought.\n\n\n Said she: \u201cDoesn\u2019t the very fact that Mr. Cabot isn\u2019t\n here suggest to you that this may be a message, not from\n Mars, but from him? Or perhaps from the Princess Lilla,\n inquiring about him in case he has failed in his attempted\n return?\u201d\n\n\n That had never occurred to me! How stupid!\n\n\n \u201cWhat had I better do about it, if anything?\u201d I asked.\n \u201cDrop Professor Hammond a line?\u201d\n\n\n But Mrs. Farley was afraid that I would be taken for a\n crank.\n\n\n That evening, when I was over in town, the clerk in the\n drug store waylaid me to say that there had been a long-distance\n phone call for me, and would I please call a certain\n Cambridge number.\n\n\n So, after waiting an interminable time in the stuffy booth\n with my hands full of dimes, nickels, and quarters, I finally\n got my party.\n\n\n \u201cMr. Farley?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cSpeaking.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThis is Professor Kellogg, O. D. Kellogg,\u201d the voice\n replied.\n\n7\n\n It was my friend of the Harvard math faculty, the man\n who had analyzed the measurements of the streamline projectile\n in which Myles Cabot had shot to earth the account\n of the first part of his adventures on Venus. Some further\n adventures Myles had told me in person during his stay\n on my farm.\n\n\n \u201cProfessor Hammond thinks that he is getting Mars on the\n air,\u201d the voice continued.\n\n\n \u201cYes,\u201d I replied. \u201cI judged as much from what I read in\n this morning\u2019s paper. But what do\nyou\nthink?\u201d\n\n\n Kellogg\u2019s reply gave my sluggish mind the second jolt\n which it had received that day.\n\n\n \u201cWell,\u201d he said, \u201cin view of the fact that I am one of\n the few people among your readers who take your radio\n stories seriously, I think that Hammond is getting Venus.\n Can you run up here and help me try and convince him?\u201d\n\n\n And so it was that I took the early boat next morning\n for Boston, and had lunch with the two professors.\nAs a result of our conference, a small committee of engineers\n returned with me to Edgartown that evening for\n the purpose of trying to repair the wrecked radio set which\n Myles Cabot had left on my farm.\n\n\n They utterly failed to comprehend the matter-transmitting\n apparatus, and so\u2014after the fallen tower had been reerected\n and the rubbish cleared away\u2014they had devoted their attention\n to the restoration of the conversational part of the set.\n\n\n To make a long story short, we finally restored it, with the\n aid of some old blue prints of Cabot\u2019s which Mrs. Farley,\n like Swiss Family Robinson\u2019s wife, produced from somewhere.\n I was the first to try the earphones, and was rewarded by\n a faint \u201cbzt-bzt\u201d like the song of a north woods blackfly.\n\n\n In conventional radioese, I repeated the sounds to the\n Harvard group:\n\n\n \u201cDah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit\n dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dah-dah-dit-dah. Dah-dit-dit\n dit. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah dah-dit dit dit dah-dah-dah\n dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah dah-dit-dit-dit\n dah-dah-dah dah. Dah-dit-dah-dit dit-dah dah-dit-dit-dit-dah\n dah-dah-dah.\u201d\n\n8\n\n A look of incredulity spread over their faces. Again came\n the same message, and again I repeated it.\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re spoofing us!\u201d one of them shouted. \u201cGive\nme\nthe earphones.\u201d\n\n\n And he snatched them from my head. Adjusting them on\n his own head, he spelled out to us, \u201cC-Q C-Q C-Q D-E\n C-A-B-O-T C-A-B-O-T C-A-B-O-T\u2014\u201d\n\n\n Seizing the big leaf-switch, he threw it over. The motor-generator\n began to hum. Grasping the key, the Harvard\n engineer ticked off into space: \u201cCabot Cabot Cabot D-E\u2014\u201d\n\n\n \u201cHas this station a call letter?\u201d he hurriedly asked me.\n\n\n \u201cYes,\u201d I answered quickly, \u201cOne-X-X-B.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOne-X-X-B,\u201d he continued the ticking \u201cK.\u201d\n\n\n Interplanetary communication was an established fact at\n last! And not with Mars after all these years of scientific\n speculations. But what meant more to me was that I was\n again in touch with my classmate Myles Standish Cabot,\n the radio man.\n\n\n The next day a party of prominent scientists, accompanied\n by a telegrapher and two stenographers, arrived at my\n farm.\n\n\n During the weeks that followed there was recorded\n Myles\u2019s own account of the amazing adventures on the planet\n Venus (or Poros, as its own inhabitants call it,)\n which befell him upon his return there after his brief visit\n to the earth. I have edited those notes into the following\n coherent story.\nII\n\n TOO MUCH STATIC\nMyles Cabot had returned to the earth to study the\n latest developments of modern terrestrial science for the\n benefit of the Cupian nation. He was the regent of Cupia\n during the minority of his baby son, King Kew the\n Thirteenth. The loyal Prince Toron occupied the throne in his\n absence. The last of the ant-men and their ally, the renegade\n Cupian Prince Yuri, had presumably perished in an attempt\n to escape by flying through the steam-clouds which completely\n hem in continental Poros. What lay beyond the\n boiling seas no man knew.\n\n9\n\n During his stay on my farm, Cabot had built the matter-transmitting\n apparatus, with which he had shot himself off\n into space on that October night on which he had received\n the message from the skies: \u201cS O S, Lilla.\u201d A thunderstorm\n had been brewing all that evening, and just as Myles\n had placed himself between the coordinate axes of his machine\n and had gathered up the strings which ran from his\n control levers to within the apparatus, there had come a\n blinding flash. Lightning had struck his aerial.\n\n\n How long his unconsciousness lasted he knew not. He\n was some time in regaining his senses. But when he had\n finally and fully recovered, he found himself lying on a\n sandy beach beside a calm and placid lake beneath a silver\n sky.\n\n\n He fell to wondering, vaguely and pleasantly, where he\n was and how he had got here.\n\n\n Suddenly, however, his ears were jarred by a familiar\n sound. At once his senses cleared, and he listened intently\n to the distant purring of a motor. Yes, there could be no\n mistake; an airplane was approaching. Now he could see\n it, a speck in the sky, far down the beach.\n\n\n Nearer and nearer it came.\n\n\n Myles sprang to his feet. To his intense surprise, he found\n that the effort threw him quite a distance into the air. Instantly\n the idea flashed through his mind: \u201cI must be on\n Mars! Or some other strange planet.\u201d This idea was vaguely\n reminiscent of something.\n\n\n But while he was trying to catch this vaguely elusive\n train of thought, his attention was diverted by the fact that,\n for some unaccountable reason, his belt buckle and most of\n the buttons which had held his clothes together were missing,\n so that his clothing came to pieces as he rose, and that\n he had to shed it rapidly in order to avoid impeding his\n movements. He wondered at the cause of this.\n\n10\n\n But his speculations were cut short by the alighting of the\n plane a hundred yards down the beach.\n\n\n What was his horror when out of it clambered, not men\n but ants! Ants, six-footed, and six feet high. Huge ants, four\n of them, running toward him over the glistening sands.\n\n\n Gone was all his languor, as he seized a piece of driftwood\n and prepared to defend himself.\n\n\n As he stood thus expectant, Myles realized that his present\n position and condition, the surrounding scenery, and the advance\n of the ant-men were exactly, item for item, like the\n opening events of his first arrival on the planet Poros. He\n even recognized one of the ant-men as old Doggo, who had\n befriended him on his previous visit.\n\n\n Could it be that all his adventures in Cupia had been\n naught but a dream; a recurring dream, in fact? Were his\n dear wife Lilla and his little son Kew merely figments of\n his imagination? Horrible thought!\n\n\n And then events began to differ from those of the past;\n for the three other Formians halted, and Doggo advanced\n alone. By the agitation of the beast\u2019s antennae the earth\n man could see that it was talking to him. But Myles no\n longer possessed the wonderful electrical headset which he\n had contrived and built during his previous visit to that\n planet, so as to talk with Cupians and Formians, both of\n which races are earless and converse by means of radiations\n from their antennae.\n\n\n So he picked up two sticks from the beach, and held\n them projecting from his forehead; then threw them to the\n ground with a grimace of disgust and pointed to his ears.\n\n\n Doggo understood, and scratched with his paw in Cupian\n shorthand on the silver sands the message: \u201cMyles Cabot,\n you are our prisoner.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat, again?\u201d scratched Myles, then made a sign of\n submission.\n\n11\n\n He dreaded the paralyzing bite which Formians usually\n administer to their victims, and which he had twice experienced\n in the past; but, fortunately, it was not now\n forthcoming.\n\n\n The other three ants kept away from him as Doggo led\n him to the beached airplane, and soon they were scudding\n along beneath silver skies, northward as it later turned out.\n\n\n Far below them were silver-green fields and tangled\n tropical woods, interspersed with rivulets and little ponds.\nThis was Cupia, his Cupia. He was home once more,\n back again upon the planet which held all that was dear\n to him in two worlds.\n\n\n His heart glowed with the warmth of homecoming.\n What mattered it that he was now a prisoner, in the hands\n (or, rather, claws) of his old enemies, the Formians? He\n had been their prisoner before, and had escaped. Once more\n he could escape, and rescue the Princess Lilla.\n\n\n Poor girl! How eager he was to reach her side, and save\n her from that peril, whatever it was, which had caused her\n to flash that \u201cS O S\u201d a hundred million miles across the\n solar system from Poros to the earth.\n\n\n He wondered what could have happened in Cupia since\n his departure, only a few sangths ago. How was it that\n the ant-men had survived their airplane journey across the\n boiling seas? What had led them to return? Or perhaps\n these ants were a group who had hidden somewhere and\n thus had escaped the general extermination of their race.\n In either event, how had they been able to reconquer\n Cupia? And where was their former leader, Yuri, the renegade\n Cupian prince?\n\n\n These and a hundred other similar questions flooded in\n upon the earth-man, as the Formian airship carried him, a\n captive, through the skies.\n\n\n He gazed again at the scene below, and now noted one\n difference from the accustomed Porovian landscape, for nowhere\n ran the smooth concrete roads which bear the swift\n two-wheeled kerkools of the Cupians to all parts of their\n continent. What uninhabited portion of Cupia could this be,\n over which they were now passing?\n\n12\n\n Turning to Doggo, Myles extended his left palm, and\n made a motion as though writing on it with the thumb\n and forefinger of his right hand. But the ant-man waved\n a negative with one of his forepaws. It was evident that\n there were no writing materials aboard the ship. Myles\n would have to wait until they reached their landing place;\n for doubtless they would soon hover down in some city\n or town, though just which one he could not guess, as the\n country below was wholly unfamiliar.\n\n\n Finally a small settlement loomed ahead. It was of the\n familiar style of toy-building-block architecture affected by\n the ant-men, and, from its appearance, was very new. On its\n outskirts further building operations were actively in progress.\n Apparently a few survivors of the accursed race of Formians\n were consolidating their position and attempting to build\n up a new empire in some out-of-the-way portion of the continent.\n\n\n As the earth-man was turning these thoughts over in his\n mind the plane softly settled down upon one of the flat\n roofs, and its occupants disembarked. Three of the ants\n advanced menacingly toward Myles, but Doggo held them\n off. Then all of the party descended down one of the ramps\n to the lower levels of the building.\n\n\n Narrow slitlike window openings gave onto courtyards,\n where fountains played and masses of blue and yellow flowers\n bloomed, amid gray-branched lichens with red and purple\n twig-knobs. It was in just such a garden, through just\n such a window, that he had first looked upon the lovely\n blue-eyed, golden-haired Lilla, Crown Princess of Cupia.\n\n\n The earth-man sighed. Where was his beloved wife now?\n That she needed his help was certain. He must therefore\n get busy. So once again he made motions of writing on the\n palm of his left hand with the thumb and forefinger of his\n right; and this time the sign language produced results,\n for Doggo halted the procession and led Cabot into a room.\n\n13\n\n It was a plain bare room, devoid of any furniture except\n a small table, for ant-men have no use for chairs and\n couches. The sky outside was already beginning to pinken\n with the unseen sun.\n\n\n With a sweep of his paw, Doggo indicated that this was\n to be Cabot\u2019s quarters. Then, with another wave, he\n pointed to the table, where lay a pad of paper and stylus,\n not a pencil-like stylus as employed by the Cupians, but\n rather one equipped with straps for attaching it to the claw\n of a Formian.\n\n\n Even so, it was better than nothing. The earth-man seized\n it eagerly, but before he could begin writing an ant entered\n bearing a Cupian toga, short-sleeved and bordered with\n Grecian wave designs in blue. Myles put on this garment,\n and then quickly filled a sheet with questions:\n\n\n \u201cHow is my princess and my son, the baby king? Whence\n come all you Formians, whose race I thought had been\n exterminated? What part of Cupia is this? What is this city?\n Where is Prince Yuri? And what do you intend to do with\n me\nthis\ntime?\u201d\n\n\n Then he passed the paper and stylus over to his old\n friend Doggo. They were alone together at last.\nThe ant-man\u2019s reply consumed sheet after sheet of paper;\n but, owning to the rapidity of Porovian shorthand, did not\n take so very much more time than speaking would have\n required. As he completed each sheet he passed it over to\n Myles, who read as follows:\n\n\n \u201cAs to your princess and your son, I know not, for this\n is not Cupia. Do you remember how, when your victorious\n army and air navy swept to the southern extremity of what\n had been Formia, a few of our survivors rose in planes from\n the ruins of our last stronghold and braved the dangers\n of the steam clouds which overhang the boiling seas? Our\n leader was Prince Yuri, erstwhile contender for the throne\n of Cupia, splendid even in defeat.\n\n\n \u201cIt was his brain that conceived our daring plan of\n escape. If there were other lands beyond the boiling seas,\n the lands which tradition taught were the origin of the\n Cupian race, then there we might prosper and raise up a\n new empire. At the worst we should merely meet death in\n another form, rather than at your hands. So we essayed.\n\n14\n\n \u201cYour planes followed us, but turned back as we neared\n the area of terrific heat. Soon the vapor closed over us,\n blotting our enemies and our native land from view.\u201d\n\n\n For page after page Doggo, the ant-man, related the\n harrowing details of that perilous flight across the boiling\n seas, ending with the words:\n\n\n \u201cHere we are, and here are you, in Yuriana, capitol of\n New Formia. But how is it that you, Myles Cabot, have\n arrived here on this continent in exactly the same manner\n and condition in which I discovered you in\nold\nFormia\n eight years ago?\u201d\n\n\n When Myles reached the end of reading this narrative, he\n in turn took the pad and stylus and related how he had\n gone to the planet Minos (which we call the Earth) to learn\n the latest discoveries and inventions there, and how his\n calculations for his return to Poros had been upset by some\n static conditions just as he had been about to transmit\n himself back. Oh, if only he had landed by chance upon\n the same beach as on his first journey through the skies!\n\n\n Wisely he refrained from mentioning the \u201cS O S\u201d message\n from Lilla. But his recollection of her predicament\n spurred him to be anxious about her rescue.\n\n\n His immediate problem was to learn what the ant-men\n planned for him; so the concluding words which he wrote\n upon the pad were: \u201cAnd, now that you have me in your\n power, what shall you do with me?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOld friend,\u201d Doggo wrote in reply, \u201cthat depends entirely\n upon Yuri, our king, whose toga you now have on.\u201d\nIII\n\n YURI OR FORMIS?\nThe earth-man grimaced, but then smiled. Perhaps, his\n succeeding to the toga of King Yuri might prove to be an\n omen.\n\n15\n\n \u201cSo Yuri is king of the ants?\u201d he asked.\n\n\n \u201cYes,\u201d his captor replied, \u201cfor Queen Formis did not survive\n the trip across the boiling seas.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThen what of your empire?\u201d Myles inquired. \u201cNo queen.\n No eggs. How can your race continue? For you Formians are\n like the ants on my own planet Minos.\u201d\n\n\n Doggo\u2019s reply astounded him.\n\n\n \u201cDo you remember back at Wautoosa, I told you that\n some of us lesser Formians had occasionally laid eggs? So\n now behold before you Doggo, Admiral of the Formian\n Air Navy, and mother of a new Queen Formis.\u201d\n\n\n This was truly a surprise! All along Cabot had always\n regarded the Formians as mannish. And rightly so, for they\n performed in their own country the duties assigned to men\n among the Cupians. Furthermore, all Formians, save only\n the reigning Formis herself, were called by the Porovian\n pronoun, which corresponds to \u201che\u201d in English.\n\n\n When Myles had somewhat recovered from his astonishment,\n he warmly congratulated his friend by patting him\n on the side of the head, as is the Porovian custom.\n\n\n \u201cDoggo,\u201d he wrote, \u201cthis ought to constitute you a person\n of some importance among the Formians.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt\nought\nto,\u201d the ant-man replied, \u201cbut as a matter of\n fact, it merely intensifies Yuri\u2019s mistrust and hatred of me.\n Now that I am mother of the queen, he fears that I may\n turn against him and establish Formis in his place as the\n head of an empire of the Formians, by the Formians, and\n for the Formians exclusively.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t you?\u201d Myles wrote. It seemed to him to be\n a bully good idea, and incidentally a solution of his own\n difficulties.\n\n\n But Doggo wrote in horror, \u201cIt would be treason!\u201d Then\n tore up all the correspondence. It is difficult to inculcate the\n thought of independence in the mind of one reared in an\n autocracy.\n\n\n The earth-man, however, persisted.\n\n\n \u201cHow many of the council can you count on, if the interests\n of Yuri should clash with those of Formis?\u201d\n\n16\n\n \u201cOnly one\u2014myself.\u201d\n\n\n And again Doggo tore up the correspondence.\n\n\n Myles tactfully changed the subject.\n\n\n \u201cWhere is the arch-fiend now?\u201d he asked.\n\n\n \u201cWe know not,\u201d the Formian wrote in reply. \u201cSix days\n ago he left us in his airship and flew westward. When he\n failed to return, we sent out scout planes to search for\n him, and we have been hunting ever since. When we\n sighted you on the beach this morning we thought that\n you might be our lost leader, and that is why we landed and\n approached you.\u201d\n\n\n At about this point the conversation was interrupted by\n a worker ant who brought food: roast alta and green aphid\n milk. With what relish did the earth-man plunge into the\n feast, his first taste of Porovian delicacies in many months.\n\n\n During the meal conversation lagged, owing to the difficulty\n of writing and eating at the same time. But now\n Myles Cabot seized his pad and stylus and wrote:\n\n\n \u201cHave you ever known me to fail in any undertaking\n on the planet Poros?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNo,\u201d the ant-man wrote in reply.\n\n\n \u201cHave you ever known me to be untrue to a principle,\n a cause, or a friend?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNo,\u201d Doggo replied.\n\n\n \u201cThen,\u201d Myles wrote, \u201clet us make your daughter queen\n in fact as well as in name.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt is treason,\u201d Doggo wrote in reply, but this time he\n did not tear up the correspondence.\n\n\n \u201cTreason?\u201d Myles asked. If he had spoken the word, he\n would have spoken it with scorn and derision. \u201cTreason?\n Is it treason to support your own queen? What has become\n of the national pride of the once great Formians? Look!\n I pledge myself to the cause of Formis, rightful Queen of\n Formia. Formis, daughter of Doggo! What say you?\u201d\n\n\n This time, as he tore up the correspondence, Doggo\n signified an affirmative. And thus there resulted further\n correspondence.\n\n17\n\n \u201cDoggo,\u201d Myles wrote, \u201ccan you get to the antenna of\n the queen?\u201d\n\n\n The ant-man indicated that he could.\n\n\n \u201cIf she has inherited any of your character,\u201d Myles continued,\n \u201cshe will assert herself, if given half a chance.\u201d\nSo the Pitmanesque conversation continued. Long since had\n the pink light of Porovian evening faded from the western\n sky. The ceiling vapor-lamps were lit. The night showed velvet-black\n through the slit-like windows. And still the two old\n friends wrote on, Myles Standish Cabot, the Bostonian, and\n Doggo, No. 334-2-18, the only really humanlike ant-man\n whom Myles had ever known among the once dominant\n race of Poros.\n\n\n Finally, as the dials indicated midnight, the two conspirators\n ceased their labors. All was arranged for the\ncoup d\u2019 etat\n.\n\n\n They tore into shreds every scrap of used paper, leaving\n extant merely the ant-man\u2019s concluding words: \u201cMeanwhile\n you are my prisoner.\u201d\n\n\n Doggo then rang a soundless bell, which was answered\n by a worker ant, whom he inaudibly directed to bring\n sufficient draperies to form a bed for the earth-man. These\n brought, the two friends patted each other a fond good\n night, and the tired earth-man lay down for the first sleep\n which he had had in over forty earth hours.\n\n\n It hardly seemed possible! Night before last he had slept\n peacefully on a conventional feather-bed in a little New\n England farmhouse. Then had come the S O S message\n from the skies; and here he was now, millions of miles\n away through space retiring on matted silver felting on the\n concrete floor of a Porovian ant-house. Such are the mutations\n of fortune!\n\n\n With these thoughts the returned wanderer lapsed into\n a deep and dreamless sleep.\n\n\n When he awakened in the morning there was a guard\n posted at the door.\n\n18\n\n Doggo did not show up until nearly noon, when he\n rattled in, bristling with excitement.\n\n\n Seizing the pad he wrote: \u201cA stormy session of the Council\n of Twelve! We are all agreed that you must be indicted\n for high crimes and misdemeanors. But the great question\n is as to just what we can charge you with.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cSorry I can\u2019t assist you,\u201d the earth-man wrote. \u201cHow\n would it be if I were to slap your daughter\u2019s face, or\n something? Or why not try me for general cussedness?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThat is just what we finally decided to do,\u201d the ant-man\n wrote in reply. \u201cWe shall try you on general principles,\n and let the proper accusation develop from the evidence.\n\n\n \u201cAt some stage of the proceedings it will inevitably occur\n to some member of the council to suggest that you be\n charged with treason to Yuri, whereupon two members of\n the council, whom I have won over to the cause of my\n daughter, will raise the objection that Yuri is not our king.\n This will be the signal for the proclaiming of Queen Formis.\n If you will waive counsel the trial can take place to-morrow.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI will waive anything,\u201d Myles replied, \u201ccounsel, immunity,\n extradition, anything in order to speed up my return\n to Cupia, where Lilla awaits in some dire extremity.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cAll right,\u201d Doggo wrote, and the conference was at an\n end. The morrow would decide the ascendancy of Myles\n Cabot or the Prince Yuri over the new continent.\nIV\n\n THE COUP D\u2019ETAT\nThe next morning Myles Cabot was led under guard to the\n council chamber of the dread thirteen: Formis and her\n twelve advisers. The accused was placed in a wicker cage,\n from which he surveyed his surroundings as the proceedings\n opened.\n\n19\n\n On a raised platform stood the ant queen, surmounted by\n a scarlet canopy, which set off the perfect proportions of\n her jet-black body. On each side of her stood six refined\n and intelligent ant-men, her councillors. One of the twelve\n was Doggo.\n\n\n Messenger ants hurried hither and thither.\n\n\n First the accusation was read, Myles being furnished\n with a written copy.\n\n\n The witnesses were then called. They were veterans who\n had served in the wars in which Cabot had twice freed\n Cupia from the domination of its Formian oppressors.\n They spoke with bitterness of the downfall of their beloved\n Formia. Their testimony was brief.\n\n\n Then the accused was asked if he wished to say anything\n in his own behalf. Myles rose, then shrugged his shoulders,\n sat down again, and wrote: \u201cI fully realize the futility of\n making an argument through the antennae of another.\u201d\n\n\n Whereupon the queen and the council went into executive\n session. Their remarks were not intended for the eyes\n of the prisoner, but he soon observed that some kind of a\n dispute was on between Doggo, supported by two councillors\n named Emu and Fum on one side, and a councillor named\n Barth on the other.\n\n\n As this dispute reached its height, a messenger ant rushed\n in and held up one paw. Cabot\u2019s interpreter, not deeming\n this a part of the executive session, obligingly translated the\n following into writing:\n\n\n The messenger: \u201cYuri lives and reigns over Cupia. It is his\n command that Cabot die.\u201d\n\n\n Barth: \u201cIt is the radio. Know then, O Queen, and ye,\n members of the council, that when we fled across the boiling\n seas under the gallant leadership of Prince Yuri, the man\n with the heart of a Formian, he brought with him one of\n those powerful radio sets invented by the beast who is our\n prisoner here to-day.\n\n\n \u201cSupporters of Yuri still remained among the Cupians,\n and he has been in constant communication with these ever\n since shortly after our arrival here. From them he learned\n of the return of Myles Cabot to the planet Minos.\n\n20\n\n \u201cThen Yuri disappeared. Those of us who were closest\n to him suspected that he had gone back across the boiling\n seas to claim as his own the throne of Cupia. But we hesitated\n to announce this until we were sure, for we feared that\n some of our own people would regard his departure as\n desertion. Yet who can blame him for returning to his father-land\n and to the throne which is his by rights?\u201d\n\n\n To which the messenger added: \u201cAnd he offers to give us\n back our own old country, if we too will return across the\n boiling seas again.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt is a lie!\u201d Doggo shouted.\n\n\n \u201cYuri, usurper of the thrones of two continents. Bah!\u201d\n shouted Emu.\n\n\n \u201cYuri, our rightful leader,\u201d shouted Barth.\n\n\n \u201cGive us a queen of our own race,\u201d shouted Fum.\n\n\n \u201cRelease the prisoner,\u201d shouted the Queen.\n\n\n And that is all that Myles learned of the conversation,\n for his interpreter at this juncture stopped writing and\n obeyed the queen. The earth-man was free!\n\n\n With one bound he gained the throne, where fighting\n was already in progress between the two factions. Barth\n and Doggo were rolling over and over on the floor in a\n death grapple, while the ant-queen had backed to the rear\n of the stage, closely guarded by Emu and Fum.\n\n\n Seizing one of the pikes which supported the scarlet\n canopy, Myles wrenched it loose and drove it into the thorax\n of Barth. In another instant the earth-man and Doggo stood\n beside the queen.\n\n\n Ant-men now came pouring into the chamber through all\n the entrances, taking sides as they entered and sized up the\n situation. If it had still been in vogue among the Formians\n to be known by numbers rather than names, and to have\n these identifying numbers painted on the backs of their\n abdomens followed by the numbers of those whom they\n had defeated in the duels so common among them, then\n many a Formian would have \u201cgot the number\u201d of many\n another, that day.",
    "63304": "DOUBLECROSS\nby JAMES Mac CREIGH\nRevolt was brewing on Venus, led by the\n\n descendant of the first Earthmen to\n\n land. Svan was the leader making the final\n\n plans\u2014plotting them a bit too well.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Winter 1944.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe Officer of the Deck was pleased as he returned to the main lock.\n There was no reason why everything shouldn't have been functioning\n perfectly, of course, but he was pleased to have it confirmed, all the\n same. The Executive Officer was moodily smoking a cigarette in the open\n lock, staring out over the dank Venusian terrain at the native town. He\n turned.\n\n\n \"Everything shipshape, I take it!\" he commented.\n\n\n The OD nodded. \"I'll have a blank log if this keeps up,\" he said.\n \"Every man accounted for except the delegation, cargo stowed, drivers\n ready to lift as soon as they come back.\"\n\n\n The Exec tossed away his cigarette. \"\nIf\nthey come back.\"\n\n\n \"Is there any question?\"\n\n\n The Exec shrugged. \"I don't know, Lowry,\" he said. \"This is a funny\n place. I don't trust the natives.\"\n\n\n Lowry lifted his eyebrows. \"Oh? But after all, they're human beings,\n just like us\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Not any more. Four or five generations ago they were. Lord, they don't\n even look human any more. Those white, flabby skins\u2014I don't like them.\"\n\n\n \"Acclimation,\" Lowry said scientifically. \"They had to acclimate\n themselves to Venus's climate. They're friendly enough.\"\n\n\n The Exec shrugged again. He stared at the wooden shacks that were the\n outskirts of the native city, dimly visible through the ever-present\n Venusian mist. The native guard of honor, posted a hundred yards from\n the Earth-ship, stood stolidly at attention with their old-fashioned\n proton-rifles slung over their backs. A few natives were gazing\n wonderingly at the great ship, but made no move to pass the line of\n guards.\n\n\n \"Of course,\" Lowry said suddenly, \"there's a minority who are afraid\n of us. I was in town yesterday, and I talked with some of the natives.\n They think there will be hordes of immigrants from Earth, now that we\n know Venus is habitable. And there's some sort of a paltry underground\n group that is spreading the word that the immigrants will drive the\n native Venusians\u2014the descendants of the first expedition, that\n is\u2014right down into the mud. Well\u2014\" he laughed\u2014\"maybe they will.\n After all, the fittest survive. That's a basic law of\u2014\"\n\n\n The annunciator over the open lock clanged vigorously, and a metallic\n voice rasped: \"Officer of the Deck! Post Number One! Instruments\n reports a spy ray focused on the main lock!\"\n\n\n Lowry, interrupted in the middle of a word, jerked his head back and\n stared unbelievingly at the tell-tale next to the annunciator. Sure\n enough, it was glowing red\u2014might have been glowing for minutes. He\n snatched at the hand-phone dangling from the wall, shouted into it.\n \"Set up a screen! Notify the delegation! Alert a landing party!\" But\n even while he was giving orders, the warning light flickered suddenly\n and went out. Stricken, Lowry turned to the Exec.\n\n\n The Executive Officer nodded gloomily. He said, \"You see!\"\n\"You see?\"\n\n\n Svan clicked off the listening-machine and turned around. The five\n others in the room looked apprehensive. \"You see?\" Svan repeated. \"From\n their own mouths you have heard it. The Council was right.\"\n\n\n The younger of the two women sighed. She might have been beautiful, in\n spite of her dead-white skin, if there had been a scrap of hair on her\n head. \"Svan, I'm afraid,\" she said. \"Who are we to decide if this\n is a good thing? Our parents came from Earth. Perhaps there will be\n trouble at first, if colonists come, but we are of the same blood.\"\n\n\n Svan laughed harshly. \"\nThey\ndon't think so. You heard them. We are\n not human any more. The officer said it.\"\n\n\n The other woman spoke unexpectedly. \"The Council was right,\" she\n agreed. \"Svan, what must we do?\"\n\n\n Svan raised his hand, thoughtfully. \"One moment. Ingra, do you still\n object?\"\n\n\n The younger woman shrank back before the glare in his eyes. She looked\n around at the others, found them reluctant and uneasy, but visibly\n convinced by Svan.\n\n\n \"No,\" she said slowly. \"I do not object.\"\n\n\n \"And the rest of us? Does any of us object?\"\n\n\n Svan eyed them, each in turn. There was a slow but unanimous gesture of\n assent.\n\n\n \"Good,\" said Svan. \"Then we must act. The Council has told us that we\n alone will decide our course of action. We have agreed that, if the\n Earth-ship returns, it means disaster for Venus. Therefore, it must not\n return.\"\n\n\n An old man shifted restlessly. \"But they are strong, Svan,\" he\n complained. \"They have weapons. We cannot force them to stay.\"\n\n\n Svan nodded. \"No. They will leave. But they will never get back to\n Earth.\"\n\n\n \"Never get back to Earth?\" the old man gasped. \"Has the Council\n authorized\u2014murder?\"\n\n\n Svan shrugged. \"The Council did not know what we would face. The\n Councilmen could not come to the city and see what strength the\n Earth-ship has.\" He paused dangerously. \"Toller,\" he said, \"do you\n object?\"\n\n\n Like the girl, the old man retreated before his eyes. His voice was\n dull. \"What is your plan?\" he asked.\n\n\n Svan smiled, and it was like a dark flame. He reached to a box at his\n feet, held up a shiny metal globe. \"One of us will plant this in the\n ship. It will be set by means of this dial\u2014\" he touched a spot on the\n surface of the globe with a pallid finger\u2014\"to do nothing for forty\n hours. Then\u2014it will explode. Atomite.\"\n\n\n He grinned triumphantly, looking from face to face. The grin\n faded uncertainly as he saw what was in their eyes\u2014uncertainty,\n irresolution. Abruptly he set the bomb down, savagely ripped six leaves\n off a writing tablet on the table next him. He took a pencil and made a\n mark on one of them, held it up.\n\n\n \"We will let chance decide who is to do the work,\" he said angrily. \"Is\n there anyone here who is afraid? There will be danger, I think....\"\n\n\n No answer. Svan jerked his head. \"Good,\" he said. \"Ingra, bring me that\n bowl.\"\n\n\n Silently the girl picked up an opaque glass bowl from the broad arm\n of her chair. It had held Venus-tobacco cigarettes; there were a few\n left. She shook them out and handed the bowl to Svan, who was rapidly\n creasing the six fatal slips. He dropped them in the bowl, stirred it\n with his hand, offered it to the girl. \"You first, Ingra,\" he said.\n\n\n She reached in mechanically, her eyes intent on his, took out a slip\n and held it without opening it. The bowl went the rounds, till Svan\n himself took the last. All eyes were on him. No one had looked at their\n slips.\n\n\n Svan, too, had left his unopened. He sat at the table, facing them.\n \"This is the plan,\" he said. \"We will go, all six of us, in my ground\n car, to look at the Earth-ship. No one will suspect\u2014the whole city\n has been to see it already. One will get out, at the best point we can\n find. It is almost dusk now. He can hide, surely, in the vegetation.\n The other five will start back. Something will go wrong with the\n car\u2014perhaps it will run off the road, start to sink in the swamp. The\n guards will be called. There will be commotion\u2014that is easy enough,\n after all; a hysterical woman, a few screams, that's all there is to\n it. And the sixth person will have his chance to steal to the side\n of the ship. The bomb is magnetic. It will not be noticed in the\n dark\u2014they will take off before sunrise, because they must travel away\n from the sun to return\u2014in forty hours the danger is removed.\"\n\n\n There was comprehension in their eyes, Svan saw ... but still that\n uncertainty. Impatiently, he crackled: \"Look at the slips!\"\n\n\n Though he had willed his eyes away from it, his fingers had rebelled.\n Instinctively they had opened the slip, turned it over and over,\n striving to detect if it was the fatal one. They had felt nothing....\n\n\n And his eyes saw nothing. The slip was blank. He gave it but a second's\n glance, then looked up to see who had won the lethal game of chance.\n Almost he was disappointed.\n\n\n Each of the others had looked in that same second. And each was looking\n up now, around at his neighbors. Svan waited impatiently for the chosen\n one to announce it\u2014a second, ten seconds....\n\n\n Then gray understanding came to him.\nA traitor!\nhis subconscious\n whispered.\nA coward!\nHe stared at them in a new light, saw their\n indecision magnified, became opposition.\n\n\n Svan thought faster than ever before in his life. If there was a\n coward, it would do no good to unmask him. All were wavering, any might\n be the one who had drawn the fatal slip. He could insist on inspecting\n every one, but\u2014suppose the coward, cornered, fought back? In fractions\n of a second, Svan had considered the evidence and reached his decision.\n Masked by the table, his hand, still holding the pencil, moved swiftly\n beneath the table, marked his own slip.\n\n\n In the palm of his hand, Svan held up the slip he had just marked in\n secret. His voice was very tired as he said, \"I will plant the bomb.\"\nThe six conspirators in Svan's old ground car moved slowly along the\n main street of the native town. Two Earth-ship sailors, unarmed except\n for deceptively flimsy-looking pistols at their hips, stood before the\n entrance to the town's Hall of Justice.\n\n\n \"Good,\" said Svan, observing them. \"The delegation is still here. We\n have ample time.\"\n\n\n He half turned in the broad front seat next to the driver, searching\n the faces of the others in the car. Which was the coward? he wondered.\n Ingra? Her aunt? One of the men?\n\n\n The right answer leaped up at him.\nThey all are\n, he thought.\nNot one\n of them understands what this means. They're afraid.\nHe clamped his lips. \"Go faster, Ingra,\" he ordered the girl who was\n driving. \"Let's get this done with.\"\n\n\n She looked at him, and he was surprised to find compassion in her\n eyes. Silently she nodded, advanced the fuel-handle so that the clumsy\n car jolted a trace more rapidly over the corduroy road. It was quite\n dark now. The car's driving light flared yellowishly in front of them,\n illuminating the narrow road and the pale, distorted vegetation of the\n jungle that surrounded them. Svan noticed it was raining a little. The\n present shower would deepen and intensify until midnight, then fall off\n again, to halt before morning. But before then they would be done.\n\n\n A proton-bolt lanced across the road in front of them. In the silence\n that followed its thunderous crash, a man's voice bellowed: \"Halt!\"\n\n\n The girl, Ingra, gasped something indistinguishable, slammed on the\n brakes. A Venusian in the trappings of the State Guard advanced on them\n from the side of the road, proton-rifle held ready to fire again.\n\n\n \"Where are you going?\" he growled.\n\n\n Svan spoke up. \"We want to look at the Earth-ship,\" he said. He opened\n the door beside him and stepped out, careless of the drizzle. \"We heard\n it was leaving tonight,\" he continued, \"and we have not seen it. Is\n that not permitted?\"\n\n\n The guard shook his head sourly. \"No one is allowed near the ship. The\n order was just issued. It is thought there is danger.\"\n\n\n Svan stepped closer, his teeth bared in what passed for a smile. \"It\n is urgent,\" he purred. His right hand flashed across his chest in a\n complicated gesture. \"Do you understand?\"\n\n\n Confusion furrowed the guard's hairless brows, then was replaced by\n a sudden flare of understanding\u2014and fear. \"The Council!\" he roared.\n \"By heaven, yes, I understand! You are the swine that caused this\u2014\"\n He strove instinctively to bring the clumsy rifle up, but Svan was\n faster. His gamble had failed; there was only one course remaining.\n He hurled his gross white bulk at the guard, bowled him over against\n the splintery logs of the road. The proton-rifle went flying, and Svan\n savagely tore at the throat of the guard. Knees, elbows and claw-like\n nails\u2014Svan battered at the astonished man with every ounce of strength\n in his body. The guard was as big as Svan, but Svan had the initial\n advantage ... and it was only a matter of seconds before the guard\n lay unconscious, his skull a mass of gore at the back where Svan had\n ruthlessly pounded it against the road.\nSvan grunted as his fingers constricted brutally.\nSvan rose, panting, stared around. No one else was in sight, save the\n petrified five and the ground car. Svan glared at them contemptuously,\n then reached down and heaved on the senseless body of the guard. Over\n the shoulder of the road the body went, onto the damp swampland of the\n jungle. Even while Svan watched the body began to sink. There would be\n no trace.\n\n\n Svan strode back to the car. \"Hurry up,\" he gasped to the girl. \"Now\n there is danger for all of us, if they discover he is missing. And keep\n a watch for other guards.\"\nVenus has no moon, and no star can shine through its vast cloud layer.\n Ensign Lowry, staring anxiously out through the astro-dome in the bow\n of the Earth-ship, cursed the blackness.\n\n\n \"Can't see a thing,\" he complained to the Exec, steadily writing away\n at the computer's table. \"Look\u2014are those lights over there?\"\n\n\n The Exec looked up wearily. He shrugged. \"Probably the guards. Of\n course, you can't tell. Might be a raiding party.\"\n\n\n Lowry, stung, looked to see if the Exec was smiling, but found no\n answer in his stolid face. \"Don't joke about it,\" he said. \"Suppose\n something happens to the delegation?\"\n\n\n \"Then we're in the soup,\" the Exec said philosophically. \"I told you\n the natives were dangerous. Spy-rays! They've been prohibited for the\n last three hundred years.\"\n\n\n \"It isn't all the natives,\" Lowry said. \"Look how they've doubled the\n guard around us. The administration is co-operating every way they\n know how. You heard the delegation's report on the intercom. It's this\n secret group they call the Council.\"\n\n\n \"And how do you know the guards themselves don't belong to it?\" the\n Exec retorted. \"They're all the same to me.... Look, your light's gone\n out now. Must have been the guard. They're on the wrong side to be\n coming from the town, anyhow....\"\nSvan hesitated only a fraction of a second after the girl turned the\n lights out and stopped the car. Then he reached in the compartment\n under the seat. If he took a little longer than seemed necessary to get\n the atomite bomb out of the compartment, none of the others noticed.\n Certainly it did not occur to them that there had been\ntwo\nbombs in\n the compartment, though Svan's hand emerged with only one.\n\n\n He got out of the car, holding the sphere. \"This will do for me,\" he\n said. \"They won't be expecting anyone to come from behind the ship\u2014we\n were wise to circle around. Now, you know what you must do?\"\n\n\n Ingra nodded, while the others remained mute. \"We must circle back\n again,\" she parroted. \"We are to wait five minutes, then drive the car\n into the swamp. We will create a commotion, attract the guards.\"\n\n\n Svan, listening, thought:\nIt's not much of a plan. The guards would\n not be drawn away. I am glad I can't trust these five any more. If\n they must be destroyed, it is good that their destruction will serve a\n purpose.\nAloud, he said, \"You understand. If I get through, I will return to the\n city on foot. No one will suspect anything if I am not caught, because\n the bomb will not explode until the ship is far out in space. Remember,\n you are in no danger from the guards.\"\nFrom the guards\n, his mind echoed. He smiled. At least, they would\n feel no pain, never know what happened. With the amount of atomite in\n that bomb in the compartment, they would merely be obliterated in a\n ground-shaking crash.\n\n\n Abruptly he swallowed, reminded of the bomb that was silently counting\n off the seconds. \"Go ahead,\" he ordered. \"I will wait here.\"\n\n\n \"Svan.\" The girl, Ingra, leaned over to him. Impulsively she reached\n for him, kissed him. \"Good luck to you, Svan,\" she said.\n\n\n \"Good luck,\" repeated the others. Then silently the electric motor of\n the car took hold. Skilfully the girl backed it up, turned it around,\n sent it lumbering back down the road. Only after she had traveled a few\n hundred feet by the feel of the road did she turn the lights on again.\n\n\n Svan looked after them. The kiss had surprised him. What did it mean?\n Was it an error that the girl should die with the others?\n\n\n There was an instant of doubt in his steel-shackled mind, then it was\n driven away. Perhaps she was loyal, yet certainly she was weak. And\n since he could not know which was the one who had received the marked\n slip, and feared to admit it, it was better they all should die.\n\n\n He advanced along the midnight road to where the ground rose and the\n jungle plants thinned out. Ahead, on an elevation, were the rain-dimmed\n lights of the Earth-ship, set down in the center of a clearing made by\n its own fierce rockets. Svan's mist-trained eyes spotted the circling\n figures of sentries, and knew that these would be the ship's own.\n They would not be as easily overcome as the natives, not with those\n slim-shafted blasters they carried. Only deceit could get him to the\n side of the ship.\n\n\n Svan settled himself at the side of the road, waiting for his chance.\n He had perhaps three minutes to wait; he reckoned. His fingers went\n absently to the pouch in his wide belt, closed on the slip of paper. He\n turned it over without looking at it, wondering who had drawn the first\n cross, and been a coward. Ingra? One of the men?\nHe became abruptly conscious of a commotion behind him. A ground car\n was racing along the road. He spun around and was caught in the glare\n of its blinding driving-light, as it bumped to a slithering stop.\n\n\n Paralyzed, he heard the girl's voice. \"Svan! They're coming! They found\n the guard's rifle, and they're looking for us! Thirty Earthmen, Svan,\n with those frightful guns. They fired at us, but we got away and came\n for you. We must flee!\"\n\n\n He stared unseeingly at the light. \"Go away!\" he croaked unbelievingly.\n Then his muscles jerked into action. The time was almost up\u2014the bomb\n in the car\u2014\n\n\n \"Go away!\" he shrieked, and turned to run. His fists clenched and\n swinging at his side, he made a dozen floundering steps before\n something immense pounded at him from behind. He felt himself lifted\n from the road, sailing, swooping, dropping with annihilating force\n onto the hard, charred earth of the clearing. Only then did he hear the\n sound of the explosion, and as the immense echoes died away he began to\n feel the pain seeping into him from his hideously racked body....\n\n\n The Flight Surgeon rose from beside him. \"He's still alive,\" he said\n callously to Lowry, who had just come up. \"It won't last long, though.\n What've you got there?\"\n\n\n Lowry, a bewildered expression on his beardless face, held out the two\n halves of a metallic sphere. Dangling ends of wires showed where a\n connection had been broken. \"He had a bomb,\" he said. \"A magnetic-type,\n delayed-action atomite bomb. There must have been another in the car,\n and it went off. They\u2014they were planning to bomb us.\"\n\n\n \"Amazing,\" the surgeon said dryly. \"Well, they won't do any bombing\n now.\"\n\n\n Lowry was staring at the huddled, mutilated form of Svan. He shuddered.\n The surgeon, seeing the shudder, grasped his shoulder.\n\n\n \"Better them than us,\" he said. \"It's poetic justice if I ever saw it.\n They had it coming....\" He paused thoughtfully, staring at a piece of\n paper between his fingers. \"This is the only part I don't get,\" he said.\n\n\n \"What's that?\" Lowry craned his neck. \"A piece of paper with a cross on\n it? What about it?\"\n\n\n The surgeon shrugged. \"He had it clenched in his hand,\" he said. \"Had\n the devil of a time getting it loose from him.\" He turned it over\n slowly, displayed the other side. \"Now what in the world would he be\n doing carrying a scrap of paper with a cross marked on both sides?\"",
    "61097": "THE FROZEN PLANET\nBy Keith Laumer\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\n\"It is rather unusual,\" Magnan said, \"to assign an officer of your rank\n to courier duty, but this is an unusual mission.\"\n\n\n Retief sat relaxed and said nothing. Just before the silence grew\n awkward, Magnan went on.\n\n\n \"There are four planets in the group,\" he said. \"Two double planets,\n all rather close to an unimportant star listed as DRI-G 33987. They're\n called Jorgensen's Worlds, and in themselves are of no importance\n whatever. However, they lie deep in the sector into which the Soetti\n have been penetrating.\n\n\n \"Now\u2014\" Magnan leaned forward and lowered his voice\u2014\"we have learned\n that the Soetti plan a bold step forward. Since they've met no\n opposition so far in their infiltration of Terrestrial space, they\n intend to seize Jorgensen's Worlds by force.\"\n\n\n Magnan leaned back, waiting for Retief's reaction. Retief drew\n carefully on his cigar and looked at Magnan. Magnan frowned.\n\n\n \"This is open aggression, Retief,\" he said, \"in case I haven't made\n myself clear. Aggression on Terrestrial-occupied territory by an alien\n species. Obviously, we can't allow it.\"\n\n\n Magnan drew a large folder from his desk.\n\n\n \"A show of resistance at this point is necessary. Unfortunately,\n Jorgensen's Worlds are technologically undeveloped areas. They're\n farmers or traders. Their industry is limited to a minor role in\n their economy\u2014enough to support the merchant fleet, no more. The war\n potential, by conventional standards, is nil.\"\n\n\n Magnan tapped the folder before him.\n\n\n \"I have here,\" he said solemnly, \"information which will change that\n picture completely.\" He leaned back and blinked at Retief.\n\"All right, Mr. Councillor,\" Retief said. \"I'll play along; what's in\n the folder?\"\n\n\n Magnan spread his fingers, folded one down.\n\n\n \"First,\" he said. \"The Soetti War Plan\u2014in detail. We were fortunate\n enough to make contact with a defector from a party of renegade\n Terrestrials who've been advising the Soetti.\" He folded another\n finger. \"Next, a battle plan for the Jorgensen's people, worked out by\n the Theory group.\" He wrestled a third finger down. \"Lastly; an Utter\n Top Secret schematic for conversion of a standard anti-acceleration\n field into a potent weapon\u2014a development our systems people have been\n holding in reserve for just such a situation.\"\n\n\n \"Is that all?\" Retief said. \"You've still got two fingers sticking up.\"\n\n\n Magnan looked at the fingers and put them away.\n\n\n \"This is no occasion for flippancy, Retief. In the wrong hands, this\n information could be catastrophic. You'll memorize it before you leave\n this building.\"\n\n\n \"I'll carry it, sealed,\" Retief said. \"That way nobody can sweat it out\n of me.\"\n\n\n Magnan started to shake his head.\n\n\n \"Well,\" he said. \"If it's trapped for destruction, I suppose\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I've heard of these Jorgensen's Worlds,\" Retief said. \"I remember an\n agent, a big blond fellow, very quick on the uptake. A wizard with\n cards and dice. Never played for money, though.\"\n\n\n \"Umm,\" Magnan said. \"Don't make the error of personalizing this\n situation, Retief. Overall policy calls for a defense of these\n backwater worlds. Otherwise the Corps would allow history to follow its\n natural course, as always.\"\n\n\n \"When does this attack happen?\"\n\n\n \"Less than four weeks.\"\n\n\n \"That doesn't leave me much time.\"\n\n\n \"I have your itinerary here. Your accommodations are clear as far as\n Aldo Cerise. You'll have to rely on your ingenuity to get you the rest\n of the way.\"\n\n\n \"That's a pretty rough trip, Mr. Councillor. Suppose I don't make it?\"\n\n\n Magnan looked sour. \"Someone at a policy-making level has chosen to put\n all our eggs in one basket, Retief. I hope their confidence in you is\n not misplaced.\"\n\n\n \"This antiac conversion; how long does it take?\"\n\n\n \"A skilled electronics crew can do the job in a matter of minutes. The\n Jorgensens can handle it very nicely; every other man is a mechanic of\n some sort.\"\n\n\n Retief opened the envelope Magnan handed him and looked at the tickets\n inside.\n\n\n \"Less than four hours to departure time,\" he said. \"I'd better not\n start any long books.\"\n\n\n \"You'd better waste no time getting over to Indoctrination,\" Magnan\n said.\n\n\n Retief stood up. \"If I hurry, maybe I can catch the cartoon.\"\n\n\n \"The allusion escapes me,\" Magnan said coldly. \"And one last word. The\n Soetti are patrolling the trade lanes into Jorgensen's Worlds; don't\n get yourself interned.\"\n\n\n \"I'll tell you what,\" Retief said soberly. \"In a pinch, I'll mention\n your name.\"\n\n\n \"You'll be traveling with Class X credentials,\" Magnan snapped. \"There\n must be nothing to connect you with the Corps.\"\n\n\n \"They'll never guess,\" Retief said. \"I'll pose as a gentleman.\"\n\n\n \"You'd better be getting started,\" Magnan said, shuffling papers.\n\n\n \"You're right,\" Retief said. \"If I work at it, I might manage a\n snootful by takeoff.\" He went to the door. \"No objection to my checking\n out a needler, is there?\"\n\n\n Magnan looked up. \"I suppose not. What do you want with it?\"\n\n\n \"Just a feeling I've got.\"\n\n\n \"Please yourself.\"\n\n\n \"Some day,\" Retief said, \"I may take you up on that.\"\nII\n\n\n Retief put down the heavy travel-battered suitcase and leaned on the\n counter, studying the schedules chalked on the board under the legend\n \"ALDO CERISE\u2014INTERPLANETARY.\" A thin clerk in a faded sequined blouse\n and a plastic snakeskin cummerbund groomed his fingernails, watching\n Retief from the corner of his eye.\n\n\n Retief glanced at him.\n\n\n The clerk nipped off a ragged corner with rabbitlike front teeth and\n spat it on the floor.\n\n\n \"Was there something?\" he said.\n\n\n \"Two twenty-eight, due out today for the Jorgensen group,\" Retief said.\n \"Is it on schedule?\"\n\n\n The clerk sampled the inside of his right cheek, eyed Retief. \"Filled\n up. Try again in a couple of weeks.\"\n\n\n \"What time does it leave?\"\n\n\n \"I don't think\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Let's stick to facts,\" Retief said. \"Don't try to think. What time is\n it due out?\"\n\n\n The clerk smiled pityingly. \"It's my lunch hour,\" he said. \"I'll be\n open in an hour.\" He held up a thumb nail, frowned at it.\n\n\n \"If I have to come around this counter,\" Retief said, \"I'll feed that\n thumb to you the hard way.\"\n\n\n The clerk looked up and opened his mouth. Then he caught Retief's eye,\n closed his mouth and swallowed.\n\n\n \"Like it says there,\" he said, jerking a thumb at the board. \"Lifts in\n an hour. But you won't be on it,\" he added.\n\n\n Retief looked at him.\n\n\n \"Some ... ah ... VIP's required accommodation,\" he said. He hooked\n a finger inside the sequined collar. \"All tourist reservations were\n canceled. You'll have to try to get space on the Four-Planet Line ship\n next\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Which gate?\" Retief said.\n\n\n \"For ... ah...?\"\n\n\n \"For the two twenty-eight for Jorgensen's Worlds,\" Retief said.\n\n\n \"Well,\" the clerk said. \"Gate 19,\" he added quickly. \"But\u2014\"\n\n\n Retief picked up his suitcase and walked away toward the glare sign\n reading\nTo Gates 16-30\n.\n\n\n \"Another smart alec,\" the clerk said behind him.\nRetief followed the signs, threaded his way through crowds, found a\n covered ramp with the number 228 posted over it. A heavy-shouldered man\n with a scarred jawline and small eyes was slouching there in a rumpled\n gray uniform. He put out a hand as Retief started past him.\n\n\n \"Lessee your boarding pass,\" he muttered.\n\n\n Retief pulled a paper from an inside pocket, handed it over.\n\n\n The guard blinked at it.\n\n\n \"Whassat?\"\n\n\n \"A gram confirming my space,\" Retief said. \"Your boy on the counter\n says he's out to lunch.\"\n\n\n The guard crumpled the gram, dropped it on the floor and lounged back\n against the handrail.\n\n\n \"On your way, bub,\" he said.\n\n\n Retief put his suitcase carefully on the floor, took a step and drove a\n right into the guard's midriff. He stepped aside as the man doubled and\n went to his knees.\n\n\n \"You were wide open, ugly. I couldn't resist. Tell your boss I sneaked\n past while you were resting your eyes.\" He picked up his bag, stepped\n over the man and went up the gangway into the ship.\n\n\n A cabin boy in stained whites came along the corridor.\n\n\n \"Which way to cabin fifty-seven, son?\" Retief asked.\n\n\n \"Up there.\" The boy jerked his head and hurried on. Retief made his way\n along the narrow hall, found signs, followed them to cabin fifty-seven.\n The door was open. Inside, baggage was piled in the center of the\n floor. It was expensive looking baggage.\n\n\n Retief put his bag down. He turned at a sound behind him. A tall,\n florid man with an expensive coat belted over a massive paunch stood in\n the open door, looking at Retief. Retief looked back. The florid man\n clamped his jaws together, turned to speak over his shoulder.\n\n\n \"Somebody in the cabin. Get 'em out.\" He rolled a cold eye at Retief as\n he backed out of the room. A short, thick-necked man appeared.\n\n\n \"What are you doing in Mr. Tony's room?\" he barked. \"Never mind! Clear\n out of here, fellow! You're keeping Mr. Tony waiting.\"\n\n\n \"Too bad,\" Retief said. \"Finders keepers.\"\n\n\n \"You nuts?\" The thick-necked man stared at Retief. \"I said it's Mr.\n Tony's room.\"\n\n\n \"I don't know Mr. Tony. He'll have to bull his way into other quarters.\"\n\n\n \"We'll see about you, mister.\" The man turned and went out. Retief\n sat on the bunk and lit a cigar. There was a sound of voices in\n the corridor. Two burly baggage-smashers appeared, straining at an\n oversized trunk. They maneuvered it through the door, lowered it,\n glanced at Retief and went out. The thick-necked man returned.\n\n\n \"All right, you. Out,\" he growled. \"Or have I got to have you thrown\n out?\"\n\n\n Retief rose and clamped the cigar between his teeth. He gripped a\n handle of the brass-bound trunk in each hand, bent his knees and heaved\n the trunk up to chest level, then raised it overhead. He turned to the\n door.\n\n\n \"Catch,\" he said between clenched teeth. The trunk slammed against the\n far wall of the corridor and burst.\n\n\n Retief turned to the baggage on the floor, tossed it into the hall. The\n face of the thick-necked man appeared cautiously around the door jamb.\n\n\n \"Mister, you must be\u2014\"\n\n\n \"If you'll excuse me,\" Retief said, \"I want to catch a nap.\" He flipped\n the door shut, pulled off his shoes and stretched out on the bed.\nFive minutes passed before the door rattled and burst open.\n\n\n Retief looked up. A gaunt leathery-skinned man wearing white ducks, a\n blue turtleneck sweater and a peaked cap tilted raffishly over one eye\n stared at Retief.\n\n\n \"Is this the joker?\" he grated.\n\n\n The thick-necked man edged past him, looked at Retief and snorted,\n \"That's him, sure.\"\n\n\n \"I'm captain of this vessel,\" the first man said. \"You've got two\n minutes to haul your freight out of here, buster.\"\n\n\n \"When you can spare the time from your other duties,\" Retief said,\n \"take a look at Section Three, Paragraph One, of the Uniform Code.\n That spells out the law on confirmed space on vessels engaged in\n interplanetary commerce.\"\n\n\n \"A space lawyer.\" The captain turned. \"Throw him out, boys.\"\n\n\n Two big men edged into the cabin, looking at Retief.\n\n\n \"Go on, pitch him out,\" the captain snapped.\n\n\n Retief put his cigar in an ashtray, and swung his feet off the bunk.\n\n\n \"Don't try it,\" he said softly.\n\n\n One of the two wiped his nose on a sleeve, spat on his right palm, and\n stepped forward, then hesitated.\n\n\n \"Hey,\" he said. \"This the guy tossed the trunk off the wall?\"\n\n\n \"That's him,\" the thick-necked man called. \"Spilled Mr. Tony's\n possessions right on the deck.\"\n\n\n \"Deal me out,\" the bouncer said. \"He can stay put as long as he wants\n to. I signed on to move cargo. Let's go, Moe.\"\n\n\n \"You'd better be getting back to the bridge, Captain,\" Retief said.\n \"We're due to lift in twenty minutes.\"\n\n\n The thick-necked man and the Captain both shouted at once. The\n Captain's voice prevailed.\n\n\n \"\u2014twenty minutes ... uniform Code ... gonna do?\"\n\n\n \"Close the door as you leave,\" Retief said.\n\n\n The thick-necked man paused at the door. \"We'll see you when you come\n out.\"\nIII\n\n\n Four waiters passed Retief's table without stopping. A fifth leaned\n against the wall nearby, a menu under his arm.\n\n\n At a table across the room, the Captain, now wearing a dress uniform\n and with his thin red hair neatly parted, sat with a table of male\n passengers. He talked loudly and laughed frequently, casting occasional\n glances Retief's way.\n\n\n A panel opened in the wall behind Retief's chair. Bright blue eyes\n peered out from under a white chef's cap.\n\n\n \"Givin' you the cold shoulder, heh, Mister?\"\n\n\n \"Looks like it, old-timer,\" Retief said. \"Maybe I'd better go join the\n skipper. His party seems to be having all the fun.\"\n\n\n \"Feller has to be mighty careless who he eats with to set over there.\"\n\n\n \"I see your point.\"\n\n\n \"You set right where you're at, Mister. I'll rustle you up a plate.\"\n\n\n Five minutes later, Retief cut into a thirty-two ounce Delmonico backed\n up with mushrooms and garlic butter.\n\n\n \"I'm Chip,\" the chef said. \"I don't like the Cap'n. You can tell him I\n said so. Don't like his friends, either. Don't like them dern Sweaties,\n look at a man like he was a worm.\"\n\n\n \"You've got the right idea on frying a steak, Chip. And you've got the\n right idea on the Soetti, too,\" Retief said. He poured red wine into a\n glass. \"Here's to you.\"\n\n\n \"Dern right,\" Chip said. \"Dunno who ever thought up broiling 'em.\n Steaks, that is. I got a Baked Alaska coming up in here for dessert.\n You like brandy in yer coffee?\"\n\n\n \"Chip, you're a genius.\"\n\n\n \"Like to see a feller eat,\" Chip said. \"I gotta go now. If you need\n anything, holler.\"\n\n\n Retief ate slowly. Time always dragged on shipboard. Four days to\n Jorgensen's Worlds. Then, if Magnan's information was correct,\n there would be four days to prepare for the Soetti attack. It was a\n temptation to scan the tapes built into the handle of his suitcase. It\n would be good to know what Jorgensen's Worlds would be up against.\n\n\n Retief finished the steak, and the chef passed out the baked Alaska and\n coffee. Most of the other passengers had left the dining room. Mr. Tony\n and his retainers still sat at the Captain's table.\n\n\n As Retief watched, four men arose from the table and sauntered across\n the room. The first in line, a stony-faced thug with a broken ear, took\n a cigar from his mouth as he reached the table. He dipped the lighted\n end in Retief's coffee, looked at it, and dropped it on the tablecloth.\n\n\n The others came up, Mr. Tony trailing.\n\n\n \"You must want to get to Jorgensen's pretty bad,\" the thug said in a\n grating voice. \"What's your game, hick?\"\n\n\n Retief looked at the coffee cup, picked it up.\n\n\n \"I don't think I want my coffee,\" he said. He looked at the thug. \"You\n drink it.\"\n\n\n The thug squinted at Retief. \"A wise hick,\" he began.\n\n\n With a flick of the wrist, Retief tossed the coffee into the thug's\n face, then stood and slammed a straight right to the chin. The thug\n went down.\n\n\n Retief looked at Mr. Tony, still standing open-mouthed.\n\n\n \"You can take your playmates away now, Tony,\" he said. \"And don't\n bother to come around yourself. You're not funny enough.\"\n\n\n Mr. Tony found his voice.\n\n\n \"Take him, Marbles!\" he growled.\n\n\n The thick-necked man slipped a hand inside his tunic and brought out a\n long-bladed knife. He licked his lips and moved in.\n\n\n Retief heard the panel open beside him.\n\n\n \"Here you go, Mister,\" Chip said. Retief darted a glance; a well-honed\n french knife lay on the sill.\n\n\n \"Thanks, Chip,\" Retief said. \"I won't need it for these punks.\"\n\n\n Thick-neck lunged and Retief hit him square in the face, knocking him\n under the table. The other man stepped back, fumbling a power pistol\n from his shoulder holster.\n\n\n \"Aim that at me, and I'll kill you,\" Retief said.\n\n\n \"Go on, burn him!\" Mr. Tony shouted. Behind him, the captain appeared,\n white-faced.\n\n\n \"Put that away, you!\" he yelled. \"What kind of\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Shut up,\" Mr. Tony said. \"Put it away, Hoany. We'll fix this bum\n later.\"\n\n\n \"Not on this vessel, you won't,\" the captain said shakily. \"I got my\n charter to consider.\"\n\n\n \"Ram your charter,\" Hoany said harshly. \"You won't be needing it long.\"\n\n\n \"Button your floppy mouth, damn you!\" Mr. Tony snapped. He looked at\n the man on the floor. \"Get Marbles out of here. I ought to dump the\n slob.\"\n\n\n He turned and walked away. The captain signaled and two waiters came\n up. Retief watched as they carted the casualty from the dining room.\n\n\n The panel opened.\n\n\n \"I usta be about your size, when I was your age,\" Chip said. \"You\n handled them pansies right. I wouldn't give 'em the time o' day.\"\n\n\n \"How about a fresh cup of coffee, Chip?\" Retief said.\n\n\n \"Sure, Mister. Anything else?\"\n\n\n \"I'll think of something,\" Retief said. \"This is shaping up into one of\n those long days.\"\n\"They don't like me bringing yer meals to you in yer cabin,\" Chip said.\n \"But the cap'n knows I'm the best cook in the Merchant Service. They\n won't mess with me.\"\n\n\n \"What has Mr. Tony got on the captain, Chip?\" Retief asked.\n\n\n \"They're in some kind o' crooked business together. You want some more\n smoked turkey?\"\n\n\n \"Sure. What have they got against my going to Jorgensen's Worlds?\"\n\n\n \"Dunno. Hasn't been no tourists got in there fer six or eight months. I\n sure like a feller that can put it away. I was a big eater when I was\n yer age.\"\n\n\n \"I'll bet you can still handle it, Old Timer. What are Jorgensen's\n Worlds like?\"\n\n\n \"One of 'em's cold as hell and three of 'em's colder. Most o' the\n Jorgies live on Svea; that's the least froze up. Man don't enjoy eatin'\n his own cookin' like he does somebody else's.\"\n\n\n \"That's where I'm lucky, Chip. What kind of cargo's the captain got\n aboard for Jorgensen's?\"\n\n\n \"Derned if I know. In and out o' there like a grasshopper, ever few\n weeks. Don't never pick up no cargo. No tourists any more, like I says.\n Don't know what we even run in there for.\"\n\n\n \"Where are the passengers we have aboard headed?\"\n\n\n \"To Alabaster. That's nine days' run in-sector from Jorgensen's. You\n ain't got another one of them cigars, have you?\"\n\n\n \"Have one, Chip. I guess I was lucky to get space on this ship.\"\n\n\n \"Plenty o' space, Mister. We got a dozen empty cabins.\" Chip puffed\n the cigar alight, then cleared away the dishes, poured out coffee and\n brandy.\n\n\n \"Them Sweaties is what I don't like,\" he said.\n\n\n Retief looked at him questioningly.\n\n\n \"You never seen a Sweaty? Ugly lookin' devils. Skinny legs, like a\n lobster; big chest, shaped like the top of a turnip; rubbery lookin'\n head. You can see the pulse beatin' when they get riled.\"\n\n\n \"I've never had the pleasure,\" Retief said.\n\n\n \"You prob'ly have it perty soon. Them devils board us nigh ever trip\n out. Act like they was the Customs Patrol or somethin'.\"\n\n\n There was a distant clang, and a faint tremor ran through the floor.\n\n\n \"I ain't superstitious ner nothin',\" Chip said. \"But I'll be\n triple-damned if that ain't them boarding us now.\"\n\n\n Ten minutes passed before bootsteps sounded outside the door,\n accompanied by a clicking patter. The doorknob rattled, then a heavy\n knock shook the door.\n\n\n \"They got to look you over,\" Chip whispered. \"Nosy damn Sweaties.\"\n\n\n \"Unlock it, Chip.\" The chef opened the door.\n\n\n \"Come in, damn you,\" he said.\n\n\n A tall and grotesque creature minced into the room, tiny hoof-like\n feet tapping on the floor. A flaring metal helmet shaded the deep-set\n compound eyes, and a loose mantle flapped around the knobbed knees.\n Behind the alien, the captain hovered nervously.\n\n\n \"Yo' papiss,\" the alien rasped.\n\n\n \"Who's your friend, Captain?\" Retief said.\n\n\n \"Never mind; just do like he tells you.\"\n\n\n \"Yo' papiss,\" the alien said again.\n\n\n \"Okay,\" Retief said. \"I've seen it. You can take it away now.\"\n\"Don't horse around,\" the captain said. \"This fellow can get mean.\"\n\n\n The alien brought two tiny arms out from the concealment of the mantle,\n clicked toothed pincers under Retief's nose.\n\n\n \"Quick, soft one.\"\n\n\n \"Captain, tell your friend to keep its distance. It looks brittle, and\n I'm tempted to test it.\"\n\n\n \"Don't start anything with Skaw; he can clip through steel with those\n snappers.\"\n\n\n \"Last chance,\" Retief said. Skaw stood poised, open pincers an inch\n from Retief's eyes.\n\n\n \"Show him your papers, you damned fool,\" the captain said hoarsely. \"I\n got no control over Skaw.\"\nThe alien clicked both pincers with a sharp report, and in the same\n instant Retief half-turned to the left, leaned away from the alien\n and drove his right foot against the slender leg above the bulbous\n knee-joint. Skaw screeched and floundered, greenish fluid spattering\n from the burst joint.\n\n\n \"I told you he was brittle,\" Retief said. \"Next time you invite pirates\n aboard, don't bother to call.\"\n\n\n \"Jesus, what did you do! They'll kill us!\" the captain gasped, staring\n at the figure flopping on the floor.\n\n\n \"Cart poor old Skaw back to his boat,\" Retief said. \"Tell him to pass\n the word. No more illegal entry and search of Terrestrial vessels in\n Terrestrial space.\"\n\n\n \"Hey,\" Chip said. \"He's quit kicking.\"\n\n\n The captain bent over Skaw, gingerly rolled him over. He leaned close\n and sniffed.\n\n\n \"He's dead.\" The captain stared at Retief. \"We're all dead men,\" he\n said. \"These Soetti got no mercy.\"\n\n\n \"They won't need it. Tell 'em to sheer off; their fun is over.\"\n\n\n \"They got no more emotions than a blue crab\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You bluff easily, Captain. Show a few guns as you hand the body back.\n We know their secret now.\"\n\n\n \"What secret? I\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't be no dumber than you got to, Cap'n,\" Chip said. \"Sweaties die\n easy; that's the secret.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe you got a point,\" the captain said, looking at Retief. \"All they\n got's a three-man scout. It could work.\"\n\n\n He went out, came back with two crewmen. They hauled the dead alien\n gingerly into the hall.\n\n\n \"Maybe I can run a bluff on the Soetti,\" the captain said, looking back\n from the door. \"But I'll be back to see you later.\"\n\n\n \"You don't scare us, Cap'n,\" Chip said. \"Him and Mr. Tony and all his\n goons. You hit 'em where they live, that time. They're pals o' these\n Sweaties. Runnin' some kind o' crooked racket.\"\n\n\n \"You'd better take the captain's advice, Chip. There's no point in your\n getting involved in my problems.\"\n\n\n \"They'd of killed you before now, Mister, if they had any guts. That's\n where we got it over these monkeys. They got no guts.\"\n\n\n \"They act scared, Chip. Scared men are killers.\"\n\n\n \"They don't scare me none.\" Chip picked up the tray. \"I'll scout around\n a little and see what's goin' on. If the Sweaties figure to do anything\n about that Skaw feller they'll have to move fast; they won't try\n nothin' close to port.\"\n\n\n \"Don't worry, Chip. I have reason to be pretty sure they won't do\n anything to attract a lot of attention in this sector just now.\"\n\n\n Chip looked at Retief. \"You ain't no tourist, Mister. I know that much.\n You didn't come out here for fun, did you?\"\n\n\n \"That,\" Retief said, \"would be a hard one to answer.\"\nIV\n\n\n Retief awoke at a tap on his door.\n\n\n \"It's me, Mister. Chip.\"\n\n\n \"Come on in.\"\n\n\n The chef entered the room, locking the door.\n\n\n \"You shoulda had that door locked.\" He stood by the door, listening,\n then turned to Retief.\n\n\n \"You want to get to Jorgensen's perty bad, don't you, Mister?\"\n\n\n \"That's right, Chip.\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Tony give the captain a real hard time about old Skaw. The\n Sweaties didn't say nothin'. Didn't even act surprised, just took the\n remains and pushed off. But Mr. Tony and that other crook they call\n Marbles, they was fit to be tied. Took the cap'n in his cabin and\n talked loud at him fer half a hour. Then the cap'n come out and give\n some orders to the Mate.\"\n\n\n Retief sat up and reached for a cigar.\n\n\n \"Mr. Tony and Skaw were pals, eh?\"\n\n\n \"He hated Skaw's guts. But with him it was business. Mister, you got a\n gun?\"\n\n\n \"A 2mm needler. Why?\"\n\n\n \"The orders cap'n give was to change course fer Alabaster. We're\n by-passin' Jorgensen's Worlds. We'll feel the course change any minute.\"\n\n\n Retief lit the cigar, reached under the mattress and took out a\n short-barreled pistol. He dropped it in his pocket, looked at Chip.\n\n\n \"Maybe it was a good thought, at that. Which way to the Captain's\n cabin?\"\n\"This is it,\" Chip said softly. \"You want me to keep an eye on who\n comes down the passage?\"\n\n\n Retief nodded, opened the door and stepped into the cabin. The captain\n looked up from his desk, then jumped up.\n\n\n \"What do you think you're doing, busting in here?\"\n\n\n \"I hear you're planning a course change, Captain.\"\n\n\n \"You've got damn big ears.\"\n\n\n \"I think we'd better call in at Jorgensen's.\"\n\n\n \"You do, huh?\" the captain sat down. \"I'm in command of this vessel,\"\n he said. \"I'm changing course for Alabaster.\"\n\n\n \"I wouldn't find it convenient to go to Alabaster,\" Retief said. \"So\n just hold your course for Jorgensen's.\"\n\n\n \"Not bloody likely.\"\n\n\n \"Your use of the word 'bloody' is interesting, Captain. Don't try to\n change course.\"\n\n\n The captain reached for the mike on his desk, pressed the key.\n\n\n \"Power Section, this is the captain,\" he said. Retief reached across\n the desk, gripped the captain's wrist.\n\n\n \"Tell the mate to hold his present course,\" he said softly.\n\n\n \"Let go my hand, buster,\" the captain snarled. Eyes on Retief's, he\n eased a drawer open with his left hand, reached in. Retief kneed the\n drawer. The captain yelped and dropped the mike.\n\n\n \"You busted it, you\u2014\"\n\n\n \"And one to go,\" Retief said. \"Tell him.\"\n\n\n \"I'm an officer of the Merchant Service!\"\n\n\n \"You're a cheapjack who's sold his bridge to a pack of back-alley\n hoods.\"\n\n\n \"You can't put it over, hick.\"\n\n\n \"Tell him.\"\n\n\n The captain groaned and picked up the mike. \"Captain to Power Section,\"\n he said. \"Hold your present course until you hear from me.\" He dropped\n the mike and looked up at Retief.\n\n\n \"It's eighteen hours yet before we pick up Jorgensen Control. You going\n to sit here and bend my arm the whole time?\"\n\n\n Retief released the captain's wrist and turned to the door.\n\n\n \"Chip, I'm locking the door. You circulate around, let me know what's\n going on. Bring me a pot of coffee every so often. I'm sitting up with\n a sick friend.\"\n\n\n \"Right, Mister. Keep an eye on that jasper; he's slippery.\"\n\n\n \"What are you going to do?\" the captain demanded.\n\n\n Retief settled himself in a chair.\n\n\n \"Instead of strangling you, as you deserve,\" he said, \"I'm going to\n stay here and help you hold your course for Jorgensen's Worlds.\"\n\n\n The captain looked at Retief. He laughed, a short bark.\n\n\n \"Then I'll just stretch out and have a little nap, farmer. If you feel\n like dozing off sometime during the next eighteen hours, don't mind me.\"\n\n\n Retief took out the needler and put it on the desk before him.\n\n\n \"If anything happens that I don't like,\" he said, \"I'll wake you up.\n With this.\"",
    "63442": "DOUBLE TROUBLE\nby CARL JACOBI\nGrannie Annie, that waspish science-fiction\n\n writer, was in a jam again. What with red-spot\n\n fever, talking cockatoos and flagpole trees,\n\n I was running in circles\u2014especially since\n\n Grannie became twins every now and then.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Spring 1945.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nWe had left the offices of\nInterstellar Voice\nthree days ago, Earth\n time, and now as the immense disc of Jupiter flamed across the sky,\n entered the outer limits of the Baldric. Grannie Annie strode in the\n lead, her absurd long-skirted black dress looking as out of place in\n this desert as the trees.\n\n\n Flagpole trees. They rose straight up like enormous cat-tails, with\n only a melon-shaped protuberance at the top to show they were a form of\n vegetation. Everything else was blanketed by the sand and the powerful\n wind that blew from all quarters.\n\n\n As we reached the first of those trees, Grannie came to a halt.\n\n\n \"This is the Baldric all right. If my calculations are right, we've hit\n it at its narrowest spot.\"\n\n\n Ezra Karn took a greasy pipe from his lips and spat. \"It looks like the\n rest of this God-forsaken moon,\" he said, \"'ceptin for them sticks.\"\n\n\n Xartal, the Martian illustrator, said nothing. He was like that,\n taciturn, speaking only when spoken to.\n\n\n He could be excused this time, however, for this was only our third day\n on Jupiter's Eighth Moon, and the country was still strange to us.\nWhen Annabella C. Flowers, that renowned writer of science fiction,\n visiphoned me at Crater City, Mars, to meet her here, I had thought she\n was crazy. But Miss Flowers, known to her friends as Grannie Annie,\n had always been mildly crazy. If you haven't read her books, you've\n missed something. She's the author of\nLady of the Green Flames\n,\nLady of the Runaway Planet\n,\nLady of the Crimson Space-Beast\n, and\n other works of science fiction. Blood-and-thunder as these books are,\n however, they have one redeeming feature\u2014authenticity of background.\n Grannie Annie was the original research digger-upper, and when she\n laid the setting of a yarn on a star of the sixth magnitude, only a\n transportation-velocity of less than light could prevent her from\n visiting her \"stage\" in person.\n\n\n Therefore when she asked me to meet her at the landing field of\nInterstellar Voice\non Jupiter's Eighth Moon, I knew she had another\n novel in the state of embryo.\n\n\n What I didn't expect was Ezra Karn. He was an old prospector Grannie\n had met, and he had become so attached to the authoress he now followed\n her wherever she went. As for Xartal, he was a Martian and was slated\n to do the illustrations for Grannie's new book.\n\n\n Five minutes after my ship had blasted down, the four of us met in the\n offices of\nInterstellar Voice\n. And then I was shaking hands with\n Antlers Park, the manager of I. V. himself.\n\n\n \"Glad to meet you,\" he said cordially. \"I've just been trying to\n persuade Miss Flowers not to attempt a trip into the Baldric.\"\n\n\n \"What's the Baldric?\" I had asked.\n\n\n Antlers Park flicked the ash from his cheroot and shrugged.\n\n\n \"Will you believe me, sir,\" he said, \"when I tell you I've been out\n here on this forsaken moon five years and don't rightly know myself?\"\n\n\n I scowled at that; it didn't make sense.\n\n\n \"However, as you perhaps know, the only reason for colonial activities\n here at all is because of the presence of an ore known as Acoustix.\n It's no use to the people of Earth but of untold value on Mars. I'm\n not up on the scientific reasons, but it seems that life on the red\n planet has developed with a supersonic method of vocal communication.\n The Martian speaks as the Earthman does, but he amplifies his thoughts'\n transmission by way of wave lengths as high as three million vibrations\n per second. The trouble is that by the time the average Martian reaches\n middle age, his ability to produce those vibrations steadily decreases.\n Then it was found that this ore, Acoustix, revitalized their sounding\n apparatus, and the rush was on.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\n Park leaned back. \"The rush to find more of the ore,\" he explained.\n \"But up until now this moon is the only place where it can be found.\n\n\n \"There are two companies here,\" he continued, \"\nInterstellar Voice\nand\nLarynx Incorporated\n. Chap by the name of Jimmy Baker runs that.\n However, the point is, between the properties of these two companies\n stretches a band or belt which has become known as the Baldric.\n\n\n \"There are two principal forms of life in the Baldric; flagpole trees\n and a species of ornithoid resembling cockatoos. So far no one has\n crossed the Baldric without trouble.\"\n\n\n \"What sort of trouble?\" Grannie Annie had demanded. And when Antlers\n Park stuttered evasively, the old lady snorted, \"Fiddlesticks, I never\n saw trouble yet that couldn't be explained. We leave in an hour.\"\nSo now here we were at the outer reaches of the Baldric, four travelers\n on foot with only the barest necessities in the way of equipment and\n supplies.\n\n\n I walked forward to get a closer view of one of the flagpole trees. And\n then abruptly I saw something else.\n\n\n A queer-looking bird squatted there in the sand, looking up at me.\n Silver in plumage, it resembled a parrot with a crest; and yet it\n didn't. In some strange way the thing was a hideous caricature.\n\n\n \"Look what I found,\" I yelled.\n\n\n \"What I found,\" said the cockatoo in a very human voice.\n\n\n \"Thunder, it talks,\" I said amazed.\n\n\n \"Talks,\" repeated the bird, blinking its eyes.\n\n\n The cockatoo repeated my last statement again, then rose on its short\n legs, flapped its wings once and soared off into the sky. Xartal,\n the Martian illustrator, already had a notebook in his hands and was\n sketching a likeness of the creature.\n\n\n Ten minutes later we were on the move again. We saw more silver\n cockatoos and more flagpole trees. Above us, the great disc of Jupiter\n began to descend toward the horizon.\n\n\n And then all at once Grannie stopped again, this time at the top of a\n high ridge. She shielded her eyes and stared off into the plain we had\n just crossed.\n\n\n \"Billy-boy,\" she said to me in a strange voice, \"look down there and\n tell me what you see.\"\n\n\n I followed the direction of her hand and a shock went through me from\n head to foot. Down there, slowly toiling across the sand, advanced a\n party of four persons. In the lead was a little old lady in a black\n dress. Behind her strode a grizzled Earth man in a flop-brimmed hat,\n another Earth man, and a Martian.\nDetail for detail they were a duplicate of ourselves!\n\"A mirage!\" said Ezra Karn.\n\n\n But it wasn't a mirage. As the party came closer, we could see that\n their lips were moving, and their voices became audible. I listened in\n awe. The duplicate of myself was talking to the duplicate of Grannie\n Annie, and she was replying in the most natural way.\n\n\n Steadily the four travelers approached. Then, when a dozen yards away,\n they suddenly faded like a negative exposed to light and disappeared.\n\n\n \"What do you make of it?\" I said in a hushed voice.\n\n\n Grannie shook her head. \"Might be a form of mass hypnosis superinduced\n by some chemical radiations,\" she replied. \"Whatever it is, we'd better\n watch our step. There's no telling what might lie ahead.\"\n\n\n We walked after that with taut nerves and watchful eyes, but we saw no\n repetition of the \"mirage.\" The wind continued to blow ceaselessly, and\n the sand seemed to grow more and more powdery.\n\n\n For some time I had fixed my gaze on a dot in the sky which I supposed\n to be a high-flying cockatoo. As that dot continued to move across the\n heavens in a single direction, I called Grannie's attention to it.\n\n\n \"It's a kite,\" she nodded. \"There should be a car attached to it\n somewhere.\"\n\n\n She offered no further explanation, but a quarter of an hour later as\n we topped another rise a curious elliptical car with a long slanting\n windscreen came into view. Attached to its hood was a taut wire which\n slanted up into the sky to connect with the kite.\n\n\n A man was driving and when he saw us, he waved. Five minutes later\n Grannie was shaking his hand vigorously and mumbling introductions.\n\n\n \"This is Jimmy Baker,\" she said. \"He manages\nLarynx Incorporated\n, and\n he's the real reason we're here.\"\n\n\n I decided I liked Baker the moment I saw him. In his middle thirties,\n he was tall and lean, with pleasant blue eyes which even his sand\n goggles could not conceal.\n\n\n \"I can't tell you how glad I am you're here, Grannie,\" he said. \"If\n anybody can help me, you can.\"\n\n\n Grannie's eyes glittered. \"Trouble with the mine laborers?\" she\n questioned.\nJimmy Baker nodded. He told his story over the roar of the wind as we\n headed back across the desert. Occasionally he touched a stud on an\n electric windlass to which the kite wire was attached. Apparently these\n adjustments moved planes or fins on the kite and accounted for the\n car's ability to move in any direction.\n\n\n \"If I weren't a realist, I'd say that\nLarynx Incorporated\nhas been\n bewitched,\" he began slowly. \"We pay our men high wages and give them\n excellent living conditions with a vacation on Callisto every year.\n Up until a short time ago most of them were in excellent health and\n spirits. Then the Red Spot Fever got them.\"\n\n\n \"Red Spot Fever?\" Grannie looked at him curiously.\n\n\n Jimmy Baker nodded. \"The first symptoms are a tendency to garrulousness\n on the part of the patient. Then they disappear.\"\n\n\n He paused to make an adjustment of the windlass.\n\n\n \"They walk out into the Baldric,\" he continued, \"and nothing can stop\n them. We tried following them, of course, but it was no go. As soon as\n they realize they're being followed, they stop. But the moment our eyes\n are turned, they give us the slip.\"\n\n\n \"But surely you must have some idea of where they go,\" Grannie said.\n\n\n Baker lit a cigarette. \"There's all kinds of rumors,\" he replied, \"but\n none of them will hold water. By the way, there's a cockatoo eyrie\n ahead of us.\"\n\n\n I followed his gaze and saw a curious structure suspended between\n a rude circle of flagpole trees. A strange web-like formation of\n translucent gauzy material, it was. Fully two hundred cockatoos were\n perched upon it. They watched us with their mild eyes as we passed, but\n they didn't move.\n\n\n After that we were rolling up the driveway that led to the offices of\nLarynx Incorporated\n. As Jimmy Baker led the way up the inclined ramp,\n a door in the central building opened, and a man emerged. His face was\n drawn.\n\n\n \"Mr. Baker,\" he said breathlessly, \"seventy-five workers at Shaft Four\n have headed out into the Baldric.\"\n\n\n Baker dropped his cigarette and ground his heel on it savagely.\n\n\n \"Shaft Four, eh?\" he repeated. \"That's our principal mine. If the fever\n spreads there, I'm licked.\"\n\n\n He motioned us into his office and strode across to a desk. Silent\n Xartal, the Martian illustrator, took a chair in a corner and got his\n notebook out, sketching the room's interior. Grannie Annie remained\n standing.\n\n\n Presently the old lady walked across to the desk and helped herself to\n the bottle of Martian whiskey there.\n\n\n \"There must be ways of stopping this,\" she said. \"Have you called in\n any physicians? Why don't you call an enforced vacation and send the\n men away until the plague has died down?\"\n\n\n Baker shook his head. \"Three doctors from Callisto were here last\n month. They were as much at loss as I am. As for sending the men away,\n I may have to do that, but when I do, it means quits. Our company is\n chartered with Spacolonial, and you know what that means. Failure\n to produce during a period of thirty days or more, and you lose all\n rights.\"\n\n\n A visiphone bell sounded, and Baker walked across to the instrument. A\n man's face formed in the vision plate. Baker listened, said \"Okay\" and\n threw off the switch.\n\n\n \"The entire crew of Shaft Four have gone out into the Baldric,\" he said\n slowly. There was a large map hanging on the wall back of Baker's desk.\n Grannie Annie walked across to it and began to study its markings.\n\n\n \"Shaft Four is at the outer edge of the Baldric at a point where that\n corridor is at its widest,\" she said.\n\n\n Baker looked up. \"That's right. We only began operations there a\n comparatively short time ago. Struck a rich vein of Acoustix that\n runs deep in. If that vein holds out, we'll double the output of\nInterstellar Voice\n, our rival, in a year.\"\n\n\n Grannie nodded. \"I think you and I and Xartal had better take a run up\n there,\" she said. \"But first I want to see your laboratory.\"\n\n\n There was no refusing her. Jimmy Baker led the way down to a lower\n level where a huge laboratory and experimental shop ran the length\n of the building. Grannie seized a light weight carry-case and began\n dropping articles into it. A pontocated glass lens, three or four\n Wellington radite bulbs, each with a spectroscopic filament, a small\n dynamo that would operate on a kite windlass, and a quantity of wire\n and other items.\n\n\n The kite car was brought out again, and the old woman, Baker and the\n Martian took their places in it. Then Jimmy waved, and the car began to\n roll down the ramp.\nNot until they had vanished in the desert haze did I sense the\n loneliness of this outpost. With that loneliness came a sudden sense of\n foreboding. Had I been a fool to let Grannie go? I thought of her, an\n old woman who should be in a rocking chair, knitting socks. If anything\n happened to Annabella C. Flowers, I would never forgive myself and\n neither would her millions of readers.\n\n\n Ezra Karn and I went back into the office. The old prospector chuckled.\n\n\n \"Dang human dynamo. Got more energy than a runaway comet.\"\n\n\n A connecting door on the far side of the office opened onto a long\n corridor which ended at a staircase.\n\n\n \"Let's look around,\" I said.\n\n\n We passed down the corridor and climbed the staircase to the second\n floor. Here were the general offices of\nLarynx Incorporated\n, and\n through glass doors I could see clerks busy with counting machines and\n report tapes. In another chamber the extremely light Acoustix ore was\n being packed into big cases and marked for shipment. At the far end a\n door to a small room stood open. Inside a young man was tilted back in\n a swivel chair before a complicated instrument panel.\n\n\n \"C'mon in,\" he said, seeing us. \"If you want a look at your friends,\n here they are.\"\n\n\n He flicked a stud, and the entire wall above the panel underwent a\n slow change of colors. Those colors whirled kaleidescopically, then\n coalesced into a three-dimensional scene.\n\n\n It was a scene of a rapidly unfolding desert country as seen from the\n rear of a kite car. Directly behind the windscreen, backs turned to me,\n were Jimmy Baker, Grannie, and Xartal. It was as if I were standing\n directly behind them.\n\n\n \"It's Mr. Baker's own invention,\" the operator said. \"An improvement on\n the visiphone.\"\n\n\n \"Do you mean to say you can follow the movements of that car and its\n passengers wherever it goes? Can you hear them talk too?\"\n\n\n \"Sure.\" The operator turned another dial, and Grannie's falsetto voice\n entered the room. It stopped abruptly. \"The machine uses a lot of\n power,\" the operator said, \"and as yet we haven't got much.\"\n\n\n The cloud of anxiety which had wrapped itself about me disappeared\n somewhat as I viewed this device. At least I could now keep myself\n posted of Grannie's movements.\n\n\n Karn and I went down to the commissary where we ate our supper. When\n we returned to Jimmy Baker's office, the visiphone bell was ringing.\n I went over to it and turned it on, and to my surprise the face of\n Antlers Park flashed on the screen.\n\n\n \"Hello,\" he said in his friendly way. \"I see you arrived all right. Is\n Miss Flowers there?\"\n\n\n \"Miss Flowers left with Mr. Baker for Shaft Four,\" I said. \"There's\n trouble up there. Red spot fever.\"\n\n\n \"Fever, eh?\" repeated Park. \"That's a shame. Is there anything I can\n do?\"\n\n\n \"Tell me,\" I said, \"has your company had any trouble with this plague?\"\n\n\n \"A little. But up until yesterday the fever's been confined to the\n other side of the Baldric. We had one partial case, but my chemists\n gave the chap an antitoxin that seems to have worked. Come to think of\n it, I might drive over to Shaft Four and give Jimmy Baker the formula.\n I haven't been out in the Baldric for years, but if you didn't have any\n trouble, I shouldn't either.\"\n\n\n We exchanged a few more pleasantries, and then he rang off. In exactly\n an hour I went upstairs to the visiscreen room.\n\n\n Then once more I was directly behind my friends, listening in on their\n conversation. The view through the windscreen showed an irregular array\n of flagpole trees, with the sky dotted by high-flying cockatoos.\n\n\n \"There's an eyrie over there,\" Jimmy Baker was saying. \"We might as\n well camp beside it.\"\nMoments later a rude circle of flagpole trees loomed ahead. Across the\n top of them was stretched a translucent web. Jimmy and Grannie got out\n of the car and began making camp. Xartal remained in his seat. He was\n drawing pictures on large pieces of pasteboard, and as I stood there in\n the visiscreen room, I watched him.\n\n\n There was no doubt about it, the Martian was clever. He would make\n a few rapid lines on one of the pasteboards, rub it a little to get\n the proper shading and then go on to the next. In swift rotation\n likenesses of Ezra Karn, of myself, of Jimmy Baker, and of Antlers Park\n took form.\n\n\n Ezra spoke over my shoulder. \"He's doing scenes for Grannie's new\n book,\" he said. \"The old lady figures on using the events here for a\n plot.\nLook at that damned nosy bird!\n\"\n\n\n A silver cockatoo had alighted on the kite car and was surveying\n curiously Xartal's work. As each drawing was completed, the bird\n scanned it with rapt attention. Abruptly it flew to the top of the\n eyrie, where it seemed to be having a consultation with its bird\n companions.\n\n\n And then abruptly it happened. The cockatoos took off in mass flight. A\n group of Earth people suddenly materialized on the eyrie, talking and\n moving about as if it were the most natural thing in the world.\n\n\n With a shock I saw the likeness of myself; I saw Ezra Karn; and I saw\n the image of Jimmy Baker.\n\n\n The\nreal\nJimmy Baker stood next to Grannie, staring up at this\n incredible mirage. Grannie let out a whoop. \"I've got it!\" she said.\n \"Those things we see up there are nothing more than mental images.\n They're Xartal's drawings!\"\n\"Don't you see,\" the lady continued. \"Everything that Xartal put on\n paper has been seen by one or more of these cockatoos. The cockatoos\n are like Earth parrots all right, but not only have they the power\n of copying speech, they also have the ability to recreate a mental\n image of what they have seen. In other words their brains form a\n powerful photographic impression of the object. That impression is\n then transmitted simultaneously in telepathic wavelengths to common\n foci. That eyrie might be likened to a cinema screen, receiving brain\n vibrations from a hundred different sources that blend into the light\n field to form what are apparently three-dimensional images.\"\n\n\n The Larynx manager nodded slowly. \"I see,\" he said. \"But why don't the\n birds reconstruct images from the actual person. Why use drawings?\"\n\n\n \"Probably because the drawings are exaggerated in certain details and\n made a greater impression on their brains,\" Grannie replied.\n\n\n Up on the eyrie a strange performance was taking place. The duplicate\n of Grannie Annie was bowing to the duplicate of Jimmy Baker, and the\n image of Ezra Karn was playing leap frog with the image of Antlers Park.\n\n\n Then abruptly the screen before me blurred and went blank.\n\n\n \"Sorry,\" the operator said. \"I've used too much power already. Have to\n give the generators a chance to build it up again.\"\n\n\n Nodding, I turned and motioned to Karn. We went back downstairs.\n\n\n \"That explains something at any rate,\" the old prospector said. \"But\n how about that Red spot fever?\"\n\n\n On Jimmy Baker's desk was a large file marked: FEVER VICTIMS. I opened\n it and found it contained the case histories of those men who had been\n attacked by the strange malady.\n\n\n Reading them over, I was struck by one detail. Each patient had\n received the first symptoms, not while working in the mines, but while\n sleeping or lounging in the barracks.\n\n\n Five minutes later Karn and I were striding down a white ramp that\n led to the nearest barracks. The building came into sight, a low\n rectangular structure, dome-roofed to withstand the violent winds.\n\n\n Inside double tiers of bunks stretched along either wall. In those\n bunks some thirty men lay sleeping.\n\n\n The far wall was taken up by a huge window of denvo-quartz. As I stood\n there, something suddenly caught Ezra Karn's eye. He began to walk\n toward that window.\n\n\n \"Look here,\" he said.\n\n\n Six feet up on that window a small almost imperceptible button of dull\n metal had been wedged into an aperture cut in the quartz. The central\n part of the button appeared to be a powerful lens of some kind, and as\n I seized it and pulled it loose, I felt the hum of tiny clock work.\n\n\n All at once I had it! Red spot fever. Heat fever from the infra-red\n rays of Jupiter's great spot. Someone had constructed this lens to\n concentrate and amplify the power of those rays. The internal clockwork\n served a double purpose. It opened a shutter, and it rotated the lens\n slowly so that it played for a time on each of the sleeping men.\n\n\n I slid the metal button in my pocket and left the barracks at a run.\n Back in the visiscreen room, I snapped to the operator:\n\n\n \"Turn it on!\"\n\n\n The kite car swam into view in the screen above the instrument panel.\n I stared with open eyes. Jimmy Baker no longer was in the car, nor\n was Xartal, the Martian. Grannie Annie was there, but seated at the\n controls was Antlers Park, the manager of Interstellar Voice.\nEzra Karn jabbed my elbow. \"Grannie's coming back. I thought she'd be\n getting sick of this blamed moon.\"\n\n\n It didn't make sense. In all the years I'd known Annabella C. Flowers,\n never yet had I seen her desert a case until she had woven the clues\n and facts to a logical conclusion.\n\n\n \"Ezra,\" I said, \"we're going to drive out and meet them. There's\n something screwy here.\"\n\n\n Ten minutes later in another kite car we were driving at a fast clip\n through the powdery sands of the Baldric. And before long we saw\n another car approaching.\n\n\n It was Grannie. As the car drew up alongside I saw her sitting in her\n prim way next to Antlers Park. Park said:\n\n\n \"We left the others at the mine. Miss Flowers is going back with me to\n my offices to help me improve the formula for that new antitoxin.\"\n\n\n He waved his hand, and the car moved off. I watched it as it sped\n across the desert, and a growing suspicion began to form in my mind.\n Then, like a knife thrust, the truth struck me.\n\n\n \"Ezra!\" I yelled, swinging the car. \"That wasn't Grannie!\nThat was one\n of those damned cockatoo images.\nWe've got to catch him.\"\n\n\n The other car was some distance ahead now. Park looked back and saw us\n following. He did something to the kite wire, and his car leaped ahead.\n\n\n I threw the speed indicator hard over. Our kite was a huge box affair\n with a steady powerful pull to the connecting wire. Park's vehicle\n was drawn by a flat triangular kite that dove and fluttered with each\n variance of the wind. Steadily we began to close in.\n\n\n The manager of Interstellar Voice turned again, and something glinted\n in his hand. There was a flash of purple flame, and a round hole\n appeared in our windscreen inches above Karn's head.\n\n\n \"Heat gun!\" Ezra yelled.\n\n\n Now we were rocketing over the sand dunes, winding in and out between\n the flagpole trees. I had to catch that car I told myself. Grannie\n Annie's very life might be at stake, not to mention the lives of\n hundreds of mine workers. Again Park took aim and again a hole\n shattered our windscreen.\n\n\n The wind shifted and blew from another quarter. The box kite soared,\n but the triangular kite faltered. Taking advantage of Park's loss of\n speed, I raced alongside.\n\n\n The I. V. manager lifted his weapon frantically. But before he could\n use it a third time, Ezra Karn had whipped a lariat from his belt and\n sent it coiling across the intervening space.\n\n\n The thong yanked tight about the manager's throat. Park did the only\n thing he could do. He shut off power, and the two cars coasted to a\n halt. Then I was across in the other seat, wrenching the weapon free\n from his grasp.\n\n\n \"What have you done with Miss Flowers?\" I demanded.\n\n\n The manager's eyes glittered with fear as he saw my finger tense on the\n trigger. Weakly he lifted an arm and pointed to the northwest.\n\n\n \"Val-ley. Thir-ty miles. Entrance hidden by wall of ... flagpole trees.\"\nI leaped into the driver's seat and gave the kite its head. And now the\n country began to undergo a subtle change. The trees seemed to group\n themselves in a long flanking corridor in a northwesterly direction, as\n if to hide some secret that lay beyond. Twice I attempted to penetrate\n that wall, only to find my way blocked by those curious growths.\n\n\n Then a corridor opened before me; a mile forward and the desert began\n again. But it was a new desert this time: the sand packed hard as\n granite, the way ahead utterly devoid of vegetation. In the distance\n black bulging hills extended to right and left, with a narrow chasm or\n doorway between.\n\n\n I headed for that entrance, and when I reached it, I shut off power\n with an exclamation of astonishment.\n\n\n There was a huge chair-shaped rock there, and seated upon it was\n Grannie Annie. She had a tablet in her hands, and she was writing.\n\n\n \"Grannie!\" I yelled. \"What're you doing here? Where's Mr. Baker?\"\n\n\n She rose to her feet and clambered down the rock.\n\n\n \"Getting back Jimmy's mine laborers,\" she said, a twinkle in her eyes.\n \"I see you've got Antlers Park. I'm glad of that. It saves me a lot of\n trouble.\" She took off her spectacles and wiped them on her sleeve.\n \"Don't look so fuddled, Billy-boy. Come along, and I'll show you.\"\n\n\n She led the way through the narrow passage into the valley. A deep\n gorge, it was, with the black sheer cliffs on either side pressing\n close. Ten feet forward, I stopped short, staring in amazement.\n\n\n Advancing toward me like a column of infantry came a long line of\n Larynx miners. They walked slowly, looking straight ahead, moving down\n the center of the gorge toward the entrance.\n\n\n But there was more! A kite car was drawn up to the side. The windscreen\n had been removed, and mounted on the hood was a large bullet-like\n contrivance that looked not unlike a search lamp. A blinding shaft of\n bluish radiance spewed from its open end. Playing it back and forth\n upon the marching men were Jimmy Baker and Xartal, the Martian.\n\n\n \"Ultra violet,\" Grannie Annie explained. \"The opposite end of the\n vibratory scale and the only thing that will combat the infra-red rays\n that cause red spot fever. Those men won't stop walking until they've\n reached Shaft Four.\"\n\n\n Grannie Annie told her story during the long ride back to Shaft Four.\n We drove slowly, keeping the line of marching Larynx miners always\n ahead of us.\n\n\n Jimmy Baker had struck a new big lode of Acoustix, a lode which if\n worked successfully would see\nLarynx Incorporated\nbecome a far more\n powerful exporting concern than\nInterstellar Voice\n. Antlers Park\n didn't want that.\n\n\n It was he or his agents who placed those lens buttons in the Larynx\n barracks.\nFor he knew that just as Jupiter's great spot was\n responsible for a climate and atmosphere suitable for an Earthman on\n this Eighth Moon, so also was that spot a deadly power in itself,\n capable when its rays were concentrated of causing a fatal sickness.\nThen suddenly becoming fearful of Grannie's prying, Antlers Park strove\n to head her off before she reached Shaft Four.\n\n\n He did head her off and managed to lure her and Baker and Xartal into\n the Shaft barracks where they would be exposed to the rays from the\n lens button. But Grannie only pretended to contract the plague.\n\n\n Park then attempted to outwit Ezra Karn and me by returning in Jimmy\n Baker's kite car with a cockatoo image of Grannie.",
    "50893": "THE GREAT NEBRASKA SEA\nBy ALLAN DANZIG\n\n\n Illustrated by WOOD\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Magazine August 1963.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nIt has happened a hundred times in the long history\n \nof Earth\u2014and, sooner or later, will happen again!\nEveryone\u2014all the geologists, at any rate\u2014had known about the Kiowa\n Fault for years. That was before there was anything very interesting\n to know about it. The first survey of Colorado traced its course north\n and south in the narrow valley of Kiowa Creek about twenty miles east\n of Denver; it extended south to the Arkansas River. And that was about\n all even the professionals were interested in knowing. There was never\n so much as a landslide to bring the Fault to the attention of the\n general public.\n\n\n It was still a matter of academic interest when in the late '40s\n geologists speculated on the relationship between the Kiowa Fault and\n the Conchas Fault farther south, in New Mexico, and which followed the\n Pecos as far south as Texas.\n\n\n Nor was there much in the papers a few years later when it was\n suggested that the Niobrara Fault (just inside and roughly parallel to\n the eastern border of Wyoming) was a northerly extension of the Kiowa.\n By the mid sixties it was definitely established that the three Faults\n were in fact a single line of fissure in the essential rock, stretching\n almost from the Canadian border well south of the New Mexico-Texas line.\n\n\n It is not really surprising that it took so long to figure out the\n connection. The population of the states affected was in places as\n low as five people per square mile! The land was so dry it seemed\n impossible that it could ever be used except for sheep-farming.\n\n\n It strikes us today as ironic that from the late '50s there was grave\n concern about the level of the water table throughout the entire area.\nThe even more ironic solution to the problem began in the summer of\n 1973. It had been a particularly hot and dry August, and the Forestry\n Service was keeping an anxious eye out for the fires it knew it could\n expect. Dense smoke was reported rising above a virtually uninhabited\n area along Black Squirrel Creek, and a plane was sent out for a report.\n\n\n The report was\u2014no fire at all. The rising cloud was not smoke, but\n dust. Thousands of cubic feet of dry earth rising lazily on the summer\n air. Rock slides, they guessed; certainly no fire. The Forestry Service\n had other worries at the moment, and filed the report.\n\n\n But after a week had gone by, the town of Edison, a good twenty miles\n away from the slides, was still complaining of the dust. Springs was\n going dry, too, apparently from underground disturbances. Not even in\n the Rockies could anyone remember a series of rock slides as bad as\n this.\n\n\n Newspapers in the mountain states gave it a few inches on the front\n page; anything is news in late August. And the geologists became\n interested. Seismologists were reporting unusual activity in the area,\n tremors too severe to be rock slides. Volcanic activity? Specifically,\n a dust volcano? Unusual, they knew, but right on the Kiowa Fault\u2014could\n be.\n\n\n Labor Day crowds read the scientific conjectures with late summer\n lassitude. Sunday supplements ran four-color artists' conceptions of\n the possible volcano. \"Only Active Volcano in U. S.?\" demanded the\n headlines, and some papers even left off the question mark.\n\n\n It may seem odd that the simplest explanation was practically not\n mentioned. Only Joseph Schwartzberg, head geographer of the Department\n of the Interior, wondered if the disturbance might not be a settling\n of the Kiowa Fault. His suggestion was mentioned on page nine or ten\n of the Monday newspapers (page 27 of the New York\nTimes\n). The idea\n was not nearly so exciting as a volcano, even a lava-less one, and you\n couldn't draw a very dramatic picture of it.\n\n\n To excuse the other geologists, it must be said that the Kiowa Fault\n had never acted up before. It never sidestepped, never jiggled,\n never, never produced the regular shows of its little sister out in\n California, which almost daily bounced San Francisco or Los Angeles, or\n some place in between. The dust volcano was on the face of it a more\n plausible theory.\n\n\n Still, it was only a theory. It had to be proved. As the tremors grew\n bigger, along with the affected area, as several towns including\n Edison were shaken to pieces by incredible earthquakes, whole bus- and\n plane-loads of geologists set out for Colorado, without even waiting\n for their university and government department to approve budgets.\n\n\n They found, of course, that Schwartzberg had been perfectly correct.\nThey found themselves on the scene of what was fast becoming the\n most violent and widespread earthquake North America\u2014probably the\n world\u2014has ever seen in historic times. To describe it in the simplest\n terms, land east of the Fault was settling, and at a precipitous rate.\n\n\n Rock scraped rock with a whining roar. Shuddery as a squeaky piece of\n chalk raked across a blackboard, the noise was deafening. The surfaces\n of the land east and west of the Fault seemed no longer to have any\n relation to each other. To the west, tortured rock reared into cliffs.\n East, where sharp reports and muffled wheezes told of continued\n buckling and dropping, the earth trembled downward. Atop the new\n cliffs, which seemed to grow by sudden inches from heaving rubble, dry\n earth fissured and trembled, sliding acres at a time to fall, smoking,\n into the bucking, heaving bottom of the depression.\n\n\n There the devastation was even more thorough, if less spectacular.\n Dry earth churned like mud, and rock shards weighing tons bumped and\n rolled about like pebbles as they shivered and cracked into pebbles\n themselves. \"It looks like sand dancing in a child's sieve,\" said the\n normally impassive Schwartzberg in a nationwide broadcast from the\n scene of disaster. \"No one here has ever seen anything like it.\" And\n the landslip was growing, north and south along the Fault.\n\n\n \"Get out while you can,\" Schwartzberg urged the population of the\n affected area. \"When it's over you can come back and pick up the\n pieces.\" But the band of scientists who had rallied to his leadership\n privately wondered if there would be any pieces.\n\n\n The Arkansas River, at Avondale and North Avondale, was sluggishly\n backing north into the deepening trough. At the rate things were going,\n there might be a new lake the entire length of El Paso and Pueblo\n Counties. And, warned Schwartzberg, this might only be the beginning.\n\n\n By 16 September the landslip had crept down the Huerfano River past\n Cedarwood. Avondale, North Avondale and Boone had totally disappeared.\n Land west of the Fault was holding firm, though Denver had recorded\n several small tremors; everywhere east of the Fault, to almost twenty\n miles away, the now-familiar lurch and steady fall had already sent\n several thousand Coloradans scurrying for safety.\n\n\n All mountain climbing was prohibited on the Eastern Slope because of\n the danger of rock slides from minor quakes. The geologists went home\n to wait.\n\n\n There wasn't much to wait for. The news got worse and worse. The Platte\n River, now, was creating a vast mud puddle where the town of Orchard\n had been. Just below Masters, Colorado, the river leaped 70-foot cliffs\n to add to the heaving chaos below. And the cliffs were higher every day\n as the land beneath them groaned downward in mile-square gulps.\n\n\n As the Fault moved north and south, new areas quivered into unwelcome\n life. Fields and whole mountainsides moved with deceptive sloth down,\n down. They danced \"like sand in a sieve\"; dry, they boiled into rubble.\n Telephone lines, railroad tracks, roads snapped and simply disappeared.\n Virtually all east-west land communication was suspended and the\n President declared a national emergency.\nBy 23 September the Fault was active well into Wyoming on the north,\n and rapidly approaching the border of New Mexico to the south.\n Trinchera and Branson were totally evacuated, but even so the over-all\n death toll had risen above 1,000.\n\n\n Away to the east the situation was quiet but even more ominous.\n Tremendous fissures opened up perpendicular to the Fault, and a general\n subsidence of the land was noticeable well into Kansas and Nebraska.\n The western borders of these states, and soon of the Dakotas and\n Oklahoma as well, were slowly sinking.\n\n\n On the actual scene of the disaster (or the\nscenes\n; it is impossible\n to speak of anything this size in the singular) there was a horrifying\n confusion. Prairie and hill cracked open under intolerable strains as\n the land shuddered downward in gasps and leaps. Springs burst to the\n surface in hot geysers and explosions of steam.\n\n\n The downtown section of North Platte, Nebraska, dropped eight feet,\n just like that, on the afternoon of 4 October. \"We must remain calm,\"\n declared the Governor of Nebraska. \"We must sit this thing out. Be\n assured that everything possible is being done.\" But what could be\n done, with his state dropping straight down at a mean rate of a foot a\n day?\n\n\n The Fault nicked off the south-east corner of Montana. It worked its\n way north along the Little Missouri. South, it ripped past Roswell, New\n Mexico, and tore down the Pecos toward Texas. All the upper reaches of\n the Missouri were standing puddles by now, and the Red River west of\n Paris, Texas, had begun to run backward.\n\n\n Soon the Missouri began slowly slipping away westward over the slowly\n churning land. Abandoning its bed, the river spread uncertainly across\n farmland and prairie, becoming a sea of mud beneath the sharp new\n cliffs which rose in rending line, ever taller as the land continued to\n sink, almost from Canada to the Mexican border. There were virtually no\n floods, in the usual sense. The water moved too slowly, spread itself\n with no real direction or force. But the vast sheets of sluggish water\n and jelly-like mud formed death-traps for the countless refugees now\n streaming east.\n\n\n Perhaps the North Platte disaster had been more than anyone could take.\n 193 people had died in that one cave-in. Certainly by 7 October it had\n to be officially admitted that there was an exodus of epic proportion.\n Nearly two million people were on the move, and the U. S. was faced\n with a gigantic wave of refugees. Rails, roads and air-lanes were\n jammed with terrified hordes who had left everything behind to crowd\n eastward.\n\n\n All through October hollow-eyed motorists flocked into Tulsa, Topeka,\n Omaha, Sioux Falls and Fargo. St. Louis was made distributing center\n for emergency squads which flew everywhere with milk for babies and\n dog food for evacuating pets. Gasoline trucks boomed west to meet the\n demand for gas, but once inside the \"zone of terror,\" as the newspapers\n now called it, they found their route blocked by eastbound cars on the\n wrong side of the road. Shops left by their fleeing owners were looted\n by refugees from further west; an American Airlines plane was wrecked\n by a mob of would-be passengers in Bismarck, North Dakota. Federal and\n State troops were called out, but moving two million people was not to\n be done in an orderly way.\n\n\n And still the landslip grew larger. The new cliffs gleamed in the\n autumn sunshine, growing higher as the land beneath them continued its\n inexorable descent.\n\n\n On 21 October, at Lubbock, Texas, there was a noise variously described\n as a hollow roar, a shriek and a deep musical vibration like a church\n bell. It was simply the tortured rock of the substrata giving way. The\n second phase of the national disaster was beginning.\nThe noise traveled due east at better than 85 miles per hour. In its\n wake the earth to the north \"just seemed to collapse on itself like\n a punctured balloon,\" read one newspaper report. \"Like a cake that's\n failed,\" said a Texarkana housewife who fortunately lived a block\nsouth\nof Thayer Street, where the fissure raced through. There\n was a sigh and a great cloud of dust, and Oklahoma subsided at the\n astounding rate of about six feet per hour.\n\n\n At Biloxi, on the Gulf, there had been uneasy shufflings under foot all\n day. \"Not tremors, exactly,\" said the captain of a fishing boat which\n was somehow to ride out the coming flood, \"but like as if the land\n wanted to be somewhere else.\"\n\n\n Everyone in doomed Biloxi would have done well to have been somewhere\n else that evening. At approximately 8:30 p.m. the town shuddered,\n seemed to rise a little like the edge of a hall carpet caught in a\n draft, and sank. So did the entire Mississippi and Alabama coast, at\n about the same moment. The tidal wave which was to gouge the center\n from the U. S. marched on the land.\nFrom the north shore of Lake Ponchartrain to the Appalachicola River\n in Florida, the Gulf coast simply disappeared. Gulfport, Biloxi,\n Mobile, Pensacola, Panama City: 200 miles of shoreline vanished, with\n over two and a half million people. An hour later a wall of water\n had swept over every town from Dothan, Alabama, to Bogalusa on the\n Louisiana-Mississippi border.\n\n\n \"We must keep panic from our minds,\" said the Governor of Alabama in a\n radio message delivered from a hastily arranged all-station hookup. \"We\n of the gallant southland have faced and withstood invasion before.\"\n Then, as ominous creakings and groanings of the earth announced the\n approach of the tidal wave, he flew out of Montgomery half an hour\n before the town disappeared forever.\n\n\n One head of the wave plunged north, eventually to spend itself in\n the hills south of Birmingham. The main sweep followed the lowest\n land. Reaching west, it swallowed Vicksburg and nicked the corner of\n Louisiana. The whole of East Carroll Parish was scoured from the map.\n\n\n The Mississippi River now ended at about Eudora, Arkansas, and minute\n by minute the advancing flood bit away miles of river bed, swelling\n north. Chicot, Jennie, Lake Village, Arkansas City, Snow Lake, Elaine,\n Helena and Memphis felt the tremors. The tormented city shuddered\n through the night. The earth continued its descent, eventually tipping\n 2-1/2 degrees down to the west. The \"Memphis Tilt\" is today one of\n the unique and charming characteristics of the gracious Old Town, but\n during the night of panic Memphis residents were sure they were doomed.\nSouth and west the waters carved deeply into Arkansas and Oklahoma.\n By morning it was plain that all of Arkansas was going under. Waves\n advanced on Little Rock at almost 100 miles an hour, new crests\n forming, overtopping the wave's leading edge as towns, hills and the\n thirst of the soil temporarily broke the furious charge.\n\n\n Washington announced the official hope that the Ozarks would stop the\n wild gallop of the unleashed Gulf, for in northwest Arkansas the land\n rose to over 2,000 feet. But nothing could save Oklahoma. By noon the\n water reached clutching fingers around Mt. Scott and Elk Mountain,\n deluging Hobart and almost all of Greer County.\n\n\n Despite hopeful announcements that the wave was slowing, had virtually\n stopped after inundating Oklahoma City, was being swallowed up in the\n desert near Amarillo, the wall of water continued its advance. For the\n land was still sinking, and the floods were constantly replenished from\n the Gulf. Schwartzberg and his geologists advised the utmost haste in\n evacuating the entire area between Colorado and Missouri, from Texas to\n North Dakota.\n\n\n Lubbock, Texas, went under. On a curling reflex the tidal wave blotted\n out Sweetwater and Big Spring. The Texas panhandle disappeared in one\n great swirl.\n\n\n Whirlpools opened. A great welter of smashed wood and human debris was\n sucked under, vomited up and pounded to pieces. Gulf-water crashed on\n the cliffs of New Mexico and fell back on itself in foam. Would-be\n rescuers on the cliffs along what had been the west bank of the Pecos\n River afterwards recalled the hiss and scream like tearing silk as\n the water broke furiously on the newly exposed rock. It was the most\n terrible sound they had ever heard.\n\n\n \"We couldn't hear any shouts, of course, not that far away and with all\n the noise,\" said Dan Weaver, Mayor of Carlsbad. \"But we knew there\n were people down there. When the water hit the cliffs, it was like a\n collision between two solid bodies. We couldn't see for over an hour,\n because of the spray.\"\nSalt spray.\nThe ocean had come to New Mexico.\nThe cliffs proved to be the only effective barrier against the westward\n march of the water, which turned north, gouging out lumps of rock and\n tumbling down blocks of earth onto its own back. In places scoops of\n granite came out like ice cream. The present fishing town of Rockport,\n Colorado, is built on a harbor created in such a way.\n\n\n The water had found its farthest westering. But still it poured north\n along the line of the original Fault. Irresistible fingers closed on\n Sterling, Colorado, on Sidney, Nebraska, on Hot Springs, South Dakota.\n The entire tier of states settled, from south to north, down to its\n eventual place of stability one thousand feet below the level of the\n new sea.\n\n\n Memphis was by now a seaport. The Ozarks, islands in a mad sea, formed\n precarious havens for half-drowned humanity. Waves bit off a corner of\n Missouri, flung themselves on Wichita. Topeka, Lawrence and Belleville\n were the last Kansas towns to disappear. The Governor of Kansas went\n down with his State.\n\n\n Daniel Bernd of Lincoln, Nebraska, was washed up half-drowned in a cove\n of the Wyoming cliffs, having been sucked from one end of vanished\n Nebraska to the other. Similar hair-breadth escapes were recounted on\n radio and television.\n\n\n Virtually the only people saved out of the entire population of Pierre,\n South Dakota were the six members of the Creeth family. Plucky Timothy\n Creeth carried and dragged his aged parents to the loft of their barn\n on the outskirts of town. His brother Geoffrey brought along the\n younger children and what provisions they could find\u2014\"Mostly a ham\n and about half a ton of vanilla cookies,\" he explained to his eventual\n rescuers. The barn, luckily collapsing in the vibrations as the waves\n bore down on them, became an ark in which they rode out the disaster.\n\n\n \"We must of played cards for four days straight,\" recalled genial\n Mrs. Creeth when she afterwards appeared on a popular television\n spectacular. Her rural good-humor undamaged by an ordeal few women can\n ever have been called on to face, she added, \"We sure wondered why\n flushes never came out right. Jimanettly, we'd left the king of hearts\n behind, in the rush!\"\n\n\n But such lightheartedness and such happy endings were by no means\n typical. The world could only watch aghast as the water raced north\n under the shadow of the cliffs which occasionally crumbled, roaring,\n into the roaring waves. Day by day the relentless rush swallowed what\n had been dusty farmland, cities and towns.\n\n\n Some people were saved by the helicopters which flew mercy missions\n just ahead of the advancing waters. Some found safety in the peaks of\n western Nebraska and the Dakotas. But when the waters came to rest\n along what is roughly the present shoreline of our inland sea, it was\n estimated that over fourteen million people had lost their lives.\n\n\n No one could even estimate the damage to property; almost the entirety\n of eight states, and portions of twelve others, had simply vanished\n from the heart of the North American continent forever.\nIt was in such a cataclysmic birth that the now-peaceful Nebraska Sea\n came to America.\n\n\n Today, nearly one hundred years after the unprecedented\u2014and happily\n unrepeated\u2014disaster, it is hard to remember the terror and despair of\n those weeks in October and November, 1973. It is inconceivable to think\n of the United States without its beautiful and economically essential\n curve of interior ocean. Two-thirds as long as the Mediterranean,\n it graduates from the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico through the\n equally blue waves of the Mississippi Bight, becoming cooler and\n greener north and west of the pleasant fishing isles of the Ozark\n Archipelago, finally shading into the gray-green chop of the Gulf of\n Dakota.\n\n\n What would the United States have become without the 5600-mile\n coastline of our inland sea? It is only within the last twenty years\n that any but the topmost layer of water has cleared sufficiently\n to permit a really extensive fishing industry. Mud still held in\n suspension by the restless waves will not precipitate fully even in our\n lifetimes. Even so, the commercial fisheries of Missouri and Wyoming\n contribute no small part to the nation's economy.\nWho can imagine what the middle west must have been like before the\n amelioration of climate brought about by the proximity of a warm sea?\n The now-temperate state of Minnesota (to say nothing of the submerged\n Dakotas) must have been Siberian. From contemporary accounts Missouri,\n our second California, was unbelievably muggy, almost uninhabitable\n during the summer months. Our climate today, from Ohio and North\n Carolina to the rich fields of New Mexico and the orchards of Montana,\n is directly ameliorated by the marine heart of the continent.\nWho today could imagine the United States without the majestic\n sea-cliffs in stately parade from New Mexico to Montana? The beaches\n of Wyoming, the American Riviera, where fruit trees grow almost to the\n water's edge? Or incredible Colorado, where the morning skier is the\n afternoon bather, thanks to the monorail connecting the highest peaks\n with the glistening white beaches?\nOf course there have been losses to balance slightly these strong\n gains. The Mississippi was, before 1973, one of the great rivers of\n the world. Taken together with its main tributary, the Missouri, it\n vied favorably with such giant systems as the Amazon and the Ganges.\n Now, ending as it does at Memphis and drawing its water chiefly from\n the Appalachian Mountains, it is only a slight remnant of what it was.\n And though the Nebraska Sea today carries many times the tonnage of\n shipping in its ceaseless traffic, we have lost the old romance of\n river shipping. We may only guess what it was like when we look upon\n the Ohio and the truncated Mississippi.\n\n\n And transcontinental shipping is somewhat more difficult, with trucks\n and the freight-railroads obliged to take the sea-ferries across the\n Nebraska Sea. We shall never know what the United States was like with\n its numerous coast-to-coast highways busy with trucks and private\n cars. Still, the ferry ride is certainly a welcome break after days of\n driving, and for those who wish a glimpse of what it must have been\n like, there is always the Cross-Canada Throughway and the magnificent\n U. S. Highway 73 looping north through Minnesota and passing through\n the giant port of Alexis, North Dakota, shipping center for the wheat\n of Manitoba and crossroad of a nation.\nThe political situation has long been a thorny problem. Only tattered\n remnants of the eight submerged states remained after the flood, but\n none of them wanted to surrender its autonomy. The tiny fringe of\n Kansas seemed, for a time, ready to merge with contiguous Missouri,\n but following the lead of the Arkansas Forever faction, the remaining\n population decided to retain political integrity. This has resulted\n in the continuing anomaly of the seven \"fringe States\" represented\n in Congress by the usual two Senators each, though the largest of\n them is barely the size of Connecticut and all are economically\n indistinguishable from their neighboring states.\n\n\n Fortunately it was decided some years ago that Oklahoma, only one of\n the eight to have completely disappeared, could not in any sense be\n considered to have a continuing political existence. So, though there\n are still families who proudly call themselves Oklahomans, and the\n Oklahoma Oil Company continues to pump oil from its submerged real\n estate, the state has in fact disappeared from the American political\n scene.\n\n\n But this is by now no more than a petty annoyance, to raise a smile\n when the talk gets around to the question of State's Rights. Not even\n the tremendous price the country paid for its new sea\u2014fourteen million\n dead, untold property destroyed\u2014really offsets the asset we enjoy\n today. The heart of the continent, now open to the shipping of the\n world, was once dry and land-locked, cut off from the bustle of trade\n and the ferment of world culture.\n\n\n It would indeed seem odd to an American of the '50s or '60s of the last\n century to imagine sailors from the merchant fleets of every nation\n walking the streets of Denver, fresh ashore at Newport, only fifteen\n miles away. Or to imagine Lincoln, Fargo, Kansas City and Dallas as\n world ports and great manufacturing centers. Utterly beyond their ken\n would be Roswell, New Mexico; Benton, Wyoming; Westport, Missouri,\n and the other new ports of over a million inhabitants each which have\n developed on the new harbors of the inland sea.\n\n\n Unimaginable too would have been the general growth of population\n in the states surrounding the new sea. As the water tables rose and\n manufacturing and trade moved in to take advantage of the just-created\n axis of world communication, a population explosion was touched off of\n which we are only now seeing the diminution. This new westering is to\n be ranked with the first surge of pioneers which created the American\n west. But what a difference! Vacation paradises bloom, a new fishing\n industry thrives; her water road is America's main artery of trade, and\n fleets of all the world sail ... where once the prairie schooner made\n its laborious and dusty way west!",
    "61090": "CALL HIM NEMESIS\nBy DONALD E. WESTLAKE\nCriminals, beware; the Scorpion is on\n\n your trail! Hoodlums fear his fury\u2014and,\n\n for that matter, so do the cops!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe man with the handkerchief mask said, \"All right, everybody, keep\n tight. This is a holdup.\"\n\n\n There were twelve people in the bank. There was Mr. Featherhall at\n his desk, refusing to okay a personal check from a perfect stranger.\n There was the perfect stranger, an itinerant garage mechanic named\n Rodney (Rod) Strom, like the check said. There were Miss English and\n Miss Philicoff, the girls in the gilded teller cages. There was Mister\n Anderson, the guard, dozing by the door in his brown uniform. There was\n Mrs. Elizabeth Clayhorn, depositing her husband's pay check in their\n joint checking account, and with her was her ten-year-old son Edward\n (Eddie) Clayhorn, Junior. There was Charlie Casale, getting ten dollars\n dimes, six dollars nickels and four dollars pennies for his father\n in the grocery store down the street. There was Mrs. Dolly Daniels,\n withdrawing money from her savings account again. And there were three\n bank robbers.\n\n\n The three bank robbers looked like triplets. From the ground up, they\n all wore scuffy black shoes, baggy-kneed and unpressed khaki trousers,\n brown cracked-leather jackets over flannel shirts, white handkerchiefs\n over the lower half of their faces and gray-and-white check caps pulled\n low over their eyes. The eyes themselves looked dangerous.\n\n\n The man who had spoken withdrew a small but mean-looking thirty-two\n calibre pistol from his jacket pocket. He waved it menacingly. One of\n the others took the pistol away from Mister Anderson, the guard, and\n said to him in a low voice, \"Think about retirement, my friend.\" The\n third one, who carried a black satchel like a doctor's bag, walked\n quickly around behind the teller's counter and started filling it with\n money.\n\n\n It was just like the movies.\n\n\n The man who had first spoken herded the tellers, Mr. Featherhall and\n the customers all over against the back wall, while the second man\n stayed next to Mr. Anderson and the door. The third man stuffed money\n into the black satchel.\n\n\n The man by the door said, \"Hurry up.\"\n\n\n The man with the satchel said, \"One more drawer.\"\n\n\n The man with the gun turned to say to the man at the door, \"Keep your\n shirt on.\"\n\n\n That was all Miss English needed. She kicked off her shoes and ran\n pelting in her stocking feet for the door.\nThe man by the door spread his arms out and shouted, \"Hey!\" The man\n with the gun swung violently back, cursing, and fired the gun. But he'd\n been moving too fast, and so had Miss English, and all he hit was the\n brass plate on Mr. Featherhall's desk.\n\n\n The man by the door caught Miss English in a bear hug. She promptly did\n her best to scratch his eyes out. Meanwhile, Mr. Anderson went scooting\n out the front door and running down the street toward the police\n station in the next block, shouting, \"Help! Help! Robbery!\"\n\n\n The man with the gun cursed some more. The man with the satchel came\n running around from behind the counter, and the man by the door tried\n to keep Miss English from scratching his eyes out. Then the man with\n the gun hit Miss English on the head. She fell unconscious to the\n floor, and all three of them ran out of the bank to the car out front,\n in which sat a very nervous-looking fourth man, gunning the engine.\n\n\n Everyone except Miss English ran out after the bandits, to watch.\n\n\n Things got very fast and very confused then. Two police cars came\n driving down the block and a half from the precinct house to the bank,\n and the car with the four robbers in it lurched away from the curb and\n drove straight down the street toward the police station. The police\n cars and the getaway car passed one another, with everybody shooting\n like the ships in pirate movies.\n\n\n There was so much confusion that it looked as though the bank robbers\n were going to get away after all. The police cars were aiming the wrong\n way and, as they'd come down with sirens wailing, there was a clear\n path behind them.\n\n\n Then, after the getaway car had gone more than two blocks, it suddenly\n started jouncing around. It smacked into a parked car and stopped. And\n all the police went running down there to clap handcuffs on the robbers\n when they crawled dazedly out of their car.\n\n\n \"Hey,\" said Eddie Clayhorn, ten years old. \"Hey, that was something,\n huh, Mom?\"\n\n\n \"Come along home,\" said his mother, grabbing his hand. \"We don't want\n to be involved.\"\n\"It was the nuttiest thing,\" said Detective-Sergeant Stevenson. \"An\n operation planned that well, you'd think they'd pay attention to their\n getaway car, you know what I mean?\"\n\n\n Detective-Sergeant Pauling shrugged. \"They always slip up,\" he said.\n \"Sooner or later, on some minor detail, they always slip up.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, but their\ntires\n.\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" said Pauling, \"it was a stolen car. I suppose they just grabbed\n whatever was handiest.\"\n\n\n \"What I can't figure out,\" said Stevenson, \"is exactly what made those\n tires do that. I mean, it was a hot day and all, but it wasn't\nthat\nhot. And they weren't going that fast. I don't think you could go fast\n enough to melt your tires down.\"\n\n\n Pauling shrugged again. \"We got them. That's the important thing.\"\n\n\n \"Still and all, it's nutty. They're free and clear, barrelling out\n Rockaway toward the Belt, and all at once their tires melt, the tubes\n blow out and there they are.\" Stevenson shook his head. \"I can't figure\n it.\"\n\n\n \"Don't look a gift horse in the mouth,\" suggested Pauling. \"They picked\n the wrong car to steal.\"\n\n\n \"And\nthat\ndoesn't make sense, either,\" said Stevenson. \"Why steal a\n car that could be identified as easily as that one?\"\n\n\n \"Why? What was it, a foreign make?\"\n\n\n \"No, it was a Chevvy, two-tone, three years old, looked just like half\n the cars on the streets. Except that in the trunk lid the owner had\n burned in 'The Scorpion' in big black letters you could see half a\n block away.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe they didn't notice it when they stole the car,\" said Pauling.\n\n\n \"For a well-planned operation like this one,\" said Stevenson, \"they\n made a couple of really idiotic boners. It doesn't make any sense.\"\n\n\n \"What do they have to say about it?\" Pauling demanded.\n\n\n \"Nothing, what do you expect? They'll make no statement at all.\"\n\n\n The squad-room door opened, and a uniformed patrolman stuck his head\n in. \"The owner of that Chevvy's here,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Right,\" said Stevenson. He followed the patrolman down the hall to the\n front desk.\n\n\n The owner of the Chevvy was an angry-looking man of middle age, tall\n and paunchy. \"John Hastings,\" he said. \"They say you have my car here.\"\n\n\n \"I believe so, yes,\" said Stevenson. \"I'm afraid it's in pretty bad\n shape.\"\n\n\n \"So I was told over the phone,\" said Hastings grimly. \"I've contacted\n my insurance company.\"\n\n\n \"Good. The car's in the police garage, around the corner. If you'd come\n with me?\"\nOn the way around, Stevenson said, \"I believe you reported the car\n stolen almost immediately after it happened.\"\n\n\n \"That's right,\" said Hastings. \"I stepped into a bar on my route. I'm\n a wine and liquor salesman. When I came out five minutes later, my car\n was gone.\"\n\n\n \"You left the keys in it?\"\n\n\n \"Well, why not?\" demanded Hastings belligerently. \"If I'm making just\n a quick stop\u2014I never spend more than five minutes with any one\n customer\u2014I always leave the keys in the car. Why not?\"\n\n\n \"The car was stolen,\" Stevenson reminded him.\n\n\n Hastings grumbled and glared. \"It's always been perfectly safe up till\n now.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. In here.\"\n\n\n Hastings took one look at his car and hit the ceiling. \"It's ruined!\"\n he cried. \"What did you do to the tires?\"\n\n\n \"Not a thing, sir. That happened to them in the holdup.\"\n\n\n Hastings leaned down over one of the front tires. \"Look at that!\n There's melted rubber all over the rims. Those rims are ruined! What\n did you use, incendiary bullets?\"\n\n\n Stevenson shook his head. \"No, sir. When that happened they were two\n blocks away from the nearest policeman.\"\n\n\n \"Hmph.\" Hastings moved on around the car, stopping short to exclaim,\n \"What in the name of God is that? You didn't tell me a bunch of\nkids\nhad stolen the car.\"\n\n\n \"It wasn't a bunch of kids,\" Stevenson told him. \"It was four\n professional criminals, I thought you knew that. They were using it in\n a bank holdup.\"\n\n\n \"Then why did they do\nthat\n?\"\n\n\n Stevenson followed Hastings' pointing finger, and saw again the\n crudely-lettered words, \"The Scorpion\" burned black into the paint of\n the trunk lid. \"I really don't know,\" he said. \"It wasn't there before\n the car was stolen?\"\n\n\n \"Of course not!\"\n\n\n Stevenson frowned. \"Now, why in the world did they do that?\"\n\n\n \"I suggest,\" said Hastings with heavy sarcasm, \"you ask them that.\"\n\n\n Stevenson shook his head. \"It wouldn't do any good. They aren't talking\n about anything. I don't suppose they'll ever tell us.\" He looked at the\n trunk lid again. \"It's the nuttiest thing,\" he said thoughtfully....\n\n\n That was on Wednesday.\n\n\n The Friday afternoon mail delivery to the\nDaily News\nbrought a crank\n letter. It was in the crank letter's most obvious form; that is,\n the address had been clipped, a letter or a word at a time, from a\n newspaper and glued to the envelope. There was no return address.\n\n\n The letter itself was in the same format. It was brief and to the point:\n\n\n Dear Mr. Editor:\n\n\n The Scorpion has struck. The bank robbers were captured. The Scorpion\n fights crime. Crooks and robbers are not safe from the avenging\n Scorpion. WARN YOUR READERS!\nSincerely yours,\n\n THE SCORPION\n\n\n The warning was duly noted, and the letter filed in the wastebasket. It\n didn't rate a line in the paper.\nII\n\n\n The bank robbery occurred in late June. Early in August, a Brooklyn man\n went berserk.\n\n\n It happened in Canarsie, a section in southeast Brooklyn near Jamaica\n Bay. This particular area of Canarsie was a residential neighborhood,\n composed of one and two family houses. The man who went berserk was a\n Motor Vehicle Bureau clerk named Jerome Higgins.\n\n\n Two days before, he had flunked a Civil Service examination for the\n third time. He reported himself sick and spent the two days at home,\n brooding, a bottle of blended whiskey at all times in his hand.\n\n\n As the police reconstructed it later, Mrs. Higgins had attempted to\n awaken him on the third morning at seven-thirty, suggesting that he\n really ought to stop being so foolish, and go back to work. He then\n allegedly poked her in the eye, and locked her out of the bedroom.\n\n\n Mrs. Higgins then apparently called her sister-in-law, a Mrs. Thelma\n Stodbetter, who was Mr. Higgins' sister. Mrs. Stodbetter arrived at the\n house at nine o'clock, and spent some time tapping at the still-locked\n bedroom door, apparently requesting Mr. Higgins to unlock the door and\n \"stop acting like a child.\" Neighbors reported to the police that they\n heard Mr. Higgins shout a number of times, \"Go away! Can't you let a\n man sleep?\"\n\n\n At about ten-fifteen, neighbors heard shots from the Higgins residence,\n a two-story one-family pink stucco affair in the middle of a block of\n similar homes. Mr. Higgins, it was learned later, had suddenly erupted\n from his bedroom, brandishing a .30-.30 hunting rifle and, being\n annoyed at the shrieks of his wife and sister, had fired seven shells\n at them, killing his wife on the spot and wounding his sister in the\n hand and shoulder.\n\n\n Mrs. Stodbetter, wounded and scared out of her wits, raced screaming\n out the front door of the house, crying for the police and shouting,\n \"Murder! Murder!\" At this point, neighbors called the police. One\n neighbor additionally phoned three newspapers and two television\n stations, thereby earning forty dollars in \"news-tips\" rewards.\nBy chance, a mobile television unit was at that moment on the Belt\n Parkway, returning from having seen off a prime minister at Idlewild\n Airport. This unit was at once diverted to Canarsie, where it took up a\n position across the street from the scene of carnage and went to work\n with a Zoomar lens.\n\n\n In the meantime, Mister Higgins had barricaded himself in his house,\n firing at anything that moved.\n\n\n The two cameramen in the mobile unit worked their hearts out. One\n concentrated on the movements of the police and firemen and neighbors\n and ambulance attendants, while the other used the Zoomar lens to\n search for Mr. Higgins. He found him occasionally, offering the at-home\n audience brief glimpses of a stocky balding man in brown trousers and\n undershirt, stalking from window to window on the second floor of the\n house.\n\n\n The show lasted for nearly an hour. There were policemen everywhere,\n and firemen everywhere, and neighbors milling around down at the\n corner, where the police had roped the block off, and occasionally Mr.\n Higgins would stick his rifle out a window and shoot at somebody. The\n police used loudspeakers to tell Higgins he might as well give up, they\n had the place surrounded and could eventually starve him out anyway.\n Higgins used his own good lungs to shout obscenities back and challenge\n anyone present to hand-to-hand combat.\n\n\n The police fired tear gas shells at the house, but it was a windy day\n and all the windows in the Higgins house were either open or broken.\n Higgins was able to throw all the shells back out of the house again.\n\n\n The show lasted for nearly an hour. Then it ended, suddenly and\n dramatically.\n\n\n Higgins had showed himself to the Zoomar lens again, for the purpose of\n shooting either the camera or its operator. All at once he yelped and\n threw the rifle away. The rifle bounced onto the porch roof, slithered\n down to the edge, hung for a second against the drain, and finally fell\n barrel first onto the lawn.\n\n\n Meanwhile, Higgins was running through the house, shouting like a\n wounded bull. He thundered down the stairs and out, hollering, to fall\n into the arms of the waiting police.\n\n\n They had trouble holding him. At first they thought he was actually\n trying to get away, but then one of them heard what it was he was\n shouting: \"My hands! My hands!\"\n\n\n They looked at his hands. The palms and the palm-side of the fingers\n were red and blistering, from what looked like severe burns. There was\n another burn on his right cheek and another one on his right shoulder.\n\n\n Higgins, thoroughly chastened and bewildered, was led away for burn\n ointment and jail. The television crew went on back to Manhattan. The\n neighbors went home and telephoned their friends.\n\n\n On-duty policemen had been called in from practically all of the\n precincts in Brooklyn. Among them was Detective-Sergeant William\n Stevenson. Stevenson frowned thoughtfully at Higgins as that unhappy\n individual was led away, and then strolled over to look at the rifle.\n He touched the stock, and it was somewhat warm but that was all.\n\n\n He picked it up and turned it around. There, on the other side of the\n stock, burned into the wood, were the crudely-shaped letters, \"The\n Scorpion.\"\nYou don't get to be Precinct Captain on nothing but political\n connections. Those help, of course, but you need more than that. As\n Captain Hanks was fond of pointing out, you needed as well to be both\n more imaginative than most\u2014\"You gotta be able to second-guess the\n smart boys\"\u2014and to be a complete realist\u2014\"You gotta have both feet\n on the ground.\" If these were somewhat contradictory qualities, it was\n best not to mention the fact to Captain Hanks.\n\n\n The realist side of the captain's nature was currently at the fore.\n \"Just what are you trying to say, Stevenson?\" he demanded.\n\n\n \"I'm not sure,\" admitted Stevenson. \"But we've got these two things.\n First, there's the getaway car from that bank job. The wheels melt for\n no reason at all, and somebody burns 'The Scorpion' onto the trunk.\n Then, yesterday, this guy Higgins out in Canarsie. He says the rifle\n all of a sudden got too hot to hold, and he's got the burn marks to\n prove it. And there on the rifle stock it is again. 'The Scorpion'.\"\n\n\n \"He says he put that on there himself,\" said the captain.\n\n\n Stevenson shook his head. \"His\nlawyer\nsays he put it on there.\n Higgins says he doesn't remember doing it. That's half the lawyer's\n case. He's trying to build up an insanity defense.\"\n\n\n \"He put it on there himself, Stevenson,\" said the captain with weary\n patience. \"What are you trying to prove?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know. All I know is it's the nuttiest thing I ever saw. And\n what about the getaway car? What about those tires melting?\"\n\n\n \"They were defective,\" said Hanks promptly.\n\n\n \"All four of them at once? And what about the thing written on the\n trunk?\"\n\n\n \"How do I know?\" demanded the captain. \"Kids put it on before the car\n was stolen, maybe. Or maybe the hoods did it themselves, who knows?\n What do\nthey\nsay?\"\n\n\n \"They say they didn't do it,\" said Stevenson. \"And they say they never\n saw it before the robbery and they would have noticed it if it'd been\n there.\"\n\n\n The captain shook his head. \"I don't get it,\" he admitted. \"What are\n you trying to prove?\"\n\n\n \"I guess,\" said Stevenson slowly, thinking it out as he went along, \"I\n guess I'm trying to prove that somebody melted those tires, and made\n that rifle too hot, and left his signature behind.\"\n\n\n \"What? You mean like in the comic books? Come on, Stevenson! What are\n you trying to hand me?\"\n\n\n \"All I know,\" insisted Stevenson, \"is what I see.\"\n\n\n \"And all\nI\nknow,\" the captain told him, \"is Higgins put that name on\n his rifle himself. He says so.\"\n\n\n \"And what made it so hot?\"\n\n\n \"Hell, man, he'd been firing that thing at people for an hour! What do\n you\nthink\nmade it hot?\"\n\n\n \"All of a sudden?\"\n\n\n \"He noticed it all of a sudden, when it started to burn him.\"\n\n\n \"How come the same name showed up each time, then?\" Stevenson asked\n desperately.\n\n\n \"How should I know? And why not, anyway? You know as well as I do these\n things happen. A bunch of teen-agers burgle a liquor store and they\n write 'The Golden Avengers' on the plate glass in lipstick. It happens\n all the time. Why not 'The Scorpion'? It couldn't occur to two people?\"\n\n\n \"But there's no explanation\u2014\" started Stevenson.\n\n\n \"What do you mean, there's no explanation? I just\ngave\nyou the\n explanation. Look, Stevenson, I'm a busy man. You got a nutty\n idea\u2014like Wilcox a few years ago, remember him? Got the idea there\n was a fiend around loose, stuffing all those kids into abandoned\n refrigerators to starve. He went around trying to prove it, and getting\n all upset, and pretty soon they had to put him away in the nut hatch.\n Remember?\"\n\n\n \"I remember,\" said Stevenson.\n\n\n \"Forget this silly stuff, Stevenson,\" the captain advised him.\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" said Stevenson....\n\n\n The day after Jerome Higgins went berserk, the afternoon mail brought a\n crank letter to the\nDaily News\n:\n\n\n Dear Mr. Editor,\n\n\n You did not warn your readers. The man who shot all those people could\n not escape the Scorpion. The Scorpion fights crime. No criminal is\n safe from the Scorpion. WARN YOUR READERS.\nSincerely yours,\n\n THE SCORPION\n\n\n Unfortunately, this letter was not read by the same individual who had\n seen the first one, two months before. At any rate, it was filed in the\n same place, and forgotten.\nIII\n\n\n Hallowe'en is a good time for a rumble. There's too many kids around\n for the cops to keep track of all of them, and if you're picked up\n carrying a knife or a length of tire chain or something, why, you're on\n your way to a Hallowe'en party and you're in costume. You're going as a\n JD.\n\n\n The problem was this schoolyard. It was a block wide, with entrances\n on two streets. The street on the north was Challenger territory, and\n the street on the south was Scarlet Raider territory, and both sides\n claimed the schoolyard. There had been a few skirmishes, a few guys\n from both gangs had been jumped and knocked around a little, but that\n had been all. Finally, the War Lords from the two gangs had met, and\n determined that the matter could only be settled in a war.\n\n\n The time was chosen: Hallowe'en. The place was chosen: the schoolyard.\n The weapons were chosen: pocket knives and tire chains okay, but no\n pistols or zip-guns. The time was fixed: eleven P.M. And the winner\n would have undisputed territorial rights to the schoolyard, both\n entrances.\n\n\n The night of the rumble, the gangs assembled in their separate\n clubrooms for last-minute instructions. Debs were sent out to play\n chicken at the intersections nearest the schoolyard, both to warn of\n the approach of cops and to keep out any non-combatant kids who might\n come wandering through.\n\n\n Judy Canzanetti was a Deb with the Scarlet Raiders. She was fifteen\n years old, short and black-haired and pretty in a movie-magazine,\n gum-chewing sort of way. She was proud of being in the Auxiliary of the\n Scarlet Raiders, and proud also of the job that had been assigned to\n her. She was to stand chicken on the southwest corner of the street.\n\n\n Judy took up her position at five minutes to eleven. The streets were\n dark and quiet. Few people cared to walk this neighborhood after dark,\n particularly on Hallowe'en. Judy leaned her back against the telephone\n pole on the corner, stuck her hands in the pockets of her Scarlet\n Raider jacket and waited.\n\n\n At eleven o'clock, she heard indistinct noises begin behind her. The\n rumble had started.\n\n\n At five after eleven, a bunch of little kids came wandering down the\n street. They were all about ten or eleven years old, and most of them\n carried trick-or-treat shopping bags. Some of them had Hallowe'en masks\n on.\n\n\n They started to make the turn toward the schoolyard. Judy said, \"Hey,\n you kids. Take off.\"\n\n\n One of them, wearing a red mask, turned to look at her. \"Who, us?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, you! Stay out of that street. Go on down that way.\"\n\n\n \"The subway's this way,\" objected the kid in the red mask.\n\n\n \"Who cares? You go around the other way.\"\n\"Listen, lady,\" said the kid in the red mask, aggrieved, \"we got a long\n way to go to get home.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" said another kid, in a black mask, \"and we're late as it is.\"\n\n\n \"I couldn't care less,\" Judy told them callously. \"You can't go down\n that street.\"\n\n\n \"Why not?\" demanded yet another kid. This one was in the most complete\n and elaborate costume of them all, black leotards and a yellow shirt\n and a flowing: black cape. He wore a black and gold mask and had a\n black knit cap jammed down tight onto his head. \"Why can't we go down\n there?\" this apparition demanded.\n\n\n \"Because I said so,\" Judy told him. \"Now, you kids get away from here.\n Take off.\"\n\n\n \"Hey!\" cried the kid in the black-and-yellow costume. \"Hey, they're\n fighting down there!\"\n\n\n \"It's a rumble,\" said Judy proudly. \"You twerps don't want to be\n involved.\"\n\n\n \"Hey!\" cried the kid in the black-and-yellow costume again. And he went\n running around Judy and dashing off down the street.\n\n\n \"Hey, Eddie!\" shouted one of the other kids. \"Eddie, come back!\"\n\n\n Judy wasn't sure what to do next. If she abandoned her post to chase\n the one kid who'd gotten through, then maybe all the rest of them would\n come running along after her. She didn't know what to do.\n\n\n A sudden siren and a distant flashing red light solved her problems.\n \"Cheez,\" said one of the kids. \"The cops!\"\n\n\n \"Fuzz!\" screamed Judy. She turned and raced down the block toward the\n schoolyard, shouting, \"Fuzz! Fuzz! Clear out, it's the fuzz!\"\n\n\n But then she stopped, wide-eyed, when she saw what was going on in the\n schoolyard.\n\n\n The guys from both gangs were dancing. They were jumping around, waving\n their arms, throwing their weapons away. Then they all started pulling\n off their gang jackets and throwing them away, whooping and hollering.\n They were making such a racket themselves that they never heard Judy's\n warning. They didn't even hear the police sirens. And all at once both\n schoolyard entrances were full of cops, a cop had tight hold of Judy\n and the rumble was over.\nJudy was so baffled and terrified that everything was just one great\n big blur. But in the middle of it all, she did see the little kid in\n the yellow-and-black costume go scooting away down the street.\n\n\n And she had the craziest idea that it was all his fault.\nCaptain Hanks was still in his realistic cycle this morning, and he was\n impatient as well. \"All right, Stevenson,\" he said. \"Make it fast, I've\n got a lot to do this morning. And I hope it isn't this comic-book thing\n of yours again.\"\n\n\n \"I'm afraid it is, Captain,\" said Stevenson. \"Did you see the morning\n paper?\"\n\n\n \"So what?\"\n\n\n \"Did you see that thing about the gang fight up in Manhattan?\"\n\n\n Captain Hanks sighed. \"Stevenson,\" he said wearily, \"are you going to\n try to connect every single time the word 'scorpion' comes up? What's\n the problem with this one? These kid gangs have names, so what?\"\n\n\n \"Neither one of them was called 'The Scorpions,'\" Stevenson told\n him. \"One of them was the Scarlet Raiders and the other gang was the\n Challengers.\"\n\n\n \"So they changed their name,\" said Hanks.\n\n\n \"Both gangs? Simultaneously? To the same name?\"\n\n\n \"Why not? Maybe that's what they were fighting over.\"\n\n\n \"It was a territorial war,\" Stevenson reminded him. \"They've admitted\n that much. It says so in the paper. And it also says they all deny ever\n seeing that word on their jackets until after the fight.\"\n\n\n \"A bunch of juvenile delinquents,\" said Hanks in disgust. \"You take\n their word?\"\n\n\n \"Captain, did you read the article in the paper?\"\n\n\n \"I glanced through it.\"\n\n\n \"All right. Here's what they say happened: They say they started\n fighting at eleven o'clock. And they just got going when all at once\n all the metal they were carrying\u2014knives and tire chains and coins and\n belt buckles and everything else\u2014got freezing cold, too cold to touch.\n And then their leather jackets got freezing cold, so cold they had to\n pull them off and throw them away. And when the jackets were later\n collected, across the name of the gang on the back of each one had been\n branded 'The Scorpion.'\"\n\n\n \"Now, let\nme\ntell\nyou\nsomething,\" said Hanks severely. \"They heard\n the police sirens, and they threw all their weapons away. Then they\n threw their jackets away, to try to make believe they hadn't been\n part of the gang that had been fighting. But they were caught before\n they could get out of the schoolyard. If the squad cars had showed\n up a minute later, the schoolyard wouldn't have had anything in it\n but weapons and jackets, and the kids would have been all over the\n neighborhood, nice as you please, minding their own business and not\n bothering anybody.\nThat's\nwhat happened. And all this talk about\n freezing cold and branding names into jackets is just some smart-alec\n punk's idea of a way to razz the police. Now, you just go back to\n worrying about what's happening in this precinct and forget about kid\n gangs up in Manhattan and comic book things like the Scorpion, or\n you're going to wind up like Wilcox, with that refrigerator business.\n Now, I don't want to hear any more about this nonsense, Stevenson.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" said Stevenson.",
    "63527": "COSMIC YO-YO\nBy ROSS ROCKLYNNE\n\"Want an asteroid in your backyard? We supply\n\n cheap. Trouble also handled without charge.\"\n\n Interplanetary Hauling Company. (ADVT.)\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Summer 1945.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nBob Parker, looking through the photo-amplifiers at the wedge-shaped\n asteroid, was plainly flabbergasted. Not in his wildest imaginings had\n he thought they would actually find what they were looking for.\n\n\n \"Cut the drive!\" he yelled at Queazy. \"I've got it, right on the nose.\n Queazy, my boy, can you imagine it? We're in the dough. Not only that,\n we're rich! Come here!\"\n\n\n Queazy discharged their tremendous inertia into the motive-tubes in\n such a manner that the big, powerful ship was moving at the same rate\n as the asteroid below\u201447.05 miles per second. He came slogging back\n excitedly, put his eyes to the eyepiece. He gasped, and his big body\n shook with joyful ejaculations.\n\n\n \"She checks down to the last dimension,\" Bob chortled, working with\n slide-rule and logarithm tables. \"Now all we have to do is find out if\n she's made of tungsten, iron, quartz crystals, and cinnabar! But there\n couldn't be two asteroids of that shape anywhere else in the Belt, so\n this has to be it!\"\n\n\n He jerked a badly crumpled ethergram from his pocket, smoothed it out,\n and thumbed his nose at the signature.\n\n\n \"Whee! Mr. Andrew S. Burnside, you owe us five hundred and fifty\n thousand dollars!\"\n\n\n Queazy straightened. A slow, likeable smile wreathed his tanned face.\n \"Better take it easy,\" he advised, \"until I land the ship and we use\n the atomic whirl spectroscope to determine the composition of the\n asteroid.\"\n\n\n \"Have it your way,\" Bob Parker sang, happily. He threw the ethergram\n to the winds and it fell gently to the deck-plates. While Queazy\u2014so\n called because his full name was Quentin Zuyler\u2014dropped the ship\n straight down to the smooth surface of the asteroid, and clamped it\n tight with magnetic grapples, Bob flung open the lazarette, brought\n out two space-suits. Moments later, they were outside the ship, with\n star-powdered infinity spread to all sides.\n\n\n In the ship, the ethergram from Andrew S. Burnside, of Philadelphia,\n one of the richest men in the world, still lay on the deck-plates. It\n was addressed to: Mr. Robert Parker, President Interplanetary Hauling &\n Moving Co., 777 Main Street, Satterfield City, Fontanaland, Mars. The\n ethergram read:\nReceived your advertising literature a week ago. Would like to state\n that yes I would like an asteroid in my back yard. Must meet following\n specifications: 506 feet length, long enough for wedding procession;\n 98 feet at base, tapering to 10 feet at apex; 9-12 feet thick; topside\n smooth-plane, underside rough-plane; composed of iron ore, tungsten,\n quartz crystals, and cinnabar. Must be in my back yard before 11:30\n A.M. my time, for important wedding June 2, else order is void. Will\n pay $5.00 per ton.\nBob Parker had received that ethergram three weeks ago. And if The\n Interplanetary Hauling & Moving Co., hadn't been about to go on the\n rocks (chiefly due to the activities of Saylor & Saylor, a rival firm)\n neither Bob nor Queazy would have thought of sending an answering\n ethergram to Burnside stating that they would fill the order. It\n was, plainly, a hair-brained request. And yet, if by some chance\n there was such a rigidly specified asteroid, their financial worries\n would be over. That they had actually discovered the asteroid, using\n their mass-detectors in a weight-elimination process, seemed like\n an incredible stroke of luck. For there are literally millions of\n asteroids in the asteroid belt, and they had been out in space only\n three weeks.\n\n\n The \"asteroid in your back yard\" idea had been Bob Parker's originally.\n Now it was a fad that was sweeping Earth, and Burnside wasn't the first\n rich man who had decided to hold a wedding on top of an asteroid.\n Unfortunately, other interplanetary moving companies had cashed in on\n that brainstorm, chiefly the firm of the Saylor brothers\u2014which persons\n Bob Parker intended to punch in the nose some day. And would have\n before this if he hadn't been lanky and tall while they were giants.\n Now that he and Queazy had found the asteroid, they were desperate to\n get it to its destination, for fear that the Saylor brothers might get\n wind of what was going on, and try to beat them out of their profits.\n Which was not so far-fetched, because the firm of Saylor & Saylor made\n no pretense of being scrupulous.\n\n\n Now they scuffed along the smooth-plane topside of the asteroid, the\n magnets in their shoes keeping them from stepping off into space. They\n came to the broad base of the asteroid-wedge, walked over the edge and\n \"down\" the twelve-foot thickness. Here they squatted, and Bob Parker\n happily clamped the atomic-whirl spectroscope to the rough surface.\n By the naked eye, they could see iron ore, quartz crystals, cinnabar,\n but he had the spectroscope and there was no reason why he shouldn't\n use it. He satisfied himself as to the exterior of the asteroid, and\n then sent the twin beams deep into its heart. The beams crossed, tore\n atoms from molecules, revolved them like an infinitely fine powder. The\n radiations from the sundered molecules traveled back up the beams to\n the atomic-whirl spectroscope. Bob watched a pointer which moved slowly\n up and up\u2014past tungsten, past iridium, past gold\u2014\n\n\n Bob Parker said, in astonishment, \"Hell! There's something screwy about\n this business. Look at that point\u2014\"\n\n\n Neither he nor Queazy had the opportunity to observe the pointer any\n further. A cold, completely disagreeable feminine voice said,\n\n\n \"May I ask what you interlopers are doing on my asteroid?\"\n\n\n Bob started so badly that the spectroscope's settings were jarred and\n the lights in its interior died. Bob twisted his head around as far as\n he could inside the \"aquarium\"\u2014the glass helmet, and found himself\n looking at a space-suited girl who was standing on the edge of the\n asteroid \"below.\"\n\n\n \"Ma'am,\" said Bob, blinking, \"did you say something?\"\n\n\n Queazy made a gulping sound and slowly straightened. He automatically\n reached up as if he would take off his hat and twist it in his hands.\n\n\n \"I said,\" remarked the girl, \"that you should scram off of my asteroid.\n And quit poking around at it with that spectroscope. I've already taken\n a reading. Cinnabar, iron ore, quartz crystals, tungsten. Goodbye.\"\nBob's nose twitched as he adjusted his glasses, which he wore even\n inside his suit. He couldn't think of anything pertinent to say. He\n knew that he was slowly working up a blush. Mildly speaking, the\n girl was beautiful, and though only her carefully made-up face was\n visible\u2014cool blue eyes, masterfully coiffed, upswept, glinting brown\n hair, wilful lips and chin\u2014Bob suspected the rest of her compared\n nicely.\n\n\n Her expression darkened as she saw the completely instinctive way he\n was looking at her and her radioed-voice rapped out, \"Now you two boys\n go and play somewhere else! Else I'll let the Interplanetary Commission\n know you've infringed the law. G'bye!\"\n\n\n She turned and disappeared.\n\n\n Bob awoke from his trance, shouted desperately, \"Hey! Wait!\nYou!\n\"\n\n\n He and Queazy caught up with her on the side of the asteroid they\n hadn't yet examined. It was a rough plane, completing the rigid\n qualifications Burnside had set down.\n\n\n \"Wait a minute,\" Bob Parker begged nervously. \"I want to make some\n conversation, lady. I'm sure you don't understand the conditions\u2014\"\n\n\n The girl turned and drew a gun from a holster. It was a spasticizer,\n and it was three times as big as her gloved hand.\n\n\n \"I understand conditions better than you do,\" she said. \"You want\n to move this asteroid from its orbit and haul it back to Earth.\n Unfortunately, this is my home, by common law. Come back in a month. I\n don't expect to be here then.\"\n\n\n \"A month!\" Parker burst the word out. He started to sweat, then his\n face became grim. He took two slow steps toward the girl. She blinked\n and lost her composure and unconsciously backed up two steps. About\n twenty steps away was her small dumbbell-shaped ship, so shiny and\n unscarred that it reflected starlight in highlights from its curved\n surface. A rich girl's ship, Bob Parker thought angrily. A month would\n be too late!\n\n\n He said grimly, \"Don't worry. I don't intend to pull any rough stuff.\n I just want you to listen to reason. You've taken a whim to stay on\n an asteroid that doesn't mean anything to you one way or another. But\n to us\u2014to me and Queazy here\u2014it means our business. We got an order\n for this asteroid. Some screwball millionaire wants it for a backyard\n wedding see? We get five hundred and fifty thousand dollars for it!\n If we don't take this asteroid to Earth before June 2, we go back to\n Satterfield City and work the rest of our lives in the glass factories.\n Don't we, Queazy?\"\n\n\n Queazy said simply, \"That's right, miss. We're in a spot. I assure you\n we didn't expect to find someone living here.\"\n\n\n The girl holstered her spasticizer, but her completely inhospitable\n expression did not change. She put her hands on the bulging hips of her\n space-suit. \"Okay,\" she said. \"Now I understand the conditions. Now we\n both understand each other. G'bye again. I'm staying here and\u2014\" she\n smiled sweetly \"\u2014it may interest you to know that if I let you have\n the asteroid you'll save your business, but I'll meet a fate worse than\n death! So that's that.\"\n\n\n Bob recognized finality when he saw it. \"Come on, Queazy,\" he said\n fuming. \"Let this brat have her way. But if I ever run across her\n without a space-suit on I'm going to give her the licking of her life,\n right where it'll do the most good!\"\n\n\n He turned angrily, but Queazy grabbed his arm, his mouth falling open.\n He pointed off into space, beyond the girl.\n\n\n \"What's that?\" he whispered.\n\n\n \"What's wha\u2014\nOh!\n\"\n\n\n Bob Parker's stomach caved in. A few hundred feet away, floating\n gently toward the asteroid, came another ship\u2014a ship a trifle bigger\n than their own. The girl turned, too. They heard her gasp. In another\n second, Bob was standing next to her. He turned the audio-switch to his\n headset off, and spoke to the girl by putting his helmet against hers.\n\n\n \"Listen to me, miss,\" he snapped earnestly, when she tried to draw\n away. \"Don't talk by radio. That ship belongs to the Saylor brothers!\n Oh, Lord, that this should happen! Somewhere along the line, we've been\n double-crossed. Those boys are after this asteroid too, and they won't\n hesitate to pull any rough stuff. We're in this together, understand?\n We got to back each other up.\"\n\n\n The girl nodded dumbly. Suddenly she seemed to be frightened.\n \"It's\u2014it's very important that this\u2014this asteroid stay right where it\n is,\" she said huskily. \"What\u2014what will they do?\"\nBob Parker didn't answer. The big ship had landed, and little blue\n sparks crackled between the hull and the asteroid as the magnetic\n clamps took hold. A few seconds later, the airlocks swung down, and\n five men let themselves down to the asteroid's surface and stood\n surveying the three who faced them.\n\n\n The two men in the lead stood with their hands on their hips; their\n darkish, twin faces were grinning broadly.\n\n\n \"A pleasure,\" drawled Wally Saylor, looking at the girl. \"What do you\n think of this situation Billy?\"\n\n\n \"It's obvious,\" drawled Billy Saylor, rocking back and forth on his\n heels, \"that Bob Parker and company have double-crossed us. We'll have\n to take steps.\"\n\n\n The three men behind the Saylor twins broke into rough, chuckling\n laughter.\n\n\n Bob Parker's gorge rose. \"Scram,\" he said coldly. \"We've got an\n ethergram direct from Andrew S. Burnside ordering this asteroid.\"\n\n\n \"So have we,\" Wally Saylor smiled\u2014and his smile remained fixed,\n dangerous. He started moving forward, and the three men in back came\n abreast, forming a semi-circle which slowly closed in. Bob Parker gave\n back a step, as he saw their intentions.\n\n\n \"We got here first,\" he snapped harshly. \"Try any funny stuff and we'll\n report you to the Interplanetary Commission!\"\n\n\n It was Bob Parker's misfortune that he didn't carry a weapon. Each of\n these men carried one or more, plainly visible. But he was thinking of\n the girl's spasticizer\u2014a paralyzing weapon. He took a hair-brained\n chance, jerked the spasticizer from the girl's holster and yelled at\n Queazy. Queazy got the idea, urged his immense body into motion. He\n hurled straight at Billy Saylor, lifted him straight off the asteroid\n and threw him away, into space. He yelled with triumph.\n\n\n At the same time, the spasticizer Bob held was shot cleanly out of his\n hand by Wally Saylor. Bob roared, started toward Wally Saylor, knocked\n the smoking gun from his hand with a sweeping arm. Then something\n crushing seemed to hit him in the stomach, grabbing at his solar\n plexus. He doubled up, gurgling with agony. He fell over on his back,\n and his boots were wrenched loose from their magnetic grip. Vaguely,\n before the flickering points of light in his brain subsided to complete\n darkness, he heard the girl's scream of rage\u2014then a scream of pain.\n\n\n What had happened to Queazy he didn't know. He felt so horribly sick,\n he didn't care. Then\u2014lights out.\nBob Parker came to, the emptiness of remote starlight in his face. He\n opened his eyes. He was slowly revolving on an axis. Sometimes the Sun\n swept across his line of vision. A cold hammering began at the base of\n his skull, a sensation similar to that of being buried alive. There was\n no asteroid, no girl, no Queazy. He was alone in the vastness of space.\n Alone in a space-suit.\n\n\n \"Queazy!\" he whispered. \"Queazy! I'm running out of air!\"\n\n\n There was no answer from Queazy. With sick eyes, Bob studied the\n oxygen indicator. There was only five pounds pressure. Five pounds!\n That meant he had been floating around out here\u2014how long? Days at\n least\u2014maybe weeks! It was evident that somebody had given him a dose\n of spastic rays, enough to screw up every muscle in his body to the\n snapping point, putting him in such a condition of suspended animation\n that his oxygen needs were small. He closed his eyes, trying to fight\n against panic. He was glad he couldn't see any part of his body. He was\n probably scrawny. And he was hungry!\n\n\n \"I'll starve,\" he thought. \"Or suffocate to death first!\"\n\n\n He couldn't keep himself from taking in great gulps of air. Minutes,\n then hours passed. He was breathing abnormally, and there wasn't enough\n air in the first place. He pleaded continually for Queazy, hoping\n that somehow Queazy could help, when probably Queazy was in the same\n condition. He ripped out wild curses directed at the Saylor brothers.\n Murderers, both of them! Up until this time, he had merely thought of\n them as business rivals. If he ever got out of this\u2014\n\n\n He groaned. He never would get out of it! After another hour, he was\n gasping weakly, and yellow spots danced in his eyes. He called Queazy's\n name once more, knowing that was the last time he would have strength\n to call it.\n\n\n And this time the headset spoke back!\n\n\n Bob Parker made a gurgling sound. A voice came again, washed with\n static, far away, burbling, but excited. Bob made a rattling sound in\n his throat. Then his eyes started to close, but he imagined that he saw\n a ship, shiny and small, driving toward him, growing in size against\n the backdrop of the Milky Way. He relapsed, a terrific buzzing in his\n ears.\n\n\n He did not lose consciousness. He heard voices, Queazy's and the\n girl's, whoever she was. Somebody grabbed hold of his foot. His\n \"aquarium\" was unbuckled and good air washed over his streaming face.\n The sudden rush of oxygen to his brain dizzied him. Then he was lying\n on a bunk, and gradually the world beyond his sick body focussed in his\n clearing eyes and he knew he was alive\u2014and going to stay that way, for\n awhile anyway.\n\n\n \"Thanks, Queazy,\" he said huskily.\n\n\n Queazy was bending over him, his anxiety clearing away from his\n suddenly brightening face.\n\n\n \"Don't thank me,\" he whispered. \"We'd have both been goners if it\n hadn't been for her. The Saylor brothers left her paralyzed like\n us, and when she woke up she was on a slow orbit around her ship.\n She unstrapped her holster and threw it away from her and it gave\n her enough reaction to reach the ship. She got inside and used the\n direction-finder on the telaudio and located me first. The Saylors\n scattered us far and wide.\" Queazy's broad, normally good-humored face\n twisted blackly. \"The so and so's didn't care if we lived or died.\"\n\n\n Bob saw the girl now, standing a little behind Queazy, looking down at\n him curiously, but unhappily. Her space-suit was off. She was wearing\n lightly striped blue slacks and blue silk blouse and she had a paper\n flower in her hair. Something in Bob's stomach caved in as his eyes\n widened on her.\n\n\n The girl said glumly, \"I guess you men won't much care for me when you\n find out who I am and what I've done. I'm Starre Lowenthal\u2014Andrew S.\n Burnside's granddaughter!\"\nBob came slowly to his feet, and matched Queazy's slowly growing anger.\n\n\n \"Say that again?\" he snapped. \"This is some kind of dirty trick you and\n your grandfather cooked up?\"\n\n\n \"No!\" she exclaimed. \"No. My grandfather didn't even know there was an\n asteroid like this. But I did, long before he ordered it from you\u2014or\n from the Saylor brothers. You see\u2014well, my granddad's about the\n stubbornest old hoot-owl in this universe! He's always had his way, and\n when people stand in his way, that's just a challenge to him. He's been\n badgering me for years to marry Mac, and so has Mac\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Who's Mac?\" Queazy demanded.\n\n\n \"My fianc\u00e9, I guess,\" she said helplessly. \"He's one of my granddad's\n prot\u00e9g\u00e9s. Granddad's always financing some likely young man and giving\n him a start in life. Mac has become pretty famous for his Mercurian\n water-colors\u2014he's an artist. Well, I couldn't hold out any longer.\n If you knew my grandfather, you'd know how absolutely\nimpossible\nit\n is to go against him when he's got his mind set! I was just a mass of\n nerves. So I decided to trick him and I came out to the asteroid belt\n and picked out an asteroid that was shaped so a wedding could take\n place on it. I took the measurements and the composition, then I told\n my grandfather I'd marry Mac if the wedding was in the back yard on top\n of an asteroid with those measurements and made of iron ore, tungsten,\n and so forth. He agreed so fast he scared me, and just to make sure\n that if somebody\ndid\nfind the asteroid in time they wouldn't be able\n to get it back to Earth, I came out here and decided to live here.\n Asteroids up to a certain size belong to whoever happens to be on them,\n by common law.... So I had everything figured out\u2014except,\" she added\n bitterly, \"the Saylor brothers! I guess Granddad wanted to make sure\n the asteroid was delivered, so he gave the order to several companies.\"\n\n\n Bob swore under his breath. He went reeling across to a port, and was\n gratified to see his and Queazy's big interplanetary hauler floating\n only a few hundred feet away. He swung around, looked at Queazy.\n\n\n \"How long were we floating around out there?\"\n\n\n \"Three weeks, according to the chronometer. The Saylor boys gave us a\n stiff shot.\"\n\n\n \"\nOuch!\n\" Bob groaned. Then he looked at Starre Lowenthal with\n determination. \"Miss, pardon me if I say that this deal you and your\n granddad cooked up is plain screwy! With us on the butt end. But I'm\n going to put this to you plainly. We can catch up with the Saylor\n brothers even if they are three weeks ahead of us. The Saylor ship and\n ours both travel on the HH drive\u2014inertia-less. But the asteroid has\n plenty of inertia, and so they'll have to haul it down to Earth by a\n long, spiraling orbit. We can go direct and probably catch up with them\n a few hundred thousand miles this side of Earth. And we can have a\n fling at getting the asteroid back!\"\n\n\n Her eyes sparkled. \"You mean\u2014\" she cried. Then her attractive face\n fell. \"Oh,\" she said. \"\nOh!\nAnd when you get it back, you'll land it.\"\n\n\n \"That's right,\" Bob said grimly. \"We're in business. For us, it's a\n matter of survival. If the by-product of delivering the asteroid is\n your marriage\u2014sorry! But until we do get the asteroid back, we three\n can work as a team if you're willing. We'll fight the other problem out\n later. Okay?\"\n\n\n She smiled tremulously. \"Okay, I guess.\"\n\n\n Queazy looked from one to another of them. He waved his hand scornfully\n at Bob. \"You're plain nuts,\" he complained. \"How do you propose to go\n about convincing the Saylor brothers they ought to let us have the\n asteroid back? Remember, commercial ships aren't allowed to carry\n long-range weapons. And we couldn't ram the Saylor brothers' ship\u2014not\n without damaging our own ship just as much. Go ahead and answer that.\"\n\n\n Bob looked at Queazy dismally. \"The old balance-wheel,\" he groaned at\n Starre. \"He's always pulling me up short when I go off half-cocked. All\n I know is, that maybe we'll get a good idea as we go along. In the\n meantime, Starre\u2014ahem\u2014none of us has eaten in three weeks...?\"\n\n\n Starre got the idea. She smiled dazzlingly and vanished toward the\n galley.\nBob Parker was in love with Starre Lowenthal. He knew that after five\n days out, as the ship hurled itself at breakneck speed toward Earth;\n probably that distracting emotion was the real reason he couldn't\n attach any significance to Starre's dumbbell-shaped ship, which trailed\n astern, attached by a long cable.\n\n\n Starre apparently knew he was in love with her, too, for on the fifth\n day Bob was teaching her the mechanics of operating the hauler, and she\n gently lifted his hand from a finger-switch.\n\n\n \"Even\nI\nknow that isn't the control to the Holloway vacuum-feeder,\n Bob. That switch is for the\u2014ah\u2014the anathern tube, you told me. Right?\"\n\n\n \"Right,\" he said unsteadily. \"Anyway, Starre, as I was saying, this\n ship operates according to the reverse Fitzgerald Contraction Formula.\n All moving bodies contract in the line of motion. What Holloway\n and Hammond did was to reverse that universal law. They caused the\n contraction first\u2014motion had to follow! The gravitonic field affects\n every atom in the ship with the same speed at the same time. We could\n go from zero speed to our top speed of two thousand miles a second just\n like that!\"\n\n\n He snapped his fingers. \"No acceleration effects. This type of ship,\n necessary in our business, can stop flat, back up, ease up, move in\n any direction, and the passengers wouldn't have any feeling of motion\n at\u2014Oh, hell!\" Bob groaned, the serious glory of her eyes making him\n shake. He took her hand. \"Starre,\" he said desperately, \"I've got to\n tell you something\u2014\"\n\n\n She jerked her hand away. \"No,\" she exclaimed in an almost frightened\n voice. \"You can't tell me. There's\u2014there's Mac,\" she finished,\n faltering. \"The asteroid\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You\nhave\nto marry him?\"\n\n\n Her eyes filled with tears. \"I have to live up to the bargain.\"\n\n\n \"And ruin your whole life,\" he ground out. Suddenly, he turned back to\n the control board, quartered the vision plate. He pointed savagely to\n the lower left quarter, which gave a rearward view of the dumbbell ship\n trailing astern.\n\n\n \"There's your ship, Starre.\" He jabbed his finger at it. \"I've got a\n feeling\u2014and I can't put the thought into concrete words\u2014that somehow\n the whole solution of the problem of grabbing the asteroid back lies\n there. But how?\nHow?\n\"\n\n\n Starre's blue eyes followed the long cable back to where it was\n attached around her ship's narrow midsection.\n\n\n She shook her head helplessly. \"It just looks like a big yo-yo to me.\"\n\n\n \"A yo-yo?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, a yo-yo. That's all.\" She was belligerent.\n\n\n \"A\nyo-yo\n!\" Bob Parker yelled the word and almost hit the ceiling, he\n got out of the chair so fast. \"Can you imagine it! A yo-yo!\"\n\n\n He disappeared from the room. \"Queazy!\" he shouted. \"\nQueazy, I've got\n it!\n\"\nIt was Queazy who got into his space-suit and did the welding job,\n fastening two huge supra-steel \"eyes\" onto the dumbbell-shaped ship's\n narrow midsection. Into these eyes cables which trailed back to\n two winches in the big ship's nose were inserted, welded fast, and\n reinforced.\n\n\n The nose of the hauler was blunt, perfectly fitted for the job. Bob\n Parker practiced and experimented for three hours with this yo-yo of\n cosmic dimensions, while Starre and Queazy stood over him bursting into\n strange, delighted squeals of laughter whenever the yo-yo reached the\n end of its double cable and started rolling back up to the ship. Queazy\n snapped his fingers.\n\n\n \"It'll work!\" His gray eyes showed satisfaction. \"Now, if only the\n Saylor brothers are where we calculated!\"\n\n\n They weren't where Bob and Queazy had calculated, as they had\n discovered the next day. They had expected to pick up the asteroid\n on their mass-detectors a few hundred thousand miles outside of the\n Moon's orbit. But now they saw the giant ship attached like a leech to\n the still bigger asteroid\u2014inside the Moon's orbit! A mere two hundred\n thousand miles from Earth!\n\n\n \"We have to work fast,\" Bob stammered, sweating. He got within\n naked-eye distance of the Saylor brothers' ship. Below, Earth was\n spread out, a huge crescent shape, part of the Eastern hemisphere\n vaguely visible through impeding clouds and atmosphere. The enemy ship\n was two miles distant, a black shadow occulting part of the brilliant\n sky. It was moving along a down-spiraling path toward Earth.\n\n\n Queazy's big hand gripped his shoulder. \"Go to it, Bob!\"\n\n\n Bob nodded grimly. He backed the hauler up about thirty miles, then\n sent it forward again, directly toward the Saylor brothers' ship at ten\n miles per second. And resting on the blunt nose of the ship was the\n \"yo-yo.\"\n\n\n There was little doubt the Saylors' saw their approach. But,\n scornfully, they made no attempt to evade. There was no possible harm\n the oncoming ship could wreak. Or at least that was what they thought,\n for Bob brought the hauler's speed down to zero\u2014and Starre Lowenthal's\n little ship, possessing its own inertia, kept on moving!\n\n\n It spun away from the hauler's blunt nose, paying out two rigid\n lengths of cable behind it as it unwound, hurled itself forward like a\n fantastic spinning cannon ball.\n\n\n \"It's going to hit!\"\n\n\n The excited cry came from Starre. But Bob swore. The dumbbell ship\n reached the end of its cables, falling a bare twenty feet short of\n completing its mission. It didn't stop spinning, but came winding back\n up the cable, at the same terrific speed with which it had left.\nBob sweated, having only fractions of seconds in which to maneuver\n for the \"yo-yo\" could strike a fatal blow at the hauler too. It was\n ticklish work completely to nullify the \"yo-yo's\" speed. Bob used\n exactly the same method of catching the \"yo-yo\" on the blunt nose of\n the ship as a baseball player uses to catch a hard-driven ball in\n his glove\u2014namely, by matching the ball's speed and direction almost\n exactly at the moment of impact. And now Bob's hours of practice paid\n dividends, for the \"yo-yo\" came to rest snugly, ready to be released\n again.\n\n\n All this had happened in such a short space of time that the Saylor\n brothers must have had only a bare realization of what was going on.\n But by the time the \"yo-yo\" was flung at them again, this time with\n better calculations, they managed to put the firmly held asteroid\n between them and the deadly missile. But it was clumsy evasion, for\n the asteroid was several times as massive as the ship which was towing\n it, and its inertia was great. And as soon as the little ship came\n spinning back to rest, Bob flung the hauler to a new vantage point and\n again the \"yo-yo\" snapped out.\n\n\n And this time\u2014collision! Bob yelled as he saw the stern section of the\n Saylor brothers' ship crumple like tissue paper crushed between the\n hand. The dumbbell-shaped ship, smaller, and therefore stauncher due to\n the principle of the arch, wound up again, wobbling a little. It had\n received a mere dent in its starboard half.\n\n\n Starre was chortling with glee. Queazy whispered, \"Attaboy, Bob! This\n time we'll knock 'em out of the sky!\"\n\n\n The \"yo-yo\" came to rest and at the same moment a gong rang excitedly.\n Bob knew what that meant. The Saylor brothers were trying to establish\n communication.\n\n\n Queazy was across the room in two running strides. He threw in the\n telaudio and almost immediately, Wally Saylor's big body built up in\n the plate. Wally Saylor's face was quivering with wrath.\n\n\n \"What do you damned fools think you're trying to do?\" he roared.\n \"You've crushed in our stern section. You've sliced away half of our\n stern jets. Air is rushing out! You'll kill us!\"\n\n\n \"Now,\" Bob drawled, \"you're getting the idea.\"\n\n\n \"I'll inform the Interplanetary Commission!\" screamed Saylor.\n\n\n \"\nIf\nyou're alive,\" Bob snarled wrathfully. \"And you won't be unless\n you release the asteroid.\"\n\n\n \"I'll see you in Hades first!\"\n\n\n \"Hades,\" remarked Bob coldly, \"here you come!\"\n\n\n He snapped the hauler into its mile-a-second speed again, stopped it at\n zero. And the \"yo-yo\" went on its lone, destructive sortie.\n\n\n For a fraction of a second Wally Saylor exhibited the countenance of a\n doomed man. In the telaudio plate, he whirled, and diminished in size\n with a strangled yell.\n\n\n The \"yo-yo\" struck again, but Bob Parker maneuvered its speed in\n such a manner that it struck in the same place as before, but not as\n heavily, then rebounded and came spinning back with perfect, sparkling\n precision. And even before it snugged itself into its berth, it was\n apparent that the Saylor brothers had given up. Like a wounded terrier,\n their ship shook itself free of the asteroid, hung in black space for\n a second, then vanished with a flaming puff of released gravitons from\n its still-intact jets.\n\n\n The battle was won!",
    "62619": "THE AVENGER\nBy STUART FLEMING\nKarson was creating a superman to fight the weird\n\n super-monsters who had invaded Earth. But he was\n\n forgetting one tiny thing\u2014like calls to like.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Spring 1944.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nPeter Karson was dead. He had been dead for some time now, but\n the dark blood was still oozing from the crushed ruin of his face,\n trickling down into his sodden sleeve, and falling, drop by slow drop,\n from his fingertips. His head was tilted over the back of the chair at\n a queer, unnatural angle, so that the light made deep pools of shadow\n where his eyes had been.\nThere was no sound in the room except for the small splashing the\n blood made as it dropped into the sticky pool on the floor. The great\n banks of machinery around the walls were silent. I knew that they would\n never come to life again.\nI rose and walked over to the window. Outside, the stars were as\n before: tiny, myriad points of light, infinitely far away. They had not\n changed, and yet they were suddenly no longer friendly. They were cold\n and alien. It was I who had changed: something inside me was dead, like\n the machinery, and like Peter.\nIt was a kind of indefinable emptiness. I do not think it was what\n Peter called an emotion; and yet it had nothing to do with logic,\n either. It was just an emptiness\u2014a void that could not be filled by\n eating or drinking.\nIt was not a longing. I had no desire that things should be otherwise\n than they were. I did not even wish that Peter were not dead, for\n reason had told me that he had to die. That was the end of it.\nBut the void was still there, unexplainable and impossible to ignore.\n For the first time in all my life I had found a problem that I could\n not solve. Strange, disturbing sensations stirred and whispered within\n me, nagging, gnawing. And suddenly\u2014something moved on the skin of my\n cheek. I raised a hand to it, slowly.\nA tear was trickling down my cheek.\nYoung Peter Karson put the last black-print down and sighed with\n satisfaction. His dream was perfect; the\nCitadel\nwas complete, every\n minutest detail provided for\u2014on paper. In two weeks they would be\n laying the core, and then the metal giant itself would begin to grow,\n glittering, pulsing with each increment of power, until at last it lay\n finished, a living thing.\n\n\n Then there would remain only the task of blasting the great, shining\n ship out into the carefully-calculated orbit that would be its home.\n In his mind's eye he could see it, slowly wheeling, like a second\n satellite, about the Earth; endlessly gathering knowledge into its\n insatiable mechanisms. He could see, too, the level on level of\n laboratories and storerooms that filled its interlocking segments; the\n meteor deflectors, the air renewal system, the mighty engines at the\n stern\u2014all the children of his brain.\n\n\n Out there, away from the muffling, distorting, damnable blanket of\n atmosphere, away from Earth's inexorable gravitational pull, would be\n a laboratory such as man had never seen. The ship would be filled with\n the sounds of busy men and women, wresting secrets from the reluctant\n ether. A new chemistry, a new physics; perhaps even a new biochemistry.\n\n\n A discordant note suddenly entered his fantasy. He looked up, conscious\n of the walls of his office again, but could see nothing unusual. Still,\n that thin, dark whisper of dread was at the back of his mind. Slowly,\n as if reluctantly compelled, he turned around to face the window at his\n back.\n\n\n There, outside the window, fifty stories up, a face was staring\n impassively in at him. That was the first impression he got; just a\n face, staring. Then he saw, with a queer, icy chill, that the face was\n blood-red and subtly inhuman. It tapered off into a formless, shriveled\n body.\n\n\n For a moment or an eternity it hung there, unsupported, the bulging\n eyes staring at him. Then it grew misty at the edges. It dissolved\n slowly away and was gone.\n\n\n \"Lord!\" he said.\n\n\n He stared after it, stunned into immobility. Down in the street\n somewhere, a portable video was shrilling a popular song; after a\n moment he heard the faint swish of a tube car going past. Everything\n was normal. Nothing, on examination, seemed to have changed. But the\n world had grown suddenly unreal.\n\n\n One part of his brain had been shocked into its shell. It was hiding\n from the thing that had hurt it, and it refused to respond. But the\n other part was going calmly, lucidly on, quite without his volition.\n It considered the possibility that he had gone temporarily insane, and\n decided that this was probable.\n\n\n Hardly knowing what he did, he found a cigarette and lit it. His hands\n were shaking. He stared at them dully, and then he reached over to the\n newsbox on his desk, and switched it on.\n\n\n There were flaring red headlines.\n\n\n Relief washed over him, leaving him breathless. He was horrified,\n of course, but only abstractedly. For the moment he could only be\n glad that what he had seen was terrible reality rather than even more\n terrible illusion.\nINVADERS APPEAR IN BOSTON.\n\n 200 DEAD\n\n\n Then lines of type, and farther down:\n50 CHILDREN DISAPPEAR FROM\n\n PARIS MATERNITY CENTER\n\n\n He pressed the stud. The roll was full of them.\nMOON SHIP DESTROYED\n\n IN TRANSIT\n\n NO COMMUNICATION FROM\n\n ANTARCTICA IN 6 HOURS\n\n STRANGE FORCE DEFLECTS\n\n PLANES FROM SAHARA AREA\n\n WORLD POLICE MOBILIZING\n\n\n The item below the last one said:\n\n\n Pacifica, June 7\u2014The World Police are mobilizing, for the first time\n in fifty years. The order was made public early this morning by\n R. Stein, Secretary of the Council, who said in part:\n\n\n \"The reason for this ... order must be apparent to all civilized\n peoples. For the Invaders have spared no part of this planet in their\n depredations: they have laid Hong Kong waste; they have terrorized\n London; they have destroyed the lives of citizens in every member state\n and in every inhabited area. There can be few within reach of printed\n reports or my words who have not seen the Invaders, or whose friends\n have not seen them.\n\n\n \"The peoples of the world, then, know what they are, and know that\n we face the most momentous struggle in our history. We face an enemy\nsuperior to ourselves in every way\n.\n\n\n \"Since the Invaders first appeared in Wood River, Oregon, 24 hours\n ago, they have not once acknowledged our attempts to communicate, or\n in any way taken notice of our existence as reasoning beings. They\n have treated us precisely as we, in less enlightened days, might\n have treated a newly-discovered race of lower animals. They have not\n attacked our centers of government, nor immobilized our communications,\n nor laid siege to our defenses. But in instance after instance, they\n have done as they would with us. They have examined us, dissected us,\n driven us mad, killed us with no discernable provocation; and this is\n more intolerable than any normal invasion.\n\n\n \"I have no fear that the people of Earth will fail to meet this\n challenge, for there is no alternative. Not only our individual lives\n are threatened, but our existence as a race. We must, and will, destroy\n the Invaders!\"\n\n\n Peter sank back in his chair, the full shock of it striking him for the\n first time.\n\n\n \"\nWill\nwe?\" he asked himself softly.\nIt was only two stories down the moving ramp to Lorelei Cooper's\n laboratory. Peter took it in fifteen seconds, running, and stumbled to\n a halt in front of the door marked \"Radiation.\" She had set her door\n mechanism to \"Etaoin Shrdlu,\" principally because he hated double-talk.\n He mouthed the syllables, had to repeat them because he put an accent\n in the wrong place, and squeezed through the door as soon as it opened\n far enough to admit him.\n\n\n Lorelei, beautiful in spite of dark-circled eyes and a smear of grease\n on her chin, looked up from a huge ledger at the end of the room. One\n blonde eyebrow arched in the quizzical expression he knew so well.\n\n\n \"What makes, Peter my love?\" she asked, and bent back to the ledger.\n Then she did a double-take, looked at his face intently, and said,\n \"Darling, what's wrong?\"\n\n\n He said, \"Have you seen the news recently?\"\n\n\n She frowned. \"Why, no\u2014Harry and I have been working for thirty-six\n hours straight. Haven't seen anybody, haven't heard anything. Why?\"\n\n\n \"You wouldn't believe me. Where's your newsbox?\"\n\n\n She came around the desk and put her hands on his shoulders. \"Pete,\n you know I haven't one\u2014it bores me or upsets me, depending on whether\n there's trouble or not. What\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I'm sorry, I forgot,\" he said. \"But you have a scanner?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, of course. But really, Pete\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You'll understand in a minute. Turn it on, Lorelei.\"\n\n\n She gazed at him levelly for a moment, kissed him impulsively, and then\n walked over to the video panel on the wall and swept a mountain of\n papers away from in front of it. She turned the selector dial to \"News\"\n and pressed the stud.\n\n\n A faint wash of color appeared on the panel, strengthened slowly, and\n suddenly leapt into full brilliance.\n\n\n Lorelei caught her breath.\n\n\n It was a street scene in the Science City of Manhattan, flooded by\n the warm spring sunshine. Down on the lowest level, visible past the\n transport and passenger tubes, the parks and moving ways should have\n been dotted with colorful, holiday crowds. The people were there,\n yes but they were flowing away in a swiftly-widening circle. They\n disappeared into buildings, and the ways snatched them up, and in a\n heartbeat they were gone.\n\n\n There were left only two blood-red, malignant monstrosities somehow\n defiling the air they floated in; and below them, a pitiful huddle of\n flesh no longer recognizable as human beings. They were not dead, those\n men and women, but they wanted to be. Their bodies had been impossibly\n joined, fused together into a single obscene, floundering mass of\n helpless protoplasm. The thin moaning that went up from them was more\n horrible than any cry of agony.\n\n\n \"The Invaders are here, citizens,\" the commentator was saying in a\n strangled voice. \"Stay off the streets. Hide yourselves. Stay off the\n streets....\" His voice droned on, but neither of them heard it.\nLorelei buried her head on his chest, clutching at him desperately.\n \"Peter!\" she said faintly. \"Why do they broadcast such things?\"\n\n\n \"They have to,\" he told her grimly. \"There will be panics and suicides,\n and they know it; but they have to do it. This isn't like a war, where\n the noncombatants' morale has to be kept up. There aren't going to be\n any noncombatants, this time. Everybody in the world has to know about\n them, so that he can fight them\u2014and then it may not be enough.\"\n\n\n The viewpoint of the teleo sender changed as the two red beings soared\n away from their victims and angled slowly up the street. Peter reached\n out to switch off the scanner, and froze. The girl felt his muscles\n tense abruptly, looked back at the scene. The Invaders were floating\n up the sloping side of a tall, pure white structure that dominated the\n rest.\n\n\n \"That's the Atlas building,\" she said unbelievingly. \"Us!\"\n\n\n \"Yes.\"\n\n\n Silently, they counted stories as the two beings rose. Forty-five ...\n forty-six ... forty-seven ... forty-eight. Inevitably, they halted.\n Then they faded slowly. It was impossible to say whether they had gone\n through the solid wall, or simply melted away.\n\n\n The man and woman clung together, waiting.\n\n\n There was a thick, oppressive silence, full of small rustlings and\n other faint sounds that were no longer normal. Then, very near, a man\n screamed in a high, inhuman voice. The screamed dwindled into a throaty\n gurgle and died, leaving silence again.\n\n\n Peter's lips were cold with sweat. Tiny nerves in his face and arms\n were jumping convulsively. His stomach crawled. He thrust the girl away\n from him and started toward the inner room.\n\n\n \"Wait here,\" he mouthed.\n\n\n She was after him, clinging to his arms. \"No, Peter! Don't go in there!\nPeter!\n\" But he pushed her away again, woodenly, and stalked forward.\n\n\n There was a space in the middle of the room where machinery had been\n cleared away to make room for an incompleted setup. Peter walked down\n the narrow aisle, past bakelite-sheathed mechanisms and rows of animal\n cages, and paused just short of it.\n\n\n The two red beings were there, formless bodies hazy in midair, the\n distorted, hairless skulls in profile, staring at something outside his\n range of vision.\nPeter forced himself forward another step. Little Harry Kanin,\n Lorelei's assistant, was crumpled in a corner, half supported by the\n broad base of an X-ray chamber. His face was flaccid and bloated. His\n glazed eyes, impassive yet somehow pleading, stared at nothingness\n straight ahead of him.\n\n\n The Invaders ignored Peter, staring expressionlessly down at Kanin.\n In a moment Peter realized what they were doing to him. He stood,\n paralyzed with horror, and watched it happen.\n\n\n The little man's body was sagging, ever so slowly, as if he were\n relaxing tiredly. His torso was telescoping, bit by bit; his spread\n legs grew wider and more shapeless, his cheeks caved in and his skull\n grew gradually flatter.\n\n\n When it was over, the thing that had been Kanin was a limp, boneless\n puddle of flesh. Peter could not look at it.\n\n\n There was a scream in his throat that would not come out. He was beyond\n fear, beyond agony. He turned to the still-hovering monsters and said\n in a terrible voice, \"Why? Why?\"\n\n\n The nearest being turned slowly to regard him. Its lips did not move,\n but there was a tiny sound in Peter's brain, a thin, dry whispering.\n\n\n The scream was welling up. He fought it down and listened.\n\n\n \"\nWurnkomellilonasendiktolsasangkanmiamiamimami....\n\"\n\n\n The face was staring directly into his, the bulging eyes hypnotic. The\n ears were small, no more than excresences of skin. The narrow lips\n seemed sealed together; a thin, slimy ichor drooled from them. There\n were lines in the face, but they were lines of age, not emotion. Only\n the eyes were alive.\n\n\n \"\n... raswilopreatadvuonistuwurncchtusanlgkelglawwalinom....\n\"\n\n\n \"I can't understand,\" he cried wildly. \"What do you want?\"\n\n\n \"\n... morofelcovisyanmamiwurlectaunntous.\n\"\n\n\n He heard a faint sound behind him, and whirled. It was the first\n time he had realized that Lorelei had followed him. She stood there,\n swaying, very pale, looking at the red Invaders. Her eyes swiveled\n slowly....\n\n\n \"\nOpreniktoulestritifenrelngetnaktwiltoctpre.\n\"\n\n\n His voice was hoarse. \"Don't look! Don't\u2014Go back!\" The horrible,\n mindless noise in his throat was almost beyond his power to repress.\n His insides writhed to thrust it out.\n\n\n She didn't see him. Her eyes glazed, and she dropped limply to the\n floor.\n\n\n The scream came out then. Before he knew, even, that he could hold\n it back no longer, his mouth was wide open, his muscles tensed, his\n fingernails slicing his palms. It echoed with unbelievable volume in\n the room. It was a scream to split eardrums; a scream to wake the dead.\nSomebody said, \"Doctor!\"\n\n\n He wanted to say, \"Yes, get a doctor. Lorelei\u2014\" but his mouth only\n twitched feebly. He couldn't seem to get it to work properly.\n\n\n He tried again. \"Doctor.\"\n\n\n \"Yes?\" A gentle, masculine voice.\n\n\n He opened his eyes with an effort. There was a blurred face before him;\n in a moment it grew clearer. The strong, clean-shaven chin contrasted\n oddly with the haggard circles under the eyes. There was a clean,\n starched odor.\n\n\n \"Where am I?\" he said. He tried to turn his head, but a firm hand\n pressed him back into the sheets.\n\n\n \"You're in a hospital. Just lie quietly, please.\"\n\n\n He tried to get up again. \"Where's Lorelei?\"\n\n\n \"She's well, and you'll see her soon. Now lie quietly. You've been a\n very sick man.\"\n\n\n Peter sank back in the bed. The room was coming into focus. He looked\n around him slowly. He felt very weak, but perfectly lucid.\n\n\n \"Yes....\" he said. \"How long have I been here, Doctor?\"\n\n\n The man hesitated, looked at him intently. \"Three months,\" he said. He\n turned and gave low-voiced instructions to a nurse, and then went away.\n\n\n Peter's head began spinning just a little. Glass clinked from a metal\n stand near his head; the nurse bent over him with a glass half full of\n milky fluid. It tasted awful, but she made him drink it all.\n\n\n In a moment he began to relax, and the room got fuzzy again. Just\n before he drifted off, he said sleepily, \"You can't\u2014fool me. It's been\nmore\n\u2014than three\u2014months.\"\n\n\n He was right. All the nurses, and even Dr. Arnold, were evasive, but he\n kept asking them why he couldn't see Lorelei, and finally he wormed it\n out of them. It had been nine and a half months, not three, and he'd\n been in a coma all that time. Lorelei, it seemed, had recovered much\n sooner.\n\n\n \"She was only suffering from ordinary shock,\" Arnold explained.\n \"Seeing that assistant of hers\u2014it was enough to knock anybody out,\n especially a woman. But you stood actual mental contact with\nthem\nfor approximately five minutes. Yes, we know\u2014you talked a lot. It's a\n miracle you're alive, and rational.\"\n\n\n \"But where is she?\" Peter complained. \"You still haven't explained why\n I haven't been able to see her.\"\n\n\n Arnold frowned. \"All right,\" he said. \"I guess you're strong enough to\n take it. She's underground, with the rest of the women and children,\n and a good two-thirds of the male population. That's where you'll go,\n as soon as you're well enough to be moved. We started digging in six\n months ago.\"\n\n\n \"But why?\" Peter whispered.\n\n\n Arnold's strong jaw knotted. \"We're hiding,\" he said. \"Everything else\n has failed.\"\n\n\n Peter couldn't think of anything to say. Dr. Arnold's voice went on\n after a moment, musingly. \"We're burrowing into the earth, like worms.\n It didn't take us long to find out we couldn't kill them. They didn't\n even take any notice of our attempts to do so, except once. That was\n when a squadron of the Police caught about fifty of them together at\n one time, and attacked with flame guns and a new secret weapon. It\n didn't hurt them, but it annoyed them. It was the first time they'd\n been annoyed, I think. They blew up half a state, and it's still\n smoldering.\"\n\n\n \"And since then?\" Peter asked huskily.\n\n\n \"Since then, we've been burrowing. All the big cities.... It would be\n an impossible task if we tried to include all the thinly-populated\n areas, of course, but it doesn't matter. By the time we excavate\n enough to take care of a quarter of the earth's population, the other\n three-quarters will be dead, or worse.\"\n\n\n \"I wonder,\" Peter said shakily, \"if I am strong enough to take it.\"\n\n\n Arnold laughed harshly. \"You are. You've got to be. You're part of our\n last hope, you see.\"\n\n\n \"Our last hope?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. You're a scientist.\"\n\n\n \"I see,\" said Peter. And for the first time, he thought of the\nCitadel\n. No plan leaped full-born into his mind, but,\nmaybe\n, he\n thought,\nthere's a chance\n....\nIt wasn't very big, the thing that had been his shining dream. It lay\n there in its rough cradle, a globe of raw dura-steel not more than\n five hundred meters in diameter, where the\nCitadel\nwas to have been a\n thousand. It wouldn't house a hundred scientists, eagerly delving into\n the hinterland of research. The huge compartments weren't filled with\n the latest equipment for chemical and physical experiment; instead,\n there was compressed oxygen there, and concentrated food, enough to\n last a lifetime.\n\n\n It was a new world, all by itself; or else it was a tomb. And there was\n one other change, one that you couldn't see from the outside. The solid\n meters of lead in its outer skin, the shielding to keep out cosmic\n rays, were gone.\n\n\n A man had just finished engraving the final stroke on its nameplate, to\n the left of the airlock\u2014\nThe Avenger\n. He stepped away now, and joined\n the group a little distance away, silently waiting.\n\n\n Lorelei said, \"You can't do it. I won't let you! Peter\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Darling,\" he began wearily.\n\n\n \"Don't throw your life away! Give us time\u2014there must be another way.\"\n\n\n \"There's no other way,\" Peter said. He gripped her arms tightly, as if\n he could compel her to understand by the sheer pressure of his fingers.\n \"Darling, listen to me. We've tried everything. We've gone underground,\n but that's only delaying the end.\nThey\nstill come down here, only not\n as many. The mortality rate is up, the suicide rate is up, the birth\n rate is down, in spite of anything we can do. You've seen the figures:\n we're riding a curve that ends in extinction fifty years from now.\n\n\n \"They'll live, and we'll die, because they're a superior race. We're a\n million years too far back even to understand what they are or where\n they came from. Besides them, we're apes. There's only one answer.\"\n\n\n She was crying now, silently, with great racking sobs that shook her\n slender body. But he went remorselessly on.\n\n\n \"Out there, in space, the cosmics change unshielded life. They\n make tentacles out of arms; or scales out of hair; or twelve toes,\n or a dozen ears\u2014or a better brain. Out of those millions of\n possible mutations, there's one that will save the human race. We\n can't fight\nthem\n, but a superman could. That's our only chance.\n Lorelei\u2014darling\u2014don't you see that?\"\n\n\n She choked, \"But why can't you take me along?\"\n\n\n He stared unseeingly past her wet, upturned face. \"You know why,\" he\n said bitterly. \"Those rays are strong. They don't only work on embryos;\n they change adult life forms, too. I have one chance in seven of\n staying alive. You'd have one chance in a million of staying beautiful.\n I couldn't stand that. I'd kill myself, and then humanity would die,\n too. You'd be their murderer.\"\n\n\n Her sobs gradually died away. She straightened slowly until he no\n longer had to support her, but all the vitality and resilience was gone\n out of her body. \"All right,\" she said in a lifeless voice. \"You'll\n come back, Peter.\"\n\n\n He turned away suddenly, not trusting himself to kiss her goodbye. A\n line from an old film kept echoing through his head. \"\nThey'll\ncome\n back\u2014but not as\nboys\n!\"\n\n\n We'll come back, but not as men.\n\n\n We'll come back, but not as elephants.\n\n\n We'll come back, but not as octopi.\nHe was trembling violently. He ran the last few steps, stumbled into\n the airlock, and pressed the stud that would seal the door behind him.\nWe'll come back....\nHe heard the massive disk sink home, closing him\n off. Then he sank down on the floor of the airlock and put his head in\n shaking hands.\n\n\n After a while he roused himself, closed the inner door of the lock\n behind him, and walked down the long corridor into the control chamber.\n The shining banks of keys were there, waiting for his touch; he slumped\n down before them and listlessly closed the contact of the visiplate.\n\n\n He swung its field slowly, scanning for the last time the bare walls\n of the underground chamber, making sure that all the spectators had\n retired out of the way of the blast. Then his clawed fingers poised\n over the keys, hovered a moment, and thrust down.\n\n\n Acceleration pressed him deep into his chair. In the visiplate, the\n heavy doors that closed the tunnel above him flashed back, one by one.\n The energy-charged screen flickered off to let him pass, and closed\n smoothly behind him. The last doors, cleverly camouflaged, slipped back\n into place and then dwindled in the distance. It was done.\n\n\n He flashed on out, past the moon, past Mars, over the asteroid belt.\n The days merged into weeks, then months, and finally, far out,\nThe\n Avenger\ncurved into an orbit and held it. The great motors died, and\n the silence pressed in about him.\n\n\n Already he could feel the invisible rays burning resistlessly through\n his flesh as if it were water, shifting the cells of his body, working\n its slow, monstrous alchemy upon him. Peter waited until the changes\n were unmistakably evident in his skin and hair, and then he smashed all\n the mirrors in the ship.\n\n\n The embryos were pulsing with unnatural life, even in the suspended\n animation of their crystal cells. One by one he allowed them to\n mature, and after weeks or years destroyed the monstrosities that came\n from the incubators. Time went by, meaninglessly. He ate when he was\n hungry, slept when his driving purpose let him, and worked unceasingly,\n searching for the million-to-one chance.\n\n\n He stared sometimes through changed eyes at the tiny blue star that was\n Earth, wondering if the race he had left behind still burrowed in its\n worm-tunnels, digging deeper and deeper away from the sunlight. But\n after a time he ceased even to wonder.\n\n\n And one changeling-child he did not destroy. He fed knowledge to its\n eager brain, and watched it through the swift years, with a dawning\n hope....\nPeter closed the diary. \"The rest you know, Robert,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Yes,\" I told him. \"I was that child. I am the millionth mutation you\n were searching for.\"\n\n\n His eyes glowed suddenly in their misshapen sockets. \"You are. Your\n brain is as superior to mine as mine is to an anthropoid's. You solve\n instinctively problems that would take our mechanical computers hours\n of work. You are a superman.\"\n\n\n \"I am without your imperfections,\" I said, flexing my arms.\n\n\n He rose and strode nervously over to the window. I watched him as he\n stood there, outlined against the blazing galaxies. He had changed but\n little in the years that I had known him. His lank gray hair straggled\n over his sunken eyes; his cheeks were blobbed with excresences of\n flesh; one corner of his mouth was drawn up in a perpetual grin. He had\n a tiny sixth finger on his left hand.\n\n\n He turned again, and I saw the old scar on his cheek where I had once\n accidentally drawn one of my talons across his face.\n\n\n \"And now,\" he said softly, \"we will go home. I've waited so\n long\u2014keeping the control chamber and the engine room locked away from\n you, not telling you, even, about Earth until now\u2014because I had to be\n sure. But now, the waiting is over.\n\n\n \"They're still there, I'm sure of it\u2014the people, and the Invaders. You\n can kill the Invaders, Robert.\"\n\n\n He looked at me, a little oddly, almost as if he had some instinctive\n knowledge of what was to come. But he went on swiftly, \"On Earth we\n had a saying: 'Fight fire with fire.' That is the way it will be with\n you. You are completely, coldly logical, just as\nthey\nare. You can\n understand them, and so you can conquer them.\"\n\n\n I said, \"That is the reason why we will not go back to Earth.\"\n\n\n He stared at me, his jaw slack, his hands trembling. \"What\u2014what did\n you say?\"\n\n\n I repeated it patiently.\n\n\n \"But why?\" he cried, sinking down into the chair before me. In an\n instant all the joy had gone out of him. I could not understand his\n suffering, but I could recognize it.\n\n\n \"You yourself have said it,\" I told him. \"I am a being of logic, just\n as the beings who have invaded your planet are. I do not comprehend the\n things which you call hate, fear, joy and love, as they do not. If I\n went to Earth, I would use your people to further my knowledge, just as\n the invaders do. I would have no reason to kill the invaders. They are\n more nearly kin to me than your people.\"\nPeter's eyes were dull, his limbs slumped. For a moment I thought that\n the shock had deranged his mind.\n\n\n His voice trembled when he said, \"But if I ask you to kill them, and\n not my people?\"\n\n\n \"To do so would be illogical.\"\n\n\n He waved his hands helplessly. \"Gratitude?\" he muttered.\n\n\n \"No, you don't understand that, either.\"\n\n\n Then he cried suddenly, \"But I am your friend, Robert!\"\n\n\n \"I do not understand 'friend,'\" I said.\n\n\n I did understand \"gratitude,\" a little. It was a reciprocal\n arrangement: I did what Peter wished, so long as I did not actively\n want to do otherwise, because he had done things for me. Very well,\n then we must not go back. It was very simple, but I knew that he could\n not comprehend it.\n\n\n I tried to explain it to him, however. But he only stared at me, with\n an expression on his face that I had never seen there before, and that,\n somehow, I did not like to see. It was disquieting, and so I hastened\n to the end that I knew was inevitable.",
    "61228": "THE BIG HEADACHE\nBY JIM HARMON\nWhat's the principal cause of headaches?\n\n Why, having a head, of course!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1962.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI\n\n\n \"Do you think we'll have to use force on Macklin to get him to\n cooperate in the experiment?\" Ferris asked eagerly.\n\n\n \"How are you going to go about forcing him, Doctor?\" Mitchell inquired.\n \"He outweighs you by fifty pounds and you needn't look to\nme\nfor help\n against that repatriated fullback.\"\n\n\n Ferris fingered the collar of his starched lab smock. \"Guess I got\n carried away for a moment. But Macklin is exactly what we need for a\n quick, dramatic test. We've had it if he turns us down.\"\n\n\n \"I know,\" Mitchell said, exhaling deeply. \"Somehow the men with the\n money just can't seem to understand basic research. Who would have\n financed a study of cyclic periods of the hedgehog? Yet the information\n gained from that study is vital in cancer research.\"\n\n\n \"When we prove our results that should be of enough practical value for\n anyone. But those crummy trustees didn't even leave us enough for a\n field test.\" Ferris scrubbed his thin hand over the bony ridge of his\n forehead. \"I've been worrying so much about this I've got the ancestor\n of all headaches.\"\n\n\n Mitchell's blue eyes narrowed and his boyish face took on an expression\n of demonic intensity. \"Ferris, would you consider\u2014?\"\n\n\n \"No!\" the smaller man yelled. \"You can't expect me to violate\n professional ethics and test my own discovery on myself.\"\n\n\n \"\nOur\ndiscovery,\" Mitchell said politely.\n\n\n \"That's what I meant to say. But I'm not sure it would be completely\n ethical with even a discovery partly mine.\"\n\n\n \"You're right. Besides who cares if you or I are cured of headaches?\n Our reputations don't go outside our own fields,\" Mitchell said. \"But\n now Macklin\u2014\"\n\n\n Elliot Macklin had inherited the reputation of the late Albert Einstein\n in the popular mind. He was the man people thought of when the word\n \"mathematician\" or even \"scientist\" was mentioned. No one knew whether\n his Theory of Spatium was correct or not because no one had yet been\n able to frame an argument with it. Macklin was in his early fifties but\n looked in his late thirties, with the build of a football player. The\n government took up a lot of his time using him as the symbol of the\n Ideal Scientist to help recruit Science and Engineering Cadets.\n\n\n For the past seven years Macklin\u2014who\nwas\nthe Advanced Studies\n Department of Firestone University\u2014had been involved in devising a\n faster-than-light drive to help the Army reach Pluto and eventually the\n nearer stars. Mitchell had overheard two coeds talking and so knew\n that the project was nearing completion. If so, it was a case of\nAd\n astra per aspirin\n.\n\n\n The only thing that could delay the project was Macklin's health.\n\n\n Despite his impressive body, some years before he had suffered a mild\n stroke ... or at least a vascular spasm of a cerebral artery. It was\n known that he suffered from the vilest variety of migraine. A cycle of\n the headaches had caused him to be absent from his classes for several\n weeks, and there were an unusual number of military uniforms seen\n around the campus.\nFerris paced off the tidy measurements of the office outside the\n laboratory in the biology building. Mitchell sat slumped in the chair\n behind the blond imitation wood desk, watching him disinterestedly.\n\n\n \"Do you suppose the Great Man will actually show up?\" Ferris demanded,\n pausing in mid-stride.\n\n\n \"I imagine he will,\" Mitchell said. \"Macklin's always seemed a decent\n enough fellow when I've had lunch with him or seen him at the trustees\n meetings.\"\n\n\n \"He's always treated me like dirt,\" Ferris said heatedly. \"Everyone on\n this campus treats biologists like dirt. Sometimes I want to bash in\n their smug faces.\"\n\n\n Sometimes, Mitchell reflected, Ferris displayed a certain lack of\n scientific detachment.\n\n\n There came a discreet knock on the door.\n\n\n \"Please come in,\" Mitchell said.\n\n\n Elliot Macklin entered in a cloud of pipe smoke and a tweed jacket. He\n looked more than a little like a postgraduate student, and Mitchell\n suspected that that was his intention.\n\n\n He shook hands warmly with Mitchell. \"Good of you to ask me over,\n Steven.\"\n\n\n Macklin threw a big arm across Ferris' shoulders. \"How have you been,\n Harold?\"\n\n\n Ferris' face flickered between pink and white. \"Fine, thank you,\n doctor.\"\n\n\n Macklin dropped on the edge of the desk and adjusted his pipe. \"Now\n what's this about you wanting my help on something? And please keep the\n explanation simple. Biology isn't my field, you know.\"\n\n\n Mitchell moved around the desk casually. \"Actually, Doctor, we haven't\n the right to ask this of a man of your importance. There may be an\n element of risk.\"\n\n\n The mathematician clamped onto his pipe and showed his teeth. \"Now you\n have me intrigued. What is it all about?\"\n\n\n \"Doctor, we understand you have severe headaches,\" Mitchell said.\n\n\n Macklin nodded. \"That's right, Steven. Migraine.\"\n\n\n \"That must be terrible,\" Ferris said. \"All your fine reputation and\n lavish salary can't be much consolation when that ripping, tearing\n agony begins, can it?\"\n\n\n \"No, Harold, it isn't,\" Macklin admitted. \"What does your project have\n to do with my headaches?\"\n\n\n \"Doctor,\" Mitchell said, \"what would you say the most common complaint\n of man is?\"\n\n\n \"I would have said the common cold,\" Macklin replied, \"but I suppose\n from what you have said you mean headaches.\"\n\"Headaches,\" Mitchell agreed. \"Everybody has them at some time in his\n life. Some people have them every day. Some are driven to suicide by\n their headaches.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Macklin said.\n\n\n \"But think,\" Ferris interjected, \"what a boon it would be if everyone\n could be cured of headaches\nforever\nby one simple injection.\"\n\n\n \"I don't suppose the manufacturers of aspirin would like you. But it\n would please about everybody else.\"\n\n\n \"Aspirins would still be used to reduce fever and relieve muscular\n pains,\" Mitchell said.\n\n\n \"I see. Are you two saying you\nhave\nsuch a shot? Can you cure\n headaches?\"\n\n\n \"We think we can,\" Ferris said.\n\n\n \"How can you have a specific for a number of different causes?\" Macklin\n asked. \"I know that much about the subject.\"\n\n\n \"There\nare\na number of different causes for headaches\u2014nervous\n strain, fatigue, physical diseases from kidney complaints to tumors,\n over-indulgence\u2014but there is one\neffect\nof all of this, the one real\n cause of headaches,\" Mitchell announced.\n\n\n \"We have definitely established this for this first time,\" Ferris added.\n\n\n \"That's fine,\" Macklin said, sucking on his pipe. \"And this effect that\n produces headaches is?\"\n\n\n \"The pressure effect caused by pituitrin in the brain,\" Mitchell\n said eagerly. \"That is, the constriction of blood vessels in the\n telencephalon section of the frontal lobes. It's caused by an\n over-production of the pituitary gland. We have artificially bred a\n virus that feeds on pituitrin.\"\n\n\n \"That may mean the end of headaches, but I would think it would mean\n the end of the race as well,\" Macklin said. \"In certain areas it is\n valuable to have a constriction of blood vessels.\"\n\n\n \"The virus,\" Ferris explained, \"can easily be localized and stabilized.\n A colony of virus in the brain cells will relax the cerebral\n vessels\u2014and only the cerebral vessels\u2014so that the cerebrospinal fluid\n doesn't create pressure in the cavities of the brain.\"\n\n\n The mathematician took the pipe out of his mouth. \"If this really\n works, I could stop using that damned gynergen, couldn't I? The stuff\n makes me violently sick to my stomach. But it's better than the\n migraine. How should I go about removing my curse?\" He reinserted the\n pipe.\n\n\n \"I assure you, you can forget ergotamine tartrate,\" Ferris said. \"Our\n discovery will work.\"\n\"Will work,\" Macklin said thoughtfully. \"The operative word. It\nhasn't\nworked then?\"\n\n\n \"Certainly it has,\" Ferris said. \"On rats, on chimps....\"\n\n\n \"But not on humans?\" Macklin asked.\n\n\n \"Not yet,\" Mitchell admitted.\n\n\n \"Well,\" Macklin said. \"Well.\" He thumped pipe ashes out into his palm.\n \"Certainly you can get volunteers. Convicts. Conscientious objectors\n from the Army.\"\n\n\n \"We want you,\" Ferris told him.\n\n\n Macklin coughed. \"I don't want to overestimate my value but the\n government wouldn't like it very well if I died in the middle of this\n project. My wife would like it even less.\"\n\n\n Ferris turned his back on the mathematician. Mitchell could see him\n mouthing the word\nyellow\n.\n\n\n \"Doctor,\" Mitchell said quickly, \"I know it's a tremendous favor to\n ask of a man of your position. But you can understand our problem.\n Unless we can produce quick, conclusive and dramatic proof of our\n studies we can get no more financial backing. We\nshould\nrun a\n large-scale field test. But we haven't the time or money for that.\n We can cure the headaches of one person and that's the limit of our\n resources.\"\n\n\n \"I'm tempted,\" Macklin said hesitantly, \"but the answer is go. I mean\n '\nno\n'. I'd like to help you out, but I'm afraid I owe too much to\n others to take the rest\u2014the risk, I mean.\"\n\n\n Macklin ran the back of his knuckles across his forehead. \"I really\n would like to take you up on it. When I start making slips like that it\n means another attack of migraine. The drilling, grinding pain through\n my temples and around my eyeballs. The flashes of light, the rioting\n pools of color playing on the back of my lids. Ugh.\"\n\n\n Ferris smiled. \"Gynergen makes you sick, does it, doctor? Produces\n nausea, eh? The pain of that turns you almost wrong side out, doesn't\n it? You aren't much better off with it than without, are you? I've\n heard some say they preferred the migraine.\"\n\n\n Macklin carefully arranged his pipe along with the tools he used to\n tend it in a worn leather case. \"Tell me,\" he said, \"what is the worst\n that could happen to me?\"\n\n\n \"Low blood pressure,\" Ferris said.\n\n\n \"That's not so bad,\" Macklin said. \"How low can it get?\"\n\n\n \"When your heart stops, your blood pressure goes to its lowest point,\"\n Mitchell said.\n\n\n A dew of perspiration had bloomed on Macklin's forehead. \"Is there much\n risk of that?\"\n\n\n \"Practically none,\" Mitchell said. \"We have to give you the worst\n possibilities.\nAll\nour test animals survived and seem perfectly happy\n and contented. As I said, the virus is self-stabilizing. Ferris and I\n are confident that there is no danger.... But we may be wrong.\"\n\n\n Macklin held his head in both hands. \"Why did you two select\nme\n?\"\n\n\n \"You're an important man, doctor,\" Ferris said. \"Nobody would care if\n Mitchell or I cured ourselves of headaches\u2014they might not even believe\n us if we said we did. But the proper authorities will believe a man\n of your reputation. Besides, neither of us has a record of chronic\n migraine. You do.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, I do,\" Macklin said. \"Very well. Go ahead. Give me your\n injection.\"\n\n\n Mitchell cleared his throat. \"Are you positive, doctor?\" he asked\n uncertainly. \"Perhaps you would like a few days to think it over.\"\n\n\n \"No! I'm ready. Go ahead, right now.\"\n\n\n \"There's a simple release,\" Ferris said smoothly.\n\n\n Macklin groped in his pocket for a pen.\nII\n\n\n \"Ferris!\" Mitchell yelled, slamming the laboratory door behind him.\n\n\n \"Right here,\" the small man said briskly. He was sitting at a work\n table, penciling notes. \"I've been expecting you.\"\n\n\n \"Doctor\u2014Harold\u2014you shouldn't have given this story to the\n newspapers,\" Mitchell said. He tapped the back of his hand against the\n folded paper.\n\n\n \"On the contrary, I should and I did,\" Ferris answered. \"We wanted\n something dramatic to show to the trustees and here it is.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, we wanted to show our proof to the trustees\u2014but not broadcast\n unverified results to the press. It's too early for that!\"\n\n\n \"Don't be so stuffy and conservative, Mitchell! Macklin's cured, isn't\n he? By established periodic cycle he should be suffering hell right\n now, shouldn't he? But thanks to our treatment he is perfectly happy,\n with no unfortunate side effects such as gynergen produces.\"\n\n\n \"It's a significant test case, yes. But not enough to go to the\n newspapers with. If it wasn't enough to go to the press with, it wasn't\n enough to try and breach the trustees with. Don't you see? The public\n will hand down a ukase demanding our virus, just as they demanded the\n Salk vaccine and the Grennell serum.\"\n\n\n \"But\u2014\"\n\n\n The shrill call of the telephone interrupted Mitchell's objections.\n\n\n Ferris excused himself and crossed to the instrument. He answered it\n and listened for a moment, his face growing impatient.\n\n\n \"It's Macklin's wife,\" Ferris said. \"Do you want to talk to her? I'm no\n good with hysterical women.\"\n\n\n \"Hysterical?\" Mitchell muttered in alarm and went to the phone.\n\n\n \"Hello?\" Mitchell said reluctantly. \"Mrs. Macklin?\"\n\n\n \"You are the other one,\" the clear feminine voice said. \"Your name is\n Mitchell.\"\n\n\n She couldn't have sounded calmer or more self-possessed, Mitchell\n thought.\n\n\n \"That's right, Mrs. Macklin. I'm Dr. Steven Mitchell, Dr. Ferris's\n associate.\"\n\n\n \"Do you have a license to dispense narcotics?\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean by that, Mrs. Macklin,\" Mitchell said sharply.\n\n\n \"I used to be a nurse, Dr. Mitchell. I know you've given my husband\n heroin.\"\n\n\n \"That's absurd. What makes you think a thing like that?\"\n\n\n \"The\u2014trance he's in now.\"\n\n\n \"Now, Mrs. Macklin. Neither Dr. Ferris or myself have been near your\n husband for a full day. The effects of a narcotic would have worn off\n by this time.\"\n\n\n \"Most known narcotics,\" she admitted, \"but evidently you have\n discovered something new. Is it so expensive to refine you and Ferris\n have to recruit new customers to keep yourselves supplied?\"\n\n\n \"Mrs. Macklin! I think I had better talk to you later when you are\n calmer.\"\n\n\n Mitchell dropped the receiver heavily. \"What could be wrong with\n Macklin?\" he asked without removing his hand from the telephone.\n\n\n Ferris frowned, making quotation marks above his nose. \"Let's have a\n look at the test animals.\"\n\n\n Together they marched over to the cages and peered through the\n honeycomb pattern of the wire. The test chimp, Dean, was sitting\n peacefully in a corner scratching under his arms with the back of his\n knuckles. Jerry, their control in the experiment, who was practically\n Dean's twin except that he had received no injection of the E-M Virus,\n was stomping up and down punching his fingers through the wire,\n worrying the lock on the cage.\n\n\n \"Jerry\nis\na great deal more active than Dean,\" Mitchell said.\n\n\n \"Yes, but Dean isn't sick. He just doesn't seem to have as much nervous\n energy to burn up. Nothing wrong with his thyroid either.\"\n\n\n They went to the smaller cages. They found the situation with the rats,\n Bud and Lou, much the same.\n\n\n \"I don't know. Maybe they just have tired blood,\" Mitchell ventured.\n\n\n \"Iron deficiency anemia?\"\n\n\n \"Never mind, doctor. It was a form of humor. I think we had better see\n exactly what is wrong with Elliot Macklin.\"\n\n\n \"There's nothing wrong with him,\" Ferris snapped. \"He's probably just\n trying to get us in trouble, the ingrate!\"\nMacklin's traditional ranch house was small but attractive in\n aqua-tinted aluminum.\n\n\n Under Mitchell's thumb the bell chimbed\ndum-de-de-dum-dum-dum\n.\n\n\n As they waited Mitchell glanced at Ferris. He seemed completely\n undisturbed, perhaps slightly curious.\n\n\n The door unlatched and swung back.\n\n\n \"Mrs. Macklin,\" Mitchell said quickly, \"I'm sure we can help if there\n is anything wrong with your husband. This is Dr. Ferris. I am Dr.\n Mitchell.\"\n\n\n \"You had certainly\nbetter\nhelp him, gentlemen.\" She stood out of the\n doorway for them to pass.\n\n\n Mrs. Macklin was an attractive brunette in her late thirties. She wore\n an expensive yellow dress. And she had a sharp-cornered jawline.\n\n\n The Army officer came out into the hall to meet them.\n\n\n \"You are the gentlemen who gave Dr. Macklin the unauthorized\n injection,\" he said.\n\n\n It wasn't a question.\n\n\n \"I don't like that 'unauthorized',\" Ferris snapped.\n\n\n The colonel\u2014Mitchell spotted the eagles on his green tunic\u2014lifted\n a heavy eyebrow. \"No? Are you medical doctors? Are you authorized to\n treat illnesses?\"\n\n\n \"We weren't treating an illness,\" Mitchell said. \"We were discovering a\n method of treatment. What concern is it of yours?\"\n\n\n The colonel smiled thinly. \"Dr. Macklin is my concern. And everything\n that happens to him. The Army doesn't like what you have done to him.\"\n\n\n Mitchell wondered desperately just what they had done to the man.\n\n\n \"Can we see him?\" Mitchell asked.\n\n\n \"Why not? You can't do much worse than murder him now. That might be\n just as well. We have laws to cover that.\"\n\n\n The colonel led them into the comfortable, over-feminine living room.\n Macklin sat in an easy chair draped in embroidery, smoking. Mitchell\n suddenly realized Macklin used a pipe as a form of masculine protest to\n his home surroundings.\n\n\n On the coffee table in front of Macklin were some odd-shaped building\n blocks such as were used in nursery schools. A second uniformed\n man\u2014another colonel but with the snake-entwined staff of the medical\n corps in his insignia\u2014was kneeling at the table on the marble-effect\n carpet.\n\n\n The Army physician stood up and brushed his knees, undusted from the\n scrupulously clean rug.\n\n\n \"What's wrong with him, Sidney?\" the other officer asked the doctor.\n\n\n \"Not a thing,\" Sidney said. \"He's the healthiest, happiest, most\n well-adjusted man I've ever examined, Carson.\"\n\n\n \"But\u2014\" Colonel Carson protested.\n\n\n \"Oh, he's changed all right,\" the Army doctor answered. \"He's not the\n same man as he used to be.\"\n\n\n \"How is he different?\" Mitchell demanded.\n\n\n The medic examined Mitchell and Ferris critically before answering. \"He\n used to be a mathematical genius.\"\n\n\n \"And now?\" Mitchell said impatiently.\n\n\n \"Now he is a moron,\" the medic said.\nIII\n\n\n Mitchell tried to stop Colonel Sidney as he went past, but the doctor\n mumbled he had a report to make.\n\n\n Mitchell and Ferris stared at Colonel Carson and Macklin and at each\n other.\n\n\n \"What did he mean, Macklin is an idiot?\" Mitchell asked.\n\n\n \"Not an idiot,\" Colonel Carson corrected primly. \"Dr. Macklin is a\n moron. He's legally responsible, but he's extremely stupid.\"\n\n\n \"I'm not so dumb,\" Macklin said defensively.\n\n\n \"I beg your pardon, sir,\" Carson said. \"I didn't intend any offense.\n But according to all the standard intelligence tests we have given you,\n your clinical intelligence quotient is that of a moron.\"\n\n\n \"That's just on book learning,\" Macklin said. \"There's a lot you learn\n in life that you don't get out of books, son.\"\n\n\n \"I'm confident that's true, sir,\" Colonel Carson said. He turned to the\n two biologists. \"Perhaps we had better speak outside.\"\n\n\n \"But\u2014\" Mitchell said, impatient to examine Macklin for himself. \"Very\n well. Let's step into the hall.\"\n\n\n Ferris followed them docilely.\n\n\n \"What have you done to him?\" the colonel asked straightforwardly.\n\n\n \"We merely cured him of his headaches,\" Mitchell said.\n\n\n \"How?\"\n\n\n Mitchell did his best to explain the F-M Virus.\n\n\n \"You mean,\" the Army officer said levelly \"you have infected him with\n some kind of a disease to rot his brain?\"\n\n\n \"No, no! Could I talk to the other man, the doctor? Maybe I can make\n him understand.\"\n\n\n \"All I want to know is why Elliot Macklin has been made as simple as if\n he had been kicked in the head by a mule,\" Colonel Carson said.\n\n\n \"I think I can explain,\" Ferris interrupted.\n\n\n \"You can?\" Mitchell said.\n\n\n Ferris nodded. \"We made a slight miscalculation. It appears as if the\n virus colony overcontrols the supply of posterior pituitary extract in\n the cerebrum. It isn't more than necessary to stop headaches. But that\n necessary amount of control to stop pain is too much to allow the brain\n cells to function properly.\"\n\n\n \"Why won't they function?\" Carson roared.\n\n\n \"They don't get enough food\u2014blood, oxygen, hemoglobin,\" Ferris\n explained. \"The cerebral vessels don't contract enough to pump the\n blood through the brain as fast and as hard as is needed. The brain\n cells remain sluggish, dormant. Perhaps decaying.\"\n\n\n The colonel yelled.\n\n\n Mitchell groaned. He was abruptly sure Ferris was correct.\nThe colonel drew himself to attention, fists trembling at his sides.\n \"I'll see you hung for treason! Don't you know what Elliot Macklin\n means to us? Do you want those filthy Luxemburgians to reach Pluto\n before we do? Macklin's formula is essential to the FTL engine. You\n might just as well have blown up Washington, D.C. Better! The capital\n is replaceable. But the chances of an Elliot Macklin are very nearly\n once in a human race.\"\n\n\n \"Just a moment,\" Mitchell interrupted, \"we can cure Macklin.\"\n\n\n \"You\ncan\n?\" Carson said. For a moment Mitchell thought the man was\n going to clasp his hands and sink to his knees.\n\n\n \"Certainly. We have learned to stabilize the virus colonies. We have\n antitoxin to combat the virus. We had always thought of it as a\n beneficial parasite, but we can wipe it out if necessary.\"\n\n\n \"Good!\" Carson clasped his hands and gave at least slightly at the\n knees.\n\n\n \"Just you wait a second now, boys,\" Elliot Macklin said. He was leaning\n in the doorway, holding his pipe. \"I've been listening to what you've\n been saying and I don't like it.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean you don't like it?\" Carson demanded. He added, \"Sir?\"\n\n\n \"I figure you mean to put me back like I used to be.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, doctor,\" Mitchell said eagerly, \"just as you used to be.\"\n\n\n \"\nWith\nmy headaches, like before?\"\n\n\n Mitchell coughed into his fist for an instant, to give him time to\n frame an answer. \"Unfortunately, yes. Apparently if your mind functions\n properly once again you will have the headaches again. Our research is\n a dismal failure.\"\n\n\n \"I wouldn't go that far,\" Ferris remarked cheerfully.\n\n\n Mitchell was about to ask his associate what he meant when he saw\n Macklin slowly shaking his head.\n\n\n \"No, sir!\" the mathematician said. \"I shall not go back to my original\n state. I can remember what it was like. Always worrying, worrying,\n worrying.\"\n\n\n \"You mean wondering,\" Mitchell said.\n\n\n Macklin nodded. \"Troubled, anyway. Disturbed by every little thing.\n How high was up, which infinity was bigger than what infinity\u2014say,\n what was an infinity anyway? All that sort of schoolboy things. It's\n peaceful this way. My head doesn't hurt. I've got a good-looking wife\n and all the money I need. I've got it made. Why worry?\"\n\n\n Colonel Carson opened his mouth, then closed it.\n\n\n \"That's right, Colonel. There's no use in arguing with him,\" Mitchell\n said.\n\n\n \"It's not his decision to make,\" the colonel said. \"He's an idiot now.\"\n\n\n \"No, Colonel. As you said, he's a moron. He seems an idiot compared to\n his former level of intelligence but he's legally responsible. There\n are millions of morons running around loose in the United States. They\n can get married, own property, vote, even hold office. Many of them\n do. You can't force him into being cured.... At least, I don't\nthink\nyou can.\"\n\n\n \"No, I can't. This is hardly a totalitarian state.\" The colonel looked\n momentarily glum that it wasn't.\n\n\n Mitchell looked back at Macklin. \"Where did his wife get to, Colonel?\n I don't think that even previously he made too many personal decisions\n for himself. Perhaps she could influence him.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe,\" the colonel said. \"Let's find her.\"\nThey found Mrs. Macklin in the dining room, her face at the picture\n window an attractive silhouette. She turned as the men approached.\n\n\n \"Mrs. Macklin,\" the colonel began, \"these gentlemen believe they can\n cure your husband of his present condition.\"\n\n\n \"Really?\" she said. \"Did you speak to Elliot about that?\"\n\n\n \"Y-yes,\" Colonel Carson said, \"but he's not himself. He refused the\n treatment. He wants to remain in his state of lower intelligence.\"\n\n\n She nodded. \"If those are his wishes, I can't go against them.\"\n\n\n \"But Mrs. Macklin!\" Mitchell protested. \"You will have to get a court\n order overruling your husband's wishes.\"\n\n\n She smoothed an eyebrow with the third finger of her right hand. \"That\n was my original thought. But I've redecided.\"\n\n\n \"Redecided!\" Carson burst out almost hysterically.\n\n\n \"Yes. I can't go against Elliot's wishes. It would be monstrous to put\n him back where he would suffer the hell of those headaches once again,\n where he never had a moment's peace from worry and pressure. He's happy\n now. Like a child, but happy.\"\n\n\n \"Mrs. Macklin,\" the Army man said levelly, \"if you don't help us\n restore your husband's mind we will be forced to get a court order\n declaring him incompetent.\"\n\n\n \"But he is not! Legally, I mean,\" the woman stormed.\n\n\n \"Maybe not. It's a borderline case. But I think any court would give us\n the edge where restoring the mind of Elliot Macklin was concerned. Once\n he's certified incompetent, authorities can rule whether Mitchell and\n Ferris' antitoxin treatment is the best method of restoring Dr. Macklin\n to sanity.\"\n\n\n \"I doubt very much if the court would rule in that manner,\" she said.\n\n\n The colonel looked smug. \"Why not?\"\n\n\n \"Because, Colonel, the matter of my husband's health, his very life, is\n involved.\"\n\n\n \"There is some degree of risk in shock treatments, too. But\u2014\"\n\n\n \"It isn't quite the same, Colonel. Elliot Macklin has a history of\n vascular spasm, a mild pseudostroke some years ago. Now you want to\n give those cerebral arteries back the ability to constrict. To\n paralyze. To kill. No court would give you that authority.\"\n\n\n \"I suppose there's some chance of that. But without the treatment\n there is\nno\nchance of your husband regaining his right senses, Mrs.\n Macklin,\" Mitchell interjected.\n\n\n Her mouth grew petulant. \"I don't care. I would rather have a live\n husband than a dead genius. I can take care of him this way, make him\n comfortable....\"\n\n\n Carson opened his mouth and closed his fist, then relaxed. Mitchell led\n him back into the hall.\n\n\n \"I'm no psychiatrist,\" Mitchell said, \"but I think she wants Macklin\n stupid. Prefers it that way. She's always dominated his personal life,\n and now she can dominate him completely.\"\n\n\n \"What is she? A monster?\" the Army officer muttered.\n\n\n \"No,\" Mitchell said. \"She's an intelligent woman unconsciously jealous\n of her husband's genius.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe,\" Carson said. \"I don't know. I don't know what the hell to tell\n the Pentagon. I think I'll go out and get drunk.\"\n\n\n \"I'll go with you,\" Ferris said.\n\n\n Mitchell glanced sharply at the little biologist.\n\n\n Carson squinted. \"Any particular reason, doctor?\"\n\n\n \"To celebrate,\" Ferris said.\n\n\n The colonel shrugged. \"That's as good a reason as any.\"\n\n\n On the street, Mitchell watched the two men go off together in\n bewilderment.\nIV\n\n\n Macklin was playing jacks.\n\n\n He didn't have a head on his shoulders and he was squatting on a great\n curving surface that was Spacetime, and his jacks were Earth and Pluto\n and the rest of the planets. And for a ball he was using a head. Not\n his head. Mitchell's. Both heads were initialed \"M\" so it was all the\n same.\nMitchell forced himself to awaken, with some initial difficulty.\n\n\n He lay there, blinking the sleep out of his eyes, listening to his\n heart race, and then convulsively snatched the telephone receiver from\n the nightstand. He stabbed out a number with a vicious index finger.\n\n\n After a time there came a dull click and a sleepy answer.\n\n\n \"Hello?\" Elliot Macklin said.\n\n\n Mitchell smiled to himself. He was in luck; Macklin had answered the\n phone instead of his wife.\n\n\n \"Can you speak freely, doctor?\" Mitchell asked.\n\n\n \"Of course,\" the mathematician said. \"I can talk fine.\"\n\n\n \"I mean, are you alone?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, you want to know if my wife is around. No, she's asleep. That Army\n doctor, Colonel Sidney, he gave her a sedative. I wouldn't let him give\n me anything, though.\"\n\n\n \"Good boy,\" the biologist said. \"Listen, doctor\u2014Elliot\u2014El, old son.\n I'm not against you like all the others. I don't want to make you go\n back to all that worrying and thinking and headaches. You believe me,\n don't you?\"\n\n\n There was a slight hesitation.\n\n\n \"Sure,\" Macklin said, \"if you say so. Why shouldn't I believe you?\"\n\n\n \"But there was a hesitation there, El. You worried for just a second if\n I could have some reason for not telling you the truth.\"\n\n\n \"I suppose so,\" Macklin said humbly.\n\n\n \"You've found yourself worrying\u2014thinking\u2014about a lot of other\n problems since we left you, haven't you? Maybe not the same kind of\n scientific problem. But more personal ones, ones you didn't used to\n have time to think about.\"\n\n\n \"If you say so.\"\n\n\n \"Now, you know it's so. But how would you like to get rid of those\n worries just as you got rid of the others?\" Mitchell asked.\n\n\n \"I guess I'd like that,\" the mathematician replied.\n\n\n \"Then come on over to my laboratory. You remember where it's at, don't\n you?\"\n\n\n \"No, I\u2014yes, I guess I do. But how do I know you won't try to put me\n back where I was instead of helping me more?\"\n\n\n \"I couldn't do that against your wishes. That would be illegal!\"\n\n\n \"If you say so. But I don't guess I can come anyway. The Army is\n watching me pretty close.\"\n\n\n \"That's alright,\" Mitchell said quickly. \"You can bring along Colonel\n Carson.\"\n\n\n \"But he won't like you fixing me up more.\"\n\n\n \"But he can't stop me! Not if you want me to do it. Now listen to me\u2014I\n want you to come right on over here, El.\"\n\n\n \"If you say so,\" Macklin said uncertainly.",
    "61242": "The Winning of the Moon\nBY KRIS NEVILLE\nThe enemy was friendly enough.\n\n Trouble was\u2014their friendship\n\n was as dangerous as their hate!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1962.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nGeneral Finogenov notified Major Winship that the underground blast was\n scheduled for the following morning.\n\n\n Major Winship, after receiving the message, discussed precautions with\n the three other Americans.\n\n\n Next morning, before the sunlight exploded, the four of them donned\n their space suits and went and sat outside the dome, waiting. The sun\n rose with its bright, silent clap of radiance. Black pools of shadows\n lay in harsh contrast, their edges drawn with geometric precision.\n\n\n Major Winship attempted unsuccessfully to communicate with Base\n Gagarin. \"Will you please request the general to keep us informed on\n the progress of the countdown?\"\n\n\n \"Is Pinov,\" came the reply. \"Help?\"\n\n\n \"\nNyet\n,\" said Major Winship, exhausting his Russian. \"Count down.\n Progress. When\u2014boom?\"\n\n\n \"Is Pinov,\" came the reply.\n\n\n \"Boom! Boom!\" said Major Winship in exasperation.\n\n\n \"Boom!\" said Pinov happily.\n\n\n \"When?\"\n\n\n \"Boom\u2014boom!\" said Pinov.\n\n\n \"Oh, nuts.\" Major Winship cut out the circuit. \"They've got Pinov on\n emergency watch this morning,\" he explained to the other Americans.\n \"The one that doesn't speak English.\"\n\n\n \"He's done it deliberately,\" said Capt. Wilkins, the eldest of the four\n Americans. \"How are we going to know when it's over?\"\n\n\n No one bothered to respond. They sat for a while in silence while the\n shadows evaporated. One by one they clicked on their cooling systems.\n\n\n Ultimately, Lt. Chandler said, \"This is a little ridiculous. I'm going\n to switch over to their channel. Rap if you want me.\" He sat transfixed\n for several minutes. \"Ah, it's all Russian. Jabbering away. I can't\n tell a thing that's going on.\"\n\n\n In the airless void of the moon, the blast itself would be silent. A\n moth's wing of dust would, perhaps, rise and settle beyond the horizon:\n no more.\n\n\n \"Static?\"\n\n\n \"Nope.\"\n\n\n \"We'll get static on these things.\"\n\n\n A small infinity seemed to pass very slowly.\n\n\n Major Winship shifted restlessly. \"My reefer's gone on the fritz.\"\n Perspiration was trickling down his face.\n\n\n \"Let's all go in,\" said the fourth American, Capt. Lawler. \"It's\n probably over by now.\"\n\n\n \"I'll try again,\" Major Winship said and switched to the emergency\n channel. \"Base Gagarin? Base Gagarin?\"\n\n\n \"Is Pinov. Help?\"\n\n\n \"\nNyet.\n\"\n\n\n \"Pinov's still there,\" Major Winship said.\n\n\n \"Tell him, 'Help',\" said Capt. Wilkins, \"so he'll get somebody we can\n talk to.\"\n\n\n \"I'll see them all in hell, first,\" Major Winship said.\n\n\n Five minutes later, the perspiration was rivers across his face. \"This\n is it,\" he said. \"I'm going in.\"\n\n\n \"Let's all\u2014\"\n\n\n \"No. I've got to cool off.\"\n\n\n \"Hell, Charlie, I feel stupid sitting out here,\" Capt. Lawler said.\n \"The shot probably went off an hour ago.\"\n\n\n \"The static level hasn't gone up much, if at all.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe,\" Lt. Chandler said, \"it's buried too deep.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe so,\" Major Winship said. \"But we can't have the dome fall down\n around all our ears.\" He stood. \"Whew! You guys stay put.\"\nHe crossed with the floating moon-motion to the airlock and entered,\n closing the door behind him. The darkness slowly filled with air, and\n the temperature inside the suit declined steadily. At the proper moment\n of pressure, the inner lock slid open and Major Winship stepped into\n the illuminated central area. His foot was lifted for the second step\n when the floor beneath him rose and fell gently, pitching him forward,\n off balance. He stumbled against the table and ended up seated beside\n the radio equipment. The ground moved again.\n\n\n \"Charlie! Charlie!\"\n\n\n \"I'm okay,\" Major Winship answered. \"Okay! Okay!\"\n\n\n \"It's\u2014\"\n\n\n There was additional surface movement. The movement ceased.\n\n\n \"Hey, Les, how's it look?\" Capt. Wilkins asked.\n\n\n \"Okay from this side. Charlie, you still okay?\"\n\n\n \"Okay,\" Major Winship said. \"We told them this might happen,\" he added\n bitterly.\n\n\n There was a wait during which everyone seemed to be holding their\n breath.\n\n\n \"I guess it's over,\" said Major Winship, getting to his feet. \"Wait a\n bit more, there may be an after-shock.\" He switched once again to the\n emergency channel.\n\n\n \"Is Pinov,\" came the supremely relaxed voice. \"Help?\"\n\n\n Major Winship whinnied in disgust. \"\nNyet!\n\" he snarled. To the other\n Americans: \"Our comrades seem unconcerned.\"\n\n\n \"Tough.\"\n\n\n They began to get the static for the first time. It crackled and\n snapped in their speakers. They made sounds of disapproval at each\n other. For a minute or two, static blanked out the communications\n completely. It then abated to something in excess of normal.\n\n\n \"Well,\" Lt. Chandler commented, \"even though we didn't build this thing\n to withstand a moonquake, it seems to have stood up all right.\"\n\n\n \"I guess I was just\u2014\" Major Winship began. \"Oh, hell! We're losing\n pressure. Where's the markers?\"\n\n\n \"By the lug cabinet.\"\n\n\n \"Got 'em,\" Major Winship said a moment later.\n\n\n He peeled back a marker and let it fall. Air currents whisked it away\n and plastered it against a riveted seam of the dome. It pulsed as\n though it were breathing and then it ruptured.\n\n\n Major Winship moved quickly to cut out the emergency air supply which\n had cut in automatically with the pressure drop. \"You guys wait. It's\n on your right side, midway up. I'll try to sheet it.\"\n\n\n He moved for the plastic sheeting.\n\n\n \"We've lost about three feet of calk out here,\" Capt. Lawler said. \"I\n can see more ripping loose. You're losing pressure fast at this rate.\"\n\n\n Major Winship pressed the sheeting over the leak. \"How's that?\"\n\n\n \"Not yet.\"\n\n\n \"I don't think I've got enough pressure left to hold it, now. It's\n sprung a little, and I can't get it to conform over the rivet heads.\"\n\n\n There was a splatter of static.\n\n\n \"Damn!\" Major Winship said, \"they should have made these things more\n flexible.\"\n\n\n \"Still coming out.\"\n\n\n \"Best I can do.\" Major Winship stepped back. The sheet began slowly\n to slide downward, then it fell away completely and lay limply on the\n floor.\n\n\n \"Come on in,\" he said dryly.\nWith the four of them inside, it was somewhat cramped. Most of the\n five hundred square feet was filled with equipment. Electrical cables\n trailed loosely along the walls and were festooned from the ceiling,\n radiating from the connections to the outside solar cells. The living\n space was more restricted than in a submarine, with the bunks jutting\n out from the walls about six feet from the floor.\n\n\n Lt. Chandler mounted one of the bunks to give them more room. \"Well,\"\n he said wryly, \"it doesn't smell as bad now.\"\n\n\n \"Oops,\" said Major Winship. \"Just a second. They're coming in.\" He\n switched over to the emergency channel. It was General Finogenov.\n\n\n \"Major Winship! Hello! Hello, hello, hello. You A Okay?\"\n\n\n \"This is Major Winship.\"\n\n\n \"Oh! Excellent, very good. Any damage, Major?\"\n\n\n \"Little leak. You?\"\n\n\n \"Came through without damage.\" General Finogenov paused a moment. When\n no comment was forthcoming, he continued: \"Perhaps we built a bit more\n strongly, Major.\"\n\n\n \"You did this deliberately,\" Major Winship said testily.\n\n\n \"No, no. Oh, no, no, no, no. Major Winship, please believe me. I very\n much regret this. Very much so. I am very distressed. Depressed. After\n repeatedly assuring you there was no danger of a quake\u2014and then to\n have something like this happen. Oh, this is very embarrassing to me.\n Is there anything at all we can do?\"\n\n\n \"Just leave us alone, thank you,\" Major Winship said and cut off the\n communication.\n\n\n \"What'd they say?\" Capt. Wilkins asked.\n\n\n \"Larry, General Finogenov said he was very embarrassed by this.\"\n\n\n \"That's nice,\" Lt. Chandler said.\n\n\n \"I'll be damned surprised,\" Major Winship said, \"if they got any\n seismic data out of that shot.... Well, to hell with them, let's get\n this leak fixed. Skip, can you get the calking compound?\"\n\n\n \"Larry, where's the inventory?\"\n\n\n \"Les has got it.\"\n\n\n Lt. Chandler got down from the bunk and Capt. Wilkins mounted.\n\n\n \"Larry,\" Major Winship said, \"why don't you get Earth?\"\n\n\n \"Okay.\"\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins got down from the bunk and Capt. Lawler ascended.\n\n\n \"Got the inventory sheet, Les?\"\n\n\n \"Right here.\"\n\n\n Squeezed in front of the massive transmitter, Capt. Wilkins had\n energized the circuits. There was a puzzled look on his face. He leaned\n his helmet against the speaker and then shook his head sadly. \"We can't\n hear anything without any air.\"\n\n\n Major Winship looked at the microphone. \"Well, I'll just report and\u2014\"\n He started to pick up the microphone and reconsidered. \"Yes,\" he said.\n \"That's right, isn't it.\"\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins flicked off the transmitter. \"Some days you don't mine at\n all,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Les, have you found it?\"\n\n\n \"It's around here somewhere. Supposed to be back here.\"\n\n\n \"Well,\nfind\nit.\"\n\n\n Lt. Chandler began moving boxes. \"I saw it\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Skip, help look.\"\n\n\n Capt. Lawler got down from the bunk and Major Winship mounted. \"We\n haven't got all day.\"\n\n\n A few minutes later, Lt. Chandler issued the triumphant cry. \"Here it\n is! Dozen tubes. Squeeze tubes. It's the new stuff.\"\n\n\n Major Winship got down and Capt. Wilkins got up.\n\n\n \"Marker showed it over here,\" Major Winship said, inching over to the\n wall. He traced the leak with a metallic finger.\n\n\n \"How does this stuff work?\" Capt. Lawler asked.\n\n\n They huddled over the instruction sheet.\n\n\n \"Let's see. Squeeze the tube until the diaphragm at the nozzle\n ruptures. Extrude paste into seam. Allow to harden one hour before\n service.\"\n\n\n Major Winship said dryly, \"Never mind. I notice it hardens on contact\n with air.\"\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins lay back on the bunk and stared upward. He said, \"Now\n that makes a weird kind of sense, doesn't it?\"\n\n\n \"How do they possibly think\u2014?\"\n\n\n \"Gentlemen! It doesn't make any difference,\" Lt. Chandler said. \"Some\n air must already have leaked into this one. It's hard as a rock. A\n gorilla couldn't extrude it.\"\n\n\n \"How're the other ones?\" asked Major Winship.\n\n\n Lt. Chandler turned and made a quick examination. \"Oh, they're all\n hard, too.\"\n\n\n \"Who was supposed to check?\" demanded Capt. Wilkins in exasperation.\n\n\n \"The only way you can check is to extrude it,\" Lt. Chandler said, \"and\n if it does extrude, you've ruined it.\"\n\n\n \"That's that,\" Major Winship said. \"There's nothing for it but to yell\n help.\"\nII\n\n\n Capt. Lawler and Lt. Chandler took the land car to Base Gagarin. The\n Soviet base was situated some ten miles toward sunset at the bottom of\n a natural fold in the surface. The route was moderately direct to the\n tip of the gently rolling ridge. At that point, the best pathway angled\n left and made an S-shaped descent to the basin. It was a one-way trip\n of approximately thirty exhausting minutes.\n\n\n Major Winship, with his deficient reefer, remained behind. Capt.\n Wilkins stayed for company.\n\n\n \"I want a cigarette in the worst way,\" Capt. Wilkins said.\n\n\n \"So do I, Larry. Shouldn't be more than a couple of hours. Unless\n something else goes wrong.\"\n\n\n \"As long as they'll loan us the calking compound,\" Capt. Wilkins said.\n\n\n \"Yeah, yeah,\" Major Winship said.\n\n\n \"Let's eat.\"\n\n\n \"You got any concentrate? I'm empty.\"\n\n\n \"I'll load you,\" Capt. Wilkins volunteered wearily.\n\n\n It was an awkward operation that took several minutes. Capt. Wilkins\n cursed twice during the operation. \"I'd hate to live in this thing for\n any period.\"\n\n\n \"I think these suits are one thing we've got over the Russians,\" Major\n Winship said. \"I don't see how they can manipulate those bulky pieces\n of junk around.\"\n\n\n They ate.\n\n\n \"Really horrible stuff.\"\n\n\n \"Nutritious.\"\n\n\n After the meal, Major Winship said reflectively, \"Now I'd like a cup of\n hot tea. I'm cooled off.\"\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins raised eyebrows. \"What brought this on?\"\n\n\n \"I was just thinking.... They really got it made, Larry. They've got\n better than three thousand square feet in the main dome and better than\n twelve hundred square feet in each of the two little ones. And there's\n only seven of them right now. That's living.\"\n\n\n \"They've been here six years longer, after all.\"\n\n\n \"Finogenov had a\nclay\nsamovar sent up. Lemon and nutmeg, too. Real,\n by God, fresh lemons for the tea, the last time I was there. His own\n office is about ten by ten. Think of that. One hundred square feet. And\n a wooden desk. A\nwooden\ndesk. And a chair. A wooden chair. Everything\n big and heavy. Everything. Weight, hell. Fifty pounds more or less\u2014\"\n\n\n \"They've got the power-plants for it.\"\n\n\n \"Do you think he did that deliberately?\" Major Winship asked. \"I think\n he's trying to force us off. I think he hoped for the quake. Gagarin's\n built to take it, I'll say that. Looks like it, anyhow. You don't\n suppose they planned this all along? Even if they didn't, they sure got\n the jump on us again, didn't they? I told you what he told me?\"\n\n\n \"You told me,\" Capt. Wilkins said.\nAfter a moment, Major Winship said bitterly, \"To hell with the Russian\n engineer.\"\n\n\n \"If you've got all that power....\"\n\n\n \"That's the thing. That's the thing that gripes me, know what I mean?\n It's just insane to send up a heavy wooden desk. That's showing off.\n Like a little kid.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe they don't make aluminum desks.\"\n\n\n \"They've\u2014got\u2014aluminum. Half of everything on the whole planet is\n aluminum. You know they're just showing off.\"\n\n\n \"Let me wire you up,\" Capt. Wilkins said. \"We ought to report.\"\n\n\n \"That's going to take awhile.\"\n\n\n \"It's something to do while we wait.\"\n\n\n \"I guess we ought to.\" Major Winship came down from the bunk and\n sat with his back toward the transmitter. Capt. Wilkins slewed the\n equipment around until the emergency jacks were accessible. He\n unearthed the appropriate cable and began unscrewing the exterior\n plate to the small transmitter-receiver set on Major Winship's back.\n Eventually, trailing wires, Major Winship was coupled into the network.\n \"Okay?\"\n\n\n \"Okay,\" Major Winship gestured.\n\n\n They roused Earth.\n\n\n \"This is Major Charles Winship, Commanding Officer, Freedom 19, the\n American moonbase.\"\n\n\n At this point, Major Winship observed for the first time that he was\n now on emergency air. He started to ask Capt. Wilkins to change his\n air bottle, but then he realized his communications were cut off. He\n reached over and rapped Capt. Wilkins' helmet.\n\n\n \"This is the Cape. Come in, Major Winship.\"\n\n\n \"Just a moment.\"\n\n\n \"Is everything all right?\"\n\n\n Major Winship was squirming nervously, obviously perturbed.\n\n\n \"A-Okay,\" he said. \"Just a moment.\"\n\n\n \"What's wrong?\" came the worried question. In the background, he heard\n someone say, \"I think there's something wrong.\"\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins peered intently. Major Winship contorted his face in a\n savage grimace.\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins raised his eyebrows in alarm. They were face to face\n through their helmets, close together. Each face appeared monstrously\n large to the other.\n\n\n Major Winship made a strangling motion and reached for his throat. One\n arm tangled a cable and jerked the speaker jack loose. Major Winship\n could no longer hear the alarmed expressions from the Cape. The effort\n was not entirely subvocal, since he emitted a little gasping cry in\n involuntary realism.\n\n\n This, in the course of some 90 seconds, was transmitted to Earth.\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins's lips were desperately forming the word \"Leak?\"\n\n\n Air, Major Winship said silently.\n\n\n Leak?\n\n\n Bottle! Bottle! Bottle! It was a frog-like, unvocal expletive.\nComprehension dawned. Capt. Wilkins nodded and started to turn away.\n Major Winship caught his arm and nodded his head toward the loose jack.\n\n\n Oh.\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins nodded and smiled. He reached across and plugged the\n speaker in again.\n\n\n \"... Freedom 19! Hello, Freedom 19! Come in!\"\n\n\n \"We're here,\" Major Winship said.\n\n\n \"All right? Are you all right?\"\n\n\n \"We're all right. A-Okay.\" Major Winship, mindful of the extent of his\n potential audience, took a deep breath. \"Earlier this morning, the\n Soviet Union fired an underground atomic device for the\nostensible\npurpose of investigating the composition of the lunar mass by means of\n seismic analysis of the resultant shock waves. This was done in spite\n of American warnings that such a disturbance might release accumulated\n stresses in the long undisturbed satellite, and was done in the face of\n vigorous American protests.\"\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins tapped his helmet and gestured for him to swivel around.\n The turn was uncomfortably tight and complicated by the restraining\n cables. Capt. Wilkins began replacement of the air bottle.\n\n\n \"These protests have proved well founded,\" Major Winship continued.\n \"Immediately following the detonation, Freedom 19 was called on to\n withstand a moderately severe shifting of the Lunar surface. No\n personnel were injured and there was no equipment damage.\"\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins tapped his shoulder to indicate the new air bottle was\n being inserted. Another tap indicated it was seated. Major Winship\n flicked the appropriate chest button and nodded in appreciation.\n\n\n \"However,\" he continued, \"we did experience a minor leak in the dome,\n which is presently being repaired.\"\n\n\n \"The Soviet Union,\" came the reply, \"has reported the disturbance and\n has tendered their official apology. You want it?\"\n\n\n \"It can wait until later. Send it by mail for all I care. Vacuum has\n destroyed our organic air reconditioner. We have approximately three\n weeks of emergency air. However, Base Gagarin reports no damage, so\n that, in the event we exhaust our air, we will be able to obtain the\n necessary replacement.\"\n\n\n The wait of a little better than three seconds for the response gave\n the conversation a tone of deliberation.\n\n\n A new voice came on. \"We tried to contact you earlier, Major. We will\n be able to deliver replacements in about ten days.\"\n\n\n \"I will forward a coded report on the occurrence,\" Major Winship said.\n\n\n \"Let us hear from you again in ... about three hours. Is the leak\n repaired?\"\n\n\n \"The leak has not yet been repaired. Over and out.\"\n\n\n He nodded to Capt. Wilkins and leaned back.\n\n\n Methodically, Capt. Wilkins set about disconnecting the major from the\n transmitter.\n\n\n \"Wow!\" said Major Winship when he was once more in communication. \"For\n a moment there, I thought....\"\n\n\n \"What?\" Capt. Wilkins asked with interest.\n\n\n \"I could see myself asking them to ask the Russians to ask Finogenov\n to get on the emergency channel to ask you to charge the air bottle.\n I never felt so ... idiotic is not quite strong enough ... there for a\n minute in my whole life. I didn't know how much emergency air was left,\n and I thought, my God, I'll never live this down. All the hams in the\n world listening, while I try to explain the situation. I could see the\n nickname being entered in my files: aka. The Airless Idiot. I tell you,\n that was rough.\"\nIII\n\n\n Capt. Lawler and Lt. Chandler returned with the calking compound. It\n occupied the rear section of the land car. Lt. Chandler sat atop it. It\n was a fifty-five gallon drum.\n\n\n The airlock to Freedom 19 was open. \"What is\nthat\n?\" asked Major\n Winship, squinting out into the glaring sunlight.\n\n\n \"That,\" said Capt. Lawler, \"is the calking compound.\"\n\n\n \"You're kidding,\" said Capt. Wilkins.\n\n\n \"I am not kidding.\"\n\n\n Capt. Lawler and Lt. Chandler came inside. Capt. Wilkins mounted a bunk.\n\n\n \"Why didn't you just borrow a cupful?\" Major Winship said sarcastically.\n\n\n \"It's this way,\" Lt. Chandler said. \"They didn't have anything but\n 55-gallon drums of it.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, my,\" said Capt. Wilkins. \"I suppose it's a steel drum. Those\n things must weigh....\"\n\n\n \"Actually, I think you guys have got the general wrong,\" Capt. Lawler\n said. \"He was out, himself, to greet us. I think he was really quite\n upset by the quake. Probably because his people had misfigured so bad.\"\n\n\n \"He's too damned suspicious,\" Major Winship said. \"You know and I know\n why they set that blast off. I tried to tell him. Hell. He looks at me\n like an emasculated owl and wants to know our ulterior motive in trying\n to prevent a purely scientific experiment, the results of which will be\n published in the technical press for the good of everybody. I'll bet!\"\n\n\n \"About this drum,\" Capt. Wilkins said.\n\n\n \"Well, like I said, it's this way,\" Lt. Chandler resumed. \"I told him\n we needed about a pint. Maybe a quart. But this stuff you have to mix\n up. He only had these drums. There's two parts to it, and you have to\n combine them in just the right proportion. He told me to take a little\n scale\u2014\"\n\n\n \"A little scale?\" asked Capt. Wilkins, rolling his eyes at the dome.\n\n\n \"That's what I told him. We don't have any little scale.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" said Captain Lawler, \"and he looked at us with that mute,\n surprised look, like everybody, everywhere has dozens of little\n scales.\"\n\n\n \"Well, anyway,\" Lt. Chandler continued, \"he told us just to mix up the\n whole fifty-five gallon drum. There's a little bucket of stuff that\n goes in, and it's measured just right. We can throw away what we don't\n need.\"\n\n\n \"Somehow, that sounds like him,\" Major Winship said.\n\n\n \"He had five or six of them.\"\n\n\n \"Jesus!\" said Capt. Wilkins. \"That must be\nthree thousand pounds\nof\n calking compound. Those people are insane.\"\n\n\n \"The question is,\" Capt. Lawler said, \"'How are we going to mix it?'\n It's supposed to be mixed thoroughly.\"\n\n\n They thought over the problem for a while.\n\n\n \"That will be a man-sized job,\" Major Winship said.\n\n\n \"Let's see, Charlie. Maybe not too bad,\" said Capt. Wilkins. \"If I took\n the compressor motor, we could make up a shaft and ... let's see ... if\n we could....\"\nIt took the better part of an hour to rig up the electric mixer.\n\n\n Capt. Wilkins was profusely congratulated.\n\n\n \"Now,\" Major Winship said, \"we can either bring the drum inside or take\n the mixer out there.\"\n\n\n \"We're going to have to bring the drum in,\" Capt. Wilkins said.\n\n\n \"Well,\" said Capt. Lawler, \"that will make it nice and cozy.\"\n\n\n It took the four of them to roll the drum inside, rocking it back and\n forth through the airlock. At that time, it was apparent the table was\n interposing itself.\n\n\n Lt. Chandler tried to dismantle the table. \"Damn these suits,\" he said.\n\n\n \"You've got it stuck between the bunk post.\"\n\n\n \"I\nknow\nthat.\"\n\n\n \"I don't think this is the way to do it,\" Major Winship said. \"Let's\n back the drum out.\"\n\n\n Reluctantly, they backed the drum out and deposited it. With the aid of\n Capt. Lawler, Lt. Chandler got the table unstuck. They passed it over\n to Major Winship, who handed it out to Capt. Wilkins. Captain Wilkins\n carried it around the drum of calking compound and set it down. It\n rested uneasily on the uneven surface.\n\n\n \"Now, let's go,\" said Major Winship.\n\n\n Eventually, they accomplished the moving. They wedged the drum between\n the main air-supply tank and the transmitter. They were all perspiring.\n \"It's not the weight, it's the mass,\" said Capt. Wilkins brightly.\n\n\n \"The hell it isn't the weight,\" said Lt. Chandler. \"That's heavy.\"\n\n\n \"With my reefer out,\" said Major Winship, \"I'm the one it's rough on.\"\n He shook perspiration out of his eyes. \"They should figure a way to get\n a mop in here, or a towel, or a sponge, or something. I'll bet you've\n forgotten how much sweat stings in the eyes.\"\n\n\n \"It's the salt.\"\n\n\n \"Speaking of salt. I wish I had some salt tablets,\" Major Winship said.\n \"I've never sweat so much since basic.\"\n\n\n \"Want to bet Finogenov hasn't got a bushel of them?\"\n\n\n \"No!\" Major Winship snapped.\nWith the drum of calking compound inside, both Capt. Lawler and Lt.\n Chandler retreated to the bunks. Capt. Wilkins maneuvered the mixing\n attachment. \"I feel crowded,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Cozy's the word.\"\n\n\n \"Watch it! Watch it! You almost hit me in the face plate with that!\"\n\n\n \"Sorry.\"\n\n\n At length the mixer was in operation in the drum.\n\n\n \"Works perfectly,\" said Capt. Wilkins proudly.\n\n\n \"Now what, Skip? The instructions aren't in English.\"\n\n\n \"You're supposed to dump the bucket of stuff in. Then clean the area\n thoroughly around the leak.\"\n\n\n \"With what?\" asked Major Winship.\n\n\n \"Sandpaper, I guess.\"\n\n\n \"With sandpaper?\" Major Winship said, emptying the bucket of fluid into\n the drum. \"We don't have any sandpaper.\"\n\n\n \"It's been a long day,\" Capt. Wilkins said.\n\n\n \"Mix it thoroughly,\" Lt. Chandler mused. \"I guess that means let it mix\n for about ten minutes or so. Then you apply it. It sets for service in\n just a little bit, Finogenov said. An hour or so, maybe.\"\n\n\n \"I hope this doesn't set on exposure to air.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Capt. Lawler said. \"It sets by some kind of chemical action.\n General Finogenov wasn't sure of the English name for it. Some kind of\n plastic.\"\n\n\n \"Let's come back to how we're going to clean around the leak,\" Major\n Winship said.\n\n\n \"Say, I\u2014\" interrupted Capt. Wilkins. There was a trace of concern\n in his voice. \"This is a hell of a time for this to occur to\n me. I just wasn't thinking, before.\nYou don't suppose it's a\n room-temperature-curing epoxy resin, do you?\n\"\n\n\n \"Larry,\" said Major Winship, \"I wouldn't know a room-temperature-curing\n epoxy resin from\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Hey!\" exclaimed Capt. Wilkins. \"The mixer's stopped.\" He bent forward\n and touched the drum. He jerked back. \"Ye Gods! that's hot! And it's\n harder than a rock! It\nis\nan epoxy! Let's get out of here.\"\n\n\n \"Huh?\"\n\n\n \"Out! Out!\"\n\n\n Major Winship, Lt. Chandler, and Capt. Lawler, recognizing the sense of\n urgency, simultaneously glanced at the drum. It was glowing cherry red.\n\n\n \"Let's go!\" Capt. Wilkins said.\n\n\n He and the Major reached the airlock at the same time and became\n temporarily engaged with each other. Movement was somewhat ungainly\n in the space suits under the best of conditions, and now, with the\n necessity for speed, was doubly so. The other two crashed into them\n from behind, and they spewed forth from the dome in a tangle of arms\n and legs.\n\n\n At the table, they separated, two going to the left, two to the right.\n The table remained untouched.\n\n\n When they halted, Capt. Wilkins said, \"Get to one side, it may go off\n like shrapnel.\" They obeyed.\n\n\n \"What\u2014what\u2014what?\" Capt. Lawler stuttered.\n\n\n They were still separated, two on one side of the airlock, two on the\n other.\n\n\n \"I'm going to try to look,\" Capt. Wilkins said. \"Let me go.\" He\n lumbered directly away from the dome for a distance of about fifteen\n feet, then turned and positioned himself, some five feet behind the\n table, on a line of sight with the airlock.\n\n\n \"I can see it,\" he said. \"It's getting redder. It's ... it's ...\n melting, yes. Melting down at the bottom a little. Now it's falling\n over to one side and laying on the air tank. The air tank is getting\n red, too. I'm afraid ... it's weakening it.... Redder. Oh, oh.\"\n\n\n \"What?\" said Capt. Lawler.\n\n\n \"Watch out! There.\nThere!\n\" Capt. Wilkins leaped from his position.\n He was still floating toward the ground when there was an incredibly\n bright flare from inside the dome, and a great, silent tongue of flame\n lashed through the airlock and rolled across the lunar surface. The\n table was sent tumbling. The flame was gone almost instantly.\n\"There went the air,\" Capt. Lawler commented.\n\n\n \"We got T-Trouble,\" said Lt. Chandler.",
    "62198": "QUEST OF THIG\nBy BASIL WELLS\nThig of Ortha was the vanguard of the conquering\n\n \"HORDE.\" He had blasted across trackless space\n\n to subdue a defenseless world\u2014only to meet on\n\n Earth emotions that were more deadly than weapons.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Fall 1942.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThig carefully smoothed the dark sand and seaweed of the lonely beach\n over the metal lid of the flexible ringed tunnel that linked the grubby\n ship from another planet with the upper air. He looked out across the\n heaving waters of the Sound toward Connecticut. He stared appraisingly\n around at the luxuriant green growth of foliage further inland; and\n started toward the little stretch of trees and brush, walking carefully\n because of the lesser gravitation.\n\n\n Thig was shorter than the average Earthman\u2014although on Ortha he\n was well above the average in height\u2014but his body was thick and\n powerfully muscled. His skull was well-shaped and large; his features\n were regular, perhaps a trifle oversize, and his hair and eyes were\n a curiously matching blend of reddish brown. Oddest of all, he wore\n no garments, other than the necessary belt and straps to support his\n rod-like weapon of white metal and his pouches for food and specimens.\n\n\n The Orthan entered the narrow strip of trees and crossed to the\n little-used highway on the other side. Here he patiently sat down to\n wait for an Earthman or an Earthwoman to pass. His task now was to\n bring a native, intact if possible, back to the carefully buried space\n cruiser where his two fellows and himself would drain the creature's\n mentality of all its knowledge. In this way they could learn whether a\n planet was suited for colonization by later swarms of Orthans.\n\n\n Already they had charted over a hundred celestial bodies but of them\n all only three had proven worthy of consideration. This latest planet,\n however, 72-P-3 on the chart, appeared to be an ideal world in every\n respect. Sunlight, plenty of water and a dense atmospheric envelope\n made of 72-P-3 a paradise among planets.\n\n\n The explorer from another world crouched into the concealment of a\n leafy shrub. A creature was approaching. Its squat body was covered\n with baggy strips of bluish cloth and it carried a jointed rod of metal\n and wood in its paw. It walked upright as did the men of Ortha.\n\n\n Thig's cold eyes opened a trifle wider as he stared into the thing's\n stupid face. It was as though he was looking into a bit of polished\n metal at the reflection of himself!\n\n\n The Earthman was opposite now and he must waste no more precious\n time. The mighty muscles of the Orthan sent him hurtling across the\n intervening space in two prodigious bounds, and his hands clamped\n across the mouth and neck of the stranger....\nLewis Terry was going fishing. For a week the typewriter mill that had\n ground out a thousand assorted yarns of the untamed West and the frigid\n desolation of the Northwoods had been silent. Lewis wondered if he was\n going stale. He had sat every day for eight hours in front of that\n shiny-buttoned bane of the typist, but there were no results. Feebly\n he had punched a key two days ago and a $ sign had appeared. He hadn't\n dared touch the machine since.\n\n\n For Mr. Terry, that hard-hitting writer of two-gun action, had never\n been further west of Long Island than Elizabeth, and he had promised\n his wife, Ellen, that he would take the three children and herself on\n a trailer tour of the\nWest\nthat very summer. Since that promise, he\n could not write a word. Visions of whooping red-skinned Apaches and\n be-chapped outlaws raiding his little trailer home kept rolling up out\n of his subconscious. Yet he\nhad\nto write at least three novelets and\n a fistful of short stories in the next two weeks to finance the great\n adventure\u2014or the trip was off.\n\n\n So Lewis left the weathered old cottage in the early dawn and headed\n for his tubby old boat at the landing in an attempt to work out a\n salable yarn....\n\n\n \"Hey!\" he shouted as a naked man sprang out of the bushes beside the\n road. \"What's the trouble?\"\n\n\n Then he had no time for further speech, the massive arms of the\n stranger had wound around him and two hamlike hands shut off his speech\n and his wind. He fought futilely against trained muscles. The hand\n clamping his throat relaxed for a moment and hacked along the side of\n his head. Blackness flooded the brain of Lewis, and he knew no more.\n\"There it is,\" announced Thig, dropping the limp body of the captured\n Earthman to the metal deck-plates. \"It is a male of the species that\n must have built the cities we saw as we landed.\"\n\n\n \"He resembles Thig,\" announced Kam. \"But for the strange covering he\n wears he might be Thig.\"\n\n\n \"Thig will be this creature!\" announced Torp. \"With a psychic relay we\n will transfer the Earthman's memories and meager store of knowledge to\n the brain of Thig! He can then go out and scout this world without\n arousing suspicion. While he is gone, I will take Kam and explore the\n two inner planets.\"\n\n\n \"You are the commander,\" said Thig. \"But I wish this beast did not wear\n these clumsy sheathing upon his body. On Ortha we do not hamper the use\n of our limbs so.\"\n\n\n \"Do not question the word of your commander,\" growled Torp, swelling\n out his thick chest menacingly. \"It is for the good of our people that\n you disguise yourself as an Earthman.\"\n\n\n \"For the good of the Horde,\" Thig intoned almost piously as he lifted\n Terry's body and headed for the laboratory.\n\n\n Service for the Horde was all that the men of Ortha knew. Carefully\n cultured and brought to life in the laboratories of their Horde, they\n knew neither father nor mother. Affection and love were entirely\n lacking in their early training and later life. They were trained\n antlike from childhood that only the growth and power of the Horde\n were of any moment. Men and women alike toiled and died like unfeeling\n robots of flesh and bone for the Horde. The Horde was their religion,\n their love-life, their everything!\n\n\n So it was that the bodies of the Earthman and the Orthan were strapped\n on two parallel tables of chill metal and the twin helmets, linked to\n one another by the intricacies of the psychic relay, put upon their\n heads.\n\n\n For ten hours or more the droning hum of the relay sucked Terry's brain\n dry of knowledge. The shock upon the nervous system of the Earthman\n proved too violent and his heart faltered after a time and stopped\n completely. Twice, with subtle drugs they restored pseudo-life to his\n body and kept the electrical impulses throbbing from his tortured\n brain, but after the third suspension of life Thig removed his helmet.\n\n\n \"There is nothing more to learn,\" he informed his impassive comrades.\n \"Now, let us get on with the plastic surgery that is required. My new\n body must return to its barbaric household before undue attention is\n aroused. And when I return I will take along some of the gleaming\n baubles we found on the red planet\u2014these people value them highly.\"\n\n\n An hour later, his scars and altered cartilage already healed and\n painless, Thig again scraped sand over the entrance to the space ship\n and set out along the moonlit beach toward the nearest path running\n inland to his home.\n\n\n Memory was laying the country bare about him, Terry's own childhood\n memories of this particular section of Long Island. Here was the place\n where Jake and Ted had helped him dig for the buried treasure that\n old 'Notch-ear' Beggs had told them so exactly about. Remembrance of\n that episode gave Thig an idea about the little lump of jewels in his\n pocket. He had found them in a chest along the beach!\n\n\n He was coming up on the porch now and at the sound of his foot on\n the sagging boards the screen door burst open and three little\n Earth-creatures were hugging at his legs. An odd sensation, that his\n acquired memories labeled as pleasure, sent a warm glow upward from\n around his heart.\n\n\n Then he saw the slender red-haired shape of a woman, the mate of the\n dead man he knew, and confusion struck his well-trained brain. Men\n had no mates on Ortha, sex had been overthrown with all the other\n primitive impulses of barbarism; so he was incapable of understanding\n the emotions that swept through his acquired memory.\n\n\n Unsteadily he took her in his arms and felt her warm lips pressed,\n trembling, against his own. That same hot wave of pulsing blood choked\n achingly up into his throat.\n\n\n \"Lew, dear,\" Ellen was asking, \"where have you been all day? I called\n up at the landing but you were not there. I wanted to let you know that\n Saddlebag Publications sent a check for $50 for \"Reversed Revolvers\"\n and three other editors asked for shorts soon.\"\n\"Shoulda got a hundred bucks for that yarn,\" grunted Thig, and gasped.\n\n\n For the moment he had been Lewis Terry and not Thig! So thoroughly had\n he acquired the knowledge of Terry that he found himself unconsciously\n adopting the thinking and mannerism of the other. All the better this\n way, he realized\u2014more natural.\n\n\n \"Sorry I was late,\" he said, digging into his pocket for the\n glittering baubles, \"but I was poking around on the beach where we used\n to hunt treasure and I found an old chest. Inside it I found nothing\n but a handful of these.\"\n\n\n He flashed the jewels in front of Ellen's startled eyes and she clung,\n unbelieving, to his arm.\n\n\n \"Why, Lew,\" she gasped, \"they're worth a fortune! We can buy that new\n trailer now and have a rebuilt motor in the car. We can go west right\n away.... Hollywood, the Grand Canyon, cowboys!\"\n\n\n \"Uh huh,\" agreed the pseudo Lewis, memories of the ferocious savages\n and gunmen of his stories rendering him acutely unhappy. Sincerely he\n hoped that the west had reformed.\n\n\n \"I saved some kraut and weiners,\" Ellen said. \"Get washed up while I'm\n warming them up. Kids ate all the bread so I had to borrow some from\n the Eskoes. Want coffee, too?\"\n\n\n \"Mmmmmm,\" came from the depths of the chipped white wash-basin.\n\"Home again,\" whispered Ellen as she stood beside Thig twelve weeks\n later and gazed tearfully at the weathered little gray house. She knelt\n beside the front stoop and reached for the key hidden beneath it.\n\n\n \"The west was wonderful; tremendous, vast and beautiful,\" she went\n on as they climbed the steps, \"but nowhere was there any place as\n beautiful as our own little strip of sky and water.\"\n\n\n Thig sank into a dusty old swing that hung on creaking chains from the\n exposed rafters of the porch roof. He looked down at the dusty gray car\n and the bulbous silvery bulk of the trailer that had been their living\n quarters for almost three months. Strange thoughts were afloat in the\n chaos of his cool Orthan brain.\n\n\n Tonight or tomorrow night at the latest he must contact his two fellows\n and report that Earth was a planetary paradise. No other world,\n including Ortha, was so well-favored and rich. An expeditionary force\n to wipe the grotesque civilizations of Earth out of existence would,\n of course, be necessary before the first units of new Hordes could be\n landed. And there Thig balked. Why must they destroy these people,\n imperfect though their civilization might be, to make room for the\n Hordes?\n\n\n Thig tried to tell himself that it was the transmitted thoughts of the\n dead Earthman that made him feel so, but he was not too sure. For three\n months he had lived with people who loved, hated, wept and sacrificed\n for reasons that he had never known existed. He had learned the heady\n glory of thinking for himself and making his own decisions. He had\n experienced the primitive joy of matching his wits and tongue against\n the wits of other unpredictable human beings. There was no abrupt\n division of men and women into definite classes of endeavor. A laborer\n thought the same thoughts that a governor might think. Uncertainty\n added zest to every day's life.\n\n\n The Orthan had come to question the sole devotion of the individual to\n the Horde to the exclusion of all other interests. What, he wondered,\n would one new world\u2014or a hundred\u2014populated by the Hordes add to\n the progress of humanity? For a hundred thousand years the Orthan\n civilization had remained static, its energies directed into certain\n well-defined channels. They were mindless bees maintaining their vast\n mechanical hives.\n\n\n There was that moment on the brink of the Grand Canyon when Ellen had\n caught his arm breathlessly at all the beauty spread away there beneath\n them. There were mornings in the desert when the sun painted in lurid\n red the peaks above the harsh black-and-whites of the sagebrush and\n cactus slopes. There was the little boy, his body burning with fever,\n who nestled trustingly against his tense man's body and slept\u2014the son\n of Ellen and the man he had destroyed.\n\n\n Thig groaned. He was a weakling to let sentimentality so get the better\n of his judgment. He would go now to the space ship and urge them to\n blast off for Ortha. He sprang off the porch and strode away down the\n road toward the beach.\n\n\n The children ran to him; wanted to go along. He sent them away harshly\n but they smiled and waved their brown little hands. Ellen came to the\n door and called after him.\n\n\n \"Hurry home, dear,\" she said. \"I'll have a bite ready in about an hour.\"\n\n\n He dared not say anything, for his voice would have broken and she\n would have known something was wrong. She was a very wise sort of\n person when something was troubling him. He waved his stubby paw of a\n hand to show that he had heard, and blindly hurried toward the Sound.\n\n\n Oddly enough, as he hurried away along the narrow path through the\n autumn woods, his mind busied itself with a new epic of the west that\n lived no longer. He mentally titled it: \"Rustlers' Riot\" and blocked\n in the outlines of his plot. One section of his brain was that of the\n careless author of gunslinging yarns, a section that seemed to be\n sapping the life from his own brain. He knew that the story would never\n be written, but he toyed with the idea.\n\n\n So far had Thig the emotionless, robot-being from Ortha drifted from\n the unquestioning worship of the Horde!\n\"You have done well,\" announced Torp when Thig had completed his report\n on the resources and temperatures of various sections of Terra. \"We now\n have located three worlds fit for colonization and so we will return to\n Ortha at once.\n\n\n \"I will recommend the conquest of this planet, 72-P-3 at once and the\n complete destruction of all biped life upon it. The mental aberrations\n of the barbaric natives might lead to endless complications if they\n were permitted to exist outside our ordered way of life. I imagine that\n three circuits of the planet about its primary should prove sufficient\n for the purposes of complete liquidation.\"\n\n\n \"But why,\" asked Thig slowly, \"could we not disarm all the natives and\n exile them on one of the less desirable continents, Antarctica for\n example or Siberia? They are primitive humans even as our race was once\n a race of primitives. It is not our duty to help to attain our own\n degree of knowledge and comfort?\"\n\n\n \"Only the good of the Horde matters!\" shouted Torp angrily. \"Shall a\n race of feeble-witted beasts, such as these Earthmen, stand in the way\n of a superior race? We want their world, and so we will take it. The\n Law of the Horde states that all the universe is ours for the taking.\"\n\n\n \"Let us get back to Ortha at once, then,\" gritted out Thig savagely.\n \"Never again do I wish to set foot upon the soil of this mad planet.\n There are forces at work upon Earth that we of Ortha have long\n forgotten.\"\n\n\n \"Check the blood of Thig for disease, Kam,\" ordered Torp shortly. \"His\n words are highly irrational. Some form of fever perhaps native to this\n world. While you examine him I will blast off for Ortha.\"\n\n\n Thig followed Kam into the tiny laboratory and found a seat beside the\n squat scientist's desk. His eyes roamed over the familiar instruments\n and gauges, each in its own precise position in the cases along the\n walls. His gaze lingered longest on the stubby black ugliness of\n a decomposition blaster in its rack close to the deck. A blast of\n the invisible radiations from that weapon's hot throat and flesh or\n vegetable fiber rotted into flaky ashes.\n\n\n The ship trembled beneath their feet; it tore free from the feeble\n clutch of the sand about it, and they were rocketing skyward. Thig's\n broad fingers bit deep into the unyielding metal of his chair. Suddenly\n he knew that he must go back to Earth, back to Ellen and the children\n of the man he had helped destroy. He loved Ellen, and nothing must\n stand between them! The Hordes of Ortha must find some other world, an\n empty world\u2014this planet was not for them.\n\n\n \"Turn back!\" he cried wildly. \"I must go back to Earth. There is a\n woman there, helpless and alone, who needs me! The Horde does not need\n this planet.\"\n\n\n Kam eyed him coldly and lifted a shining hypodermic syringe from its\n case. He approached Thig warily, aware that disease often made a maniac\n of the finest members of the Horde.\n\n\n \"No human being is more important than the Horde,\" he stated baldly.\n \"This woman of whom you speak is merely one unit of the millions we\n must eliminate for the good of the Horde.\"\n\n\n Then it was that Thig went berserk. His fists slashed into the thick\n jaw of the scientist and his fingers ripped at the hard cords overlying\n the Orthan's vital throat tubes. His fingers and thumb gouged deep into\n Kam's startled throat and choked off any cry for assistance before it\n could be uttered.\n\n\n Kam's hand swept down to the holster swung from his intricate harness\n and dragged his blaster from it. Thig's other hand clamped over his and\n for long moments they swayed there, locked together in silent deadly\n struggle. The fate of a world hung in the balance as Kam's other hand\n fought against that lone arm of Thig.\nThe scales swung in favor of Kam. Slowly the flaring snout of his\n weapon tilted upward until it reached the level of Thig's waist. Thig\n suddenly released his grip and dragged his enemy toward him. A sudden\n reversal of pressure on Kam's gun hand sent the weapon swivelling\n about full upon its owner's thick torso. Thig's fingers pressed down\n upon Kam's button finger, down upon the stud set into the grip of the\n decomposition blaster, and Kam's muscles turned to water. He shrieked.\n\n\n Before Thig's eyes half of his comrade's body sloughed away into foul\n corruption that swiftly gave way to hardened blobs of dessicated\n matter. Horror for what he had done\u2014that he had slain one of his own\n Horde\u2014made his limbs move woodenly. All of his thoughts were dulled\n for the moment. Painfully slow, he turned his body around toward the\n control blister, turned around on leaden feet, to look full into the\n narrowed icy eyes of his commander.\n\n\n He saw the heavy barrel of the blaster slashing down against his\n skull but he could not swing a fraction of an inch out of the way.\n His body seemed paralyzed. This was the end, he thought as he waited\n stupidly for the blow to fall, the end for Ellen and the kids and all\n the struggling races of Earth. He would never write another cowboy\n yarn\u2014they would all be dead anyhow soon.\n\n\n Then a thunderclap exploded against his head and he dropped endlessly\n toward the deck. Blows rained against his skull. He wondered if Torp\n would ever cease to hammer at him and turn the deadly ray of the weapon\n upon him. Blood throbbed and pounded with every blow....\nBam, Bam, Bam, the blood pounded in his ears. Like repeated blows of a\n hammer they shook his booming head. No longer was Torp above him. He\n was in the corner of the laboratory, a crumpled blood-smeared heap of\n bruised flesh and bone. He was unfettered and the blood was caked upon\n his skull and in his matted hair. Torp must have thought he had killed\n him with those savage blows upon the head.\n\n\n Even Torp, thought Thig ruefully, gave way to the primitive rage of his\n ancestors at times; but to that very bit of unconscious atavism he now\n owed his life. A cool-headed robot of an Orthan would have efficiently\n used the blaster to destroy any possibility of remaining life in his\n unconscious body.\n\n\n Thig rolled slowly over so that his eye found the door into the control\n room. Torp would be coming back again to dispose of their bodies\n through the refuse lock. Already the body of Kam was gone. He wondered\n why he had been left until last. Perhaps Torp wished to take cultures\n of his blood and tissues to determine whether a disease was responsible\n for his sudden madness.\n\n\n The cases of fragile instruments were just above his head. Association\n of memories brought him the flash of the heavy blaster in its rack\n beneath them. His hand went up and felt the welcome hardness of the\n weapon. He tugged it free.\n\n\n In a moment he was on his knees crawling across the plates of the deck\n toward the door. Halfway across the floor he collapsed on his face,\n the metal of the gun making a harsh clang. He heard the feet of Torp\n scuffle out of silence and a choked cry in the man's throat squalled\n out into a senseless whinny.\n\n\n Thig raised himself up on a quivering elbow and slid the black length\n of the blaster in front of him. His eyes sought the doorway and stared\n full into the glaring vacant orbs of his commander. Torp leaned there\n watching him, his breath gurgling brokenly through his deep-bitten\n lips. The clawing marks of nails, fingernails, furrowed his face and\n chest. He was a madman!\n\n\n The deadly attack of Thig; his own violent avenging of Kam's death, and\n now the apparent return of the man he had killed come to life had all\n served to jolt his rigidly trained brain from its accustomed groove.\n The shock had been too much for the established thought-processes of\n the Orthan.\n\n\n So Thig shot him where he stood, mercifully, before that vacant mad\n stare set him, too, to gibbering and shrieking. Then he stepped over\n the skeleton-thing that had been Torp, using the new strength that\n victory had given him to drive him along.\n\n\n He had saved a world's civilization from extinction! The thought\n sobered him; yet, somehow, he was pleased that he had done so. After\n all, it had been the Earthwoman and the children he had been thinking\n of while he battled Kam, a selfish desire to protect them all.\n\n\n He went to the desk where Torp had been writing in the ship's log and\n read the last few nervously scrawled lines:\nPlanet 72-P-3 unfit for colonization. Some pernicious disease that\n strikes at the brain centers and causes violent insanity is existent\n there. Thig, just returned from a survey of the planet, went mad and\n destroyed Kam. In turn I was forced to slay him. But it is not ended.\n Already I feel the insidious virus of....\nAnd there his writing ended abruptly.\n\n\n Thig nodded. That would do it. He set the automatic pilot for the\n planet Ortha. Unless a rogue asteroid or a comet crossed the ship's\n path she would return safely to Ortha with that mute warning of danger\n on 72-P-3. The body of Torp would help to confirm his final message.\n\n\n Then Thig crossed the cabin to the auxiliary life boat there, one of\n a half-dozen space ships in miniature nested within the great ship's\n hull, and cut free from the mother vessel.\n\n\n He flipped the drive lever, felt the thrumming of the rockets driving\n him from the parent ship. The sensation of free flight against his new\n body was strangely exhilerating and heady. It was the newest of the\n emotions he had experienced on Earth since that day, so many months\n before, when he had felt the warmness of Ellen's lips tight against his.\nThig flipped the drive lever, felt the thrumming of the\n rockets driving him from the parent ship.\nHe swung about to the port, watched the flaming drive-rockets of the\n great exploratory ship hurl it toward far-away Ortha, and there was no\n regret in his mind that he was not returning to the planet of his first\n existence.\n\n\n He thought of the dull greys and blacks of his planet, of the\n monotonous routine of existence that had once been his\u2014and his heart\n thrilled to the memories of the starry nights and perfect exciting days\n he had spent on his three month trip over Earth.\n\n\n He made a brief salute to the existence he had known, turned with a\n tiny sigh, and his fingers made brief adjustments in the controls. The\n rocket-thrum deepened, and the thin whistle of tenuous air clutching\n the ship echoed through the hull-plates.\n\n\n He thought of many things in those few moments. He watched the\n roundness of Earth flatten out, then take on the cup-like illusion\n that all planets had for an incoming ship. He reduced the drive of his\n rockets to a mere whisper, striving to control the impatience that\n crowded his mind.\n\n\n He shivered suddenly, remembering his utter callousness the first time\n he had sent a space ship whipping down toward the hills and valleys\n below. And there was a sickness within him when he fully realized that,\n despite his acquired memory and traits, he was an alien from outer\n space.\n\n\n He fingered the tiny scars that had completely obliterated the slight\n differences in his appearance from an Earthman's, and his fingers\n trembled a bit, as he bent and stared through the vision port. He said\n a brief prayer in his heart to a God whose presence he now felt very\n deeply. There were tears in the depths of his eyes, then, and memories\n were hot, bitter pains.\nEarth was not far below him. As he let gravity suck him earthward, he\n heaved a gasp of relief. He was no longer Thig, a creature of a Horde's\n creation, but Lewis Terry, writer of lurid gun-smoking tales of the\n West. He must remember that always. He had destroyed the real Terry and\n now, for the rest of his life, he must make up to the dead man's family.\n\n\n The knowledge that Ellen's love was not really meant for him would be\n a knife twisting in his heart but for her sake he must endure it. Her\n dreams and happiness must never be shattered.\n\n\n The bulge of Earth was flattening out now and he could see the outlines\n of Long Island in the growing twilight.\n\n\n A new plot was growing in the brain of Lewis Terry, a yarn about a\n cowboy suddenly transported to another world. He smiled ironically.\n He had seen those other worlds. Perhaps some day he would write about\n them....\n\n\n He was Lewis Terry! He must remember that!",
    "63398": "THE HAIRY ONES\nby BASIL WELLS\nMarooned on a world within a world, aided\n\n by a slim girl and an old warrior, Patrolman\n\n Sisko Rolf was fighting his greatest\n\n battle\u2014to bring life to dying Mars.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Winter 1944.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\n\"The outlaw ships are attacking!\" Old Garmon Nash's harsh voice snapped\n like a thunderclap in the cramped rocket flyer's cabin. \"Five or six of\n them. Cut the searchlights!\"\n\n\n Sisko Rolf's stocky body was a blur of motion as he cut the rocket\n jets, doused the twin searchlights, and switched over to the audio\n beams that served so well on the surface when blind flying was in\n order. But here in the cavern world, thirty-seventh in the linked\n series of vast caves that underlie the waterless wastes of Mars, the\n reflected waves of sound were of little value. Distances were far too\n cramped\u2014disaster might loom but a few hundred feet away.\n\n\n \"Trapped us neatly,\" Rolf said through clenched teeth. \"Tolled into\n their underground hideout by that water-runner we tried to capture. We\n can't escape, that's certain. They know these caverns better than....\n We'll down some of them, though.\"\n\n\n \"Right!\" That was old Garmon Nash, his fellow patrolman aboard the\n Planet Patrol ship as he swung the deadly slimness of his rocket\n blast's barrel around to center on the fiery jets that betrayed the\n approaching outlaw flyers.\n\n\n Three times he fired the gun, the rocket projectiles blasting off with\n their invisible preliminary jets of gas, and three times an enemy craft\n flared up into an intolerable torch of flame before they realized the\n patrol ship had fired upon them. Then a barrage of enemy rocket shells\n exploded into life above and before them.\n\n\n Rolf swung the lax controls over hard as the bursts of fire revealed a\n looming barrier of stone dead ahead, and then he felt the tough skin\n of the flyer crumple inward. The cabin seemed to telescope about him.\n In a slow sort of wonder Rolf felt the scrape of rock against metal,\n and then the screeching of air through the myriad rents in the cabin's\n meralloy walls grew to a mad whining wail.\n\n\n Down plunged the battered ship, downward ever downward. Somehow Rolf\n found the strength to wrap his fingers around the control levers and\n snap on a quick burst from the landing rockets. Their mad speed checked\n momentarily, but the nose of the vertically plunging ship dissolved\n into an inferno of flame.\n\n\n The ship struck; split open like a rotten squash, and Rolf felt himself\n being flung far outward through thick blackness. For an eternity it\n seemed he hung in the darkness before something smashed the breath and\n feeling from his nerveless body. With a last glimmer of sanity he knew\n that he lay crushed against a rocky wall.\nMuch later Rolf groaned with the pain of bruised muscles and tried to\n rise. To his amazement he could move all his limbs. Carefully he came\n to his knees and so to his feet. Not a bone was broken, unless the\n sharp breathlessness that strained at his chest meant cracked ribs.\n\n\n There was light in the narrow pit in which he found himself, light and\n heat from the yet-glowing debris of the rocket flyer. The outlaws had\n blasted the crashed ship, his practiced eyes told him, and Garmon Nash\n must have died in the wreckage. He was alone in the waterless trap of a\n deep crevice.\n\n\n In the fading glow of the super-heated metal the vertical walls above\n mocked him. There could be no ascent from this natural prison-pit, and\n even if there were he could never hope to reach the surface forty miles\n and more overhead. The floors of the thirty-seven caves through which\n they had so carefully jetted were a splintered, creviced series of\n canyon-like wastes, and as he ascended the rarefied atmosphere of the\n higher levels would spell death.\n\n\n Rolf laughed. Without a pressure mask on the surface of Mars an\n Earthman was licked. Without water and food certain death grinned in\n his face, for beyond the sand-buried entrance to these lost equatorial\n caves there were no pressure domes for hundreds of miles. Here at\n least the air was thick enough to support life, and somewhere nearby\n the outlaws who smuggled their precious contraband water into the\n water-starved domes of North Mars lay hidden.\n\n\n The young patrolman unzippered his jacket pocket and felt for the\n emergency concentrate bars that were standard equipment. Half of the\n oval bar he crushed between his teeth, and when the concentrated energy\n flooded into his muscles he set off around the irregular wall of the\n pit.\n\n\n He found the opening less than ten paces from the starting point, an\n empty cavity higher than a man and half as wide. The glow from the\n gutted ship was failing and he felt for the solar torch that hugged\n flatly against his hip. He uncapped the torch and the miniature sun\n glowed redly from its lensed prison to reveal the rocky corridor\n stretching out ahead.\nLight! How many hours later it was when the first faint glow of white\n light reached his eyes Rolf did not know\u2014it had seemed an eternity of\n endless plodding along that smooth-floored descending tunnel.\n\n\n Rolf capped the solar torch. No use wasting the captive energy\n needlessly he reasoned. And he loosened the expoder in its holster as\n he moved carefully forward. The outlaw headquarters might be close\n ahead, headquarters where renegade Frogs, Venusians from the southern\n sunken marshes of Mars, and Earthmen from dusty North Mars, concealed\n their precious hoard of water from the thirsty colonists of North Mars.\n\n\n \"They may have found the sunken seas of Mars,\" thought Rolf as he moved\n alertly forward, \"water that would give the mining domes new life.\" His\n fists clenched dryly. \"Water that should be free!\"\n\n\n Then the light brightened before him as he rounded a shouldering wall\n of smoothly trimmed stone, and the floor fell away beneath his feet!\n He found himself shooting downward into a vast void that glowed softly\n with a mysterious all-pervading radiance.\n\n\n His eyes went searching out, out into undreamed distance. For miles\n below him there was nothing but emptiness, and for miles before him\n there was that same glowing vacancy. Above the cavern's roof soared\n majestically upward; he could see the narrow dark slit through which\n his feet had betrayed him, and he realized that he had fallen through\n the vaulted rocky dome of this fantastic abyss.\n\n\n It was then, even as he snapped the release of his spinner and the\n nested blades spun free overhead, that he saw the slowly turning bulk\n of the cloud-swathed world, a tiny five mile green ball of a planet!\n\n\n The weird globe was divided equally into hemispheres, and as the tiny\n world turned between its confining columns a green, lake-dotted half\n alternated with a blasted, splintered black waste of rocky desert. As\n the spinner dropped him slowly down into the vast emptiness of the\n great shining gulf, Rolf could see that a broad band of stone divided\n the green fertile plains and forests from the desolate desert wastes of\n the other half. Toward this barrier the spinner bore him, and Rolf was\n content to let it move in that direction\u2014from the heights of the wall\n he could scout out the country beyond.\n\n\n The wall expanded as he came nearer to the pygmy planet. The spinner\n had slowed its speed; it seemed to Rolf that he must be falling free\n in space for a time, but the feeble gravity of the tiny world tugged\n at him more strongly as he neared the wall. And the barrier became a\n jumbled mass of roughly-dressed stone slabs, from whose earth-filled\n crevices sprouted green life.\n\n\n So slowly was the spinner dropping that the blackened desolation of the\n other hemisphere came sliding up beneath his boots. He looked down into\n great gashes in the blackness of the desert and saw there the green of\n sunken oases and watered canyons. He drifted slowly toward the opposite\n loom of the mysterious wall with a swift wind off the desert behind him.\n\n\n A hundred yards from the base of the rocky wall his feet scraped\n through black dust, and he came to a stop. Deftly Rolf nested the\n spinners again in their pack before he set out toward the heaped-up\n mass of stone blocks that was the wall.\n\n\n Ten steps he took before an excited voice called out shrilly from the\n rocks ahead. Rolf's slitted gray eyes narrowed yet more and his hand\n dropped to the compact expoder machine-gun holstered at his hip. There\n was the movement of a dark shape behind the screen of vines and ragged\n bushes.\n\n\n \"Down, Altha,\" a deeper voice rumbled from above, \"it's one of the\n Enemy.\"\n\n\n The voice had spoken in English! Rolf took a step forward eagerly and\n then doubt made his feet falter. There were Earthmen as well as Frogs\n among the outlaws. This mysterious world that floated above the cavern\n floor might be their headquarters.\n\n\n \"But, Mark,\" the voice that was now unmistakably feminine argued, \"he\n wears the uniform of a patrolman.\"\n\n\n \"May be a trick.\" The deep voice was doubtful. \"You know their leader,\n Cannon, wanted you. This may be a trick to join the Outcasts and\n kidnap you.\"\n\n\n The girl's voice was merry. \"Come on Spider-legs,\" she said.\nRolf found himself staring, open-mouthed, at the sleek-limbed vision\n that parted the bushes and came toward him. A beautiful woman she was,\n with the long burnished copper of her hair down around her waist, but\n beneath the meager shortness of the skin tunic he saw that her firm\n flesh was covered with a fine reddish coat of hair. Even her face was\n sleek and gleaming with its coppery covering of down.\n\n\n \"Hello, patrol-a-man,\" she said shyly.\n\n\n An elongated pencil-ray of a man bounced nervously out to her side.\n \"Altha,\" he scolded, scrubbing at his reddened bald skull with a\n long-fingered hand, \"why do you never listen to me? I promised your\n father I'd look after you.\" He hitched at his tattered skin robe.\n\n\n The girl laughed, a low liquid sound that made Rolf's heart pump\n faster. \"This Mark Tanner of mine,\" she explained to the patrolman,\n \"is always afraid for me. He does not remember that I can see into the\n minds of others.\"\n\n\n She smiled again as Rolf's face slowly reddened. \"Do not be ashamed,\"\n she said. \"I am not angry that you think I am\u2014well, not too\n unattractive.\"\n\n\n Rolf threw up the mental block that was the inheritance from his\n grueling years of training on Earth Base. His instructors there\n had known that a few gifted mortals possess the power of a limited\n telepathy, and the secrets of the Planet Patrol must be guarded.\n\n\n \"That is better, perhaps.\" The girl's face was demure. \"And now perhaps\n you will visit us in the safety of the vaults of ancient Aryk.\"\n\n\n \"Sorry,\" said the tall man as Rolf sprang easily from the ground to\n their side. \"I'm always forgetting the mind-reading abilities of the\n Hairy People.\"\n\n\n \"She one of them?\" Rolf's voice was low, but he saw Altha's lip twitch.\n\n\n \"Mother was.\" Mark Tanner's voice was louder. \"Father was Wayne Stark.\n Famous explorer you know. I was his assistant.\"\n\n\n \"Sure.\" Rolf nodded. \"Lost in equatorial wastelands\u2014uh, about twenty\n years ago\u20142053, I believe.\"\n\n\n \"Only we were not lost on the surface,\" explained Tanner, his booming\n voice much too powerful for his reedy body, \"Wayne Stark was searching\n for the lost seas of Mars. Traced them underground. Found them too.\" He\n paused to look nervously out across the blasted wasteland.\n\n\n \"We ran out of fuel here on Lomihi,\" he finished, \"with the vanished\n surface waters of Mars less than four miles beneath us.\"\n\n\n Rolf followed the direction of the other's pale blue eyes. Overhead now\n hung the bottom of the cavern. An almost circular island of pale yellow\n lifted above the restless dark waters of a vast sea. Rolf realized with\n a wrench of sudden fear that they actually hung head downward like\n flies walking across a ceiling.\n\n\n \"There,\" roared Tanner's voice, \"is one of the seas of Mars.\"\n\n\n \"One,\" repeated Rolf slowly. \"You mean there are more?\"\n\n\n \"Dozens of them,\" the older man's voice throbbed with helpless rage.\n \"Enough to make the face of Mars green again. Cavern after cavern lies\n beyond this first one, their floors flooded with water.\"\n\n\n Rolf felt new strength pump into his tired bruised muscles. Here lay\n the salvation of Earth's thirsting colonies almost within reach. Once\n he could lead the scientists of North Mars to this treasure trove of\n water....\n\n\n \"Mark!\" The girl's voice was tense. Rolf felt her arm tug at his sleeve\n and he dropped beside her in the shelter of a clump of coarse-leaved\n gray bushes. \"The Furry Women attack!\"\nA hundred paces away Rolf made the dark shapes of armed warriors as\n they filed downward from the Barrier into the blackened desolation of\n the desert half of Lomihi.\n\n\n \"Enemies?\" he whispered to Mark Tanner hoarsely.\n\n\n \"Right.\" The older man was slipping the stout bowstring into its\n notched recess on the upper end of his long bow. \"They cross the\n Barrier from the fertile plains of Nyd to raid the Hairy People. They\n take them for slaves.\"\n\n\n \"I must warn them.\" Altha's lips thinned and her brown-flecked eyes\n flamed.\n\n\n \"The outlaws may capture,\" warned Tanner. \"They have taken over the\n canyons of Gur and Norpar, remember.\"\n\n\n \"I will take the glider.\" Altha was on her feet, her body crouched\n over to take advantage of the sheltering shrubs. She threaded her way\n swiftly back along a rocky corridor in the face of the Barrier toward\n the ruins of ancient Aryk.\n\n\n Tanner shrugged his shoulders. \"What can I do? Altha has the blood\n of the Hairy People in her veins. She will warn them even though the\n outlaws have turned her people against her.\"\n\n\n Rolf watched the column of barbarically clad warriors file out upon the\n barren desert and swing to the right along the base of the Barrier.\n Spear tips and bared swords glinted dully.\n\n\n \"They will pass within a few feet!\" he hissed.\n\n\n \"Right.\" Tanner's fingers bit into Rolf's arm. \"Pray that the wind does\n not shift, their nostrils are sensitive as those of the weasels they\n resemble.\"\n\n\n Rolf's eyes slitted. There was something vaguely unhuman about those\n gracefully marching figures. He wondered what Tanner had meant by\n calling them weasels, wondered until they came closer.\n\n\n Then he knew. Above half naked feminine bodies, sinuous and supple\n as the undulating coils of a serpent, rose the snaky ditigrade head\n of a weasel-brute! Their necks were long and wide, merging into\n the gray-furred muscles of their narrow bodies until they seemed\n utterly shoulderless, and beneath their furry pelts the ripples of\n smooth-flowing muscles played rhythmically. There was a stench, a musky\n penetrating scent that made the flesh of his body crawl.\n\n\n \"See!\" Tanner's voice was muted. \"Giffa, Queen of the Furry Ones!\"\n\n\n Borne on a carved and polished litter of ebon-hued wood and yellowed\n bone lolled the hideous queen of that advancing horde. Gaunt of body\n she was, her scarred gray-furred hide hanging loose upon her breastless\n frame. One eye was gone but the other gleamed, black and beady, from\n her narrow earless skull. And the skulls of rodents and men alike\n linked together into ghastly festoons about her heavy, short-legged\n litter.\n\n\n Men bore the litter, eight broad-shouldered red-haired men whose arms\n had been cut off at the shoulders and whose naked backs bore the weals\n of countless lashes. Their bodies, like that of Altha, were covered\n with a silky coat of reddish hair.\n\n\n Rolf raised his expoder, red anger clouding his eyes as he saw these\n maimed beasts of burden, but the hand of Mark Tanner pressed down\n firmly across his arm. The older man shook his head.\n\n\n \"Not yet,\" he said. \"When Altha has warned the Hairy People we can cut\n off their retreat. After they have passed I will arouse the Outcasts\n who live here upon the Barrier. Though their blood is that of the two\n races mingled they hate the Furry Ones.\"\n\n\n A shadow passed over their hiding place. The Furry Amazons too saw the\n indistinct darkness and looked up. High overhead drifted the narrow\n winged shape of a glider, and the warrior women shrieked their hatred.\n Gone now was their chance for a surprise attack on the isolated canyons\n of the Hairy People.\n\n\n They halted, clustered about their leader. Giffa snarled quick orders\n at them, her chisel-teeth clicking savagely. The column swung out into\n the wasteland toward the nearest sunken valleys of the Hairy People.\n Rolf and Mark Tanner came to their feet.\n\n\n Abruptly, then, the wind veered. From behind the two Earthmen it came,\n bearing the scent of their bodies out to the sensitive nostrils of the\n beast-women. Again the column turned. They glimpsed the two men and a\n hideous scrawling battle-cry burst from their throats.\nRolf's expoder rattled briefly like a high-speed sewing machine as he\n flicked its muzzle back and forth along the ranks of attacking Furry\n Ones. Dozens of the hideous weasel creatures fell as the needles of\n explosive blasted them but hundreds more were swarming over their\n fallen sisters. Mark Tanner's bow twanged again and again as he drove\n arrows at the bloodthirsty warrior women. But the Furry Ones ran\n fearlessly into that rain of death.\nThe expoder hammered in Rolf's heavy fist.\nTanner smashed an elbow into Rolf's side. \"Retreat!\" he gasped.\n\n\n The Furry Amazons swarmed up over the lower terraces of rocks, their\n snaky heads thrust forward and their swords slashing. The two Earthmen\n bounded up and backward to the next jumbled layer of giant blocks\n behind them, their powerful earthly muscles negating Lomihi's feeble\n gravity. Spears showered thick about them and then they dropped behind\n the sheltering bulk of a rough square boulder.\n\n\n \"Now where?\" Rolf snapped another burst of expoder needles at the furry\n attackers as he asked.\n\n\n \"To the vaults beneath the Forbidden City,\" Mark Tanner cried. \"None\n but the Outcasts and we two have entered the streets of deserted Aryk.\"\n\n\n The bald scientist slung his bow over his head and one shoulder and\n went bounding away along a shadowy crevice that plunged raggedly into\n the heart of the Barrier. Rolf blasted another spurt of explosive\n needles at the Furry Ones and followed.\nDarkness thickened as they penetrated into the maze of the Barrier's\n shattered heart. An unseen furry shape sprang upon Rolf's shoulders\n and as he sank to his knees he felt hot saliva drip like acid upon his\n neck. His fist sent the attacker's bulk smashing against the rocky\n floor before fangs or claws could rip at his tender flesh, and he heard\n a choked snarl that ended convulsively in silence.\n\n\n Bat-winged blobs of life dragged wet leathery hide across his face, and\n beneath his feet slimy wriggling things crushed into quivering pulp.\n Then there was faint light again, and the high-vaulted roof of a rock\n dungeon rose above him.\n\n\n Mark Tanner was peering out a slitted embrasure that overlooked the\n desolate land of the Hairy People.\n\n\n Tanner's finger pointed. \"Altha!\" Rolf saw the graceful wings of the\n glider riding the thermals back toward the Barrier. \"She had warned the\n Hairy People, and now she returns.\"\n\n\n \"The weasel heads won't follow us here?\" asked Rolf.\n\n\n Tanner laughed. \"Hardly. They fear the spirits of the Ancients too much\n for that. They believe the invisible powers will drink their souls.\"\n\n\n \"Then how about telling me about this hanging world?\"\n\n\n \"Simply the whim of an ancient Martian ruler. As I have learned from\n the inscriptions and metal tablets here in Aryk he could not conquer\n all of Mars so he created a world that would be all his own.\"\n\n\n Rolf laughed. \"Like the pleasure globes of the wealthy on Earth.\"\n\n\n \"Right.\" Tanner kept his eyes on the enlarging winged shape of Altha's\n flyer as he spoke. \"Later, when the nations of Mars began draining off\n the seas and hoarding them in their underground caverns, Lomihi became\n a fortress for the few thousand aristocrats and slaves who escaped the\n surface wars.\n\n\n \"The Hairy People were the rulers,\" he went on, \"and the Furry Ones\n were their slaves. In the revolt that eventually split Lomihi into two\n warring races this city, Aryk, was destroyed by a strange vegetable\n blight and the ancient knowledge was lost to both races.\"\n\n\n \"But,\" Rolf frowned thoughtfully, \"what keeps Lomihi from crashing into\n the island? Surely the two columns at either end cannot support it?\"\n\n\n \"The island is the answer,\" said Tanner. \"Somehow it blocks the force\n of gravity\u2014shields Lomihi from....\" He caught his breath suddenly.\n\n\n \"The outlaws!\" he cried. \"They're after Altha.\"\n\n\n Rolf caught a glimpse of a sleek rocket flyer diving upon Altha's frail\n wing. He saw the girl go gliding steeply down toward a ragged jumble\n of volcanic spurs and pits and disappear from view. He turned to see\n the old man pushing another crudely constructed glider toward the outer\n wall of the rock chamber.\n\n\n Tanner tugged at a silvery metal bar inset into the stone wall. A\n section of the wall swung slowly inward. Rolf sprang to his side.\n\n\n \"Let me follow,\" he said. \"I can fly a glider, and I have my expoder.\"\n\n\n The older man's eyes were hot. He jerked at Rolf's hands and then\n suddenly thought better of it. \"You're right,\" he agreed. \"Help her if\n you can. Your weapon is our only hope now.\"\n\n\n Rolf pushed up and outward with all the strength of his weary muscles.\n The glider knifed forward with that first swift impetus, and drove out\n over the Barrier. The Furry Ones were struggling insect shapes below\n him, and he saw with a thrill that larger bodied warriors, whose bodies\n glinted with a dull bronze, were attacking them from the burnt-out\n wastelands. The Hairy People had come to battle the invaders.\n\n\n He guided the frail wing toward the shattered badlands where the girl\n had taken shelter, noting as he did so that the rocket flyer had landed\n near its center in a narrow strip of rocky gulch. A sudden thought made\n him grin. He drove directly toward the grounded ship. With this rocket\n flyer he could escape from Lomihi, return through the thirty-seven\n caverns to the upper world, and give to thirsty Mars the gift of\n limitless water again.\nA man stood on guard just outside the flyer's oval door. Rolf lined up\n his expoder and his jaw tensed. He guided the tiny soarer closer with\n one hand. If he could crash the glider into the guard, well and good.\n There would be no explosion of expoder needles to warn the fellow's\n comrades. But if the outlaw saw him Rolf knew that he would be the\n first to fire\u2014his was the element of surprise.\n\n\n A score of feet lay between them, and suddenly the outlaw whirled\n about. Rolf pressed the firing button; the expoder clicked over once\n and the trimmer key jammed, and the doughy-faced Venusian swung up his\n own long-barreled expoder!\n\n\n Rolf snapped his weapon overhand at the Frog's hairless skull. The\n fish-bellied alien ducked but his expoder swung off the target\n momentarily. In that instant Rolf launched himself from the open\n framework of the slowly diving glider, full upon the Venusian.\n\n\n They went down, Rolf swinging his fist like a hammer. He felt the Frog\n go limp and he loosed a relieved whistle. Now with a rocket flyer and\n the guard's rifle expoder in his grasp the problem of escape from\n the inner caverns was solved. He would rescue the girl, stop at the\n Forbidden City for Mark Tanner, and blast off for the upper crust forty\n miles and more overhead.\n\n\n He knelt over the prostrate Venusian, using his belt and a strip torn\n from his greenish tunic to bind the unconscious man. The knots were\n not too tight, the man could free himself in the course of a few hours.\n He shrugged his shoulders wearily and started to get up.\n\n\n A foot scraped on stone behind him. He spun on bent knees and flung\n himself fifty feet to the further side of the narrow gulch with the\n same movement. Expoder needles splintered the rocks about him as he\n dropped behind a sheltering rocky ledge, and he caught a glimpse of two\n green-clad men dragging the bronze-haired body of the girl he had come\n to save into the shelter of the flyer.\n\n\n A green bulge showed around the polished fuselage and Rolf pressed his\n captured weapon's firing button. A roar of pain came from the wounded\n man, and he saw an outflung arm upon the rocky ground that clenched\n tightly twice and relaxed to move no more. The outlaw weapon must have\n been loaded with a drum of poisoned needles, the expoder needles had\n not blasted a vital spot in the man's body.\n\n\n The odds were evening, he thought triumphantly. There might be another\n outlaw somewhere out there in the badlands, but no more than that. The\n flyer was built to accommodate no more than five passengers and four\n was the usual number. He shifted his expoder to cover the opposite end\n of the ship's squatty fuselage.\n\n\n And something that felt like a mountain smashed into his back. He was\n crushed downward, breathless, his eyes glimpsing briefly the soiled\n greenish trousers of his attacker as they locked on either side of\n his neck, and then blackness engulfed him as a mighty sledge battered\n endlessly at his skull.\nThis sledge was hammering relentlessly as Rolf sensed his first\n glimmer of returning light. There were two sledges, one of them that\n he identified as the hammering of blood in his throbbing temples, and\n the other the measured blasting pulse of rocket jets. He opened his\n eyes slowly to find himself staring at the fine-crusted metal plates\n of a flyer's deck. His nose was grinding into the oily muck that only\n undisciplined men would have permitted to accumulate.\n\n\n Cautiously his head twisted until he could look forward toward the\n controls. The bound body of Altha Stark faced him, and he saw her lips\n twist into a brief smile of recognition. She shook her head and frowned\n as he moved his arm. But Rolf had learned that his limbs were not\n bound\u2014apparently the outlaws had considered him out of the blasting\n for the moment.\n\n\n By degrees Rolf worked his arm down to his belt where his solar torch\n was hooked. His fingers made careful adjustments within the inset base\n of the torch, pushing a lever here and adjusting a tension screw there.\n\n\n The ship bumped gently as it landed and the thrum of rockets ceased.\n The cabin shifted with the weight of bodies moving from their seats.\n Rolf heard voices from a distance and the answering triumphant bawling\n of his two captors. The moment had come. He turned the cap of the solar\n torch away from his body and freed it.\n\n\n Heat blasted at his body as the stepped-up output of the torch made the\n oily floor flame. He lay unmoving while the thick smoke rolled over him.\n\n\n \"Fire!\" There was panic in the outlaw's voice. Rolf came to his knees\n in the blanketing fog and looked forward.\n\n\n One of the men flung himself out the door, but the other reached\n for the extinguisher close at hand. His thoughts were on the oily\n smoke; not on the prisoners, and so the impact of Rolf's horizontally\n propelled body drove the breath from his lungs before his hand could\n drop to his belted expoder.\n\n\n The outlaw was game. His fists slammed back at Rolf, and his knees\n jolted upward toward the patrolman's vulnerable middle. But Rolf\n bored in, his own knotted hands pumping, and his trained body weaving\n instinctively aside from the crippling blows aimed at his body. For a\n moment they fought, coughing and choking from the thickening pall of\n smoke, and then the fingers of the outlaw clamped around Rolf's throat\n and squeezed hard.\n\n\n The patrolman was weary; the wreck in the upper cavern and the long\n trek afterward through the dark tunnels had sapped his strength, and\n now he felt victory slipping from his grasp.\n\n\n He felt something soft bump against his legs, legs so far below that he\n could hardly realize that they were his, and then he was falling with\n the relentless fingers still about his throat. As from a great distant\n he heard a cry of pain and the blessed air gulped into his raw throat.\n His eyes cleared.\n\n\n He saw Altha's bound body and head. Her jaws were clamped upon the\n arm of the outlaw and even as he fought for more of the reeking smoky\n air of the cabin he saw the man's clenched fist batter at her face.\n Rolf swung, all the weight of his stocky body behind the blow, and the\n outlaw thudded limply against the opposite wall of the little cabin.\n\n\n No time to ask the girl if she were injured. The patrolman flung\n himself into the spongy control chair's cushions and sent the ship\n rocketing skyward. Behind him the thin film of surface oil no longer\n burned and the conditioning unit was clearing the air.\n\n\n \"Patrolman,\" the girl's voice was beside him. \"We're safe!\"\n\n\n \"Everything bongo?\" Rolf wanted to know.\n\n\n \"Of course,\" she smiled crookedly.\n\n\n \"Glad of that.\" Rolf felt the warmth of her body so close beside him. A\n sudden strange restlessness came with the near contact.\n\n\n Altha smiled shyly and winced with pain. \"Do you know,\" she said, \"even\n yet I do not know your name.\"\n\n\n Rolf grinned up at her. \"Need to?\" he asked.\n\n\n The girl's eyes widened. A responsive spark blazed in them. \"Handier\n than calling you\nShorty\nall the time,\" she quipped.\n\n\n Then they were over the Barrier and Rolf saw the last of the beaten\n Furry Ones racing back across the great wall toward the Plains of\n Nyd. He nosed the captured ship down toward the ruined plaza of\n the Forbidden City. Once Mark Tanner was aboard they would blast\n surfaceward with their thrilling news that all Mars could have water in\n plenty again.\n\n\n Rolf snorted. \"Shorty,\" he said disgustedly as they landed, but his arm\n went out toward the girl's red-haired slimness, and curved around it.",
    "20015": "Goings On About Town \n\n         One of the funniest moments in Brendan Gill's 1975 memoir, Here at \"The New Yorker ,\" comes during a luncheon at the now vanished Ritz in Manhattan. At the table are Gill; William Shawn, then editor of The New Yorker ; and the reclusive English writer Henry Green. Green's new novel, Loving , has just received a very favorable review in The New Yorker . Shawn--\"with his usual hushed delicacy of speech and manner\"--inquires of the novelist whether he could possibly reveal what prompted the creation of such an exquisite work. Green obliges. \"I once asked an old butler in Ireland what had been the happiest times of his life,\" he says. \"The butler replied, 'Lying in bed on Sunday morning, eating tea and toast with cunty fingers.' \" \n\n         This was not the explanation Shawn was expecting, Gill tells us. \"Discs of bright red begin to burn in his cheeks.\" \n\n         Was Shawn blushing out of prudishness, as we are meant to infer? This was, after all, a man renowned for his retiring propriety, a man who sedulously barred anything smacking of the salacious--from lingerie ads to four-letter words--from the magazine he stewarded from 1952 until 1987, five years before his death. But after reading these two new memoirs about Shawn, I wonder. \"He longed for the earthiest and wildest kinds of sexual adventures,\" Lillian Ross discloses in hers, adding that he lusted after Hannah Arendt, Evonne Goolagong, and Madonna. As for Ved Mehta, he reports that Shawn's favorite thing to watch on television was \"people dancing uninhibitedly\" ( Soul Train , one guesses). I suspect Shawn did not blush at the \"cunty fingers\" remark out of prudery. He blushed because it had hit too close to home. \n\n         Both these memoirs must be read by everyone--everyone, that is, who takes seriously the important business of sorting out precisely how he or she feels about The New Yorker , then and now. Of the two, Mehta's is far and away the more entertaining. This may seem odd, for Mehta is reputed to be a very dull writer whereas Ross is a famously zippy one. Moreover, Mehta writes as Shawn's adoring acolyte, whereas Ross writes as his longtime adulterous lover. Just knowing that Mrs. Shawn is still alive adds a certain tension to reading much of what this Other Woman chooses to divulge. Evidently, \"Bill\" and Lillian loved each other with a fine, pure love, a love that was more than love, a love coveted by the winged seraphs of heaven. \"We had indeed become one,\" she tells us, freely venting the inflations of her heart. \n\n          Shawn was managing editor of The New Yorker when he hired Ross in 1945 as the magazine's second woman reporter (the first was Andy Logan). He was short and balding but had pale blue eyes to die for. As for Ross, \"I was aware of the fact that I was not unappealing.\" During a late-night editorial session, she says, Shawn blurted out his love. A few weeks later at the office, their eyes met. Without a word--even, it seems, to the cab driver--they hied uptown to the Plaza, where matters were consummated. Thereafter, the couple set up housekeeping together in an apartment 20 blocks downtown from the Shawn residence on upper Fifth Avenue and stoically endured the sufferings of Shawn's wife, who did not want a divorce. \n\n         Now, Ross seems like a nice lady, and I certainly have nothing against adultery, which I hear is being carried on in the best circles these days. But the public flaunting of adultery--especially when spouses and children are around--well, it brings out the bourgeois in me. It also made me feel funny about William Shawn, whom I have always regarded as a great man. I loved his New Yorker . The prose it contained--the gray stuff around the cartoons--was balm for the soul: unfailingly clear, precise, logical, and quietly stylish. So what if the articles were occasionally boring? It was a sweet sort of boredom, serene and restorative, not at all like the kind induced by magazines today, which is more akin to nervous exhaustion. Besides, the moral tone of the magazine was almost wholly admirable--it was ahead of the pack on Hiroshima, civil rights, Vietnam, Watergate, the environment--and this was very much Shawn's doing. I do not like to think of him in an illicit love nest, eating tea and toast with cunty fingers. \n\n         Happily, Ross has sprinkled her memoir with clues that it is not to be taken as entirely factual. To say that Shawn was \"a man who grieved over all living creatures\" is forgivable hyperbole; but later to add that he \"mourned\" for Si Newhouse when Newhouse unceremoniously fired him in 1987 (a couple of years after buying the magazine)--well, that's a bit much. Even Jesus had his limits. \n\n         Elsewhere, Ross refers to her lover's \"very powerful masculinity,\" only to note on the very next page that \"if he suffered a paper cut on a finger and saw blood, he would come into my office, looking pale.\" She declares that \"Bill was incapable of engendering a clich\u00e9, in deed as well as in word.\" But then she puts the most toe-curling clich\u00e9s into his mouth: \"Why am I more ghost than man?\" Or: \"We must arrest our love in midflight. And we fix it forever as of today, a point of pure light that will reach into eternity.\" (File that under Romantic Effusions We Doubt Ever Got Uttered.) Nor is Ross incapable of a melodramatic clich\u00e9 herself. \"Why can't we just live, just live ?\" she cries in anguish when she and Shawn, walking hand in hand out of Central Park, chance to see Shawn's wife slowly making her way down the block with a burden of packages. \n\n          And what does she think of Mrs. Shawn? \"I found her to be sensitive and likeable.\" Plus, she could \"do a mean Charleston.\" There is nothing more poignant than the image of an openly cheated-upon and humiliated wife doing \"a mean Charleston.\" \n\n         William Shawn's indispensability as an editor is amply manifest in Ross' memoir. Word repetition? \"Whatever reporting Bill asked me to do turned out to be both challenging and fun. ... For me, reporting and writing for the magazine was fun, pure fun. ... It was never 'work' for me. It was fun.\" Even in praising his skill as an editor, she betrays the presence of its absence. \"All writers, of course, have needed the one called the 'editor,' who singularly, almost mystically, embodies the many-faceted, unique life force infusing the entire enchilada.\" Nice touch, that enchilada. \n\n         When cocktail party malcontents mocked Shawn's New Yorker in the late '70s and early '80s, they would make fun of such things as E.J. Kahn's five-part series on \"Grains of the World\" or Elizabeth Drew's supposedly soporific reporting from Washington. But Ved Mehta was always the butt of the worst abuse. Shawn was allowing him to publish an autobiography in the pages of the magazine that was mounting up to millions of words over the years, and the very idea of it seemed to bore people silly. After the publication of two early installments, \"Daddyji\" and \"Mamaji,\" each the length of a book, one critic cried: \"Enoughji!\" \n\n         But it kept coming. And I, for one, was grateful. Here was a boy growing up in Punjab during the fall of the Raj and the Partition, a boy who had been blinded by meningitis at the age of 3, roller-skating through the back streets of Lahore as Sikhs slaughtered Hindus and Hindus slaughtered Muslims and civilization was collapsing and then, decades later, having made his way from India to an Arkansas school for the blind to Balliol College, Oxford, to The New Yorker , re-creating the whole thing in Proustian detail and better-than-Proustian prose ... ! \n\n          Mehta's multivolume autobiography, titled Continents of Exile , has loss as its overarching theme: loss of sight, of childhood, of home and country, and now--with this volume--loss of Mr. Shawn's New Yorker . The memoir takes us from the time the author was hired as a staff writer in the early '60s up to 1994, when he was \"terminated\" by the loathed Tina Brown in her vandalization of his cherished magazine. Mehta evidently loved William Shawn at least as much as Lillian Ross did, although his love was not requited in the same way. He likens the revered editor to the character Prince Myshkin in The Idiot : innocent and vulnerable, someone who must be protected. And long-suffering, one might infer: \"He was so careful of not hurting anyone's feelings that he often listened to utterly fatuous arguments for hours on end.\" \n\n         Like Ross, Mehta struggles to express William Shawn's ineffable virtues. \"It is as if, Mehta, he were beyond our human conception,\" Janet Flanner tells him once to calm him down. At times I wondered whether the author, in his ecstasies of devotion, had not inadvertently committed plagiarism. His words on Mr. Shawn sound suspiciously like those of Mr. Pooter on his boss Mr. Perkupp in The Diary of a Nobody . Compare. Mehta on Shawn: \"His words were so generous that I could scarcely find my tongue, even to thank him.\" Pooter on Perkupp: \"My heart was too full to thank him.\" Mehta: \"I started saying to myself compulsively, 'I wish Mr. Shawn would ring,' at the oddest times of the day or night. ... How I longed for the parade of proofs, the excitement of rewriting and perfecting!\" Pooter: \"Mr. Perkupp, I will work night and day to serve you!\" \n\n         I am not sure I have made it sound this way so far, but Mehta's book is completely engrossing--the most enjoyable book, I think, I have ever reviewed. It oozes affection and conviction, crackles with anger, and is stuffed with thumping good stories. Many are about Mehta's daft colleagues at The New Yorker , such as the guy in the next office: \n\n         His door was always shut, but I could hear him through the wall that separated his cubicle from mine typing without pause. ... Even the changing of the paper in the typewriter seemed somehow to be incorporated into the rhythmic rat-tat-tat ... year after year went by to the sound of his typing but without a word from his typewriter appearing in the magazine. \n\n         Or the great and eccentric Irish writer Maeve Breenan, who fetched up as a bag lady. Or the legendary St. Clair McKelway, whose decisive breakdown came when he hailed a cab and prevailed upon the driver to take him to the New Yorker office at 24 West 43 rd St. \"O.K., Mac, if that's what you want.\" He was in Boston at the time. (McKelway later told Mehta that if the cabby had not called him \"Mac,\" his nickname, an alarm might have gone off in his head.) \n\n         Mehta's writerly persona, a disarming mixture of the feline and the naive, is perfect for relating the little scandals that worried The New Yorker in the late '70s (plagiarism, frozen turbot), the drama of finding a worthy candidate to succeed the aging Shawn as editor, the purchase of the magazine by the evil Si Newhouse (\"We all took fright\") and the resultant plague of Gottliebs and Florios visited upon it, and what he sees as the final debacle: Tinaji. \n\n          Lillian Ross, by contrast, takes a rather cheerful view of the Brown dispensation. Indeed, the new editor even coaxed Ross into re-joining the magazine, just as she was booting Mehta out. \"I found that she possessed--under the usual disguises--her own share of Bill's kind of naivete, insight, and sensitivity,\" Ross says of Brown. \"She, too, 'got it.' \" A few months after Brown was appointed editor, Shawn died at the age of 85. He had long since stopped reading his beloved magazine, in sorrow and relief. That's if you believe Mehta. Ross assures us that Mr. Shawn was reading Tina Brown's New Yorker \"with new interest\" in the weeks prior to his death. \n\n         Has Tina Brown betrayed the legacy of William Shawn, as Mehta fiercely believes, or has she continued and built upon it, as Ross is evidently convinced? Have the changes she has wrought enlivened a stodgy magazine or vulgarized a dignified one--or both? These are weighty questions, and one is of course loath to compromise one's life chances by hazarding unripe opinions in a public forum such as this.",
    "20001": "Human Clones: Why Not? \n\n         If you can clone a sheep, you can almost certainly clone a human being. Some of the most powerful people in the world have felt compelled to act against this threat. President Clinton swiftly imposed a ban on federal funding for human-cloning research. Bills are in the works in both houses of Congress to outlaw human cloning--a step urged on all governments by the pope himself. Cloning humans is taken to be either 1) a fundamentally evil thing that must be stopped or, at the very least, 2) a complex ethical issue that needs legislation and regulation. But what, exactly, is so bad about it? \n\n         Start by asking whether human beings have a right to reproduce. I say \"yes.\" I have no moral right to tell other people they shouldn't be able to have children, and I don't see that Bill Clinton has that right either. When Clinton says, \"Let us resist the temptation to copy ourselves,\" it comes from a man not known for resisting other temptations of the flesh. And for a politician, making noise about cloning is pretty close to a fleshly temptation itself. It's an easy way to show sound-bite leadership on an issue that everybody is talking about, without much risk of bitter consequences. After all, how much federally funded research was stopped by this ban? Probably almost none, because Clinton has maintained Ronald Reagan's policy of minimizing federal grants for research in human reproduction. Besides, most researchers thought cloning humans was impossible--so, for the moment, there's unlikely to be a grant-request backlog. There is nothing like banning the nonexistent to show true leadership. \n\n         The pope, unlike the president, is known for resisting temptation. He also openly claims the authority to decide how people reproduce. I respect the pope's freedom to lead his religion, and his followers' freedom to follow his dictate. But calling for secular governments to implement a ban, thus extending his power beyond those he can persuade, shows rather explicitly that the pope does not respect the freedom of others. The basic religious doctrine he follows was set down some two millennia ago. Sheep feature prominently in the Bible, but cloning does not. So the pope's views on cloning are 1 st century rules applied using 15 th century religious thinking to a 21 st century issue. \n\n         If humans have a right to reproduce, what right does society have to limit the means? Essentially all reproduction is done these days with medical help--at delivery, and often before. Truly natural human reproduction would mean 50 percent infant mortality and make pregnancy-related death the No. 1 killer of adult women. \n\n         True, some forms of medical help are more invasive than others. With in vitro fertilization, the sperm and egg are combined in the lab and surgically implanted in the womb. Less than two decades ago, a similar concern was raised over the ethical issues involved in \"test-tube babies.\" To date, nearly 30,000 such babies have been born in the United States alone. Many would-be parents have been made happy. Who has been harmed? \n\n          The cloning procedure is similar to IVF. The only difference is that the DNA of sperm and egg would be replaced by DNA from an adult cell. What law or principle--secular, humanist, or religious--says that one combination of genetic material in a flask is OK, but another is not? No matter how closely you study the 1 st century texts, I don't think you'll find the answer. \n\n         Even if people have the right to do it, is cloning a good idea? Suppose that every prospective parent in the world stopped having children naturally, and instead produced clones of themselves. What would the world be like in another 20 or 30 years? The answer is: much like today. Cloning would only copy the genetic aspects of people who are already here. Hating a world of clones is hating the current populace. Never before was Pogo so right: We have met the enemy, and he is us ! \n\n         Adifferent scare scenario is a world filled with copies of famous people only. We'll treat celebrity DNA like designer clothes, hankering for Michael Jordan's genes the way we covet his Nike sneakers today. But even celebrity infatuation has its limits. People are not more taken with celebrities than they are with themselves. Besides, such a trend would correct itself in a generation or two, because celebrity is closely linked to rarity. The world seems amused by one Howard Stern, but give us a hundred or a million of them, and they'll seem a lot less endearing. \n\n         Clones already exist. About one in every 1,000 births results in a pair of babies with the same DNA. We know them as identical twins. Scientific studies on such twins--reared together or apart--show that they share many characteristics. Just how many they share is a contentious topic in human biology. But genetic determinism is largely irrelevant to the cloning issue. Despite how many or how few individual characteristics twins--or other clones--have in common, they are different people in the most fundamental sense . They have their own identities, their own thoughts, and their own rights. Should you be confused on this point, just ask a twin. \n\n         Suppose that Unsolved Mysteries called you with news of a long-lost identical twin. Would that suddenly make you less of a person, less of an individual? It is hard to see how. So, why would a clone be different? Your clone would be raised in a different era by different people--like the lost identical twin, only younger than you. A person's basic humanity is not governed by how he or she came into this world, or whether somebody else happens to have the same DNA. \n\n         Twins aren't the only clones in everyday life. Think about seedless grapes or navel oranges--if there are no seeds, where did they come from? It's the plant equivalent of virgin birth--which is to say that they are all clones, propagated by cutting a shoot and planting it. Wine is almost entirely a cloned product. The grapes used for wine have seeds, but they've been cloned from shoots for more than a hundred years in the case of many vineyards. The same is true for many flowers. Go to a garden store, and you'll find products with delightful names like \"Olivia's Cloning Compound,\" a mix of hormones to dunk on the cut end of a shoot to help it take root. \n\n          One recurring image in anti-cloning propaganda is of some evil dictator raising an army of cloned warriors. Excuse me, but who is going to raise such an army (\"raise\" in the sense used by parents)? Clones start out life as babies . Armies are far easier to raise the old fashioned way--by recruiting or drafting naive young adults. Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori has worked well enough to send countless young men to their deaths through the ages. Why mess with success? \n\n         Remember that cloning is not the same as genetic engineering. We don't get to make superman--we have to find him first. Maybe we could clone the superwarrior from Congressional Medal of Honor winners. Their bravery might--or might not--be genetically determined. But, suppose that it is. You might end up with such a brave battalion of heroes that when a grenade lands in their midst, there is a competition to see who gets to jump on it to save the others. Admirable perhaps, but not necessarily the way to win a war. And what about the supply sergeants? The army has a lot more of them than heroes. You could try to breed an expert for every job, including the petty bureaucrats, but what's the point? There's not exactly a shortage of them. \n\n         What if Saddam Hussein clones were to rule Iraq for another thousand years? Sounds bad, but Saddam's natural son Uday is reputed to make his father seem saintly by comparison. We have no more to fear from a clone of Saddam, or of Hitler, than we do from their natural-born kin--which is to say, we don't have much to fear: Dictators' kids rarely pose a problem. Stalin's daughter retired to Arizona, and Kim Jong Il of North Korea is laughable as Great Leader, Version 2.0. \n\n         The notion of an 80-year-old man cloning himself to cheat death is quaint, but it is unrealistic. First, the baby wouldn't really be him. Second, is the old duffer really up to changing diapers? A persistent octogenarian might convince a younger couple to have his clone and raise it, but that is not much different from fathering a child via a surrogate mother. \n\n          Fear of clones is just another form of racism. We all agree it is wrong to discriminate against people based on a set of genetic characteristics known as \"race.\" Calls for a ban on cloning amount to discrimination against people based on another genetic trait--the fact that somebody already has an identical DNA sequence. The most extreme form of discrimination is genocide--seeking to eliminate that which is different. In this case, the genocide is pre-emptive--clones are so scary that we must eliminate them before they exist with a ban on their creation. \n\n         What is so special about natural reproduction anyway? Cloning is the only predictable way to reproduce, because it creates the identical twin of a known adult. Sexual reproduction is a crap shoot by comparison--some random mix of mom and dad. In evolutionary theory, this combination is thought to help stir the gene pool, so to speak. However, evolution for humans is essentially over, because we use medical science to control the death rate. \n\n         Whatever the temptations of cloning, the process of natural reproduction will always remain a lot more fun. An expensive and uncomfortable lab procedure will never offer any real competition for sex. The people most likely to clone will be those in special circumstances--infertile couples who must endure IVF anyway, for example. Even there, many will mix genetics to mimic nature. Another special case is where one member of a couple has a severe genetic disease. They might choose a clone of the healthy parent, rather than burden their child with a joint heritage that could be fatal. \n\n         The most upsetting possibility in human cloning isn't superwarriors or dictators. It's that rich people with big egos will clone themselves. The common practice of giving a boy the same name as his father or choosing a family name for a child of either sex reflects our hunger for vicarious immortality. Clones may resonate with this instinct and cause some people to reproduce this way. So what? Rich and egotistic folks do all sorts of annoying things, and the law is hardly the means with which to try and stop them. \n\n          The \"deep ethical issues\" about cloning mainly boil down to jealousy. Economic jealousy is bad enough, and it is a factor here, but the thing that truly drives people crazy is sexual jealousy. Eons of evolution through sexual selection have made the average man or woman insanely jealous of any interloper who gains a reproductive advantage--say by diddling your spouse. Cloning is less personal than cuckoldry, but it strikes a similar chord: Someone has got the reproductive edge on you. \n\n         Once the fuss has died down and further animal research has paved the way, direct human cloning will be one more option among many specialized medical interventions in human reproduction, affecting only a tiny fraction of the population. Research into this area could bring far wider benefits. Clinton's knee-jerk policy changes nothing in the short run, but it is ultimately a giant step backward. In using an adult cell to create a clone, the \"cellular clock\" that determines the difference between an embryo and adult was somehow reset. Work in this area might help elucidate the process by which aging occurs and yield a way to reset the clocks in some of our own cells, allowing us to regenerate. Selfishly speaking, that would be more exciting to me than cloning, because it would help me . That's a lot more directly useful than letting me sire an identical twin 40 years my junior. \n\n         To some, the scientist laboring away to unlock the mysteries of life is a source of evil, never to be trusted. To others, including me, the scientist is the ray of light, illuminating the processes that make the universe work and making us better through that knowledge. Various arguments can be advanced toward either view, but one key statistic is squarely on my side. The vast majority of people, including those who rail against science, owe their very lives to previous medical discoveries. They embody the fruits of science. Don't let the forces of darkness, ignorance, and fear turn us back from research. Instead, let us raise--and yes, even clone--new generations of hapless ingrates, who can whine and rail against the discoveries of the next age.",
    "60507": "THE SUPER OPENER\nBY MICHAEL ZUROY\nHere's why you should ask for\n \na \"Feetch M-D\" next time\n \nyou get a can opener!\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1958.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\n\"Feetch!\" grated Ogden Piltdon, president of the Piltdon Opener\n Company, slamming the drafting board with his hairy fist, \"I want\n results!\"\n\n\n Heads lifted over boards. Kalvin Feetch shrunk visibly.\n\n\n \"As chief engineer you're not carrying the ball,\" Piltdon went on\n savagely. \"The Piltdon Can-Opener is trailing the competition.\n Advertising and Sales are breaking their necks. It's Engineering\n that's missing the boat!\"\n\n\n \"But Mr. Piltdon,\" remonstrated Feetch unsteadily under his employer's\n glare, \"don't you remember? I tried to....\"\n\n\n \"For two years there hasn't been one lousy improvement in the Piltdon\n Can-Opener!\" roared Mr. Piltdon. \"Look at our competitors. The\n International rips apart cans in three and three-tenths seconds.\n Universal does it in four.\"\n\n\n \"But Mr. Piltdon\u2014\"\n\n\n \"The Minerva Mighty Midget does it in four point two two and plays Home\n Sweet Home in chimes. Our own Piltdon opener barely manages to open a\n can in eight point nine without chimes. Is this what I'm paying you\n for?\"\n\n\n Feetch adjusted his spectacles with shaking hands. \"But Mr. Piltdon,\n our opener still has stability, solidity. It is built to last. It has\n dignity....\"\n\n\n \"Dignity,\" pronounced Piltdon, \"is for museums. Four months, Feetch!\n In four months I want a new can-opener that will be faster, lighter,\n stronger, flashier and more musical than any other on the market. I\n want it completely developed, engineered and tooled-up, ready for\n production. Otherwise, Feetch\u2014\"\n\n\n Feetch's body twitched. \"But Mr. Piltdon, four months is hardly time\n enough for development, even with an adequate staff. I've been trying\n to tell you for years that we're bound to fall behind because we don't\n have enough personnel to conduct research. Our men can barely keep\n up with production and maintenance. If you would let me put on a few\n draftsmen and....\"\n\n\n \"Excuses,\" sneered Mr. Piltdon. \"Your staff is more than adequate.\n I will not allow you to throw out my money. Four months, Feetch,\n no more!\" Piltdon trudged out of the room, leaving behind him an\n oppressive silence.\n\n\n How could you set a time limit on research and development? A designer\n had to dream at his board, investigate, search, build, test, compare,\n discard. He had always wanted to devote all his time to research, but\n Piltdon Opener had not given him that opportunity. Twenty-five years!\n thought Feetch. Twenty-five years of close supervision, dead-lines,\n production headaches, inadequate facilities and assistance. What had\n happened, to the proud dream he once had, the dream of exploring\n uncharted engineering regions, of unlimited time to investigate and\n develop?\n\n\n Ah, well, thought Feetch straightening his thin shoulders, he had\n managed somehow to design a few good things during his twenty-five\n years with Piltdon. That was some satisfaction.\n\n\n What now? He had to hang on to his job. Technical work was scarce.\n Since the early 1980's the schools had been turning out more\n technicians than industry could absorb. He was too old to compete in\n the employment market. He couldn't afford to lose any money. Jenny\n wasn't well.\n\n\n How to meet this four month dead-line? He would get right on it\n himself, of course; Hanson\u2014good man\u2014could work with him. He shook his\n head despairingly. Something would be sure to blow up. Well, he had to\n start\u2014\n\"Chief,\" said Hanson a few weeks later as they entered the lab, \"I'm\n beginning to wonder if the answer is in the hand mechanical type at\n all.\"\n\n\n \"Got to be,\" answered Feetch tiredly. \"We must work along classical\n can-opener lines. Departures, such as the thermal or motor-driven\n types, would be too expensive for mass production.\"\n\n\n Three new models and a group of cans were waiting for them on the\n bench. They began testing, Hanson operating the openers and Feetch\n clocking. \"Four point four,\" announced Feetch after the last test.\n \"Good, but not good enough. Too bulky. Appearance unsatisfactory.\n Chimes tinny. We've made progress, but we've a long way to go.\"\n\n\n The problem was tricky. It might seem that use of the proper gear\n ratios would give the required velocity, but there were too many\n other factors that negated this direct approach. The mechanism had to\n be compact and streamlined. Gear sizes had to be kept down. Can-top\n resistance, internal resistance, cutting tooth performance, handle\n size and moment, the minimum strength of a woman's hand were some of\n the variables that had to be balanced within rigid limits. Sector\n type cutters, traversing several arcs at the same time, had seemed to\n offer the answer for a while, but the adjusting mechanism necessary to\n compensate for variable can sizes had been too complex to be practical.\n There was the ever-present limit to production cost.\n\n\n Hanson's eyes were upon him. \"Chief,\" he said, \"it's a rotten shame.\n Twenty-five years of your life you put in with Piltdon, and he'd fire\n you just like that if you don't do the impossible. The Piltdon Company\n is built upon your designs and you get handed this deal!\"\n\n\n \"Well, well,\" said Feetch. \"I drew my pay every week so I suppose I\n have no complaints. Although,\" a wistful note crept into his voice \"I\n would have liked a little recognition. Piltdon is a household word,\n but who has heard of Feetch? Well,\"\u2014Feetch blew his nose\u2014\"how do we\n stand, Hanson?\"\n\n\n Hanson's bull-dog features drew into a scowl. \"Piltdon ought to\n be rayed,\" he growled. \"O.K., Chief. Eleven experimental models\n designed to date. Two more on the boards. Nine completed and tested,\n two in work. Best performance, four point four, but model otherwise\n unsatisfactory.\"\n\n\n \"Hello,\" said Feetch as an aproned machinist entered carrying a\n glistening mechanism. \"Here's another model. Let's try it.\" The\n machinist departed and Hanson locked the opener on a can. \"I hope\u2014\u2014\"\n he turned the handle, and stopped abruptly, staring down open-mouthed.\n\n\n A cylinder of close-packed beans rested on the bench under the opener.\n\n\n The can itself had disappeared.\n\n\n \"Chief,\" said Hanson. \"Chief.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" said Feetch. \"I see it too. Try another can.\"\n\n\n \"Vegetable soup or spinach?\" inquired Hanson dreamily.\n\n\n \"Spinach, I think,\" said Feetch. \"Where did the can go, do you suppose?\"\n\n\n The spinach can disappeared. Likewise several corn cans, sweet potato\n cans and corned-beef hash cans, leaving their contents intact. It was\n rather disconcerting.\n\n\n \"Dear, dear,\" said Feetch, regarding the piles of food on the bench.\n \"There must be some explanation. I designed this opener with sixteen\n degree, twenty-two minute pressure angle modified involute gear\n teeth, seven degree, nineteen minute front clearance cutter angle and\n thirty-six degree, twelve minute back rake angle. I expected that such\n departures from the norm might achieve unconventional performance, but\n this\u2014Dear, dear. Where do the cans go, I wonder?\"\n\n\n \"What's the difference? Don't you see what you've got here? It's the\n answer! It's more than the answer! We can put this right into work and\n beat the dead-line.\"\n\n\n Feetch shook his head. \"No, Hanson. We're producing something we don't\n understand. What forces have we uncovered here? Where do the cans go?\n What makes them disappear? Are we dealing with a kinetic or a kinematic\n effect? What motions can we plot in the area of disappearance and what\n are their analytical mathematical formulae? What masses may be critical\n here? What transformations of energy are involved? No, Hanson, we must\n learn a lot more.\"\n\n\n \"But Chief, your job.\"\n\n\n \"I'll risk that. Not a word to Piltdon.\"\n\n\n Several days later, however, Piltdon himself charged into the drawing\n room and slapped Feetch heartily on the back, causing him to break a\n pencil point. \"Feetch!\" roared Piltdon. \"Is this talk that's going\n around the plant true? Why didn't you tell me? Let's see it.\"\n\n\n After Piltdon had seen it his eyes took on a feverish glint. \"This,\"\n he exulted, \"will make can-opener history. Instantaneous opening!\n Automatic disposal! Wait until Advertising and Sales get hold of this!\n We'll throttle our competitors! The Piltdon Super-Opener we'll call it.\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Piltdon\u2014\" said Feetch shakily.\n\n\n Piltdon stared at his chief engineer sharply. \"What's the matter,\n Feetch? The thing can be duplicated, can't it?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. I've just finished checking that. But I'm in the midst of\n further investigation of the effect. There's more here than just a new\n type can-opener, sir. A whole new field of physics. New principles.\n This is big, Mr. Piltdon. I recommend that we delay production until\n further research can be completed. Hire a few top scientists and\n engineers. Find out where the cans go. Put out a scientific paper on\n the effect.\"\n\n\n \"Feetch,\" bit out Piltdon, his face growing hard. \"Stow this hooey. I\n don't give a damn where the cans go. May I remind you that under our\n standard patent agreement, all rights to your invention belong to the\n company? As well as anything you may produce in the field within a year\n after leaving our employ? We have a good thing here, and I don't want\n you holding it back. We're going into production immediately.\"\nClose, thought Feetch, wearily. It had been a man-killing job, and it\n had been close, but he'd made it. Beat the time limit by a half-day.\n The first tentative shipments of Piltdon Super-Openers had gone to\n distributors along the Eastern seaboard. The first advertisements\n blazed in selected media. The first reorders came back, and then: \"It's\n a sell-out!\" crowed Piltdon, waving a sheaf of telegrams. \"Step up\n production! Let 'er rip!\"\n\n\n The Super-Openers rolled over the country. In a remarkably short time\n they appeared in millions of kitchens from coast-to-coast. Sales\n climbed to hundreds of thousands per day. Piltdon Opener went into\n peak production in three shifts, but was still unable to keep up with\n the demand. Construction was begun on a new plant, and additional\n plants were planned. Long lines waited in front of houseware stores.\n Department stores, lucky enough to have Super-Openers on hand, limited\n sales to one to a customer. Piltdon cancelled his advertising program.\n Newspapers, magazines, radio, television and word-of-mouth spread the\n fame of the opener so that advertising was unnecessary.\n\n\n Meanwhile, of course, government scientists, research foundations,\n universities and independent investigators began to look into this new\n phenomonen. Receiving no satisfactory explanation from Piltdon, they\n set up their own research.\n\n\n Far into the night burned the lights of countless laboratories. Noted\n physicists probed, measured, weighed, traced, X-rayed, dissolved,\n spun, peered at, photographed, magnetized, exploded, shattered and\n analyzed Super-Openers without achieving the glimmer of a satisfactory\n explanation. Competitors found the patent impossible to circumvent, for\n any departure from its exact specifications nullified the effect.\n\n\n Piltdon, genial these days with success and acclaim, roared at Feetch:\n \"I'm putting you in for a raise. Yes sir! To reward you for assisting\n me with my invention I'm raising your pay two hundred dollars a year.\n That's almost four dollars a week, man.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you, Mr. Piltdon.\" And still, thought Feetch wryly, he received\n no recognition. His name did not even appear on the patent. Well,\n well, that was the way it went. He must find his satisfaction in his\n work. And it had been interesting lately, the work he had been doing\n nights at home investigating what had been named the Piltdon Effect.\n It had been difficult, working alone and buying his own equipment. The\n oscillator and ultra microwave tracking unit had been particularly\n expensive. He was a fool, he supposed, to try independent research when\n so many huge scientific organizations were working on it. But he could\n no more keep away from it than he could stop eating.\n\n\n He still didn't know where the cans went, but somehow he felt that he\n was close to the answer.\n\n\n When he finally found the answer, it was too late. The Borenchuck\n incident was only hours away.\n\n\n As soon as he could get hold of Piltdon, Feetch said trembling, \"Sir, I\n think I know where those cans are going. I recommend\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Are you still worrying about that?\" Piltdon roared jovially. \"Leave\n that to the long-hairs. We're making money, that's all that counts, eh\n Feetch?\"\nThat night, at six-ten p.m., the Borenchuck family of Selby, South\n Dakota, sat down to their evening meal. Just as they started in on the\n soup, a rain of empty tin cans clattered down, splashed into the soup,\n raised a welt on the forehead of Borenchuck senior, settled down to a\n gentle, steady klunk! klunk! klunk! and inexorably began to pile up on\n the dining-room floor. They seemed to materialize from a plane just\n below the ceiling. The police called the fire department and the fire\n department stared helplessly and recommended the sanitation department.\nThe incident made headlines in the local papers.\n\n\n The next day other local papers in widely scattered locations reported\n similar incidents.\n\n\n The following day, cans began falling on Chicago. St. Louis was next,\n and then over the entire nation the cans began to rain down. They fell\n outdoors and indoors, usually materializing at heights that were not\n dangerous. The deluge followed no pattern. Sometimes it would slacken,\n sometimes it would stop, sometimes begin heavily again. It fell in\n homes, on the streets, in theatres, trains, ships, universities and\n dog-food factories. No place was immune.\n\n\n People took to wearing hats indoors and out, and the sale of helmets\n boomed.\n\n\n All activity was seriously curtailed.\n\n\n A state of national emergency was declared.\n\n\n Government investigators went to work and soon confirmed what was\n generally suspected: these were the same cans that had been opened by\n the Piltdon Super-Opener.\n\n\n Statisticians and mathematicians calculated the mean rate of can\n precipitation and estimated that if all the cans opened by Piltdon\n openers were to come back, the deluge should be over in fifteen point\n twenty-nine days.\n\n\n Super-Opener sales of course immediately plummeted to zero and stayed\n there. Anti-Piltdon editorials appeared in the papers. Commentators\n accused Piltdon of deliberately hoaxing the public for his own gain. A\n Congressional investigation was demanded. Piltdon received threats of\n bodily injury. Lawsuits were filed against him. He barricaded himself\n in the plant, surrounded by bodyguards.\n\n\n Livid with fury and apprehension, he screamed at Feetch, \"This is your\n doing, you vandal! I'm a ruined man!\" A falling can caught him neatly\n on the tip of his nose.\n\n\n \"But sir,\" trembled Feetch, dodging three spaghetti cans, \"I tried to\n warn you.\"\n\n\n \"You're through, Feetch!\" raved Piltdon. \"Fired! Get out! But before\n you go, I want you to know that I've directed the blame where it\n belongs. I've just released to the press the truth about who created\n the Super-Opener. Now, get out!\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" said Feetch paling. \"Then you don't want to hear about my\n discovery of a way to prevent the cans from coming back?\"\n\n\n Klunk! A barrage of cans hit the floor, and both men took refuge under\n Piltdon's huge desk. \"No!\" yelled Piltdon at Feetch's face which was\n inches away. \"No, I\u2014\u2014What did you say?\"\n\n\n \"A small design improvement sir, and the cans would disappear forever.\"\n\n\n Klunk!\n\n\n \"Forever, Feetch?\"\n\n\n \"Yes sir.\" Klunk! Klunk!\n\n\n \"You're positive, Feetch?\" Piltdon's eyes glared into Feetch's.\n\n\n \"Sir, I never make careless claims.\"\n\n\n \"That's true,\" said Piltdon. His eyes grew dreamy. \"It can be done,\"\n he mused. \"The New Type Super-Opener. Free exchanges for the old.\n Cash guarantee that empty cans will never bother you. Take a licking\n at first, but then monopolize the market. All right, Feetch, I'll\n give you another chance. You'll turn over all the details to me. The\n patent on the improvement will naturally be mine. I'll get the credit\n for rectifying your blunder. Fine, fine. We'll work it out. Hop on\n production, at once, Feetch.\"\n\n\n Feetch felt himself sag inwardly. \"Mr. Piltdon,\" he said. \"I'm asking\n only one favor. Let me work full time on research and development,\n especially on the Piltdon effect. Hire a couple of extra men to help\n with production. I assure you the company will benefit in the end.\"\n\n\n \"Damn it, no!\" roared Piltdon. \"How many times must I tell you? You got\n your job back, didn't you?\"\n\n\n The prospect of long years of heavy production schedules, restricted\n engineering and tight supervision suddenly made Kalvin Feetch feel\n very tired. Research, he thought. Development. What he had always\n wanted. Over the years he had waited, thinking that there would be\n opportunities later. But now he was growing older, and he felt that\n there might not be a later. Somehow he would manage to get along.\n Perhaps someone would give him a job working in the new field he had\n pioneered. With a sense of relief he realized that he had made his\n decision.\n\n\n \"Mr. Piltdon,\" Feetch said. \"I\u2014\" klunk!\u2014\"resign.\"\n\n\n Piltdon started, extreme astonishment crossing his face.\n\n\n \"No use,\" said Feetch. \"Nothing you can say\u2014\" klunk! klunk!\n klunk!\u2014\"will make any difference now.\"\n\n\n \"But see here, the New Type Super-Opener...!\"\n\n\n \"Will remain my secret. Good day.\"\n\n\n \"Feetch!\" howled Piltdon. \"I order you to remain!\"\n\n\n Feetch almost submitted from force of habit. He hesitated for a moment,\n then turned abruptly.\n\n\n \"Good-day,\" said Feetch firmly, sprinting through the falling cans to\n the door.\nMoney, Feetch decided after a while, was a good thing to have. His\n supply was running pretty low. He was not having any luck finding\n another job. Although the cans had stopped falling on the fifteenth\n day, as predicted by the statisticians, industry would not soon forget\n the inconvenience and losses caused by the deluge. It was not anxious\n to hire the man it regarded as responsible for the whole thing.\n \"Feetch,\" the personnel man would read. \"Kalvin Feetch.\" Then, looking\n up, \"Not the Kalvin Feetch who\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Feetch would admit miserably.\n\n\n \"I am sorry, but\u2014\"\n\n\n He did no better with research organizations. Typical was a letter\n from the Van Terrel Foundation: \"\u2014cannot accept your application\n inasmuch as we feel your premature application of your discovery to\n profit-making denotes a lack of scientific responsibility and ethics\n not desirable in a member of our organization\u2014former employer states\n the decision was yours entirely. Unfavorable reference\u2014\"\n\n\n Piltdon, Feetch thought, feeling a strange sensation deep within his\n chest that he had not the experience to recognize as the beginning of a\n slow anger, Piltdon was hitting low and getting away with it.\n\n\n Of course, if he were to agree to reveal his latest discoveries to a\n research organization, he would undoubtedly get an appointment. But how\n could he? Everything patentable in his work would automatically revert\n to Piltdon under the one year clause in the company patent agreement.\n No, Feetch told himself, he was revealing nothing that Piltdon might\n grab. The anger began to mount.\n\n\n But he was beginning to need money desperately. Jenny wasn't getting\n any better and medical bills were running high.\n\n\n The phone rang. Feetch seized it and said to the image: \"Absolutely\n not.\"\n\n\n \"I'll go up another ten dollars,\" grated the little Piltdon image.\n \"Do you realize, man, this is the fourteenth raise I've offered you?\n A total increase of one hundred and twenty-six dollars? Be sensible,\n Feetch. I know you can't find work anywhere else.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks to you. Mr. Piltdon, I wouldn't work for you if\u2014\"\n\n\n A barrage of rocks crashed against the heavy steel screening of the\n window. \"What's going on!\" yelled Piltdon. \"Oh, I see. People throwing\n rocks at your house again? Oh, I know all about that, Feetch. I know\n that you're probably the most unpopular man alive to-day. I know about\n the rocks, the tomatoes, the rotten eggs, the sneaking out at night,\n the disguises you've had to use. Why don't you come back to us and\n change all that, Feetch? We'll put out the New Type Super-Opener and\n the world will soon forget about the old one.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" said Feetch. \"People will forget anyway\u2014I hope.\"\n\n\n \"If you won't think of yourself, at least think of your fellow\n workmen,\" begged Piltdon, his voice going blurry. \"Do you realize that\n Piltdon Opener will soon be forced to close down, throwing all your\n former associates out of work? Think of Hanson, Sanchez, Forbes. They\n have families too. Think of the men in the shop, the girls in the\n office, the salesmen on the road. All, all unemployed because of you.\n Think of that, Feetch.\"\n\n\n Feetch blinked. This had not occurred to him.\n\n\n Piltdon eyed him sharply, then smiled with a hint of triumph. \"Think it\n over, Feetch.\"\n\n\n Feetch sat, thinking it over. Was it right to let all these people lose\n their jobs? Frowning, he dialed Hanson's number.\n\n\n \"Chief,\" said Hanson, \"Forget it. The boys are behind you one hundred\n per cent. We'll make out.\"\n\n\n \"But that's the trouble. I thought you'd feel like this, and I can't\n let you.\"\n\n\n \"You're beginning to weaken. Don't. Think, chief, think. The brain that\n figured the Super-Opener can solve this.\"\n\n\n Feetch hung up. A glow of anger that had been building up in his chest\n grew warmer. He began pacing the floor. How he hated to do it. Think,\n Hanson had said. But he had. He's considered every angle, and there was\n no solution.\n\n\n Feetch walked into the kitchen and carefully poured himself a drink of\n water. He drank the water slowly and placed the glass on the washstand\n with a tiny click. It was the tiny click that did it. Something about\n it touched off the growing rage. If Piltdon were there he would have\n punched him in the nose. The twenty-five years. The tricks. The threats.\n\n\n Think? He'd figured the solution long ago, only he hadn't allowed\n himself to see it. Not lack of brains, lack of guts. Well, he thought\n grimly, dialing Piltdon's number, he was going through with it now.\n \"Piltdon!\" he barked. \"Three p.m. tomorrow. My place. Be here. That's\n all.\" He hung up.\n\n\n In the same grim mood the following morning, he placed a few more calls.\nIn the same mood that afternoon he stood in the middle of his\n living-room and looked at his visitors: Piltdon, Williams, the\n Government man; Billings from the Van Terrel Foundation; Steiner of\n Westchester University; the members of the press.\n\n\n \"Gentlemen,\" he said. \"I'll make it brief.\" He waved the papers in his\n hand. \"Here is everything I know about what I call the Feetch Effect,\n including plans and specifications for the New Type Super-Opener.\n All of you have special reasons for being keenly interested in this\n information. I am now going to give a copy to each of you, providing\n one condition is met by Mr. Piltdon.\" He stared at Piltdon. \"In short,\n I want fifty-one per cent of the stock of Piltdon Opener.\"\n\n\n Piltdon leaped from his chair. \"Outrageous!\" He roared. \"Ridiculous!\"\n\n\n \"Fifty-one percent,\" said Feetch firmly. \"Don't bother with any\n counterproposals or the interview is at an end.\"\n\n\n \"Gentlemen!\" squawked Piltdon, \"I appeal to you\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Stop bluffing,\" said Feetch coldly. \"There's no other way out for\n you. Otherwise you're ruined. Here, sign this agreement.\"\n\n\n Piltdon threw the paper to the floor and screamed: \"Gentlemen, will you\n be a party to this?\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" murmured the Government man, \"I never did think Feetch got a\n fair shake.\"\n\n\n \"This information is important to science,\" said the Van Terrel man.\n\n\n After Piltdon had signed, the papers were distributed.\n\n\n Published in the newspapers the following day, Feetch's statement read,\n in part: \"The motion in space and time of the singular curvilinear\n proportions of the original Super-Opener combined with the capacitor\n effect built up as it increased its frictional electro-static charge\n in inverse proportion to the cube root of the tolerance between the\n involute teeth caused an instantaneous disruption of what I call the\n Alpha multi-dimensional screen. The can, being metallic, dropped\n through, leaving its non-metallic contents behind. The disruption was\n instantly repaired by the stable nature of the screen.\n\n\n \"Beyond the screen is what I call Alpha space, a space apparently quite\n as extensive as our own universe. Unfortunately, as my investigations\n indicated, Alpha space seems to be thickly inhabited. These\n inhabitants, the nature of whom I have not yet ascertained, obviously\n resented the intrusion of the cans, developed a method of disrupting\n the screen from their side, and hurled the cans back at us.\n\n\n \"However, I have established the existence of other spaces up to Mu\n space, and suspect that others exist beyond that. Beta space, which is\n also adjacent to our own space, is devoid of any form of life. The New\n Type Super-Opener is designed to pass cans through the Beta screen.\n Beta space will safely absorb an infinite number of cans.\n\n\n \"I sincerely and humbly venture the opinion that we are on the\n threshold of tremendous and mighty discoveries. It is my belief that\n possibly an infinite number of universes exist in a type of laminated\n block separated by screens.\n\n\n \"Therefore, might it not be that an infinite number of laminated blocks\n exist\u2014?\"\n\"Mr Feetch\u2014\" said Piltdon.\n\n\n Feetch looked up from his desk in the newly constructed Feetch\n Multi-Dimensional Development Division of the Piltdon Opener Company.\n \"Piltdon, don't bother me about production. Production is your problem.\"\n\n\n \"But Mr. Feetch\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Get out,\" said Feetch.\n\n\n Piltdon blanched and left.\n\n\n \"As I was saying, Hanson\u2014\" continued Feetch.",
    "63875": "Red Witch of Mercury\nBy EMMETT McDOWELL\nDeath was Jaro Moynahan's stock in trade, and\n\n every planet had known his touch. But now, on\n\n Mercury, he was selling his guns into the\n\n weirdest of all his exploits\u2014gambling his life\n\n against the soft touch of a woman's lips.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Summer 1945.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nOn the stage of\nMercury Sam's Garden\n, a tight-frocked, limber-hipped,\n red-head was singing \"\nThe Lady from Mars\n.\" The song was a rollicking,\n ribald ditty, a favorite of the planters and miners, the space pilots\n and army officers who frequented the garden. The girl rendered it with\n such gusto that the audience burst into a roar of applause.\n\n\n She bent her head in acknowledgment so that her bronze red hair fell\n down about her face. There was perspiration on her upper lip and\n temples. Her crimson mouth wore a fixed smile. Her eyes were frightened.\n\n\n The man, who had accompanied the singer on the piano, sat at the foot\n of the stage, his back to the crowded tables. He did not look up at\n the singer but kept his pale, immature face bent over the keys, while\n his fingers lightly, automatically picked out the tune. Sweat trickled\n down the back of his neck, plastered his white coat to his back.\n Without looking up, he said: \"Have you spotted him?\" His voice was\n pitched to reach the singer alone.\n\n\n The girl, with an almost imperceptible gesture, shook her head.\n\n\n The night was very hot; but then it is always hot on Mercury, the\n newest, the wildest, the hottest of Earth's frontiers. Fans spaced\n about the garden's walls sluggishly stirred the night air, while the\n men and women sitting at the tables drank heavily of Latonka, the\n pale green wine of Mercury. Only the native waiters, the enigmatic,\n yellow-eyed Mercurians, seemed unaffected by the heat. They didn't\n sweat at all.\n\n\n Up on the stage the singer was about to begin another number when she\n stiffened.\n\n\n \"Here he is,\" she said to the pianist without moving her lips.\n\n\n The pianist swung around on his stool, lifted his black eyes to the\n gate leading to the street.\n\n\n Just within the entrance, a tall, thin man was standing. He looked like\n a gaunt gray wolf loitering in the doorway. His white duraloes suit\n hung faultlessly. His black hair was close-cropped, his nose thin and\n aquiline. For a moment he studied the crowded garden before making his\n way to a vacant table.\n\n\n \"Go on,\" said the pianist in a flat voice.\n\n\n The red-head shivered. Stepping from the stage she picked her way\n through the tables until she came to the one occupied by the newcomer.\n\n\n \"May I join you?\" she asked in a low voice.\n\n\n The man arose. \"Of course. I was expecting you. Here, sit down.\" He\n pulled out a chair, motioned for the waiter. The Mercurian, his yellow\n incurious eyes like two round topazes, sidled up. \"Bring us a bottle\n of Latonka from the Veederman region, well iced.\" The waiter slipped\n away.\n\n\n \"So,\" said the red-head; \"you have come. I did not think you would be\n in time.\" Her hands were clenched in her lap. The knuckles were white.\n\n\n The man said nothing.\n\n\n \"I did not want to call you in, Jaro Moynahan.\" It was the first time\n she had used his name. \"You have the reputation of being unpredictable.\n I don't trust you, but since....\"\nShe stopped as the waiter placed glasses on the table and deftly poured\n the pale green wine. The man, Jaro Moynahan, raised his glass.\n\n\n \"Here's to the revolution,\" he said. His low voice carried an odd,\n compelling note. His eyes, light blue and amused, were pale against his\n brown face.\n\n\n The girl drew in her breath.\n\n\n \"No! Mercury is not ready for freedom. Only a handful of fanatics are\n engineering the revolution. The real Mercurian patriots are against\n it, but they are afraid to protest. You've got to believe me. The\n revolution is scheduled to break during the Festival of the Rains. If\n it does, the Terrestrials here will be massacred. The Mercurians hate\n them. We haven't but a handful of troops.\"\n\n\n Jaro Moynahan wiped the sweat from his forehead with a fine duraweb\n handkerchief. \"I had forgotten how abominably hot it can be here.\"\n\n\n The girl ignored the interruption. \"There is one man; he is the leader,\n the very soul of the revolution. The Mercurians worship him. They will\n do whatever he says. Without him they would be lost. He is the rebel,\n Karfial Hodes. I am to offer you ten thousand Earth notes to kill\n Karfial Hodes.\"\n\n\n Jaro Moynahan refilled their empty glasses. He was a big man, handsome\n in a gaunt fashion. Only his eyes were different. They were flat and\n a trifle oblique with straight brows. The pupils were a pale and\n penetrating blue that could probe like a surgeon's knife. Now he caught\n the girl's eyes and held them with his own as a man spears a fish.\n\n\n \"Why call me all the way from Mars for that? Why not have that gunman\n at the piano rub Hodes out?\"\n\n\n The girl started, glanced at the pianist, said with a shiver: \"We can't\n locate Karfial Hodes. Don't look at me that way, Jaro. You frighten me.\n I'm telling the truth. We can't find him. That's why we called you.\n You've got to find him, Jaro. He's stirring up all Mercury.\"\n\n\n \"Who's putting up the money?\"\n\n\n \"I can't tell you.\"\n\n\n \"Ah,\" said Jaro Moynahan; \"so that's the way it is.\"\n\n\n \"That's the way it is.\"\n\n\n \"There isn't much time,\" he said after a moment. \"The Rains are due any\n day now.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" the girl replied. \"But we think he's here in the city.\"\n\n\n \"Why? What makes you think that?\"\n\n\n \"He was seen,\" she began, then stopped with a gasp.\n\n\n The lights had gone out.\n\n\n It was as unexpected as a shot in the back. One moment the garden was\n glowing in light, the next the hot black night swooped down on the\n revelers, pressing against their eyes like dark wool. The fans about\n the walls slowed audibly and stopped. It grew hotter, closer.\n\n\n Jaro Moynahan slipped sideways from the table. He felt something brush\n his sleeve. Somewhere a girl giggled.\n\n\n \"What's coming off here?\" growled a petulant male voice. Other voices\n took up the plaint.\n\n\n Across the table from Jaro there was the feel of movement; he could\n sense it. An exclamation was suddenly choked off as if a hand had been\n clamped over the girl's mouth.\n\n\n \"Red!\" said Jaro in a low voice.\n\n\n There was no answer.\n\n\n \"Red!\" he repeated, louder.\n\n\n Unexpectedly, the deep, ringing voice of Mercury Sam boomed out from\n the stage.\n\n\n \"It's all right. The master fuse blew out. The lights will be on in a\n moment.\"\n\n\n On the heels of his speech the lights flashed on, driving the night\n upward. The fans recommenced their monotonous whirring.\n\n\n Jaro Moynahan glanced at the table. The red-headed singer was gone. So\n was the pianist.\n\n\n Jaro Moynahan sat quietly back down and poured himself another glass of\n Latonka. The pale green wine had a delicate yet exhilarating taste.\n It made him think of cool green grapes beaded with dew. On the hot,\n teeming planet of Mercury it was as refreshing as a cold plunge.\n\n\n He wondered who was putting up the ten thousand Earth notes? Who stood\n to lose most in case of a revolution? The answer seemed obvious enough.\n Who, but Albert Peet. Peet controlled the Latonka trade for which there\n was a tremendous demand throughout the Universe.\n\n\n And what had happened to the girl. Had the rebels abducted her. If\n so, he suspected that they had caught a tartar. The Red Witch had the\n reputation of being able to take care of herself.\n\n\n He beckoned a waiter, paid his bill. As the Mercurian started to leave,\n a thought struck Jaro. These yellow-eyed Mercurians could see as well\n in the dark as any alley-prowling cat. For centuries they had lived\n most their lives beneath ground to escape the terrible rays of the\n sun. Only at night did they emerge to work their fields and ply their\n trades. He peeled off a bill, put it in the waiter's hands.\n\n\n \"What became of the red-headed singer?\"\n\n\n The Mercurian glanced at the bill, then back at the Earthman. There was\n no expression in his yellow eyes.\n\n\n \"She and the man, the queer white one who plays the piano, slipped out\n the gate to the street.\"\n\n\n Jaro shrugged, dismissed the waiter. He had not expected to get much\n information from the waiter, but he was not a man to overlook any\n possibility. If the girl had been abducted, only Mercurians could have\n engineered it in the dark; and the Mercurians were a clannish lot.\n\n\n Back on the narrow alley-like street Jaro Moynahan headed for his\n hostelry. By stretching out his arms he could touch the buildings on\n either side: buildings with walls four feet thick to keep out the\n heat of the sun. Beneath his feet, he knew, stretched a labyrinth of\n rooms and passages. Somewhere in those rat-runs was Karfial Hodes, the\n revolutionist, and the girl.\n\n\n At infrequent intervals green globes cut a hole in the night, casting a\n faint illumination. He had just passed one of these futile street lamps\n when he thought he detected a footfall behind him. It was only the\n whisper of a sound, but as he passed beyond the circle of radiation, he\n flattened himself in a doorway. Nothing stirred. There was no further\n sound. Again he started forward, but now he was conscious of shadows\n following him. They were never visible, but to his trained ears there\n came stealthy, revealing noises: the brush of cloth against the baked\n earth walls, the sly shuffle of a step. He ducked down a bisecting\n alley, faded into a doorway. Immediately all sounds of pursuit stopped.\n But as soon as he emerged he was conscious again of the followers. In\n the dense, humid night, he was like a blind man trying to elude the\n cat-eyed Mercurians.\nJaro Moynahan\nIn the East a sullen red glow stained the heavens like the reflection\n of a fire. The Mercurian dawn was about to break. With an oath, he set\n out again for his hostelry. He made no further effort to elude the\n followers.\nOnce back in his room, Jaro Moynahan stripped off his clothes,\n unbuckled a shoulder holster containing a compressed air slug gun,\n stepped under the shower. His body was lean and brown as his face\n and marked with innumerable scars. There were small round puckered\n scars and long thin ones, and his left shoulder bore the unmistakable\n brownish patch of a ray burn. Stepping out of the shower, he dried,\n rebuckled on the shoulder holster, slipped into pajamas. The pajamas\n were blue with wide gaudy stripes. Next he lit a cigarette and\n stretching out on the bed began to contemplate his toes with singular\n interest.\n\n\n He had, he supposed, killed rather a lot of men. He had fought in\n the deadly little wars of the Moons of Jupiter for years, then the\n Universal Debacle of 3368, after that the Martian Revolution as well as\n dozens of skirmishes between the Federated Venusian States. No, there\n was little doubt but that he had killed quite a number of men. But this\n business of hunting a man through the rat-runs beneath the city was out\n of his line.\n\n\n Furthermore, there was something phony about the entire set up.\n The Mercurians, he knew, had been agitating for freedom for years.\n Why, at this time when the Earth Congress was about to grant them\n self-government, should they stage a revolution?\n\n\n A loud, authoritative rapping at the door interrupted further\n speculation. He swung his bare feet over the edge of the bed, stood\n up and ground out his cigarette. Before he could reach the door the\n rapping came again.\n\n\n Throwing off the latch, he stepped back, balancing on the balls of his\n feet.\n\n\n \"Come in,\" he called.\n\n\n The door swung open. A heavy set man entered, shut and locked the door,\n then glanced around casually. His eyes fastened on Jaro. He licked his\n lips.\n\n\n \"Mr. Moynahan, the\u2014ah\u2014professional soldier, I believe.\" His voice was\n high, almost feminine. \"I'm Albert Peet.\" He held out a fat pink hand.\n\n\n Jaro said nothing. He ignored the hand, waited, poised like a cat.\n\n\n Mr. Peet licked his lips again. \"I have come, Mr. Moynahan, on a matter\n of business, urgent business. I had not intended to appear in this\n matter. I preferred to remain behind the scenes, but the disappearance\n of Miss Mikail has\u2014ah\u2014forced my hand.\" He paused.\n\n\n Jaro still said nothing. Miss Mikail must be the red-headed singer,\n whom at different times he had known under a dozen different aliases.\n He doubted that even she remembered her right name.\n\n\n \"Miss Mikail made you a proposition?\" Albert Peet's voice was tight.\n\n\n \"Yes,\" said Jaro.\n\n\n \"You accepted?\"\n\n\n \"Why, no. As it happened she was abducted before I had the chance.\"\n\n\n Mr. Peet licked his lips. \"But you will, surely you will. Unless\n Karfial Hodes is stopped immediately there will be a bloody uprising\n all over the planet during the Festival of the Rains. Earth doesn't\n realize the seriousness of the situation.\"\n\n\n \"Then I was right; it is you who are putting up the ten thousand Earth\n notes.\"\n\n\n \"Not entirely,\" said Peet uncomfortably. \"There are many of us\n here, Mercurians as well as Earthmen, who recognize the danger. We\n have\u2014ah\u2014pooled our resources.\"\n\n\n \"But you stand to lose most in case of a successful revolution?\"\n\n\n \"Perhaps. I have a large interest in the Latonka trade. It\n is\u2014ah\u2014lucrative.\"\nJaro Moynahan lit a cigarette, sat down on the edge of the bed. \"Why\n beat about the bush,\" he asked with a sudden grin. \"Mr. Peet, you've\n gained control of the Latonka trade. Other Earthmen are in control\n of the mines and the northern plantations. Together you form perhaps\n the strongest combine the Universe has ever seen. You actually run\n Mercury, and you've squeezed out every possible penny. Every time\n self-government has come before the Earth Congress you've succeeded in\n blocking it. You are, perhaps, the most cordially-hated group anywhere.\n I don't wonder that you are afraid of a revolution.\"\n\n\n Mr. Peet took out a handkerchief and mopped his forehead. \"Fifteen\n thousand Earth notes I can offer you. But no more. That is as high as I\n can go.\"\n\n\n Jaro laughed. \"How did you know Red had been kidnapped?\"\n\n\n \"We have a very efficient information system. I had the report of Miss\n Mikail's abduction fifteen minutes after the fact.\"\n\n\n Jaro raised his eyebrows. \"Perhaps then you know where she is?\"\n\n\n Mr. Peet shook his head. \"No. Karfial Hodes' men abducted her.\"\n\n\n A second rapping at the door caused them to exchange glances. Jaro went\n to the door, opened it. The pianist at the gardens was framed in the\n entrance. His black eyes burned holes in his pale boyish face. His\n white suit was blotched with sweat and dirt.\n\n\n \"They told me Mr. Peet was here,\" he said.\n\n\n \"It's for you,\" said Jaro over his shoulder.\n\n\n Mr. Peet came to the door. \"Hello, Stanley. I thought Hodes had you?\n Where's Miss Mikail?\"\n\n\n \"I got away. Look, Mr. Peet, I got to see you alone.\"\n\n\n Albert Peet said, \"Would you excuse me, Mr. Moynahan?\" He licked his\n lips. \"I'll just step out into the hall a moment.\" He went out, drawing\n the door shut after him.\n\n\n Jaro lit a cigarette. He padded nervously back and forth across the\n room, his bare feet making no noise. He sat down on the edge of the\n bed. He got up and ground out the cigarette. He went to the door, but\n did not open it. Instead, he took another turn about the room. Again he\n came to a halt before the door, pressed his ear against the panel. For\n a long time he listened but could distinguish no murmur of voices. With\n an oath he threw open the door. The hall was empty.\nII\n\n\n Jaro returned to his room, stripped off his pajamas, climbed back into\n his suit. He tested the slug gun. It was a flat, ugly weapon which\n hurled a slug the size of a quarter. He preferred it because, though he\n seldom shot to kill, it stopped a man like a well placed mule's hoof.\n He adjusted the gun lightly in its holster in order that it wouldn't\n stick if he were called upon to use it in a hurry. Then he went out\n into the hall.\n\n\n At the desk he inquired if any messages had come for him. There were\n none, but the clerk had seen Mr. Peet with a young fellow take the\n incline to the underground. Above the clerk's head a newsograph was\n reeling off the current events almost as soon as they happened. Jaro\n read:\n\n\n \"\nEarth Congress suspends negotiations on Mercurian freedom pending\n investigation of rumored rebellion. Terrestrials advised to return to\n Earth. Karfial Hodes, Mercurian patriot, being sought.\n\"\n\n\n Jaro descended the incline to the network of burrows which served\n as streets during the flaming days. Here in the basements and\n sub-basements were located the shops and dram houses where the\n Mercurians sat around little tables drinking silently of the pale green\n Latonka. The burrows were but poorly lit, the natives preferring the\n cool gloom, and Jaro had to feel his way, rubbing shoulders with the\n strange, silent populace. But when he reached the Terrestrial quarter\n of the city, bright radoxide lights took the place of the green globes,\n and there was a sprinkling of Colonial guards among the throng.\n\n\n Jaro halted before a door bearing a placard which read:\n\n\n \"LATONKA TRUST\"\n\n\n He pushed through the door into a rich carpeted reception room. At the\n far end was a second door beside which sat a desk, door and desk being\n railed off from the rest of the office. The door into Albert Peet's\n inner sanctum was ajar. Jaro could distinguish voices; then quite\n clearly he heard Albert Peet say in a high girlish tone:\n\n\n \"Stanley, I thought I left you in the native quarter. Why did you\n follow me? How many times have I told you never to come here?\"\n\n\n The reply was unintelligible. Then the pale-faced young man came\n through the door shutting it after himself. At the sight of Jaro\n Moynahan he froze.\n\n\n \"What're you sneaking around here for?\"\n\n\n Jaro settled himself warily, his light blue eyes flicking over the\n youth.\n\n\n \"Let's get this straight,\" he said mildly. \"I've known your kind\n before. Frankly, ever since I saw you I've had to repress a desire to\n step on you as I might a spider.\"\n\n\n The youth's black eyes were hot as coals, his fingers twitching. His\n hands began to creep upward.\n\n\n \"You dirty ...\" he began, but he got no further. Jaro Moynahan shot him\n in the shoulder.\n\n\n The compressed air slug gun had seemed to leap into Jaro's hand. The\n big slug, smacked the gunman's shoulder with a resounding thwack,\n hurled him against the wall. Jaro vaulted the rail, deftly relieved him\n of two poisoned needle guns.\n\n\n \"I'll get you for this,\" said Stanley, his mouth twisted in pain.\n \"You've broken my shoulder. I'll kill you.\"\n\n\n The door to the inner sanctum swung open.\n\n\n \"What's happened?\" cried Albert Peet in distress. \"What's wrong with\n you, Stanley?\"\n\n\n \"This dirty slob shot me in the shoulder.\"\n\n\n \"But how badly?\" Peet was wringing his hands.\n\n\n \"Nothing serious,\" said Jaro. \"He'll have his arm in a sling for a\n while. That's all.\"\n\n\n \"Stanley,\" said Mr. Peet. \"You're bleeding all over my carpet. Why\n can't you go in the washroom. There's a tile floor in there. If you\n hadn't disobeyed this wouldn't have happened. You and your fights. Has\n anyone called a doctor? Where's Miss Webb? Miss Webb! Oh, Miss Webb!\n That girl. Miss Webb!\"\nStanley climbed to his feet, swayed a moment drunkenly, then wobbled\n out a door on the left just as a tall brunette hurried in from the\n right. She had straight black hair which hung not quite to her\n shoulders, and dark brown eyes, and enough of everything else to absorb\n Jaro's attention.\n\n\n \"Oh!\" exclaimed Miss Webb as she caught sight of the blood staining the\n carpet.\nJoan Webb\n\"There's been an\u2014ah\u2014accident,\" said Mr. Peet, and he licked his lips.\n \"Call a doctor, Miss Webb.\"\n\n\n Miss Webb raised an eyebrow, went to the visoscreen. In a moment she\n had tuned in the prim starched figure of a nurse seated at a desk.\n\n\n \"Could Dr. Baer rush right over here? There's been an accident.\"\n\n\n \"Rush over where?\" said the girl in the visoscreen. \"These gadgets\n aren't telepathic, honey.\"\n\n\n \"Oh,\" said Miss Webb, \"the offices of the Latonka Trust.\"\n\n\n The girl in the visoscreen thawed like ice cream in the sun. \"I'm sure\n Dr. Baer can come. He'll be there in a moment.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you,\" said Miss Webb. She flicked the machine off, then added:\n \"You trollop.\"\n\n\n Mr. Peet regarded Jaro Moynahan with distress.\n\n\n \"Really, Mr. Moynahan, was it necessary to shoot Stanley? Isn't\n that\u2014ah\u2014a little extreme? I'm afraid it might incapacitate him, and I\n had a job for him.\"\n\n\n \"Oh,\" cried Miss Webb, her brown eyes crackling. \"Did you shoot that\n poor boy? Aren't you the big brave man?\"\n\n\n \"Poor boy?\" said Jaro mildly. \"Venomous little rattlesnake. I took\n these toys away from him.\" He held out the poisoned dart guns. \"You\n take them, Mr. Peet. Frankly, they give me the creeps. They might go\n off. A scratch from one of those needles would be enough.\"\n\n\n Mr. Peet accepted the guns gingerly. He held them as if they might\n explode any minute. He started to put them in his pocket, thought\n better of it, glanced around helplessly.\n\n\n \"Here, Miss Webb,\" he said, \"do something with these. Put them in my\n desk.\"\n\n\n Miss Webb's eyes grew round as marbles. \"I wouldn't touch one of those\n nasty little contraptions for all the Latonka on Mercury.\"\n\n\n \"Here, I'll take them,\" said Stanley coming back into the room. He had\n staunched the flow of blood. His face was even whiter, if possible.\n Jaro eyed him coldly as with his good hand the youth dropped the dart\n guns back into their holsters.\n\n\n \"Act like you want to use those and I'll put a slug in your head next\n time.\"\n\n\n \"Now, Mr. Moynahan.\" Mr. Peet licked his lips nervously. \"Stanley, go\n into my office. The doctor will be here in a moment. Miss Webb, you may\n go home. I'll have no more work for you today.\"\nAlbert Peet led Stanley through the door. Jaro and Miss Webb were\n alone. With his eye on the door, Jaro said:\n\n\n \"When you go out, turn left toward the native quarter. Wait for me in\n the first grog shop you come to.\"\n\n\n Miss Webb raised her eyebrows. \"What's this? A new technique?\"\n\n\n \"Look,\" began Jaro annoyed.\n\n\n \"My eyes are practically popping out of my head now,\" she interrupted.\n \"Another morning like this and I take the first space liner back to\n Earth.\" She jammed her hat on backward, snatched her bag from the desk\n drawer.\n\n\n \"I'm not trying to pick you up. This is....\"\n\n\n \"How disappointing.\"\n\n\n Jaro began again patiently. \"Wait for me in the first grog shop.\n There's something I must know. It's important.\" He cleared his throat.\n \"Don't you find the heat rather uncomfortable, Miss Webb. But perhaps\n you've become accustomed to it.\"\n\n\n Mr. Peet came back into the room.\n\n\n \"Why, no, I mean yes,\" replied Miss Webb, a blank expression in her\n eyes.\n\n\n \"Goodbye, Miss Webb,\" said Mr. Peet firmly.\n\n\n Jaro grinned and winked at her. Miss Webb tottered out of the room.\n\n\n As the door closed behind the girl, Albert Peet licked his lips, said:\n \"Mr. Moynahan, I suppose my disappearance back at your room requires\n some explanation. But the fact is that Stanley brought an important bit\n of news.\" He paused.\n\n\n Jaro said nothing.\n\n\n \"You might be interested to know that Miss Mikail is quite safe.\n Karfial Hodes has her, but Stanley assures me she will be quite safe.\"\n Again he paused. As Jaro remained silent, his neck mottled up pinkly.\n\n\n \"The fact is, Mr. Moynahan, that we won't need you after all. I realize\n that we've put you to considerable trouble and we're prepared to pay\n you whatever you believe your time is worth. Say five hundred Earth\n notes?\"\n\n\n \"That's fair enough,\" replied Jaro.\n\n\n Albert Peet sighed. \"I have the check made out.\"\n\n\n \"Only,\" continued Jaro coldly, \"I'm not ready to be bought off. I think\n I'll deal myself a hand in this game.\"\n\n\n Mr. Peet's face fell. \"You won't reconsider?\"\n\n\n \"Sorry,\" said Jaro; \"but I've got a date. I'm late now.\" He started to\n leave.\n\n\n \"Stanley!\" called Albert Peet.\n\n\n The pale-faced young man appeared in the doorway, the dart gun in his\n good hand. Jaro Moynahan dropped on his face, jerking out his slug gun\n as he fell. There was a tiny plop like a cap exploding. He heard the\n whisper of the poisoned dart as it passed overhead. Then he fired from\n the floor. The pale-faced young man crumpled like an empty sack.\n\n\n Jaro got up, keeping an eye on Albert Peet, brushed off his knees.\n\n\n \"You've killed him,\" said Peet. \"If I were you, Mr. Moynahan, I would\n be on the next liner back to Earth.\"\n\n\n Without answering, Jaro backed watchfully from the room.\nOnce Jaro Moynahan had regained the street, he mopped his forehead with\n his handkerchief. Whatever was going on, these boys played for keeps.\n Warily he started down the passage toward the native quarter. At the\n first basement grog shop he turned in. His eyes swept the chamber, then\n he grinned.\n\n\n At a corner table, a tall glass of Latonka before her, sat Miss Webb.\n Her hat was still on backwards, and she was perched on the edge of her\n chair as if ready to spring up and away like a startled faun.\n\n\n \"\nBang!\n\" said Jaro coming up behind her and poking a long brown finger\n in the small of her back.\n\n\n Miss Webb uttered a shriek, jerked so violently that her hat tilted\n over one eye. She regarded him balefully from beneath the brim.\n\n\n \"Never a dull moment,\" she gritted.\n\n\n Still grinning, Jaro sat down. \"I'm Jaro Moynahan, Miss Webb. I think\n Albert Peet forgot to introduce us. There's some skullduggery going on\n here that I'm particularly anxious to get to the bottom of. I thought\n you might be able to help me.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" replied Miss Webb sweetly.\n\n\n A native waiter, attracted no doubt by her scream, came over and took\n Jaro's order.\n\n\n \"All right,\" Jaro smiled, but his pale blue eyes probed the girl\n thoughtfully. \"I'll have to confide certain facts which might be\n dangerous for you to know. Are you game, Miss Webb?\"\n\n\n \"Since we're going to be so chummy,\" she replied; \"you might begin by\n calling me Joan. You make me feel downright ancient.\"\n\n\n \"Well then,\" he said. \"In the first place, I just killed that\n baby-faced gunman your boss had in his office.\"\n\n\n \"\nAwk!\n\" said Joan, choking on the Latonka.\n\n\n \"It was self-defense,\" he hastened to assure her. \"He took a pot shot\n at me with that poisoned dart gun.\"\n\n\n \"But the police!\" she cried, as she caught her breath.\n\n\n \"There'll never be an investigation. Albert Peet will see to that. I\n was called here on what I supposed was a legitimate revolution. Instead\n I was offered ten thousand Earth notes to assassinate the leader of the\n revolution.\"\n\n\n \"What revolution? I'm going around in circles.\"\n\n\n \"The Mercurians, of course.\"\n\n\n \"I don't believe it,\" said the girl. \"The Mercurians are the most\n peaceable people in the Universe. They've been agitating for freedom,\n yes. But they believe in passive resistance. I don't believe you could\n induce a Mercurian to kill, even in self-protection. That's why Albert\n Peet and the rest of the combine had such an easy time gaining control\n of the Latonka trade.\"\n\n\n \"Score one,\" breathed Jaro, \"I begin to see light. Miss Webb\u2014ah,\n Joan\u2014I've a notion that we're going to be a great team. How do you\n happen to be Albert Peet's private secretary?\"\n\n\n \"A gal's gotta eat. But the truth is, I was quitting. The Latonka Trust\n is almost on the rocks. Their stock has been dropping like a meteor.\"\n\n\n Jaro Moynahan raised his oblique brows but did not interrupt.\n\n\n \"Albert Peet,\" she continued, \"has been trying to sell out but nobody\n will touch the stock, not since it looks as if the Earth Congress is\n going to grant the Mercurians their freedom. Everybody knows that the\n first thing the Mercurians will do, will be to boot out the Latonka\n Trust.\"\n\n\n \"What about this Karfial Hodes?\" said Jaro. \"I've heard that he's\n inciting the Mercurians to rebellion. The newscaster had a line about\n the revolution too. The government has advised all Terrestrials to\n return to Earth.\"\n\n\n \"It's not true,\" Joan flared. \"It's all a pack of lies invented by the\n Latonka Trust. I know.\"\n\n\n \"But I should think rumors like that would run down the Latonka stock.\"",
    "61081": "CINDERELLA STORY\nBy ALLEN KIM LANG\nWhat a bank! The First Vice-President\n \nwas a cool cat\u2014the elevator and the\n \nmoney operators all wore earmuffs\u2014was\n \njust as phony as a three-dollar bill!\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1961.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI\n\n\n The First Vice-President of the William Howard Taft National Bank and\n Trust Company, the gentleman to whom Miss Orison McCall was applying\n for a job, was not at all the public picture of a banker. His suit of\n hound's-tooth checks, the scarlet vest peeping above the vee of his\n jacket, were enough to assure Orison that the Taft Bank was a curious\n bank indeed. \"I gotta say, chick, these references of yours really\n swing,\" said the Vice-President, Mr. Wanji. \"Your last boss says you\n come on real cool in the secretary-bit.\"\n\n\n \"He was a very kind employer,\" Orison said. She tried to keep from\n staring at the most remarkable item of Mr. Wanji's costume, a pair of\n furry green earmuffs. It was not cold.\n\n\n Mr. Wanji returned to Orison her letters of reference. \"What color\n bread you got eyes for taking down, baby?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Beg pardon?\"\n\n\n \"What kinda salary you bucking for?\" he translated, bouncing up and\n down on the toes of his rough-leather desert boots.\n\n\n \"I was making one-twenty a week in my last position,\" Miss McCall said.\n\n\n \"You're worth more'n that, just to jazz up the decor,\" Mr. Wanji said.\n \"What you say we pass you a cee-and-a-half a week. Okay?\" He caught\n Orison's look of bewilderment. \"One each, a Franklin and a Grant,\" he\n explained further. She still looked blank. \"Sister, you gonna work\n in a bank, you gotta know who's picture's on the paper. That's a\n hunnerd-fifty a week, doll.\"\n\n\n \"That will be most satisfactory, Mr. Wanji,\" Orison said. It was indeed.\n\n\n \"Crazy!\" Mr. Wanji grabbed Orison's right hand and shook it with\n athletic vigor. \"You just now joined up with our herd. I wanna tell\n you, chick, it's none too soon we got some decent scenery around\n this tomb, girlwise.\" He took her arm and led her toward the bank of\n elevators. The uniformed operator nodded to Mr. Wanji, bowed slightly\n to Orison. He, too, she observed, wore earmuffs. His were more formal\n than Mr. Wanji's, being midnight blue in color. \"Lift us to five, Mac,\"\n Mr. Wanji said. As the elevator door shut he explained to Orison,\n \"You can make the Taft Bank scene anywhere between the street floor\n and floor five. Basement and everything higher'n fifth floor is Iron\n Curtain Country far's you're concerned. Dig, baby?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. She was wondering if she'd be issued earmuffs,\n now that she'd become an employee of this most peculiar bank.\n\n\n The elevator opened on five to a tiny office, just large enough to\n hold a single desk and two chairs. On the desk were a telephone and\n a microphone. Beside them was a double-decked \"In\" and \"Out\" basket.\n \"Here's where you'll do your nine-to-five, honey,\" Mr. Wanji said.\n\n\n \"What will I be doing, Mr. Wanji?\" Orison asked.\n\n\n The Vice-President pointed to the newspaper folded in the \"In\" basket.\n \"Flip on the microphone and read the paper to it,\" he said. \"When you\n get done reading the paper, someone will run you up something new to\n read. Okay?\"\n\n\n \"It seems a rather peculiar job,\" Orison said. \"After all, I'm a\n secretary. Is reading the newspaper aloud supposed to familiarize me\n with the Bank's operation?\"\n\n\n \"Don't bug me, kid,\" Mr. Wanji said. \"All you gotta do is read that\n there paper into this here microphone. Can do?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. \"While you're here, Mr. Wanji, I'd like to\n ask you about my withholding tax, social security, credit union,\n coffee-breaks, union membership, lunch hour and the like. Shall we take\n care of these details now? Or would you\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You just take care of that chicken-flickin' kinda stuff any way seems\n best to you, kid,\" Mr. Wanji said.\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. This laissez-faire policy of Taft Bank's\n might explain why she'd been selected from the Treasury Department's\n secretarial pool to apply for work here, she thought. Orison McCall,\n girl Government spy. She picked up the newspaper from the \"In\" basket,\n unfolded it to discover the day's\nWall Street Journal\n, and began at\n the top of column one to read it aloud. Wanji stood before the desk,\n nodding his head as he listened. \"You blowing real good, kid,\" he said.\n \"The boss is gonna dig you the most.\"\n\n\n Orison nodded. Holding her newspaper and her microphone, she read the\n one into the other. Mr. Wanji flicked his fingers in a good-by, then\n took off upstairs in the elevator.\nBy lunchtime Orison had finished the\nWall Street Journal\nand had\n begun reading a book an earmuffed page had brought her. The book was a\n fantastic novel of some sort, named\nThe Hobbit\n. Reading this peculiar\n fare into the microphone before her, Miss McCall was more certain than\n ever that the Taft Bank was, as her boss in Washington had told her,\n the front for some highly irregular goings-on. An odd business for a\n Federal Mata Hari, Orison thought, reading a nonsense story into a\n microphone for an invisible audience.\n\n\n Orison switched off her microphone at noon, marked her place in the\n book and took the elevator down to the ground floor. The operator was\n a new man, ears concealed behind scarlet earmuffs. In the car, coming\n down from the interdicted upper floors, were several gentlemen with\n briefcases. As though they were members of a ballet-troupe, these\n gentlemen whipped off their hats with a single motion as Orison stepped\n aboard the elevator. Each of the chivalrous men, hat pressed to his\n heart, wore a pair of earmuffs. Orison nodded bemused acknowledgment\n of their gesture, and got off in the lobby vowing never to put a penny\n into this curiousest of banks.\n\n\n Lunch at the stand-up counter down the street was a normal interlude.\n Girls from the ground-floor offices of Taft Bank chattered together,\n eyed Orison with the coolness due so attractive a competitor, and\n favored her with no gambit to enter their conversations. Orison sighed,\n finished her tuna salad on whole-wheat, then went back upstairs to her\n lonely desk and her microphone. By five, Orison had finished the book,\n reading rapidly and becoming despite herself engrossed in the saga of\n Bilbo Baggins, Hobbit. She switched off the microphone, put on her\n light coat, and rode downstairs in an elevator filled with earmuffed,\n silent, hat-clasping gentlemen.\n\n\n What I need, Orison thought, walking rapidly to the busline, is a\n double Scotch, followed by a double Scotch. And what the William Howard\n Taft National Bank and Trust Company needs is a joint raid by forces of\n the U.S. Treasury Department and the American Psychiatric Association.\n Earmuffs, indeed. Fairy-tales read into a microphone. A Vice-President\n with the vocabulary of a racetrack tout. And what goes on in those\n upper floors? Orison stopped in at the restaurant nearest her apartment\n house\u2014the Windsor Arms\u2014and ordered a meal and a single Martini. Her\n boss in Washington had told her that this job of hers, spying on Taft\n Bank from within, might prove dangerous. Indeed it was, she thought.\n She was in danger of becoming a solitary drinker.\n\n\n Home in her apartment, Orison set the notes of her first day's\n observations in order. Presumably Washington would call tonight for\n her initial report. Item: some of the men at the Bank wore earmuffs,\n several didn't. Item: the Vice-President's name was Mr. Wanji:\n Oriental? Item: the top eight floors of the Taft Bank Building seemed\n to be off-limits to all personnel not wearing earmuffs. Item: she was\n being employed at a very respectable salary to read newsprint and\n nonsense into a microphone. Let Washington make sense of that, she\n thought.\nIn a gloomy mood, Orison McCall showered and dressed for bed. Eleven\n o'clock. Washington should be calling soon, inquiring after the results\n of her first day's spying.\n\n\n No call. Orison slipped between the sheets at eleven-thirty. The clock\n was set; the lights were out. Wasn't Washington going to call her?\n Perhaps, she thought, the Department had discovered that the Earmuffs\n had her phone tapped.\n\n\n \"Testing,\" a baritone voice muttered.\n\n\n Orison sat up, clutching the sheet around her throat. \"Beg pardon?\" she\n said.\n\n\n \"Testing,\" the male voice repeated. \"One, two, three; three, two, one.\n Do you read me? Over.\"\n\n\n Orison reached under the bed for a shoe. Gripping it like a Scout-ax,\n she reached for the light cord with her free hand and tugged at it.\n\n\n The room was empty.\n\n\n \"Testing,\" the voice repeated.\n\n\n \"What you're testing,\" Orison said in a firm voice, \"is my patience.\n Who are you?\"\n\n\n \"Department of Treasury Monitor J-12,\" the male voice said. \"Do you\n have anything to report, Miss McCall?\"\n\n\n \"Where are you, Monitor?\" she demanded.\n\n\n \"That's classified information,\" the voice said. \"Please speak directly\n to your pillow, Miss McCall.\"\n\n\n Orison lay down cautiously. \"All right,\" she whispered to her pillow.\n\n\n \"Over here,\" the voice instructed her, coming from the unruffled pillow\n beside her.\n\n\n Orison transferred her head to the pillow to her left. \"A radio?\" she\n asked.\n\n\n \"Of a sort,\" Monitor J-12 agreed. \"We have to maintain communications\n security. Have you anything to report?\"\n\n\n \"I got the job,\" Orison said. \"Are you ... in that pillow ... all the\n time?\"\n\n\n \"No, Miss McCall,\" the voice said. \"Only at report times. Shall we\n establish our rendezvous here at eleven-fifteen, Central Standard Time,\n every day?\"\n\n\n \"You make it sound so improper,\" Orison said.\n\n\n \"I'm far enough away to do you no harm, Miss McCall,\" the monitor said.\n \"Now, tell me what happened at the bank today.\"\n\n\n Orison briefed her pillow on the Earmuffs, on her task of reading to a\n microphone, and on the generally mimsy tone of the William Howard Taft\n National Bank and Trust Company. \"That's about it, so far,\" she said.\n\n\n \"Good report,\" J-12 said from the pillow. \"Sounds like you've dropped\n into a real snakepit, beautiful.\"\n\n\n \"How do you know ... why do you think I'm beautiful?\" Orison asked.\n\n\n \"Native optimism,\" the voice said. \"Good night.\" J-12 signed off with\n a peculiar electronic pop that puzzled Orison for a moment. Then she\n placed the sound: J-12 had kissed his microphone.\n\n\n Orison flung the shoe and the pillow under her bed, and resolved\n to write Washington for permission to make her future reports by\n registered mail.\nII\n\n\n At ten o'clock the next morning, reading page four of the current\nWall Street Journal\n, Orison was interrupted by the click of a pair\n of leather heels. The gentleman whose heels had just slammed together\n was bowing. And she saw with some gratification that he was not\n wearing earmuffs. \"My name,\" the stranger said, \"is Dink Gerding. I am\n President of this bank, and wish at this time to welcome you to our\n little family.\"\n\n\n \"I'm Orison McCall,\" she said. A handsome man, she mused. Twenty-eight?\n So tall. Could he ever be interested in a girl just five-foot-three?\n Maybe higher heels?\n\n\n \"We're pleased with your work, Miss McCall,\" Dink Gerding said. He took\n the chair to the right of her desk.\n\n\n \"It's nothing,\" Orison said, switching off the microphone.\n\n\n \"On the contrary, Miss McCall. Your duties are most important,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Reading papers and fairy-tales into this microphone is nothing any\n reasonably astute sixth-grader couldn't do as well,\" Orison said.\n\n\n \"You'll be reading silently before long,\" Mr. Gerding said. He smiled,\n as though this explained everything. \"By the way, your official\n designation is Confidential Secretary. It's me whose confidences you're\n to keep secret. If I ever need a letter written, may I stop down here\n and dictate it?\"\n\n\n \"Please do,\" Orison said. This bank president, for all his grace and\n presence, was obviously as kookie as his bank.\n\n\n \"Have you ever worked in a bank before, Miss McCall?\" Mr. Gerding\n asked, as though following her train of thought.\n\n\n \"No, sir,\" she said. \"Though I've been associated with a rather large\n financial organization.\"\n\n\n \"You may find some of our methods a little strange, but you'll get used\n to them,\" he said. \"Meanwhile, I'd be most grateful if you'd dispense\n with calling me 'sir.' My name is Dink. It is ridiculous, but I'd enjoy\n your using it.\"\n\n\n \"Dink?\" she asked. \"And I suppose you're to call me Orison?\"\n\n\n \"That's the drill,\" he said. \"One more question, Orison. Dinner this\n evening?\"\n\n\n Direct, she thought. Perhaps that's why he's president of a bank, and\n still so young. \"We've hardly met,\" she said.\n\n\n \"But we're on a first-name basis already,\" he pointed out. \"Dance?\"\n\n\n \"I'd love to,\" Orison said, half expecting an orchestra to march,\n playing, from the elevator.\n\n\n \"Then I'll pick you up at seven. Windsor Arms, if I remember your\n personnel form correctly.\" He stood, lean, all bone and muscle,\n and bowed slightly. West Point? Hardly. His manners were European.\n Sandhurst, perhaps, or Saint Cyr. Was she supposed to reply with a\n curtsy? Orison wondered.\n\n\n \"Thank you,\" she said.\n\n\n He was a soldier, or had been: the way, when he turned, his shoulders\n stayed square. The crisp clicking of his steps, a military metronome,\n to the elevator. When the door slicked open Orison, staring after Dink,\n saw that each of the half-dozen men aboard snapped off their hats (but\n not their earmuffs) and bowed, the earmuffed operator bowing with them.\n Small bows, true; just head-and-neck. But not to her. To Dink Gerding.\nOrison finished the\nWall Street Journal\nby early afternoon. A\n page came up a moment later with fresh reading-matter: a copy of\n yesterday's\nCongressional Record\n. She launched into the\nRecord\n,\n thinking as she read of meeting again this evening that handsome\n madman, that splendid lunatic, that unlikely bank-president. \"You read\n so\nwell\n, darling,\" someone said across the desk.\n\n\n Orison looked up. \"Oh, hello,\" she said. \"I didn't hear you come up.\"\n\n\n \"I walk ever so lightly,\" the woman said, standing hip-shot in front\n of the desk, \"and pounce ever so hard.\" She smiled. Opulent, Orison\n thought. Built like a burlesque queen. No, she thought, I don't like\n her. Can't. Wouldn't if I could. Never cared for cats.\n\n\n \"I'm Orison McCall,\" she said, and tried to smile back without showing\n teeth.\n\n\n \"Delighted,\" the visitor said, handing over an undelighted palm. \"I'm\n Auga Vingt. Auga, to my friends.\"\n\n\n \"Won't you sit down, Miss Vingt?\"\n\n\n \"So kind of you, darling,\" Auga Vingt said, \"but I shan't have time to\n visit. I just wanted to stop and welcome you as a Taft Bank co-worker.\n One for all, all for one. Yea, Team. You know.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks,\" Orison said.\n\n\n \"Common courtesy,\" Miss Vingt explained. \"Also, darling, I'd like to\n draw your attention to one little point. Dink Gerding\u2014you know, the\n shoulders and muscles and crewcut? Well, he's posted property. Should\n you throw your starveling charms at my Dink, you'd only get your little\n eyes scratched out. Word to the wise,\nn'est-ce pas\n?\"\n\n\n \"Sorry you have to leave so suddenly,\" Orison said, rolling her\nWall\n Street Journal\ninto a club and standing. \"Darling.\"\n\n\n \"So remember, Tiny, Dink Gerding is mine. You're all alone up here.\n You could get broken nails, fall down the elevator shaft, all sorts of\n annoyance. Understand me, darling?\"\n\n\n \"You make it very clear,\" Orison said. \"Now you'd best hurry back to\n your stanchion, Bossy, before the hay's all gone.\"\n\n\n \"Isn't it lovely, the way you and I reached an understanding right\n off?\" Auga asked. \"Well, ta-ta.\" She turned and walked to the elevator,\n displaying, Orison thought, a disgraceful amount of ungirdled rhumba\n motion.\n\n\n The elevator stopped to pick up the odious Auga. A passenger, male,\n stepped off. \"Good morning, Mr. Gerding,\" Miss Vingt said, bowing.\n\n\n \"Carry on, Colonel,\" the stranger replied. As the elevator door closed,\n he stepped up to Orison's desk. \"Good morning. Miss McCall,\" he said.\n\n\n \"What is this?\" Orison demanded. \"Visiting-day at the zoo?\" She paused\n and shook her head. \"Excuse me, sir,\" she said. \"It's just that ...\n Vingt thing....\"\n\n\n \"Auga is rather intense,\" the new Mr. Gerding said.\n\n\n \"Yeah, intense,\" Orison said. \"Like a kidney-stone.\"\n\n\n \"I stopped by to welcome you to the William Howard Taft National Bank\n and Trust Company family, Miss McCall,\" he said. \"I'm Kraft Gerding,\n Dink's elder brother. I understand you've met Dink already.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" Orison said. The hair of this new Mr. Gerding was cropped\n even closer than Dink's. His mustache was gray-tipped, like a patch\n of frosted furze; and his eyes, like Dink's, were cobalt blue. The\n head, Orison mused, would look quite at home in one of Kaiser Bill's\n spike-topped\nPickelhauben\n; but the ears were in evidence, and seemed\n normal. Mr. Kraft Gerding bowed\u2014what continental manners these bankers\n had!\u2014and Orison half expected him to free her hand from the rolled-up\n paper she still clutched and plant a kiss on it.\nInstead, Kraft Gerding smiled a smile as frosty as his mustache and\n said, \"I understand that my younger brother has been talking with you,\n Miss McCall. Quite proper, I know. But I must warn you against mixing\n business with pleasure.\"\n\n\n Orison jumped up, tossing the paper into her wastebasket. \"I quit!\" she\n shouted. \"You can take this crazy bank ... into bankruptcy, for all I\n care. I'm not going to perch up here, target for every uncaged idiot in\n finance, and listen to another word.\"\n\n\n \"Dearest lady, my humblest pardon,\" Kraft Gerding said, bowing again,\n a bit lower. \"Your work is splendid; your presence is Taft Bank's most\n charming asset; my only wish is to serve and protect you. To this end,\n dear lady, I feel it my duty to warn you against my brother. A word to\n the wise....\"\n\n\n \"\nN'est-ce pas?\n\" Orison said. \"Well, Buster, here's a word to the\n foolish. Get lost.\"\n\n\n Kraft Gerding bowed and flashed his gelid smile. \"Until we meet again?\"\n\n\n \"I'll hold my breath,\" Orison promised. \"The elevator is just behind\n you. Push a button, will you? And\nbon voyage\n.\"\n\n\n Kraft Gerding called the elevator, marched aboard, favored Orison with\n a cold, quick bow, then disappeared into the mysterious heights above\n fifth floor.\n\n\n First the unspeakable Auga Vingt, then the obnoxious Kraft Gerding.\n Surely, Orison thought, recovering the\nWall Street Journal\nfrom her\n wastebasket and smoothing it, no one would convert a major Midwestern\n bank into a lunatic asylum. How else, though, could the behavior\n of the Earmuffs be explained? Could madmen run a bank? Why not, she\n thought. History is rich in examples of madmen running nations, banks\n and all. She began again to read the paper into the microphone. If she\n finished early enough, she might get a chance to prowl those Off-Limits\n upper floors.\n\n\n Half an hour further into the paper, Orison jumped, startled by the\n sudden buzz of her telephone. She picked it up. \"\nWanji e-Kal, Datto.\n Dink ger-Dink d'summa.\n\"\n\n\n Orison scribbled down this intelligence in bemused Gregg before\n replying, \"I'm a local girl. Try me in English.\"\n\n\n \"Oh. Hi, Miss McCall,\" the voice said. \"Guess I goofed. I'm in kinda\n clutch. This is Wanji. I got a kite for Mr. Dink Gerding. If you see\n him, tell him the escudo green is pale. Got that, doll?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, Mr. Wanji. I'll tell Mr. Gerding.\" Orison clicked the phone down.\n What now, Mata Hari? she asked herself. What was the curious language\n Mr. Wanji had used? She'd have to report the message to Washington by\n tonight's pillow, and let the polyglots of Treasury Intelligence puzzle\n it out. Meanwhile, she thought, scooting her chair back from her desk,\n she had a vague excuse to prowl the upper floors. The Earmuffs could\n only fire her.\n\n\n Orison folded the paper and put it in the \"Out\" basket. Someone would\n be here in a moment with something new to read. She'd best get going.\n The elevator? No. The operators had surely been instructed to keep her\n off the upstairs floors.\n\n\n But the building had a stairway.\nIII\n\n\n The door on the sixth floor was locked. Orison went on up the stairs to\n seven. The glass of the door there was painted black on the inside, and\n the landing was cellar-dark. Orison closed her eyes for a moment. There\n was a curious sound. The buzzing of a million bees, barely within the\n fringes of her hearing. Somehow, a very pleasant sound.\n\n\n She opened her eyes and tried the knob. The door opened.\n\n\n Orison was blinded by the lights, brilliant as noonday sun. The room\n extended through the entire seventh floor, its windows boarded shut,\n its ceiling a mass of fluorescent lamps. Set about the floor were\n galvanized steel tanks, rectangular and a little bigger than bathtubs.\n Orison counted the rows of tanks. Twelve rows, nine tiers. One hundred\n and eight tanks. She walked closer. The tubs were laced together by\n strands of angel-hair, delicate white lattices scintillating with\n pink. She walked to the nearest of the tubs and looked in. It was half\n full of a greenish fluid, seething with tiny pink bubbles. For a moment\n Orison thought she saw Benjamin Franklin winking up at her from the\n liquid. Then she screamed.\nThe pink bubbles, the tiny flesh-colored flecks glinting light from\n the spun-sugar bridges between the tanks, were spiders. Millions\n upon millions of spiders, each the size of a mustard-seed; crawling,\n leaping, swinging, spinning webs, seething in the hundred tanks. Orison\n put her hands over her ears and screamed again, backing toward the\n stairway door.\n\n\n Into a pair of arms.\n\n\n \"I had hoped you'd be happy here, Miss McCall,\" Kraft Gerding said.\n Orison struggled to release herself. She broke free only to have\n her wrists seized by two Earmuffs that had appeared with the elder\n Gerding. \"It seems that our Pandora doesn't care for spiders,\" he\n said. \"Really, Miss McCall, our little pets are quite harmless. Were\n we to toss you into one of these tanks....\" Orison struggled against\n her two\nsumo\n-sized captors, whose combined weights exceeded hers by\n some quarter-ton, without doing more than lifting her feet from the\n floor. \"... your flesh would be unharmed, though they spun and darted\n all around you. Our Microfabridae are petrovorous, Miss McCall. Of\n course, once they discovered your teeth, and through them a skeleton of\n calcium, a delicacy they find most toothsome, you'd be filleted within\n minutes.\"\n\n\n \"Elder Compassion wouldn't like your harming the girl, Sire,\" one of\n the earmuffed\nsumo\n-wrestlers protested.\n\n\n \"Elder Compassion has no rank,\" Kraft Gerding said. \"Miss McCall, you\n must tell me what you were doing here, or I'll toss you to the spiders.\"\n\n\n \"Dink ... Dink!\" Orison shouted.\n\n\n \"My beloved younger brother is otherwise engaged than in the rescue of\n damsels in distress,\" Kraft said. \"Someone, after all, has to mind the\n bank.\"\n\n\n \"I came to bring a message to Dink,\" Orison said. \"Let me go, you\n acromegalic apes!\"\n\n\n \"The message?\" Kraft Gerding demanded.\n\n\n \"Something about escudo green. Put me down!\"\nSuddenly she was dropped. Her mountainous keepers were on the floor as\n though struck by lightning, their arms thrown out before them, their\n faces abject against the floor. Kraft Gerding was slowly lowering\n himself to one knee. Dink had entered the spider-room. Without\n questions, he strode between the shiko-ing Earmuffs and put his arms\n around Orison.\n\n\n \"They can't harm you,\" he said. She turned to press her face against\n his chest. \"You're all right, child. Breathe deep, swallow, and turn\n your brain back on. All right, now?\"\n\n\n \"All right,\" she said, still trembling. \"They were going to throw me to\n the spiders.\"\n\n\n \"Kraft told you that?\" Dink Gerding released her and turned to the\n kneeling man. \"Stand up, Elder Brother.\"\n\n\n \"I....\"\n\n\n Dink brought his right fist up from hip-level, crashing it into Kraft's\n jaw. Kraft Gerding joined the Earmuffs on the floor.\n\n\n \"If you'd care to stand again, Elder Brother, you may attempt to\n recover your dignity without regard for the difference in our rank.\"\n Kraft struggled to one knee and remained kneeling, gazing up at Dink\n through half-closed eyes. \"No? Then get out of here, all of you.\nSamma!\n\"\n\n\n Kraft Gerding arose, stared for a moment at Dink and Orison, then, with\n the merest hint of a bow, led his two giant Earmuffs to the elevator.\n\n\n \"I wish you hadn't come up here, Orison,\" Dink said. \"Why did you do\n it?\"\n\n\n \"Have you read the story of Bluebeard?\" Orison asked. She stood close\n to Dink, keeping her eyes on the nearest spidertank. \"I had to see\n what it was you kept up here so secretly, what it was that I was\n forbidden to see. My excuse was to have been that I was looking for\n you, to deliver a message from Mr. Wanji. He said I was to tell you\n that the escudo green is pale.\"\n\n\n \"You're too curious, and Wanji is too careless,\" Dink said. \"Now, what\n is this thing you have about spiders?\"\n\n\n \"I've always been terrified of them,\" Orison said. \"When I was a little\n girl, I had to stay upstairs all day one Sunday because there was a\n spider hanging from his thread in the stairway. I waited until Dad came\n home and took it down with a broom. Even then, I didn't have appetite\n for supper.\"\n\n\n \"Strange,\" Dink said. He walked over to the nearest tank and plucked\n one of the tiny pink creatures from a web-bridge. \"This is no spider,\n Orison,\" he said.\n\n\n She backed away from Dink Gerding and the minuscule creature he cupped\n in the palm of his hand. \"These are Microfabridae, more nearly related\n to shellfish than to spiders,\" he said. \"They're stone-and-metal\n eaters. They literally couldn't harm a fly. Look at it, Orison.\" He\n extended his palm. Orison forced herself to look. The little creature,\n flesh-colored against his flesh, was nearly invisible, scuttling around\n the bowl of his hand. \"Pretty little fellow, isn't he?\" Dink asked.\n \"Here. You hold him.\"\n\n\n \"I'd rather not,\" she protested.\n\n\n \"I'd be happier if you did,\" Dink said.\nOrison extended her hand as into a furnace. Dink brushed the\n Microfabridus from his palm to hers. It felt crisp and hard, like\n a legged grain of sand. Dink took a magnifier from his pocket and\n unfolded it, to hold it over Orison's palm.\n\n\n \"He's like a baby crawdad,\" Orison said.\n\n\n \"A sort of crustacean,\" Dink agreed. \"We use them in a commercial\n process we're developing. That's why we keep this floor closed off and\n secret. We don't have a patent on the use of Microfabridae, you see.\"\n\n\n \"What do they do?\" Orison asked.\n\n\n \"That's still a secret,\" Dink said, smiling. \"I can't tell even you\n that, not yet, even though you're my most confidential secretary.\"\n\n\n \"What's he doing now?\" Orison asked, watching the Microfabridus,\n perched up on the rear four of his six microscopic legs, scratching\n against her high-school class-ring with his tiny chelae.\n\n\n \"They like gold,\" Dink explained, peering across her shoulder,\n comfortably close. \"They're attracted to it by a chemical tropism, as\n children are attracted to candy. Toss him back into his tank, Orison.\n We'd better get you down where you belong.\"\n\n\n Orison brushed the midget crustacean off her finger into the nearest\n tank, where he joined the busy boil of his fellows. She felt her ring.\n It was pitted where the Microfabridus had been nibbling. \"Strange,\n using crawdads in a bank,\" she said. She stood silent for a moment. \"I\n thought I heard music,\" she said. \"I heard it when I came in. Something\n like the sighing of wind in winter trees.\"\n\n\n \"That's the hymn of the Microfabridae,\" Dink said. \"They all sing\n together while they work, a chorus of some twenty million voices.\" He\n took her arm. \"If you listen very carefully, you'll find the song these\n little workers sing the most beautiful music in the world.\"\n\n\n Orison closed her eyes, leaning back into Dink's arms, listening to\n the music that seemed on the outermost edge of her hearing. Wildness,\n storm and danger were its theme, counterpointed by promises of peace\n and harbor. She heard the wash of giant waves in the song, the crash\n of breakers against granite, cold and insatiable. And behind this, the\n quiet of sheltered tide-pools, the soft lub of sea-arms landlocked.\n \"It's an ancient song,\" Dink said. \"The Microfabridae have been\n singing it for a million years.\" He released her, and opened a\n wood-covered wooden box. He scooped up a cupful of the sand inside.\n \"Hold out your hands,\" he told Orison. He filled them with the sand.\n \"Throw our singers some supper for their song,\" he said.\n\n\n Orison went with her cupped hands to the nearest tank and sprinkled the\n mineral fishfood around inside it. The Microfabridae leaped from the\n liquid like miniature porpoises, seizing the grains of sand in mid-air.\n \"They're so very strange,\" Orison said. At the bottom of the tank she\n thought she saw Ben Franklin again, winking at her through the bubbling\n life. Nonsense, she thought, brushing her hands.",
    "61052": "Spawning Ground\nBy LESTER DEL REY\nThey weren't human. They were something\n\n more\u2014and something less\u2014they were,\n\n in short, humanity's hopes for survival!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe Starship\nPandora\ncreaked and groaned as her landing pads settled\n unevenly in the mucky surface of the ugly world outside. She seemed to\n be restless to end her fool's errand here, two hundred light years from\n the waiting hordes on Earth. Straining metal plates twanged and echoed\n through her hallways.\n\n\n Captain Gwayne cursed and rolled over, reaching for his boots. He was\n a big, rawboned man, barely forty; but ten years of responsibility\n had pressed down his shoulders and put age-feigning hollows under his\n reddened eyes. The starlanes between Earth and her potential colonies\n were rough on the men who traveled them now. He shuffled toward the\n control room, grumbling at the heavy gravity.\n\n\n Lieutenant Jane Corey looked up, nodding a blonde head at him as he\n moved toward the ever-waiting pot of murky coffee. \"Morning, Bob. You\n need a shave.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah.\" He swallowed the hot coffee without tasting it, then ran a\n hand across the dark stubble on his chin. It could wait. \"Anything new\n during the night?\"\n\n\n \"About a dozen blobs held something like a convention a little ways\n north of us. They broke up about an hour ago and streaked off into the\n clouds.\" The blobs were a peculiarity of this planet about which nobody\n knew anything. They looked like overgrown fireballs, but seemed to have\n an almost sentient curiosity about anything moving on the ground. \"And\n our two cadets sneaked out again. Barker followed them, but lost them\n in the murk. I've kept a signal going to guide them back.\"\n\n\n Gwayne swore softly to himself. Earth couldn't turn out enough starmen\n in the schools, so promising kids were being shipped out for training\n as cadets on their twelfth birthday. The two he'd drawn, Kaufman and\n Pinelli, seemed to be totally devoid of any sense of caution.\n\n\n Of course there was no obvious need for caution here. The blobs hadn't\n seemed dangerous, and the local animals were apparently all herbivorous\n and harmless. They were ugly enough, looking like insects in spite of\n their internal skeletons, with anywhere from four to twelve legs each\n on their segmented bodies. None acted like dangerous beasts.\n\n\n But\nsomething\nhad happened to the exploration party fifteen years\n back, and to the more recent ship under Hennessy that was sent to check\n up.\nHe turned to the port to stare out at the planet. The Sol-type sun\n must be rising, since there was a dim light. But the thick clouds that\n wrapped the entire world diffused its rays into a haze. For a change,\n it wasn't raining, though the ground was covered by thick swirls of\n fog. In the distance, the tops of shrubs that made a scrub forest\n glowed yellow-green. Motions around them suggested a herd of feeding\n animals. Details were impossible to see through the haze. Even the\n deep gorge where they'd found Hennessy's carefully buried ship was\n completely hidden by the fog.\n\n\n There were three of the blobs dancing about over the grazing animals\n now, as they often seemed to do. Gwayne stared at them for a minute,\n trying to read sense into the things. If he had time to study them....\n\n\n But there was no time.\n\n\n Earth had ordered him to detour here, after leaving his load of\n deep-sleep stored colonists on Official World 71, to check on any sign\n of Hennessy. He'd been here a week longer than he should have stayed\n already. If there was no sign in another day or so of what had happened\n to the men who'd deserted their ship and its equipment, he'd have to\n report back.\n\n\n He would have left before, if a recent landslip hadn't exposed enough\n of the buried ship for his metal locators to spot from the air by\n luck. It had obviously been hidden deep enough to foil the detectors\n originally.\n\n\n \"Bob!\" Jane Corey's voice cut through his pondering. \"Bob, there are\n the kids!\"\n\n\n Before he could swing to follow her pointing finger, movement caught\n his eye.\n\n\n The blobs had left the herd. Now the three were streaking at fantastic\n speed to a spot near the ship, to hover excitedly above something that\n moved there.\n\n\n He saw the two cadets then, heading back to the waiting ship, just\n beyond the movement he'd seen through the mist.\n\n\n Whatever was making the fog swirl must have reached higher ground.\n Something began to heave upwards. It was too far to see clearly, but\n Gwayne grabbed the microphone, yelling into the radio toward the cadets.\n\n\n They must have seen whatever it was just as the call reached them.\n Young Kaufman grabbed at Pinelli, and they swung around together.\n\n\n Then the mists cleared.\n\n\n Under the dancing blobs, a horde of things was heading for the cadets.\n Shaggy heads, brute bodies vaguely man-like! One seemed to be almost\n eight feet tall, leading the others directly toward the spacesuited\n cadets. Some of the horde were carrying spears or sticks. There was a\n momentary halt, and then the leader lifted one arm, as if motioning the\n others forward.\n\"Get the jeeps out!\" Gwayne yelled at Jane. He yanked the door of\n the little officers' lift open and jabbed the down button. It was\n agonizingly slow, but faster than climbing down. He ripped the door\n back at the exit deck. Men were dashing in, stumbling around in\n confusion. But someone was taking over now\u2014one of the crew women. The\n jeeps were lining up. One, at the front, was stuttering into life, and\n Gwayne dashed for it as the exit port slid back.\n\n\n There was no time for suits or helmets. The air on the planet was\n irritating and vile smelling, but it could be breathed. He leaped to\n the seat, to see that the driver was Doctor Barker. At a gesture, the\n jeep rolled down the ramp, grinding its gears into second as it picked\n up speed. The other two followed.\n\n\n There was no sign of the cadets at first. Then Gwayne spotted them;\n surrounded by the menacing horde. Seen from here, the things looked\n horrible in a travesty of manhood.\n\n\n The huge leader suddenly waved and pointed toward the jeeps that were\n racing toward him. He made a fantastic leap backwards. Others swung\n about, two of them grabbing up the cadets. The jeep was doing twenty\n miles an hour now, but the horde began to increase the distance, in\n spite of the load of the two struggling boys! The creatures dived\n downward into lower ground, beginning to disappear into the mists.\n\n\n \"Follow the blobs,\" Gwayne yelled. He realized now he'd been a fool to\n leave his suit; the radio would have let him keep in contact with the\n kids. But it was too late to go back.\n\n\n The blobs danced after the horde. Barker bounced the jeep downward into\n a gorge. Somewhere the man had learned to drive superlatively; but he\n had to slow as the fog thickened lower down.\n\n\n Then it cleared to show the mob of creatures doubling back on their own\n trail to confuse the pursuers.\n\n\n There was no time to stop. The jeep plowed through them. Gwayne had a\n glimpse of five-foot bodies tumbling out of the way. Monstrously coarse\n faces were half hidden by thick hair. A spear crunched against the\n windshield from behind, and Gwayne caught it before it could foul the\n steering wheel. It had a wickedly beautiful point of stone.\n\n\n The creatures vanished as Barker fought to turn to follow them. The\n other jeeps were coming up, by the sound of their motors, but too late\n to help. They'd have to get to the group with the cadets in a hurry or\n the horde would all vanish in the uneven ground, hidden by the fog.\n\n\n A blob dropped down, almost touching Gwayne.\n\n\n He threw up an instinctive hand. There was a tingling as the creature\n seemed to pass around it. It lifted a few inches and drifted off.\n\n\n Abruptly, Barker's foot ground at the brake. Gwayne jolted forward\n against the windshield, just as he made out the form of the eight-foot\n leader. The thing was standing directly ahead of him, a cadet on each\n shoulder.\n\n\n The wheels locked and the jeep slid protestingly forward. The creature\n leaped back. But Gwayne was out of the jeep before it stopped, diving\n for the figure. It dropped the boys with a surprised grunt.\nThe arms were thin and grotesque below the massively distorted\n shoulders, but amazingly strong. Gwayne felt them wrench at him as his\n hands locked on the thick throat. A stench of alien flesh was in his\n nose as the thing fell backwards. Doc Barker had hit it seconds after\n the captain's attack. Its head hit rocky ground with a dull, heavy\n sound, and it collapsed. Gwayne eased back slowly, but it made no\n further move, though it was still breathing.\n\n\n Another jeep had drawn up, and men were examining the cadets. Pinelli\n was either laughing or crying, and Kaufman was trying to break free to\n kick at the monster. But neither had been harmed. The two were loaded\n onto a jeep while men helped Barker and Gwayne stow the bound monster\n on another before heading back.\n\n\n \"No sign of skull fracture. My God, what a tough brute!\" Barker shook\n his own head, as if feeling the shock of the monster's landing.\n\n\n \"I hope so,\" Gwayne told him. \"I want that thing to live\u2014and you're\n detailed to save it and revive it. Find out if it can make sign\n language or draw pictures. I want to know what happened to Hennessy\n and why that ship was buried against detection. This thing may be the\n answer.\"\n\n\n Barker nodded grimly. \"I'll try, though I can't risk drugs on an alien\n metabolism.\" He sucked in on the cigarette he'd dug out, then spat\n sickly. Smoke and this air made a foul combination. \"Bob, it still\n makes no sense. We've scoured this planet by infra-red, and there was\n no sign of native villages or culture. We should have found some.\"\n\n\n \"Troglodytes, maybe,\" Gwayne guessed. \"Anyhow, send for me when you get\n anything. I've got to get this ship back to Earth. We're overstaying\n our time here already.\"\n\n\n The reports from the cadets were satisfactory enough. They'd been\n picked up and carried, but no harm had been done them. Now they were\n busy being little heroes. Gwayne sentenced them to quarters as soon\n as he could, knowing their stories would only get wilder and less\n informative with retelling.\n\n\n If they could get any story from the captured creature, they might save\n time and be better off than trying to dig through Hennessy's ship. That\n was almost certainly spoorless by now. The only possible answer seemed\n to be that the exploring expedition and Hennessy's rescue group had\n been overcome by the aliens.\n\n\n It was an answer, but it left a lot of questions. How could the\n primitives have gotten to the men inside Hennessy's ship? Why was its\n fuel dumped? Only men would have known how to do that. And who told\n these creatures that a space ship's metal finders could be fooled by a\n little more than a hundred feet of solid rock? They'd buried the ship\n cunningly, and only the accidental slippage had undone their work.\n\n\n Maybe there would never be a full answer, but he had to find\n something\u2014and find it fast. Earth needed every world she could make\n remotely habitable, or mankind was probably doomed to extinction.\nThe race had blundered safely through its discovery of atomic weapons\n into a peace that had lasted two hundred years. It had managed to\n prevent an interplanetary war with the Venus colonists. It had found\n a drive that led to the stars, and hadn't even found intelligent life\n there to be dangerous on the few worlds that had cultures of their own.\n\n\n But forty years ago, observations from beyond the Solar System had\n finally proved that the sun was going to go nova.\n\n\n It wouldn't be much of an explosion, as such things go\u2014but it would\n render the whole Solar System uninhabitable for millenia. To survive,\n man had to colonize.\n\n\n And there were no worlds perfect for him, as Earth had been. The\n explorers went out in desperation to find what they could; the\n terraforming teams did what they could. And then the big starships\n began filling worlds with colonists, carried in deep sleep to conserve\n space.\n\n\n Almost eighty worlds. The nearest a four month journey from Earth and\n four more months back.\n\n\n In another ten years, the sun would explode, leaving man only on the\n footholds he was trying to dig among other solar systems. Maybe some\n of the strange worlds would let men spread his seed again. Maybe none\n would be spawning grounds for mankind in spite of the efforts. Each was\n precious as a haven for the race.\n\n\n If this world could be used, it would be nearer than most. If not, as\n it now seemed, no more time could be wasted here.\n\n\n Primitives could be overcome, maybe. It would be ruthless and unfair to\n strip them of their world, but the first law was survival.\n\n\n But how could primitives do what these must have done?\n\n\n He studied the spear he had salvaged. It was on a staff made of\n cemented bits of smaller wood from the scrub growth, skillfully\n laminated. The point was of delicately chipped flint, done as no human\n hand had been able to do for centuries.\n\n\n \"Beautiful primitive work,\" he muttered.\n\n\n Jane pulled the coffee cup away from her lips and snorted. \"You can\n see a lot more of it out there,\" she suggested.\n\n\n He went to the port and glanced out. About sixty of the things were\n squatting in the clearing fog, holding lances and staring at the ship.\n They were perhaps a thousand yards away, waiting patiently. For what?\n For the return of their leader\u2014or for something that would give the\n ship to them?\n\n\n Gwayne grabbed the phone and called Barker. \"How's the captive coming?\"\n\n\n Barker's voice sounded odd.\n\n\n \"Physically fine. You can see him. But\u2014\"\n\n\n Gwayne dropped the phone and headed for the little sick bay. He swore\n at Doc for not calling him at once, and then at himself for not\n checking up sooner. Then he stopped at the sound of voices.\n\n\n There was the end of a question from Barker and a thick, harsh growling\n sound that lifted the hair along the nape of Gwayne's neck. Barker\n seemed to understand, and was making a comment as the captain dashed in.\n\n\n The captive was sitting on the bunk, unbound and oddly unmenacing. The\n thick features were relaxed and yet somehow intent. He seemed to make\n some kind of a salute as he saw Gwayne enter, and his eyes burned up\n unerringly toward the device on the officer's cap.\n\n\n \"Haarroo, Cabbaan!\" the thing said.\n\"Captain Gwayne, may I present your former friend, Captain Hennessy?\"\n Barker said. There was a grin on the doctor's lips, but his face was\n taut with strain.\n\n\n The creature nodded slowly and drew something from the thick hair on\n its head. It was the golden comet of a captain.\n\n\n \"He never meant to hurt the kids\u2014just to talk to them,\" Barker cut in\n quickly. \"I've got some of the story. He's changed. He can't talk very\n well. Says they've had to change the language around to make the sounds\n fit, and he's forgotten how to use what normal English he can. But it\n gets easier as you listen. It's Hennessy, all right. I'm certain.\"\n\n\n Gwayne had his own ideas on that. It was easy for an alien to seize\n on the gold ornament of a captive earthman, even to learn a little\n English, maybe. But Hennessy had been his friend.\n\n\n \"How many barmaids in the Cheshire Cat? How many pups did your oldest\n kid's dog have? How many were brown?\"\n\n\n The lips contorted into something vaguely like a smile, and the\n curiously shaped fingers that could handle no human-designed equipment\n spread out.\n\n\n Three. Seven. Zero.\n\n\n The answers were right.\n\n\n By the time the session was over, Gwayne had begun to understand the\n twisted speech from inhuman vocal cords better. But the story took a\n long time telling.\n\n\n When it was finished, Gwayne and Barker sat for long minutes in\n silence. Finally Gwayne drew a shuddering breath and stood up. \"Is it\n possible, Doc?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Barker said flatly. He spread his hands and grimaced. \"No. Not\n by what I know. But it happened. I've looked at a few tissues under\n the microscope. The changes are there. It's hard to believe about\n their kids. Adults in eight years, but they stay shorter. It can't be\n a hereditary change\u2014the things that affect the body don't change the\n germ plasm. But in this case, what changed Hennessy is real, so maybe\n the fact that the change is passed on is as real as he claims.\"\n\n\n Gwayne led the former Hennessy to the exit. The waiting blobs dropped\n down to touch the monstrous man, then leaped up again. The crowd of\n monsters began moving forward toward their leader. A few were almost as\n tall as Hennessy, but most were not more than five feet high.\n\n\n The kids of the exploring party....\nBack in the control room, Gwayne found the emergency release levers,\n set the combinations and pressed the studs. There was a hiss and gurgle\n as the great tanks of fuel discharged their contents out onto the\n ground where no ingenuity could ever recover it to bring life to the\n ship again.\n\n\n He'd have to tell the men and women of the crew later, after he'd had\n time to organize things and present it all in a way they could accept,\n however much they might hate it at first. But there was no putting off\n giving the gist of it to Jane.\n\n\n \"It was the blobs,\" he summarized it. \"They seem to be amused by men.\n They don't require anything from us, but they like us around. Hennessy\n doesn't know why. They can change our cells, adapt us. Before men came,\n all life here had twelve legs. Now they're changing that, as we've seen.\n\n\n \"And they don't have to be close to do it. We've all been outside the\n hull. It doesn't show yet\u2014but we're changed. In another month, Earth\n food would kill us. We've got to stay here. We'll bury the ships deeper\n this time, and Earth won't find us. They can't risk trying a colony\n where three ships vanish, so we'll just disappear. And they'll never\n know.\"\n\n\n Nobody would know. Their children\u2014odd children who matured in eight\n years\u2014would be primitive savages in three generations. The Earth\n tools would be useless, impossible for the hands so radically changed.\n Nothing from the ship would last. Books could never be read by the new\n eyes. And in time, Earth wouldn't even be a memory to this world.\n\n\n She was silent a long time, staring out of the port toward what must\n now be her home. Then she sighed. \"You'll need practice, but the others\n don't know you as well as I do, Bob. I guess we can fix it so they'll\n believe it all. And it's too late now. But we haven't really been\n changed yet, have we?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" he admitted. Damn his voice! He'd never been good at lying. \"No.\n They have to touch us. I've been touched, but the rest could go back.\"\n\n\n She nodded. He waited for the condemnation, but there was only\n puzzlement in her face. \"Why?\"\n\n\n And then, before he could answer, her own intelligence gave her the\n same answer he had found for himself. \"The spawning ground!\"\n\n\n It was the only thing they could do. Earth needed a place to plant her\n seed, but no world other than Earth could ever be trusted to preserve\n that seed for generation after generation. Some worlds already were\n becoming uncertain.\n\n\n Here, though, the blobs had adapted men to the alien world instead of\n men having to adapt the whole planet to their needs. Here, the strange\n children of man's race could grow, develop and begin the long trek back\n to civilization. The gadgets would be lost for a time. But perhaps\n some of the attitudes of civilized man would remain to make the next\n rise to culture a better one.\n\n\n \"We're needed here,\" he told her, his voice pleading for the\n understanding he couldn't yet fully give himself. \"These people need\n as rich a set of bloodlines as possible to give the new race strength.\n The fifty men and women on this ship will be needed to start them with\n a decent chance. We can't go to Earth, where nobody would believe or\n accept the idea\u2014or even let us come back. We have to stay here.\"\n\n\n She smiled then and moved toward him, groping for his strength. \"Be\n fruitful,\" she whispered. \"Be fruitful and spawn and replenish an\n earth.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" he told her. \"Replenish the stars.\"\n\n\n But she was no longer listening, and that part of his idea could wait.\n\n\n Some day, though, their children would find a way to the starlanes\n again, looking for other worlds. With the blobs to help them, they\n could adapt to most worlds. The unchanged spirit would lead them\n through all space, and the changing bodies would claim worlds beyond\n numbering.\n\n\n Some day, the whole universe would be a spawning ground for the\n children of men!",
    "61053": "TOLLIVER'S ORBIT\nwas slow\u2014but it wasn't boring. And\n\n it would get you there\u2014as long as\n\n you weren't going anywhere anyhow!\nBy H. B. FYFE\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1961.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nJohnny Tolliver scowled across the desk at his superior. His black\n thatch was ruffled, as if he had been rubbed the wrong way.\n\n\n \"I didn't ask you to cut out your own graft, did I?\" he demanded.\n \"Just don't try to sucker me in on the deal. I know you're operating\n something sneaky all through the colony, but it's not for me.\"\n\n\n The big moon-face of Jeffers, manager of the Ganymedan branch of\n Koslow Spaceways, glowered back at him. Its reddish tinge brightened\n the office noticeably, for such of Ganymede's surface as could be seen\n through the transparent dome outside the office window was cold, dim\n and rugged. The glowing semi-disk of Jupiter was more than half a\n million miles distant.\n\n\n \"Try not to be simple\u2014for once!\" growled Jeffers. \"A little percentage\n here and there on the cargoes never shows by the time figures get back\n to Earth. The big jets in the home office don't care. They count it on\n the estimates.\"\n\n\n \"You asked any of them lately?\" Tolliver prodded.\n\n\n \"Now,\nlisten\n! Maybe they live soft back on Earth since the mines\n and the Jovian satellite colonies grew; but they were out here in the\n beginning, most of them.\nThey\nknow what it's like. D'ya think they\n don't expect us to make what we can on the side?\"\n\n\n Tolliver rammed his fists into the side pockets of his loose blue\n uniform jacket. He shook his head, grinning resignedly.\n\n\n \"You just don't listen to\nme\n,\" he complained. \"You know I took this\n piloting job just to scrape up money for an advanced engineering degree\n back on Earth. I only want to finish my year\u2014not get into something I\n can't quit.\"\n\n\n Jeffers fidgeted in his chair, causing it to creak under the bulk of\n his body. It had been built for Ganymede, but not for Jeffers.\n\n\n \"Aw, it's not like that,\" the manager muttered. \"You can ease out\n whenever your contract's up. Think we'd bend a good orbit on your\n account?\"\n\n\n Tolliver stared at him silently, but the other had difficulty meeting\n his eye.\n\n\n \"All right, then!\" Jeffers snapped after a long moment. \"If you want it\n that way, either you get in line with us or you're through right now!\"\n\n\n \"You can't fire me,\" retorted the pilot pityingly. \"I came out here\n on a contract. Five hundred credits a week base pay, five hundred for\n hazardous duty. How else can you get pilots out to Jupiter?\"\n\n\n \"Okay I can't fire you legally\u2014as long as you report for work,\"\n grumbled Jeffers, by now a shade more ruddy. \"We'll see how long you\n keep reporting. Because you're off the Callisto run as of now! Sit in\n your quarters and see if the company calls\nthat\nhazardous duty!\"\n\n\n \"Doesn't matter,\" answered Tolliver, grinning amiably. \"The hazardous\n part is just being on the same moon as you for the next six months.\"\n\n\n He winked and walked out, deliberately leaving the door open behind him\n so as to enjoy the incoherent bellowing that followed him.\nLooks like a little vacation\n, he thought, unperturbed.\nHe'll come\n around. I just want to get back to Earth with a clean rep. Let Jeffers\n and his gang steal the Great Red Spot off Jupiter if they like! It's\n their risk.\nTolliver began to have his doubts the next day; which was \"Tuesday\"\n by the arbitrary calender constructed to match Ganymede's week-long\n journey around Jupiter.\n\n\n His contract guaranteed a pilot's rating, but someone had neglected to\n specify the type of craft to be piloted.\n\n\n On the bulletin board, Tolliver's name stood out beside the number\n of one of the airtight tractors used between the dome city and the\n spaceport, or for hauling cross-country to one of the mining domes.\n\n\n He soon found that there was nothing for him to do but hang around the\n garage in case a spaceship should land. The few runs to other domes\n seemed to be assigned to drivers with larger vehicles.\n\n\n The following day was just as boring, and the next more so. He swore\n when he found the assignment unchanged by \"Friday.\" Even the reflection\n that it was payday was small consolation.\n\n\n \"Hey, Johnny!\" said a voice at his shoulder. \"The word is that they're\n finally gonna trust you to take that creeper outside.\"\n\n\n Tolliver turned to see Red Higgins, a regular driver.\n\n\n \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\n \"They say some home-office relative is coming in on the\nJavelin\n.\"\n\n\n \"What's wrong with that?\" asked Tolliver. \"Outside of the way they keep\n handing out soft jobs to nephews, I mean.\"\n\n\n \"Aah, these young punks just come out for a few months so they can go\n back to Earth making noises like spacemen. Sometimes there's no reason\n but them for sending a ship back with a crew instead of in an economy\n orbit. Wait till you see the baggage you'll have to load!\"\n\n\n Later in the day-period, Tolliver recalled this warning. Under a\n portable, double-chambered plastic dome blown up outside the ship's\n airlock, a crewman helped him load two trunks and a collection of bags\n into the tractor. He was struggling to suppress a feeling of outrage at\n the waste of fuel involved when the home-office relative emerged.\n\n\n She was about five feet four and moved as if she walked lightly even\n in stronger gravity than Ganymede's. Her trim coiffure was a shade too\n blonde which served to set off both the blue of her eyes and the cap\n apparently won from one of the pilots. She wore gray slacks and a heavy\n sweater, like a spacer.\n\n\n \"Sorry to keep you waiting,\" she said, sliding into the seat beside\n Tolliver. \"By the way, just call me Betty.\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" agreed Tolliver thinking,\nOhmigod! Trying already to be just\n one of the gang, instead of Lady Betty! Is her old man the treasurer,\n or does he just know where bodies are buried?\n\"They were making dates,\" said the girl. \"Were they ribbing me, or is\n it true that none of the four of them goes back with the ship?\"\n\n\n \"It's true enough,\" Tolliver assured her. \"We need people out here, and\n it costs a lot to make the trip. They found they could send back loaded\n ships by 'automatic' flight\u2014that is, a long, slow, economical orbit\n and automatic signalling equipment. Then they're boarded approaching\n Earth's orbit and landed by pilots who don't have to waste their time\n making the entire trip.\"\nHe followed the signals of a spacesuited member of the port staff and\n maneuvered out of the dome. Then he headed the tractor across the\n frozen surface of Ganymede toward the permanent domes of the city.\n\n\n \"How is it here?\" asked the girl. \"They told me it's pretty rough.\"\n\n\n \"What did you expect?\" asked Tolliver. \"Square dances with champagne?\"\n\n\n \"Don't be silly. Daddy says I'm supposed to learn traffic routing and\n the business management of a local branch. They probably won't let me\n see much else.\"\n\n\n \"You never can tell,\" said the pilot, yielding to temptation. \"Any\n square inch of Ganymede is likely to be dangerous.\"\nI'll be sorry later\n, he reflected,\nbut if Jeffers keeps me jockeying\n this creeper, I'm entitled to some amusement. And Daddy's little girl\n is trying too hard to sound like one of the gang.\n\"Yeah,\" he went on, \"right now, I don't do a thing but drive missions\n from the city to the spaceport.\"\n\n\n \"Missions! You call driving a mile or so a\nmission\n?\"\n\n\n Tolliver pursed his lips and put on a shrewd expression.\n\n\n \"Don't sneer at Ganymede, honey!\" he warned portentously. \"Many a\n man who did isn't here today. Take the fellow who used to drive this\n mission!\"\n\n\n \"You can call me Betty. What happened to him?\"\n\n\n \"I'll tell you some day,\" Tolliver promised darkly. \"This moon can\n strike like a vicious animal.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, they told me there was nothing alive on Ganymede!\"\n\n\n \"I was thinking of the mountain slides,\" said the pilot. \"Not to\n mention volcanic puffballs that pop out through the frozen crust where\n you'd least expect. That's why I draw such high pay for driving an\n unarmored tractor.\"\n\n\n \"You use armored vehicles?\" gasped the girl.\n\n\n She was now sitting bolt upright in the swaying seat. Tolliver\n deliberately dipped one track into an icy hollow. In the light gravity,\n the tractor responded with a weird, floating lurch.\n\n\n \"Those slides,\" he continued. \"Ganymede's only about the size of\n Mercury, something like 3200 miles in diameter, so things get heaped up\n at steep angles. When the rock and ice are set to sliding, they come\n at you practically horizontally. It doesn't need much start, and it\n barrels on for a long way before there's enough friction to stop it. If\n you're in the way\u2014well, it's just too bad!\"\nSay, that's pretty good!\nhe told himself.\nWhat a liar you are,\n Tolliver!\nHe enlarged upon other dangers to be encountered on the satellite,\n taking care to impress the newcomer with the daredeviltry of John\n Tolliver, driver of \"missions\" across the menacing wastes between dome\n and port.\n\n\n In the end, he displayed conclusive evidence in the form of the weekly\n paycheck he had received that morning. It did not, naturally, indicate\n he was drawing the salary of a space pilot. Betty looked thoughtful.\n\n\n \"I'm retiring in six months if I'm still alive,\" he said bravely,\n edging the tractor into the airlock at their destination. \"Made my\n pile. No use pushing your luck too far.\"\n\n\n His charge seemed noticeably subdued, but cleared her throat to request\n that Tolliver guide her to the office of the manager. She trailed along\n as if with a burden of worry upon her mind, and the pilot's conscience\n prickled.\nI'll get hold of her after Jeffers is through and set her straight\n,\n he resolved.\nIt isn't really funny if the sucker is too ignorant to\n know better.\nRemembering his grudge against the manager, he took pleasure in walking\n in without knocking.\n\n\n \"Jeffers,\" he announced, \"this is ... just call her Betty.\"\n\n\n The manager's jowled features twisted into an expression of welcome as\n jovial as that of a hungry crocodile.\n\n\n \"Miss Koslow!\" he beamed, like a politician the day before the voting.\n \"It certainly is an honor to have you on Ganymede with us! That's all,\n Tolliver, you can go. Yes, indeed! Mr. Koslow\u2014the president, that is:\n your father\u2014sent a message about you. I repeat, it will be an honor to\n show you the ropes. Did you want something else, Tolliver?\"\n\n\n \"Never mind him, Mr. Jeffers,\" snapped the girl, in a tone new to\n Tolliver. \"We won't be working together, I'm afraid. You've already had\n enough rope.\"\n\n\n Jeffers seemed to stagger standing still behind his desk. His loose\n lips twitched uncertainly, and he looked questioningly to Tolliver. The\n pilot stared at Betty, trying to recall pictures he had seen of the\n elder Koslow. He was also trying to remember some of the lies he had\n told en route from the spaceport.\n\n\n \"Wh-wh-what do you mean, Miss Koslow?\" Jeffers stammered.\n\n\n He darted a suspicious glare at Tolliver.\n\n\n \"Mr. Jeffers,\" said the girl, \"I may look like just another spoiled\n little blonde, but the best part of this company will be mine someday.\n I was not allowed to reach twenty-two without learning something about\n holding on to it.\"\n\n\n Tolliver blinked. He had taken her for three or four years older.\n Jeffers now ignored him, intent upon the girl.\n\n\n \"Daddy gave me the title of tenth vice-president mostly as a joke, when\n he told me to find out what was wrong with operations on Ganymede.\n I have\nsome\nauthority, though. And you look like the source of the\n trouble to me.\"\n\n\n \"You can't prove anything,\" declared Jeffers hoarsely.\n\n\n \"Oh, can't I? I've already seen certain evidence, and the rest won't\n be hard to find. Where are your books, Mr. Jeffers? You're as good as\n fired!\"\n\n\n The manager dropped heavily to his chair. He stared unbelievingly at\n Betty, and Tolliver thought he muttered something about \"just landed.\"\n After a moment, the big man came out of his daze enough to stab an\n intercom button with his finger. He growled at someone on the other end\n to come in without a countdown.\n\n\n Tolliver, hardly thinking about it, expected the someone to be\n a secretary, but it turned out to be three members of Jeffers'\n headquarters staff. He recognized one as Rawlins, a warehouse chief,\n and guessed that the other two might be his assistants. They were large\n enough.\n\n\n \"No stupid questions!\" Jeffers ordered. \"Lock these two up while I\n think!\"\n\n\n Tolliver started for the door immediately, but was blocked off.\n\n\n \"Where should we lock\u2014?\" the fellow paused to ask.\n\n\n Tolliver brought up a snappy uppercut to the man's chin, feeling that\n it was a poor time to engage Jeffers in fruitless debate.\n\n\n In the gravity of Ganymede, the man was knocked off balance as much as\n he was hurt, and sprawled on the floor.\n\n\n \"I\ntold\nyou no questions!\" bawled Jeffers.\n\n\n The fallen hero, upon arising, had to content himself with grabbing\n Betty. The others were swarming over Tolliver. Jeffers came around his\n desk to assist.\nTolliver found himself dumped on the floor of an empty office in the\n adjoining warehouse building. It seemed to him that a long time had\n been spent in carrying him there.\n\n\n He heard an indignant yelp, and realized that the girl had been pitched\n in with him. The snapping of a lock was followed by the tramp of\n departing footsteps and then by silence.\n\n\n After considering the idea a few minutes, Tolliver managed to sit up.\n\n\n He had his wind back. But when he fingered the swelling lump behind his\n left ear, a sensation befuddled him momentarily.\n\n\n \"I'm sorry about that,\" murmured Betty.\n\n\n Tolliver grunted. Sorrow would not reduce the throbbing, nor was he\n in a mood to undertake an explanation of why Jeffers did not like him\n anyway.\n\n\n \"I think perhaps you're going to have a shiner,\" remarked the girl.\n\n\n \"Thanks for letting me know in time,\" said Tolliver.\n\n\n The skin under his right eye did feel a trifle tight, but he could see\n well enough. The abandoned and empty look of the office worried him.\n\n\n \"What can we use to get out of here?\" he mused.\n\n\n \"Why should we try?\" asked the girl. \"What can he do?\"\n\n\n \"You'd be surprised. How did you catch on to him so soon?\"\n\n\n \"Your paycheck,\" said Betty. \"As soon as I saw that ridiculous amount,\n it was obvious that there was gross mismanagement here. It had to be\n Jeffers.\"\n\n\n Tolliver groaned.\n\n\n \"Then, on the way over here, he as good as admitted everything. You\n didn't hear him, I guess. Well, he seemed to be caught all unaware, and\n seemed to blame you for it.\"\n\n\n \"Sure!\" grumbled the pilot. \"He thinks I told you he was grafting or\n smuggling, or whatever he has going for him here. That's why I want to\n get out of here\u2014before I find myself involved in some kind of fatal\n accident!\"\n\n\n \"What do you know about the crooked goings-on here?\" asked Betty after\n a startled pause.\n\n\n \"Nothing,\" retorted Tolliver. \"Except that there are some. There are\n rumors, and I had a halfway invitation to join in. I think he sells\n things to the mining colonies and makes a double profit for himself by\n claiming the stuff lost in transit. You didn't think you scared him\n that bad over a little slack managing?\"\n\n\n The picture of Jeffers huddled with his partners in the headquarters\n building, plotting the next move, brought Tolliver to his feet.\n\n\n There was nothing in the unused office but an old table and half a\n dozen plastic crates. He saw that the latter contained a mess of\n discarded records.\n\n\n \"Better than nothing at all,\" he muttered.\n\n\n He ripped out a double handful of the forms, crumpled them into a pile\n at the doorway, and pulled out his cigarette lighter.\n\n\n \"What do you think you're up to?\" asked Betty with some concern.\n\n\n \"This plastic is tough,\" said Tolliver, \"but it will bend with enough\n heat. If I can kick loose a hinge, maybe we can fool them yet!\"\n\n\n He got a little fire going, and fed it judiciously with more papers.\n\n\n \"You know,\" he reflected, \"it might be better for you to stay here.\n He can't do much about you, and you don't have any real proof just by\n yourself.\"\n\n\n \"I'll come along with you, Tolliver,\" said the girl.\n\n\n \"No, I don't think you'd better.\"\n\n\n \"Why not?\"\n\n\n \"Well ... after all, what would he dare do? Arranging an accident to\n the daughter of the boss isn't something that he can pull off without a\n lot of investigation. He'd be better off just running for it.\"\n\n\n \"Let's not argue about it,\" said Betty, a trifle pale but looking\n determined. \"I'm coming with you. Is that stuff getting soft yet?\"\n\n\n Tolliver kicked at the edge of the door experimentally. It seemed to\n give slightly, so he knocked the burning papers aside and drove his\n heel hard at the corner below the hinge.\n\n\n The plastic yielded.\n\n\n \"That's enough already, Tolliver,\" whispered the girl. \"We can crawl\n through!\"\nHardly sixty seconds later, he led her into a maze of stacked crates\n in the warehouse proper. The building was not much longer than wide,\n for each of the structures in the colony had its own hemispherical\n emergency dome of transparent plastic. They soon reached the other end.\n\n\n \"I think there's a storeroom for spacesuits around here,\" muttered\n Tolliver.\n\n\n \"Why do you want them?\"\n\n\n \"Honey, I just don't think it will be so easy to lay hands on a\n tractor. I bet Jeffers already phoned the garage and all the airlocks\n with some good lie that will keep me from getting through.\"\n\n\n After a brief search, he located the spacesuits. Many, evidently\n intended for replacements, had never been unpacked, but there were a\n dozen or so serviced and standing ready for emergencies. He showed\n Betty how to climb into one, and checked her seals and valves after\n donning a suit himself.\n\n\n \"That switch under your chin,\" he said, touching helmets so she could\n hear him. \"Leave it turned off.\nAnybody\nmight be listening!\"\n\n\n He led the way out a rear door of the warehouse. With the heavy knife\n that was standard suit equipment, he deliberately slashed a four-foot\n square section out of the dome. He motioned to Betty to step through,\n then trailed along with the plastic under his arm.\n\n\n He caught up and touched helmets again.\n\n\n \"Just act as if you're on business,\" he told her. \"For all anyone can\n see, we might be inspecting the dome.\"\n\n\n \"Where are you going?\" asked Betty.\n\n\n \"Right through the wall, and then head for the nearest mine. Jeffers\n can't be running\neverything\n!\"\n\n\n \"Is there any way to get to a TV?\" asked the girl. \"I ... uh ... Daddy\n gave me a good number to call if I needed help.\"\n\n\n \"How good?\"\n\n\n \"Pretty official, as a matter of fact.\"\n\n\n \"All right,\" Tolliver decided. \"We'll try the ship you just came in on.\n They might have finished refueling and left her empty.\"\n\n\n They had to cross one open lane between buildings, and Tolliver was\n very conscious of moving figures in the distance; but no one seemed to\n look their way.\n\n\n Reaching the foot of the main dome over the establishment, he glanced\n furtively about, then plunged his knife into the transparent material.\n\n\n From the corner of his eye, he thought he saw Betty make a startled\n gesture, but he had his work cut out for him. This was tougher than the\n interior dome.\n\n\n Finally, he managed to saw a ragged slit through which they could\n squeeze. There was room to walk between the inner and outer layer, so\n he moved along a few yards. A little dust began to blow about where\n they had gone through. He touched helmets once more.\n\n\n \"This time,\" he said, \"the air will really start to blow, so get\n through as fast as you can. If I can slap this piece of plastic over\n the rip, it may stow down the loss of pressure enough to give us quite\n a lead before the alarms go off.\"\n\n\n Through the faceplates, he saw the girl nod, wide-eyed.\n\n\n As soon as he plunged the knife into the outer layer, he could see\n dusty, moist air puffing out into the near-vacuum of Ganymede's\n surface. Fumbling, he cut as fast as he could and shoved Betty through\n the small opening.\n\n\n Squeezing through in his turn, he left one arm inside to spread the\n plastic sheet as best he could. The internal air pressure slapped it\n against the inside of the dome as if glued, although it immediately\n showed an alarming tendency to balloon through the ruptured spot.\nThey'll find it, all right\n, Tolliver reminded himself.\nDon't be here\n when they do!\nHe grabbed Betty by the wrist of her spacesuit and headed for the\n nearest outcropping of rock.\n\n\n It promptly developed that she had something to learn about running on\n ice in such low gravity. Until they were out of direct line of sight\n from the settlement, Tolliver simply dragged her.\n\n\n Then, when he decided that it was safe enough to pause and tell her\n how to manage better, the sight of her outraged scowl through the\n face-plate made him think better of it.\nBy the time we reach the ship, she'll have learned\n, he consoled\n himself.\nIt was a long mile, even at the pace human muscles could achieve on\n Ganymede. They took one short rest, during which Tolliver was forced\n to explain away the dangers of slides and volcanic puffballs. He\n admitted to having exaggerated slightly. In the end, they reached the\n spaceship.\n\n\n There seemed to be no one about. The landing dome had been collapsed\n and stored, and the ship's airlock port was closed.\n\n\n \"That's all right,\" Tolliver told the girl. \"We can get in with no\n trouble.\"\n\n\n It was when he looked about to make sure that they were unobserved that\n he caught a glimpse of motion back toward the city. He peered at the\n spot through the dim light. After a moment, he definitely recognized\n the outline of a tractor breasting a rise in the ground and tilting\n downward again.\n\n\n \"In fact, we\nhave\nto get in to stay out of trouble,\" he said to Betty.\n\n\n He located the switch-cover in the hull, opened it and activated the\n mechanism that swung open the airlock and extended the ladder.\n\n\n It took him considerable scrambling to boost the girl up the ladder and\n inside, but he managed. They passed through the airlock, fretting at\n the time required to seal, pump air and open the inner hatch; and then\n Tolliver led the way up another ladder to the control room. It was a\n clumsy trip in their spacesuits, but he wanted to save time.\nIn the control room, he shoved the girl into an acceleration seat,\n glanced at the gauges and showed her how to open her helmet.\n\n\n \"Leave the suit on,\" he ordered, getting in the first word while she\n was still shaking her head. \"It will help a little on the takeoff.\"\n\n\n \"Takeoff!\" shrilled Betty. \"What do you think you're going to do? I\n just want to use the radio or TV!\"\n\n\n \"That tractor will get here in a minute or two. They might cut your\n conversation kind of short. Now shut up and let me look over these\n dials!\"\n\n\n He ran a practiced eye over the board, reading the condition of the\n ship. It pleased him. Everything was ready for a takeoff into an\n economy orbit for Earth. He busied himself making a few adjustments,\n doing his best to ignore the protests from his partner in crime. He\n warned her the trip might be long.\n\n\n \"I told you not to come,\" he said at last. \"Now sit back!\"\n\n\n He sat down and pushed a button to start the igniting process.\n\n\n In a moment, he could feel the rumble of the rockets through the deck,\n and then it was out of his hands for several minutes.\n\n\n \"That wasn't so bad,\" Betty admitted some time later. \"Did you go in\n the right direction?\"\n\n\n \"Who knows?\" retorted Tolliver. \"There wasn't time to check\neverything\n. We'll worry about that after we make your call.\"\n\n\n \"Oh!\" Betty looked helpless. \"It's in my pocket.\"\n\n\n Tolliver sighed. In their weightless state, it was no easy task to pry\n her out of the spacesuit. He thought of inquiring if she needed any\n further help, but reminded himself that this was the boss's daughter.\n When Betty produced a memo giving frequency and call sign, he set about\n making contact.\n\n\n It took only a few minutes, as if the channel had been monitored\n expectantly, and the man who flickered into life on the screen wore a\n uniform.\n\n\n \"Space Patrol?\" whispered Tolliver incredulously.\n\n\n \"That's right,\" said Betty. \"Uh ... Daddy made arrangements for me.\"\n\n\n Tolliver held her in front of the screen so she would not float out\n of range of the scanner and microphone. As she spoke, he stared\n exasperatedly at a bulkhead, marveling at the influence of a man who\n could arrange for a cruiser to escort his daughter to Ganymede and\n wondering what was behind it all.\n\n\n When he heard Betty requesting assistance in arresting Jeffers and\n reporting the manager as the head of a ring of crooks, he began to\n suspect. He also noticed certain peculiarities about the remarks of the\n Patrolman.\nFor one thing, though the officer seemed well acquainted with Betty, he\n never addressed her by the name of Koslow. For another, he accepted the\n request as if he had been hanging in orbit merely until learning who to\n go down after.\nThey really sent her out to nail someone\n, Tolliver realized.\nOf\n course, she stumbled onto Jeffers by plain dumb luck. But she had an\n idea of what to look for. How do I get into these things? She might\n have got me killed!\n\"We do have one trouble,\" he heard Betty saying. \"This tractor driver,\n Tolliver, saved my neck by making the ship take off somehow, but he\n says it's set for a six-month orbit, or economy flight. Whatever they\n call it. I don't think he has any idea where we're headed.\"\n\n\n Tolliver pulled her back, holding her in mid-air by the slack of her\n sweater.\n\n\n \"Actually, I have a fine idea,\" he informed the officer coldly. \"I\n happen to be a qualified space pilot. Everything here is under control.\n If Miss Koslow thinks you should arrest Jeffers, you can call us later\n on this channel.\"\n\n\n \"Miss Koslow?\" repeated the spacer. \"Did she tell you\u2014well, no matter!\n If you'll be okay, we'll attend to the other affair immediately.\"\n\n\n He signed off promptly. The pilot faced Betty, who looked more offended\n than reassured at discovering his status.\n\n\n \"This 'Miss Koslow' business,\" he said suspiciously. \"He sounded funny\n about that.\"\n\n\n The girl grinned.\n\n\n \"Relax, Tolliver,\" she told him. \"Did you really believe Daddy would\n send his own little girl way out here to Ganymede to look for whoever\n was gypping him?\"\n\n\n \"You ... you...?\"\n\n\n \"Sure. The name's Betty Hanlon. I work for a private investigating\n firm. If old Koslow had a son to impersonate\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I'd be stuck for six months in this orbit with some brash young man,\"\n Tolliver finished for her. \"I guess it's better this way,\" he said\n meditatively a moment later.\n\n\n \"Oh, come\non\n! Can't they get us back? How can you tell where we're\n going?\"\n\n\n \"I know enough to check takeoff time. It was practically due anyhow, so\n we'll float into the vicinity of Earth at about the right time to be\n picked up.\"\n\n\n He went on to explain something of the tremendous cost in fuel\n necessary to make more than minor corrections to their course. Even\n though the Patrol ship could easily catch the slow freighter, bringing\n along enough fuel to head back would be something else again.\n\n\n \"We'll just have to ride it out,\" he said sympathetically. \"The ship is\n provisioned according to law, and you were probably going back anyhow.\"\n\n\n \"I didn't expect to so soon.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, you were pretty lucky. They'll think you're a marvel to crack\n the case in about three hours on Ganymede.\"\n\n\n \"Great!\" muttered Betty. \"What a lucky girl I am!\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" admitted Tolliver, \"there\nare\nproblems. If you like, we might\n get the captain of that Patrol ship to legalize the situation by TV.\"\n\n\n \"I can see you're used to sweeping girls off their feet,\" she commented\n sourly.\n\n\n \"The main problem is whether you can cook.\"\n\n\n Betty frowned at him.\n\n\n \"I'm pretty good with a pistol,\" she offered, \"or going over crooked\n books. But cook? Sorry.\"\n\n\n \"Well, one of us had better learn, and I'll have other things to do.\"\n\n\n \"I'll think about it,\" promised the girl, staring thoughtfully at the\n deck.\n\n\n Tolliver anchored himself in a seat and grinned as he thought about it\n too.\nAfter a while\n, he promised himself,\nI'll explain how I cut the fuel\n flow and see if she's detective enough to suspect that we're just\n orbiting Ganymede!",
    "20012": "Krugman's Life of Brian \n\n           \n\n                         Where it all started: Paul Krugman's                 \"The Legend of Arthur.\"              \n\n                         Letter from John Cassidy              \n\n         Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy              \n\n                         Letter from M. Mitchell Waldrop              \n\n         Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop              \n\n                         Letter from Kenneth J. Arrow              \n\n                         Letter from Ted C. Fishman              \n\n                         David Warsh's July 3, 1994, Boston Globe                              \n\n                                            Letter from John Cassidy:                              \n\n         Paul Krugman loves to berate journalists for their ignorance of economics, particularly his economics, but on this occasion, I fear, his logic is more addled than usual. I am reluctant to dignify his hatchet job with a lengthy reply, but some of his claims are so defamatory that they should be addressed, if only for the record. \n\n         1) Krugman claims that my opening sentence--\"In a way, Bill Gates's current troubles with the Justice Department grew out of an economics seminar that took place thirteen years ago, at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government\"--is \"pure fiction.\" Perhaps so, but in that case somebody should tell this to Joel Klein, the assistant attorney general in charge of the antitrust division. When I interviewed Klein for my piece about the Microsoft case, he singled out Brian Arthur as the economist who has most influenced his thinking about the way in which high-technology markets operate. It was Klein's words, not those of Arthur, that prompted me to use Arthur in the lead of the story. \n\n         2) Krugman wrote: \"Cassidy's article tells the story of how Stanford Professor Brian Arthur came up with the idea of increasing returns.\" I wrote no such thing, and Arthur has never, to my knowledge, claimed any such thing. The notion of increasing returns has been around since Adam Smith, and it was written about at length by Alfred Marshall in 1890. What I did say in my article was that increasing returns was largely ignored by mainstream economists for much of the postwar era, a claim that simply isn't controversial. (As Krugman notes, one reason for this was technical, not ideological. Allowing for the possibility of increasing returns tends to rob economic models of two properties that economists cherish: simplicity and determinism. As long ago as 1939, Sir John Hicks, one of the founders of modern economics, noted that increasing returns, if tolerated, could lead to the \"wreckage\" of a large part of economic theory.) \n\n         3) Pace Krugman, I also did not claim that Arthur bears principal responsibility for the rediscovery of increasing returns by economists in the 1970s and 1980s. As Krugman notes, several scholars (himself included) who were working in the fields of game theory and international trade published articles incorporating increasing returns before Arthur did. My claim was simply that Arthur applied increasing returns to high-technology markets, and that his work influenced how other economists and government officials think about these markets. Krugman apart, virtually every economist I have spoken to, including Daniel Rubinfeld, a former Berkeley professor who is now the chief economist at the Justice Department's antitrust division, told me this was the case. (Rubinfeld also mentioned several other economists who did influential work, and I cited three of them in the article.) \n\n         4) Krugman appears to suggest that I made up some quotes, a charge that, if it came from a more objective source, I would consider to be a serious matter. In effect, he is accusing Brian Arthur, a man he calls a \"nice guy,\" of being a fabricator or a liar. The quotes in question came from Arthur, and they were based on his recollections of two meetings that he attended some years ago. After Krugman's article appeared, the Santa Fe professor called me to say that he still recalled the meetings in question as I described them. Krugman, as he admits, wasn't present at either of the meetings. \n\n         5) For a man who takes his own cogitations extremely seriously, Krugman is remarkably cavalier about attributing motives and beliefs to others. \"Cassidy has made it clear in earlier writing that he does not like mainstream economists, and he may have been overly eager to accept a story that puts them in a bad light,\" he pronounces. I presume this statement refers to a critical piece I wrote in 1996 about the direction that economic research, principally macroeconomic research, has taken over the past two decades. In response to that article, I received dozens of messages of appreciation from mainstream economists, including from two former presidents of the American Economic Association. Among the sources quoted in that piece were the then-chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers (Joseph Stiglitz), a governor of the Federal Reserve Board (Laurence Meyer), and a well-known Harvard professor (Gregory Mankiw). To claim, as Krugman does, that I \"don't like mainstream economists\" and that I am out to denigrate their work is malicious hogwash. The fact of the matter is that I spend much of my life reading the work of mainstream economists, speaking to them, and trying to find something they have written that might interest the general public. In my experience, most economists appreciate the attention. \n\n         6) I might attach more weight to Krugman's criticisms if I hadn't recently reread his informative 1994 book Peddling Prosperity , in which he devotes a chapter to the rediscovery of increasing returns by contemporary economists. Who are the first scholars Krugman mentions in his account? Paul David, an economic historian who wrote a famous paper about how the QWERTYUIOP typewriter keyboard evolved and, you guessed it, Brian Arthur. \"Why QWERTYUIOP?\" Krugman wrote. \"In the early 1980s, Paul David and his Stanford colleague Brian Arthur asked that question, and quickly realized that it led them into surprisingly deep waters. ... What Paul David, Brian Arthur, and a growing number of other economists began to realize in the late seventies and early eighties was that stories like that of the typewriter keyboard are, in fact, pervasive in the economy.\" Evidently, Krugman felt four years ago that Arthur's contribution was important enough to merit a prominent mention in his book. Now, he dismisses the same work, saying it \"didn't tell me anything that I didn't already know.\" Doubtless, this change in attitude on Krugman's part is unconnected to the fact that Arthur has started to receive some public recognition. The eminent MIT professor, whose early academic work received widespread media attention, is far too generous a scholar to succumb to such pettiness. \n\n                         --John Cassidy              \n\n                                            Paul Krugman replies to John Cassidy:                              \n\n         I think that David Warsh's 1994 in the Boston                 Globe says it all. If other journalists would do as much homework as he did, I wouldn't have had to write that article. \n\n                                            Letter from M. Mitchell Waldrop:                              \n\n         Thanks to Paul Krugman for his lament about credulous reporters who refuse to let facts stand in the way of a good story (\"The Legend of Arthur\"). As a professional journalist, I found his points well taken--even when he cites my own book, Complexity as a classic example of the gullibility genre. \n\n         Among many other things, Complexity tells the story of the Irish-born economist Brian Arthur and how he came to champion a principle known as \"increasing returns.\" The recent New Yorker article explains how that principle has since become the intellectual foundation of the Clinton administration's antitrust case against Microsoft. Krugman's complaint is that the popular press--including Complexity and The New Yorker --is now hailing Brian Arthur as the originator of increasing returns, even though Krugman and many others had worked on the idea long before Arthur did. \n\n         I leave it for others to decide whether I was too gullible in writing Complexity . For the record, however, I would like to inject a few facts into Krugman's story, which he summarizes nicely in the final paragraph: \n\n         When Waldrop's book came out, I wrote him as politely as I could, asking exactly how he had managed to come up with his version of events. He did, to his credit, write back. He explained that while he had become aware of some other people working on increasing returns, trying to put them in would have pulled his story line out of shape. ... So what we really learn from the legend of Arthur is that some journalists like a good story too much to find out whether it is really true. \n\n         Now, I will admit to many sins, not the least of them being a profound ignorance of graduate-level economics; I spent my graduate-school career in the physics department instead, writing a Ph.D. dissertation on the quantum-field theory of elementary particle collisions at relativistic energies. However, I am not so ignorant of the canons of journalism (and of common sense) that I would take a plausible fellow like Brian Arthur at face value without checking up on him. During my research for Complexity I spoke to a number of economists about his work, including Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow, co-creator of the General Equilibrium Theory of economics that Brian so eloquently criticizes. They generally agreed that Brian was a maverick in the field--and perhaps a bit too much in love with his own self-image as a misunderstood outsider--but basically sound. None of them warned me that he was usurping credit where credit was not due. \n\n         Which brings me to Professor Krugman's letter, and my reply. I remember the exchange very well. Obviously, however, my reply failed to make clear what I was really trying to say. So I'll try again: \n\n         a) During our interviews, Brian went out of his way to impress upon me that many other economists had done work in increasing returns--Paul Krugman among them. He was anxious that they be given due credit in anything I wrote. So was I. \n\n         b) Accordingly, I included a passage in Complexity in which Brian does indeed describe what others had done in the field--Paul Krugman among them. Elsewhere in that same chapter, I tried to make it clear that the concept of increasing returns was already well known to Brian's professors at Berkeley, where he first learned of it. Indeed, I quote Brian pointing out that increasing returns had been extensively discussed by the great English economist Alfred Marshall in 1891. \n\n         c) So, when I received Krugman's letter shortly after Complexity came out, I was puzzled: He was complaining that I hadn't referenced others in the increasing-returns field--Paul Krugman among them--although I had explicitly done so. \n\n         d) But, when I checked the published text, I was chagrined to discover that the critical passage mentioning Krugman wasn't there. \n\n         e) Only then did I realize what had happened. After I had submitted the manuscript, my editor at Simon & Schuster had suggested a number of cuts to streamline what was already a long and involved chapter on Brian's ideas. I accepted some of the cuts, and restored others--including (I thought) the passage that mentioned Krugman. In the rush to get Complexity to press, however, that passage somehow wound up on the cutting-room floor anyway, and I didn't notice until too late. \n\n         That oversight was my fault entirely, not my editor's, and certainly not Brian Arthur's. I take full responsibility, I regret it, and--if Simon & Schuster only published an errata column--I would happily correct it publicly. However, contrary to what Professor Krugman implies, it was an oversight, not a breezy disregard of facts for the sake of a good story. \n\n                         --M. Mitchell Waldrop Washington \n\n                                            Paul Krugman replies to M. Mitchell Waldrop:                              \n\n         I am truly sorry that The New Yorker has not yet established a Web presence so that we could include a link directly to the Cassidy piece. However, you can get a pretty good idea of what the piece said by reading the summary of it presented in \"Tasty Bits from the Technology Front.\" Cassidy did not present a story about one guy among many who worked on increasing returns. On the contrary: He presented a morality play in which a lonely hero struggled to make his ideas heard against the unified opposition of a narrow-minded profession both intellectually and politically conservative. As TBTF's host--not exactly a naive reader--put it, \"These ideas were anathema to mainstream economists in 1984 when Arthur first tried to publish them.\" \n\n         That morality play--not the question of who deserves credit--was the main point of my column, because it is a pure (and malicious) fantasy that has nonetheless become part of the story line people tell about increasing returns and its relationship to mainstream economics. \n\n         The fact, which is easily documented, is that during the years that, according to the legend, increasing returns was unacceptable in mainstream economics, papers about increasing returns were in fact being cheerfully published by all the major journals. And as I pointed out in the chronology I provided with the article, even standard reference volumes like the Handbook of International Economics (published in 1984, the year Arthur supposedly met a blank wall of resistance) have long contained chapters on increasing returns. Whatever the reason that Arthur had trouble getting his own paper published, ideological rigidity had nothing to do with it. \n\n         How did this fantasy come to be so widely believed? I am glad to hear that you tried to tell a more balanced story, Mr. Waldrop, even if sloppy paperwork kept it from seeing the light of day. And I am glad that you talked to Ken Arrow. But Nobel laureates, who have wide responsibilities and much on their mind, are not necessarily on top of what has been going on in research outside their usual field. I happen to know of one laureate who, circa 1991, was quite unaware that anyone had thought about increasing returns in either growth or trade. Did you try talking to anyone else--say, to one of the economists who are the straight men in the stories you tell? For example, your book starts with the story of Arthur's meeting in 1987 with Al Fishlow at Berkeley, in which Fishlow supposedly said, \"We know that increasing returns can't exist\"--and Arthur went away in despair over the unwillingness of economists to think the unthinkable. Did you call Fishlow to ask whether he said it, and what he meant? Since by 1987 Paul Romer's 1986 papers on increasing returns and growth had started an avalanche of derivative work, he was certainly joking--what he probably meant was \"Oh no, not you too.\" And let me say that I simply cannot believe that you could have talked about increasing returns with any significant number of economists outside Santa Fe without Romer's name popping up in the first 30 seconds of every conversation--unless you were very selective about whom you talked to. And oh, by the way, there are such things as libraries, where you can browse actual economics journals and see what they contain. \n\n         The point is that it's not just a matter of failing to cite a few more people. Your book, like the Cassidy article, didn't just tell the story of Brian Arthur; it also painted a picture of the economics profession, its intellectual bigotry and prejudice, which happens to be a complete fabrication (with some real, named people cast as villains) that somehow someone managed to sell you. I wonder who? \n\n         Even more to the point: How did Cassidy come by his story? Is it possible that he completely misunderstood what Brian Arthur was saying--that the whole business about the seminar at Harvard where nobody would accept increasing returns, about the lonely struggle of Arthur in the face of ideological rigidity, even the quotation from Arthur about economists being unwilling to consider the possibility of imperfect markets because of the Cold War (give me a break!) were all in Cassidy's imagination? \n\n         Let me say that I am actually quite grateful to Cassidy and The New Yorker . A number of people have long been furious about your book--for example, Victor Norman, whom you portrayed as the first of many economists too dumb or perhaps narrow-minded to understand Arthur's brilliant innovation. Norman e-mailed me to say that \"I have read the tales from the Vienna woods before and had hoped that it could be cleared up by someone at some point.\" Yet up to now there was nothing anyone could do about the situation. The trouble was that while \"heroic rebel defies orthodoxy\" is a story so good that nobody even tries to check it out, \"guy makes minor contribution to well-established field, proclaims himself its founder\" is so boring as to be unpublishable. (David Warsh's 1994 series of columns in the Boston Globe on the increasing-returns revolution in economics, the basis for a forthcoming book from Harvard University Press, is far and away the best reporting on the subject, did include a sympathetic but devastating expos\u00c3\u00a9 of Arthur's pretensions--but to little effect. [Click to read Warsh on Arthur.]) Only now did I have a publishable story: \"guy makes minor contribution to well-established field, portrays himself as heroic rebel--and The New Yorker believes him.\" \n\n         Thank you, Mr. Cassidy. \n\n                                            Letter from Kenneth J. Arrow:                              \n\n         Paul Krugman's attack on Brian Arthur (\"The Legend of Arthur\") requires a correction of its misrepresentations of fact. Arthur is a reputable and significant scholar whose work is indeed having influence in the field of industrial organization and in particular public policy toward antitrust policy in high-tech industries. Krugman admits that he wrote the article because he was \"just pissed off,\" not a very good state for a judicious statement of facts, as his column shows. \n\n         His theme is stated in his first paragraph: \"Cassidy's article [in The New Yorker of Jan. 12] tells the story of how Stanford Professor Brian Arthur came up with the idea of increasing returns.\" Cassidy, however, said nothing of the sort. The concept of increasing returns is indeed very old, and Cassidy at no point attributed that idea to Arthur. Indeed, the phrase \"increasing returns\" appears just once in Cassidy's article and then merely to say that Arthur had used the term while others refer to network externalities. Further, Arthur has never made any such preposterous claim at any other time. On the contrary, his papers have fully cited the history of the field and made references to the previous papers, including those of Paul Krugman. (See Arthur's papers collected in the volume Increasing Returns and Path Dependence in the Economy, especially his preface and my foreword for longer comments on Arthur's work in historic perspective. Click to see the foreword.) Hence, Krugman's whole attack is directed at a statement made neither by Arthur nor by Cassidy. Krugman has not read Cassidy's piece with any care nor has he bothered to review what Arthur has in fact said. \n\n         What Cassidy in fact did in his article was to trace a line of influence between one of Arthur's early articles and the current claims of the Department of Justice against Microsoft. It appears that Cassidy based his article on several interviews, not just one. \n\n         The point that Arthur has emphasized and which is influential in the current debates about antitrust policy is the dynamic implication of increasing returns. It is the concept of path-dependence, that small events, whether random or the result of corporate strategic choice, may have large consequences because of increasing returns of various kinds. Initial small advantages become magnified, for example, by creating a large installed base, and direct the future, possibly in an inefficient direction. Techniques of production may be locked in at an early stage. Similar considerations apply to regional development and learning. \n\n                         --Kenneth J. Arrow Nobel laureate and Joan Kenney professor of economics emeritus Stanford University \n\n                                            Letter from Ted C. Fishman:                              \n\n         After reading Paul Krugman vent his spleen against fellow economist Brian Arthur in \"The Legend of Arthur,\" I couldn't help wondering whose reputation he was out to trash, Arthur's or his own. Krugman seems to fear a plot to deny economists their intellectual due. If one exists, Arthur is not a likely suspect. In a series of long interviews with me a year ago (for Worth magazine), I tried, vainly, to get Arthur to tell me how his ideas about increasing returns have encouraged a new strain of economic investigations. Despite much prodding, Arthur obliged only by placing himself in a long line of theorists dating back to Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall. I also found him disarmingly generous in giving credit to the biologists, physicists, and fellow economists who have helped advance his own thinking. Savvy to the journalist's quest for heroes, Arthur urged me to focus on his ideas, not his rank among his peers. Krugman has made a career out of telling other economists to pay better attention to the facts, yet as a chronicler of Arthur's career and inner life, Krugman seems to have listened only to his own demons. \n\n                         --Ted C. Fishman              \n\n                                            (For additional background on the history of \"increasing returns\" and Brian Arthur's standing in the field, click for David Warsh's July 3, 1994,                                 Boston Globe                                    article on Brian Arthur)",
    "20010": "The Bell Curve Flattened \n\n         Charles Murray is a publicity genius, and the publication of his and Richard Herrnstein's book, The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life , in the fall of 1994 was his masterpiece. \n\n         Virtually all ambitious trade hardcover books are preceded by an edition of 100 to 200 flimsy \"galley proofs.\" These are sent out to people who might generate buzz for the book: blurbists, bookers for television talk shows, editors, and--most important--book critics. There is an ethos of letting the chips fall where they may about the sending out of galleys: Now the book will begin to receive uncontrolled reaction. (For example, back in 1991, Murray somehow got hold of the galleys of my own last book, and wrote me heatedly denying that he was working on a book about black genetic intellectual inferiority, as I had asserted. I left the passage in, but softened it.) \n\n         The Bell Curve was not circulated in galleys before publication. The effect was, first, to increase the allure of the book (There must be something really hot in there!), and second, to ensure that no one inclined to be skeptical would be able to weigh in at the moment of publication. The people who had galley proofs were handpicked by Murray and his publisher. The ordinary routine of neutral reviewers having a month or two to go over the book with care did not occur. Another handpicked group was flown to Washington at the expense of the American Enterprise Institute and given a weekend-long personal briefing on the book's contents by Murray himself (Herrnstein had died very recently), just before publication. The result was what you'd expect: The first wave of publicity was either credulous or angry, but short on evidence, because nobody had had time to digest and evaluate the book carefully. \n\n                         The Bell Curve isn't a typical work of trade nonfiction. It is gotten up as a work of original scholarly research. Most works containing fresh regression analysis and historical argument from primary sources would be published in academic quarterlies that send manuscripts out for elaborate, lengthy evaluation before deciding whether to publish them. Herrnstein and Murray didn't do this, so it wasn't until a full year or more after The Bell Curve was published that the leading experts on its subject had a chance to go through the underlying data with care. Therefore, as time went on, the knowledgeability of the Bell Curve discussion grew, but the attention paid to that discussion inevitably shrank. \n\n         The debate on publication day was conducted in the mass media by people with no independent ability to assess the book. Over the next few months, intellectuals took some pretty good shots at it in smaller publications like the New Republic and the New York Review of Books . It wasn't until late 1995 that the most damaging criticism of The Bell Curve began to appear, in tiny academic journals. What follows is a brief summary of that last body of work. The Bell Curve , it turns out, is full of mistakes ranging from sloppy reasoning to mis-citations of sources to outright mathematical errors. Unsurprisingly, all the mistakes are in the direction of supporting the authors' thesis. \n\n          First, a quick pr\u00c3\u00a9cis of The Bell Curve . IQ tests, according to Murray and Herrnstein, measure an essential human quality, general intelligence. During the second half of the 20 th century, this quality has risen to supreme importance, because society has become increasingly complex. The intelligent have therefore gone through an \"invisible migration,\" from points of origin all over the class system to a concentration at the top of business, government, and the professions. They are likely to become ever more dominant and prosperous. The unintelligent are falling further and further behind. Because intelligence is substantially inherited, nothing is likely to reverse this process. Blacks are overrepresented among the unintelligent. Any efforts government might make to improve the economic opportunities of poor people, especially poor black people, are likely to fail, because their poverty is so much the result of inherited low intelligence. About the best that can be done for these people is an effort to create a world of simple, decent, honorable toil for them. \n\n          Herrnstein and Murray begin by telling us that the liberal position on IQ--namely, \"Intelligence is a bankrupt concept\"--has been discredited, and that \"a scholarly consensus has been reached\" around their position. This consensus is \"beyond significant technical dispute.\" Thus, by the end of their introduction, they have arranged matters so that if intelligence has any meaning at all, the idiotic liberals stand discredited; and meanwhile, extremely broad claims for intelligence have the cover of \"consensus.\" \n\n         The notion that IQ tests are completely useless never prevailed in liberal academia to nearly the extent that Herrnstein and Murray say. A more accurate rendering of the liberal position would be that rather than a single \"general intelligence,\" there are a handful of crucial--and separate--mental abilities; that none of these abilities is important enough to obviate the role of family background and education; and that native ability (and economic success independent of native ability) can be enhanced by improving education, training, and public health. The Bell Curve refers in passing to some of these points, but on the whole it sets up a cartoon-left position as its (easy) target. Meanwhile, the psychometricians who dominate the footnotes of The Bell Curve are John Hunter, Arthur Jensen, Malcolm Ree, and Frank Schmidt. These men are well known within the field as representing its right wing, not a mainstream consensus. \n\n         The next problem with The Bell Curve 's thesis is in the idea of the rise to dominance of the cognitive elite. To the book's initial audience of Ivy Leaguers, this idea seemed valid on its face. Everybody knows that the best universities, law firms, hospitals, investment banks, and the State Department used to be run by preppies whose main virtue was fortunate birth, and are now open to one and all on the basis of merit. \n\n          But the larger premise--that intelligent people used to be scattered throughout the class structure, and are now concentrated at the top--is almost impossible to prove, simply because the mass administration of mental tests is such a recent phenomenon. High scorers on mental tests do \"bunch up\" (as Herrnstein and Murray put it) in elite-university student bodies. But this is tautological: Any group selected on the basis of scores on mental tests will be composed disproportionately of people who score high on mental tests. Proving The Bell Curve 's thesis would require proving that success increasingly correlates with IQ in areas of life where mental tests are not the explicit gatekeepers. To see how The Bell Curve tries and fails to get around these inherent problems, see and . \n\n         Having conditioned its audience to view IQ as all-important, The Bell Curve then manipulates statistics in a way that makes IQ look bigger, and everything else smaller, in determining Americans' life-chances. \n\n         The basic tool of statistical social science in general, and of The Bell Curve in particular, is regression analysis, a technique used to assign weights to various factors (called \"independent variables\") in determining a final outcome (called the \"dependent variable\"). The original statistical work in The Bell Curve consists of regression analyses on a database called the National Longitudinal Study of Youth. The authors claim to demonstrate that high IQ is more predictive of economic success than any other factor, and that low IQ is more predictive of poverty and social breakdown. Virtually all the early commentators on The Bell Curve were unable to assess the merits of the regression analysis. \"I am not a scientist. I know nothing about psychometrics,\" wrote Leon Wieseltier (who was otherwise quite critical) in a typical disclaimer. \n\n         But by now the statistics have been gone over by professionals, who have come up with different results. The key points of their critique of The Bell Curve are as follows: \n\n         What Herrnstein and Murray used to measure IQ is actually a measure of education as well as intelligence. All the people tracked in the National Longitudinal Study of Youth took the Armed Forces Qualifying Test, which Herrnstein and Murray treat as a good measure of intelligence. Because the material covered in the test includes subjects like trigonometry, many academic critics of The Bell Curve have objected to its use as a measure only of IQ and not at all of academic achievement. Herrnstein and Murray concede in the footnotes that scores tend to rise with the subjects' education--but they seriously underestimate the magnitude of this rise, as shows. And they resist the obvious inference that the test scores are measuring something other than intelligence. \n\n         Most of The Bell Curve 's analysis is devoted to proving that IQ has more predictive power than parental \"socio-economic status.\" But Herrnstein and Murray's method of figuring socioeconomic status seems designed to low-ball its influence, as explains. \n\n         Herrnstein and Murray begin their discussion of the National Longitudinal Study of Youth data by announcing that they aren't going to analyze the effect of education, because education is too much a result of IQ. It's not an independent variable. (Of course, according to their theory, socioeconomic status is also a result of IQ, but somehow, that doesn't stop them.) Therefore, what you'd most want to know from a policy standpoint--how much education can increase opportunity--isn't dealt with in the book, except in two obscure footnotes. Both would seem to support the liberal, pro-education position that Herrnstein and Murray say is futile. One footnote shows education increasing IQ year by year. The other shows a higher correlation between college degree and family income than between IQ and family income. \n\n         One of The Bell Curve 's theoretical linchpins is the high heritability of IQ. Herrnstein and Murray, sounding like the souls of caution, write that \"half a century of work, now amounting to hundreds of empirical and theoretical studies, permits a broad conclusion that the genetic component of IQ is unlikely to be smaller than 40 per cent or higher than 80 per cent. ... For purposes of this discussion, we will adopt a middling estimate of 60 per cent heritability.\" This now looks seriously overstated. Michael Daniels, Bernie Devlin, and Kathryn Roeder of Carnegie Mellon University took the same studies on which Herrnstein and Murray based their estimate, and subjected them to a computer meta-analysis (\"a powerful method of statistical analysis\"-- The Bell Curve ). Their paper, which has not yet been published, says: \"In brief, studies of IQ, and our reanalyses of them, suggest a narrow-sense heritability of 34 per cent and a broad-sense heritability of 46 per cent. [The difference between broad and narrow is too technical to explain in this limited space.] This is a far cry from Herrnstein and Murray's maximum value of 80 per cent or their middling value of 60 per cent. Consequently, Herrnstein and Murray give the impression that IQ is highly 'heritable,' but it is not.\" \n\n         If the purpose of the whole exercise is to figure out what our social policies should be, then, \"Which is more predictive, IQ or socioeconomic status?\" isn't the essential question anyway. Making it the essential question avoids the issue of whether IQ is really so massively predictive that it drowns out everything else. (Herrnstein and Murray mostly leave the evidence for this, their central contention, to footnotes. The figures they offer are far from dispositive.) \n\n         The chapter of The Bell Curve on policies that might be able to overcome the fate of a low IQ focuses mainly on whether early-childhood programs like Head Start (most of which aren't run with raising IQ as their primary goal) can raise IQ significantly over the long term, and sorrowfully concludes that they can't. What the book doesn't discuss is whether public schools--by far the biggest government social program--can raise IQ, or earnings after you control for IQ. As James Heckman of the University of Chicago wrote in the Journal of Political Economy , \" Evidence of a genetic component to skills has no bearing on the efficacy of any social policy. ... The relevant issue is the cost effectiveness of the intervention.\" (As an example of where the kind of analysis Herrnstein and Murray didn't do can lead, a new study by Jay Girotto and Paul Peterson of Harvard shows that students who raise their grades and take harder courses can increase their IQ scores by an average of eight points during the first three years of high school.) \n\n          At the beginning of The Bell Curve , Herrnstein and Murray declare that \"the concept of intelligence has taken on a much higher place in the pantheon of human virtues than it deserves.\" And they claim that their view of IQ tests is \"squarely in the middle of the scientific road.\" They end by expressing the hope that we can \"be a society that makes good on the fundamental promise of the American tradition: the opportunity for everyone, not just the lucky ones, to live a satisfying life.\" Throughout, Herrnstein and Murray consistently present themselves as fair- (or even liberal-) minded technicians who have, with great caution, followed the evidence where it leads--which, unfortunately, is to a few unassailable if unpleasant scientific truths that it is their reluctant duty to report. \n\n         In fact, The Bell Curve is a relentless brief for the conservative position in psychometrics and social policy. For all its talk of reflecting a consensus, the sources it draws upon are heavily skewed to the right. Herrnstein and Murray used quasi-nutty studies that support their position (as Charles Lane demonstrated in the New York Review of Books ), and ignore mainstream studies that contradict it (as Richard Nisbett showed in the New Republic ). The data in The Bell Curve are consistently massaged to produce conservative conclusions; not once is a finding that contradicts the main thesis reported in the text. ( shows how Herrnstein and Murray have made the convergence in black-white IQ scores, which they claim to find \"encouraging,\" look smaller than it actually is.) The Bell Curve 's air of strict scientism doesn't preclude the use of lightly sourced or unsourced assertions, such as the statement that the median IQ of all black Africans is 75, or that \"intermarriage among people in the top few percentiles of intelligence may be increasing far more rapidly than suspected\" (no footnote). Though they piously claim not to be doing so, Herrnstein and Murray leave readers with the distinct impression that IQ is the cause of economic success and failure, and that genetic difference explains the black-white IQ gap. \n\n         In the most famous passage in The Republic , Plato describes an underground cave where people are held prisoner in chains, unable to see anything but the shadows cast by figures passing outside; they mistake the shadows for reality. The Republic is probably the first place in history where an idea like that of Murray and Herrnstein's cognitive elite appears. Plato believed that through education, people could leave the cave and be able to see the truth instead of the shadows, thus fitting themselves to become the wise rulers of society. But he was quick to insert a cautionary note: Those who have left the cave might be tempted to think they can see perfectly clearly, while actually they would be \"dazzled by excess of light.\" The image applies to The Bell Curve : Presented as an exact representation of reality, in opposition to the shadows of political correctness, it actually reflects the blinkered vision of one part of the American elite. It constantly tells these people that they are naturally superior, and offers lurid descriptions of aspects of national life that they know about only by rumor. Readers who accept The Bell Curve as tough-minded and realistic, and who assume that all criticism of it is ignorant and ideologically motivated, are not as far removed from Plato's cave as they might think. \n\n         : Dumb College Students \n\n         : Smart Rich People \n\n         : Education and IQ \n\n         : Socioeconomic Status \n\n         : Black-White Convergence",
    "53016": "CAKEWALK TO GLORYANNA\nBY L. J. STECHER, JR.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of Tomorrow June 1963\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe job was easy. The profit was enormous. The\n\n only trouble was\u2014the cargo had a will of its own!\nCaptain Hannah climbed painfully down from the\nDelta Crucis\n, hobbled\n across the spaceport to where Beulah and I were waiting to greet him\n and hit me in the eye. Beulah\u2014that's his elephant, but I have to take\n care of her for him because Beulah's baby belongs to me and Beulah has\n to take care of it\u2014kept us apart until we both cooled down a little.\n Then, although still somewhat dubious about it, she let us go together\n across the field to the spaceport bar.\n\n\n I didn't ask Captain Hannah why he had socked me.\n\n\n Although he has never been a handsome man, he usually has the\n weathered and austere dignity that comes from plying the remote reaches\n among the stars. Call it the Look of Eagles. Captain Hannah had lost\n the Look of Eagles. His eyes were swollen almost shut; every inch of\n him that showed was a red mass of welts piled on more welts, as though\n he had tangled with a hive of misanthropic bees. The gold-braided hat\n of his trade was not clamped in its usual belligerent position slightly\n over one eye. It was riding high on his head, apparently held up by\n more of the ubiquitous swellings.\n\n\n I figured that he figured that I had something to do with the way he\n looked.\n\n\n \"Shipping marocca to Gloryanna III didn't turn out to be a cakewalk\n after all?\" I suggested.\n\n\n He glared at me in silence.\n\n\n \"Perhaps you would like a drink first, and then you would be willing to\n tell me about it?\"\n\n\n I decided that his wince was intended for a nod, and ordered rhial.\n I only drink rhial when I've been exposed to Captain Hannah. It was\n almost a pleasure to think that\nI\nwas responsible, for a change, for\n having\nhim\ntake the therapy.\n\n\n \"A\nDelta\nClass freighter can carry almost anything,\" he said at last,\n in a travesty of his usual forceful voice. \"But some things it should\n never try.\"\nHe lapsed back into silence after this uncharacteristic admission. I\n almost felt sorry for him, but just then Beulah came racking across\n the field with her two-ton infant in tow, to show her off to Hannah. I\n walled off my pity. He had foisted those two maudlin mastodons off onto\n me in one of our earlier deals, and if I had somehow been responsible\n for his present troubles, it was no more than he deserved. I rated\n winning for once.\n\n\n \"You\ndid\nsucceed in getting the marocca to Gloryanna III?\" I asked\n anxiously, after the elephants had been admired and sent back home.\n The success of that venture\u2014even if the job had turned out to be more\n difficult than we had expected\u2014meant an enormous profit to both of\n us. The fruit of the marocca is delicious and fabulously expensive.\n The plant grew only on the single planet Mypore II. Transshipped seeds\n invariably failed to germinate, which explained its rarity.\n\n\n The Myporians were usually, and understandably, bitterly, opposed to\n letting any of the living plants get shipped off their planet. But when\n I offered them a sizable piece of cash plus a perpetual share of the\n profits for letting us take a load of marocca plants to Gloryanna III,\n they relented and, for the first time in history, gave their assent. In\n fact, they had seemed delighted.\n\n\n \"I got them there safely,\" said Captain Hannah.\n\n\n \"And they are growing all right?\" I persisted.\n\n\n \"When I left, marocca was growing like mad,\" said Captain Hannah.\n\n\n I relaxed and leaned back in my chair. I no longer felt the need of\n rhial for myself. \"Tell me about it,\" I suggested.\n\"It was you who said that we should carry those damn plants to\n Gloryanna III,\" he said balefully. \"I ought to black your other eye.\"\n\n\n \"Simmer down and have some more rhial,\" I told him. \"Sure I get the\n credit for that. Gloryanna III is almost a twin to Mypore II. You know\n that marocca takes a very special kind of environment. Bright sun most\n of the time\u2014that means an almost cloudless environment. A very equable\n climate. Days and nights the same length and no seasons\u2014that means no\n ecliptical and no axial tilt. But our tests showed that the plants had\n enough tolerance to cause no trouble in the trip in\nDelta Crucis\n.\" A\n light dawned. \"Our tests were no good?\"\n\n\n \"Your tests were no good,\" agreed the captain with feeling. \"I'll tell\n you about it first, and\nthen\nI'll black your other eye,\" he decided.\n\n\n \"You'll remember that I warned you that we should take some marocca\n out into space and solve any problems we might find before committing\n ourselves to hauling a full load of it?\" asked Captain Hannah.\n\n\n \"We couldn't,\" I protested. \"The Myporians gave us a deadline. If\n we had gone through all of that rigamarole, we would have lost the\n franchise. Besides, they gave you full written instructions about what\n to do under all possible circumstances.\"\n\n\n \"Sure. Written in Myporian. A very difficult language to translate.\n Especially when you're barricaded in the head.\"\n\n\n I almost asked him why he had been barricaded in the bathroom of the\nDelta Crucis\n, but I figured it was safer to let him tell me in his\n own way, in his own time.\n\n\n \"Well,\" he said, \"I got into parking orbit around Mypore without any\n trouble. The plastic film kept the water in the hydroponic tanks\n without any trouble, even in a no-gravity condition. And by the time I\n had lined up for Gloryanna and Jumped, I figured, like you said, that\n the trip would be a cakewalk.\n\n\n \"Do you remember how the plants always keep their leaves facing the\n sun? They twist on their stems all day, and then they go on twisting\n them all night, still pointing at the underground sun, so that they're\n aimed right at sunrise. So the stem looks like a corkscrew?\"\n\n\n I nodded. \"Sure. That's why they can't stand an axial tilt. They\n 'remember' the rate and direction of movement, and keep it up during\n the night time. So what? We had that problem all figured out.\"\n\n\n \"You think so? That solution was one of yours, too, wasn't it?\" He\n gazed moodily at his beaker of rhial. \"I must admit it sounded good\n to me, too. In Limbo, moving at multiple light-speeds, the whole\n Universe, of course, turns into a bright glowing spot in our direction\n of motion, with everything else dark. So I lined up the\nDelta Crucis\nperpendicular to her direction of motion, put a once-every-twenty-one\n hour spin on her to match the rotation rates of Mypore II and Gloryanna\n III, and uncovered the view ports to let in the light. It gradually\n brightened until 'noon time', with the ports pointing straight at the\n light source, and then dimmed until we had ten and one-half hours of\n darkness.\n\n\n \"Of course, it didn't work.\"\n\"For Heaven's sake, why not?\"\n\n\n \"For Heaven's sake why should it? With no gravity for reference, how\n were the plants supposed to know that the 'sun' was supposed to be\n moving?\"\n\n\n \"So what did you do?\" I asked, when that had sunk in. \"If the stem\n doesn't keep winding, the plants die; and they can only take a few\n extra hours of night time before they run down.\"\n\n\n \"Oh,\" said Captain Hannah in quiet tones of controlled desperation, \"it\n was very simple. I just put enough spin on the ship to make artificial\n gravity, and then I strung a light and moved it every fifteen minutes\n for ten and one-half hours, until I had gone halfway around the room.\n Then I could turn the light off and rest for ten and one-half hours.\n The plants liked it fine.\n\n\n \"Of course, first I had to move all the hydroponic tanks from their\n original positions perpendicular to the axial thrust line of the ship\n to a radial position. And because somehow we had picked up half of\n the plants in the northern hemisphere of Mypore and the other half in\n the southern hemisphere, it turned out that half of the plants had a\n sinistral corkscrew and the other half had a dextral. So I had to set\n the plants up in two different rooms, and run an artificial sun for\n each, going clockwise with one, widdershins with the other.\n\n\n \"I won't even talk about what I went through while I was shifting the\n hydroponic tanks, when all the plastic membranes that were supposed to\n keep the water in place started to break.\"\n\n\n \"I'd like to know,\" I said sincerely.\n\n\n He stared at me in silence for a moment. \"Well, it filled the cabin\n with great solid bubbles of water. Water bubbles will oscillate and\n wobble like soap bubbles,\" he went on dreamily, \"but of course,\n they're not empty, like soap bubbles. The surface acts a little like\n a membrane, so that sometimes two of the things will touch and gently\n bounce apart without joining. But just try\ntouching\none of them. You\n could drown\u2014I almost did. Several times.\n\n\n \"I got a fire pump\u2014an empty one. You know the kind; a wide cylinder\n with a piston with a handle, and a hose that you squirt the water out\n of, or can suck water in with. The way you use it is, you float up on\n a big ball of water, with the pump piston down\u2014closed. You carefully\n poke the end of the hose into the ball of water, letting only the metal\n tip touch.\nNever\nthe hose. If you let the hose touch, the water runs\n up it and tries to drown you. Then you pull up on the piston, and draw\n all the water into the cylinder. Of course, you have to hold the pump\n with your feet while you pull the handle with your free hand.\"\n\n\n \"Did it work?\" I asked eagerly.\n\n\n \"Eventually. Then I stopped to think of what to do with the water.\n It was full of minerals and manure and such, and I didn't want to\n introduce it into the ship's tanks.\"\n\n\n \"But you solved the problem?\"\n\"In a sense,\" said the captain. \"I just emptied the pump back into the\n air, ignored the bubbles, repositioned the tanks, put spin on the ship\n and then ladled the liquid back into the tanks with a bucket.\"\n\n\n \"Didn't you bump into a lot of the bubbles and get yourself dunked a\n good deal while you were working with the tanks?\"\n\n\n He shrugged. \"I couldn't say. By that time I was ignoring them. It was\n that or suicide. I had begun to get the feeling that they were stalking\n me. So I drew a blank.\"\n\n\n \"Then after that you were all right, except for the tedium of moving\n the lights around?\" I asked him. I answered myself at once. \"No. There\n must be more. You haven't told me why you hid out in the bathroom, yet.\"\n\n\n \"Not yet,\" said Captain Hannah. \"Like you, I figured I had the\n situation fairly well under control, but like you, I hadn't thought\n things through. The plastic membranes hadn't torn when we brought the\n tanks in board the\nDelta Crucis\n. It never occurred to me to hunt\n around for the reasons for the change. But I wouldn't have had long to\n hunt anyway, because in a few hours the reasons came looking for me.\n\n\n \"They were a tiny skeeter-like thing. A sort of midge or junior grade\n mosquito. They had apparently been swimming in the water during their\n larval stage. Instead of making cocoons for themselves, they snipped\n tiny little pieces of plastic to use as protective covers in the pupal\n stage. I guess they were more like butterflies than mosquitoes in their\n habits. And now they were mature.\n\n\n \"There were thousands and thousands of them, and each one of them made\n a tiny, maddening whine as it flew.\"\n\n\n \"And they bit? That explains your bumps?\" I asked sympathetically.\n\n\n \"Oh, no. These things didn't bite, they itched. And they got down\n inside of everything they could get down inside, and clung. That\n included my ears and my eyes and my nose.\n\n\n \"I broke out a hand sprayer full of a DDT solution, and sprayed it\n around me to try to clear the nearby air a little, so that I could\n have room to think. The midges loved it. But the plants that were in\n reach died so fast that you could watch their leaves curl up and drop\n off.\n\n\n \"I couldn't figure whether to turn up the fans and dissipate the\n cloud\u2014by spreading it all through the ship\u2014or whether to try to block\n off the other plant room, and save it at least. So I ended up by not\n doing anything, which was the right thing to do. No more plants died\n from the DDT.\n\"So then I did a few experiments, and found that the regular poison\n spray in the ship's fumigation system worked just fine. It killed\n the bugs without doing the plants any harm at all. Of course, the\n fumigation system is designed to work with the fumigator off the ship,\n because it's poisonous to humans too.\n\n\n \"I finally blocked the vents and the door edges in the head, after\n running some remote controls into there, and then started the\n fumigation system going. While I was sitting there with nothing much\n to do, I tried to translate what I could of the Myporian instructions.\n It was on page eleven that it mentioned casually that the midges\u2014the\n correct word is carolla\u2014are a necessary part of the life cycle of the\n marocca. The larvae provide an enzyme without which the plants die.\n\n\n \"Of course. I immediately stopped slapping at the relatively few midges\n that had made their way into the head with me, and started to change\n the air in the ship to get rid of the poison. I knew it was too late\n before I started, and for once I was right.\n\n\n \"The only live midges left in the ship were the ones that had been\n with me during the fumigation process. I immediately tried to start\n a breeding ground for midges, but the midges didn't seem to want to\n cooperate. Whatever I tried to do, they came back to me. I was the only\n thing they seemed to love. I didn't dare bathe, or scratch, or even\n wriggle, for fear of killing more of them. And they kept on itching. It\n was just about unbearable, but I bore it for three interminable days\n while the midges died one by one. It was heartbreaking\u2014at least, it\n was to me.\n\n\n \"And it was unnecessary, too. Because apparently the carolla had\n already laid their eggs, or whatever it is that they do, before I\n had fumigated them. After my useless days of agony, a new batch\n came swarming out. And this time there were a few of a much larger\n thing with them\u2014something like an enormous moth. The new thing just\n blundered around aimlessly.\n\n\n \"I lit out for the head again, to keep away from that intolerable\n whining. This time I took a luxurious shower and got rid of most of the\n midges that came through the door with me. I felt almost comfortable,\n in fact, until I resumed my efforts to catch up on my reading.\n\n\n \"The mothlike things\u2014they are called dingleburys\u2014also turn out to\n provide a necessary enzyme. They are supposed to have the same timing\n of their life cycle as the carolla. Apparently the shaking up I had\n given their larvae in moving the tanks and dipping the water up in\n buckets and all that had inhibited them in completing their cycle the\n first time around.\n\n\n \"And the reason they had the same life cycle as the carolla was that\n the adult dinglebury will eat only the adult carolla, and it has to\n fill itself full to bursting before it will reproduce. If I had the\n translation done correctly, they were supposed to dart gracefully\n around, catching carolla on the wing and stuffing themselves happily.\n\n\n \"I had to find out what was wrong with my awkward dingleburys. And\n that, of course, meant going out into the ship again. But I had to do\n that anyway, because it was almost 'daylight', and time for me to start\n shifting the lights again.\n\"The reason for the dingleburys' problem is fairly obvious. When you\n set up artificial gravity by spinning a ship, the gravity is fine down\n near the skin where the plants are. But the gravity potential is very\n high, and it gets very light up where things fly around, going to zero\n on the middle line of the ship. And the unfamiliar gravity gradient,\n together with the Coriolis effect and all, makes the poor dingleburys\n dizzy, so they can't catch carolla.\n\n\n \"And if you think I figured all that out about dingleburys getting\n dizzy at the time, in that madhouse of a ship, then you're crazy. What\n happened was that I saw that there was one of the creatures that didn't\n seem to be having any trouble, but was acting like the book said it\n should. I caught it and examined it. The poor thing was blind, and was\n capturing her prey by sound alone.\n\n\n \"So I spent the whole day\u2014along with my usual chore of shifting the\n lights\u2014blindfolding dingleburys. Which is a hell of a sport for a man\n who is captain of his own ship.\"\n\n\n I must say that I agreed with him, but it seemed to be a good time for\n me to keep my mouth shut.\n\n\n \"Well, after the dingleburys had eaten and propagated, they became\n inquisitive. They explored the whole ship, going into places I wouldn't\n have believed it to be possible for them to reach, including the inside\n of the main computer, which promptly shorted out. I finally figured\n that one of the things had managed to crawl up the cooling air exhaust\n duct, against the flow of air, to see what was going on inside.\n\n\n \"I didn't dare to get rid of the things without checking my book, of\n course, so it was back to the head for me. 'Night' had come again\u2014and\n it was the only place I could get any privacy. There were plenty of the\n carolla left to join me outside.\n\n\n \"I showered and swatted and started to read. I got as far as where it\n said that the dingleburys continued to be of importance, and then I'm\n afraid I fell asleep.\n\n\n \"I got up with the sun the next morning. Hell, I had to, considering\n that it was I who turned the sun on! I found that the dingleburys\n immediately got busy opening small buds on the stems of the marocca\n plants. Apparently they were pollinating them. I felt sure that these\n buds weren't the marocca blossoms from which the fruit formed\u2014I'd\n seen a lot of those while we were on Mypore II and they were much\n bigger and showier than these little acorn-sized buds.\n\n\n \"Of course, I should have translated some more of my instruction book,\n but I was busy.\n\n\n \"Anyway, the action of the dingleburys triggered the violent growth\n phase of the marocca plants. Did you know that they plant marocca\n seedlings, back on Mypore II,\nat least\na hundred feet apart? If\n you'll recall, a mature field, which was the only kind we ever saw, is\n one solid mass of green growth.\n\"The book says that it takes just six hours for a marocca field to\n shift from the seedling stage to the mature stage. It didn't seem that\n long. You could\nwatch\nthe stuff grow\u2014groping and crawling along; one\n plant twining with another as they climbed toward the light.\n\n\n \"It was then that I began to get worried. If they twined around the\n light, they would keep me from moving it, and they would shadow it so\n it wouldn't do its job right. In effect, their growth would put out the\n sun.\n\n\n \"I thought of putting up an electrically charged fence around the\n light, but the bugs had put most of my loose equipment out of action,\n so I got a machete. When I took a swing at one of the vines, something\n bit me on the back of the neck so hard it almost knocked me down. It\n was one of the dingleburys, and it was as mad as blazes. It seems that\n one of the things they do is to defend the marocca against marauders.\n That was the first of my welts, and it put me back in the head in\n about two seconds.\n\n\n \"And what's more, I found that I couldn't kill the damn things. Not if\n I wanted to save the plants. The growth only stops at the end of six\n hours, after the blossoms appear and are visited by the dingleburys. No\n dingleburys, no growth stoppage.\n\n\n \"So for the next several hours I had to keep moving those lights, and\n keep them clear of the vines, and keep the vines from shadowing each\n other to the point where they curled up and died, and I had to do it\ngently\n, surrounded by a bunch of worried dingleburys.\n\n\n \"Every time they got a little too worried, or I slipped and bumped into\n a plant too hard, or looked crosseyed at them, they bit me. If you\n think I look bad now, you should have seen me just about the time the\n blossoms started to burst.\n\n\n \"I was worried about those blossoms. I felt sure that they would smell\n terrible, or make me sick, or hypnotize me, or something. But they just\n turned out to be big, white, odorless flowers. They did nothing for me\n or to me. They drove the dingleburys wild, though, I'm happy to say.\n Made them forget all about me.\n\n\n \"While they were having their orgy, I caught up on my reading. It\n was necessary for me to cut back the marocca vines. For one thing,\n I couldn't get up to the area of the bridge. For another, the main\n computer was completely clogged. I could use the auxiliary, on the\n bridge, if I could get to it, but it's a poor substitute. For another\n thing, I would have to cut the stuff way back if I was ever going to\n get the plants out of the ship. And I was a little anxious to get my\nDelta Crucis\nback to normal as soon as possible. But before cutting,\n I had to translate the gouge.\n\"It turns out that it's all right to cut marocca as soon as it stops\n growing. To keep the plants from dying, though, you have to mulch the\n cuttings and then feed them back to the plants, where the roots store\n whatever they need against the time of the next explosive period of\n growth. Of course, if you prefer you can wait for the vines to die back\n naturally, which takes several months.\n\n\n \"There was one little catch, of course. The cuttings from the vines\n will poison the plants if they are fed back to them without having been\n mixed with a certain amount of processed mulch. Enzymes again. And\n there was only one special processor on board.\n\n\n \"I was the special processor. That's what the instructions said\u2014I\n translated very carefully\u2014it required an 'organic processor'.\n\n\n \"So I had to eat pounds of that horrible tasting stuff every day, and\n process it the hard way.\n\n\n \"I didn't even have time to scratch my bites. I must have lost weight\n everywhere but in the swollen places, and they looked worse than they\n do now. The doctor says it may take a year before the bumps all go\n away\u2014if they ever do\u2014but I have improved a lot already.\n\n\n \"For a while I must have been out of my head. I got so caught up in\n the rhythm of the thing that I didn't even notice when we slipped out\n of Limbo into real space near Gloryanna III. It was three days, the\n Control Tower on Gloryanna III told me, that they tried continuously\n to raise me on the communications gear before I heard the alarm bell\n and answered them, so I had to do a good deal of backtracking before\n I could get into parking orbit around the planet, and then set\nDelta\n Crucis\ndown safely. Even as shaky as I was,\nDelta Crucis\nbehaved\n like a lady.\n\n\n \"I hadn't chopped off all of the new growth, although I had the plants\n down to manageable size. Some of the blossoms left on the plants had\n formed fruit, and the fruit had ripened and dried, and the seeds had\n developed fully. They were popping and spreading fine dust-like spores\n all over the ship, those last few hours before I landed.\n\n\n \"By that time, though, an occasional sneezing fit and watering eyes\n didn't bother me any. I was far beyond the point where hay fever could\n add to my troubles.\n\n\n \"When I opened the airlock door, though, the spores drifting outside\n set the customs inspectors to sneezing and swearing more than seemed\n reasonable at the time.\" Captain Hannah inhaled a sip of rhial, and\n seemed to be enjoying the powerful stuff. He acted as if he thought he\n had finished.\n\n\n \"Well, go on,\" I urged him. \"The marocca plants were still in good\n shape, weren't they?\"\n\n\n Hannah nodded. \"They were growing luxuriously.\" He nodded his head a\n couple of more times, in spite of the discomfort it must have given\n him.\n\n\n He said, \"They made me burn the entire crop right away, of course. They\n didn't get all of the carolla or dingleburys, though. Or spores.\"\n\"Gloryanna III is the original home planet of marocca. They hated the\n stuff, of course, but they liked the profit. Then, when a plague almost\n wiped out the dingleburys, they introduced khorram furs as a cash\n crop. It wasn't as lucrative, but it was so much more pleasant that\n they outlawed marocca. Took them almost fifty years to stamp it out\n completely. Meanwhile, some clever native shipped a load of the stuff\n to Mypore II. He took his time, did it without any trouble and made his\n fortune. And got out again quickly.\n\n\n \"The Gloryannans were going to hold my\nDelta Crucis\nas security to\n pay for the cost of stamping out marocca all over again\u2014those spores\n sprout fast\u2014and for a time I was worried.\n\n\n \"Of course, when I showed them our contract\u2014that you alone were\n responsible for everything once I landed the plants safely on Gloryanna\n III, they let me go.\n\n\n \"They'll send you the bill. They don't figure it will take them more\n than a few months to complete the job.\"\n\n\n Captain Hannah stopped talking and stood up, painfully and a little\n unsteadily.\n\n\n I'm afraid I didn't even notice when he blacked my other eye. I was too\n busy reaching for the rhial.\nEND",
    "61204": "THE RECRUIT\nBY BRYCE WALTON\nIt was dirty work, but it would\n\n make him a man. And kids had a\n\n right to grow up\u2014some of them!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, July 1962.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nWayne, unseen, sneered down from the head of the stairs.\n\n\n The old man with his thick neck, thick cigar, evening highball, potgut\n and bald head without a brain in it. His slim mother with nervously\n polite smiles and voice fluttering, assuring the old man by her frailty\n that he was big in the world. They were squareheads one and all,\n marking moron time in a gray dream. Man, was he glad to break out.\n\n\n The old man said, \"He'll be okay. Let him alone.\"\n\n\n \"But he won't eat. Just lies there all the time.\"\n\n\n \"Hell,\" the old man said. \"Sixteen's a bad time. School over, waiting\n for the draft and all. He's in between. It's rough.\"\n\n\n Mother clasped her forearms and shook her head once slowly.\n\n\n \"We got to let him go, Eva. It's a dangerous time. You got to remember\n about all these dangerous repressed impulses piling up with nowhere to\n go, like they say. You read the books.\"\n\n\n \"But he's unhappy.\"\n\n\n \"Are we specialists? That's the Youth Board's headache, ain't it? What\n do we know about adolescent trauma and like that? Now get dressed or\n we'll be late.\"\n\n\n Wayne watched the ritual, grinning. He listened to their purposeless\n noises, their blabbing and yakking as if they had something to say.\n Blab-blab about the same old bones, and end up chewing them in the\n same old ways. Then they begin all over again. A freak sideshow all the\n way to nowhere. Squareheads going around either unconscious or with\n eyes looking dead from the millennium in the office waiting to retire\n into limbo.\n\n\n How come he'd been stuck with parental images like that? One\n thing\u2014when he was jockeying a rocket to Mars or maybe firing the pants\n off Asiatic reds in some steamy gone jungle paradise, he'd forget his\n punkie origins in teeveeland.\n\n\n But the old man was right on for once about the dangerous repressed\n impulses. Wayne had heard about it often enough. Anyway there was no\n doubt about it when every move he made was a restrained explosion.\n So he'd waited in his room, and it wasn't easy sweating it out alone\n waiting for the breakout call from HQ.\n\n\n \"Well, dear, if you say so,\" Mother said, with the old resigned sigh\n that must make the old man feel like Superman with a beerbelly.\n\n\n They heard Wayne slouching loosely down the stairs and looked up.\n\n\n \"Relax,\" Wayne said. \"You're not going anywhere tonight.\"\n\n\n \"What, son?\" his old man said uneasily. \"Sure we are. We're going to\n the movies.\"\n\n\n He could feel them watching him, waiting; and yet still he didn't\n answer. Somewhere out in suburban grayness a dog barked, then was\n silent.\n\n\n \"Okay, go,\" Wayne said. \"If you wanta walk. I'm taking the family\n boltbucket.\"\n\n\n \"But we promised the Clemons, dear,\" his mother said.\n\n\n \"Hell,\" Wayne said, grinning straight into the old man. \"I just got my\n draft call.\"\n\n\n He saw the old man's Adam's apple move. \"Oh, my dear boy,\" Mother cried\n out.\n\n\n \"So gimme the keys,\" Wayne said. The old man handed the keys over. His\n understanding smile was strained, and fear flicked in his sagging eyes.\n\n\n \"Do be careful, dear,\" his mother said. She ran toward him as he\n laughed and shut the door on her. He was still laughing as he whoomed\n the Olds between the pale dead glow of houses and roared up the ramp\n onto the Freeway. Ahead was the promising glitter of adventure-calling\n neon, and he looked up at the high skies of night and his eyes sailed\n the glaring wonders of escape.\nHe burned off some rubber finding a slot in the park-lot. He strode\n under a sign reading\nPublic Youth Center No. 947\nand walked casually\n to the reception desk, where a thin man with sergeant's stripes and a\n pansy haircut looked out of a pile of paperwork.\n\n\n \"Where you think you're going, my pretty lad?\"\n\n\n Wayne grinned down. \"Higher I hope than a typewriter jockey.\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" the sergeant said. \"How tough we are this evening. You have a\n pass, killer?\"\n\n\n \"Wayne Seton. Draft call.\"\n\n\n \"Oh.\" The sergeant checked his name off a roster and nodded. He wrote\n on a slip of paper, handed the pass to Wayne. \"Go to the Armory and\n check out whatever your lusting little heart desires. Then report to\n Captain Jack, room 307.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks, sarge dear,\" Wayne said and took the elevator up to the Armory.\n\n\n A tired fat corporal with a naked head blinked up at tall Wayne.\n Finally he said, \"So make up your mind, bud. Think you're the only kid\n breaking out tonight?\"\n\n\n \"Hold your teeth, pop,\" Wayne said, coolly and slowly lighting a\n cigarette. \"I've decided.\"\n\n\n The corporal's little eyes studied Wayne with malicious amusement.\n \"Take it from a vet, bud. Sooner you go the better. It's a big city and\n you're starting late. You can get a cat, not a mouse, and some babes\n are clever hellcats in a dark alley.\"\n\n\n \"You must be a genius,\" Wayne said. \"A corporal with no hair and still\n a counterboy. I'm impressed. I'm all ears, Dad.\"\n\n\n The corporal sighed wearily. \"You can get that balloon head\n ventilated, bud, and good.\"\n\n\n Wayne's mouth twitched. He leaned across the counter toward the\n shelves and racks of weapons. \"I'll remember that crack when I get\n my commission.\" He blew smoke in the corporal's face. \"Bring me a\n Smith and Wesson .38, shoulder holster with spring-clip. And throw in\n a Skelly switchblade for kicks\u2014the six-inch disguised job with the\n double springs.\"\n\n\n The corporal waddled back with the revolver and the switchblade\n disguised in a leather comb case. He checked them on a receipt ledger,\n while Wayne examined the weapons, broke open the revolver, twirled the\n cylinder and pushed cartridges into the waiting chamber. He slipped\n the knife from the comb case, flicked open the blade and stared at its\n gleam in the buttery light as his mouth went dry and the refracted\n incandescence of it trickled on his brain like melted ice, exciting and\n scary.\n\n\n He removed his leather jacket. He slung the holster under his left\n armpit and tested the spring clip release several times, feeling the\n way the serrated butt dropped into his wet palm. He put his jacket\n back on and the switchblade case in his pocket. He walked toward the\n elevator and didn't look back as the corporal said, \"Good luck, tiger.\"\n\n\n Captain Jack moved massively. The big stone-walled office, alive with\n stuffed lion and tiger and gunracks, seemed to grow smaller. Captain\n Jack crossed black-booted legs and whacked a cane at the floor. It had\n a head shaped like a grinning bear.\n\n\n Wayne felt the assured smile die on his face. Something seemed to\n shrink him. If he didn't watch himself he'd begin feeling like a pea\n among bowling balls.\n\n\n Contemptuously amused little eyes glittered at Wayne from a shaggy\n head. Shoulders hunched like stuffed sea-bags.\n\n\n \"Wayne Seton,\" said Captain Jack as if he were discussing something\n in a bug collection. \"Well, well, you're really fired up aren't you?\n Really going out to eat 'em. Right, punk?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" Wayne said. He ran wet hands down the sides of his chinos.\n His legs seemed sheathed in lead as he bit inwardly at shrinking fear\n the way a dog snaps at a wound. You big overblown son, he thought, I'll\n show you but good who is a punk. They made a guy wait and sweat until\n he screamed. They kept a guy on the fire until desire leaped in him,\n ran and billowed and roared until his brain was filled with it. But\n that wasn't enough. If this muscle-bound creep was such a big boy,\n what was he doing holding down a desk?\n\n\n \"Well, this is it, punk. You go the distance or start a butterfly\n collection.\"\n\n\n The cane darted up. A blade snicked from the end and stopped an inch\n from Wayne's nose. He jerked up a shaky hand involuntarily and clamped\n a knuckle-ridged gag to his gasping mouth.\n\n\n Captain Jack chuckled. \"All right, superboy.\" He handed Wayne his\n passcard. \"Curfew's off, punk, for 6 hours. You got 6 hours to make\n out.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Your beast is primed and waiting at the Four Aces Club on the West\n Side. Know where that is, punk?\"\n\n\n \"No, sir, but I'll find it fast.\"\n\n\n \"Sure you will, punk,\" smiled Captain Jack. \"She'll be wearing yellow\n slacks and a red shirt. Black hair, a cute trick. She's with a hefty\n psycho who eats punks for breakfast. He's butchered five people.\n They're both on top of the Undesirable list, Seton. They got to go and\n they're your key to the stars.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" Wayne said.\n\n\n \"So run along and make out, punk,\" grinned Captain Jack.\nA copcar stopped Wayne as he started over the bridge, out of bright\n respectable neon into the murky westside slum over the river.\n\n\n Wayne waved the pass card, signed by Captain Jack, under the cop's\n quivering nose. The cop shivered and stepped back and waved him on. The\n Olds roared over the bridge as the night's rain blew away.\n\n\n The air through the open window was chill and damp coming from\n Slumville, but Wayne felt a cold that wasn't of the night or the wind.\n He turned off into a rat's warren of the inferiors. Lights turned pale,\n secretive and sparse, the uncared-for streets became rough with pitted\n potholes, narrow and winding and humid with wet unpleasant smells.\n Wayne's fearful exhilaration increased as he cruised with bated breath\n through the dark mazes of streets and rickety tenements crawling with\n the shadows of mysterious promise.\n\n\n He found the alley, dark, a gloom-dripping tunnel. He drove cautiously\n into it and rolled along, watching. His belly ached with expectancy as\n he spotted the sick-looking dab of neon wanly sparkling.\nFOUR ACES CLUB\nHe parked across the alley. He got out and stood in shadows, digging\n the sultry beat of a combo, the wild pulse of drums and spinning brass\n filtering through windows painted black.\n\n\n He breathed deep, started over, ducked back. A stewbum weaved out of\n a bank of garbage cans, humming to himself, pulling at a rainsoaked\n shirt clinging to a pale stick body. He reminded Wayne of a slim grub\n balanced on one end.\n\n\n The stewbum stumbled. His bearded face in dim breaking moonlight had\n a dirty, greenish tinge as he sensed Wayne there. He turned in a\n grotesque uncoordinated jiggling and his eyes were wide with terror and\n doom.\n\n\n \"I gotta hide, kid. They're on me.\"\n\n\n Wayne's chest rose and his hands curled.\n\n\n The bum's fingers drew at the air like white talons.\n\n\n \"Help me, kid.\"\n\n\n He turned with a scratchy cry and retreated before the sudden blast\n of headlights from a Cad bulleting into the alley. The Cad rushed\n past Wayne and he felt the engine-hot fumes against his legs. Tires\n squealed. The Cad stopped and a teener in black jacket jumped out and\n crouched as he began stalking the old rummy.\n\n\n \"This is him! This is him all right,\" the teener yelled, and one hand\n came up swinging a baseball bat.\n\n\n A head bobbed out of the Cad window and giggled.\n\n\n The fumble-footed rummy tried to run and plopped on wet pavement. The\n teener moved in, while a faint odor of burnt rubber hovered in the air\n as the Cad cruised in a slow follow-up.\n\n\n Wayne's breath quickened as he watched, feeling somehow blank wonder\n at finding himself there, free and breaking out at last with no curfew\n and no law but his own. He felt as though he couldn't stop anything.\n Living seemed directionless, but he still would go with it regardless,\n until something dropped off or blew to hell like a hot light-bulb. He\n held his breath, waiting. His body was tensed and rigid as he moved in\n spirit with the hunting teener, an omniscient shadow with a hunting\n license and a ghetto jungle twenty miles deep.\n\n\n The crawling stewbum screamed as the baseball bat whacked. The teener\n laughed. Wayne wanted to shout. He opened his mouth, but the yell\n clogged up somewhere, so that he remained soundless yet with his mouth\n still open as he heard the payoff thuds where the useless wino curled\n up with stick arms over his rheumy face.\n\n\n The teener laughed, tossed the bat away and began jumping up and down\n with his hobnailed, mail-order air force boots. Then he ran into the\n Cad. A hootch bottle soared out, made a brittle tink-tink of falling\n glass.\n\n\n \"Go, man!\"\n\n\n The Cad wooshed by. It made a sort of hollow sucking noise as it\n bounced over the old man twice. Then the finlights diminished like\n bright wind-blown sparks.\n\n\n Wayne walked over and sneered down at the human garbage lying in\n scummed rain pools. The smell of raw violence, the scent of blood, made\n his heart thump like a trapped rubber ball in a cage.\n\n\n He hurried into the Four Aces, drawn by an exhilarating vision ... and\n pursued by the hollow haunting fears of his own desires.\nHe walked through the wavering haze of smoke and liquored dizziness and\n stood until his eyes learned the dark. He spotted her red shirt and\n yellow legs over in the corner above a murky lighted table.\n\n\n He walked toward her, watching her little subhuman pixie face lift.\n The eyes widened with exciting terror, turned even paler behind a red\n slash of sensuous mouth. Briefed and waiting, primed and eager for\n running, she recognized her pursuer at once. He sat at a table near\n her, watching and grinning and seeing her squirm.\n\n\n She sat in that slightly baffled, fearful and uncomprehending attitude\n of being motionless, as though they were all actors performing in a\n weirdo drama being staged in that smoky thick-aired dive.\n\n\n Wayne smiled with wry superiority at the redheaded psycho in a dirty\n T-shirt, a big bruiser with a gorilla face. He was tussling his mouse\n heavy.\n\n\n \"What's yours, teener?\" the slug-faced waiter asked.\n\n\n \"Bring me a Crusher, buddyroo,\" Wayne said, and flashed his pass card.\n\n\n \"Sure, teener.\"\n\n\n Red nuzzled the mouse's neck and made drooly noises. Wayne watched and\n fed on the promising terror and helplessness of her hunted face. She\n sat rigid, eyes fixed on Wayne like balls of frozen glass.\n\n\n Red looked up and stared straight at Wayne with eyes like black buttons\n imbedded in the waxlike skin of his face. Then he grinned all on one\n side. One huge hand scratched across the wet table top like a furious\n cat's.\n\n\n Wayne returned the challenging move but felt a nervous twitch jerk at\n his lips. A numbness covered his brain like a film as he concentrated\n on staring down Red the psycho. But Red kept looking, his eyes bright\n but dead. Then he began struggling it up again with the scared little\n mouse.\n\n\n The waiter sat the Crusher down. Wayne signed a chit; tonight he was in\n the pay of the state.\n\n\n \"What else, teener?\"\n\n\n \"One thing. Fade.\"\n\n\n \"Sure, teener,\" the waiter said, his breathy words dripping like syrup.\n\n\n Wayne drank. Liquored heat dripped into his stomach. Fire tickled his\n veins, became hot wire twisting in his head.\n\n\n He drank again and forced out a shaky breath. The jazz beat thumped\n fast and muted brass moaned. Drumpulse, stabbing trumpet raped the\n air. Tension mounted as Wayne watched her pale throat convulsing, the\n white eyelids fluttering. Red fingered at her legs and salivated at her\n throat, glancing now and then at Wayne, baiting him good.\n\n\n \"Okay, you creep,\" Wayne said.\n\n\n He stood up and started through the haze. The psycho leaped and a table\n crashed. Wayne's .38 dropped from its spring-clip holster and the blast\n filled the room. The psycho screamed and stumbled toward the door\n holding something in. The mouse darted by, eluded Wayne's grasp and was\n out the door.\n\n\n Wayne went out after her in a laughing frenzy of release. He felt the\n cold strange breath of moist air on his sweating skin as he sprinted\n down the alley into a wind full of blowing wet.\n\n\n He ran laughing under the crazy starlight and glimpsed her now and\n then, fading in and out of shadows, jumping, crawling, running with the\n life-or-death animation of a wild deer.\n\n\n Up and down alleys, a rat's maze. A rabbit run. Across vacant lots.\n Through shattered tenement ruins. Over a fence. There she was, falling,\n sliding down a brick shute.\n\n\n He gained. He moved up. His labored breath pumped more fire. And her\n scream was a rejuvenation hypo in his blood.\nShe quivered above him on the stoop, panting, her eyes afire with\n terror.\n\n\n \"You, baby,\" Wayne gasped. \"I gotcha.\"\n\n\n She backed into darkness, up there against the sagging tenement wall,\n her arms out and poised like crippled wings. Wayne crept up. She gave\n a squeaking sob, turned, ran. Wayne leaped into gloom. Wood cracked.\n He clambered over rotten lumber. The doorway sagged and he hesitated\n in the musty dark. A few feet away was the sound of loose trickling\n plaster, a whimpering whine.\n\n\n \"No use running,\" Wayne said. \"Go loose. Give, baby. Give now.\"\n\n\n She scurried up sagging stairs. Wayne laughed and dug up after her,\n feeling his way through debris. Dim moonlight filtered through a\n sagging stairway from a shattered skylight three floors up. The mouse's\n shadow floated ahead.\n\n\n He started up. The entire stair structure canted sickeningly. A railing\n ripped and he nearly went with it back down to the first floor. He\n heard a scream as rotten boards crumbled and dust exploded from\n cracks. A rat ran past Wayne and fell into space. He burst into the\n third-floor hallway and saw her half-falling through a door under the\n jagged skylight.\n\n\n Wayne took his time. He knew how she felt waiting in there, listening\n to his creeping, implacable footfalls.\n\n\n Then he yelled and slammed open the door.\n\n\n Dust and stench, filth so awful it made nothing of the dust. In\n the corner he saw something hardly to be called a bed. More like\n a nest. A dirty, lumpy pile of torn mattress, felt, excelsior,\n shredded newspapers and rags. It seemed to crawl a little under the\n moon-streaming skylight.\n\n\n She crouched in the corner panting. He took his time moving in. He\n snickered as he flashed the switchblade and circled it like a serpent's\n tongue. He watched what was left of her nerves go to pieces like rotten\n cloth.\n\"Do it quick, hunter,\" she whispered. \"Please do it quick.\"\n\n\n \"What's that, baby?\"\n\n\n \"I'm tired running. Kill me first. Beat me after. They won't know the\n difference.\"\n\n\n \"I'm gonna bruise and beat you,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Kill me first,\" she begged. \"I don't want\u2014\" She began to cry. She\n cried right up in his face, her wide eyes unblinking, and her mouth\n open.\n\n\n \"You got bad blood, baby,\" he snarled. He laughed but it didn't sound\n like him and something was wrong with his belly. It was knotting up.\n\n\n \"Bad, I know! So get it over with, please. Hurry, hurry.\"\n\n\n She was small and white and quivering. She moaned but kept staring up\n at him.\n\n\n He ripped off his rivet-studded belt and swung once, then groaned and\n shuffled away from her.\n\n\n He kept backing toward the door. She crawled after him, begging and\n clutching with both arms as she wriggled forward on her knees.\n\n\n \"Don't run. Please. Kill me! It'll be someone else if you don't. Oh,\n God, I'm so tired waiting and running!\"\n\n\n \"I can't,\" he said, and sickness soured in his throat.\n\n\n \"Please.\"\n\n\n \"I can't, I can't!\"\n\n\n He turned and ran blindly, half-fell down the cracking stairs.\nDoctor Burns, head of the readjustment staff at the Youth Center,\n studied Wayne with abstract interest.\n\n\n \"You enjoyed the hunt, Seton? You got your kicks?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n \"But you couldn't execute them?\"\n\n\n \"No, sir.\"\n\n\n \"They're undesirables. Incurables. You know that, Seton?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n \"The psycho you only wounded. He's a five-times murderer. And that girl\n killed her father when she was twelve. You realize there's nothing can\n be done for them? That they have to be executed?\"\n\n\n \"I know.\"\n\n\n \"Too bad,\" the doctor said. \"We all have aggressive impulses, primitive\n needs that must be expressed early, purged. There's murder in all\n of us, Seton. The impulse shouldn't be denied or suppressed, but\neducated\n. The state used to kill them. Isn't it better all around,\n Seton, for us to do it, as part of growing up? What was the matter,\n Seton?\"\n\n\n \"I\u2014felt sorry for her.\"\n\n\n \"Is that all you can say about it?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n The doctor pressed a buzzer. Two men in white coats entered.\n\n\n \"You should have got it out of your system, Seton, but now it's still\n in there. I can't turn you out and have it erupt later\u2014and maybe shed\n clean innocent blood, can I?\"\n\n\n \"No, sir,\" Wayne mumbled. He didn't look up. \"I'm sorry I punked out.\"\n\n\n \"Give him the treatment,\" the doctor said wearily. \"And send him back\n to his mother.\"\n\n\n Wayne nodded and they led him away. His mind screamed still to split\n open some prison of bone and lay bare and breathing wide. But there\n was no way out for the trapped. Now he knew about the old man and his\n poker-playing pals.\n\n\n They had all punked out.\n\n\n Like him.",
    "63890": "A PLANET NAMED JOE\nBy S. A. LOMBINO\nThere were more Joes on Venus than you could shake\n \na ray-gun at. Perhaps there was method in Colonel\n \nWalsh's madness\u2014murder-madness\u2014when he ordered Major\n \nPolk to scan the planet for a guy named Joe.\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Planet Stories\n\n November 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the\n\n U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nColonel Walsh had a great sense of humor. I hated his guts ever since\n we went through the Academy together, but he had a great sense of humor.\n\n\n For example, he could have chosen a Second Looie for the job on Venus.\n He might even have picked a Captain. But he liked me about as much as\n I liked him, and so he decided the job was just right for a Major. At\n least, that's what he told me.\n\n\n I stood at attention before his desk in the Patrol Station. We were\n somewhere in Area Two on Earth, takeoff point for any operations in\n Space II. The duty was fine, and I liked it a lot. Come to think of\n it, the most I ever did was inspect a few defective tubes every now and\n then. The rest was gravy, and Colonel Walsh wasn't going to let me get\n by with gravy.\n\n\n \"It will be a simple assignment, Major,\" he said to me, peering over\n his fingers. He held them up in front of him like a cathedral.\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" I said.\n\n\n \"It will involve finding one man, a Venusian native.\"\n\n\n I wanted to say, \"Then why the hell don't you send a green kid on\n the job? Why me?\" Instead, I nodded and watched him playing with his\n fingers.\n\n\n \"The man is a trader of sorts. Rather intelligent.\" He paused, then\n added, \"For a native, that is.\"\n\n\n I had never liked Walsh's attitude toward natives. I hadn't liked the\n way he'd treated the natives on Mars ever since he'd taken over there.\n Which brought to mind an important point.\n\n\n \"I always figured Venus was under the jurisdiction of Space III, sir. I\n thought our activities were confined to Mars.\"\n\n\n He folded his fingers like a deck of cards and dropped them on his desk\n as if he were waiting for me to cut.\n\n\n \"Mmmm,\" he said, \"yes, that's true. But this is a special job. It so\n happens this Venusian is the one man who can help us understand just\n what's happening on Mars.\"\n\n\n I tried to picture a Venusian understanding Mars and I didn't get very\n far.\n\n\n \"He's had many dealings with the natives there,\" Walsh explained. \"If\n anyone can tell us the reasons for the revolt, he can.\"\n\n\n If Walsh really wanted to know the reasons for the revolt, I could give\n them to him in one word: Walsh. I had to laugh at the way he called\n it \"revolt.\" It had been going on for six months now and we'd lost at\n least a thousand men from Space II. Revolt.\n\n\n \"And this man is on Venus now?\" I asked for confirmation. I'd never\n been to Venus, being in Space II ever since I'd left the Moon run. It\n was just like Walsh to ship me off to a strange place.\n\n\n \"Yes, Major,\" he said. \"This man is on Venus.\"\n\n\n At the Academy he had called me Fred. That was before I'd reported\n him for sleeping on Boiler Watch. He'd goofed off on a pile of uranium\n that could've, and almost did, blow the barracks sky-high that night.\n He still thought it was my fault, as if I'd done the wrong thing by\n reporting him. And now, through the fouled-up machinery that exists in\n any military organization, he outranked me.\n\n\n \"And the man's name, sir?\"\n\n\n \"Joe.\" A tight smile played on his face.\n\n\n \"Joe what?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"Just Joe.\"\n\n\n \"Just Joe?\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Walsh said. \"A native, you know. They rarely go in for more than\n first names. But then, it should be simple to find a man with a name\n like Joe. Among the natives, I mean.\"\n\n\n \"I don't know, sir.\"\n\n\n \"A relatively simple assignment,\" Walsh said.\n\n\n \"Can you tell me anything else about this man? Physical appearance?\n Personal habits? Anything?\"\n\n\n Walsh seemed to consider this for a moment. \"Well, physically he's like\n any of the other Venusians, so I can't give you much help there. He\n does have a peculiar habit, though.\"\n\n\n \"What's that?\"\n\n\n \"He has an affinity for Terran cigarettes.\"\n\n\n I sighed. \"Well, it's not very much to go on.\"\n\n\n \"You'll find him,\" Walsh said, grinning. \"I'm sure of it.\"\nThe trip to Venus came off without a hitch. I did a lot of thinking on\n that trip. I thought about Mars and the revolt there. And I thought\n about Colonel Leonard Walsh and how he was supposed to be quelling that\n revolt. Ever since Walsh had taken command, ever since he'd started\n pushing the natives around, there'd been trouble. It was almost as if\n the whole damned planet had blown up in our faces the moment he took\n over. Swell guy, Walsh.\n\n\n Venus was hotter than I'd expected it to be. Much too hot for the tunic\n I was wearing. It smelled, too. A funny smell I couldn't place. Like\n a mixture of old shoe and after-shave. There were plants everywhere\n I looked. Big plants and small ones, some blooming with flowers I'd\n never seen before, and some as bare as cactus.\n\n\n I recognized a blue figure as one of the natives the pilot had told me\n about. He was tall, looking almost human except that everything about\n him was elongated. His features, his muscles, everything seemed to have\n been stretched like a rubber band. I kept expecting him to pop back to\n normal. Instead, he flashed a double row of brilliant teeth at me.\n\n\n I wondered if he spoke English. \"Hey, boy,\" I called.\n\n\n He ambled over with long-legged strides that closed the distance\n between us in seconds.\n\n\n \"Call me Joe,\" he said.\n\n\n I dropped my bags and stared at him. Maybe this\nwas\ngoing to be a\n simple assignment after all. \"I sure am glad to see you, Joe,\" I said.\n\n\n \"Same here, Toots,\" he answered.\n\n\n \"The guys back in Space II are searching high and low for you,\" I told\n him.\n\n\n \"You've got the wrong number,\" he said, and I was a little surprised at\n his use of Terran idiom.\n\n\n \"You are Joe, aren't you? Joe the trader?\"\n\n\n \"I'm Joe, all right,\" he said. \"Only thing I ever traded, though, was a\n pocketknife. Got a set of keys for it.\"\n\n\n \"Oh,\" I said, my voice conveying my disappointment. I sighed and began\n wondering just how I should go about contacting the Joe I was looking\n for. My orders said I was to report to Captain Bransten immediately\n upon arrival. I figured the hell with Captain Bransten. I outranked him\n anyway, and there wasn't much he could do if I decided to stop for a\n drink first.\n\n\n \"Where's the Officer's Club?\" I asked the Venusian.\n\n\n \"Are you buying information or are you just curious?\"\n\n\n \"Can you take me there?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"Sure thing, Toots.\" He picked up my bags and started walking up a\n heavily overgrown path. We'd probably walked for about ten minutes when\n he dropped my bags and said, \"There it is.\"\n\n\n The Officer's Club was a plasteel hut with window shields that\n protected it from the heat of the sun. It didn't look too comfortable\n but I really wanted that drink. I reached into my tunic and slipped\n the native thirty solars.\n\n\n He stared at the credits curiously and then shrugged his shoulders. \"Oh\n well, you're new here. We'll let it go.\"\n\n\n He took off then, while I stared after him, wondering just what he'd\n meant. Had I tipped him too little?\n\n\n I shrugged and looked over at the Officer's Club. From the outside it\n looked as hot as hell.\n\n\n On the inside it was about two degrees short of that mark. I began to\n curse Walsh for taking me away from my nice soft job in Space II.\n\n\n There wasn't much inside the club. A few tables and chairs, a dart game\n and a bar. Behind the bar a tall Venusian lounged.\n\n\n I walked over and asked, \"What are you serving, pal?\"\n\n\n \"Call me Joe,\" he answered.\n\n\n He caught me off balance. \"What?\"\n\n\n \"Joe,\" he said again.\n\n\n A faint glimmer of understanding began to penetrate my thick skull.\n \"You wouldn't happen to be Joe the trader? The guy who knows all about\n Mars, would you?\"\n\n\n \"I never left home,\" he said simply. \"What are you drinking?\"\n\n\n That rat! That dirty, filthy, stinking, unprincipled....\nBut then, it should be simple to find a man with a name like\nJoe.\nAmong the natives, I mean.\nSure. Oh sure. Real simple. Walsh was about the lowest, most\n contemptible....\n\n\n \"What are you drinking, pal?\" the Venusian asked again.\n\n\n \"Skip it,\" I said. \"How do I get to the captain's shack?\"\n\n\n \"Follow your nose, pal. Can't miss it.\"\n\n\n I started to pick up my bag as another Venusian entered. He waved at\n the bartender.\n\n\n \"Hello, Joe,\" he said. \"How's it going?\"\n\n\n \"Not so hot, Joe,\" the bartender replied.\n\n\n I listened in fascination. Joe, Joe, Joe. So this was Walsh's idea of a\n great gag. Very funny. Very....\n\n\n \"You Major Polk, sweetheart?\" the Venusian who'd just come in asked.\n\n\n \"Yes,\" I said, still thinking of Colonel Walsh.\n\n\n \"You better get your butt over to the captain's shack,\" he said. \"He's\n about ready to post you as overdue.\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" I said wearily. \"Will you take my bags, please?\"\n\n\n \"Roger,\" he answered. He picked up the bags and nodded at the bar.\n\n\n \"So long, Joe,\" he said to the bartender.\n\n\n \"See you, Joe,\" the bartender called back.\nCaptain Bransten was a mousey, unimpressive sort of man. He was wearing\n a tropical tunic, but he still resembled a wilted lily more than he did\n an officer.\n\n\n \"Have a seat, Major,\" he offered. He reached for a cigarette box on the\n desk and extended it to me. He coughed in embarrassment when he saw it\n was empty. Quickly, he pressed a button on his desk and the door popped\n open. A tall, blue Venusian stepped lithely into the room.\n\n\n \"Sir?\" the Venusian asked.\n\n\n \"We're out of cigarettes, Joe,\" the Captain said. \"Will you get us\n some, please?\"\n\n\n \"Sure thing,\" the Venusian answered. He smiled broadly and closed the\n door behind him.\nAnother Joe\n, I thought.\nAnother damned Joe.\n\"They steal them,\" Captain Bransten said abruptly.\n\n\n \"Steal what?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"Cigarettes. I sometimes think the cigarette is one of the few things\n they like about Terran culture.\"\n\n\n So Walsh had taken care of that angle too.\nHe does have a peculiar\n habit, though. He has an affinity for Terran cigarettes.\nCigarettes\n was the tip I should have given; not solars.\n\n\n \"All right,\" I said, \"suppose we start at the beginning.\"\n\n\n Captain Bransten opened his eyes wide. \"Sir?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"What's with all this Joe business? It may be a very original name but\n I think its popularity here is a little outstanding.\"\n\n\n Captain Bransten began to chuckle softly. I personally didn't think it\n was so funny. I tossed him my withering Superior Officer's gaze and\n waited for his explanation.\n\n\n \"I hadn't realized this was your first time on Venus,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Is there a local hero named Joe?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"No, no, nothing like that,\" he assured me. \"It's a simple culture, you\n know. Not nearly as developed as Mars.\"\n\n\n \"I can see that,\" I said bitingly.\n\n\n \"And the natives are only now becoming acquainted with Terran culture.\n Lots of enlisted men, you know.\"\n\n\n I began to get the idea. And I began to appreciate Walsh's doubtful\n ancestry more keenly.\n\n\n \"It's impossible to tell exactly where it all started, of course,\"\n Bransten was saying.\n\n\n I was beginning to get angry. Very angry. I was thinking of Walsh\n sitting back in a nice cozy foam chair back on Earth.\n\n\n \"Get to the point, Captain!\" I barked.\n\n\n \"Easy, sir,\" Bransten said, turning pale. I could see that the Captain\n wasn't used to entertaining Majors. \"The enlisted men. You know how\n they are. They'll ask a native to do something and they'll call him\n Joe. 'Hey, Joe, give me a hand with this.' Or 'Listen, Joe, how'd you\n like to earn some cigarettes?' Do you follow?\"\n\n\n \"I follow, all right,\" I said bitterly.\n\n\n \"Well,\" Bransten went on, \"that sort of thing mushrooms. The natives\n are a simple, almost childish people. It appealed to them\u2014the Joe\n business, I mean. Now they're all Joe. They like it. That and the\n cigarettes.\"\n\n\n He cleared his throat and looked at me apologetically as if he were\n personally responsible for Venusian culture. In fact, he looked as if\n he were responsible for having put Venus in the heavens in the first\n place.\n\n\n \"Do you understand, Major? Just a case of extended idiom, that's all.\"\n\n\n Just a case of extended\nidiot\n, I thought. An idiot on a wild goose\n chase a hell of a long way from home.\n\n\n \"I understand perfectly,\" I snapped. \"Where are my quarters?\"\n\n\n Bransten asked a Venusian named Joe to show me my quarters, reminding\n me that chow was at thirteen hundred. As I was leaving, the first\n Venusian came back with the cigarettes Bransten had ordered.\n\n\n I could tell by the look on his face that he probably had half a carton\n stuffed into his pockets. I shrugged and went to change into a tropical\n tunic.\n\n\n I called Earth right after chow. The Captain assured me that this sort\n of thing was definitely against regulations, but he submitted when I\n twinkled my little gold leaf under his nose.\n\n\n Walsh's face appeared on the screen. He was smiling, looking like a fat\n pussy cat.\n\n\n \"What is it, Major?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"This man Joe,\" I said. \"Can you give me any more on him?\"\n\n\n Walsh's grin grew wider. \"Why, Major,\" he said, \"you're not having any\n difficulties, are you?\"\n\n\n \"None at all,\" I snapped back. \"I just thought I'd be able to find him\n a lot sooner if....\"\n\n\n \"Take your time, Major,\" Walsh beamed. \"There's no rush at all.\"\n\n\n \"I thought....\"\n\n\n \"I'm sure you can do the job,\" Walsh cut in. \"I wouldn't have sent you\n otherwise.\"\n\n\n Hell, I was through kidding around. \"Look....\"\n\n\n \"He's somewhere in the jungle, you know,\" Walsh said.\n\n\n I wanted to ram my fist into the screen, right smack up against those\n big white teeth. Instead, I cut off the transmission and watched the\n surprised look on his face as his screen went blank millions of miles\n away.\n\n\n He blinked at the screen, trying to realize I'd deliberately hung up on\n him.\n\n\n \"Polk!\" he shouted, \"can you hear me?\"\n\n\n I smiled, saw the twisted hatred on his features, and then the screen\n on my end went blank, too.\nHe's somewhere in the jungle, you know.\nI thanked Captain Bransten for his hospitality and went back to my\n quarters.\n\n\n As I saw it, there were two courses for me to follow.\n\n\n One: I could say the hell with Walsh and Venus. That would mean hopping\n the next ship back to Earth.\n\n\n It would also mean disobeying the direct order of a superior officer.\n It might mean demotion, and it might mean getting bounced out of the\n Service altogether.\n\n\n Two: I could assume there really was a guy name Joe somewhere in that\n jungle, a Joe separate and apart from the other Joes on this planet, a\n trader Joe who knew the Martians well. I could always admit failure, of\n course, and return empty handed. Mission not accomplished. Or, I might\n really find a guy who was trader Joe.\n\n\n I made my decision quickly. I wanted to stay in the Service, and\n besides Walsh may have been on the level for the first time in his\n life. Maybe there was a Joe here who could help us on Mars. If there\n was I'd try to find him. It was still a hell of a trick though.\n\n\n I cursed Walsh again and pushed the buzzer near my bed.\n\n\n A tall Venusian stepped into the room.\n\n\n \"Joe?\" I asked, just to be sure.\n\n\n \"Who else, boss?\" he answered.\n\n\n \"I'm trying to locate someone,\" I said. \"I'll need a guide to take me\n into the jungle. Can you get me one?\"\n\n\n \"It'll cost you, boss,\" the Venusian said.\n\n\n \"How much?\"\n\n\n \"Two cartons of cigarettes at least.\"\n\n\n \"Who's the guide?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"How's the price sound?\"\n\n\n \"Fine, fine,\" I said impatiently. And the Captain had said they were\n almost a childish people!\n\n\n \"His name is Joe,\" the Venusian told me. \"Best damn guide on the\n planet. Take you anywhere you want to go, do anything you want to do.\n Courageous. Doesn't know the meaning of fear. I've known him to....\"\n\n\n \"Skip it,\" I said, cutting the promotion short. \"Tell him to show up\n around fifteen hundred with a complete list of what we'll need.\"\n\n\n The Venusian started to leave.\n\n\n \"And Joe,\" I said, stopping him at the door, \"I hope you're not\n overlooking your commission on the deal.\"\n\n\n His face broke into a wide grin. \"No danger of that, boss,\" he said.\n\n\n When he was gone I began figuring out a plan of action. Obviously, I'd\n just have to traipse through the jungle looking for a guy named Joe on\n a planet where everyone was named Joe. Everybody, at least, but the\n Captain, the small garrison attached to the Station, and me.\nI began wondering why Walsh had gone to so much trouble to get rid of\n me. The job, as I saw it, would take a hell of a long time. It seemed\n like a silly thing to do, just to get even with a guy for something\n that had happened years ago. He surely must have realized that I'd be\n back again, sooner or later. Maybe he had another little junket all set\n for me.\n\n\n Or maybe he didn't expect me to come back.\n\n\n The thought hadn't occurred to me before this, and I began to consider\n it seriously. Walsh was no good, rotten clear through. He was failing\n at the job of keeping Mars in hand, and he probably realized that a\n few more mistakes on his part would mean the end of his career with\n Space II. I chuckled as I thought of him isolated in some God-forsaken\n place like Space V or Space VII. This probably bothered him a lot, too.\n But what probably bothered him more was the fact that I was next in\n command. If he were transferred, I'd be in charge of Space II, and I\n could understand how much that would appeal to Walsh.\n\n\n I tried to figure the thing out sensibly, tried to weigh his good\n points against his bad. But it all came back to the same thing. A\n guy who would deliberately go to sleep on Boiler Watch with a ton of\n uranium ready to blast a barracks to smithereens if it wasn't watched,\n would deliberately do just about anything.\n\n\n Sending me off on a wild goose chase after a character named Joe may\n have been a gag. But it may have been something a little grimmer than a\n gag, and I made up my mind to be extremely careful from here on in.\n\n\n The guide arrived at fifteen hundred on the dot. He was tall,\n elongated, looked almost like all the other Venusians I'd seen so far.\n\n\n \"I understand you need a Grade A guide, sir,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Are you familiar with the jungle?\" I asked him.\n\n\n \"Born and raised there, sir. Know it like the back of my hand.\"\n\n\n \"Has Joe told you what the payment will be?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. A carton and a half of cigarettes.\"\n\n\n I thought about Joe deducting his commission and smiled.\n\n\n \"When can we leave?\"\n\n\n \"Right away, sir. We won't need much really. I've made a list of\n supplies and I can get them in less than an hour. I suggest you wear\n light clothing, boots, and a hat.\"\n\n\n \"Will I need a weapon?\"\n\n\n He looked at me, his eyes faintly amused. \"Why, what for, sir?\"\n\n\n \"Never mind,\" I said. \"What's your name, by the way?\"\n\n\n He lifted his eyebrows, and his eyes widened in his narrow face. He was\n definitely surprised.\n\n\n \"Joe,\" he said. \"Didn't you know?\"\nWhen we'd been out for a while I discovered why Joe had suggested the\n boots and the hat. The undergrowth was often sharp and jagged and it\n would have sliced my legs to ribbons were they not protected by the\n high boots. The hat kept the strong sun off my head.\n\n\n Joe was an excellent guide and a pleasant companion. He seemed to be\n enjoying a great romp, seemed to love the jungle and take a secret\n pleasure in the work he was doing. There were times when I couldn't\n see three feet ahead of me. He'd stand stock still for a few minutes,\n his head barely moving, his eyes darting from one plant to another.\n Then he'd say, \"This way,\" and take off into what looked like more\n impenetrable jungle invariably to find a little path leading directly\n to another village.\n\n\n Each village was the same. The natives would come running out of their\n huts, tall and blue, shouting, \"Cigarettes, Joe? Cigarettes?\" It took\n me a while to realize they were addressing me and not my guide.\n\n\n Everybody was Joe. It was one beautiful, happy, joyous round of\n stinking, hot jungle. And I wasn't getting any nearer my man. Nor had\n I any idea how I was supposed to find him. I began to feel pretty low\n about the whole affair.\n\n\n Joe, on the other hand, enjoyed every moment of the trip. In each\n village he greeted the natives cheerfully, told them stories, swapped\n gossip and jokes. And when it was time to leave, he would say goodbye\n to all his friends and we would plunge into the twisted foliage again.\n\n\n His spirits were always high and he never failed to say the right thing\n that would give a momentary lift to my own depressed state of mind. He\n would talk for hours on end as we hacked our way through the jungle.\n\n\n \"I like Venus,\" he said once. \"I would never leave it.\"\n\n\n \"Have you ever been to Earth?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"No,\" Joe replied. \"I like Terrans too, you understand. They are good\n for Venus. And they are fun.\"\n\n\n \"Fun?\" I asked, thinking of a particular species of Terran: species\n Leonard Walsh.\n\n\n \"Yes, yes,\" he said wholeheartedly. \"They joke and they laugh and ...\n well, you know.\"\n\n\n \"I suppose so,\" I admitted.\n\n\n Joe smiled secretly, and we pushed on. I began to find, more and more,\n that I had started to talk freely to Joe. In the beginning he had been\n just my guide. There had been the strained relationship of employer and\n employee. But as the days lengthened into weeks, the formal atmosphere\n began to crumble. I found myself telling him all about Earth, about\n the people there, about my decision to attend the Academy, the rigid\n tests, the grind, even the Moon run. Joe was a good listener, nodding\n sympathetically, finding experiences in his own life to parallel my own.\n\n\n And as our relationship progressed from a casual one to a definitely\n friendly one, Joe seemed more enthusiastic than ever to keep up our\n grinding pace to find what we were looking for.\n\n\n Once we stopped in a clearing to rest. Joe lounged on the matted\n greenery, his long body stretched out in front of him, the knife\n gleaming in his belt. I'd seen him slash his way through thick, tangled\n vines with that knife, his long, muscular arms powerfully slicing\n through them like strips of silk.\n\n\n \"How far are we from the Station?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"Three or four Earth weeks,\" he replied.\n\n\n I sighed wearily. \"Where do we go from here?\"\n\n\n \"There are more villages,\" he said.\n\n\n \"We'll never find him.\"\n\n\n \"Possibly,\" Joe mused, the smile creeping over his face again.\n\n\n \"A wild goose chase. A fool's errand.\"\n\n\n \"We'd better get started,\" Joe said simply.\n\n\n I got to my feet and we started the march again. Joe was still fresh, a\n brilliant contrast to me, weary and dejected. Somehow, I had the same\n feeling I'd had a long time ago on my sixteenth birthday. One of my\n friends had taken me all over the city, finally dropping me off at my\n own house where the whole gang was gathered for a surprise party. Joe\n reminded me of that friend.\n\n\n \"There's a village ahead,\" he said, and the grin on his face was large\n now, his eyes shining.\nSomething was missing here. Natives. There were no natives rushing out\n to greet us. No cries of \"Cigarettes? Cigarettes?\" I caught up with Joe.\n\n\n \"What's the story?\" I whispered.\n\n\n He shrugged knowingly and continued walking.\n\n\n And then I saw the ship, nose pointing into space, catching the rays of\n the sun like a great silver bullet.\n\n\n \"What...?\" I started.\n\n\n \"It's all right,\" Joe said, smiling.\n\n\n The ship looked vaguely familiar. I noticed the crest of Space II near\n the nose, and a lot of things became clear then. I also saw Walsh\n standing near one of the huts, a stun gun in his hand.\n\n\n \"Hello, Major,\" he called, almost cheerfully. The gun didn't look\n cheerful, though. It was pointed at my head.\n\n\n \"Fancy meeting you here, Colonel,\" I said, trying to match his\n joviality. Somehow it didn't quite come off.\n\n\n Joe was walking beside me, waving at the colonel, beaming all over with\n happiness.\n\n\n \"I see you found your man,\" Walsh said.\n\n\n I turned rapidly. Joe nodded and kept grinning, a grin that told me he\n was getting a big kick out of all this. Like a kid playing a game.\n\n\n I faced Walsh again. \"Okay, what's it all about, pal?\"\n\n\n \"Colonel,\" Walsh corrected me. \"You mustn't forget to say Colonel,\nMajor\n.\" He emphasized my rank, and he said it with a sort of ruthless\n finality.\n\n\n I waited. I could see he was just busting to tell me how clever he'd\n been. Besides, there wasn't much I could do but wait. Not with Walsh\n pointing the stun gun at my middle.\n\n\n \"We've come a long way since the Academy, haven't we, Major?\"\n\n\n \"If you mean in miles,\" I said, looking around at the plants, \"we sure\n have.\"\n\n\n Walsh grinned a little. \"Always the wit,\" he said drily. And then the\n smile faded from his lips and his eyes took on a hard lustre. \"I'm\n going to kill you, you know.\" He said it as if he were saying, \"I think\n it'll rain tomorrow.\"\n\n\n Joe almost clapped his hands together with glee. He was really enjoying\n this. Another of those funny Terran games.\n\n\n \"You gave me a powerful handicap to overcome,\" Walsh said. \"I suppose I\n should thank you, really.\"\n\n\n \"You're welcome,\" I said.\n\n\n \"It wasn't easy living down the disgrace you caused me.\"\n\n\n \"It was your own damn fault,\" I said. \"You knew what you were doing\n when you decided to cork off.\"\n\n\n Beside me, Joe chuckled a little, enjoying the game immensely.\n\n\n \"You didn't have to report me,\" Walsh said.\n\n\n \"No? Maybe I should have forgotten all about it? Maybe I should have\n nudged you and served you orange juice? So you could do it again\n sometime and maybe blow up the whole damn Academy!\"\n\n\n Walsh was silent for a long time. When he spoke his voice was barely\n audible. The heat was oppressive, as if it were concentrated on this\n little spot in the jungle, focusing all its penetration on a small,\n unimportant drama.\n\n\n I could hear Joe breathing beside me.\n\n\n \"I'm on my way out,\" Walsh rasped. \"Finished, do you understand?\"\n\n\n \"Good,\" I said. And I meant it.\n\n\n \"This Mars thing. A terrible fix. Terrible.\"\n\n\n Beside me, a slight frown crossed Joe's face. Apparently he couldn't\n understand the seriousness of our voices. What had happened to the\n game, the fun?\n\n\n \"You brought the Mars business on yourself,\" I told Walsh. \"There was\n never any trouble before you took command.\"\n\n\n \"The natives,\" he practically shouted. \"They ... they....\"\n\n\n Joe caught his breath sharply, and I wondered what Walsh was going to\n say about the natives. Apparently he'd realized that Joe was a native.\n Or maybe Joe's knife had something to do with it.\n\n\n \"What about the natives?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"Nothing,\" Walsh said. \"Nothing.\" He was silent for a while.\n\n\n \"A man of my calibre,\" he said then, his face grim. \"Dealing with\n savages.\" He caught himself again and threw a hasty glance at Joe.\n The perplexed frown had grown heavier on Joe's face. He looked at the\n colonel in puzzlement.",
    "53269": "YOUNG READERS\n\n Atom Mystery\n11\nCHAPTER ONE\nIt was only a dream. Eddie Taylor would like\n to have finished it, but the bar of morning sunlight\n poking in under the window shade pried\n his eyes open. The dream fled. Eddie kicked\n off the sheet, swung his feet to the floor, and\n groped under the bed for his tennis shoes.\n\n\n He heard his father\u2019s heavy footsteps in the\n hallway. They stopped outside of his bedroom\n door.\n\n\n \u201cYou awake, Eddie?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m awake, Dad,\u201d Eddie answered.\n\n\n \u201cBreakfast\u2019s ready. Get washed and\n dressed.\u201d\n\n12\n\n \u201cBe right there,\u201d Eddie said. Then, remembering\n the dream, he added, \u201cOh, Dad, is it\n all right if I use the Geiger counter today?\u201d\n\n\n Mr. Taylor opened the door. He was a big\n man, broad-shouldered and still thin-waisted.\n Eddie found it easy to believe the stories he\n had heard about his father being an outstanding\n football player in his time. Even his glasses\n and the gray hair at his temples didn\u2019t add\n much age, although Eddie knew it had been\n eighteen years since his father had played his\n last game of college football.\n\n\n \u201cYou may use the Geiger counter any time\n you want, Eddie,\u201d Mr. Taylor said, \u201cas long as\n you take good care of it. You figured out where\n you can find some uranium ore?\u201d\n\n\n Eddie smiled sheepishly. \u201cI\u2014I had a\n dream,\u201d he said. \u201cPlain as day. It was out on\n Cedar Point. I was walking along over some\n rocks. Suddenly the Geiger counter began\n clicking like everything.\u201d\n\n13\n\n \u201cCedar Point?\u201d his father asked. \u201cI\u2019ve\n never been out there. But, from what I hear,\n there are plenty of rock formations. Might\n be worth a try, at that. You never can tell\n where you might strike some radioactivity.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cDo you believe in dreams, Dad?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWell, now, that\u2019s a tough question, son.\n I can\u2019t say that I really do. Still, one clue is\n as good as another when it comes to hunting\n uranium ore, I guess. But right now we\u2019d\n better get out to breakfast before your mother\n scalps us. Hurry it up.\u201d His father turned\n and went back down the hallway toward the\n kitchen.\n\n\n Eddie pulled on his trousers and T shirt\n and went into the bathroom. He washed hurriedly,\n knowing that even if he missed a spot\n or two, he was fairly safe. During the summer\n months his freckles got so thick and dark that\n it would take a magnifying glass to detect any\n small smudges of dirt hiding among them. He\n plastered some water on his dark-red hair,\n pushed a comb through it, and shrugged as it\n snapped back almost to its original position.\n Oh, well, he had tried.\n\n14\n\n He grinned into the mirror, reached a\n finger into his mouth, and unhooked the\n small rubber bands from his tooth braces.\n He dropped them into the waste basket. He\u2019d\n put fresh ones in after breakfast.\n\n\n He brushed his teeth carefully, taking particular\n pains around the metal braces. The\n tooth-straightening orthodontist had warned\n him about letting food gather around the\n metal clamps. It could start cavities.\n\n\n Finished, Eddie went out to breakfast.\n\n\n \u201cGood morning, dear,\u201d his mother greeted\n him, handing him a plate of eggs.\n\n\n \u201cHi, Mom,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cGotta hurry. Big\n day today.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cSo your father says. But I\u2019m afraid your\n big day will have to start with sorting out and\n tying up those newspapers and magazines that\n have been collecting in the garage.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cAw, Mom\u2014\u201d\n\n\n \u201cEddie, I asked you to do it three days ago.\n Remember? And the Goodwill truck comes\n around today.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut, Mom\u2014\u201d\n\n15\n\n \u201cNo arguments, son,\u201d his father put in\n calmly but firmly. \u201cSchool vacation doesn\u2019t\n mean that your chores around here are on\n vacation, too. Get at it right away, and you\u2019ll\n still have time to hunt your uranium.\n\n\n \u201cWell,\u201d Mr. Taylor added, excusing himself\n from the table, \u201cI\u2019d better be getting over\n to school. I\u2019m expecting to receive shipment\n of a new radioisotope today.\u201d\n\n\n The very word excited Eddie. In fact, anything\n having to do with atomic science\n excited him. He knew something about\n isotopes\u2014pronounced\neye-suh-tope\n. You\n couldn\u2019t have a father who was head of the\n atomic-science department at Oceanview\n College without picking up a little knowledge\n along the way. Eddie knew that a radioisotope\n was a material which had been \u201ccooked\u201d in an\n atomic reactor until it was \u201chot\u201d with radioactivity.\n When carefully controlled, the radiation\n stored up in such isotopes was used in\n many beneficial ways.\n\n16\n\n \u201cWhy don\u2019t college professors get summer\n vacations, too?\u201d Eddie asked. One reason for\n asking that particular question was to keep\n from prying deeper into the subject of the\n radioisotope. Much of his father\u2019s work at\n Oceanview College was of a secret nature.\n Eddie had learned not to ask questions about\n it. His father usually volunteered any information\n he wanted known, so Eddie stuck to\n questions which could and would be answered.\n\n\n \u201cWe get vacations,\u201d his father said. \u201cBut\u2014well,\n my work is a little different, you know.\n At the speed atomic science is moving today,\n we simply can\u2019t afford to waste time. But don\u2019t\n worry. We\u2019ll take a week or so off before school\n starts in the fall. Maybe head for the mountains\n with our tent and sleeping bags.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cAnd Geiger counter?\u201d Eddie asked\n eagerly.\n\n\n \u201cWouldn\u2019t think of leaving it home,\u201d his\n father said, smiling. \u201cBy the way, I put new\n batteries in it the other day. Take it easy on\n them. Remember to switch it off when you\u2019re\n not actually using it.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI will,\u201d Eddie promised. He had forgotten\n several times before, weakening the batteries.\n\n17\n\n It took Eddie over an hour to sort out the\n newspapers and magazines in the garage, tie\n them in neat bundles, and place them out on\n the front curb for the Goodwill pickup. By\n that time the sun was high overhead. It had\n driven off the coolness which the ocean air\n had provided during the earlier hours.\n\n\n \u201cAnything else, Mom?\u201d he asked, returning\n to the house and getting the Geiger counter\n out of the closet. He edged toward the back\n door before his mother had much time to\n think of something more for him to do.\n\n\n \u201cI guess not, dear,\u201d Mrs. Taylor said, smiling\n over his hasty retreat. \u201cWhat are you going\n to do?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThink I\u2019ll do a little prospecting,\u201d Eddie\n said.\n\n\n \u201cWhere?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cProbably in the hills beyond the college,\u201d\n Eddie said. The more he thought about it, the\n more he realized it was a little late in the day\n to go to Cedar Point. The best way to get\n there was by rowboat across Moon Bay, and\n that was too long a row to be starting now.\n Besides, there were plenty of other places\n around the outskirts of Oceanview where\n likely looking rock formations invited search\n with a Geiger counter.\n\n18\n\n \u201cAre you going alone?\u201d his mother asked.\n\n\n \u201cOh, guess I\u2019ll stop by and see if Teena\n wants to go,\u201d Eddie answered casually. He\n tried to make it sound as though he would\n be doing Teena Ross a big favor. After all,\n she was only a girl. Eddie didn\u2019t figure a girl\n would make a very good uranium prospecting\n partner, but most of the fellows he knew were\n away at camp, or vacationing with their folks,\n or something like that.\n\n\n \u201cShe\u2019ll enjoy it, I\u2019m sure,\u201d his mother said.\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll take Sandy, too,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cHe needs\n the exercise.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s a good idea, dear. Be back in time\n for an early dinner.\u201d\n\n\n Eddie let Sandy off his chain. The taffy-colored\n cocker spaniel yipped wildly over his\n freedom, racing back and forth as Eddie\n started down the street.\n\n19\n\n Christina Ross\u2014whom everybody called\n Teena\u2014lived at the far end of the block.\n Eddie went around to the side door of the\n light-green stucco house and knocked.\n\n\n \u201cOh, hi, Eddie,\u201d Teena greeted him, appearing\n at the screen door. \u201cI was hoping\n you\u2019d come over.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWell, I\u2014I just happened to be going by,\u201d\n Eddie said. \u201cThought you might want to\n watch me do a little prospecting with the Geiger\n counter. But maybe you\u2019re too busy.\u201d\n\n\n That\u2019s how to handle it, Eddie thought.\n Don\u2019t act anxious. Let Teena be anxious.\n Then maybe she\u2019ll even offer to bring along\n a couple of sandwiches or some fruit.\n\n\n \u201cOh, I\u2019d love to go,\u201d Teena said eagerly,\n \u201cbut I\u2019m just finishing the dishes. Come on\n in.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m in kind of a hurry.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll only be a minute.\u201d She pushed the\n screen door open for him. \u201cI\u2019ll make us some\n sandwiches.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cStay here, Sandy,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cSit.\u201d The\n dog minded, although he looked a bit rebellious.\n\n20\n\n Eddie went inside and followed Teena to\n the kitchen. He felt triumphant about the\n sandwiches.\n\n\n Teena tossed him a dish towel. \u201cYou dry\n them,\u201d she said.\n\n\n \u201cWho, me?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhy not? You\u2019re in a hurry, aren\u2019t you?\n I can make the sandwiches while you dry the\n silverware.\u201d She smiled, putting tiny crinkles\n in her small, slightly upturned nose. She wore\n her hair in a pony tail. Even though her hair\n was blond all year long, it seemed even\n lighter in the summer. Eddie couldn\u2019t tell\n whether the sun had faded it, or whether her\n deep summer tan simply made her hair look\n lighter by contrast. Maybe both.\n\n\n \u201cHello, Eddie,\u201d Mrs. Ross said, coming into\n the kitchen. \u201cLooks like Teena put you to\n work.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cShe always does, Mrs. Ross,\u201d Eddie said,\n pretending great injury. \u201cDon\u2019t know why I\n keep coming over here.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI know,\u201d Teena spoke up quickly. \u201cIt\u2019s\n because we\u2019re friends, that\u2019s why.\u201d\n\n21\n\n Eddie knew she was right. They were\n friends\u2014good friends. They had been ever\n since Eddie\u2019s family had moved to Oceanview\n and his father had become head of the college\u2019s\n atomic-science department. In fact, their\n parents were close friends, also. Teena\u2019s father\n was chief engineer for the Acme Aviation\n Company, one of the coast town\u2019s largest\n manufacturing concerns.\n\n\n \u201cWell, I\u2019ll be glad to finish them, Eddie,\u201d\n Mrs. Ross offered. \u201cI know how boys detest\n doing dishes.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, I don\u2019t really mind, Mrs. Ross,\u201d Eddie\n said. \u201cBesides, Teena\u2019s making sandwiches to\n take with us.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cAnother prospecting trip?\u201d Teena\u2019s\n mother glanced at the Geiger counter which\n Eddie had set carefully on the dinette table.\n\n\n \u201cI still think there must be some uranium\n around here,\u201d Eddie insisted. \u201cAnd we can\n find it if anyone can.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI agree,\u201d Mrs. Ross said. \u201cBut even if you\n don\u2019t find it, you both seem to enjoy your\n hikes.\u201d\n\n22\n\n \u201cOh, yes, it\u2019s fun, Mother,\u201d Teena replied,\n wrapping wax paper around a sandwich.\n \u201cGuess I\u2019m ready. I\u2019ve got a bone for Sandy,\n too.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t go too far out from town,\u201d Mrs.\n Ross cautioned, as Eddie picked up the Geiger\n counter. \u201cAnd stick near the main roads.\n You know the rules.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWe sure do, Mrs. Ross,\u201d Eddie assured\n her. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll be back early.\u201d\n\n\n They walked past the college campus, and\n toward the rocky foothills beyond. At various\n rock mounds and outcroppings, Eddie\n switched on the Geiger counter. The needle\n of the dial on the black box wavered slightly.\n A slow clicking came through the earphones,\n but Eddie knew these indicated no more than\n a normal background count. There were slight\n traces of radioactivity in almost all earth or\n rocks. It was in the air itself, caused by mysterious\n and ever-present cosmic rays, so there\n was always a mild background count when\n the Geiger counter was turned on; but to\n mean anything, the needle had to jump far\n ahead on the gauge, and the clicking through\n the earphones had to speed up until it sounded\n almost like bacon frying in a hot skillet.\n\n23\n\n There was none of that today. After they\n had hiked and searched most of the forenoon,\n Eddie said, \u201cWe might as well call it a day,\n Teena. Doesn\u2019t seem to be anything out here.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s all right with me,\u201d Teena agreed,\n plucking foxtails from Sandy\u2019s ears. \u201cPretty\n hot, anyway. Let\u2019s eat our sandwiches and go\n back home.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cAll right,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cYou know, one of\n these days I\u2019d like to go out to Cedar Point\n and scout around. Maybe we\u2019ll find something\n there.\u201d Then he told Teena about his dream.\n\n\n Teena smiled. \u201cA dream sure isn\u2019t much to\n go on,\u201d she said, \u201cbut they say it\u2019s pretty out on\n Cedar Point. I\u2019ll go any time you want to,\n Eddie.\u201d She handed him one of the sandwiches.\n\n\n It was midafternoon by the time they arrived\n back at Teena\u2019s house. They worked a while\n on a new jigsaw puzzle Teena had received\n on a recent birthday. Then Eddie said good-by\n and went on down the street toward his\n own home.\n\n24\n\n After putting Sandy on his long chain and\n filling his water dish, Eddie went in the back\n door. He put the Geiger counter in the closet\n and went into the kitchen.\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s for dinner, Mom?\u201d he asked.\n\n\n Mrs. Taylor turned from the sink. Eddie\n knew at once, just seeing the expression on\n his mother\u2019s face, that something was wrong.\n\n\n \u201cDinner?\u201d his mother said absently. \u201cIt\u2019s\n not quite four o\u2019clock yet, Eddie. Besides,\n dinner may be a little late today.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut this morning you said it would be\n early,\u201d Eddie reminded her, puzzled.\n\n\n \u201cThis morning I didn\u2019t know what might\n happen.\u201d\n\n25\n\n Then Eddie heard the sound of his father\u2019s\n voice coming from the den. There was a\n strange urgent tone in it. The door to the den\n was open. Eddie went through the dining\n room and glanced into the den. His father\n sat stiffly behind his homemade desk, talking\n rapidly into the telephone. Eddie caught only\n the last few sketchy words. Then his father\n placed the telephone in its cradle, glanced up,\n and saw Eddie.\n\n\n If there had been even the slightest doubt\n in Eddie\u2019s mind about something being\n wrong, it vanished now. Mr. Taylor looked\n years older than he had that very morning.\n Worry lay deep in his eyes. He fumbled\n thoughtfully with a pencil, turning it end over\n end on his desk.\n\n\n \u201cHello, son,\u201d he said. He didn\u2019t even ask\n whether Eddie had discovered any uranium\n ore that day. Always before, he had shown\n genuine interest in Eddie\u2019s prospecting trips.\n\n\n \u201cDad,\u201d Eddie said anxiously, \u201cwhat\u2014what\u2019s\n the matter?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt shows that much, does it, son?\u201d his\n father said tiredly.\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong, Dad?\u201d Eddie prompted.\n \u201cOr can\u2019t you tell me?\u201d\n\n\n Mr. Taylor leaned back. \u201cQuite a bit\u2019s\n wrong, Eddie,\u201d he said, \u201cand I guess there\u2019s\n no reason why I shouldn\u2019t tell you. It\u2019ll be in\n the evening papers, anyway.\u201d\n\n26\n\n \u201cEvening papers?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cEddie, you remember me mentioning this\n morning about that radioisotope shipment I\n was expecting today?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI remember,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cDid it come?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt did\u2014and it didn\u2019t,\u201d his father said.\n\n\n \u201cWhat does that mean, Dad?\u201d Eddie asked,\n puzzled.\n\n\n \u201cThe delivery truck arrived at the school\n with it,\u201d his father explained, \u201cbut while the\n driver was inquiring where to put it, the container\n disappeared.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cDisappeared?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThe radioisotope was stolen, Eddie,\u201d his\n father said slowly. \u201cStolen right out from\n under our noses!\u201d\n\n27\nCHAPTER TWO\nAt the moment, Eddie didn\u2019t pry for further\n information on the theft of the valuable radioactive\n isotope. His father had plenty on his\n mind, as it was. The main information was in\n the evening\nGlobe\n, which Eddie rushed out\n to get as soon as he heard it plop onto the\n front porch.\n\n\n He took the newspaper to his father to read\n first. After having finished, Mr. Taylor handed\n the paper to Eddie and leaned back thoughtfully\n in his chair.\n\n28\n\n \u201cThey\u2019ve got it pretty straight, at that,\u201d Mr.\n Taylor said, \u201cbut I\u2019m afraid this is going to\n stir up quite a bit of trouble.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt wasn\u2019t your fault, was it, Dad?\u201d Eddie\n defended.\n\n\n \u201cIt was as much mine as anybody\u2019s, son,\u201d\n his father said. \u201cProbably more so. After all,\n I am head of the department. I knew about\n the shipment. That should make it my responsibility\n to see that it was properly received\n and placed in our atomic-materials storage\n vault. But there is little point in trying to\n place the blame on anyone. I\u2019m willing to accept\n that part of it. The important thing is\n that we recover that radioisotope. Not only is\n it of a secret nature, but it is also dangerously\n radioactive if improperly handled.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut\u2014but wasn\u2019t it in a safe container?\u201d\n Eddie asked.\n\n29\n\n \u201cOf course,\u201d his father said. \u201cThere were\n only two ounces of it in a fifty-pound lead\n capsule. As long as it remains in that capsule\n it\u2019s safe. As you know, the lead prevents any\n radiation from escaping. Out of that capsule,\n however, those two ounces of radioisotope can\n be very dangerous.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cFifty pounds,\u201d Eddie said thoughtfully.\n \u201cThat\u2019s a pretty big thing to steal, isn\u2019t it?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNot when it\u2019s lead, son,\u201d his father replied.\n \u201cNot much bigger than a two-quart\n milk bottle, in fact.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cEven at that, no kid could have taken it,\u201d\n Eddie said.\n\n\n \u201cKid?\u201d His father smiled thinly. \u201cWe don\u2019t\n think it was any kid, Eddie. Not by a long\n shot. The whole thing was carefully planned\n and carefully carried out. It was not the work\n of amateurs.\u201d\n\n\n Eddie read the newspaper account. The\n small truck from Drake Ridge, where one of\n the country\u2019s newest atomic reactors was\n located, had arrived earlier than expected at\n Oceanview College. It had backed up to the\n receiving dock where all of the college supplies\n were delivered. Since deliveries during vacation\n months were few, there was no one on the\n dock when the truck arrived. A half hour later,\n when the delivery was expected, there would\n have been. The truck\u2019s early arrival had\n caught them unprepared.\n\n30\n\n The driver had left the truck and had gone\n around the building to the front office. It had\n taken him less than five minutes to locate the\n receiving-dock foreman. Together, they had\n returned through the small warehouse and\n opened the rear door onto the dock.\n\n\n During that short time someone had pried\n open the heavy padlock on the delivery truck\u2019s\n rear door and had stolen the fifty-pound lead\n capsule containing the radioisotope.\n\n\n Dusty footprints on the pavement around\n the rear of the truck indicated that two men\n had carried out the theft. A heavy iron pry bar\n had been dropped at the rear of the truck after\n the lock was sprung. It was a common type\n used by carpenters. There were no fingerprints\n or other identifying marks on it. The footprints\n were barely visible and of no help other\n than to indicate that two men were involved\n in the crime.\n\n31\n\n \u201cDad,\u201d Eddie asked, looking up from the\n paper, \u201chow could anyone carry away something\n weighing fifty pounds without being noticed?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cChances are they had their car parked\n nearby,\u201d his father said. \u201cAs you know, there\n are no fences or gates around Oceanview College.\n People come and go as they please. As a\n matter of fact, there are always quite a few\n automobiles parked around the shipping and\n receiving building, and parking space is scarce\n even during summer sessions. Anyone could\n park and wait there unnoticed. Or they could\n walk around without attracting any undue attention.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut, Dad,\u201d Eddie continued, \u201chow would\n the men know that the delivery truck would\n arrive a half hour early?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t,\u201d his father said. \u201cThey\n may have had another plan. The way things\n worked out, they didn\u2019t need to use it. The\n early delivery and the business of leaving the\n truck unguarded for a few minutes probably\n gave them a better opportunity than they had\n expected. At least, they took quick advantage\n of it.\u201d\n\n32\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t see what anyone would want with\n a radioisotope,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cMaybe they figured\n there was something else inside of that\n lead capsule.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s unlikely, son,\u201d Mr. Taylor said.\n \u201cBelieve me, it was no common theft. Nor\n were the thieves ordinary thieves. That isotope\n was a new one. A very secret one. Our job at\n the college was to conduct various tests with it\n in order to find out exactly how it could best\n be put to use as a cure for disease, or for sterilizing\n food, or even as a source of power.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cPower?\u201d Eddie said. \u201cBoy, it must have\n been a strong isotope.\u201d He knew that the\n strength of radioisotopes could be controlled\n largely by the length of time they were allowed\n to \u201ccook\u201d in an atomic reactor and soak up\n radioactivity.\n\n33\n\n \u201cWe weren\u2019t planning to run a submarine\n with it,\u201d his father said. \u201cIt wasn\u2019t that strong.\n Still, it doesn\u2019t take so very much radioactivity\n to make two ounces of an isotope quite powerful\u2014and\n quite deadly. I only hope whoever\n stole it knows what he\u2019s doing. However, I\u2019m\n sure he does.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cYou mean he must have been an atomic\n scientist himself?\u201d Eddie asked.\n\n\n \u201cLet\u2019s just say he\u2014or both of them\u2014have\n enough training in the subject to know how to\n handle that isotope safely,\u201d Mr. Taylor said.\n\n\n \u201cBut, Dad,\u201d Eddie wondered, \u201cwhat could\n they do with it?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThey could study it,\u201d his father explained.\n \u201cAt least, they could send it somewhere to be\n broken down and studied. Being a new isotope,\n the formula is of great value.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you mean, send it somewhere?\u201d\n Eddie asked.\n\n\n \u201cPerhaps to some other country.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThen\u2014then you mean whoever stole it\n were spies!\u201d Eddie exclaimed breathlessly.\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s entirely possible,\u201d his father said.\n \u201cIn fact, it\u2019s the only logical explanation I can\n think of. People simply don\u2019t go around stealing\n radioactive isotopes without a mighty important\n reason.\u201d\n\n34\n\n \u201cDinner\u2019s ready,\u201d Eddie\u2019s mother called\n from the kitchen.\n\n\n During dinner Eddie wasn\u2019t sure just what\n he was eating. The idea of spies stealing atomic\n materials kept building up in his mind. By the\n time dessert was finished, he was anxious to\n talk with someone, yet he knew he shouldn\u2019t\n bother his father with any more questions. He\n asked if he could go over and visit with Teena\n for a while.\n\n\n \u201cWell, you were together most of the day,\u201d\n his mother said, \u201cbut I guess it\u2019s all right. Be\n back in about an hour, though.\u201d\n\n\n It was a balmy evening. On such evenings,\n he and Teena sometimes walked along the\n beach barefoot, collecting sea shells. Today\n Eddie had no desire to do that. He ran down\n the block.\n\n\n Teena answered his knock.\n\n\n \u201cCome on in, Eddie,\u201d she invited, seeming\n surprised to see him. \u201cMother and I are just\n finishing dinner.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, I figured you\u2019d be through by now,\u201d\n Eddie apologized, following her inside.\n\n35\n\n \u201cHello, Eddie,\u201d Mrs. Ross said, but she\n didn\u2019t seem as cheerful as usual.\n\n\n \u201cGood evening, Mrs. Ross,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cI\u2014I\n hope I\u2019m not making a pest of myself.\u201d He\n looked around for Mr. Ross, but Teena\u2019s\n father apparently hadn\u2019t arrived home from\n Acme Aircraft yet. There wasn\u2019t a place set for\n him at the table, either.\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re never a pest, Eddie,\u201d Mrs. Ross assured\n him. \u201cI was going to call your mother in\n a little while about that newspaper write-up.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, you read it?\u201d Eddie said.\n\n\n \u201cHow could anyone miss it?\u201d Teena said.\n \u201cRight on the front page.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI suppose your father is quite concerned\n over it,\u201d Teena\u2019s mother said.\n\n\n \u201cOh, yes,\u201d Eddie affirmed. \u201cHe was the one\n who ordered the isotope.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s an isotope?\u201d Teena asked.\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not sure I know, either,\u201d Mrs. Ross\n said. \u201cMaybe we could understand more of\n what it\u2019s all about if you could explain what a\n radioisotope is, Eddie.\u201d\n\n36\n\n \u201cWell,\u201d Eddie said slowly, \u201cit\u2019s not easy to\n explain, but I\u2019ll try. You know how rare\n uranium is. There\u2019s not nearly enough of it to\n fill all the needs for radioactive materials. Besides,\n pure uranium is so powerful and expensive\n and dangerous to handle that it\u2019s not\n a very good idea to try using it in its true form.\n So they build an atomic reactor like the one at\n Drake Ridge.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ve driven by it,\u201d Mrs. Ross said. \u201cMy,\n it\u2019s a big place.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll say,\u201d Eddie agreed. \u201cOf course, only\n one building holds the reactor itself. It\u2019s the\n biggest building near the center.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI remember it,\u201d Teena said.\n\n\n \u201cWell, the reactor is about four stories\n high,\u201d Eddie went on. \u201cThey call it a uranium\n \u2018pile.\u2019 It\u2019s made up of hundreds and hundreds\n of graphite bricks. That\u2019s where they get the\n name \u2018pile\u2019\u2014from brick pile. Anyway, scattered\n around in between the bricks are small\n bits of uranium. Uranium atoms are radioactive.\n That is, they keep splitting up and sending\n out rays.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhy do they do that?\u201d Teena asked.\n\n37\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s just the way nature made uranium, I\n guess,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cMost atoms stay in one\n piece, although they move around lickety-split\n all of the time. Uranium atoms not only move\n around, but they break apart. They shoot out\n little particles called neutrons. These neutrons\n hit other atoms and split them apart, sending\n out more neutrons. It\u2019s a regular chain reaction.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve heard of chain reactions,\u201d Mrs. Ross\n said.\n\n\n \u201cWell, with all of the splitting up and moving\n around of the uranium atoms,\u201d Eddie went\n on, \u201can awful lot of heat builds up. If they\n don\u2019t control it\u2014well, you\u2019ve seen pictures of\n atomic-bomb explosions. That\u2019s a chain reaction\n out of control.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOut of control is right,\u201d Teena said.\n\n38\n\n \u201cBut the atomic piles control the reaction,\u201d\n Eddie said. \u201cThe graphite bricks keep the\n splitting-up atoms apart so one neutron won\u2019t\n go smashing into other atoms unless they want\n it to. They have ways of controlling it so that\n only as much radiation builds up as they want.\n You can even hear the reactor hum as the radioactive\n rays go tearing through it. But by\n careful tending, the scientists keep the atomic\n collisions far enough apart so the thing doesn\u2019t\n blow up.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBoy, that sounds dangerous,\u201d Teena said.\n\n\n \u201cWell, they know just how to do it,\u201d Eddie\n replied.\n\n\n \u201cAren\u2019t the rays dangerous?\u201d Mrs. Ross\n asked.\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll say they\u2019re dangerous,\u201d Eddie said.\n \u201cBut the whole pile is covered by a shield of\n concrete about eight feet thick. That keeps the\n rays from getting out and injuring the workmen.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cGoodness. Eight feet is a lot of cement.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt takes a lot to stop radioactive atomic\n particles,\u201d Eddie explained. \u201cEspecially the\n gamma rays. They\u2019re the fastest and most dangerous,\n and the hardest to stop. Alpha and beta\n rays are fairly easy to stop. But the gamma\n rays are regular high-velocity invisible bullets.\n They\u2019ll go right through a stone wall unless\n it\u2019s plenty thick. Of course, you can\u2019t see them.\n Not with even the most powerful microscope\n in the world.\u201d\n\n39\n\n \u201cI wouldn\u2019t want to work around a place\n where I might get shot at by\u2014by dangerous\n rays you can\u2019t even see,\u201d Teena said.\n\n\n \u201cI would,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cEveryone is carefully\n protected. They see to that. Well, anyway,\n if all of those uranium atoms were shooting\n radioactive rays around inside of that pile\n and doing nothing, there would be an awful\n lot of energy going to waste. So the atomic\n scientists take certain elements which aren\u2019t\n radioactive, but can be made radioactive, and\n shove small pieces of them into holes drilled\n in the pile.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIsn\u2019t that dangerous?\u201d Teena asked.\n\n\n \u201cThey don\u2019t shove them in with their bare\n hands,\u201d Eddie said, trying not to show exasperation.\n \u201cThey use long holders to push the\n small chunks of material into the holes in the\n reactor. Then, as those uranium atoms keep\n splitting up and shooting particles around inside\n of the pile, some of them smack into the\n chunks of material, and stick there. Most elements\n will soak up radiation, just like a sponge\n soaks up water.\u201d\n\n40\n\n \u201cMy, that\u2019s interesting, Eddie,\u201d Mrs. Ross\n said.\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ve seen them do it,\u201d Eddie said proudly,\n then added, \u201cfrom behind a protective shield,\n of course. When the material has soaked up\n enough radiation, they pull it back out. They\n say it\u2019s \u2018cooked.\u2019\u201d\n\n\n \u201cYou mean it\u2019s hot?\u201d Teena asked.\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s hot,\u201d Eddie said, \u201cbut not like if it\n came out of a stove. By hot, they mean it\u2019s\n radioactive. If you touched it, or even got near\n it, you would get burned, but you probably\n wouldn\u2019t even know it for a while. It would be\n a radiation burn. That\u2019s a kind of burn you\n don\u2019t feel, but it destroys your blood cells and\n tissues, and\u2014well, you\u2019ve had it.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cSo that\u2019s what a radioisotope is,\u201d Mrs. Ross\n said. \u201cIt\u2019s like a sponge. Only instead of soaking\n up water, it soaks up radiation.\u201d\n\n41\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s about it,\u201d Eddie said. \u201cMy dad says\n that as more is learned about the ways to use\n isotopes, the whole world is going to be improved.\n You\u2019ve heard of radiocobalt for curing\n cancer. Well, that\u2019s an isotope. They make it\n by cooking cobalt in an atomic reactor. Oh,\n there are hundreds of different isotopes. Like\n I said, isotopes can be made of most of the\n elements. And there are over a hundred elements.\n Some soak up a lot of radioactivity, and\n are strong and dangerous. Others absorb only\n a little and are pretty safe to use. Depends, too,\n on how long they let them cook in the reactor.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat kind was the one stolen from the\n college today?\u201d Teena asked.\n\n\n \u201cDad didn\u2019t say exactly,\u201d Eddie answered,\n \u201cexcept he did say that if whoever took it\n didn\u2019t know what he was doing and opened up\n the lead capsule, it could kill him. Of course,\n even the mild isotopes are deadly if they\u2019re not\n handled right.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cMy goodness, it is a serious matter, isn\u2019t\n it?\u201d Mrs. Ross said.\n\n42\n\n Eddie nodded. It was even more serious\n than its threat of danger to anyone who\n handled it carelessly. It was a new isotope\u2014a\n secret isotope. His father hadn\u2019t said whether\n it had been developed for curing things or for\n destroying things. But many radioisotopes\n could do either; it depended on how they were\n used. Eddie assumed that anyone who would\n stoop to stealing isotopes more than likely\n would be interested in their ability to destroy\n rather than their ability to benefit mankind.\n\n\n \u201cWell, I certainly do hope everything works\n out all right,\u201d Teena\u2019s mother said.\n\n\n \u201cSo do I,\u201d Teena agreed.\n\n\n Eddie glanced at the kitchen clock. \u201cOh,\n boy,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019d better be heading back\n home. I didn\u2019t mean to come over here and\n talk so long.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, we\u2019re glad you did, Eddie,\u201d Mrs. Ross\n said. \u201cI\u2019m afraid too few of us know anything\n about this atom business.\u201d\n\n43\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s right, Mrs. Ross,\u201d Eddie agreed.\n \u201cPeople should talk more and read more about\n it. After all, this is an atomic age. We might as\n well face it. My father says that in horse-and-buggy\n days everyone knew how to feed a horse\n and grease a wagon wheel. They knew what was\n needed to get the work done. But now that\n atoms are being harnessed to do the work, not\n many people even bother to find out what an\n atom is.\u201d\n\n\n Mrs. Ross smiled. \u201cI guess you\u2019re right,\n Eddie,\u201d she said, \u201cbut I wouldn\u2019t quite know\n how to go about feeding an atom.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOr greasing one,\u201d Teena added.\n\n\n Eddie laughed. \u201cI sure wouldn\u2019t want the\n job of trying to feed a herd of them the size of\n a period,\u201d he said. \u201cDid you know that there\n are about three million billion atoms of carbon\n in a single period printed at the end of a\n sentence. That\u2019s how small atoms are.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThree million billion is a lot of something,\u201d\n a man\u2019s voice spoke behind him.\n \u201cWhat are we talking about, Eddie?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, hello, Mr. Ross,\u201d Eddie said, turning\n around and standing up. \u201cI didn\u2019t hear you\n come in.\u201d\n\n44\n\n Teena\u2019s father was a medium-sized man\n with light-brown hair which was getting somewhat\n thin on top. He was usually quite cheerful\n and full of fun, but tonight his face seemed\n unusually drawn and sober. He stepped to the\n table, leaned over, and gave both Teena and\n Mrs. Ross a kiss on the cheek.\n\n\n \u201cEddie was telling us about atoms,\u201d Teena\u2019s\n mother said. \u201cDid you know there were three\n million billion of them in a period?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cHow many in a comma?\u201d Mr. Ross said to\n Eddie, then added quickly, \u201cforget it, Eddie.\n It wasn\u2019t very funny. I\u2014I\u2019m afraid I don\u2019t feel\n very funny tonight.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cSit down, dear,\u201d Mrs. Ross said. \u201cI\u2019ll warm\n your dinner. You didn\u2019t sound very cheerful\n when you called to say you would be late. How\n did everything go at the plant today?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNot so good,\u201d Teena\u2019s father said tiredly.\n \u201cIn fact, not good at all.\u201d\n\n\n Problems. It seemed that everyone had\n problems, Eddie thought, as he started to\n leave.",
    "61481": "SILENCE IS\u2014DEADLY\nBy Bertrand L. Shurtleff\nRadio is an absolute necessity in modern\n\n organization\u2014and particularly in modern\n\n naval organization. If you could silence all\n\n radio\u2014silence of that sort would be deadly!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Astounding Science-Fiction April 1942.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe hurried\nrat-a-tat\nof knuckles hammered on the cabin door.\n Commander Bob Curtis roused himself from his doze, got up from his\n chair, stretched himself to his full, lanky height and yawned. That\n would be Nelson, his navigating officer. Nelson always knocked that\n way\u2014like a man in an external state of jitters over nothing at all.\n\n\n Curtis didn't hurry. It pleased him to let Nelson wait. He moved slowly\n to the door, paused there, and flung a backward glance at the man in\n the cabin with him\u2014Zukor Androka, the elderly Czech scientist, a guest\n of the United States navy, here aboard the cruiser\nComerford\n.\n\n\n The wizened face of the older man was molded in intent lines of\n concentration, as his bushy gray head bent over his drawing board.\n Curtis got a glimpse of the design on which he was working, and his\n lips relaxed in a faint smile.\n\n\n Androka had arrived on board the\nComerford\nthe day before she sailed\n from Norfolk. With him came a boatload of scientific apparatus and\n equipment, including a number of things that looked like oxygen tanks,\n which were now stored in the forward hold. Androka had watched over\n his treasures with the jealous care of a mother hen, and spent hours\n daily in the room in the superstructure that had been assigned as his\n laboratory.\n\n\n Sometimes, Curtis thought old Androka was a bit wacky\u2014a scientist\n whose mind had been turned by the horror that had come to his country\n under the domination of the Nazi\ngestapo\n. At other times, the man\n seemed a genius. Perhaps that was the answer\u2014a mad genius!\n\n\n Curtis opened the door and looked out. Rain whipped against his face\n like a stinging wet lash. Overhead, the sky was a storm-racked mass of\n clouds, broken in one spot by a tiny patch of starlit blue.\n\n\n His eyes rested inquiringly on the face of the man who stood before\n him. It\nwas\nNelson, his shaggy blond brows drawn scowlingly down\n over his pale eyes; his thin face a mass of tense lines; his big hands\n fumbling at the neck of his slicker. Rain was coursing down his white\n cheeks, streaking them with glistening furrows.\n\n\n The fellow was a headache to Curtis. He was overfriendly with a\n black-browed bos'n's mate named Joe Bradford\u2014the worst trouble maker\n on board. But there was no question of his ability. He was a good\n navigating officer\u2014dependable, accurate, conscientious. Nevertheless,\n his taut face, restless, searching eyes, and eternally nervous manner\n got Curtis' goat.\n\n\n \"Come in, Nelson!\" he said.\n\n\n Nelson shouldered his way inside, and stood there in his dripping\n oilskins, blinking his eyes against the yellow light.\n\n\n Curtis closed the door and nodded toward the bent form of Zukor\n Androka, with a quizzical grin. \"Old Czech-and-Double-Czech is working\n hard on his latest invention to pull Hitler's teeth and re-establish\n the Czech Republic!\"\n\n\n Nelson had no answering smile, although there had been a great deal\n of good-natured joking aboard the\nComerford\never since the navy\n department had sent the scientist on board the cruiser to carry on his\n experiments.\n\n\n \"I'm worried, sir!\" Nelson said. \"I'm not sure about my dead reckoning.\n This storm\u2014\"\n\n\n Curtis threw his arm around Nelson's dripping shoulders. \"Forget it!\n Don't let a little error get you down!\"\n\n\n \"But this storm, sir!\" Nelson avoided Curtis' friendly eyes and slipped\n out from under his arm. \"It's got me worried. Quartering wind of\n undetermined force, variable and gusty. There's a chop to the sea\u2014as\n if from unestimated currents among the islets. No chance to check by\n observation, and now there is a chance\u2014look at me!\"\n\n\n He held out his hands. They were shaking as if he had the chills.\n\n\n \"You say there is a chance?\" Curtis asked. \"Stars out?\"\n\n\n \"As if by providence, sir, there's a clear patch. I'm wondering\u2014\" His\n voice trailed off, but his eyes swung toward the gleaming sextant on\n the rack.\n\n\n Commander Curtis shrugged good-naturedly and reached for the\n instrument. \"Not that I've lost confidence in you, Nels, but just\n because you asked for it!\"\nCurtis donned his slicker and went outside, sextant in hand. In a few\n minutes he returned and handed Nelson a sheet of paper with figures\n underlined heavily.\n\n\n \"Here's what I make it,\" the commander told his navigating officer.\n \"Bet you're not off appreciably.\"\n\n\n Nelson stared at the computations with shaking head. Then he mutely\n held up his own.\n\n\n Curtis stared, frowned, grabbed his own sheet again. \"Any time I'm\n that far off old Figure-'em Nelson's estimate, I'm checking back,\" he\n declared, frowning at the two papers and hastily rechecking his own\n figures.\n\n\n \"Call up to the bridge to stop her,\" he told Nelson. \"We can't afford\n to move in these waters with such a possibility of error!\"\n\n\n Nelson complied, and the throbbing drive of the engines lessened\n at once. Nelson said: \"I've been wondering, sir, if it wouldn't be\n advisable to try getting a radio cross-bearing. With all these rocks\n and islets\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Radio?\" repeated the little Czech, thrusting his face between the\n other two, in his independent fashion that ignored ship's discipline.\n \"You're using your radio?\" He broke into a knowing chuckle, his keen\n old eyes twinkling behind their thick lenses. \"Go ahead and try it. See\n how much you can get! It will be no more than Hitler can get when Zukor\n Androka decrees silence over the German airways! Try it! Try it, I say!\"\n\n\n Bob Curtis stared at him, as if questioning his sanity. Then he\n hastened to the radio room, with Nelson at his heels, and the Czech\n trotting along behind.\n\n\n The door burst open as they neared it. A frightened operator came out,\n still wearing his earphones, and stood staring upward incredulously at\n the a\u00ebrial.\n\n\n \"Get us a radio cross-bearing for location at once,\" Curtis said\n sharply, for the operator seemed in a daze.\n\n\n \"Bearing, sir?\" The man brought his eyes down with difficulty, as if\n still dissatisfied. \"I'm sorry, sir, but the outfit's dead. Went out on\n me about five minutes ago. I was taking the weather report when the set\n conked. I was trying to see if something's wrong.\"\n\n\n The Czech inventor giggled. Curtis gave him another curious look and\n thrust himself into the radio room.\n\n\n \"Try again!\" he told the operator. \"See what you can get!\"\n\n\n The radio man leaped to his seat and tried frantically. Again and\n again, he sent off a request for a cross-bearing from shore stations\n that had recently been established to insure safety to naval vessels,\n but there was no answer on any of the bands\u2014not even the blare of a\n high-powered commercial program in the higher reach, nor the chatter of\n ships or amateurs on the shorter.\n\n\n \"Dead!\" Androka muttered, with a bitter laugh. \"Yet not dead,\n gentlemen! The set is uninjured. The waves are what have been upset. I\n have shattered them around your ship, just as I can eventually shatter\n them all over Central Europe! For the next two hours, no radio messages\n can enter or leave my zone of radio silence\u2014of refracted radio waves,\n set up by my little station on one of the neighboring islets!\"\nThere was a long pause, while commander and navigator stared at him.\n Curtis was the first to speak.\n\n\n \"Your secrecy might well cost the United States navy one of its best\n light cruisers\u2014and us our lives!\" he said angrily. \"We need that check\n by radio at once! If you're not talking nonsense, call off your dogs\n till we learn just where we are!\"\n\n\n Androka held out his palms helplessly. \"I can do nothing. I have given\n orders to my assistant that he must keep two hours of radio silence! I\n can get no message to him, for our radio is dead!\"\n\n\n As if to mock him, the ship's radio began to answer:\n\n\n \"Station 297 calling U. S. Cruiser\nComerford\n. Station 297 calling U.\n S. Cruiser\nComerford\n\u2014\"\n\n\n \"U. S. Cruiser\nComerford\ncalling Station 297!\" the operator intoned,\n winking at the two officers over Androka's discomfiture, and asked for\n the bearings.\n\n\n The answer came back: \"Bearings north east by a quarter east, U. S.\n Cruiser\nComerford\n!\"\n\n\n Curtis sighed with relief. He saw that Nelson was staring fiercely\n at the radio operator, as the man went on calling: \"U. S. Cruiser\nComerford\ncalling Station 364. U. S. Cruiser\nComerford\ncalling\n Station 364\u2014\"\n\n\n Then the instrument rasped again: \"Station 364 calling U. S. Cruiser\nComerford\n. Bearings north west by three west. Bearings north west by\n three west, U. S. Cruiser\nComerford\nfrom Cay 364.\"\n\n\n Commander and navigator had both scribbled verifications of the\n numbers. Ignoring the gibbering Androka, who was wailing his\n disappointment that messages had penetrated his veil of silence, they\n raced for the chart room.\nQuickly the parallels stepped off the bearing from the designated\n points. Light intersecting lines proclaimed a check on their position.\n\n\n Curtis frowned and shook his head. Slowly he forced a reluctant grin as\n he stuck out his hand.\n\n\n \"Shake, Nels,\" he said. \"It's my turn to eat crow. You and the radio\n must be right. Continue as you were!\"\n\n\n \"I'm relieved, sir, just the same,\" Nelson admitted, \"to have the radio\n bearings. We'd have piled up sure if you'd been right.\"\n\n\n They went on through the night. The starlit gap in the clouds had\n closed. The sky was again a blanket of darkness pouring sheets of rain\n at them.\n\n\n Nelson went back to the bridge, and Androka returned to the commander's\n cabin. Curtis lingered in the wireless room with the radio operator.\n\n\n \"It's a funny thing,\" the latter said, still dialing and grousing, \"how\n I got that cross-bearing through and can't get another squeak out of\n her. I'm wondering if that old goat really\nhas\ndone something to the\n ether. The set seems O. K.\"\n\n\n He lingered over the apparatus, checking and rechecking. Tubes lighted;\n wires were alive to the touch and set him to shaking his head at the\n tingle they sent through his inquiring fingers.\n\n\n Curtis left him at it, and went to rejoin Androka in the cabin. He\n found the little inventor pacing up and down, shaking his fists in the\n air; pausing every now and then to run his bony fingers through his\n tangled mop of gray hair, or to claw nervously at his beard.\n\n\n \"You have seen a miracle, commander!\" he shouted at Curtis. \"\nMy\nmiracle! My invention has shattered the ether waves hereabouts\n hopelessly.\"\n\n\n \"Seems to me,\" Curtis said dryly, \"this invention can harm your friends\n as much as your enemies.\"\n\n\n The scientist drew himself up to his full height\u2014which was only a\n little over five feet. His voice grew shrill. \"Wait! Just wait! There\n are other inventions to supplement this one. Put them together, and\n they will defeat the Nazi hordes which have ravaged my country!\"\n\n\n Curtis was a little shocked by the hatred that gleamed in Androka's\n eyes, under their bushy brows. There was something of the wild animal\n in the man's expression, as his lips drew back from his yellowed teeth.\n\n\n \"Those tanks you have below,\" Curtis said, \"have they some connection\n with this radio silence?\"\n\n\n A far-away look came into Androka's eyes. He did not seem to hear\n the question. He lowered his voice: \"My daughter is still in Prague.\n So are my sister and her husband, and\ntheir\ntwo daughters. If the\ngestapo\nknew what I am doing, all of them would be better dead. You\n understand\u2014better dead?\"\n\n\n Curtis said: \"I understand.\"\n\n\n \"And if the Nazi agents in America knew of the islet from which my zone\n of silence is projected\u2014\" Androka paused, his head tilted to one side,\n as if he were listening to something\u2014\nOn deck, there was shouting and commotion. Curtis rushed out, pulling\n on his slicker as he went. The shout from the watch forward had been\n picked up, and was being relayed all over the ship. The words struck on\n Curtis' ears with a note of impending tragedy.\n\n\n \"Breakers ahead!\"\n\n\n He was beside Navigating Officer Nelson on the bridge, and saw the\n helmsman climbing the rapidly spinning wheel like a monkey as he put it\n hard aport.\n\n\n Then the ship struck. Everything movable shot ahead until it brought up\n at the end of a swing or smacked against something solid.\n\n\n Curtis felt Nelson's hand grip his shoulder, as he put his lips close\n to his ear and shouted: \"You must have been right, sir, and the radio\n bearings and my reckoning wrong. We've hit that reef a terrific smack.\n I'm afraid we're gored!\"\n\n\n \"Get out the collision mat!\" Curtis ordered. \"We ought to be able to\n keep her up!\"\n\n\n And then he became aware of a deadly stillness. A vast wall of silence\n enveloped the entire cruiser. Looking over the side, he could no longer\n see the waves that a few minutes before had beaten savagely against the\n ship.\n\n\n The\nComerford\nwas shrouded in a huge pall of yellowish-gray mist, and\n more of it was coming up from below\u2014from ventilators and hatchways and\n skylights\u2014as if the whole ship were flooded with some evil vapor.\n\n\n Somehow, Curtis' mind flashed to the stories he'd heard of the forts of\n the Maginot Line, and of other forts in Holland and Belgium that had\n fallen before the early Nazi blitzkrieg, when their defenders found\n themselves struck numb and helpless by a gas that had been flooded into\n the inner compartments of their strongholds.\n\n\n There were those who said it was the work of sappers who had tunneled\n under the foundations, while others laid the induction of the gas to\n Fifth Column traitors. There were a hundred more or less plausible\n explanations\u2014\n\n\n The vapor clouds that enveloped the\nComerford\nwere becoming thicker.\n All about the deck lay the forms of unconscious seamen, suddenly\n stricken helpless. And then Curtis saw other forms flitting about the\n deck\u2014forms that looked like creatures from another world, but he\n recognized them for what they were\u2014men wearing gas masks.\n\n\n Nelson was nowhere in sight. The steersman lay in a limp heap beside\n the swinging wheel. Then a gas-masked figure appeared through the\n shroud of mist and steadied it, so that the cruiser would not be\n completely at the mercy of the wind and the waves.\n\n\n Curtis heard the anchor let down, as if by invisible hands, the chain\n screaming and flailing its clanking way through the hawse hole. Then he\n was completely walled in by the yellowish-gray mist. He felt his senses\n swimming.\n\n\n Voices droned all around him in mumbling confusion\u2014guttural voices\n that ebbed and flowed in a tide of excited talk. He caught a word of\n English now and then, mixed in with a flood of Teuton phonetics.\n\n\n Two words, in particular, registered clearly on his mind. One was\n \"\nCarethusia\n\"; the other was \"convoy.\" But gradually his eardrums\n began to throb, as if someone were pounding on them from the inside. He\n couldn't get his breath; a cloud seemed to be mounting within him until\n it swept over his brain\u2014\n\n\n He felt something strike the side of his head, and realized that he had\n fallen in a heap on the bridge. And after that, he wasn't conscious of\n anything\u2014\nThe rain had abated to a foggy drizzle. The wash of the surf swung the\nComerford\nin a lazy, rolling motion, as she lay with her bow nosing\n into the sandbar at the entrance of the inlet.\n\n\n From her bridge, Navigating Officer Nelson watched the gas-masked\n figures moving about the decks, descending companionways\u2014like goblins\n from an ancient fairy tale or a modern horror story. Nelson looked like\n a goblin himself, with his face covered by a respirator. At his side,\n stood his fellow conspirator Bos'n's Mate Joe Bradford, also wearing a\n gas mask.\n\n\n Nelson spoke in a low tone, his lips close to Bradford's ear. \"It\n worked, Joe!\"\n\n\n \"Yeah!\" Bradford agreed. \"It worked\u2014fine!\"\n\n\n The limp bodies of the\nComerford's\ncrew were being carried to the\n lowered accommodation ladder and transferred into waiting lifeboats.\n\n\n Nelson swore under his breath. \"Reckon it'll take a couple of hours\n before the ship's rid of that damn gas!\"\n\n\n Bradford shook his head in disagreement. \"The old geezer claims he's\n got a neutralizing chemical in one of them tanks of his that'll clear\n everything up inside half an hour.\"\n\n\n \"I'd rather get along without Androka, if we could!\" Nelson muttered.\n \"He's nothing but a crackpot!\"\n\n\n \"It was a crackpot who invented the gas we used to break up the\n Maginot Line,\" Bradford reminded him. \"It saved a lot of lives for the\nFuehrer\n\u2014lives that'd have been lost if the forts had to be taken by\n our storm troopers!\"\n\n\n Nelson grunted and turned away. A short, thick-set figure in the\n uniform of a German naval commander had ascended the accommodation\n ladder and was mounting to the bridge. He, too, was equipped with a\n respirator.\n\n\n He came up to Nelson, saluted, and held out his hand, introducing\n himself as Herr Kommander Brandt. He began to speak in German, but\n Nelson stopped him.\n\n\n \"I don't speak any German,\" he explained. \"I was born and educated in\n the United States\u2014of German parents, who had been ruined in the First\n World War. My mother committed suicide when she learned that we were\n penniless. My father\u2014\" He paused and cleared his throat.\n\n\n \"\nJa!\nYour father?\" the German officer prompted, dropping into\n accented English. \"Your father?\"\n\n\n \"My father dedicated me to a career of revenge\u2014to wipe out his\n wrongs,\" Nelson continued. \"If America hadn't gone into the First\n World War, he wouldn't have lost his business; my mother would still\n be living. When he joined the Nazi party, the way became clear to use\n me\u2014to educate me in a military prep school, then send me to Annapolis,\n for a career in the United States navy\u2014and no one suspected me. No\n one\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Sometimes,\" Bradford put in, \"I think Curtis suspected you.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe Curtis'll find out his suspicions were justified,\" Nelson said\n bitterly. \"But it won't do Curtis any good\u2014a commander who's lost\n his ship.\" He turned to Brandt. \"You have plenty of men to work the\nComerford\n?\"\n\n\n Brandt nodded his square head. \"We have a full crew\u2014two hundred\n men\u2014officers, seamen, mechanics, radio men, technical experts, all\n German naval reservists living in the United States, who've been sent\n here secretly, a few at a time, during the past six weeks!\"\nThe three\u2014Brandt, Nelson and Bradford\u2014stood on the bridge and talked,\n while the efficient stretcher-bearers worked industriously to remove\n the limp bodies of the\nComerford's\nunconscious crew and row them\n ashore.\n\n\n And when that task was completed, lifeboats began to come alongside\n with strange-looking radio equipment, and more gas tanks like those\n Androka had brought aboard the\nComerford\nwith him, and dynamos and\n batteries that looked like something out of a scientific nightmare.\n\n\n And bustling all over the place, barking excited commands in German,\n pushing and pulling and pointing to emphasize his directions, was the\n strange figure of Professor Zukor Androka!\n\n\n \"The professor's in his glory!\" Nelson remarked to Kommander Brandt.\n\n\n \"Funny thing about him,\" Bradford put in, \"is that his inventions work.\n That zone of silence cut us off completely.\"\n\n\n Kommander Brandt nodded. \"Goodt! But you got your message giving your\n bearings\u2014the wrong ones?\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Nelson said. \"That came through all right. And won't Curtis have\n a time explaining it!\"\n\n\n \"Hereafter,\" Brandt said solemnly, \"the zone of silence vill be\n projected from the\nComerford\n; and ve have another invention of\n Androka's vich vill be even more useful vhen ve come to cut the\nCarethusia\nout of her convoy.\"\n\n\n \"The\nCarethusia\n?\" Nelson asked, in a puzzled tone.\n\n\n Brandt said: \"She's a freighter in a convoy out of St. Johns\u2014twelve\n thousand tons. The orders are to take her; not sink her.\"\n\n\n \"What's the idea?\"\n\n\n \"Her cargo,\" Brandt explained. \"It iss more precious than rubies. It\n includes a large shipment of boarts.\"\n\n\n \"Boarts?\" Nelson repeated. \"What are they?\"\n\n\n \"Boarts,\" Brandt told him, \"are industrial diamonds\u2014black,\n imperfectly crystallized stones, but far more valuable to us than\n flawless diamonds from Tiffany's on Fift' Avenue. They are needed for\n making machine tools. They come from northern Brazil\u2014and our supply is\n low.\"\n\n\n \"I should think we could get a shipment of these boarts direct from\n Brazil\u2014through the blockade,\" Nelson said, \"without taking the risk of\n capturing a United States navy cruiser.\"\n\n\n \"There are other things Germany needs desperately on board the\nCarethusia\n,\" Brandt explained. \"Vanadium and nickel and hundreds of\n barrels of lard oil for machine-tool lubrication. Our agents have been\n watching the convoys closely for weeks for just such a cargo as the\nCarethusia\nis taking over.\"\n\n\n \"Can we trust Androka?\" Nelson asked, with a sudden note of suspicion\n in his voice.\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Brandt assured him. \"Of all men\u2014we can trust Androka!\"\n\n\n \"But he's a Czech,\" Nelson argued.\n\n\n \"The\ngestapo\ntakes care of Czechs and Poles and Frenchmen and other\n foreigners whom it chooses as its agents,\" Brandt pointed out. \"Androka\n has a daughter and other relations in Prague. He knows that if anything\n misfires, if there is the slightest suspicion of treachery on his part,\n his daughter and the others will suffer. Androka's loyalty is assured!\"\n\n\n Nelson turned to watch the forward fighting top of the\nComerford\n.\n The masked German seamen were installing some sort of apparatus\n up there\u2014a strange-looking object that looked something like an\n old-fashioned trench mortar, and which connected with cables to the\n room that served as Androka's laboratory and workshop.\n\n\n Another crew was installing radio apparatus in the mizzentop turret.\n\n\n Descending a companionway to see what was going on below, Nelson found\n that portholes were being opened, and men were spraying chemical around\n to rid the below-decks atmosphere of the lethal gas that had overcome\n the\nComerford's\nAmerican crew.\n\n\n Returning to the bridge, he found that the tide in the inlet had risen\n considerably, and that the cruiser was riding more easily at her anchor.\n\n\n Then, at Brandt's orders, the anchor was hauled in, and lifeboats and a\n motor launch were used as tugs to work the vessel entirely free of the\n sand bar. This was accomplished without difficulty.\n\n\n Brandt came over to where Nelson was standing on the bridge and held\n out his hand.\n\n\n \"Congratulations, Herr Kommander Nelson!\" he said. \"Ve have stolen one\n of the United States navy's newest and fastest cruisers!\" He made a\n gesture as if raising a beer stein to drink a toast. \"\nProsit!\n\" he\n added.\n\n\n \"\nProsit!\n\" Nelson repeated, and the two grinned at each other.\nStars were twinkling in a patch of black-blue sky, and broken mountains\n of gray cloud were skudding before the east wind. Commander Bob Curtis\n found himself lying in wet sand, on a beach, somewhere, with the\n rain\u2014now a light, driving mist\u2014beating on his face. He was chilled;\n his limbs were stiff and numb. His nose and throat felt parched inside,\n as if a wave of searing heat had scorched them.\n\n\n According to his last calculations, the\nComerford\nhad been cruising\n off the Maine coast. This probably was one of the islets of that\n region, or it might be the mainland.\n\n\n It was hard work getting to his feet, and when he did manage to stand,\n he could only plant his heels in the sand and sway to and fro for fully\n a minute, like a child learning to walk.\n\n\n All around him in the nearly total darkness, he could make out the dim\n forms of men sprawled on the beach; and of other men moving about,\n exploring. He heard the murmur of voices and saw the glow of lighted\n cigarettes.\n\n\n A man with a flashlight was approaching him. Its white glare shone for\n a moment in Curtis' face, and the familiar voice of Ensign Jack Dillon\n spoke: \"Commander Curtis! Are you O. K., sir?\"\n\n\n \"I think so!\" Curtis' heart warmed at the eager expression in Dillon's\n face; at the heartfelt concern in his friendly brown eyes. The young\n ensign was red-headed, impetuous, thoroughly genuine in his emotions.\n \"How about yourself, Jack?\" Curtis added.\n\n\n \"A bit of a headache from the gas, but that's all. Any orders, sir?\"\n\n\n Curtis thought for a moment. \"Muster the crew, as best you can. We'll\n try to make a roll call. Is there any sign of the ship?\"\n\n\n There was a solemn note in Dillon's voice. \"No, sir. She's been worked\n off the sandbar and put to sea!\"\n\n\n The words struck Curtis with the numbing shock of a blow on some nerve\n center. For the first time, he realized fully the tragedy that had\n swept down on him. He had lost his ship\u2014one of the United States\n navy's fastest and newest small light cruisers\u2014under circumstances\n which smelled strongly of treachery and sabotage.\n\n\n As he thought back, he realized that he\nmight\nhave prevented the\n loss, if he had been more alert, more suspicious. For it was clear to\n him now that the\nComerford\nhad been deliberately steered to this\n place; that the men who had seized her had been waiting here for that\n very purpose.\n\n\n The pieces of the picture fitted together like a jigsaw\n puzzle\u2014Androka's zone of silence; the bearings given by radio;\n Navigating Officer Nelson's queer conduct. They were all part of a\n carefully laid plan!\n\n\n All the suspicious circumstances surrounding Nelson came flooding into\n Curtis' mind. He had never liked the man; never trusted him. Nelson\n always acted as if he had some secret, something to hide.\n\n\n Curtis recalled that Nelson and Androka had long conversations\n together\u2014conversations which they would end abruptly when anyone else\n came within earshot. And Nelson had always been chummy with the worst\n trouble maker in the crew\u2014Bos'n's Mate Bradford.\n\n\n Curtis went around, finding the officers, issuing orders. There were\n still some unconscious men to be revived. In a sheltered cove among\n the rocks, an exploring group had found enough dry driftwood to make a\n fire\u2014\n\n\n In another hour, the skies had cleared, and white moonlight flooded\n the scene with a ghostly radiance. The men of the\nComerford\nhad\n all regained consciousness and were drying out in front of the big\n driftwood bonfires in the cove.\n\n\n Curtis ordered a beacon kept burning on a high promontory. Then he got\n the men lined up, according to their respective classifications, for a\n check-up on the missing.\n\n\n When this was completed, it was found that the\nComerford's\nentire\n complement of two hundred and twenty men were present\u2014except\n Navigating Officer Nelson, and Bos'n's Mate Bradford! And Zukor Androka\n was also missing!\n\n\n With the coming of dawn, a little exploration revealed that the\nComerford's\ncrew was marooned on an islet, about a square mile in\n area; that they had been put ashore without food or extra clothing or\n equipment of any kind, and that no boats had been left for them.\n\n\n One searching party reported finding the remains of what had been a\n radio station on a high promontory on the north shore of the islet.\n Another had found the remains of tents and log cabins, recently\n demolished, in a small, timbered hollow\u2014a well-hidden spot invisible\n from the air, unless one were flying very low; a place where two\n hundred or more men could have camped.\n\n\n There was a good water supply\u2014a small creek fed by springs\u2014but\n nothing in the way of food. Evidently food was a precious commodity\n which the recent inhabitants of the islet couldn't afford to leave\n behind.\n\n\n Curtis was studying the wreckage of the wireless station, wondering\n if this might have been the source of Androka's zone of silence, when\n Ensign Jack Dillon came up to him.\n\n\n \"There's a coast-guard cutter heading for the island, sir,\" he\n announced.",
    "63097": "Warrior of Two Worlds\nBy MANLY WADE WELLMAN\nHe was the man of two planets, drawn through\n\n the blackness of space to save a nation from\n\n ruthless invaders. He was Yandro, the\n\n Stranger of the Prophecy\u2014and he found that\n\n he was destined to fight both sides.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Planet Stories Summer 1944.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nMy senses came to me slowly and somehow shyly, as if not sure of their\n way or welcome. I felt first\u2014pressure on my brow and chest, as if I\n lay face downward; then the tug and buffet of a strong, probing wind,\n insistent but not cold, upon my naked skin. Closing my hands, I felt\n them dig into coarse dirt. I turned my face downwind and opened my\n eyes. There was little to see, so thick was the dust cloud around me.\n Words formed themselves on my thick tongue, words that must have been\n spoken by so many reviving unfortunates through the ages:\n\n\n \"Where am I?\"\n\n\n And at once there was an answer:\n\n\n \"\nYou lie upon the world Dondromogon.\n\"\n\n\n I knew the language of that answer, but where it came from\u2014above,\n beneath, or indeed within me\u2014I could not say. I lifted a hand, and\n knuckled dust from my eyes.\n\n\n \"How did I get here?\" I demanded of the speaker.\n\n\n \"It was ordered\u2014by the Masters of the Worlds\u2014that you should be\n brought from your own home planet, called Earth in the System of the\n star called Sun. Do you remember Earth?\"\n\n\n And I did not know whether I remembered or not. Vague matters stirred\n deep in me, but I could not for certain say they were memories. I asked\n yet again:\n\n\n \"Who am I?\"\n\n\n The voice had a note of triumph. \"You do not know that. It is as well,\n for this will be a birth and beginning of your destined leadership on\n Dondromogon.\"\n\n\n \"Destined\u2014leadership\u2014\" I began to repeat, and fell silent. I had\n need to think. The voice was telling me that I had been snatched from\n worlds away, for a specified purpose here on whatever windswept planet\n Dondromogon might be. \"Birth and beginning\u2014destined leadership\u2014\"\n Fantastic! And yet, for all I could say to the contrary, unvarnishedly\n true.\n\n\n \"Dondromogon?\" I mumbled. \"The name is strange to me.\"\n\n\n \"It is a world the size of your native one,\" came words of information.\n \"Around a star it spins, light-years away from the world of your\n birth. One face of Dondromogon ever looks to the light and heat,\n wherefore its metals run in glowing seas. The other face is ever away\n in cold darkness, with its air freezing into solid chunks. But because\n Dondromogon wavers on its axis, there are two lunes of its surface\n which from time to time shift from night to day. These are habitable.\"\n\n\n My eyes were tight shut against the dust, but they saw in imagination\n such a planet\u2014one-half incandescent, one-half pitchy black. From pole\n to pole on opposite sides ran the two twilight zones, widest at the\n equators like the outer rind of two slices of melon. Of course, such\n areas, between the hot and cold hemispheres, would be buffeted by\n mighty gales ... the voice was to be heard again:\n\n\n \"War is fought between the two strips of habitable ground. War,\n unceasing, bitter, with no quarter asked, given or expected.\n Dondromogon was found and settled long ago, by adventurers from afar.\n Now come invaders, to reap the benefits of discovery and toil.\" A\n pause. \"You find that thought unpleasant? You wish to right that\n wrong?\"\n\n\n \"Anyone would wish that,\" I replied. \"But how\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You are going to ask how you were brought here. That is the mystery\n of the\nMasters\n.\" The voice became grand. \"Suffice it that you were\n needed, and that the time was ripe. There is a proper time, like a\n proper place, for each thing and each happening. Now, go to your\n destiny.\"\n\n\n I rose on my knees, shielding my face from the buffeting wind by\n lifting a forearm. Somewhere through the murky clouds showed a dim\n blocky silhouette, a building of sorts.\n\n\n The voice spoke no more. I had not the time to wonder about it. I got\n to my feet, bent double to keep from being blown over, and staggered\n toward the promised haven.\n\n\n I reached it, groped along until I found a door. There was no latch,\n handle or entry button, and I pounded heavily on the massive panels.\n The door opened from within, and I was blown inside, to fall sprawling.\nI struck my forehead upon a floor of stone or concrete, and so was\n half-stunned, but still I could distinguish something like the sound\n of agitated voices. Then I felt myself grasped, by both shoulders,\n and drawn roughly erect. The touch restored my senses, and I wrenched\n myself violently free.\n\n\n What had seized me? That was my first wonder. On this strange world\n called Dondromogon, what manner of intelligent life bade defiance to\n heat and cold and storm, and built these stout structures, and now laid\n hands\u2014were they hands indeed?\u2014upon me? I swung around, setting my\n back to a solid wall.\n\n\n My first glance showed me that my companions were creatures like\n myself\u2014two-legged, fair-skinned men, shorter and slighter than I, but\n clad in metal-faced garments and wearing weapons in their girdles. I\n saw that each bore a swordlike device with a curved guard, set in a\n narrow sheath as long as my arm. Each also had a shorter weapon, with\n a curved stock to fit the palm of the hand, borne snugly in a holster.\n With such arms I had a faint sense of familiarity.\n\n\n \"Who are you, and where are you from?\" said one of the two, a\n broad-faced middle-aged fellow. \"Don't lie any more than you can help.\"\n\n\n I felt a stirring of the hair on my neck, but kept my voice mild and\n level: \"Why should I lie? Especially as I don't know who I am, or where\n I'm from, or anything that has happened longer ago than just a moment.\n I woke up out there in the dust storm, and I managed to come here for\n shelter.\"\n\n\n \"He's a Newcomer spy,\" quoth the other. \"Let's put him under arrest.\"\n\n\n \"And leave this gate unguarded?\" demanded the other. \"Sound the\n signal,\" and he jerked his head toward a system of levers and gauges on\n the wall beside the door-jamb.\n\n\n \"There's a bigger reward for capture than for warning,\" objected\n his friend in turn, \"and whoever comes to take this man will claim\n 'capture.' I'll guard here, and you take him in, then we'll divide\u2014\"\n\n\n \"No. Yours is the idea. I'll guard and you take him in.\" The second man\n studied me apprehensively. \"He's big, and looks strong, even without\n weapons.\"\n\n\n \"Don't be afraid,\" I urged. \"I'll make no resistance, if you'll only\n conduct me to your commander. I can show him that I'm no spy or enemy.\"\n\n\n Both stared narrowly. \"No spy? No enemy?\" asked the broad-faced one who\n had first spoken. Then, to his comrade: \"No reward, then.\"\n\n\n \"I think there'll be a reward,\" was the rejoinder, and the second man's\n hand stole to the sword-weapon. With a whispering rasp it cleared from\n its scabbard. \"If he's dead, we get pay for both warning and capture\u2014\"\n\n\n His thumb touched a button at the pommel of the hilt. The dull blade\n suddenly glowed like heated iron, and from it crackled and pulsed\n little rainbow rays.\n\n\n There was no time to think or plan or ponder. I moved in, with a\n knowing speed that surprised me as much as the two guards. Catching the\n fellow's weapon wrist, I clamped it firmly and bent it back and around.\n He whimpered and swore, and his glowing sword dropped. Its radiant\n blade almost fell on my naked foot. Before the clang of its fall was\n through echoing, I had caught it up, and set the point within inches of\n its owner's unprotected face.\n\n\n \"Quiet, or I'll roast you,\" I told him.\n\n\n The other had drawn a weapon of his own, a pistol-form arrangement.\n I turned on him, but too late. He pressed the trigger, and from the\n muzzle came\u2014not a projectile but a flying, spouting filament of cord\n that seemed to spring on me like a long thin snake and to fasten coil\n after coil around my body. The stuff that gushed from the gun-muzzle\n seemed plastic in form, but hardened so quickly upon contact with the\n air, it bound me like wire. Half a dozen adroit motions of the fellow's\n gun hand, and my arms were caught to my body. I dropped my sword to\n prevent it burning me, and tried to break away, but my bonds were too\n much for me.\n\n\n \"Let me out of this,\" I growled, and kicked at the man with my still\n unbound foot. He snapped a half-hitch on my ankle, and threw me\n heavily. Triumphant laughter came from both adversaries. Then:\n\n\n \"What's this?\"\nThe challenge was clear, rich, authoritative. Someone else had come,\n from a rearward door into the stone-walled vestibule where the\n encounter was taking place.\n\n\n A woman this time, not of great height, and robust but not heavy. She\n was dressed for vigorous action in dark slacks with buskins to make\n them snug around ankles and calves, a jerkin of stout material that was\n faced with metal armor plates and left bare her round, strong arms. A\n gold-worked fillet bound her tawny hair back from a rosy, bold-featured\n face\u2014a nose that was positively regal, a mouth short and firm but not\n hard, and blue eyes that just now burned and questioned. She wore a\n holstered pistol, and a cross-belt supported several instruments of a\n kind I could not remember seeing before. A crimson cloak gave color and\n dignity to her costume, and plainly she was someone of position, for\n both the men stiffened to attention.\n\n\n \"A spy,\" one ventured. \"He pushed in, claimed he was no enemy, then\n tried to attack\u2014\"\n\n\n \"They lie,\" I broke in, very conscious of my naked helplessness before\n her regard. \"They wanted to kill me and be rewarded for a false story\n of vigilance. I only defended myself.\"\n\n\n \"Get him on his feet,\" the young woman said, and the two guards\n obeyed. Then her eyes studied me again. \"Gods! What a mountain of a\n man!\" she exclaimed. \"Can you walk, stranger?\"\n\n\n \"Barely, with these bonds.\"\n\n\n \"Then manage to do so.\" She flung off her cloak and draped it over my\n nakedness. \"Walk along beside me. No tricks, and I promise you fair\n hearing.\"\n\n\n We went through the door by which she had entered, into a corridor\n beyond. It was lighted by small, brilliant bulbs at regular intervals.\n Beyond, it gave into several passages. She chose one of them and\n conducted me along. \"You are surely not of us,\" she commented. \"Men I\n have seen who are heavier than you, but none taller. Whence came you?\"\n\n\n I remembered the strange voice that had instructed me. \"I am from a\n far world,\" I replied. \"It is called\u2014yes, Earth. Beyond that, I know\n nothing. Memory left me.\"\n\n\n \"The story is a strange one,\" she commented. \"And your name?\"\n\n\n \"I do not know that, either. Who are you?\"\n\n\n \"Doriza\u2014a gentlewoman of the guard. My inspection tour brought me by\n chance to where you fought my outposts. But it is not for you to ask\n questions. Enter here.\"\n\n\n We passed through another door, and I found myself in an office. A man\n in richly-embossed armor platings sat there. He had a fringe of pale\n beard, and his eyes were bluer than the gentlewoman Doriza's.\n\n\n She made a gesture of salute, hand at shoulder height, and reported the\n matter. He nodded for her to fall back to a corner.\n\n\n \"Stranger,\" he said to me, \"can you think of no better tale to tell\n than you now offer?\"\n\n\n \"I tell the truth,\" was my reply, not very gracious.\n\n\n \"You will have to prove that,\" he admonished me.\n\n\n \"What proof have I?\" I demanded. \"On this world of yours\u2014Dondromogon,\n isn't it called?\u2014I'm no more than an hour old. Accident or shock\n has taken my memory. Let me have a medical examination. A scientist\n probably can tell what happened to put me in such a condition.\"\n\n\n \"I am a scientist,\" offered Doriza, and came forward. Her eyes met\n mine, suddenly flickered and lowered. \"His gaze,\" she muttered.\n\n\n The officer at the table was touching a button. An attendant appeared,\n received an order, and vanished again. In a few moments two other\n men came\u2014one a heavily armed officer of rank, the other an elderly,\n bearded fellow in a voluminous robe that enfolded him in most dignified\n manner.\n\n\n This latter man opened wide his clear old eyes at sight of me.\n\n\n \"The stranger of the prophecy!\" he cried, in a voice that made us all\n jump.\nThe officer rose from behind the table. \"Are you totally mad, Sporr?\n You mystic doctors are too apt to become fuddled\u2014\"\n\n\n \"But it is, it is!\" The graybeard flourished a thin hand at me. \"Look\n at him, you of little faith! Your mind dwells so much on material\n strength that you lose touch with the spiritual\u2014\"\n\n\n He broke off, and wheeled on the attendant who had led him in. \"To my\n study,\" he commanded. \"On the shelf behind my desk, bring the great\n gold-bound book that is third from the right.\" Then he turned back,\n and bowed toward me. \"Surely you are Yandro, the Conquering Stranger,\"\n he said, intoning as if in formal prayer. \"Pardon these short-sighted\n ones\u2014deign to save us from our enemies\u2014\"\n\n\n The girl Doriza spoke to the officer: \"If Sporr speaks truth, and he\n generally does, you have committed a blasphemy.\"\n\n\n The other made a little grimace. \"This may be Yandro, though I'm a\n plain soldier and follow the classics very little. The First Comers are\n souls to worship, not to study. If indeed he is Yandro,\" and he was\n most respectful, \"he will appreciate, like a good military mind, my\n caution against possible impostors.\"\n\n\n \"Who might Yandro be?\" I demanded, very uncomfortable in my bonds and\n loose draperies.\n\n\n Old Sporr almost crowed. \"You see? If he was a true imposter, he would\n come equipped with all plausible knowledge. As it is\u2014\"\n\n\n \"As it is, he may remember that the Conquering Stranger is foretold\n to come with no memory of anything,\" supplied the officer. \"Score one\n against you, Sporr. You should have been able to instruct me, not I\n you.\"\n\n\n The attendant reentered, with a big book in his hands. It looked\n old and well-thumbed, with dim gold traceries on its binding. Sporr\n snatched it, and turned to a brightly colored picture. He looked once,\n his beard gaped, and he dropped to his knees.\n\n\n \"Happy, happy the day,\" he jabbered, \"that I was spared to see our\n great champion come among us in the flesh, as was foretold of ancient\n time by the First Comers!\"\n\n\n Doriza and the officer crossed to his side, snatching the book. Their\n bright heads bent above it. Doriza was first to speak. \"It is very\n like,\" she half-stammered.\n\n\n The officer faced me, with a sort of baffled respect.\n\n\n \"I still say you will understand my caution,\" he addressed me, with\n real respect and shyness this time. \"If you are Yandro himself, you can\n prove it. The prophecy even sketches a thumb-print\u2014\" And he held the\n book toward me.\n\n\n It contained a full-page likeness, in color, of myself wrapped in a\n scarlet robe. Under this was considerable printed description, and to\n one side a thumb-print, or a drawing of one, in black.\n\n\n \"Behold,\" Doriza was saying, \"matters which even expert identification\n men take into thought. The ears in the picture are like the ears of the\n real man\u2014\"\n\n\n \"That could be plastic surgery,\" rejoined the officer. \"Such things are\n artfully done by the Newcomers, and the red mantle he wears more easily\n assumed.\"\n\n\n Doriza shook her head. \"That happens to be my cloak. I gave it to him\n because he was naked, and not for any treasonable masquerade. But the\n thumb-print\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Oh, yes, the thumb-print,\" I repeated wearily. \"By all means, study my\n thumbs, if you'll first take these bonds off of me.\"\n\n\n \"Bonds,\" mumbled old Sporr. He got creakily up from his knees and\n bustled to me. From under his robe he produced a pouch, and took out a\n pencil-sized rod. Gingerly opening the red mantle, he touched my tether\n in several places with the glowing end of the rod. The coils dropped\n away from my grateful body and limbs. I thrust out my hands.\n\n\n \"Thumb-prints?\" I offered.\n\n\n Sporr had produced something else, a little vial of dark pigment. He\n carefully anointed one of my thumbs, and pressed it to the page. All\n three gazed.\n\n\n \"The same,\" said Doriza.\n\n\n And they were all on their knees before me.\n\n\n \"Forgive me, great Yandro,\" said the officer thickly. \"I did not know.\"\n\n\n \"Get up,\" I bade them. \"I want to hear why I was first bound, and now\n worshipped.\"\nII\n\n\n They rose, but stood off respectfully. The officer spoke first. \"I am\n Rohbar, field commander of this defense position,\" he said with crisp\n respect. \"Sporr is a mystic doctor, full of godly wisdom. Doriza,\n a junior officer and chief of the guard. And you\u2014how could you\n know?\u2014are sent by the First Comers to save us from our enemies.\"\n\n\n \"Enemies?\" I repeated.\n\n\n \"The Newcomers,\" supplemented Doriza. \"They have taken the \"Other Side\"\n of Dondromogon, and would take our side as well. We defend ourselves\n at the poles. Now,\" and her voice rang joyously, \"you will lead us to\n defeat and crush them utterly!\"\n\n\n \"Not naked like this,\" I said, and laughed. I must have sounded\n foolish, but it had its effect.\n\n\n \"Follow me, deign to follow me,\" Sporr said. \"Your clothing, your\n quarters, your destiny, all await you.\"\n\n\n We went out by the door at the rear, and Sporr respectfully gestured me\n upon a metal-plated platform. Standing beside me, he tinkered with a\n lever. We dropped smoothly away into a dark corridor, past level after\n level of light and sound.\n\n\n \"Our cities are below ground,\" he quavered. \"Whipped by winds above,\n we must scrabble in the depths for life's necessities\u2014chemicals to\n transmute into food, to weave into clothing, to weld into tools and\n weapons\u2014\"\n\n\n The mention of food brought to me the thought that I was hungry. I said\n as much, even as our elevator platform came to the lowest level and\n stopped.\n\n\n \"I have arranged for that,\" Sporr began, then fell silent, fingers\n combing his beard in embarrassment.\n\n\n \"Arranged food for me?\" I prompted sharply. \"As if you know I had come?\n What\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Pardon, great Yandro,\" babbled Sporr. \"I was saying that I arranged\n food, as always, for whatever guest should come. Please follow.\"\n\n\n We entered a new small chamber, where a table was set with dishes of\n porcelain-like plastic. Sporr held a chair for me, and waited on me\n with the utmost gingerly respect. The food was a pungent and filling\n jelly, a little bundle of transparent leaves or scraps like cellophane\n and tasting of spice, and a tumbler of pink juice. I felt refreshed and\n satisfied, and thanked Sporr, who led me on to the next room.\n\n\n \"Behold!\" he said, with a dramatic gesture. \"Your garments, even as\n they have been preserved against your coming!\"\n\n\n It was a sleeping chamber, with a cot made fast to the wall, a metal\n locker or cupboard, with a glass door through which showed the garments\n of which Sporr spoke.\n\n\n The door closed softly behind me\u2014I was left alone.\n\n\n Knowing that it was expected of me, I went to the locker and opened\n the door. The garments inside were old, I could see, but well kept and\n serviceable. I studied their type, and my hands, if not my mind, seemed\n familiar with them.\n\n\n There was a kiltlike item, belted at the waist and falling to\n mid-thigh. A resilient band at the top, with a series of belt-holes,\n made it adaptable to my own body or to any other. Then came an upper\n garment, a long strip of soft, close-woven fabric that spiralled\n around the torso from hip to armpit, the end looping over the left\n shoulder and giving full play to the arms. A gold-worked fillet bound\n the brows and swept back my longish hair, knotting at the nape of the\n neck. The only fitted articles were a pair of shoes, metal-soled and\n soft-uppered, that went on well enough and ran cross-garters up to\n below the knee, like buskins. The case also held a platinum chain for\n the neck, a belt-bag, and a handsome sword, with clips to fasten them\n in place. These things, too, I donned, and closed the glass door.\nThe light struck it at such an angle as to make it serve for a\n full-length mirror. With some curiosity I gazed at my image.\n\n\n The close-fitting costume was rich and dark, with bright colors only\n for edgings and minor accessories. I myself\u2014and it was as if I saw my\n body for the first time\u2014towered rather bluffly, with great breadth\n of chest and shoulder, and legs robust enough to carry such bulk. The\n face was square but haggard, as if from some toil or pain which was now\n wiped from my recollection. That nose had been even bigger than it was\n now, but a fracture had shortened it somewhat. The eyes were deep set\n and dark and moody\u2014small wonder!\u2014the chin heavy, the mouth made grim\n by a scar at one corner. Black, shaggy hair hung down like brackets.\n All told, I looked like a proper person for physical labor, or even\n fierce fighting\u2014but surely no inspirational leader or savior of a\n distressed people.\n\n\n I took the military cloak which Doriza had lent me and slung it over my\n shoulders. Turning, I clanked out on my metal-soled shoes.\n\n\n Sporr was waiting in the room where I had eaten. His eyes widened at\n sight of me, something like a grin of triumph flashed through his\n beard. Then he bowed, supple and humble, his palms together.\n\n\n \"It is indeed Yandro, our great chief,\" he mumbled. Then he turned and\n crossed the room. A sort of mouthpiece sprouted from the wall.\n\n\n \"I announce,\" he intoned into it. \"I announce, I, Sporr, the reader and\n fore-teller of wisdom. Yandro is with us, he awaits his partners and\n friends. Let them meet him in the audience hall.\"\n\n\n Facing me again, he motioned most respectfully toward the door to the\n hall. I moved to open it, and he followed, muttering.\n\n\n Outside stood Doriza. Her blue eyes met mine, and her lips moved to\n frame a word. Then, suddenly, she was on her knee, catching my hand and\n kissing it.\n\n\n \"I serve Yandro,\" she vowed tremulously. \"Now and forever\u2014and happy\n that I was fated to live when he returned for the rescue of all\n Dondromogon.\"\n\n\n \"Please get up,\" I bade her, trying not to sound as embarrassed as I\n felt. \"Come with me. There is still much that I do not understand.\"\n\n\n \"I am Yandro's orderly and helper,\" she said. Rising, she ranged\n herself at my left hand. \"Will Yandro come this way? He will be awaited\n in the audience hall.\"\n\n\n It seemed to me then that the corridors were vast and mixed as a\n labyrinth, but Doriza guided me without the slightest hesitation past\n one tangled crossway after another. My questions she answered with a\n mixture of awe and brightness.\n\n\n \"It is necessary that we live like this,\" she explained. \"The hot air\n of Dondromogon's sunlit face is ever rising, and the cold air from\n the dark side comes rushing under to fill the vacuum. Naturally, our\n strip of twilight country is never free of winds too high and fierce to\n fight. No crops can grow outside, no domestic animals flourish. We must\n pen ourselves away from the sky and soil, with stout walls and heavy\n sunken parapets. Our deep mines afford every element for necessities of\n life.\"\nI looked at my garments, and hers. There were various kinds of fabric,\n which I now saw plainly to be synthetic. \"The other side, where those\n you call the Newcomers dwell and fight,\" I reminded. \"Is it also\n windswept? Why can two people not join forces and face toil and nature\n together? They should fight, not each other, but the elements.\"\n\n\n Doriza had no answer that time, but Sporr spoke up behind us: \"Great\n Yandro is wise as well as powerful. But the Newcomers do not want to\n help, not even to conquer. They want to obliterate us. There is nothing\n to do\u2014not for lifetimes\u2014but to fight them back at the two poles.\"\n\n\n We came to a main corridor. It had a line of armed guards, but no\n pedestrians or vehicles, though I thought I caught a murmur of far-off\n traffic. Doriza paused before a great portal, closed by a curtainlike\n sheet of dull metal. She spoke into a mouthpiece:\n\n\n \"Doriza, gentlewoman of the guard, conducts Yandro, the Conquering\n Stranger, to greet his lieutenants!\"\n\n\n I have said that the portal was closed by a curtainlike metal sheet;\n and like a curtain it lifted, letting us through into the auditorium.\n\n\n That spacious chamber had rows of benches, with galleries above, that\n might have seated a thousand. However, only a dozen or so were present,\n on metal chairs ranged across the stage upon which we entered. They\n were all men but two, and wore robes of black, plum-purple or red. At\n sight of me, they rose together, most respectfully. They looked at me,\n and I looked at them.\n\n\n My first thought was, that if these were people of authority and trust\n in the nation I seemed destined to save, my work was cut out for me.\n\n\n Not that they really seemed stupid\u2014none had the look, or the\n subsequent action, of stupidity. But they were not pleasant. Their\n dozen pairs of eyes fixed me with some steadiness, but with no\n frankness anywhere. One man had a round, greedy-seeming face. Another\n was too narrow and cunning to look it. Of the women, one was nearly\n as tall as I and nobly proportioned, with hair of a red that would be\n inspiring were it not so blatantly dyed. The other was a little wisp of\n a brunette, with teeth too big for her scarlet mouth and bright eyes\n like some sort of a rodent. They all wore jewelry. Too much jewelry.\n\n\n My mind flew back to the two scrubby, venial guardsmen who had first\n welcomed me; to stuffy Rohbar, the commander; to Sporr, spry and clever\n enough, but somehow unwholesome; Doriza\u2014no, she was not like these\n others, who may have lived too long in their earth-buried shelters. And\n Doriza now spoke to the gathering:\n\n\n \"Yandro, folk of the Council! He deigns to give you audience.\"\n\n\n \"\nYandro!\n\"\n\n\n They all spoke the name in chorus, and bowed toward me.\n\n\n Silence then, a silence which evidently I must break. I broke it:\n \"Friends, I am among you with no more memory or knowledge than an\n infant. I hear wonderful things, of which I seem to be the center. Are\n they true?\"\n\n\n \"The tenth part of the wonders which concern mighty Yandro have not\n been told,\" intoned Sporr, ducking his bearded head in a bow, but\n fixing me with his wise old eyes.\n\n\n One of the group, called Council by Doriza, now moved a pace forward.\n He was the greedy-faced man, short but plump, and very conscious of\n the dignified folds of his purple robe. One carefully-tended hand\n brushed back his ginger-brown hair, then toyed with a little moustache.\n\n\n \"I am Gederr, senior of this Council,\" he purred. \"If Yandro permits, I\n will speak simply. Our hopes have been raised by Yandro's return\u2014the\n return presaged of old by those who could see the future, and more\n recently by the death in battle of the Newcomer champion, called Barak.\"\n\n\n \"Barak!\" I repeated. \"I\u2014I\u2014\" And I paused. When I had to learn my own\n name, how could it be that I sensed memory of another's name?\n\n\n \"Barak was a brute\u2014mighty, but a brute.\" Thus Gederr continued.\n \"Weapons in his hands were the instruments of fate. His hands alone\n caused fear and ruin. But it pleased our fortune-bringing stars to\n encompass his destruction.\" He grinned, and licked his full lips. \"Now,\n even as they are without their battle-leader, so we have ours.\"\n\n\n \"You honor me,\" I told him. \"Yet I still know little. It seems that I\n am expected to aid and lead and save the people of this world called\n Dondromogon. But I must know them before I can help.\"\n\n\n Gederr turned his eyes upon the woman with the red hair, and gestured\n to her \"Tell him, Elonie.\" Then he faced me. \"Have we Yandro's\n permission to sit?\"\n\n\n \"By all means,\" I granted, a little impatiently, and sat down myself.\n The others followed suit\u2014the Council on their range of chairs, Doriza\n on a bench near me, Sporr somewhere behind. The woman called Elonie\n remained upon her sandalled feet, great eyes the color of deep green\n water fixed upon me.",
    "60515": "HOMECOMING\nBY MIGUEL HIDALGO\nWhat lasts forever? Does love?\n \nDoes death?... Nothing lasts\n \nforever.... Not even forever\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, April 1958.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe large horse plodded slowly over the shifting sand.\n\n\n The rider was of medium size, with huge, strong hands and seemingly\n hollow eyes. Strange eyes, alive and aflame. They had no place in\n the dust-caked, tired body, yet there they were, seeking, always\n seeking\u2014searching the clear horizon, and never seeming to find what\n they sought.\nThe horse moved faster now. They were nearing a river; the water would\n be welcome on tired bodies and dry throats. He spurred his horse,\n and when they reached the water's edge, he dismounted and unsaddled\n the horse. Then both man and horse plunged headlong into the waiting\n torrent, deep into the cool embrace of the clear liquid. They soaked it\n into their pores and drank deeply of it, feeling life going once more\n through their veins. Satisfied, they lifted themselves from the water,\n and the man lay down on the yellow sand of the river bank to sleep.\n\n\n When he awoke, the sun was almost setting. The bright shafts of red\n light spilled across the sky, making the mountains silent scarlet\n shadows on the face of the rippling water. Quickly he gathered\n driftwood, and built a small fire. From his pack he removed some of\n the coffee he had found in one of the ruined cities. He brought water\n from the river in the battered coffee-pot he had salvaged, and while he\n waited for it to boil, he went to his horse, Conqueror, stroking his\n mane and whispering in his ear. Then he led him silently to a grassy\n slope where he hobbled him and left him for the night.\n\n\n In the fading light, he ate the hard beef jerky and drank the scalding\n coffee. Refreshed and momentarily content, he sat staring into the\n dying fire, seeing the bright glowing coals as living fingers clutching\n at the wood in consuming embrace, taking all and returning nothing but\n ashes.\n\n\n Slowly his eyelids yielded. His body sagged, and blood seemed to fill\n his brain, bathing it in a gentle, warm flood.\n\n\n He slept. His brain slept.\n\n\n But the portion of his brain called memory stirred. It was all alone;\n all else was at rest. Images began to appear, drawn from inexhaustible\n files, wherein are kept all thoughts, past, present, and future....\nIt was the night before he was to go overseas. World War III had been\n declared, and he had enlisted, receiving his old rank of captain. He\n was with his wife in the living room of their home. They had put the\n children to bed\u2014their sons\u2014and now sat on the couch, watching the\n blazing fire. It was then that he had showed it to her.\n\n\n \"I've got something to tell you, and something to show you.\"\n\n\n He had removed the box from his pocket and opened it. And heard her cry\n of surprised joy.\n\n\n \"Oh, a ring, and it's a diamond, too!\" she cried in her rich, happy\n voice which always seemed to send a thrill through his body.\n\n\n \"It's for you; so long as you wear it, I'll come back, even from the\n dead, if need be. Read the inscription.\"\n\n\n She held the ring up to the light and read aloud, \"It is forever.\"\n\n\n Then she had slipped the ring on her finger and her arms around him.\n He held her very close, feeling the warmth from her body flowing into\n his and making him oblivious to everything except that she was there in\n his arms and that he was sinking deep, deep into a familiar sea, where\n he had been many times before but each time found something new and\n unexplored, some vastly different emotion he could never quite explain.\n\n\n \"Wait!\" she cried. \"I've something for you, too.\"\n\n\n She took off the locket she wore about her neck and held it up to the\n shimmering light, letting it spin at the end of its chain. It caught\n the shadows of the fire and reflected them, greatly magnified, over the\n room. It was in the shape of a star, encrusted with emeralds, with one\n large ruby in the center. When he opened it, he found a picture of her\n in one side, and in the other a picture of the children. He took her in\n his arms again, and loosened her long, black hair, burying his face in\n it for a moment. Then he kissed her, and instantly was drawn down into\n the abyss which seemed to have no beginning or any end.\n\n\n The next morning had been bleak and gray. The mist clung to the wet,\n sodden ground, and the air was heavy in his lungs. He had driven off\n in the jeep the army had sent for him, watching her there on the porch\n until the mist swirled around her feet and she ran back into the house\n and slammed the door. His cold fingers found the locket, making a\n little bulge under his uniform, and the touch of it seemed to warm the\n blood in his veins.\n\n\n Three days later they had landed in Spain, merged with another\n division, then crossed the Pyrenees into France, and finally to Paris\n where the fighting had begun. Already the city was a silent graveyard,\n littered with the rubble of towers and cathedrals which had once been\n great.\n\n\n Three years later they were on the road to Moscow. Over a thousand\n miles lay behind, a dead man on every foot of those miles. Yet victory\n was near. The Russians had not yet used the H-bomb; the threat of\n annihilation by the retaliation forces had been too great.\n\n\n He had done well in the war, and had been decorated many times for\n bravery in action. Now he felt the victory that seemed to be in the\n air, and he had wished it would come quickly, so that he might return\n to her. Home. The very feel of the word was everything a battle-weary\n soldier needed to make him fight harder and live longer.\n\n\n Suddenly he had become aware of a droning, wooshing sound above him. It\n grew louder and louder until he knew what it was.\n\n\n \"Heavy bombers!\" The alarm had sounded, and the men had headed for\n their foxholes.\n\n\n But the planes had passed over, the sun glinting on their bellies,\n reflecting a blinding light. They were bound for bigger, more important\n targets. When the all-clear had sounded, the men clambered from their\n shelters. An icy wind swept the field, bringing with it clouds which\n covered the sun. A strange fear had gripped him then....\n\n\n Across the Atlantic, over the pole, via Alaska, the great bombers\n flew. In cities, great and small, the air raid sirens sounded, high\n screaming noises which had jarred the people from sleep in time to die.\n The defending planes roared into the sky to intercept the on-rushing\n bombers. The horrendous battle split the universe. Many bombers fell,\n victims of fanatical suicide planes, or of missiles that streaked\n across the sky which none could escape.\n\n\n But too many bombers got through, dropping their deadly cargo upon the\n helpless cities. And not all the prayers or entreaties to any God had\n stopped their carnage. First there had been the red flashes that melted\n buildings into molten streams, and then the great triple-mushroom cloud\n filled with the poisonous gases that the wind swept away to other\n cities, where men had not died quickly and mercifully, but had rotted\n away, leaving shreds of putrid flesh behind to mark the places where\n they had crawled.\n\n\n The retaliatory forces had roared away to bomb the Russian cities. Few,\n if any, had returned. Too much blood and life were on their hands.\n Those who had remained alive had found a resting place on the crown\n of some distant mountain. Others had preferred the silent peaceful\n sea, where flesh stayed not long on bones, and only darting fishes and\n merciful beams of filtered light found their aluminum coffins.\n\n\n The war had ended.\n\n\n To no avail. Neither side had won. Most of the cities and the majority\n of the population of both countries had been destroyed. Even their\n governments had vanished, leaving a silent nothingness. The armies that\n remained were without leaders, without sources of supplies, save what\n they could forage and beg from an unfriendly people.\n\n\n They were alone now, a group of tired, battered men, for whom life held\n nothing. Their families had long since died, their bodies turned to\n dust, their spirits fled on the winds to a new world.\n\n\n Yet these remnants of an army must return\u2014or at least try. Their\n exodus was just beginning. Somehow he had managed to hold together the\n few men left from his force. He had always nourished the hope that\n she might still be alive. And now that the war was over he had to\n return\u2014had to know whether she was still waiting for him.\n\n\n They had started the long trek. Throughout Europe anarchy reigned. He\n and his men were alone. All they could do now was fight. Finally they\n reached the seaport city of Calais. With what few men he had left, he\n had commandeered a small yacht, and they had taken to the sea.\n\n\n After months of storms and bad luck, they had been shipwrecked\n somewhere off the coast of Mexico. He had managed to swim ashore,\n and had been found by a fisherman's family. Many months he had spent\n swimming and fishing, recovering his strength, inquiring about the\n United States. The Mexicans had spoken with fear of the land across the\n Rio Grande. All its great cities had been destroyed, and those that had\n been only partially destroyed were devoid of people. The land across\n the Rio Grande had become a land of shadows. The winds were poisoned,\n and the few people who might have survived, were crazed and maimed by\n the blasts. Few men had dared cross the Rio Grande into \"El Mundo gris\n de Noviembre\"\u2014the November world. Those who had, had never returned.\n\n\n In time he had traveled north until he reached the Rio Grande. He had\n waded into the muddy waters and somehow landed on the American side. In\n the November world.\n\n\n It was rightly called. The deserts were long. All plant life had died,\n leaving to those once great fertile stretches, nothing but the sad,\n temporal beauty that comes with death. No people had he seen. Only the\n ruins of what had once been their cities. He had walked through them,\n and all that he had seen were the small mutant rodents, and all that he\n had heard was the occasional swish of the wind as it whisked along what\n might have been dead leaves, but wasn't.\n\n\n He had been on the trail for a long time. His food was nearly\n exhausted. The mountains were just beginning, and he hoped to find food\n there. He had not found food, but his luck had been with him. He had\n found a horse. Not a normal horse, but a mutation. It was almost twice\n as large as a regular horse. Its skin seemed to shimmer and was like\n glassy steel to the touch. From the center of its forehead grew a horn,\n straight out, as the horn of a unicorn. But most startling of all were\n the animal's eyes which seemed to speak\u2014a silent mental speech, which\n he could understand. The horse had looked up as he approached it and\n seemed to say: \"Follow me.\"\n\n\n And he had followed. Over a mountain, until they came to a pass, and\n finally to a narrow path which led to an old cabin. He had found it\n empty, but there were cans of food and a rifle and many shells. He had\n remained there a long time\u2014how long he could not tell, for he could\n only measure time by the cycles of the sun and the moon. Finally he\n had taken the horse, the rifle and what food was left, and once again\n started the long journey home.\n\n\n The farther north he went, the more life seemed to have survived. He\n had seen great herds of horses like his own, stampeding across the\n plains, and strange birds which he could not identify. Yet he had seen\n no human beings.\n\n\n But he knew he was closer now. Closer to home. He recognized the land.\n How, he did not know, for it was much changed. A sensing, perhaps, of\n what it had once been. He could not be more than two days' ride away.\n Once he was through this desert, he would find her, he would be with\n her once again; all would be well, and his long journey would be over.\nThe images faded. Even memory slept in a flow of warm blood. Body and\n mind slept into the shadows of the dawn.\n\n\n He awoke and stretched the cramped muscles of his body. At the edge of\n the water he removed his clothes and stared at himself in the rippling\n mirror. His muscles were lean and hard, evenly placed throughout the\n length of his frame. A deep ridge ran down the length of his torso,\n separating the muscles, making the chest broad. Well satisfied with his\n body, he plunged into the cold water, deep down, until he thought his\n lungs would burst; then swiftly returned to the clean air, tingling in\n every pore. He dried himself and dressed. Conqueror was eating the long\n grass near the stream. Quickly he saddled him. No time for breakfast.\n He would ride all day and the next night. And he would be home.\n\n\n Still northward. The hours crawled slower than a dying man. The sun\n was a torch that pierced his skin, seeming to melt his bones into a\n burning stream within his body. But day at last gave way to night, and\n the sun to the moon. The torch became a white pock-marked goddess, with\n streaming hair called stars.\n\n\n In the moonlight he had not seen the crater until he was at its\n very edge. Even then he might not have seen it had not the horse\n stopped suddenly. The wind swirled through its vast emptiness,\n slapping his face with dusty hands. For a moment he thought he heard\n voices\u2014mournful, murmuring voices, echoing up from the misty depths.\n He turned quickly away and did not look back.\n\n\n Night paled into day; day burned into night.\n\n\n There were clouds in the sky now, and a gentle wind caressed the sweat\n from his tired body. He stopped. There it was! Barely discernible\n through the moonlight, he saw it. Home.\n\n\n Quickly he dismounted and ran. Now he could see a small light in the\n window, and he knew they were there. His breath came in hard ragged\n gulps. At the window he peered in, and as his eyes became accustomed\n to the inner gloom, he saw how bare the room was. No matter. Now that\n he was home he would build new furniture, and the house would be even\n better than it had been before.\n\n\n Then he saw her.\n\n\n She was sitting motionless in a straight wooden chair beside the\n fireplace, the feeble light cast by the embers veiling her in mauve\n shadows. He waited, wondering if she were.... Presently she stirred\n like a restless child in sleep, then moved from the chair to the pile\n of wood near the hearth, and replenished the fire. The wood caught\n quickly, sending up long tongues of flame, and forming a bright pool of\n light around her.\n\n\n His blood froze. The creature illuminated by the firelight was a\n monster. Large greasy scales covered its face and arms, and there was\n no hair on its head. Its gums were toothless cavities in a sunken,\n mumbling mouth. The eyes, turned momentarily toward the window, were\n empty of life.\n\n\n \"No, no!\" he cried soundlessly.\n\n\n This was not his house. In his delirium he had only imagined he had\n found it. He had been searching so long. He would go on searching.\n He was turning wearily away from the window when the movement of the\n creature beside the fire held his attention. It had taken a ring from\n one skeleton-like finger and stood, turning the ring slowly as if\n trying to decipher some inscription inside it.\n\n\n He knew then. He had come home.\n\n\n Slowly he moved toward the door. A great weakness was upon him. His\n feet were stones, reluctant to leave the earth. His body was a weed,\n shriveled by thirst. He grasped the doorknob and clung to it, looking\n up at the night sky and trying to draw strength from the wind that\n passed over him. It was no use. There was no strength. Only fear\u2014a\n kind of fear he had never known.\n\n\n He fumbled at his throat, his fingers crawling like cold worms around\n his neck until he found the locket and the clasp which had held it\n safely through endless nightmare days and nights. He slipped the clasp\n and the locket fell into his waiting hand. As one in a dream, he opened\n it, and stared at the pictures, now in the dim moonlight no longer\n faces of those he loved, but grey ghosts from the past. Even the ruby\n had lost its glow. What had once been living fire was now a dull glob\n of darkness.\n\n\n \"Nothing is forever!\" He thought he had shouted the words, but only a\n thin sound, the sound of leaves ruffled by the wind, came back to him.\n\n\n He closed the locket and fastened the clasp, and hung it on the\n doorknob. It moved slowly in the wind, back and forth, like a pendulum.\n \"Forever\u2014forever. Only death is forever.\" He could have sworn he heard\n the words.\n\n\n He ran. Away from the house. To the large horse with a horn in the\n center of its forehead, like a unicorn. Once in the saddle, the spurt\n of strength left him. His shoulders slumped, his head dropped onto his\n chest.\n\n\n Conqueror trotted away, the sound of his hooves echoing hollowly in the\n vast emptiness.",
    "61213": "THE 64-SQUARE MADHOUSE\nby FRITZ LEIBER\nThe machine was not perfect. It\n\n could be tricked. It could make\n\n mistakes. And\u2014it could learn!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, May 1962.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nSilently, so as not to shock anyone with illusions about well dressed\n young women, Sandra Lea Grayling cursed the day she had persuaded the\nChicago Space Mirror\nthat there would be all sorts of human interest\n stories to be picked up at the first international grandmaster chess\n tournament in which an electronic computing machine was entered.\n\n\n Not that there weren't enough humans around, it was the interest that\n was in doubt. The large hall was crammed with energetic dark-suited\n men of whom a disproportionately large number were bald, wore glasses,\n were faintly untidy and indefinably shabby, had Slavic or Scandinavian\n features, and talked foreign languages.\n\n\n They yakked interminably. The only ones who didn't were scurrying\n individuals with the eager-zombie look of officials.\n\n\n Chess sets were everywhere\u2014big ones on tables, still bigger\n diagram-type electric ones on walls, small peg-in sets dragged from\n side pockets and manipulated rapidly as part of the conversational\n ritual and still smaller folding sets in which the pieces were the tiny\n magnetized disks used for playing in free-fall.\n\n\n There were signs featuring largely mysterious combinations of letters:\n FIDE, WBM, USCF, USSF, USSR and UNESCO. Sandra felt fairly sure about\n the last three.\n\n\n The many clocks, bedside table size, would have struck a familiar\n note except that they had little red flags and wheels sprinkled over\n their faces and they were all in pairs, two clocks to a case. That\n Siamese-twin clocks should be essential to a chess tournament struck\n Sandra as a particularly maddening circumstance.\nHer last assignment had been to interview the pilot pair riding the\n first American manned circum-lunar satellite\u2014and the five alternate\n pairs who hadn't made the flight. This tournament hall seemed to Sandra\n much further out of the world.\n\n\n Overheard scraps of conversation in reasonably intelligible English\n were not particularly helpful. Samples:\n\n\n \"They say the Machine has been programmed to play nothing but pure\n Barcza System and Indian Defenses\u2014and the Dragon Formation if anyone\n pushes the King Pawn.\"\n\n\n \"Hah! In that case....\"\n\n\n \"The Russians have come with ten trunkfuls of prepared variations and\n they'll gang up on the Machine at adjournments. What can one New Jersey\n computer do against four Russian grandmasters?\"\n\n\n \"I heard the Russians have been programmed\u2014with hypnotic cramming and\n somno-briefing. Votbinnik had a nervous breakdown.\"\n\n\n \"Why, the Machine hasn't even a\nHaupturnier\nor an intercollegiate\n won. It'll over its head be playing.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, but maybe like Capa at San Sebastian or Morphy or Willie Angler\n at New York. The Russians will look like potzers.\"\n\n\n \"Have you studied the scores of the match between Moon Base and\n Circum-Terra?\"\n\n\n \"Not worth the trouble. The play was feeble. Barely Expert Rating.\"\n\n\n Sandra's chief difficulty was that she knew absolutely nothing about\n the game of chess\u2014a point that she had slid over in conferring with\n the powers at the\nSpace Mirror\n, but that now had begun to weigh on\n her. How wonderful it would be, she dreamed, to walk out this minute,\n find a quiet bar and get pie-eyed in an evil, ladylike way.\n\"Perhaps mademoiselle would welcome a drink?\"\n\n\n \"You're durn tootin' she would!\" Sandra replied in a rush, and then\n looked down apprehensively at the person who had read her thoughts.\n\n\n It was a small sprightly elderly man who looked like a somewhat\n thinned down Peter Lorre\u2014there was that same impression of the happy\n Slavic elf. What was left of his white hair was cut very short,\n making a silvery nap. His pince-nez had quite thick lenses. But in\n sharp contrast to the somberly clad men around them, he was wearing\n a pearl-gray suit of almost exactly the same shade as Sandra's\u2014a\n circumstance that created for her the illusion that they were fellow\n conspirators.\n\n\n \"Hey, wait a minute,\" she protested just the same. He had already taken\n her arm and was piloting her toward the nearest flight of low wide\n stairs. \"How did you know I wanted a drink?\"\n\n\n \"I could see that mademoiselle was having difficulty swallowing,\" he\n replied, keeping them moving. \"Pardon me for feasting my eyes on your\n lovely throat.\"\n\n\n \"I didn't suppose they'd serve drinks here.\"\n\n\n \"But of course.\" They were already mounting the stairs. \"What would\n chess be without coffee or schnapps?\"\n\n\n \"Okay, lead on,\" Sandra said. \"You're the doctor.\"\n\n\n \"Doctor?\" He smiled widely. \"You know, I like being called that.\"\n\n\n \"Then the name is yours as long as you want it\u2014Doc.\"\nMeanwhile the happy little man had edged them into the first of a small\n cluster of tables, where a dark-suited jabbering trio was just rising.\n He snapped his fingers and hissed through his teeth. A white-aproned\n waiter materialized.\n\n\n \"For myself black coffee,\" he said. \"For mademoiselle rhine wine and\n seltzer?\"\n\n\n \"That'd go fine.\" Sandra leaned back. \"Confidentially, Doc, I was\n having trouble swallowing ... well, just about everything here.\"\n\n\n He nodded. \"You are not the first to be shocked and horrified by\n chess,\" he assured her. \"It is a curse of the intellect. It is a game\n for lunatics\u2014or else it creates them. But what brings a sane and\n beautiful young lady to this 64-square madhouse?\"\n\n\n Sandra briefly told him her story and her predicament. By the time they\n were served, Doc had absorbed the one and assessed the other.\n\n\n \"You have one great advantage,\" he told her. \"You know nothing\n whatsoever of chess\u2014so you will be able to write about it\n understandably for your readers.\" He swallowed half his demitasse and\n smacked his lips. \"As for the Machine\u2014you\ndo\nknow, I suppose, that\n it is not a humanoid metal robot, walking about clanking and squeaking\n like a late medieval knight in armor?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, Doc, but....\" Sandra found difficulty in phrasing the question.\n\n\n \"Wait.\" He lifted a finger. \"I think I know what you're going to ask.\n You want to know why, if the Machine works at all, it doesn't work\n perfectly, so that it always wins and there is no contest. Right?\"\n\n\n Sandra grinned and nodded. Doc's ability to interpret her mind was as\n comforting as the bubbly, mildly astringent mixture she was sipping.\n\n\n He removed his pince-nez, massaged the bridge of his nose and replaced\n them.\n\n\n \"If you had,\" he said, \"a billion computers all as fast as the Machine,\n it would take them all the time there ever will be in the universe just\n to play through all the possible games of chess, not to mention the\n time needed to classify those games into branching families of wins for\n White, wins for Black and draws, and the additional time required to\n trace out chains of key-moves leading always to wins. So the Machine\n can't play chess like God. What the Machine can do is examine all the\n likely lines of play for about eight moves ahead\u2014that is, four moves\n each for White and Black\u2014and then decide which is the best move on the\n basis of capturing enemy pieces, working toward checkmate, establishing\n a powerful central position and so on.\"\n\"That sounds like the way a man would play a game,\" Sandra observed.\n \"Look ahead a little way and try to make a plan. You know, like getting\n out trumps in bridge or setting up a finesse.\"\n\n\n \"Exactly!\" Doc beamed at her approvingly. \"The Machine\nis\nlike a\n man. A rather peculiar and not exactly pleasant man. A man who always\n abides by sound principles, who is utterly incapable of flights of\n genius, but who never makes a mistake. You see, you are finding human\n interest already, even in the Machine.\"\n\n\n Sandra nodded. \"Does a human chess player\u2014a grandmaster, I mean\u2014ever\n look eight moves ahead in a game?\"\n\n\n \"Most assuredly he does! In crucial situations, say where there's a\n chance of winning at once by trapping the enemy king, he examines\n many more moves ahead than that\u2014thirty or forty even. The Machine\n is probably programmed to recognize such situations and do something\n of the same sort, though we can't be sure from the information World\n Business Machines has released. But in most chess positions the\n possibilities are so very nearly unlimited that even a grandmaster can\n only look a very few moves ahead and must rely on his judgment and\n experience and artistry. The equivalent of those in the Machine is the\n directions fed into it before it plays a game.\"\n\n\n \"You mean the programming?\"\n\n\n \"Indeed yes! The programming is the crux of the problem of the\n chess-playing computer. The first practical model, reported by\n Bernstein and Roberts of IBM in 1958 and which looked four moves\n ahead, was programmed so that it had a greedy worried tendency to grab\n at enemy pieces and to retreat its own whenever they were attacked. It\n had a personality like that of a certain kind of chess-playing dub\u2014a\n dull-brained woodpusher afraid to take the slightest risk of losing\n material\u2014but a dub who could almost always beat an utter novice.\n The WBM machine here in the hall operates about a million times as\n fast. Don't ask me how, I'm no physicist, but it depends on the new\n transistors and something they call hypervelocity, which in turn\n depends on keeping parts of the Machine at a temperature near absolute\n zero. However, the result is that the Machine can see eight moves ahead\n and is capable of being programmed much more craftily.\"\n\n\n \"A million times as fast as the first machine, you say, Doc? And yet it\n only sees twice as many moves ahead?\" Sandra objected.\n\n\n \"There is a geometrical progression involved there,\" he told her\n with a smile. \"Believe me, eight moves ahead is a lot of moves when\n you remember that the Machine is errorlessly examining every one of\n thousands of variations. Flesh-and-blood chess masters have lost games\n by blunders they could have avoided by looking only one or two moves\n ahead. The Machine will make no such oversights. Once again, you see,\n you have the human factor, in this case working for the Machine.\"\n\n\n \"Savilly, I have been looking allplace for you!\"\n\n\n A stocky, bull-faced man with a great bristling shock of black,\n gray-flecked hair had halted abruptly by their table. He bent over Doc\n and began to whisper explosively in a guttural foreign tongue.\nSandra's gaze traveled beyond the balustrade. Now that she could look\n down at it, the central hall seemed less confusedly crowded. In the\n middle, toward the far end, were five small tables spaced rather widely\n apart and with a chessboard and men and one of the Siamese clocks set\n out on each. To either side of the hall were tiers of temporary seats,\n about half of them occupied. There were at least as many more people\n still wandering about.\n\n\n On the far wall was a big electric scoreboard and also, above the\n corresponding tables, five large dully glassy chessboards, the White\n squares in light gray, the Black squares in dark.\n\n\n One of the five wall chessboards was considerably larger than the other\n four\u2014the one above the Machine.\n\n\n Sandra looked with quickening interest at the console of the Machine\u2014a\n bank of keys and some half-dozen panels of rows and rows of tiny\n telltale lights, all dark at the moment. A thick red velvet cord on\n little brass standards ran around the Machine at a distance of about\n ten feet. Inside the cord were only a few gray-smocked men. Two of\n them had just laid a black cable to the nearest chess table and were\n attaching it to the Siamese clock.\n\n\n Sandra tried to think of a being who always checked everything, but\n only within limits beyond which his thoughts never ventured, and who\n never made a mistake....\n\n\n \"Miss Grayling! May I present to you Igor Jandorf.\"\n\n\n She turned back quickly with a smile and a nod.\n\n\n \"I should tell you, Igor,\" Doc continued, \"that Miss Grayling\n represents a large and influential Midwestern newspaper. Perhaps you\n have a message for her readers.\"\n\n\n The shock-headed man's eyes flashed. \"I most certainly do!\" At that\n moment the waiter arrived with a second coffee and wine-and-seltzer.\n Jandorf seized Doc's new demitasse, drained it, set it back on the tray\n with a flourish and drew himself up.\n\"Tell your readers, Miss Grayling,\" he proclaimed, fiercely arching his\n eyebrows at her and actually slapping his chest, \"that I, Igor Jandorf,\n will defeat the Machine by the living force of my human personality!\n Already I have offered to play it an informal game blindfold\u2014I, who\n have played 50 blindfold games simultaneously! Its owners refuse me. I\n have challenged it also to a few games of rapid-transit\u2014an offer no\n true grandmaster would dare ignore. Again they refuse me. I predict\n that the Machine will play like a great oaf\u2014at least against\nme\n.\n Repeat: I, Igor Jandorf, by the living force of my human personality,\n will defeat the Machine. Do you have that? You can remember it?\"\n\n\n \"Oh yes,\" Sandra assured him, \"but there are some other questions I\n very much want to ask you, Mr. Jandorf.\"\n\n\n \"I am sorry, Miss Grayling, but I must clear my mind now. In ten\n minutes they start the clocks.\"\n\n\n While Sandra arranged for an interview with Jandorf after the day's\n playing session, Doc reordered his coffee.\n\n\n \"One expects it of Jandorf,\" he explained to Sandra with a philosophic\n shrug when the shock-headed man was gone. \"At least he didn't take your\n wine-and-seltzer. Or did he? One tip I have for you: don't call a chess\n master Mister, call him Master. They all eat it up.\"\n\n\n \"Gee, Doc, I don't know how to thank you for everything. I hope I\n haven't offended Mis\u2014Master Jandorf so that he doesn't\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't worry about that. Wild horses couldn't keep Jandorf away from a\n press interview. You know, his rapid-transit challenge was cunning.\n That's a minor variety of chess where each player gets only ten seconds\n to make a move. Which I don't suppose would give the Machine time to\n look three moves ahead. Chess players would say that the Machine has a\n very slow sight of the board. This tournament is being played at the\n usual international rate of 15 moves an hour, and\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Is that why they've got all those crazy clocks?\" Sandra interrupted.\n\n\n \"Oh, yes. Chess clocks measure the time each player takes in making his\n moves. When a player makes a move he presses a button that shuts his\n clock off and turns his opponent's on. If a player uses too much time,\n he loses as surely as if he were checkmated. Now since the Machine\n will almost certainly be programmed to take an equal amount of time\n on successive moves, a rate of 15 moves an hour means it will have 4\n minutes a move\u2014and it will need every second of them! Incidentally\n it was typical Jandorf bravado to make a point of a blindfold\n challenge\u2014just as if the Machine weren't playing blindfold itself. Or\nis\nthe Machine blindfold? How do you think of it?\"\n\n\n \"Gosh, I don't know. Say, Doc, is it really true that Master Jandorf\n has played 50 games at once blindfolded? I can't believe that.\"\n\"Of course not!\" Doc assured her. \"It was only 49 and he lost two of\n those and drew five. Jandorf always exaggerates. It's in his blood.\"\n\n\n \"He's one of the Russians, isn't he?\" Sandra asked. \"Igor?\"\n\n\n Doc chuckled. \"Not exactly,\" he said gently. \"He is originally a Pole\n and now he has Argentinian citizenship. You have a program, don't you?\"\n\n\n Sandra started to hunt through her pocketbook, but just then two lists\n of names lit up on the big electric scoreboard.\nTHE PLAYERS\nWilliam Angler, USA\n\n Bela Grabo, Hungary\n\n Ivan Jal, USSR\n\n Igor Jandorf, Argentina\n\n Dr. S. Krakatower, France\n\n Vassily Lysmov, USSR\n\n The Machine, USA (programmed by Simon Great)\n\n Maxim Serek, USSR\n\n Moses Sherevsky, USA\n\n Mikhail Votbinnik, USSR\nTournament Director\n: Dr. Jan Vanderhoef\nFIRST ROUND PAIRINGS\nSherevsky vs. Serek\n\n Jal vs. Angler\n\n Jandorf vs. Votbinnik\n\n Lysmov vs. Krakatower\n\n Grabo vs. Machine\n\n\n \"Cripes, Doc, they all sound like they were Russians,\" Sandra said\n after a bit. \"Except this Willie Angler. Oh, he's the boy wonder,\n isn't he?\"\n\n\n Doc nodded. \"Not such a boy any longer, though. He's.... Well, speak of\n the Devil's children.... Miss Grayling, I have the honor of presenting\n to you the only grandmaster ever to have been ex-chess-champion of the\n United States while still technically a minor\u2014Master William Augustus\n Angler.\"\n\n\n A tall, sharply-dressed young man with a hatchet face pressed the old\n man back into his chair.\n\n\n \"How are you, Savvy, old boy old boy?\" he demanded. \"Still chasing the\n girls, I see.\"\n\n\n \"Please, Willie, get off me.\"\n\n\n \"Can't take it, huh?\" Angler straightened up somewhat. \"Hey waiter!\n Where's that chocolate malt? I don't want it\nnext\nyear. About that\nex-\n, though. I was swindled, Savvy. I was robbed.\"\n\n\n \"Willie!\" Doc said with some asperity. \"Miss Grayling is a journalist.\n She would like to have a statement from you as to how you will play\n against the Machine.\"\nAngler grinned and shook his head sadly. \"Poor old Machine,\" he said.\n \"I don't know why they take so much trouble polishing up that pile of\n tin just so that I can give it a hit in the head. I got a hatful of\n moves it'll burn out all its tubes trying to answer. And if it gets too\n fresh, how about you and me giving its low-temperature section the\n hotfoot, Savvy? The money WBM's putting up is okay, though. That first\n prize will just fit the big hole in my bank account.\"\n\n\n \"I know you haven't the time now, Master Angler,\" Sandra said rapidly,\n \"but if after the playing session you could grant me\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Sorry, babe,\" Angler broke in with a wave of dismissal. \"I'm dated up\n for two months in advance. Waiter! I'm here, not there!\" And he went\n charging off.\n\n\n Doc and Sandra looked at each other and smiled.\n\n\n \"Chess masters aren't exactly humble people, are they?\" she said.\n\n\n Doc's smile became tinged with sad understanding. \"You must excuse\n them, though,\" he said. \"They really get so little recognition or\n recompense. This tournament is an exception. And it takes a great deal\n of ego to play greatly.\"\n\n\n \"I suppose so. So World Business Machines is responsible for this\n tournament?\"\n\n\n \"Correct. Their advertising department is interested in the prestige.\n They want to score a point over their great rival.\"\n\n\n \"But if the Machine plays badly it will be a black eye for them,\"\n Sandra pointed out.\n\n\n \"True,\" Doc agreed thoughtfully. \"WBM must feel very sure.... It's\n the prize money they've put up, of course, that's brought the world's\n greatest players here. Otherwise half of them would be holding off\n in the best temperamental-artist style. For chess players the prize\n money is fabulous\u2014$35,000, with $15,000 for first place, and all\n expenses paid for all players. There's never been anything like it.\n Soviet Russia is the only country that has ever supported and rewarded\n her best chess players at all adequately. I think the Russian players\n are here because UNESCO and FIDE (that's\nFederation Internationale\n des Echecs\n\u2014the international chess organization) are also backing\n the tournament. And perhaps because the Kremlin is hungry for a little\n prestige now that its space program is sagging.\"\n\n\n \"But if a Russian doesn't take first place it will be a black eye for\n them.\"\n\n\n Doc frowned. \"True, in a sense.\nThey\nmust feel very sure.... Here\n they are now.\"\nFour men were crossing the center of the hall, which was clearing,\n toward the tables at the other end. Doubtless they just happened to be\n going two by two in close formation, but it gave Sandra the feeling of\n a phalanx.\n\n\n \"The first two are Lysmov and Votbinnik,\" Doc told her. \"It isn't often\n that you see the current champion of the world\u2014Votbinnik\u2014and an\n ex-champion arm in arm. There are two other persons in the tournament\n who have held that honor\u2014Jal and Vanderhoef the director, way back.\"\n\n\n \"Will whoever wins this tournament become champion?\"\n\n\n \"Oh no. That's decided by two-player matches\u2014a very long\n business\u2014after elimination tournaments between leading contenders.\n This tournament is a round robin: each player plays one game with every\n other player. That means nine rounds.\"\n\n\n \"Anyway there\nare\nan awful lot of Russians in the tournament,\"\n Sandra said, consulting her program. \"Four out of ten have USSR after\n them. And Bela Grabo, Hungary\u2014that's a satellite. And Sherevsky and\n Krakatower are Russian-sounding names.\"\n\n\n \"The proportion of Soviet to American entries in the tournament\n represents pretty fairly the general difference in playing strength\n between the two countries,\" Doc said judiciously. \"Chess mastery\n moves from land to land with the years. Way back it was the Moslems\n and the Hindus and Persians. Then Italy and Spain. A little over a\n hundred years ago it was France and England. Then Germany, Austria\n and the New World. Now it's Russia\u2014including of course the Russians\n who have run away from Russia. But don't think there aren't a lot of\n good Anglo-Saxon types who are masters of the first water. In fact,\n there are a lot of them here around us, though perhaps you don't\n think so. It's just that if you play a lot of chess you get to looking\n Russian. Once it probably made you look Italian. Do you see that short\n bald-headed man?\"\n\n\n \"You mean the one facing the Machine and talking to Jandorf?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. Now that's one with a lot of human interest. Moses Sherevsky.\n Been champion of the United States many times. A very strict Orthodox\n Jew. Can't play chess on Fridays or on Saturdays before sundown.\" He\n chuckled. \"Why, there's even a story going around that one rabbi told\n Sherevsky it would be unlawful for him to play against the Machine\n because it is technically a\ngolem\n\u2014the clay Frankenstein's monster of\n Hebrew legend.\"\n\n\n Sandra asked, \"What about Grabo and Krakatower?\"\nDoc gave a short scornful laugh. \"Krakatower! Don't pay any attention\n to\nhim\n. A senile has-been, it's a scandal he's been allowed to play\n in this tournament! He must have pulled all sorts of strings. Told them\n that his lifelong services to chess had won him the honor and that they\n had to have a member of the so-called Old Guard. Maybe he even got down\n on his knees and cried\u2014and all the time his eyes on that expense money\n and the last-place consolation prize! Yet dreaming schizophrenically\n of beating them all! Please, don't get me started on Dirty Old\n Krakatower.\"\n\n\n \"Take it easy, Doc. He sounds like he would make an interesting\n article? Can you point him out to me?\"\n\n\n \"You can tell him by his long white beard with coffee stains. I don't\n see it anywhere, though. Perhaps he's shaved it off for the occasion.\n It would be like that antique womanizer to develop senile delusions of\n youthfulness.\"\n\n\n \"And Grabo?\" Sandra pressed, suppressing a smile at the intensity of\n Doc's animosity.\n\n\n Doc's eyes grew thoughtful. \"About Bela Grabo (why are three out of\n four Hungarians named Bela?) I will tell you only this: That he is a\n very brilliant player and that the Machine is very lucky to have drawn\n him as its first opponent.\"\n\n\n He would not amplify his statement. Sandra studied the Scoreboard again.\n\n\n \"This Simon Great who's down as programming the Machine. He's a famous\n physicist, I suppose?\"\n\n\n \"By no means. That was the trouble with some of the early chess-playing\n machines\u2014they were programmed by scientists. No, Simon Great is a\n psychologist who at one time was a leading contender for the world's\n chess championship. I think WBM was surprisingly shrewd to pick him\n for the programming job. Let me tell you\u2014No, better yet\u2014\"\n\n\n Doc shot to his feet, stretched an arm on high and called out sharply,\n \"Simon!\"\n\n\n A man some four tables away waved back and a moment later came over.\n\n\n \"What is it, Savilly?\" he asked. \"There's hardly any time, you know.\"\nThe newcomer was of middle height, compact of figure and feature, with\n graying hair cut short and combed sharply back.\n\n\n Doc spoke his piece for Sandra.\n\n\n Simon Great smiled thinly. \"Sorry,\" he said, \"But I am making no\n predictions and we are giving out no advance information on the\n programming of the Machine. As you know, I have had to fight the\n Players' Committee tooth and nail on all sorts of points about that\n and they have won most of them. I am not permitted to re-program the\n Machine at adjournments\u2014only between games (I did insist on that and\n get it!) And if the Machine breaks down during a game, its clock keeps\n running on it. My men are permitted to make repairs\u2014if they can work\n fast enough.\"\n\n\n \"That makes it very tough on you,\" Sandra put in. \"The Machine isn't\n allowed any weaknesses.\"\n\n\n Great nodded soberly. \"And now I must go. They've almost finished the\n count-down, as one of my technicians keeps on calling it. Very pleased\n to have met you, Miss Grayling\u2014I'll check with our PR man on that\n interview. Be seeing you, Savvy.\"\n\n\n The tiers of seats were filled now and the central space almost clear.\n Officials were shooing off a few knots of lingerers. Several of the\n grandmasters, including all four Russians, were seated at their tables.\n Press and company cameras were flashing. The four smaller wallboards\n lit up with the pieces in the opening position\u2014white for White and red\n for Black. Simon Great stepped over the red velvet cord and more flash\n bulbs went off.\n\n\n \"You know, Doc,\" Sandra said, \"I'm a dog to suggest this, but what\n if this whole thing were a big fake? What if Simon Great were really\n playing the Machine's moves? There would surely be some way for his\n electricians to rig\u2014\"\n\n\n Doc laughed happily\u2014and so loudly that some people at the adjoining\n tables frowned.\n\n\n \"Miss Grayling, that is a wonderful idea! I will probably steal it for\n a short story. I still manage to write and place a few in England.\n No, I do not think that is at all likely. WBM would never risk such\n a fraud. Great is completely out of practice for actual tournament\n play, though not for chess-thinking. The difference in style between\n a computer and a man would be evident to any expert. Great's own style\n is remembered and would be recognized\u2014though, come to think of it, his\n style was often described as being machinelike....\" For a moment Doc's\n eyes became thoughtful. Then he smiled again. \"But no, the idea is\n impossible. Vanderhoef as Tournament Director has played two or three\n games with the Machine to assure himself that it operates legitimately\n and has grandmaster skill.\"\n\n\n \"Did the Machine beat him?\" Sandra asked.\nDoc shrugged. \"The scores weren't released. It was very hush-hush.\n But about your idea, Miss Grayling\u2014did you ever read about Maelzel's\n famous chess-playing automaton of the 19th Century? That one too was\n supposed to work by machinery (cogs and gears, not electricity) but\n actually it had a man hidden inside it\u2014your Edgar Poe exposed the\n fraud in a famous article. In\nmy\nstory I think the chess robot will\n break down while it is being demonstrated to a millionaire purchaser\n and the young inventor will have to win its game for it to cover up\n and swing the deal. Only the millionaire's daughter, who is really a\n better player than either of them ... yes, yes! Your Ambrose Bierce\n too wrote a story about a chess-playing robot of the clickety-clank-grr\n kind who murdered his creator, crushing him like an iron grizzly bear\n when the man won a game from him. Tell me, Miss Grayling, do you find\n yourself imagining this Machine putting out angry tendrils to strangle\n its opponents, or beaming rays of death and hypnotism at them? I can\n imagine....\"\n\n\n While Doc chattered happily on about chess-playing robots and chess\n stories, Sandra found herself thinking about him. A writer of some sort\n evidently and a terrific chess buff. Perhaps he was an actual medical\n doctor. She'd read something about two or three coming over with the\n Russian squad. But Doc certainly didn't sound like a Soviet citizen.\n\n\n He was older than she'd first assumed. She could see that now that\n she was listening to him less and looking at him more. Tired, too.\n Only his dark-circled eyes shone with unquenchable youth. A useful old\n guy, whoever he was. An hour ago she'd been sure she was going to muff\n this assignment completely and now she had it laid out cold. For the\n umpteenth time in her career Sandra shied away from the guilty thought\n that she wasn't a writer at all or even a reporter, she just used\n dime-a-dozen female attractiveness to rope a susceptible man (young,\n old, American, Russian) and pick his brain....\n\n\n She realized suddenly that the whole hall had become very quiet.\n\n\n Doc was the only person still talking and people were again looking at\n them disapprovingly. All five wallboards were lit up and the changed\n position of a few pieces showed that opening moves had been made on\n four of them, including the Machine's. The central space between\n the tiers of seats was completely clear now, except for one man\n hurrying across it in their direction with the rapid yet quiet, almost\n tip-toe walk that seemed to mark all the officials.\nLike morticians'\n assistants\n, she thought. He rapidly mounted the stairs and halted at\n the top to look around searchingly. His gaze lighted on their table,\n his eyebrows went up, and he made a beeline for Doc. Sandra wondered if\n she should warn him that he was about to be shushed.\n\n\n The official laid a hand on Doc's shoulder. \"Sir!\" he said agitatedly.\n \"Do you realize that they've started your clock, Dr. Krakatower?\"",
    "61380": "THE FIVE HELLS OF ORION\nBY FREDERICK POHL\nOut in the great gas cloud of the Orion\n\n Nebula McCray found an ally\u2014and a foe!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1963.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nHis name was Herrell McCray and he was scared.\n\n\n As best he could tell, he was in a sort of room no bigger than a prison\n cell. Perhaps it was a prison cell. Whatever it was, he had no business\n in it; for five minutes before he had been spaceborne, on the Long Jump\n from Earth to the thriving colonies circling Betelgeuse Nine. McCray\n was ship's navigator, plotting course corrections\u2014not that there were\n any, ever; but the reason there were none was that the check-sightings\n were made every hour of the long flight. He had read off the azimuth\n angles from the computer sights, automatically locked on their beacon\n stars, and found them correct; then out of long habit confirmed the\n locking mechanism visually. It was only a personal quaintness; he had\n done it a thousand times. And while he was looking at Betelgeuse, Rigel\n and Saiph ... it happened.\n\n\n The room was totally dark, and it seemed to be furnished with a\n collection of hard, sharp, sticky and knobby objects of various shapes\n and a number of inconvenient sizes. McCray tripped over something\n that rocked under his feet and fell against something that clattered\n hollowly. He picked himself up, braced against something that smelled\n dangerously of halogen compounds, and scratched his shoulder, right\n through his space-tunic, against something that vibrated as he touched\n it.\n\n\n McCray had no idea where he was, and no way to find out.\n\n\n Not only was he in darkness, but in utter silence as well. No. Not\n quite utter silence.\n\n\n Somewhere, just at the threshold of his senses, there was something\n like a voice. He could not quite hear it, but it was there. He sat as\n still as he could, listening; it remained elusive.\n\n\n Probably it was only an illusion.\n\n\n But the room itself was hard fact. McCray swore violently and out loud.\n\n\n It was crazy and impossible. There simply was no way for him to get\n from a warm, bright navigator's cubicle on\nStarship Jodrell Bank\nto\n this damned, dark, dismal hole of a place where everything was out to\n hurt him and nothing explained what was going on. He cried aloud in\n exasperation: \"If I could only\nsee\n!\"\n\n\n He tripped and fell against something that was soft, slimy and, like\n baker's dough, not at all resilient.\n\n\n A flickering halo of pinkish light appeared. He sat up, startled. He\n was looking at something that resembled a suit of medieval armor.\nIt was, he saw in a moment, not armor but a spacesuit. But what was the\n light? And what were these other things in the room?\n\n\n Wherever he looked, the light danced along with his eyes. It was like\n having tunnel vision or wearing blinders. He could see what he was\n looking at, but he could see nothing else. And the things he could\n see made no sense. A spacesuit, yes; he knew that he could construct\n a logical explanation for that with no trouble\u2014maybe a subspace\n meteorite striking the\nJodrell Bank\n, an explosion, himself knocked\n out, brought here in a suit ... well, it was an explanation with more\n holes than fabric, like a fisherman's net, but at least it was rational.\n\n\n How to explain a set of Gibbon's\nDecline and Fall of the Roman\n Empire?\nA space-ax? Or the old-fashioned child's rocking-chair, the\n chemistry set\u2014or, most of all, the scrap of gaily printed fabric\n that, when he picked it up, turned out to be a girl's scanty bathing\n suit? It was slightly reassuring, McCray thought, to find that most of\n the objects were more or less familiar. Even the child's chair\u2014why,\n he'd had one more or less like that himself, long before he was old\n enough to go to school. But what were they doing here?\n\n\n Not everything he saw was familiar. The walls of the room itself were\n strange. They were not metal or plaster or knotty pine; they were\n not papered, painted or overlaid with stucco. They seemed to be made\n of some sort of hard organic compound, perhaps a sort of plastic or\n processed cellulose. It was hard to tell colors in the pinkish light.\n But they seemed to have none. They were \"neutral\"\u2014the color of aged\n driftwood or unbleached cloth.\n\n\n Three of the walls were that way, and the floor and ceiling. The fourth\n wall was something else. Areas in it had the appearance of gratings;\n from them issued the pungent, distasteful halogen odor. They might be\n ventilators, he thought; but if so the air they brought in was worse\n than what he already had.\n\n\n McCray was beginning to feel more confident. It was astonishing how a\n little light made an impossible situation bearable, how quickly his\n courage flowed back when he could see again.\n\n\n He stood still, thinking. Item, a short time ago\u2014subjectively it\n seemed to be minutes\u2014he had been aboard the\nJodrell Bank\nwith\n nothing more on his mind than completing his check-sighting and meeting\n one of the female passengers for coffee. Item, apart from being\n shaken up and\u2014he admitted it\u2014scared damn near witless, he did not\n seem to be hurt. Item, wherever he was now, it became, not so much what\n had happened to him, but what had happened to the ship?\n\n\n He allowed that thought to seep into his mind. Suppose there had been\n an accident to the\nJodrell Bank\n.\n\n\n He could, of course, be dead. All this could be the fantasies of a\n cooling brain.\n\n\n McCray grinned into the pink-lit darkness. The thought had somehow\n refreshed him, like icewater between rounds, and with a clearing head\n he remembered what a spacesuit was good for.\n\n\n It held a radio.\n\n\n He pressed the unsealing tabs, slipped his hand into the vacant chest\n of the suit and pulled out the hand mike. \"This is Herrell McCray,\" he\n said, \"calling the\nJodrell Bank\n.\"\n\n\n No response. He frowned. \"This is Herrell McCray, calling\nJodrell\n Bank\n.\n\n\n \"Herrell McCray, calling anybody, come in, please.\"\n\n\n But there was no answer.\n\n\n Thoughtfully he replaced the microphone. This was ultrawave radio,\n something more than a million times faster than light, with a range\n measured, at least, in hundreds of light-years. If there was no answer,\n he was a good long way from anywhere.\n\n\n Of course, the thing might not be operating.\n\n\n He reached for the microphone again\u2014\n\n\n He cried aloud.\n\n\n The pinkish lights went out. He was in the dark again, worse dark than\n before.\n\n\n For before the light had gone, McCray had seen what had escaped\n his eyes before. The suit and the microphone were clear enough in\n the pinkish glimmer; but the hand\u2014his own hand, cupped to hold the\n microphone\u2014he had not seen at all. Nor his arm. Nor, in one fleeting\n moment of study, his chest.\n\n\n McCray could not see any part of his own body at all.\nII\n\n\n Someone else could.\n\n\n Someone was watching Herrell McCray, with the clinical fascination\n of a biochemist observing the wigglings of paramecia in a new\n antibiotic\u2014and with the prayerful emotions of a starving, shipwrecked,\n sailor, watching the inward bobbing drift of a wave-born cask that\nmay\ncontain food.\n\n\n Suppose you call him \"Hatcher\" (and suppose you call it a \"him.\")\n Hatcher was not exactly male, because his race had no true males; but\n it did have females and he was certainly not that. Hatcher did not in\n any way look like a human being, but they had features in common.\n\n\n If Hatcher and McCray had somehow managed to strike up an acquaintance,\n they might have got along very well. Hatcher, like McCray, was an\n adventurous soul, young, able, well-learned in the technical sciences\n of his culture. Both enjoyed games\u2014McCray baseball, poker and\n three-dimensional chess; Hatcher a number of sports which defy human\n description. Both held positions of some importance\u2014considering their\n ages\u2014in the affairs of their respective worlds.\n\n\n Physically they were nothing alike. Hatcher was a three-foot,\n hard-shelled sphere of jelly. He had \"arms\" and \"legs,\" but they were\n not organically attached to \"himself.\" They were snakelike things which\n obeyed the orders of his brain as well as your mind can make your toes\n curl; but they did not touch him directly. Indeed, they worked as well\n a yard or a quarter-mile away as they did when, rarely, they rested\n in the crevices they had been formed from in his \"skin.\" At greater\n distances they worked less well, for reasons irrelevant to the Law of\n Inverse Squares.\n\n\n Hatcher's principal task at this moment was to run the \"probe team\"\n which had McCray under observation, and he was more than a little\n excited. His members, disposed about the room where he had sent them on\n various errands, quivered and shook a little; yet they were the calmest\n limbs in the room; the members of the other team workers were in a\n state of violent commotion.\n\n\n The probe team had had a shock.\n\n\n \"Paranormal powers,\" muttered Hatcher's second in command, and the\n others mumbled agreement. Hatcher ordered silence, studying the\n specimen from Earth.\n\n\n After a long moment he turned his senses from the Earthman.\n \"Incredible\u2014but it's true enough,\" he said. \"I'd better report. Watch\n him,\" he added, but that was surely unnecessary. Their job was to\n watch McCray, and they would do their job; and even more, not one of\n them could have looked away to save his life from the spectacle of\n a creature as odd and, from their point of view, hideously alien as\n Herrell McCray.\nHatcher hurried through the halls of the great buried structure in\n which he worked, toward the place where the supervising council of all\n probes would be in permanent session. They admitted him at once.\n\n\n Hatcher identified himself and gave a quick, concise report:\n\n\n \"The subject recovered consciousness a short time ago and began to\n inspect his enclosure. His method of doing so was to put his own\n members in physical contact with the various objects in the enclosure.\n After observing him do this for a time we concluded he might be unable\n to see and so we illuminated his field of vision for him.\n\n\n \"This appeared to work well for a time. He seemed relatively\n undisturbed. However, he then reverted to physical-contact,\n manipulating certain appurtenances of an artificial skin we had\n provided for him.\n\n\n \"He then began to vibrate the atmosphere by means of resonating organs\n in his breathing passage.\n\n\n \"Simultaneously, the object he was holding, attached to the artificial\n skin, was discovered to be generating paranormal forces.\"\n\n\n The supervising council rocked with excitement. \"You're sure?\" demanded\n one of the councilmen.\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. The staff is preparing a technical description of the forces\n now, but I can say that they are electromagnetic vibrations modulating\n a carrier wave of very high speed, and in turn modulated by the\n vibrations of the atmosphere caused by the subject's own breathing.\"\n\n\n \"Fantastic,\" breathed the councillor, in a tone of dawning hope. \"How\n about communicating with him, Hatcher? Any progress?\"\n\n\n \"Well ... not much, sir. He suddenly panicked. We don't know why; but\n we thought we'd better pull back and let him recover for a while.\"\n\n\n The council conferred among itself for a moment, Hatcher waiting. It\n was not really a waste of time for him; with the organs he had left in\n the probe-team room, he was in fairly close touch with what was going\n on\u2014knew that McCray was once again fumbling among the objects in the\n dark, knew that the team-members had tried illuminating the room for\n him briefly and again produced the rising panic.\n\n\n Still, Hatcher fretted. He wanted to get back.\n\n\n \"Stop fidgeting,\" commanded the council leader abruptly. \"Hatcher, you\n are to establish communication at once.\"\n\n\n \"But, sir....\" Hatcher swung closer, his thick skin quivering slightly;\n he would have gestured if he had brought members with him to gesture\n with. \"We've done everything we dare. We've made the place homey\n for him\u2014\" actually, what he said was more like,\nwe've warmed the\n biophysical nuances of his enclosure\n\u2014\"and tried to guess his needs;\n and we're frightening him half to death. We\ncan't\ngo faster. This\n creature is in no way similar to us, you know. He relies on paranormal\n forces\u2014heat, light, kinetic energy\u2014for his life. His chemistry is not\n ours, his processes of thought are not ours, his entire organism is\n closer to the inanimate rocks of a sea-bottom than to ourselves.\"\n\n\n \"Understood, Hatcher. In your first report you stated these creatures\n were intelligent.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. But not in our way.\"\n\n\n \"But in\na\nway, and you must learn that way. I know.\" One lobster-claw\n shaped member drifted close to the councillor's body and raised itself\n in an admonitory gesture. \"You want time. But we don't have time,\n Hatcher. Yours is not the only probe team working. The Central Masses\n team has just turned in a most alarming report.\"\n\n\n \"Have they secured a subject?\" Hatcher demanded jealously.\n\n\n The councillor paused. \"Worse than that, Hatcher. I am afraid their\n subjects have secured one of them. One of them is missing.\"\n\n\n There was a moment's silence. Frozen, Hatcher could only wait. The\n council room was like a tableau in a museum until the councillor spoke\n again, each council member poised over his locus-point, his members\n drifting about him.\n\n\n Finally the councillor said, \"I speak for all of us, I think. If the\n Old Ones have seized one of our probers our time margin is considerably\n narrowed. Indeed, we may not have any time at all. You must do\n everything you can to establish communication with your subject.\"\n\n\n \"But the danger to the specimen\u2014\" Hatcher protested automatically.\n\n\n \"\u2014is no greater,\" said the councillor, \"than the danger to every one\n of us if we do not find allies\nnow\n.\"\nHatcher returned to his laboratory gloomily.\n\n\n It was just like the council to put the screws on; they had a\n reputation for demanding results at any cost\u2014even at the cost of\n destroying the only thing you had that would make results possible.\n\n\n Hatcher did not like the idea of endangering the Earthman. It cannot\n be said that he was emotionally involved; it was not pity or sympathy\n that caused him to regret the dangers in moving too fast toward\n communication. Not even Hatcher had quite got over the revolting\n physical differences between the Earthman and his own people. But\n Hatcher did not want him destroyed. It had been difficult enough\n getting him here.\n\n\n Hatcher checked through the members that he had left with the rest of\n his team and discovered that there were no immediate emergencies, so he\n took time to eat. In Hatcher's race this was accomplished in ways not\n entirely pleasant to Earthmen. A slit in the lower hemisphere of his\n body opened, like a purse, emitting a thin, pussy, fetid fluid which\n Hatcher caught and poured into a disposal trough at the side of the\n eating room. He then stuffed the slit with pulpy vegetation the texture\n of kelp; it closed, and his body was supplied with nourishment for\n another day.\n\n\n He returned quickly to the room.\n\n\n His second in command was busy, but one of the other team workers\n reported\u2014nothing new\u2014and asked about Hatcher's appearance before the\n council. Hatcher passed the question off. He considered telling his\n staff about the disappearance of the Central Masses team member, but\n decided against it. He had not been told it was secret. On the other\n hand, he had not been told it was not. Something of this importance was\n not lightly to be gossiped about. For endless generations the threat\n of the Old Ones had hung over his race, those queer, almost mythical\n beings from the Central Masses of the galaxy. One brush with them, in\n ages past, had almost destroyed Hatcher's people. Only by running and\n hiding, bearing one of their planets with them and abandoning it\u2014with\n its population\u2014as a decoy, had they arrived at all.\n\n\n Now they had detected mapping parties of the Old Ones dangerously near\n the spiral arm of the galaxy in which their planet was located, they\n had begun the Probe Teams to find some way of combating them, or of\n fleeing again.\n\n\n But it seemed that the Probe Teams themselves might be betraying their\n existence to their enemies\u2014\n\n\n \"Hatcher!\"\n\n\n The call was urgent; he hurried to see what it was about. It was his\n second in command, very excited. \"What is it?\" Hatcher demanded.\n\n\n \"Wait....\"\n\n\n Hatcher was patient; he knew his assistant well. Obviously something\n was about to happen. He took the moment to call his members back to\n him for feeding; they dodged back to their niches on his skin, fitted\n themselves into their vestigial slots, poured back their wastes into\n his own circulation and ingested what they needed from the meal he had\n just taken.... \"Now!\" cried the assistant. \"Look!\"\n\n\n At what passed among Hatcher's people for a viewing console an image\n was forming. Actually it was the assistant himself who formed it, not a\n cathode trace or projected shadow; but it showed what it was meant to\n show.\n\n\n Hatcher was startled. \"Another one! And\u2014is it a different species? Or\n merely a different sex?\"\n\n\n \"Study the probe for yourself,\" the assistant invited.\n\n\n Hatcher studied him frostily; his patience was not, after all, endless.\n \"No matter,\" he said at last. \"Bring the other one in.\"\n\n\n And then, in a completely different mood, \"We may need him badly. We\n may be in the process of killing our first one now.\"\n\n\n \"Killing him, Hatcher?\"\n\n\n Hatcher rose and shook himself, his mindless members floating away like\n puppies dislodged from suck. \"Council's orders,\" he said. \"We've got to\n go into Stage Two of the project at once.\"\nIII\n\n\n Before Stage Two began, or before Herrell McCray realized it had begun,\n he had an inspiration.\n\n\n The dark was absolute, but he remembered where the spacesuit had been\n and groped his way to it and, yes, it had what all spacesuits had to\n have. It had a light. He found the toggle that turned it on and pressed\n it.\n\n\n Light. White, flaring, Earthly light, that showed everything\u2014even\n himself.\n\n\n \"God bless,\" he said, almost beside himself with joy. Whatever that\n pinkish, dancing halo had been, it had thrown him into a panic; now\n that he could see his own hand again, he could blame the weird effects\n on some strange property of the light.\n\n\n At the moment he heard the click that was the beginning of Stage Two.\n\n\n He switched off the light and stood for a moment, listening.\n\n\n For a second he thought he heard the far-off voice, quiet, calm and\n almost hopeless, that he had sensed hours before; but then that was\n gone. Something else was gone. Some faint mechanical sound that had\n hardly registered at the time, but was not missing. And there was,\n perhaps, a nice new sound that had not been there before; a very\n faint, an almost inaudible elfin hiss.\n\n\n McCray switched the light on and looked around. There seemed to be no\n change.\n\n\n And yet, surely, it was warmer in here.\n\n\n He could see no difference; but perhaps, he thought, he could smell\n one. The unpleasant halogen odor from the grating was surely stronger\n now. He stood there, perplexed.\n\n\n A tinny little voice from the helmet of the space suit said sharply,\n amazement in its tone, \"McCray, is that you? Where the devil are you\n calling from?\"\n\n\n He forgot smell, sound and temperature and leaped for the suit. \"This\n is Herrell McCray,\" he cried. \"I'm in a room of some sort, apparently\n on a planet of approximate Earth mass. I don't know\u2014\"\n\n\n \"McCray!\" cried the tiny voice in his ear. \"Where are you? This is\nJodrell Bank\ncalling. Answer, please!\"\n\n\n \"I\nam\nanswering, damn it,\" he roared. \"What took you so long?\"\n\n\n \"Herrell McCray,\" droned the tiny voice in his ear, \"Herrell McCray,\n Herrell McCray, this is\nJodrell Bank\nresponding to your message,\n acknowledge please. Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray....\"\n\n\n It kept on, and on.\n\n\n McCray took a deep breath and thought. Something was wrong. Either they\n didn't hear him, which meant the radio wasn't transmitting, or\u2014no.\n That was not it; they\nhad\nheard him, because they were responding.\n But it seemed to take them so long....\n\n\n Abruptly his face went white. Took them so long! He cast back in his\n mind, questing for a fact, unable to face its implications. When was\n it he called them? Two hours ago? Three?\n\n\n Did that mean\u2014did it\npossibly\nmean\u2014that there was a lag of an hour\n or two each way? Did it, for example, mean that at the speed of his\n suit's pararadio, millions of times faster than light, it took\nhours\nto get a message to the ship and back?\n\n\n And if so ... where in the name of heaven was he?\nHerrell McCray was a navigator, which is to say, a man who has learned\n to trust the evidence of mathematics and instrument readings beyond the\n guesses of his \"common sense.\" When\nJodrell Bank\n, hurtling faster\n than light in its voyage between stars, made its regular position\n check, common sense was a liar. Light bore false witness. The line of\n sight was trustworthy directly forward and directly after\u2014sometimes\n not even then\u2014and it took computers, sensing their data through\n instruments, to comprehend a star bearing and convert three fixes into\n a position.\n\n\n If the evidence of his radio contradicted common sense, common sense\n was wrong. Perhaps it was impossible to believe what the radio's\n message implied; but it was not necessary to \"believe,\" only to act.\n\n\n McCray thumbed down the transmitter button and gave a concise report\n of his situation and his guesses. \"I don't know how I got here. I\n don't know how long I've been gone, since I was unconscious for a\n time. However, if the transmission lag is a reliable indication\u2014\" he\n swallowed and went on\u2014\"I'd estimate I am something more than five\n hundred light-years away from you at this moment. That's all I have to\n say, except for one more word: Help.\"\n\n\n He grinned sourly and released the button. The message was on its way,\n and it would be hours before he could have a reply. Therefore he had to\n consider what to do next.\n\n\n He mopped his brow. With the droning, repetitious call from the ship\n finally quiet, the room was quiet again. And warm.\n\n\n Very warm, he thought tardily; and more than that. The halogen stench\n was strong in his nostrils again.\n\n\n Hurriedly McCray scrambled into the suit. By the time he was sealed\n down he was coughing from the bottom of his lungs, deep, tearing rasps\n that pained him, uncontrollable. Chlorine or fluorine, one of them was\n in the air he had been breathing. He could not guess where it had come\n from; but it was ripping his lungs out.\n\n\n He flushed the interior of the suit out with a reckless disregard for\n the wastage of his air reserve, holding his breath as much as he could,\n daring only shallow gasps that made him retch and gag. After a long\n time he could breathe, though his eyes were spilling tears.\n\n\n He could see the fumes in the room now. The heat was building up.\n\n\n Automatically\u2014now that he had put it on and so started its\n servo-circuits operating\u2014the suit was cooling him. This was a\n deep-space suit, regulation garb when going outside the pressure hull\n of an FTL ship. It was good up to at least five hundred degrees in thin\n air, perhaps three or four hundred in dense. In thin air or in space it\n was the elastic joints and couplings that depolymerized when the heat\n grew too great; in dense air, with conduction pouring energy in faster\n than the cooling coils could suck it out and hurl it away, it was the\n refrigerating equipment that broke down.\n\n\n McCray had no way of knowing just how hot it was going to get. Nor,\n for that matter, had the suit been designed to operate in a corrosive\n medium.\n\n\n All in all it was time for him to do something.\nAmong the debris on the floor, he remembered, was a five-foot space-ax,\n tungsten-steel blade and springy aluminum shaft.\n\n\n McCray caught it up and headed for the door. It felt good in his\n gauntlets, a rewarding weight; any weapon straightens the back of the\n man who holds it, and McCray was grateful for this one. With something\n concrete to do he could postpone questioning. Never mind why he had\n been brought here; never mind how. Never mind what he would, or could,\n do next; all those questions could recede into the background of his\n mind while he swung the ax and battered his way out of this poisoned\n oven.\nCrash-clang!\nThe double jolt ran up the shaft of the ax, through his\n gauntlets and into his arm; but he was making progress, he could see\n the plastic\u2014or whatever it was\u2014of the door. It was chipping out. Not\n easily, very reluctantly; but flaking out in chips that left a white\n powdery residue.\n\n\n At this rate, he thought grimly, he would be an hour getting through\n it. Did he have an hour?\n\n\n But it did not take an hour. One blow was luckier than the rest; it\n must have snapped the lock mechanism. The door shook and slid ajar.\n McCray got the thin of the blade into the crack and pried it wide.\n\n\n He was in another room, maybe a hall, large and bare.\n\n\n McCray put the broad of his back against the broken door and pressed it\n as nearly closed as he could; it might not keep the gas and heat out,\n but it would retard them.\n\n\n The room was again unlighted\u2014at least to McCray's eyes. There was not\n even that pink pseudo-light that had baffled him; here was nothing\n but the beam of his suit lamp. What it showed was cryptic. There were\n evidences of use: shelves, boxy contraptions that might have been\n cupboards, crude level surfaces attached to the walls that might have\n been workbenches. Yet they were queerly contrived, for it was not\n possible to guess from them much about the creatures who used them.\n Some were near the floor, some at waist height, some even suspended\n from the ceiling itself. A man would need a ladder to work at these\n benches and McCray, staring, thought briefly of many-armed blind giants\n or shapeless huge intelligent amoebae, and felt the skin prickle at the\n back of his neck.\n\n\n He tapped half-heartedly at one of the closed cupboards, and was not\n surprised when it proved as refractory as the door. Undoubtedly he\n could batter it open, but it was not likely that much would be left of\n its contents when he was through; and there was the question of time.\n\n\n But his attention was diverted by a gleam from one of the benches.\n Metallic parts lay heaped in a pile. He poked at them with a\n stiff-fingered gauntlet; they were oddly familiar. They were, he\n thought, very much like the parts of a bullet-gun.\n\n\n In fact, they were. He could recognize barrel, chamber, trigger, even\n a couple of cartridges, neatly opened and the grains of powder stacked\n beside them. It was an older, clumsier model than the kind he had seen\n in survival locker, on the\nJodrell Bank\n\u2014and abruptly wished he were\n carrying now\u2014but it was a pistol. Another trophy, like the strange\n assortment in the other room? He could not guess. But the others had\n been more familiar; they all have come from his own ship. He was\n prepared to swear that nothing like this antique had been aboard.\n\n\n The drone began again in his ear, as it had at five-minute intervals\n all along:\n\n\n \"Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, Herrell McCray, this is\nJodrell Bank\ncalling Herrell McCray....\"\n\n\n And louder, blaring, then fading to normal volume as the AVC circuits\n toned the signal down, another voice. A woman's voice, crying out in\n panic and fear: \"\nJodrell Bank!\nWhere are you? Help!\"\nIV\n\n\n Hatcher's second in command said: \"He has got through the first\n survival test. In fact, he broke his way out! What next?\"\n\n\n \"Wait!\" Hatcher ordered sharply. He was watching the new specimen and\n a troublesome thought had occurred to him. The new one was female and\n seemed to be in pain; but it was not the pain that disturbed Hatcher,\n it was something far more immediate to his interests.\n\n\n \"I think,\" he said slowly, \"that they are in contact.\"\n\n\n His assistant vibrated startlement.\n\n\n \"I know,\" Hatcher said, \"but watch. Do you see? He is going straight\n toward her.\"\n\n\n Hatcher, who was not human, did not possess truly human emotions; but\n he did feel amazement when he was amazed, and fear when there was\n cause to be afraid. These specimens, obtained with so much difficulty,\n needed so badly, were his responsibility. He knew the issues involved\n much better than any of his helpers. They could only be surprised at\n the queer antics of the aliens with attached limbs and strange powers.\n Hatcher knew that this was not a freak show, but a matter of life and\n death. He said, musing:\n\n\n \"This new one, I cannot communicate with her, but I get\u2014almost\u2014a\n whisper, now and then. The first one, the male, nothing. But this\n female is perhaps not quite mute.\"\n\n\n \"Then shall we abandon him and work with her, forgetting the first one?\"\n\n\n Hatcher hesitated. \"No,\" he said at last. \"The male is responding well.\n Remember that when last this experiment was done every subject died; he\n is alive at least. But I am wondering. We can't quite communicate with\n the female\u2014\"\n\n\n \"But?\"\n\n\n \"But I'm not sure that others can't.\"\nThe woman's voice was at such close range that McCray's suit radio made\n a useful RDF set. He located her direction easily enough, shielding the\n tiny built-in antenna with the tungsten-steel blade of the ax, while\n she begged him to hurry. Her voice was heavily accented, with some\n words in a language he did not recognize. She seemed to be in shock.\n\n\n McCray was hardly surprised at that; he had been close enough to shock\n himself. He tried to reassure her as he searched for a way out of the\n hall, but in the middle of a word her voice stopped.\n\n\n He hesitated, hefting the ax, glancing back at the way he had come.\n There had to be a way out, even if it meant chopping through a wall.\n\n\n When he turned around again there was a door. It was oddly shaped and\n unlike the door he had hewn through, but clearly a door all the same,\n and it was open.\n\n\n McCray regarded it grimly. He went back in his memory with meticulous\n care. Had he not looked at, this very spot a matter of moments before?\n He had. And had there been an open door then? There had not. There\n hadn't been even a shadowy outline of the three-sided, uneven opening\n that stood there now.\n\n\n Still, it led in the proper direction. McCray added one more\n inexplicable fact to his file and walked through. He was in another\n hall\u2014or tunnel\u2014rising quite steeply to the right. By his reckoning it\n was the proper direction. He labored up it, sweating under the weight\n of the suit, and found another open door, this one round, and behind\n it\u2014\n\n\n Yes, there was the woman whose voice he had heard.\n\n\n It was a woman, all right. The voice had been so strained that he\n hadn't been positive. Even now, short black hair might not have proved\n it, and she was lying face down but the waist and hips were a woman's,\n even though she wore a bulky, quilted suit of coveralls.\n\n\n He knelt beside her and gently turned her face.\n\n\n She was unconscious. Broad, dark face, with no make-up; she was\n apparently in her late thirties. She appeared to be Chinese.\n\n\n She breathed, a little raggedly but without visible discomfort; her\n face was relaxed as though she were sleeping. She did not rouse as he\n moved her.\n\n\n He realized she was breathing the air of the room they were in.\n\n\n His instant first thought was that she was in danger of asphyxiation;",
    "61263": "CULTURAL EXCHANGE\nBY KEITH LAUMER\nIt was a simple student exchange\u2014but\n\n Retief gave them more of\n\n an education than they expected!\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, September 1962.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI\n\n\n Second Secretary Magnan took his green-lined cape and orange-feathered\n beret from the clothes tree. \"I'm off now, Retief,\" he said. \"I hope\n you'll manage the administrative routine during my absence without any\n unfortunate incidents.\"\n\n\n \"That seems a modest enough hope,\" Retief said. \"I'll try to live up to\n it.\"\n\n\n \"I don't appreciate frivolity with reference to this Division,\" Magnan\n said testily. \"When I first came here, the Manpower Utilization\n Directorate, Division of Libraries and Education was a shambles. I\n fancy I've made MUDDLE what it is today. Frankly, I question the\n wisdom of placing you in charge of such a sensitive desk, even for two\n weeks. But remember. Yours is purely a rubber-stamp function.\"\n\n\n \"In that case, let's leave it to Miss Furkle. I'll take a couple of\n weeks off myself. With her poundage, she could bring plenty of pressure\n to bear.\"\n\n\n \"I assume you jest, Retief,\" Magnan said sadly. \"I should expect even\n you to appreciate that Bogan participation in the Exchange Program may\n be the first step toward sublimation of their aggressions into more\n cultivated channels.\"\n\n\n \"I see they're sending two thousand students to d'Land,\" Retief said,\n glancing at the Memo for Record. \"That's a sizable sublimation.\"\n\n\n Magnan nodded. \"The Bogans have launched no less than four military\n campaigns in the last two decades. They're known as the Hoodlums of\n the Nicodemean Cluster. Now, perhaps, we shall see them breaking that\n precedent and entering into the cultural life of the Galaxy.\"\n\n\n \"Breaking and entering,\" Retief said. \"You may have something there.\n But I'm wondering what they'll study on d'Land. That's an industrial\n world of the poor but honest variety.\"\n\n\n \"Academic details are the affair of the students and their professors,\"\n Magnan said. \"Our function is merely to bring them together. See\n that you don't antagonize the Bogan representative. This will\n be an excellent opportunity for you to practice your diplomatic\n restraint\u2014not your strong point, I'm sure you'll agree.\"\n\n\n A buzzer sounded. Retief punched a button. \"What is it, Miss Furkle?\"\n\n\n \"That\u2014bucolic person from Lovenbroy is here again.\" On the small desk\n screen, Miss Furkle's meaty features were compressed in disapproval.\n\n\n \"This fellow's a confounded pest. I'll leave him to you, Retief,\"\n Magnan said. \"Tell him something. Get rid of him. And remember: here\n at Corps HQ, all eyes are upon you.\"\n\n\n \"If I'd thought of that, I'd have worn my other suit,\" Retief said.\n\n\n Magnan snorted and passed from view. Retief punched Miss Furkle's\n button.\n\n\n \"Send the bucolic person in.\"\nA tall broad man with bronze skin and gray hair, wearing tight trousers\n of heavy cloth, a loose shirt open at the neck and a short jacket,\n stepped into the room. He had a bundle under his arm. He paused at\n sight of Retief, looked him over momentarily, then advanced and held\n out his hand. Retief took it. For a moment the two big men stood, face\n to face. The newcomer's jaw muscles knotted. Then he winced.\n\n\n Retief dropped his hand and motioned to a chair.\n\n\n \"That's nice knuckle work, mister,\" the stranger said, massaging his\n hand. \"First time anybody ever did that to me. My fault though. I\n started it, I guess.\" He grinned and sat down.\n\n\n \"What can I do for you?\" Retief said.\n\n\n \"You work for this Culture bunch, do you? Funny. I thought they were\n all ribbon-counter boys. Never mind. I'm Hank Arapoulous. I'm a farmer.\n What I wanted to see you about was\u2014\" He shifted in his chair. \"Well,\n out on Lovenbroy we've got a serious problem. The wine crop is just\n about ready. We start picking in another two, three months. Now I don't\n know if you're familiar with the Bacchus vines we grow...?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Retief said. \"Have a cigar?\" He pushed a box across the desk.\n Arapoulous took one. \"Bacchus vines are an unusual crop,\" he said,\n puffing the cigar alight. \"Only mature every twelve years. In between,\n the vines don't need a lot of attention, so our time's mostly our own.\n We like to farm, though. Spend a lot of time developing new forms.\n Apples the size of a melon\u2014and sweet\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Sounds very pleasant,\" Retief said. \"Where does the Libraries and\n Education Division come in?\"\n\n\n Arapoulous leaned forward. \"We go in pretty heavy for the arts. Folks\n can't spend all their time hybridizing plants. We've turned all the\n land area we've got into parks and farms. Course, we left some sizable\n forest areas for hunting and such. Lovenbroy's a nice place, Mr.\n Retief.\"\n\n\n \"It sounds like it, Mr. Arapoulous. Just what\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Call me Hank. We've got long seasons back home. Five of 'em. Our\n year's about eighteen Terry months. Cold as hell in winter; eccentric\n orbit, you know. Blue-black sky, stars visible all day. We do mostly\n painting and sculpture in the winter. Then Spring; still plenty cold.\n Lots of skiing, bob-sledding, ice skating; and it's the season for\n woodworkers. Our furniture\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I've seen some of your furniture,\" Retief said. \"Beautiful work.\"\n\n\n Arapoulous nodded. \"All local timbers too. Lots of metals in our soil\n and those sulphates give the woods some color, I'll tell you. Then\n comes the Monsoon. Rain\u2014it comes down in sheets. But the sun's getting\n closer. Shines all the time. Ever seen it pouring rain in the sunshine?\n That's the music-writing season. Then summer. Summer's hot. We stay\n inside in the daytime and have beach parties all night. Lots of beach\n on Lovenbroy; we're mostly islands. That's the drama and symphony time.\n The theatres are set up on the sand, or anchored off-shore. You have\n the music and the surf and the bonfires and stars\u2014we're close to the\n center of a globular cluster, you know....\"\n\n\n \"You say it's time now for the wine crop?\"\n\n\n \"That's right. Autumn's our harvest season. Most years we have just the\n ordinary crops. Fruit, grain, that kind of thing; getting it in doesn't\n take long. We spend most of the time on architecture, getting new\n places ready for the winter or remodeling the older ones. We spend a\n lot of time in our houses. We like to have them comfortable. But this\n year's different. This is Wine Year.\"\nArapoulous puffed on his cigar, looked worriedly at Retief. \"Our wine\n crop is our big money crop,\" he said. \"We make enough to keep us going.\n But this year....\"\n\n\n \"The crop isn't panning out?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, the crop's fine. One of the best I can remember. Course, I'm only\n twenty-eight; I can't remember but two other harvests. The problem's\n not the crop.\"\n\n\n \"Have you lost your markets? That sounds like a matter for the\n Commercial\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Lost our markets? Mister, nobody that ever tasted our wines ever\n settled for anything else!\"\n\n\n \"It sounds like I've been missing something,\" said Retief. \"I'll have\n to try them some time.\"\n\n\n Arapoulous put his bundle on the desk, pulled off the wrappings. \"No\n time like the present,\" he said.\n\n\n Retief looked at the two squat bottles, one green, one amber, both\n dusty, with faded labels, and blackened corks secured by wire.\n\n\n \"Drinking on duty is frowned on in the Corps, Mr. Arapoulous,\" he said.\n\n\n \"This isn't\ndrinking\n. It's just wine.\" Arapoulous pulled the wire\n retainer loose, thumbed the cork. It rose slowly, then popped in the\n air. Arapoulous caught it. Aromatic fumes wafted from the bottle.\n \"Besides, my feelings would be hurt if you didn't join me.\" He winked.\n\n\n Retief took two thin-walled glasses from a table beside the desk. \"Come\n to think of it, we also have to be careful about violating quaint\n native customs.\"\n\n\n Arapoulous filled the glasses. Retief picked one up, sniffed the deep\n rust-colored fluid, tasted it, then took a healthy swallow. He looked\n at Arapoulous thoughtfully.\n\n\n \"Hmmm. It tastes like salted pecans, with an undercurrent of crusted\n port.\"\n\n\n \"Don't try to describe it, Mr. Retief,\" Arapoulous said. He took a\n mouthful of wine, swished it around his teeth, swallowed. \"It's Bacchus\n wine, that's all. Nothing like it in the Galaxy.\" He pushed the second\n bottle toward Retief. \"The custom back home is to alternate red wine\n and black.\"\nRetief put aside his cigar, pulled the wires loose, nudged the cork,\n caught it as it popped up.\n\n\n \"Bad luck if you miss the cork,\" Arapoulous said, nodding. \"You\n probably never heard about the trouble we had on Lovenbroy a few years\n back?\"\n\n\n \"Can't say that I did, Hank.\" Retief poured the black wine into two\n fresh glasses. \"Here's to the harvest.\"\n\n\n \"We've got plenty of minerals on Lovenbroy,\" Arapoulous said,\n swallowing wine. \"But we don't plan to wreck the landscape mining 'em.\n We like to farm. About ten years back some neighbors of ours landed a\n force. They figured they knew better what to do with our minerals than\n we did. Wanted to strip-mine, smelt ore. We convinced 'em otherwise.\n But it took a year, and we lost a lot of men.\"\n\n\n \"That's too bad,\" Retief said. \"I'd say this one tastes more like roast\n beef and popcorn over a Riesling base.\"\n\n\n \"It put us in a bad spot,\" Arapoulous went on. \"We had to borrow\n money from a world called Croanie. Mortgaged our crops. Had to start\n exporting art work too. Plenty of buyers, but it's not the same when\n you're doing it for strangers.\"\n\n\n \"Say, this business of alternating drinks is the real McCoy,\" Retief\n said. \"What's the problem? Croanie about to foreclose?\"\n\n\n \"Well, the loan's due. The wine crop would put us in the clear. But\n we need harvest hands. Picking Bacchus grapes isn't a job you can\n turn over to machinery\u2014and anyway we wouldn't if we could. Vintage\n season is the high point of living on Lovenbroy. Everybody joins in.\n First, there's the picking in the fields. Miles and miles of vineyards\n covering the mountain sides, and crowding the river banks, with gardens\n here and there. Big vines, eight feet high, loaded with fruit, and deep\n grass growing between. The wine-carriers keep on the run, bringing wine\n to the pickers. There's prizes for the biggest day's output, bets on\n who can fill the most baskets in an hour.... The sun's high and bright,\n and it's just cool enough to give you plenty of energy. Come nightfall,\n the tables are set up in the garden plots, and the feast is laid on:\n roast turkeys, beef, hams, all kinds of fowl. Big salads. Plenty of\n fruit. Fresh-baked bread ... and wine, plenty of wine. The cooking's\n done by a different crew each night in each garden, and there's prizes\n for the best crews.\n\n\n \"Then the wine-making. We still tramp out the vintage. That's mostly\n for the young folks but anybody's welcome. That's when things start to\n get loosened up. Matter of fact, pretty near half our young-uns are\n born after a vintage. All bets are off then. It keeps a fellow on his\n toes though. Ever tried to hold onto a gal wearing nothing but a layer\n of grape juice?\"\n\"Never did,\" Retief said. \"You say most of the children are born after\n a vintage. That would make them only twelve years old by the time\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Oh, that's Lovenbroy years; they'd be eighteen, Terry reckoning.\"\n\n\n \"I was thinking you looked a little mature for twenty-eight,\" Retief\n said.\n\n\n \"Forty-two, Terry years,\" Arapoulous said. \"But this year it looks bad.\n We've got a bumper crop\u2014and we're short-handed. If we don't get a big\n vintage, Croanie steps in. Lord knows what they'll do to the land. Then\n next vintage time, with them holding half our grape acreage\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You hocked the vineyards?\"\n\n\n \"Yep. Pretty dumb, huh? But we figured twelve years was a long time.\"\n\n\n \"On the whole,\" Retief said, \"I think I prefer the black. But the red\n is hard to beat....\"\n\n\n \"What we figured was, maybe you Culture boys could help us out. A loan\n to see us through the vintage, enough to hire extra hands. Then we'd\n repay it in sculpture, painting, furniture\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Sorry, Hank. All we do here is work out itineraries for traveling\n side-shows, that kind of thing. Now, if you needed a troop of Groaci\n nose-flute players\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Can they pick grapes?\"\n\n\n \"Nope. Anyway, they can't stand the daylight. Have you talked this over\n with the Labor Office?\"\n\n\n \"Sure did. They said they'd fix us up with all the electronics\n specialists and computer programmers we wanted\u2014but no field hands.\n Said it was what they classified as menial drudgery; you'd have thought\n I was trying to buy slaves.\"\n\n\n The buzzer sounded. Miss Furkle's features appeared on the desk screen.\n\n\n \"You're due at the Intergroup Council in five minutes,\" she said. \"Then\n afterwards, there are the Bogan students to meet.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks.\" Retief finished his glass, stood. \"I have to run, Hank,\" he\n said. \"Let me think this over. Maybe I can come up with something.\n Check with me day after tomorrow. And you'd better leave the bottles\n here. Cultural exhibits, you know.\"\nII\n\n\n As the council meeting broke up, Retief caught the eye of a colleague\n across the table.\n\n\n \"Mr. Whaffle, you mentioned a shipment going to a place called Croanie.\n What are they getting?\"\n\n\n Whaffle blinked. \"You're the fellow who's filling in for Magnan, over\n at MUDDLE,\" he said. \"Properly speaking, equipment grants are the\n sole concern of the Motorized Equipment Depot, Division of Loans and\n Exchanges.\" He pursed his lips. \"However, I suppose there's no harm in\n telling you. They'll be receiving heavy mining equipment.\"\n\n\n \"Drill rigs, that sort of thing?\"\n\n\n \"Strip mining gear.\" Whaffle took a slip of paper from a breast pocket,\n blinked at it. \"Bolo Model WV/1 tractors, to be specific. Why is MUDDLE\n interested in MEDDLE's activities?\"\n\n\n \"Forgive my curiosity, Mr. Whaffle. It's just that Croanie cropped up\n earlier today. It seems she holds a mortgage on some vineyards over\n on\u2014\"\n\n\n \"That's not MEDDLE's affair, sir,\" Whaffle cut in. \"I have sufficient\n problems as Chief of MEDDLE without probing into MUDDLE'S business.\"\n\n\n \"Speaking of tractors,\" another man put in, \"we over at the Special\n Committee for Rehabilitation and Overhaul of Under-developed Nations'\n General Economies have been trying for months to get a request for\n mining equipment for d'Land through MEDDLE\u2014\"\n\n\n \"SCROUNGE was late on the scene,\" Whaffle said. \"First come, first\n served. That's our policy at MEDDLE. Good day, gentlemen.\" He strode\n off, briefcase under his arm.\n\n\n \"That's the trouble with peaceful worlds,\" the SCROUNGE committeeman\n said. \"Boge is a troublemaker, so every agency in the Corps is out\n to pacify her. While my chance to make a record\u2014that is, assist\n peace-loving d'Land\u2014comes to naught.\" He shook his head.\n\n\n \"What kind of university do they have on d'Land?\" asked Retief. \"We're\n sending them two thousand exchange students. It must be quite an\n institution.\"\n\n\n \"University? D'Land has one under-endowed technical college.\"\n\n\n \"Will all the exchange students be studying at the Technical College?\"\n\n\n \"Two thousand students? Hah! Two\nhundred\nstudents would overtax the\n facilities of the college.\"\n\n\n \"I wonder if the Bogans know that?\"\n\n\n \"The Bogans? Why, most of d'Land's difficulties are due to the unwise\n trade agreement she entered into with Boge. Two thousand students\n indeed!\" He snorted and walked away.\nRetief stopped by the office to pick up a short cape, then rode the\n elevator to the roof of the 230-story Corps HQ building and hailed a\n cab to the port. The Bogan students had arrived early. Retief saw them\n lined up on the ramp waiting to go through customs. It would be half\n an hour before they were cleared through. He turned into the bar and\n ordered a beer.\n\n\n A tall young fellow on the next stool raised his glass.\n\n\n \"Happy days,\" he said.\n\n\n \"And nights to match.\"\n\n\n \"You said it.\" He gulped half his beer. \"My name's Karsh. Mr. Karsh.\n Yep, Mr. Karsh. Boy, this is a drag, sitting around this place\n waiting....\"\n\n\n \"You meeting somebody?\"\n\n\n \"Yeah. Bunch of babies. Kids. How they expect\u2014Never mind. Have one on\n me.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks. You a Scoutmaster?\"\n\n\n \"I'll tell you what I am. I'm a cradle-robber. You know\u2014\" he turned\n to Retief\u2014\"not one of those kids is over eighteen.\" He hiccupped.\n \"Students, you know. Never saw a student with a beard, did you?\"\n\n\n \"Lots of times. You're meeting the students, are you?\"\n\n\n The young fellow blinked at Retief. \"Oh, you know about it, huh?\"\n\n\n \"I represent MUDDLE.\"\n\n\n Karsh finished his beer, ordered another. \"I came on ahead. Sort of\n an advance guard for the kids. I trained 'em myself. Treated it like\n a game, but they can handle a CSU. Don't know how they'll act under\n pressure. If I had my old platoon\u2014\"\n\n\n He looked at his beer glass, pushed it back. \"Had enough,\" he said. \"So\n long, friend. Or are you coming along?\"\n\n\n Retief nodded. \"Might as well.\"\nAt the exit to the Customs enclosure, Retief watched as the first of\n the Bogan students came through, caught sight of Karsh and snapped to\n attention, his chest out.\n\n\n \"Drop that, mister,\" Karsh snapped. \"Is that any way for a student to\n act?\"\n\n\n The youth, a round-faced lad with broad shoulders, grinned.\n\n\n \"Heck, no,\" he said. \"Say, uh, Mr. Karsh, are we gonna get to go to\n town? We fellas were thinking\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You were, hah? You act like a bunch of school kids! I mean ... no! Now\n line up!\"\n\n\n \"We have quarters ready for the students,\" Retief said. \"If you'd like\n to bring them around to the west side, I have a couple of copters laid\n on.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks,\" said Karsh. \"They'll stay here until take-off time. Can't\n have the little dears wandering around loose. Might get ideas about\n going over the hill.\" He hiccupped. \"I mean they might play hookey.\"\n\n\n \"We've scheduled your re-embarkation for noon tomorrow. That's a long\n wait. MUDDLE's arranged theater tickets and a dinner.\"\n\n\n \"Sorry,\" Karsh said. \"As soon as the baggage gets here, we're off.\" He\n hiccupped again. \"Can't travel without our baggage, y'know.\"\n\n\n \"Suit yourself,\" Retief said. \"Where's the baggage now?\"\n\n\n \"Coming in aboard a Croanie lighter.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe you'd like to arrange for a meal for the students here.\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" Karsh said. \"That's a good idea. Why don't you join us?\" Karsh\n winked. \"And bring a few beers.\"\n\n\n \"Not this time,\" Retief said. He watched the students, still emerging\n from Customs. \"They seem to be all boys,\" he commented. \"No female\n students?\"\n\n\n \"Maybe later,\" Karsh said. \"You know, after we see how the first bunch\n is received.\"\n\n\n Back at the MUDDLE office, Retief buzzed Miss Furkle.\n\n\n \"Do you know the name of the institution these Bogan students are bound\n for?\"\n\n\n \"Why, the University at d'Land, of course.\"\n\n\n \"Would that be the Technical College?\"\n\n\n Miss Furkle's mouth puckered. \"I'm sure I've never pried into these\n details.\"\n\n\n \"Where does doing your job stop and prying begin, Miss Furkle?\" Retief\n said. \"Personally, I'm curious as to just what it is these students are\n travelling so far to study\u2014at Corps expense.\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Magnan never\u2014\"\n\n\n \"For the present. Miss Furkle, Mr. Magnan is vacationing. That leaves\n me with the question of two thousand young male students headed for\n a world with no classrooms for them ... a world in need of tractors.\n But the tractors are on their way to Croanie, a world under obligation\n to Boge. And Croanie holds a mortgage on the best grape acreage on\n Lovenbroy.\"\n\n\n \"Well!\" Miss Furkle snapped, small eyes glaring under unplucked brows.\n \"I hope you're not questioning Mr. Magnan's wisdom!\"\n\n\n \"About Mr. Magnan's wisdom there can be no question,\" Retief said. \"But\n never mind. I'd like you to look up an item for me. How many tractors\n will Croanie be getting under the MEDDLE program?\"\n\n\n \"Why, that's entirely MEDDLE business,\" Miss Furkle said. \"Mr. Magnan\n always\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I'm sure he did. Let me know about the tractors as soon as you can.\"\nMiss Furkle sniffed and disappeared from the screen. Retief left the\n office, descended forty-one stories, followed a corridor to the Corps\n Library. In the stacks he thumbed through catalogues, pored over\n indices.\n\n\n \"Can I help you?\" someone chirped. A tiny librarian stood at his elbow.\n\n\n \"Thank you, ma'am,\" Retief said. \"I'm looking for information on a\n mining rig. A Bolo model WV tractor.\"\n\n\n \"You won't find it in the industrial section,\" the librarian said.\n \"Come along.\" Retief followed her along the stacks to a well-lit\n section lettered ARMAMENTS. She took a tape from the shelf, plugged\n it into the viewer, flipped through and stopped at a squat armored\n vehicle.\n\n\n \"That's the model WV,\" she said. \"It's what is known as a continental\n siege unit. It carries four men, with a half-megaton/second firepower.\"\n\n\n \"There must be an error somewhere,\" Retief said. \"The Bolo model I want\n is a tractor. Model WV M-1\u2014\"\n\"Oh, the modification was the addition of a bulldozer blade for\n demolition work. That must be what confused you.\"\n\n\n \"Probably\u2014among other things. Thank you.\"\n\n\n Miss Furkle was waiting at the office. \"I have the information you\n wanted,\" she said. \"I've had it for over ten minutes. I was under the\n impression you needed it urgently, and I went to great lengths\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" Retief said. \"Shoot. How many tractors?\"\n\n\n \"Five hundred.\"\n\n\n \"Are you sure?\"\n\n\n Miss Furkle's chins quivered. \"Well! If you feel I'm incompetent\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Just questioning the possibility of a mistake, Miss Furkle. Five\n hundred tractors is a lot of equipment.\"\n\n\n \"Was there anything further?\" Miss Furkle inquired frigidly.\n\n\n \"I sincerely hope not,\" Retief said.\nIII\n\n\n Leaning back in Magnan's padded chair with power swivel and\n hip-u-matic concontour, Retief leafed through a folder labelled \"CERP\n 7-602-Ba; CROANIE (general).\" He paused at a page headed Industry.\n\n\n Still reading, he opened the desk drawer, took out the two bottles of\n Bacchus wine and two glasses. He poured an inch of wine into each and\n sipped the black wine meditatively.\n\n\n It would be a pity, he reflected, if anything should interfere with the\n production of such vintages....\n\n\n Half an hour later he laid the folder aside, keyed the phone and put\n through a call to the Croanie Legation. He asked for the Commercial\n Attache.\n\n\n \"Retief here, Corps HQ,\" he said airily. \"About the MEDDLE shipment,\n the tractors. I'm wondering if there's been a slip up. My records show\n we're shipping five hundred units....\"\n\n\n \"That's correct. Five hundred.\"\n\n\n Retief waited.\n\n\n \"Ah ... are you there, Retief?\"\n\n\n \"I'm still here. And I'm still wondering about the five hundred\n tractors.\"\n\n\n \"It's perfectly in order. I thought it was all settled. Mr. Whaffle\u2014\"\n\n\n \"One unit would require a good-sized plant to handle its output,\"\n Retief said. \"Now Croanie subsists on her fisheries. She has perhaps\n half a dozen pint-sized processing plants. Maybe, in a bind, they\n could handle the ore ten WV's could scrape up ... if Croanie had any\n ore. It doesn't. By the way, isn't a WV a poor choice as a mining\n outfit? I should think\u2014\"\n\n\n \"See here, Retief! Why all this interest in a few surplus tractors?\n And in any event, what business is it of yours how we plan to use the\n equipment? That's an internal affair of my government. Mr. Whaffle\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I'm not Mr. Whaffle. What are you going to do with the other four\n hundred and ninety tractors?\"\n\n\n \"I understood the grant was to be with no strings attached!\"\n\n\n \"I know it's bad manners to ask questions. It's an old diplomatic\n tradition that any time you can get anybody to accept anything as a\n gift, you've scored points in the game. But if Croanie has some scheme\n cooking\u2014\"\n\"Nothing like that, Retief. It's a mere business transaction.\"\n\n\n \"What kind of business do you do with a Bolo WV? With or without a\n blade attached, it's what's known as a continental siege unit.\"\n\n\n \"Great Heavens, Retief! Don't jump to conclusions! Would you have us\n branded as warmongers? Frankly\u2014is this a closed line?\"\n\n\n \"Certainly. You may speak freely.\"\n\n\n \"The tractors are for transshipment. We've gotten ourselves into a\n difficult situation, balance-of-payments-wise. This is an accommodation\n to a group with which we have rather strong business ties.\"\n\n\n \"I understand you hold a mortgage on the best land on Lovenbroy,\"\n Retief said. \"Any connection?\"\n\n\n \"Why ... ah ... no. Of course not, ha ha.\"\n\n\n \"Who gets the tractors eventually?\"\n\n\n \"Retief, this is unwarranted interference!\"\n\n\n \"Who gets them?\"\n\n\n \"They happen to be going to Lovenbroy. But I scarcely see\u2014\"\n\n\n \"And who's the friend you're helping out with an unauthorized\n transshipment of grant material?\"\n\n\n \"Why ... ah ... I've been working with a Mr. Gulver, a Bogan\n representative.\"\n\n\n \"And when will they be shipped?\"\n\n\n \"Why, they went out a week ago. They'll be half way there by now. But\n look here, Retief, this isn't what you're thinking!\"\n\n\n \"How do you know what I'm thinking? I don't know myself.\" Retief rang\n off, buzzed the secretary.\n\n\n \"Miss Furkle, I'd like to be notified immediately of any new\n applications that might come in from the Bogan Consulate for placement\n of students.\"\n\n\n \"Well, it happens, by coincidence, that I have an application here now.\n Mr. Gulver of the Consulate brought it in.\"\n\n\n \"Is Mr. Gulver in the office? I'd like to see him.\"\n\n\n \"I'll ask him if he has time.\"\n\n\n \"Great. Thanks.\" It was half a minute before a thick-necked red-faced\n man in a tight hat walked in. He wore an old-fashioned suit, a drab\n shirt, shiny shoes with round toes and an ill-tempered expression.\n\"What is it you wish?\" he barked. \"I understood in my discussions with\n the other ... ah ... civilian there'd be no further need for these\n irritating conferences.\"\n\n\n \"I've just learned you're placing more students abroad, Mr. Gulver. How\n many this time?\"\n\n\n \"Two thousand.\"\n\n\n \"And where will they be going?\"\n\n\n \"Croanie. It's all in the application form I've handed in. Your job is\n to provide transportation.\"\n\n\n \"Will there be any other students embarking this season?\"\n\n\n \"Why ... perhaps. That's Boge's business.\" Gulver looked at Retief with\n pursed lips. \"As a matter of fact, we had in mind dispatching another\n two thousand to Featherweight.\"\n\n\n \"Another under-populated world\u2014and in the same cluster, I believe,\"\n Retief said. \"Your people must be unusually interested in that region\n of space.\"\n\n\n \"If that's all you wanted to know, I'll be on my way. I have matters of\n importance to see to.\"\n\n\n After Gulver left, Retief called Miss Furkle in. \"I'd like to have a\n break-out of all the student movements that have been planned under the\n present program,\" he said. \"And see if you can get a summary of what\n MEDDLE has been shipping lately.\"\n\n\n Miss Furkle compressed her lips. \"If Mr. Magnan were here, I'm sure\n he wouldn't dream of interfering in the work of other departments.\n I ... overheard your conversation with the gentleman from the Croanie\n Legation\u2014\"\n\n\n \"The lists, Miss Furkle.\"\n\n\n \"I'm not accustomed,\" Miss Furkle said, \"to intruding in matters\n outside our interest cluster.\"\n\n\n \"That's worse than listening in on phone conversations, eh? But never\n mind. I need the information, Miss Furkle.\"\n\n\n \"Loyalty to my Chief\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Loyalty to your pay-check should send you scuttling for the material\n I've asked for,\" Retief said. \"I'm taking full responsibility. Now\n scat.\"\n\n\n The buzzer sounded. Retief flipped a key. \"MUDDLE, Retief speaking....\"\n\n\n Arapoulous's brown face appeared on the desk screen.\n\n\n \"How-do, Retief. Okay if I come up?\"\n\n\n \"Sure, Hank. I want to talk to you.\"\n\n\n In the office, Arapoulous took a chair. \"Sorry if I'm rushing you,\n Retief,\" he said. \"But have you got anything for me?\"\n\n\n Retief waved at the wine bottles. \"What do you know about Croanie?\"\n\n\n \"Croanie? Not much of a place. Mostly ocean. All right if you like\n fish, I guess. We import our seafood from there. Nice prawns in monsoon\n time. Over a foot long.\"\n\n\n \"You on good terms with them?\"\n\n\n \"Sure, I guess so. Course, they're pretty thick with Boge.\"\n\n\n \"So?\"\n\n\n \"Didn't I tell you? Boge was the bunch that tried to take us over here\n a dozen years back. They'd've made it too, if they hadn't had a lot of\n bad luck. Their armor went in the drink, and without armor they're easy\n game.\"\n\n\n Miss Furkle buzzed. \"I have your lists,\" she said shortly.\n\n\n \"Bring them in, please.\"\nThe secretary placed the papers on the desk. Arapoulous caught her eye\n and grinned. She sniffed and marched from the room.\n\n\n \"What that gal needs is a slippery time in the grape mash,\" Arapoulous\n observed. Retief thumbed through the papers, pausing to read from time\n to time. He finished and looked at Arapoulous.\n\n\n \"How many men do you need for the harvest, Hank?\" Retief inquired.\n\n\n Arapoulous sniffed his wine glass and looked thoughtful.\n\n\n \"A hundred would help,\" he said. \"A thousand would be better. Cheers.\"\n\n\n \"What would you say to two thousand?\"\n\n\n \"Two thousand? Retief, you're not fooling?\"\n\n\n \"I hope not.\" He picked up the phone, called the Port Authority, asked\n for the dispatch clerk.\n\n\n \"Hello, Jim. Say, I have a favor to ask of you. You know that\n contingent of Bogan students. They're traveling aboard the two CDT\n transports. I'm interested in the baggage that goes with the students.\n Has it arrived yet? Okay, I'll wait.\"\n\n\n Jim came back to the phone. \"Yeah, Retief, it's here. Just arrived.\n But there's a funny thing. It's not consigned to d'Land. It's ticketed\n clear through to Lovenbroy.\"\n\n\n \"Listen, Jim,\" Retief said. \"I want you to go over to the warehouse and\n take a look at that baggage for me.\"\n\n\n Retief waited while the dispatch clerk carried out the errand. The\n level in the two bottles had gone down an inch when Jim returned to\n the phone.\n\n\n \"Hey, I took a look at that baggage, Retief. Something funny going on.\n Guns. 2mm needlers, Mark XII hand blasters, power pistols\u2014\"\n\n\n \"It's okay, Jim. Nothing to worry about. Just a mix-up. Now, Jim,\n I'm going to ask you to do something more for me. I'm covering for a\n friend. It seems he slipped up. I wouldn't want word to get out, you\n understand. I'll send along a written change order in the morning that\n will cover you officially. Meanwhile, here's what I want you to do....\"\n\n\n Retief gave instructions, then rang off and turned to Arapoulous.\n\n\n \"As soon as I get off a couple of TWX's, I think we'd better get down\n to the port, Hank. I think I'd like to see the students off personally.\"",
    "20014": "Shut Up, He Explained \n\n         Owen Fiss is a professor at the Yale Law School and a highly regarded scholar of constitutional law. The subject of this short book is the present direction of the law governing the freedom of speech. What Professor Fiss has to say about it is worth attending to not merely because of his prominence in the field but because his argument is planted in the common assumptive ground of a lot of contemporary academic thought about the bankruptcy of individualism. The thesis of the book is Fiss', but the wisdom is conventional. \n\n         Professor Fiss thinks the present direction of First Amendment law is a bad one, and he has an idea about how we might improve it. The short way to put his argument (though it is not quite the way he puts it) is to say that our approach to speech has become increasingly permissive. Courts have become more and more reluctant to allow the state to interfere with the rights of individual speakers to say what they wish, and it is time to roll back that permissiveness and to embark on a new approach that would permit the state to silence some speakers and promote others, but still, Fiss argues, in the name of freedom of speech. \n\n         This is what Fiss means by the \"irony\" in his title: that true freedom of speech for all requires suppressing the speech of some. This is not, technically, an irony. It is a paradox. An irony would be the observation that an attempt to increase freedom for all often entails, despite our best efforts, a decrease in freedom for a few. If Fiss had addressed the subject of free speech in this spirit, as an irony, he would undoubtedly have had some interesting things to say, for he is a learned and temperate writer. But he has, instead, chosen to address the issue as an advocate for specific groups he regards as politically disadvantaged--women, gays, victims of racial-hate speech, the poor (or, at least, the not-rich), and people who are critical of market capitalism--and to design a constitutional theory that will enable those groups to enlist the state in efforts either to suppress speech they dislike or to subsidize speech they do like, without running afoul of the First Amendment. Embarked on this task, the most learned and temperate writer in the world would have a hard time avoiding tendentiousness. Fiss does not avoid it. \n\n                         The Irony of Free Speech is a discussion of several speech issues: campaign-finance laws, state funding for the arts, pornography, speech codes, and equal time. These discussions are not doctrinaire, but their general inclination is to favor state intervention, on political grounds, in each of those areas--that is, to favor restrictions on campaign spending, greater regulation of pornography, and so on. Fiss' analyses of specific cases are presented against a lightly sketched historical argument. Light though the sketching is, the historical argument is almost the most objectionable thing about the book, since it involves a distortion of the history of First Amendment law that is fairly plain even to someone who is not a professor at Yale Law School. \n\n          The argument is that \"the liberalism of the nineteenth century was defined by the claims of individual liberty and resulted in an unequivocal demand for liberal government, [while] the liberalism of today embraces the value of equality as well as liberty.\" The constitutional law of free speech, says Fiss, was shaped by the earlier type of liberalism--he calls it \"libertarian\"--which regarded free speech as a right of individual self-expression; it is now used to foil efforts to regulate speech in the name of the newer liberal value, equality. Contemporary liberals, inheriting both these traditions, find themselves in a bind. They want, let's say, black students to be free from harassment at institutions where they are, racially, in a minority, since liberals worry that black students cannot be \"equal\" if they feel intimidated. But those same liberals get upset at the thought of outlawing hate speech, since that would mean infringing upon the right of individuals to express themselves. \n\n         Fiss' suggestion--this is the chief theoretical proposal of his book--is that liberals should stop thinking about this as a conflict between liberty and equality and start thinking about it as a conflict between two kinds of liberty: social vs. individual. The First Amendment, he says, was intended to foster (in William Brennan's words) \"uninhibited, robust, and wide-open\" debate in society as a whole; speech that inhibits or monopolizes that debate should therefore fall outside the protection of the law. We can maximize the total freedom of speech by silencing people who prevent others from speaking--when they utter racial epithets, represent women in degrading ways, use their wealth to dominate the press and the political process, or block the funding of unorthodox art. \n\n         The historical part of this analysis rests on a canard, which is the assertion that the constitutional law of free speech emerged from 19 th -century classical laissez-faire liberalism. It did not. It emerged at the time of World War I, and the principal figures in its creation--Learned Hand, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., and Louis Brandeis--were not classical liberals; they were progressives. They abhorred the doctrine of natural rights because, in their time, that doctrine was construed to cover not the right to \"self-expression\" but the \"right to property.\" Turn-of-the-century courts did not display a libertarian attitude toward civil rights; they displayed a libertarian attitude toward economic rights, tending to throw out legislation aimed at regulating industry and protecting workers on the grounds that people had a constitutional right to enter into contracts and to use their own property as they saw fit. Holmes, Brandeis, and their disciples consistently supported state intervention in economic affairs--the passage of health and safety regulations, the protection of unions, the imposition of taxes, and so on. The post-New Deal liberals whom Fiss associates with the value of equality are their heirs. The heirs of the19 th -century classical liberals are Jack Kemp and Newt Gingrich. Fiss' two \"liberalisms\" are, in fact, almost entirely different political philosophies. \n\n         Hand, Holmes, and Brandeis based their First Amendment opinions not on some putative right to individual self-expression (an idea Holmes referred to as \"the right of the donkey to drool\") but on a democratic need for full and open political debate. First Amendment law since their time has performed its balancing acts on precisely that social value--the very value Fiss now proposes we need to insert into First Amendment jurisprudence. We don't need to insert it, because it was there from the start. \n\n          Why does Fiss portray the history of First Amendment jurisprudence in this perverted way? Because he wants to line up his own free-speech argument within the conventional academic view that our problems are mostly the consequences of an antiquated and discreditable ideology of liberal individualism, and that they can mostly be solved by adopting a social-constructionist, or communitarian, or \"intersubjective\" view of human nature instead. The merits of liberal individualism vs. communitarianism can await another occasion to be debated. For since the law governing the freedom of speech does not emerge out of libertarianism, the matter does not boil down to replacing an obsolete belief in \"self-expression\" with a more up-to-date belief in \"robust debate,\" as Fiss would like to think it does. What it boils down to is whether we need to replace the Hand-Holmes-Brandeis way of maximizing the benefits of free speech in a democratic society, which tries to push the state as far out of the picture as possible, with a different way, which tries to get the state farther into the picture. \n\n         Here, assuming we want to try the interventionist approach, it is hard to see how a one-size theory can possibly fit all cases. The issues underlying pornography, hate speech, arts grants, campaign finance, and equal-time provisions are all different. The ideological impetus behind judicial developments in the last two areas, campaign finance and equal-time provisions, is related less to speech, except as a kind of constitutional cover, than to a revival of the old \"right to property\"--that is, the Supreme Court tends to disapprove of legislative and administrative efforts to require broadcasters to carry \"opposing viewpoints\" on the grounds that since it's their property, owners of television stations should be able to broadcast what they like. Fiss believes that the need for equal-time laws is as urgent today as it was in the 1970s, which is peculiar in light of the proliferation of media outlets. But the state does arguably have an interest, compatible with the First Amendment, in stipulating the way those media are used, and Fiss' discussion of those issues is the least aggravating in his book. \n\n         Still, that discussion, like his discussions of the other issues, rests on a claim long associated with the left--the claim, in a phrase, that the minority is really the majority. In the case of speech, Fiss appears to believe that the reason the American public is less enlightened than he would wish it to be concerning matters such as feminism, the rights of homosexuals, and regulation of industry is that people are denied access to the opinions and information that would enlighten them. The public is denied this access because the state, in thrall to the ideology of individualism, refuses either to interfere with speech bullies--such as pornographers--who \"silence\" women, or to subsidize the speech of the unorthodox, such as Robert Mapplethorpe. \n\n         Fiss' analysis of the Mapplethorpe case offers a good example of the perils of his interventionist approach. Arts policy is, unquestionably, a mess. The solution usually proposed is divorce: Either get the state out of the business altogether or invent some ironclad process for distributing the money using strictly artistic criteria. Fiss rejects both solutions; he wants the criteria to be political. He thinks the NEA should subsidize art that will enhance the \"robustness\" of the debate and should therefore prefer unorthodox art--though only, of course, if it represents a viewpoint the endowment considers, by virtue of social need and a prior history of exclusion, worthy of its megaphone. (No Nazi art, in other words.) \n\n          Mapplethorpe's photographs seem to Fiss to qualify under these guidelines, since, he says, \"in the late 1980s the AIDS crisis confronted America in the starkest fashion and provoked urgent questions regarding the scope and direction of publicly funded medical research. To address those issues the public--represented by the casual museum visitor--needed an understanding of the lives and practices of the gay community, so long hidden from view.\" This seems completely wrongheaded. People (for the most part) didn't find Mapplethorpe's X                 Portfolio photographs objectionable because they depicted homosexuality. They found them objectionable because they depicted sadomasochism. The notion that it was what Fiss calls a \"source of empowerment for the members of the gay community\" to have homosexuality associated with snarling guys prancing around in leather jockstraps, using bullwhips as sex toys, and pissing in each other's mouths, at a time when AIDS had become a national health problem and the issue of gays in the military was about to arise, is ludicrous. Any NEA chairperson who had the interests of the gay community at heart would have rushed to defund the exhibit. Jesse Helms could not have demonized homosexuality more effectively--which, of course, is why he was pleased to draw public attention to the pictures. Now that is what we call an irony of free speech. \n\n         Awarding funding to the work of a gay artist because gay Americans need more political clout is an effort at cultural engineering, and the problem with cultural engineering is the problem with social engineering raised to a higher power. We have a hard enough time calculating the effects of the redistribution of wealth in our society. How can we possibly calculate the effects of redistributing the right to speak--of taking it away from people Professor Fiss feels have spoken long enough and mandating it for people he feels have not been adequately heard? One thing that is plain from the brief unhappy history of campus speech codes is that you automatically raise the value of the speech you punish and depress the value of the speech you sponsor. There are indeed many ironies here. Maybe someone will write a book about them.",
    "20011": "Let Si Get This \n\n         During a typical lunch time at the Royalton Hotel restaurant in midtown Manhattan, The                 New Yorker 's Tina Brown might be installed at her usual table, and Vogue 's Anna Wintour might be at her usual table (chewing on her usual meal--a $25 hamburger). Vanity Fair 's Graydon Carter might be there too, although he has transferred his main allegiance to a place called Patroon. Filling out the room are other editors, publicists, and writers from these magazines and GQ and House & Garden and so on. And one man, who probably isn't there himself, picks up every tab. Some of the lesser fry may even utter the Cond\u00e9 Nast mantra--though it is hardly necessary at the Royalton--as they grab for the check: \"Let Si get this.\" \n\n         S.I. \"Si\" Newhouse Jr. and his younger brother, Donald, control Advance Publications, one of America's largest privately held companies. (Estimate of their combined wealth: $13 billion.) Donald tends to Advance's hugely profitable newspaper, radio, and TV holdings. Si runs the less profitable but more glamorous properties. These are the 15 Cond\u00e9 Nast magazines, including (in descending order of fabulousness) Vogue , Vanity Fair , GQ , Cond\u00e9 Nast Traveler , House & Garden , Allure , Details , Self , Mademoiselle , and Glamour ; ; and Random House. \n\n         The expense-account lunch is a hallowed journalistic tradition. But consider a day in the life of an editor working for Si Newhouse. (Donald's editors are a different story, as they will be happy to tell you.) It's a closed economy where almost all human needs and desires can be gratified with a miraculous, unlimited currency called the Si. \n\n         A Lincoln Town Car is waiting outside your door in the morning to take you to work. The car, which costs $50 an hour, is written into your contract. First stop, breakfast with a writer at the Four Seasons. The check may be as little as $40. When you reach the office, you realize you're out of cigarettes. No problem--you send your assistant to buy a pack for you. She gets reimbursed from petty cash ($3). (Could be worse for the assistant: She could be forced to pick up her boss's birth-control pills, or her boss's pet from the vet, or presents for her boss's children--regular duties for Cond\u00e9 Nast underlings.) \n\n         You've forgotten to return the video your kids watched yesterday, so you have a messenger take it back to Blockbuster. Si spends $20; you save a $1.50 late fee. \n\n          Then there's lunch. The magazines account for more than a quarter of daytime revenues at the Four Seasons and the Royalton. A modest lunch for two at the Royalton (no fancy wine or anything) might cost $80. But Si's generosity extends to even assistants and sub-sub-editors, dining on sushi at their desks. If you spend $10 or less on lunch, and claim you were working, Si pays. At Vogue and Vanity Fair , almost everyone has a \"working lunch\" every day . An editor at Allure says that \"working lunches\" there are limited to 10 a month. \n\n         Back at the office, you hear that a friend at another Newhouse magazine has been promoted, so you send flowers. The tab: $100. Si pays. (One of my favorite Cond\u00e9 Nast stories is of an editor who had just been promoted to an extremely senior job. His office was jammed with congratulatory flowers and cards. All had been sent by fellow Cond\u00e9 Nast staffers. All had been billed to the company.) Four o'clock, and it's snack time. Your assistant joins the mob in the lobby newsstand. She bills your candy bar, juice, and cigarettes (as well as her own candy bar, juice, and cigarettes) to the magazine ($15). After all, it's a \"working snack.\" Later, there's a birthday party for your assistant. You order champagne and a cake--on the company, of course, and present her with your gift--a Prada wallet ($200). Later, she submits the expense sheet for it. Finally, after a Random House book party at Le Cirque 2000 (estimated cost to Si: $35,000), your car ferries you home. \n\n         Newhouse expense stories are a staple of New York literary-journalistic conversation. Stories about the $10,000 in expenses that a New Yorker editor billed for a single month. About the interior-decorating costs for the fashion-magazine editor who likes to have her office photographs rearranged every few months. About the hotel tab for the big-name New York writer who spent three weeks in Washington's Hay-Adams (basic room: $285 a night) researching a Vanity Fair story that will never run. About the Vogue editor who has furnished her summer house from items purchased for fashion shoots--beautiful furniture, designer pillows, coffee-table books. Vogue assistants have nicknamed the house \"Petty Cash Junction.\" \n\n         None of the 39 past and present Newhouse employees I spoke to for this story would talk on the record, for . And the nature of the subject makes it hard to separate apocrypha from the truth. Did Cond\u00e9 Nast pay, as sources insist it did, hundreds of thousands of dollars in back taxes on behalf of an editor who didn't bother to file tax forms? Did an editor really expense $20,000 in a weeklong trip to Paris? The people who pay the bills are not talking. But every example of excess cited here was told to me by at least one source (and usually more than one) in a position to know. \n\n         Need a facial? Treat yourself and bill it to Si. This is what is called \"scouting.\" It is also a great way to get free haircuts. To be fair, Si doesn't pay for all such treats. There is also a much-honored tradition of accepting tribute from companies that Cond\u00e9 Nast magazines cover. One magazine exec reportedly got so much loot last Christmas--Cuban cigars, \"crates of wine,\" designer suits (\"It was like a Spanish galleon\")--that he needed three cars to cart it home. At yuletide, even midlevel fashion-mag writers and editors are inundated with \"cashmere sweaters, Versace pillows, coats ...\" recalls one ex- Vogue staffer wistfully. \n\n          At the top of the masthead, the perks are perkier. His Si-ness (their joke, not mine) does not expect his editors in chief to actually live on their million-dollar salaries. He also gives them clothing allowances (up to $50,000 a year). He buys them cars of their choice and hires chauffeurs to drive them. He offers them low- or no-interest home loans. GQ editor Art Cooper reportedly received two $1-million loans, one for a Manhattan apartment, the other for a Connecticut farm. Tina Brown and her husband, Harold Evans, former president of Random House, reportedly just took a $2-million boost to buy a $3.7-million Manhattan house. \n\n         Si's favorite courtiers lead lives of jaw-dropping privilege. When she was editor of British Vogue , Wintour commuted between London and New York--on the Concorde. Another Si confidant decided his office didn't feel right, so he hired one of the grandmasters of feng shui to rearrange it. Some editors prepare for trips by Federal Expressing their luggage to their destination. Why? \"So you don't have to carry your bags. No one would be caught dead carrying a bag.\" \n\n         Cond\u00e9 Nast has also created a class of mandarin journalists, writers who live much better than they ever could if they wrote only for normal magazines. One free-lancer tells of building much of a summer traveling with her husband in the West and Europe around a couple of Cond\u00e9 Nast assignments. Last summer, The                 New Yorker sent a staffer to Venice to cover the Venice Film Festival. The weeklong trip, which must have cost thousands, resulted in a short piece. \n\n         Writers, of course, are nowhere near as profligate as photographers. Stories of wasteful shoots abound: the matching seaweed that had to be flown from California to the Caribbean for a fashion photo; the Annie Liebovitz Vanity Fair cover shot of Arnold Schwarzenegger that reportedly cost $100,000; the Vogue shoot in Africa in which, an ex- Vogue editor claims, the photographer and his huge entourage wined and dined to the tune of \"hundreds of thousands of dollars.\" \n\n          And then there are the parties. Last month The                 New Yorker spent--and this is not a joke--$500,000 on a two-day \"Next Conference\" at the Disney Institute in Florida, in connection with a special issue on the same theme. In order to get Vice President Gore, who was traveling in California at the time, The                 New Yorker paid for him and his entourage to fly Air Force Two from California to Florida and back. And vice presidents are not the only things that Cond\u00e9 Nast flies in for parties. The                 New Yorker once shipped silverware from New York to Chicago for a dinner. (\"What, they don't have silverware in Chicago?\" asks a New Yorker staffer.) Vanity Fair toted food from New York to Washington for this year's party on the night of the White House Correspondents Dinner. (What, they don't have food in Washington?) \n\n         That annual Washington do has grown from an after-dinner gathering for drinks at a contributor's apartment to two huge blasts--before and after the dinner itself--at a rented embassy. VF 's annual Oscar-night party has become a similar institution in Hollywood. In addition to the parties themselves, Si also naturally pays to fly in VF staffers and to put them up at top hotels. (What, they don't have editors in Washington or L.A.?) \n\n         Some Cond\u00e9 Nast parties are so ridiculous that even other Cond\u00e9 Nasties make fun of them. This week's New Yorker , for example, mocks a recent Vogue party in honor of food writer Jeffrey Steingarten. According to The                 New Yorker , Wintour so detested the carpet at Le Cirque 2000 that she ordered the florist to cover it with autumn leaves (handpicked, of course). \n\n         The apogee of party absurdity is Vanity Fair 's sponsorship of an annual London dinner for the Serpentine Museum in Hyde Park. As one observer puts it, \"Vanity Fair , an American magazine, pays more than $100,000 to a British art museum solely so that it can sponsor a dinner where Graydon Carter gets to sit next to Princess Diana.\" The princess was the museum's patron. \n\n         Actually, paying $100,000 for face time with Princess Di may not have been a foolish investment for a magazine so dependent on peddling her image. And Cond\u00e9 Nast's excess has other plausible justifications as well. \n\n          Some top editors may earn their perks. Vogue and GQ make millions, according to industry analysts. Vanity Fair is enjoying banner years, and while it probably hasn't made back the millions Newhouse lost in starting it up, it is certainly in the black. The                 New Yorker loses money--how much may even surpass perks as a topic of Newhouse gossip and speculation. On the other hand, The                 New Yorker is the most talked-about magazine in America, and Tina Brown is the most talked-about editor. That is worth something. \n\n         Public media companies such as Time Warner (or, for that matter, Microsoft) can entice and hold journalists with stock options. Advance is private, so Newhouse uses other golden handcuffs. He runs a lifestyle prison. Top editors stay because they could never afford to live in a house as nice as the one Si's interest-free loan bought them, or to host parties as nice as the ones Si's party planners throw for them. \n\n         Cond\u00e9 Nast's magazines are all about glamour, wealth, prestige. To uphold that image, magazine editors need to circulate at the top of New York society. But the top of New York society consists of people who make far more money than magazine editors do--investment bankers, corporate chieftains, and fashion designers. Million-dollar salaries aren't enough to mix as equals with the Trumps and Karans. Si's perks are equalizers. \n\n         And they say it's not as good as it used to be. In 1992, according to Thomas Maier's biography of Newhouse, the editor of Self held a birthday party for Si Newhouse's dog . (Owners ate caviar; dogs drank Evian.) The lowliest assistants used to take car services home. But new Cond\u00e9 Nast CEO Steve Florio has restricted cars and catering. Editors who used to fly the Concorde now fly first-class; those who used to fly first-class now fly business. Expense accounts are scrutinized. Even so, today's Cond\u00e9 Nast is economical only by Cond\u00e9 Nast standards. The belt is tighter, but it's still hand-tooled, hand-tanned, and fashioned from the finest Italian leather.",
    "51310": "My Lady Greensleeves\nBy FREDERIK POHL\n\n\n Illustrated by GAUGHAN\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThis guard smelled trouble and it could be\n \ncounted on to come\u2014for a nose for trouble\n \nwas one of the many talents bred here!\nI\n\n\n His name was Liam O'Leary and there was something stinking in his\n nostrils. It was the smell of trouble. He hadn't found what the trouble\n was yet, but he would. That was his business. He was a captain of\n guards in Estates-General Correctional Institution\u2014better known to\n its inmates as the Jug\u2014and if he hadn't been able to detect the scent\n of trouble brewing a cell-block away, he would never have survived to\n reach his captaincy.\n\n\n And her name, he saw, was Sue-Ann Bradley, Detainee No. WFA-656R.\n\n\n He frowned at the rap sheet, trying to figure out what got a girl like\n her into a place like this. And, what was more important, why she\n couldn't adjust herself to it, now that she was in.\n\n\n He demanded: \"Why wouldn't you mop out your cell?\"\n\n\n The girl lifted her head angrily and took a step forward. The block\n guard, Sodaro, growled warningly: \"Watch it, auntie!\"\n\n\n O'Leary shook his head. \"Let her talk, Sodaro.\" It said in the\nCivil\n Service Guide to Prison Administration\n: \"Detainees will be permitted\n to speak in their own behalf in disciplinary proceedings.\" And O'Leary\n was a man who lived by the book.\n\n\n She burst out: \"I never got a chance! That old witch Mathias never told\n me I was supposed to mop up. She banged on the door and said, 'Slush\n up, sister!' And then, ten minutes later, she called the guards and\n told them I refused to mop.\"\n\n\n The block guard guffawed. \"Wipe talk\u2014that's what she was telling you\n to do. Cap'n, you know what's funny about this? This Bradley is\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Shut up, Sodaro.\"\nCaptain O'leary put down his pencil and looked at the girl. She was\n attractive and young\u2014not beyond hope, surely. Maybe she had got off\n to a wrong start, but the question was, would putting her in the\n disciplinary block help straighten her out? He rubbed his ear and\n looked past her at the line of prisoners on the rap detail, waiting for\n him to judge their cases.\n\n\n He said patiently: \"Bradley, the rules are you have to mop out your\n cell. If you didn't understand what Mathias was talking about, you\n should have asked her. Now I'm warning you, the next time\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Hey, Cap'n, wait!\" Sodaro was looking alarmed. \"This isn't a first\n offense. Look at the rap sheet. Yesterday she pulled the same thing in\n the mess hall.\" He shook his head reprovingly at the prisoner. \"The\n block guard had to break up a fight between her and another wench,\n and she claimed the same business\u2014said she didn't understand when the\n other one asked her to move along.\" He added virtuously: \"The guard\n warned her then that next time she'd get the Greensleeves for sure.\"\n\n\n Inmate Bradley seemed to be on the verge of tears. She said tautly: \"I\n don't care. I don't care!\"\n\n\n O'Leary stopped her. \"That's enough! Three days in Block O!\"\n\n\n It was the only thing to do\u2014for her own sake as much as for his. He\n had managed, by strength of will, not to hear that she had omitted\n to say \"sir\" every time she spoke to him, but he couldn't keep it up\n forever and he certainly couldn't overlook hysteria. And hysteria was\n clearly the next step for her.\n\n\n All the same, he stared after her as she left. He handed the rap sheet\n to Sodaro and said absently: \"Too bad a kid like her has to be here.\n What's she in for?\"\n\n\n \"You didn't know, Cap'n?\" Sodaro leered. \"She's in for conspiracy to\n violate the Categoried Class laws. Don't waste your time with her,\n Cap'n. She's a figger-lover!\"\n\n\n Captain O'Leary took a long drink of water from the fountain marked\n \"Civil Service.\" But it didn't wash the taste out of his mouth, the\n smell from his nose.\n\n\n What got into a girl to get her mixed up with that kind of dirty\n business? He checked out of the cell blocks and walked across the\n yard, wondering about her. She'd had every advantage\u2014decent Civil\n Service parents, a good education, everything a girl could wish for. If\n anything, she had had a better environment than O'Leary himself, and\n look what she had made of it.\n\n\n The direction of evolution is toward specialization and Man is no\n exception, but with the difference that his is the one species that\n creates its own environment in which to specialize. From the moment\n that clans formed, specialization began\u2014the hunters using the weapons\n made by the flint-chippers, the food cooked in clay pots made by the\n ceramists, over fire made by the shaman who guarded the sacred flame.\n\n\n Civilization merely increased the extent of specialization. From\n the born mechanic and the man with the gift of gab, society evolved\n to the point of smaller contact and less communication between the\n specializations, until now they could understand each other on only the\n most basic physical necessities\u2014and not even always then.\n\n\n But this was desirable, for the more specialists, the higher the degree\n of civilization. The ultimate should be the complete segregation\n of each specialization\u2014social and genetic measures to make them\n breed true, because the unspecialized man is an uncivilized man,\n or at any rate he does not advance civilization. And letting the\n specializations mix would produce genetic undesirables: clerk-laborer\n or Professional-GI misfits, for example, being only half specialized,\n would be good at no specialization.\n\n\n And the basis of this specialization society was: \"The aptitude groups\n are the true races of mankind.\" Putting it into law was only the legal\n enforcement of a demonstrable fact.\n\n\n \"Evening, Cap'n.\" A bleary old inmate orderly stood up straight and\n touched his cap as O'Leary passed by.\n\n\n \"Evening.\"\nO'Leary noted, with the part of his mind that always noted those\n things, that the orderly had been leaning on his broom until he'd\n noticed the captain coming by. Of course, there wasn't much to\n sweep\u2014the spray machines and sweeperdozers had been over the\n cobblestones of the yard twice already that day. But it was an inmate's\n job to keep busy. And it was a guard captain's job to notice when they\n didn't.\n\n\n There wasn't anything wrong with that job, he told himself. It was a\n perfectly good civil-service position\u2014better than post-office clerk,\n not as good as Congressman, but a job you could be proud to hold. He\nwas\nproud of it. It was\nright\nthat he should be proud of it. He was\n civil-service born and bred, and naturally he was proud and content to\n do a good, clean civil-service job.\n\n\n If he had happened to be born a fig\u2014a\nclerk\n, he corrected\n himself\u2014if he had happened to be born a clerk, why, he would have been\n proud of that, too. There wasn't anything wrong with being a clerk\u2014or\n a mechanic or a soldier, or even a laborer, for that matter.\n\n\n Good laborers were the salt of the Earth! They weren't smart, maybe,\n but they had a\u2014well, a sort of natural, relaxed joy of living. O'Leary\n was a broad-minded man and many times he had thought almost with a\n touch of envy how\ncomfortable\nit must be to be a wipe\u2014a\nlaborer\n.\n No responsibilities. No worries. Just an easy, slow routine of work and\n loaf, work and loaf.\n\n\n Of course, he wouldn't\nreally\nwant that kind of life, because he was\n Civil Service and not the kind to try to cross over class barriers that\n weren't\nmeant\nto be\u2014\n\n\n \"Evening, Cap'n.\"\n\n\n He nodded to the mechanic inmate who was, theoretically, in charge of\n maintaining the prison's car pool, just inside the gate.\n\n\n \"Evening, Conan,\" he said.\n\n\n Conan, now\u2014he was a big buck greaser and he would be there for the\n next hour, languidly poking a piece of fluff out of the air filter on\n the prison jeep. Lazy, sure. Undependable, certainly. But he kept the\n cars going\u2014and, O'Leary thought approvingly, when his sentence was up\n in another year or so, he would go back to his life with his status\n restored, a mechanic on the outside as he had been inside, and he\n certainly would never risk coming back to the Jug by trying to pass as\n Civil Service or anything else. He knew his place.\n\n\n So why didn't this girl, this Sue-Ann Bradley, know hers?\nII\n\n\n Every prison has its Greensleeves\u2014sometimes they are called by\n different names. Old Marquette called it \"the canary;\" Louisiana State\n called it \"the red hats;\" elsewhere it was called \"the hole,\" \"the\n snake pit,\" \"the Klondike.\" When you're in it, you don't much care what\n it is called; it is a place for punishment.\n\n\n And punishment is what you get.\n\n\n Block O in Estates-General Correctional Institution was the\n disciplinary block, and because of the green straitjackets its\n inhabitants wore, it was called the Greensleeves. It was a community of\n its own, an enclave within the larger city-state that was the Jug. And\n like any other community, it had its leading citizens ... two of them.\n Their names were Sauer and Flock.\n\n\n Sue-Ann Bradley heard them before she reached the Greensleeves. She\n was in a detachment of three unfortunates like herself, convoyed by an\n irritable guard, climbing the steel steps toward Block O from the floor\n below, when she heard the yelling.\n\n\n \"Owoo-o-o,\" screamed Sauer from one end of the cell block and\n \"Yow-w-w!\" shrieked Flock at the other.\n\n\n The inside deck guard of Block O looked nervously at the outside deck\n guard. The outside guard looked impassively back\u2014after all, he was on\n the outside.\n\n\n The inside guard muttered: \"Wipe rats! They're getting on my nerves.\"\n\n\n The outside guard shrugged.\n\n\n \"Detail,\nhalt\n!\" The two guards turned to see what was coming in as\n the three new candidates for the Greensleeves slumped to a stop at the\n head of the stairs. \"Here they are,\" Sodaro told them. \"Take good care\n of 'em, will you? Especially the lady\u2014she's going to like it here,\n because there's plenty of wipes and greasers and figgers to keep her\n company.\" He laughed coarsely and abandoned his charges to the Block O\n guards.\n\n\n The outside guard said sourly: \"A woman, for God's sake. Now O'Leary\n knows I hate it when there's a woman in here. It gets the others all\n riled up.\"\n\n\n \"Let them in,\" the inside guard told him. \"The others are riled up\n already.\"\n\n\n Sue-Ann Bradley looked carefully at the floor and paid them no\n attention. The outside guard pulled the switch that turned on the\n tanglefoot electronic fields that swamped the floor of the block\n corridor and of each individual cell. While the fields were on, you\n could ignore the prisoners\u2014they simply could not move fast enough,\n against the electronic drag of the field, to do any harm. But it was a\n rule that, even in Block O, you didn't leave the tangler fields on all\n the time\u2014only when the cell doors had to be opened or a prisoner's\n restraining garment removed.\n\n\n Sue-Ann walked bravely forward through the opened gate\u2014and fell flat\n on her face. It was her first experience of a tanglefoot field. It was\n like walking through molasses.\n\n\n The guard guffawed and lifted her up by one shoulder. \"Take it easy,\n auntie. Come on, get in your cell.\" He steered her in the right\n direction and pointed to a greensleeved straitjacket on the cell cot.\n \"Put that on. Being as you're a lady, we won't tie it up, but the rules\n say you got to wear it and the rules\u2014Hey. She's crying!\" He shook his\n head, marveling. It was the first time he had ever seen a prisoner cry\n in the Greensleeves.\n\n\n However, he was wrong. Sue-Ann's shoulders were shaking, but not from\n tears. Sue-Ann Bradley had got a good look at Sauer and at Flock as she\n passed them by and she was fighting off an almost uncontrollable urge\n to retch.\nSauer and Flock were what are called prison wolves. They were\n laborers\u2014\"wipes,\" for short\u2014or, at any rate, they had been once.\n They had spent so much time in prisons that it was sometimes hard even\n for them to remember what they really were, outside. Sauer was a big,\n grinning redhead with eyes like a water moccasin. Flock was a lithe\n five-footer with the build of a water moccasin\u2014and the sad, stupid\n eyes of a calf.\n\n\n Sauer stopped yelling for a moment. \"Hey, Flock!\"\n\n\n \"What do you want, Sauer?\" called Flock from his own cell.\n\n\n \"We got a lady with us! Maybe we ought to cut out this yelling so\n as not to disturb the lady!\" He screeched with howling, maniacal\n laughter. \"Anyway, if we don't cut this out, they'll get us in trouble,\n Flock!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, you think so?\" shrieked Flock. \"Jeez, I wish you hadn't said that,\n Sauer. You got me scared! I'm so scared, I'm gonna have to yell!\"\n\n\n The howling started all over again.\n\n\n The inside guard finished putting the new prisoners away and turned off\n the tangler field once more. He licked his lips. \"Say, you want to take\n a turn in here for a while?\"\n\n\n \"Uh-uh.\" The outside guard shook his head.\n\n\n \"You're yellow,\" the inside guard said moodily. \"Ah, I don't know why I\n don't quit this lousy job. Hey, you! Pipe down or I'll come in and beat\n your head off!\"\n\n\n \"Ee-ee-ee!\" screamed Sauer in a shrill falsetto. \"I'm scared!\" Then he\n grinned at the guard, all but his water-moccasin eyes. \"Don't you know\n you can't hurt a wipe by hitting him on the head, Boss?\"\n\n\n \"Shut\nup\n!\" yelled the inside guard.\n\n\n Sue-Ann Bradley's weeping now was genuine. She simply could not help\n it. The crazy yowling of the hard-timers, Sauer and Flock, was getting\n under her skin. They weren't even\u2014even\nhuman\n, she told herself\n miserably, trying to weep silently so as not to give the guards the\n satisfaction of hearing her\u2014they were animals!\n\n\n Resentment and anger, she could understand. She told herself doggedly\n that resentment and anger were natural and right. They were perfectly\n normal expressions of the freedom-loving citizen's rebellion against\n the vile and stifling system of Categoried Classes. It was\ngood\nthat\n Sauer and Flock still had enough spirit to struggle against the vicious\n system\u2014\n\n\n But did they have to scream so?\n\n\n The senseless yelling was driving her crazy. She abandoned herself to\n weeping and she didn't even care who heard her any more. Senseless!\n\n\n It never occurred to Sue-Ann Bradley that it might not be senseless,\n because noise hides noise. But then she hadn't been a prisoner very\n long.\nIII\n\n\n \"I smell trouble,\" said O'Leary to the warden.\n\n\n \"Trouble? Trouble?\" Warden Schluckebier clutched his throat and his\n little round eyes looked terrified\u2014as perhaps they should have. Warden\n Godfrey Schluckebier was the almighty Caesar of ten thousand inmates in\n the Jug, but privately he was a fussy old man trying to hold onto the\n last decent job he would have in his life.\n\n\n \"Trouble?\nWhat\ntrouble?\"\n\n\n O'Leary shrugged. \"Different things. You know Lafon, from Block A? This\n afternoon, he was playing ball with the laundry orderlies in the yard.\"\n\n\n The warden, faintly relieved, faintly annoyed, scolded: \"O'Leary, what\n did you want to worry me for? There's nothing wrong with playing ball\n in the yard. That's what recreation periods are for.\"\n\n\n \"You don't see what I mean, Warden. Lafon was a professional on the\n outside\u2014an architect. Those laundry cons were laborers. Pros and wipes\n don't mix; it isn't natural. And there are other things.\"\n\n\n O'Leary hesitated, frowning. How could you explain to the warden that\n it didn't\nsmell\nright?\n\n\n \"For instance\u2014Well, there's Aunt Mathias in the women's block. She's\n a pretty good old girl\u2014that's why she's the block orderly. She's a\n lifer, she's got no place to go, she gets along with the other women.\n But today she put a woman named Bradley on report. Why? Because she\n told Bradley to mop up in wipe talk and Bradley didn't understand. Now\n Mathias wouldn't\u2014\"\n\n\n The warden raised his hand. \"Please, O'Leary, don't bother me about\n that kind of stuff.\" He sighed heavily and rubbed his eyes. He poured\n himself a cup of steaming black coffee from a brewpot, reached in a\n desk drawer for something, hesitated, glanced at O'Leary, then dropped\n a pale blue tablet into the cup. He drank it down eagerly, ignoring the\n scalding heat.\n\n\n He leaned back, looking suddenly happier and much more assured.\n\n\n \"O'Leary, you're a guard captain, right? And I'm your warden. You have\n your job, keeping the inmates in line, and I have mine. Now your job is\n just as important as my job,\" he said piously. \"\nEverybody's\njob is\n just as important as everybody else's, right? But we have to stick to\n our own jobs. We don't want to try to\npass\n.\"\n\n\n O'Leary snapped erect, abruptly angry. Pass! What the devil way was\n that for the warden to talk to him?\n\n\n \"Excuse the expression, O'Leary,\" the warden said anxiously. \"I mean,\n after all, 'Specialization is the goal of civilization,' right?\" He was\n a great man for platitudes, was Warden Schluckebier. \"\nYou\nknow you\n don't want to worry about\nmy\nend of running the prison. And\nI\ndon't\n want to worry about\nyours\n. You see?\" And he folded his hands and\n smiled like a civil-service Buddha.\nO'Leary choked back his temper. \"Warden, I'm telling you that there's\n trouble coming up. I smell the signs.\"\n\n\n \"Handle it, then!\" snapped the warden, irritated at last.\n\n\n \"But suppose it's too big to handle. Suppose\u2014\"\n\n\n \"It isn't,\" the warden said positively. \"Don't borrow trouble with\n all your supposing, O'Leary.\" He sipped the remains of his coffee,\n made a wry face, poured a fresh cup and, with an elaborate show of not\n noticing what he was doing, dropped three of the pale blue tablets into\n it this time.\n\n\n He sat beaming into space, waiting for the jolt to take effect.\n\n\n \"Well, then,\" he said at last. \"You just remember what I've told you\n tonight, O'Leary, and we'll get along fine. 'Specialization is the\u2014'\n Oh, curse the thing.\"\n\n\n His phone was ringing. The warden picked it up irritably.\n\n\n That was the trouble with those pale blue tablets, thought O'Leary;\n they gave you a lift, but they put you on edge.\n\n\n \"Hello,\" barked the warden, not even glancing at the viewscreen. \"What\n the devil do you want? Don't you know I'm\u2014What? You did\nwhat\n?\n You're going to WHAT?\"\n\n\n He looked at the viewscreen at last with a look of pure horror.\n Whatever he saw on it, it did not reassure him. His eyes opened like\n clamshells in a steamer.\n\n\n \"O'Leary,\" he said faintly, \"my mistake.\"\n\n\n And he hung up\u2014more or less by accident; the handset dropped from his\n fingers.\n\n\n The person on the other end of the phone was calling from Cell Block O.\n\n\n Five minutes before, he hadn't been anywhere near the phone and it\n didn't look as if his chances of ever getting near it were very good.\n Because five minutes before, he was in his cell, with the rest of the\n hard-timers of the Greensleeves.\n\n\n His name was Flock.\n\n\n He was still yelling. Sue-Ann Bradley, in the cell across from him,\n thought that maybe, after all, the man was really in pain. Maybe the\n crazy screams were screams of agony, because certainly his face was the\n face of an agonized man.\n\n\n The outside guard bellowed: \"Okay, okay. Take ten!\"\n\n\n Sue-Ann froze, waiting to see what would happen. What actually did\n happen was that the guard reached up and closed the switch that\n actuated the tangler fields on the floors of the cells. The prison\n rules were humanitarian, even for the dregs that inhabited the\n Greensleeves. Ten minutes out of every two hours, even the worst case\n had to be allowed to take his hands out of the restraining garment.\n\n\n \"Rest period\" it was called\u2014in the rule book. The inmates had a less\n lovely term for it.\nAt the guard's yell, the inmates jumped to their feet.\n\n\n Bradley was a little slow getting off the edge of the steel-slat\n bed\u2014nobody had warned her that the eddy currents in the tangler fields\n had a way of making metal smoke-hot. She gasped but didn't cry out.\n Score one more painful lesson in her new language course. She rubbed\n the backs of her thighs gingerly\u2014and slowly, slowly, for the eddy\n currents did not permit you to move fast. It was like pushing against\n rubber; the faster you tried to move, the greater the resistance.\n\n\n The guard peered genially into her cell. \"You're okay, auntie.\" She\n proudly ignored him as he slogged deliberately away on his rounds.\n He didn't have to untie her and practically stand over her while\n she attended to various personal matters, as he did with the male\n prisoners. It was not much to be grateful for, but Sue-Ann Bradley was\n grateful. At least she didn't have to live\nquite\nlike a fig\u2014like an\n underprivileged clerk, she told herself, conscience-stricken.\n\n\n Across the hall, the guard was saying irritably: \"What the hell's\n the matter with you?\" He opened the door of the cell with an\n asbestos-handled key held in a canvas glove.\n\n\n Flock was in that cell and he was doubled over.\n\n\n The guard looked at him doubtfully. It could be a trick, maybe.\n Couldn't it? But he could see Flock's face and the agony in it was real\n enough. And Flock was gasping, through real tears: \"Cramps. I\u2014I\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Ah, you wipes always got a pain in the gut.\" The guard lumbered around\n Flock to the draw-strings at the back of the jacket. Funny smell in\n here, he told himself\u2014not for the first time. And imagine, some people\n didn't believe that wipes had a smell of their own! But this time, he\n realized cloudily, it was a rather unusual smell. Something burning.\n Almost like meat scorching.\n\n\n It wasn't pleasant. He finished untying Flock and turned away; let the\n stinking wipe take care of his own troubles. He only had ten minutes to\n get all the way around Block O and the inmates complained like crazy if\n he didn't make sure they all got the most possible free time. He was\n pretty good at snowshoeing through the tangler field. He was a little\n vain about it, even; at times he had been known to boast of his ability\n to make the rounds in two minutes, every time.\n\n\n Every time but this.\n\n\n For Flock moaned behind him, oddly close.\n\n\n The guard turned, but not quickly enough. There was\n Flock\u2014astonishingly, he was half out of his jacket; his arms hadn't\n been in the sleeves at all! And in one of the hands, incredibly, there\n was something that glinted and smoked.\n\n\n \"All right,\" croaked Flock, tears trickling out of eyes nearly shut\n with pain.\n\n\n But it wasn't the tears that held the guard; it was the shining,\n smoking thing, now poised at his throat. A shiv! It looked as though\n it had been made out of a bed-spring, ripped loose from its frame God\n knows how, hidden inside the greensleeved jacket God knows how\u2014filed,\n filed to sharpness over endless hours.\n\n\n No wonder Flock moaned\u2014the eddy currents in the shiv were slowly\n cooking his hand; and the blister against his abdomen, where the shiv\n had been hidden during other rest periods, felt like raw acid.\n\"All right,\" whispered Flock, \"just walk out the door and you won't get\n hurt. Unless the other screw makes trouble, you won't get hurt, so tell\n him not to, you hear?\"\n\n\n He was nearly fainting with the pain.\n\n\n But he hadn't let go.\n\n\n He didn't let go. And he didn't stop.\nIV\n\n\n It was Flock on the phone to the warden\u2014Flock with his eyes still\n streaming tears, Flock with Sauer standing right behind him, menacing\n the two bound deck guards.\n\n\n Sauer shoved Flock out of the way. \"Hey, Warden!\" he said, and the\n voice was a cheerful bray, though the serpent eyes were cold and\n hating. \"Warden, you got to get a medic in here. My boy Flock, he hurt\n himself real bad and he needs a doctor.\" He gestured playfully at the\n guards with the shiv. \"I tell you, Warden. I got this knife and I got\n your guards here. Enough said? So get a medic in here quick, you hear?\"\n\n\n And he snapped the connection.\n\n\n O'Leary said: \"Warden, I told you I smelled trouble!\"\n\n\n The warden lifted his head, glared, started feebly to speak, hesitated,\n and picked up the long-distance phone. He said sadly to the prison\n operator: \"Get me the governor\u2014fast.\"\nRiot!\nThe word spread out from the prison on seven-league boots.\n\n\n It snatched the city governor out of a friendly game of Seniority\n with his manager and their wives\u2014and just when he was holding the\n Porkbarrel Joker concealed in the hole.\n\n\n It broke up the Base Championship Scramble Finals at Hap Arnold Field\n to the south, as half the contestants had to scramble in earnest to a\n Red Alert that was real.\n\n\n It reached to police precinct houses and TV newsrooms and highway\n checkpoints, and from there it filtered into the homes and lives of the\n nineteen million persons that lived within a few dozen miles of the Jug.\n\n\n Riot. And yet fewer than half a dozen men were involved.\n\n\n A handful of men, and the enormous bulk of the city-state quivered in\n every limb and class. In its ten million homes, in its hundreds of\n thousands of public places, the city-state's people shook under the\n impact of the news from the prison.\n\n\n For the news touched them where their fears lay. Riot! And not merely\n a street brawl among roistering wipes, or a bar-room fight of greasers\n relaxing from a hard day at the plant. The riot was down among the\n corrupt sludge that underlay the state itself. Wipes brawled with wipes\n and no one cared; but in the Jug, all classes were cast together.\nForty miles to the south, Hap Arnold Field was a blaze of light. The\n airmen tumbled out of their quarters and dayrooms at the screech of\n the alert siren, and behind them their wives and children stretched\n and yawned and worried. An alert! The older kids fussed and complained\n and their mothers shut them up. No, there wasn't any alert scheduled\n for tonight; no, they didn't know where Daddy was going; no, the kids\n couldn't get up yet\u2014it was the middle of the night.\n\n\n And as soon as they had the kids back in bed, most of the mothers\n struggled into their own airwac uniforms and headed for the briefing\n area to hear.\n\n\n They caught the words from a distance\u2014not quite correctly. \"Riot!\"\n gasped an aircraftswoman first-class, mother of three. \"The wipes! I\ntold\nCharlie they'd get out of hand and\u2014Alys, we aren't safe. You\n know how they are about GI women! I'm going right home and get a club\n and stand right by the door and\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Club!\" snapped Alys, radarscope-sergeant, with two children\n querulously awake in her nursery at home. \"What in God's name is the\n use of a club? You can't hurt a wipe by hitting him on the head. You'd\n better come along to Supply with me and draw a gun\u2014you'll need it\n before this night is over.\"\n\n\n But the airmen themselves heard the briefing loud and clear over the\n scramble-call speakers, and they knew it was not merely a matter of\n trouble in the wipe quarters. The Jug! The governor himself had called\n them out; they were to fly interdicting missions at such-and-such\n levels on such-and-such flight circuits around the prison.\n\n\n The rockets took off on fountains of fire; and the jets took off with a\n whistling roar; and last of all, the helicopters took off ... and they\n were the ones who might actually accomplish something. They took up\n their picket posts on the prison perimeter, a pilot and two bombardiers\n in each 'copter, stone-faced, staring grimly alert at the prison below.\n\n\n They were ready for the breakout.\n\n\n But there wasn't any breakout.\n\n\n The rockets went home for fuel. The jets went home for fuel. The\n helicopters hung on\u2014still ready, still waiting.\n\n\n The rockets came back and roared harmlessly about, and went away again.\n They stayed away. The helicopter men never faltered and never relaxed.\n The prison below them was washed with light\u2014from the guard posts on\n the walls, from the cell blocks themselves, from the mobile lights of\n the guard squadrons surrounding the walls.\n\n\n North of the prison, on the long, flat, damp developments of reclaimed\n land, the matchbox row houses of the clerical neighborhoods showed\n lights in every window as the figgers stood ready to repel invasion\n from their undesired neighbors to the east, the wipes. In the crowded\n tenements of the laborers' quarters, the wipes shouted from window to\n window; and there were crowds in the bright streets.\n\n\n \"The whole bloody thing's going to blow up!\" a helicopter bombardier\n yelled bitterly to his pilot, above the flutter and roar of the\n whirling blades. \"Look at the mobs in Greaserville! The first breakout\n from the Jug's going to start a fight like you never saw and we'll be\n right in the middle of it!\"\n\n\n He was partly right. He would be right in the middle of it\u2014for every\n man, woman and child in the city-state would be right in the middle of\n it. There was no place anywhere that would be spared.\nNo mixing.\nThat\n was the prescription that kept the city-state alive. There's no harm in\n a family fight\u2014and aren't all mechanics a family, aren't all laborers\n a clan, aren't all clerks and office workers related by closer ties\n than blood or skin?\n\n\n But the declassed cons of the Jug were the dregs of every class; and\n once they spread, the neat compartmentation of society was pierced. The\n breakout would mean riot on a bigger scale than any prison had ever\n known.\n\n\n But he was also partly wrong. Because the breakout wasn't seeming to\n come.",
    "51286": "PEN PAL\nIllustrated by DON SIBLEY\n\n\n By MILTON LESSER\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction July 1951.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nAll she wanted was a mate and she had the gumption\n\n to go out and hunt one down. But that meant\n\n poaching in a strictly forbidden territory!\nThe best that could be said for Matilda Penshaws was that she was\n something of a paradox. She was thirty-three years old, certainly not\n aged when you consider the fact that the female life expectancy is now\n up in the sixties, but the lines were beginning to etch their permanent\n paths across her face and now she needed certain remedial undergarments\n at which she would have scoffed ten or even five years ago. Matilda was\n also looking for a husband.\n\n\n This, in itself, was not unusual\u2014but Matilda was so completely\n wrapped up in the romantic fallacy of her day that she sought a prince\n charming, a faithful Don Juan, a man who had been everywhere and tasted\n of every worldly pleasure and who now wanted to sit on a porch and\n talk about it all to Matilda.\n\n\n The fact that in all probability such a man did not exist disturbed\n Matilda not in the least. She had been known to say that there are over\n a billion men in the world, a goodly percentage of whom are eligible\n bachelors, and that the right one would come along simply because she\n had been waiting for him.\n\n\n Matilda, you see, had patience.\n\n\n She also had a fetish. Matilda had received her A.B. from exclusive\n Ursula Johns College and Radcliff had yielded her Masters degree, yet\n Matilda was an avid follower of the pen pal columns. She would read\n them carefully and then read them again, looking for the masculine\n names which, through a system known only to Matilda, had an affinity\n to her own. To the gentlemen upon whom these names were affixed,\n Matilda would write, and she often told her mother, the widow Penshaws,\n that it was in this way she would find her husband. The widow Penshaws\n impatiently told her to go out and get dates.\nThat particular night, Matilda pulled her battered old sedan into the\n garage and walked up the walk to the porch. The widow Penshaws was\n rocking on the glider and Matilda said hello.\n\n\n The first thing the widow Penshaws did was to take Matilda's left hand\n in her own and examine the next-to-the-last finger.\n\n\n \"I thought so,\" she said. \"I knew this was coming when I saw that look\n in your eye at dinner. Where is Herman's engagement ring?\"\n\n\n Matilda smiled. \"It wouldn't have worked out, Ma. He was too darned\n stuffy. I gave him his ring and said thanks anyway and he smiled\n politely and said he wished I had told him sooner because his fifteenth\n college reunion was this weekend and he had already turned down the\n invitation.\"\n\n\n The widow Penshaws nodded regretfully. \"That was thoughtful of Herman\n to hide his feelings.\"\n\n\n \"Hogwash!\" said her daughter. \"He has no true feelings. He's sorry that\n he had to miss his college reunion. That's all he has to hide. A stuffy\n Victorian prude and even less of a man than the others.\"\n\n\n \"But, Matilda, that's your fifth broken engagement in three years. It\n ain't that you ain't popular, but you just don't want to cooperate.\n You don't\nfall\nin love, Matilda\u2014no one does. Love osmoses into you\n slowly, without you even knowing, and it keeps growing all the time.\"\n\n\n Matilda admired her mother's use of the word osmosis, but she found\n nothing which was not objectionable about being unaware of the impact\n of love. She said good-night and went upstairs, climbed out of her\n light summer dress and took a cold shower.\n\n\n She began to hum to herself. She had not yet seen the pen pal section\n of the current\nLiterary Review\n, and because the subject matter of\n that magazine was somewhat highbrow and cosmopolitan, she could expect\n a gratifying selection of pen pals.\n\n\n She shut off the shower, brushed her teeth, gargled, patted herself\n dry with a towel, and jumped into bed, careful to lock the door of her\n bedroom. She dared not let the widow Penshaws know that she slept in\n the nude; the widow Penshaws would object to a girl sleeping in the\n nude, even if the nearest neighbor was three hundred yards away.\n\n\n Matilda switched her bed lamp on and dabbed some citronella on each\n ear lobe and a little droplet on her chin (how she hated insects!).\n Then she propped up her pillows\u2014two pillows partially stopped her\n post-nasal drip; and took the latest issue of the\nLiterary Review\noff the night table.\n\n\n She flipped through the pages and came to personals. Someone in\n Nebraska wanted to trade match books; someone in New York needed a\n midwestern pen pal, but it was a woman; an elderly man interested in\n ornithology wanted a young chick correspondent interested in the same\n subject; a young, personable man wanted an editorial position because\n he thought he had something to offer the editorial world; and\u2014\nMatilda read the next one twice. Then she held it close to the light\n and read it again. The\nLiterary Review\nwas one of the few magazines\n which printed the name of the advertiser rather than a box number, and\n Matilda even liked the sound of the name. But mostly, she had to admit\n to herself, it was the flavor of the wording. This very well could be\nit\n. Or, that is,\nhim\n.\n\n\n Intelligent, somewhat egotistical male who's really been around, whose\n universal experience can make the average cosmopolite look like a\n provincial hick, is in need of several female correspondents: must be\n intelligent, have gumption, be capable of listening to male who has a\n lot to say and wants to say it. All others need not apply. Wonderful\n opportunity cultural experience ... Haron Gorka, Cedar Falls, Ill.\n\n\n The man was egotistical, all right; Matilda could see that. But she had\n never minded an egotistical man, at least not when he had something\n about which he had a genuine reason to be egotistical. The man sounded\n as though he would have reason indeed. He only wanted the best because\n he was the best. Like calls to like.\n\n\n The name\u2014Haron Gorka: its oddness was somehow beautiful to Matilda.\n Haron Gorka\u2014the nationality could be anything. And that was it. He had\n no nationality for all intents and purposes; he was an international\n man, a figure among figures, a paragon....\n\n\n Matilda sighed happily as she put out the light. The moon shone in\n through the window brightly, and at such times Matilda generally would\n get up, go to the cupboard, pull out a towel, take two hairpins from\n her powder drawer, pin the towel to the screen of her window, and hence\n keep the disturbing moonlight from her eyes. But this time it did not\n disturb her, and she would let it shine. Cedar Falls was a small town\n not fifty miles from her home, and she'd get there a hop, skip, and\n jump ahead of her competitors, simply by arriving in person instead of\n writing a letter.\n\n\n Matilda was not yet that far gone in years or appearance. Dressed\n properly, she could hope to make a favorable impression in person, and\n she felt it was important to beat the influx of mail to Cedar Falls.\nMatilda got out of bed at seven, tiptoed into the bathroom, showered\n with a merest wary trickle of water, tiptoed back into her bedroom,\n dressed in her very best cotton over the finest of uplifting and\n figure-moulding underthings, made sure her stocking seams were\n perfectly straight, brushed her suede shoes, admired herself in the\n mirror, read the ad again, wished for a moment she were a bit younger,\n and tiptoed downstairs.\n\n\n The widow Penshaws met her at the bottom of the stairwell.\n\n\n \"Mother,\" gasped Matilda. Matilda always gasped when she saw something\n unexpected. \"What on earth are you doing up?\"\n\n\n The widow Penshaws smiled somewhat toothlessly, having neglected to put\n in both her uppers and lowers this early in the morning. \"I'm fixing\n breakfast, of course....\"\n\n\n Then the widow Penshaws told Matilda that she could never hope to sneak\n about the house without her mother knowing about it, and that even\n if she were going out in response to one of those foolish ads in the\n magazines, she would still need a good breakfast to start with like\n only mother could cook. Matilda moodily thanked the widow Penshaws.\nDriving the fifty miles to Cedar Falls in a little less than an hour,\n Matilda hummed Mendelssohn's Wedding March all the way. It was her\n favorite piece of music. Once, she told herself: Matilda Penshaws, you\n are being premature about the whole thing. But she laughed and thought\n that if she was, she was, and, meanwhile, she could only get to Cedar\n Falls and find out.\n\n\n And so she got there.\n\n\n The man in the wire cage at the Cedar Falls post office was a\n stereotype. Matilda always liked to think in terms of stereotypes. This\n man was small, roundish, florid of face, with a pair of eyeglasses\n which hung too far down on his nose. Matilda knew he would peer over\n his glasses and answer questions grudgingly.\n\n\n \"Hello,\" said Matilda.\n\n\n The stereotype grunted and peered at her over his glasses. Matilda\n asked him where she could find Haron Gorka.\n\n\n \"What?\"\n\n\n \"I said, where can I find Haron Gorka?\"\n\n\n \"Is that in the United States?\"\n\n\n \"It's not a that; it's a he. Where can I find him? Where does he live?\n What's the quickest way to get there?\"\n\n\n The stereotype pushed up his glasses and looked at her squarely. \"Now\n take it easy, ma'am. First place, I don't know any Haron Gorka\u2014\"\n\n\n Matilda kept the alarm from creeping into her voice. She muttered an\noh\nunder her breath and took out the ad. This she showed to the\n stereotype, and he scratched his bald head. Then he told Matilda almost\n happily that he was sorry he couldn't help her. He grudgingly suggested\n that if it really were important, she might check with the police.\n\n\n Matilda did, only they didn't know any Haron Gorka, either. It turned\n out that no one did: Matilda tried the general store, the fire\n department, the city hall, the high school, all three Cedar Falls gas\n stations, the livery stable, and half a dozen private dwellings at\n random. As far us the gentry of Cedar Falls was concerned, Haron Gorka\n did not exist.\n\n\n Matilda felt bad, but she had no intention of returning home this\n early. If she could not find Haron Gorka, that was one thing; but she\n knew that she'd rather not return home and face the widow Penshaws, at\n least not for a while yet. The widow Penshaws meant well, but she liked\n to analyze other people's mistakes, especially Matilda's.\n\n\n Accordingly, Matilda trudged wearily toward Cedar Falls' small and\n unimposing library. She could release some of her pent-up aggression by\n browsing through the dusty slacks.\n\n\n This she did, but it was unrewarding. Cedar Falls had what might be\n called a microscopic library, and Matilda thought that if this small\n building were filled with microfilm rather than books, the library\n still would be lacking. Hence she retraced her steps and nodded to the\n old librarian as she passed.\nThen Matilda frowned. Twenty years from now, this could be Matilda\n Penshaws\u2014complete with plain gray dress, rimless spectacles, gray\n hair, suspicious eyes, and a broom-stick figure....\n\n\n On the other hand\u2014why not? Why couldn't the librarian help her? Why\n hadn't she thought of it before? Certainly a man as well-educated as\n Haron Gorka would be an avid reader, and unless he had a permanent\n residence here in Cedar Palls, one couldn't expect that he'd have his\n own library with him. This being the case, a third-rate collection\n of books was far better than no collection at all, and perhaps the\n librarian would know Mr. Haron Gorka.\n\n\n Matilda cleared her throat. \"Pardon me,\" she began. \"I'm looking for\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Haron Gorka.\" The librarian nodded.\n\n\n \"How on earth did you know?\"\n\n\n \"That's easy. You're the sixth young woman who came here inquiring\n about that man today. Six of you\u2014five others in the morning, and now\n you in the afternoon. I never did trust this Mr. Gorka....\"\n\n\n Matilda jumped as if she had been struck strategically from the rear.\n \"You know him? You know Haron Gorka?\"\n\n\n \"Certainly. Of course I know him. He's our steadiest reader here at\n the library. Not a week goes by that he doesn't take out three, four\n books. Scholarly gentleman, but not without charm. If I were twenty\n years younger\u2014\"\n\n\n Matilda thought a little flattery might be effective. \"Only ten,\" she\n assured the librarian. \"Ten years would be more than sufficient, I'm\n sure.\"\n\n\n \"Are you? Well. Well, well.\" The librarian did something with the back\n of her hair, but it looked the same as before. \"Maybe you're right.\n Maybe you're right at that.\" Then she sighed. \"But I guess a miss is as\n good as a mile.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\n \"I mean anyone would like to correspond with Haron Gorka. Or to know\n him well. To be considered his friend. Haron Gorka....\"\n\n\n The librarian seemed about to soar off into the air someplace, and if\n five women had been here first, Matilda was now definitely in a hurry.\n\n\n \"Um, where can I find Mr. Gorka?\"\n\n\n \"I'm not supposed to do this, you know. We're not permitted to give the\n addresses of any of our people. Against regulations, my dear.\"\n\n\n \"What about the other five women?\"\n\n\n \"They convinced me that I ought to give them his address.\"\n\n\n Matilda reached into her pocket-book and withdrew a five dollar bill.\n \"Was this the way?\" she demanded. Matilda was not very good at this\n sort of thing.\n\n\n The librarian shook her head.\n\n\n Matilda nodded shrewdly and added a twin brother to the bill in her\n hand. \"Then is this better?\"\n\n\n \"That's worse. I wouldn't take your money\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Sorry. What then?\"\n\n\n \"If I can't enjoy an association with Haron Gorka directly, I still\n could get the vicarious pleasure of your contact with him. Report to me\n faithfully and you'll get his address. That's what the other five will\n do, and with half a dozen of you, I'll get an overall picture. Each one\n of you will tell me about Haron Gorka, sparing no details. You each\n have a distinct personality, of course, and it will color each picture\n considerably. But with six of you reporting, I should receive my share\n of vicarious enjoyment. Is it\u2014ah\u2014a deal?\"\n\n\n Matilda assured her that it was, and, breathlessly, she wrote down the\n address. She thanked the librarian and then she went out to her car,\n whistling to herself.\nHaron Gorka lived in what could have been an agrarian estate, except\n that the land no longer was being tilled. The house itself had fallen\n to ruin. This surprised Matilda, but she did not let it keep her\n spirits in check. Haron Gorka, the man, was what counted, and the\n librarian's account of him certainly had been glowing enough. Perhaps\n he was too busy with his cultural pursuits to pay any real attention to\n his dwelling. That was it, of course: the conspicuous show of wealth or\n personal industry meant nothing at all to Haron Gorka. Matilda liked\n him all the more for it.\n\n\n There were five cars parked in the long driveway, and now Matilda's\n made the sixth. In spite of herself, she smiled. She had not been the\n only one with the idea to visit Haron Gorka in person. With half a\n dozen of them there, the laggards who resorted to posting letters would\n be left far behind. Matilda congratulated herself for what she thought\n had been her ingenuity, and which now turned out to be something which\n she had in common with five other women. You live and learn, thought\n Matilda. And then, quite annoyedly, she berated herself for not having\n been the first. Perhaps the other five all were satisfactory; perhaps\n she wouldn't be needed; perhaps she was too late....\nAs it turned out, she wasn't. Not only that, she was welcomed with open\n arms. Not by Haron Gorka; that she really might have liked. Instead,\n someone she could only regard as a menial met her, and when he asked\n had she come in response to the advertisement, she nodded eagerly.\n He told her that was fine and he ushered her straight into a room\n which evidently was to be her living quarters. It contained a small\n undersized bed, a table, and a chair, and, near a little slot in the\n wall, there was a button.\n\n\n \"You want any food or drink,\" the servant told her, \"and you just press\n that button. The results will surprise you.\"\n\n\n \"What about Mr. Gorka?\"\n\n\n \"When he wants you, he will send for you. Meanwhile, make yourself to\n home, lady, and I will tell him you are here.\"\n\n\n A little doubtful now, Matilda thanked him and watched him leave. He\n closed the door softly behind his retreating feet, but Matilda's ears\n had not missed the ominous click. She ran to the door and tried to open\n it, but it would not budge. It was locked\u2014from the outside.\n\n\n It must be said to Matilda's favor that she sobbed only once. After\n that she realized that what is done is done and here, past thirty,\n she wasn't going to be girlishly timid about it. Besides, it was not\n her fault if, in his unconcern, Haron Gorka had unwittingly hired a\n neurotic servant.\n\n\n For a time Matilda paced back and forth in her room, and of what was\n going on outside she could hear nothing. In that case, she would\n pretend that there was nothing outside the little room, and presently\n she lay down on the bed to take a nap. This didn't last long, however:\n she had a nightmare in which Haron Gorka appeared as a giant with two\n heads, but, upon awaking with a start, she immediately ascribed that to\n her overwrought nerves.\n\n\n At that point she remembered what the servant had said about food and\n she thought at once of the supreme justice she could do to a juicy\n beefsteak. Well, maybe they didn't have a beefsteak. In that case, she\n would take what they had, and, accordingly, she walked to the little\n slot in the wall and pressed the button.\n\n\n She heard the whir of machinery. A moment later there was a soft\n sliding sound. Through the slot first came a delicious aroma, followed\n almost instantly by a tray. On the tray were a bowl of turtle soup,\n mashed potatoes, green peas, bread, a strange cocktail, root-beer, a\n parfait\u2014and a thick tenderloin sizzling in hot butter sauce.\nMatilda gasped once and felt about to gasp again\u2014but by then her\n salivary glands were working overtime, and she ate her meal. The fact\n that it was precisely what she would have wanted could, of course, be\n attributed to coincidence, and the further fact that everything was\n extremely palatable made her forget all about Haron Gorka's neurotic\n servant.\n\n\n When she finished her meal a pleasant lethargy possessed her, and in a\n little while Matilda was asleep again. This time she did not dream at\n all. It was a deep sleep and a restful one, and when she awoke it was\n with the wonderful feeling that everything was all right.\nThe feeling did not last long. Standing over her was Haron Gorka's\n servant, and he said, \"Mr. Gorka will see you now.\"\n\n\n \"Now?\"\n\n\n \"Now. That's what you're here for, isn't it?\"\n\n\n He had a point there, but Matilda hardly even had time to fix her hair.\n She told the servant so.\n\n\n \"Miss,\" he replied, \"I assure you it will not matter in the least to\n Haron Gorka. You are here and he is ready to see you and that is all\n that matters.\"\n\n\n \"You sure?\" Matilda wanted to take no chances.\n\n\n \"Yes. Come.\"\n\n\n She followed him out of the little room and across what should have\n been a spacious dining area, except that everything seemed covered with\n dust. Of the other women Matilda could see nothing, and she suddenly\n realized that each of them probably had a cubicle of a room like her\n own, and that each in her turn had already had her first visit with\n Haron Gorka. Well, then, she must see to it that she impressed him\n better than did all the rest, and, later, when she returned to tell the\n old librarian of her adventures, she could perhaps draw her out and\n compare notes.\n\n\n She would not admit even to herself that she was disappointed with\n Haron Gorka. It was not that he was homely and unimpressive; it was\n just that he was so\nordinary\n-looking. She almost would have preferred\n the monster of her dreams.\nHe wore a white linen suit and he had mousy hair, drab eyes, an\n almost-Roman nose, a petulant mouth with the slight arch of the egotist\n at each corner.\n\n\n He said, \"Greetings. You have come\u2014\"\n\n\n \"In response to your ad. How do you do, Mr. Gorka?\"\n\n\n She hoped she wasn't being too formal. But, then, there was no sense in\n assuming that he would like informality. She could only wait and see\n and adjust her own actions to suit him. Meanwhile, it would be best to\n keep on the middle of the road.\n\n\n \"I am fine. Are you ready?\"\n\n\n \"Ready?\"\n\n\n \"Certainly. You came in response to my ad. You want to hear me talk, do\n you not?\"\n\n\n \"I\u2014do.\" Matilda had had visions of her prince charming sitting back\n and relaxing with her, telling her of the many things he had done and\n seen. But first she certainly would have liked to get to\nknow\nthe\n man. Well, Haron Gorka obviously had more experience along these lines\n than she did. He waited, however, as if wondering what to say, and\n Matilda, accustomed to social chatter, gave him a gambit.\n\n\n \"I must admit I was surprised when I got exactly what I wanted for\n dinner,\" she told him brightly.\n\n\n \"Eh? What say? Oh, yes, naturally. A combination of telepathy and\n teleportation. The synthetic cookery is attuned to your mind when you\n press the buzzer, and the strength of your psychic impulses determines\n how closely the meal will adjust to your desires. The fact that the\n adjustment here was near perfect is commendable. It means either that\n you have a high psi-quotient, or that you were very hungry.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" said Matilda vaguely. Perhaps it might be better, after all, if\n Haron Gorka were to talk to her as he saw fit.\n\n\n \"Ready?\"\n\n\n \"Uh\u2014ready.\"\n\n\n \"Well?\"\n\n\n \"Well, what, Mr. Gorka?\"\n\n\n \"What would you like me to talk about?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, anything.\"\n\n\n \"Please. As the ad read, my universal experience\u2014is universal.\n Literally. You'll have to be more specific.\"\n\n\n \"Well, why don't you tell me about some of your far travels?\n Unfortunately, while I've done a lot of reading, I haven't been to all\n the places I would have liked\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Good enough. You know, of course, how frigid Deneb VII is?\"\n\n\n Matilda said, \"Beg pardon?\"\n\n\n \"Well, there was the time our crew\u2014before I had retired, of\n course\u2014made a crash landing there. We could survive in the vac-suits,\n of course, but the\nthlomots\nwere after us almost at once. They go\n mad over plastic. They will eat absolutely any sort of plastic. Our\n vac-suits\u2014\"\n\"\u2014were made of plastic,\" Matilda suggested. She did not understand a\n thing he was talking about, but she felt she had better act bright.\n\n\n \"No, no. Must you interrupt? The air-hose and the water feed, these\n were plastic. Not the rest of the suit. The point is that half of us\n were destroyed before the rescue ship could come, and the remainder\n were near death. I owe my life to the mimicry of a\nflaak\nfrom Capella\n III. It assumed the properties of plastic and led the\nthlomots\na\n merry chase across the frozen surface of D VII. You travel in the Deneb\n system now and Interstellar Ordinance makes it mandatory to carry\nflaaks\nwith you. Excellent idea, really excellent.\"\nAlmost at once, Matilda's educational background should have told her\n that Haron Gorka was mouthing gibberish. But on the other hand she\nwanted\nto believe in him and the result was that it took until now\n for her to realize it.\n\n\n \"Stop making fun of me,\" she said.\n\n\n \"So, naturally, you'll see\nflaaks\nall over that system\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Stop!\"\n\n\n \"What's that? Making fun of you?\" Haron Gorka's voice had been so\n eager as he spoke, high-pitched, almost like a child's, and now he\n seemed disappointed. He smiled, but it was a sad smile, a smile of\n resignation, and he said, \"Very well. I'm wrong again. You are the\n sixth, and you're no better than the other five. Perhaps you are even\n more outspoken. When you see my wife, tell her to come back. Again she\n is right and I am wrong....\"\n\n\n Haron Gorka turned his back.\n\n\n Matilda could do nothing but leave the room, walk back through the\n house, go outside and get into her car. She noticed not without\n surprise that the other five cars were now gone. She was the last of\n Haron Gorka's guests to depart.\n\n\n As she shifted into reverse and pulled out of the driveway, she saw\n the servant leaving, too. Far down the road, he was walking slowly.\n Then Haron Gorka had severed that relationship, too, and now he was all\n alone.\n\n\n As she drove back to town, the disappointment melted slowly away. There\n were, of course, two alternatives. Either Haron Gorka was an eccentric\n who enjoyed this sort of outlandish tomfoolery, or else he was plainly\n insane. She could still picture him ranting on aimlessly to no one in\n particular about places which had no existence outside of his mind, his\n voice high-pitched and eager.\nIt was not until she had passed the small library building that she\n remembered what she had promised the librarian. In her own way, the\n aging woman would be as disappointed as Matilda, but a promise was a\n promise, and Matilda turned the car in a wide U-turn and parked it\n outside the library.\n\n\n The woman sat at her desk as Matilda had remembered her, gray,\n broom-stick figure, rigid. But now when she saw Matilda she perked up\n visibly.\n\n\n \"Hello, my dear,\" she said.\n\n\n \"Hi.\"\n\n\n \"You're back a bit sooner than I expected. But, then, the other five\n have returned, too, and I imagine your story will be similar.\"\n\n\n \"I don't know what they told you,\" Matilda said. \"But this is what\n happened to me.\"\n\n\n She quickly then related everything which had happened, completely and\n in detail. She did this first because it was a promise, and second\n because she knew it would make her feel better.\n\n\n \"So,\" she finished, \"Haron Gorka is either extremely eccentric or\n insane. I'm sorry.\"\n\n\n \"He's neither,\" the librarian contradicted. \"Perhaps he is slightly\n eccentric by your standards, but really, my dear, he is neither.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\n \"Did he leave a message for his wife?\"\n\n\n \"Why, yes. Yes, he did. But how did you know? Oh, I suppose he told the\n five.\"\n\n\n \"No. He didn't. But you were the last and I thought he would give you a\n message for his wife\u2014\"\n\n\n Matilda didn't understand. She didn't understand at all, but she told\n the little librarian what the message was. \"He wanted her to return,\"\n she said.\n\n\n The librarian nodded, a happy smile on her lips. \"You wouldn't believe\n me if I told you something.\"\n\n\n \"What's that?\"\n\n\n \"I am Mrs. Gorka.\"\n\n\n The librarian stood up and came around the desk. She opened a drawer\n and took out her hat and perched it jauntily atop her gray hair. \"You\n see, my dear, Haron expects too much. He expects entirely too much.\"\n\n\n Matilda did not say a word. One madman a day would be quite enough for\n anybody, but here she found herself confronted with two.\n\n\n \"We've been tripping for centuries, visiting every habitable star\n system from our home near Canopus. But Haron is too demanding. He\n says I am a finicky traveler, that he could do much better alone, the\n accommodations have to be just right for me, and so forth. When he\n loses his temper, he tries to convince me that any number of females of\n the particular planet would be more than thrilled if they were given\n the opportunity just to listen to him.\n\n\n \"But he's wrong. It's a hard life for a woman. Someday\u2014five thousand,\n ten thousand years from now\u2014I will convince him. And then we will\n settle down on Canopus XIV and cultivate\ntorgas\n. That would be so\n nice\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I'm sure.\"\n\n\n \"Well, if Haron wants me back, then I have to go. Have a care, my dear.\n If you marry, choose a home-body. I've had the experience and you've\n seen my Haron for yourself.\"\n\n\n And then the woman was gone. Numbly, Matilda walked to the doorway and\n watched her angular figure disappear down the road. Of all the crazy\n things....\n\n\n Deneb and Capella and Canopus, these were stars. Add a number and you\n might have a planet revolving about each star. Of all the insane\u2014\n\n\n They were mad, all right, and now Matilda wondered if, actually,\n they were husband and wife. It could readily be; maybe the madness\n was catching. Maybe if you thought too much about such things, such\n travels, you could get that way. Of course, Herman represented the\n other extreme, and Herman was even worse in his own way\u2014but hereafter\n Matilda would seek the happy medium.\n\n\n And, above all else, she had had enough of her pen pal columns. They\n were, she realized, for kids.\nShe ate dinner in Cedar Falls and then she went out to her car again,\n preparing for the journey back home. The sun had set and it was a clear\n night, and overhead the great broad sweep of the Milky Way was a pale\n rainbow bridge in the sky.\n\n\n Matilda paused. Off in the distance there was a glow on the horizon,\n and that was the direction of Haron Gorka's place.\n\n\n The glow increased; soon it was a bright red pulse pounding on the\n horizon. It flickered. It flickered again, and finally it was gone.\n\n\n The stars were white and brilliant in the clear country air. That was\n why Matilda liked the country better than the city, particularly on a\n clear summer night when you could see the span of the Milky Way.\n\n\n But abruptly the stars and the Milky Way were paled by the brightest\n shooting star Matilda had ever seen. It flashed suddenly and it\n remained in view for a full second, searing a bright orange path across\n the night sky.\n\n\n Matilda gasped and ran into her car. She started the gears and pressed\n the accelerator to the floor, keeping it there all the way home.\n\n\n It was the first time she had ever seen a shooting star going\nup\n.",
    "50103": "The\nDwindling\nYears\nHe didn\u2019t expect to be last\u2014but\n neither did he anticipate\n the horror of being the first!\nBy LESTER DEL REY\nIllustrated by JOHNS\nNEARLY TWO hundred\n years of habit carried the\n chairman of Exodus Corporation\n through the morning ritual\n of crossing the executive\n floor. Giles made the expected\n comments, smiled the proper\n smiles and greeted his staff by\n the right names, but it was purely\n automatic. Somehow, thinking\n had grown difficult in the mornings\n recently.\nInside his private office, he\n dropped all pretense and slumped\n into the padding of his chair, gasping\n for breath and feeling his\n heart hammering in his chest.\n He\u2019d been a fool to come to work,\n he realized. But with the Procyon\n shuttle arriving yesterday, there\n was no telling what might turn\n up. Besides, that fool of a medicist\n had sworn the shot would\n cure any allergy or asthma.\nGiles heard his secretary come\n in, but it wasn\u2019t until the smell\n of the coffee reached his nose\n that he looked up. She handed\n him a filled cup and set the carafe\n down on the age-polished surface\n of the big desk. She watched\n solicitously as he drank.\n\u201cThat bad, Arthur?\u201d she asked.\n\u201cJust a little tired,\u201d he told\n her, refilling the cup. She\u2019d made\n the coffee stronger than usual\n and it seemed to cut through\n some of the thickness in his head.\n \u201cI guess I\u2019m getting old, Amanda.\u201d\nShe smiled dutifully at the\n time-worn joke, but he knew she\n wasn\u2019t fooled. She\u2019d cycled to\n middle age four times in her\n job and she probably knew him\n better than he knew himself\u2014which\n wouldn\u2019t be hard, he\n thought. He\u2019d hardly recognized\n the stranger in the mirror as he\n tried to shave. His normal thinness\n had looked almost gaunt\n and there were hollows in his\n face and circles under his eyes.\n Even his hair had seemed thinner,\n though that, of course, was\n impossible.\n\u201cAnything urgent on the Procyon\n shuttle?\u201d he asked as she\n continue staring at him with worried\n eyes.\nSHE JERKED her gaze away\n guiltily and turned to the incoming\n basket. \u201cMostly drugs for\n experimenting. A personal letter\n for you, relayed from some place\n I never heard of. And one of the\n super-light missiles! They found\n it drifting half a light-year out\n and captured it. Jordan\u2019s got a\n report on it and he\u2019s going crazy.\n But if you don\u2019t feel well\u2014\u201d\n\u201cI\u2019m all right!\u201d he told her\n sharply. Then he steadied himself\n and managed to smile. \u201cThanks\n for the coffee, Amanda.\u201d\nShe accepted dismissal reluctantly.\n When she was gone, he\n sat gazing at the report from Jordan\n at Research.\nFor eighty years now, they\u2019d\n been sending out the little ships\n that vanished at greater than the\n speed of light, equipped with\n every conceivable device to make\n them return automatically after\n taking pictures of wherever they\n arrived. So far, none had ever returned\n or been located. This was\n the first hope they\u2019d found that\n the century-long trips between\n stars in the ponderous shuttles\n might be ended and he should\n have been filled with excitement\n at Jordan\u2019s hasty preliminary report.\nHe leafed through it. The little\n ship apparently had been picked\n up by accident when it almost\n collided with a Sirius-local ship.\n Scientists there had puzzled over\n it, reset it and sent it back. The\n two white rats on it had still been\n alive.\nGiles dropped the report wearily\n and picked up the personal\n message that had come on the\n shuttle. He fingered the microstrip\n inside while he drank another\n coffee, and finally pulled\n out the microviewer. There were\n three frames to the message, he\n saw with some surprise.\nHe didn\u2019t need to see the signature\n on the first projection.\n Only his youngest son would have\n sent an elaborate tercentenary\n greeting verse\u2014one that would\n arrive ninety years too late! Harry\n had been born just before Earth\n passed the drastic birth limitation\n act and his mother had\n spoiled him. He\u2019d even tried to\n avoid the compulsory emigration\n draft and stay on with his mother.\n It had been the bitter quarrels\n over that which had finally\n broken Giles\u2019 fifth marriage.\nOddly enough, the message in\n the next frame showed none of\n that. Harry had nothing but\n praise for the solar system where\n he\u2019d been sent. He barely mentioned\n being married on the way\n or his dozen children, but filled\n most of the frame with glowing\n description and a plea for his\n father to join him there!\nGILES SNORTED and turned\n to the third frame, which\n showed a group picture of the\n family in some sort of vehicle,\n against the background of an alien\n but attractive world.\nHe had no desire to spend\n ninety years cooped up with a\n bunch of callow young emigrants,\n even in one of the improved Exodus\n shuttles. And even if Exodus\n ever got the super-light\n drive working, there was no reason\n he should give up his work.\n The discovery that men could\n live practically forever had put\n an end to most family ties; sentiment\n wore thin in half a century\u2014which\n wasn\u2019t much time\n now, though it had once seemed\n long enough.\nStrange how the years seemed\n to get shorter as their number increased.\n There\u2019d been a song\n once\u2014something about the years\n dwindling down. He groped for\n the lines and couldn\u2019t remember.\n Drat it! Now he\u2019d probably lie\n awake most of the night again,\n trying to recall them.\nThe outside line buzzed musically,\n flashing Research\u2019s number.\n Giles grunted in irritation. He\n wasn\u2019t ready to face Jordan yet.\n But he shrugged and pressed the\n button.\nThe intense face that looked\n from the screen was frowning as\n Jordan\u2019s eyes seemed to sweep\n around the room. He was still\n young\u2014one of the few under\n a hundred who\u2019d escaped deportation\n because of special ability\u2014and\n patience was still foreign to\n him.\nThen the frown vanished as\n an expression of shock replaced\n it, and Giles felt a sinking sensation.\n If he looked\nthat\nbad\u2014\nBut Jordan wasn\u2019t looking at\n him; the man\u2019s interest lay in the\n projected picture from Harry, across\n the desk from the communicator.\n\u201cAntigravity!\u201d His voice was\n unbelieving as he turned his head\n to face the older man. \u201cWhat\n world is that?\u201d\nGiles forced his attention on\n the picture again and this time\n he noticed the vehicle shown. It\n was enough like an old model\n Earth conveyance to pass casual\n inspection, but it floated wheellessly\n above the ground. Faint\n blur lines indicated it had been\n moving when the picture was\n taken.\n\u201cOne of my sons\u2014\u201d Giles\n started to answer. \u201cI could find\n the star\u2019s designation....\u201d\nJordan cursed harshly. \u201cSo we\n can send a message on the shuttle,\n begging for their secret in a\n couple of hundred years! While\n a hundred other worlds make a\n thousand major discoveries they\n don\u2019t bother reporting! Can\u2019t the\n Council see\nanything\n?\u201d\nGiles had heard it all before.\n Earth was becoming a backwater\n world; no real progress had been\n made in two centuries; the young\n men were sent out as soon as\n their first fifty years of education\n were finished, and the older men\n were too conservative for really\n new thinking. There was a measure\n of truth in it, unfortunately.\n\u201cThey\u2019ll slow up when their\n populations fill,\u201d Giles repeated\n his old answers. \u201cWe\u2019re still ahead\n in medicine and we\u2019ll get the\n other discoveries eventually, without\n interrupting the work of making\n the Earth fit for our longevity.\n We can wait. We\u2019ll have to.\u201d\nTHE YOUNGER man stared\n at him with the strange puzzled\n look Giles had seen too often\n lately. \u201cDamn it, haven\u2019t you read\n my report? We know the super-light\n drive works! That missile\n reached Sirius in less than ten\n days. We can have the secret of\n this antigravity in less than a\n year! We\u2014\u201d\n\u201cWait a minute.\u201d Giles felt the\n thickness pushing back at his\n mind and tried to fight it off. He\u2019d\n only skimmed the report, but this\n made no sense. \u201cYou mean you\n can calibrate your guiding devices\n accurately enough to get a\n missile where you want it and\n back?\u201d\n\u201c\nWhat?\n\u201d Jordan\u2019s voice rattled\n the speaker. \u201cOf course not! It\n took two accidents to get the\n thing back to us\u2014and with a\n half-light-year miss that delayed\n it about twenty years before the\n Procyon shuttle heard its signal.\n Pre-setting a course may take\n centuries, if we can ever master\n it. Even with Sirius expecting the\n missiles and ready to cooperate.\n I mean the big ship. We\u2019ve had it\n drafted for building long enough;\n now we can finish it in three\n months. We know the drive works.\n We know it\u2019s fast enough to reach\n Procyon in two weeks. We even\n know life can stand the trip. The\n rats were unharmed.\u201d\nGiles shook his head at what\n the other was proposing, only\n partly believing it. \u201cRats don\u2019t\n have minds that could show any\n real damage such as the loss of\n power to rejuvenate. We can\u2019t put\n human pilots into a ship with our\n drive until we\u2019ve tested it more\n thoroughly, Bill, even if they\n could correct for errors on arrival.\n Maybe if we put in stronger signaling\n transmitters....\u201d\n\u201cYeah. Maybe in two centuries\n we\u2019d have a through route charted\n to Sirius. And we still wouldn\u2019t\n have proved it safe for human\n pilots. Mr. Giles, we\u2019ve got to\n have the big ship. All we need is\none\nvolunteer!\u201d\nIt occurred to Giles then that\n the man had been too fired with\n the idea to think. He leaned back,\n shaking his head again wearily.\n \u201cAll right, Bill. Find me one volunteer.\n Or how about you? Do\n you really want to risk losing the\n rest of your life rather than waiting\n a couple more centuries until\n we know it\u2019s safe? If you do, I\u2019ll\n order the big ship.\u201d\nJordan opened his mouth and\n for a second Giles\u2019 heart caught\n in a flux of emotions as the\n man\u2019s offer hovered on his lips.\n Then the engineer shut his mouth\n slowly. The belligerence ran out\n of him.\nHe looked sick, for he had no\n answer.\nNO SANE man would risk a\n chance for near eternity\n against such a relatively short\n wait. Heroism had belonged to\n those who knew their days were\n numbered, anyhow.\n\u201cForget it, Bill,\u201d Giles advised.\n \u201cIt may take longer, but eventually\n we\u2019ll find a way. With time\n enough, we\u2019re bound to. And\n when we do, the ship will be\n ready.\u201d\nThe engineer nodded miserably\n and clicked off. Giles turned\n from the blank screen to stare\n out of the windows, while his\n hand came up to twist at the lock\n of hair over his forehead. Eternity!\n They had to plan and build\n for it. They couldn\u2019t risk that\n plan for short-term benefits. Usually\n it was too easy to realize that,\n and the sight of the solid, time-enduring\n buildings outside should\n have given him a sense of security.\nToday, though, nothing seemed\n to help. He felt choked, imprisoned,\n somehow lost; the city beyond\n the window blurred as he\n studied it, and he swung the chair\n back so violently that his hand\n jerked painfully on the forelock\n he\u2019d been twisting.\nThen he was staring unbelievingly\n at the single white hair that\n was twisted with the dark ones\n between his fingers.\nLike an automaton, he bent\n forward, his other hand groping\n for the mirror that should be in\n one of the drawers. The dull pain\n in his chest sharpened and his\n breath was hoarse in his throat,\n but he hardly noticed as he found\n the mirror and brought it up. His\n eyes focused reluctantly. There\n were other white strands in his\n dark hair.\nThe mirror crashed to the floor\n as he staggered out of the office.\nIt was only two blocks to Giles\u2019\n residence club, but he had to\n stop twice to catch his breath\n and fight against the pain that\n clawed at his chest. When he\n reached the wood-paneled lobby,\n he was barely able to stand.\nDubbins was at his side almost\n at once, with a hand under\n his arm to guide him toward his\n suite.\n\u201cLet me help you, sir,\u201d Dubbins\n suggested, in the tones\n Giles hadn\u2019t heard since the man\n had been his valet, back when\n it was still possible to find personal\n servants. Now he managed\n the club on a level of quasi-equality\n with the members. For the\n moment, though, he\u2019d slipped\n back into the old ways.\nGILES FOUND himself lying\n on his couch, partially undressed,\n with the pillows just right\n and a long drink in his hand. The\n alcohol combined with the reaction\n from his panic to leave him\n almost himself again. After all,\n there was nothing to worry about;\n Earth\u2019s doctors could cure anything.\n\u201cI guess you\u2019d better call Dr.\n Vincenti,\u201d he decided. Vincenti\n was a member and would probably\n be the quickest to get.\nDubbins shook his head. \u201cDr.\n Vincenti isn\u2019t with us, sir. He\n left a year ago to visit a son in\n the Centauri system. There\u2019s a\n Dr. Cobb whose reputation is\n very good, sir.\u201d\nGiles puzzled over it doubtfully.\n Vincenti had been an oddly\n morose man the last few times\n he\u2019d seen him, but that could\n hardly explain his taking a twenty-year\n shuttle trip for such a\n slim reason. It was no concern of\n his, though. \u201cDr. Cobb, then,\u201d he\n said.\nGiles heard the other man\u2019s\n voice on the study phone, too low\n for the words to be distinguishable.\n He finished the drink, feeling\n still better, and was sitting\n up when Dubbins came back.\n\u201cDr. Cobb wants you to come\n to his office at once, sir,\u201d he said,\n dropping to his knee to help\n Giles with his shoes. \u201cI\u2019d be\n pleased to drive you there.\u201d\nGiles frowned. He\u2019d expected\n Cobb to come to him. Then he\n grimaced at his own thoughts.\n Dubbins\u2019 manners must have carried\n him back into the past; doctors\n didn\u2019t go in for home visits\n now\u2014they preferred to see their\n patients in the laboratories that\n housed their offices. If this kept\n on, he\u2019d be missing the old days\n when he\u2019d had a mansion and\n counted his wealth in possessions,\n instead of the treasures he could\n build inside himself for the future\n ahead. He was getting positively\n childish!\nYet he relished the feeling of\n having Dubbins drive his car.\n More than anything else, he\u2019d\n loved being driven. Even after\n chauffeurs were a thing of the\n past, Harry had driven him\n around. Now he\u2019d taken to walking,\n as so many others had, for\n even with modern safety measures\n so strict, there was always\n a small chance of some accident\n and nobody had any desire to\n spend the long future as a cripple.\n\u201cI\u2019ll wait for you, sir,\u201d Dubbins\n offered as they stopped beside\n the low, massive medical building.\nIt was almost too much consideration.\n Giles nodded, got out\n and headed down the hall uncertainly.\n Just how bad did he\n look? Well, he\u2019d soon find out.\nHe located the directory and\n finally found the right office, its\n reception room wall covered\n with all the degrees Dr. Cobb had\n picked up in some three hundred\n years of practice. Giles felt\n better, realizing it wouldn\u2019t be\n one of the younger men.\nCOBB APPEARED himself,\n before the nurse could take\n over, and led Giles into a room\n with an old-fashioned desk and\n chairs that almost concealed the\n cabinets of equipment beyond.\nHe listened as Giles stumbled\n out his story. Halfway through,\n the nurse took a blood sample\n with one of the little mosquito\n needles and the machinery behind\n the doctor began working on\n it.\n\u201cYour friend told me about the\n gray hair, of course,\u201d Cobb said.\n At Giles\u2019 look, he smiled faintly.\n \u201cSurely you didn\u2019t think people\n could miss that in this day and\n age? Let\u2019s see it.\u201d\nHe inspected it and began\n making tests. Some were older\n than Giles could remember\u2014knee\n reflex, blood pressure, pulse\n and fluoroscope. Others involved\n complicated little gadgets that\n ran over his body, while meters\n bobbed and wiggled. The blood\n check came through and Cobb\n studied it, to go back and make\n further inspections of his own.\nAt last he nodded slowly.\n \u201cHyper-catabolism, of course. I\n thought it might be. How long\n since you had your last rejuvenation?\n And who gave it?\u201d\n\u201cAbout ten years ago,\u201d Giles\n answered. He found his identity\n card and passed it over, while\n the doctor studied it. \u201cMy sixteenth.\u201d\nIt wasn\u2019t going right. He could\n feel it. Some of the panic symptoms\n were returning; the pulse in\n his neck was pounding and his\n breath was growing difficult.\n Sweat ran down his sides from\n his armpit and he wiped his palms\n against his coat.\n\u201cAny particular emotional\n strain when you were treated\u2014some\n major upset in your life?\u201d\n Cobb asked.\nGiles thought as carefully as\n he could, but he remembered\n nothing like that. \u201cYou mean\u2014it\n didn\u2019t take? But I never had\n any trouble, Doctor. I was one of\n the first million cases, when a\n lot of people couldn\u2019t rejuvenate\n at all, and I had no trouble even\n then.\u201d\nCobb considered it, hesitated as\n if making up his mind to be frank\n against his better judgment. \u201cI\n can\u2019t see any other explanation.\n You\u2019ve got a slight case of angina\u2014nothing\n serious, but quite definite\u2014as\n well as other signs\n of aging. I\u2019m afraid the treatment\n didn\u2019t take fully. It might have\n been some unconscious block\n on your part, some infection not\n diagnosed at the time, or even a\n fault in the treatment. That\u2019s\n pretty rare, but we can\u2019t neglect\n the possibility.\u201d\nHE STUDIED his charts again\n and then smiled. \u201cSo we\u2019ll\n give you another treatment. Any\n reason you can\u2019t begin immediately?\u201d\nGiles remembered that Dubbins\n was waiting for him, but this\n was more important. It hadn\u2019t\n been a joke about his growing old,\n after all. But now, in a few days,\n he\u2019d be his old\u2014no, of course\n not\u2014his young self again!\nThey went down the hall to\n another office, where Giles waited\n outside while Cobb conferred\n with another doctor and technician,\n with much waving of charts.\n He resented every second of it.\n It was as if the almost forgotten\n specter of age stood beside him,\n counting the seconds. But at last\n they were through and he was led\n into the quiet rejuvenation room,\n where the clamps were adjusted\n about his head and the earpieces\n were fitted. The drugs were shot\n painlessly into his arm and the\n light-pulser was adjusted to his\n brain-wave pattern.\nIt had been nothing like this his\n first time. Then it had required\n months of mental training, followed\n by crude mechanical and\n drug hypnosis for other months.\n Somewhere in every human brain\n lay the memory of what his cells\n had been like when he was young.\n Or perhaps it lay in the cells\n themselves, with the brain as only\n a linkage to it. They\u2019d discovered\n that, and the fact that the mind\n could effect physical changes in\n the body. Even such things as\n cancer could be willed out of existence\u2014provided\n the brain\n could be reached far below the\n conscious level and forced to\n operate.\nThere had been impossible\n faith cures for millenia\u2014cataracts\n removed from blinded eyes\n within minutes, even\u2014but finding\n the mechanism in the brain\n that worked those miracles had\n taken an incredible amount of\n study and finding a means of\n bringing it under control had\n taken even longer.\nNow they did it with dozens of\n mechanical aids in addition to\n the hypnotic instructions\u2014and\n did it usually in a single sitting,\n with the full transformation of\n the body taking less than a week\n after the treatment!\nBut with all the equipment, it\n wasn\u2019t impossible for a mistake\n to happen. It had been no fault of\n his ... he was sure of that ... his\n mind was easy to reach ... he\n could relax so easily....\nHe came out of it without\n even a headache, while they were\n removing the probes, but the\n fatigue on the operator\u2019s face told\n him it had been a long and difficult\n job. He stretched experimentally,\n with the eternal unconscious\n expectation that he would\n find himself suddenly young\n again. But that, of course, was ridiculous.\n It took days for the mind\n to work on all the cells and to\n repair the damage of time.\nCOBB LED him back to the\n first office, where he was given\n an injection of some kind and\n another sample of his blood was\n taken, while the earlier tests were\n repeated. But finally the doctor\n nodded.\n\u201cThat\u2019s all for now, Mr. Giles.\n You might drop in tomorrow\n morning, after I\u2019ve had a chance\n to complete my study of all this.\n We\u2019ll know by then whether you\u2019ll\n need more treatment. Ten o\u2019clock\n okay?\u201d\n\u201cBut I\u2019ll be all right?\u201d\nCobb smiled the automatic reassurance\n of his profession. \u201cWe\n haven\u2019t lost a patient in two hundred\n years, to my knowledge.\u201d\n\u201cThanks,\u201d said Giles. \u201cTen\n o\u2019clock is fine.\u201d\nDubbins was still waiting, reading\n a paper whose headlined feature\n carried a glowing account of\n the discovery of the super-light\n missile and what it might mean.\n He took a quick look at Giles and\n pointed to it. \u201cGreat work, Mr.\n Giles. Maybe we\u2019ll all get to see\n some of those other worlds yet.\u201d\n Then he studied Giles more carefully.\n \u201cEverything\u2019s in good shape\n now, sir?\u201d\n\u201cThe doctor says everything\u2019s\n going to be fine,\u201d Giles answered.\nIt was then he realized for the\n first time that Cobb had said no\n such thing. A statement that\n lightning had never struck a\n house was no guarantee that it\n never would. It was an evasion\n meant to give such an impression.\nThe worry nagged at him all\n the way back. Word had already\n gone around the club that he\u2019d\n had some kind of attack and\n there were endless questions that\n kept it on his mind. And even\n when it had been covered and\n recovered, he could still sense the\n glances of the others, as if he\n were Vincenti in one of the man\u2019s\n more morose moods.\nHe found a single table in the\n dining room and picked his way\n through the meal, listening to\n the conversation about him only\n when it was necessary because\n someone called across to him.\n Ordinarily, he was quick to support\n the idea of clubs in place\n of private families. A man here\n could choose his group and grow\n into them. Yet he wasn\u2019t swallowed\n by them, as he might be by\n a family. Giles had been living\n here for nearly a century now and\n he\u2019d never regretted it. But tonight\n his own group irritated him.\nHe puzzled over it, finding no\n real reason. Certainly they weren\u2019t\n forcing themselves on him. He\n remembered once when he\u2019d had\n a cold, before they finally licked\n that; Harry had been a complete\n nuisance, running around with\n various nostrums, giving him no\n peace. Constant questions about\n how he felt, constant little looks\n of worry\u2014until he\u2019d been ready\n to yell at the boy. In fact, he\n had.\nFunny, he couldn\u2019t picture really\n losing his temper here. Families\n did odd things to a man.\nHE LISTENED to a few of\n the discussions after the dinner,\n but he\u2019d heard them all before,\n except for one about the\n super-speed drive, and there he\n had no wish to talk until he could\n study the final report. He gave up\n at last and went to his own suite.\n What he needed was a good\n night\u2019s sleep after a little relaxation.\nEven that failed him, though.\n He\u2019d developed one of the finest\n chess collections in the world, but\n tonight it held no interest. And\n when he drew out his tools and\n tried working on the delicate,\n lovely jade for the set he was\n carving his hands seemed to be\n all thumbs. None of the other interests\n he\u2019d developed through\n the years helped to add to the\n richness of living now.\nHe gave it up and went to bed\u2014to\n have the fragment of that\n song pop into his head. Now there\n was no escaping it. Something\n about the years\u2014or was it days\u2014dwindling\n down to something\n or other.\nCould they really dwindle\n down? Suppose he couldn\u2019t rejuvenate\n all the way? He knew\n that there were some people who\n didn\u2019t respond as well as others.\n Sol Graves, for instance. He\u2019d\n been fifty when he finally learned\n how to work with the doctors and\n they could only bring him back to\n about thirty, instead of the normal\n early twenties. Would that\n reduce the slice of eternity that\n rejuvenation meant? And what\n had happened to Sol?\nOr suppose it wasn\u2019t rejuvenation,\n after all; suppose something\n had gone wrong with him\n permanently?\nHe fought that off, but he\n couldn\u2019t escape the nagging\n doubts at the doctor\u2019s words.\nHe got up once to stare at himself\n in the mirror. Ten hours had\n gone by and there should have\n been some signs of improvement.\n He couldn\u2019t be sure, though,\n whether there were or not.\nHe looked no better the next\n morning when he finally dragged\n himself up from the little sleep\n he\u2019d managed to get. The hollows\n were still there and the circles\n under his eyes. He searched for\n the gray in his hair, but the traitorous\n strands had been removed\n at the doctor\u2019s office and he could\n find no new ones.\nHe looked into the dining room\n and then went by hastily. He\n wanted no solicitous glances this\n morning. Drat it, maybe he\n should move out. Maybe trying\n family life again would give him\n some new interests. Amanda probably\n would be willing to marry\n him; she\u2019d hinted at a date once.\nHe stopped, shocked by the\n awareness that he hadn\u2019t been out\n with a woman for....\nHe couldn\u2019t remember how\n long it had been. Nor why.\n\u201cIn the spring, a young man\u2019s\n fancy,\u201d he quoted to himself, and\n then shuddered.\nIt hadn\u2019t been that kind of\n spring for him\u2014not this rejuvenation\n nor the last, nor the one\n before that.\nGILES TRIED to stop scaring\n himself and partially succeeded,\n until he reached the doctor\u2019s\n office. Then it was no longer necessary\n to frighten himself. The\n wrongness was too strong, no matter\n how professional Cobb\u2019s smile!\nHe didn\u2019t hear the preliminary\n words. He watched the smile vanish\n as the stack of reports came\n out. There was no nurse here\n now. The machines were quiet\u2014and\n all the doors were shut.\nGiles shook his head, interrupting\n the doctor\u2019s technical jargon.\n Now that he knew there was reason\n for his fear, it seemed to\n vanish, leaving a coldness that\n numbed him.\n\u201cI\u2019d rather know the whole\n truth,\u201d he said. His voice sounded\n dead in his ears. \u201cThe worst first.\n The rejuvenation...?\u201d\nCobb sighed and yet seemed relieved.\n \u201cFailed.\u201d He stopped, and\n his hands touched the reports on\n his desk. \u201cCompletely,\u201d he added\n in a low, defeated tone.\n\u201cBut I thought that was impossible!\u201d\n\u201cSo did I. I wouldn\u2019t believe\n it even yet\u2014but now I find it\n isn\u2019t the first case. I spent the\n night at Medical Center going up\n the ranks until I found men who\n really know about it. And now I\n wish I hadn\u2019t.\u201d His voice ran\n down and he gathered himself together\n by an effort. \u201cIt\u2019s a shock\n to me, too, Mr. Giles. But\u2014well,\n to simplify it, no memory is perfect\u2014even\n cellular memory. It\n loses a little each time. And the\n effect is cumulative. It\u2019s like an\n asymptotic curve\u2014the further it\n goes, the steeper the curve. And\u2014well,\n you\u2019ve passed too far.\u201d\nHe faced away from Giles,\n dropping the reports into a\n drawer and locking it. \u201cI wasn\u2019t\n supposed to tell you, of course.\n It\u2019s going to be tough enough\n when they\u2019re ready to let people\n know. But you aren\u2019t the first and\n you won\u2019t be the last, if that\u2019s any\n consolation. We\u2019ve got a longer\n time scale than we used to have\u2014but\n it\u2019s in centuries, not in\n eons. For everybody, not just\n you.\u201d\nIt was no consolation. Giles\n nodded mechanically. \u201cI won\u2019t\n talk, of course. How\u2014how long?\u201d\nCobb spread his hands unhappily.\n \u201cThirty years, maybe. But\n we can make them better. Geriatric\n knowledge is still on record.\n We can fix the heart and all the\n rest. You\u2019ll be in good physical\n condition, better than your grandfather\u2014\u201d\n\u201cAnd then....\u201d Giles couldn\u2019t\n pronounce the words. He\u2019d grown\n old and he\u2019d grow older. And\n eventually he\u2019d die!\nAn immortal man had suddenly\n found death hovering on his\n trail. The years had dwindled and\n gone, and only a few were left.\nHe stood up, holding out his\n hand. \u201cThank you, Doctor,\u201d he\n said, and was surprised to find\n he meant it. The man had done\n all he could and had at least\n saved him the suspense of growing\n doubt and horrible eventual\n discovery.\nOUTSIDE ON the street, he\n looked up at the Sun and\n then at the buildings built to last\n for thousands of years. Their\n eternity was no longer a part of\n him.\nEven his car would outlast him.\nHe climbed into it, still partly\n numbed, and began driving mechanically,\n no longer wondering\n about the dangers that might possibly\n arise. Those wouldn\u2019t matter\n much now. For a man who\n had thought of living almost forever,\n thirty years was too short\n a time to count.\nHe was passing near the club\n and started to slow. Then he\n went on without stopping. He\n wanted no chance to have them\n asking questions he couldn\u2019t answer.\n It was none of their business.\n Dubbins had been kind\u2014but\n now Giles wanted no kindness.\nThe street led to the office\n and he drove on. What else was\n there for him? There, at least, he\n could still fill his time with work\u2014work\n that might even be useful.\n In the future, men would\n need the super-light drive if they\n were to span much more of the\n Universe than now. And he could\n speed up the work in some ways\n still, even if he could never see\n its finish.\nIt would be cold comfort but it\n was something. And he might\n keep busy enough to forget sometimes\n that the years were gone\n for him.\nAutomatic habit carried him\n through the office again, to Amanda\u2019s\n desk, where her worry was\n still riding her. He managed a\n grin and somehow the right words\n came to his lips. \u201cI saw the doctor,\n Amanda, so you can stop\n figuring ways to get me there.\u201d\nShe smiled back suddenly, without\n feigning it. \u201cThen you\u2019re all\n right?\u201d\n\u201cAs all right as I\u2019ll ever be,\u201d\n he told her. \u201cThey tell me I\u2019m just\n growing old.\u201d\nThis time her laugh was heartier.\n He caught himself before he\n could echo her mirth in a different\n voice and went inside where she\n had the coffee waiting for him.\nOddly, it still tasted good to\n him.\nThe projection was off, he saw,\n wondering whether he\u2019d left it on\n or not. He snapped the switch and\n saw the screen light up, with the\n people still in the odd, wheelless\n vehicle on the alien planet.\nFOR A long moment, he stared\n at the picture without thinking,\n and then bent closer. Harry\u2019s\n face hadn\u2019t changed much. Giles\n had almost forgotten it, but there\n was still the same grin there. And\n his grandchildren had a touch\n of it, too. And of their grandfather\u2019s\n nose, he thought. Funny,\n he\u2019d never seen even pictures of\n his other grandchildren. Family\n ties melted away too fast for interstellar\n travel.\nYet there seemed to be no\n slackening of them in Harry\u2019s\n case, and somehow it looked like\n a family, rather than a mere\n group. A very pleasant family in\n a very pleasant world.\nHe read Harry\u2019s note again,\n with its praise for the planet and\n its invitation. He wondered if\n Dr. Vincenti had received an invitation\n like that, before he left.\n Or had he even been one of those\n to whom the same report had\n been delivered by some doctor?\n It didn\u2019t matter, but it would explain\n things, at least.\nTwenty years to Centaurus,\n while the years dwindled down\u2014\nThen abruptly the line finished\n itself. \u201cThe years dwindle down\n to a precious few....\u201d he remembered.\n \u201cA precious few.\u201d\nThose dwindling years had\n been precious once. He unexpectedly\n recalled his own grandfather\n holding him on an old\n knee and slipping him candy\n that was forbidden. The years\n seemed precious to the old man\n then.\nAmanda\u2019s voice came abruptly\n over the intercom. \u201cJordan wants\n to talk to you,\u201d she said, and the\n irritation was sharp in her voice.\n \u201cHe won\u2019t take no!\u201d\nGiles shrugged and reached for\n the projector, to cut it off. Then,\n on impulse, he set it back to the\n picture, studying the group again\n as he switched on Jordan\u2019s wire.\nBut he didn\u2019t wait for the hot\n words about whatever was the\n trouble.\n\u201cBill,\u201d he said, \u201cstart getting\n the big ship into production. I\u2019ve\n found a volunteer.\u201d\nHe\u2019d been driven to it, he knew,\n as he watched the man\u2019s amazed\n face snap from the screen. From\n the first suspicion of his trouble,\n something inside him had been\n forcing him to make this decision.\n And maybe it would do no good.\n Maybe the ship would fail. But\n thirty years was a number a man\n could risk.\nIf he made it, though....\nWell, he\u2019d see those grandchildren\n of his this year\u2014and\n Harry. Maybe he\u2019d even tell\n Harry the truth, once they got\n done celebrating the reunion. And\n there\u2019d be other grandchildren.\n With the ship, he\u2019d have time\n enough to look them up. Plenty\n of time!\nThirty years was a long time,\n when he stopped to think of it.\n\u2014LESTER DEL REY",
    "50869": "A Gleeb for Earth\nBy CHARLES SHAFHAUSER\n\n\n Illustrated by EMSH\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction May 1953.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nNot to be or not to not be ... that was the\n \nnot-question for the invader of the not-world.\nDear Editor:\n\n\n My 14 year old boy, Ronnie, is typing this letter for me because he\n can do it neater and use better grammar. I had to get in touch with\n somebody about this because if there is something to it, then somebody,\n everybody, is going to point finger at me, Ivan Smernda, and say, \"Why\n didn't you warn us?\"\n\n\n I could not go to the police because they are not too friendly to\n me because of some of my guests who frankly are stew bums. Also they\n might think I was on booze, too, or maybe the hops, and get my license\n revoked. I run a strictly legit hotel even though some of my guests\n might be down on their luck now and then.\n\n\n What really got me mixed up in this was the mysterious disappearance of\n two of my guests. They both took a powder last Wednesday morning.\n\n\n Now get this. In one room, that of Joe Binkle, which maybe is an alias,\n I find nothing but a suit of clothes, some butts and the letters I\n include here in same package. Binkle had only one suit. That I know.\n And this was it laying right in the middle of the room. Inside the\n coat was the vest, inside the vest the shirt, inside the shirt the\n underwear. The pants were up in the coat and inside of them was also\n the underwear. All this was buttoned up like Binkle had melted out of\n it and dripped through a crack in the floor. In a bureau drawer were\n the letters I told you about.\n\n\n Now. In the room right under Binkle's lived another stew bum that\n checked in Thursday ... name Ed Smith, alias maybe, too. This guy was a\n real case. He brought with him a big mirror with a heavy bronze frame.\n Airloom, he says. He pays a week in advance, staggers up the stairs to\n his room with the mirror and that's the last I see of him.\n\n\n In Smith's room on Wednesday I find only a suit of clothes, the same\n suit he wore when he came in. In the coat the vest, in the vest the\n shirt, in the shirt the underwear. Also in the pants. Also all in the\n middle of the floor. Against the far wall stands the frame of the\n mirror. Only the frame!\n\n\n What a spot to be in! Now it might have been a gag. Sometimes these\n guys get funny ideas when they are on the stuff. But then I read\n the letters. This knocks me for a loop. They are all in different\n handwritings. All from different places. Stamps all legit, my kid says.\n India, China, England, everywhere.\n\n\n My kid, he reads. He says it's no joke. He wants to call the cops or\n maybe some doctor. But I say no. He reads your magazine so he says\n write to you, send you the letters. You know what to do. Now you have\n them. Maybe you print. Whatever you do, Mr. Editor, remember my place,\n the Plaza Ritz Arms, is straight establishment. I don't drink. I never\n touch junk, not even aspirin.\nYours very truly,\n\n Ivan Smernda\nBombay, India\n\n June 8\n\n\n Mr. Joe Binkle\n\n Plaza Ritz Arms\n\n New York City\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n Greetings, greetings, greetings. Hold firm in your wretched projection,\n for tomorrow you will not be alone in the not-world. In two days I,\n Glmpauszn, will be born.\n\n\n Today I hang in our newly developed not-pod just within the mirror\n gateway, torn with the agony that we calculated must go with such\n tremendous wavelength fluctuations. I have attuned myself to a fetus\n within the body of a not-woman in the not-world. Already I am static\n and for hours have looked into this weird extension of the Universe\n with fear and trepidation.\n\n\n As soon as my stasis was achieved, I tried to contact you, but got\n no response. What could have diminished your powers of articulate\n wave interaction to make you incapable of receiving my messages and\n returning them? My wave went out to yours and found it, barely pulsing\n and surrounded with an impregnable chimera.\n\n\n Quickly, from the not-world vibrations about you, I learned the\n not-knowledge of your location. So I must communicate with you by what\n the not-world calls \"mail\" till we meet. For this purpose I must\n utilize the feeble vibrations of various not-people through whose\n inadequate articulation I will attempt to make my moves known to you.\n Each time I will pick a city other than the one I am in at the time.\n\n\n I, Glmpauszn, come equipped with powers evolved from your fragmentary\n reports before you ceased to vibrate to us and with a vast treasury\n of facts from indirect sources. Soon our tortured people will be free\n of the fearsome not-folk and I will be their liberator. You failed in\n your task, but I will try to get you off with light punishment when we\n return again.\n\n\n The hand that writes this letter is that of a boy in the not-city of\n Bombay in the not-country of India. He does not know he writes it.\n Tomorrow it will be someone else. You must never know of my exact\n location, for the not-people might have access to the information.\n\n\n I must leave off now because the not-child is about to be born. When it\n is alone in the room, it will be spirited away and I will spring from\n the pod on the gateway into its crib and will be its exact vibrational\n likeness.\n\n\n I have tremendous powers. But the not-people must never know I am among\n them. This is the only way I could arrive in the room where the gateway\n lies without arousing suspicion. I will grow up as the not-child in\n order that I might destroy the not-people completely.\n\n\n All is well, only they shot this information file into my matrix too\n fast. I'm having a hard time sorting facts and make the right decision.\n Gezsltrysk, what a task!\n\n\n Farewell till later.\nGlmpauszn\nWichita, Kansas\n\n June 13\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n Mnghjkl, fhfjgfhjklop phelnoprausynks. No. When I communicate with you,\n I see I must avoid those complexities of procedure for which there are\n no terms in this language. There is no way of describing to you in\n not-language what I had to go through during the first moments of my\n birth.\n\n\n Now I know what difficulties you must have had with your limited\n equipment. These not-people are unpredictable and strange. Their doctor\n came in and weighed me again the day after my birth. Consternation\n reigned when it was discovered I was ten pounds heavier. What\n difference could it possibly make? Many doctors then came in to see me.\n As they arrived hourly, they found me heavier and heavier. Naturally,\n since I am growing. This is part of my instructions. My not-mother\n (Gezsltrysk!) then burst into tears. The doctors conferred, threw up\n their hands and left.\n\n\n I learned the following day that the opposite component of my\n not-mother, my not-father, had been away riding on some conveyance\n during my birth. He was out on ... what did they call it? Oh, yes, a\n bender. He did not arrive till three days after I was born.\n\n\n When I heard them say that he was straightening up to come see me, I\n made a special effort and grew marvelously in one afternoon. I was 36\n not-world inches tall by evening. My not-father entered while I was\n standing by the crib examining a syringe the doctor had left behind.\n He stopped in his tracks on entering the room and seemed incapable of\n speech.\n\n\n Dredging into the treasury of knowledge I had come equipped with, I\n produced the proper phrase for occasions of this kind in the not-world.\n\n\n \"Poppa,\" I said.\n\n\n This was the first use I had made of the so-called vocal cords that\n are now part of my extended matrix. The sound I emitted sounded\n low-pitched, guttural and penetrating even to myself. It must have\n jarred on my not-father's ears, for he turned and ran shouting from the\n room.\n\n\n They apprehended him on the stairs and I heard him babble something\n about my being a monster and no child of his. My not-mother appeared at\n the doorway and instead of being pleased at the progress of my growth,\n she fell down heavily. She made a distinct\nthump\non the floor.\n\n\n This brought the rest of them on the run, so I climbed out the window\n and retreated across a nearby field. A prolonged search was launched,\n but I eluded them. What unpredictable beings!\n\n\n I reported my tremendous progress back to our world, including the\n cleverness by which I managed to escape my pursuers. I received a reply\n from Blgftury which, on careful analysis, seems to be small praise\n indeed. In fact, some of his phrases apparently contain veiled threats.\n But you know old Blgftury. He wanted to go on this expedition himself\n and it's his nature never to flatter anyone.\n\n\n From now on I will refer to not-people simply as people, dropping the\n qualifying preface except where comparisons must be made between this\n alleged world and our own. It is merely an offshoot of our primitive\n mythology when this was considered a spirit world, just as these people\n refer to our world as never-never land and other anomalies. But we\n learned otherwise, while they never have.\n\n\n New sensations crowd into my consciousness and I am having a hard\n time classifying them. Anyway, I shall carry on swiftly now to the\n inevitable climax in which I singlehanded will obliterate the terror of\n the not-world and return to our world a hero. I cannot understand your\n not replying to my letters. I have given you a box number. What could\n have happened to your vibrations?\nGlmpauszn\nAlbuquerque, New Mexico\n\n June 15\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n I had tremendous difficulty getting a letter off to you this time.\n My process\u2014original with myself, by the way\u2014is to send out feeler\n vibrations for what these people call the psychic individual. Then I\n establish contact with him while he sleeps and compel him without his\n knowledge to translate my ideas into written language. He writes my\n letter and mails it to you. Of course, he has no awareness of what he\n has done.\n\n\n My first five tries were unfortunate. Each time I took control of an\n individual who could not read or write! Finally I found my man, but\n I fear his words are limited. Ah, well. I had great things to tell\n you about my progress, but I cannot convey even a hint of how I have\n accomplished these miracles through the thick skull of this incompetent.\n\n\n In simple terms then: I crept into a cave and slipped into a kind of\n sleep, directing my squhjkl ulytz & uhrytzg ... no, it won't come out.\n Anyway, I grew overnight to the size of an average person here.\n\n\n As I said before, floods of impressions are driving into my xzbyl ...\n my brain ... from various nerve and sense areas and I am having a hard\n time classifying them. My one idea was to get to a chemist and acquire\n the stuff needed for the destruction of these people.\n\n\n Sunrise came as I expected. According to my catalog of information, the\n impressions aroused by it are of beauty. It took little conditioning\n for me finally to react in this manner. This is truly an efficient\n mechanism I inhabit.\n\n\n I gazed about me at the mixture of lights, forms and impressions.\n It was strange and ... now I know ... beautiful. However, I hurried\n immediately toward the nearest chemist. At the same time I looked up\n and all about me at the beauty.\n\n\n Soon an individual approached. I knew what to do from my information. I\n simply acted natural. You know, one of your earliest instructions was\n to realize that these people see nothing unusual in you if you do not\n let yourself believe they do.\n\n\n This individual I classified as a female of a singular variety here.\n Her hair was short, her upper torso clad in a woolen garment. She\n wore ... what are they? ... oh, yes, sneakers. My attention was\n diverted by a scream as I passed her. I stopped.\n\n\n The woman gesticulated and continued to scream. People hurried from\n nearby houses. I linked my hands behind me and watched the scene with\n an attitude of mild interest. They weren't interested in me, I told\n myself. But they were.\n\n\n I became alarmed, dived into a bush and used a mechanism that you\n unfortunately do not have\u2014invisibility. I lay there and listened.\n\n\n \"He was stark naked,\" the girl with the sneakers said.\n\n\n A figure I recognized as a police officer spoke to her.\n\n\n \"Lizzy, you'll just have to keep these crackpot friends of yours out of\n this area.\"\n\n\n \"But\u2014\"\n\n\n \"No more buck-bathing, Lizzy,\" the officer ordered. \"No more speeches\n in the Square. Not when it results in riots at five in the morning. Now\n where is your naked friend? I'm going to make an example of him.\"\n\n\n That was it\u2014I had forgotten clothes. There is only one answer to this\n oversight on my part. My mind is confused by the barrage of impressions\n that assault it. I must retire now and get them all classified. Beauty,\n pain, fear, hate, love, laughter. I don't know one from the other. I\n must feel each, become accustomed to it.\n\n\n The more I think about it, the more I realize that the information I\n have been given is very unrealistic. You have been inefficient, Joe.\n What will Blgftury and the others say of this? My great mission is\n impaired. Farewell, till I find a more intelligent mind so I can write\n you with more enlightenment.\nGlmpauszn\nMoscow, Idaho\n\n June 17\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n I received your first communication today. It baffles me. Do you greet\n me in the proper fringe-zone manner? No. Do you express joy, hope,\n pride, helpfulness at my arrival? No. You ask me for a loan of five\n bucks!\n\n\n It took me some time, culling my information catalog to come up with\n the correct variant of the slang term \"buck.\" Is it possible that you\n are powerless even to provide yourself with the wherewithal to live in\n this inferior world?\n\n\n A reminder, please. You and I\u2014I in particular\u2014are now engaged in\n a struggle to free our world from the terrible, maiming intrusions\n of this not-world. Through many long gleebs, our people have lived\n a semi-terrorized existence while errant vibrations from this world\n ripped across the closely joined vibration flux, whose individual\n fluctuations make up our sentient population.\n\n\n Even our eminent, all-high Frequency himself has often been jeopardized\n by these people. The not-world and our world are like two baskets\n as you and I see them in our present forms. Baskets woven with the\n greatest intricacy, design and color; but baskets whose convex sides\n are joined by a thin fringe of filaments. Our world, on the vibrational\n plane, extends just a bit into this, the not-world. But being a world\n of higher vibration, it is ultimately tenuous to these gross peoples.\n While we vibrate only within a restricted plane because of our purer,\n more stable existence, these people radiate widely into our world.\n\n\n They even send what they call psychic reproductions of their own selves\n into ours. And most infamous of all, they sometimes are able to force\n some of our individuals over the fringe into their world temporarily,\n causing them much agony and fright.\n\n\n The latter atrocity is perpetrated through what these people call\n mediums, spiritualists and other fatuous names. I intend to visit one\n of them at the first opportunity to see for myself.\n\n\n Meanwhile, as to you, I would offer a few words of advice. I picked\n them up while examining the \"slang\" portion of my information catalog\n which you unfortunately caused me to use. So, for the ultimate\n cause\u2014in this, the penultimate adventure, and for the glory and peace\n of our world\u2014shake a leg, bub. Straighten up and fly right. In short,\n get hep.\n\n\n As far as the five bucks is concerned, no dice.\nGlmpauszn\nDes Moines, Iowa\n\n June 19\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n Your letter was imponderable till I had thrashed through long passages\n in my information catalog that I had never imagined I would need.\n Biological functions and bodily processes which are labeled here\n \"revolting\" are used freely in your missive. You can be sure they are\n all being forwarded to Blgftury. If I were not involved in the most\n important part of my journey\u2014completion of the weapon against the\n not-worlders\u2014I would come to New York immediately. You would rue that\n day, I assure you.\nGlmpauszn\nBoise, Idaho\n\n July 15\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n A great deal has happened to me since I wrote to you last.\n Systematically, I have tested each emotion and sensation listed in\n our catalog. I have been, as has been said in this world, like a reed\n bending before the winds of passion. In fact, I'm rather badly bent\n indeed. Ah! You'll pardon me, but I just took time for what is known\n quaintly in this tongue as a \"hooker of red-eye.\" Ha! I've mastered\n even the vagaries of slang in the not-language.... Ahhh! Pardon me\n again. I feel much better now.\n\n\n You see, Joe, as I attuned myself to the various impressions that\n constantly assaulted my mind through this body, I conditioned myself to\n react exactly as our information catalog instructed me to.\n\n\n Now it is all automatic, pure reflex. A sensation comes to me when I am\n burned; then I experience a burning pain. If the sensation is a tickle,\n I experience a tickle.\n\n\n This morning I have what is known medically as a syndrome ... a group\n of symptoms popularly referred to as a hangover ... Ahhh! Pardon me\n again. Strangely ... now what was I saying? Oh, yes. Ha, ha. Strangely\n enough, the reactions that come easiest to the people in this world\n came most difficult to me. Money-love, for example. It is a great thing\n here, both among those who haven't got it and those who have.\n\n\n I went out and got plenty of money. I walked invisible into a bank and\n carried away piles of it. Then I sat and looked at it. I took the money\n to a remote room of the twenty room suite I have rented in the best\n hotel here in\u2014no, sorry\u2014and stared at it for hours.\n\n\n Nothing happened. I didn't love the stuff or feel one way or the other\n about it. Yet all around me people are actually killing one another for\n the love of it.\n\n\n Anyway.... Ahhh. Pardon me. I got myself enough money to fill ten or\n fifteen rooms. By the end of the week I should have all eighteen spare\n rooms filled with money. If I don't love it then, I'll feel I have\n failed. This alcohol is taking effect now.\n\n\n Blgftury has been goading me for reports. To hell with his reports!\n I've got a lot more emotions to try, such as romantic love. I've been\n studying this phenomenon, along with other racial characteristics of\n these people, in the movies. This is the best place to see these\n people as they really are. They all go into the movie houses and there\n do homage to their own images. Very quaint type of idolatry.\n\n\n Love. Ha! What an adventure this is becoming.\n\n\n By the way, Joe, I'm forwarding that five dollars. You see, it won't\n cost me anything. It'll come out of the pocket of the idiot who's\n writing this letter. Pretty shrewd of me, eh?\n\n\n I'm going out and look at that money again. I think I'm at last\n learning to love it, though not as much as I admire liquor. Well, one\n simply must persevere, I always say.\nGlmpauszn\nPenobscot, Maine\n\n July 20\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n Now you tell me not to drink alcohol. Why not? You never mentioned it\n in any of your vibrations to us, gleebs ago, when you first came across\n to this world. It will stint my powers? Nonsense! Already I have had a\n quart of the liquid today. I feel wonderful. Get that? I actually feel\n wonderful, in spite of this miserable imitation of a body.\n\n\n There are long hours during which I am so well-integrated into this\n body and this world that I almost consider myself a member of it. Now\n I can function efficiently. I sent Blgftury some long reports today\n outlining my experiments in the realm of chemistry where we must\n finally defeat these people. Of course, I haven't made the experiments\n yet, but I will. This is not deceit, merely realistic anticipation of\n the inevitable. Anyway, what the old xbyzrt doesn't know won't muss his\n vibrations.\n\n\n I went to what they call a nightclub here and picked out a\n blonde-haired woman, the kind that the books say men prefer. She was\n attracted to me instantly. After all, the body I have devised is\n perfect in every detail ... actually a not-world ideal.\n\n\n I didn't lose any time overwhelming her susceptibilities. I remember\n distinctly that just as I stooped to pick up a large roll of money I\n had dropped, her eyes met mine and in them I could see her admiration.\n We went to my suite and I showed her one of the money rooms. Would you\n believe it? She actually took off her shoes and ran around through the\n money in her bare feet! Then we kissed.\n\n\n Concealed in the dermis of the lips are tiny, highly sensitized nerve\n ends which send sensations to the brain. The brain interprets these\n impulses in a certain manner. As a result, the fate of secretion in the\n adrenals on the ends of the kidneys increases and an enlivening of the\n entire endocrine system follows. Thus I felt the beginnings of love.\n\n\n I sat her down on a pile of money and kissed her again. Again the\n tingling, again the secretion and activation. I integrated myself\n quickly.\n\n\n Now in all the motion pictures\u2014true representations of life and love\n in this world\u2014the man with a lot of money or virtue kisses the girl\n and tries to induce her to do something biological. She then refuses.\n This pleases both of them, for he wanted her to refuse. She, in turn,\n wanted him to want her, but also wanted to prevent him so that he would\n have a high opinion of her. Do I make myself clear?\n\n\n I kissed the blonde girl and gave her to understand what I then wanted.\n Well, you can imagine my surprise when she said yes! So I had failed. I\n had not found love.\n\n\n I became so abstracted by this problem that the blonde girl fell\n asleep. I thoughtfully drank quantities of excellent alcohol called gin\n and didn't even notice when the blonde girl left.\n\n\n I am now beginning to feel the effects of this alcohol again. Ha. Don't\n I wish old Blgftury were here in the vibrational pattern of an olive?\n I'd get the blonde in and have her eat him out of a Martini. That is a\n gin mixture.\n\n\n I think I'll get a hot report off to the old so-and-so right now. It'll\n take him a gleeb to figure this one out. I'll tell him I'm setting up\n an atomic reactor in the sewage systems here and that all we have to do\n is activate it and all the not-people will die of chain asphyxiation.\n\n\n Boy, what an easy job this turned out to be. It's just a vacation. Joe,\n you old gold-bricker, imagine you here all these gleebs living off the\n fat of the land. Yak, yak. Affectionately.\nGlmpauszn\nSacramento, Calif.\n\n July 25\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n All is lost unless we work swiftly. I received your revealing letter\n the morning after having a terrible experience of my own. I drank a\n lot of gin for two days and then decided to go to one of these seance\n things.\n\n\n Somewhere along the way I picked up a red-headed girl. When we got\n to the darkened seance room, I took the redhead into a corner and\n continued my investigations into the realm of love. I failed again\n because she said yes immediately.\n\n\n The nerves of my dermis were working overtime when suddenly I had the\n most frightening experience of my life. Now I know what a horror these\n people really are to our world.\n\n\n The medium had turned out all the lights. He said there was a strong\n psychic influence in the room somewhere. That was me, of course, but I\n was too busy with the redhead to notice.\n\n\n Anyway, Mrs. Somebody wanted to make contact with her paternal\n grandmother, Lucy, from the beyond. The medium went into his act. He\n concentrated and sweated and suddenly something began to take form in\n the room. The best way to describe it in not-world language is a white,\n shapeless cascade of light.\n\n\n Mrs. Somebody reared to her feet and screeched, \"Grandma Lucy!\" Then I\n really took notice.\n\n\n Grandma Lucy, nothing! This medium had actually brought Blgftury\n partially across the vibration barrier. He must have been vibrating in\n the fringe area and got caught in the works. Did he look mad! His zyhku\n was open and his btgrimms were down.\n\n\n Worst of all, he saw me. Looked right at me with an unbelievable\n pattern of pain, anger, fear and amazement in his matrix. Me and the\n redhead.\n\n\n Then comes your letter today telling of the fate that befell you as a\n result of drinking alcohol. Our wrenchingly attuned faculties in these\n not-world bodies need the loathsome drug to escape from the reality\n of not-reality. It's true. I cannot do without it now. The day is only\n half over and I have consumed a quart and a half. And it is dulling all\n my powers as it has practically obliterated yours. I can't even become\n invisible any more.\n\n\n I must find the formula that will wipe out the not-world men quickly.\n\n\n Quickly!\nGlmpauszn\nFlorence, Italy\n\n September 10\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n This telepathic control becomes more difficult every time. I must pick\n closer points of communication soon. I have nothing to report but\n failure. I bought a ton of equipment and went to work on the formula\n that is half complete in my instructions. Six of my hotel rooms were\n filled with tubes, pipes and apparatus of all kinds.\n\n\n I had got my mechanism as close to perfect as possible when I\n realized that, in my befuddled condition, I had set off a reaction\n that inevitably would result in an explosion. I had to leave there\n immediately, but I could not create suspicion. The management was not\n aware of the nature of my activities.\n\n\n I moved swiftly. I could not afford time to bring my baggage. I\n stuffed as much money into my pockets as I could and then sauntered\n into the hotel lobby. Assuming my most casual air, I told the manager\n I was checking out. Naturally he was stunned since I was his best\n customer.\n\n\n \"But why, sir?\" he asked plaintively.\n\n\n I was baffled. What could I tell him?\n\n\n \"Don't you like the rooms?\" he persisted. \"Isn't the service good?\"\n\n\n \"It's the rooms,\" I told him. \"They're\u2014they're\u2014\"\n\n\n \"They're what?\" he wanted to know.\n\n\n \"They're not safe.\"\n\n\n \"Not safe? But that is ridiculous. This hotel is....\"\n\n\n At this point the blast came. My nerves were a wreck from the alcohol.\n\n\n \"See?\" I screamed. \"Not safe. I knew they were going to blow up!\"\n\n\n He stood paralyzed as I ran from the lobby. Oh, well, never say die.\n Another day, another hotel. I swear I'm even beginning to think like\n the not-men, curse them.\nGlmpauszn\nRochester, New York\n\n September 25\n\n\n Dear Joe:\n\n\n I have it! It is done! In spite of the alcohol, in spite of Blgftury's\n niggling criticism, I have succeeded. I now have developed a form\n of mold, somewhat similar to the antibiotics of this world, that,\n transmitted to the human organism, will cause a disease whose end will\n be swift and fatal.\n\n\n First the brain will dissolve and then the body will fall apart.\n Nothing in this world can stop the spread of it once it is loose.\n Absolutely nothing.\n\n\n We must use care. Stock in as much gin as you are able. I will bring\n with me all that I can. Meanwhile I must return to my original place of\n birth into this world of horrors. There I will secure the gateway, a\n large mirror, the vibrational point at which we shall meet and slowly\n climb the frequency scale to emerge into our own beautiful, now secure\n world. You and I together, Joe, conquerors, liberators.\n\n\n You say you eat little and drink as much as you can. The same with\n me. Even in this revolting world I am a sad sight. My not-world senses\n falter. This is the last letter. Tomorrow I come with the gateway. When\n the gin is gone, we will plant the mold in the hotel where you live.\n\n\n In only a single gleeb it will begin to work. The men of this queer\n world will be no more. But we can't say we didn't have some fun, can\n we, Joe?\n\n\n And just let Blgftury make one crack. Just one xyzprlt. I'll have\n hgutry before the ghjdksla!\nGlmpauszn\nDear Editor:\n\n\n These guys might be queer drunk hopheads. But if not? If soon brain\n dissolve, body fall apart, how long have we got? Please, anybody who\n knows answer, write to me\u2014Ivan Smernda, Plaza Ritz Arms\u2014how long is a\n gleeb?",
    "50668": "THE SECRET MARTIANS\nby JACK SHARKEY\n\n\n ACE BOOKS, INC.\n\n 23 West 47th Street,\n\n New York 36, N. Y.\n\n\n THE SECRET MARTIANS\n\n Copyright, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.\n\n All Rights Reserved\n\n\n Printed in U.S.A.\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: Extensive research did not uncover any evidence\n\n that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nMASTER SPY OF THE RED PLANET\n\n\n Jery Delvin had a most unusual talent. He could detect the flaws in\n any scheme almost on sight\u2014even where they had eluded the best brains\n in the ad agency where he worked. So when the Chief of World Security\n told him that he had been selected as the answer to the Solar System's\n greatest mystery, Jery assumed that it was because of his mental\n agility.\n\n\n But when he got to Mars to find out why fifteen boys had vanished from\n a spaceship in mid-space, he found out that even his quick mind needed\n time to pierce the maze of out-of-this-world double-dealing. For Jery\n had become a walking bomb, and when he set himself off, it would be the\n end of the whole puzzle of THE SECRET MARTIANS\u2014with Jery as the first\n to go!\n\n\n Jack Sharkey decided to be a writer nineteen years ago, in the Fourth\n Grade, when he realized all at once that \"someone wrote all those\n stories in the textbooks.\" While everyone else looked forward variously\n to becoming firemen, cowboys, and trapeze artists, Jack was devouring\n every book he could get his hands on, figuring that \"if I put enough\n literature into my head, some of it might overflow and come out.\"\n\n\n After sixteen years of education, Jack found himself teaching high\n school English in Chicago, a worthwhile career, but \"not what one would\n call zesty.\" After a two-year Army hitch, and a year in advertising\n \"sublimating my urge to write things for cash,\" Jack moved to New York,\n determined to make a career of full-time fiction-writing.\n\n\n Oddly enough, it worked out, and he now does nothing else. He says,\n \"I'd like to say I do this for fulfillment, or for cash, or because\n it's my destiny; however, the real reason (same as that expressed by\n Jean Kerr) is that this kind of stay-at-home self-employment lets me\n sleep late in the morning.\"\n1\nI was sitting at my desk, trying to decide how to tell the women of\n America that they were certain to be lovely in a Plasti-Flex brassiere\n without absolutely guaranteeing them anything, when the two security\n men came to get me. I didn't quite believe it at first, when I looked\n up and saw them, six-feet-plus of steel nerves and gimlet eyes, staring\n down at me, amidst my litter of sketches, crumpled copy sheets and\n deadline memos.\n\n\n It was only a fraction of an instant between the time I saw them and\n the time they spoke to me, but in that miniscule interval I managed\n to retrace quite a bit of my lifetime up till that moment, seeking\n vainly for some reason why they'd be standing there, so terribly and\n inflexibly efficient looking. Mostly, I ran back over all the ads I'd\n created and/or okayed for Solar Sales, Inc. during my five years with\n the firm, trying to see just where I'd gone and shaken the security\n of the government. I couldn't find anything really incriminating,\n unless maybe it was that hair dye that unexpectedly turned bright green\n after six weeks in the hair, but that was the lab's fault, not mine.\n So I managed a weak smile toward the duo, and tried not to sweat too\n profusely.\n\n\n \"Jery Delvin?\" said the one on my left, a note of no-funny-business in\n his brusque baritone.\n\n\n \"... Yes,\" I said, some terrified portion of my mind waiting\n masochistically for them to draw their collapsers and reduce me to a\n heap of hot protons.\n\n\n \"Come with us,\" said his companion. I stared at him, then glanced\n hopelessly at the jumble of things on my desk. \"Never mind that stuff,\"\n he added.\n\n\n I rose from my place, slipped my jacket from its hook, and started\n across the office toward the door, each of them falling into rigid step\n beside me. Marge, my secretary, stood wide-eyed as we passed through\n her office, heading for the hall exit.\n\n\n \"Mr. Delvin,\" she said, her voice a wispy croak. \"When will you be\n back? The Plasti-Flex man is waiting for your\u2014\"\n\n\n I opened my mouth, but one of the security men cut in.\n\n\n \"You will be informed,\" he said to Marge.\n\n\n She was staring after me, open-mouthed, as the door slid neatly shut\n behind us.\n\n\n \"\nW-Will\nI be back?\" I asked desperately, as we waited for the\n elevator. \"At all? Am I under arrest? What's up, anyhow?\"\n\n\n \"You will be informed,\" said the man again. I had to let it go at that.\n Security men were not hired for their loquaciousness. They had a car\n waiting at the curb downstairs, in the No Parking zone. The cop on the\n beat very politely opened the door for them when we got there. Those\n red-and-bronze uniforms carry an awful lot of weight. Not to mention\n the golden bulk of their holstered collapsers.\n\n\n There was nothing for me to do but sweat it out and to try and enjoy\n the ride, wherever we were going.\n\"\nYou\nare Jery Delvin?\"\n\n\n The man who spoke seemed more than surprised; he seemed stunned. His\n voice held an incredulous squeak, a squeak which would have amazed his\n subordinates. It certainly amazed me. Because the speaker was Philip\n Baxter, Chief of Interplanetary Security, second only to the World\n President in power, and not even that in matters of security. I managed\n to nod.\n\n\n He shook his white-maned head, slowly. \"I don't believe it.\"\n\n\n \"But I am, sir,\" I insisted doggedly.\n\n\n Baxter pressed the heels of his hands against his eyes for a moment,\n then sighed, grinned wryly, and waggled an index finger at an empty\n plastic contour chair.\n\n\n \"I guess maybe you are at that, son. Sit down, sit down.\"\n\n\n I folded gingerly at knees and hips and slid back into the chair,\n pressing my perspiring palms against the sides of my pants to get rid\n of their uncomfortably slippery feel. \"Thank you, sir.\"\n\n\n There was a silence, during which I breathed uneasily, and a bit too\n loudly. Baxter seemed to be trying to say something.\n\n\n \"I suppose you're wondering why I've called\u2014\" he started, then stopped\n short and flushed with embarrassment. I felt a sympathetic hot wave\n flooding my own features. A copy chief in an advertising company almost\n always reacts to an obvious cliche.\n\n\n Then, with something like a look of relief on his blunt face, he\n snatched up a brochure from his kidney-shaped desktop and his eyes\n raced over the lettering on its face.\n\n\n \"Jery Delvin,\" he read, musingly and dispassionately. \"Five foot eleven\n inches tall, brown hair, slate-gray eyes. Citizen. Honest, sober,\n civic-minded, slightly antisocial....\"\n\n\n He looked at me, questioningly.\n\n\n \"I'd rather not discuss that, sir, if you don't mind.\"\n\n\n \"Do you mind if I do mind?\"\n\n\n \"Oh ... Oh, well if you put it like that. It's girls, sir. They block\n my mind. Ruin my work.\"\n\n\n \"I don't get you.\"\n\n\n \"Well, in my job\u2014See, I've got this gift. I'm a spotter.\"\n\n\n \"A what?\"\n\n\n \"A spotter. I can't be fooled. By advertising. Or mostly anything else.\n Except girls.\"\n\n\n \"I'm still not sure that I\u2014\"\n\n\n \"It's like this. I designate ratios, by the minute. They hand me a new\n ad, and I read it by a stopwatch. Then, as soon as I spot the clinker,\n they stop the watch. If I get it in five seconds, it passes. But if I\n spot it in less, they throw it out and start over again. Or is that\n clear? No, I guess you're still confused, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Just a bit,\" Baxter said.\n\n\n I took a deep breath and tried again.\n\n\n \"Maybe an example would be better. Uh, you know the one about 'Three\n out of five New York lawyers use Hamilton Bond Paper for note-taking'?\"\n\n\n \"I've heard that, yes.\"\n\n\n \"Well, the clinker\u2014that's the sneaky part of the ad, sir, or what we\n call weasel-wording\u2014the clinker in that one is that while it seems to\n imply sixty percent of New York lawyers, it actually means precisely\n what it says: Three out of five. For that particular product, we had\n to question seventy-nine lawyers before we could come up with three who\n liked Hamilton Bond, see? Then we took the names of the three, and the\n names of two of the seventy-six men remaining, and kept them on file.\"\n\n\n \"On file?\" Baxter frowned. \"What for?\"\n\n\n \"In case the Federal Trade Council got on our necks. We could prove\n that three out of five lawyers used the product. Three out of those\n five. See?\"\n\n\n \"Ah,\" said Baxter, grinning. \"I begin to. And your job is to test these\n ads, before they reach the public. What fools you for five seconds will\n fool the average consumer indefinitely.\"\n\n\n I sat back, feeling much better. \"That's right, sir.\"\n\n\n Then Baxter frowned again. \"But what's this about girls?\"\n\n\n \"They\u2014they block my thinking, sir, that's all. Why, take that example\n I just mentioned. In plain writing, I caught the clinker in one-tenth\n of a second. Then they handed me a layout with a picture of a lawyer\n dictating notes to his secretary on it. Her legs were crossed. Nice\n legs. Gorgeous legs....\"\n\n\n \"How long that time, Delvin?\"\n\n\n \"Indefinite. Till they took the girl away, sir.\"\n\n\n Baxter cleared his throat loudly. \"I understand, at last. Hence your\n slight antisocial rating. You avoid women in order to keep your job.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. Even my secretary, Marge, whom I'd never in a million years\n think of looking at twice, except for business reasons, of course, has\n to stay out of my office when I'm working, or I can't function.\"\n\n\n \"You have my sympathy, son,\" Baxter said, not unkindly.\n\n\n \"Thank you, sir. It hasn't been easy.\"\n\n\n \"No, I don't imagine it has....\" Baxter was staring into some far-off\n distance. Then he remembered himself and blinked back to the present.\n \"Delvin,\" he said sharply. \"I'll come right to the point. This thing\n is.... You have been chosen for an extremely important mission.\"\n\n\n I couldn't have been more surprised had he announced my incipient\n maternity, but I was able to ask, \"Me? For Pete's sake, why, sir?\"\n\n\n Baxter looked me square in the eye. \"Damned if I know!\"\n2\nI stared at him, nonplussed. He'd spoken with evidence of utmost\n candor, and the Chief of Interplanetary Security was not one to be\n accused of a friendly josh, but\u2014\"You're kidding!\" I said. \"You must\n be. Otherwise, why was I sent for?\"\n\n\n \"Believe me, I wish I knew,\" he sighed. \"You were chosen, from all\n the inhabitants of this planet, and all the inhabitants of the Earth\n Colonies, by the Brain.\"\n\n\n \"You mean that International Cybernetics picked me for a mission?\n That's crazy, if you'll pardon me, sir.\"\n\n\n Baxter shrugged, and his genial smile was a bit tightly stretched.\n \"When the current emergency arose and all our usual methods failed, we\n had to submit the problem to the Brain.\"\n\n\n \"And,\" I said, beginning to be fascinated by his bewildered manner,\n \"what came out?\"\n\n\n He looked at me for a long moment, then picked up that brochure again,\n and said, without referring to it, \"Jery Delvin, five foot eleven\n inches tall\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Yes, but read me the part where it says why I was picked,\" I said, a\n little exasperated.\n\n\n Baxter eyed me balefully, then skimmed the brochure through the air in\n my direction. I caught it just short of the carpet.\n\n\n \"If you can find it, I'll read it!\" he said, almost snarling.\n\n\n I looked over the sheet, then turned it over and scanned the black\n opposite side. \"All it gives is my description, governmental status,\n and address!\"\n\n\n \"Uh-huh,\" Baxter grunted laconically. \"It amuses you, does it?\" The\n smile was still on his lips, but there was a grimness in the glitter of\n his narrowing eyes.\n\n\n \"Not really,\" I said hastily. \"It baffles me, to be frank.\"\n\n\n \"If you're sitting there in that hopeful stance awaiting some sort of\n explanation, you may as well relax,\" Baxter said shortly. \"I have none\n to make. IC had none to make. Damn it all to hell!\" He brought a meaty\n fist down on the desktop. \"No one has an explanation! All we know is\n that the Brain always picks the right man.\"\n\n\n I let this sink in, then asked, \"What made you ask for a man in\n the first place, sir? I've always understood that your own staff\n represented some of the finest minds\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Hold it, son. Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. We asked for no man.\n We asked for a solution to an important problem. And your name was what\n we got. You, son, are the solution.\"\n\n\n Chief of Security or not, I was getting a little burned up at his\n highhanded treatment of my emotions. \"How nice!\" I said icily. \"Now if\n I only knew the problem!\"\n\n\n Baxter blinked, then lost some of his scowl. \"Yes, of course;\" Baxter\n murmured, lighting up a cigar. He blew a plume of blue smoke toward the\n ceiling, then continued. \"You've heard, of course, of the Space Scouts?\"\n\n\n I nodded. \"Like the old-time Boy Scouts, only with rocket-names for\n their various troops in place of the old animal names.\"\n\n\n \"And you recall the recent government-sponsored trip they had? To Mars\n and back, with the broadly-smiling government picking up the enormous\n tab?\"\n\n\n I detected a tinge of cynicism in his tone, but said nothing.\n\n\n \"What a gesture!\" Baxter went on, hardly speaking directly to me at\n all. \"Inter-nation harmony! Good will! If these mere boys can get\n together and travel the voids of space, then so can everyone else! Why\n should there be tensions between the various nations comprising the\n World Government, when there's none between these fine lads, one from\n every civilized nation on Earth?\"\n\n\n \"You sound disillusioned, sir,\" I interjected.\n\n\n He stared at me as though I'd just fallen in from the ceiling or\n somewhere. \"Huh? Oh, yes, Delvin, isn't it? Sorry, I got carried away.\n Where was I?\"\n\n\n \"You were telling about how this gesture, the WG sending these kids\n off for an extraterrestrial romp, will cement relations between those\n nations who have remained hostile despite the unification of all\n governments on Earth. Personally, I think it was a pretty good idea,\n myself. Everybody likes kids. Take this jam we were trying to push.\n Pomegranate Nectar, it was called. Well, sir, it just wouldn't sell,\n and then we got this red-headed kid with freckles like confetti all\n over his slightly bucktoothed face, and we\u2014Sir?\"\n\n\n I'd paused, because he was staring at me like a man on the brink of\n apoplexy. I swallowed, and tried to look relaxed.\n\n\n After a moment, he found his voice. \"To go on, Delvin. Do you recall\n what happened to the Space Scouts last week?\"\n\n\n I thought a second, then nodded. \"They've been having such a good time\n that the government extended their trip by\u2014Why are you shaking your\n head that way, sir?\"\n\n\n \"Because it's not true, Delvin,\" he said. His voice was suddenly old\n and tired, and very much in keeping with his snowy hair. \"You see, the\n Space Scouts have vanished.\"\n\n\n I came up in the chair, ramrod-straight. \"Their mothers\u2014they've been\n getting letters and\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Forgeries, Fakes. Counterfeits.\"\n\n\n \"You mean whoever took the Scouts is falsifying\u2014\"\n\n\n \"No.\nMy\nmen are doing the work. Handpicked crews, day and night,\n have been sending those letters to the trusting mothers. It's been\n ghastly, Delvin. Hard on the men, terribly hard. Undotted\ni\n's,\n misuse of tenses, deliberate misspellings. They take it out of an\n adult, especially an adult with a mind keen enough to get him into\n Interplanetary Security. We've limited the shifts to four hours per man\n per day. Otherwise, they'd all be gibbering by now!\"\n\n\n \"And your men haven't found out anything?\" I marvelled.\n\n\n Baxter shook his head.\n\n\n \"And you finally had to resort to the Brain, and it gave you my name,\n but no reason for it?\"\n\n\n Baxter cupped his slightly jowled cheeks in his hands and propped his\n elbows on the desktop, suddenly slipping out of his high position to\n talk to me man-to-man. \"Look, son, an adding machine\u2014which is a minor\n form of an electronic brain, and even works on the same principle\u2014can\n tell you that two and two make four. But can it tell you why?\n\n\n \"Well, no, but\u2014\"\n\n\n \"That, in a nutshell is our problem. We coded and fed to the Brain\n every shred of information at our disposal; the ages of the children,\n for instance, and all their physical attributes, and where they were\n last seen, and what they were wearing. Hell, everything! The machine\n took the factors, weighed them, popped them through its billions of\n relays and tubes, and out of the end of the answer slot popped a single\n sheet. The one you just saw. Your dossier.\"\n\n\n \"Then I'm to be sent to Mars?\" I said, nervously.\n\n\n \"That's just it,\" Baxter sighed. \"We don't even know that! We're like a\n savage who finds a pistol: used correctly, it's a mean little weapon;\n pointed the wrong way, it's a quick suicide. So, you are our weapon.\n Now, the question is: Which way do we point you?\"\n\n\n \"You got me!\" I shrugged hopelessly.\n\n\n \"However, since we have nothing else to go on but the locale from which\n the children vanished, my suggestion would be to send you there.\"\n\n\n \"Mars, you mean,\" I said.\n\n\n \"No, to the spaceship\nPhobos II\n. The one they were returning to Earth\n in when they disappeared.\"\n\n\n \"They disappeared from a spaceship? While in space?\"\n\n\n Baxter nodded.\n\n\n \"But that's impossible,\" I said, shaking my head against this\n disconcerting thought.\n\n\n \"Yes,\" said Baxter. \"That's what bothers me.\"\n3\nPhobos II\n, for obvious reasons, was berthed in a Top Security\n spaceport. Even so, they'd shuttled it into a hangar, safe from the\n eyes of even their own men, and as a final touch had hidden the ship's\n nameplate beneath magnetic repair-plates.\n\n\n I had a metal disk\u2014bronze and red, the Security colors\u2014insigniaed\n by Baxter and counterembossed with the President's special device, a\n small globe surmounted by clasping hands. It gave me authority to do\n anything. With such an identification disc, I could go to Times Square\n and start machine gunning the passers-by, and not one of New York's\n finest would raise a hand to stop me.\n\n\n And, snugly enholstered, I carried a collapser, the restricted weapon\n given only to Security Agents, so deadly was its molecule-disrupting\n beam. Baxter had spent a tremulous hour showing me how to use the\n weapon, and especially how to turn the beam off. I'd finally gotten the\n hang of it, though not before half his kidney-shaped desk had flashed\n into nothingness, along with a good-sized swath of carpeting and six\n inches of concrete floor.\n\n\n His parting injunction had been. \"Be careful, Delvin, huh?\"\n\n\n Yes, parting. I was on my own. After all, with a Security disc\u2014the\n Amnesty, they called it\u2014such as I possessed, and a collapser, I could\n go anywhere, do anything, commandeer anything I might need. All with\n no questions asked. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty chipper as I\n entered the hangar housing\nPhobos II\n. At the moment, I was the most\n influential human being in the known universe.\n\n\n The pilot, as per my videophoned request, was waiting there for me. I\n saw him as I stepped into the cool shadows of the building from the hot\n yellow sunlight outside. He was tall, much taller than I, but he seemed\n nervous as hell. At least he was pacing back and forth amid a litter\n of half-smoked cigarette butts beside the gleaming tailfins of the\n spaceship, and a fuming butt was puckered into place in his mouth.\n\n\n \"Anders?\" I said, approaching to within five feet of him before\n halting, to get the best psychological effect from my appearance.\n\n\n He turned, saw me, and hurriedly spat the butt out onto the cement\n floor. \"Yes, sir!\" he said loudly, throwing me a quivering salute. His\n eyes were a bit wild as they took me in.\n\n\n And well they might be. An Amnesty-bearer can suddenly decide a subject\n is not answering questions to his satisfaction and simply blast the\n annoying party to atoms. It makes for straight responses. Of course,\n I was dressing the part, in a way. I wore the Amnesty suspended by a\n thin golden chain from my neck, and for costume I wore a raven-black\n blouse and matching uniform trousers and boots. I must have looked\n quite sinister. I'm under six feet, but I'm angular and wiry. Thus,\n in ominous black, with an Amnesty on my breast and a collapser in\n my holster, I was a sight to strike even honest citizens into quick\n examinations of conscience. I felt a little silly, but the outfit was\n Baxter's idea.\n\n\n \"I understand you were aboard the\nPhobos II\nwhen the incident\n occurred?\" I said sternly, which was unusual for my wonted demeanor.\n\n\n \"Yes, sir!\" he replied swiftly, at stiff attention.\n\n\n \"I don't really have any details,\" I said, and waited for him to take\n his cue. As an afterthought, to help him talk, I added, \"At ease, by\n the way, Anders.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you, sir,\" he said, not actually loosening much in his rigid\n position, but his face looking happier. \"See, I was supposed to pilot\n the kids back here from Mars when their trip was done, and\u2014\" He gave\n a helpless shrug. \"I dunno, sir. I got 'em all aboard, made sure they\n were secure in the takeoff racks, and then I set my coordinates for\n Earth and took off. Just a run-of-the-mill takeoff, sir.\"\n\n\n \"And when did you notice they were missing?\" I asked, looking at the\n metallic bulk of the ship and wondering what alien force could snatch\n fifteen fair-sized young boys through its impervious hull without\n leaving a trace.\n\n\n \"Chow time, sir. That's when you expect to have the little\u2014to have\n the kids in your hair, sir. Everyone wants his rations first\u2014You know\n how kids are, sir. So I went to the galley and was about to open up\n the ration packs, when I noticed how damned quiet it was aboard. And\n especially funny that no one was in the galley waiting for me to start\n passing the stuff out.\"\n\n\n \"So you searched,\" I said.\n\n\n Anders nodded sorrowfully. \"Not a trace of 'em, sir. Just some of their\n junk left in their storage lockers.\"\n\n\n I raised my eyebrows. \"Really? I'd be interested in seeing this junk,\n Anders.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, yes, sir. Right this way, sir. Watch out for these rungs, they're\n slippery.\"\n\n\n I ascended the retractable metal rungs that jutted from a point\n between the tailfins to the open airlock, twenty feet over ground\n level, and followed Anders inside the ship.\n\n\n I trailed Anders through the ship, from the pilot's compartment\u2014a\n bewildering mass of dials, switches, signal lights and wire\u2014through\n the galley into the troop section. It was a cramped cubicle housing a\n number of nylon-webbed foam rubber bunks. The bunks were empty, but I\n looked them over anyhow. I carefully tugged back the canvas covering\n that fitted envelope-fashion over a foam rubber pad, and ran my finger\n over the surface of the pad. It came away just slightly gritty.\n\n\n \"Uh-huh!\" I said, smiling. Anders just stared at me.\n\n\n I turned to the storage lockers. \"Let's see this junk they were\n suddenly deprived of.\"\n\n\n Anders, after a puzzled frown, obediently threw open the doors of\n the riveted tiers of metal boxes along the rear wall; the wall next\n to the firing chambers, which I had no particular desire to visit. I\n glanced inside at the articles therein, and noted with interest their\n similarity.\n\n\n \"Now, then,\" I resumed, \"the thrust of this rocket to get from Mars to\n Earth is calculated with regard to the mass on board, is that correct?\"\n He nodded. \"Good, that clears up an important point. I'd also like to\n know if this rocket has a dehumidifying system to keep the cast-off\n moisture from the passengers out of the air?\"\n\n\n \"Well, sure, sir!\" said Anders. \"Otherwise, we'd all be swimming in our\n own sweat after a ten-hour trip across space!\"\n\n\n \"Have you checked the storage tanks?\" I asked. \"Or is the cast-off\n perspiration simply jetted into space?\"\n\n\n \"No. It's saved, sir. It gets distilled and stored for washing and\n drinking. Otherwise, we'd all dehydrate, with no water to replace the\n water we lost.\"\n\n\n \"Check the tanks,\" I said.\n\n\n Anders, shaking his head, moved into the pilot's section and looked at\n a dial there. \"Full, sir. But that's because I didn't drink very much,\n and any sweating I did\u2014which was a hell of a lot, in this case\u2014was a\n source of new water for the tanks.\"\n\n\n \"Uh-huh.\" I paused and considered. \"I suppose the tubing for these\n tanks is all over the ship? In all the hollow bulkhead space, to take\n up the moisture fast?\"\n\n\n Anders, hopelessly lost, could only nod wearily.\n\n\n \"Would it hold\u2014\" I did some quick mental arithmetic\u2014\"let's say, about\n twenty-four extra cubic feet?\"\n\n\n He stared, then frowned, and thought hard. \"Yes, sir,\" he said,\n after a minute. \"Even twice that, with no trouble, but\u2014\" He caught\n himself short. It didn't pay to be too curious about the aims of an\n Amnesty-bearer.\n\n\n \"It's all right, Anders. You've been a tremendous help. Just one thing.\n When you left Mars, you took off from the night side, didn't you?\"\n\n\n \"Why, yes, I did, sir. But how did you\u2014?\"\n\n\n \"No matter, Anders. That'll be all.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir!\" He saluted sharply and started off.\n\n\n I started back for Interplanetary Security, and my second\u2014and I hoped,\n last\u2014interview with Chief Baxter. I had a slight inkling why the Brain\n had chosen me; because, in the affair of the missing Space Scouts, my\n infallible talent for spotting the True within the Apparent had come\n through nicely. I had found a very interesting clinker.\n4\n\"Strange,\" I remarked to Chief Baxter when I was seated once again in\n his office, opposite his newly replaced desk. \"I hardly acted like\n myself out at that airfield. I was brusque, highhanded, austere, almost\n malevolent with the pilot. And I'm ordinarily on the shy side, as a\n matter of fact.\"\n\n\n \"It's the Amnesty that does it,\" he said, gesturing toward the disc. It\n lay on his desk, now, along with the collapser. I felt, with the new\n information I'd garnered, that my work was done, and that the new data\n fed into the Brain would produce some other results, not involving me.\n\n\n I looked at the Amnesty, then nodded. \"Kind of gets you, after awhile.\n To know that you are the most influential person in creation is to\n automatically act the part. A shame, in a way.\"\n\n\n \"The hell it is!\" Baxter snapped. \"Good grief, man, why'd you think the\n Amnesty was created in the first place?\"\n\n\n I sat up straight and scratched the back of my head. \"Now you mention\n it, I really don't know. It seems a pretty dangerous thing to have\n about, the way people jump when they see it.\"\n\n\n \"It is dangerous, of course, but it's vitally necessary. You're young,\n Jery Delvin, and even the finest history course available these days\n is slanted in favor of World Government. So you have no idea how tough\n things were before the Amnesty came along. Ever hear of red tape?\"\n\n\n I shook my head. \"No, I don't believe so. Unless it had something to do\n with the former communist menace? They called themselves the Reds, I\n believe....\"\n\n\n He waved me silent. \"No connection at all, son. No, red tape was, well,\n involvement. Forms to be signed, certain factors to be considered,\n protocol to be dealt with, government agencies to be checked with,\n classifications, bureaus, sub-bureaus, congressional committees. It\n was impossible, Jery, my boy, to get anything done whatsoever without\n consulting someone else. And the time lag and paperwork involved made\n accurate and swift action impossible, sometimes. What we needed, of\n course, was a person who could simply have all authority, in order to\n save the sometimes disastrous delays. So we came up with the Amnesty.\"\n\n\n \"But the danger. If you should pick the wrong man\u2014\"\n\n\n Baxter smiled. \"No chance of that, Jery. We didn't leave it up to any\n committee or bureau or any other faction to do the picking. Hell, that\n would have put us right back where we'd been before. No, we left it up\n to the Brain. We'd find ourselves in a tight situation, and the Brain\n after being fed the data, would come up with either a solution, or a\n name.\"\n\n\n I stared at him. \"Then, when I was here before, I was here solely to\n receive the Amnesty, is that it?\"\n\n\n Baxter nodded. \"The Brain just picks the men. Then we tell the men the\n situation, hand over the Amnesty, and pray.\"\n\n\n I had a sudden thought. \"Say, what happens if two men are selected by\n the Brain? Who has authority over whom?\"\n\n\n Baxter grimaced and shivered. \"Don't even think such a thing! Even\n your mentioning such a contingency gives me a small migraine. It'd be\n unprecedented in the history of the Brain or the Amnesty.\" He grinned,\n suddenly. \"Besides, it can't happen. There's only one of these\u2014\" he\n tapped the medallion gently \"\u2014in existence, Jery. So we couldn't have\n such a situation!\"\n\n\n I sank back into the contour chair, and glanced at my watch. Much too\n late to go back to work. I'd done a lot in one day, I reasoned. Well,\n the thing was out of my hands. Baxter had the information I'd come\n up with, and it had been coded and fed to the Brain. As soon as the\n solution came through, I could be on my way back to the world of hard\n and soft sell.\n\n\n \"You understand,\" said Baxter suddenly, \"that you're to say nothing\n whatever about the disappearance of the Space Scouts until this office\n makes the news public? You know what would happen if this thing should\n leak!\"\n\n\n The intercom on Baxter's desk suddenly buzzed, and a bright red light\n flashed on. \"Ah!\" he said, thumbing a knob. \"Here we go, at last!\"\n\n\n As he exerted pressure on the knob, a thin slit in the side of the\n intercom began feeding out a long sheet of paper; the new answer from\n the Brain. It reached a certain length, then was automatically sheared\n off within the intercom, and the sheet fell gently to the desktop.\n Baxter picked it up and swiftly scanned its surface. A look of dismay\n overrode his erstwhile genial features.\n\n\n I had a horrible suspicion. \"Not again?\" I said softly.\n\n\n Baxter swore under his breath. Then he reached across the desktop and\n tossed me the Amnesty.",
    "51330": "I am a Nucleus\nBy STEPHEN BARR\n\n\n Illustrated by GAUGHAN\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction February 1957.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nNo doubt whatever about it, I had the Indian\n\n sign on me ... my comfortably untidy world had\n\n suddenly turned into a monstrosity of order!\nWhen I got home from the office, I was not so much tired as beaten\n down, but the effect is similar. I let myself into the apartment, which\n had an absentee-wife look, and took a cold shower. The present downtown\n temperature, according to the radio, was eighty-seven degrees, but\n according to my Greenwich Village thermometer, it was ninety-six. I got\n dressed and went into the living room, and wished ardently that my\n wife Molly were here to tell me why the whole place looked so woebegone.\n\n\n What do they do, I asked myself, that I have left undone? I've vacuumed\n the carpet, I've dusted and I've straightened the cushions.... Ah! The\n ashtrays. I emptied them, washed them and put them back, but still the\n place looked wife-deserted.\n\n\n It had been a bad day; I had forgotten to wind the alarm clock, so I'd\n had to hurry to make a story conference at one of the TV studios I\n write for. I didn't notice the impending rain storm and had no umbrella\n when I reached the sidewalk, to find myself confronted with an almost\n tropical downpour. I would have turned back, but a taxi came up and a\n woman got out, so I dashed through the rain and got in.\n\n\n \"Madison and Fifty-fourth,\" I said.\n\n\n \"Right,\" said the driver, and I heard the starter grind, and then go\n on grinding. After some futile efforts, he turned to me. \"Sorry, Mac.\n You'll have to find another cab. Good hunting.\"\n\n\n If possible, it was raining still harder. I opened my newspaper over\n my hat and ran for the subway: three blocks. Whizzing traffic held\n me up at each crossing and I was soaked when I reached the platform,\n just in time to miss the local. After an abnormal delay, I got one\n which exactly missed the express at Fourteenth Street. The same thing\n happened at both ends of the crosstown shuttle, but I found the rain\n had stopped when I got out at Fifty-first and Lexington.\nAs I walked across to Madison Avenue, I passed a big excavation where\n they were getting ready to put up a new office building. There was the\n usual crowd of buffs watching the digging machines and, in particular,\n a man with a pneumatic drill who was breaking up some hard-packed clay.\n While I looked, a big lump of it fell away, and for an instant I was\n able to see something that looked like a chunk of dirty glass, the size\n of an old-fashioned hatbox. It glittered brilliantly in the sunlight,\n and then his chattering drill hit it.\n\n\n There was a faint bang and the thing disintegrated. It knocked him on\n his back, but he got right up and I realized he was not hurt. At the\n moment of the explosion\u2014if so feeble a thing can be called one\u2014I\n felt something sting my face and, on touching it, found blood on my\n hand. I mopped at it with my handkerchief but, though slight, the\n bleeding would not stop, so I went into a drugstore and bought some\n pink adhesive which I put on the tiny cut. When I got to the studio, I\n found that I had missed the story conference.\n\n\n During the day, by actual count, I heard the phrase \"I'm just\n spitballing\" eight times, and another Madison Avenue favorite,\n \"The whole ball of wax,\" twelve times. However, my story had been\n accepted without change because nobody had noticed my absence from the\n conference room. There you have what is known as the Advertising World,\n the Advertising game or the advertising racket, depending upon which\n rung of the ladder you have achieved.\n\n\n The subway gave a repeat performance going home, and as I got to the\n apartment house we live in, the cop on the afternoon beat was standing\n there talking to the doorman.\n\n\n He said, \"Hello, Mr. Graham. I guess you must have just have missed it\n at your office building.\" I looked blank and he explained, \"We just\n heard it a little while ago: all six elevators in your building jammed\n at the same time. Sounds crazy. I guess you just missed it.\"\n\n\n Anything can happen in advertising, I thought. \"That's right, Danny, I\n just missed it,\" I said, and went on in.\n\n\n Psychiatry tells us that some people are accident-prone; I, on the\n other hand, seemed recently to be coincidence-prone, fluke-happy, and\n except for the alarm clock, I'd had no control over what had been going\n on.\n\n\n I went into our little kitchen to make a drink and reread the\n directions Molly had left, telling me how to get along by myself until\n she got back from her mother's in Oyster Bay, a matter of ten days.\n How to make coffee, how to open a can, whom to call if I took sick and\n such. My wife used to be a trained nurse and she is quite convinced\n that I cannot take a breath without her. She is right, but not for the\n reasons she supposes.\n\n\n I opened the refrigerator to get some ice and saw another notice: \"When\n you take out the Milk or Butter, Put it Right Back. And Close the Door,\n too.\"\n\n\n Intimidated, I took my drink into the living room and sat down in\n front of the typewriter. As I stared at the novel that was to liberate\n me from Madison Avenue, I noticed a mistake and picked up a pencil.\n When I put it down, it rolled off the desk, and with my eyes on the\n manuscript, I groped under the chair for it. Then I looked down. The\n pencil was standing on its end.\nThere, I thought to myself, is that one chance in a million we hear\n about, and picked up the pencil. I turned back to my novel and drank\n some of the highball in hopes of inspiration and surcease from the\n muggy heat, but nothing came. I went back and read the whole chapter\n to try to get a forward momentum, but came to a dead stop at the last\n sentence.\n\n\n Damn the heat, damn the pencil, damn Madison Avenue and advertising.\n My drink was gone and I went back to the kitchen and read Molly's\n notes again to see if they would be like a letter from her. I noticed\n one that I had missed, pinned to the door of the dumbwaiter: \"Garbage\n picked up at 6:30 AM so the idea is to Put it Here the Night Before. I\n love you.\" What can you do when the girl loves you?\n\n\n I made another drink and went and stared out of the living room window\n at the roof opposite. The Sun was out again and a man with a stick was\n exercising his flock of pigeons. They wheeled in a circle, hoping to be\n allowed to perch, but were not allowed to.\n\n\n Pigeons fly as a rule in formation and turn simultaneously, so that\n their wings all catch the sunlight at the same time. I was thinking\n about this decorative fact when I saw that as they were making a turn,\n they seemed to bunch up together. By some curious chance, they all\n wanted the same place in the sky to turn in, and several collided and\n fell.\n\n\n The man was as surprised as I and went to one of the dazed birds and\n picked it up. He stood there shaking his head from side to side,\n stroking its feathers.\n\n\n My speculations about this peculiar aerial traffic accident were\n interrupted by loud voices in the hallway. Since our building is\n usually very well behaved, I was astonished to hear what sounded like\n an incipient free-for-all, and among the angry voices I recognized that\n of my neighbor, Nat, a very quiet guy who works on a newspaper and has\n never, to my knowledge, given wild parties, particularly in the late\n afternoon.\n\n\n \"You can't say a thing like that to me!\" I heard him shout. \"I tell you\n I got that deck this afternoon and they weren't opened till we started\n to play!\"\n\n\n Several other loud voices started at the same time.\n\n\n \"Nobody gets five straight-flushes in a row!\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, and only when you were dealer!\"\n\n\n The tone of the argument was beginning to get ugly, and I opened the\n door to offer Nat help if he needed it. There were four men confronting\n him, evidently torn between the desire to make an angry exit and the\n impulse to stay and beat him up. His face was furiously red and he\n looked stunned.\n\n\n \"Here!\" he said, holding out a deck of cards, \"For Pete's sake, look at\n 'em yourselves if you think they're marked!\"\n\n\n The nearest man struck them up from his hand. \"Okay, Houdini! So\n they're not marked! All I know is five straight....\"\n\n\n His voice trailed away. He and the others stared at the scattered cards\n on the floor. About half were face down, as might be expected, and the\n rest face up\u2014all red.\nSomeone must have rung, because at that moment the elevator arrived and\n the four men, with half frightened, incredulous looks, and in silence,\n got in and were taken down. My friend stood looking at the neatly\n arranged cards.\n\n\n \"Judas!\" he said, and started to pick them up. \"Will you look at that!\n My God, what a session....\"\n\n\n I helped him and said to come in for a drink and tell me all about it,\n but I had an idea what I would hear.\n\n\n After a while, he calmed down, but he still seemed dazed.\n\n\n \"Never seen anything to equal it,\" he said. \"Wouldn't have believed\n it. Those guys\ndidn't\nbelieve it. Every round normal, nothing\n unusual about the hands\u2014three of a kind, a low straight, that sort\n of thing and one guy got queens over tens, until it gets to be\nmy\ndeal. Brother! Straight flush to the king\u2014every time! And each time,\n somebody else has four aces....\"\n\n\n He started to sweat again, so I got up to fix him another drink. There\n was one quart of club soda left, but when I tried to open it, the top\n broke and glass chips got into the bottle.\n\n\n \"I'll have to go down for more soda,\" I said.\n\n\n \"I'll come, too. I need air.\"\n\n\n At the delicatessen on the corner, the man gave me three bottles in\n what must have been a wet bag, because as he handed them to me over the\n top of the cold-meat display, the bottom gave and they fell onto the\n tile floor. None of them broke, although the fall must have been from\n at least five feet. Nat was too wound up in his thoughts to notice and\n I was getting used to miracles. We left the proprietor with his mouth\n open and met Danny, the cop, looking in at the door, also with his\n mouth open.\nOn the sidewalk, a man walking in front of Nat stooped suddenly to tie\n his shoe and Nat, to avoid bumping him, stepped off the curb and a taxi\n swerved to avoid Nat. The street was still wet and the taxi skidded,\n its rear end lightly flipping the front of one of those small foreign\n cars, which was going rather fast. It turned sideways and, without any\n side-slip, went right up the stoop of a brownstone opposite, coming to\n rest with its nose inside the front door, which a man opened at that\n moment.\n\n\n The sight of this threw another driver into a skid, and when he and\n the taxi had stopped sliding around, they were face to face, arranged\n crosswise to the street. This gave them exactly no room to move either\n forward or backward, for the car had its back to a hydrant and the taxi\n to a lamp.\n\n\n Although rather narrow, this is a two-way street, and in no time at\n all, traffic was stacked up from both directions as far as the avenues.\n Everyone was honking his horn.\n\n\n Danny was furious\u2014more so when he tried to put through a call to his\n station house from the box opposite.\n\n\n It was out of order.\nUpstairs, the wind was blowing into the apartment and I closed the\n windows, mainly to shut out the tumult and the shouting. Nat had\n brightened up considerably.\n\n\n \"I'll stay for one more drink and then I'm due at the office,\" he said.\n \"You know, I think this would make an item for the paper.\" He grinned\n and nodded toward the pandemonium.\n\n\n When he was gone, I noticed it was getting dark and turned on the desk\n lamp. Then I saw the curtains. They were all tied in knots, except\n one. That was tied in three knots.\n\n\n All\nright\n, I told myself, it was the wind. But I felt the time had\n come for me to get expert advice, so I went to the phone to call\n McGill. McGill is an assistant professor of mathematics at a university\n uptown and lives near us. He is highly imaginative, but we believe he\n knows everything.\n\n\n When I picked up the receiver, the line sounded dead and I thought,\nmore\ntrouble. Then I heard a man cough and I said hello. McGill's\n voice said, \"Alec? You must have picked up the receiver just as we were\n connected. That's a damn funny coincidence.\"\n\n\n \"Not in the least,\" I said. \"Come on over here. I've got something for\n you to work on.\"\n\n\n \"Well, as a matter of fact, I was calling up to ask you and Molly\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Molly's away for the week. Can you get over here quick? It's urgent.\"\n\n\n \"At once,\" he said, and hung up.\n\n\n While I waited, I thought I might try getting down a few paragraphs of\n my novel\u2014perhaps something would come now. It did, but as I came to a\n point where I was about to put down the word \"agurgling,\" I decided it\n was too reminiscent of Gilbert and Sullivan, and stopped at the letter\n \"R.\" Then I saw that I had unaccountably hit all four keys one step to\n the side of the correct ones, and tore out the page, with my face red.\n\n\n This was absolutely not my day.\n\"Well,\" McGill said, \"nothing you've told me is impossible or\n supernatural. Just very, very improbable. In fact, the odds against\n that poker game alone would lead me to suspect Nat, well as I know him.\n It's all those other things....\"\n\n\n He got up and walked over to the window and looked at the hot twilight\n while I waited. Then he turned around; he had a look of concern.\n\n\n \"Alec, you're a reasonable guy, so I don't think you'll take offense at\n what I'm going to say. What you have told me is so impossibly unlikely,\n and the odds against it so astronomical, that I must take the view that\n you're either stringing me or you're subject to a delusion.\" I started\n to get up and expostulate, but he motioned me back. \"I know, but don't\n you see that that is far more likely than....\" He stopped and shook\n his head. Then he brightened. \"I have an idea. Maybe we can have a\n demonstration.\"\n\n\n He thought for a tense minute and snapped his fingers. \"Have you any\n change on you?\"\n\n\n \"Why, yes,\" I said. \"Quite a bit.\" I reached into my pocket. There\n must have been nearly two dollars in silver and pennies. \"Do you think\n they'll each have the same date, perhaps?\"\n\n\n \"Did you accumulate all that change today?\"\n\n\n \"No. During the week.\"\n\n\n He shook his head. \"In that case, no. Discounting the fact that you\n could have prearranged it, if my dim provisional theory is right, that\n would be\nactually\nimpossible. It would involve time-reversal. I'll\n tell you about it later. No, just throw down the change. Let's see if\n they all come up heads.\"\n\n\n I moved away from the carpet and tossed the handful of coins onto the\n floor. They clattered and bounced\u2014and bounced together\u2014and stacked\n themselves into a neat pile.\n\n\n I looked at McGill. His eyes were narrowed. Without a word, he took a\n handful of coins from his own pocket and threw them.\n\n\n These coins didn't stack. They just fell into an exactly straight line,\n the adjacent ones touching.\n\n\n \"Well,\" I said, \"what more do you want?\"\n\n\n \"Great Scott,\" he said, and sat down. \"I suppose you know that\n there are two great apparently opposite principles governing the\n Universe\u2014random and design. The sands on the beach are an example\n of random distribution and life is an example of design. The motions\n of the particles of a gas are what we call random, but there are so\n many of them, we treat them statistically and derive the Second Law of\n Thermodynamics\u2014quite reliable. It isn't theoretically hard-and-fast;\n it's just a matter of extreme probability. Now life, on the other\n hand, seems not to depend on probability at all; actually, it goes\n against it. Or you might say it is certainly not an accidental\n manifestation.\"\n\n\n \"Do you mean,\" I asked in some confusion, \"that some form of life is\n controlling the coins and\u2014the other things?\"\nHe shook his head. \"No. All I mean is that improbable things usually\n have improbable explanations. When I see a natural law being broken,\n I don't say to myself, 'Here's a miracle.' I revise my version of the\n book of rules. Something\u2014I don't know what\u2014is going on, and it seems\n to involve probability, and it seems to center around you. Were you\n still in that building when the elevators stuck? Or near it?\"\n\n\n \"I guess I must have been. It happened just after I left.\"\n\n\n \"Hm. You're the center, all right. But why?\"\n\n\n \"Center of what?\" I asked. \"I feel as though I were the center of an\n electrical storm. Something has it in for me!\"\n\n\n McGill grinned. \"Don't be superstitious. And especially don't be\n anthropomorphic.\"\n\n\n \"Well, if it's the opposite of random, it's got to be a form of life.\"\n\n\n \"On what basis? All we know for certain is that random motions are\n being rearranged. A crystal, for example, is not life, but it's a\n non-random arrangement of particles.... I wonder.\" He had a faraway,\n frowning look.\n\n\n I was beginning to feel hungry and the drinks had worn off.\n\n\n \"Let's go out and eat,\" I said, \"There's not a damn thing in the\n kitchen and I'm not allowed to cook. Only eggs and coffee.\"\n\n\n We put on our hats and went down to the street. From either end, we\n could hear wrecking trucks towing away the stalled cars. There were,\n by this time, a number of harassed cops directing the maneuver and we\n heard one of them say to Danny, \"I don't know what the hell's going\n on around here. Every goddam car's got something the matter with it.\n They can't none of them back out for one reason or another. Never seen\n anything like it.\"\n\n\n Near us, two pedestrians were doing a curious little two-step as they\n tried to pass one another; as soon as one of them moved aside to let\n the other pass, the other would move to the same side. They both had\n embarrassed grins on their faces, but before long their grins were\n replaced by looks of suspicion and then determination.\n\n\n \"All right, smart guy!\" they shouted in unison, and barged ahead,\n only to collide. They backed off and threw simultaneous punches\n which met in mid-air. Then began one of the most remarkable bouts\n ever witnessed\u2014a fight in which fist hit fist but never anything\n else, until both champions backed away undefeated, muttering identical\n excuses and threats.\nDanny appeared at that moment. His face was dripping. \"You all right,\n Mr. Graham?\" he asked. \"I don't know what's going on around here, but\n ever since I came on this afternoon, things are going crazy. Bartley!\"\n he shouted\u2014he could succeed as a hog-caller. \"Bring those dames over\n here!\"\n\n\n Three women in a confused wrangle, with their half-open umbrellas\n intertwined, were brought across the street, which meant climbing over\n fenders. Bartley, a fine young patrolman, seemed self-conscious; the\n ladies seemed not to be.\n\n\n \"All right, now, Mrs. Mac-Philip!\" one of them said. \"Leave go of my\n umbrella and we'll say no more about it!\"\n\n\n \"And so now it's Missus Mac-Philip, is it?\" said her adversary.\n\n\n The third, a younger one with her back turned to us, her umbrella also\n caught in the tangle, pulled at it in a tentative way, at which the\n other two glared at her. She turned her head away and tried to let go,\n but the handle was caught in her glove. She looked up and I saw it was\n Molly. My nurse-wife.\n\n\n \"Oh, Alec!\" she said, and managed to detach herself. \"Are you all\n right?\" Was\nI\nall right!\n\n\n \"Molly! What are you doing here?\"\n\n\n \"I was so worried, and when I saw all this, I didn't know what to\n think.\" She pointed to the stalled cars. \"Are you really all right?\"\n\n\n \"Of course I'm all right. But why....\"\n\n\n \"The Oyster Bay operator said someone kept dialing and dialing Mother's\n number and there wasn't anyone on the line, so then she had it traced\n and it came from our phone here. I kept calling up, but I only got a\n busy signal. Oh, dear, are you\nsure\nyou're all right?\"\n\n\n I put my arm around her and glanced at McGill. He had an inward look.\n Then I caught Danny's eye. It had a thoughtful, almost suspicious cast\n to it.\n\n\n \"Trouble does seem to follow you, Mr. Graham,\" was all he said.\n\n\n When we got upstairs, I turned to McGill. \"Explain to Molly,\" I said.\n \"And incidentally to me. I'm not properly briefed yet.\"\n\n\n He did so, and when he got to the summing up, I had the feeling she was\n a jump ahead of him.\n\n\n \"In other words, you think it's something organic?\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" McGill said, \"I'm trying to think of anything else it might be.\n I'm not doing so well,\" he confessed.\n\n\n \"But so far as I can see,\" Molly answered, \"it's mere probability, and\n without any over-all pattern.\"\n\n\n \"Not quite. It has a center. Alec is the center.\"\nMolly looked at me with a curious expression for a moment. \"Do you\nfeel\nall right, darling?\" she asked me. I nodded brightly. \"You'll\n think this silly of me,\" she went on to McGill, \"but why isn't it\n something like an overactive poltergeist?\"\n\n\n \"Pure concept,\" he said. \"No genuine evidence.\"\n\n\n \"Magnetism?\"\n\n\n \"Absolutely not. For one thing, most of the objects affected weren't\n magnetic\u2014and don't forget magnetism is a force, not a form of energy,\n and a great deal of energy has been involved. I admit the energy has\n mainly been supplied by the things themselves, but in a magnetic field,\n all you'd get would be stored kinetic energy, such as when a piece of\n iron moves to a magnet or a line of force. Then it would just stay\n there, like a rundown clock weight. These things do a lot more than\n that\u2014they go on moving.\"\n\n\n \"Why did you mention a crystal before? Why not a life-form?\"\n\n\n \"Only an analogy,\" said McGill. \"A crystal resembles life in that it\n has a definite shape and exhibits growth, but that's all. I'll agree\n this\u2014thing\u2014has no discernible shape and motion\nis\ninvolved, but\n plants don't move and amebas have no shape. Then a crystal feeds, but\n it does not convert what it feeds on; it merely rearranges it into a\n non-random pattern. In this case, it's rearranging random motions and\n it has a nucleus and it seems to be growing\u2014at least in what you might\n call improbability.\"\n\n\n Molly frowned. \"Then what\nis\nit? What's it made of?\"\n\n\n \"I should say it was made of the motions. There's a similar idea about\n the atom. Another thing that's like a crystal is that it appears to\n be forming around a nucleus not of its own material\u2014the way a speck\n of sand thrown into a supersaturated solution becomes the nucleus of\n crystallization.\"\n\n\n \"Sounds like the pearl in an oyster,\" Molly said, and gave me an\n impertinent look.\n\n\n \"Why,\" I asked McGill, \"did you say the coins couldn't have the same\n date? I mean apart from the off chance I got them that way.\"\n\n\n \"Because I don't think this thing got going before today and\n everything that's happened can all be described as improbable motions\n here and now. The dates were already there, and to change them would\n require retroactive action, reversing time. That's out, in my book.\n That telephone now\u2014\"\n\n\n The doorbell rang. We were not surprised to find it was the telephone\n repairman. He took the set apart and clucked like a hen.\n\n\n \"I guess you dropped it on the floor, mister,\" he said with strong\n disapproval.\n\n\n \"Certainly not,\" I said. \"Is it broken?\"\n\n\n \"Not exactly\nbroken\n, but\u2014\" He shook his head and took it apart some\n more.\nMcGill went over and they discussed the problem in undertones. Finally\n the man left and Molly called her mother to reassure her. McGill tried\n to explain to me what had happened with the phone.\n\n\n \"You must have joggled something loose. And then you replaced the\n receiver in such a way that the contact wasn't quite open.\"\n\n\n \"But for Pete's sake, Molly says the calls were going on for a long\n time! I phoned you only a short time ago and it must have taken her\n nearly two hours to get here from Oyster Bay.\"\n\n\n \"Then you must have done it twice and the vibrations in the\n floor\u2014something like that\u2014just happened to cause the right induction\n impulses. Yes, I know how you feel,\" he said, seeing my expression.\n \"It's beginning to bear down.\"\n\n\n Molly was through telephoning and suggested going out for dinner. I was\n so pleased to see her that I'd forgotten all about being hungry.\n\n\n \"I'm in no mood to cook,\" she said. \"Let's get away from all this.\"\n\n\n McGill raised an eyebrow. \"If all this, as you call it, will let us.\"\n\n\n In the lobby, we ran into Nat, looking smug in a journalistic way.\n\n\n \"I've been put on the story\u2014who could be better?\u2014I live here. So far,\n I don't quite get what's been happening. I've been talking to Danny,\n but he didn't say much. I got the feeling he thinks you're involved in\n some mystical, Hibernian way. Hello, McGill, what's with you?\"\n\n\n \"He's got a theory,\" said Molly. \"Come and eat with us and he'll tell\n you all about it.\"\n\n\n Since we decided on an air-conditioned restaurant nearby on Sixth\n Avenue, we walked. The jam of cars didn't seem to be any less than\n before and we saw Danny again. He was talking to a police lieutenant,\n and when he caught sight of us, he said something that made the\n lieutenant look at us with interest. Particularly at me.\n\n\n \"If you want your umbrella, Mrs. Graham,\" Danny said, \"it's at the\n station house. What there's left of it, that is.\"\n\n\n Molly thanked him and there was a short pause, during which I felt\n the speculative regard of the lieutenant. I pulled out a packet of\n cigarettes, which I had opened, as always, by tearing off the top. I\n happened to have it upside down and all the cigarettes fell out. Before\n I could move my foot to obliterate what they had spelled out on the\n sidewalk, the two cops saw it. The lieutenant gave me a hard look, but\n said nothing. I quickly kicked the insulting cigarettes into the gutter.\n\n\n When we got to the restaurant, it was crowded but cool\u2014although it\n didn't stay cool for long. We sat down at a side table near the door\n and ordered Tom Collinses as we looked at the menu. Sitting at the\n next table were a fat lady, wearing a very long, brilliant green\n evening gown, and a dried-up sour-looking man in a tux. When the waiter\n returned, they preempted him and began ordering dinner fussily: cold\n cuts for the man, and vichyssoise, lobster salad and strawberry parfait\n for the fat lady.\n\n\n I tasted my drink. It was most peculiar; salt seemed to have been used\n instead of sugar. I mentioned this and my companions tried theirs, and\n made faces.\nThe waiter was concerned and apologetic, and took the drinks back to\n the bar across the room. The bartender looked over at us and tasted\n one of the drinks. Then he dumped them in his sink with a puzzled\n expression and made a new batch. After shaking this up, he set out a\n row of glasses, put ice in them and began to pour.\n\n\n That is to say he tilted the shaker over the first one, but nothing\n came out. He bumped it against the side of the bar and tried again.\n Still nothing. Then he took off the top and pried into it with his\n pick, his face pink with exasperation.\n\n\n I had the impression that the shaker had frozen solid. Well, ice\nis\na\n crystal, I thought to myself.\n\n\n The other bartender gave him a fresh shaker, but the same thing\n happened, and I saw no more because the customers sitting at the bar\n crowded around in front of him, offering advice. Our waiter came back,\n baffled, saying he'd have the drinks in a moment, and went to the\n kitchen. When he returned, he had madame's vichyssoise and some rolls,\n which he put down, and then went to the bar, where the audience had\n grown larger.\n\n\n Molly lit a cigarette and said, \"I suppose this is all part of it,\n Alec. Incidentally, it seems to be getting warmer in here.\"\n\n\n It was, and I had the feeling the place was quieter\u2014a background noise\n had stopped. It dawned on me that I no longer heard the faint hum of\n the air-conditioner over the door, and as I started to say so, I made\n a gesture toward it. My hand collided with Molly's when she tapped her\n cigarette over the ashtray, and the cigarette landed in the neighboring\n vichyssoise.\n\n\n \"Hey! What's the idea?\" snarled the sour-looking man.\n\n\n \"I'm terribly sorry,\" I said. \"It was an accident. I\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Throwing cigarettes at people!\" the fat lady said.\n\n\n \"I really didn't mean to,\" I began again, getting up. There must have\n been a hole in the edge of their tablecloth which one of my cuff\n buttons caught in, because as I stepped out from between the closely\n set tables, I pulled everything\u2014tablecloth, silver, water glasses,\n ashtrays and the vichyssoise-\u00e0-la-nicotine\u2014onto the floor.\n\n\n The fat lady surged from the banquette and slapped me meatily. The man\n licked his thumb and danced as boxers are popularly supposed to do. The\n owner of the place, a man with thick black eyebrows, hustled toward us\n with a determined manner. I tried to explain what had happened, but I\n was outshouted, and the owner frowned darkly.",
    "51129": "A Gift From Earth\nBy MANLY BANISTER\n\n\n Illustrated by KOSSIN\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction August 1955.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nExcept for transportation, it was absolutely\n \nfree ... but how much would the freight cost?\n\"It is an outrage,\" said Koltan of the House of Masur, \"that the\n Earthmen land among the Thorabians!\"\n\n\n Zotul, youngest of the Masur brothers, stirred uneasily. Personally, he\n was in favor of the coming of the Earthmen to the world of Zur.\n\n\n At the head of the long, shining table sat old Kalrab Masur, in his\n dotage, but still giving what he could of aid and comfort to the\n Pottery of Masur, even though nobody listened to him any more and\n he knew it. Around the table sat the six brothers\u2014Koltan, eldest\n and Director of the Pottery; Morvan, his vice-chief; Singula, their\n treasurer; Thendro, sales manager; Lubiosa, export chief; and last in\n the rank of age, Zotul, who was responsible for affairs of design.\n\n\n \"Behold, my sons,\" said Kalrab, stroking his scanty beard. \"What are\n these Earthmen to worry about? Remember the clay. It is our strength\n and our fortune. It is the muscle and bone of our trade. Earthmen may\n come and Earthmen may go, but clay goes on forever ... and with it, the\n fame and fortune of the House of Masur.\"\n\n\n \"It\nis\na damned imposition,\" agreed Morvan, ignoring his father's\n philosophical attitude. \"They could have landed just as easily here in\n Lor.\"\n\n\n \"The Thorabians will lick up the gravy,\" said Singula, whose mind ran\n rather to matters of financial aspect, \"and leave us the grease.\"\n\n\n By this, he seemed to imply that the Thorabians would rob the Earthmen,\n which the Lorians would not. The truth was that all on Zur were panting\n to get their hands on that marvelous ship, which was all of metal, a\n very scarce commodity on Zur, worth billions of ken.\nLubiosa, who had interests in Thorabia, and many agents there, kept his\n own counsel. His people were active in the matter and that was enough\n for him. He would report when the time was ripe.\n\n\n \"Doubtless,\" said Zotul unexpectedly, for the youngest at a conference\n was expected to keep his mouth shut and applaud the decisions of his\n elders, \"the Earthmen used all the metal on their planet in building\n that ship. We cannot possibly bilk them of it; it is their only means\n of transport.\"\n\n\n Such frank expression of motive was unheard of, even in the secret\n conclave of conference. Only the speaker's youth could account for it.\n The speech drew scowls from the brothers and stern rebuke from Koltan.\n\n\n \"When your opinion is wanted, we will ask you for it. Meantime,\n remember your position in the family.\"\n\n\n Zotul bowed his head meekly, but he burned with resentment.\n\n\n \"Listen to the boy,\" said the aged father. \"There is more wisdom in his\n head than in all the rest of you. Forget the Earthmen and think only of\n the clay.\"\n\n\n Zotul did not appreciate his father's approval, for it only earned him\n a beating as soon as the old man went to bed. It was a common enough\n thing among the brothers Masur, as among everybody, to be frustrated in\n their desires. However, they had Zotul to take it out upon, and they\n did.\n\n\n Still smarting, Zotul went back to his designing quarters and thought\n about the Earthmen. If it was impossible to hope for much in the way\n of metal from the Earthmen, what could one get from them? If he could\n figure this problem out, he might rise somewhat in the estimation of\n his brothers. That wouldn't take him out of the rank of scapegoat, of\n course, but the beatings might become fewer and less severe.\nBy and by, the Earthmen came to Lor, flying through the air in strange\n metal contraptions. They paraded through the tile-paved streets of the\n city, marveled here, as they had in Thorabia, at the buildings all of\n tile inside and out, and made a great show of themselves for all the\n people to see. Speeches were made through interpreters, who had much\n too quickly learned the tongue of the aliens; hence these left much to\n be desired in the way of clarity, though their sincerity was evident.\n\n\n The Earthmen were going to do great things for the whole world of\n Zur. It required but the cooperation\u2014an excellent word, that\u2014of all\n Zurians, and many blessings would rain down from the skies. This, in\n effect, was what the Earthmen had to say. Zotul felt greatly cheered,\n for it refuted the attitude of his brothers without earning him a\n whaling for it.\n\n\n There was also some talk going around about agreements made between\n the Earthmen and officials of the Lorian government, but you heard one\n thing one day and another the next. Accurate reporting, much less a\n newspaper, was unknown on Zur.\n\n\n Finally, the Earthmen took off in their great, shining ship. Obviously,\n none had succeeded in chiseling them out of it, if, indeed, any had\n tried. The anti-Earthmen Faction\u2014in any culture complex, there is\n always an \"anti\" faction to protest any movement of endeavor\u2014crowed\n happily that the Earthmen were gone for good, and a good thing, too.\n\n\n Such jubilation proved premature, however. One day, a fleet of ships\n arrived and after they had landed all over the planet, Zur was\n practically acrawl with Earthmen.\n\n\n Immediately, the Earthmen established what they called\n \"corporations\"\u2014Zurian trading companies under terrestrial control. The\n object of the visit was trade.\n\n\n In spite of the fact that a terrestrial ship had landed at every Zurian\n city of major and minor importance, and all in a single day, it took\n some time for the news to spread.\n\n\n The first awareness Zotul had was that, upon coming home from the\n pottery one evening, he found his wife Lania proudly brandishing an\n aluminum pot at him.\n\n\n \"What is that thing?\" he asked curiously.\n\n\n \"A pot. I bought it at the market.\"\n\n\n \"Did you now? Well, take it back. Am I made of money that you spend my\n substance for some fool's product of precious metal? Take it back, I\n say!\"\nThe pretty young wife laughed at him. \"Up to your ears in clay, no\n wonder you hear nothing of news! The pot is very cheap. The Earthmen\n are selling them everywhere. They're much better than our old clay\n pots; they're light and easy to handle and they don't break when\n dropped.\"\n\n\n \"What good is it?\" asked Zotul, interested. \"How will it hold heat,\n being so light?\"\n\n\n \"The Earthmen don't cook as we do,\" she explained patiently. \"There is\n a paper with each pot that explains how it is used. And you will have\n to design a new ceramic stove for me to use the pots on.\"\n\n\n \"Don't be idiotic! Do you suppose Koltan would agree to produce a new\n type of stove when the old has sold well for centuries? Besides, why do\n you need a whole new stove for one little pot?\"\n\n\n \"A dozen pots. They come in sets and are cheaper that way. And Koltan\n will have to produce the new stove because all the housewives are\n buying these pots and there will be a big demand for it. The Earthman\n said so.\"\n\n\n \"He did, did he? These pots are only a fad. You will soon enough go\n back to cooking with your old ones.\"\n\n\n \"The Earthman took them in trade\u2014one reason why the new ones are so\n cheap. There isn't a pot in the house but these metal ones, and you\n will have to design and produce a new stove if you expect me to use\n them.\"\n\n\n After he had beaten his wife thoroughly for her foolishness, Zotul\n stamped off in a rage and designed a new ceramic stove, one that would\n accommodate the terrestrial pots very well.\n\n\n And Koltan put the model into production.\n\n\n \"Orders already are pouring in like mad,\" he said the next day. \"It\n was wise of you to foresee it and have the design ready. Already, I am\n sorry for thinking as I did about the Earthmen. They really intend to\n do well by us.\"\n\n\n The kilns of the Pottery of Masur fired day and night to keep up with\n the demand for the new porcelain stoves. In three years, more than a\n million had been made and sold by the Masurs alone, not counting the\n hundreds of thousands of copies turned out by competitors in every\n land.\nIn the meantime, however, more things than pots came from Earth.\n One was a printing press, the like of which none on Zur had ever\n dreamed. This, for some unknown reason and much to the disgust of\n the Lorians, was set up in Thorabia. Books and magazines poured from\n it in a fantastic stream. The populace fervidly brushed up on its\n scanty reading ability and bought everything available, overcome by\n the novelty of it. Even Zotul bought a book\u2014a primer in the Lorian\n language\u2014and learned how to read and write. The remainder of the\n brothers Masur, on the other hand, preferred to remain in ignorance.\n\n\n Moreover, the Earthmen brought miles of copper wire\u2014more than enough\n in value to buy out the governorship of any country on Zur\u2014and set up\n telegraph lines from country to country and continent to continent.\n Within five years of the first landing of the Earthmen, every major\n city on the globe had a printing press, a daily newspaper, and enjoyed\n the instantaneous transmission of news via telegraph. And the business\n of the House of Masur continued to look up.\n\n\n \"As I have always said from the beginning,\" chortled Director Koltan,\n \"this coming of the Earthmen had been a great thing for us, and\n especially for the House of Masur.\"\n\n\n \"You didn't think so at first,\" Zotul pointed out, and was immediately\n sorry, for Koltan turned and gave him a hiding, single-handed, for his\n unthinkable impertinence.\n\n\n It would do no good, Zotul realized, to bring up the fact that their\n production of ceramic cooking pots had dropped off to about two per\n cent of its former volume. Of course, profits on the line of new stoves\n greatly overbalanced the loss, so that actually they were ahead; but\n their business was now dependent upon the supply of the metal pots from\n Earth.\n\n\n About this time, plastic utensils\u2014dishes, cups, knives, forks\u2014made\n their appearance on Zur. It became very stylish to eat with the\n newfangled paraphernalia ... and very cheap, too, because for\n everything they sold, the Earthmen always took the old ware in trade.\n What they did with the stuff had been hard to believe at first. They\n destroyed it, which proved how valueless it really was.\n\n\n The result of the new flood was that in the following year, the sale of\n Masur ceramic table service dropped to less than a tenth.\nTrembling with excitement at this news from their book-keeper, Koltan\n called an emergency meeting. He even routed old Kalrab out of his\n senile stupor for the occasion, on the off chance that the old man\n might still have a little wit left that could be helpful.\n\n\n \"Note,\" Koltan announced in a shaky voice, \"that the Earthmen undermine\n our business,\" and he read off the figures.\n\n\n \"Perhaps,\" said Zotul, \"it is a good thing also, as you said before,\n and will result in something even better for us.\"\n\n\n Koltan frowned, and Zotul, in fear of another beating, instantly\n subsided.\n\n\n \"They are replacing our high-quality ceramic ware with inferior\n terrestrial junk,\" Koltan went on bitterly. \"It is only the glamor that\n sells it, of course, but before the people get the shine out of their\n eyes, we can be ruined.\"\n\n\n The brothers discussed the situation for an hour, and all the while\n Father Kalrab sat and pulled his scanty whiskers. Seeing that they got\n nowhere with their wrangle, he cleared his throat and spoke up.\n\n\n \"My sons, you forget it is not the Earthmen themselves at the bottom\n of your trouble, but the\nthings\nof Earth. Think of the telegraph and\n the newspaper, how these spread news of every shipment from Earth.\n The merchandise of the Earthmen is put up for sale by means of these\n newspapers, which also are the property of the Earthmen. The people are\n intrigued by these advertisements, as they are called, and flock to\n buy. Now, if you would pull a tooth from the kwi that bites you, you\n might also have advertisements of your own.\"\n\n\n Alas for that suggestion, no newspaper would accept advertising\n from the House of Masur; all available space was occupied by the\n advertisements of the Earthmen.\n\n\n In their dozenth conference since that first and fateful one, the\n brothers Masur decided upon drastic steps. In the meantime, several\n things had happened. For one, old Kalrab had passed on to his immortal\n rest, but this made no real difference. For another, the Earthmen had\n procured legal authority to prospect the planet for metals, of which\n they found a good deal, but they told no one on Zur of this. What\n they did mention was the crude oil and natural gas they discovered\n in the underlayers of the planet's crust. Crews of Zurians, working\n under supervision of the Earthmen, laid pipelines from the gas and oil\n regions to every major and minor city on Zur.\nBy the time ten years had passed since the landing of the first\n terrestrial ship, the Earthmen were conducting a brisk business in\n gas-fired ranges, furnaces and heaters ... and the Masur stove business\n was gone. Moreover, the Earthmen sold the Zurians their own natural gas\n at a nice profit and everybody was happy with the situation except the\n brothers Masur.\n\n\n The drastic steps of the brothers applied, therefore, to making an\n energetic protest to the governor of Lor.\n\n\n At one edge of the city, an area had been turned over to the Earthmen\n for a spaceport, and the great terrestrial spaceships came to it and\n departed from it at regular intervals. As the heirs of the House of\n Masur walked by on their way to see the governor, Zotul observed that\n much new building was taking place and wondered what it was.\n\n\n \"Some new devilment of the Earthmen, you can be sure,\" said Koltan\n blackly.\n\n\n In fact, the Earthmen were building an assembly plant for radio\n receiving sets. The ship now standing on its fins upon the apron was\n loaded with printed circuits, resistors, variable condensers and other\n radio parts. This was Earth's first step toward flooding Zur with the\n natural follow-up in its campaign of advertising\u2014radio programs\u2014with\n commercials.\n\n\n Happily for the brothers, they did not understand this at the time or\n they would surely have gone back to be buried in their own clay.\n\n\n \"I think,\" the governor told them, \"that you gentlemen have not\n paused to consider the affair from all angles. You must learn to be\n modern\u2014keep up with the times! We heads of government on Zur are doing\n all in our power to aid the Earthmen and facilitate their bringing a\n great, new culture that can only benefit us. See how Zur has changed in\n ten short years! Imagine the world of tomorrow! Why, do you know they\n are even bringing\nautos\nto Zur!\"\n\n\n The brothers were fascinated with the governor's description of these\n hitherto unheard-of vehicles.\n\n\n \"It only remains,\" concluded the governor, \"to build highways, and the\n Earthmen are taking care of that.\"\n\n\n At any rate, the brothers Masur were still able to console themselves\n that they had their tile business. Tile served well enough for houses\n and street surfacing; what better material could be devised for the new\n highways the governor spoke of? There was a lot of money to be made\n yet.\nRadio stations went up all over Zur and began broadcasting. The people\n bought receiving sets like mad. The automobiles arrived and highways\n were constructed.\n\n\n The last hope of the brothers was dashed. The Earthmen set up plants\n and began to manufacture Portland cement.\n\n\n You could build a house of concrete much cheaper than with tile. Of\n course, since wood was scarce on Zur, it was no competition for either\n tile or concrete. Concrete floors were smoother, too, and the stuff\n made far better road surfacing.\n\n\n The demand for Masur tile hit rock bottom.\n\n\n The next time the brothers went to see the governor, he said, \"I cannot\n handle such complaints as yours. I must refer you to the Merchandising\n Council.\"\n\n\n \"What is that?\" asked Koltan.\n\n\n \"It is an Earthman association that deals with complaints such as\n yours. In the matter of material progress, we must expect some strain\n in the fabric of our culture. Machinery has been set up to deal with\n it. Here is their address; go air your troubles to them.\"\n\n\n The business of a formal complaint was turned over by the brothers to\n Zotul. It took three weeks for the Earthmen to get around to calling\n him in, as a representative of the Pottery of Masur, for an interview.\n\n\n All the brothers could no longer be spared from the plant, even for the\n purpose of pressing a complaint. Their days of idle wealth over, they\n had to get in and work with the clay with the rest of the help.\n\n\n Zotul found the headquarters of the Merchandising Council as indicated\n on their message. He had not been this way in some time, but was not\n surprised to find that a number of old buildings had been torn down to\n make room for the concrete Council House and a roomy parking lot, paved\n with something called \"blacktop\" and jammed with an array of glittering\n new automobiles.\n\n\n An automobile was an expense none of the brothers could afford, now\n that they barely eked a living from the pottery. Still, Zotul ached\n with desire at sight of so many shiny cars. Only a few had them and\n they were the envied ones of Zur.\n\n\n Kent Broderick, the Earthman in charge of the Council, shook hands\n jovially with Zotul. That alien custom conformed with, Zotul took a\n better look at his host. Broderick was an affable, smiling individual\n with genial laugh wrinkles at his eyes. A man of middle age, dressed in\n the baggy costume of Zur, he looked almost like a Zurian, except for\n an indefinite sense of alienness about him.\n\n\n \"Glad to have you call on us, Mr. Masur,\" boomed the Earthman, clapping\n Zotul on the back. \"Just tell us your troubles and we'll have you\n straightened out in no time.\"\nAll the chill recriminations and arguments Zotul had stored for this\n occasion were dissipated in the warmth of the Earthman's manner.\n\n\n Almost apologetically, Zotul told of the encroachment that had been\n made upon the business of the Pottery of Masur.\n\n\n \"Once,\" he said formally, \"the Masur fortune was the greatest in\n the world of Zur. That was before my father, the famous Kalrab\n Masur\u2014Divinity protect him\u2014departed this life to collect his greater\n reward. He often told us, my father did, that the clay is the flesh and\n bones of our culture and our fortune. Now it has been shown how prone\n is the flesh to corruption and how feeble the bones. We are ruined, and\n all because of new things coming from Earth.\"\n\n\n Broderick stroked his shaven chin and looked sad. \"Why didn't you come\n to me sooner? This would never have happened. But now that it has,\n we're going to do right by you. That is the policy of Earth\u2014always to\n do right by the customer.\"\n\n\n \"Divinity witness,\" Zorin said, \"that we ask only compensation for\n damages.\"\n\n\n Broderick shook his head. \"It is not possible to replace an immense\n fortune at this late date. As I said, you should have reported your\n trouble sooner. However, we can give you an opportunity to rebuild. Do\n you own an automobile?\"\n\n\n \"No.\"\n\n\n \"A gas range? A gas-fired furnace? A radio?\"\n\n\n Zotul had to answer no to all except the radio. \"My wife Lania likes\n the music,\" he explained. \"I cannot afford the other things.\"\n\n\n Broderick clucked sympathetically. One who could not afford the\n bargain-priced merchandise of Earth must be poor indeed.\n\n\n \"To begin with,\" he said, \"I am going to make you a gift of all these\n luxuries you do not have.\" As Zotul made to protest, he cut him off\n with a wave of his hand. \"It is the least we can do for you. Pick a car\n from the lot outside. I will arrange to have the other things delivered\n and installed in your home.\"\n\n\n \"To receive gifts,\" said Zotul, \"incurs an obligation.\"\n\n\n \"None at all,\" beamed the Earthman cheerily. \"Every item is given to\n you absolutely free\u2014a gift from the people of Earth. All we ask is\n that you pay the freight charges on the items. Our purpose is not to\n make profit, but to spread technology and prosperity throughout the\n Galaxy. We have already done well on numerous worlds, but working out\n the full program takes time.\"\n\n\n He chuckled deeply. \"We of Earth have a saying about one of our\n extremely slow-moving native animals. We say, 'Slow is the tortoise,\n but sure.' And so with us. Our goal is a long-range one, with the\n motto, 'Better times with better merchandise.'\"\nThe engaging manner of the man won Zotul's confidence. After all, it\n was no more than fair to pay transportation.\n\n\n He said, \"How much does the freight cost?\"\n\n\n Broderick told him.\n\n\n \"It may seem high,\" said the Earthman, \"but remember that Earth is\n sixty-odd light-years away. After all, we are absorbing the cost of the\n merchandise. All you pay is the freight, which is cheap, considering\n the cost of operating an interstellar spaceship.\"\n\n\n \"Impossible,\" said Zotul drably. \"Not I and all my brothers together\n have so much money any more.\"\n\n\n \"You don't know us of Earth very well yet, but you will. I offer you\n credit!\"\n\n\n \"What is that?\" asked Zotul skeptically.\n\n\n \"It is how the poor are enabled to enjoy all the luxuries of the\n rich,\" said Broderick, and went on to give a thumbnail sketch of the\n involutions and devolutions of credit, leaving out some angles that\n might have had a discouraging effect.\n\n\n On a world where credit was a totally new concept, it was enchanting.\n Zotul grasped at the glittering promise with avidity. \"What must I do\n to get credit?\"\n\n\n \"Just sign this paper,\" said Broderick, \"and you become part of our\n Easy Payment Plan.\"\n\n\n Zotul drew back. \"I have five brothers. If I took all these things for\n myself and nothing for them, they would beat me black and blue.\"\n\n\n \"Here.\" Broderick handed him a sheaf of chattel mortgages. \"Have each\n of your brothers sign one of these, then bring them back to me. That is\n all there is to it.\"\n\n\n It sounded wonderful. But how would the brothers take it? Zotul\n wrestled with his misgivings and the misgivings won.\n\n\n \"I will talk it over with them,\" he said. \"Give me the total so I will\n have the figures.\"\n\n\n The total was more than it ought to be by simple addition. Zotul\n pointed this out politely.\n\n\n \"Interest,\" Broderick explained. \"A mere fifteen per cent. After all,\n you get the merchandise free. The transportation company has to be\n paid, so another company loans you the money to pay for the freight.\n This small extra sum pays the lending company for its trouble.\"\n\n\n \"I see.\" Zotul puzzled over it sadly. \"It is too much,\" he said. \"Our\n plant doesn't make enough money for us to meet the payments.\"\n\n\n \"I have a surprise for you,\" smiled Broderick. \"Here is a contract. You\n will start making ceramic parts for automobile spark plugs and certain\n parts for radios and gas ranges. It is our policy to encourage local\n manufacture to help bring prices down.\"\n\n\n \"We haven't the equipment.\"\n\n\n \"We will equip your plant,\" beamed Broderick. \"It will require only\n a quarter interest in your plant itself, assigned to our terrestrial\n company.\"\nZotul, anxious to possess the treasures promised by the Earthman,\n won over his brothers. They signed with marks and gave up a quarter\n interest in the Pottery of Masur. They rolled in the luxuries of Earth.\n These, who had never known debt before, were in it up to their ears.\n\n\n The retooled plant forged ahead and profits began to look up, but the\n Earthmen took a fourth of them as their share in the industry.\n\n\n For a year, the brothers drove their shiny new cars about on the\n new concrete highways the Earthmen had built. From pumps owned by a\n terrestrial company, they bought gas and oil that had been drawn from\n the crust of Zur and was sold to the Zurians at a magnificent profit.\n The food they ate was cooked in Earthly pots on Earth-type gas ranges,\n served up on metal plates that had been stamped out on Earth. In the\n winter, they toasted their shins before handsome gas grates, though\n they had gas-fired central heating.\n\n\n About this time, the ships from Earth brought steam-powered electric\n generators. Lines went up, power was generated, and a flood of\n electrical gadgets and appliances hit the market. For some reason,\n batteries for the radios were no longer available and everybody had to\n buy the new radios. And who could do without a radio in this modern age?\n\n\n The homes of the brothers Masur blossomed on the Easy Payment Plan.\n They had refrigerators, washers, driers, toasters, grills, electric\n fans, air-conditioning equipment and everything else Earth could\n possibly sell them.\n\n\n \"We will be forty years paying it all off,\" exulted Zotul, \"but\n meantime we have the things and aren't they worth it?\"\n\n\n But at the end of three years, the Earthmen dropped their option.\n The Pottery of Masur had no more contracts. Business languished. The\n Earthmen, explained Broderick, had built a plant of their own because\n it was so much more efficient\u2014and to lower prices, which was Earth's\n unswerving policy, greater and greater efficiency was demanded.\n Broderick was very sympathetic, but there was nothing he could do.\n\n\n The introduction of television provided a further calamity. The sets\n were delicate and needed frequent repairs, hence were costly to own and\n maintain. But all Zurians who had to keep up with the latest from Earth\n had them. Now it was possible not only to hear about things of Earth,\n but to see them as they were broadcast from the video tapes.\n\n\n The printing plants that turned out mortgage contracts did a lush\n business.\nFor the common people of Zur, times were good everywhere. In a decade\n and a half, the Earthmen had wrought magnificent changes on this\n backward world. As Broderick had said, the progress of the tortoise was\n slow, but it was extremely sure.\n\n\n The brothers Masur got along in spite of dropped options. They had less\n money and felt the pinch of their debts more keenly, but television\n kept their wives and children amused and furnished an anodyne for the\n pangs of impoverishment.\n\n\n The pottery income dropped to an impossible low, no matter how Zotul\n designed and the brothers produced. Their figurines and religious ikons\n were a drug on the market. The Earthmen made them of plastic and sold\n them for less.\n\n\n The brothers, unable to meet the Payments that were not so Easy any\n more, looked up Zotul and cuffed him around reproachfully.\n\n\n \"You got us into this,\" they said, emphasizing their bitterness with\n fists. \"Go see Broderick. Tell him we are undone and must have some\n contracts to continue operating.\"\n\n\n Nursing bruises, Zotul unhappily went to the Council House again. Mr.\n Broderick was no longer with them, a suave assistant informed him.\n Would he like to see Mr. Siwicki instead? Zotul would.\n\n\n Siwicki was tall, thin, dark and somber-looking. There was even a hint\n of toughness about the set of his jaw and the hardness of his glance.\n\n\n \"So you can't pay,\" he said, tapping his teeth with a pencil. He\n looked at Zotul coldly. \"It is well you have come to us instead of\n making it necessary for us to approach you through the courts.\"\n\n\n \"I don't know what you mean,\" said Zotul.\n\n\n \"If we have to sue, we take back the merchandise and everything\n attached to them. That means you would lose your houses, for they are\n attached to the furnaces. However, it is not as bad as that\u2014yet. We\n will only require you to assign the remaining three-quarters of your\n pottery to us.\"\n\n\n The brothers, when they heard of this, were too stunned to think of\n beating Zotul, by which he assumed he had progressed a little and was\n somewhat comforted.\n\n\n \"To fail,\" said Koltan soberly, \"is not a Masur attribute. Go to the\n governor and tell him what we think of this business. The House of\n Masur has long supported the government with heavy taxes. Now it is\n time for the government to do something for us.\"\nThe governor's palace was jammed with hurrying people, a scene of\n confusion that upset Zotul. The clerk who took his application for\n an interview was, he noticed only vaguely, a young Earthwoman. It\n was remarkable that he paid so little attention, for the female\n terrestrials were picked for physical assets that made Zurian men\n covetous and Zurian women envious.\n\n\n \"The governor will see you,\" she said sweetly. \"He has been expecting\n you.\"\n\n\n \"Me?\" marveled Zotul.\n\n\n She ushered him into the magnificent private office of the governor\n of Lor. The man behind the desk stood up, extended his hand with a\n friendly smile.\n\n\n \"Come in, come in! I'm glad to see you again.\"\n\n\n Zotul stared blankly. This was not the governor. This was Broderick,\n the Earthman.\n\n\n \"I\u2014I came to see the governor,\" he said in confusion.\n\n\n Broderick nodded agreeably. \"I am the governor and I am well acquainted\n with your case, Mr. Masur. Shall we talk it over? Please sit down.\"\n\n\n \"I don't understand. The Earthmen....\" Zotul paused, coloring. \"We are\n about to lose our plant.\"\n\n\n \"You were about to say that the Earthmen are taking your plant away\n from you. That is true. Since the House of Masur was the largest and\n richest on Zur, it has taken a long time\u2014the longest of all, in fact.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\n \"Yours is the last business on Zur to be taken over by us. We have\n bought you out.\"\n\n\n \"Our government....\"\n\n\n \"Your governments belong to us, too,\" said Broderick. \"When they could\n not pay for the roads, the telegraphs, the civic improvements, we took\n them over, just as we are taking you over.\"\n\n\n \"You mean,\" exclaimed Zotul, aghast, \"that you Earthmen own everything\n on Zur?\"\n\n\n \"Even your armies.\"\n\n\n \"But\nwhy\n?\"\nBroderick clasped his hands behind back, went to the window and stared\n down moodily into the street.\n\n\n \"You don't know what an overcrowded world is like,\" he said. \"A street\n like this, with so few people and vehicles on it, would be impossible\n on Earth.\"\n\n\n \"But it's mobbed,\" protested Zotul. \"It gave me a headache.\"\n\n\n \"And to us it's almost empty. The pressure of population on Earth has\n made us range the Galaxy for places to put our extra people. The only\n habitable planets, unfortunately, are populated ones. We take the least\n populous worlds and\u2014well, buy them out and move in.\"\n\n\n \"And after that?\"\n\n\n Broderick smiled gently. \"Zur will grow. Our people will intermarry\n with yours. The future population of Zur will be neither true Zurians\n nor true Earthmen, but a mixture of both.\"\n\n\n Zotul sat in silent thought. \"But you did not have to buy us out. You\n had the power to conquer us, even to destroy us. The whole planet could\n have been yours alone.\" He stopped in alarm. \"Or am I suggesting an\n idea that didn't occur to you?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" said Broderick, his usually smiling face almost pained with\n memory. \"We know the history of conquest all too well. Our method\n causes more distress than we like to inflict, but it's better\u2014and more\n sure\u2014than war and invasion by force. Now that the unpleasant job is\n finished, we can repair the dislocations.\"\n\n\n \"At last I understand what you said about the tortoise.\"\n\n\n \"Slow but sure.\" Broderick beamed again and clapped Zotul on the\n shoulder. \"Don't worry. You'll have your job back, the same as always,\n but you'll be working for us ... until the children of Earth and Zur\n are equal in knowledge and therefore equal partners. That's why we had\n to break down your caste system.\"\n\n\n Zotul's eyes widened. \"And that is why my brothers did not beat me when\n I failed!\"\n\n\n \"Of course. Are you ready now to take the assignment papers for you and\n your brothers to sign?\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" said Zotul. \"I am ready.\"",
    "51053": "JUDAS RAM\nBY SAM MERWIN, Jr.\n\n\n Illustrated by JAMES VINCENT\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction December 1950.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe house was furnished with all\n\n luxuries, including women. If it only\n\n had a lease that could be broken\u2014\nRoger Tennant, crossing the lawn, could see two of the three wings\n of the house, which radiated spoke-like from its heptagonal central\n portion. The wing on the left was white, with slim square pillars,\n reminiscent of scores of movie sets of the Deep South. That on the\n right was sundeck solar-house living-machine modern, something like a\n montage of shoeboxes. The wing hidden by the rest of the house was, he\n knew, spired, gabled and multicolored, like an ancient building in\n pre-Hitler Cracow.\nDana was lying under a tree near the door, stretched out on a sort\n of deck chair with her eyes closed. She wore a golden gown, long and\n close-fitting and slit up the leg like the gown of a Chinese woman.\n Above it her comely face was sullen beneath its sleek cocoon of auburn\n hair.\n\n\n She opened her eyes at his approach and regarded him with nothing like\n favor. Involuntarily he glanced down at the tartan shorts that were his\n only garment to make sure that they were on properly. They were. He had\n thought them up in a moment of utter boredom and they were extremely\n comfortable. However, the near-Buchanan tartan did not crease or even\n wrinkle when he moved. Their captors had no idea of how a woven design\n should behave.\n\n\n \"Waiting for me?\" Tennant asked the girl.\n\n\n She said, \"I'd rather be dead. Maybe I am. Maybe we're all dead and\n this is Hell.\"\n\n\n He stood over her and looked down until she turned away her reddening\n face. He said, \"So it's going to be you again, Dana. You'll be the\n first to come back for a second run.\"\n\n\n \"Don't flatter yourself,\" she replied angrily. She sat up, pushed\n back her hair, got to her feet a trifle awkwardly because of the\n tight-fitting tubular gown. \"If I could do anything about it....\"\n\n\n \"But you can't,\" he told her. \"They're too clever.\"\n\n\n \"Is this crop rotation or did you send for me?\" she asked cynically.\n \"If you did, I wish you hadn't. You haven't asked about your son.\"\n\n\n \"I don't even want to think about him,\" said Tennant. \"Let's get\n on with it.\" He could sense the restless stirring of the woman\n within Dana, just as he could feel the stirring toward her within\n himself\u2014desire that both of them loathed because it was implanted\n within them by their captors.\n\n\n They walked toward the house.\nIt didn't look like a prison\u2014or a cage. Within the dome of the\n barrier, it looked more like a well-kept if bizarre little country\n estate. There was clipped lawn, a scattering of trees, even a clear\n little brook that chattered unending annoyance at the small stones\n which impeded its flow.\n\n\n But the lawn was not of grass\u2014it was of a bright green substance that\n might have been cellophane but wasn't, and it sprouted from a fabric\n that might have been canvas but was something else. The trees looked\n like trees, only their trunks were bark all the way through\u2014except\n that it was not bark. The brook was practically water, but the small\n stones over which it flowed were of no earthly mineral.\n\n\n They entered the house, which had no roof, continued to move beneath a\n sky that glowed with light which did not come from a sun or moon. It\n might have been a well-kept if bizarre little country estate, but it\n wasn't. It was a prison, a cage.\n\n\n The other two women were sitting in the heptagonal central hall.\n Eudalia, who had borne twin girls recently, was lying back, newly thin\n and dark of skin and hair, smoking a scentless cigarette. A tall woman,\n thirtyish, she wore a sort of shimmering green strapless evening gown.\n Tennant wondered how she maintained it in place, for despite her recent\n double motherhood, she was almost flat of bosom. He asked her how she\n was feeling.\n\n\n \"Okay, I guess,\" she said. \"The way they manage it, there's nothing\n to it.\" She had a flat, potentially raucous voice. Eudalia had been\n a female foreman in a garment-cutting shop before being captured and\n brought through.\n\n\n \"Good,\" he said. \"Glad to hear it.\" He felt oddly embarrassed. He\n turned to Olga, broad, blonde and curiously vital, who sat perfectly\n still, regarding him over the pregnant swell of her dirndl-clad waist.\n Olga had been a waitress in a mining town hash-house near Scranton.\n\n\n Tennant wanted to put an encouraging hand on her shoulder, to say\n something that might cheer her up, for she was by far the youngest of\n the three female captives, barely nineteen. But with the eyes of the\n other two, especially Dana, upon him, he could not.\n\n\n \"I guess I wasn't cut out to be a Turk,\" he said. \"I don't feel at ease\n in a harem, even when it's supposedly my own.\"\n\n\n \"You're not doing so badly,\" Dana replied acidly.\n\n\n \"Lay off\u2014he can't help it,\" said Eudalia unexpectedly. \"He doesn't\n like it any better than we do.\"\n\n\n \"But he doesn't have to\u2014have them,\" objected Olga. She had a trace of\n Polish accent that was not unpleasant. In fact, Tennant thought, only\n her laughter was unpleasant, a shrill, uncontrolled burst of staccato\n sound that jarred him to his heels. Olga had not laughed of late,\n however. She was too frightened.\n\"Let's get the meal ordered,\" said Dana and they were all silent,\n thinking of what they wanted to eat but would not enjoy when it came.\n Tennant finished with his order, then got busy with his surprise.\n\n\n It arrived before the meal, materializing against one of the seven\n walls of the roofless chamber. It was a large cabinet on slender\n straight legs that resembled dark polished wood. Tennant went to it,\n opened a hingeless door and pushed a knob on the inner surface. At once\n the air was hideous with the acerate harmony of a singing commercial....\n\n... so go soak your head,\nbe it gold, brown or red,\nin Any-tone Shampoo!\n\n A disc jockey's buoyant tones cut in quickly as the final\nooooo\nfaded. \"This is Grady Martin, your old night-owl, coming to you with\n your requests over Station WZZX, Manhattan. Here's a wire from Theresa\n McManus and the girls in the family entrance of Conaghan's Bar and\n Grill on West....\"\n\n\n Tennant watched the girls as a sweet-voiced crooner began to ply\n an unfamiliar love lyric to a melody whose similarity to a thousand\n predecessors doomed it to instant success.\n\n\n Olga sat up straight, her pale blue eyes round with utter disbelief.\n She looked at the radio, at Tennant, at the other two women, then back\n at the machine. She murmured something in Polish that was inaudible,\n but her expression showed that it must have been wistful.\n\n\n Eudalia grinned at Tennant and, rising, did a sort of tap dance to the\n music, then whirled back into her chair, green dress ashimmer, and sank\n into it just to listen.\n\n\n Dana stood almost in the center of the room, carmine-tipped fingers\n clasped beneath the swell of her breasts. She might have been listening\n to Brahms or Debussy. Her eyes glowed with the salty brilliance of\n emotion and she was almost beautiful.\n\n\n \"\nRog!\n\" she cried softly when the music stopped. \"A radio and WZZX! Is\n it\u2014are they\u2014real?\"\n\n\n \"As real as you or I,\" he told her. \"It took quite a bit of doing,\n getting them to put a set together. And I wasn't sure that radio would\n get through. TV doesn't seem to. Somehow it brings things closer....\"\n\n\n Olga got up quite suddenly, went to the machine and, after frowning at\n it for a moment, tuned in another station from which a Polish-speaking\n announcer was followed by polka music. She leaned against the wall,\n resting one smooth forearm on the top of the machine. Her eyes closed\n and she swayed a little in time to the polka beat.\nTennant caught Dana looking at him and there was near approval in her\n expression\u2014approval that faded quickly as soon as she caught his gaze\n upon her. The food arrived then and they sat down at the round table to\n eat it.\n\n\n Tennant's meat looked like steak, it felt like steak, but, lacking the\n aroma of steak, it was almost tasteless. This was so with all of their\n foods, with their cigarettes, with everything in their prison\u2014or their\n cage. Their captors were utterly without a human conception of smell,\n living, apparently, in a world without odor at all.\n\n\n Dana said suddenly, \"I named the boy Tom, after somebody I hate almost\n as much as I hate you.\"\n\n\n Eudalia laid down her fork with a clatter and regarded Dana\n disapprovingly. \"Why take it out on Rog?\" she asked bluntly. \"He didn't\n ask to come here any more than we did. He's got a wife back home. Maybe\n you want him to fall in love with you? Maybe you're jealous because\n he doesn't? Well, maybe he can't! And maybe it wouldn't work, the way\n things are arranged here.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks, Eudalia,\" said Tennant. \"I think I can defend myself. But\n she's right, Dana. We're as helpless as\u2014laboratory animals. They have\n the means to make us do whatever they want.\"\n\n\n \"Rog,\" said Dana, looking suddenly scared, \"I'm sorry I snapped at you.\n I know it's not your fault. I'm\u2014\nchanging\n.\"\n\n\n He shook his head. \"No, Dana, you're not changing. You're adapting. We\n all are. We seem to be in a universe of different properties as well as\n different dimensions. We're adjusting. I can do a thing or two myself\n that seem absolutely impossible.\"\n\n\n \"Are we really in the fourth dimension?\" Dana asked. Of the three of\n them, she alone had more than a high-school education.\n\n\n \"We may be in the eleventh for all I know,\" he told her. \"But I'll\n settle for the fourth\u2014a fourth dimension in space, if that makes\n scientific sense, because we don't seem to have moved in time. I wasn't\n sure of that, though, till we got the radio.\"\n\n\n \"Why haven't they brought more of us through?\" Eudalia asked, tamping\n out ashes in a tray that might have been silver.\n\n\n \"I'm not sure,\" he said thoughtfully. \"I think it's hard for them. They\n have a hell of a time bringing anyone through alive, and lately they\n haven't brought anyone through\u2014not alive.\"\n\n\n \"Why do they do it\u2014the other way, I mean?\" asked Dana.\n\n\n Tennant shrugged. \"I don't know. I've been thinking about it. I suppose\n it's because they're pretty human.\"\n\n\n \"\nHuman!\n\" Dana was outraged. \"Do you call it human to\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Hold on,\" he said. \"They pass through their gateway to Earth at\n considerable danger and, probably, expense of some kind. Some of them\n don't come back. They kill those of us who put up a fight. Those who\n don't\u2014or can't\u2014they bring back with them. Live or dead, we're just\n laboratory specimens.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe,\" Eudalia conceded doubtfully. Then her eyes blazed. \"But the\n things they do\u2014stuffing people, mounting their heads, keeping them on\n display in their\u2014their whatever they live in. You call that human,\n Rog?\"\n\n\n \"Were you ever in a big-game hunter's trophy room?\" Tennant asked\n quietly. \"Or in a Museum of Natural History? A zoo? A naturalist's lab?\n Or even, maybe, photographed as a baby on a bear-skin rug?\"\n\n\n \"I was,\" said Olga. \"But that's not the same thing.\"\n\n\n \"Of course not,\" he agreed. \"In the one instance,\nwe're\nthe hunters,\n the breeders, the trophy collectors. In the other\"\u2014he shrugged\u2014\"we're\n the trophies.\"\nThere was a long silence. They finished eating and then Dana stood up\n and said, \"I'm going out on the lawn for a while.\" She unzipped her\n golden gown, stepped out of it to reveal a pair of tartan shorts that\n matched his, and a narrow halter.\n\n\n \"You thought those up while we ate,\" he said. It annoyed him to be\n copied, though he did not know why. She laughed at him silently, tossed\n her auburn hair back from her face and went out of the roofless house,\n holding the gold dress casually over her bare arm.\n\n\n Eudalia took him to the nursery. He was irritated now in another,\n angrier way. The infants, protected by cellophane-like coverlets, were\n asleep.\n\n\n \"They never cry,\" the thin woman told him. \"But they grow\u2014God, how\n they grow!\"\n\n\n \"Good,\" said Tennant, fighting down his anger. He kissed her, held\n her close, although neither of them felt desire at the moment. Their\n captors had seen to that; it wasn't Eudalia's turn. Tennant said, \"I\n wish I could do something about this. I hate seeing Dana so bitter and\n Olga so scared. It isn't their fault.\"\n\n\n \"And it's not yours,\" insisted Eudalia. \"Don't let them make you think\n it is.\"\n\n\n \"I'll try not to,\" he said and stopped, realizing the family party was\n over. He had felt the inner tug of command, said good-by to the women\n and returned to his smaller compound within its own barrier dome.\n\n\n Then came the invisible aura of strain in the air, the shimmering\n illusion of heat that was not heat, that was prelude to his\n teleportation ... if that were the word. It was neither pleasant nor\n unpleasant; it\nwas\n, that was all.\n\n\n He called it the training hall, not because it looked like a training\n hall but because that was its function. It didn't actually look like\n anything save some half-nourished dream a surrealist might have\n discarded as too nightmarish for belief.\n\n\n As in all of this strange universe, excepting the dome-cages in\n which the captives were held, the training hall followed no rules of\n three-dimensional space. One wall looked normal for perhaps a third of\n its length, then it simply wasn't for a bit. It came back farther on\n at an impossible angle. Yet, walking along it, touching it, it felt\n perfectly smooth and continuously straight.\n\n\n The opposite wall resembled a diagonal cross-section of an asymmetrical\n dumbbell\u2014that was the closest Tennant could come to it in words. And\n it, too, felt straight. The floor looked like crystal smashed by some\n cosmic impact, yet it had reason. He\nknew\nthis even though no reason\n was apparent to his three-dimensional vision. The ceiling, where he\n could see it, was beyond description.\n\n\n The captor Tennant called\nOpal\ncame in through a far corner of\n the ceiling. He\u2014if it was a he\u2014was not large, although this,\n Tennant knew, meant nothing; Opal might extend thousands of yards in\n some unseen direction. He had no regular shape and much of him was\n iridescent and shot with constantly changing colors. Hence the name\n Opal.\n\n\n Communication was telepathic. Tennant could have yodeled or yelled\n or sung\nMississippi Mud\nand Opal would have shown no reaction. Yet\n Tennant suspected that the captors could hear somewhere along the\n auditory scale, just as perhaps they could smell, although not in any\n human sense.\nYou will approach without use of your appendages.\nThe command was as clear as if it had been spoken aloud. Tennant took a\n deep breath. He thought of the space beside Opal. It took about three\n seconds and he was there, having spanned a distance of some ninety\n feet. He was getting good at it.\n\n\n Dog does trick, he thought.\nHe went through the entire routine at Opal's bidding. When at last\n he was allowed to relax, he wondered, not for the first time, if he\n weren't mastering some of the alleged Guru arts. At once he felt\n probing investigation. Opal, like the rest of the captors, was as\n curious as a cat\u2014or a human being.\nTennant sat against a wall, drenched with sweat. There would be endless\n repetition before his workout was done. On Earth, dogs were said to be\n intellectually two-dimensional creatures. He wondered if they felt this\n helpless futility when their masters taught them to heel, to point, to\n retrieve.\n\n\n Some days later, the training routine was broken. He felt a sudden stir\n of near-sick excitement as he received the thought:\nNow you are ready. We are going through at last.\nOpal was nervous, so much so that he revealed more than he intended.\n Or perhaps that was his intent; Tennant could never be sure. They were\n going through to Tennant's own dimension. He wondered briefly just what\n his role was to be.\n\n\n He had little time to speculate before Opal seemed to envelop him.\n There was the blurring wrench of forced teleportation and they were in\n another room, a room which ended in a huge irregular passage that might\n have been the interior of a giant concertina\u2014or an old-fashioned kodak.\n\n\n He stood before a kidney-shaped object over whose jagged surface\n colors played constantly. From Opal's thoughts it appeared to be some\n sort of ultradimensional television set, but to Tennant it was as\n incomprehensible as an oil painting to an animal.\n\n\n Opal was annoyed that Tennant could make nothing of it. Then came the\n thought:\nWhat cover must your body have not to be conspicuous?\nTennant wondered, cynically, what would happen if he were to demand\n a costume of mediaeval motley, complete with Pied Piper's flute. He\n received quick reproof that made his head ring as from a blow.\n\n\n He asked Opal where and when they were going, was informed that\n he would soon emerge on Earth where he had left it. That told him\n everything but the date and season. Opal, like the rest of the captors,\n seemed to have no understanding of time in a human sense.\n\n\n Waiting, Tennant tried not to think of his wife, of the fact that he\n hadn't seen her in\u2014was it more than a year and a half on Earth? He\n could have controlled his heartbeat with one of his new powers, but\n that might have made Opal suspicious. He should be somewhat excited.\n He allowed himself to be, though he obscured the reasons. He was going\n to see his wife again ... and maybe he could trick his way into not\n returning.\nThe maid who opened the door for him was new, although her eyes were\n old. But she recognized him and stood aside to let him enter. There\n must, he thought, still be pictures of him around. He wondered how\n Agatha could afford a servant.\n\n\n \"Is Mrs. Tennant in?\" he asked.\n\n\n She shook her head and fright made twin stoplights of the rouge on her\n cheeks as she shut the door behind him. He went into the living room,\n directly to the long silver cigarette box on the coffee table. It was\n proof of homecoming to fill his lungs with smoke he could\nsmell\n. He\n took another drag, saw the maid still in the doorway, staring.\n\n\n \"There's no need for fright,\" he told her. \"I believe I still own this\n house.\" Then, \"When do you expect Mrs. Tennant?\"\n\n\n \"She just called. She's on her way home from the club.\"\n\n\n Still looking frightened, she departed for the rear of the house.\n Tennant stared after her puzzledly until the kitchen door swung shut\n behind her. The club? What club?\n\n\n He shrugged, returned to the feeling of comfort that came from being\n back here, about to see Agatha again, hold her close in no more than a\n few minutes. And stay, his mind began to add eagerly, but he pushed the\n thought down where Opal could not detect it.\n\n\n He took another deep, lung-filling drag on his cigarette, looked around\n the room that was so important a part of his life. The three women back\n there would be in a ghastly spot. He felt like a heel for wanting to\n leave them there, then knew that he would try somehow to get them out.\n Not, of course, anything that would endanger his remaining with Agatha;\n the only way his captors would get him back would be as a taxidermist's\n specimen.\n\n\n He realized, shocked and scared, that his thoughts of escape had\n slipped past his mental censor, and he waited apprehensively for Opal\n to strike. Nothing happened and he warily relaxed. Opal wasn't tapping\n his thoughts. Because he felt sure of his captive ... or because he\n couldn't on Earth?\n\n\n It was like being let out of a cage. Tennant grinned at the bookcase;\n the ebony-and-ivory elephants that Agatha had never liked were gone,\n but he'd get them back or another pair. The credenza had been replaced\n by a huge and ugly television console. That, he resolved, would go down\n in the cellar rumpus room, where its bleached modernity wouldn't clash\n with the casual antiquity of the living room.\n\n\n Agatha would complain, naturally, but his being back would make up for\n any amount of furniture shifting. He imagined her standing close to\n him, her lovely face lifted to be kissed, and his heart lurched like an\n adolescent's. This hunger was real, not implanted. Everything would be\n real ... his love for her, the food he ate, the things he touched, his\n house, his life....\nYour wife and a man are approaching the house.\nThe thought message from Opal crumbled his illusion of freedom. He sank\n down in a chair, trying to refuse to listen to the rest of the command:\nYou are to bring the man through the gateway with you. We want another\n live male.\nTennant shook his head, stiff and defiant in his chair. The punishment,\n when it came, was more humiliating than a slap across a dog's snout.\n Opal had been too interested in the next lab specimen to bother about\n his thoughts\u2014that was why he had been free to think of escape.\n\n\n Tennant closed his eyes, willed himself to the front window. Now that\n he had mastered teleportation, it was incredible how much easier it was\n in his own world. He had covered the two miles from the gateway to the\n house in a mere seven jumps, the distance to the window in an instant.\n But there was no pleasure in it, only a confirmation of his captor's\n power over him.\n\n\n He was not free of them. He understood all too well what they wanted\n him to do; he was to play the Judas goat ... or rather the Judas ram,\n leading another victim to the fourth-dimensional pen.\n\n\n Grim, he watched the swoop of headlights in the driveway and returned\n to the coffee table, lit a fresh cigarette.\n\n\n The front door was flung open and his diaphragm tightened at the\n remembered sound of Agatha's throaty laugh ... and tightened further\n when it was followed by a deeper rumbling laugh. Sudden fear made the\n cigarette shake in his fingers.\n\n\n \"... Don't be such a stuffed-shirt, darling.\" Agatha's mocking\n sweetness rang alarm-gongs in Tennant's memory. \"Charley wasn't making\n a grab for\nme\n. He'd had one too many and only wanted a little fun.\n Really, darling, you seem to think that a girl....\"\n\n\n Her voice faded out as she saw Tennant standing there. She was wearing\n a white strapless gown, had a blue-red-and-gold Mandarin jacket slung\n hussar-fashion over her left shoulder. She looked even sleeker, better\n groomed, more assured than his memory of her.\n\n\n \"I'm no stuffed-shirt and you know it.\" Cass' tone was peevish. \"But\n your idea of fun, Agatha, is pretty damn....\"\n\n\n It was his turn to freeze. Unbelieving, Tennant studied his successor.\n Cass Gordon\u2014the\nman\n, the ex-halfback whose bulk was beginning to get\n out of hand, but whose inherent aggressive grace had not yet deserted\n him. The\nman\n, that was all\u2014unless one threw in the little black\n mustache and the smooth salesman's manner.\n\n\n \"You know, Cass,\" Tennant said quietly, \"I never for a moment dreamed\n it would be you.\"\n\n\n \"\nRoger!\n\" Agatha found her voice. \"You're\nalive\n!\"\n\n\n \"Roger,\" repeated Tennant viciously. He felt sick with disgust. Maybe\n he should have expected a triangle, but somehow he hadn't. And here\n it was, with all of them going through their paces like a trio of\n tent-show actors. He said, \"For God's sake, sit down.\"\n\n\n Agatha did so hesitantly. Her huge dark eyes, invariably clear\n and limpid no matter how much she had drunk, flickered toward him\n furtively. She said defensively, \"I had detectives looking for you for\n six months. Where have you been, Rog? Smashing up the car like that\n and\u2014disappearing! I've been out of my mind.\"\n\n\n \"Sorry,\" said Tennant. \"I've had my troubles, too.\" Agatha was scared\n stiff\u2014of him. Probably with reason. He looked again at Cass Gordon and\n found that he suddenly didn't care. She couldn't say it was loneliness.\n Women have waited longer than eighteen months. He would have if his\n captors had let him.\n\n\n \"Where in hell\nhave\nyou been, Rog?\" Gordon's tone was almost\n parental. \"I don't suppose it's news to you, but there was a lot of\n suspicion directed your way while that crazy killer was operating\n around here. Agatha and I managed to clear you.\"\n\n\n \"Decent of you,\" said Tennant. He got up, crossed to the cabinet that\n served as a bar. It was fully equipped\u2014with more expensive liquor, he\n noticed, than he had ever been able to afford. He poured a drink of\n brandy, waited for the others to fill their glasses.\nAgatha looked at him over the rim of hers. \"Tell us, Rog. We have a\n right to know. I do, anyway.\"\n\n\n \"One question first,\" he said. \"What about those killings? Have there\n been any lately?\"\n\n\n \"Not for over a year,\" Cass told him. \"They never did get the devil who\n skinned those bodies and removed the heads.\"\n\n\n So, Tennant thought, they hadn't used the gateway. Not since they had\n brought the four of them through, not since they had begun to train him\n for his Judas ram duties.\n\n\n Agatha was asking him if he had been abroad.\n\n\n \"In a way,\" he replied unemotionally. \"Sorry if I've worried you,\n Agatha, but my life has been rather\u2014indefinite, since I\u2014left.\"\n\n\n He was standing no more than four inches from this woman he had desired\n desperately for six years, and he no longer wanted her. He was acutely\n conscious of her perfume. It wrapped them both like an exotic blanket,\n and it repelled him. He studied the firm clear flesh of her cheek and\n chin, the arch of nostril, the carmine fullness of lower lip, the\n swell of bosom above low-cut gown. And he no longer wanted any of it or\n of her. Cass Gordon\u2014\n\n\n It didn't have to be anybody at all. For it to be Cass Gordon was\n revolting.\n\n\n \"Rog,\" she said and her voice trembled, \"what are we going to do? What\n do you\nwant\nto do?\"\n\n\n Take her back? He smiled ironically; she wouldn't know what that meant.\n It would serve her right, but maybe there was another way.\n\n\n \"I don't know about you,\" he said, \"but I suspect we're in the same\n boat. I also have other interests.\"\n\n\n \"You louse!\" said Cass Gordon, arching rib cage and nostrils. \"If you\n try to make trouble for Agatha, I can promise....\"\n\n\n \"\nWhat\ncan you promise?\" demanded Tennant. When Gordon's onset\n subsided in mumbles, he added, \"Actually, I don't think I'm capable of\n making more than a fraction of the trouble for either of you that you\n both are qualified to make for yourselves.\"\n\n\n He lit a cigarette, inhaled. \"Relax. I'm not planning revenge. After\n this evening, I plan to vanish for good. Of course, Agatha, that\n offers you a minor nuisance. You will have to wait six years to marry\n Cass\u2014seven years if the maid who let me in tonight talks. That's the\n law, isn't it, Cass? You probably had it all figured out.\"\n\n\n \"You bastard,\" said Cass. \"You dirty bastard! You know what a wait like\n that could do to us.\"\n\n\n \"Tristan and Isolde,\" said Tennant, grinning almost happily. \"Well,\n I've had my little say. Now I'm off again. Cass, would you give me a\n lift? I have a conveyance of sorts a couple of miles down the road.\"\nHe needed no telepathic powers to read the thoughts around him then. He\n heard Agatha's quick intake of breath, saw the split-second look she\n exchanged with Cass. He turned away, knowing that she was imploring her\n lover to do something,\nanything\n, as long as it was safe.\n\n\n Deliberately, Tennant poured himself a second drink. This might be\n easier and pleasanter than he had expected. They deserved some of the\n suffering he had had and there was a chance that they might get it.\n\n\n Tennant knew now why he was the only male human the captors had been\n able to take alive. Apparently, thanks to the rain-slick road, he had\n run the sedan into a tree at the foot of the hill beyond the river. He\n had been sitting there, unconscious, ripe fruit on their doorstep. They\n had simply picked him up.\n\n\n Otherwise, apparently, men were next to impossible for them to capture.\n All they could do was kill them and bring back their heads and hides\n as trophies. With women it was different\u2014perhaps the captors' weapons,\n whatever they were, worked more efficiently on females. A difference in\n body chemistry or psychology, perhaps.\n\n\n More than once, during his long training with Opal, Tennant had sent\n questing thoughts toward his captor, asking why they didn't simply set\n up the gateway in some town or city and take as many humans as they\n wanted.\n\n\n Surprisingly there had been a definite fear reaction. As nearly as he\n could understand, it had been like asking an African pygmy, armed with\n a blowgun, to set up shop in the midst of a herd of wild elephants. It\n simply wasn't feasible\u2014and furthermore he derived an impression of the\n tenuosity as well as the immovability of the gateway itself.\n\n\n They could be hurt, even killed by humans in a three-dimensional world.\n How? Tennant did not know. Perhaps as a man can cut finger or even\n throat on the edge of a near-two-dimensional piece of paper. It took\n valor for them to hunt men in the world of men. In that fact lay a key\n to their character\u2014if such utterly alien creatures could be said to\n have character.",
    "51657": "Charity Case\nBy JIM HARMON\n\n\n Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction December 1959.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nCertainly I see things that aren't there\n \nand don't say what my voice says\u2014but how\n \ncan I prove that I don't have my health?\nWhen he began his talk with \"You got your health, don't you?\" it\n touched those spots inside me. That was when I did it.\n\n\n Why couldn't what he said have been \"The best things in life are free,\n buddy\" or \"Every dog has his day, fellow\" or \"If at first you don't\n succeed, man\"? No, he had to use that one line. You wouldn't blame me.\n Not if you believe me.\n\n\n The first thing I can remember, the start of all this, was when I was\n four or five somebody was soiling my bed for me. I absolutely was not\n doing it. I took long naps morning and evening so I could lie awake all\n night to see that it wouldn't happen. It couldn't happen. But in the\n morning the bed would sit there dispassionately soiled and convict me\n on circumstantial evidence. My punishment was as sure as the tide.\n\n\n Dad was a compact man, small eyes, small mouth, tight clothes. He was\n narrow but not mean. For punishment, he locked me in a windowless\n room and told me to sit still until he came back. It wasn't so bad a\n punishment, except that when Dad closed the door, the light turned off\n and I was left there in the dark.\n\n\n Being four or five, I didn't know any better, so I thought Dad made it\n dark to add to my punishment. But I learned he didn't know the light\n went out. It came back on when he unlocked the door. Every time I told\n him about the light as soon as I could talk again, but he said I was\n lying.\nOne day, to prove me a liar, he opened and closed the door a few times\n from outside. The light winked off and on, off and on, always shining\n when Dad stuck his head inside. He tried using the door from the\n inside, and the light stayed on, no matter how hard he slammed the\n door.\n\n\n I stayed in the dark longer for lying about the light.\n\n\n Alone in the dark, I wouldn't have had it so bad if it wasn't for the\n things that came to me.\n\n\n They were real to me. They never touched me, but they had a little boy.\n He looked the way I did in the mirror. They did unpleasant things to\n him.\n\n\n Because they were real, I talked about them as if they were real, and\n I almost earned a bunk in the home for retarded children until I got\n smart enough to keep the beasts to myself.\n\n\n My mother hated me. I loved her, of course. I remember her smell mixed\n up with flowers and cookies and winter fires. I remember she hugged me\n on my ninth birthday. The trouble came from the notes written in my\n awkward hand that she found, calling her names I didn't understand.\n Sometimes there were drawings. I didn't write those notes or make those\n drawings.\n\n\n My mother and father must have been glad when I was sent away to reform\n school after my thirteenth birthday party, the one no one came to.\n\n\n The reform school was nicer. There were others there who'd had it about\n like me. We got along. I didn't watch their shifty eyes too much, or\n ask them what they shifted to see. They didn't talk about my screams\n at night.\n\n\n It was home.\n\n\n My trouble there was that I was always being framed for stealing. I\n didn't take any of those things they located in my bunk. Stealing\n wasn't in my line. If you believe any of this at all, you'll see why it\n couldn't be me who did the stealing.\n\n\n There was reason for me to steal, if I could have got away with it. The\n others got money from home to buy the things they needed\u2014razor blades,\n candy, sticks of tea. I got a letter from Mom or Dad every now and then\n before they were killed, saying they had sent money or that it was\n enclosed, but somehow I never got a dime of it.\n\n\n When I was expelled from reform school, I left with just one idea in\n mind\u2014to get all the money I could ever use for the things I needed and\n the things I wanted.\nIt was two or three years later that I skulked into Brother Partridge's\n mission on Durbin Street.\n\n\n The preacher and half a dozen men were singing\nOnward Christian\n Soldiers\nin the meeting room. It was a drafty hall with varnished\n camp chairs. I shuffled in at the back with my suitcoat collar turned\n up around my stubbled jaw. I made my hand shaky as I ran it through my\n knotted hair. Partridge was supposed to think I was just a bum. As\n an inspiration, I hugged my chest to make him think I was some wino\n nursing a flask full of Sneaky Pete. All I had there was a piece of\n copper alloy tubing inside a slice of plastic hose for taking care of\n myself, rolling sailors and the like. Who had the price of a bottle?\nPartridge didn't seem to notice me, but I knew that was an act. I knew\n people were always watching every move I made. He braced his red-furred\n hands on the sides of his auctioneer's stand and leaned his splotched\n eagle beak toward us. \"Brothers, this being Thanksgiving, I pray the\n good Lord that we all are truly thankful for all that we have received.\n Amen.\"\n\n\n Some skin-and-bones character I didn't know struggled out of his seat,\n amening. I could see he had a lot to be thankful for\u2014somewhere he had\n received a fix.\n\n\n \"Brothers,\" Partridge went on after enjoying the interruption with a\n beaming smile, \"you shall all be entitled to a bowl of turkey soup\n prepared by Sister Partridge, a generous supply of sweet rolls and\n dinner rolls contributed by the Early Morning Bakery of this city,\n and all the coffee you can drink. Let us march out to\nThe Stars and\n Stripes Forever\n, John Philip Sousa's grand old patriotic song.\"\n\n\n I had to laugh at all those bums clattering the chairs in front of me,\n scampering after water soup and stale bread. As soon as I got cleaned\n up, I was going to have dinner in a good restaurant, and I was going to\n order such expensive food and leave such a large tip for the waiter and\n send one to the chef that they were going to think I was rich, and some\n executive with some brokerage firm would see me and say to himself,\n \"Hmm, executive material. Just the type we need. I beg your pardon,\n sir\u2014\" just like the razor-blade comic-strip ads in the old magazines\n that Frankie the Pig sells three for a quarter.\n\n\n I was marching. Man, was I ever marching, but the secret of it was I\n was only marking time the way we did in fire drills at the school.\n\n\n They passed me, every one of them, and marched out of the meeting\n room into the kitchen. Even Partridge made his way down from the\n auctioneer's stand like a vulture with a busted wing and darted through\n his private door.\n\n\n I was alone, marking time behind the closed half of double doors. One\n good breath and I raced past the open door and flattened myself to the\n wall. Crockery was ringing and men were slurping inside. No one had\n paid any attention to me. That was pretty odd. People usually watch my\n every move, but a man's luck has to change sometime, doesn't it?\n\n\n Following the wallboard, I went down the side of the room and behind\n the last row of chairs, closer, closer, and halfway up the room again\n to the entrance\u2014the entrance and the little wooden box fastened to the\n wall beside it.\n\n\n The box was old and made out of some varnished wood. There was a slot\n in the top. There wasn't any sign anywhere around it, but you knew it\n wasn't a mailbox.\n\n\n My hand went flat on the top of the box. One finger at a time drew up\n and slipped into the slot. Index, fore, third, little. I put my thumb\n in my palm and shoved. My hand went in.\n\n\n There were coins inside. I scooped them up with two fingers and held\n them fast with the other two. Once I dropped a dime\u2014not a penny,\n milled edge\u2014and I started to reach for it. No, don't be greedy. I knew\n I would probably lose my hold on all the coins if I tried for that one.\n I had all the rest. It felt like about two dollars, or close to it.\n\n\n Then I found the bill. A neatly folded bill in the box. Somehow I knew\n all along it would be there.\nI tried to read the numbers on the bill with my fingertips, but I\n couldn't. It had to be a one. Who drops anything but a one into a Skid\n Row collection box? But still there were tourists, slummers. They might\n leave a fifty or even a hundred. A hundred!\n\n\n Yes, it felt new, crisp. It had to be a hundred. A single would be\n creased or worn.\n\n\n I pulled my hand out of the box. I\ntried\nto pull my hand out of the\n box.\n\n\n I knew what the trouble was, of course. I was in a monkey trap. The\n monkey reaches through the hole for the bait, and when he gets it in\n his hot little fist, he can't get his hand out. He's too greedy to let\n go, so he stays there, caught as securely as if he were caged.\n\n\n I was a man, not a monkey. I knew why I couldn't get my hand out. But I\n couldn't lose that money, especially that century bill. Calm, I ordered\n myself.\nCalm.\nThe box was fastened to the vertical tongue-and-groove laths of the\n woodwork, not the wall. It was old lumber, stiffened by a hundred\n layers of paint since 1908. The paint was as thick and strong as the\n boards. The box was fastened fast. Six-inch spike nails, I guessed.\n\n\n Calmly, I flung my whole weight away from the wall. My wrist almost\n cracked, but there wasn't even a bend in the box. Carefully, I tried to\n jerk my fist straight up, to pry off the top of the box. It was as if\n the box had been carved out of one solid piece of timber. It wouldn't\n go up, down, left or right.\n\n\n But I kept trying.\n\n\n While keeping a lookout for Partridge and somebody stepping out of the\n kitchen for a pull on a bottle, I spotted the clock for the first\n time, a Western Union clock high up at the back of the hall. Just as\n I seen it for the first time, the electricity wound the spring motor\n inside like a chicken having its neck wrung.\n\n\n The next time I glanced at the clock, it said ten minutes had gone by.\n My hand still wasn't free and I hadn't budged the box.\n\n\n \"This,\" Brother Partridge said, \"is one of the most profound\n experiences of my life.\"\n\n\n My head hinged until it lined my eyes up with Brother Partridge. The\n pipe hung heavy in my pocket, but he was too far from me.\n\n\n \"A vision of you at the box projected itself on the crest of my soup,\"\n the preacher explained in wonderment.\n\n\n I nodded. \"Swimming right in there with the dead duck.\"\n\n\n \"Cold turkey,\" he corrected. \"Are you scoffing at a miracle?\"\n\n\n \"People are always watching me, Brother,\" I said. \"So now they do it\n even when they aren't around. I should have known it would come to\n that.\"\n\n\n The pipe was suddenly a weight I wanted off me. I would try robbing\n a collection box, knowing positively that I would get caught, but I\n wasn't dumb enough to murder. Somebody, somewhere, would be a witness\n to it. I had never got away with anything in my life. I was too smart\n to even try anything but the little things.\n\n\n \"I may be able to help you,\" Brother Partridge said, \"if you have faith\n and a conscience.\"\n\n\n \"I've got something better than a conscience,\" I told him.\nBrother Partridge regarded me solemnly. \"There must be something\n special about you, for your apprehension to come through miraculous\n intervention. But I can't imagine what.\"\n\n\n \"I\nalways\nget apprehended somehow, Brother,\" I said. \"I'm pretty\n special.\"\n\n\n \"Your name?\"\n\n\n \"William Hagle.\" No sense lying. I had been booked and printed before.\n\n\n Partridge prodded me with his bony fingers as if making sure I was\n substantial. \"Come. Let's sit down, if you can remove your fist from\n the money box.\"\n\n\n I opened up my fingers and let the coins ring inside the box and I drew\n out my hand. The bill stuck to the sweat on my fingers and slid out\n along with the digits. A one, I decided. I had got into trouble for a\n grubby single. It wasn't any century. I had been kidding myself.\n\n\n I unfolded the note. Sure enough, it wasn't a hundred-dollar bill, but\n it was a twenty, and that was almost the same thing to me. I creased it\n and put it back into the slot.\n\n\n As long as it stalled off the cops, I'd talk to Partridge.\n\n\n We took a couple of camp chairs and I told him the story of my life, or\n most of it. It was hard work on an empty stomach; I wished I'd had some\n of that turkey soup. Then again I was glad I hadn't. Something always\n happened to me when I thought back over my life. The same thing.\n\n\n The men filed out of the kitchen, wiping their chins, and I went right\n on talking.\n\n\n After some time Sister Partridge bustled in and snapped on the overhead\n lights and I kept talking. The brother still hadn't used the phone to\n call the cops.\n\n\n \"Remarkable,\" Partridge finally said when I got so hoarse I had to take\n a break. \"One is almost\u2014\nalmost\n\u2014reminded of Job. William, you are\n being punished for some great sin. Of that, I'm sure.\"\n\n\n \"Punished for a sin? But, Brother, I've always had it like this, as\n long as I can remember. What kind of a sin could I have committed when\n I was fresh out of my crib?\"\n\n\n \"William, all I can tell you is that time means nothing in Heaven. Do\n you deny the transmigration of souls?\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" I said, \"I've had no personal experience\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Of course you have, William! Say you don't remember. Say you don't\n want to remember. But don't say you have no personal experience!\"\n\n\n \"And you think I'm being punished for something I did in a previous\n life?\"\n\n\n He looked at me in disbelief. \"What else could it be?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know,\" I confessed. \"I certainly haven't done anything that\n bad in\nthis\nlife.\"\n\n\n \"William, if you atone for this sin, perhaps the horde of locusts will\n lift from you.\"\n\n\n It wasn't much of a chance, but I was unused to having any at all. I\n shook off the dizziness of it. \"By the Lord Harry, Brother, I'm going\n to give it a try!\" I cried.\n\n\n \"I believe you,\" Partridge said, surprised at himself.\n\n\n He ambled over to the money box on the wall. He tapped the bottom\n lightly and a box with no top slid out of the slightly larger box. He\n reached in, fished out the bill and presented it to me.\n\n\n \"Perhaps this will help in your atonement,\" he said.\n\n\n I crumpled it into my pocket fast. Not meaning to sound ungrateful, I'm\n pretty sure he hadn't noticed it was a twenty.\n\n\n And then the bill seemed to lie there, heavy, a lead weight. It would\n have been different if I had managed to get it out of the box myself.\n You know how it is.\n\n\n Money you haven't earned doesn't seem real to you.\nThere was something I forgot to mention so far. During the year between\n when I got out of the reformatory and the one when I tried to steal\n Brother Partridge's money, I killed a man.\n\n\n It was all an accident, but killing somebody is reason enough to get\n punished. It didn't have to be a sin in some previous life, you see.\n\n\n I had gotten my first job in too long, stacking boxes at the freight\n door of Baysinger's. The drivers unloaded the stuff, but they just\n dumped it off the truck. An empty rear end was all they wanted. The\n freight boss told me to stack the boxes inside, neat and not too close\n together.\n\n\n I stacked boxes the first day. I stacked more the second. The third day\n I went outside with my baloney and crackers. It was warm enough even\n for November.\n\n\n Two of them, dressed like Harvard seniors, caps and striped duffer\n jackets, came up to the crate I was dining off.\n\n\n \"Work inside, Jack?\" the taller one asked.\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" I said, chewing.\n\n\n \"What do you do, Jack?\" the fatter one asked.\n\n\n \"Stack boxes.\"\n\n\n \"Got a union card?\"\n\n\n I shook my head.\n\n\n \"Application?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" I said. \"I'm just helping out during Christmas.\"\n\n\n \"You're a scab, buddy,\" Long-legs said. \"Don't you read the papers?\"\n\n\n \"I don't like comic strips,\" I said.\n\n\n They sighed. I think they hated to do it, but I was bucking the system.\n\n\n Fats hit me high. Long-legs hit me low. I blew cracker crumbs into\n their faces. After that, I just let them go. I know how to take a\n beating. That's one thing I knew.\n\n\n Then lying there, bleeding to myself, I heard them talking. I heard\n noises like\nmake an example of him\nand\ndo something permanent\nand I\n squirmed away across the rubbish like a polite mouse.\n\n\n I made it around a corner of brick and stood up, hurting my knee on a\n piece of brown-splotched pipe. There were noises on the other angle of\n the corner and so I tested if the pipe was loose and it was. I closed\n my eyes and brought the pipe up and then down.\n\n\n It felt as if I connected, but I was so numb, I wasn't sure until I\n unscrewed my eyes.\n\n\n There was a big man in a heavy wool overcoat and gray homburg spread on\n a damp centerfold from the\nNews\n. There was a pick-up slip from the\n warehouse under the fingers of one hand, and somebody had beaten his\n brains out.\n\n\n The police figured it was part of some labor dispute, I guess, and they\n never got to me.\n\n\n I suppose I was to blame anyway. If I hadn't been alive, if I hadn't\n been there to get beaten up, it wouldn't have happened. I could see\n the point in making me suffer for it. There was a lot to be said for\n looking at it like that. But there was nothing to be said for telling\n Brother Partridge about the accident, or murder, or whatever had\n happened that day.\nSearching myself after I left Brother Partridge, I finally found a\n strip of gray adhesive tape on my side, out of the fuzzy area. Making\n the twenty the size of a thick postage stamp, I peeled back the tape\n and put the folded bill on the white skin and smoothed the tape back.\n\n\n There was only one place for me to go now. I headed for the public\n library. It was only about twenty blocks, but not having had anything\n to eat since the day before, it enervated me.\n\n\n The downstairs washroom was where I went first. There was nobody\n there but an old guy talking urgently to a kid with thick glasses,\n and somebody building a fix in one of the booths. I could see charred\n matches dropping down on the floor next to his tennis shoes, and even a\n few grains of white stuff. But he managed to hold still enough to keep\n from spilling more from the spoon.\n\n\n I washed my hands and face, smoothed my hair down, combing it with my\n fingers. Going over my suit with damp toweling got off a lot of the\n dirt. I put my collar on the outside of my jacket and creased the\n wings with my thumbnail so it would look more like a sports shirt.\n It didn't really. I still looked like a bum, but sort of a neat,\n non-objectionable bum.\n\n\n The librarian at the main desk looked sympathetically hostile, or\n hostilely sympathetic.\n\n\n \"I'd like to get into the stacks, miss,\" I said, \"and see some of the\n old newspapers.\"\n\n\n \"Which newspapers?\" the old girl asked stiffly.\n\n\n I thought back. I couldn't remember the exact date. \"Ones for the first\n week in November last year.\"\n\n\n \"We have the\nTimes\nmicrofilmed. I would have to project them for you.\"\n\n\n \"I didn't want to see the\nTimes\n,\" I said, fast. \"Don't you have any\n newspapers on paper?\" I didn't want her to see what I wanted to read up\n on.\n\n\n \"We have the\nNews\n, bound, for last year.\"\n\n\n I nodded. \"That's the one I wanted to see.\"\n\n\n She sniffed and told me to follow her. I didn't rate a cart to my\n table, I guess, or else the bound papers weren't supposed to come out\n of the stacks.\n\n\n The cases of books, row after row, smelled good. Like old leather and\n good pipe tobacco. I had been here before. In this world, it's the man\n with education who makes the money. I had been reading the Funk &\n Wagnalls Encyclopedia. So far I knew a lot about Mark Antony, Atomic\n Energy, Boron, Brussels, Catapults, Demons, and Divans.\n\n\n I guess I had stopped to look around at some of the titles, because the\n busy librarian said sharply, \"Follow me.\"\n\n\n I heard my voice say, \"A pleasure. What about after work?\"\n\n\n I didn't say it, but I was used to my voice independently saying\n things. Her neck got to flaming, but she walked stiffly ahead. She\n didn't say anything. She must be awful mad, I decided. But then I got\n the idea she was flushed with pleasure. I'm pretty ugly and I looked\n like a bum, but I was young. You had to grant me that.\n\n\n She waved a hand at the rows of bound\nNews\nand left me alone with\n them. I wasn't sure if I was allowed to hunt up a table to lay the\n books on or not, so I took the volume for last year and laid it on the\n floor. That was the cleanest floor I ever saw.\n\n\n It didn't take me long to find the story. The victim was a big man,\n because the story was on the second page of the Nov. 4 edition.\n\n\n I started to tear the page out, then only memorized the name and home\n address. Somebody was sure to see me and I couldn't risk trouble just\n now.\n\n\n I stuck the book back in line and left by the side door.\nI went to a dry-cleaner, not the cheapest place I knew, because I\n wouldn't be safe with the change from a twenty in that neighborhood.\n My suit was cleaned while I waited. I paid a little extra and had\n it mended. Funny thing about a suit\u2014it's almost never completely\n shot unless you just have it ripped off you or burned up. It wasn't\n exactly in style, but some rich executives wore suits out of style\n that they had paid a lot of money for. I remembered Fredric March's\n double-breasted in\nExecutive Suite\nwhile Walter Pidgeon and the rest\n wore Ivy Leagues. Maybe I would look like an eccentric executive.\n\n\n I bought a new shirt, a good used pair of shoes, and a dime pack of\n single-edged razor blades. I didn't have a razor, but anybody with\n nerve can shave with a single-edge blade and soap and water.\n\n\n The clerk took my two bucks in advance and I went up to my room.\n\n\n I washed out my socks and underwear, took a bath, shaved and trimmed\n my hair and nails with the razor blade. With some soap on my finger, I\n scrubbed my teeth. Finally I got dressed.\n\n\n Everything was all right except that I didn't have a tie. They had\n them, a quarter a piece, where I got the shoes. It was only six\n blocks\u2014I could go back. But I didn't want to wait. I wanted to\n complete the picture.\n\n\n The razor blade sliced through the pink bath towel evenly. I cut out a\n nice modern-style tie, narrow, with some horizontal stripes down at the\n bottom. I made a tight, thin knot. It looked pretty good.\n\n\n I was ready to leave, so I started for the door. I went back. I had\n almost forgotten my luggage. The box still had three unwrapped blades\n in it. I pocketed it. I hefted the used blade, dulled by all the work\n it had done. You can run being economical into stinginess. I tossed it\n into the wastebasket.\n\n\n I had five hamburgers and five cups of coffee. I couldn't finish all of\n the French fries.\n\n\n \"Mac,\" I said to the fat counterman, who looked like all fat\n countermen, \"give me a Milwaukee beer.\"\n\n\n He stopped polishing the counter in front of his friend. \"Milwaukee,\n Wisconsin, or Milwaukee, Oregon?\"\n\n\n \"Wisconsin.\"\n\n\n He didn't argue.\n\n\n It was cold and bitter. All beer is bitter, no matter what they say on\n TV. I like beer. I like the bitterness of it.\n\n\n It felt like another, but I checked myself. I needed a clear head.\n I thought about going back to the hotel for some sleep; I still had\n the key in my pocket (I wasn't trusting it to any clerk). No, I had\n had sleep on Thanksgiving, bracing up for trying the lift at Brother\n Partridge's. Let's see, it was daylight outside again, so this was the\n day after Thanksgiving. But it had only been sixteen or twenty hours\n since I had slept. That was enough.\n\n\n I left the money on the counter for the hamburgers and coffee and the\n beer. There was $7.68 left.\n\n\n As I passed the counterman's friend on his stool, my voice said, \"I\n think you're yellow.\"\n\n\n He turned slowly, his jaw moving further away from his brain.\n\n\n I winked. \"It was just a bet for me to say that to you. I won two\n bucks. Half of it is yours.\" I held out the bill to him.\n\n\n His paw closed over the money and punched me on the biceps. Too hard.\n He winked back. \"It's okay.\"\n\n\n I rubbed my shoulder, marching off fast, and I counted my money. With\n my luck, I might have given the counterman's friend the five instead of\n one of the singles. But I hadn't. I now had $6.68 left.\n\n\n \"I\nstill\nthink you're yellow,\" my voice said.\n\n\n It was my voice, but it didn't come from me. There were no words, no\n feeling of words in my throat. It just came out of the air the way it\n always did.\n\n\n I ran.\nHarold R. Thompkins, 49, vice-president of Baysinger's, was found\n dead behind the store last night. His skull had been crushed by a\n vicious beating with a heavy implement, Coroner McClain announced in\n preliminary verdict. Tompkins, who resided at 1467 Claremont, Edgeway,\n had been active in seeking labor-management peace in the recent\n difficulties....\n\n\n I had read that a year before. The car cards on the clanking subway and\n the rumbling bus didn't seem nearly so interesting to me. Outside the\n van, a tasteful sign announced the limits of the village of Edgeway,\n and back inside, the monsters of my boyhood went\nbloomp\nat me.\n\n\n I hadn't seen anything like them in years.\n\n\n The slimy, scaly beasts were slithering over the newspaper holders,\n the ad card readers, the girl watchers as the neat little carbon-copy\n modern homes breezed past the windows.\nI ignored the devils and concentrated on reading the withered,\n washed-out political posters on the telephone poles. My neck ached from\n holding it so stiff, staring out through the glass. More than that, I\n could feel the jabberwocks staring at me. You know how it is. You can\n feel a stare with the back of your neck and between your eyes. They got\n one brush of a gaze out of me.\n\n\n The things abruptly started their business, trying to act casually as\n if they hadn't been waiting for me to look at them at all. They had a\n little human being of some sort.\n\n\n It was the size of a small boy, like the small boy who looked like me\n that they used to destroy when I was locked up with them in the dark.\n Except this was a man, scaled down to child's size. He had sort of an\n ugly, worried, tired, stupid look and he wore a shiny suit with a piece\n of a welcome mat or something for a necktie. Yeah, it was me. I really\n knew it all the time.\n\n\n They began doing things to the midget me. I didn't even lift an\n eyebrow. They couldn't do anything worse to the small man than they\n had done to the young boy. It was sort of nostalgic watching them, but\n I really got bored with all that violence and killing and killing the\n same kill over and over. Like watching the Saturday night string of\n westerns in a bar.\n\n\n The sunlight through the window was yellow and hot. After a time, I\n began to dose.\n\n\n The shrieks woke me up.\n\n\n For the first time, I could hear the shrieks of the monster's victim\n and listen to their obscene droolings. For the very first time in my\n life. Always before it had been all pantomime, like Charlie Chaplin.\n Now I heard the sounds of it all.\n\n\n They say it's a bad sign when you start hearing voices.\n\n\n I nearly panicked, but I held myself in the seat and forced myself\n to be rational about it. My own voice was always saying things\neverybody\ncould hear but which I didn't say. It wasn't any worse to\n be the\nonly\none who could hear other things I never said. I was as\n sane as I ever was. There was no doubt about that.\n\n\n But a new thought suddenly impressed itself on me.\n\n\n Whatever was punishing me for my sin was determined that I turn back\n before reaching 1467 Claremont.",
    "51609": "A FALL OF GLASS\nBy STANLEY R. LEE\n\n\n Illustrated by DILLON\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Magazine October 1960.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe weatherman was always right:\n \nTemperature, 59; humidity, 47%;\n \noccasional light showers\u2014but of what?\nThe pockets of Mr. Humphrey Fownes were being picked outrageously.\n\n\n It was a splendid day. The temperature was a crisp 59 degrees, the\n humidity a mildly dessicated 47%. The sun was a flaming orange ball in\n a cloudless blue sky.\n\n\n His pockets were picked eleven times.\n\n\n It should have been difficult. Under the circumstances it was a\n masterpiece of pocket picking. What made it possible was Humphrey\n Fownes' abstraction; he was an uncommonly preoccupied individual. He\n was strolling along a quiet residential avenue: small private houses,\n one after another, a place of little traffic and minimum distractions.\n But he was thinking about weather, which was an unusual subject to\n begin with for a person living in a domed city. He was thinking so\n deeply about it that it never occurred to him that entirely too many\n people were bumping into him. He was thinking about Optimum Dome\n Conditions (a crisp 59 degrees, a mildly dessicated 47%) when a bogus\n postman, who pretended to be reading a postal card, jostled him. In the\n confusion of spilled letters and apologies from both sides, the postman\n rifled Fownes's handkerchief and inside jacket pockets.\nHe was still thinking about temperature and humidity when a pretty girl\n happened along with something in her eye. They collided. She got his\n right and left jacket pockets. It was much too much for coincidence.\n The sidewalk was wide enough to allow four people to pass at one time.\n He should surely have become suspicious when two men engaged in a\n heated argument came along. In the ensuing contretemps they emptied his\n rear pants pockets, got his wristwatch and restored the contents of the\nhandkerchief pocket. It all went off very smoothly, like a game of put\n and take\u2014the sole difference being that Humphrey Fownes had no idea he\n was playing.\n\n\n There was an occasional tinkle of falling glass.\n\n\n It fell on the streets and houses, making small geysers of shiny mist,\n hitting with a gentle musical sound, like the ephemeral droppings of\n a celesta. It was precipitation peculiar to a dome: feather-light\n fragments showering harmlessly on the city from time to time. Dome\n weevils, their metal arms reaching out with molten glass, roamed the\n huge casserole, ceaselessly patching and repairing.\n\n\n Humphrey Fownes strode through the puffs of falling glass still\n intrigued by a temperature that was always 59 degrees, by a humidity\n that was always 47%, by weather that was always Optimum. It was this\n rather than skill that enabled the police to maintain such a tight\n surveillance on him, a surveillance that went to the extent of getting\n his fingerprints off the postman's bag, and which photographed, X-rayed\n and chemically analyzed the contents of his pockets before returning\n them. Two blocks away from his home a careless housewife spilled a\n five-pound bag of flour as he was passing. It was really plaster of\n Paris. He left his shoe prints, stride measurement, height, weight and\n handedness behind.\n\n\n By the time Fownes reached his front door an entire dossier complete\n with photographs had been prepared and was being read by two men in an\n orange patrol car parked down the street.\nLanfierre had undoubtedly been affected by his job.\n\n\n Sitting behind the wheel of the orange car, he watched Humphrey Fownes\n approach with a distinct feeling of admiration, although it was an\n odd, objective kind of admiration, clinical in nature. It was similar\n to that of a pathologist observing for the first time a new and\n particularly virulent strain of pneumococcus under his microscope.\n\n\n Lanfierre's job was to ferret out aberration. It couldn't be tolerated\n within the confines of a dome. Conformity had become more than a social\n force; it was a physical necessity. And, after years of working at it,\n Lanfierre had become an admirer of eccentricity. He came to see that\n genuine quirks were rare and, as time went on, due partly to his own\n small efforts, rarer.\n\n\n Fownes was a masterpiece of queerness. He was utterly inexplicable.\n Lanfierre was almost proud of Humphrey Fownes.\n\n\n \"Sometimes his house\nshakes\n,\" Lanfierre said.\n\n\n \"House shakes,\" Lieutenant MacBride wrote in his notebook. Then he\n stopped and frowned. He reread what he'd just written.\n\n\n \"You heard right. The house\nshakes\n,\" Lanfierre said, savoring it.\n\n\n MacBride looked at the Fownes house through the magnifying glass of\n the windshield. \"Like from ...\nside to side\n?\" he asked in a somewhat\n patronizing tone of voice.\n\n\n \"And up and down.\"\n\n\n MacBride returned the notebook to the breast pocket of his orange\n uniform. \"Go on,\" he said, amused. \"It sounds interesting.\" He tossed\n the dossier carelessly on the back seat.\n\n\n Lanfierre sat stiffly behind the wheel, affronted. The cynical MacBride\n couldn't really appreciate fine aberrations. In some ways MacBride\n was a barbarian. Lanfierre had held out on Fownes for months. He\n had even contrived to engage him in conversation once, a pleasantly\n absurd, irrational little chat that titillated him for weeks. It was\n only with the greatest reluctance that he finally mentioned Fownes\n to MacBride. After years of searching for differences Lanfierre had\n seen how extraordinarily repetitious people were, echoes really, dimly\n resounding echoes, each believing itself whole and separate. They spoke\n in an incessant chatter of cliches, and their actions were unbelievably\n trite.\n\n\n Then a fine robust freak came along and the others\u2014the echoes\u2014refused\n to believe it. The lieutenant was probably on the point of suggesting a\n vacation.\n\n\n \"Why don't you take a vacation?\" Lieutenant MacBride suggested.\n\n\n \"It's like this, MacBride. Do you know what a wind is? A breeze? A\n zephyr?\"\n\n\n \"I've heard some.\"\n\n\n \"They say there are mountain-tops where winds blow all the time. Strong\n winds, MacBride. Winds like you and I can't imagine. And if there was\n a house sitting on such a mountain and if winds\ndid\nblow, it would\n shake exactly the way that one does. Sometimes I get the feeling the\n whole place is going to slide off its foundation and go sailing down\n the avenue.\"\nLieutenant MacBride pursed his lips.\n\n\n \"I'll tell you something else,\" Lanfierre went on. \"The\nwindows\nall\n close at the same time. You'll be watching and all of a sudden every\n single window in the place will drop to its sill.\" Lanfierre leaned\n back in the seat, his eyes still on the house. \"Sometimes I think\n there's a whole crowd of people in there waiting for a signal\u2014as if\n they all had something important to say but had to close the windows\n first so no one could hear. Why else close the windows in a domed city?\n And then as soon as the place is buttoned up they all explode into\n conversation\u2014and that's why the house shakes.\"\n\n\n MacBride whistled.\n\n\n \"No, I don't need a vacation.\"\n\n\n A falling piece of glass dissolved into a puff of gossamer against the\n windshield. Lanfierre started and bumped his knee on the steering wheel.\n\n\n \"No, you don't need a rest,\" MacBride said. \"You're starting to see\n flying houses, hear loud babbling voices. You've got winds in your\n brain, Lanfierre, breezes of fatigue, zephyrs of irrationality\u2014\"\n\n\n At that moment, all at once, every last window in the house slammed\n shut.\n\n\n The street was deserted and quiet, not a movement, not a sound.\n MacBride and Lanfierre both leaned forward, as if waiting for the\n ghostly babble of voices to commence.\n\n\n The house began to shake.\n\n\n It rocked from side to side, it pitched forward and back, it yawed and\n dipped and twisted, straining at the mooring of its foundation. The\n house could have been preparing to take off and sail down the....\n\n\n MacBride looked at Lanfierre and Lanfierre looked at MacBride and then\n they both looked back at the dancing house.\n\n\n \"And the\nwater\n,\" Lanfierre said. \"The\nwater\nhe uses! He could be\n the thirstiest and cleanest man in the city. He could have a whole\n family of thirsty and clean kids, and he\nstill\nwouldn't need all that\n water.\"\n\n\n The lieutenant had picked up the dossier. He thumbed through the pages\n now in amazement. \"Where do you get a guy like this?\" he asked. \"Did\n you see what he carries in his pockets?\"\n\n\n \"And compasses won't work on this street.\"\n\n\n The lieutenant lit a cigarette and sighed.\n\n\n He usually sighed when making the decision to raid a dwelling. It\n expressed his weariness and distaste for people who went off and got\n neurotic when they could be enjoying a happy, normal existence. There\n was something implacable about his sighs.\n\n\n \"He'll be coming out soon,\" Lanfierre said. \"He eats supper next door\n with a widow. Then he goes to the library. Always the same. Supper at\n the widow's next door and then the library.\"\n\n\n MacBride's eyebrows went up a fraction of an inch. \"The library?\" he\n said. \"Is he in with that bunch?\"\n\n\n Lanfierre nodded.\n\n\n \"Should be very interesting,\" MacBride said slowly.\n\n\n \"I can't wait to see what he's got in there,\" Lanfierre murmured,\n watching the house with a consuming interest.\n\n\n They sat there smoking in silence and every now and then their eyes\n widened as the house danced a new step.\nFownes stopped on the porch to brush the plaster of paris off his\n shoes. He hadn't seen the patrol car and this intense preoccupation\n of his was also responsible for the dancing house\u2014he simply hadn't\n noticed. There was a certain amount of vibration, of course. He\n had a bootleg pipe connected into the dome blower system, and the\n high-pressure air caused some buffeting against the thin walls of the\n house. At least, he called it buffeting; he'd never thought to watch\n from outside.\n\n\n He went in and threw his jacket on the sofa, there being no room\n left in the closets. Crossing the living room he stopped to twist a\n draw-pull.\n\n\n Every window slammed shut.\n\n\n \"Tight as a kite,\" he thought, satisfied. He continued on toward the\n closet at the foot of the stairs and then stopped again. Was that\n right? No,\nsnug as a hug in a rug\n. He went on, thinking:\nThe old\n devils.\nThe downstairs closet was like a great watch case, a profusion of\n wheels surrounding the Master Mechanism, which was a miniature see-saw\n that went back and forth 365-1/4 times an hour. The wheels had a\n curious stateliness about them. They were all quite old, salvaged from\n grandfather's clocks and music boxes and they went around in graceful\n circles at the rate of 30 and 31 times an hour ... although there\n was one slightly eccentric cam that vacillated between 28 and 29. He\n watched as they spun and flashed in the darkness, and then set them for\n seven o'clock in the evening, April seventh, any year.\n\n\n Outside, the domed city vanished.\n\n\n It was replaced by an illusion. Or, as Fownes hoped it might appear,\n the illusion of the domed city vanished and was replaced by a more\n satisfactory, and, for his specific purpose, more functional, illusion.\n Looking through the window he saw only a garden.\n\n\n Instead of an orange sun at perpetual high noon, there was a red sun\n setting brilliantly, marred only by an occasional arcover which left\n the smell of ozone in the air. There was also a gigantic moon. It hid a\n huge area of sky, and it sang. The sun and moon both looked down upon a\n garden that was itself scintillant, composed largely of neon roses.\n\n\n Moonlight, he thought, and roses. Satisfactory.\nAnd cocktails for\n two.\nBlast, he'd never be able to figure that one out! He watched as\n the moon played,\nOh, You Beautiful Doll\nand the neon roses flashed\n slowly from red to violet, then went back to the closet and turned on\n the scent. The house began to smell like an immensely concentrated rose\n as the moon shifted to\nPeople Will Say We're In Love\n.\nHe rubbed his chin critically. It\nseemed\nall right. A dreamy sunset,\n an enchanted moon, flowers, scent.\n\n\n They were all purely speculative of course. He had no idea how a rose\n really smelled\u2014or looked for that matter. Not to mention a moon. But\n then, neither did the widow. He'd have to be confident, assertive.\nInsist\non it. I tell you, my dear, this is a genuine realistic\n romantic moon. Now, does it do anything to your pulse? Do you feel icy\n fingers marching up and down your spine?\n\n\n His own spine didn't seem to be affected. But then he hadn't read that\n book on ancient mores and courtship customs.\n\n\n How really odd the ancients were. Seduction seemed to be an incredibly\n long and drawn-out process, accompanied by a considerable amount\n of falsification. Communication seemed virtually impossible. \"No\"\n meant any number of things, depending on the tone of voice and the\n circumstances. It could mean yes, it could mean ask me again later on\n this evening.\n\n\n He went up the stairs to the bedroom closet and tried the rain-maker,\n thinking roguishly:\nThou shalt not inundate.\nThe risks he was taking!\n A shower fell gently on the garden and a male chorus began to chant\nSinging in the Rain\n. Undiminished, the yellow moon and the red sun\n continued to be brilliant, although the sun occasionally arced over and\n demolished several of the neon roses.\n\n\n The last wheel in the bedroom closet was a rather elegant steering\n wheel from an old 1995 Studebaker. This was on the bootleg pipe; he\n gingerly turned it.\n\n\n Far below in the cellar there was a rumble and then the soft whistle of\n winds came to him.\n\n\n He went downstairs to watch out the living room window. This was\n important; the window had a really fixed attitude about air currents.\n The neon roses bent and tinkled against each other as the wind rose and\n the moon shook a trifle as it whispered\nCuddle Up a Little Closer\n.\n\n\n He watched with folded arms, considering how he would start.\nMy dear\n Mrs. Deshazaway.\nToo formal. They'd be looking out at the romantic\n garden; time to be a bit forward.\nMy very dear Mrs. Deshazaway.\nNo.\n Contrived. How about a simple,\nDear Mrs. Deshazaway\n. That might be\n it.\nI was wondering, seeing as how it's so late, if you wouldn't\n rather stay over instead of going home....\nPreoccupied, he hadn't noticed the winds building up, didn't hear the\n shaking and rattling of the pipes. There were attic pipes connected\n to wall pipes and wall pipes connected to cellar pipes, and they made\n one gigantic skeleton that began to rattle its bones and dance as\n high-pressure air from the dome blower rushed in, slowly opening the\n Studebaker valve wider and wider....\n\n\n The neon roses thrashed about, extinguishing each other. The red sun\n shot off a mass of sparks and then quickly sank out of sight. The moon\n fell on the garden and rolled ponderously along, crooning\nWhen the\n Blue of the Night Meets the Gold of the Day\n.\n\n\n The shaking house finally woke him up. He scrambled upstairs to the\n Studebaker wheel and shut it off.\n\n\n At the window again, he sighed. Repairs were in order. And it wasn't\n the first time the winds got out of line.\n\n\n Why didn't she marry him and save all this bother? He shut it all down\n and went out the front door, wondering about the rhyme of the months,\n about stately August and eccentric February and romantic April. April.\n Its days were thirty and it followed September.\nAnd all the rest have\n thirty-one.\nWhat a strange people, the ancients!\n\n\n He still didn't see the orange car parked down the street.\n\"Men are too perishable,\" Mrs. Deshazaway said over dinner. \"For all\n practical purposes I'm never going to marry again. All my husbands die.\"\n\n\n \"Would you pass the beets, please?\" Humphrey Fownes said.\n\n\n She handed him a platter of steaming red beets. \"And don't look at me\n that way,\" she said. \"I'm\nnot\ngoing to marry you and if you want\n reasons I'll give you four of them. Andrew. Curt. Norman. And Alphonse.\"\n\n\n The widow was a passionate woman. She did everything\n passionately\u2014talking, cooking, dressing. Her beets were passionately\n red. Her clothes rustled and her high heels clicked and her jewelry\n tinkled. She was possessed by an uncontrollable dynamism. Fownes had\n never known anyone like her. \"You forgot to put salt on the potatoes,\"\n she said passionately, then went on as calmly as it was possible for\n her to be, to explain why she couldn't marry him. \"Do you have any\n idea what people are saying? They're all saying I'm a cannibal! I rob\n my husbands of their life force and when they're empty I carry their\n bodies outside on my way to the justice of the peace.\"\n\n\n \"As long as there are people,\" he said philosophically, \"there'll be\n talk.\"\n\n\n \"But it's the air! Why don't they talk about that? The air is stale,\n I'm positive. It's not nourishing. The air is stale and Andrew, Curt,\n Norman and Alphonse couldn't stand it. Poor Alphonse. He was never so\n healthy as on the day he was born. From then on things got steadily\n worse for him.\"\n\n\n \"I don't seem to mind the air.\"\n\n\n She threw up her hands. \"You'd be the worst of the lot!\" She left the\n table, rustling and tinkling about the room. \"I can just hear them. Try\n some of the asparagus.\nFive.\nThat's what they'd say. That woman did\n it again. And the plain fact is I don't want you on my record.\"\n\n\n \"Really,\" Fownes protested. \"I feel splendid. Never better.\"\n\n\n He could hear her moving about and then felt her hands on his\n shoulders. \"And what about those\nvery\nelaborate plans you've been\n making to seduce me?\"\n\n\n Fownes froze with three asparagus hanging from his fork.\n\n\n \"Don't you think\nthey'll\nfind out?\nI\nfound out and you can bet\nthey\nwill. It's my fault, I guess. I talk too much. And I don't\n always tell the truth. To be completely honest with you, Mr. Fownes, it\n wasn't the old customs at all standing between us, it was air. I can't\n have another man die on me, it's bad for my self-esteem. And now you've\n gone and done something good and criminal, something peculiar.\"\nFownes put his fork down. \"Dear Mrs. Deshazaway,\" he started to say.\n\n\n \"And of course when they do find out and they ask you why, Mr. Fownes,\n you'll tell them. No, no heroics, please! When they ask a man a\n question he always answers and you will too. You'll tell them I wanted\n to be courted and when they hear that they'll be around to ask\nme\na\n few questions. You see, we're both a bit queer.\"\n\n\n \"I hadn't thought of that,\" Fownes said quietly.\n\n\n \"Oh, it doesn't really matter. I'll join Andrew, Curt, Norman\u2014\"\n\n\n \"That won't be necessary,\" Fownes said with unusual force. \"With all\n due respect to Andrew, Curt, Norman and Alphonse, I might as well state\n here and now I have other plans for you, Mrs. Deshazaway.\"\n\n\n \"But my dear Mr. Fownes,\" she said, leaning across the table. \"We're\n lost, you and I.\"\n\n\n \"Not if we could leave the dome,\" Fownes said quietly.\n\n\n \"That's impossible! How?\"\n\n\n In no hurry, now that he had the widow's complete attention, Fownes\n leaned across the table and whispered: \"Fresh air, Mrs. Deshazaway?\n Space? Miles and miles of space where the real-estate monopoly has\n no control whatever? Where the\nwind\nblows across\nprairies\n; or is\n it the other way around? No matter. How would you like\nthat\n, Mrs.\n Deshazaway?\"\n\n\n Breathing somewhat faster than usual, the widow rested her chin on her\n two hands. \"Pray continue,\" she said.\n\n\n \"Endless vistas of moonlight and roses? April showers, Mrs. Deshazaway.\n And June, which as you may know follows directly upon April and is\n supposed to be the month of brides, of marrying. June also lies beyond\n the dome.\"\n\n\n \"I see.\"\n\n\n \"\nAnd\n,\" Mr. Fownes added, his voice a honeyed whisper, \"they say\n that somewhere out in the space and the roses and the moonlight,\n the sleeping equinox yawns and rises because on a certain day it's\nvernal\nand that's when it roams the Open Country where geigers no\n longer scintillate.\"\n\n\n \"\nMy.\n\" Mrs. Deshazaway rose, paced slowly to the window and then came\n back to the table, standing directly over Fownes. \"If you can get us\n outside the dome,\" she said, \"out where a man stays\nwarm\nlong enough\n for his wife to get to know him ... if you can do that, Mr. Fownes ...\n you may call me Agnes.\"\nWhen Humphrey Fownes stepped out of the widow's house, there was a\n look of such intense abstraction on his features that Lanfierre felt a\n wistful desire to get out of the car and walk along with the man. It\n would be such a\ndeliciously\ninsane experience. (\"April has thirty\n days,\" Fownes mumbled, passing them, \"because thirty is the largest\n number such that all smaller numbers not having a common divisor\n with it are\nprimes\n.\" MacBride frowned and added it to the dossier.\n Lanfierre sighed.)\n\n\n Pinning his hopes on the Movement, Fownes went straight to the\n library several blocks away, a shattered depressing place given over\n to government publications and censored old books with holes in\n them. It was used so infrequently that the Movement was able to meet\n there undisturbed. The librarian was a yellowed, dog-eared woman of\n eighty. She spent her days reading ancient library cards and, like the\n books around her, had been rendered by time's own censor into near\n unintelligibility.\n\n\n \"Here's one,\" she said to him as he entered. \"\nGulliver's Travels.\nLoaned to John Wesley Davidson on March 14, 1979 for\nfive\ndays. What\n do you make of it?\"\n\n\n In the litter of books and cards and dried out ink pads that surrounded\n the librarian, Fownes noticed a torn dust jacket with a curious\n illustration. \"What's that?\" he said.\n\n\n \"A twister,\" she replied quickly. \"Now listen to\nthis\n. Seven years\n later on March 21, 1986, Ella Marshall Davidson took out the same book.\n What do you make of\nthat\n?\"\n\n\n \"I'd say,\" Humphrey Fownes said, \"that he ... that he recommended it\n to her, that one day they met in the street and he told her about\n this book and then they ... they went to the library together and she\n borrowed it and eventually, why eventually they got married.\"\n\n\n \"Hah! They were brother and sister!\" the librarian shouted in her\n parched voice, her old buckram eyes laughing with cunning.\n\n\n Fownes smiled weakly and looked again at the dust jacket. The twister\n was unquestionably a meteorological phenomenon. It spun ominously, like\n a malevolent top, and coursed the countryside destructively, carrying\n a Dorothy to an Oz. He couldn't help wondering if twisters did anything\n to feminine pulses, if they could possibly be a part of a moonlit\n night, with cocktails and roses. He absently stuffed the dust jacket\n in his pocket and went on into the other rooms, the librarian mumbling\n after him: \"Edna Murdoch Featherstone, April 21, 1991,\" as though\n reading inscriptions on a tombstone.\nThe Movement met in what had been the children's room, where unpaid\n ladies of the afternoon had once upon a time read stories to other\n people's offspring. The members sat around at the miniature tables\n looking oddly like giants fled from their fairy tales, protesting.\n\n\n \"Where did the old society fail?\" the leader was demanding of them. He\n stood in the center of the room, leaning on a heavy knobbed cane. He\n glanced around at the group almost complacently, and waited as Humphrey\n Fownes squeezed into an empty chair. \"We live in a dome,\" the leader\n said, \"for lack of something. An invention! What is the one thing\n that the great technological societies before ours could not invent,\n notwithstanding their various giant brains, electronic and otherwise?\"\n\n\n Fownes was the kind of man who never answered a rhetorical question. He\n waited, uncomfortable in the tight chair, while the others struggled\n with this problem in revolutionary dialectics.\n\n\n \"\nA sound foreign policy\n,\" the leader said, aware that no one else had\n obtained the insight. \"If a sound foreign policy can't be created the\n only alternative is not to have any foreign policy at all. Thus the\n movement into domes began\u2014\nby common consent of the governments\n. This\n is known as self-containment.\"\n\n\n Dialectically out in left field, Humphrey Fownes waited for a lull\n in the ensuing discussion and then politely inquired how it might be\n arranged for him to get out.\n\n\n \"Out?\" the leader said, frowning. \"Out? Out where?\"\n\n\n \"Outside the dome.\"\n\n\n \"Oh. All in good time, my friend. One day we shall all pick up and\n leave.\"\n\n\n \"And that day I'll await impatiently,\" Fownes replied with marvelous\n tact, \"because it will be lonely out there for the two of us. My future\n wife and I have to leave\nnow\n.\"\n\n\n \"Nonsense. Ridiculous! You have to be prepared for the Open Country.\n You can't just up and leave, it would be suicide, Fownes. And\n dialectically very poor.\"\n\n\n \"Then you\nhave\ndiscussed preparations, the practical necessities of\n life in the Open Country. Food, clothing, a weapon perhaps? What else?\n Have I left anything out?\"\n\n\n The leader sighed. \"The gentleman wants to know if he's left anything\n out,\" he said to the group.\n\n\n Fownes looked around at them, at some dozen pained expressions.\n\n\n \"Tell the man what he's forgotten,\" the leader said, walking to the far\n window and turning his back quite pointedly on them.\n\n\n Everyone spoke at the same moment. \"\nA sound foreign policy\n,\" they all\n said, it being almost too obvious for words.\nOn his way out the librarian shouted at him: \"\nA Tale of a Tub\n,\n thirty-five years overdue!\" She was calculating the fine as he closed\n the door.\n\n\n Humphrey Fownes' preoccupation finally came to an end when he was one\n block away from his house. It was then that he realized something\n unusual must have occurred. An orange patrol car of the security police\n was parked at his front door. And something else was happening too.\n\n\n His house was dancing.\n\n\n It was disconcerting, and at the same time enchanting, to watch one's\n residence frisking about on its foundation. It was such a strange sight\n that for the moment he didn't give a thought to what might be causing\n it. But when he stepped gingerly onto the porch, which was doing its\n own independent gavotte, he reached for the doorknob with an immense\n curiosity.\n\n\n The door flung itself open and knocked him back off the porch.\n\n\n From a prone position on his miniscule front lawn, Fownes watched as\n his favorite easy chair sailed out of the living room on a blast of\n cold air and went pinwheeling down the avenue in the bright sunshine. A\n wild wind and a thick fog poured out of the house. It brought chairs,\n suits, small tables, lamps trailing their cords, ashtrays, sofa\n cushions. The house was emptying itself fiercely, as if disgorging an\n old, spoiled meal. From deep inside he could hear the rumble of his\n ancient upright piano as it rolled ponderously from room to room.\n\n\n He stood up; a wet wind swept over him, whipping at his face, toying\n with his hair. It was a whistling in his ears, and a tingle on his\n cheeks. He got hit by a shoe.\n\n\n As he forced his way back to the doorway needles of rain played over\n his face and he heard a voice cry out from somewhere in the living room.\n\n\n \"Help!\" Lieutenant MacBride called.\n\n\n Standing in the doorway with his wet hair plastered down on his\n dripping scalp, the wind roaring about him, the piano rumbling in the\n distance like thunder, Humphrey Fownes suddenly saw it all very clearly.\n\n\n \"\nWinds\n,\" he said in a whisper.\n\n\n \"What's happening?\" MacBride yelled, crouching behind the sofa.\n\n\n \"\nMarch\nwinds,\" he said.\n\n\n \"What?!\"\n\n\n \"April showers!\"\n\n\n The winds roared for a moment and then MacBride's lost voice emerged\n from the blackness of the living room. \"These are\nnot\nOptimum Dome\n Conditions!\" the voice wailed. \"The temperature is\nnot\n59 degrees.\n The humidity is\nnot\n47%!\"\nFownes held his face up to let the rain fall on it. \"Moonlight!\" he\n shouted. \"Roses! My\nsoul\nfor a cocktail for two!\" He grasped the\n doorway to keep from being blown out of the house.\n\n\n \"Are you going to make it stop or aren't you!\" MacBride yelled.\n\n\n \"You'll have to tell me what you did first!\"\n\n\n \"I\ntold\nhim not to touch that wheel! Lanfierre. He's in the upstairs\n bedroom!\"\n\n\n When he heard this Fownes plunged into the house and fought his way\n up the stairs. He found Lanfierre standing outside the bedroom with a\n wheel in his hand.\n\"What have I done?\" Lanfierre asked in the monotone of shock.\n\n\n Fownes took the wheel. It was off a 1995 Studebaker.\n\n\n \"I'm not sure what's going to come of this,\" he said to Lanfierre with\n an astonishing amount of objectivity, \"but the entire dome air supply\n is now coming through my bedroom.\"\n\n\n The wind screamed.\n\n\n \"Is there something I can turn?\" Lanfierre asked.\n\n\n \"Not any more there isn't.\"\n\n\n They started down the stairs carefully, but the wind caught them and\n they quickly reached the bottom in a wet heap.\n\n\n Recruiting Lieutenant MacBride from behind his sofa, the men carefully\n edged out of the house and forced the front door shut.\n\n\n The wind died. The fog dispersed. They stood dripping in the Optimum\n Dome Conditions of the bright avenue.\n\n\n \"I never figured on\nthis\n,\" Lanfierre said, shaking his head.\n\n\n With the front door closed the wind quickly built up inside the house.\n They could see the furnishing whirl past the windows. The house did a\n wild, elated jig.\n\n\n \"What kind of a place\nis\nthis?\" MacBride said, his courage beginning\n to return. He took out his notebook but it was a soggy mess. He tossed\n it away.\n\n\n \"Sure, he was\ndifferent\n,\" Lanfierre murmured. \"I knew that much.\"\n\n\n When the roof blew off they weren't really surprised. With a certain\n amount of equanimity they watched it lift off almost gracefully,\n standing on end for a moment before toppling to the ground. It was\n strangely slow motion, as was the black twirling cloud that now rose\n out of the master bedroom, spewing shorts and socks and cases every\n which way.\n\n\n \"\nNow\nwhat?\" MacBride said, thoroughly exasperated, as this strange\n black cloud began to accelerate, whirling about like some malevolent\n top....\nHumphrey Fownes took out the dust jacket he'd found in the library. He\n held it up and carefully compared the spinning cloud in his bedroom\n with the illustration. The cloud rose and spun, assuming the identical\n shape of the illustration.\n\n\n \"It's a twister,\" he said softly. \"A Kansas twister!\"\n\n\n \"What,\" MacBride asked, his bravado slipping away again, \"what ... is a\n twister?\"\n\n\n The twister roared and moved out of the bedroom, out over the rear of\n the house toward the side of the dome. \"It says here,\" Fownes shouted\n over the roaring, \"that Dorothy traveled from Kansas to Oz in a twister\n and that ... and that Oz is a wonderful and mysterious land\nbeyond the\n confines of everyday living\n.\"\n\n\n MacBride's eyes and mouth were great zeros.\n\n\n \"Is there something I can turn?\" Lanfierre asked.\n\n\n Huge chunks of glass began to fall around them.\n\n\n \"Fownes!\" MacBride shouted. \"This is a direct order! Make it go back!\"\n\n\n But Fownes had already begun to run on toward the next house, dodging\n mountainous puffs of glass as he went. \"Mrs. Deshazaway!\" he shouted.\n \"Yoo-hoo, Mrs. Deshazaway!\"\n\n\n The dome weevils were going berserk trying to keep up with the\n precipitation. They whirred back and forth at frightful speed, then,\n emptied of molten glass, rushed to the Trough which they quickly\n emptied and then rushed about empty-handed. \"Yoo-hoo!\" he yelled,\n running. The artificial sun vanished behind the mushrooming twister.\n Optimum temperature collapsed. \"Mrs. Deshazaway!\nAgnes\n, will you\n marry me? Yoo-hoo!\"\n\n\n Lanfierre and Lieutenant MacBride leaned against their car and waited,\n dazed.\n\n\n There was quite a large fall of glass.",
    "20046": "Maledict\noratory\nThe high costs of low language. \n\n         Sunday, Jan. 14, 1996: A day that will live in--well, not infamy, exactly. Blasphemy would be closer to it. \n\n         Early that afternoon, the Pittsburgh Steelers defeated the Indianapolis Colts to win the American Football Conference championship. Linebacker Greg Lloyd, accepting the trophy in front of a national television audience, responded with enthusiasm. \"Let's see if we can bring this damn thing back here next year,\" he said, \"along with the [expletive] Super Bowl.\" \n\n         A few hours later, Michael Irvin of the Dallas Cowboys offered this spirited defense of his coach on TV after his team won the National Football Conference title: \"Nobody deserves it more than Barry Switzer. He took all of this [expletive] .\" \n\n         Iwatched those episodes, and, incongruous as it may sound, I thought of Kenneth Tynan. Britain's great postwar drama critic was no fan of American football, but he was a fan of swearing. Thirty years earlier, almost to the week, Tynan was interviewed on BBC television in his capacity as literary director of Britain's National Theater and asked if he would allow the theater to present a play in which sex took place on stage. \"Certainly,\" he replied. \"I think there are very few rational people in this world to whom the word '[expletive]' is particularly diabolical or revolting or totally forbidden.\" \n\n         It turned out there were a few more than Tynan thought. Within 24 hours, resolutions had been introduced in the House of Commons calling for his prosecution on charges of obscenity, for his removal as a theater official, and for censure of the network for allowing an obscene word to go out on the airwaves. Tynan escaped punishment, but he acquired a public reputation for tastelessness that he carried for the rest his life. To much of ordinary Britain, he became the man who had said \"[expletive]\" on the BBC. \n\n         Neither Greg Lloyd nor Michael Irvin was so stigmatized. \"It's live television,\" NBC Vice President Ed Markey said, rationalizing the outbursts. \"It's an emotional moment. These things happen.\" Irvin wasn't about to let that stand. \"I knew exactly what I was saying,\" he insisted later. \"Those of you who can't believe I said it--believe it.\" \n\n         Swearing isn't the only public act that Western civilization condones today but didn't 30 years ago. But it is one of the most interesting. It is everywhere, impossible to avoid or tune out. \n\n           \n\n          \n\n            I am sitting in a meeting at the office, talking with a colleague about a business circumstance that may possibly go against us. \"In that case, we're [expletive] ,\" he says. Five years ago, he would have said \"screwed.\" Twenty years ago, he would have said, \"We're in big trouble.\" Societal tolerance of profanity requires us to increase our dosage as time goes on.   \n\n             \n\n            I am walking along a suburban street, trailing a class of pre-schoolers who are linked to each other by a rope. A pair of teen-agers passes us in the other direction. By the time they have reached the end of the line of children, they have tossed off a whole catalog of obscenities I did not even hear until I was well into adolescence, let alone use in casual conversation on a public street.   \n\n             \n\n            I am talking to a distinguished professor of public policy about a foundation grant. I tell her something she wasn't aware of before. In 1965, the appropriate response was \"no kidding.\" In 1996, you do not say \"no kidding.\" It is limp and ineffectual. If you are surprised at all, you say what she says: \"No shit.\" \n\n          \n\n         What word is taboo in middle-class America in 1996? There are a couple of credible candidates: The four-letter word for \"vagina\" remains off-limits in polite conversation (although that has more to do with feminism than with profanity), and the slang expression for those who engage in oral sex with males is not yet acceptable by the standards of office-meeting etiquette. \n\n         But aside from a few exceptions, the supply of genuinely offensive language has dwindled almost to nothing as the 20th century comes to an end; the currency of swearing has been inflated to the brink of worthlessness. When almost anything can be said in public, profanity ceases to exist in any meaningful way at all. \n\n         That most of the forbidden words of the 1950s are no longer forbidden will come as news to nobody: The steady debasement of the common language is only one of many social strictures that have loosened from the previous generation to the current. What is important is that profanity served a variety of purposes for a long time in Western culture. It does not serve those purposes any more. \n\n         What purposes? There are a couple of plausible answers. One of them is emotional release. Robert Graves, who wrote a book in the 1920s called The Future of Swearing , thought that profanity was the adult replacement for childhood tears. There comes a point in life, he wrote, when \"wailing is rightly discouraged, and groans are also considered a signal of extreme weakness. Silence under suffering is usually impossible.\" So one reaches back for a word one does not normally use, and utters it without undue embarrassment or guilt. And one feels better--even stimulated. \n\n         The anthropologist Ashley Montagu, whose Anatomy of Swearing , published in 1967, is the definitive modern take on the subject, saw profanity as a safety valve rather than a stimulant, a verbal substitute for physical aggression. When someone swears, Montagu wrote, \"potentially noxious energy is converted into a form that renders it comparatively innocuous.\" \n\n         One could point out, in arguing against the safety-valve theory, that as America has grown more profane in the past 30 years, it has also grown more violent, not less. But this is too simple. It isn't just the supply of dirty words that matters, it's their emotive power. If they have lost that power through overuse, it's perfectly plausible to say that their capacity to deter aggressive behavior has weakened as well. \n\n         But there is something else important to say about swearing--that it represents the invocation of those ideas a society considers powerful, awesome, and a little scary. \n\n         I'm not sure there is an easy way to convey to anybody under 30, for example, the sheer emotive force that the word \"[expletive]\" possessed in the urban childhood culture of 40 years ago. It was the verbal link to a secret act none of us understood but that was known to carry enormous consequences in the adult world. It was the embodiment of both pleasure and danger. It was not a word or an idea to mess with. When it was used, it was used, as Ashley Montagu said, \"sotto voce , like a smuggler cautiously making his way across a forbidden frontier.\" \n\n         In that culture, the word \"[expletive]\" was not only obscene, it was profane, in the original sense: It took an important idea in vain. Profanity can be an act of religious defiance, but it doesn't have to be. The Greeks tempted fate by invoking the names of their superiors on Mount Olympus; they also swore upon everyday objects whose properties they respected but did not fully understand. \"By the Cabbage!\" Socrates is supposed to have said in moments of stress, and that was for good reason. He believed that cabbage cured hangovers, and as such, carried sufficient power and mystery to invest any moment with the requisite emotional charge. \n\n         These days, none of us believes in cabbage in the way Socrates did, or in the gods in the way most Athenians did. Most Americans tell poll-takers that they believe in God, but few of them in a way that would make it impossible to take His name in vain: That requires an Old Testament piety that disappeared from American middle-class life a long time ago. \n\n         Nor do we believe in sex any more the way most American children and millions of adults believed in it a generation ago: as an act of profound mystery and importance that one did not engage in, or discuss, or even invoke, without a certain amount of excitement and risk. We have trivialized and routinized sex to the point where it just doesn't carry the emotional freight it carried in the schoolyards and bedrooms of the 1950s. \n\n         Many enlightened people consider this to be a great improvement over a society in which sex generated not only emotion and power, but fear. For the moment, I wish to insist only on this one point: When sexuality loses its power to awe, it loses its power to create genuine swearing. When we convert it into a casual form of recreation, we shouldn't be surprised to hear linebackers using the word \"[expletive]\" on national television. \n\n         To profane something, in other words, one must believe in it. The cheapening of profanity in modern America represents, more than anything else, the crumbling of belief. There are very few ideas left at this point that are awesome or frightening enough for us to enforce a taboo against them. \n\n         The instinctive response of most educated people to the disappearance of any taboo is to applaud it, but this is wrong. Healthy societies need a decent supply of verbal taboos and prohibitions, if only as yardsticks by which ordinary people can measure and define themselves. By violating these taboos over and over, some succeed in defining themselves as rebels. Others violate them on special occasions to derive an emotional release. Forbidden language is one of the ways we remind children that there are rules to everyday life, and consequences for breaking them. When we forget this principle, or cease to accept it, it is not just our language that begins to fray at the edges. \n\n         What do we do about it? Well, we could pass a law against swearing. Mussolini actually did that. He decreed that trains and buses, in addition to running on time, had to carry signs that read \"Non bestemmiare per l'onore d'Italia.\" (\"Do not swear for the honor of Italy.\") The commuters of Rome reacted to those signs exactly as you would expect: They cursed them. \n\n         What Mussolini could not do, I am reasonably sure that American governments of the 1990s cannot do, nor would I wish it. I merely predict that sometime in the coming generation, profanity will return in a meaningful way. It served too many purposes for too many years of American life to disappear on a permanent basis. We need it. \n\n         And so I am reasonably sure that when my children have children, there will once again be words so awesome that they cannot be uttered without important consequences. This will not only represent a new stage of linguistic evolution, it will be a token of moral revival. What the dirty words will be, God only knows.",
    "20017": "Dirty Laundry \n\n         Now and then, a documentary film comes along that makes us re-examine the rules that unofficially govern the genre: Can there be a middle ground between fiction and fact? Can a documentary use scripted scenes and yet remain ontologically authentic? How much can you stylize material before you alter the reality that you're striving, at least in theory, to capture? \n\n                         Unmade Beds , Nicholas Barker's \" 'real life' feature film,\" has proudly worn its mongrel status as a \"directed\" documentary of single life in the big city, employing, in the face of criticism, what amounts to a cackling-punk defiance. The movie tracks four aging New Yorkers--two men, two women--through their lonely dating rituals, in the process depicting a universe of lusty, coupled-up haves and downcast, excluded have-nots, all viewed Rear Window -style through rectangular openings in the massive apartment houses in which they reside. \n\n         This is not cinema                 v\u00e9rit\u00e9 , and nothing has been left to chance. The director selected his four subjects from many hundreds of potential candidates, followed them around for months, and then scripted their monologues and dialogues to reflect what he says he saw. Calling his own film \"an exercise in mendacity,\" Barker goes on, \"I'm quite happy to tell lies about my characters and even collude with their self-delusions if it enables me to communicate larger dramatic truths.\" \n\n         Spurned by U.S. distributors, Unmade Beds opened two weeks ago in a small screening room in downtown Manhattan, where it proceeded to set box office records and generate lots of (largely favorable) press. In part due to smart publicity, which has bannered some of the bad reviews and commentary (\"I have to tell you that this film upset me so much that I really don't want to have anything to do with it\"--a New York publicist), it threatens to become a cause                 c\u00e9l\u00e8bre --and to be coming soon to a theater near you. It's always nice to see distributors proved wrong about the merits of \"difficult\" films, but in this case I think they did the decent thing. Unmade Beds isn't just bad--it's obnoxiously, noxiously bad, a freak show for the empathetically challenged. The outrage it has prompted isn't the Puritan kind; it's more like legitimate revulsion at watching a blowhard pervert people's lives in the name of \"larger dramatic truths.\" \n\n         Those truths are large, all right. Take Michael, the 40-year-old, 5 foot 4 inch lonely guy who has been looking for a wife for almost two decades. If you were to walk past him on the street, you might think that a man of his small stature might have some trouble getting dates and be rather bitter about it. The larger dramatic truth is that Michael has lots of trouble getting dates and is very bitter about it. Just in case you feel too sorry for him, however, Barker is careful to include a homophobic monologue in which Michael complains about young women who waste their lives hanging out with effeminate males. \n\n          Michael turns out to be the film's most sympathetic subject--by a wide margin. At least he's not Mikey, a paunchy 54-year-old who writes but can't sell screenplays and who always flees blind dates, because the women he gets fixed up with are \"mutts.\" Sounding like one of the low-level gangsters who posture like kingpins in Donnie Brasco , Mikey talks a lot about mutts. He also reminisces about that 24 hour period in the '70s when he managed to sleep with three different beautiful women, whose pictures he shows off. These days, all he meets are mutts. He comes off as a pathetic little loser--a mutt. \n\n         Aimee, on the other hand, is a pathetic big loser, weighing in at 225 pounds. Determined to get married before she turns 30, she generally is filmed beside bags of groceries and assorted junk foods. She cries about her situation to her thin friend, Laurie, who, in one scene, gently mentions Aimee's weight. Clearly the scene is scripted, but Aimee does a good job acting taken aback. She has always been fat--and she's \"OK with it,\" and a man just has to accept it. This is followed by more talk about how you attract men. Will they respect you if you call them back? If you express too much interest? \"Or,\" the viewer thinks, \"if you're 225 pounds?\" \n\n         The only natural performer here is Brenda, a garrulous exhibitionist who blossoms with the camera on her--she could have a career as a Penny Marshall-style character actress. Divorced and aging, Brenda needs money and is willing to charge for her sexual services. It shouldn't be too difficult, because men are always showing her their dicks (\"I'm up to two dicks a day\"). They meet her and, a few minutes later, they show her their dicks. Weird, huh? What Barker leaves out (it's in a New York Observer article) is that Brenda, a former lap dancer, works in marketing at a strip joint. Presumably, men standing next to her in line at McDonald's don't show her their dicks. Nor, presumably, does she show them her breasts--although she bares them for Barker's camera, jabbering about her body while she doffs her clothes and steps into the shower and soaps up. \n\n         Barker might have crafted his subjects' monologues from their own words, but he has robbed them of their spontaneity--and, thus, of their essence. They aren't thinking or trying to come to grips with their situations in front of your eyes, because they already know what they're going to say: They've been fixed like butterflies on the ends of pins and held up for voyeuristic inspection. The scenes with friends and confidantes have a crude, programmatic purpose. You can imagine the director composing a shot (the shots are tightly composed and elaborately lighted) and reminding them, \"In this scene she points out that you should lose weight and you get shocked and defensive. Ready ... Action.\" \n\n          Call me square, but I find this antithetical to the documentary spirit. An Englishman who trained as an anthropologist before going to work for BBC Television, Barker clearly made up his mind about his material before his cameras began to roll--so it's no surprise that it feels prechewed and predigested. When reality interfered (Brenda apparently did not go through with a marriage to an immigrant in search of a green card for $10,000, as she does on-screen), Barker brushed the truth aside as immaterial, following her up the steps of City Hall in her wedding dress because it was \"true to her character.\" But what separates documentary from fiction is that real people are often more complicated, and more conflicted, than finished characters--as Brenda proved to be more (or, at least, other) than the sum of her parts. That's the kind of truth that reveals itself to documentary filmmakers after the fact, when they go over footage and discover unexpected patterns, dissonances, glimmers of a universe that's richer and messier than the one they set out to portray. \n\n         So what are Barker's \"larger dramatic truths\"? Single people in big cities can be desperate. Single people fear they're going to die alone--unloved and unloving. People are judged and, in turn, judge others by how they look. Big news. One could argue, charitably, that the movie is meant to be prescriptive, that Barker intends for us to regard the ways in which his subjects delude themselves and thereby learn to see through our own self-delusions. But Barker hasn't concocted a larger dramatic structure that would hold those larger dramatic truths together and help us comprehend where these people went wrong. He dramatizes right up to the point where a dramatist would be expected to provide some insight--and then, hey, he's a documentarian. \n\n                         Unmade Beds might make a good date movie. There's little to argue about in its subjects' personalities--both males and females will find them repulsive--and the picture the film paints of single life in the big city is so bleak that you'll probably want to jump into bed with whoever is sitting next to you. Anything to keep from turning into one of those people. \n\n         The Slums of Beverly Hills also walks a line between two genres, in this case coming-of-age sex comedy and autobiographical monologue. Tamara Jenkins, the writer and first-time director, has an eye for absurd juxtapositions that was obviously sharpened by the pain of her nomadic upbringing. Her protagonist (Natasha Lyonne) spends her teen-age years being shuttled with her two brothers from one cheap dive to another in the 90210 ZIP code, all because her egregiously unsuccessful father (Alan Arkin) wants them to be educated in the best schools. (\"Furniture's temporary; education is permanent.\") It's a major omission, then, that we never see those schools or the kids' interaction with their stable, well-to-do Beverly Hills counterparts. We can't tell if the father is, on some weird level, justified in his fervor, or whether he's screwing up his children--subjecting them to humiliation and robbing them of a sense of permanence--for no reason. Jenkins hasn't quite figured out how to shape her narrative, which is full of episodes that are there because they actually happened but that don't have a payoff. I almost wish she'd included more voice-over narration, more commentary on the things that, as a filmmaker, she hasn't learned to bring out. \n\n                         The Slums of Beverly Hills never gels, but it has a likable spirit, and it's exceedingly easy on the eye, with lots of pretty girls and wry evocations of '70s fashions and decor. The father, to obtain financial support from his wealthy brother (Carl Reiner), volunteers to take in his vaguely schizzy, dipsomaniacal niece (Marisa Tomei). She and her cousin compare breasts, play with vibrators, and talk in pig Latinish gibberish, but Jenkins never lets the proceedings get too sentimental: The whimsy is always cut with an acidic awareness of the family's desperation. \"Are we middle-class now?\" ask the children, hopefully, before another crisis sends them back into their van, cruising past the movie stars' mansions, in the mean streets of Beverly Hills. \n\n          Grading on the steep curve established by summer blockbuster seasons past, these have turned out to be a pretty good few months at the movies. Even the commercial swill ( Deep Impact , Armageddon , The Mask of Zorro , Small Soldiers , Snake Eyes , Halloween: H20 ) has been of a high grade, and Saving Private Ryan and Return to Paradise were Vitalis slaps in the kisser for people woozy from all the warm weather escapism. Out of Sight was tender and charming, as was, in its gross-out way, There's Something About Mary . And, on the indie front, The Opposite of Sex , Buffalo 66 , and Pi have proved that there's still commercial life after Sundance. Sure, we had stinkers, but even Godzilla was fun to jeer at. And there's something reassuring about the fact that The Avengers is so rotten: proof yet again that people with piles of money can hire wizard production designers but can't fake class. \n\n         I don't know who the credited screenwriter, Don MacPherson, is, but it's unlikely that he has ever seen an episode of the old Avengers , let alone sussed out the source of its appeal. Opening with a slapstick sequence of agent John Steed (Ralph Fiennes) doing kung fu, the film shifts to a scene in which he meets Mrs. Peel (Uma Thurman) while sitting naked in a sauna with only a newspaper to cover his private parts. The series was erotic in a way only prim English humor can be: The Old Boy Steed was capable of throwing a punch and bonking someone with his bowler, but he left the karate kicking to his liberated, leather-suited distaff associate. Here their roles have been witlessly muddled, and MacPherson's idea of banter is to have the pair complete each other's clich\u00e9s. \n\n         Whereas the original Steed, Patrick Macnee, was to the English Men's Club born, Fiennes is an eternal caddie. The willowy Thurman looks great in her outfits, but it's ever more apparent that she isn't much of an actress--at least, not a trained one--and her attempts at insouciance are embarrassingly arch. As the eccentric master villain who controls the weather, even Sean Connery is flat-out terrible, acting high on the hog. To think Connery once found the Bond films so far beneath him! When he sputters lines like \"Time to die!\" one imagines Dr. No, Goldfinger, and Blofeld snickering in the wings.",
    "20022": "War and Pieces \n\n         No movie in the last decade has succeeded in psyching out critics and audiences as fully as the powerful, rambling war epic The Thin Red Line , Terrence Malick's return to cinema after 20 years. I've sat through it twice and am still trying to sort out my responses, which run from awe to mockery and back. Like Saving Private Ryan , the picture wallops you in the gut with brilliant, splattery battle montages and Goyaesque images of hell on earth. But Malick, a certified intellectual and the Pynchonesque figure who directed Badlands and Days                 of                 Heaven in the 1970s and then disappeared, is in a different philosophical universe from Steven Spielberg. Post-carnage, his sundry characters philosophize about their experiences in drowsy, runic voice-overs that come at you like slow bean balls: \"Why does nature vie with itself? ... Is there an avenging power in nature, not one power but two?\" Or \"This great evil: Where's it come from? What seed, what root did it grow from? Who's doin' this? Who's killin' us, robbin' us of life and light?\" First you get walloped with viscera, then you get beaned by blather. \n\n         Those existential speculations don't derive from the screenplay's source, an archetypal but otherwise down-to-earth 1962 novel by James Jones (who also wrote From Here to Eternity ) about the American invasion of the South Pacific island of Guadalcanal. They're central to Malick's vision of the story, however, and not specious. In the combat genre, the phrase \"war is hell\" usually means nothing more than that it's a bummer to lose a limb or two, or to see your buddy get his head blown off. A true work of art owes us more than literal horrors, and Malick obliges by making his theater of war the setting for nothing less than a meditation on the existence of God. \n\n         He tells the story solemnly, in three parts, with a big-deal cast (Sean Penn, Nick Nolte, John Cusack) and a few other major stars (John Travolta, Woody Harrelson, George Clooney) dropping by for cameos. After an Edenic prelude, in which a boyishly idealistic absent without leave soldier, Pvt. Witt (Jim Caviezel), swims with native youths to the accompaniment of a heavenly children's choir, the first part sees the arrival of the Allied forces on the island, introduces the principal characters (none of whom amounts to a genuine protagonist), and lays out the movie's geographical and philosophical terrain. The centerpiece--the fighting--goes on for over an hour and features the most frantic and harrowing sequences, chiefly the company's initially unsuccessful frontal assault on a Japanese hilltop bunker. The coda lasts nearly 40 minutes and is mostly talk and cleanup, the rhythms growing more relaxed until a final, incongruous spasm of violence--whereupon the surviving soldiers pack their gear and motor off to another South Pacific battle. In the final shot, a twisted tree grows on the waterline of the beach, the cycle of life beginning anew. \n\n                         The Thin Red Line has a curious sound-scape, as the noise of battle frequently recedes to make room for interior monologues and Hans Zimmer's bump-bump, minimalist New Age music. Pvt. Bell (Ben Chaplin) talks to his curvy, redheaded wife, viewed in deliriously sensual flashbacks. (\"Love: Where does it come from? Who lit this flame in us?\") Lt. Col. Tall (Nolte), a borderline lunatic passed over one too many times for promotion and itching to win a battle no matter what the human cost, worries groggily about how his men perceive him. The dreamer Witt poses folksy questions about whether we're all a part of one big soul. If the movie has a spine, it's his off-and-on dialogue with Sgt. Welsh (Penn), who's increasingly irritated by the private's beatific, almost Billy Budd-like optimism. Says Welsh, \"In this world, a man himself is nothin', and there ain't no world but this one.\" Replies Witt, high cheekbones glinting, \"I seen another world.\" At first it seems as if Witt will indeed be Billy Budd to Welsh's vindictive Claggart. But if Witt is ultimately an ethereal martyr, Welsh turns out to be a Bogart-like romantic who can't stop feeling pain in the face of an absent God. He speaks the movie's epitaph, \"Darkness and light, strife and love: Are they the workings of one mind, the feature of the same face? O my soul, let me be in you now. Look out through my eyes. Look out at the things you made, all things shining.\" \n\n         Malick puts a lot of shining things on the screen: soldiers, natives, parrots, bats, rodents, visions of Eden by way of National Geographic and of the Fall by way of Alpo. Malick's conception of consciousness distributes it among the animate and inanimate alike; almost every object is held up for rapturous contemplation. I could cite hundreds of images: A soldier in a rocking boat hovers over a letter he's writing, which is crammed from top to bottom and side to side with script. (You don't know the man, but you can feel in an instant his need to cram everything in.) A small, white-bearded Melanesian man strolls nonchalantly past a platoon of tensely trudging grunts who can't believe they're encountering this instead of a hail of Japanese bullets. Two shots bring down the first pair of soldiers to advance on the hill; a second later, the sun plays mystically over the tall, yellow grass that has swallowed their bodies. John Toll's camera rushes in on a captured Japanese garrison: One Japanese soldier shrieks; another, skeletal, laughs and laughs; a third weeps over a dying comrade. The face of a Japanese soldier encased in earth speaks from the dead, \"Are you righteous? Know that I was, too.\" \n\n         Whether or not these pearllike epiphanies are strung is another matter. Malick throws out his overarching theme--is nature two-sided, at war with itself?--in the first few minutes but, for all his startling juxtapositions, he never dramatizes it with anything approaching the clarity of, say, Brian De Palma's Casualties of War (1989). Besides the dialogue between Welsh and Witt, The Thin Red Line 's other organizing story involves a wrenching tug of war between Nolte's ambition-crazed Tall and Capt. Staros (Elias Koteas), who refuses an order to send his men on what will surely be a suicidal--and futile--assault on a bunker. But matters of cause and effect don't really interest Malick. Individual acts of conscience can and do save lives, and heroism can win a war or a battle, he acknowledges. But Staros is ultimately sent packing, and Malick never bothers to trace the effect of his action on the Guadalcanal operation. In fact, the entire battle seems to take place in a crazed void. Tall quotes Homer's \"rosy-fingered dawn\" and orders a meaningless bombardment to \"buck the men up--it'll look like the Japs are catching hell.\" Soldiers shoot at hazy figures, unsure whether they're Japanese or American. Men collide, blow themselves in half with their own mishandled grenades, stab themselves frantically with morphine needles, shove cigarettes up their noses to keep the stench of the dying and the dead at bay. A tiny bird, mortally wounded, flutters in the grass. \n\n         Malick is convincing--at times overwhelming--on the subject of chaos. It's when he tries to ruminate on order that he gets gummed up, retreating to one of his gaseous multiple mouthpieces: \"Where is it that we were together? Who is it that I lived with? Walked with? The brother. ... The friend. ... One mind.\" I think I'd have an easier time with Malick's metaphysical speculations if I had a sense of some concomitant geopolitical ones--central to any larger musings on forces of nature as viewed through the prism of war. Couldn't it be that the German and Japanese fascist orders were profoundly anti-natural, and that the Allies' cause was part of a violent but natural correction? You don't have to buy into Spielberg's Lincolnesque pieties in Saving Private Ryan to believe that there's a difference between World War II and Vietnam (or, for that matter, World War II and the invasion of Grenada or our spats with Iraq). While he was at Harvard, Malick might have peeled himself off the lap of his pointy-headed mentor, Stanley Cavell, the philosopher and film theorist, and checked out a few of Michael Waltzer's lectures on just and unjust wars. Maybe then he'd view Guadalcanal not in an absurdist vacuum (the soldiers come, they kill and are killed, they leave) but in the larger context of a war that was among the most rational (in its aims, if not its methods) fought in the last several centuries. For all his visionary filmmaking, Malick's Zen neutrality sometimes seems like a cultivated--and pretentious--brand of fatuousness. \n\n         John Travolta's empty nightclub impersonation of Bill Clinton in Primary Colors (1998) had one positive result: It gave him a jump-start on Jan Schlichtmann, the reckless personal injury lawyer at the center of A Civil Action . Travolta's Schlichtmann is much more redolent of Clinton: slick and selfish and corrupt in lots of ways but basically on the side of the angels, too proud and arrogant to change tactics when all is certainly lost. Schlichtmann pursued--and more or less blew--a civil liability case against the corporate giants Beatrice and W.R. Grace over the allegedly carcinogenic water supply of Woburn, Mass. Boston writer Jonathan Harr, in the book the movie is based on, went beyond the poison in the Woburn wells to evoke (stopping just short of libel) the poison of the civil courts, where platoons of overpaid corporate lawyers can drive opponents with pockets less deep and psyches less stable into bankruptcy and hysteria. \n\n         Director Steven Zaillian's version doesn't capture the mounting rage that one experiences while reading Harr's book, or even the juicy legal machinations that Francis Ford Coppola giddily manipulated in his underrated adaptation of John Grisham's The Rainmaker (1997). But A Civil Action is a sturdy piece of work, an old-fashioned conversion narrative with some high-tech zip. Schlichtmann doesn't take this \"orphan\" case--brought by the parents of several children who died of leukemia--because he wants to do good but because he figures that Grace and Beatrice will fork over huge sums of money to keep the parents from testifying publicly about their children's last days. He might succeed, too, if it weren't for Jerome Facher (Robert Duvall), the Beatrice lawyer who knows how to keep Schlichtmann shadowboxing while his small firm's financial resources dwindle to nothing. \n\n         Zaillian is at his most assured when he cuts back and forth between Facher's Harvard Law School lectures on what not to do in court and Schlichtmann's fumbling prosecution. The sequence has the extra dimension of good journalism: It dramatizes and comments simultaneously. Plus, it gives Duvall a splendid platform for impish understatement. (Duvall has become more fun to watch than just about anyone in movies.) Elsewhere, Zaillian takes a more surface approach, sticking to legal minutiae and rarely digging for the deeper evil. As in his Searching for Bobby Fischer (1993), the outcome of every scene is predictable, but how Zaillian gets from beat to beat is surprisingly fresh. He also gets sterling bit performances from Sydney Pollack as the spookily sanguine Grace CEO, William H. Macy as Schlichtmann's rabbity accountant, and Kathleen Quinlan as the mother of one of the victims. Quinlan knows that when you're playing a woman who has lost a child you don't need to emote--you reveal the emotion by trying not to emote. \n\n         To the families involved in the Woburn tragedy, the real climax of this story isn't the downbeat ending of the book or the sleight of hand, \"let's call the Environmental Protection Agency,\" upbeat ending of the movie. The climax is the publication of a book that takes the plaintiffs' side and that remains on the best-seller list in hardcover and paperback for years. The climax is the movie starring John Travolta. Beatrice and Grace made out OK legally, but some of us will never use their products again without thinking about Travolta losing his shirt in the name of those wasted-away little kids.",
    "20061": "Warrior Queens \n\n                         Elizabeth is a lurid paraphrase of the old Groucho Marx line about Doris Day: \"I knew the Virgin Queen before she was a virgin.\" As the movie tells it, she was a sylvan, redheaded princess (Cate Blanchett) given to gamboling with her fella (Joseph Fiennes) between periods of internment in the Tower of London on charges of conspiring to overthrow her half-sister, the heatedly Catholic Queen Mary (Kathy Burke). The daughter of the second wife of Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn, and therefore dubbed a bastard by the papists, the Protestant Elizabeth ascends the throne to find the air still thick with smoke from roasted heretics, a team of skulking Catholics plotting her assassination, and a council of advisers (lords, bishops, sundry old boys) who snigger openly at the prospect of taking orders from a woman. Only a strategic marriage to a Spaniard or a Frenchman will mollify all factions, her advisers insist, but the pickings prove dismal. (Her French suitor enjoys wearing dresses.) After skulls are smashed, throats slit, and bosoms skewered in the name of Christ, Elizabeth decides to: a) \"unsex\" herself and become a symbol--the Virgin Queen, married only to England; and b) entertain dissenting opinions exclusively from those whose heads are affixed to spikes. \n\n         You can't be both a queenly queen and a womanly woman, says the script (by Michael Hirst)--at least not in 1554. (The director, Shekhar Kapur, made the same point in his grim 1994 Indian epic The Bandit Queen , against a backdrop of scrubby plains along the Ganges.) Is this feminist take historically accurate? Probably, although the evidence suggests that Elizabeth had developed a head for stratagems earlier in life (her position had been precarious since the beheading of her mother) and came to the throne with few girlish illusions about How Things Work in a barbarous state. \n\n         That said, the movie's approach makes for juicy melodrama. The tone of Elizabeth comes nearer to the nihilistic relish of Jacobeans such as John Ford and John Webster than to the more sorrowful horror of the Elizabethan dramatists Ben Jonson and William Shakespeare. It's even closer to a Jacobean drama of our own age: The Godfather (1972), which it emulates by cutting back-and-forth between queen and courtiers in prayer and the roundup and slaughter of Catholics on their privies, in bed with their mistresses, and so on. Their severed heads look on, wide-eyed, as Elizabeth directs her hair to be shorn--images of her girlhood flashing by as her locks rain down--and then walks weightily to her throne, now a chalk-faced gorgon. \n\n         With all due respect to Blanchett, Bette Davis, and Glenda Jackson, my favorite Elizabeth I remains Miranda Richardson's capricious, baby-talking psychopath on the BBC comedy Blackadder II . (Casting about for a new lord high executioner, she mews to Rowan Atkinson, \"There are thousands of Catholics simply dying to have their heads sneaked off --and there's no one to organize it.\") But Blanchett comes in a close second, pulling off the transition from hapless young woman to coolly ruthless monarch with uncommon subtlety. Gradually expunging all empathy from her moist, pink eyes and permitting her visage to ossify, she gives this carnival of carnage an awe-inspiring center. \n\n          A more subversive sort of queen is on display in Velvet Goldmine , Todd Haynes' musical fantasia on the early '70s era of \"glam\" or \"glitter\" rock. Here the monarch is a David Bowie-esque singer called Brian Slade (Jonathan Rhys-Meyers) and his spidery, space-age alter ego, Maxwell Demon. The movie opens with a spaceship depositing an infant Oscar Wilde on the stoop of a Dublin townhouse. Then it skips ahead to track a jade pin (it signifies hedonistic liberation) from the custody of a young Wilde to a swishy fringe creature called Jack Fairy to the regal Slade, a bisexual superstar who carries the news to all the young dudes. After that, we're in an Orwellian 1984 that's presided over by a vaguely fascist president and by arena rockers who serve as propagandists for a repressively conformist state. Whatever happened to Brian Slade, the glitter kids, the visionary exhibitionists and gleeful poseurs? Borrowing its framework from Citizen Kane , the movie follows a reporter (Christian Bale) assigned to reconstruct Slade's life and solve the mystery of his whereabouts. \n\n         Whatever you make of Velvet Goldmine (opinions have ranged from rapturous to casually dismissive), it's like no other musical ever made. It's determinedly swirling, discursive, elliptical. Now the story is told by an omniscient narrator, now a TV reporter, now a participant. Now it's flashing back, now forward. Every other line of dialogue is a cue for one of its dazzling numbers, largely covers of songs by Brian Eno, Bryan Ferry, and T. Rex. The narrative is a challenge to keep up with, but then, great artists often invent their own syntax. In the '80s, Haynes employed Barbie dolls to depict the rise and wasting away from anorexia of the singer Karen Carpenter. Lucky audiences who caught Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story (it was shelved when Richard Carpenter served the producers with an order to cease and desist exhibition) began by laughing at this elaborately posed, soft-rock femme, only to discover by the climax that the cultural forces that were eating at her (and that kept her from eating) had grown heartbreakingly palpable. Poison (1991), Haynes' Gen\u00eat-inspired exploration of transgression, didn't overcome its own artiness. But Safe (1995), the story of a Reagan-era housewife (Julianne Moore) convinced that her environment is poisoning her, is an entrancing meditation on the power of culture to crush the individual. Despite its ironic detachment, the film draws you into its heroine's sickly state: Breathing oxygen from a canister inside a high-tech igloo, she dwindles to nearly nothing, the modern incarnation of the Incredible Shrinking Man. \n\n         (It was partly my passion for Haynes' films that led me to accept a job offer from his indefatigable producer Christine Vachon last year to collaborate on a nuts-and-bolts book about producing, Shooting To Kill . So my review of Velvet Goldmine --like my review of Vachon's other recent release, Happiness --should be read as the work of a partisan. But not a blind partisan.) \n\n         In Velvet Goldmine , Haynes sets out to demonstrate the power of popular music to change people's lives--to tell them it's OK to fashion themselves into anything they please. The core of the movie turns out not to be the Bowie figure but the journalist, Arthur Stuart, who was a witness to the events he's now reconstructing. Bale is such an expressive performer that Stuart's remembrance of things past attains a Proustian intensity. To him, Slade was a sexual messiah. I've never seen a more vivid distillation of rock's allure than the scene in which he reverently opens the new Brian Slade album--its centerfold image is a lithe, naked, green-tinged Maxwell Demon--slips the vinyl out of its paper jacket and, after gingerly setting the LP on the turntable, props a chair under the doorknob to keep the uncomprehending world at bay. \n\n         But if Haynes wants Velvet Goldmine to be an anthem to the principles Bowie once embodied--the embrace of artifice and the smashing of conventional sexual roles--he also wants to portray the rocker as a hollow opportunist who abandoned glam and bisexuality for the life of a corporate superstar, throwing in his lot with the forces of repression. That's a lot to cover. An actor of stature might have bridged these two impulses, but the beautiful, brazenly slim-hipped Rhys-Meyers doesn't make his lines sound as if he's thinking them up on the spot, and Slade's self-destructive passion for Curt Wild (Ewan McGregor), the film's fuzzy, sweet Iggy Pop figure, seems less an emotional imperative than a thematic one. \n\n         A case can be made that Velvet Goldmine isn't fully filled in, and that Haynes, who has never shaken off his background as a semiotics major, has made a movie that's all signifiers. I sometimes found myself wishing he would let the picture catch its breath, that the performers would stop coming at me in stroboscopic flashes. But then I'd be swept up in the sinuous motion of his filmmaking, in the elation of watching point of view passed like a baton from hand to hand, in the liberating force of his language and soundtrack. Velvet Goldmine might seem like a collection of baubles, but those baubles are strung. \n\n          Is Brad Pitt the worst actor on earth? The case could be made, and Meet Joe Black could serve as Exhibit A. Pitt plays two roles in this seven course schlockfest. He's (briefly) a slick but wholesome yuppie and then (interminably) Death, who takes over the young man's body when he's thumped by a couple of cars in the movie's most promising moment. Bleached so blond that he looks like an irradiated android, Pitt expels all expression from his face and all tone from his voice. He speaks very, very slowly. The stunt half-works, at least until he's supposed to undergo an inner transformation and acquire human emotions--whereupon his face remains just as blank. Pitt's conception of the role is an id\u00e9e fixe by someone who doesn't appear to have an id\u00e9e in his head. \n\n         Martin Brest, the director, is known for shooting a ton of footage and then \"finding\" his films in the editing room. What do you suppose he \"found\" when he scrutinized these miles of celluloid with Pitt doing nothing and taking his sweet time doing it? The first adaptation of this story (originally a play) was the 1934 Death Takes a Holiday , which came in at a perky 78 minutes. A conceit this fragile needs to whiz along to keep our disbelief in suspension, but Meet Joe Black grinds on for three hours (longer than either Beloved or Saving Private Ryan ), and Pitt acts as if he has leased the screen by the year. \n\n         Anthony Hopkins plays the zillionaire communications baron whom Death enlists in the hope of understanding the human condition--an odd choice for a tour guide, since most people's condition doesn't involve personal helicopters, sprawling mansions on Long Island Sound, or Manhattan apartments that sport Olympic-size swimming pools. Four screenwriters, among them the great Bo Goldman ( Melvin and Howard , 1980; Shoot the Moon , 1982), labored on this moldy script, which features characters who ask questions that begin \"Am I to understand that ...?\" and a corporate villain who directs another character to \"wake up and smell the thorns.\" It apparently never occurred to even one of these overpaid scribes to eliminate Hopkins' rueful realization that he'd \"never write the great American novel\"--no kidding, given his flagrantly Welsh accent. \n\n         Actually, Hopkins gives this humanistic magnate considerable weight, so that whether or not Death takes him before he can stop to smell the roses and make amends to his neglected children becomes a matter of some suspense. The rest of the cast works with equal fortitude, especially Jeffrey Tambor (Hank \"Hey now!\" Kingsley on The Larry Sanders Show ) as Hopkins' milksop son-in-law and Marcia Gay Harden as his party planning, perpetually wilting elder daughter. As the younger daughter, the dark eyed, spaghetti thin Claire Forlani has to carry the picture's bathos on her exquisite shoulders. Her tremulous thoroughbred act wears thin, but it's hardly her fault: She has to emote like mad opposite a black pit of death--or is that the Black Death of Pitt?",
    "20043": "Dole vs. the\nTimes\nFor several weeks now, pundits have debated how Bob Dole would exit the stage. Would he depart on a negative note about his opponent or a positive one about himself? Would he leave with anger or with humor? In the past several days, the issue has been settled. Dole, it appears, will end his political career raging against the New York Times . \n\n         Dole's spat with the gray lady went public on Thursday, Oct. 24. In New Orleans, Dole charged the paper with ignoring a story about a Miami drug dealer who got invited to the White House. \"This is a disgrace,\" Dole insisted. \"I doubt if you even read it in the New York Times . They probably put it in the want ads. They don't put any anti-Clinton stories in the New York Times . Only anti-Dole stories in the New York Times .\" Dole repeated his attack for the next five days. \"We are not going to let the media steal this election,\" he told a crowd in Dallas on Friday. \"This country belongs to the people, not the New York Times .\" On Saturday, in Visalia, Calif., he added, \"I know that with a crowd this size, the New York Times will write not many people showed up, but the other papers will get it right.\" \n\n         On Sunday (the day the Times endorsed Clinton), Dole called the paper \"the apologist for President Clinton for the last four years and an arm of the Democratic National Committee.\" In a CNN interview broadcast Monday, Dole said the Times \"might as well be part of the Democratic Party. ... They hammer us on a daily basis. We make a major speech, they bury it back on section D. They put a front-page story that, well, Bob Dole and Jack Kemp didn't get along together 12 years ago.\" On Tuesday, Dole was still at it, referring to the 28 words of the 10th Amendment, and quipping, \"That's about what I got in the New York Times today.\" \n\n         The Times has reacted to this assault by highhandedly quoting everything and explaining none of it, leaving its readers baffled as to why the Republican nominee is so upset at the paper. In fact, Dole's fury at the Times is hardly news to those who work at the paper. According to Katharine Seelye, who has covered Dole since the beginning of his campaign, the complaints date from December 1995, when Dole staff members first protested that she had misunderstood the candidate's position on abortion. The real bitterness, however, began in May, when the paper played what Dole aides billed as a major address about welfare on Page 19 of the business section. Since then, campaign honchos have peppered the paper's reporters and editors with constant phone calls and letters complaining about unfair treatment. \n\n         Reporters traveling with Dole caught a glimpse of the enmity Oct. 9, when Nelson Warfield, Dole's press secretary, staged a public confrontation with Seelye. The candidate, Warfield told reporters waiting to board the campaign plane, had just come from an appearance on G. Gordon Liddy's radio show. Why, Seelye asked, weren't reporters told about the appearance in advance? According to reporters present, Warfield snapped that it wouldn't make any difference because the Times would get the story wrong anyway. Then, on the plane, Warfield walked back to the press section and grandly served Seelye with a copy of a letter from Communications Director John Buckley to her boss, Times Washington Editor Andrew Rosenthal. \n\n         That letter, which has fallen into the hands of Slate, protests Seelye's coverage of a speech the previous day. Dole, in New Jersey, had talked about Clinton being AWOL in the drug war. \"Where has he been for four years? How many hundreds of thousands of young people started drugs?\" Dole said. \"Three million have started smoking while he was playing around with smoking and all this stuff finally in an election year.\" Seelye's front-page story reported that \"Mr. Dole accused the President of 'playing around' while the drug war raged out of control.\" Buckley complains that the story \"could lead the reader to believe that Dole was talking about a very different kind of 'playing around'--something he did not say, and something he would not say.\" The letter continues: \"Since May, I have been pointing out to you a problem we see with the accuracy and understanding of context revealed in Kit's reporting,\" going on to assert that \"Seelye has misquoted Dole on numerous occasions and done so in a manner that distorted the accuracy of her assertions and your coverage.\" \n\n          No Dole staff would be quoted by name for this story, but speaking on background, a senior campaign official elaborated upon the complaint. \"They've just done a miserable job throughout this campaign,\" the official said. \"The coverage of Dole has been excessively bitchy from day one, in addition to having a number of extraordinary factual problems.\" With Seelye, the official says, the problem is \"not being able to transcribe a tape accurately.\" With Adam Nagourney, the Times ' other reporter covering Dole full time since the summer, \"the problem is an incredible focus on the little picture as opposed to the big picture.\" As an example, the official cites a September story in which Nagourney lumped together Dole's fall from a platform in Chico, Calif., and his mistaken reference to the \"Brooklyn\" Dodgers as \"a rough stretch of politicking.\" Other than those two episodes, the official says, Dole actually had a great week. The campaign's complaint extends to unequal treatment--a nine-part series on Clinton's record, which the official describes as \"the softest portrait since they invented black velvet\"--and the Times perpetually underestimating the size of Dole crowds. \"Clinton even gets better photographs,\" the official contends. \n\n          Rosenthal, who has direct responsibility for campaign coverage at the Times , professes bewilderment at these complaints. \"We don't make editorial judgments based on disposition to be tough on Bob Dole or nice to Bob Dole,\" he says. On the specifics, Rosenthal says that the Times ran an editor's note acknowledging that it shouldn't have truncated the \"playing around\" quote. He points out that the Times ran its story on the Miami drug dealer who visited the White House the same day Dole accused the paper of not covering it. As for the nine-part series on Clinton, Rosenthal says it is the long-standing practice of the paper to do a lengthy series on the incumbent's record. \"If Dole wins and runs again in 2000, he will get nine-part series too,\" he says. \n\n          \"Ithink we have been tough on him,\" Seelye says. This stems, however, not from any bias, she says, but from the campaign's own internal problems. Dole's campaign has been especially \"porous,\" with aides emulating the proverbial seafaring rats. This is true enough--in recent days ex-strategist Don Sipple has trashed the campaign on the record. But there's another point, too. Contrary to Buckley's charge that she misquotes Dole, Seelye routinely makes Dole look ridiculous by quoting him all too accurately, depicting him in what one colleague calls a \"cinema verit\u00c3\u00a9 \" style. Famous for going over and over her tape recordings on the campaign plane, Seelye manages to get every Dole mumble, repetition, and verbal miscue down. For instance, in her Oct. 26 story reporting Dole's attack on the Times , Seelye writes: \n\n         \"In Phoenix on Friday night, he had a delightful time drawing out his vowels as he described financial contributions to the Clinton campaign. \"From Indoneeesia,\" he said. \"Yeah. From INdiaaaaah. Some fellow named Gandhi out there. He owes $10,000 in back taxes, but he found $300,000 to give to the Clinton campaign. And now Gandhi is gaaaawn. Gaaaaandhi, gone gone gone. They can't find him.\" \n\n         Two days later, she quoted Dole in another story: \"They've turned the White House into something else, I don't know what it is. It's the animal house! It's the animal house!\" Most reporters would write, Bob Dole yesterday compared the White House to an \"animal house,\" sparing the exclamation points, and making him sound at least compos mentis. \n\n         But though unflattering, Seelye's Mametizing of Bob Dole can hardly be called unfair. It is not as if the Times cleans up Clinton's quotes; the president simply observes the rules of syntax most of the time. Something similar may be happening with the pictures. After four years, Clinton has learned how to avoid looking unpresidential. He no longer allows himself to be photographed wearing too-short running shorts, and he avoids pulling faces in public. Dole, who is simply less photogenic, is an easier victim for picture editors--who, like their editorial counterparts, have a strong bias against dullness. Take, for instance, the two pictures shown above. The front-page picture the Times ran the day after the second presidential debate does make Dole look like a decomposing monster. But unlike the picture in the Washington Post the same day, it captures the spirit of the event, with Dole grimly taking the offensive and Clinton watching warily but standing aside from the attacks. \n\n          Dole sounds absurd when he alleges that the paper that broke Whitewater and the story of the first lady's commodities trades has not been aggressive in pursuing Clinton scandals. All sorts of potential Dole scandals have been soft-pedaled by the media, including the Times , because he is so far behind. It's true that coverage of Clinton on the campaign trail has been somewhat softer than the coverage of Dole, as even other Times reporters acknowledge. But the explanation is institutional, not ideological. The press, as many have complained, overemphasizes the \"horse race\" aspect of politics. As a side effect of that disease, reporters have excessive respect for a well-run campaign. (In 1988, Republican George Bush benefited from this phenomenon.) A cruder reality is that reporters need to have a relationship with Clinton after Tuesday. \n\n         None of these factors, though, is unique to the Times . So why is Dole singling it out? Dole's attacks on the Times have the appearance of being an exercise in populist demagogy. In one of his great cue-card reading remarks, Dole tried to explain his recent attacks on CNN the other night by saying, \"I like the media. They don't like them in the South.\" But this pat explanation doesn't entirely make sense. Red meat for right-wing crowds doesn't help Dole with the centrist voters he would need to turn around in order to make the miraculous happen. And in fact, according to a senior Dole aide, the attacks are heartfelt on the candidate's part. Dole has been going after the Times over the objections of advisers who have been telling him there's no percentage in picking fights with the press. \n\n         But if Dole is attacking the Times because he is truly furious and not because he thinks it will help him get elected, what is he so angry about? The answer, I think, is that there has always been a Nixonian streak in Bob Dole, by which I mean a part of him which feels shut out of the closed circle of the Eastern establishment. At the Republican convention, Dole blasted the Clinton administration as a \"corps of the elite who never grew up, never did anything real, never sacrificed, never suffered, and never learned.\" That phrase recalled an attack he made on the press long ago, in the days of Watergate, when he accused the Washington Post of being in bed with George McGovern. \"There is a cultural and social affinity between the McGovernites and the Post executives and editors,\" Dole said then. \"They belong to the same elite: They can be found living cheek-by-jowl in the same exclusive chic neighborhoods, and hob-nobbing at the same Georgetown parties.\" The deeper story here isn't whether Dole was wrongly shunted onto D19 when he ought to have been on A1. It's his feelings, as he says goodbye to politics, about the people who get to decide.",
    "51202": "Name Your Symptom\nBy JIM HARMON\n\n\n Illustrated by WEISS\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nAnybody who shunned a Cure needed his\n \nhead examined\u2014assuming he had one left!\nHenry Infield placed the insulated circlet on his head gently. The\n gleaming rod extended above his head about a foot, the wires from it\n leading down into his collar, along his spine and finally out his pants\n leg to a short metallic strap that dragged on the floor.\n\n\n Clyde Morgan regarded his partner. \"Suppose\u2014just suppose\u2014you\nwere\nserious about this, why not just the shoes?\"\n\n\n Infield turned his soft blue eyes to the black and tan oxfords with the\n very thick rubber soles. \"They might get soaked through.\"\n\n\n Morgan took his foot off the chair behind the desk and sat down.\n \"Suppose they were soaked through and you were standing on a metal\n plate\u2014steps or a manhole cover\u2014what good would your lightning rod do\n you then?\"\n\n\n Infield shrugged slightly. \"I suppose a man must take some chances.\"\n\n\n Morgan said, \"You can't do it, Henry. You're crossing the line. The\n people we treat are on one side of the line and we're on the other. If\n you cross that line, you won't be able to treat people again.\"\n\n\n The small man looked out the large window, blinking myopically at the\n brassy sunlight. \"That's just it, Clyde. There is a line between us,\n a wall. How can we really understand the people who come to us, if we\n hide on our side of the wall?\"\n\n\n Morgan shook his thick head, ruffling his thinning red hair. \"I dunno,\n Henry, but staying on our side is a pretty good way to keep sane and\n that's quite an accomplishment these days.\"\n\n\n Infield whirled and stalked to the desk. \"That's the answer! The whole\n world is going mad and we are just sitting back watching it hike\n along. Do you know that what we are doing is really the most primitive\n medicine in the world? We are treating the symptoms and not the\n disease. One cannibal walking another with sleeping sickness doesn't\n cure anything. Eventually the savage dies\u2014just as all those sick\n savages out in the street will die unless we can cure the disease, not\n only the indications.\"\nMorgan shifted his ponderous weight uneasily. \"Now, Henry, it's no good\n to talk like that. We psychiatrists can't turn back the clock. There\n just aren't enough of us or enough time to give that old-fashioned\ntherapy\nto all the sick people.\"\n\n\n Infield leaned on the desk and glared. \"I called myself a psychiatrist\n once. But now I know we're semi-mechanics, semi-engineers,\n semi-inventors, semi lots of other things, but certainly not even\n semi-psychiatrists. A psychiatrist wouldn't give a foetic gyro to a man\n with claustrophobia.\"\n\n\n His mind went back to the first gyro ball he had ever issued; the\n remembrance of his pride in the thing sickened him. Floating before\n him in memory was the vertical hoop and the horizontal hoop, both of\n shining steel-impervium alloy. Transfixed in the twin circles was the\n face of the patient, slack with smiles and sweat. But his memory was\n exaggerating the human element. The gyro actually passed over a man's\n shoulder, through his legs, under his arms. Any time he felt the\n walls creeping in to crush him, he could withdraw his head and limbs\n into the circle and feel safe. Steel-impervium alloy could resist even\n a nuclear explosion. The foetic gyro ball was worn day and night, for\n life.\n\n\n The sickness overcame him. He sat down on Morgan's desk. \"That's just\n one thing, the gyro ball. There are so many others, so many.\"\n\n\n Morgan smiled. \"You know, Henry, not all of our Cures are so\u2014so\u2014not\n all are like that. Those Cures for mother complexes aren't even\n obvious. If anybody does see that button in a patient's ear, it looks\n like a hearing aid. Yet for a nominal sum, the patient is equipped to\n hear the soothing recorded voice of his mother saying, 'It's all right,\n everything's all right, Mommy loves you, it's all right....'\"\n\n\n \"But\nis\neverything all right?\" Infield asked intensely. \"Suppose\n the patient is driving over one hundred on an icy road. He thinks\n about slowing down, but there's the voice in his ear. Or suppose he's\n walking down a railroad track and hears a train whistle\u2014if he can hear\n anything over that verbal pablum gushing in his ear.\"\n\n\n Morgan's face stiffened. \"You know as well as I do that those voices\n are nearly subsonic. They don't cut a sense efficiency more than 23\n per cent.\"\n\n\n \"At first, Clyde\u2014only at first. But what about the severe case where\n we have to burn a three-dimensional smiling mother-image on the eyes of\n the patient with radiation? With that image over everything he sees and\n with that insidious voice drumming in his head night and day, do you\n mean to say that man's senses will only be impaired 23 per cent? Why,\n he'll turn violently schizophrenic sooner or later\u2014and you know it.\n The only cure we have for that is still a strait jacket, a padded cell\n or one of those inhuman lobotomies.\"\n\n\n Morgan shrugged helplessly. \"You're an idealist.\"\n\n\n \"You're damned right!\" Infield slammed the door behind him.\nThe cool air of the street was a relief. Infield stepped into the main\n stream of human traffic and tried to adjust to the second change in the\n air. People didn't bathe very often these days.\n\n\n He walked along, buffeted by the crowd, carried along in this\n direction, shoved back in that direction. Most people in the crowd\n seemed to be Normals, but you couldn't tell. Many \"Cures\" were not\n readily apparent.\n\n\n A young man with black glasses and a radar headset (a photophobe) was\n unable to keep from being pushed against Infield. He sounded out the\n lightning rod, his face changing when he realized it must be some kind\n of Cure. \"Pardon me,\" he said warmly.\n\n\n \"Quite all right.\"\n\n\n It was the first time in years that anyone had apologized to Infield\n for anything. He had been one of those condemned Normals, more to be\n scorned than pitied. Perhaps he could really get to understand these\n people, now that he had taken down the wall.\n\n\n Suddenly something else was pushing against Infield, forcing the\n air from his lungs. He stared down at the magnetic suction dart\n clinging leechlike to his chest. Model Acrophobe 101-X, he catalogued\n immediately. Description: safety belt. But his emotions didn't behave\n so well. He was thoroughly terrified, heart racing, sweat glands\n pumping. The impervium cable undulated vulgarly.\nSome primitive fear\n of snake symbols?\nhis mind wondered while panic crushed him.\n\n\n \"Uncouple that cable!\" the shout rang out. It was not his own.\n\n\n A clean-cut young man with mouse-colored hair was moving toward the\n stubble-chinned, heavy-shouldered man quivering in the center of a web\n of impervium cables stuck secure to the walls and windows of buildings\n facing the street, the sidewalk, a mailbox, the lamp post and Infield.\n\n\n Mouse-hair yelled hoarsely, \"Uncouple it, Davies! Can't you see the\n guy's got a lightning rod? You're grounding him!\n\n\n \"I can't,\" Davies groaned. \"I'm scared!\"\n\n\n Halfway down the twenty feet of cable, Mouse-hair grabbed on. \"I'm\n holding it. Release it, you hear?\"\n\n\n Davies fumbled for the broad belt around his thickening middle. He\n jabbed the button that sent a negative current through the cable. The\n magnetic suction dart dropped away from Infield like a thing that had\n been alive and now was killed. He felt an overwhelming sense of relief.\nAfter breathing deeply for a few moments, he looked up to see Davies\n releasing and drawing all his darts into his belt, making it resemble a\n Hydra-sized spiked dog collar. Mouse-hair stood by tensely as the crowd\n disassembled.\n\n\n \"This isn't the first time you've pulled something like this, Davies,\"\n he said. \"You weren't too scared to release that cable. You just don't\n care about other people's feelings. This is\nofficial\n.\"\n\n\n Mouse-hair drove a fast, hard right into the soft blue flesh of Davies'\n chin. The big man fell silently.\n\n\n The other turned to Infield. \"He was unconscious on his feet,\" he\n explained. \"He never knew he fell.\"\n\n\n \"What did you mean by that punch being official?\" Infield asked while\n trying to arrange his feelings into the comfortable, familiar patterns.\n\n\n The young man's eyes almost seemed to narrow, although his face didn't\n move; he merely radiated narrowed eyes. \"How long have you been Cured?\"\n\n\n \"Not\u2014not long,\" Infield evaded.\n\n\n The other glanced around the street. He moistened his lips and spoke\n slowly. \"Do you think you might be interested in joining a fraternal\n organization of the Cured?\"\n\n\n Infield's pulse raced, trying to get ahead of his thoughts, and losing\n out. A chance to study a pseudo-culture of the \"Cured\" developed in\n isolation! \"Yes, I think I might. I owe you a drink for helping me out.\n How about it?\"\n\n\n The man's face paled so fast, Infield thought for an instant that he\n was going to faint. \"All right. I'll risk it.\" He touched the side of\n his face away from the psychiatrist.\n\n\n Infield shifted around, trying to see that side of his benefactor,\n but couldn't manage it in good grace. He wondered if the fellow was\n sporting a Mom-voice hearing aid and was afraid of raising her ire. He\n cleared his throat, noticing the affectation of it. \"My name's Infield.\"\n\n\n \"Price,\" the other answered absently. \"George Price. I suppose they\n have liquor at the Club. We can have a\ndrink\nthere, I guess.\"\n\n\n Price set the direction and Infield fell in at his side. \"Look, if you\n don't drink, I'll buy you a cup of coffee. It was just a suggestion.\"\nUnder the mousy hair, Price's strong features were beginning to gleam\n moistly. \"You are lucky in one way, Mr. Infield. People take one look\n at your Cure and don't ask you to go walking in the rain. But even\n after seeing\nthis\n, some people still ask me to have a drink.\"\nThis\nwas revealed, as he turned his head, to be a small metal cube above his\n left ear.\n\n\n Infield supposed it was a Cure, although he had never issued one like\n it. He didn't know if it would be good form to inquire what kind it was.\n\n\n \"It's a cure for alcoholism,\" Price told him. \"It runs a constant blood\n check to see that the alcohol level doesn't go over the sobriety limit.\"\n\n\n \"What happens if you take one too many?\"\n\n\n Price looked off as if at something not particularly interesting, but\n more interesting than what he was saying. \"It drives a needle into my\n temple and kills me.\"\n\n\n The psychiatrist felt cold fury rising in him. The Cures were supposed\n to save lives, not endanger them.\n\n\n \"What kind of irresponsible idiot could have issued such a device?\" he\n demanded angrily.\n\n\n \"I did,\" Price said. \"I used to be a psychiatrist. I was always good\n in shop. This is a pretty effective mechanism, if I say so myself. It\n can't be removed without causing my death and it's indestructible.\n Impervium-shielded, you see.\"\n\n\n Price probably would never get crazed enough for liquor to kill\n himself, Infield knew. The threat of death would keep him constantly\n shocked sane. Men hide in the comforts of insanity, but when faced with\n death, they are often forced back to reality. A man can't move his\n legs; in a fire, though, he may run. His legs were definitely paralyzed\n before and may be again, but for one moment he would forget the moral\n defeat of his life and his withdrawal from life and live an enforced\n sanity. But sometimes the withdrawal was\u2014or could become\u2014too complete.\n\n\n \"We're here.\"\n\n\n Infield looked up self-consciously and noticed that they had crossed\n two streets from his building and were standing in front of what\n appeared to be a small, dingy cafe. He followed Price through the\n screeching screen door.\n\n\n They seated themselves at a small table with a red-checked cloth.\n Infield wondered why cheap bars and restaurants always used red-checked\n cloths. Then he looked closer and discovered the reason. They did a\n remarkably good job of camouflaging the spots of grease and alcohol.\nA fat man who smelled of the grease and alcohol of the tablecloths\n shuffled up to them with a towel on his arm, staring ahead of him at\n some point in time rather than space.\n\n\n Price lit a cigarette with unsteady hands. \"Reggie is studying biblical\n text. Cute gadget. His contact lenses are made up of a lot of layers\n of polarized glass. Every time he blinks, the amount of polarization\n changes and a new page appears. His father once told him that if he\n didn't study his Bible and pray for him, his old dad would die.\"\n\n\n The psychiatrist knew the threat on the father's part couldn't create\n such a fixation by itself. His eyebrows faintly inquired.\n\n\n Price nodded jerkily. \"Twenty years ago, at least.\"\n\n\n \"What'll you have, Georgie?\" Reggie asked.\n\n\n The young man snubbed out his cigarette viciously. \"Bourbon. Straight.\"\n\n\n Reggie smiled\u2014a toothy, vacant, comedy-relief smile. \"Fine. The Good\n Book says a little wine is good for a man, or something like that. I\n don't remember exactly.\"\n\n\n Of course he didn't, Infield knew. Why should he? It was useless to\n learn his Bible lessons to save his father, because it was obvious his\n father was dead. He would never succeed because there was no reason to\n succeed. But he had to try, didn't he, for his father's sake? He didn't\n hate his father for making him study. He didn't want him to die. He had\n to prove that.\n\n\n Infield sighed. At least this device kept the man on his feet, doing\n some kind of useful work instead of rotting in a padded cell with a\n probably imaginary Bible. A man could cut his wrists with the edge of a\n sheet of paper if he tried long enough, so of course the Bible would be\n imaginary.\n\n\n \"But, Georgie,\" the waiter complained, \"you know you won't drink it.\n You ask me to bring you drinks and then you just look at them. Boy, do\n you look funny when you're looking at drinks. Honest, Georgie, I want\n to laugh when I think of the way you look at a glass with a drink in\n it.\" He did laugh.\n\n\n Price fumbled with the cigarette stub in the black iron ashtray,\n examining it with the skill of scientific observation. \"Mr. Infield is\n buying me the drink and that makes it different.\"\n\n\n Reggie went away. Price kept dissecting the tobacco and paper. Infield\n cleared his throat and again reminded himself against such obvious\n affectations. \"You were telling me about some organization of the\n Cured,\" he said as a reminder.\nPrice looked up, no longer interested in the relic of a cigarette. He\n was suddenly intensely interested and intensely observant of the rest\n of the cafe. \"Was I? I was? Well, suppose you tell me something. What\n do you really think of the Incompletes?\"\n\n\n The psychiatrist felt his face frown. \"Who?\"\n\n\n \"I forgot. You haven't been one of us long. The Incompletes is a truer\n name for the so-called Normals. Have you ever thought of just how\n dangerous these people are, Mr. Infield?\"\n\n\n \"Frankly, no,\" Infield said, realizing it was not the right thing to\n say but tiring of constant pretense.\n\n\n \"You don't understand. Everyone has some little phobia or fixation.\n Maybe everyone didn't have one once, but after being told they did\n have them for generations, everyone who didn't have one developed a\n defense mechanism and an aberration so they would be normal. If that\n phobia isn't brought to the surface and Cured, it may arise any time\n and endanger other people. The only safe, good sound citizens are\n Cured. Those lacking Cures\u2014the Incompletes\u2014\nmust be dealt with\n.\"\n\n\n Infield's throat went dry. \"And you're the one to deal with them?\"\n\n\n \"It's my Destiny.\" Price quickly added, \"And yours, too, of course.\"\n\n\n Infield nodded. Price was a demagogue, young, handsome, dynamic,\n likable, impassioned with his cause, and convinced that it was his\n divine destiny. He was a psychopathic egotist and a dangerous man.\n Doubly dangerous to Infield because, even though he was one of the few\n people who still read books from the old days of therapy to recognize\n Price for what he was, he nevertheless still liked the young man\n for the intelligence behind the egotism and the courage behind the\n fanaticism.\n\n\n \"How are we going to deal with the Incompletes?\" Infield asked.\n\n\n Price started to glance around the cafe, then half-shrugged, almost\n visibly thinking that he shouldn't run that routine into the ground.\n \"We'll Cure them whether they want to be Cured or not\u2014for their own\n good.\"\n\n\n Infield felt cold inside. After a time, he found that the roaring was\n not just in his head. It was thundering outside. He was getting sick.\n Price was the type of man who could spread his ideas throughout the\n ranks of the Cured\u2014if indeed the plot was not already universal,\n imposed upon many ill minds.\nHe could picture an entirely Cured world and he didn't like the view.\n Every Cure cut down on the mental and physical abilities of the patient\n as it was, whether Morgan and the others admitted it or not. But if\n everyone had a crutch to lean on for one phobia, he would develop\n secondary symptoms.\n\n\n People would start needing two Cures\u2014perhaps a foetic gyro and a\n safety belt\u2014then another and another. There would always be a crutch\n to lean on for one thing and then room enough to develop something\n else\u2014until everyone would be loaded down with too many Cures to\n operate.\n\n\n A Cure was a last resort, dope for a malignancy case, euthanasia for\n the hopeless. Enforced Cures would be a curse for the individual and\n the race.\n\n\n But Infield let himself relax. How could anyone force a mechanical\n relief for neurotic or psychopathic symptoms on someone who didn't\n want or need it?\n\n\n \"Perhaps you don't see how it could be done,\" Price said. \"I'll\n explain.\"\n\n\n Reggie's heavy hand sat a straight bourbon down before Price and\n another before Infield. Price stared at the drink almost without\n comprehension of how it came to be. He started to sweat.\n\n\n \"George, drink it.\"\n\n\n The voice belonged to a young woman, a blonde girl with pink skin\n and suave, draped clothes. In this den of the Cured, Infield thought\n half-humorously, it was surprising to see a Normal\u2014an \"Incomplete.\"\n But then he noticed something about the baby she carried. The Cure had\n been very simple. It wasn't even a mechanized half-human robot, just a\n rag doll. She sat down at the table.\n\n\n \"George,\" she said, \"drink it. One drink won't raise your alcohol index\n to the danger point. You've got to get over this fear of even the sight\n or smell of liquor.\"\n\n\n The girl turned to Infield. \"You're one of us, but you're new, so you\n don't know about George. Maybe you can help if you do. It's all silly.\n He's not an alcoholic. He didn't need to put that Cure on his head.\n It's just an excuse for not drinking. All of this is just because a\n while back something happened to the baby here\u2014\" she adjusted the\n doll's blanket\u2014\"when he was drinking. Just drinking, not drunk.\n\n\n \"I don't remember what happened to the baby\u2014it wasn't important.\n But George has been brooding about it ever since. I guess he thinks\n something else bad will happen because of liquor. That's silly. Why\n don't you tell him it's silly?\"\n\n\n \"Maybe it is,\" Infield said softly. \"You could take the shock if he\n downed that drink and the shock might do you good.\"\nPrice laughed shortly. \"I feel like doing something very melodramatic,\n like throwing my drink\u2014and yours\u2014across the room, but I haven't got\n the guts to touch those glasses. Do it for me, will you? Cauterizing\n the bite might do me good if I'd been bitten by a rabid dog, but I\n don't have the nerve to do it.\"\n\n\n Before Infield could move, Reggie came and set both drinks on a little\n circular tray. He moved away. \"I knew it. That's all he did, just look\n at the drink. Makes me laugh.\"\n\n\n Price wiped the sweat off his palms. Infield sat and thought. Mrs.\n Price cooed to the rag doll, unmindful of either of them now.\n\n\n \"You were explaining,\" the psychiatrist said. \"You were going to tell\n me how you were going to Cure the Incompletes.\"\n\n\n \"I said\nwe\nwere going to do it. Actually\nyou\nwill play a greater\n part than I,\nDoctor\nInfield.\"\n\n\n The psychiatrist sat rigidly.\n\n\n \"You didn't think you could give me your right name in front of your\n own office building and that I wouldn't recognize you? I know some\n psychiatrists are sensitive about wearing Cures themselves, but it is a\n mark of honor of the completely sane man. You should be proud of your\n Cure and eager to Cure others.\nVery\neager.\"\n\n\n \"Just what do you mean?\" He already suspected Price's meaning.\n\n\n Price leaned forward. \"There is one phobia that is so wide-spread, a\n Cure is not even thought of\u2014hypochondria. Hundreds of people come to\n your office for a Cure and you turn them away. Suppose you and the\n other Cured psychiatrists give\neverybody\nwho comes to you a Cure?\"\n\n\n Infield gestured vaguely. \"A psychiatrist wouldn't hand out Cures\n unless they were absolutely necessary.\"\n\n\n \"You'll feel differently after you've been Cured for a while yourself.\n Other psychiatrists have.\"\n\n\n Before Infield could speak, a stubble-faced, barrel-chested man moved\n past their table. He wore a safety belt. It was the man Price had\n called Davies, the one who had fastened one of his safety lines to\n Infield in the street.\n\n\n Davies went to the bar in the back. \"Gimme a bottle,\" he demanded of a\n vacant-eyed Reggie. He came back toward them, carrying the bottle in\n one hand, brushing off rain drops with the other. He stopped beside\n Price and glared. Price leaned back. The chair creaked. Mrs. Price kept\n cooing to the doll.\n\n\n \"You made me fall,\" Davies accused.\n\n\n Price shrugged. \"You were unconscious. You never knew it.\"\n\n\n Sweat broke out on Davies' forehead. \"You broke the Code. Don't you\n think I can imagine how it was to fall? You louse!\"\nSuddenly, Davies triggered his safety belt. At close range, before\n the lines could fan out in a radius, all the lines in front attached\n themselves to Price, the ones at each side clung to their table and the\n floor, and all the others to the table behind Infield. Davies released\n all lines except those on Price, and then threw himself backward,\n dragging Price out of his chair and onto the floor. Davies didn't mind\n making others fall. They were always trying to make\nhim\nfall just so\n they could laugh at him or pounce on him; why shouldn't he like to make\n them fall first?\n\n\n Expertly, Davies moved forward and looped the loose lines around\n Price's head and shoulders and then around his feet. He crouched beside\n Price and shoved the bottle into the gasping mouth and poured.\n\n\n Price twisted against the binding lines in blind terror, gagging and\n spouting whiskey. Davies laughed and tilted the bottle more.\n\n\n Mrs. Price screamed. \"The Cure! If you get that much liquor in his\n system, it will kill him!\" She rocked the rag doll in her arms, trying\n to soothe it, and stared in horror.\n\n\n Infield hit the big man behind the ear. He dropped the bottle and fell\n over sideways on the floor. Fear and hate mingled in his eyes as he\n looked up at Infield.\n\n\n Nonsense, Infield told himself. Eyes can't register emotion.\n\n\n Davies released his lines and drew them in. He got up precariously.\n \"I'm going to kill you,\" he said, glaring at Infield. \"You made me fall\n worse than Georgie did. I'm really going to kill you.\"\n\n\n Infield wasn't a large man, but he had pressed two hundred and fifty\n many times in gym. He grabbed Davies' belt with both hands and lifted\n him about six inches off the floor.\n\n\n \"I could drop you,\" the psychiatrist said.\n\n\n \"No!\" Davies begged weakly. \"Please!\"\n\n\n \"I'll do it if you cause more trouble.\" Infield sat down and rubbed his\n aching forearms.\nDavies backed off in terror, right into the arms of Reggie. The waiter\n closed his huge hands on the acrophobe's shoulders.\n\n\n \"\nYou\nbroke the Code all the way,\" Reggie said. \"The Good Book says\n 'Thou shouldn't kill' or something like that, and so does the Code.\"\n\n\n \"Let him go, Reggie,\" Price choked out, getting to his feet. \"I'm not\n dead.\" He wiped his hand across his mouth.\n\n\n \"No. No, you aren't.\" Infield felt an excitement pounding through him,\n same as when he had diagnosed his first case. No, better than that.\n\n\n \"That taste of liquor didn't kill you, Price. Nothing terrible\n happened. You could find some way to get rid of that Cure.\"\n\n\n Price stared at him as if he were a padded-cell case. \"That's\n different. I'd be a hopeless drunk without the Cure. Besides, no one\n ever gets rid of a Cure.\"\n\n\n They were all looking at Infield. Somehow he felt this represented a\n critical point in history. It was up to him which turn the world took,\n the world as represented by these four Cured people. \"I'm afraid I'm\n for\nless\nCures instead of more, Price. Look, if I can show you that\n someone can discard a Cure, would you get rid of that\u2014if I may use the\n word\u2014\nmonstrous\nthing on your head?\"\n\n\n Price grinned. Infield didn't recognize its smugness at the time.\n\n\n \"I'll show you.\" He took off the circlet with the lightning rod and\n yanked at the wire running down into his collar. The new-old excitement\n within was running high. He felt the wire snap and come up easily. He\n threw the Cure on the floor.\n\n\n \"Now,\" he said, \"I am going out in that rain storm. There's thunder and\n lightning out there. I'm afraid, but I can get along without a Cure and\n so can you.\"\n\n\n \"You can't! Nobody can!\" Price screamed after him. He turned to the\n others. \"If he reveals us, the Cause is lost. We've got to stop him\nfor good\n. We've got to go after him.\"\n\n\n \"It's slippery,\" Davies whimpered. \"I might fall.\"\n\n\n Mrs. Price cuddled her rag doll. \"I can't leave the baby and she\n mustn't get wet.\"\n\n\n \"Well, there's no liquor out there and you can study your text in the\n lightning flashes, Reggie. Come on.\"\nRunning down the streets that were tunnels of shining tar, running into\n the knifing ice bristles of the rain, Henry Infield realized that he\n was very frightened of the lightning.\n\n\n There is no action without a reason, he knew from the old neglected\n books. He had had a latent fear of lightning when he chose the\n lightning rod Cure. He could have picked a safety belt or foetic gyro\n just as well.\n\n\n He sneezed. He was soaked through, but he kept on running. He didn't\n know what Price and Reggie planned to do when they caught him. He\n slipped and fell. He would soon find out what they wanted. The\n excitement was all gone now and it left an empty space into which fear\n rushed.\n\n\n Reggie said, \"We shall make a sacrifice.\"\n\n\n Infield looked up and saw the lightning reflected on the blade of a\n thin knife. Infield reached toward it more in fascination than fear. He\n managed to get all his fingers around two of Reggie's. He jerked and\n the knife fell into Infield's palm. The psychiatrist pulled himself\n erect by holding to Reggie's arm. Staggering to his feet, he remembered\n what he must do and slashed at the waiter's head. A gash streaked\n across the man's brow and blood poured into his eyes. He screamed. \"I\n can't see the words!\"\n\n\n It was his problem. Infield usually solved other people's problems, but\n now he ran away\u2014he couldn't even solve his own.\n\n\n Infield realized that he had gone mad as he held the thin blade high\n overhead, but he did need some kind of lightning rod. Price (who was\n right behind him, gaining) had been right. No one could discard a Cure.\n He watched the lightning play its light on the blade of his Cure and he\n knew that Price was going to kill him in the next moment.\n\n\n He was wrong.\n\n\n The lightning hit him first.\nReggie squinted under the bandage at the lettering on the door that\n said INFIELD & MORGAN and opened the door. He ran across the room to\n the man sitting at the desk, reading by the swivel light.\n\n\n \"Mr. Morgan, your partner, Mr. Infield, he\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Just a moment.\" Morgan switched on the room lights. \"What were you\n saying?\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Infield went out without his Cure in a storm and was struck by\n lightning. We took him to the morgue. He must have been crazy to go\n out without his Cure.\"\n\n\n Morgan stared into his bright desk light without blinking. \"This is\n quite a shock to me. Would you mind leaving? I'll come over to your\n place and you can tell me about it later.\"\n\n\n Reggie went out. \"Yes, sir. He was struck by lightning, struck dead. He\n must have been crazy to leave his Cure....\" The door closed.\n\n\n Morgan exhaled. Poor Infield. But it wasn't the lightning that killed\n him, of course. Morgan adjusted the soundproofing plugs in his ears,\n thinking that you did have to have quite a bit of light to read lips.\n The thunder, naturally, was what had killed Infield. Loud noise\u2014any\n noise\u2014that would do it every time. Too bad Infield had never really\n stopped being one of the Incompletes. Dangerous people. He would have\n to deal with them.",
    "50969": "BIG ANCESTOR\nBy F. L. WALLACE\n\n\n Illustrated by EMSH\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction November 1954.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nMan's family tree was awesome enough to give every galactic\n \nrace an inferiority complex\u2014but then he tried to climb it!\nIn repose, Taphetta the Ribboneer resembled a fancy giant bow on a\n package. His four flat legs looped out and in, the ends tucked under\n his wide, thin body, which constituted the knot at the middle. His neck\n was flat, too, arching out in another loop. Of all his features, only\n his head had appreciable thickness and it was crowned with a dozen long\n though narrower ribbons.\n\n\n Taphetta rattled the head fronds together in a surprisingly good\n imitation of speech. \"Yes, I've heard the legend.\"\n\n\n \"It's more than a legend,\" said Sam Halden, biologist. The reaction was\n not unexpected\u2014non-humans tended to dismiss the data as convenient\n speculation and nothing more. \"There are at least a hundred kinds of\n humans, each supposedly originating in strict seclusion on as many\n widely scattered planets. Obviously there was no contact throughout the\n ages before space travel\u2014\nand yet each planetary race can interbreed\n with a minimum of ten others\n! That's more than a legend\u2014one hell of a\n lot more!\"\n\n\n \"It is impressive,\" admitted Taphetta. \"But I find it mildly\n distasteful to consider mating with someone who does not belong to my\n species.\"\n\n\n \"That's because you're unique,\" said Halden. \"Outside of your own\n world, there's nothing like your species, except superficially, and\n that's true of all other creatures, intelligent or not, with the sole\n exception of mankind. Actually, the four of us here, though it's\n accidental, very nearly represent the biological spectrum of human\n development.\n\"Emmer, a Neanderthal type and our archeologist, is around the\n beginning of the scale. I'm from Earth, near the middle, though on\n Emmer's side. Meredith, linguist, is on the other side of the middle.\n And beyond her, toward the far end, is Kelburn, mathematician. There's\n a corresponding span of fertility. Emmer just misses being able to\n breed with my kind, but there's a fair chance that I'd be fertile with\n Meredith and a similar though lesser chance that her fertility may\n extend to Kelburn.\"\nTaphetta rustled his speech ribbons quizzically. \"But I thought it was\n proved that some humans did originate on one planet, that there was an\n unbroken line of evolution that could be traced back a billion years.\"\n\n\n \"You're thinking of Earth,\" said Halden. \"Humans require a certain kind\n of planet. It's reasonable to assume that, if men were set down on a\n hundred such worlds, they'd seem to fit in with native life-forms on a\n few of them. That's what happened on Earth; when Man arrived, there was\n actually a manlike creature there. Naturally our early evolutionists\n stretched their theories to cover the facts they had.\n\n\n \"But there are other worlds in which humans who were there before the\n Stone Age aren't related to anything else there. We have to conclude\n that Man didn't originate on any of the planets on which he is now\n found. Instead, he evolved elsewhere and later was scattered throughout\n this section of the Milky Way.\"\n\n\n \"And so, to account for the unique race that can interbreed across\n thousands of light-years, you've brought in the big ancestor,\"\n commented Taphetta dryly. \"It seems an unnecessary simplification.\"\n\n\n \"Can you think of a better explanation?\" asked Kelburn.\n\n\n \"Something had to distribute one species so widely and it's not the\n result of parallel evolution\u2014not when a hundred human races are\n involved, and\nonly\nthe human race.\"\n\n\n \"I can't think of a better explanation.\" Taphetta rearranged his\n ribbons. \"Frankly, no one else is much interested in Man's theories\n about himself.\"\n\n\n It was easy to understand the attitude. Man was the most numerous\n though not always the most advanced\u2014Ribboneers had a civilization as\n high as anything in the known section of the Milky Way, and there were\n others\u2014and humans were more than a little feared. If they ever got\n together\u2014but they hadn't except in agreement as to their common origin.\n\n\n Still, Taphetta the Ribboneer was an experienced pilot and could be\n very useful. A clear statement of their position was essential in\n helping him make up his mind. \"You've heard of the adjacency mating\n principle?\" asked Sam Halden.\n\n\n \"Vaguely. Most people have if they've been around men.\"\n\n\n \"We've got new data and are able to interpret it better. The theory is\n that humans who can mate with each other were once physically close.\n We've got a list of all our races arranged in sequence. If planetary\n race F can mate with race E back to A and forward to M, and race G is\n fertile only back to B, but forward to O, then we assume that whatever\n their positions are now, at once time G was actually adjacent to F, but\n was a little further along. When we project back into time those star\n systems on which humans existed prior to space travel, we get a certain\n pattern. Kelburn can explain it to you.\"\n\n\n The normally pink body of the Ribboneer flushed slightly. The color\n change was almost imperceptible, but it was enough to indicate that he\n was interested.\nKelburn went to the projector. \"It would be easier if we knew all the\n stars in the Milky Way, but though we've explored only a small portion\n of it, we can reconstruct a fairly accurate representation of the past.\"\n\n\n He pressed the controls and stars twinkled on the screen. \"We're\n looking down on the plane of the Galaxy. This is one arm of it as it is\n today and here are the human systems.\" He pressed another control and,\n for purposes of identification, certain stars became more brilliant.\n There was no pattern, merely a scattering of stars. \"The whole Milky\n Way is rotating. And while stars in a given region tend to remain\n together, there's also a random motion. Here's what happens when we\n calculate the positions of stars in the past.\"\n\n\n Flecks of light shifted and flowed across the screen. Kelburn stopped\n the motion.\n\n\n \"Two hundred thousand years ago,\" he said.\n\n\n There was a pattern of the identified stars. They were spaced at fairly\n equal intervals along a regular curve, a horseshoe loop that didn't\n close, though if the ends were extended, the lines would have crossed.\n\n\n Taphetta rustled. \"The math is accurate?\"\n\n\n \"As accurate as it can be with a million-plus body problem.\"\n\n\n \"And that's the hypothetical route of the unknown ancestor?\"\n\n\n \"To the best of our knowledge,\" said Kelburn. \"And whereas there are\n humans who are relatively near and not fertile, they can always mate\n with those they were adjacent to\ntwo hundred thousand years ago\n!\"\n\n\n \"The adjacency mating principle. I've never seen it demonstrated,\"\n murmured Taphetta, flexing his ribbons. \"Is that the only era that\n satisfies the calculations?\"\n\n\n \"Plus or minus a hundred thousand years, we can still get something\n that might be the path of a spaceship attempting to cover a\n representative section of territory,\" said Kelburn. \"However, we have\n other ways of dating it. On some worlds on which there are no other\n mammals, we're able to place the first human fossils chronologically.\n The evidence is sometimes contradictory, but we believe we've got the\n time right.\"\n\n\n Taphetta waved a ribbon at the chart. \"And you think that where the two\n ends of the curve cross is your original home?\"\n\n\n \"We think so,\" said Kelburn. \"We've narrowed it down to several cubic\n light-years\u2014then. Now it's far more. And, of course, if it were a\n fast-moving star, it might be completely out of the field of our\n exploration. But we're certain we've got a good chance of finding it\n this trip.\"\n\n\n \"It seems I must decide quickly.\" The Ribboneer glanced out the\n visionport, where another ship hung motionless in space beside them.\n \"Do you mind if I ask other questions?\"\n\n\n \"Go ahead,\" Kelburn invited sardonically. \"But if it's not math, you'd\n better ask Halden. He's the leader of the expedition.\"\n\n\n Halden flushed; the sarcasm wasn't necessary. It was true that Kelburn\n was the most advanced human type present, but while there were\n differences, biological and in the scale of intelligence, it wasn't\n as great as once was thought. Anyway, non-humans weren't trained in\n the fine distinctions that men made among themselves. And, higher or\n lower, he was as good a biologist as the other was a mathematician. And\n there was the matter of training; he'd been on several expeditions and\n this was Kelburn's first trip. Damn it, he thought, that rated some\n respect.\n\n\n The Ribboneer shifted his attention. \"Aside from the sudden illness of\n your pilot, why did you ask for me?\"\n\n\n \"We didn't. The man became sick and required treatment we can't give\n him. Luckily, a ship was passing and we hailed it because it's four\n months to the nearest planet. They consented to take him back and told\n us that there was a passenger on board who was an experienced pilot. We\n have men who could do the job in a makeshift fashion, but the region\n we're heading for, while mapped, is largely unknown. We'd prefer to\n have an expert\u2014and Ribboneers are famous for their navigational\n ability.\"\n\n\n Taphetta crinkled politely at the reference to his skill. \"I had other\n plans, but I can't evade professional obligations, and an emergency\n such as this should cancel out any previous agreements. Still, what are\n the incentives?\"\n\n\n Sam Halden coughed. \"The usual, plus a little extra. We've copied the\n Ribboneer's standard nature, simplifying it a little and adding a per\n cent here and there for the crew pilot and scientist's share of the\n profits from any discoveries we may make.\"\n\n\n \"I'm complimented that you like our contract so well,\" said Taphetta,\n \"but I really must have our own unsimplified version. If you want me,\n you'll take my contract. I came prepared.\" He extended a tightly bound\n roll that he had kept somewhere on his person.\n\n\n They glanced at one another as Halden took it.\n\n\n \"You can read it if you want,\" offered Taphetta. \"But it will take\n you all day\u2014it's micro-printing. However, you needn't be afraid that\n I'm defrauding you. It's honored everywhere we go and we go nearly\n everywhere in this sector\u2014places men have never been.\"\n\n\n There was no choice if they wanted him, and they did. Besides, the\n integrity of Ribboneers was not to be questioned. Halden signed.\n\n\n \"Good.\" Taphetta crinkled. \"Send it to the ship; they'll forward it\n for me. And you can tell the ship to go on without me.\" He rubbed his\n ribbons together. \"Now if you'll get me the charts, I'll examine the\n region toward which we're heading.\"\nFirmon of hydroponics slouched in, a tall man with scanty hair and\n an equal lack of grace. He seemed to have difficulty in taking his\n eyes off Meredith, though, since he was a notch or so above her in the\n mating scale, he shouldn't have been so interested. But his planet had\n been inexplicably slow in developing and he wasn't completely aware of\n his place in the human hierarchy.\n\n\n Disdainfully, Meredith adjusted a skirt that, a few inches shorter,\n wouldn't have been a skirt at all, revealing, while doing so, just how\n long and beautiful a woman's legs could be. Her people had never given\n much thought to physical modesty and, with legs like that, it was easy\n to see why.\n\n\n Muttering something about primitive women, Firmon turned to the\n biologist. \"The pilot doesn't like our air.\"\n\n\n \"Then change it to suit him. He's in charge of the ship and knows more\n about these things than I do.\"\n\n\n \"More than a man?\" Firmon leered at Meredith and, when she failed\n to smile, added plaintively, \"I did try to change it, but he still\n complains.\"\nHalden took a deep breath. \"Seems all right to me.\"\n\n\n \"To everybody else, too, but the tapeworm hasn't got lungs. He breathes\n through a million tubes scattered over his body.\"\n\n\n It would do no good to explain that Taphetta wasn't a worm, that his\n evolution had taken a different course, but that he was in no sense\n less complex than Man. It was a paradox that some biologically higher\n humans hadn't developed as much as lower races and actually weren't\n prepared for the multitude of life-forms they'd meet in space. Firmon's\n reaction was quite typical.\n\n\n \"If he asks for cleaner air, it's because his system needs it,\" said\n Halden. \"Do anything you can to give it to him.\"\n\n\n \"Can't. This is as good as I can get it. Taphetta thought you could do\n something about it.\"\n\n\n \"Hydroponics is your job. There's nothing\nI\ncan do.\" Halden paused\n thoughtfully. \"Is there something wrong with the plants?\"\n\n\n \"In a way, I guess, and yet not really.\"\n\n\n \"What is it, some kind of toxic condition?\"\n\n\n \"The plants are healthy enough, but something's chewing them down as\n fast as they grow.\"\n\n\n \"Insects? There shouldn't be any, but if there are, we've got sprays.\n Use them.\"\n\n\n \"It's an animal,\" said Firmon. \"We tried poison and got a few, but now\n they won't touch the stuff. I had electronics rig up some traps. The\n animals seem to know what they are and we've never caught one that\n way.\"\n\n\n Halden glowered at the man. \"How long has this been going on?\"\n\n\n \"About three months. It's not bad; we can keep up with them.\"\n\n\n It was probably nothing to become alarmed at, but an animal on the ship\n was a nuisance, doubly so because of their pilot.\n\n\n \"Tell me what you know about it,\" said Halden.\n\n\n \"They're little things.\" Firmon held out his hands to show how small.\n \"I don't know how they got on, but once they did, there were plenty of\n places to hide.\" He looked up defensively. \"This is an old ship with\n new equipment and they hide under the machinery. There's nothing we can\n do except rebuild the ship from the hull inward.\"\n\n\n Firmon was right. The new equipment had been installed in any place\n just to get it in and now there were inaccessible corners and crevices\n everywhere that couldn't be closed off without rebuilding.\n\n\n They couldn't set up a continuous watch and shoot the animals down\n because there weren't that many men to spare. Besides, the use of\n weapons in hydroponics would cause more damage to the thing they were\n trying to protect than to the pest. He'd have to devise other ways.\n\n\n Sam Halden got up. \"I'll take a look and see what I can do.\"\n\n\n \"I'll come along and help,\" said Meredith, untwining her legs and\n leaning against him. \"Your mistress ought to have some sort of\n privileges.\"\n\n\n Halden started. So she\nknew\nthat the crew was calling her that!\n Perhaps it was intended to discourage Firmon, but he wished she hadn't\n said it. It didn't help the situation at all.\nTaphetta sat in a chair designed for humans. With a less flexible body,\n he wouldn't have fitted. Maybe it wasn't sitting, but his flat legs\n were folded neatly around the arms and his head rested comfortably on\n the seat. The head ribbons, which were his hands and voice, were never\n quite still.\n\n\n He looked from Halden to Emmer and back again. \"The hydroponics tech\n tells me you're contemplating an experiment. I don't like it.\"\n\n\n Halden shrugged. \"We've got to have better air. It might work.\"\n\n\n \"Pests on the ship? It's filthy! My people would never tolerate it!\"\n\n\n \"Neither do we.\"\n\n\n The Ribboneer's distaste subsided. \"What kind of creatures are they?\"\n\n\n \"I have a description, though I've never seen one. It's a small\n four-legged animal with two antennae at the lower base of its skull. A\n typical pest.\"\n\n\n Taphetta rustled. \"Have you found out how it got on?\"\n\n\n \"It was probably brought in with the supplies,\" said the biologist.\n \"Considering how far we've come, it may have been any one of a half\n a dozen planets. Anyway, it hid, and since most of the places it had\n access to were near the outer hull, it got an extra dose of hard\n radiation, or it may have nested near the atomic engines; both are\n possibilities. Either way, it mutated, became a different animal. It's\n developed a tolerance for the poisons we spray on plants. Other things\n it detects and avoids, even electronic traps.\"\n\n\n \"Then you believe it changed mentally as well as physically, that it's\n smarter?\"\n\n\n \"I'd say that, yes. It must be a fairly intelligent creature to be\n so hard to get rid of. But it can be lured into traps, if the bait's\n strong enough.\"\n\n\n \"That's what I don't like,\" said Taphetta, curling. \"Let me think it\n over while I ask questions.\" He turned to Emmer. \"I'm curious about\n humans. Is there anything else you can tell me about the hypothetical\n ancestor?\"\n\n\n Emmer didn't look like the genius he was\u2014a Neanderthal genius, but\n nonetheless a real one. In his field, he rated very high. He raised a\n stubble-flecked cheek from a large thick-fingered paw and ran shaggy\n hands through shaggier hair.\n\n\n \"I can speak with some authority,\" he rumbled. \"I was born on a world\n with the most extensive relics. As a child, I played in the ruins of\n their camp.\"\n\n\n \"I don't question your authority,\" crinkled Taphetta. \"To me, all\n humans\u2014late or early and male or female\u2014look remarkably alike. If you\n are an archeologist, that's enough for me.\" He paused and flicked his\n speech ribbons. \"Camp, did you say?\"\nEmmer smiled, unsheathing great teeth. \"You've never seen any pictures?\n Impressive, but just a camp, monolithic one-story structures, and\n we'd give something to know what they're made of. Presumably my world\n was one of the first they stopped at. They weren't used to roughing\n it, so they built more elaborately than they did later on. One-story\n structures and that's how we can guess at their size. The doorways were\n forty feet high.\"\n\n\n \"Very large,\" agreed Taphetta. It was difficult to tell whether he was\n impressed. \"What did you find in the ruins?\"\n\n\n \"Nothing,\" said Emmer. \"There were buildings there and that was all,\n not a scrap of writing or a tool or a single picture. They covered\n a route estimated at thirty thousand light-years in less than five\n thousand years\u2014and not one of them died that we have a record of.\"\n\n\n \"A faster-than-light drive and an extremely long life,\" mused Taphetta.\n \"But they didn't leave any information for their descendants. Why?\"\n\n\n \"Who knows? Their mental processes were certainly far different from\n ours. They may have thought we'd be better off without it. We do know\n they were looking for a special kind of planet, like Earth, because\n they visited so many of that type, yet different from it because they\n never stayed. They were pretty special people themselves, big and\n long-lived, and maybe they couldn't survive on any planet they found.\n Perhaps they had ways of determining there wasn't the kind of planet\n they needed in the entire Milky Way. Their science was tremendously\n advanced and when they learned that, they may have altered their germ\n plasm and left us, hoping that some of us would survive. Most of us\n did.\"\n\n\n \"This special planet sounds strange,\" murmured Taphetta.\n\n\n \"Not really,\" said Emmer. \"Fifty human races reached space travel\n independently and those who did were scattered equally among early and\n late species. It's well known that individuals among my people are\n often as bright as any of Halden's or Meredith's, but as a whole we\n don't have the total capacity that later Man does, and yet we're as\n advanced in civilization. The difference? It must lie somewhere in the\n planets we live on and it's hard to say just what it is.\"\n\n\n \"What happened to those who didn't develop space travel?\" asked\n Taphetta.\n\n\n \"We helped them,\" said Emmer.\n\n\n And they had, no matter who or what they were, biologically late\n or early, in the depths of the bronze age or the threshold of\n atomic\u2014because they were human. That was sometimes a frightening thing\n for non-humans, that the race stuck together. They weren't actually\n aggressive, but their total number was great and they held themselves\n aloof. The unknown ancestor again. Who else had such an origin and, it\n was tacitly assumed, such a destiny?\nTaphetta changed his questioning. \"What do you expect to gain from this\n discovery of the unknown ancestor?\"\n\n\n It was Halden who answered him. \"There's the satisfaction of knowing\n where we came from.\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" rustled the Ribboneer. \"But a lot of money and equipment\n was required for this expedition. I can't believe that the educational\n institutions that are backing you did so purely out of intellectual\n curiosity.\"\n\n\n \"Cultural discoveries,\" rumbled Emmer. \"How did our ancestors live?\n When a creature is greatly reduced in size, as we are, more than\n physiology is changed\u2014the pattern of life itself is altered. Things\n that were easy for them are impossible for us. Look at their life span.\"\n\n\n \"No doubt,\" said Taphetta. \"An archeologist would be interested in\n cultural discoveries.\"\n\n\n \"Two hundred thousand years ago, they had an extremely advanced\n civilization,\" added Halden. \"A faster-than-light drive, and we've\n achieved that only within the last thousand years.\"\n\n\n \"But I think we have a better one than they did,\" said the Ribboneer.\n \"There may be things we can learn from them in mechanics or physics,\n but wouldn't you say they were better biologists than anything else?\"\n\n\n Halden nodded. \"Agreed. They couldn't find a suitable planet. So,\n working directly with their germ plasm, they modified themselves and\n produced us. They\nwere\nmaster biologists.\"\n\n\n \"I thought so,\" said Taphetta. \"I never paid much attention to your\n fantastic theories before I signed to pilot this ship, but you've built\n up a convincing case.\" He raised his head, speech ribbons curling\n fractionally and ceaselessly. \"I don't like to, but we'll have to risk\n using bait for your pest.\"\n\n\n He'd have done it anyway, but it was better to have the pilot's\n consent. And there was one question Halden wanted to ask; it had been\n bothering him vaguely. \"What's the difference between the Ribboneer\n contract and the one we offered you? Our terms are more liberal.\"\n\n\n \"To the individual, they are, but it won't matter if you discover as\n much as you think you will. The difference is this:\nMy\nterms don't\n permit you to withhold any discovery for the benefit of one race.\"\n\n\n Taphetta was wrong; there had been no intention of withholding\n anything. Halden examined his own attitudes.\nHe\nhadn't intended, but\n could he say that was true of the institutions backing the expedition?\n He couldn't, and it was too late now\u2014whatever knowledge they acquired\n would have to be shared.\n\n\n That was what Taphetta had been afraid of\u2014there was one kind of\n technical advancement that multiplied unceasingly. The race that could\n improve itself through scientific control of its germ plasm had a start\n that could never be headed. The Ribboneer needn't worry now.\n\"Why do we have to watch it on the screen?\" asked Meredith, glancing\n up. \"I'd rather be in hydroponics.\"\n\n\n Halden shrugged. \"They may or may not be smarter than planetbound\n animals, but they're warier. They don't come out when anyone's near.\"\n\n\n Lights dimmed in the distant hydroponic section and the screen with\n it, until he adjusted the infra-red frequencies. He motioned to the\n two crew members, each with his own peculiar screen, below which was a\n miniature keyboard.\n\n\n \"Ready?\"\n\n\n When they nodded, Halden said: \"Do as you've rehearsed. Keep noise at\n a minimum, but when you do use it, be vague. Don't try to imitate them\n exactly.\"\n\n\n At first, nothing happened on the big screen, and then a gray shape\n crept out. It slid through leaves, listened intently before coming\n forward. It jumped off one hydroponic section and fled across the open\n floor to the next. It paused, eyes glittering and antennae twitching.\n\n\n Looking around once, it leaped up, seizing the ledge and clawing up the\n side of the tank. Standing on top and rising to its haunches, it began\n nibbling what it could reach.\n\n\n Suddenly it whirled. Behind it and hitherto unnoticed was another\n shape, like it but larger. The newcomer inched forward. The small one\n retreated, skittering nervously. Without warning, the big one leaped\n and the small one tried to flee. In a few jumps, the big one caught up\n and mauled the other unmercifully.\nIt continued to bite even after the little one lay still. At last it\n backed off and waited, watching for signs of motion. There was none.\n Then it turned to the plant. When it had chewed off everything within\n reach, it climbed into the branches.\n\n\n The little one twitched, moved a leg, and cautiously began dragging\n itself away. It rolled off the raised section and surprisingly made no\n noise as it fell. It seemed to revive, shaking itself and scurrying\n away, still within range of the screen.\n\n\n Against the wall was a small platform. The little one climbed on top\n and there found something that seemed to interest it. It sniffed\n around and reached and felt the discovery. Wounds were forgotten as\n it snatched up the object and frisked back to the scene of its recent\n defeat.\n\n\n This time it had no trouble with the raised section. It leaped and\n landed on top and made considerable noise in doing so. The big animal\n heard and twisted around. It saw and clambered down hastily, jumping\n the last few feet. Squealing, it hit the floor and charged.\n\n\n The small one stood still till the last instant\u2014and then a paw\n flickered out and an inch-long knife blade plunged into the throat of\n the charging creature. Red spurted out as the bigger beast screamed.\n The knife flashed in and out until the big animal collapsed and stopped\n moving.\n\n\n The small creature removed the knife and wiped it on the pelt of its\n foe. Then it scampered back to the platform on which the knife had been\n found\u2014\nand laid it down\n.\nAt Halden's signal, the lights flared up and the screen became too\n bright for anything to be visible.\n\n\n \"Go in and get them,\" said Halden. \"We don't want the pests to find out\n that the bodies aren't flesh.\"\n\n\n \"It was realistic enough,\" said Meredith as the crewmen shut off their\n machines and went out. \"Do you think it will work?\"\n\n\n \"It might. We had an audience.\"\n\n\n \"Did we? I didn't notice.\" Meredith leaned back. \"Were the puppets\n exactly like the pests? And if not, will the pests be fooled?\"\n\n\n \"The electronic puppets were a good imitation, but the animals don't\n have to identify them as their species. If they're smart enough,\n they'll know the value of a knife, no matter who uses it.\"\n\n\n \"What if they're smarter? Suppose they know a knife can't be used by a\n creature without real hands?\"\n\n\n \"That's part of our precautions. They'll never know until they try\u2014and\n they'll never get away from the trap to try.\"\n\n\n \"Very good. I never thought of that,\" said Meredith, coming closer. \"I\n like the way your primitive mind works. At times I actually think of\n marrying you.\"\n\n\n \"Primitive,\" he said, alternately frozen and thawed, though he knew\n that, in relation to her, he was\nnot\nadvanced.\n\n\n \"It's almost a curse, isn't it?\" She laughed and took the curse away by\n leaning provocatively against him. \"But barbaric lovers are often nice.\"\n\n\n Here we go again, he thought drearily, sliding his arm around her. To\n her, I'm merely a passionate savage.\n\n\n They went to his cabin.\n\n\n She sat down, smiling. Was she pretty? Maybe. For her own race, she\n wasn't tall, only by Terran standards. Her legs were disproportionately\n long and well shaped and her face was somewhat bland and featureless,\n except for a thin, straight, short nose. It was her eyes that made\n the difference, he decided. A notch or two up the scale of visual\n development, her eyes were larger and she could see an extra color on\n the violet end of the spectrum.\n\n\n She settled back and looked at him. \"It might be fun living with you on\n primeval Earth.\"\n\n\n He said nothing; she knew as well as he that Earth was as advanced as\n her own world. She had something else in mind.\n\n\n \"I don't think I will, though. We might have children.\"\n\n\n \"Would it be wrong?\" he asked. \"I'm as intelligent as you. We wouldn't\n have subhuman monsters.\"\n\n\n \"It would be a step up\u2014for you.\" Under her calm, there was tension.\n It had been there as long as he'd known her, but it was closer to the\n surface now. \"Do I have the right to condemn the unborn? Should I make\n them start lower than I am?\"\n\n\n The conflict was not new nor confined to them. In one form or another,\n it governed personal relations between races that were united against\n non-humans, but held sharp distinctions themselves.\n\n\n \"I haven't asked you to marry me,\" he said bluntly.\n\n\n \"Because you're afraid I'd refuse.\"\n\n\n It was true; no one asked a member of a higher race to enter a\n permanent union.\n\n\n \"Why did you ever have anything to do with me?\" demanded Halden.\n\n\n \"Love,\" she said gloomily. \"Physical attraction. But I can't let it\n lead me astray.\"\n\n\n \"Why not make a play for Kelburn? If you're going to be scientific\n about it, he'd give you children of the higher type.\"\n\n\n \"Kelburn.\" It didn't sound like a name, the way she said it. \"I don't\n like him and he wouldn't marry me.\"\n\n\n \"He wouldn't, but he'd give you children if you were humble enough.\n There's a fifty per cent chance you might conceive.\"\nShe provocatively arched her back. Not even the women of Kelburn's race\n had a body like hers and she knew it.\n\n\n \"Racially, there should be a chance,\" she said. \"Actually, Kelburn and\n I would be infertile.\"\n\n\n \"Can you be sure?\" he asked, knowing it was a poor attempt to act\n unconcerned.\n\n\n \"How can anyone be sure on a theoretical basis?\" she asked, an oblique\n smile narrowing her eyes. \"I know we can't.\"\n\n\n His face felt anesthetized. \"Did you have to tell me that?\"\n\n\n She got up and came to him. She nuzzled against him and his reaction\n was purely reflexive. His hand swung out and he could feel the flesh\n give when his knuckles struck it.\n\n\n She fell back and dazedly covered her face with her hand. When she took\n it away, blood spurted. She groped toward the mirror and stood in front\n of it. She wiped the blood off, examining her features carefully.\n\n\n \"You've broken my nose,\" she said factually. \"I'll have to stop the\n blood and pain.\"\n\n\n She pushed her nose back into place and waggled it to make sure. She\n closed her eyes and stood silent and motionless. Then she stepped back\n and looked at herself critically.\n\n\n \"It's set and partially knitted. I'll concentrate tonight and have it\n healed by morning.\"\n\n\n She felt in the cabinet and attached an invisible strip firmly across\n the bridge. Then she came over to him.\n\n\n \"I wondered what you'd do. You didn't disappoint me.\"\n\n\n He scowled miserably at her. Her face was almost plain and the bandage,\n invisible or not, didn't improve her appearance any. How could he still\n feel that attraction to her?\n\n\n \"Try Emmer,\" he suggested tiredly. \"He'll find you irresistible, and\n he's even more savage than I am.\"\n\n\n \"Is he?\" She smiled enigmatically. \"Maybe, in a biological sense. Too\n much, though. You're just right.\"\n\n\n He sat down on the bed. Again there was only one way of knowing what\n Emmer would do\u2014and she knew. She had no concept of love outside of\n the physical, to make use of her body so as to gain an advantage\u2014what\n advantage?\u2014for the children she intended to have. Outside of that,\n nothing mattered, and for the sake of alloying the lower with the\n higher, she was as cruel to herself as she was to him. And yet he\n wanted her.\n\n\n \"I do think I love you,\" she said. \"And if love's enough, I may marry\n you in spite of everything. But you'll have to watch out whose children\n I have.\" She wriggled into his arms.\n\n\n The racial disparity was great and she had provoked him, but it was not\n completely her fault. Besides....\n\n\n Besides what? She had a beautiful body that could bear superior\n children\u2014and they might be his.\n\n\n He twisted away. With those thoughts, he was as bad as she was. Were\n they all that way, every one of them, crawling upward out of the slime\n toward the highest goal they could conceive of? Climbing over\u2014no,\nthrough\n\u2014everybody they could coerce, seduce or marry\u2014onward and\n upward. He raised his hand, but it was against himself that his anger\n was turned.\n\n\n \"Careful of the nose,\" she said, pressing against him. \"You've already\n broken it once.\"\n\n\n He kissed her with sudden passion that even he knew was primitive.",
    "51494": "BEACH SCENE\nBy MARSHALL KING\n\n\n Illustrated by WOOD\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Magazine October 1960.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nIt was a fine day at the beach\n \nfor Purnie's game\u2014but his new\n \nfriends played very rough!\nPurnie ran laughing and shouting through the forest until he could run\n no more. He fell headlong into a patch of blue moss and whooped with\n delight in having this day free for exploring. He was free to see the\n ocean at last.\n\n\n When he had caught his breath, he looked back through the forest. No\n sign of the village; he had left it far behind. Safe from the scrutiny\n of brothers and parents, there was nothing now to stop him from going\n to the ocean. This was the moment to stop time.\n\n\n \"On your mark!\" he shouted to the rippling stream and its orange\n whirlpools. He glanced furtively from side to side, pretending that\n some object might try to get a head start. \"Get set!\" he challenged\n the thin-winged bees that hovered over the abundant foliage. \"Stop!\"\n He shrieked this command upward toward the dense, low-hanging purple\n clouds that perennially raced across the treetops, making one wonder\n how tall the trees really were.\n\n\n His eyes took quick inventory. It was exactly as he knew it would be:\n the milky-orange stream had become motionless and its minute whirlpools\n had stopped whirling; a nearby bee hung suspended over a paka plant,\n its transparent wings frozen in position for a downward stroke; and the\n heavy purple fluid overhead held fast in its manufacture of whorls and\n nimbi.\n\n\n With everything around him in a state of perfect tableau, Purnie\n hurried toward the ocean.\n\n\n If only the days weren't so short! he thought. There was so much to\n see and so little time. It seemed that everyone except him had seen\n the wonders of the beach country. The stories he had heard from his\n brothers and their friends had taunted him for as long as he could\n remember. So many times had he heard these thrilling tales that now,\n as he ran along, he could clearly picture the wonderland as though he\n were already there. There would be a rockslide of petrified logs to\n play on, the ocean itself with waves higher than a house, the comical\n three-legged tripons who never stopped munching on seaweed, and many\n kinds of other wonderful creatures found only at the ocean.\n\n\n He bounced through the forest as though the world was reserved this\n day just for him. And who could say it wasn't? he thought. Wasn't this\n his fifth birthday? He ran along feeling sorry for four-year-olds, and\n even for those who were only four and a half, for they were babies and\n wouldn't dare try slipping away to the ocean alone. But five!\n\n\n \"I'll set you free, Mr. Bee\u2014just wait and see!\" As he passed one of\n the many motionless pollen-gathering insects he met on the way, he took\n care not to brush against it or disturb its interrupted task. When\n Purnie had stopped time, the bees\u2014like all the other creatures he\n met\u2014had been arrested in their native activities, and he knew that as\n soon as he resumed time, everything would pick up where it had left off.\nWhen he smelled an acid sweetness that told him the ocean was not far\n off, his pulse quickened in anticipation. Rather than spoil what was\n clearly going to be a perfect day, he chose to ignore the fact that he\n had been forbidden to use time-stopping as a convenience for journeying\n far from home. He chose to ignore the oft-repeated statement that an\n hour of time-stopping consumed more energy than a week of foot-racing.\n He chose to ignore the negative maxim that \"small children who stop\n time without an adult being present, may not live to regret it.\"\n\n\n He chose, instead, to picture the beaming praise of family and friends\n when they learned of his brave journey.\n\n\n The journey was long, the clock stood still. He stopped long enough to\n gather some fruit that grew along the path. It would serve as his lunch\n during this day of promise. With it under his arm he bounded along a\n dozen more steps, then stopped abruptly in his tracks.\n\n\n He found himself atop a rocky knoll, overlooking the mighty sea!\n\n\n He was so overpowered by the vista before him that his \"Hurrah!\" came\n out as a weak squeak. The ocean lay at the ready, its stilled waves\n awaiting his command to resume their tidal sweep. The breakers along\n the shoreline hung in varying stages of disarray, some having already\n exploded into towering white spray while others were poised in smooth\n orange curls waiting to start that action.\n\n\n And there were new friends everywhere! Overhead, a flock of spora were\n frozen in a steep glide, preparatory to a beach landing. Purnie had\n heard of these playful creatures many times. Today, with his brothers\n in school, he would have the pets all to himself. Further down the\n beach was a pair of two-legged animals poised in mid-step, facing\n the spot where Purnie now stood. Some distance behind them were eight\n more, each of whom were motionless in a curious pose of interrupted\n animation. And down in the water, where the ocean ran itself into thin\n nothingness upon the sand, he saw standing here and there the comical\n tripons, those three-legged marine buffoons who made handsome careers\n of munching seaweed.\n\n\n \"Hi there!\" Purnie called. When he got no reaction, he remembered that\n he himself was \"dead\" to the living world: he was still in a zone of\n time-stopping, on the inside looking out. For him, the world would\n continue to be a tableau of mannikins until he resumed time.\n\"Hi there!\" he called again; but now his mental attitude was that he\n expected time to resume. It did! Immediately he was surrounded by\n activity. He heard the roar of the crashing orange breakers, he tasted\n the dew of acid that floated from the spray, and he saw his new friends\n continue the actions which he had stopped while back in the forest.\n\n\n He knew, too, that at this moment, in the forest, the little brook\n picked up its flow where it had left off, the purple clouds resumed\n their leeward journey up the valley, and the bees continued their\n pollen-gathering without having missed a single stroke of their\n delicate wings. The brook, the clouds, and the insects had not been\n interrupted in the least; their respective tasks had been performed\n with continuing sureness. It was time itself that Purnie had stopped,\n not the world around him.\n\n\n He scampered around the rockpile and down the sandy cliff to meet the\n tripons who, to him, had just come to life.\n\n\n \"I can stand on my head!\" He set down his lunch and balanced himself\n bottoms-up while his legs pawed the air in an effort to hold him in\n position. He knew it was probably the worst head-stand he had ever\n done, for he felt weak and dizzy. Already time-stopping had left its\n mark on his strength. But his spirits ran on unchecked.\n\n\n The tripon thought Purnie's feat was superb. It stopped munching long\n enough to give him a salutory wag of its rump before returning to its\n repast.\n\n\n Purnie ran from pillar to post, trying to see and do everything at\n once. He looked around to greet the flock of spora, but they had glided\n to a spot further along the shore. Then, bouncing up to the first of\n the two-legged animals, he started to burst forth with his habitual \"Hi\n there!\" when he heard them making sounds of their own.\n\n\n \"... will be no limit to my operations now, Benson. This planet makes\n seventeen. Seventeen planets I can claim as my own!\"\n\n\n \"My, my. Seventeen planets. And tell me, Forbes, just what the hell are\n you going to do with them\u2014mount them on the wall of your den back in\n San Diego?\"\n\n\n \"Hi there, wanna play?\" Purnie's invitation got nothing more than\n startled glance from the animals who quickly returned to their chatter.\n He scampered up the beach, picked up his lunch, and ran back to them,\n tagging along at their heels. \"I've got my lunch, want some?\"\n\n\n \"Benson, you'd better tell your men back there to stop gawking at\n the scenery and get to work. Time is money. I didn't pay for this\n expedition just to give your flunkies a vacation.\"\nThe animals stopped so suddenly that Purnie nearly tangled himself in\n their heels.\n\n\n \"All right, Forbes, just hold it a minute. Listen to me. Sure, it's\n your money that put us here; it's your expedition all the way. But you\n hired me to get you here with the best crew on earth, and that's just\n what I've done. My job isn't over yet. I'm responsible for the safety\n of the men while we're here, and for the safe trip home.\"\n\n\n \"Precisely. And since you're responsible, get 'em working. Tell 'em to\n bring along the flag. Look at the damn fools back there, playing in the\n ocean with a three-legged ostrich!\"\n\n\n \"Good God, man, aren't you human? We've only been on this planet twenty\n minutes! Naturally they want to look around. They half expected to find\n wild animals or worse, and here we are surrounded by quaint little\n creatures that run up to us like we're long-lost brothers. Let the men\n look around a minute or two before we stake out your claim.\"\n\n\n \"Bah! Bunch of damn children.\"\n\n\n As Purnie followed along, a leg shot out at him and missed. \"Benson,\n will you get this bug-eyed kangaroo away from me!\" Purnie shrieked with\n joy at this new frolic and promptly stood on his head. In this position\n he got an upside down view of them walking away.\n\n\n He gave up trying to stay with them. Why did they move so fast, anyway?\n What was the hurry? As he sat down and began eating his lunch, three\n more of the creatures came along making excited noises, apparently\n trying to catch up to the first two. As they passed him, he held out\n his lunch. \"Want some?\" No response.\n\n\n Playing held more promise than eating. He left his lunch half eaten and\n went down to where they had stopped further along the beach.\n\n\n \"Captain Benson, sir! Miles has detected strong radiation in the\n vicinity. He's trying to locate it now.\"\n\n\n \"There you are, Forbes. Your new piece of real estate is going to make\n you so rich that you can buy your next planet. That'll make eighteen, I\n believe.\"\n\n\n \"Radiation, bah! We've found low-grade ore on every planet I've\n discovered so far, and this one'll be no different. Now how about that\n flag? Let's get it up, Benson. And the cornerstone, and the plaque.\"\n\n\n \"All right, lads. The sooner we get Mr. Forbes's pennant raised and his\n claim staked out, the sooner we can take time to look around. Lively\n now!\"\nWhen the three animals went back to join the rest of their group, the\n first two resumed walking. Purnie followed along.\n\n\n \"Well, Benson, you won't have to look far for materials to use for the\n base of the flag pole. Look at that rockpile up there.\n\n\n \"Can't use them. They're petrified logs. The ones on top are too high\n to carry down, and if we move those on the bottom, the whole works will\n slide down on top of us.\"\n\n\n \"Well\u2014that's your problem. Just remember, I want this flag pole to be\n solid. It's got to stand at least\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't worry, Forbes, we'll get your monument erected. What's this with\n the flag? There must be more to staking a claim than just putting up a\n flag.\"\n\n\n \"There is, there is. Much more. I've taken care of all requirements set\n down by law to make my claim. But the flag? Well, you might say it\n represents an empire, Benson. The Forbes Empire. On each of my flags\n is the word FORBES, a symbol of development and progress. Call it\n sentiment if you will.\"\n\n\n \"Don't worry, I won't. I've seen real-estate flags before.\"\n\n\n \"Damn it all, will you stop referring to this as a real-estate deal?\n What I'm doing is big, man. Big! This is pioneering.\"\n\n\n \"Of course. And if I'm not mistaken, you've set up a neat little escrow\n system so that you not only own the planets, but you will virtually own\n the people who are foolish enough to buy land on them.\"\n\n\n \"I could have your hide for talking to me like this. Damn you, man!\n It's people like me who pay your way. It's people like me who give your\n space ships some place to go. It's people like me who pour good money\n into a chancey job like this, so that people like you can get away from\n thirteen-story tenement houses. Did you ever think of that?\"\n\n\n \"I imagine you'll triple your money in six months.\"\n\n\n When they stopped, Purnie stopped. At first he had been interested in\n the strange sounds they were making, but as he grew used to them, and\n as they in turn ignored his presence, he hopped alongside chattering to\n himself, content to be in their company.\n\n\n He heard more of these sounds coming from behind, and he turned to see\n the remainder of the group running toward them.\n\n\n \"Captain Benson! Here's the flag, sir. And here's Miles with the\n scintillometer. He says the radiation's getting stronger over this way!\"\n\n\n \"How about that, Miles?\"\n\n\n \"This thing's going wild, Captain. It's almost off scale.\"\nPurnie saw one of the animals hovering around him with a little box.\n Thankful for the attention, he stood on his head. \"Can you do this?\"\n He was overjoyed at the reaction. They all started making wonderful\n noises, and he felt most satisfied.\n\n\n \"Stand back, Captain! Here's the source right here! This little\n chuck-walla's hotter than a plutonium pile!\"\n\n\n \"Let me see that, Miles. Well, I'll be damned! Now what do you\n suppose\u2014\"\n\n\n By now they had formed a widening circle around him, and he was hard\n put to think of an encore. He gambled on trying a brand new trick: he\n stood on one leg.\n\n\n \"Benson, I must have that animal! Put him in a box.\"\n\n\n \"Now wait a minute, Forbes. Universal Law forbids\u2014\"\n\n\n \"This is my planet and I am the law. Put him in a box!\"\n\n\n \"With my crew as witness, I officially protest\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Good God, what a specimen to take back. Radio-active animals! Why,\n they can reproduce themselves, of course! There must be thousands of\n these creatures around here someplace. And to think of those damn fools\n on Earth with their plutonium piles! Hah! Now I'll have investors\nflocking\nto me. How about it, Benson\u2014does pioneering pay off or\n doesn't it?\"\n\n\n \"Not so fast. Since this little fellow is radioactive, there may be\n great danger to the crew\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Now look here! You had planned to put\nmineral\nspecimens in a lead\n box, so what's the difference? Put him in a box.\"\n\n\n \"He'll die.\"\n\n\n \"I have you under contract, Benson! You are responsible to me, and\n what's more, you are on my property. Put him in a box.\"\n\n\n Purnie was tired. First the time-stopping, then this. While this day\n had brought more fun and excitement than he could have hoped for,\n the strain was beginning to tell. He lay in the center of the circle\n happily exhausted, hoping that his friends would show him some of their\n own tricks.\n\n\n He didn't have to wait long. The animals forming the circle stepped\n back and made way for two others who came through carrying a box.\n Purnie sat up to watch the show.\n\n\n \"Hell, Captain, why don't I just pick him up? Looks like he has no\n intention of running away.\"\n\n\n \"Better not, Cabot. Even though you're shielded, no telling what\n powers the little fella has. Play it safe and use the rope.\"\n\n\n \"I swear he knows what we're saying. Look at those eyes.\"\n\n\n \"All right, careful now with that line.\"\n\n\n \"Come on, baby. Here you go. That's a boy!\"\nPurnie took in these sounds with perplexed concern. He sensed the\n imploring quality of the creature with the rope, but he didn't know\n what he was supposed to do. He cocked his head to one side as he\n wiggled in anticipation.\n\n\n He saw the noose spinning down toward his head, and, before he knew\n it, he had scooted out of the circle and up the sandy beach. He was\n surprised at himself for running away. Why had he done it? He wondered.\n Never before had he felt this fleeting twinge that made him want to\n protect himself.\n\n\n He watched the animals huddle around the box on the beach, their\n attention apparently diverted to something else. He wished now that he\n had not run away; he felt he had lost his chance to join in their fun.\n\n\n \"Wait!\" He ran over to his half-eaten lunch, picked it up, and ran back\n into the little crowd. \"I've got my lunch, want some?\"\n\n\n The party came to life once more. His friends ran this way and that,\n and at last Purnie knew that the idea was to get him into the box.\n He picked up the spirit of the tease, and deliberately ran within a\n few feet of the lead box, then, just as the nearest pursuer was about\n to push him in, he sidestepped onto safer ground. Then he heard a\n deafening roar and felt a warm, wet sting in one of his legs.\n\n\n \"Forbes, you fool! Put away that gun!\"\n\n\n \"There you are, boys. It's all in knowing how. Just winged him, that's\n all. Now pick him up.\"\n\n\n The pang in his leg was nothing: Purnie's misery lay in his confusion.\n What had he done wrong? When he saw the noose spinning toward him\n again, he involuntarily stopped time. He knew better than to use this\n power carelessly, but his action now was reflex. In that split second\n following the sharp sting in his leg, his mind had grasped in all\n directions to find an acceptable course of action. Finding none, it had\n ordered the stoppage of time.\n\n\n The scene around him became a tableau once more. The noose hung\n motionless over his head while the rest of the rope snaked its way in\n transverse waves back to one of the two-legged animals. Purnie dragged\n himself through the congregation, whimpering from his inability to\n understand.\n\n\n As he worked his way past one creature after another, he tried at first\n to not look them in the eye, for he felt sure he had done something\n wrong. Then he thought that by sneaking a glance at them as he passed,\n he might see a sign pointing to their purpose. He limped by one who had\n in his hand a small shiny object that had been emitting smoke from one\n end; the smoke now billowed in lifeless curls about the animal's head.\n He hobbled by another who held a small box that had previously made a\n hissing sound whenever Purnie was near. These things told him nothing.\n Before starting his climb up the knoll, he passed a tripon which, true\n to its reputation, was comical even in fright. Startled by the loud\n explosion, it had jumped four feet into the air before Purnie had\n stopped time. Now it hung there, its beak stuffed with seaweed and its\n three legs drawn up into a squatting position.\n\n\n Leaving the assorted statues behind, he limped his way up the knoll,\n torn between leaving and staying. What an odd place, this ocean\n country! He wondered why he had not heard more detail about the beach\n animals.\n\n\n Reaching the top of the bluff, he looked down upon his silent friends\n with a feeling of deep sorrow. How he wished he were down there playing\n with them. But he knew at last that theirs was a game he didn't fit\n into. Now there was nothing left but to resume time and start the\n long walk home. Even though the short day was nearly over, he knew he\n didn't dare use time-stopping to get himself home in nothing flat. His\n fatigued body and clouded mind were strong signals that he had already\n abused this faculty.\nWhen Purnie started time again, the animal with the noose stood in\n open-mouthed disbelief as the rope fell harmlessly to the sand\u2014on the\n spot where Purnie had been standing.\n\n\n \"My God, he's\u2014he's gone.\"\n\n\n Then another of the animals, the one with the smoking thing in his\n hand, ran a few steps toward the noose, stopped and gaped at the rope.\n \"All right, you people, what's going on here? Get him in that box. What\n did you do with him?\"\n\n\n The resumption of time meant nothing at all to those on the beach, for\n to them time had never stopped. The only thing they could be sure of\n was that at one moment there had been a fuzzy creature hopping around\n in front of them, and the next moment he was gone.\n\n\n \"Is he invisible, Captain? Where is he?\"\n\n\n \"Up there, Captain! On those rocks. Isn't that him?\"\n\n\n \"Well, I'll be damned!\"\n\n\n \"Benson, I'm holding you personally responsible for this! Now that\n you've botched it up, I'll bring him down my own way.\"\n\n\n \"Just a minute, Forbes, let me think. There's something about that\n fuzzy little devil that we should.... Forbes! I warned you about that\n gun!\"\n\n\n Purnie moved across the top of the rockpile for a last look at his\n friends. His weight on the end of the first log started the slide.\n Slowly at first, the giant pencils began cascading down the short\n distance to the sand. Purnie fell back onto solid ground, horrified at\n the spectacle before him. The agonizing screams of the animals below\n filled him with hysteria.\n\n\n The boulders caught most of them as they stood ankle-deep in the surf.\n Others were pinned down on the sand.\n\n\n \"I didn't mean it!\" Purnie screamed. \"I'm sorry! Can't you hear?\" He\n hopped back and forth near the edge of the rise, torn with panic and\n shame. \"Get up! Please get up!\" He was horrified by the moans reaching\n his ears from the beach. \"You're getting all wet! Did you hear me?\n Please get up.\" He was choked with rage and sorrow. How could he have\n done this? He wanted his friends to get up and shake themselves off,\n tell him it was all right. But it was beyond his power to bring it\n about.\n\n\n The lapping tide threatened to cover those in the orange surf.\nPurnie worked his way down the hill, imploring them to save themselves.\n The sounds they made carried a new tone, a desperate foreboding of\n death.\n\n\n \"Rhodes! Cabot! Can you hear me?\"\n\n\n \"I\u2014I can't move, Captain. My leg, it's.... My God, we're going to\n drown!\"\n\n\n \"Look around you, Cabot. Can you see anyone moving?\"\n\n\n \"The men on the beach are nearly buried, Captain. And the rest of us\n here in the water\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Forbes. Can you see Forbes? Maybe he's\u2014\" His sounds were cut off by a\n wavelet gently rolling over his head.\n\n\n Purnie could wait no longer. The tides were all but covering one of the\n animals, and soon the others would be in the same plight. Disregarding\n the consequences, he ordered time to stop.\n\n\n Wading down into the surf, he worked a log off one victim, then he\n tugged the animal up to the sand. Through blinding tears, Purnie worked\n slowly and carefully. He knew there was no hurry\u2014at least, not as far\n as his friends' safety was concerned. No matter what their condition\n of life or death was at this moment, it would stay the same way until\n he started time again. He made his way deeper into the orange liquid,\n where a raised hand signalled the location of a submerged body. The\n hand was clutching a large white banner that was tangled among the\n logs. Purnie worked the animal free and pulled it ashore.\n\n\n It was the one who had been carrying the shiny object that spit smoke.\n\n\n Scarcely noticing his own injured leg, he ferried one victim after\n another until there were no more in the surf. Up on the beach, he\n started unraveling the logs that pinned down the animals caught there.\n He removed a log from the lap of one, who then remained in a sitting\n position, his face contorted into a frozen mask of agony and shock.\n Another, with the weight removed, rolled over like an iron statue into\n a new position. Purnie whimpered in black misery as he surveyed the\n chaotic scene before him.\n\n\n At last he could do no more; he felt consciousness slipping away from\n him.\n\n\n He instinctively knew that if he lost his senses during a period of\n time-stopping, events would pick up where they had left off ... without\n him. For Purnie, this would be death. If he had to lose consciousness,\n he knew he must first resume time.\n\n\n Step by step he plodded up the little hill, pausing every now and then\n to consider if this were the moment to start time before it was too\n late. With his energy fast draining away, he reached the top of the\n knoll, and he turned to look down once more on the group below.\n\n\n Then he knew how much his mind and body had suffered: when he ordered\n time to resume, nothing happened.\n\n\n His heart sank. He wasn't afraid of death, and he knew that if he died\n the oceans would roll again and his friends would move about. But he\n wanted to see them safe.\n\n\n He tried to clear his mind for supreme effort. There was no\nurging\ntime to start. He knew he couldn't persuade it by bits and pieces,\n first slowly then full ahead. Time either progressed or it didn't. He\n had to take one viewpoint or the other.\n\n\n Then, without knowing exactly when it happened, his mind took\n command....\nHis friends came to life. The first one he saw stir lay on his stomach\n and pounded his fists on the beach. A flood of relief settled over\n Purnie as sounds came from the animal.\n\n\n \"What's the matter with me? Somebody tell me! Am I nuts? Miles! Schick!\n What's happening?\"\n\n\n \"I'm coming, Rhodes! Heaven help us, man\u2014I saw it, too. We're either\n crazy or those damn logs are alive!\"\n\n\n \"It's not the logs. How about us? How'd we get out of the water? Miles,\n we're both cracking.\"\n\n\n \"I'm telling you, man, it's the logs, or rocks or whatever they are.\n I was looking right at them. First they're on top of me, then they're\n piled up over there!\"\n\n\n \"Damnit, the logs didn't pick us up out of the ocean, did they? Captain\n Benson!\"\n\n\n \"Are you men all right?\"\n\n\n \"Yes sir, but\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Who saw exactly what happened?\"\n\n\n \"I'm afraid we're not seeing right, Captain. Those logs\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I know, I know. Now get hold of yourselves. We've got to round up the\n others and get out of here while time is on our side.\"\n\n\n \"But what happened, Captain?\"\n\n\n \"Hell, Rhodes, don't you think I'd like to know? Those logs are so old\n they're petrified. The whole bunch of us couldn't lift one. It would\n take super-human energy to move one of those things.\"\n\n\n \"I haven't seen anything super-human. Those ostriches down there are so\n busy eating seaweed\u2014\"\n\n\n \"All right, let's bear a hand here with the others. Some of them can't\n walk. Where's Forbes?\"\n\n\n \"He's sitting down there in the water, Captain, crying like a baby. Or\n laughing. I can't tell which.\"\n\n\n \"We'll have to get him. Miles, Schick, come along. Forbes! You all\n right?\"\n\n\n \"Ho-ho-ho! Seventeen! Seventeen! Seventeen planets, Benson, and they'll\n do anything I say! This one's got a mind of its own. Did you see that\n little trick with the rocks? Ho-ho!\"\n\n\n \"See if you can find his gun, Schick; he'll either kill himself or one\n of us. Tie his hands and take him back to the ship. We'll be along\n shortly.\"\n\n\n \"Hah-hah-hah! Seventeen! Benson, I'm holding you personally responsible\n for this. Hee-hee!\"\nPurnie opened his eyes as consciousness returned. Had his friends gone?\n\n\n He pulled himself along on his stomach to a position between two rocks,\n where he could see without being seen. By the light of the twin moons\n he saw that they were leaving, marching away in groups of two and\n three, the weak helping the weaker. As they disappeared around the\n curving shoreline, the voices of the last two, bringing up the rear far\n behind the others, fell faintly on his ears over the sound of the surf.\n\n\n \"Is it possible that we're all crazy, Captain?\"\n\n\n \"It's possible, but we're not.\"\n\n\n \"I wish I could be sure.\"\n\n\n \"See Forbes up ahead there? What do you think of him?\"\n\n\n \"I still can't believe it.\"\n\n\n \"He'll never be the same.\"\n\n\n \"Tell me something. What was the most unusual thing you noticed back\n there?\"\n\n\n \"You must be kidding, sir. Why, the way those logs were off of us\n suddenly\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Yes, of course. But I mean beside that.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I guess I was kind of busy. You know, scared and mixed up.\"\n\n\n \"But didn't you notice our little pop-eyed friend?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, him. I'm afraid not, Captain. I\u2014I guess I was thinking mostly of\n myself.\"\n\n\n \"Hmmm. If I could only be sure I saw him. If only someone else saw him\n too.\"\n\n\n \"I'm afraid I don't follow you, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Well, damn it all, you know that Forbes took a pot shot at him. Got\n him in the leg. That being the case, why would the fuzzy little devil\n come back to his tormentors\u2014back to us\u2014when we were trapped under\n those logs?\"\n\n\n \"Well, I guess as long as we were trapped, he figured we couldn't do\n him any more harm.... I'm sorry, that was a stupid answer. I guess I'm\n still a little shaky.\"\n\n\n \"Forget it. Look, you go ahead to the ship and make ready for take-off.\n I'll join you in a few minutes. I think I'll go back and look around.\n You know. Make sure we haven't left anyone.\"\n\n\n \"No need to do that. They're all ahead of us. I've checked.\"\n\n\n \"That's my responsibility, Cabot, not yours. Now go on.\"\nAs Purnie lay gathering strength for the long trek home, he saw through\n glazed eyes one of the animals coming back along the beach. When it was\n nearly directly below him, he could hear it making sounds that by now\n had become familiar.\n\n\n \"Where are you?\"\n\n\n Purnie paid little attention to the antics of his friend; he was\n beyond understanding. He wondered what they would say at home when he\n returned.\n\n\n \"We've made a terrible mistake. We\u2014\" The sounds faded in and out on\n Purnie's ears as the creature turned slowly and called in different\n directions. He watched the animal walk over to the pile of scattered\n logs and peer around and under them.\n\n\n \"If you're hurt I'd like to help!\" The twin moons were high in the sky\n now, and where their light broke through the swirling clouds a double\n shadow was cast around the animal. With foggy awareness, Purnie watched\n the creature shake its head slowly, then walk away in the direction of\n the others.\n\n\n Purnie's eyes stared, without seeing, at the panorama before him. The\n beach was deserted now, and his gaze was transfixed on a shimmering\n white square floating on the ocean. Across it, the last thing Purnie\n ever saw, was emblazoned the word FORBES.",
    "51656": "Going straight meant crooked planning. He'd\n \nnever make it unless he somehow managed to\nPICK A CRIME\nBy RICHARD R. SMITH\n\n\n Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction May 1958.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe girl was tall, wide-eyed and brunette. She had the right curves in\n the right places and would have been beautiful if her nose had been\n smaller, if her mouth had been larger and if her hair had been wavy\n instead of straight.\n\n\n \"Hank said you wanted to see me,\" she said when she stopped beside\n Joe's table.\n\n\n \"Yeah.\" Joe nodded at the other chair. \"Have a seat.\" He reached into a\n pocket, withdrew five ten-dollar bills and handed them to her. \"I want\n you to do a job for me. It'll only take a few minutes.\"\n\n\n The girl counted the money, then placed it in her purse. Joe noticed\n a small counterfeit-detector inside the purse before she closed it.\n \"What's the job?\"\n\n\n \"Tell you later.\" He gulped the remainder of his drink, almost pouring\n it down his throat.\n\n\n \"Hey. You trying to make yourself sick?\"\n\n\n \"Not sick. Drunk. Been trying to get drunk all afternoon.\" As the\n liquor settled in his stomach, he waited for the warm glow. But the\n glow didn't come ... the bartender had watered his drink again.\n\n\n \"Trying to get drunk?\" the girl inquired. \"Are you crazy?\"\n\n\n \"No. It's simple. If I get drunk, I can join the AAA and get free room\n and board for a month while they give me a treatment.\"\n\n\n It was easy enough to understand, he reflected, but a lot harder to do.\n The CPA robot bartenders saw to it that anyone got high if they wanted,\n but comparatively few got drunk. Each bartender could not only mix\n drinks but could also judge by a man's actions and speech when he was\n on the verge of drunkenness. At the proper time\u2014since drunkenness was\n illegal\u2014a bartender always watered the drinks.\n\n\n Joe had tried dozens of times in dozens of bars to outsmart them, but\n had always failed. And in all of New York's millions, there had been\n only a hundred cases of intoxication during the previous year.\n\n\n The girl laughed. \"If you're that hard up, I don't know if I should\n take this fifty or not. Why don't you go out and get a job like\n everyone else?\"\n\n\n As an answer, Joe handed her his CPA ID card. She grunted when she\n saw the large letters that indicated the owner had Dangerous Criminal\n Tendencies.\nWhen she handed the card back, Joe fought an impulse to tear it to\n pieces. He'd done that once and gone through a mountain of red tape to\n get another\u2014everyone was required by law to carry a CPA ID card and\n show it upon request.\n\n\n \"I'm sorry,\" the girl said. \"I didn't know you were a DCT.\"\n\n\n \"And who'll hire a guy with criminal tendencies? You know the score.\n When you try to get a job, they ask to see your ID before they even\n tell you if there's an opening or not. If your CPA ID says you're a\n DCT, you're SOL and they tell you there's no openings. Oh, I've had\n several jobs ... jobs like all DCTs get. I've been a garbage man,\n street-cleaner, ditch-digger\u2014\"\n\n\n On the other side of the room, the jukebox came to life with a roar and\n a group of teen-agers scrambled to the dance floor.\n\n\n Feeling safe from hidden microphones because of the uproar, he leaned\n across the table and whispered in the girl's ear, \"That's what I\n want to hire you for. I want you to help me commit a crime. If I get\n convicted of a crime, I'll be able to get a good job!\"\n\n\n The girl's lips formed a bright red circle. \"Say! You really got big\n plans, don't you?\"\n\n\n He smiled at her admiration. It\nwas\nsomething big to plan a crime.\n A civilization weary of murder, robbery, kidnapping, counterfeiting,\n blackmail, rape, arson, and drunkenness had originated the CPA\u2014Crime\n Prevention Association. There were no longer any prisons\u2014CPA officials\n had declared loudly and emphatically that their job was to prevent\n crime, not punish it. And prevent it they did, with thousands of\n ingenious crime-prevention devices and methods. They had made crime\n almost impossible, and during the previous year, only a few hundred men\n in the whole country had been convicted of criminal acts.\n\n\n No crime was ever punished. If a man was smart enough to kill\n someone, for instance, he wasn't sent to prison to be punished; he\n wasn't punished at all. Instead, he was sent to a hospital where all\n criminal tendencies were removed from his mind by psychologists, shock\n treatments, encephalographic devices, a form of prefrontal lobotomy and\n a dozen other methods. An expensive operation, but since there were few\n criminals\u2014only ten in New York during the past year\u2014any city could\n afford the CPA hospitals.\n\n\n The CPA system was, actually, cheaper than previous methods because\n it did away with the damage caused by countless crimes; did away with\n prisons and their guards, large police forces, squad cars and weapons.\n\n\n And, ironically, a man who\ndid\ncommit a crime was a sort of hero. He\n was a hero to the millions of men and women who had suppressed impulses\n to kill someone, beat their mates, get drunk, or kick a dog. Not only a\n hero, but because of the CPA Treatment, he was\u2014when he left one of the\n CPA hospitals\u2014a thoroughly honest and hard-working individual ... a\n man who could be trusted with any responsibility, any amount of money.\n And therefore, an EX (a convicted criminal who received the treatment\n was commonly called an Ex because he was in the strictest sense of the\n word an Ex-criminal) ... an Ex was always offered the best jobs.\n\n\n \"Well,\" the girl said. \"I'm honored. Really. But I got a date at ten.\n Let's get it over with. You said it'd only take a few minutes.\"\n\n\n \"Okay. Let's go.\"\nThe girl followed him across the room, around tables, through a door,\n down a hall, through a back door and into the alley.\n\n\n She followed him up the dark alley until he turned suddenly and ripped\n her blouse and skirt.\n\n\n He surprised her completely, but when she recovered, she backed away,\n her body poised like a wrestler's. \"What's the big idea?\"\n\n\n \"Scream,\" Joe said. \"Scream as loud as you can, and when the cops get\n here, tell 'em I tried to rape you.\"\n\n\n The plan was perfect, he told himself. Attempted rape was one of the\n few things that was a crime merely because a man attempted it. A crime\n because it theoretically inflicted psychological injury upon the\n intended victim\u2014and because millions of women voters had voted it a\n crime. On the other hand, attempted murder, robbery, kidnapping, etc.,\n were not crimes. They weren't crimes because the DCT didn't complete\n the act, and if he didn't complete the act, that meant simply that the\n CPA had once again functioned properly.\n\n\n The girl shook her head vigorously. \"Sorry, buddy. Can't help you that\n way. Why didn't you tell me what you wanted?\"\n\n\n \"What's the matter?\" Joe complained. \"I'm not asking you to do anything\n wrong.\"\n\n\n \"You stupid jerk. What do you think this is\u2014the Middle Ages? Don't you\n know almost every woman knows how to defend herself? I'm a sergeant in\n the WSDA!\"\n\n\n Joe groaned. The WSDA\u2014Women's Self-Defense Association\u2014a branch of\n the CPA. The WSDA gave free instruction in judo and jujitsu, even\n developed new techniques of wrestling and instructed only women in\n those new techniques.\n\n\n The girl was still shaking her head. \"Can't do it, buddy. I'd lose my\n rank if you were convicted of\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Do I have to\nmake\nyou scream?\" Joe inquired tiredly and advanced\n toward the girl.\n\n\n \"\u2014and that rank carries a lot of weight. Hey!\nStop it!\n\"\n\n\n Joe discovered to his dismay that the girl was telling the truth when\n she said she was a sergeant in the WSDA. He felt her hands on his body,\n and in the time it takes to blink twice, he was flying through the air.\nThe alley's concrete floor was hard\u2014it had always been hard, but he\n became acutely aware of its lack of resiliency when his head struck it.\n There was a wonderful moment while the world was filled with beautiful\n stars and streaks of lightning through which he heard distant police\n sirens. But the wonderful moment didn't last long and darkness closed\n in on him.\nWhen he awoke, a rough voice was saying, \"Okay. Snap out of it.\"\n\n\n He opened his eyes and recognized the police commissioner's office. It\n would be hard not to recognize: the room was large, devoid of furniture\n except for a desk and chairs, but the walls were lined with the\n controls of television screens, electronic calculators and a hundred\n other machines that formed New York's mechanical police force.\n\n\n Commissioner Hendricks was a remarkable character. There was something\n wrong with his glands, and he was a huge, greasy bulk of a man with\n bushy eyebrows and a double chin. His steel-gray eyes showed something\n of his intelligence and he would have gone far in politics if fate\n hadn't made him so ugly, for more than half the voters who elected men\n to high political positions were women.\n\n\n Anyone who knew Hendricks well liked him, for he was a friendly,\n likable person. But the millions of women voters who saw his face on\n posters and on their TV screens saw only the ugly face and heard only\n the harsh voice. The President of the United States was a capable\n man, but also a very handsome one, and the fact that a man who looked\n something like a bulldog had been elected as New York's police\n commissioner was a credit to Hendricks and millions of women voters.\n\n\n \"Where's the girl?\" Joe asked.\n\n\n \"I processed her while you were out cold. She left. Joe, you\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Okay,\" Joe said. \"I'll save you the trouble. I admit it. Attempted\n rape. I confess.\"\n\n\n Hendricks smiled. \"Sorry, Joe. You missed the boat again.\" He reached\n out and turned a dial on his desk top. \"We had a microphone hidden in\n that alley. We have a lot of microphones hidden in a lot of alleys.\n You'd be surprised at the number of conspiracies that take place in\n alleys!\"\n\n\n Joe listened numbly to his voice as it came from one of the hundreds of\n machines on the walls, \"\nScream. Scream as loud as you can, and when\n the cops get here, tell 'em I tried to rape you.\n\" And then the girl's\n voice, \"\nSorry, buddy. Can't help\u2014\n\"\n\n\n He waved his hand. \"Okay. Shut it off. I confess to conspiracy.\"\nHendricks rose from behind the desk, walked leisurely to where Joe was\n slouched in a chair. \"Give me your CPA ID.\"\n\n\n Joe handed him the card with trembling fingers. He felt as if the world\n had collapsed beneath him. Conspiracy to commit a crime wasn't a crime.\n Anyone could conspire. And if the conspirators were prevented from\n committing a crime, then that meant the CPA had functioned properly\n once again. That meant the CPA had once again\nprevented\ncrime, and\n the CPA didn't punish crimes or attempted crimes, and it didn't attempt\n to prevent crimes\nby\npunishment. If it did, that would be a violation\n of the New Civil Rights.\n\n\n Hendricks crossed the room, deposited the card in a slot and punched a\n button. The machine hummed and a new card appeared.\n\n\n When Hendricks handed him the new card, Joe saw that the words\n DANGEROUS CRIMINAL TENDENCIES were now in red and larger than before.\n And, in slightly smaller print, the ID card stated that the owner was a\n DCT First Class.\n\n\n \"You've graduated,\" Hendricks said coldly. \"You guys never learn, do\n you? Now you're a DCT First Class instead of a Second Class. You know\n what that means?\"\n\n\n Hendricks leaned closer until Joe could feel his breath on his face.\n \"That means your case history will be turned over to the newspapers.\n You'll be the hobby of thousands of amateur cops. You know how it\n works? It's like this. The Joneses are sitting around tomorrow night\n and they're bored. Then Mr. Jones says, 'Let's go watch this Joe\n Harper.' So they look up your record\u2014amateur cops always keep records\n of First Classes in scrapbooks\u2014and they see that you stop frequently\n at Walt's Tavern.\n\n\n \"So they go there and they sit and drink and watch you, trying not\n to let you know they're watching you. They watch you all night, just\n hoping you'll do something exciting, like trying to kill someone,\n so they can be the first ones to yell '\nPolice!\n' They'll watch you\n because it's exciting to be an amateur cop, and if they ever\ndid\nprevent you from committing a crime, they'd get a nice reward and\n they'd be famous.\"\n\n\n \"Lay off,\" Joe said. \"I got a headache. That girl\u2014\"\n\n\n Hendricks leaned even closer and glared. \"You listen, Joe. This is\n interesting. You see, it doesn't stop with Mr. and Mrs. Jones. There's\n thousands of people like them. Years ago, they got their kicks from\n reading about guys like you, but these days things are dull because\n it's rare when anyone commits a crime. So every time you walk down\n the street, there'll be at least a dozen of 'em following you, and no\n matter where you go, you can bet there'll be some of 'em sitting next\n to you, standing next to you.\n\n\n \"During the day, they'll take your picture with their spy cameras that\n look like buttons on their coats. At night, they'll peep at you through\n your keyhole. Your neighbors across the street will watch you through\n binoculars and\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Lay off!\"\nJoe squirmed in the chair. He'd been lectured by Hendricks before and\n it was always an unpleasant experience. The huge man was like a talking\n machine once he got started, a machine that couldn't be stopped.\n\n\n \"And the kids are the worst,\" Hendricks continued. \"They have Junior\n CPA clubs. They keep records of hoodlums like you in little cardboard\n boxes. They'll stare at you on the street and stare at you through\n restaurant windows while you're eating meals. They'll follow you in\n public rest rooms and watch you out of the corners of their eyes\n while they wash their little hands, and almost every day when you look\n back, you'll see a dozen freckle-faced little boys following you half a\n block behind, giggling and gaping at you. They'll follow you until the\n day you die, because you're a freak!\"\n\n\n Joe couldn't stand the breath in his face any longer. He rose and paced\n the floor.\n\n\n \"And it doesn't end\nthere\n, Joe. It goes on and on. You'll be the\n object of every do-gooder and parlor psychologist. Strangers will stop\n you on the street and say, 'I'd like to help you, friend.' Then they'll\n ask you queer questions like, 'Did your father reject you when you were\n a child?' 'Do you like girls?' 'How does it feel to be a DCT First\n Class?' And then there'll be the strangers who hate DCTs. They'll stop\n you on the street and insult you, call you names, spit on you and\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Okay, goddam it!\nStop it!\n\"\n\n\n Hendricks stopped, wiped the sweat from his face with a handkerchief\n and lit a cigarette.\n\n\n \"I'm doing you a favor, Joe. I'm trying to explain something you're too\n dumb to realize by yourself. We've taught everyone to hate crime and\n criminals ... to\nhate\nthem as nothing has ever been hated before.\n Today a criminal is a freak, an alien. Your life will be a living hell\n if you don't leave New York. You should go to some small town where\n there aren't many people, or be a hermit, or go to Iceland or\u2014\"\n\n\n Joe eyed the huge man suspiciously. \"\nFavor\n, did you say? The day you\n do\nme\na favor\u2014\"\n\n\n Hendricks shrugged his shoulders negligently. \"Not entirely a favor. I\n want to get rid of you. Usually I come up here and sit around and read\n books. But guys like you are a nuisance and take up my time.\"\n\n\n \"I couldn't leave if I wanted to,\" Joe said. \"I'm flat broke. Thanks to\n your CPA system, a DCT can't get a decent job.\"\nHendricks reached into a pocket, withdrew several bills and extended\n them. \"I'll loan you some money. You can sign an IOU and pay me back a\n little at a time.\"\n\n\n Joe waved the money away. \"Listen, why don't you do me a favor? Why\n don't you frame me? If I'm such a nuisance, pin a crime on me\u2014any\n crime.\"\n\n\n \"Can't do it. Convicting a man of a crime he didn't commit is a\n violation of Civil Rights and a crime in itself.\"\n\n\n \"Umm.\"\n\n\n \"Why don't you take the free psycho treatment? A man doesn't\nhave\nto\n be a DCT. With the free treatment, psychologists can remove all your\n criminal tendencies and\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Go to those\nhead-shrinkers\n?\"\n\n\n Hendricks shrugged again. \"Have it your way.\"\n\n\n Joe laughed. \"If your damned CPA is so all-powerful, why can't you\nmake\nme go?\"\n\n\n \"Violation of Civil Rights.\"\n\n\n \"Damn it, there must be some way you can help me! We both want the same\n thing. We both want to see me convicted of a crime.\"\n\n\n \"How can I help you without committing a crime myself?\" Hendricks\n walked to his desk, opened a drawer and removed a small black book.\n \"See this? It contains names and addresses of all the people in New\n York who aren't properly protected. Every week we find people who\n aren't protected properly\u2014blind spots in our protection devices. As\n soon as we find them, we take steps to install anti-robbery devices,\n but this is a big city and sometimes it takes days to get the work done.\n\n\n \"In the meantime, any one of these people could be robbed. But what can\n I do? I can't hold this book in front of your nose and say, 'Here, Joe,\n pick a name and go out and rob him.'\" He laughed nervously. \"If I did\n that, I'd be committing a crime myself!\"\n\n\n He placed the book on the desk top, took a handkerchief from a pocket\n again and wiped sweat from his face. \"Excuse me a minute. I'm dying of\n thirst. There's a water cooler in the next room.\"\n\n\n Joe stared at the door to the adjoining office as it closed behind the\n big man. Hendricks was\u2014unbelievably\u2014offering him a victim, offering\n him a crime!\n\n\n Almost running to the desk, Joe opened the book, selected a name and\n address and memorized it:\nJohn Gralewski, Apt. 204, 2141 Orange St.\nWhen Hendricks came back, Joe said, \"Thanks.\"\n\n\n \"Huh? Thanks for what? I didn't do anything.\"\nWhen Joe reached the street, he hurried toward the nearest subway. As a\n child, he had been frightened of the dark. As a man, he wasn't afraid\n of the dark itself, but the darkened city always made him feel ill\n at ease. The uneasiness was, more than anything else, caused by his\n own imagination. He hated the CPA and at night he couldn't shrug the\n feeling that the CPA lurked in every shadow, watching him, waiting for\n him to make a mistake.\n\n\n Imagination or not, the CPA was almost everywhere a person went.\n Twenty-four hours a day, millions of microphones hidden in taverns,\n alleys, restaurants, subways and every other place imaginable waited\n for someone to say the wrong thing. Everything the microphones picked\n up was routed to the CPA Brain, a monster electronic calculator.\n\n\n If the words \"Let's see a movie\" were received in the Brain, they\n were discarded. But if the words \"Let's roll this guy\" were received,\n the message was traced and a police helicopter would be at the scene\n in two minutes. And scattered all over the city were not only hidden\n microphones, but hidden television cameras that relayed visual messages\n to the Brain, and hidden machines that could detect a knife or a gun in\n someone's pocket at forty yards.\n\n\n Every place of business from the largest bank to the smallest grocery\n store was absolutely impenetrable. No one had even tried to rob a place\n of business for years.\n\n\n Arson was next to impossible because of the heat-detectors\u2014devices\n placed in every building that could detect, radarlike, any intensity of\n heat above that caused by a cigarette lighter. Chemical research had\n made poisoning someone an impossibility. There were no drugs containing\n poison, and while an ant-poison might kill ants, no concentrated amount\n of it would kill a human.\n\n\n The FBI had always been a powerful organization, but under the\n supervision of the CPA, it was a scientific colossus and to think\n of kidnapping someone or to contemplate the use of narcotics was\n pointless. A counterfeiter's career was always short-lived: every place\n of business and millions of individuals had small counterfeit-detectors\n that could spot a fake and report it directly to the Brain.\n\n\n And the percentage of crimes had dwindled even more with the appearance\n of the robot police officers. Many a criminal in the past had gambled\n that he could outshoot a pursuing policeman. But the robots were\n different: they weren't flesh and blood. Bullets bounced off them and\n their aim was infallible.\nIt was like a fantastic dream come true. Only the dream wasn't\n fantastic any more. With the huge atomic power plants scattered across\n the country and supplying endless electrical power at ridiculously\n low prices, no endeavor that required power was fantastic. The power\n required to operate the CPA devices cost each taxpayer an average of\n four dollars a year, and the invention, development and manufacture of\n the devices had cost even less.\n\n\n And the CPA had attacked crime through society itself, striking at\n the individual. In every city there were neon signs that blinked\n subliminally with the statement, CRIME IS FILTH. Listening to a radio\n or watching television, if a person heard station identification, he\n invariably heard or saw just below perception the words CRIME IS FILTH.\n If he went for a walk or a ride, he saw the endless subliminal posters\n declaring CRIME IS FILTH, and if he read a magazine or newspaper he\n always found, in those little dead spaces where an editor couldn't fit\n anything else, the below-perception words CRIME IS FILTH.\n\n\n It was monotonous and, after a while, a person looked at the words and\n heard them without thinking about them. And they were imprinted on his\n subconscious over and over, year after year, until he knew that crime\n was the same as filth and that criminals were filthy things.\n\n\n Except men like Joe Harper. No system is perfect. Along with thousands\n of other DCTs, Joe refused to believe it, and when he reached apartment\n 204 at 2141 Orange Street, he felt as if he'd inherited a gold mine.\n\n\n The hall was dimly lit, but when he stood before the door numbered 204,\n he could see that the wall on either side of it was\nnew\n. That is,\n instead of being covered with dust, dirt and stains as the other walls\n were, it was clean. The building was an old one, the hall was wide, and\n the owner had obviously constructed a wall across the hall, creating\n another room. If the owner had reported the new room as required by\n law, it would have been wired with CPA burglarproof devices, but\n evidently he didn't want to pay for installation.\n\n\n When Joe entered the cubbyhole, he had to stand to one side in order to\n close the door behind him. The place was barely large enough for the\n bed, chair and bureau; it was a place where a man could fall down at\n night and sleep, but where no normal man could live day after day.\n\n\n Fearing that someone might detect him before he actually committed the\n crime, Joe hurried to the bureau and searched it.\nHe broke out in a sweat when he found nothing but underwear and old\n magazines. If he stole underwear and magazines, it would still be a\n crime, but the newspapers would splash satirical headlines. Instead of\n being respected as a successful criminal, he would be ridiculed.\n\n\n He stopped sweating when he found a watch under a pile of underwear.\n The crystal was broken, one hand was missing and it wouldn't run,\n but\u2014perfection itself\u2014engraved on the back was the inscription,\nTo\n John with Love\n. His trial would be a clean-cut one: it would be easy\n for the CPA to prove ownership and that a crime had been committed.\n\n\n Chuckling with joy, he opened the window and shouted, \"\nThief! Police!\n Help!\n\"\n\n\n He waited a few seconds and then ran. When he reached the street, a\n police helicopter landed next to him. Strong metal arms seized him;\n cameras clicked and recorded the damning evidence.\n\n\n When Joe was securely handcuffed to a seat inside the helicopter, the\n metal police officers rang doorbells. There was a reward for anyone who\n reported a crime, but no one admitted shouting the warning.\nHe was having a nightmare when he heard the voice, \"Hey. Wake up. Hey!\"\n\n\n He opened his eyes, saw Hendricks' ugly face and thought for a minute\n he was still having the nightmare.\n\n\n \"I just saw your doctor,\" Hendricks said. \"He says your treatment is\n over. You can go home now. I thought I'd give you a lift.\"\n\n\n As Joe dressed, he searched his mind and tried to find some difference.\n\n\n During the treatment, he had been unconscious or drugged, unable to\n think. Now he could think clearly, but he could find no difference in\n himself.\n\n\n He felt more relaxed than he'd ever felt before, but that could be an\n after-effect of all the sedatives he'd been given. And, he noticed when\n he looked in the mirror, he was paler. The treatment had taken months\n and he had, between operations, been locked in his room.\n\n\n Hendricks was standing by the window. Joe stared at the massive back.\n Deliberately goading his mind, he discovered the biggest change:\n Before, the mere sight of the man had aroused an intense hatred. Now,\n even when he tried, he succeeded in arousing only a mild hatred.\n They had toned down his capacity to hate, but not done away with it\n altogether.\n\n\n \"Come here and take a look at your public,\" said Hendricks.\n\n\n Joe went to the window. Three stories below, a large crowd had gathered\n on the hospital steps: a band, photographers, television trucks,\n cameramen and autograph hunters. He'd waited a long time for this day.\n But now\u2014another change in him\u2014\n\n\n He put the emotion into words: \"I don't feel like a hero. Funny, but I\n don't.\"\n\n\n \"Hero!\" Hendricks laughed and, with his powerful lungs, it sounded\n like a bull snorting. \"You think a successful criminal is a hero? You\n stupid\u2014\"\n\n\n He laughed again and waved a hand at the crowd below them. \"You think\n those people are down there because they admire what you did? They're\n down there waiting for you because they're curious, because they're\n glad the CPA caught you, and because they're glad you're an Ex. You're\n an\nex\n-criminal now, and because of your treatment, you'll never be\n able to commit another crime as long as you live. And that's the kind\n of guy they admire, so they want to see you, shake your hand and get\n your autograph.\"\n\n\n Joe didn't understand Hendricks completely, but the part he did\n understand he didn't believe. A crowd was waiting for him. He could see\n the people with his own eyes. When he left the hospital, they'd cheer\n and shout and ask for his autograph. If he wasn't a hero,\nwhat was\n he\n?\nIt took half an hour to get through the crowd. Cameras clicked all\n around him, a hundred kids asked for his autograph, everyone talked at\n once and cheered, smiled, laughed, patted him on the back and cheered\n some more.\n\n\n Only one thing confused him during all the excitement: a white-haired\n old lady with tears in her eyes said, \"Thank heaven it was only a\n watch. Thank heaven you didn't kill someone! God bless you, son.\" And\n then the old lady had handed him a box of fudge and left him in total\n confusion.\n\n\n What she said didn't make sense. If he had killed someone rather\n than stealing a watch, he would be even more of a hero and the crowd\n would have cheered even louder. He knew: he had stood outside the CPA\n hospitals many times and the crowds always cheered louder when an\n ex-murderer came out.\n\n\n In Hendricks' robot-chauffeured car, he ate the fudge and consoled\n himself with the thought,\nPeople are funny. Who can understand 'em?\nFeeling happy for one of the few times in his life, he turned toward\n Hendricks and said, \"Thanks for what you did. It turned out great. I'll\n be able to get a good job now.\"\n\n\n \"That's why I met you at the hospital,\" Hendricks said. \"I want to\n explain some things. I've known you for a long time and I know you're\n spectacularly dumb. You can't figure out some things for yourself and\n I don't want you walking around the rest of your life thinking I did\n you a favor.\"\n\n\n Joe frowned. Few men had ever done him a favor and he had rarely\n thanked anyone for anything. And now ... after thanking the man who'd\n done him the biggest favor of all, the man was denying it!\n\n\n \"You robbed Gralewski's apartment,\" Hendricks said. \"Gralewski is a CPA\n employee and he doesn't live in the apartment you robbed. The CPA pays\n the rent for that one and he lives in another. We have a lot of places\n like that. You see, it gives us a way to get rid of saps like you\n before they do real damage. We use it as a last resort when a DCT First\n Class won't take the free psycho treatment or\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Well, it's still a favor.\"\n\n\n Hendricks' face hardened. \"Favor? You wouldn't know a favor if you\n stumbled over one. I did it because it's standard procedure for your\n type of case. Anyone can\u2014free of charge\u2014have treatment by the best\n psychologists. Any DCT can stop being a DCT by simply asking for the\n treatment and taking it. But you wouldn't do that. You wanted to commit\n a crime, get caught and be a hero ... an\nEx\n.\"\nThe car passed one of the CPA playgrounds. Boys and girls of all ages\n were laughing, squealing with joy as they played games designed by CPA\n psychologists to relieve tension. And\u2014despite the treatment, Joe\n shuddered when he saw the psychologists standing to one side, quietly\n watching the children. The whole world was filled with CPA employees\n and volunteer workers. Everywhere you went, it was there, quietly\n watching you and analyzing you, and if you showed criminal tendencies,\n it watched you even more closely and analyzed you even more deeply\n until it took you apart and put you back together again the way it\n wanted you to be.\n\n\n \"Being an Ex, you'll get the kind of job you always wanted,\" Hendricks\n continued. \"You'll get a good-paying job, but you'll work for it.\n You'll work eight hours a day, work harder than you've ever worked\n before in your life, because every time you start to loaf, a voice in\n your head is going to say,\nWork! Work!\nExes always get good jobs\n because employers know they're good workers.\n\n\n \"But during these next few days, you'll discover what being an Ex\n is like. You see, Joe, the treatment can't possibly take all the\n criminal tendencies out of a man. So the treatment does the next best\n thing\u2014you'll find a set of laws written in your mind. You might\nwant\nto break one now and then, but you won't be able. I'll give you an\n illustration....\"\n\n\n Joe's face reddened as Hendricks proceeded to call him a series of\n names. He wanted to smash the fat, grinning face, but the muscles in\n his arm froze before it moved it an inch.\n\n\n And worse than that, a brief pain ripped through his skull. A pain so\n intense that, had it lasted a second longer, he would have screamed in\n agony. And above the pain, a voice whispered in his head,\nUnlawful to\n strike someone except in self-defense\n.\n\n\n He opened his mouth to tell Hendricks exactly what he thought of him,\n the CPA, the whole world. But the words stayed in his throat, the pain\n returned, and the mental voice whispered,\nUnlawful to curse\n.\n\n\n He had never heard how the treatment prevented an Ex from committing a\n crime. And now that he knew, it didn't seem fair. He decided to tell\n the whole story to the newspapers as soon as he could. And as soon as\n that decision formed in his mind, his body froze, the pain returned and\n the voice,\nUnlawful to divulge CPA procedure\n.\n\n\n \"See what I mean?\" Hendricks asked. \"A century ago, you would have been\n locked in a prison and taxpayers' money would have supported you until\n the day you died. With the CPA system, you're returned to society, a\n useful citizen, unable to commit the smallest crime. And you've got a\n big hand in your dirty little mind that's going to slap it every time\n you get the wrong kind of thought. It'll keep slapping you until you\n learn. It might take weeks, months or years, but you'll learn sooner\n or later to not even think about doing anything wrong.\"\nHe lit a cigarette and blew a smoke ring at the car's plush ceiling.\n \"It's a great system, isn't it, Joe? A true democracy. Even a jerk like\n you is free to do what he wants, as long as it's legal.\"\n\n\n \"I think it's a lousy, filthy system.\" Joe's head was still tingling\n with pain and he felt suffocated. The CPA was everywhere, only now it\n was also inside his head, telling him he couldn't do this, couldn't do\n that. All his life it had been telling him he couldn't do things he\n wanted to do and\nnow\n....\n\n\n Hendricks laughed. \"You'll change your opinion. We live in a clean,\n wonderful world, Joe. A world of happy, healthy people. Except for\n freaks like yourself, criminals are\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Let me out!\" Joe grabbed at the door and was on the sidewalk, slamming\n the door behind him before the car stopped completely.\n\n\n He stared at the car as it pulled away from the curb and glided into\n the stream of traffic again. He realized he was a prisoner ... a\n prisoner inside his own body ... made a prisoner by a world that hated\n him back.\n\n\n He wanted to spit his contempt, but the increasingly familiar pain and\n voice prevented him.\n\n\n It was unlawful to spit on a sidewalk.",
    "50766": "The Snowball Effect\nBy KATHERINE MacLEAN\n\n\n Illustrated by EMSH\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction September 1952.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nTack power drives on a sewing circle and\n \nyou can needle the world into the darndest mess!\n\"All right,\" I said, \"what\nis\nsociology good for?\"\n\n\n Wilton Caswell, Ph.D., was head of my Sociology Department, and right\n then he was mad enough to chew nails. On the office wall behind him\n were three or four framed documents in Latin that were supposed to be\n signs of great learning, but I didn't care at that moment if he papered\n the walls with his degrees. I had been appointed dean and president\n to see to it that the university made money. I had a job to do, and I\n meant to do it.\n\n\n He bit off each word with great restraint: \"Sociology is the study of\n social institutions, Mr. Halloway.\"\n\n\n I tried to make him understand my position. \"Look, it's the big-money\n men who are supposed to be contributing to the support of this college.\n To them, sociology sounds like socialism\u2014nothing can sound worse than\n that\u2014and an institution is where they put Aunt Maggy when she began\n collecting Wheaties in a stamp album. We can't appeal to them that way.\n Come on now.\" I smiled condescendingly, knowing it would irritate him.\n \"What are you doing that's worth anything?\"\n\n\n He glared at me, his white hair bristling and his nostrils dilated\n like a war horse about to whinny. I can say one thing for them\u2014these\n scientists and professors always keep themselves well under control.\n He had a book in his hand and I was expecting him to throw it, but he\n spoke instead:\n\n\n \"This department's analysis of institutional accretion, by the use of\n open system mathematics, has been recognized as an outstanding and\n valuable contribution to\u2014\"\n\n\n The words were impressive, whatever they meant, but this still didn't\n sound like anything that would pull in money. I interrupted, \"Valuable\n in what way?\"\n\n\n He sat down on the edge of his desk thoughtfully, apparently recovering\n from the shock of being asked to produce something solid for his\n position, and ran his eyes over the titles of the books that lined his\n office walls.\n\n\n \"Well, sociology has been valuable to business in initiating worker\n efficiency and group motivation studies, which they now use in\n management decisions. And, of course, since the depression, Washington\n has been using sociological studies of employment, labor and standards\n of living as a basis for its general policies of\u2014\"\n\n\n I stopped him with both raised hands. \"Please, Professor Caswell! That\n would hardly be a recommendation. Washington, the New Deal and the\n present Administration are somewhat touchy subjects to the men I have\n to deal with. They consider its value debatable, if you know what I\n mean. If they got the idea that sociology professors are giving advice\n and guidance\u2014No, we have to stick to brass tacks and leave Washington\n out of this. What, specifically, has the work of this specific\n department done that would make it as worthy to receive money as\u2014say,\n a heart disease research fund?\"\n\n\n He began to tap the corner of his book absently on the desk, watching\n me. \"Fundamental research doesn't show immediate effects, Mr. Halloway,\n but its value is recognized.\"\n\n\n I smiled and took out my pipe. \"All right, tell me about it. Maybe I'll\n recognize its value.\"\n\n\n Prof. Caswell smiled back tightly. He knew his department was at stake.\n The other departments were popular with donors and pulled in gift\n money by scholarships and fellowships, and supported their professors\n and graduate students by research contracts with the government\n and industry. Caswell had to show a way to make his own department\n popular\u2014or else. I couldn't fire him directly, of course, but there\n are ways of doing it indirectly.\nHe laid down his book and ran a hand over his ruffled hair.\n \"Institutions\u2014organizations, that is\u2014\" his voice became more\n resonant; like most professors, when he had to explain something he\n instinctively slipped into his platform lecture mannerisms, and began\n to deliver an essay\u2014\"have certain tendencies built into the way they\n happen to have been organized, which cause them to expand or contract\n without reference to the needs they were founded to serve.\"\n\n\n He was becoming flushed with the pleasure of explaining his subject.\n \"All through the ages, it has been a matter of wonder and dismay\n to men that a simple organization\u2014such as a church to worship in,\n or a delegation of weapons to a warrior class merely for defense\n against an outside enemy\u2014will either grow insensately and extend its\n control until it is a tyranny over their whole lives, or, like other\n organizations set up to serve a vital need, will tend to repeatedly\n dwindle and vanish, and have to be painfully rebuilt.\n\n\n \"The reason can be traced to little quirks in the way they were\n organized, a matter of positive and negative power feedbacks. Such\n simple questions as, 'Is there a way a holder of authority in this\n organization can use the power available to him to increase his power?'\n provide the key. But it still could not be handled until the complex\n questions of interacting motives and long-range accumulations of minor\n effects could somehow be simplified and formulated. In working on the\n problem, I found that the mathematics of open system, as introduced\n to biology by Ludwig von Bertalanffy and George Kreezer, could be\n used as a base that would enable me to develop a specifically social\n mathematics, expressing the human factors of intermeshing authority and\n motives in simple formulas.\n\n\n \"By these formulations, it is possible to determine automatically the\n amount of growth and period of life of any organization. The UN, to\n choose an unfortunate example, is a shrinker type organization. Its\n monetary support is not in the hands of those who personally benefit\n by its governmental activities, but, instead, in the hands of those\n who would personally lose by any extension and encroachment of its\n authority on their own. Yet by the use of formula analysis\u2014\"\n\n\n \"That's theory,\" I said. \"How about proof?\"\n\n\n \"My equations are already being used in the study of limited-size\n Federal corporations. Washington\u2014\"\n\n\n I held up my palm again. \"Please, not that nasty word again. I mean,\n where else has it been put into operation? Just a simple demonstration,\n something to show that it works, that's all.\"\n\n\n He looked away from me thoughtfully, picked up the book and began to\n tap it on the desk again. It had some unreadable title and his name on\n it in gold letters. I got the distinct impression again that he was\n repressing an urge to hit me with it.\n\n\n He spoke quietly. \"All right, I'll give you a demonstration. Are you\n willing to wait six months?\"\n\n\n \"Certainly, if you can show me something at the end of that time.\"\n\n\n Reminded of time, I glanced at my watch and stood up.\n\n\n \"Could we discuss this over lunch?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"I wouldn't mind hearing more, but I'm having lunch with some\n executors of a millionaire's will. They have to be convinced that by,\n 'furtherance of research into human ills,' he meant that the money\n should go to research fellowships for postgraduate biologists at the\n university, rather than to a medical foundation.\"\n\n\n \"I see you have your problems, too,\" Caswell said, conceding me\n nothing. He extended his hand with a chilly smile. \"Well, good\n afternoon, Mr. Halloway. I'm glad we had this talk.\"\n\n\n I shook hands and left him standing there, sure of his place in the\n progress of science and the respect of his colleagues, yet seething\n inside because I, the president and dean, had boorishly demanded that\n he produce something tangible.\n\n\n I frankly didn't give a hoot if he blew his lid. My job isn't easy.\n For a crumb of favorable publicity and respect in the newspapers and\n an annual ceremony in a silly costume, I spend the rest of the year\n going hat in hand, asking politely for money at everyone's door,\n like a well-dressed panhandler, and trying to manage the university\n on the dribble I get. As far as I was concerned, a department had to\n support itself or be cut down to what student tuition pays for, which\n is a handful of over-crowded courses taught by an assistant lecturer.\n Caswell had to make it work or get out.\n\n\n But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to hear what he was\n going to do for a demonstration.\nAt lunch, three days later, while we were waiting for our order, he\n opened a small notebook. \"Ever hear of feedback effects?\"\n\n\n \"Not enough to have it clear.\"\n\n\n \"You know the snowball effect, though.\"\n\n\n \"Sure, start a snowball rolling downhill and it grows.\"\n\n\n \"Well, now\u2014\" He wrote a short line of symbols on a blank page and\n turned the notebook around for me to inspect it. \"Here's the formula\n for the snowball process. It's the basic general growth formula\u2014covers\n everything.\"\n\n\n It was a row of little symbols arranged like an algebra equation. One\n was a concentric spiral going up, like a cross-section of a snowball\n rolling in snow. That was a growth sign.\n\n\n I hadn't expected to understand the equation, but it was almost as\n clear as a sentence. I was impressed and slightly intimidated by it.\n He had already explained enough so that I knew that, if he was right,\n here was the growth of the Catholic Church and the Roman Empire, the\n conquests of Alexander and the spread of the smoking habit and the\n change and rigidity of the unwritten law of styles.\n\n\n \"Is it really as simple as that?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"You notice,\" he said, \"that when it becomes too heavy for the cohesion\n strength of snow, it breaks apart. Now in human terms\u2014\"\n\n\n The chops and mashed potatoes and peas arrived.\n\n\n \"Go on,\" I urged.\n\n\n He was deep in the symbology of human motives and the equations of\n human behavior in groups. After running through a few different\n types of grower and shrinker type organizations, we came back to the\n snowball, and decided to run the test by making something grow.\n\n\n \"You add the motives,\" he said, \"and the equation will translate them\n into organization.\"\n\n\n \"How about a good selfish reason for the ins to drag others into the\n group\u2014some sort of bounty on new members, a cut of their membership\n fee?\" I suggested uncertainly, feeling slightly foolish. \"And maybe a\n reason why the members would lose if any of them resigned, and some\n indirect way they could use to force each other to stay in.\"\n\n\n \"The first is the chain letter principle,\" he nodded. \"I've got\n that. The other....\" He put the symbols through some mathematical\n manipulation so that a special grouping appeared in the middle of the\n equation. \"That's it.\"\n\n\n Since I seemed to have the right idea, I suggested some more, and he\n added some, and juggled them around in different patterns. We threw\n out a few that would have made the organization too complicated, and\n finally worked out an idyllically simple and deadly little organization\n setup where joining had all the temptation of buying a sweepstakes\n ticket, going in deeper was as easy as hanging around a race track, and\n getting out was like trying to pull free from a Malayan thumb trap. We\n put our heads closer together and talked lower, picking the best place\n for the demonstration.\n\n\n \"Abington?\"\n\n\n \"How about Watashaw? I have some student sociological surveys of it\n already. We can pick a suitable group from that.\"\n\n\n \"This demonstration has got to be convincing. We'd better pick a little\n group that no one in his right mind would expect to grow.\"\n\n\n \"There should be a suitable club\u2014\"\n\n\n Picture Professor Caswell, head of the Department of Sociology, and\n with him the President of the University, leaning across the table\n toward each other, sipping coffee and talking in conspiratorial tones\n over something they were writing in a notebook.\n\n\n That was us.\n\"Ladies,\" said the skinny female chairman of the Watashaw Sewing\n Circle. \"Today we have guests.\" She signaled for us to rise, and we\n stood up, bowing to polite applause and smiles. \"Professor Caswell, and\n Professor Smith.\" (My alias.) \"They are making a survey of the methods\n and duties of the clubs of Watashaw.\"\n\n\n We sat down to another ripple of applause and slightly wider smiles,\n and then the meeting of the Watashaw Sewing Circle began. In five\n minutes I began to feel sleepy.\n\n\n There were only about thirty people there, and it was a small room, not\n the halls of Congress, but they discussed their business of collecting\n and repairing second hand clothing for charity with the same endless\n boring parliamentary formality.\n\n\n I pointed out to Caswell the member I thought would be the natural\n leader, a tall, well-built woman in a green suit, with conscious\n gestures and a resonant, penetrating voice, and then went into a\n half doze while Caswell stayed awake beside me and wrote in his\n notebook. After a while the resonant voice roused me to attention for\n a moment. It was the tall woman holding the floor over some collective\n dereliction of the club. She was being scathing.\n\n\n I nudged Caswell and murmured, \"Did you fix it so that a shover has a\n better chance of getting into office than a non-shover?\"\n\n\n \"I think there's a way they could find for it,\" Caswell whispered back,\n and went to work on his equation again. \"Yes, several ways to bias the\n elections.\"\n\n\n \"Good. Point them out tactfully to the one you select. Not as if\n she'd use such methods, but just as an example of the reason why only\nshe\ncan be trusted with initiating the change. Just mention all the\n personal advantages an unscrupulous person could have.\"\n\n\n He nodded, keeping a straight and sober face as if we were exchanging\n admiring remarks about the techniques of clothes repairing, instead of\n conspiring.\n\n\n After the meeting, Caswell drew the tall woman in the green suit\n aside and spoke to her confidentially, showing her the diagram of\n organization we had drawn up. I saw the responsive glitter in the\n woman's eyes and knew she was hooked.\n\n\n We left the diagram of organization and our typed copy of the new\n bylaws with her and went off soberly, as befitted two social science\n experimenters. We didn't start laughing until our car passed the town\n limits and began the climb for University Heights.\n\n\n If Caswell's equations meant anything at all, we had given that sewing\n circle more growth drives than the Roman Empire.\nFour months later I had time out from a very busy schedule to wonder\n how the test was coming along. Passing Caswell's office, I put my head\n in. He looked up from a student research paper he was correcting.\n\n\n \"Caswell, about that sewing club business\u2014I'm beginning to feel the\n suspense. Could I get an advance report on how it's coming?\"\n\n\n \"I'm not following it. We're supposed to let it run the full six\n months.\"\n\n\n \"But I'm curious. Could I get in touch with that woman\u2014what's her\n name?\"\n\n\n \"Searles. Mrs. George Searles.\"\n\n\n \"Would that change the results?\"\n\n\n \"Not in the slightest. If you want to graph the membership rise, it\n should be going up in a log curve, probably doubling every so often.\"\n\n\n I grinned. \"If it's not rising, you're fired.\"\n\n\n He grinned back. \"If it's not rising, you won't have to fire me\u2014I'll\n burn my books and shoot myself.\"\n\n\n I returned to my office and put in a call to Watashaw.\n\n\n While I was waiting for the phone to be answered, I took a piece of\n graph paper and ruled it off into six sections, one for each month.\n After the phone had rung in the distance for a long time, a servant\n answered with a bored drawl:\n\n\n \"Mrs. Searles' residence.\"\n\n\n I picked up a red gummed star and licked it.\n\n\n \"Mrs. Searles, please.\"\n\n\n \"She's not in just now. Could I take a message?\"\n\n\n I placed the star at the thirty line in the beginning of the first\n section. Thirty members they'd started with.\n\n\n \"No, thanks. Could you tell me when she'll be back?\"\n\n\n \"Not until dinner. She's at the meetin'.\"\n\n\n \"The sewing club?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"No, sir, not that thing. There isn't any Sewing club any more, not\n for a long time. She's at the Civic Welfare meeting.\"\n\n\n Somehow I hadn't expected anything like that.\n\n\n \"Thank you,\" I said and hung up, and after a moment noticed I was\n holding a box of red gummed stars in my hand. I closed it and put it\n down on top of the graph of membership in the sewing circle. No more\n members....\n\n\n Poor Caswell. The bet between us was ironclad. He wouldn't let me\n back down on it even if I wanted to. He'd probably quit before I put\n through the first slow move to fire him. His professional pride would\n be shattered, sunk without a trace. I remembered what he said about\n shooting himself. It had seemed funny to both of us at the time,\n but.... What a mess\nthat\nwould make for the university.\n\n\n I had to talk to Mrs. Searles. Perhaps there was some outside reason\n why the club had disbanded. Perhaps it had not just died.\n\n\n I called back. \"This is Professor Smith,\" I said, giving the alias I\n had used before. \"I called a few minutes ago. When did you say Mrs.\n Searles will return?\"\n\n\n \"About six-thirty or seven o'clock.\"\n\n\n Five hours to wait.\n\n\n And what if Caswell asked me what I had found out in the meantime? I\n didn't want to tell him anything until I had talked it over with that\n woman Searles first.\n\n\n \"Where is this Civic Welfare meeting?\"\n\n\n She told me.\n\n\n Five minutes later, I was in my car, heading for Watashaw, driving\n considerably faster than my usual speed and keeping a careful watch for\n highway patrol cars as the speedometer climbed.\nThe town meeting hall and theater was a big place, probably with lots\n of small rooms for different clubs. I went in through the center door\n and found myself in the huge central hall where some sort of rally was\n being held. A political-type rally\u2014you know, cheers and chants, with\n bunting already down on the floor, people holding banners, and plenty\n of enthusiasm and excitement in the air. Someone was making a speech up\n on the platform. Most of the people there were women.\n\n\n I wondered how the Civic Welfare League could dare hold its meeting at\n the same time as a political rally that could pull its members away.\n The group with Mrs. Searles was probably holding a shrunken and almost\n memberless meeting somewhere in an upper room.\n\n\n There probably was a side door that would lead upstairs.\n\n\n While I glanced around, a pretty girl usher put a printed bulletin in\n my hand, whispering, \"Here's one of the new copies.\" As I attempted to\n hand it back, she retreated. \"Oh, you can keep it. It's the new one.\n Everyone's supposed to have it. We've just printed up six thousand\n copies to make sure there'll be enough to last.\"\n\n\n The tall woman on the platform had been making a driving, forceful\n speech about some plans for rebuilding Watashaw's slum section. It\n began to penetrate my mind dimly as I glanced down at the bulletin in\n my hands.\n\n\n \"Civic Welfare League of Watashaw. The United Organization of Church\n and Secular Charities.\" That's what it said. Below began the rules of\n membership.\n\n\n I looked up. The speaker, with a clear, determined voice and conscious,\n forceful gestures, had entered the homestretch of her speech, an appeal\n to the civic pride of all citizens of Watashaw.\n\n\n \"With a bright and glorious future\u2014potentially without poor and\n without uncared-for ill\u2014potentially with no ugliness, no vistas which\n are not beautiful\u2014the best people in the best planned town in the\n country\u2014the jewel of the United States.\"\n\n\n She paused and then leaned forward intensely, striking her clenched\n hand on the speaker's stand with each word for emphasis.\n\n\n \"\nAll we need is more members. Now get out there and recruit!\n\"\n\n\n I finally recognized Mrs. Searles, as an answering sudden blast of\n sound half deafened me. The crowd was chanting at the top of its lungs:\n \"Recruit! Recruit!\"\n\n\n Mrs. Searles stood still at the speaker's table and behind her,\n seated in a row of chairs, was a group that was probably the board of\n directors. It was mostly women, and the women began to look vaguely\n familiar, as if they could be members of the sewing circle.\n\n\n I put my lips close to the ear of the pretty usher while I turned over\n the stiff printed bulletin on a hunch. \"How long has the League been\n organized?\" On the back of the bulletin was a constitution.\n\n\n She was cheering with the crowd, her eyes sparkling. \"I don't know,\"\n she answered between cheers. \"I only joined two days ago. Isn't it\n wonderful?\"\n\n\n I went into the quiet outer air and got into my car with my skin\n prickling. Even as I drove away, I could hear them. They were singing\n some kind of organization song with the tune of \"Marching through\n Georgia.\"\n\n\n Even at the single glance I had given it, the constitution looked\n exactly like the one we had given the Watashaw Sewing Circle.\n\n\n All I told Caswell when I got back was that the sewing circle had\n changed its name and the membership seemed to be rising.\nNext day, after calling Mrs. Searles, I placed some red stars on my\n graph for the first three months. They made a nice curve, rising more\n steeply as it reached the fourth month. They had picked up their first\n increase in membership simply by amalgamating with all the other types\n of charity organizations in Watashaw, changing the club name with each\n fusion, but keeping the same constitution\u2014the constitution with the\n bright promise of advantages as long as there were always new members\n being brought in.\n\n\n By the fifth month, the League had added a mutual baby-sitting service\n and had induced the local school board to add a nursery school to the\n town service, so as to free more women for League activity. But charity\n must have been completely organized by then, and expansion had to be in\n other directions.\n\n\n Some real estate agents evidently had been drawn into the whirlpool\n early, along with their ideas. The slum improvement plans began to\n blossom and take on a tinge of real estate planning later in the month.\n\n\n The first day of the sixth month, a big two page spread appeared in\n the local paper of a mass meeting which had approved a full-fledged\n scheme for slum clearance of Watashaw's shack-town section, plus plans\n for rehousing, civic building, and rezoning.\nAnd\ngood prospects\n for attracting some new industries to the town, industries which had\n already been contacted and seemed interested by the privileges offered.\n\n\n And with all this, an arrangement for securing and distributing to the\n club members\nalone\nmost of the profit that would come to the town in\n the form of a rise in the price of building sites and a boom in the\n building industry. The profit distributing arrangement was the same one\n that had been built into the organization plan for the distribution\n of the small profits of membership fees and honorary promotions. It\n was becoming an openly profitable business. Membership was rising more\n rapidly now.\n\n\n By the second week of the sixth month, news appeared in the local paper\n that the club had filed an application to incorporate itself as the\n Watashaw Mutual Trade and Civic Development Corporation, and all the\n local real estate promoters had finished joining en masse. The Mutual\n Trade part sounded to me as if the Chamber of Commerce was on the point\n of being pulled in with them, ideas, ambitions and all.\n\n\n I chuckled while reading the next page of the paper, on which a local\n politician was reported as having addressed the club with a long\n flowery oration on their enterprise, charity, and civic spirit. He\n had been made an honorary member. If he allowed himself to be made a\nfull\nmember with its contractual obligations and its lures, if the\n politicians went into this, too....\n\n\n I laughed, filing the newspaper with the other documents on the\n Watashaw test. These proofs would fascinate any businessman with the\n sense to see where his bread was buttered. A businessman is constantly\n dealing with organizations, including his own, and finding them either\n inert, cantankerous, or both. Caswell's formula could be a handle to\n grasp them with. Gratitude alone would bring money into the university\n in carload lots.\nThe end of the sixth month came. The test was over and the end reports\n were spectacular. Caswell's formulas were proven to the hilt.\n\n\n After reading the last newspaper reports, I called him up.\n\n\n \"Perfect, Wilt,\nperfect\n! I can use this Watashaw thing to get you so\n many fellowships and scholarships and grants for your department that\n you'll think it's snowing money!\"\n\n\n He answered somewhat disinterestedly, \"I've been busy working with\n students on their research papers and marking tests\u2014not following the\n Watashaw business at all, I'm afraid. You say the demonstration went\n well and you're satisfied?\"\n\n\n He was definitely putting on a chill. We were friends now, but\n obviously he was still peeved whenever he was reminded that I had\n doubted that his theory could work. And he was using its success to\n rub my nose in the realization that I had been wrong. A man with a\n string of degrees after his name is just as human as anyone else. I had\n needled him pretty hard that first time.\n\n\n \"I'm satisfied,\" I acknowledged. \"I was wrong. The formulas work\n beautifully. Come over and see my file of documents on it if you want a\n boost for your ego. Now let's see the formula for stopping it.\"\n\n\n He sounded cheerful again. \"I didn't complicate that organization\n with negatives. I wanted it to\ngrow\n. It falls apart naturally when\n it stops growing for more than two months. It's like the great stock\n boom before an economic crash. Everyone in it is prosperous as long as\n the prices just keep going up and new buyers come into the market, but\n they all knew what would happen if it stopped growing. You remember, we\n built in as one of the incentives that the members know they are going\n to lose if membership stops growing. Why, if I tried to stop it now,\n they'd cut my throat.\"\n\n\n I remembered the drive and frenzy of the crowd in the one early meeting\n I had seen. They probably would.\n\n\n \"No,\" he continued. \"We'll just let it play out to the end of its\n tether and die of old age.\"\n\n\n \"When will that be?\"\n\n\n \"It can't grow past the female population of the town. There are only\n so many women in Watashaw, and some of them don't like sewing.\"\n\n\n The graph on the desk before me began to look sinister. Surely Caswell\n must have made some provision for\u2014\n\n\n \"You underestimate their ingenuity,\" I said into the phone. \"Since they\n wanted to expand, they didn't stick to sewing. They went from general\n charity to social welfare schemes to something that's pretty close to\n an incorporated government. The name is now the Watashaw Mutual Trade\n and Civic Development Corporation, and they're filing an application\n to change it to Civic Property Pool and Social Dividend, membership\n contractual, open to all. That social dividend sounds like a Technocrat\n climbed on the band wagon, eh?\"\n\n\n While I spoke, I carefully added another red star to the curve above\n the thousand member level, checking with the newspaper that still lay\n open on my desk. The curve was definitely some sort of log curve now,\n growing more rapidly with each increase.\n\n\n \"Leaving out practical limitations for a moment, where does the formula\n say it will stop?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"When you run out of people to join it. But after all, there are only\n so many people in Watashaw. It's a pretty small town.\"\n\"They've opened a branch office in New York,\" I said carefully into the\n phone, a few weeks later.\n\n\n With my pencil, very carefully, I extended the membership curve from\n where it was then.\n\n\n After the next doubling, the curve went almost straight up and off the\n page.\n\n\n Allowing for a lag of contagion from one nation to another, depending\n on how much their citizens intermingled, I'd give the rest of the world\n about twelve years.\n\n\n There was a long silence while Caswell probably drew the same graph\n in his own mind. Then he laughed weakly. \"Well, you asked me for a\n demonstration.\"\n\n\n That was as good an answer as any. We got together and had lunch in a\n bar, if you can call it lunch. The movement we started will expand by\n hook or by crook, by seduction or by bribery or by propaganda or by\n conquest, but it will expand. And maybe a total world government will\n be a fine thing\u2014until it hits the end of its rope in twelve years or\n so.\n\n\n What happens then, I don't know.\n\n\n But I don't want anyone to pin that on me. From now on, if anyone asks\n me, I've never heard of Watashaw.",
    "51337": "THE MAN OUTSIDE\nBy EVELYN E. SMITH\n\n\n Illustrated by DILLON\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction August 1957.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nNo one, least of all Martin, could dispute\n \nthat a man's life should be guarded by his\n \nkin\u2014but by those who hadn't been born yet?\nNobody in the neighborhood was surprised when Martin's mother\n disappeared and Ninian came to take care of him. Mothers had a way\n of disappearing around those parts and the kids were often better\n off without them. Martin was no exception. He'd never had it this\n good while he was living with his old lady. As for his father, Martin\n had never had one. He'd been a war baby, born of one of the tides of\n soldiers\u2014enemies and allies, both\u2014that had engulfed the country in\n successive waves and bought or taken the women. So there was no trouble\n that way.\n\n\n Sometimes he wondered who Ninian really was. Obviously that story\n about her coming from the future was just a gag. Besides, if she really\n was his great-great-grand-daughter, as she said, why would she tell\n him to call her \"\nAunt Ninian\n\"? Maybe he was only eleven, but he'd\n been around and he knew just what the score was. At first he'd thought\n maybe she was some new kind of social worker, but she acted a little\n too crazy for that.\n\n\n He loved to bait her, as he had loved to bait his mother. It was safer\n with Ninian, though, because when he pushed her too far, she would cry\n instead of mopping up the floor with him.\n\n\n \"But I can't understand,\" he would say, keeping his face straight. \"Why\n do you have to come from the future to protect me against your cousin\n Conrad?\"\n\n\n \"Because he's coming to kill you.\"\n\n\n \"Why should he kill me? I ain't done him nothing.\"\n\n\n Ninian sighed. \"He's dissatisfied with the current social order and\n killing you is part of an elaborate plan he's formulated to change it.\n You wouldn't understand.\"\n\n\n \"You're damn right. I\ndon't\nunderstand. What's it all about in\n straight gas?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, just don't ask any questions,\" Ninian said petulantly. \"When you\n get older, someone will explain the whole thing to you.\"\nSo Martin held his peace, because, on the whole, he liked things the\n way they were. Ninian really was the limit, though. All the people he\n knew lived in scabrous tenement apartments like his, but she seemed to\n think it was disgusting.\n\n\n \"So if you don't like it, clean it up,\" he suggested.\n\n\n She looked at him as if he were out of his mind.\n\n\n \"Hire a maid, then!\" he jeered.\n\n\n And darned if that dope didn't go out and get a woman to come clean up\n the place! He was so embarrassed, he didn't even dare show his face in\n the streets\u2014especially with the women buttonholing him and demanding\n to know what gave. They tried talking to Ninian, but she certainly knew\n how to give them the cold shoulder.\n\n\n One day the truant officer came to ask why Martin hadn't been coming\n to school. Very few of the neighborhood kids attended classes very\n regularly, so this was just routine. But Ninian didn't know that and\n she went into a real tizzy, babbling that Martin had been sick and\n would make up the work. Martin nearly did get sick from laughing so\n hard inside.\n\n\n But he laughed out of the other side of his mouth when she went out and\n hired a private tutor for him. A tutor\u2014in that neighborhood! Martin\n had to beat up every kid on the block before he could walk a step\n without hearing \"Fancy Pants!\" yelled after him.\n\n\n Ninian worried all the time. It wasn't that she cared what these people\n thought of her, for she made no secret of regarding them as little\n better than animals, but she was shy of attracting attention. There\n were an awful lot of people in that neighborhood who felt exactly the\n same way, only she didn't know that, either. She was really pretty\n dumb, Martin thought, for all her fancy lingo.\n\n\n \"It's so hard to think these things out without any prior practical\n application to go by,\" she told him.\n\n\n He nodded, knowing what she meant was that everything was coming out\n wrong. But he didn't try to help her; he just watched to see what\n she'd do next. Already he had begun to assume the detached role of a\n spectator.\n\n\n When it became clear that his mother was never going to show up again,\n Ninian bought one of those smallish, almost identical houses that\n mushroom on the fringes of a city after every war, particularly where\n intensive bombing has created a number of desirable building sites.\n\n\n \"This is a much better neighborhood for a boy to grow up in,\" she\n declared. \"Besides, it's easier to keep an eye on you here.\"\n\n\n And keep an eye on him she did\u2014she or a rather foppish young man who\n came to stay with them occasionally. Martin was told to call him Uncle\n Raymond.\n\n\n From time to time, there were other visitors\u2014Uncles Ives and\n Bartholomew and Olaf, Aunts Ottillie and Grania and Lalage, and many\n more\u2014all cousins to one another, he was told, all descendants of his.\nMartin was never left alone for a minute. He wasn't allowed to play\n with the other kids in the new neighborhood. Not that their parents\n would have let them, anyway. The adults obviously figured that if\n a one-car family hired private tutors for their kid, there must be\n something pretty wrong with him. So Martin and Ninian were just as\n conspicuous as before. But he didn't tip her off. She was grown up; she\n was supposed to know better than he did.\n\n\n He lived well. He had food to eat that he'd never dreamed of before,\n warm clothes that no one had ever worn before him. He was surrounded by\n more luxury than he knew what to do with.\n\n\n The furniture was the latest New Grand Rapids African modern. There\n were tidy, colorful Picasso and Braque prints on the walls. And every\n inch of the floor was modestly covered by carpeting, though the walls\n were mostly unabashed glass. There were hot water and heat all the time\n and a freezer well stocked with food\u2014somewhat erratically chosen, for\n Ninian didn't know much about meals.\n\n\n The non-glass part of the house was of neat, natural-toned wood, with a\n neat green lawn in front and a neat parti-colored garden in back.\n\n\n Martin missed the old neighborhood, though. He missed having other\n kids to play with. He even missed his mother. Sure, she hadn't given\n him enough to eat and she'd beaten him up so hard sometimes that she'd\n nearly killed him\u2014but then there had also been times when she'd hugged\n and kissed him and soaked his collar with her tears. She'd done all\n she could for him, supporting him in the only way she knew how\u2014and if\n respectable society didn't like it, the hell with respectable society.\n\n\n From Ninian and her cousins, there was only an impersonal kindness.\n They made no bones about the fact that they were there only to carry\n out a rather unpleasant duty. Though they were in the house with him,\n in their minds and in their talk they were living in another world\u2014a\n world of warmth and peace and plenty where nobody worked, except in the\n government service or the essential professions. And they seemed to\n think even that kind of job was pretty low-class, though better than\n actually doing anything with the hands.\n\n\n In their world, Martin came to understand, nobody worked with hands;\n everything was done by machinery. All the people ever did was wear\n pretty clothes and have good times and eat all they wanted. There was\n no devastation, no war, no unhappiness, none of the concomitants of\n normal living.\n\n\n It was then that Martin began to realize that either the whole lot of\n them were insane, or what Ninian had told him at first was the truth.\n They came from the future.\nWhen Martin was sixteen, Raymond took him aside for the talk Ninian had\n promised five years before.\n\n\n \"The whole thing's all my brother Conrad's fault. You see, he's an\n idealist,\" Raymond explained, pronouncing the last word with distaste.\n\n\n Martin nodded gravely. He was a quiet boy now, his brief past a dim and\n rather ridiculous memory. Who could ever imagine him robbing a grocery\n store or wielding a broken bottle now? He still was rather undersized\n and he'd read so much that he'd weakened his eyes and had to wear\n glasses. His face was pallid, because he spent little time in the sun,\n and his speech rather overbred, his mentors from the future having\n carefully eradicated all current vulgarities.\n\n\n \"And Conrad really got upset over the way Earth has been exploiting\n the not so intelligent life-forms on the other planets,\" Raymond\n continued. \"Which\nis\ndistressing\u2014though, of course, it's not as\n if they were people. Besides, the government has been talking about\n passing laws to do away with the\u2014well, abuses and things like that,\n and I'm sure someday everything will come out all right. However,\n Conrad is so impatient.\"\n\n\n \"I thought, in your world, machines did all the work,\" Martin suggested.\n\n\n \"I've told you\u2014our world is precisely the same as this one!\" Raymond\n snapped. \"We just come a couple of centuries or so later, that's all.\n But remember, our interests are identical. We're virtually the same\n people ... although it is amazing what a difference two hundred odd\n years of progress and polish can make in a species, isn't it?\"\n\n\n He continued more mildly: \"However, even you ought to be able to\n understand that we can't make machinery without metal. We need food.\n All that sort of thing comes from the out-system planets. And, on those\n worlds, it's far cheaper to use native labor than to ship out all that\n expensive machinery. After all, if we didn't give the natives jobs, how\n would they manage to live?\"\n\n\n \"How did they live before? Come to think of it, if you don't work, how\n do\nyou\nlive now?... I don't mean in the now for me, but the now for\n you,\" Martin explained laboriously. It was so difficult to live in the\n past and think in the future.\n\n\n \"I'm trying to talk to you as if you were an adult,\" Raymond said, \"but\n if you will persist in these childish interruptions\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I'm sorry,\" Martin said.\n\n\n But he wasn't, for by now he had little respect left for any of\n his descendants. They were all exceedingly handsome and cultivated\n young people, with superior educations, smooth ways of speaking and\n considerable self-confidence, but they just weren't very bright. And\n he had discovered that Raymond was perhaps the most intelligent of the\n lot. Somewhere in that relatively short span of time, his line or\u2014more\n frightening\u2014his race had lost something vital.\n\n\n Unaware of the near-contempt in which his young ancestor held him,\n Raymond went on blandly: \"Anyhow, Conrad took it upon himself to\n feel particularly guilty, because, he decided, if it hadn't been for\n the fact that our great-grandfather discovered the super-drive, we\n might never have reached the stars. Which is ridiculous\u2014his feeling\n guilty, I mean. Perhaps a great-grandfather is responsible for his\n great-grandchildren, but a great-grandchild can hardly be held\n accountable for his great-grandfather.\"\n\n\n \"How about a great-great-grandchild?\" Martin couldn't help asking.\nRaymond flushed a delicate pink. \"Do you want to hear the rest of this\n or don't you?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I do!\" Martin said. He had pieced the whole thing together for\n himself long since, but he wanted to hear how Raymond would put it.\n\n\n \"Unfortunately, Professor Farkas has just perfected the time\n transmitter. Those government scientists are so infernally\n officious\u2014always inventing such senseless things. It's supposed to\n be hush-hush, but you know how news will leak out when one is always\n desperate for a fresh topic of conversation.\"\n\n\n Anyhow, Raymond went on to explain, Conrad had bribed one of Farkas'\n assistants for a set of the plans. Conrad's idea had been to go back\n in time and \"eliminate!\" their common great-grandfather. In that way,\n there would be no space-drive, and, hence, the Terrestrials would never\n get to the other planets and oppress the local aborigines.\n\n\n \"Sounds like a good way of dealing with the problem,\" Martin observed.\n\n\n Raymond looked annoyed. \"It's the\nadolescent\nway,\" he said, \"to do\n away with it, rather than find a solution. Would you destroy a whole\n society in order to root out a single injustice?\"\n\n\n \"Not if it were a good one otherwise.\"\n\n\n \"Well, there's your answer. Conrad got the apparatus built, or perhaps\n he built it himself. One doesn't inquire too closely into such\n matters. But when it came to the point, Conrad couldn't bear the idea\n of eliminating our great-grandfather\u2014because our great-grandfather\n was such a\ngood\nman, you know.\" Raymond's expressive upper lip\n curled. \"So Conrad decided to go further back still and get rid of\n his great-grandfather's father\u2014who'd been, by all accounts, a pretty\n worthless character.\"\n\n\n \"That would be me, I suppose,\" Martin said quietly.\n\n\n Raymond turned a deep rose. \"Well, doesn't that just go to prove you\n mustn't believe everything you hear?\" The next sentence tumbled out in\n a rush. \"I wormed the whole thing out of him and all of us\u2014the other\n cousins and me\u2014held a council of war, as it were, and we decided it\n was our moral duty to go back in time ourselves and protect you.\" He\n beamed at Martin.\n\n\n The boy smiled slowly. \"Of course. You had to. If Conrad succeeded in\neliminating\nme, then none of you would exist, would you?\"\n\n\n Raymond frowned. Then he shrugged cheerfully. \"Well, you didn't really\n suppose we were going to all this trouble and expense out of sheer\n altruism, did you?\" he asked, turning on the charm which all the\n cousins possessed to a consternating degree.\nMartin had, of course, no illusions on that score; he had learned long\n ago that nobody did anything for nothing. But saying so was unwise.\n\n\n \"We bribed another set of plans out of another of the professor's\n assistants,\" Raymond continued, as if Martin had answered,\n \"and\u2014ah\u2014induced a handicraft enthusiast to build the gadget for us.\"\nInduced\n, Martin knew, could have meant anything from blackmail to the\n use of the iron maiden.\n\n\n \"Then we were all ready to forestall Conrad. If one of us guarded you\n night and day, he would never be able to carry out his plot. So we made\n our counter-plan, set the machine as far back as it would go\u2014and here\n we are!\"\n\n\n \"I see,\" Martin said.\n\n\n Raymond didn't seem to think he really did. \"After all,\" he pointed\n out defensively, \"whatever our motives, it has turned into a good\n thing for you. Nice home, cultured companions, all the contemporary\n conveniences, plus some handy anachronisms\u2014I don't see what more you\n could ask for. You're getting the best of all possible worlds. Of\n course Ninian\nwas\na ninny to locate in a mercantile suburb where any\n little thing out of the way will cause talk. How thankful I am that our\n era has completely disposed of the mercantiles\u2014\"\n\n\n \"What did you do with them?\" Martin asked.\n\n\n But Raymond rushed on: \"Soon as Ninian goes and I'm in full charge,\n we'll get a more isolated place and run it on a far grander scale.\n Ostentation\u2014that's the way to live here and now; the richer you are,\n the more eccentricity you can get away with. And,\" he added, \"I might\n as well be as comfortable as possible while I suffer through this\n wretched historical stint.\"\n\n\n \"So Ninian's going,\" said Martin, wondering why the news made him feel\n curiously desolate. Because, although he supposed he liked her in a\n remote kind of way, he had no fondness for her\u2014or she, he knew, for\n him.\n\n\n \"Well, five years is rather a long stretch for any girl to spend in\n exile,\" Raymond explained, \"even though our life spans are a bit longer\n than yours. Besides, you're getting too old now to be under petticoat\n government.\" He looked inquisitively at Martin. \"You're not going to\n go all weepy and make a scene when she leaves, are you?\"\n\n\n \"No....\" Martin said hesitantly. \"Oh, I suppose I will miss her. But we\n aren't very close, so it won't make a real difference.\" That was the\n sad part: he already knew it wouldn't make a difference.\n\n\n Raymond clapped him on the shoulder. \"I knew you weren't a sloppy\n sentimentalist like Conrad. Though you do have rather a look of him,\n you know.\"\n\n\n Suddenly that seemed to make Conrad real. Martin felt a vague stirring\n of alarm. He kept his voice composed, however. \"How do you plan to\n protect me when he comes?\"\n\n\n \"Well, each one of us is armed to the teeth, of course,\" Raymond said\n with modest pride, displaying something that looked like a child's\n combination spaceman's gun and death ray, but which, Martin had no\n doubt, was a perfectly genuine\u2014and lethal\u2014weapon. \"And we've got a\n rather elaborate burglar alarm system.\"\n\n\n Martin inspected the system and made one or two changes in the wiring\n which, he felt, would increase its efficiency. But still he was\n dubious. \"Maybe it'll work on someone coming from outside this\nhouse\n,\n but do you think it will work on someone coming from outside this\ntime\n?\"\n\n\n \"Never fear\u2014it has a temporal radius,\" Raymond replied. \"Factory\n guarantee and all that.\"\n\n\n \"Just to be on the safe side,\" Martin said, \"I think I'd better have\n one of those guns, too.\"\n\n\n \"A splendid idea!\" enthused Raymond. \"I was just about to think of that\n myself!\"\nWhen it came time for the parting, it was Ninian who cried\u2014tears at\n her own inadequacy, Martin knew, not of sorrow. He was getting skillful\n at understanding his descendants, far better than they at understanding\n him. But then they never really tried. Ninian kissed him wetly on the\n cheek and said she was sure everything would work out all right and\n that she'd come see him again. She never did, though, except at the\n very last.\n\n\n Raymond and Martin moved into a luxurious mansion in a remote area. The\n site proved a well-chosen one; when the Second Atomic War came, half a\n dozen years later, they weren't touched. Martin was never sure whether\n this had been sheer luck or expert planning. Probably luck, because his\n descendants were exceedingly inept planners.\n\n\n Few people in the world then could afford to live as stylishly as\n Martin and his guardian. The place not only contained every possible\n convenience and gadget but was crammed with bibelots and antiques,\n carefully chosen by Raymond and disputed by Martin, for, to the man\n from the future, all available artifacts were antiques. Otherwise,\n Martin accepted his new surroundings. His sense of wonder had become\n dulled by now and the pink pseudo-Spanish castle\u2014\"architecturally\n dreadful, of course,\" Raymond had said, \"but so hilariously\n typical\"\u2014impressed him far less than had the suburban split-level\n aquarium.\n\n\n \"How about a moat?\" Martin suggested when they first came. \"It seems to\n go with a castle.\"\n\"Do you think a moat could stop Conrad?\" Raymond asked, amused.\n\n\n \"No,\" Martin smiled, feeling rather silly, \"but it would make the place\n seem safer somehow.\"\n\n\n The threat of Conrad was beginning to make him grow more and more\n nervous. He got Raymond's permission to take two suits of armor that\n stood in the front hall and present them to a local museum, because\n several times he fancied he saw them move. He also became an adept with\n the ray gun and changed the surrounding landscape quite a bit with it,\n until Raymond warned that this might lead Conrad to them.\n\n\n During those early years, Martin's tutors were exchanged for the\n higher-degreed ones that were now needful. The question inevitably\n arose of what the youth's vocation in that life was going to be. At\n least twenty of the cousins came back through time to hold one of\n their vigorous family councils. Martin was still young enough to enjoy\n such occasions, finding them vastly superior to all other forms of\n entertainment.\n\"This sort of problem wouldn't arise in our day, Martin,\" Raymond\n commented as he took his place at the head of the table, \"because,\n unless one specifically feels a call to some profession or other, one\n just\u2014well, drifts along happily.\"\n\n\n \"Ours is a wonderful world,\" Grania sighed at Martin. \"I only wish we\n could take you there. I'm sure you would like it.\"\n\n\n \"Don't be a fool, Grania!\" Raymond snapped. \"Well, Martin, have you\n made up your mind what you want to be?\"\n\n\n Martin affected to think. \"A physicist,\" he said, not without malice.\n \"Or perhaps an engineer.\"\n\n\n There was a loud, excited chorus of dissent. He chuckled inwardly.\n\n\n \"Can't do that,\" Ives said. \"Might pick up some concepts from us. Don't\n know how; none of us knows a thing about science. But it could happen.\n Subconscious osmosis, if there is such a thing. That way, you might\n invent something ahead of time. And the fellow we got the plans from\n particularly cautioned us against that. Changing history. Dangerous.\"\n\n\n \"Might mess up our time frightfully,\" Bartholomew contributed, \"though,\n to be perfectly frank, I can't quite understand how.\"\n\n\n \"I am not going to sit down and explain the whole thing to you all over\n again, Bart!\" Raymond said impatiently. \"Well, Martin?\"\n\n\n \"What would you suggest?\" Martin asked.\n\n\n \"How about becoming a painter? Art is eternal. And quite gentlemanly.\n Besides, artists are always expected to be either behind or ahead of\n their times.\"\n\n\n \"Furthermore,\" Ottillie added, \"one more artist couldn't make much\n difference in history. There were so many of them all through the ages.\"\n\n\n Martin couldn't hold back his question. \"What was I, actually, in that\n other time?\"\n\n\n There was a chilly silence.\n\n\n \"Let's not talk about it, dear,\" Lalage finally said. \"Let's just be\n thankful we've saved you from\nthat\n!\"\n\n\n So drawing teachers were engaged and Martin became a very competent\n second-rate artist. He knew he would never be able to achieve first\n rank because, even though he was still so young, his work was almost\n purely intellectual. The only emotion he seemed able to feel was\n fear\u2014the ever-present fear that someday he would turn a corridor and\n walk into a man who looked like him\u2014a man who wanted to kill him for\n the sake of an ideal.\n\n\n But the fear did not show in Martin's pictures. They were pretty\n pictures.\nCousin Ives\u2014now that Martin was older, he was told to call the\n descendants\ncousin\n\u2014next assumed guardianship. Ives took his\n responsibilities more seriously than the others did. He even arranged\n to have Martin's work shown at an art gallery. The paintings received\n critical approval, but failed to evoke any enthusiasm. The modest\n sale they enjoyed was mostly to interior decorators. Museums were not\n interested.\n\n\n \"Takes time,\" Ives tried to reassure him. \"One day they'll be buying\n your pictures, Martin. Wait and see.\"\n\n\n Ives was the only one of the descendants who seemed to think of Martin\n as an individual. When his efforts to make contact with the other young\n man failed, he got worried and decided that what Martin needed was a\n change of air and scenery.\n\n\n \"'Course you can't go on the Grand Tour. Your son hasn't invented\n space travel yet. But we can go see this world. What's left of it.\n Tourists always like ruins best, anyway.\"\n\n\n So he drew on the family's vast future resources and bought a yacht,\n which Martin christened\nThe Interregnum\n. They traveled about from sea\n to ocean and from ocean to sea, touching at various ports and making\n trips inland. Martin saw the civilized world\u2014mostly in fragments; the\n nearly intact semi-civilized world and the uncivilized world, much the\n same as it had been for centuries. It was like visiting an enormous\n museum; he couldn't seem to identify with his own time any more.\n\n\n The other cousins appeared to find the yacht a congenial head-quarters,\n largely because they could spend so much time far away from the\n contemporary inhabitants of the planet and relax and be themselves. So\n they never moved back to land. Martin spent the rest of his life on\nThe Interregnum\n. He felt curiously safer from Conrad there, although\n there was no valid reason why an ocean should stop a traveler through\n time.\n\n\n More cousins were in residence at once than ever before, because\n they came for the ocean voyage. They spent most of their time aboard\n ship, giving each other parties and playing an\navant-garde\nform of\n shuffleboard and gambling on future sporting events. That last usually\n ended in a brawl, because one cousin was sure to accuse another of\n having got advance information about the results.\n\n\n Martin didn't care much for their company and associated with them only\n when not to have done so would have been palpably rude. And, though\n they were gregarious young people for the most part, they didn't court\n his society. He suspected that he made them feel uncomfortable.\nHe rather liked Ives, though. Sometimes the two of them would be alone\n together; then Ives would tell Martin of the future world he had come\n from. The picture drawn by Raymond and Ninian had not been entirely\n accurate, Ives admitted. True, there was no war or poverty on Earth\n proper, but that was because there were only a couple of million people\n left on the planet. It was an enclave for the highly privileged, highly\n interbred aristocracy, to which Martin's descendants belonged by virtue\n of their distinguished ancestry.\n\n\n \"Rather feudal, isn't it?\" Martin asked.\n\n\n Ives agreed, adding that the system had, however, been deliberately\n planned, rather than the result of haphazard natural development.\n Everything potentially unpleasant, like the mercantiles, had been\n deported.\n\n\n \"Not only natives livin' on the other worlds,\" Ives said as the two\n of them stood at the ship's rail, surrounded by the limitless expanse\n of some ocean or other. \"People, too. Mostly lower classes, except\n for officials and things. With wars and want and suffering,\" he added\n regretfully, \"same as in your day.... Like now, I mean,\" he corrected\n himself. \"Maybe it\nis\nworse, the way Conrad thinks. More planets\n for us to make trouble on. Three that were habitable aren't any more.\n Bombed. Very thorough job.\"\n\n\n \"Oh,\" Martin murmured, trying to sound shocked, horrified\u2014interested,\n even.\n\n\n \"Sometimes I'm not altogether sure Conrad was wrong,\" Ives said, after\n a pause. \"Tried to keep us from getting to the stars, hurting the\n people\u2014I expect you could call them people\u2014there. Still\u2014\" he smiled\n shamefacedly\u2014\"couldn't stand by and see my own way of life destroyed,\n could I?\"\n\n\n \"I suppose not,\" Martin said.\n\n\n \"Would take moral courage. I don't have it. None of us does, except\n Conrad, and even he\u2014\" Ives looked out over the sea. \"Must be a better\n way out than Conrad's,\" he said without conviction. \"And everything\n will work out all right in the end. Bound to. No sense to\u2014to anything,\n if it doesn't.\" He glanced wistfully at Martin.\n\n\n \"I hope so,\" said Martin. But he couldn't hope; he couldn't feel; he\n couldn't even seem to care.\n\n\n During all this time, Conrad still did not put in an appearance. Martin\n had gotten to be such a crack shot with the ray pistol that he almost\n wished his descendant would show up, so there would be some excitement.\n But he didn't come. And Martin got to thinking....\n\n\n He always felt that if any of the cousins could have come to realize\n the basic flaw in the elaborate plan they had concocted, it would have\n been Ives. However, when the yacht touched at Tierra del Fuego one\n bitter winter, Ives took a severe chill. They sent for a doctor from\n the future\u2014one of the descendants who had been eccentric enough to\n take a medical degree\u2014but he wasn't able to save Ives. The body was\n buried in the frozen ground at Ushuaia, on the southern tip of the\n continent, a hundred years or more before the date of his birth.\n\n\n A great many of the cousins turned up at the simple ceremony. All were\n dressed in overwhelming black and showed a great deal of grief. Raymond\n read the burial service, because they didn't dare summon a clerical\n cousin from the future; they were afraid he might prove rather stuffy\n about the entire undertaking.\n\n\n \"He died for all of us,\" Raymond concluded his funeral eulogy over\n Ives, \"so his death was not in vain.\"\n\n\n But Martin disagreed.\nThe ceaseless voyaging began again.\nThe Interregnum\nvoyaged to every\n ocean and every sea. Some were blue and some green and some dun. After\n a while, Martin couldn't tell one from another. Cousin after cousin\n came to watch over him and eventually they were as hard for him to tell\n apart as the different oceans.\nAll the cousins were young, for, though they came at different times in\n his life, they had all started out from the same time in theirs. Only\n the young ones had been included in the venture; they did not trust\n their elders.\n\n\n As the years went by, Martin began to lose even his detached interest\n in the land and its doings. Although the yacht frequently touched port\n for fuel or supplies\u2014it was more economical to purchase them in that\n era than to have them shipped from the future\u2014he seldom went ashore,\n and then only at the urging of a newly assigned cousin anxious to see\n the sights. Most of the time Martin spent in watching the sea\u2014and\n sometimes he painted it. There seemed to be a depth to his seascapes\n that his other work lacked.\n\n\n When he was pressed by the current cousin to make a land visit\n somewhere, he decided to exhibit a few of his sea paintings. That way,\n he could fool himself into thinking that there was some purpose to this\n journey. He'd come to believe that perhaps what his life lacked was\n purpose, and for a while he kept looking for meaning everywhere, to the\n cousin's utter disgust.\n\n\n \"Eat, drink and be merry, or whatever you Romans say when you do as you\n do,\" the cousin\u2014who was rather woolly in history; the descendants were\n scraping bottom now\u2014advised.\n\n\n Martin showed his work in Italy, so that the cousin could be\n disillusioned by the current crop of Romans. He found that neither\n purpose nor malice was enough; he was still immeasurably bored.\n However, a museum bought two of the paintings. Martin thought of Ives\n and felt an uncomfortable pang of a sensation he could no longer\n understand.\n\n\n \"Where do you suppose Conrad has been all this time?\" Martin idly asked\n the current cousin\u2014who was passing as his nephew by now.\n\n\n The young man jumped, then glanced around him uncomfortably. \"Conrad's\n a very shrewd fellow,\" he whispered. \"He's biding his time\u2014waiting\n until we're off guard. And then\u2014pow!\u2014he'll attack!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I see,\" Martin said.\n\n\n He had often fancied that Conrad would prove to be the most stimulating\n member of the whole generation. But it seemed unlikely that he would\n ever have a chance for a conversation with the young man. More than one\n conversation, anyhow.\n\n\n \"When he does show up, I'll protect you,\" the cousin vowed, touching\n his ray gun. \"You haven't a thing to worry about.\"\n\n\n Martin smiled with all the charm he'd had nothing to do but acquire. \"I\n have every confidence in you,\" he told his descendant. He himself had\n given up carrying a gun long ago.\n\n\n There was a war in the Northern Hemisphere and so\nThe Interregnum\nvoyaged to southern waters. There was a war in the south and they hid\n out in the Arctic. All the nations became too drained of power\u2014fuel\n and man and will\u2014to fight, so there was a sterile peace for a long\n time.\nThe Interregnum\nroamed the seas restlessly, with her load of\n passengers from the future, plus one bored and aging contemporary. She\n bore big guns now, because of the ever-present danger of pirates.",
    "51296": "The Sense of Wonder\nBy MILTON LESSER\n\n\n Illustrated by HARRY ROSENBAUM\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction September 1951.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nWhen nobody aboard ship remembers where it's\n\n going, how can they tell when it has arrived?\nEvery day for a week now, Rikud had come to the viewport to watch\n the great changeless sweep of space. He could not quite explain the\n feelings within him; they were so alien, so unnatural. But ever since\n the engines somewhere in the rear of the world had changed their tone,\n from the steady whining Rikud had heard all twenty-five years of his\n life, to the sullen roar that came to his ears now, the feelings had\n grown.\n\n\n If anyone else had noticed the change, he failed to mention it. This\n disturbed Rikud, although he could not tell why. And, because he had\n realized this odd difference in himself, he kept it locked up inside\n him.\n\n\n Today, space looked somehow different. The stars\u2014it was a meaningless\n concept to Rikud, but that was what everyone called the bright\n pinpoints of light on the black backdrop in the viewport\u2014were not\n apparent in the speckled profusion Rikud had always known. Instead,\n there was more of the blackness, and one very bright star set apart\n by itself in the middle of the viewport.\n\n\n If he had understood the term, Rikud would have told himself this was\n odd. His head ached with the half-born thought. It was\u2014it was\u2014what\n was it?\n\n\n Someone was clomping up the companionway behind Rikud. He turned and\n greeted gray-haired old Chuls.\n\n\n \"In five more years,\" the older man chided, \"you'll be ready to sire\n children. And all you can do in the meantime is gaze out at the stars.\"\n\n\n Rikud knew he should be exercising now, or bathing in the rays of the\n health-lamps. It had never occurred to him that he didn't feel like it;\n he just didn't, without comprehending.\n\n\n Chuls' reminder fostered uneasiness. Often Rikud had dreamed of the\n time he would be thirty and a father. Whom would the Calculator select\n as his mate? The first time this idea had occurred to him, Rikud\n ignored it. But it came again, and each time it left him with a feeling\n he could not explain. Why should he think thoughts that no other man\n had? Why should he think he was thinking such thoughts, when it always\n embroiled him in a hopeless, infinite confusion that left him with a\n headache?\n\n\n Chuls said, \"It is time for my bath in the health-rays. I saw you here\n and knew it was your time, too....\"\n\n\n His voice trailed off. Rikud knew that something which he could not\n explain had entered the elder man's head for a moment, but it had\n departed almost before Chuls knew of its existence.\n\n\n \"I'll go with you,\" Rikud told him.\nA hardly perceptible purple glow pervaded the air in the room of the\n health-rays. Perhaps two score men lay about, naked, under the ray\n tubes. Chuls stripped himself and selected the space under a vacant\n tube. Rikud, for his part, wanted to get back to the viewport and watch\n the one new bright star. He had the distinct notion it was growing\n larger every moment. He turned to go, but the door clicked shut and a\n metallic voice said. \"Fifteen minutes under the tubes, please.\"\n\n\n Rikud muttered to himself and undressed. The world had begun to annoy\n him. Now why shouldn't a man be permitted to do what he wanted, when\n he wanted to do it?\nThere\nwas a strange thought, and Rikud's brain\n whirled once more down the tortuous course of half-formed questions and\n unsatisfactory answers.\n\n\n He had even wondered what it was like to get hurt. No one ever got\n hurt. Once, here in this same ray room, he had had the impulse to hurl\n himself head-first against the wall, just to see what would happen.\n But something soft had cushioned the impact\u2014something which had come\n into being just for the moment and then abruptly passed into non-being\n again, something which was as impalpable as air.\n\n\n Rikud had been stopped in this action, although there was no real\n authority to stop him. This puzzled him, because somehow he felt that\n there should have been authority. A long time ago the reading machine\n in the library had told him of the elders\u2014a meaningless term\u2014who had\n governed the world. They told you to do something and you did it, but\n that was silly, because now no one told you to do anything. You only\n listened to the buzzer.\n\n\n And Rikud could remember the rest of what the reading machine had said.\n There had been a revolt\u2014again a term without any real meaning, a term\n that could have no reality outside of the reading machine\u2014and the\n elders were overthrown. Here Rikud had been lost utterly. The people\n had decided that they did not know where they were going, or why, and\n that it was unfair that the elders alone had this authority. They were\n born and they lived and they died as the elders directed, like little\n cogs in a great machine. Much of this Rikud could not understand, but\n he knew enough to realize that the reading machine had sided with the\n people against the elders, and it said the people had won.\n\n\n Now in the health room, Rikud felt a warmth in the rays. Grudgingly, he\n had to admit to himself that it was not unpleasant. He could see the\n look of easy contentment on Chuls' face as the rays fanned down upon\n him, bathing his old body in a forgotten magic which, many generations\n before Rikud's time, had negated the necessity for a knowledge of\n medicine. But when, in another ten years, Chuls would perish of old\n age, the rays would no longer suffice. Nothing would, for Chuls. Rikud\n often thought of his own death, still seventy-five years in the future,\n not without a sense of alarm. Yet old Chuls seemed heedless, with only\n a decade to go.\n\n\n Under the tube at Rikud's left lay Crifer. The man was short and heavy\n through the shoulders and chest, and he had a lame foot. Every time\n Rikud looked at that foot, it was with a sense of satisfaction. True,\n this was the only case of its kind, the exception to the rule, but it\n proved the world was not perfect. Rikud was guiltily glad when he saw\n Crifer limp.\n\n\n But, if anyone else saw it, he never said a word. Not even Crifer.\nNow Crifer said, \"I've been reading again, Rikud.\"\n\n\n \"Yes?\" Almost no one read any more, and the library was heavy with the\n smell of dust. Reading represented initiative on the part of Crifer; it\n meant that, in the two unoccupied hours before sleep, he went to the\n library and listened to the reading machine. Everyone else simply sat\n about and talked. That was the custom. Everyone did it.\n\n\n But if he wasn't reading himself, Rikud usually went to sleep. All the\n people ever talked about was what they had done during the day, and it\n was always the same.\n\n\n \"Yes,\" said Crifer. \"I found a book about the stars. They're also\n called astronomy, I think.\"\n\n\n This was a new thought to Rikud, and he propped his head up on one\n elbow. \"What did you find out?\"\n\n\n \"That's about all. They're just called astronomy, I think.\"\n\n\n \"Well, where's the book?\" Rikud would read it tomorrow.\n\n\n \"I left it in the library. You can find several of them under\n 'astronomy,' with a cross-reference under 'stars.' They're synonymous\n terms.\"\n\n\n \"You know,\" Rikud said, sitting up now, \"the stars in the viewport are\n changing.\"\n\n\n \"Changing?\" Crifer questioned the fuzzy concept as much as he\n questioned what it might mean in this particular case.\n\n\n \"Yes, there are less of them, and one is bigger and brighter than the\n others.\"\n\n\n \"Astronomy says some stars are variable,\" Crifer offered, but Rikud\n knew his lame-footed companion understood the word no better than he\n did.\n\n\n Over on Rikud's right, Chuls began to dress. \"Variability,\" he told\n them, \"is a contradictory term. Nothing is variable. It can't be.\"\n\n\n \"I'm only saying what I read in the book,\" Crifer protested mildly.\n\n\n \"Well, it's wrong. Variability and change are two words without\n meaning.\"\n\n\n \"People grow old,\" Rikud suggested.\n\n\n A buzzer signified that his fifteen minutes under the rays were up, and\n Chuls said, \"It's almost time for me to eat.\"\n\n\n Rikud frowned. Chuls hadn't even seen the connection between the two\n concepts, yet it was so clear. Or was it? He had had it a moment ago,\n but now it faded, and change and old were just two words.\n\n\n His own buzzer sounded a moment later, and it was with a strange\n feeling of elation that he dressed and made his way back to the\n viewport. When he passed the door which led to the women's half of the\n world, however, he paused. He wanted to open that door and see a woman.\n He had been told about them and he had seen pictures, and he dimly\n remembered his childhood among women. But his feelings had changed;\n this was different. Again there were inexplicable feelings\u2014strange\n channelings of Rikud's energy in new and confusing directions.\n\n\n He shrugged and reserved the thought for later. He wanted to see the\n stars again.\nThe view had changed, and the strangeness of it made Rikud's pulses\n leap with excitement. All the stars were paler now than before, and\n where Rikud had seen the one bright central star, he now saw a globe of\n light, white with a tinge of blue in it, and so bright that it hurt his\n eyes to look.\n\n\n Yes, hurt! Rikud looked and looked until his eyes teared and he had to\n turn away. Here was an unknown factor which the perfect world failed\n to control. But how could a star change into a blinking blue-white\n globe\u2014if, indeed, that was the star Rikud had seen earlier? There\n was that word change again. Didn't it have something to do with age?\n Rikud couldn't remember, and he suddenly wished he could read Crifer's\n book on astronomy, which meant the same as stars. Except that it was\n variable, which was like change, being tied up somehow with age.\n\n\n Presently Rikud became aware that his eyes were not tearing any longer,\n and he turned to look at the viewport. What he saw now was so new that\n he couldn't at first accept it. Instead, he blinked and rubbed his\n eyes, sure that the ball of blue-white fire somehow had damaged them.\n But the new view persisted.\n\n\n Of stars there were few, and of the blackness, almost nothing. Gone,\n too, was the burning globe. Something loomed there in the port, so huge\n that it spread out over almost the entire surface. Something big and\n round, all grays and greens and browns, and something for which Rikud\n had no name.\n\n\n A few moments more, and Rikud no longer could see the sphere. A section\n of it had expanded outward and assumed the rectangular shape of the\n viewport, and its size as well. It seemed neatly sheered down the\n middle, so that on one side Rikud saw an expanse of brown and green,\n and on the other, blue.\n\n\n Startled, Rikud leaped back. The sullen roar in the rear of the world\n had ceased abruptly. Instead an ominous silence, broken at regular\n intervals by a sharp booming.\n\n\n Change\u2014\n\n\n \"Won't you eat, Rikud?\" Chuls called from somewhere down below.\n\n\n \"Damn the man,\" Rikud thought. Then aloud: \"Yes, I'll eat. Later.\"\n\n\n \"It's time....\" Chuls' voice trailed off again, impotently.\n\n\n But Rikud forgot the old man completely. A new idea occurred to him,\n and for a while he struggled with it. What he saw\u2014what he had always\n seen, except that now there was the added factor of change\u2014perhaps did\n not exist\nin\nthe viewport.\n\n\n Maybe it existed\nthrough\nthe viewport.\n\n\n That was maddening. Rikud turned again to the port, where he could see\n nothing but an obscuring cloud of white vapor, murky, swirling, more\n confusing than ever.\n\n\n \"Chuls,\" he called, remembering, \"come here.\"\n\n\n \"I am here,\" said a voice at his elbow.\n\n\n Rikud whirled on the little figure and pointed to the swirling cloud of\n vapor. \"What do you see?\"\n\n\n Chuls looked. \"The viewport, of course.\"\n\n\n \"What else?\"\n\n\n \"Else? Nothing.\"\n\n\n Anger welled up inside Rikud. \"All right,\" he said, \"listen. What do\n you hear?\"\n\n\n \"Broom, brroom, brrroom!\" Chuls imitated the intermittent blasting of\n the engines. \"I'm hungry, Rikud.\"\n\n\n The old man turned and strode off down the corridor toward the dining\n room, and Rikud was glad to be alone once more.\nNow the vapor had departed, except for a few tenuous whisps. For a\n moment Rikud thought he could see the gardens rearward in the world.\n But that was silly. What were the gardens doing in the viewport? And\n besides, Rikud had the distinct feeling that here was something far\n vaster than the gardens, although all of it existed in the viewport\n which was no wider than the length of his body. The gardens, moreover,\n did not jump and dance before his eyes the way the viewport gardens\n did. Nor did they spin. Nor did the trees grow larger with every jolt.\n\n\n Rikud sat down hard. He blinked.\n\n\n The world had come to rest on the garden of the viewport.\nFor a whole week that view did not change, and Rikud had come to accept\n it as fact. There\u2014through the viewport and in it\u2014was a garden. A\n garden larger than the entire world, a garden of plants which Rikud had\n never seen before, although he had always liked to stroll through the\n world's garden and he had come to know every plant well. Nevertheless,\n it was a garden.\n\n\n He told Chuls, but Chuls had responded, \"It is the viewport.\"\n\n\n Crifer, on the other hand, wasn't so sure. \"It looks like the garden,\"\n he admitted to Rikud. \"But why should the garden be in the viewport?\"\n\n\n Somehow, Rikud knew this question for a healthy sign. But he could\n not tell them of his most amazing thought of all. The change in the\n viewport could mean only one thing. The world had been walking\u2014the\n word seemed all wrong to Rikud, but he could think of no other, unless\n it were running. The world had been walking somewhere. That somewhere\n was the garden and the world had arrived.\n\n\n \"It is an old picture of the garden,\" Chuls suggested, \"and the plants\n are different.\"\n\n\n \"Then they've changed?\"\n\n\n \"No, merely different.\"\n\n\n \"Well, what about the viewport?\nIt\nchanged. Where are the stars?\n Where are they, Chuls, if it did not change?\"\n\n\n \"The stars come out at night.\"\n\n\n \"So there is a change from day to night!\"\n\n\n \"I didn't say that. The stars simply shine at night. Why should they\n shine during the day when the world wants them to shine only at night?\"\n\n\n \"Once they shone all the time.\"\n\n\n \"Naturally,\" said Crifer, becoming interested. \"They are variable.\"\nRikud regretted that he never had had the chance to read that book on\n astronomy. He hadn't been reading too much lately. The voice of the\n reading machine had begun to bore him. He said, \"Well, variable or not,\n our whole perspective has changed.\"\n\n\n And when Chuls looked away in disinterest, Rikud became angry. If only\n the man would realize! If only anyone would realize! It all seemed so\n obvious. If he, Rikud, walked from one part of the world to another,\n it was with a purpose\u2014to eat, or to sleep, or perhaps to bathe in the\n health-rays. Now if the world had walked from\u2014somewhere, through the\n vast star-speckled darkness and to the great garden outside, this also\n was purposeful. The world had arrived at the garden for a reason. But\n if everyone lived as if the world still stood in blackness, how could\n they find the nature of that purpose?\n\n\n \"I will eat,\" Chuls said, breaking Rikud's revery.\n\n\n Damn the man, all he did was eat!\n\n\n Yet he did have initiative after a sort. He knew when to eat. Because\n he was hungry.\n\n\n And Rikud, too, was hungry.\n\n\n Differently.\nHe had long wondered about the door in the back of the library, and\n now, as Crifer sat cross-legged on one of the dusty tables, reading\n machine and book on astronomy or stars in his lap, Rikud approached the\n door.\n\n\n \"What's in here?\" he demanded.\n\n\n \"It's a door, I think,\" said Crifer.\n\n\n \"I know, but what's beyond it?\"\n\n\n \"Beyond it? Oh, you mean\nthrough\nthe door.\"\n\n\n \"Yes.\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" Crifer scratched his head, \"I don't think anyone ever opened\n it. It's only a door.\"\n\n\n \"I will,\" said Rikud.\n\n\n \"You will what?\"\n\n\n \"Open it. Open the door and look inside.\"\n\n\n A long pause. Then, \"Can you do it?\"\n\n\n \"I think so.\"\n\n\n \"You can't, probably. How can anyone go where no one has been before?\n There's nothing. It just isn't. It's only a door, Rikud.\"\n\n\n \"No\u2014\" Rikud began, but the words faded off into a sharp intake of\n breath. Rikud had turned the knob and pushed. The door opened silently,\n and Crifer said, \"Doors are variable, too, I think.\"\n\n\n Rikud saw a small room, perhaps half a dozen paces across, at the other\n end of which was another door, just like the first. Halfway across,\n Rikud heard a voice not unlike that of the reading machine.\n\n\n He missed the beginning, but then:\n\u2014therefore, permit no unauthorized persons to go through this\n door. The machinery in the next room is your protection against the\n rigors of space. A thousand years from now, journey's end, you may\n have discarded it for something better\u2014who knows? But if you have\n not, then here is your protection. As nearly as possible, this ship\n is a perfect, self-sustaining world. It is more than that: it is\n human-sustaining as well. Try to hurt yourself and the ship will not\n permit it\u2014within limits, of course. But you can damage the ship, and\n to avoid any possibility of that, no unauthorized persons are to be\n permitted through this door\u2014\nRikud gave the voice up as hopeless. There were too many confusing\n words. What in the world was an unauthorized person? More interesting\n than that, however, was the second door. Would it lead to another\n voice? Rikud hoped that it wouldn't.\n\n\n When he opened the door a strange new noise filled his ears, a gentle\n humming, punctuated by a\nthrob-throb-throb\nwhich sounded not unlike\n the booming of the engines last week, except that this new sound didn't\n blast nearly so loudly against his eardrums. And what met Rikud's\n eyes\u2014he blinked and looked again, but it was still there\u2014cogs and\n gears and wheels and nameless things all strange and beautiful because\n they shone with a luster unfamiliar to him.\n\n\n \"Odd,\" Rikud said aloud. Then he thought, \"Now there's a good word, but\n no one quite seems to know its meaning.\"\n\n\n Odder still was the third door. Rikud suddenly thought there might\n exist an endless succession of them, especially when the third one\n opened on a bare tunnel which led to yet another door.\n\n\n Only this one was different. In it Rikud saw the viewport. But how? The\n viewport stood on the other end of the world. It did seem smaller, and,\n although it looked out on the garden, Rikud sensed that the topography\n was different. Then the garden extended even farther than he had\n thought. It was endless, extending all the way to a ridge of mounds way\n off in the distance.\n\n\n And this door one could walk through, into the garden. Rikud put his\n hand on the door, all the while watching the garden through the new\n viewport. He began to turn the handle.\n\n\n Then he trembled.\n\n\n What would he do out in the garden?\n\n\n He couldn't go alone. He'd die of the strangeness. It was a silly\n thought; no one ever died of anything until he was a hundred. Rikud\n couldn't fathom the rapid thumping of his heart. And Rikud's mouth felt\n dry; he wanted to swallow, but couldn't.\n\n\n Slowly, he took his hand off the door lever. He made his way back\n through the tunnel and then through the room of machinery and finally\n through the little room with the confusing voice to Crifer.\n\n\n By the time he reached the lame-footed man, Rikud was running. He did\n not dare once to look back. He stood shaking at Crifer's side, and\n sweat covered him in a clammy film. He never wanted to look at the\n garden again. Not when he knew there was a door through which he could\n walk and then might find himself in the garden.\n\n\n It was so big.\nThree or four days passed before Rikud calmed himself enough to\n talk about his experience. When he did, only Crifer seemed at all\n interested, yet the lame-footed man's mind was inadequate to cope with\n the situation. He suggested that the viewport might also be variable\n and Rikud found himself wishing that his friend had never read that\n book on astronomy.\n\n\n Chuls did not believe Rikud at all. \"There are not that many doors in\n the world,\" he said. \"The library has a door and there is a door to the\n women's quarters; in five years, the Calculator will send you through\n that. But there are no others.\"\n\n\n Chuls smiled an indulgent smile and Rikud came nearer to him. \"Now, by\n the world, there are two other doors!\"\n\n\n Rikud began to shout, and everyone looked at him queerly.\n\n\n \"What are you doing that for?\" demanded Wilm, who was shorter even than\n Crifer, but had no lame foot.\n\n\n \"Doing what?\"\n\n\n \"Speaking so loudly when Chuls, who is close, obviously has no trouble\n hearing you.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe yelling will make him understand.\"\n\n\n Crifer hobbled about on his good foot, doing a meaningless little jig.\n \"Why don't we go see?\" he suggested. Then, confused, he frowned.\n\n\n \"Well, I won't go,\" Chuls replied. \"There's no reason to go. If Rikud\n has been imagining things, why should I?\"\n\n\n \"I imagined nothing. I'll show you\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You'll show me nothing because I won't go.\"\n\n\n Rikud grabbed Chuls' blouse with his big fist. Then, startled by what\n he did, his hands began to tremble. But he held on, and he tugged at\n the blouse.\n\n\n \"Stop that,\" said the older man, mildly.\nCrifer hopped up and down. \"Look what Rikud's doing! I don't know what\n he's doing, but look. He's holding Chuls' blouse.\"\n\n\n \"Stop that,\" repeated Chuls, his face reddening.\n\n\n \"Only if you'll go with me.\" Rikud was panting.\n\n\n Chuls tugged at his wrist. By this time a crowd had gathered. Some of\n them watched Crifer jump up and down, but most of them watched Rikud\n holding Chuls' blouse.\n\n\n \"I think I can do that,\" declared Wilm, clutching a fistful of Crifer's\n shirt.\n\n\n Presently, the members of the crowd had pretty well paired off, each\n partner grabbing for his companion's blouse. They giggled and laughed\n and some began to hop up and down as Crifer had done.\n\n\n A buzzer sounded and automatically Rikud found himself releasing Chuls.\n\n\n Chuls said, forgetting the incident completely, \"Time to retire.\"\n\n\n In a moment, the room was cleared. Rikud stood alone. He cleared his\n throat and listened to the sound, all by itself in the stillness. What\n would have happened if they hadn't retired? But they always did things\n punctually like that, whenever the buzzer sounded. They ate with the\n buzzer, bathed in the health-rays with it, slept with it.\n\n\n What would they do if the buzzer stopped buzzing?\n\n\n This frightened Rikud, although he didn't know why. He'd like it,\n though. Maybe then he could take them outside with him to the big\n garden of the two viewports. And then he wouldn't be afraid because he\n could huddle close to them and he wouldn't be alone.\nRikud heard the throbbing again as he stood in the room of the\n machinery. For a long time he watched the wheels and cogs and gears\n spinning and humming. He watched for he knew not how long. And then he\n began to wonder. If he destroyed the wheels and the cogs and the gears,\n would the buzzer stop? It probably would, because, as Rikud saw it, he\n was clearly an \"unauthorized person.\" He had heard the voice again\n upon entering the room.\n\n\n He found a metal rod, bright and shiny, three feet long and half as\n wide as his arm. He tugged at it and it came loose from the wires that\n held it in place. He hefted it carefully for a moment, and then he\n swung the bar into the mass of metal. Each time he heard a grinding,\n crashing sound. He looked as the gears and cogs and wheels crumbled\n under his blows, shattered by the strength of his arm.\nAlmost casually he strode about the room, but his blows were not\n casual. Soon his easy strides had given way to frenzied running. Rikud\n smashed everything in sight.\n\n\n When the lights winked out, he stopped. Anyway, by that time the room\n was a shambles of twisted, broken metal. He laughed, softly at first,\n but presently he was roaring, and the sound doubled and redoubled in\n his ears because now the throbbing had stopped.\n\n\n He opened the door and ran through the little corridor to the smaller\n viewport. Outside he could see the stars, and, dimly, the terrain\n beneath them. But everything was so dark that only the stars shone\n clearly. All else was bathed in a shadow of unreality.\n\n\n Rikud never wanted to do anything more than he wanted to open that\n door. But his hands trembled too much when he touched it, and once,\n when he pressed his face close against the viewport, there in the\n darkness, something bright flashed briefly through the sky and was gone.\n\n\n Whimpering, he fled.\nAll around Rikud were darkness and hunger and thirst. The buzzer did\n not sound because Rikud had silenced it forever. And no one went to\n eat or drink. Rikud himself had fumbled through the blackness and the\n whimpering to the dining room, his tongue dry and swollen, but the\n smooth belt that flowed with water and with savory dishes did not run\n any more. The machinery, Rikud realized, also was responsible for food.\n\n\n Chuls said, over and over, \"I'm hungry.\"\n\n\n \"We will eat and we will drink when the buzzer tells us,\" Wilm replied\n confidently.\n\n\n \"It won't any more,\" Rikud said.\n\n\n \"What won't?\"\n\n\n \"The buzzer will never sound again. I broke it.\"\n\n\n Crifer growled. \"I know. You shouldn't have done it. That was a bad\n thing you did, Rikud.\"\n\n\n \"It was not bad. The world has moved through the blackness and the\n stars and now we should go outside to live in the big garden there\n beyond the viewport.\"\n\n\n \"That's ridiculous,\" Chuls said.\n\n\n Even Crifer now was angry at Rikud. \"He broke the buzzer and no one can\n eat. I hate Rikud, I think.\"\n\n\n There was a lot of noise in the darkness, and someone else said, \"I\n hate Rikud.\" Then everyone was saying it.\n\n\n Rikud was sad. Soon he would die, because no one would go outside with\n him and he could not go outside alone. In five more years he would have\n had a woman, too. He wondered if it was dark and hungry in the women's\n quarters. Did women eat?\n\n\n Perhaps they ate plants. Once, in the garden, Rikud had broken off a\n frond and tasted it. It had been bitter, but not unpleasant. Maybe the\n plants in the viewport would even be better.\n\n\n \"We will not be hungry if we go outside,\" he said. \"We can eat there.\"\n\n\n \"We can eat if the buzzer sounds, but it is broken,\" Chuls said dully.\n\n\n Crifer shrilled, \"Maybe it is only variable and will buzz again.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Rikud assured him. \"It won't.\"\n\n\n \"Then you broke it and I hate you,\" said Crifer. \"We should break you,\n too, to show you how it is to be broken.\"\n\n\n \"We must go outside\u2014through the viewport.\" Rikud listened to the odd\n gurgling sound his stomach made.\n\n\n A hand reached out in the darkness and grabbed at his head. He heard\n Crifer's voice. \"I have Rikud's head.\" The voice was nasty, hostile.\n\n\n Crifer, more than anyone, had been his friend. But now that he had\n broken the machinery, Crifer was his enemy, because Crifer came nearer\n to understanding the situation than anyone except Rikud.\n\n\n The hand reached out again, and it struck Rikud hard across the face.\n \"I hit him! I hit him!\"\n\n\n Other hands reached out, and Rikud stumbled. He fell and then someone\n was on top of him, and he struggled. He rolled and was up again, and\n he did not like the sound of the angry voices. Someone said, \"Let us\n do to Rikud what he said he did to the machinery.\" Rikud ran. In the\n darkness, his feet prodded many bodies. There were those who were too\n weak to rise. Rikud, too, felt a strange light-headedness and a gnawing\n hurt in his stomach. But it didn't matter. He heard the angry voices\n and the feet pounding behind him, and he wanted only to get away.\n\n\n It was dark and he was hungry and everyone who was strong enough to run\n was chasing him, but every time he thought of the garden outside, and\n how big it was, the darkness and the hunger and the people chasing him\n were unimportant. It was so big that it would swallow him up completely\n and positively.\n\n\n He became sickly giddy thinking about it.\n\n\n But if he didn't open the door and go into the garden outside, he would\n die because he had no food and no water and his stomach gurgled and\n grumbled and hurt. And everyone was chasing him.\n\n\n He stumbled through the darkness and felt his way back to the library,\n through the inner door and into the room with the voice\u2014but the\n voice didn't speak this time\u2014through its door and into the place of\n machinery. Behind him, he could hear the voices at the first door, and\n he thought for a moment that no one would come after him. But he heard\n Crifer yell something, and then feet pounding in the passage.\n\n\n Rikud tripped over something and sprawled awkwardly across the floor.\n He felt a sharp hurt in his head, and when he reached up to touch it\n with his hands there in the darkness, his fingers came away wet.\n\n\n He got up slowly and opened the next door. The voices behind him were\n closer now. Light streamed in through the viewport. After the darkness,\n it frightened Rikud and it made his eyes smart, and he could hear those\n behind him retreating to a safe distance. But their voices were not\n far away, and he knew they would come after him because they wanted to\n break him.\n\n\n Rikud looked out upon the garden and he trembled. Out there was life.\n The garden stretched off in unthinkable immensity to the cluster of\n low mounds against the bright blue which roofed the many plants. If\n plants could live out there as they did within the world, then so could\n people. Rikud and his people\nshould\n. This was why the world had moved\n across the darkness and the stars for all Rikud's lifetime and more.\n But he was afraid.\n\n\n He reached up and grasped the handle of the door and he saw that his\n fingers were red with the wetness which had come from his hurt head.\n Slowly he slipped to the cool floor\u2014how his head was burning!\u2014and for\n a long time he lay there, thinking he would never rise again. Inside he\n heard the voices again, and soon a foot and then another pounded on\n the metal of the passage. He heard Crifer's voice louder than the rest:\n \"There is Rikud on the floor!\"\n\n\n Tugging at the handle of the door, Rikud pulled himself upright.\n Something small and brown scurried across the other side of the\n viewport and Rikud imagined it turned to look at him with two hideous\n red eyes.\n\n\n Rikud screamed and hurtled back through the corridor, and his face\n was so terrible in the light streaming in through the viewport that\n everyone fled before him. He stumbled again in the place of the\n machinery, and down on his hands and knees he fondled the bits of metal\n which he could see in the dim light through the open door.\n\n\n \"Where's the buzzer?\" he sobbed. \"I must find the buzzer.\"\n\n\n Crifer's voice, from the darkness inside, said, \"You broke it. You\n broke it. And now we will break you\u2014\"\n\n\n Rikud got up and ran. He reached the door again and then he slipped\n down against it, exhausted. Behind him, the voices and the footsteps\n came, and soon he saw Crifer's head peer in through the passageway.\n Then there were others, and then they were walking toward him.\n\n\n His head whirled and the viewport seemed to swim in a haze. Could it\n be variable, as Crifer had suggested? He wondered if the scurrying\n brown thing waited somewhere, and nausea struck at the pit of his\n stomach. But if the plants could live out there and the scurrying thing\n could live and that was why the world had moved through the blackness,\n then so could he live out there, and Crifer and all the others....\n\n\n So tightly did he grip the handle that his fingers began to hurt. And\n his heart pounded hard and he felt the pulses leaping on either side of\n his neck.\n\n\n He stared out into the garden, and off into the distance, where the\n blue-white globe which might have been a star stood just above the row\n of mounds.\nCrifer was tugging at him, trying to pull him away from the door, and\n someone was grabbing at his legs, trying to make him fall. He kicked\n out and the hands let go, and then he turned the handle and shoved the\n weight of his body with all his strength against the door.\n\n\n It opened and he stepped outside into the warmth.\n\n\n The air was fresh, fresher than any air Rikud had ever breathed. He\n walked around aimlessly, touching the plants and bending down to feel\n the floor, and sometimes he looked at the blue-white globe on the\n horizon. It was all very beautiful.\n\n\n Near the ship, water that did not come from a machine gurgled across\n the land, and Rikud lay down and drank. It was cool and good, and when\n he got up, Crifer and Wilm were outside the world, and some of the\n others followed. They stood around for a long time before going to the\n water to drink.\nRikud sat down and tore off a piece of a plant, munching on it. It was\n good.\n\n\n Crifer picked his head up, from the water, his chin wet. \"Even feelings\n are variable. I don't hate you now, Rikud.\"\n\n\n Rikud smiled, staring at the ship. \"People are variable, too, Crifer.\n That is, if those creatures coming from the ship are people.\"\n\n\n \"They're women,\" said Crifer.\n\n\n They were strangely shaped in some ways, and yet in others completely\n human, and their voices were high, like singing. Rikud found them oddly\n exciting. He liked them. He liked the garden, for all its hugeness.\n With so many people, and especially now with women, he was not afraid.\n\n\n It was much better than the small world of machinery, buzzer,\n frightening doors and women by appointment only.\n\n\n Rikud felt at home.",
    "51203": "A Coffin for Jacob\nBy EDWARD W. LUDWIG\n\n\n Illustrated by EMSH\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nWith never a moment to rest, the pursuit\n \nthrough space felt like a game of hounds\n \nand hares ... or was it follow the leader?\nBen Curtis eased his pale, gaunt body through the open doorway of the\n Blast Inn, the dead man following silently behind him.\n\n\n His fear-borne gaze traveled into the dimly illumined Venusian gin\n mill. The place was like an evil caldron steaming with a brew whose\n ingredients had been culled from the back corners of three planets.\n\n\n Most of the big room lay obscured behind a shimmering veil of tobacco\n smoke and the sweet, heavy fumes of Martian Devil's Egg. Here and\n there, Ben saw moving figures. He could not tell if they were Earthmen,\n Martians or Venusians.\n\n\n Someone tugged at his greasy coat. He jumped, thinking absurdly that it\n was the dead man's hand.\n\n\n \"\nComa esta, senor?\n\" a small voice piped. \"\nSpeken die Deutsch?\n Desirez-vous d'amour? Da? Nyet?\n\"\n\n\n Ben looked down.\n\n\n The speaker was an eager-eyed Martian boy of about ten. He was like\n a red-skinned marionette with pipestem arms and legs, clad in a torn\n skivvy shirt and faded blue dungarees.\n\n\n \"I'm American,\" Ben muttered.\n\n\n \"Ah,\nbuena\n! I speak English\ntres\nfine,\nsenor\n. I have Martian\n friend, she\ntres\npretty and\ntres\nfat. She weigh almost eighty\n pounds,\nmonsieur\n. I take you to her,\nsi\n?\"\n\n\n Ben shook his head.\nHe thought,\nI don't want your Martian wench. I don't want your opium\n or your Devil's Egg or your Venusian kali. But if you had a drug that'd\n bring a dead man to life, I'd buy and pay with my soul.\n\"It is deal,\nmonsieur\n? Five dollars or twenty\nkeelis\nfor visit\n Martian friend. Maybe you like House of Dreams. For House of Dreams\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I'm not buying.\"\n\n\n The dirty-faced kid shrugged. \"Then I show you to good table,\u2014\ntres\n bien\n. I do not charge you,\nsenor\n.\"\n\n\n The boy grabbed his hand. Because Ben could think of no reason for\n resisting, he followed. They plunged into shifting layers of smoke and\n through the drone of alcohol-cracked voices.\nThey passed the bar with its line of lean-featured, slit-eyed\n Earthmen\u2014merchant spacemen.\n\n\n They wormed down a narrow aisle flanked by booths carved from Venusian\n marble that jutted up into the semi-darkness like fog-blanketed\n tombstones.\n\n\n Several times, Ben glimpsed the bulky figures of CO\n 2\n -breathing\n Venusians, the first he'd ever seen.\n\n\n They were smoky gray, scaly, naked giants, toads in human shape.\n They stood solitary and motionless, aloof, their green-lidded eyes\n unblinking. They certainly didn't look like telepaths, as Ben had heard\n they were, but the thought sent a fresh rivulet of fear down his spine.\n\n\n Once he spied a white-uniformed officer of Hoover City's Security\n Police. The man was striding down an aisle, idly tapping his neuro-club\n against the stone booths.\nKeep walking\n, Ben told himself.\nYou look the same as anyone else\n here. Keep walking. Look straight ahead.\nThe officer passed. Ben breathed easier.\n\n\n \"Here we are,\nmonsieur\n,\" piped the Martian boy. \"A\ntres\nfine table.\n Close in the shadows.\"\n\n\n Ben winced. How did this kid know he wanted to sit in the shadows?\n Frowning, he sat down\u2014he and the dead man.\n\n\n He listened to the lonely rhythms of the four-piece Martian orchestra.\n\n\n The Martians were fragile, doll-like creatures with heads too large for\n their spindly bodies. Their long fingers played upon the strings of\n their\ncirillas\nor crawled over the holes of their flutes like spider\n legs. Their tune was sad. Even when they played an Earth tune, it still\n seemed a song of old Mars, charged with echoes of lost voices and\n forgotten grandeur.\n\n\n For an instant, Ben's mind rose above the haunting vision of the dead\n man. He thought,\nWhat are they doing here, these Martians? Here, in\n a smoke-filled room under a metalite dome on a dust-covered world?\n Couldn't they have played their music on Mars? Or had they, like me,\n felt the challenge of new worlds?\nHe sobered. It didn't matter. He ordered a whiskey from a Chinese\n waiter. He wet his lips but did not drink. His gaze wandered over the\n faces of the Inn's other occupants.\nYou've got to find him\n, he thought.\nYou've got to find the man with\n the red beard. It's the only way you can escape the dead man.\nThe dead man was real. His name was Cobb. He was stout and flabby and\n about forty and he hated spacemen.\n\n\n His body was buried now\u2014probably in the silent gray wastes outside\n Luna City. But he'd become a kind of invisible Siamese twin, as much a\n part of Ben as sight in his eyes.\n\n\n Sometimes the image would be shuffling drunkenly beside him, its lips\n spitting whiskey-slurred curses.\n\n\n Again, its face would be a pop-eyed mask of surprise as Ben's fist\n thudded into its jaw. More often, the face would be frozen in the\n whiteness of death. The large eyes would stare. Blood would trickle\n from a corner of the gaping mouth.\n\n\n You can forget a living man. You can defeat him or submit to him or\n ignore him, and the matter is over and done. You can't escape from a\n memory that has burned into your mind.\n\n\n It had begun a week ago in Luna City. The flight from White Sands had\n been successful. Ben, quietly and moderately, wanted to celebrate.\n He stopped alone in a rocketfront bar for a beer. The man named Cobb\n plopped his portly and unsteady posterior on the stool next to him.\n\n\n \"Spacemen,\" he muttered, \"are getting like flies. Everywhere, all you\n see's spacemen.\"\n\n\n He was a neatly dressed civilian.\n\n\n Ben smiled. \"If it weren't for spacemen, you wouldn't be here.\"\n\n\n \"The name's Cobb.\" The man hiccoughed. \"Spacemen in their white monkey\n suits. They think they're little tin gods. Betcha you think you're a\n little tin god.\" He downed a shot of whiskey.\n\n\n Ben stiffened. He was twenty-four and dressed in the white,\n crimson-braided uniform of the\nOdyssey's\njunior astrogation officer.\n He was three months out of the Academy at White Sands and the shining\n uniform was like a key to all the mysteries of the Universe.\n\n\n He'd sought long for that key.\nAt the age of five\u2014perhaps in order to dull the memory of his parents'\n death in a recent strato-jet crash\u2014he'd spent hours watching the night\n sky for streaking flame-tails of Moon rockets. At ten, he'd ground\n his first telescope. At fourteen, he'd converted an abandoned shed on\n the government boarding-school grounds to a retreat which housed his\n collection of astronomy and rocketry books.\n\n\n At sixteen, he'd spent every weekend holiday hitchhiking from Boys\n Town No. 5 in the Catskills to Long Island Spaceport. There, among\n the grizzled veterans of the old Moon Patrol, he'd found friends who\n understood his dream and who later recommended his appointment to the\n U. S. Academy for the Conquest of Space.\n\n\n And a month ago, he'd signed aboard the\nOdyssey\n\u2014the first ship, it\n was rumored, equipped to venture as far as the asteroids and perhaps\n beyond.\n\n\n Cobb was persistent: \"Damn fools shoulda known enough to stay on Earth.\n What the hell good is it, jumpin' from planet to planet?\"\nThe guy's drunk\n, Ben thought. He took his drink and moved three\n stools down the bar.\n\n\n Cobb followed. \"You don't like the truth, eh, kid? You don't like\n people to call you a sucker.\"\n\n\n Ben rose and started to leave the bar, but Cobb grabbed his arm and\n held him there.\n\n\n \"Thas what you are\u2014a sucker. You're young now. Wait ten years. You'll\n be dyin' of radiation rot or a meteor'll get you. Wait and see, sucker!\"\n\n\n Until this instant, Ben had suppressed his anger. Now, suddenly and\n without warning, it welled up into savage fury.\n\n\n His fist struck the man on the chin. Cobb's eyes gaped in shocked\n horror. He spun backward. His head cracked sickeningly on the edge of\n the bar. The sound was like a punctuation mark signaling the end of\n life.\n\n\n He sank to the floor, eyes glassy, blood tricking down his jaw.\n\n\n Ben knew that he was dead.\n\n\n Then, for a single absurd second, Ben was seized with terror\u2014just as,\n a moment before, he'd been overwhelmed with anger.\n\n\n He ran.\nFor some twenty minutes, he raced through a dizzying, nightmare world\n of dark rocketfront alleys and shouting voices and pursuing feet.\n\n\n At last, abruptly, he realized that he was alone and in silence. He saw\n that he was still on the rocketfront, but in the Tycho-ward side of the\n city.\n\n\n He huddled in a dark corner of a loading platform and lit a cigarette.\n A thousand stars\u2014a thousand motionless balls of silver fire\u2014shone\n above him through Luna City's transparent dome.\n\n\n He was sorry he'd hit Cobb, of course. He was not sorry he'd run.\n Escaping at least gave him a power of choice, of decision.\nYou can do two things\n, he thought.\nYou can give yourself up, and that's what a good officer would do.\n That would eliminate the escape charge. You'd get off with voluntary\n manslaughter. Under interplanetary law, that would mean ten years in\n prison and a dishonorable discharge. And then you'd be free.\nBut you'd be through with rockets and space. They don't want new\n men over thirty-four for officers on rockets or even for third-class\n jet-men on beat-up freighters\u2014they don't want convicted killers. You'd\n get the rest of the thrill of conquering space through video and by\n peeking through electric fences of spaceports.\nOr\u2014\nThere were old wives' tales of a group of renegade spacemen who\n operated from the Solar System's frontiers. The spacemen weren't\n outlaws. They were misfits, rejectees from the clearing houses on Earth.\n\n\n And whereas no legally recognized ship had ventured past Mars, the\n souped-up renegade rigs had supposedly hit the asteroids. Their\n headquarters was Venus. Their leader\u2014a subject of popular and\n fantastic conjecture in the men's audiozines\u2014was rumored to be a\n red-bearded giant.\nSo\n, Ben reflected,\nyou can take a beer-and-pretzels tale seriously.\n You can hide for a couple of days, get rid of your uniform, change your\n name. You can wait for a chance to get to Venus. To hell with your\n duty. You can try to stay in space, even if you exile yourself from\n Earth.\nAfter all, was it right for a single second, a single insignificant\n second, to destroy a man's life and his dream?\nHe was lucky. He found a tramp freighter whose skipper was on his last\n flight before retirement. Discipline was lax, investigation of new\n personnel even more so.\n\n\n Ben Curtis made it to Venus.\n\n\n There was just one flaw in his decision. He hadn't realized that the\n memory of the dead man's face would haunt him, torment him, follow him\n as constantly as breath flowed into his lungs.\n\n\n But might not the rumble of atomic engines drown the murmuring dead\n voice? Might not the vision of alien worlds and infinite spaceways\n obscure the dead face?\n\n\n So now he sat searching for a perhaps nonexistent red-bearded giant,\n and hoping and doubting and fearing, all at once.\n\n\n \"You look for someone,\nsenor\n?\"\n\n\n He jumped. \"Oh. You still here?\"\n\n\n \"\nOui.\n\" The Martian kid grinned, his mouth full of purple teeth. \"I\n keep you company on your first night in Hoover City,\nn'est-ce-pas\n?\"\n\n\n \"This isn't my first night here,\" Ben lied. \"I've been around a while.\"\n\n\n \"You are spacemen?\"\n\n\n Ben threw a fifty-cent credit piece on the table. \"Here. Take off, will\n you?\"\n\n\n Spiderlike fingers swept down upon the coin. \"\nIch danke, senor.\nYou\n know why city is called Hoover City?\"\n\n\n Ben didn't answer.\n\n\n \"They say it is because after women come, they want first thing a\n thousand vacuum cleaners for dust. What is vacuum cleaner,\nmonsieur\n?\"\n\n\n Ben raised his hand as if to strike the boy.\n\n\n \"\nAi-yee\n, I go. You keep listen to good Martian music.\"\n\n\n The toothpick of a body melted into the semi-darkness.\n\n\n Minutes passed. There were two more whiskeys. A ceaseless parade of\n faces broke through the smoky veil that enclosed him\u2014reddish balloon\n faces, scaly reptilian faces, white-skinned, slit-eyed faces, and\n occasionally a white, rouged, powdered face. But nowhere was there a\n face with a red beard.\n\n\n A sense of hopelessness gripped Ben Curtis. Hoover City was but one of\n a dozen cities of Venus. Each had twenty dives such as this.\n\n\n He needed help.\n\n\n But his picture must have been 'scoped to Venusian visiscreens. A\n reward must have been offered for his capture. Whom could he trust? The\n Martian kid, perhaps?\n\n\n Far down the darkened aisle nearest him, his eyes caught a flash of\n white. He tensed.\n\n\n Like the uniform of a Security Policeman, he thought.\n\n\n His gaze shifted to another aisle and another hint of whiteness.\n\n\n And then he saw another and another and another.\n\n\n Each whiteness became brighter and closer, like shrinking spokes of a\n wheel with Ben as their focal point.\nYou idiot! The damned Martian kid! You should have known!\nLight showered the room in a dazzling explosion. Ben, half blinded,\n realized that a broad circle of unshaded globes in the ceiling had been\n turned on.\n\n\n The light washed away the room's strangeness and its air of brooding\n wickedness, revealing drab concrete walls and a debris-strewn floor.\n\n\n Eyes blinked and squinted. There were swift, frightened movements and\n a chorus of angry murmurs. The patrons of the Blast Inn were like\n tatter-clad occupants of a house whose walls have been ripped away.\n\n\n Ben Curtis twisted his lean body erect. His chair tumbled backward,\n falling.\n\n\n The white-clad men charged, neuro-clubs upraised.\n\n\n A woman screamed. The music ceased. The Martian orchestra slunk with\n feline stealth to a rear exit. Only the giant Venusians remained\n undisturbed. They stood unmoving, their staring eyes shifting lazily in\n Ben's direction.\n\n\n \"Curtis!\" one of the policemen yelled. \"You're covered! Hold it!\"\n\n\n Ben whirled away from the advancing police, made for the exit into\n which the musicians had disappeared.\n\n\n A hissing sound traveled past his left ear, a sound like compressed air\n escaping from a container. A dime-sized section of the concrete wall\n ahead of him crumbled.\n\n\n He stumbled forward. They were using deadly neuro-pistols now, not the\n mildly stunning neuro-clubs.\n\n\n Another hiss passed his cheek. He was about twelve feet from the exit.\nAnother second\n, his brain screamed.\nJust another second\u2014\nOr would the exits be guarded?\n\n\n He heard the hiss.\n\n\n It hit directly in the small of his back. There was no pain, just a\n slight pricking sensation, like the shallow jab of a needle.\nHe froze as if yanked to a stop by a noose. His body seemed to be\n growing, swelling into balloon proportions. He knew that the tiny\n needle had imbedded itself deep in his flesh, knew that the paralyzing\n mortocain was spreading like icy fire into every fiber and muscle of\n his body.\n\n\n He staggered like a man of stone moving in slow motion. He'd have\n fifteen\u2014maybe twenty\u2014seconds before complete lethargy of mind and\n body overpowered him.\n\n\n In the dark world beyond his fading consciousness, he heard a voice\n yell, \"Turn on the damn lights!\"\n\n\n Then a pressure and a coldness were on his left hand. He realized that\n someone had seized it.\n\n\n A soft feminine voice spoke to him. \"You're wounded? They hit you?\"\n\n\n \"Yes.\" His thick lips wouldn't let go of the word.\n\n\n \"You want to escape\u2014even now?\"\n\n\n \"Yes.\"\n\n\n \"You may die if you don't give yourself up.\"\n\n\n \"No, no.\"\n\n\n He tried to stumble toward the exit.\n\n\n \"All right then. Not that way. Here, this way.\"\n\n\n Heavy footsteps thudded toward them. A few yards away, a flashlight\n flicked on.\n\n\n Hands were guiding him. He was aware of being pushed and pulled. A\n door closed behind him. The glare of the flashlight faded from his\n vision\u2014if he still had vision.\n\n\n \"You're sure?\" the voice persisted.\n\n\n \"I'm sure,\" Ben managed to say.\n\n\n \"I have no antidote. You may die.\"\n\n\n His mind fought to comprehend. With the anti-paralysis injection,\n massage and rest, a man could recover from the effects of mortocain\n within half a day. Without treatment, the paralysis could spread to\n heart and lungs. It could become a paralysis of death. An effective\n weapon: the slightest wound compelled the average criminal to surrender\n at once.\n\n\n \"Anti ... anti ...\" The words were as heavy as blobs of mercury forced\n from his throat. \"No ... I'm sure ... sure.\"\n\n\n He didn't hear the answer or anything else.\nBen Curtis had no precise sensation of awakening. Return to\n consciousness was an intangible evolution from a world of black\n nothingness to a dream-like state of awareness.\n\n\n He felt the pressure of hands on his naked arms and shoulders,\n hands that massaged, manipulated, fought to restore circulation and\n sensitivity. He knew they were strong hands. Their strength seemed to\n transfer itself to his own body.\n\n\n For a long time, he tried to open his eyes. His lids felt welded\n shut. But after a while, they opened. His world of darkness gave way\n to a translucent cloak of mist. A round, featureless shape hovered\n constantly above him\u2014a face, he supposed.\n\n\n He tried to talk. Although his lips moved slightly, the only sound was\n a deep, staccato grunting.\n\n\n But he heard someone say, \"Don't try to talk.\" It was the same gentle\n voice he'd heard in the Blast Inn. \"Don't talk. Just lie still and\n rest. Everything'll be all right.\"\nEverything all right\n, he thought dimly.\n\n\n There were long periods of lethargy when he was aware of nothing. There\n were periods of light and of darkness. Gradually he grew aware of\n things. He realized that the soft rubber mouth of a spaceman's oxygen\n mask was clamped over his nose. He felt the heat of electric blankets\n swathed about his body. Occasionally a tube would be in his mouth and\n he would taste liquid food and feel a pleasant warmth in his stomach.\n\n\n Always, it seemed, the face was above him, floating in the obscuring\n mist. Always, it seemed, the soft voice was echoing in his ears:\n\n\n \"Swallow this now. That's it. You must have food.\" Or, \"Close your\n eyes. Don't strain. It won't be long. You're getting better.\"\nBetter\n, he'd think.\nGetting better....\nAt last, after one of the periods of lethargy, his eyes opened. The\n mist brightened, then dissolved.\n\n\n He beheld the cracked, unpainted ceiling of a small room, its colorless\n walls broken with a single, round window. He saw the footboard of his\n aluminite bed and the outlines of his feet beneath a faded blanket.\n\n\n Finally he saw the face and figure that stood at his side.\n\n\n \"You are better?\" the kind voice asked.\nThe face was that of a girl probably somewhere between twenty-five\n and thirty. Her features, devoid of makeup, had an unhealthy-looking\n pallor, as if she hadn't used a sunlamp for many weeks. Yet, at the\n same time, her firm slim body suggested a solidity and a strength. Her\n straight brown hair was combed backward, tight upon her scalp, and\n drawn together in a knot at the nape of her neck.\n\n\n \"I\u2014I am better,\" he murmured. His words were still slow and thick. \"I\n am going to live?\"\n\n\n \"You will live.\"\n\n\n He thought for a moment. \"How long have I been here?\"\n\n\n \"Nine days.\"\n\n\n \"You took care of me?\" He noted the deep, dark circles beneath her\n sleep-robbed eyes.\n\n\n She nodded.\n\n\n \"You're the one who carried me when I was shot?\"\n\n\n \"Yes.\"\n\n\n \"Why?\"\n\n\n Suddenly he began to cough. Breath came hard. She held the oxygen mask\n in readiness. He shook his head, not wanting it.\n\n\n \"Why?\" he asked again.\n\n\n \"It would be a long story. Perhaps I'll tell you tomorrow.\"\n\n\n A new thought, cloaked in sudden fear, entered his murky consciousness.\n \"Tell me, will\u2014will I be well again? Will I be able to walk?\"\n\n\n He lay back then, panting, exhausted.\n\n\n \"You have nothing to worry about,\" the girl said softly. Her cool hand\n touched his hot forehead. \"Rest. We'll talk later.\"\n\n\n His eyes closed and breath came easier. He slept.\n\n\n When he next awoke, his gaze turned first to the window. There was\n light outside, but he had no way of knowing if this was morning, noon\n or afternoon\u2014or on what planet.\n\n\n He saw no white-domed buildings of Hoover City, no formal lines of\n green-treed parks, no streams of buzzing gyro-cars. There was only a\n translucent and infinite whiteness. It was as if the window were set on\n the edge of the Universe overlooking a solemn, silent and matterless\n void.\n\n\n The girl entered the room.\n\n\n \"Hi,\" she said, smiling. The dark half-moons under her eyes were less\n prominent. Her face was relaxed.\n\n\n She increased the pressure in his rubberex pillows and helped him rise\n to a sitting position.\n\n\n \"Where are we?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Venus.\"\n\n\n \"We're not in Hoover City?\"\n\n\n \"No.\"\n\n\n He looked at her, wondering. \"You won't tell me?\"\n\n\n \"Not yet. Later, perhaps.\"\n\n\n \"Then how did you get me here? How did we escape from the Inn?\"\nShe shrugged. \"We have friends who can be bribed. A hiding place in the\n city, the use of a small desert-taxi, a pass to leave the city\u2014these\n can be had for a price.\"\n\n\n \"You'll tell me your name?\"\n\n\n \"Maggie.\"\n\n\n \"Why did you save me?\"\n\n\n Her eyes twinkled mischievously. \"Because you're a good astrogator.\"\n\n\n His own eyes widened. \"How did you know that?\"\n\n\n She sat on a plain chair beside his bed. \"I know everything about you,\n Lieutenant Curtis.\"\n\n\n \"How did you learn my name? I destroyed all my papers\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I know that you're twenty-four. Born July 10, 1971. Orphaned at four,\n you attended Boys Town in the Catskills till you were 19. You graduated\n from the Academy at White Sands last June with a major in Astrogation.\n Your rating for the five-year period was 3.8\u2014the second highest in a\n class of fifty-seven. Your only low mark in the five years was a 3.2 in\n History of Martian Civilization. Want me to go on?\"\n\n\n Fascinated, Ben nodded.\n\n\n \"You were accepted as junior astrogation officer aboard the\nOdyssey\n.\n You did well on your flight from Roswell to Luna City. In a barroom\n fight in Luna City, you struck and killed a man named Arthur Cobb, a\n pre-fab salesman. You've been charged with second degree murder and\n escape. A reward of 5,000 credits has been offered for your capture.\n You came to Hoover City in the hope of finding a renegade group of\n spacemen who operate beyond Mars. You were looking for them in the\n Blast Inn.\"\n\n\n He gaped incredulously, struggling to rise from his pillows. \"I\u2014don't\n get it.\"\n\n\n \"There are ways of finding out what we want to know. As I told you, we\n have many friends.\"\n\n\n He fell back into his pillows, breathing hard. She rose quickly.\n\n\n \"I'm sorry,\" she said. \"I shouldn't have told you yet. I felt so happy\n because you're alive. Rest now. We'll talk again soon.\"\n\n\n \"Maggie, you\u2014you said I'd live. You didn't say I'd be able to walk\n again.\"\n\n\n She lowered her gaze. \"I hope you'll be able to.\"\n\n\n \"But you don't think I will, do you?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know. We'll try walking tomorrow. Don't think about it now.\n Rest.\"\n\n\n He tried to relax, but his mind was a vortex of conjecture.\n\n\n \"Just one more question,\" he almost whispered.\n\n\n \"Yes?\"\n\n\n \"The man I killed\u2014did he have a wife?\"\n\n\n She hesitated. He thought,\nDamn it, of all the questions, why did I\n ask that?\nFinally she said, \"He had a wife.\"\n\n\n \"Children?\"\n\n\n \"Two. I don't know their ages.\"\n\n\n She left the room.\nHe sank into the softness of his bed. As he turned over on his side,\n his gaze fell upon an object on a bureau in a far corner of the room.\n\n\n He sat straight up, his chest heaving.\n\n\n The object was a tri-dimensional photo of a rock-faced man in a\n merchant spaceman's uniform. He was a giant of a man with a neatly\n trimmed\nred beard\n!\n\n\n Ben stared at the photo for a long time. At length, he slipped into\n restless sleep. Images of faces and echoes of words spun through his\n brain.\n\n\n The dead man returned to him. Bloodied lips cursed at him. Glassy eyes\n accused him. Somewhere were two lost children crying in the night.\n\n\n And towering above him was a red-bearded man whose great hands reached\n down and beckoned to him. Ben crawled through the night on hands and\n knees, his legs numb and useless. The crying of the children was a\n chilling wail in his ears.\n\n\n His head rose and turned to the red-bearded man. His pleading voice\n screamed out to him in a thick, harsh cackle. Yet even as he screamed,\n the giant disappeared, to be replaced by white-booted feet stomping\n relentlessly toward him.\n\n\n He awoke still screaming....\n\n\n A night without darkness passed. Ben lay waiting for Maggie's return, a\n question already formed in his mind.\n\n\n She came and at once he asked, \"Who is the man with the red beard?\"\n\n\n She smiled. \"I was right then when I gave you that thumbnail biog. You\nwere\nlooking for him, weren't you?\"\n\n\n \"Who is he?\"\n\n\n She sat on the chair beside him.\n\n\n \"My husband,\" she said softly.\n\n\n He began to understand. \"And your husband needs an astrogator? That's\n why you saved me?\"\n\n\n \"We need all the good men we can get.\"\n\n\n \"Where is he?\"\n\n\n She cocked her head in mock suspicion. \"Somewhere between Mercury and\n Pluto. He's building a new base for us\u2014and a home for me. When his\n ship returns, I'll be going to him.\"\n\n\n \"Why aren't you with him now?\"\n\n\n \"He said unexplored space is no place for a woman. So I've been\n studying criminal reports and photos from the Interplanetary Bureau of\n Investigation and trying to find recruits like yourself. You know how\n we operate?\"\n\n\n He told her the tales he'd heard.\nShe nodded. \"There are quite a few of us now\u2014about a thousand\u2014and a\n dozen ships. Our base used to be here on Venus, down toward the Pole.\n The dome we're in now was designed and built by us a few years ago\n after we got pushed off Mars. We lost a few men in the construction,\n but with almost every advance in space, someone dies.\"\n\n\n \"Venus is getting too civilized. We're moving out and this dome is only\n a temporary base when we have cases like yours. The new base\u2014I might\n as well tell you it's going to be an asteroid. I won't say which one.\"\n\n\n \"Don't get the idea that we're outlaws. Sure, about half our group is\n wanted by the Bureau, but we make honest livings. We're just people\n like yourself and Jacob.\"\n\n\n \"Jacob? Your husband?\"\n\n\n She laughed. \"Makes you think of a Biblical character, doesn't it?\n Jacob's anything but that. And just plain 'Jake' reminds one of a\n grizzled old uranium prospector and he isn't like that, either.\"\n\n\n She lit a cigarette. \"Anyway, the wanted ones stay out beyond the\n frontiers. Jacob and those like him can never return to Earth\u2014not even\n to Hoover City\u2014except dead. The others are physical or psycho rejects\n who couldn't get clearance if they went back to Earth. They know\n nothing but rocketing and won't give up. They bring in our ships to\n frontier ports like Hoover City to unload cargo and take on supplies.\"\n\n\n \"Don't the authorities object?\"\n\n\n \"Not very strongly. The I. B. I. has too many problems right here to\n search the whole System for a few two-bit crooks. Besides, we carry\n cargoes of almost pure uranium and tungsten and all the stuff that's\n scarce on Earth and Mars and Venus. Nobody really cares whether it\n comes from the asteroids or Hades. If we want to risk our lives mining\n it, that's our business.\"\n\n\n She pursed her lips. \"But if they guessed how strong we are or that we\n have friends planted in the I. B. I.\u2014well, things might be different.\n There probably would be a crackdown.\"\n\n\n Ben scowled. \"What happens if there\nis\na crackdown? And what will you\n do when Space Corps ships officially reach the asteroids? They can't\n ignore you then.\"\n\n\n \"Then we move on. We dream up new gimmicks for our crates and take them\n to Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto. In time, maybe, we'll be\n pushed out of the System itself. Maybe it won't be the white-suited\n boys who'll make that first hop to the stars. It\ncould\nbe us, you\n know\u2014if we live long enough. But that Asteroid Belt is murder. You\n can't follow the text-book rules of astrogation out there. You make up\n your own.\"\nBen stiffened. \"And that's why you want me for an astrogator.\"\n\n\n Maggie rose, her eyes wistful. \"If you want to come\u2014and if you get\n well.\" She looked at him strangely.\n\n\n \"Suppose\u2014\" He fought to find the right words. \"Suppose I got well and\n decided not to join Jacob. What would happen to me? Would you let me\n go?\"\n\n\n Her thin face was criss-crossed by emotion\u2014alarm, then bewilderment,\n then fear. \"I don't know. That would be up to Jacob.\"\n\n\n He lay biting his lip, staring at the photo of Jacob. She touched his\n hand and it seemed that sadness now dominated the flurry of emotion\n that had coursed through her.\n\n\n \"The only thing that matters, really,\" she murmured, \"is your walking\n again. We'll try this afternoon. Okay?\"\n\n\n \"Okay,\" he said.\n\n\n When she left, his eyes were still turned toward Jacob's photo.\n\n\n He was like two people, he thought.\n\n\n Half of him was an officer of the Space Corps. Perhaps one single\n starry-eyed boy out of ten thousand was lucky enough to reach that goal.\n\n\n He remembered a little picture book his mother had given him when she\n was alive. Under the bright pictures of spacemen were the captions:\n\n\n \"A Space Officer Is Honest\" \"A Space Officer Is Loyal.\" \"A Space\n Officer Is Dutiful.\"\n\n\n Honesty, loyalty, duty. Trite words, but without those concepts,\n mankind would never have broken away from the planet that held it\n prisoner for half a million years.\n\n\n Without them, Everson, after three failures and a hundred men dead,\n would never have landed on the Moon twenty-seven years ago.",
    "42111": "And Then the Town Took Off\nby RICHARD WILSON\nACE BOOKS, INC.\n\n 23 West 47th Street, New York 36, N.Y.\nAND THEN THE TOWN TOOK OFF\nCopyright \u00a9, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.\n\n All Rights Reserved\nFor\nFelicitas K. Wilson\nTHE SIOUX SPACEMAN\n\n Copyright \u00a9, 1960, by Ace Books, Inc.\nPrinted in U.S.A.\nTHE CITY THAT RAN OFF THE MAP\nThe town of Superior, Ohio, certainly was living up to its name! In what\n was undoubtedly the most spectacular feat of the century, it simply\n picked itself up one night and rose two full miles above Earth!\n\n\n Radio messages stated simply that Superior had seceded from Earth. But\n Don Cort, stranded on that rising town, was beginning to suspect that\n nothing was simple about Superior except its citizens. Calmly they\n accepted their rise in the world as being due to one of their local\n townspeople, a crackpot professor.\n\n\n But after a couple of weeks of floating around, it began to be obvious\n that the professor had no idea how to get them down. So then it was up\n to Cort: either find a way to anchor Superior, or spend the rest of his\n days on the smallest\u2014and the nuttiest\u2014planet in the galaxy!\nI\nThe town of Superior, Ohio, disappeared on the night of October 31.\n\n\n A truck driver named Pierce Knaubloch was the first to report it. He had\n been highballing west along Route 202, making up for the time he'd spent\n over a second cup of coffee in a diner, when he screeched to a stop. If\n he'd gone another twenty-five feet he'd have gone into the pit where\n Superior had been.\n\n\n Knaubloch couldn't see the extent of the pit because it was too dark,\n but it looked big. Bigger than if a nitro truck had blown up, which was\n his first thought. He backed up two hundred feet, set out flares, then\n sped off to a telephone.\n\n\n The state police converged on the former site of Superior from several\n directions. Communicating by radiophone across the vast pit, they\n confirmed that the town undoubtedly was missing. They put in a call to\n the National Guard.\n\n\n The guard surrounded the area with troops\u2014more than a thousand were\n needed\u2014to keep people from falling into the pit. A pilot who flew over\n it reported that it looked as if a great ice-cream scoop had bitten into\n the Ohio countryside.\n\n\n The Pennsylvania Railroad complained that one of its passenger trains\n was missing. The train's schedule called for it to pass through but not\n stop at Superior at 11:58. That seemed to fix the time of the\n disappearance at midnight. The truck driver had made his discovery\n shortly after midnight.\n\n\n Someone pointed out that October 31 was Halloween and that midnight was\n the witching hour.\n\n\n Somebody else said nonsense, they'd better check for radiation. A civil\n defense official brought up a Geiger counter, but no matter how he shook\n it and rapped on it, it refused to click.\n\n\n A National Guard officer volunteered to take a jeep down into the pit,\n having found a spot that seemed navigable. He was gone a long time but\n when he came out the other side he reported that the pit was concave,\n relatively smooth, and did not smell of high explosives. He'd found no\n people, no houses\u2014no sign of anything except the pit itself.\n\n\n The Governor of Ohio asked Washington whether any unidentified planes\n had been over the state. Washington said no. The Pentagon and the Atomic\n Energy Commission denied that they had been conducting secret\n experiments.\n\n\n Nor had there been any defense plants in Superior that might have blown\n up. The town's biggest factory made kitchen sinks and the next biggest\n made bubble gum.\nA United Airlines pilot found Superior early on the morning of November\n 1. The pilot, Captain Eric Studley, who had never seen a flying saucer\n and hoped never to see one, was afraid now that he had. The object\n loomed out of a cloudbank at twelve thousand feet and Studley changed\n course to avoid it. He noted with only minimum satisfaction that his\n co-pilot also saw the thing and wondered why it wasn't moving at the\n terrific speed flying saucers were allegedly capable of.\n\n\n Then he saw the church steeple on it.\n\n\n A few minutes later he had relayed a message from Superior, formerly of\n Ohio, addressed to whom it might concern:\n\n\n It said that Superior had seceded from Earth.\n\n\n One other radio message came from Superior, now airborne, on that first\n day. A ham radio operator reported an unidentified voice as saying\n plaintively:\n\n\n \"\nCold\nup here!\"\n\n\n Don Cort had been dozing in what passed for the club car on the Buckeye\n Cannonball when the train braked to a stop. He looked out the window,\n hoping this was Columbus, where he planned to catch a plane east. But it\n wasn't Columbus. All he could see were some lanterns jogging as trainmen\n hurried along the tracks.\n\n\n The conductor looked into the car. The redhead across the aisle in whom\n Don had taken a passing interest earlier in the evening asked, \"Why did\n we stop?\"\n\n\n \"Somebody flagged us down,\" the conductor said. \"We don't make a station\n stop at Superior on this run.\"\n\n\n The girl's hair was a subtle red, but false. When Don had entered the\n club car he'd seen her hatless head from above and noticed that the hair\n along the part was dark. Her eyes had been on a book and Don had the\n opportunity for a brief study of her face. The cheeks were full and\n untouched by make-up. There were lines at the corners of her mouth which\n indicated a tendency to arrange her expression into one of disapproval.\n The lips were full, like the cheeks, but it was obvious that the scarlet\n lipstick had contrived a mouth a trifle bigger than the one nature had\n given her.\n\n\n Her glance upward at that moment interrupted his examination, which had\n been about to go on to her figure. Later, though, he was able to observe\n that it was more than adequate.\n\n\n If the girl had given Don Cort more than that one glance, or if it had\n been a trained, all-encompassing glance, she would have seen a man in\n his mid-twenties\u2014about her age\u2014lean, tall and straight-shouldered,\n with once-blond hair now verging on dark brown, a face neither handsome\n nor ugly, and a habit of drawing the inside of his left cheek between\n his teeth and nibbling at it thoughtfully.\n\n\n But it was likely that all she noticed then was the brief case he\n carried, attached by a chain to a handcuff on his left wrist.\n\n\n \"Will we be here long?\" Don asked the conductor. He didn't want to miss\n his plane at Columbus. The sooner he got to Washington, the sooner he'd\n get rid of the brief case. The handcuff it was attached to was one\n reason why his interest in the redhead had been only passing.\n\n\n \"Can't say,\" the conductor told him. He let the door close again and\n went down to the tracks.\n\n\n Don hesitated, shrugged at the redhead, said, \"Excuse me,\" and followed\n the conductor. About a dozen people were milling around the train as it\n sat in the dark, hissing steam. Don made his way up to the locomotive\n and found a bigger knot of people gathered in front of the cowcatcher.\n\n\n Some sort of barricade had been put up across the tracks and it was\n covered with every imaginable kind of warning device. There were red\n lanterns, both battery and electric; flashlights; road flares; and even\n an old red shirt.\n\n\n Don saw two men who must have been the engineer and the fireman talking\n to an old bearded gentleman wearing a civil defense helmet, a topcoat\n and riding boots.\n\n\n \"You'd go over the edge, I tell you,\" the old gentleman was saying.\n\n\n \"If you don't get this junk off the line,\" the engineer said, \"I'll plow\n right through it. Off the edge! you crazy or something?\"\n\n\n \"Look for yourself,\" the old man in the white helmet said. \"Go ahead.\n Look.\"\n\n\n The engineer was exasperated. He turned to the fireman. \"You look. Humor\n the old man. Then let's go.\"\n\n\n The bearded man\u2014he called himself Professor Garet\u2014went off with the\n fireman. Don followed them. They had tramped a quarter of a mile along\n the gravel when the fireman stopped. \"Okay,\" he said \"where's the edge?\n I don't see nothing.\" The tracks seemed to stretch forever into the\n darkness.\n\n\n \"It's another half mile or so,\" the professor said.\n\n\n \"Well, let's hurry up. We haven't got all night.\"\n\n\n The old man chuckled. \"I'm afraid you have.\"\n\n\n They came to it at last, stopping well back from it. Professor Garet\n swelled with pride, it seemed, as he made a theatrical gesture.\n\n\n \"Behold,\" he said. \"Something even Columbus couldn't find. The edge of\n the world.\"\n\n\n True, everything seemed to stop, and they could see stars shining low on\n the horizon where stars could not properly be expected to be seen.\n\n\n Don Cort and the fireman walked cautiously toward the edge while the\n professor ambled ahead with the familiarity of one who had been there\n before. But there was a wind and they did not venture too close.\n Nevertheless, Don could see that it apparently was a neat, sharp edge,\n not one of your old ragged, random edges such as might have been caused\n by an explosion. This one had the feeling of design behind it.\n\n\n Standing on tiptoe and repressing a touch of giddiness, Don looked over\n the edge. He didn't have to stand on tiptoe any more than he had to sit\n on the edge of his seat during the exciting part of a movie, but the\n situation seemed to call for it. Over the edge could be seen a big\n section of Ohio. At least he supposed it was Ohio.\n\n\n Don looked at the fireman, who had an unbelieving expression on his\n face, then at the bearded old man, who was smiling and nodding.\n\n\n \"You see what I mean,\" he said. \"You would have gone right over. I\n believe you would have had a two-mile fall.\"\n\"Of course you could have stayed aboard the train,\" the man driving the\n old Pontiac said, \"but I really think you'll be more comfortable at\n Cavalier.\"\n\n\n Don Cort, sitting in the back seat of the car with the redhead from the\n club car, asked, \"Cavalier?\"\n\n\n \"The college. The institute, really; it's not accredited. What did you\n say your name was, miss?\"\n\n\n \"Jen Jervis,\" she said. \"Geneva Jervis, formally.\"\n\n\n \"Miss Jervis. I'm Civek. You know Mr. Cort, I suppose.\"\n\n\n The girl smiled sideways. \"We have a nodding acquaintance.\" Don nodded\n and grinned.\n\n\n \"There's plenty of room in the dormitories,\" Civek said. \"People don't\n exactly pound on the gates and scream to be admitted to Cavalier.\"\n\n\n \"Are you connected with the college?\" Don asked.\n\n\n \"Me? No. I'm the mayor of Superior. The old town's really come up in the\n world, hasn't it?\"\n\n\n \"Overnight,\" Geneva Jervis said. \"If what Mr. Cort and the fireman say\n is true. I haven't seen the edge myself.\"\n\n\n \"You'll have a better chance to look at it in the morning,\" the mayor\n said, \"if we don't settle back in the meantime.\"\n\n\n \"Was there any sort of explosion?\" Don asked.\n\n\n \"No. There wasn't any sensation at all, as far as I noticed. I was\n watching the late show\u2014or trying to. My house is down in a hollow and\n reception isn't very good, especially with old English movies. Well, all\n of a sudden the picture sharpened up and I could see just as plain. Then\n the phone rang and it was Professor Garet.\"\n\n\n \"The old fellow with the whiskers and the riding boots?\" Jen Jervis\n asked.\n\n\n \"Yes. Osbert Garet, Professor of Magnology at the Cavalier Institute of\n Applied Sciences.\"\n\n\n \"Professor of what?\"\n\n\n \"Magnology. As I say, the school isn't accredited. Well, Professor\n Garet telephoned and said, 'Hector'\u2014that's my name, Hector\n Civek\u2014'everything's up in the air.' He was having his little joke, of\n course. I said, 'What?' and then he told me.\"\n\n\n \"Told you what?\" Jen Jervis asked. \"I mean, does he have any theory\n about it?\"\n\n\n \"He has a theory about everything. I think what he was trying to convey\n was that this\u2014this levitation confirmed his magnology principle.\"\n\n\n \"What's that?\" Don asked.\n\n\n \"I haven't the faintest idea. I'm a politician, not a scientist.\n Professor Garet went on about it for a while, on the telephone, about\n magnetism and gravity, but I think he was only calling as a courtesy, so\n the mayor wouldn't look foolish the next morning, not knowing his town\n had flown the coop.\"\n\n\n \"What's the population of Superior?\"\n\n\n \"Three thousand, including the students at the institute. Three thousand\n and forty, counting you people from the train. I guess you'll be with us\n for a while.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean by that?\" Jen Jervis asked.\n\n\n \"Well, I don't see how you can get down. Do you?\"\n\n\n \"Does Superior have an airport?\" Don asked. \"I've got to get back to\u2014to\n Earth.\" It sounded odd to put it that way.\n\n\n \"Nope,\" Civek said. \"No airport. No place for a plane to land, either.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe not a plane,\" Don said, \"but a helicopter could land just about\n anywhere.\"\n\n\n \"No helicopters here, either.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe not. But I'll bet they're swarming all over you by morning.\"\n\n\n \"Hm,\" said Hector Civek. Don couldn't quite catch his expression in the\n rearview mirror. \"I suppose they could, at that. Well, here's Cavalier.\n You go right in that door, where the others are going. There's Professor\n Garet. I've got to see him\u2014excuse me.\"\n\n\n The mayor was off across the campus. Don looked at Geneva Jervis, who\n was frowning. \"Are you thinking,\" he asked, \"that Mayor Civek was\n perhaps just a little less than completely honest with us?\"\n\n\n \"I'm thinking,\" she said, \"that I should have stayed with Aunt Hattie\n another night, then taken a plane to Washington.\"\n\n\n \"Washington?\" Don said. \"That's where I'm going. I mean where I\nwas\ngoing before Superior became airborne. What do you do in Washington,\n Miss Jervis?\"\n\n\n \"I work for the Government. Doesn't everybody?\"\n\n\n \"Not everybody. Me, for instance.\"\n\n\n \"No?\" she said. \"Judging by that satchel you're handcuffed to, I'd have\n thought you were a courier for the Pentagon. Or maybe State.\"\n\n\n He laughed quickly and loudly because she was getting uncomfortably\n close. \"Oh, no. Nothing so glamorous. I'm a messenger for the Riggs\n National Bank, that's all. Where do you work?\"\n\n\n \"I'm with Senator Bobby Thebold, S.O.B.\"\n\n\n Don laughed again. \"He sure is.\"\n\n\n \"\nMister\nCort!\" she said, annoyed. \"You know as well as I do that\n S.O.B. stands for Senate Office Building. I'm his secretary.\"\n\n\n \"I'm sorry. We'd better get out and find a place to sleep. It's getting\n late.\"\n\n\n \"\nPlaces\nto sleep,\" she corrected. She looked angry.\n\n\n \"Of course,\" Don said, puzzled by her emphasis. \"Come on. Where they put\n you, you'll probably be surrounded by co-eds, even if I could get out of\n this cuff.\"\n\n\n He took her bag in his free hand and they were met by a gray-haired\n woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Garet. \"We'll try to make you\n comfortable,\" she said. \"What a night, eh? The professor is simply\n beside himself. We haven't had so much excitement since the\n cosmolineator blew up.\"\n\n\n They had a glimpse of the professor, still in his CD helmet, going\n around a corner, gesticulating wildly to someone wearing a white\n laboratory smock.\nII\nDon Cort had slept, but not well. He had tried to fold the brief case to\n pull it through his sleeve so he could take his coat off, but whatever\n was inside the brief case was too big. Cavalier had given him a room to\n himself at one end of a dormitory and he'd taken his pants off but had\n had to sleep with his coat and shirt on. He got up, feeling gritty, and\n did what little dressing was necessary.\n\n\n It was eight o'clock, according to the watch on the unhandcuffed wrist,\n and things were going on. He had a view of the campus from his window. A\n bright sun shone on young people moving generally toward a squat\n building, and other people going in random directions. The first were\n students going to breakfast, he supposed, and the others were faculty\n members. The air was very clear and the long morning shadows distinct.\n Only then did he remember completely that he and the whole town of\n Superior were up in the air.\n\n\n He went through the dormitory. A few students were still sleeping. The\n others had gone from their unmade beds. He shivered as he stepped\n outdoors. It was crisp, if not freezing, and his breath came out\n visibly. First he'd eat, he decided, so he'd be strong enough to go take\n a good look over the edge, in broad daylight, to the Earth below.\n\n\n The mess hall, or whatever they called it, was cafeteria style and he\n got in line with a tray for juice, eggs and coffee. He saw no one he\n knew, but as he was looking for a table a willowy blonde girl smiled and\n gestured to the empty place opposite her.\n\n\n \"You're Mr. Cort,\" she said. \"Won't you join me?\"\n\n\n \"Thanks,\" he said, unloading his tray. \"How did you know?\"\n\n\n \"The mystery man with the handcuff. You'd be hard to miss. I'm\n Alis\u2014that's A-l-i-s, not A-l-i-c-e\u2014Garet. Are you with the FBI? Or did\n you escape from jail?\"\n\n\n \"How do you do. No, just a bank messenger. What an unusual name.\n Professor Garet's daughter?\"\n\n\n \"The same,\" she said. \"Also the only. A pity, because if there'd been\n two of us I'd have had a fifty-fifty chance of going to OSU. As it is,\n I'm duty-bound to represent the second generation at the nut factory.\"\n\n\n \"Nut factory? You mean Cavalier?\" Don struggled to manipulate knife and\n fork without knocking things off the table with his clinging brief case.\n\n\n \"Here, let me cut your eggs for you,\" Alis said. \"You'd better order\n them scrambled tomorrow. Yes, Cavalier. Home of the crackpot theory and\n the latter-day alchemist.\"\n\n\n \"I'm sure it's not that bad. Thanks. As for tomorrow, I hope to be out\n of here by then.\"\n\n\n \"How do you get down from an elephant? Old riddle. You don't; you get\n down from ducks. How do you plan to get down from Superior?\"\n\n\n \"I'll find a way. I'm more interested at the moment in how I got up\n here.\"\n\n\n \"You were levitated, like everybody else.\"\n\n\n \"You make it sound deliberate, Miss Garet, as if somebody hoisted a\n whole patch of real estate for some fell purpose.\"\n\n\n \"Scarcely\nfell\n, Mr. Cort. As for it being deliberate, that seems to be\n a matter of opinion. Apparently you haven't seen the papers.\"\n\n\n \"I didn't know there were any.\"\n\n\n \"Actually there's only one, the\nSuperior Sentry\n, a weekly. This is an\n extra. Ed Clark must have been up all night getting it out.\" She opened\n her purse and unfolded a four-page tabloid.\n\n\n Don blinked at the headline:\nTown Gets High\n\n\n \"Ed Clark's something of an eccentric, like everybody else in Superior,\"\n Alis said.\n\n\n Don read the story, which seemed to him a capricious treatment of an\n apparently grave situation.\nResidents having business beyond the outskirts of town today are\n advised not to. It's a long way down. Where Superior was surrounded by\n Ohio, as usual, today Superior ends literally at the town line.\nA Citizens' Emergency Fence-Building Committee is being formed, but in\n the meantime all are warned to stay well away from the edge. The law of\n gravity seems to have been repealed for the town but it is doubtful if\n the same exemption would apply to a dubious individual bent on\n investigating....\nDon skimmed the rest. \"I don't see anything about it being deliberate.\"\n\n\n Alis had been creaming and sugaring Don's coffee. She pushed it across\n to him and said, \"It's not on page one. Ed Clark and Mayor Civek don't\n get along, so you'll find the mayor's statement in a box on page three,\n bottom.\"\n\n\n Don creased the paper the other way, took a sip of coffee, nodded his\n thanks, and read:\nMayor Claims Secession From Earth\nMayor Hector Civek, in a proclamation issued locally by hand and\n dropped to the rest of the world in a plastic shatter-proof bottle, said\n today that Superior has seceded from Earth. His reasons were as vague as\n his explanation.\nThe \"reasons\" include these: (1) Superior has been discriminated against\n by county, state and federal agencies; (2) Cavalier Institute has been\n held up to global derision by orthodox (presumably meaning accredited)\n colleges and universities; and (3) chicle exporters have conspired\n against the Superior Bubble Gum Company by unreasonably raising prices.\nThe \"explanation\" consists of a 63-page treatise on applied magnology by\n Professor Osbert Garet of Cavalier which the editor (a) does not\n understand; (b) lacks space to publish; and which (it being atrociously\n handwritten) he (c) has not the temerity to ask his linotype operator to\n set.\nDon said, \"I'm beginning to like this Ed Clark.\"\n\n\n \"He's a doll,\" Alis said. \"He's about the only one in town who stands up\n to Father.\"\n\n\n \"Does your father claim that\nhe\nlevitated Superior off the face of the\n Earth?\"\n\n\n \"Not to me he doesn't. I'm one of those banes of his existence, a\n skeptic. He gave up trying to magnolize me when I was sixteen. I had a\n science teacher in high school\u2014not in Superior, incidentally\u2014who gave\n me all kinds of embarrassing questions to ask Father. I asked them,\n being a natural-born needler, and Father has disowned me intellectually\n ever since.\"\n\n\n \"How old are you, Miss Garet, if I may ask?\"\n\n\n She sat up straight and tucked her sweater tightly into her skirt,\n emphasizing her good figure. To a male friend Don would have described\n the figure as outstanding. She had mocking eyes, a pert nose and a mouth\n of such moist red softness that it seemed perpetually waiting to be\n kissed. All in all she could have been the queen of a campus much more\n densely populated with co-eds than Cavalier was.\n\n\n \"You may call me Alis,\" she said. \"And I'm nineteen.\"\n\n\n Don grinned. \"Going on?\"\n\n\n \"Three months past. How old are\nyou\n, Mr. Cort?\"\n\n\n \"Don's the name I've had for twenty-six years. Please use it.\"\n\n\n \"Gladly. And now, Don, unless you want another cup of coffee, I'll go\n with you to the end of the world.\"\n\n\n \"On such short notice?\" Don was intrigued. Last night the redhead from\n the club car had repelled an advance that hadn't been made, and this\n morning a blonde was apparently making an advance that hadn't been\n solicited. He wondered where Geneva Jervis was, but only vaguely.\n\n\n \"I'll admit to the\ndouble entendre\n,\" Alis said. \"What I meant\u2014for\n now\u2014was that we can stroll out to where Superior used to be attached to\n the rest of Ohio and see how the Earth is getting along without us.\"\n\n\n \"Delighted. But don't you have any classes?\"\n\n\n \"Sure I do. Non-Einsteinian Relativity 1, at nine o'clock. But I'm a\n demon class-cutter, which is why I'm still a Senior at my advanced age.\n On to the brink!\"\nThey walked south from the campus and came to the railroad track. The\n train was standing there with nowhere to go. It had been abandoned\n except for the conductor, who had dutifully spent the night aboard.\n\n\n \"What's happening?\" he asked when he saw them. \"Any word from down\n there?\"\n\n\n \"Not that I know of,\" Don said. He introduced him to Alis Garet. \"What\n are you going to do?\"\n\n\n \"What\ncan\nI do?\" the conductor asked.\n\n\n \"You can go over to Cavalier and have breakfast,\" Alis said. \"Nobody's\n going to steal your old train.\"\n\n\n The conductor reckoned as how he might just do that, and did.\n\n\n \"You know,\" Don said, \"I was half-asleep last night but before the train\n stopped I thought it was running alongside a creek for a while.\"\n\n\n \"South Creek,\" Alis said. \"That's right. It's just over there.\"\n\n\n \"Is it still? I mean hasn't it all poured off the edge by now? Was that\n Superior's water supply?\"\n\n\n Alis shrugged. \"All I know is you turn on the faucet and there's water.\n Let's go look at the creek.\"\n\n\n They found it coursing along between the banks.\n\n\n \"Looks just about the same,\" she said.\n\n\n \"That's funny. Come on; let's follow it to the edge.\"\n\n\n The brink, as Alis called it, looked even more awesome by daylight.\n Everything stopped short. There were the remnants of a cornfield, with\n the withered stalks cut down, then there was nothing. There was South\n Creek surging along, then nothing. In the distance a clump of trees,\n with a few autumn leaves still clinging to their branches, simply ended.\n\n\n \"Where is the water going?\" Don asked. \"I can't make it out.\"\n\n\n \"Down, I'd say. Rain for the Earth-people.\"\n\n\n \"I should think it'd be all dried up by now. I'm going to have a look.\"\n\n\n \"Don't! You'll fall off!\"\n\n\n \"I'll be careful.\" He walked cautiously toward the edge. Alis followed\n him, a few feet behind. He stopped a yard from the brink and waited for\n a spell of dizziness to pass. The Earth was spread out like a\n topographer's map, far below. Don took another wary step, then sat down.\n\n\n \"Chicken,\" said Alis. She laughed uncertainly, then she sat down, too.\n\n\n \"I still can't see where the water goes,\" Don said. He stretched out on\n his stomach and began to inch forward. \"You stay there.\"\n\n\n Finally he had inched to a point where, by stretching out a hand, he\n could almost reach the edge. He gave another wriggle and the fingers of\n his right hand closed over the brink. For a moment he lay there,\n panting, head pressed to the ground.\n\n\n \"How do you feel?\" Alis asked.\n\n\n \"Scared. When I get my courage back I'll pick up my head and look.\"\n\n\n Alis put a hand out tentatively, then purposefully took hold of his\n ankle and held it tight. \"Just in case a high wind comes along,\" she\n said.\n\n\n \"Thanks. It helps. Okay, here we go.\" He lifted his head. \"Damn.\"\n\n\n \"What?\"\n\n\n \"It still isn't clear. Do you have a pocket mirror?\"\n\n\n \"I have a compact.\" She took it out of her bag with her free hand and\n tossed it to him. It rolled and Don had to grab to keep it from going\n over the edge. Alis gave a little shriek. Don was momentarily unnerved\n and had to put his head back on the ground. \"Sorry,\" she said.\n\n\n Don opened the compact and carefully transferred it to his right hand.\n He held it out beyond the edge and peered into it, focusing it on the\n end of the creek. \"Now I've got it. The water\nisn't\ngoing off the\n edge!\"\n\n\n \"It isn't? Then where is it going?\"\n\n\n \"Down, of course, but it's as if it's going into a well, or a vertical\n tunnel, just short of the edge.\"\n\n\n \"Why? How?\"\n\n\n \"I can't see too well, but that's my impression. Hold on now. I'm coming\n back.\" He inched away from the edge, then got up and brushed himself\n off. He returned her compact. \"I guess you know where we go next.\"\n\n\n \"The other end of the creek?\"\n\n\n \"Exactly.\"\n\n\n South Creek did not bisect Superior, as Don thought it might, but flowed\n in an arc through a southern segment of it. They had about two miles to\n go, past South Creek Bridge\u2014which used to lead to Ladenburg, Alis\n said\u2014past Raleigh Country Club (a long drive would really put the ball\n out of play, Don thought) and on to the edge again.\n\n\n But as they approached what they were forced to consider the source of\n the creek, they found a wire fence at the spot. \"This is new,\" Alis\n said.\n\n\n The fence, which had a sign on it,\n warning\u2014electrified\n , was\n semicircular, with each end at the edge and tarpaulins strung behind it\n so they could see the mouth of the creek. The water flowed from under\n the tarp and fence.\n\n\n \"Look how it comes in spurts,\" Alis said.\n\n\n \"As if it's being pumped.\"\n\n\n Smaller print on the sign said:\nProtecting mouth of South Creek, one of\n two sources of water for Superior. Electrical charge in fence is\n sufficient to kill.\nIt was signed:\nVincent Grande, Chief of Police,\n Hector Civek, Mayor\n.\n\n\n \"What's the other source, besides the faucet in your bathroom?\" Don\n asked.\n\n\n \"North Lake, maybe,\" Alis said. \"People fish there but nobody's allowed\n to swim.\"\n\n\n \"Is the lake entirely within the town limits?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know.\"\n\n\n \"If it were on the edge, and if I took a rowboat out on it, I wonder\n what would happen?\"\n\n\n \"I know one thing\u2014I wouldn't be there holding your ankle while you\n found out.\"\n\n\n She took his arm as they gazed past the electrified fence at the Earth\n below and to the west.\n\n\n \"It's impressive, isn't it?\" she said. \"I wonder if that's Indiana way\n over there?\"\n\n\n He patted her hand absent-mindedly. \"I wonder if it's west at all. I\n mean, how do we know Superior is maintaining the same position up here\n as it used to down there?\"\n\n\n \"We could tell by the sun, silly.\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" he said, grinning at his stupidity. \"And I guess we're not\n high enough to see very far. If we were we'd be able to see the Great\n Lakes\u2014or Lake Erie, anyway.\"\n\n\n They were musing about the geography when a plane came out of a\n cloudbank and, a second later, veered sharply. They could make out UAL\n on the underside of a wing. As it turned they imagined they could see\n faces peering out of the windows. They waved and thought they saw one or\n two people wave back. Then the plane climbed toward the east and was\n gone.\n\n\n \"Well,\" Don said as they turned to go back to Cavalier, \"now we know\n that they know. Maybe we'll begin to get some answers. Or, if not\n answers, then transportation.\"\n\n\n \"Transportation?\" Alis squeezed the arm she was holding. \"Why? Don't you\n like it here?\"\n\n\n \"If you mean don't I like you, the answer is yes, of course I do. But if\n I don't get out of this handcuff soon so I can take a bath and get into\n clean clothes, you're not going to like me.\"\n\n\n \"You're still quite acceptable, if a bit whiskery.\" She stopped, still\n holding his arm, and he turned so they were face to face. \"So kiss me,\"\n she said, \"before you deteriorate.\"\n\n\n They were in the midst of an extremely pleasant kiss when the brief case\n at the end of Don's handcuff began to talk to him.",
    "51092": "RATTLE OK\nBy HARRY WARNER, JR.\n\n\n Illustrated by FINLAY\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction December 1956.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nWhat better way to use a time machine than\n \nto handle department store complaints? But\n \npleasing  a customer should have its limits!\nThe Christmas party at the Boston branch of Hartshorne-Logan was\n threatening to become more legendary than usual this Christmas.\n\n\n The farm machinery manager had already collapsed. When he slid under\n the table containing the drinks, Miss Pringle, who sold millinery, had\n screamed: \"He'll drown!\"\n\n\n One out of every three dirty stories started by party attendees had\n remained unfinished, because each had reminded someone else of another\n story.\n\n\n The recently developed liquors which affected the bloodstream three\n times faster had driven away twinges of conscience about untrimmed\n trees and midnight church services.\n\n\n The star salesman for mankies and the gentleman who was in charge of\n the janitors were putting on a display of Burmese foot-wrestling in\n one corner of the general office. The janitor foreman weighed fifty\n pounds less than the Burma gentleman, who was the salesman's customary\n opponent. So the climax of one tactic did not simply overturn the\n foreman. He glided through the air, crashing with a very loud thump\n against the wall.\n\n\n He wasn't hurt. But the impact knocked the hallowed portrait of H. H.\n Hartshorne, co-founder, from its nail. It tinkled imposingly as its\n glass splintered against the floor.\nThe noise caused a temporary lull in the gaiety. Several employes even\n felt a passing suspicion that things might be getting out of hand.\n\n\n \"It's all in the spirit of good, clean fun!\" cried Mr. Hawkins, the\n assistant general manager. Since he was the highest executive present,\n worries vanished. Everyone felt fine. There was a scurry to shove the\n broken glass out of sight and to turn more attention to another type of\n glasses.\n\n\n Mr. Hawkins himself, acting by reflex, attempted to return the portrait\n to its place until new glass could be obtained. But the fall had sprung\n the frame at one corner and it wouldn't hang straight.\n\n\n \"We'd better put old H. H. away for safekeeping until after the\n holiday,\" he told a small, blonde salesclerk who was beneath his\n attention on any working day.\n\n\n With the proper mixture of respect and bonhommie, he lifted the heavy\n picture out of its frame. A yellowed envelope slipped to the floor as\n the picture came free. Hawkins rolled the picture like a scroll and put\n it into a desk drawer, for later attention. Then he looked around for a\n drink that would make him feel even better.\n\n\n A sorting clerk in the mail order department wasn't used to liquor. She\n picked up the envelope and looked around vaguely for the mail-opening\n machine.\n\n\n \"Hell, Milly, you aren't working!\" someone shouted at her. \"Have\n another!\"\n\n\n Milly snapped out of it. She giggled, suppressed a ladylike belch and\n returned to reality. Looking at the envelope, she said: \"Oh, I see.\n They must have stuck it in to tighten the frame. Gee, it's old.\"\n\n\n Mr. Hawkins had refreshed himself. He decided that he liked Milly's\n voice. To hear more of it, he said to her: \"I'll bet that's been in\n there ever since the picture was framed. There's a company legend that\n that picture was put up the day this branch opened, eighty years ago.\"\n\n\n \"I didn't know the company ever used buff envelopes like this.\" Milly\n turned it over in her hands. The ancient glue crackled as she did so.\n The flap popped open and an old-fashioned order blank fell out.\n\n\n Mr. Hawkins' eyes widened. He bent, reached painfully over his potbelly\n and picked up the order form.\n\n\n \"This thing has never been processed!\" Raising his voice, he shouted\n jovially, \"Hey, people! You're all fired! Here's an order that\n Hartshorne-Logan never filled! We can't have such carelessness. This\n poor woman has waited eighty years for her merchandise!\"\nMilly was reading aloud the scrawled words on the order form:\n\n\n \"Best electric doorbell. Junior detective kit. Disposable sacks for\n vacuum cleaner. Dress for three-year-old girl.\" She turned to the\n assistant general manager, struck with an idea for the first time in\n her young life. \"Let's fill this order right now!\"\n\n\n \"The poor woman must be dead by now,\" he objected, secretly angry\n that he hadn't thought of such a fine party stunt himself. Then he\n brightened. \"Unless\u2014\" he said it loud enough for the employes to scent\n a great proposal and the room grew quiet\u2014\"unless we broke the rules\n just once and used the time warp on a big mission!\"\n\n\n There was a silence. Finally, from an anonymous voice in one corner:\n \"Would the warp work over eighty years? We were always told that it\n must be used only for complaints within three days.\"\n\n\n \"Then let's find out!\" Mr. Hawkins downed the rest of his drink and\n pulled a batch of keys from his pocket. \"Someone scoot down to the\n warehouse. Tell the watchman that it's on my authority. Hunt up the\n stuff that's on the order. Get the best of everything. Ignore the\n catalogue numbers\u2014they've changed a hundred times in all these years.\"\n\n\n Milly was still deciphering the form. Now she let out a little squeal\n of excitement.\n\n\n \"Look, Mr. Hawkins! The name on this order\u2014it's my great-grandmother!\n Isn't that wonderful? I was just a little girl when she died. I can\n barely remember her as a real old woman. But I remember that my\n grandmother never bought anything from Hartshorne-Logan because of some\n trouble her mother had once with the firm. My mother didn't want me to\n come to work here because of that.\"\n\n\n Mr. Hawkins put his arm around Milly in a way that he intended to\n look fatherly. It didn't. \"Well, now. Since it's your relative, let's\n thrill the old girl. We wouldn't have vacuum sacks any more. So we'll\n substitute a manky!\"\nAnn Hartley was returning from mailing the letter when she found the\n large parcel on her doorstep. She put her hands on her hips and stared\n pugnaciously at the bundle.\n\n\n \"The minute I write a letter to complain about you, you turn up!\" she\n told the parcel. She nudged her toe peevishly against the brown paper\n wrappings that were tied with a half-transparent twine she had never\n seen before.\n\n\n The label was addressed in a wandering scrawl, a sharp contrast to\n the impersonal typing on the customary Hartshorne-Logan bundles. But\n the familiar RATTLE OK sticker was pasted onto the box, indicating to\n the delivery man that the contents would make a rattling sound and\n therefore hadn't been broken in shipment.\n\n\n Ann sighed and picked up her bundle. With a last look at the lovely\n spring afternoon and the quiet suburban landscape, she went into the\n house.\n\n\n Two-year-old Sally heard the box rattling. She waddled up on chubby\n legs and grabbed her mother's skirt. \"Want!\" she said decisively.\n\n\n \"Your dress ought to be here,\" Ann said. She found scissors in her\n sewing box, tossed a cushion onto the floor, sat on it, and began to\n open the parcel.\n\n\n \"Now I'll have to write another letter to explain that they should\n throw away my letter of complaint,\" she told her daughter. \"And by the\n time they get my second letter, they'll have answered my first letter.\n Then they'll write again.\" Out of consideration for Sally, she omitted\n the expletives that she wanted to add.\n\n\n The translucent cord was too tough for the scissors. Ann was about to\n hunt for a razor blade when Sally clutched at an intersection of the\n cord and yanked. The twine sprang away from the carton as if it were\n alive. The paper wrappings flapped open.\n\n\n \"There!\" Sally said.\n\n\n Ann repressed an irrational urge to slap her daughter. Instead, she\n tossed the wrappings aside and removed the lid from the carton. A\n slightly crushed thin cardboard box lay on top. Ann pulled out the\n dress and shook it into a freely hanging position. Then she groaned.\n\n\n It was green and she had ordered blue. It didn't remotely resemble\n the dress she had admired from the Hartshorne-Logan catalogue\n illustration. Moreover, the shoulders were lumpier than any small\n girl's dress should be.\n\n\n But Sally was delighted. \"Mine!\" she shrilled, grabbing for the dress.\n\n\n \"It's probably the wrong size, too,\" Ann said, pulling off Sally's\n dress to try it on. \"Let's find as many things to complain about as we\n can.\"\nThe dress fitted precisely, except for the absurd shoulder bumps. Sally\n was radiant for a moment. Then her small face sobered and she started\n to look vacantly at the distant wall.\n\n\n \"We'll have to send it back,\" Ann said, \"and get the one we ordered.\"\n\n\n She tried to take it off, but the child squawked violently. Ann grabbed\n her daughter's arms, held them above her head and pulled at the dress.\n It seemed to be stuck somewhere. When Ann released the child's arms to\n loosen the dress, Sally squirmed away. She took one step forward, then\n began to float three inches above the ground. She landed just before\n she collided with the far wall.\nSally looked scared until she saw her mother's face. Then she squealed\n in delight.\n\n\n Ann's legs were rubber. She was shaking her head and wobbling\n uncertainly toward her daughter when the door opened behind her.\n\n\n \"It's me,\" her husband said. \"Slow day at the office, so I came home\n early.\"\n\n\n \"Les! I'm going crazy or something. Sally just\u2014\"\n\n\n Sally crouched to jump at her father. Before she could leap, he grabbed\n her up bodily and hugged her. Then he saw the box.\n\n\n \"Your order's here? Good. What's this thing?\" He was looking at a small\n box he had pulled from the carton. Its lid contained a single word:\n MANKY. The box rattled when he shook it.\n\n\n Les pulled off the lid and found inside a circular, shiny metal object.\n A triangular trio of jacks stuck out from one end.\n\n\n \"Is this the doorbell? I've never seen a plug like this. And there's no\n wire.\"\n\n\n \"I don't know,\" Ann said. \"Les, listen. A minute ago, Sally\u2014\"\n\n\n He peered into the box for an instruction sheet, uselessly. \"They must\n have made a mistake. It looks like some kind of farm equipment.\"\n\n\n He tossed the manky onto the hassock and delved into the carton again.\n Sally was still in his arms.\n\n\n \"That's the doorbell, I think,\" he said, looking at the next object. It\n had a lovely, tubular shape, a half-dozen connecting rods and a plug\n for a wall socket.\n\n\n \"That's funny,\" Ann mused, her mind distracted from Sally for a moment.\n \"It looks terribly expensive. Maybe they sent door chimes instead of\n the doorbell.\"\n\n\n The bottom of the carton contained the detective outfit that they had\n ordered for their son. Ann glanced at its glaringly lithographed cover\n and said: \"Les, about Sally. Put her down a minute and watch what she\n does.\"\nLes stared at his wife and put the child onto the rug. Sally began to\n walk, then rose and again floated, this time toward the hassock on\n which the manky lay.\n\n\n His jaw dropped. \"My God! Ann, what\u2014\"\n\n\n Ann was staring, too, but not at her daughter. \"Les! The hassock! It\n used to be brown!\"\n\n\n The hassock was a livid shade of green. A neon, demanding, screaming\n green that clashed horribly with the soft browns and reds in which Ann\n had furnished the room.\n\n\n \"That round thing must be leaking,\" Les said. \"But did you see Sally\n when she\u2014\"\n\n\n Ann's frazzled nerves carried a frantic order to her muscles. She\n jumped up, strode to the hassock and picked up the manky with two\n fingers. She tossed it to Les. Immediately, she regretted her action.\n\n\n \"Drop it!\" she yelled. \"Maybe it'll turn you green, too!\"\n\n\n Les kicked the hassock into the hall closet, tossed the manky in after\n it and shut the door firmly. As the door closed, he saw the entire\n interior of the dark closet brighten into a wet-lettuce green.\n\n\n When he turned back to Ann, she was staring at her left hand. The\n wedding band that Les had put there a dozen years ago was a brilliant\n green, shedding its soft glow over the finger up to the first knuckle.\n\n\n Ann felt the scream building up inside her. She opened her mouth to let\n it out, then put her hand in front of her mouth to keep it in, finally\n jerked the hand away to prevent the glowing ring from turning her front\n teeth green.\n\n\n She collapsed into Les's arms, babbling incomprehensibly.\n\n\n He said: \"It's all right. There must be balloons or something in the\n shoulders of that dress. I'll tie a paperweight to Sally's dress and\n that'll hold her down until we undress her. Don't worry. And that green\n dye or whatever it is will wash off.\"\n\n\n Ann immediately felt better. She put her hands behind her back, pulled\n off her ring and slipped it into her apron pocket. Les was sentimental\n about her removing it.\n\n\n \"I'll get dinner,\" she said, trying to keep her voice on an even keel.\n \"Maybe you'd better start a letter to Hartshorne-Logan. Let's go into\n the kitchen, Sally.\"\n\n\n Ann strode resolutely toward the rear of the house. She kept her eyes\n determinedly off the tinge of green that was showing through the apron\n pocket and didn't dare look back at her daughter's unsettling means of\n propulsion.\nA half-hour later, when the meal was almost ready, two things happened:\n Bob came home from school through the back door and a strange voice\n said from the front of the house, \"Don't answer the front door.\"\n\n\n Ann stared at her son. He stared back at her, the detective outfit\n under his arm.\n\n\n She went into the front room. Her husband was standing with fists on\n hips, looking at the front door, chuckling. \"Neatest trick I've seen\n in a long time. That voice you heard was the new doorbell. I put it up\n while you were in the kitchen. Did you hear what happened when old lady\n Burnett out there pushed the button?\"\n\n\n \"Oh. Something like those name cards with something funny printed on\n them, like 'Another hour shot.' Well, if there's a little tape in there\n repeating that message, you'd better shut that part off. It might get\n boring after a while. And it might insult someone.\"\n\n\n Ann went to the door and turned the knob. The door didn't open. The\n figure of Mrs. Burnett, half-visible through the heavy curtain, shifted\n impatiently on the porch.\n\n\n Les yanked at the doorknob. It didn't yield for him, either. He looked\n up at the doorbell, which he had installed just above the upper part\n of the door frame.\n\n\n \"Queer,\" he said. \"That isn't in contact with the door itself. I don't\n see how it can keep the door from opening.\"\n\n\n Ann put her mouth close to the glass, shouting: \"Won't you come to the\n back door, Mrs. Burnett? This one is stuck.\"\n\n\n \"I just wanted to borrow some sugar,\" the woman cried from the porch.\n \"I realize that I'm a terrible bother.\" But she walked down the front\n steps and disappeared around the side of the house.\n\n\n \"Don't open the back door.\" The well-modulated voice from the small\n doorbell box threatened to penetrate every corner of the house. Ann\n looked doubtfully at her husband's lips. They weren't moving.\n\n\n \"If this is ventriloquism\u2014\" she began icily.\n\n\n \"I'll have to order another doorbell just like this one, for the\n office,\" Les said. \"But you'd better let the old girl in. No use\n letting her get peeved.\"\n\n\n The back door was already open, because it was a warm day. The screen\n door had no latch, held closed by a simple spring. Ann pushed it open\n when Mrs. Burnett waddled up the three back steps, and smiled at her\n neighbor.\n\n\n \"I'm so sorry you had to walk around the house. It's been a rather\n hectic day in an awful lot of ways.\"\nSomething seemed to impede Mrs. Burnett as she came to the threshold.\n She frowned and shoved her portly frame against something invisible.\n It apparently yielded abruptly, because she staggered forward into\n the kitchen, nearly falling. She stared grimly at Ann and looked\n suspiciously behind her.\n\n\n \"The children have some new toys,\" Ann improvised hastily. \"Sally is\n so excited over a new dress that she's positively feverish. Let's see\n now\u2014it was sugar that you want, wasn't it?\"\n\n\n \"I already have it,\" Bob said, handing a filled cup to his mother.\n The boy turned back to the detective set which he had spread over the\n kitchen table.\n\n\n \"Excitement isn't good for me,\" Mrs. Burnett said testily. \"I've had a\n lot of troubles in my life. I like peace and quiet.\"\n\n\n \"Your husband is better?\"\n\n\n \"Worse. I'm sure I don't know why everything happens to me.\" Mrs.\n Burnett edged toward the hall, trying to peer into the front of the\n house. Ann stood squarely in front of the door leading to the hall.\n Defeated, Mrs. Burnett left. A muffled volley of handclapping, mixed\n with a few faint cheers, came from the doorbell-box when she crossed\n the threshold.\n\n\n Ann went into the hall to order Les to disconnect the doorbell. She\n nearly collided with him, coming in the other direction.\n\n\n \"Where did this come from?\" Les held a small object in the palm of\n his hand, keeping it away from his body. A few drops of something\n unpleasant were dripping from his fingers. The object looked remarkably\n like a human eyeball. It was human-size, complete with pupil, iris and\n rather bloodshot veins.\n\n\n \"Hey, that's mine,\" Bob said. \"You know, this is a funny detective kit.\n That was in it. But there aren't instructions on how it works.\"\n\n\n \"Well, put it away,\" Ann told Bob sharply. \"It's slimy.\"\n\n\n Les laid the eyeball on the table and walked away. The eyeball rolled\n from the smooth, level table, bounced twice when it hit the floor, then\n rolled along, six inches behind him. He turned and kicked at it. The\n eyeball rolled nimbly out of the path of the kick.\n\n\n \"Les, I think we've made poor Mrs. Burnett angry,\" Ann said. \"She's so\n upset over her poor husband's health and she thinks we're insulting\n her.\"\n\n\n Les didn't hear her. He strode to the detective set, followed at a safe\n distance by the eyeball, and picked up the box.\n\n\n \"Hey, watch out!\" Bob cried. A small flashlight fell from the box,\n landed on its side and its bulb flashed on, throwing a pencil of light\n across Les's hands.\nBob retrieved the flashlight and turned it off while Les glanced\n through an instruction booklet, frowning.\n\n\n \"This toy is too complicated for a ten-year-old boy,\" Les told his\n wife. \"I don't know why you ordered such a thing.\" He tossed the\n booklet into the empty box.\n\n\n \"I'm going to return it, if you don't smudge it up,\" she replied. \"Look\n at the marks you made on the instructions.\" The black finger-marks\n stood out clearly against the shiny, coated paper.\n\n\n Les looked at his hands. \"I didn't do it,\" he said, pressing his clean\n fingertips against the kitchen table.\n\n\n Black fingerprints, a full set of them, stood out against the sparkling\n polished table's surface.\n\n\n \"I think the Detectolite did it,\" Bob said. \"The instructions say\n you've got to be very careful with it, because its effects last for a\n long time.\"\n\n\n Les began scrubbing his hands vigorously at the sink. Ann watched him\n silently, until she saw his fingerprints appear on the faucet, the soap\n and the towel. She began to yell at him for making such a mess, when\n Sally floated into the kitchen. The girl was wearing a nightgown.\n\n\n \"My God!\" Ann forgot her tongue before the children. \"She got out of\n that dress herself. Where did she get that nightgown?\"\n\n\n Ann fingered the garment. She didn't recognize it as a nightgown. But\n in cut and fold, it was suspiciously like the dress that had arrived in\n the parcel. Her heart sank.\n\n\n She picked up the child, felt the hot forehead, and said: \"Les, I think\n it's the same dress. It must change color or something when it's time\n for a nap. It seems impossible, but\u2014\" She shrugged mutely. \"And I\n think Sally's running a temperature. I'm going to put her to bed.\"\n\n\n She looked worriedly into the reddened eyes of the small girl, who\n whimpered on the way to the bedroom. Ann carried her up the stairs,\n keeping her balance with difficulty, as Sally threatened to pop upward\n out of her arms.\n\n\n The whole family decided that bed might be a good idea, soon after\n dinner. When the lights went out, the house seemed to be nearly normal.\n Les put on a pair of gloves and threw a pillowcase over the eyeball.\n Bob rigged up trestles to warn visitors from the front porch. Ann\n put small wads of cotton into her ears, because she didn't like the\n rhythmic rattle, soft but persistent, that emerged from the hall\n closet where the manky sat. Sally was whining occasionally in her sleep.\nWhen daylight entered her room, Sally's nightgown had turned back into\n the new dress. But the little girl was too sick to get out of bed.\n She wasn't hungry, her nose was running, and she had a dry cough. Les\n called the doctor before going to work.\n\n\n The only good thing about the morning for Ann was the fact that the\n manky had quieted down some time in the night. After she got Bob to\n school, she gingerly opened the closet door. The manky was now glowing\n a bright pink and seemed slightly larger. Deep violet lettering stood\n out on its side:\n\n\n \"\nToday is Wednesday. For obvious reasons, the manky will not operate\n today.\n\"\n\n\n The mailman brought a letter from Hartshorne-Logan. Ann stared stupidly\n at the envelope, until she realized that this wasn't an impossibly\n quick answer to the letter she had written yesterday. It must have\n crossed in the mail her complaint about the non-arrival of the order.\n She tore open the envelope and read:\n\n\n \"We regret to inform you that your order cannot be filled until the\n balance you owe us has been reduced. From the attached form, you will\n readily ascertain that the payment of $87.56 will enable you to resume\n the purchasing of merchandise on credit. We shall fill your recent\n order as soon....\"\n\n\n Ann crumpled the letter and threw it into the imitation fireplace,\n knowing perfectly well that it would need to be retrieved for Les after\n work tonight. She had just decided to call Hartshorne-Logan's complaint\n department when the phone rang.\n\n\n \"I'm afraid I must ask you to come down to the school, Mrs. Morris,\" a\n voice said. \"Your son is in trouble. He claims that it's connected with\n something that his parents gave him.\"\n\n\n \"My son?\" Ann asked incredulously. \"Bob?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. It's a little gadget that looks like a water pistol. Your son\n insists that he didn't know it would make clothing transparent. He\n claims it was just accident that he tried it out when he was walking\n by the gym during calisthenics. We've had to call upon every family\n in the neighborhood for blankets. Bob has always been a good boy and\n we believe that we can expel him quietly without newspaper publicity\n involving his name, if you'll\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I'll be right down,\" Ann said. \"I mean I won't be right down. I've got\n a sick baby here. Don't do anything till I telephone my husband. And\n I'm sorry for Bob. I mean I'm sorry for the girls, and for the boys,\n too. I'm sorry for\u2014for everything. Good-by.\"\nJust as she hung up the telephone, the doorbell rang. It rang with a\n normal buzz, then began to play soft music. Ann opened the door without\n difficulty, to admit Dr. Schwartz.\n\n\n \"You aren't going to believe me, Doctor,\" Ann said while he took the\n child's temperature, \"but we can't get that dress off Sally.\"\n\n\n \"Kids are stubborn sometimes.\" Dr. Schwartz whistled softly when he\n looked at the thermometer. \"She's pretty sick. I want a blood count\n before I try to move her. Let me undress her.\"\n\n\n Sally had been mumbling half-deliriously. She made no effort to resist\n as the doctor picked her up. But when he raised a fold of the dress and\n began to pull it back, she screamed.\n\n\n The doctor dropped the dress and looked in perplexity at the point\n where it touched Sally's skin.\n\n\n \"It's apparently an allergy to some new kind of material. But I don't\n understand why the dress won't come off. It's not stuck tight.\"\n\n\n \"Don't bother trying,\" Ann said miserably. \"Just cut it off.\"\n\n\n Dr. Schwartz pulled scissors from his bag and clipped at a sleeve. When\n he had cut it to the shoulder, he gently began to peel back the edges\n of the cloth. Sally writhed and kicked, then collapsed in a faint. The\n physician smoothed the folds hastily back into place.\n\n\n He looked helpless as he said to Ann: \"I don't know quite what to do.\n The flesh starts to hemorrhage when I pull at the cloth. She'd bleed to\n death if I yanked it off. But it's such an extreme allergy that it may\n kill her, if we leave it in contact with the skin.\"\n\n\n The manky's rattle suddenly began rhythmically from the lower part of\n the house. Ann clutched the side of the chair, trying to keep herself\n under control. A siren wailed somewhere down the street, grew louder\n rapidly, suddenly going silent at the peak of its crescendo.\n\n\n Dr. Schwartz glanced outside the window. \"An ambulance. Looks as if\n they're stopping here.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, no,\" Ann breathed. \"Something's happened to Les.\"\n\n\n \"It sure will,\" Les said grimly, walking into the bedroom. \"I won't\n have a job if I can't get this stuff off my fingers. Big black\n fingerprints on everything I touch. I can't handle correspondence or\n shake hands with customers. How's the kid? What's the ambulance doing\n out front?\"\n\n\n \"They're going to the next house down the street,\" the physician said.\n \"Has there been sickness there?\"\n\n\n Les held up his hands, palms toward the doctor. \"What's wrong with me?\n My fingers look all right. But they leave black marks on everything I\n touch.\"\n\n\n The doctor looked closely at the fingertips. \"Every human has natural\n oil on the skin. That's how detectives get results with their\n fingerprint powder. But I've never heard of nigrification, in this\n sense. Better not try to commit any crimes until you've seen a skin\n specialist.\"\nAnn was peering through the window, curious about the ambulance despite\n her own troubles. She saw two attendants carry Mr. Burnett, motionless\n and white, on a stretcher from the house next door into the ambulance.\n A third member of the crew was struggling with a disheveled Mrs.\n Burnett at the door. Shrieks that sounded like \"Murder!\" came sharply\n through the window.\n\n\n \"I know those bearers,\" Dr. Schwartz said. He yanked the window open.\n \"Hey, Pete! What's wrong?\"\n\n\n The front man with the stretcher looked up. \"I don't know. This guy's\n awful sick. I think his wife is nuts.\"\n\n\n Mrs. Burnett had broken free. She dashed halfway down the sidewalk,\n gesticulating wildly to nobody in particular.\n\n\n \"It's murder!\" she screamed. \"Murder again! He's been poisoned! He's\n going to die! It means the electric chair!\"\n\n\n The orderly grabbed her again. This time he stuffed a handkerchief into\n her mouth to quiet her.\n\n\n \"Come back to this house as soon as you deliver him,\" Dr. Schwartz\n shouted to the men. \"We've got a very sick child up here.\"\n\n\n \"I was afraid this would happen,\" Les said. \"The poor woman already has\n lost three husbands. If this one is sick, it's no wonder she thinks\n that somebody is poisoning him.\"\n\n\n Bob stuck his head around the bedroom door. His mother stared\n unbelievingly for a moment, then advanced on him threateningly.\n Something in his face restrained her, just as she was about to start\n shaking him.\n\n\n \"I got something important to tell you,\" Bob said rapidly, ready to\n duck. \"I snuck out of the principal's office and came home. I got to\n tell you what I did.\"\n\n\n \"I heard all about what you did,\" Ann said, advancing again. \"And\n you're not going to slip away from me.\"\n\n\n \"Give me a chance to explain something. Downstairs. So he won't hear,\"\n Bob ended in a whisper, nodding toward the doctor.\nAnn looked doubtfully at Les, then followed Bob down the stairs. The\n doorbell was monotonously saying in a monotone: \"Don't answer me,\n don't answer me, don't go to the door.\"\n\n\n \"Why did you do it?\" Ann asked Bob, her anger suddenly slumping into\n weary sadness. \"People will suspect you of being a sex maniac for the\n rest of your life. You can't possibly explain\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't bother about the girls' clothing,\" Bob said, \"because it was\n only an accident. The really important thing is something else I did\n before I left the house.\"\n\n\n Les, cursing softly, hurried past them on the way to answer the\n knocking. He ignored the doorbell's pleas.\n\n\n \"I forgot about it,\" Bob continued, \"when that ray gun accidentally\n went off. Then when they put me in the principal's office, I had time\n to think, and I remembered. I put some white stuff from the detective\n kit into that sugar we lent Mrs. Burnett last night. I just wanted to\n see what would happen. I don't know exactly what effect\u2014\"\n\n\n \"He put stuff in the sugar?\" A deep, booming voice came from the front\n of the house. Mother and son looked through the hall. A policeman stood\n on the threshold of the front door. \"I heard that! The woman next door\n claims that her husband is poisoned. Young man, I'm going to put you\n under arrest.\"\n\n\n The policeman stepped over the threshold. A blue flash darted from\n the doorbell box, striking him squarely on the chest. The policeman\n staggered back, sitting down abruptly on the porch. A scent of ozone\n drifted through the house.\n\n\n \"Close the door, close the door,\" the doorbell was chanting urgently.\n\n\n \"Where's that ambulance?\" Dr. Schwartz yelled from the top of the\n steps. \"The child's getting worse.\"",
    "51170": "THE FIRE and THE SWORD\nBy FRANK M. ROBINSON\n\n\n Illustrated by EMSH\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction August 1951.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nNothing could have seemed pleasanter than that\n\n peaceful planet. Then why was a non-suicidal\n\n man driven to suicide there? Yet it made sense.\nWhy do people commit suicide?\nTemplin tightened his safety belt and lay back on the acceleration\n bunk. The lights in the cabin dimmed to a dull, red glow that meant the\n time for takeoff was nearing. He could hear noises from deep within\n the ship and the tiny whir of the ventilator fan, filling the air with\n the sweetish smell of sleeping gas. To sleep the trip away was better\n than to face the dull monotony of the stars for days on end.\nOh, they kill themselves for lots of reasons. Maybe ill health or\n financial messes or family difficulties. An unhappy love affair. Or\n more complex ones, if you went into it deeper. The failure to achieve\n an ambition, failure to live up to one's own ideals. Weltschmerz,\n perhaps.\nHe could smell the bitter fragrance of tobacco smoke mingling with\n the gas. Eckert had lit a cigarette and was calmly blowing the smoke\n at the neon \"No Smoking\" sign, which winked on and off in mechanical\n disapproval.\n\n\n He turned his head slightly so he could just see Eckert in the bank\n facing him. Eckert, one of the good gray men in the Service. The old\n reliables, the ones who could take almost anything in their stride\n because, at one time or another, they had had to.\nIt was Eckert who had come into his office several days ago and told\n him that Don Pendleton had killed himself.\nOnly Pendleton wasn't the type. He was the kind who have everything\n to live for, the kind you instinctively know will amount to something\n someday. And that was a lousy way to remember him. The clich\u00e9s always\n come first. Your memory plays traitor and boils friendship down to the\n status of a breakfast food testimonial.\nThe soft red lights seemed to be dancing in the darkness of the cabin.\n Eckert was just a dull, formless blur opposite him. His cigarette was\n out.\n\n\n Eckert had come into his office without saying a word and had watched\n his scenery-window. It had been snowing in the window, the white flakes\n making a simple pattern drifting past the glass. Eckert had fiddled\n with the controls and changed it to sunshine, then to a weird mixture\n of hail amid the brassy, golden sunlight.\n\n\n And then Eckert had told him that Pendleton had taken the short way out.\nHe shouldn't get sentimental. But how the hell else should he remember\n Pendleton? Try to forget it and drink a toast to him at the next class\n reunion? And never, never be so crude as to speculate why Pendleton\n should have done it? If, of course, he had....\nThe cabin was hazy in the reddish glow, the sleeping gas a heavy\n perfume.\n\n\n Eckert and he had talked it out and gone over the records. Pendleton\n had come of good stock. There had been no mental instability in his\n family for as far back as the genetic records went. He had been raised\n in a middle-class neighborhood and attended a local grammar school\n where he had achieved average grades and had given his instructors the\n normal amount of trouble. Later, when he had made up his mind to enter\n the Diplomatic Service, his grades had improved. He had worked hard at\n it, though he wasn't what you would call a grind. In high school and\n later in college, he was the well-balanced type, athletic, popular,\n hard-working.\nHow long would it be before memories faded and all there was left\n of Pendleton was a page of statistics? He had been on this team, he\n had been elected president of that, he had graduated with such and\n such honors. But try getting a picture of him by reading the records,\n resurrect him from a page of black print. Would he be human? Would\n he be flesh and blood? Hell, no! In the statistics Pendleton was the\n All-Around Boy, the cold marble statue with the finely chiseled muscles\n and the smooth, blank sockets where the eyes should be. Maybe someday\n fate would play a trick on a hero-worshiping public and there would\n actually be kids like that. But they wouldn't be human; they wouldn't\n be born. Parents would get them by sending in so many box tops.\nHe was drowsy; the room was filled with the gas now. It would be only a\n matter of minutes before he would be asleep.\n\n\n Pendleton had been in his second year as attache on Tunpesh, a small\n planet with a G-type sun. The Service had stumbled across it recently\n and decided the system was worth diplomatic recognition of some kind,\n so Pendleton had been sent there. He had been the first attache to be\n sent and naturally he had gone alone.\n\n\n There was no need to send more. Tunpesh had been inspected and\n certified and approved. The natives were primitive and friendly. Or\n maybe the Service had slipped up, as it sometimes did, and Tunpesh had\n received something less than a thorough survey.\n\n\n And then an unscheduled freighter had put in for repairs, one of\n the very few ships that ever came by Tunpesh. The captain had tried\n to pay his respects to Pendleton. Only Pendleton wasn't there. The\n natives said he had killed himself and showed the captain the little\n flower-covered plot where they had buried him.\n\n\n Tunpesh had been Pendleton's second assignment.\nThe natives were oh-so-friendly. So friendly that he had made sure\n that a certain box was on board, filled with shiny atomic rifles,\n needle pistols, and the fat little gas guns. They might be needed.\n People like Pendleton didn't kill themselves, did they? No, they\n didn't. But sometimes they were murdered.\nIt was almost black inside the cabin now; only a thin red line around\n the ceiling told how close they were to takeoff. His head was thick\n with drowsiness, his eyelids a heavy weight that he knew he couldn't\n keep open much longer.\n\n\n Eckert and he had been chosen to go to Tunpesh and investigate. The two\n of them, working together, should be able to find out why Pendleton had\n killed himself.\nBut that wasn't the real reason. Maybe Eckert thought so, but he knew\n better. The real reason they were going there was to find out why\n Pendleton had been killed and who had killed him. That was it.\nWho had killed Cock Robin?\nThe thin red line was practically microscopic now and Templin could\n feel his lashes lying gently on his cheeks. But he wasn't asleep\u2014not\n quite. There was something buzzing about in the dim recesses of his\n mind.\n\n\n Their information on Tunpesh was limited. They knew that it had no\n trading concessions or armed forces and that nobody from neighboring\n systems seemed to know much about it or even visited it. But a staff\n anthropologist must have been routinely assigned to Tunpesh to furnish\n data and reports.\n\n\n \"Ted?\" he murmured sleepily.\n\n\n A faint stirring in the black bulk opposite him. \"Yes?\"\n\n\n \"How come our anthropologist on Tunpesh didn't come across with more\n information?\"\n\n\n A drowsy mumble from the other cot: \"He wasn't there long enough. He\n committed suicide not long after landing.\"\n\n\n The room was a whirling pool of blackness into which his mind was\n slowly slipping. Takeoff was only seconds away.\nWhy do people commit suicide?\n\"It's a nice day, isn't it, Ted?\" Eckert took a deep and pleasurable\n breath. \"It's the type of day that makes you feel good just to be\n alive.\"\n\n\n Warm breezes rustled through Eckert's graying hair and tugged gently\n at his tunic. The air smelled as if it had been washed and faintly\n perfumed with the balsamy scent of something very much like pine. A\n few hundred yards away, a forest towered straight and slim and coolly\n inviting, and brilliantly colored birds whirled and fluttered in the\n foliage.\n\n\n The rocketport, where they were standing surrounded by their luggage,\n was a grassy valley where the all too infrequent ships could land and\n discharge cargo or make repairs. There was a blackened patch on it now,\n with little blast-ignited flames dying out around the edges.\nIt won't\n be long before it will be green again\n, he thought. The grass looked\n as though it grew fast\u2014it would certainly have plenty of time to grow\n before the next ship landed.\n\n\n He looked at the slim, dwindling shape that was the rocket, and was\n suddenly, acutely aware that he and Templin would be stranded for six\n months on a foreign and very possibly dangerous planet. And there would\n be no way of calling for help or of leaving before the six months were\n up.\n\n\n He stood there for a moment, drinking in the fresh air and feeling the\n warmth of the sun against his face. It might be a pleasant six months\n at that, away from the din and the hustle and confusion, spending the\n time in a place where the sun was warm and inviting.\nI must be getting old\n, he thought,\nthinking about the warmth and\n comfort. Like old dogs and octogenarians.\nTemplin was looking at the scenery with a disappointed expression on\n his face. Eckert stole a side glance at him and for a fleeting moment\n felt vaguely concerned. \"Don't be disappointed if it doesn't look like\n cloak-and-dagger right off, Ray. What seems innocent enough on the\n surface can prove to be quite dangerous underneath.\"\n\n\n \"It's rather hard to think of danger in a setting like this.\"\n\n\n Eckert nodded agreement. \"It wouldn't fit, would it? It would be like a\n famous singer suddenly doing a jazz number in an opera, or having the\n princess in a fairy tale turn out to be ugly.\" He gestured toward the\n village. \"You could hardly class that as dangerous from its outward\n appearance, could you?\"\n\n\n The rocketport was in a small valley, surrounded by low, wooded hills.\n The village started where the port left off and crawled and wound over\n the wooded ridges. Small houses of sun-baked, white-washed mud crouched\n in the shadow of huge trees and hugged the banks of a small stream.\n\n\n It looked fairly primitive, Eckert thought, and yet it didn't have the\n earmarks, the characteristics of most primitive villages. It didn't\n seem cluttered or dirty and you didn't feel like beating a hasty\n retreat when the wind was blowing toward you.\n\n\n A few adults were watching them curiously and the usual bunch of\n kids that always congregated around rocketports quickly gathered.\n Eckert stared at them for a moment, wondering what it was that seemed\n odd about them, and they stared back with all the alert dignity of\n childhood. They finally came out on the field and clustered around him\n and Templin.\n\n\n Templin studied them warily. \"Better watch them, Ted. Even kids can be\n dangerous.\"\nIt's because you never suspect kids\n, Eckert thought,\nyou never think\n they'll do any harm. But they can be taught. They could do as much\n damage with a knife as a man could, for instance. And they might have\n other weapons.\nBut the idea still didn't go with the warm sun and the blue sky and the\n piny scent of the trees.\n\n\n One of the adults of the village started to walk toward them.\n\n\n \"The reception committee,\" Templin said tightly. His hand went inside\n his tunic.\n\n\n He couldn't be blamed for being jumpy, Eckert realized. This was his\n first time out, his first mission like this. And, of course, Pendleton\n had been a pretty good friend of his.\n\n\n \"I'd be very careful what I did,\" Eckert said softly. \"I would hate to\n start something merely because I misunderstood their intentions.\"\n\n\n The committee of one was a middle-aged man dressed in a simple strip of\n white cloth twisted about his waist and allowed to hang freely to his\n knees. When he got closer, Eckert became less sure of his age. He had\n the firm, tanned musculature of a much younger man, though a slightly\n seamed face and white hair aged him somewhat. Eckert still had the\n feeling that if you wanted to know his exact age, you'd have to look\n at his teeth or know something about his epiphyseal closures.\n\n\n \"You are\nmenshars\nfrom Earth?\" The voice was husky and pleasant and\n the pronunciation was very clear. Eckert regarded him thoughtfully\n and made a few mental notes. He wasn't bowing and scraping like most\n natives who weren't too familiar with visitors from the sky, and yet he\n was hardly either friendly or hostile.\n\n\n \"You learned our language from Pendleton and Reynolds?\" Reynolds had\n been the anthropologist.\n\n\n \"We have had visitors from Earth before.\" He hesitated a moment\n and then offered his hand, somewhat shyly, Eckert thought, in the\n Terrestrial sign of greeting. \"You may call me\nJathong\nif you wish.\"\n He paused a moment to say something in his native tongue to the kids\n who were around. They promptly scattered and picked up the luggage.\n \"While you are here, you will need a place to stay. There is one ready,\n if you will follow me.\"\n\n\n He was polite, Eckert thought. He didn't ask what they were there\n for or how long they were going to stay. But then again, perhaps the\n natives were a better judge of that than he and Templin.\n\n\n The town was larger than he had thought at first, stretching over a\n wide expanse of the countryside. There wasn't, so far as he could see,\n much manufacturing above the level of handicrafts and simple weaving.\n Colored patches on far hillsides indicated the presence of farms, and\n practically every house in the village had its small garden.\n\n\n What manufacturing there was seemed to be carried on in the central\n square of the town, where a few adults and children squatted in the\n warm afternoon sun and worked industriously at potter's wheels and\n weaver's looms. The other part of the square was given over to the\n native bazaar where pots and bolts of cloth were for sale, and where\n numerous stalls were loaded with dried fruits and vegetables and the\n cleaned and plucked carcasses of the local variety of fowl.\n\n\n It was late afternoon when they followed Jathong into a small,\n white-washed house midway up a hill.\n\n\n \"You are free to use this while you are here,\" he said.\n\n\n Eckert and Templin took a quick tour of the few rooms. They were well\n furnished, in a rustic sort of way, and what modern conveniences they\n didn't have they could easily do without. The youngsters who had\n carried their luggage left it outside and quietly faded away. It was\n getting dark; Eckert opened one of the boxes they had brought along,\n took out an electric lantern and lighted it. He turned to Jathong.\n\n\n \"You've been very kind to us and we would like to repay you. You may\n take what you wish of anything within this box.\" He opened another of\n the boxes and displayed the usual trade goods\u2014brightly colored cloth\n and finely worked jewelry and a few mechanical contrivances that Eckert\n knew usually appealed to the primitive imagination.\n\n\n Jathong ran his hand over the cloth and held some of the jewelry up to\n the light. Eckert knew by the way he looked at it that he wasn't at all\n impressed. \"I am grateful,\" he said finally, \"but there is nothing I\n want.\" He turned and walked away into the gathering darkness.\n\n\n \"The incorruptible native.\" Templin laughed sarcastically.\n\n\n Eckert shrugged. \"That's one of the things you do out of habit, try\n and buy some of the natives so you'll have friends in case you need\n them.\" He stopped for a moment, thinking. \"Did you notice the context?\n He didn't say he didn't want what we showed him. He said there was\nnothing\nthat he wanted. Implying that everything he wanted, he\n already had.\"\n\n\n \"That's not very typical of a primitive society, is it?\"\n\n\n \"No, I'm afraid it's not.\" Eckert started unpacking some of the boxes.\n \"You know, Ray, I got a kick out of the kids. They're a healthy-looking\n lot, aren't they?\"\n\n\n \"Too healthy,\" Templin said. \"There didn't seem to be any sick ones or\n ones with runny noses or cuts or black eyes or bruises. It doesn't seem\n natural.\"\n\n\n \"They're probably just well brought-up kids,\" Eckert said sharply.\n \"Maybe they've been taught not to get in fights or play around in the\n mud on the way home from school.\" He felt faintly irritated, annoyed at\n the way Templin had put it, as if any deviation from an Earth norm was\n potentially dangerous.\n\n\n \"Ted.\" Templin's voice was strained. \"This could be a trap, you know.\"\n\n\n \"In what way?\"\n\n\n The words came out slowly. \"The people are too casual, as though\n they're playing a rehearsed part. Here we are, from an entirely\n different solar system, landed in what must be to them an unusual\n manner. They couldn't have seen rockets more than three or four\n times before. It should still be a novelty to them. And yet how much\n curiosity did they show? Hardly any. Was there any fear? No. And the\n cute, harmless little kids.\" He looked at Eckert. \"Maybe that's what\n we're supposed to think\u2014just an idyllic, harmless society. Maybe\n that's what Pendleton thought, right to the very end.\"\n\n\n He was keyed up, jumpy, Eckert realized. He would probably be seeing\n things in every shadow and imagining danger to be lurking around every\n corner.\n\n\n \"It hasn't been established yet that Pendleton was killed, Ray. Let's\n keep an open mind until we know for certain.\"\n\n\n He flicked out the light and lay back on the cool bed, letting his\n body relax completely. The cool night wind blew lazily through the\n wood slat blinds, carrying the fragrance of the trees and the grass,\n and he inhaled deeply and let his thoughts wander for a moment. It was\n going to be pleasant to live on Tunpesh for six months\u2014even if the six\n months were all they had to live. The climate was superb and the people\n seemed a cut above the usual primitive culture. If he ever retired some\n day, he thought suddenly, he would have to remember Tunpesh. It would\n be pleasant to spend his old age here. And the fishing was probably\n excellent....\n\n\n He turned his head a little to watch Templin get ready for bed. There\n were advantages in taking him along that Templin probably didn't\n even realize. He wondered what Templin would do if he ever found out\n that the actual reason he had been chosen to go was that his own\n psychological chart was very close to Pendleton's. Pendleton's own\n feelings and emotions would almost exactly be duplicated in Templin's.\n\n\n A few stray wisps of starlight pierced through the blinds and sparkled\n for an instant on a small metal box strapped to Templin's waist. A\n power pack, Eckert saw grimly, probably leading to the buttons on his\n tunic. A very convenient, portable, and hard to detect weapon.\n\n\n There were disadvantages in taking Templin, too.\n\"Just how primitive do you think the society is, Ted?\"\n\n\n Eckert put down the chain he had been whittling and reached for his\n pipe and tobacco.\n\n\n \"I don't think it's primitive at all. There are too many disparities.\n Their knowledge of a lot of things is a little more than empirical\n knowledge; they associate the growth of crops with fertilizer and\n nitrogen in the soil as well as sunlight, rather than the blessings of\n some native god. And they differ a lot in other respects. Their art and\n their music are advanced. Free art exists along with purely decorative\n art, and their techniques are finely developed.\"\n\n\n \"I'm glad you agree, then. Take a look at this.\" Templin threw a shiny\n bit of metal on the rough-hewn table. Eckert picked it up and inspected\n it. It was heavy and one side of it was extremely sharp.\n\n\n \"What's it for?\"\n\n\n \"They've got a hospital set up here. Not a hospital like any we know,\n of course, but a hospital nonetheless. It's not used very much;\n apparently the natives don't get sick here. But occasionally there are\n hunting accidents and injuries that require surgery. The strip of metal\n there is a scalpel.\" He laughed shortly. \"Primitive little gadget, but\n it works well\u2014as well as any of ours.\"\n\n\n Eckert hefted it in his palm. \"The most important thing is that they\n have the knowledge to use it. Surgery isn't a simple science.\"\n\n\n \"Well, what do you think about it?\"\n\n\n \"The obvious. They evidently have as much technology as they want, at\n least in fields where they have to have it.\"\n\n\n \"How come they haven't gone any further?\"\n\n\n \"Why should they? You can live without skycars and rocket ships, you\n know.\"\n\n\n \"Did you ever wonder what kind of weapons they might have?\"\n\n\n \"The important thing,\" Eckert mused, \"is not if they have them, but if\n they'd use them. And I rather doubt that they would. We've been here\n for two weeks now and they've been very kind to us, seeing that we've\n had food and water and what fuel we need.\"\n\n\n \"It's known in the livestock trade as being fattened up for the\n slaughter,\" Templeton said.\n\n\n Eckert sighed and watched a fat bug waddle across a small patch of\n sunlight on the wooden floor. It was bad enough drawing an assignment\n in a totally foreign culture, even if the natives were humanoid. It\n complicated things beyond all measure when your partner in the project\n seemed likely to turn into a vendettist. It meant that Eckert would\n have to split his energies. He'd have to do what investigating he could\n among the Tunpeshans, and he'd have to watch Templin to see that he\n didn't go off half-cocked and spoil everything.\n\n\n \"You're convinced that Pendleton was murdered, aren't you?\"\n\n\n Templin nodded. \"Sure.\"\n\n\n \"Why?\"\n\n\n \"The Tunpeshans know why we're here. We've dropped enough hints along\n those lines. But nobody has mentioned Pendleton; nobody has volunteered\n any information about him. And he was an attache here for three\n years. Didn't anybody know him during that time? We've let slip a few\n discreet statements that we would like to talk to Pendleton's friends,\n yet nobody's come around. Apparently, in all the three years he was\n here, Pendleton didn't make any friends. And that's a little hard to\n believe. It's more likely that his friends have been silenced and any\n information about him is being withheld for a reason.\"\n\n\n \"What reason?\"\n\n\n Templin shrugged. \"Murder. What other reason could there be?\"\n\n\n Eckert rolled up the thin, slatted blinds and stared out at the\n scenery. A hundred feet down the road, a native woman was going to\n market, leading a species of food animal by the halter.\n\n\n \"They grow their women nice, don't they?\"\n\n\n \"Physically perfect, like the men,\" Templin grumbled. \"You could get an\n inferiority complex just from watching the people here. Everybody's so\n damn perfect. Nobody's sick, nobody's unhealthy, nobody is too fat or\n too thin, nobody's unhappy. The only variation is that they don't all\n look alike. Perfection. It gets boring after a while.\"\n\n\n \"Does it? I hadn't noticed.\" Eckert turned away from the blinds. His\n voice was crisp. \"I knew Don Pendleton quite well, too,\" he said. \"But\n it isn't blinding me to what I'm here for. We came to find out what\n happened to him, not to substantiate any preconceived notions. What\n we find out may be vitally important to anybody serving here in the\n future. I would hate to see our efforts spoiled because you've already\n made up your mind.\"\n\n\n \"You knew Pendleton,\" Templin repeated grimly. \"Do you think it was\n suicide?\"\n\n\n \"I don't think there's such a thing as a suicide type, when you come\n down to it. I'm not ruling out the possibility of murder, either. I'm\n trying to keep an open mind.\"\n\n\n \"What have we accomplished so far? What have we found out?\"\n\n\n \"We've got six months,\" Eckert said quietly. \"Six months in which\n we'll try to live here inconspicuously and study the people and try to\n cultivate informants. We would get nowhere if we came barging in asking\n all sorts of questions. And don't forget, Ray, we're all alone on\n Tunpesh. If it is a case of murder, what happens when the natives find\n out that we know it is?\"\n\n\n Templin's eyes dueled for a moment. Then he turned his back and walked\n to the window. \"I suppose you're right,\" he said at last. \"It's nice\n living here, Ted. Maybe I've been fighting it. But I can't help\n thinking that Don must have liked it here, too.\"\nOne of the hardest things to learn in a foreign culture, Eckert\n thought, is when to enjoy yourself, when to work and when to worry.\n\n\n \"\nPelache, menshar?\n\"\n\n\n \"\nSharra!\n\" He took the small bowl of\npelache\nnuts, helped himself\n to a few, and passed the bowl on. This was definitely the time to\n enjoy himself, not to work or worry. He had heard about the\nhalera\na\n few days ago, and, by judicious hinting to the proper authorities, he\n and Templin had been invited. It was a good chance to observe native\n customs. A little anthropology\u2014with refreshments.\n\n\n The main courses started making the rounds and he took generous\n helpings of the roasted\nulami\nand the broiled\nhalunch\nand numerous\n dabs from the side dishes of steaming vegetables. Between every course,\n they passed around a small flagon of the hot, spiced native wine, but\n he noticed that nobody drank to excess.\nThe old Greek ideal\n, he thought:\nmoderation in everything.\nHe looked at Templin, sitting across from him in the huge circle, and\n shrugged mentally. Templin looked as if he was about to break down and\n enjoy himself, but there was still a slight bulge under his tunic,\n where he had strapped his power pack. Any fool should have known that\n nothing would happen at a banquet like this. The only actual danger lay\n in Templin's getting excited and doing something he was bound to regret\n later on. And even that danger was not quite as likely now.\nThere will be hell to pay\n, Eckert thought,\nif Templin ever finds out\n that I sabotaged his power pack.\n\"You look thoughtful,\nmenshar\nEckert.\"\n\n\n Eckert took another sip of the wine and turned to the Tunpeshan on his\n left. He was a tall, muscular man with sharp eyes, a firm chin and a\n certain aura of authority.\n\n\n \"I was wondering if my countryman Pendleton had offended your people in\n any way, Nayova.\" Now was as good a time as any to pump him for what he\n knew about Pendleton's death.\n\n\n \"So far as I know,\nmenshar\nPendleton offended no one. I do not know\n what duties he had to perform here, but he was a generous and courteous\n man.\"\n\n\n Eckert gnawed the dainty meat off a slender\nulami\nbone and tried to\n appear casual in his questioning.\n\n\n \"I am sure he was, Nayova. I am sure, too, that you were as kind to him\n as you have been to Templin and myself. My Government is grateful to\n you for that.\"\n\n\n Nayova seemed pleased. \"We tried to do as well for\nmenshar\nPendleton\n as we could. While he was here, he had the house that you have now and\n we saw that he was supplied with food and all other necessities.\"\n\n\n Eckert had a sudden clammy feeling which quickly passed away. What\n Nayova had said was something he'd make sure Templin never heard about.\n He wiped his mouth on a broad, flat leaf that had been provided and\n took another sip of the wine.\n\n\n \"We were shocked to find out that\nmenshar\nPendleton had killed\n himself. We knew him quite well and we could not bring ourselves to\n believe he had done such a thing.\"\n\n\n Nayova's gaze slid away from him. \"Perhaps it was the will of the Great\n One,\" he said vaguely. He didn't seem anxious to talk about it.\n\n\n Eckert stared bleakly at his wine glass and tried to put the pieces of\n information together. They probably had a taboo about self-destruction\n which would make it difficult to talk about. That would make it even\n harder for him to find out by direct questioning.\n\n\n A native fife trilled shrilly and a group of young men and women walked\n into the room. The circle broke to let them through and they came and\n knelt before Nayova. When he clapped his hands sharply, they retreated\n to the center of the circle and began the slow motions of a native\n dance.\nThe sound of the fife softened and died and the slow monotonous beat of\n drums took its place. The beat slowly increased and so did the rhythm\n of the dancers. The small fires at the corners of the hut were allowed\n to dwindle and the center of the circle became filled with the motions\n of shadows intermixed with the swift, sure movements of glistening\n limbs. Eckert felt his eyebrows crawl upward. Apparently the dance was\n the Tunpeshan version of the\nrites de passage\n. He glanced across\n the circle at Templin. Templin's face\u2014what he could see of it by the\n flickering light\u2014was brick red.\n\n\n A voice spoke in his ear. \"It is hard for us to imagine anybody doing\n what\nmenshar\nPendleton did. It is ...\" and he used a native word that\n Eckert translated as being roughly equivalent to \"\nobscene\n.\"\n\n\n The dancers at the center of the circle finally bowed out with small\n garlands of flowers on their heads that signified their reaching\n adulthood. Acrobats then took the stage and went through a dizzying\n routine, and they in turn were succeeded by a native singer.\n\n\n They were all excellent, Eckert thought. If anything, they were too\n good.\n\n\n The bowl of\npelache\nnuts made its way around again and Nayova leaned\n over to speak to him. \"If there is any possibility that I can help you\n while you are here,\nmenshar\nEckert, you have but to ask.\"\n\n\n It would probably be a mistake to ask for a list of Pendleton's\n friends, but there was a way around that. \"I would like to meet any\n of your people who had dealings with Pendleton, either in business or\n socially. I will do everything not to inconvenience them in any way.\"\n\n\n \"I think they would be glad to help you. I shall ask them to go to you\n this coming week.\"",
    "47841": "The Haunted Fountain\nCHAPTER I\nAn Unsolved Mystery\n\u201cTell Judy about it,\u201d begged Lois. \u201cPlease, Lorraine,\n it can\u2019t be as bad as it appears. There isn\u2019t\n anything that Judy can\u2019t solve.\u201d\nLorraine tilted her head disdainfully. \u201cWe\u2019re sisters\n now. We\u2019re both Farringdon-Petts and should be\n loyal to each other. But you always did take Judy\u2019s\n part. She was the one who nearly spoiled our double\n wedding trying to solve a mystery. I don\u2019t believe\n she\u2019d understand\u2014understand any better than I do.\n Everyone has problems, and I\u2019m sure Judy is no\n exception.\u201d\n\u201cYou\u2019re right, Lorraine,\u201d announced Judy, coming\n in to serve dessert to the two friends she had invited\n for lunch at Peter\u2019s suggestion. \u201cI do have\n problems, and there are plenty of mysteries I can\u2019t\n solve.\u201d\n\u201cName one,\u201d charged Lois. \u201cJust mention one\n single spooky thing you couldn\u2019t explain, and I\u2019ll\n believe you. I\u2019ve seen you in action, Judy Bolton\u2014\u201d\n\u201cJudy Dobbs, remember?\u201d\n\u201cWell, you were Judy Bolton when you solved\n all those mysteries. I met you when the whole\n valley below the big Roulsville dam was threatened\n by flood and you solved that\u2014\u201d\n\u201cThat,\u201d declared Judy, \u201cwas my brother Horace,\n not me. He was the hero without even meaning to\n be. He was the one who rode through town and\n warned people that the flood was coming. I was off\n chasing a shadow.\u201d\n\u201cA vanishing shadow,\u201d Lois said with a sigh.\n \u201cWhat you did wasn\u2019t easy, Judy.\u201d\n\u201cIt didn\u2019t need to be as hard as it was,\u201d Judy confessed.\n \u201cI know now that keeping that promise not\n to talk about the dam was a great big mistake and\n could have cost lives. I should have told Arthur.\u201d\n\u201cPlease,\u201d Lorraine said, a pained expression clouding\n her pretty face, \u201clet\u2019s not talk about him now.\u201d\n\u201cVery well,\u201d Judy agreed. \u201cWhat shall we talk\n about?\u201d\n\u201cYou,\u201d Lois said, \u201cand all the mysteries you\u2019ve\n solved. Maybe you were mistaken about a thing or\n two before the flood, but what about the haunted\n house you moved into? You were the one who\n tracked down the ghosts in the attic and the cellar\n and goodness knows where all. You\u2019ve been chasing\n ghosts ever since I met you, and not one of them did\n you fail to explain in some sensible, logical fashion.\u201d\n\u201cBefore I met you,\u201d Judy said, thinking back,\n \u201cthere were plenty of them I couldn\u2019t explain. There\n was one I used to call the spirit of the fountain, but\n what she was or how she spoke to me is more than\n I know. If my grandparents knew, they weren\u2019t telling.\n And now they\u2019re both dead and I can\u2019t ask them.\n They left me a lot of unsolved mysteries along with\n this house. Maybe I\u2019ll find the answers to some of\n them when I finish sorting Grandma\u2019s things. They\u2019re\n stored in one end of the attic.\u201d\n\u201cAnother haunted attic? How thrilling!\u201d exclaimed\n Lois. \u201cWhy don\u2019t you have another ghost party and\n show up the spooks?\u201d\n\u201cI didn\u2019t say the attic was haunted.\u201d\nJudy was almost sorry she had mentioned it. She\n wasn\u2019t in the mood for digging up old mysteries,\n but Lois and Lorraine insisted. It all began, she finally\n told them, the summer before they met. Horace\n had just started working on the paper. Judy remembered\n that it was Lorraine\u2019s father, Richard Thornton\n Lee, who gave him his job with the\nFarringdon\n Daily Herald\n. He had turned in some interesting\n church news, convincing Mr. Lee that he had in him\n the makings of a good reporter. And so it was that\n he spent the summer Judy was remembering in Farringdon\n where the Farringdon-Petts had their turreted\n mansion, while she had to suffer the heat and\n loneliness of Dry Brook Hollow.\nHer thoughts were what had made it so hard, she\n confessed now as she reviewed everything that had\n happened. She just couldn\u2019t help resenting the fact\n that her parents left her every summer while they\n went off on a vacation by themselves. What did they\n think she would do?\n\u201cYou\u2019ll have plenty to read,\u201d her father had told\n her. \u201cI bought you six new books in that mystery\n series you like. When they\u2019re finished there are\n plenty of short stories around. Your grandmother\n never throws anything away. She has magazines she\u2019s\n saved since your mother was a girl. If you ask for\n them she\u2019ll let you have the whole stack. I know how\n you love to read.\u201d\n\u201cI do, Dad, but if the magazines are that old\u2014\u201d\nJudy had stopped. She had seen her father\u2019s tired\n eyes and had realized that a busy doctor needed a\n vacation much more than a schoolgirl who had too\n little to do. He and Judy\u2019s mother usually went to\n the beach hotel where they had honeymooned. It\n was a precious memory. Every summer Dr. Bolton\n and his wife relived it. And every summer Judy\n went to stay with her grandmother Smeed, who\n scolded and fussed and tried to pretend she wasn\u2019t\n glad to have her.\n\u201cYou here again?\u201d she had greeted her that summer,\n and Judy hadn\u2019t noticed her old eyes twinkling\n behind her glasses. \u201cWhat do you propose to do with\n yourself this time?\u201d\n\u201cRead,\u201d Judy had told her. \u201cMom and Dad say\n you have a whole stack of old magazines\u2014\u201d\n\u201cIn the attic. Go up and look them over if you\n can stand the heat.\u201d\nJudy went, not to look over the old magazines so\n much as to escape to a place where she could have a\n good cry. It was the summer before her fifteenth\n birthday. In another year she would have outgrown\n her childish resentment of her parents\u2019 vacation or\n be grown up enough to ask them to let her have a\n vacation of her own. In another year she would\n be summering among the beautiful Thousand Islands\n and solving a mystery to be known as the\nGhost\n Parade\n.\n\u201cA whole parade of ghosts,\u201d Lois would be telling\n her, \u201cand you solved everything.\u201d\nBut then she didn\u2019t even know Lois. She had no\n idea so many thrilling adventures awaited her. There\n seemed to be nothing\u2014nothing\u2014and so the tears\n came and spilled over on one of the magazines. As\n Judy wiped it away she noticed that it had fallen\n on a picture of a fountain.\n\u201cA fountain with tears for water. How strange!\u201d\n she remembered saying aloud.\nJudy had never seen a real fountain. The thrill of\n walking up to the door of the palatial Farringdon-Pett\n mansion was still ahead of her. On the lawn a\n fountain still caught and held rainbows like those\n she was to see on her honeymoon at Niagara Falls.\n But all that was in the future. If anyone had told\n the freckled-faced, pigtailed girl that she would one\n day marry Peter Dobbs, she would have laughed in\n their faces.\n\u201cThat tease!\u201d\nFor then she knew Peter only as an older boy who\n used to tease her and call her carrot-top until one day\n she yelled back at him, \u201cCarrot-tops are green and so\n are you!\u201d\nPeter was to win Judy\u2019s heart when he gave her a\n kitten and suggested the name Blackberry for him.\n The kitten was now a dignified family cat. But the\n summer Judy found the picture of a fountain and\n spilled tears on it she had no kitten. She had nothing,\n she confessed, not even a friend. It had helped to\n pretend the fountain in the picture was filled with\n all the tears lonely girls like herself had ever cried.\n\u201cBut that would make it enchanted!\u201d she had suddenly\n exclaimed. \u201cIf I could find it I\u2019d wish\u2014\u201d\nA step had sounded on the stairs. Judy remembered\n it distinctly. She had turned to see her grandmother\n and to hear her say in her usual abrupt fashion,\n \u201cEnchanted fountain, indeed! If you let people\n know your wishes instead of muttering them to\n yourself, most of them aren\u2019t so impossible.\u201d\n\u201cWere they?\u201d asked Lois.\nShe and Lorraine had listened to this much of what\n Judy was telling them without interruption.\n\u201cThat\u2019s the unsolved mystery,\u201d Judy replied.\n \u201cThere weren\u2019t any of them impossible.\u201d\nAnd she went on to tell them how, the very next\n day, her grandparents had taken her to a fountain\n exactly like the one in the picture. It was in the center\n of a deep, circular pool with steps leading up to it.\n Beside the steps were smaller fountains with the\n water spurting from the mouths of stone lions. Judy\n had stared at them a moment and then climbed the\n steps to the pool.\n\u201cAm I dreaming?\u201d she remembered saying aloud.\n \u201cIs this beautiful fountain real?\u201d\nA voice had answered, although she could see no\n one.\n\u201cMake your wishes, Judy. Wish wisely. If you\n shed a tear in the fountain your wishes will surely\n come true.\u201d\n\u201cA tear?\u201d Judy had asked. \u201cHow can I shed a\n tear when I\u2019m happy? This is a wonderful place.\u201d\n\u201cShed a tear in the fountain and your wishes will\n surely come true,\u201d the voice had repeated.\n\u201cBut what is there to cry about?\u201d\n\u201cYou found plenty to cry about back at your\n grandmother\u2019s house,\u201d the mysterious voice had reminded\n her. \u201cWeren\u2019t you crying on my picture up\n there in the attic?\u201d\n\u201cThen you\u2014you\nare\nthe fountain!\u201d Judy remembered\n exclaiming. \u201cBut a fountain doesn\u2019t speak. It\n doesn\u2019t have a voice.\u201d\n\u201cWish wisely,\u201d the voice from the fountain had\n said in a mysterious whisper.\nCHAPTER II\nIf Wishes Came True\n\u201cDid you?\u201d Lois interrupted the story to ask excitedly.\n \u201cOh, Judy! Don\u2019t keep us in suspense any\n longer. What did you wish?\u201d\n\u201cPatience,\u201d Judy said with a smile. \u201cI\u2019m coming\n to that.\u201d\nFirst, she told her friends, she had to think of a\n wise wish. There had been so much she wanted in\n those early days before the flood. Dora Scott had\n been her best friend in Roulsville, but she had moved\n away.\n\u201cYou see,\u201d she explained, \u201cI made the mistake of\n having just one best friend. There wasn\u2019t anybody\n in Dry Brook Hollow. I remember thinking of how\n lonely I was and how I wished for a friend or a sister,\n and suddenly a tear splashed in the water. It made\n little ripples. I thought I had to wish quickly before\n they vanished, and so I began naming the things I\n wanted as fast as I could. I\u2019m not sure they were\n wise wishes. They seem rather selfish to me, now. I\n wasn\u2019t thinking of anybody but me, Judy Bolton,\n and what I wanted. It wasn\u2019t until after I began to\n think of others that my wishes started to come true.\u201d\n\u201cBut what were they?\u201d Lois insisted.\nLorraine seemed unusually quiet and thoughtful.\n Judy did not notice the fear in her eyes as she replied\n airily, \u201cOh, didn\u2019t I tell you? I wished for lots\n of friends and a sister, and I wished I could marry a\n G-man and solve a lot of mysteries and that\u2019s as far\n as I got when the ripples vanished. I thought the\n spell was broken and so I didn\u2019t wish for anything\n more.\u201d\n\u201cWasn\u2019t there anything more you wanted?\u201d Lois\n asked.\n\u201cOf course,\u201d replied Judy. \u201cThere were lots more\n things. I wanted to go places, of course, and keep\n pets, and have a nice home, and\u2014\u201d\n\u201cAnd your wishes all came true!\u201d\n\u201cEvery one of them,\u201d Judy agreed, \u201ceven the one\n about the sister. You see, it wasn\u2019t a baby sister I\n wanted. It was a sister near my own age. That\n seemed impossible at the time, but the future did\n hold a sister for me.\u201d\n\u201cIt held one for me, too,\u201d Lois said, squeezing\n Lorraine\u2019s hand under the table. \u201cDon\u2019t you think\n sisters should tell each other their problems, Judy?\u201d\n\u201cHoney and I always do,\u201d she replied \u201cbut then\n it was different. I didn\u2019t know I would marry Peter\n or that he would become a G-man, and he didn\u2019t\n know he had a sister. It is strange, isn\u2019t it? But the\n strangest thing of all was the fountain itself.\u201d\n\u201cWhy?\u201d asked Lorraine. \u201cDo you still think it was\n enchanted?\u201d\nLois laughed at this, but Judy was serious as she\n answered, \u201cI was still little girl enough to think so\n at the time. I wandered around, growing very\n drowsy. Then I found a hammock and climbed into\n it. I must have gone to sleep, because I remember\n waking up and wondering if the voice in the fountain\n had been a dream.\u201d\n\u201cA hammock?\u201d Lois questioned. \u201cAre you sure it\n wasn\u2019t a flying carpet?\u201d\n\u201cNo, it was a hammock all right,\u201d Judy assured\n her, laughing. \u201cIt was hung between two trees in a\n beautiful garden all enclosed in rose trellises thick\n with roses. Did I tell you it was June?\u201d\n\u201cAll the year around?\u201d\nAgain Lois laughed. But Lorraine said abruptly,\n \u201cLet\u2019s not talk about rose gardens in June. It\u2019s a long\n way from June to December.\u201d\n\u201cDo you mean a garden changes? I know,\u201d Judy\n said, \u201cbut I think this one would be beautiful at any\n time of the year. There were rhododendrons, too,\n and I don\u2019t know how many different kinds of evergreens.\n I explored the garden all around the fountain.\u201d\n\u201cAnd then what happened?\u201d Lorraine urged her.\n\u201cYes, yes. Go on,\u201d entreated Lois. \u201cI didn\u2019t dream\n you\u2019d kept anything that exciting a secret. Why didn\u2019t\n you try to solve the mystery?\u201d\n\u201cI think I would have tried,\u201d Judy admitted, \u201cif\n I had been older or more experienced. I really should\n have investigated it more thoroughly and learned the\n secret of the fountain. But after the ripples went\n away it didn\u2019t speak to me any more, and I didn\u2019t\n really think it had heard my wishes. I was still wishing\n for a friend when I met you, Lois. It did seem\n impossible for us to be friends at first, didn\u2019t it? Lorraine\n was your friend.\u201d\n\u201cI did make trouble for you,\u201d Lorraine remembered.\n \u201cIt was all because of my foolish jealousy.\u201d\n\u201cIt was nothing compared to the trouble caused by\n the Roulsville flood,\u201d declared Judy. \u201cAfter that\n things started happening so fast that I completely\n forgot about the fountain. Honestly, Lois, I don\u2019t\n believe I thought about it again until after we moved\n to Farringdon and I walked up to your door and\n saw the fountain on your lawn.\u201d\n\u201cThe Farringdon-Pett puddle, I always called it,\u201d\n Lois said with a giggle. \u201cI\u2019ve seen lots nicer fountains.\u201d\n\u201cYou have?\u201d asked Judy. \u201cThen maybe you\u2019ve\n seen the one I\u2019ve been telling you about. I think the\n picture of it is still in the attic. Come on up and I\u2019ll\n show you.\u201d\nLois and Lorraine had finished their dessert while\n Judy was telling them the story of the fountain.\n Somehow, she wasn\u2019t hungry for hers. She had\n tasted it too often while she was making it.\n\u201cI\u2019ll leave it for Blackberry,\u201d she decided.\nLois watched in amusement as the cat lapped up\n the chocolate pudding after Judy had mixed it generously\n with cream.\n\u201cSometimes,\u201d Judy said fondly, \u201cBlackberry thinks\n he\u2019s a person. He eats everything we eat, including\n lettuce. Do you mind if he comes with us, Lorraine?\n He wants to explore the attic, too.\u201d\n\u201cHe\u2019ll remember he\u2019s a cat fast enough if there\n are any mice up there,\u201d Lois said with a giggle.\nLeaving the table, they all started upstairs with\n the cat bounding ahead of them. In modernizing her\n grandparents\u2019 house to suit her own and Peter\u2019s\n tastes, Judy had seen to it that the old stair door was\n removed. But there was still a door closing off the\n narrower stairs that led to the attic. Blackberry\n reached it first and yowled for Judy to open it.\n\u201cHe can read my mind. He always knows where\n I\u2019m going,\u201d Judy said as the door creaked open and\n the cat shot through it. A moment later a weird rolling\n noise came from the floor above.\n\u201cCome on. There\u2019s nothing up here to be afraid\n of,\u201d Judy urged her friends.\n\u201cMaybe not, but I\u2019m beginning to get the shivers,\u201d\n confessed Lois as she followed Judy to the sewing\n room at the top of the last flight of stairs.\n\u201cSo am I,\u201d Lorraine admitted. \u201cI\u2019m not superstitious\n about black cats, but they are creepy. Does\n Blackberry have to roll spools across the floor?\u201d\n\u201cNow he thinks he\u2019s a kitten,\u201d laughed Judy.\n Pausing at still another door that led to the darker\n part of the attic, she turned and said mysteriously,\n \u201cUp here we can all turn back the clock. Does anybody\n care to explore the past?\u201d\nThe exploration began enthusiastically with Judy\n relating still more of what she remembered about\n the fountain.\n\u201cWhen I told Grandma about it she laughed and\n said I must have dreamed it. She said if wishes came\n true that easily she\u2019d be living in a castle. But would\n she?\u201d Judy wondered. \u201cWhen I first remember this\n house she was still burning kerosene lamps like those\n you see on that high shelf by the window. I think\n she and Grandpa like the way they lived without\n any modern conveniences or anything.\u201d\n\u201cI think so, too,\u201d Lois agreed, looking around the\n old attic with a shiver. \u201cIt is strange they both died\n the same winter, isn\u2019t it?\u201d\n\u201cMaybe they wanted it that way. Maybe they\n wished neither of them would outlive the other. If\n they did wish in the fountain,\u201d Judy went on more\n thoughtfully, \u201cI\u2019m sure that was one of their wishes.\n Another could have been to keep the good old days,\n as Grandma used to call them. That one came true\n in a way. They did manage to keep a little of the\n past when they kept all these old things. That\u2019s what\n I meant about turning back the clock.\u201d\n\u201cIf wishes came true I\u2019d like to turn it back a little\n myself,\u201d Lorraine began. \u201cIt would be nice if things\n were the way they used to be when I trusted\n Arthur\u2014\u201d\n\u201cDon\u2019t you trust him now?\u201d Judy asked.\nAfterwards she was sorry for the interruption. Lois\n and Judy both questioned Lorraine, but that was all\n she would say. Judy wondered, as they searched\n through the old magazines, what was wrong. Lorraine\n was of a jealous disposition. Was the green-eyed\n monster coming between her and her handsome husband,\n Arthur Farringdon-Pett? Until now they had\n seemed blissfully happy. But there was no happiness\n in Lorraine\u2019s face as she gazed at a picture of one of\n the fountains and then said in a tight little voice, \u201cIt\n is. It\u2019s the very same one.\u201d\n\u201cBut that\u2019s the picture I\u2019ve been searching for!\u201d\n Judy said eagerly. \u201cDo you know where it is?\u201d\n\u201cI can\u2019t be sure. But if it ever was enchanted, I\u2019m\n sure it isn\u2019t now. Let\u2019s go,\u201d Lorraine said suddenly\n to Lois. Judy knew she was suggesting a fast trip home.\n But, apparently, Lois did not understand it that way.\n If she did, she pretended not to.\n\u201cWhere?\u201d she asked. \u201cTo the fountain? I\u2019d love\n to, wouldn\u2019t you, Judy?\u201d\n\u201cI certainly would,\u201d Judy replied enthusiastically.\n \u201cDo you recognize it, too?\u201d\n\u201cI think so,\u201d Lois answered after studying a little\n more closely the picture they had found. \u201cIt looks\n like the fountain on the Brandt estate.\u201d\n\u201cThe department store Brandts?\u201d Judy questioned.\n \u201cThen my grandparents must have driven old Fanny\n all the way to Farringdon.\u201d\n\u201cNot quite all the way,\u201d Lorraine objected. \u201cThe\n Brandts own that stretch of woods just before you\n come into the city. You\u2019ve passed it lots of times.\u201d\n\u201cOf course,\u201d agreed Judy. She put the magazine\n back in its place under the eaves and turned eagerly\n to her friends. \u201cI do remember a road turning off\n into the woods and going on uphill,\u201d she told them.\n \u201cI never thought it led to a house, though. There\n isn\u2019t even a gate. Could that be the road my grandparents\n took?\u201d\n\u201cWhy don\u2019t we take it ourselves and find out?\u201d\n Lois suggested.\nCHAPTER III\nA Strange Encounter\nLorraine was not too enthusiastic about the proposed\n trip to the Brandt estate. Finally she agreed to\n it under one condition. They were not to drive all\n the way to the house which, she said, was just over\n the hilltop. They were to park the car where no\n one would see it and follow the path to the fountain.\n\u201cBut suppose we can\u2019t find the path?\u201d asked Judy.\n\u201cYou\u2019ll remember it, won\u2019t you?\u201d\nJudy thought she would, but she wasn\u2019t too sure.\n She and Lois both argued that it would be better to\n inquire at the house. Lois knew Helen Brandt slightly.\n\u201cShe\u2019d be glad to show us around. This way it\n looks as if we\u2019re planning a crime,\u201d Lois said as they\n started off in the blue car she was driving.\nIt was a neat little car, not too conspicuous, and\n easy to park in out-of-the-way places. Judy laughed\n and said if they did find the fountain she thought\n she\u2019d wish for one exactly like it.\n\u201cWell, you know what your grandmother said\n about wishes, don\u2019t you?\u201d Lorraine asked. \u201cIf you\n let people know about them instead of muttering\n them to yourself most of them aren\u2019t so impossible.\u201d\n\u201cQuite true,\u201d Judy agreed. \u201cI\u2019ll let Peter know\n about this one. He\u2019s my Santa Claus, and it will soon\n be Christmas. Maybe I should have worn the fur\n coat he gave me last year.\u201d\n\u201cYour reversible\u2019s better in case it rains. It\u2019s too\n warm for snow. We picked a perfect day for this\n trip,\u201d Lois continued, guiding the car around curves\n as it climbed the steep hill beyond Dry Brook Hollow.\nThe trip was a short one. In twenty minutes they\n had covered the distance that had seemed such a\n long way to Judy when she was riding in her grandfather\u2019s\n wagon.\n\u201cI\u2019ve been thinking about it,\u201d she said, \u201cand I\u2019ve\n just about figured out how it happened. I didn\u2019t\n think my grandparents knew the Brandts well enough\n to pay them a visit, though. We must have looked\n queer driving up to a beautiful estate in Grandpa\u2019s\n old farm wagon. I do remember that Grandma had\n some hooked rugs to deliver. But that still doesn\u2019t\n explain what happened afterwards. When I woke\n up in the hammock I was alone in the garden. Horse,\n wagon, grandparents\u2014all had disappeared.\u201d\n\u201cHow could they?\u201d asked Lois.\n\u201cAnyway,\u201d Lorraine began, \u201cyou had a chance to\n see how beautiful everything was before\u2014\u201d\nAgain she broke off as if there were something\n she wanted to tell but didn\u2019t quite dare.\n\u201cBefore what?\u201d questioned Judy.\n\u201cOh, nothing. Forget I said anything about it. You\n were telling us how you woke up in the hammock,\n but you never did explain how you got back home,\u201d\n Lorraine reminded her.\n\u201cDidn\u2019t I?\u201d asked Judy. \u201cI\u2019d forgotten a lot of it,\n but it\u2019s beginning to come back now. I do remember\n driving home along this road. You see, I thought my\n grandparents had left me in the garden for a surprise\n and would return for me. I told you I was all alone.\n There wasn\u2019t a house in sight.\u201d\n\u201cThe Brandt house is just over the top of this next\n hill,\u201d Lois put in.\n\u201cI know. You told me that. Now I know why I\n couldn\u2019t see it. All I could see was a windowless old\n tower and a path leading in that direction. Naturally,\n I followed it. There\u2019s something about a path in\n the woods that always tempts me.\u201d\n\u201cWe know that, Judy. Honey told us all about\n your latest mystery. You followed a trail or something.\u201d\n\u201cWell, this trail led out of the rose garden where\n the hammock was and then through an archway,\u201d\n Judy continued. \u201cAll sorts of little cupids and gnomes\n peered out at me from unexpected places. I was\n actually scared by the time I reached the old tower.\n There wasn\u2019t time to explore it. Just then I heard\n the rumble of my grandfather\u2019s wagon and knew he\n was driving off without me.\u201d\n\u201cHe was!\u201d Judy\u2019s friends both chorused in surprise,\n and Lois asked, \u201cWhy would he do a thing like\n that?\u201d\n\u201cI think now it was just to tease me. He did stop\n and wait for me after a while,\u201d Judy remembered.\n \u201cThe rugs were gone. Grandma must have delivered\n them, but I didn\u2019t ask where. If she made them for\n Mrs. Brandt they may still be there.\u201d\n\u201cI wouldn\u2019t depend on it,\u201d Lorraine said as they\n turned up the narrow road to the Brandt estate.\n\u201cWatch out!\u201d Judy suddenly exclaimed. \u201cThere\u2019s\n another car coming.\u201d\nAs Lois swerved to avoid the oncoming car, Lorraine\n ducked her head. She kept herself hidden behind\n Judy until the car had passed. The man driving\n it was a stranger to Judy, but she would remember\n his hypnotic, dark eyes and swarthy complexion for a\n long time. The soft brown hat he was wearing covered\n most of his hair.\n\u201cWhat\u2019s the matter with you two?\u201d asked Lois\n when the car had passed. \u201cAren\u2019t you a little old for\n playing hide and seek?\u201d\n\u201cI wasn\u2019t\u2014playing. Let\u2019s not go up there,\u201d Lorraine\n begged. \u201cI don\u2019t think the Brandts live there\n any more.\u201d\n\u201cMaybe not, but we can pretend we think they do,\n can\u2019t we?\u201d Judy replied a little uncertainly.\nShe was beginning to suspect that Lorraine knew\n more about the Brandt estate than she was telling.\nLois kept on driving along the narrow, gravelly\n road. Soon there were more evergreens and a hedge\n of rhododendrons to be seen. They looked very\n green next to the leafless trees in the woods beyond.\n The sky was gray with white clouds being driven\n across it by the wind.\n\u201cThere\u2019s the tower!\u201d Lorraine exclaimed. \u201cI can\n see it over to the left. It looks like something out of\n Grimm\u2019s Fairy Tales, doesn\u2019t it?\u201d\n\u201cIt looks grim all right,\u201d agreed Judy. \u201cI wonder\n what it is.\u201d\n\u201cI suppose it\u2019s nothing but an old water tower. It\n would be fun to explore it, though,\u201d Lois said. \u201cBut\n if there are new people living here they\u2019ll never give\n us permission.\u201d\n\u201cWe might explore it without permission,\u201d Judy\n suggested daringly. \u201cCome on!\u201d she urged her friends\n as Lois parked the car in a cleared place beside the\n road. \u201cWho\u2019s going to stop us? And who wants to\n explore a gloomy old tower, anyway? Let\u2019s look for\n the fountain.\u201d\n\u201cDo you think we should?\u201d Lorraine asked. \u201cIt\n won\u2019t be enchanted. I told you\u2014\u201d\n\u201cYou told us very little,\u201d Lois reminded her. \u201cIf\n you know anything about the people who live here\n now, I think you ought to let us know. Otherwise,\n I\u2019m afraid we won\u2019t be very welcome.\u201d\n\u201cI don\u2019t think they\u2019ll welcome us, anyway. I do\n know who they are,\u201d Lorraine admitted. \u201cYou remember\n Roger Banning from school, don\u2019t you?\n I\u2019ve seen him around here. His family must have\n acquired sudden wealth, or else he\u2019s just working on\n the estate.\u201d\n\u201cThen you\u2019ve been here lately? Why didn\u2019t you\n tell me?\u201d asked Lois. \u201cWe always used to go places\n together.\u201d\n\u201cIt wasn\u2019t important,\u201d Lorraine replied evasively.\n \u201cI was just out for a drive.\u201d\n\u201cYou plutocrats!\u201d laughed Judy. \u201cEach with a\n car of your own. You\u2019re not interested in Roger\n Banning, are you, Lois? I\u2019m sure you can do better\n than that. I did know him slightly, but not from\n school. The boys and girls were separated and went\n to different high schools by the time we moved to\n Farringdon. I remember his pal, Dick Hartwell, a\n lot better. He was in our young people\u2019s group at\n church.\u201d\n\u201cSh!\u201d Lois cautioned her. \u201cNice people no longer\n mention Dick Hartwell\u2019s name. He\u2019s doing time.\u201d\n\u201cFor what?\u201d asked Judy.\nLike Peter, her FBI husband, she preferred facts\n to gossip.\n\u201cForgery, I guess. He stole some checkbooks from\n his father\u2019s desk and forged the names of a lot of important\n business people. I think he forged some legal\n documents, too. Anyway, he went to the Federal Penitentiary.\n It was all in the papers,\u201d Lorraine told her.\nNow Judy did remember. It was something she\n would have preferred to forget. She liked to think\n she was a good judge of character, and she had taken\n Dick Hartwell for a quiet, refined boy who would\n never stoop to crime.\n\u201cI don\u2019t see what all this has to do with the fountain,\u201d\n Lois said impatiently. \u201cAre we going to look\n for it, or aren\u2019t we?\u201d\n\u201cOf course we are. That\u2019s what we came for. I\n just like to know what a tiger looks like before he\n springs at me,\u201d Judy explained.\n\u201cYou seem to think there\u2019s danger in this expedition\n of ours, don\u2019t you?\u201d asked Lorraine.\n\u201cI don\u2019t know what to think. You\u2019re the one who\n seems to know the answers, but you\u2019re not telling.\n Hiding your face back there gave you away. You\u2019ve\n seen that character who drove down this road and,\n for some reason, you were afraid he would see you.\n Why, Lorraine? Why didn\u2019t you want to be recognized?\u201d\nLorraine hesitated a moment and then replied\n evasively, \u201cPeople don\u2019t generally enter private\n estates without an invitation. That\u2019s all.\u201d\n\u201cI\u2019d better turn the car around,\u201d Lois decided,\n \u201cin case we have to leave in a hurry. I don\u2019t expect\n we\u2019ll encounter any tigers, but we may be accused\n of trespassing.\u201d\n\u201cI\u2019m sure we will be,\u201d announced Judy as two\n dark-coated figures strode down the road toward\n them. \u201cYou drove right by a\n NO TRESPASSING\n sign,\n and this isn\u2019t a welcoming committee coming to\n meet us!\u201d",
    "51361": "Birds of a Feather\nBy ROBERT SILVERBERG\n\n\n Illustrated by WOOD\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Magazine November 1958.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nGetting specimens for the interstellar zoo\n \nwas no problem\u2014they battled for the honor\u2014but\n \nnow I had to fight like a wildcat to\n \nkeep a display from making a monkey of me!\nIt was our first day of recruiting on the planet, and the alien\n life-forms had lined up for hundreds of feet back from my rented\n office. As I came down the block from the hotel, I could hear and see\n and smell them with ease.\n\n\n My three staff men, Auchinleck, Stebbins and Ludlow, walked shieldwise\n in front of me. I peered between them to size the crop up. The aliens\n came in every shape and form, in all colors and textures\u2014and all of\n them eager for a Corrigan contract. The Galaxy is full of bizarre\n beings, but there's barely a species anywhere that can resist the old\n exhibitionist urge.\n\n\n \"Send them in one at a time,\" I told Stebbins. I ducked into the\n office, took my place back of the desk and waited for the procession to\n begin.\n\n\n The name of the planet was MacTavish IV (if you went by the official\n Terran listing) or Ghryne (if you called it by what its people were\n accustomed to calling it). I thought of it privately as MacTavish IV\n and referred to it publicly as Ghryne. I believe in keeping the locals\n happy wherever I go.\n\n\n Through the front window of the office, I could see our big gay tridim\n sign plastered to a facing wall: WANTED\u2014EXTRATERRESTRIALS! We had\n saturated MacTavish IV with our promotional poop for a month preceding\n arrival. Stuff like this:\nWant to visit Earth\u2014see the Galaxy's most glittering and exclusive\n world? Want to draw good pay, work short hours, experience the thrills\n of show business on romantic Terra? If you are a non-terrestrial,\n there may be a place for you in the Corrigan Institute of\n Morphological Science. No freaks wanted\u2014normal beings only. J. F.\n Corrigan will hold interviews in person on Ghryne from Thirdday to\n Fifthday of Tenmonth. His last visit to the Caledonia Cluster until\n 2937, so don't miss your chance! Hurry! A life of wonder and riches\n can be yours!\nBroadsides like that, distributed wholesale in half a thousand\n languages, always bring them running. And the Corrigan Institute really\n packs in the crowds back on Earth. Why not? It's the best of its kind,\n the only really decent place where Earthmen can get a gander at the\n other species of the universe.\n\n\n The office buzzer sounded. Auchinleck said unctuously, \"The first\n applicant is ready to see you, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Send him, her or it in.\"\n\n\n The door opened and a timid-looking life-form advanced toward me on\n nervous little legs. He was a globular creature about the size of a\n big basketball, yellowish-green, with two spindly double-kneed legs and\n five double-elbowed arms, the latter spaced regularly around his body.\n There was a lidless eye at the top of his head and five lidded ones,\n one above each arm. Plus a big, gaping, toothless mouth.\nHis voice was a surprisingly resounding basso. \"You are Mr. Corrigan?\"\n\n\n \"That's right.\" I reached for a data blank. \"Before we begin, I'll need\n certain information about\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I am a being of Regulus II,\" came the grave, booming reply, even\n before I had picked up the blank. \"I need no special care and I am not\n a fugitive from the law of any world.\"\n\n\n \"Your name?\"\n\n\n \"Lawrence R. Fitzgerald.\"\n\n\n I throttled my exclamation of surprise, concealing it behind a quick\n cough. \"Let me have that again, please?\"\n\n\n \"Certainly. My name is Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. The 'R' stands for\n Raymond.\"\n\n\n \"Of course, that's not the name you were born with.\"\n\n\n The being closed his eyes and toddled around in a 360-degree rotation,\n remaining in place. On his world, that gesture is the equivalent of\n an apologetic smile. \"My Regulan name no longer matters. I am now and\n shall evermore be Lawrence R. Fitzgerald. I am a Terraphile, you see.\"\nThe little Regulan was as good as hired. Only the formalities remained.\n \"You understand our terms, Mr. Fitzgerald?\"\n\n\n \"I'll be placed on exhibition at your Institute on Earth. You'll pay\n for my services, transportation and expenses. I'll be required to\n remain on exhibit no more than one-third of each Terran sidereal day.\"\n\n\n \"And the pay will be\u2014ah\u2014$50 Galactic a week, plus expenses and\n transportation.\"\n\n\n The spherical creature clapped his hands in joy, three hands clapping\n on one side, two on the other. \"Wonderful! I will see Earth at last! I\n accept the terms!\"\n\n\n I buzzed for Ludlow and gave him the fast signal that meant we were\n signing this alien up at half the usual pay, and Ludlow took him into\n the other office to sign him up.\n\n\n I grinned, pleased with myself. We needed a green Regulan in our show;\n the last one had quit four years ago. But just because we needed him\n didn't mean we had to be extravagant in hiring him. A Terraphile alien\n who goes to the extent of rechristening himself with a Terran monicker\n would work for nothing, or even pay us, just so long as we let him get\n to Earth. My conscience won't let me really\nexploit\na being, but I\n don't believe in throwing money away, either.\n\n\n The next applicant was a beefy ursinoid from Aldebaran IX. Our outfit\n has all the ursinoids it needs or is likely to need in the next few\n decades, and so I got rid of him in a couple of minutes. He was\n followed by a roly-poly blue-skinned humanoid from Donovan's Planet,\n four feet high and five hundred pounds heavy. We already had a couple\n of his species in the show, but they made good crowd-pleasers, being\n so plump and cheerful. I passed him along to Auchinleck to sign at\n anything short of top rate.\n\n\n Next came a bedraggled Sirian spider who was more interested in a\n handout than a job. If there's any species we have a real over-supply\n of, it's those silver-colored spiders, but this seedy specimen gave it\n a try anyway. He got the gate in half a minute, and he didn't even get\n the handout he was angling for. I don't approve of begging.\n\n\n The flora of applicants was steady. Ghryne is in the heart of the\n Caledonia Cluster, where the interstellar crossroads meet. We had\n figured to pick up plenty of new exhibits here and we were right.\nIt was the isolationism of the late 29th century that turned me into\n the successful proprietor of Corrigan's Institute, after some years\n as an impoverished carnival man in the Betelgeuse system. Back in\n 2903, the World Congress declared Terra off-bounds for non-terrestrial\n beings, as an offshoot of the Terra for Terrans movement.\n\n\n Before then, anyone could visit Earth. After the gate clanged down,\n a non-terrestrial could only get onto Sol III as a specimen in a\n scientific collection\u2014in short, as an exhibit in a zoo.\n\n\n That's what the Corrigan Institute of Morphological Science really is,\n of course. A zoo. But we don't go out and hunt for our specimens; we\n advertise and they come flocking to us. Every alien wants to see Earth\n once in his lifetime, and there's only one way he can do it.\n\n\n We don't keep too big an inventory. At last count, we had 690 specimens\n before this trip, representing 298 different intelligent life-forms.\n My goal is at least one member of at least 500 different races. When I\n reach that, I'll sit back and let the competition catch up\u2014if it can.\n\n\n After an hour of steady work that morning, we had signed eleven new\n specimens. At the same time, we had turned away a dozen ursinoids,\n fifty of the reptilian natives of Ghryne, seven Sirian spiders, and no\n less than nineteen chlorine-breathing Procyonites wearing gas masks.\n\n\n It was also my sad duty to nix a Vegan who was negotiating through a\n Ghrynian agent. A Vegan would be a top-flight attraction, being some\n 400 feet long and appropriately fearsome to the eye, but I didn't see\n how we could take one on. They're gentle and likable beings, but their\n upkeep runs into literally tons of fresh meat a day, and not just any\n old kind of meat either. So we had to do without the Vegan.\n\n\n \"One more specimen before lunch,\" I told Stebbins, \"to make it an even\n dozen.\"\n\n\n He looked at me queerly and nodded. A being entered. I took a long\n close look at the life-form when it came in, and after that I took\n another one. I wondered what kind of stunt was being pulled. So far as\n I could tell, the being was quite plainly nothing but an Earthman.\n\n\n He sat down facing me without being asked and crossed his legs. He was\n tall and extremely thin, with pale blue eyes and dirty-blond hair, and\n though he was clean and reasonably well dressed, he had a shabby look\n about him. He said, in level Terran accents, \"I'm looking for a job\n with your outfit, Corrigan.\"\n\n\n \"There's been a mistake. We're interested in non-terrestrials only.\"\n\n\n \"I'm a non-terrestrial. My name is Ildwar Gorb, of the planet Wazzenazz\n XIII.\"\nI don't mind conning the public from time to time, but I draw the line\n at getting bilked myself. \"Look, friend, I'm busy, and I'm not known\n for my sense of humor. Or my generosity.\"\n\n\n \"I'm not panhandling. I'm looking for a job.\"\n\n\n \"Then try elsewhere. Suppose you stop wasting my time, bud. You're as\n Earthborn as I am.\"\n\n\n \"I've never been within a dozen parsecs of Earth,\" he said smoothly. \"I\n happen to be a representative of the only Earthlike race that exists\n anywhere in the Galaxy but on Earth itself. Wazzenazz XIII is a small\n and little-known planet in the Crab Nebula. Through an evolutionary\n fluke, my race is identical with yours. Now, don't you want me in your\n circus?\"\n\n\n \"No. And it's not a circus. It's\u2014\"\n\n\n \"A scientific institute. I stand corrected.\"\n\n\n There was something glib and appealing about this preposterous phony. I\n guess I recognized a kindred spirit or I would have tossed him out on\n his ear without another word. Instead I played along. \"If you're from\n such a distant place, how come you speak English so well?\"\n\n\n \"I'm not speaking. I'm a telepath\u2014not the kind that reads minds, just\n the kind that projects. I communicate in symbols that you translate\n back to colloquial speech.\"\n\n\n \"Very clever, Mr. Gorb.\" I grinned at him and shook my head. \"You spin\n a good yarn\u2014but for my money, you're really Sam Jones or Phil Smith\n from Earth, stranded here and out of cash. You want a free trip back to\n Earth. No deal. The demand for beings from Wazzenazz XIII is pretty low\n these days. Zero, in fact. Good-by, Mr. Gorb.\"\n\n\n He pointed a finger squarely at me and said, \"You're making a big\n mistake. I'm just what your outfit needs. A representative of a\n hitherto utterly unknown race identical to humanity in every respect!\n Look here, examine my teeth. Absolutely like human teeth! And\u2014\"\n\n\n I pulled away from his yawning mouth. \"Good-by, Mr. Gorb,\" I repeated.\n\n\n \"All I ask is a contract, Corrigan. It isn't much. I'll be a big\n attraction. I'll\u2014\"\n\n\n \"\nGood-by, Mr. Gorb!\n\"\n\n\n He glowered at me reproachfully for a moment, stood up and sauntered to\n the door. \"I thought you were a man of acumen, Corrigan. Well, think\n it over. Maybe you'll regret your hastiness. I'll be back to give you\n another chance.\"\n\n\n He slammed the door and I let my grim expression relax into a smile.\n This was the best con switch yet\u2014an Earthman posing as an alien to get\n a job!\n\n\n But I wasn't buying it, even if I could appreciate his cleverness\n intellectually. There's no such place as Wazzenazz XIII and there's\n only one human race in the Galaxy\u2014on Earth. I was going to need some\n real good reason before I gave a down-and-out grifter a free ticket\n home.\n\n\n I didn't know it then, but before the day was out, I would have that\n reason. And, with it, plenty of trouble on my hands.\nThe first harbinger of woe turned up after lunch in the person of a\n Kallerian. The Kallerian was the sixth applicant that afternoon. I\n had turned away three more ursinoids, hired a vegetable from Miazan,\n and said no to a scaly pseudo-armadillo from one of the Delta Worlds.\n Hardly had the 'dillo scuttled dejectedly out of my office when the\n Kallerian came striding in, not even waiting for Stebbins to admit him\n officially.\n\n\n He was big even for his kind\u2014in the neighborhood of nine feet high,\n and getting on toward a ton. He planted himself firmly on his three\n stocky feet, extended his massive arms in a Kallerian greeting-gesture,\n and growled, \"I am Vallo Heraal, Freeman of Kaller IV. You will sign me\n immediately to a contract.\"\n\n\n \"Sit down, Freeman Heraal. I like to make my own decisions, thanks.\"\n\n\n \"You will grant me a contract!\"\n\n\n \"Will you please sit down?\"\n\n\n He said sulkily, \"I will remain standing.\"\n\n\n \"As you prefer.\" My desk has a few concealed features which are\n sometimes useful in dealing with belligerent or disappointed\n life-forms. My fingers roamed to the meshgun trigger, just in case of\n trouble.\n\n\n The Kallerian stood motionless before me. They're hairy creatures, and\n this one had a coarse, thick mat of blue fur completely covering his\n body. Two fierce eyes glimmered out through the otherwise dense blanket\n of fur. He was wearing the kilt, girdle and ceremonial blaster of his\n warlike race.\n\n\n I said, \"You'll have to understand, Freeman Heraal, that it's not our\n policy to maintain more than a few members of each species at our\n Institute. And we're not currently in need of any Kallerian males,\n because\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You will hire me or trouble I will make!\"\n\n\n I opened our inventory chart. I showed him that we were already\n carrying four Kallerians, and that was more than plenty.\n\n\n The beady little eyes flashed like beacons in the fur. \"Yes, you have\n four representatives\u2014of the Clan Verdrokh! None of the Clan Gursdrinn!\n For three years, I have waited for a chance to avenge this insult to\n the noble Clan Gursdrinn!\"\n\n\n At the key-word\navenge\n, I readied myself to ensnarl the Kallerian\n in a spume of tanglemesh the instant he went for his blaster, but he\n didn't move. He bellowed, \"I have vowed a vow, Earthman. Take me to\n Earth, enroll a Gursdrinn, or the consequences will be terrible!\"\nI'm a man of principles, like all straightforward double-dealers, and\n one of the most important of those principles is that I never let\n myself be bullied by anyone. \"I deeply regret having unintentionally\n insulted your clan, Freeman Heraal. Will you accept my apologies?\"\n\n\n He glared at me in silence.\n\n\n I went on, \"Please be assured that I'll undo the insult at the earliest\n possible opportunity. It's not feasible for us to hire another\n Kallerian now, but I'll give preference to the Clan Gursdrinn as soon\n as a vacancy\u2014\"\n\n\n \"No. You will hire me now.\"\n\n\n \"It can't be done, Freeman Heraal. We have a budget, and we stick to\n it.\"\n\n\n \"You will rue! I will take drastic measures!\"\n\n\n \"Threats will get you nowhere, Freeman Heraal. I give you my word I'll\n get in touch with you as soon as our organization has room for another\n Kallerian. And now, please, there are many applicants waiting\u2014\"\n\n\n You'd think it would be sort of humiliating to become a specimen in a\n zoo, but most of these races take it as an honor. And there's always\n the chance that, by picking a given member of a race, we're insulting\n all the others.\n\n\n I nudged the trouble-button on the side of my desk and Auchinleck and\n Ludlow appeared simultaneously from the two doors at right and left.\n They surrounded the towering Kallerian and sweet-talkingly led him\n away. He wasn't minded to quarrel physically, or he could have knocked\n them both into the next city with a backhand swipe of his shaggy paw,\n but he kept up a growling flow of invective and threats until he was\n out in the hall.\n\n\n I mopped sweat from my forehead and began to buzz Stebbins for the next\n applicant. But before my finger touched the button, the door popped\n open and a small being came scooting in, followed by an angry Stebbins.\n\n\n \"Come here, you!\"\n\n\n \"Stebbins?\" I said gently.\n\n\n \"I'm sorry, Mr. Corrigan. I lost sight of this one for a moment, and he\n came running in\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Please, please,\" squeaked the little alien pitifully. \"I must see you,\n honored sir!\"\n\n\n \"It isn't his turn in line,\" Stebbins protested. \"There are at least\n fifty ahead of him.\"\n\"All right,\" I said tiredly. \"As long as he's in here already, I might\n as well see him. Be more careful next time, Stebbins.\"\n\n\n Stebbins nodded dolefully and backed out.\nThe alien was a pathetic sight: a Stortulian, a squirrely-looking\n creature about three feet high. His fur, which should have been a\n lustrous black, was a dull gray, and his eyes were wet and sad. His\n tail drooped. His voice was little more than a faint whimper, even at\n full volume.\n\n\n \"Begging your most honored pardon most humbly, important sir. I am a\n being of Stortul XII, having sold my last few possessions to travel\n to Ghryne for the miserable purpose of obtaining an interview with\n yourself.\"\n\n\n I said, \"I'd better tell you right at the outset that we're already\n carrying our full complement of Stortulians. We have both a male and a\n female now and\u2014\"\n\n\n \"This is known to me. The female\u2014is her name perchance Tiress?\"\n\n\n I glanced down at the inventory chart until I found the Stortulian\n entry. \"Yes, that's her name.\"\n\n\n The little being immediately emitted a soul-shaking gasp. \"It is she!\n It is she!\"\n\n\n \"I'm afraid we don't have room for any more\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You are not in full understanding of my plight. The female Tiress,\n she is\u2014was\u2014my own Fire-sent spouse, my comfort and my warmth, my life\n and my love.\"\n\n\n \"Funny,\" I said. \"When we signed her three years ago, she said she was\n single. It's right here on the chart.\"\n\n\n \"She lied! She left my burrow because she longed to see the splendors\n of Earth. And I am alone, bound by our sacred customs never to remarry,\n languishing in sadness and pining for her return. You\nmust\ntake me to\n Earth!\"\n\n\n \"But\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I must see her\u2014her and this disgrace-bringing lover of hers. I must\n reason with her. Earthman, can't you see I must appeal to her inner\n flame?\nI must bring her back!\n\"\n\n\n My face was expressionless. \"You don't really intend to join our\n organization at all\u2014you just want free passage to Earth?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, yes!\" wailed the Stortulian. \"Find some other member of my race,\n if you must! Let me have my wife again, Earthman! Is your heart a dead\n lump of stone?\"\nIt isn't, but another of my principles is to refuse to be swayed by\n sentiment. I felt sorry for this being's domestic troubles, but I\n wasn't going to break up a good act just to make an alien squirrel\n happy\u2014not to mention footing the transportation.\n\n\n I said, \"I don't see how we can manage it. The laws are very strict\n on the subject of bringing alien life to Earth. It has to be for\n scientific purposes only. And if I know in advance that your purpose in\n coming isn't scientific, I can't in all conscience\nlie\nfor you, can\n I?\"\n\n\n \"Well\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Of course not.\" I took advantage of his pathetic upset to steam right\n along. \"Now if you had come in here and simply asked me to sign you up,\n I might conceivably have done it. But no\u2014you had to go unburden your\n heart to me.\"\n\n\n \"I thought the truth would move you.\"\n\n\n \"It did. But in effect you're now asking me to conspire in a fraudulent\n criminal act. Friend, I can't do it. My reputation means too much to\n me,\" I said piously.\n\n\n \"Then you will refuse me?\"\n\n\n \"My heart melts to nothingness for you. But I can't take you to Earth.\"\n\n\n \"Perhaps you will send my wife to me here?\"\n\n\n There's a clause in every contract that allows me to jettison an\n unwanted specimen. All I have to do is declare it no longer of\n scientific interest, and the World Government will deport the\n undesirable alien back to its home world. But I wouldn't pull a low\n trick like that on our female Stortulian.\n\n\n I said, \"I'll ask her about coming home. But I won't ship her back\n against her will. And maybe she's happier where she is.\"\n\n\n The Stortulian seemed to shrivel. His eyelids closed half-way to mask\n his tears. He turned and shambled slowly to the door, walking like a\n living dishrag. In a bleak voice, he said, \"There is no hope then. All\n is lost. I will never see my soulmate again. Good day, Earthman.\"\n\n\n He spoke in a drab monotone that almost, but not quite, had me weeping.\n I watched him shuffle out. I do have\nsome\nconscience, and I had the\n uneasy feeling I had just been talking to a being who was about to\n commit suicide on my account.\nAbout fifty more applicants were processed without a hitch. Then life\n started to get complicated again.\n\n\n Nine of the fifty were okay. The rest were unacceptable for one reason\n or another, and they took the bad news quietly enough. The haul for the\n day so far was close to two dozen new life-forms under contract.\n\n\n I had just about begun to forget about the incidents of the Kallerian's\n outraged pride and the Stortulian's flighty wife when the door opened\n and the Earthman who called himself Ildwar Gorb of Wazzenazz XIII\n stepped in.\n\n\n \"How did\nyou\nget in here?\" I demanded.\n\n\n \"Your man happened to be looking the wrong way,\" he said cheerily.\n \"Change your mind about me yet?\"\n\n\n \"Get out before I have you thrown out.\"\n\n\n Gorb shrugged. \"I figured you hadn't changed your mind, so I've changed\n my pitch a bit. If you won't believe I'm from Wazzenazz XIII, suppose I\n tell you that I\nam\nEarthborn, and that I'm looking for a job on your\n staff.\"\n\n\n \"I don't care\nwhat\nyour story is! Get out or\u2014\"\n\n\n \"\u2014you'll have me thrown out. Okay, okay. Just give me half a second.\n Corrigan, you're no fool, and neither am I\u2014but that fellow of yours\n outside\nis\n. He doesn't know how to handle alien beings. How many\n times today has a life-form come in here unexpectedly?\"\n\n\n I scowled at him. \"Too damn many.\"\n\n\n \"You see? He's incompetent. Suppose you fire him, take me on instead.\n I've been living in the outworlds half my life; I know all there is to\n know about alien life-forms. You can use me, Corrigan.\"\n\n\n I took a deep breath and glanced all around the paneled ceiling of\n the office before I spoke. \"Listen, Gorb, or whatever your name is,\n I've had a hard day. There's been a Kallerian in here who just about\n threatened murder, and there's been a Stortulian in here who's about\n to commit suicide because of me. I have a conscience and it's troubling\n me. But get this: I just want to finish off my recruiting, pack up and\n go home to Earth. I don't want you hanging around here bothering me.\n I'm not looking to hire new staff members, and if you switch back to\n claiming you're an unknown life-form from Wazzenazz XIII, the answer is\n that I'm not looking for any of\nthose\neither. Now will you scram or\u2014\"\n\n\n The office door crashed open at that point and Heraal, the Kallerian,\n came thundering in. He was dressed from head to toe in glittering\n metalfoil, and instead of his ceremonial blaster, he was wielding\n a sword the length of a human being. Stebbins and Auchinleck came\n dragging helplessly along in his wake, hanging desperately to his belt.\n\n\n \"Sorry, Chief,\" Stebbins gasped. \"I tried to keep him out, but\u2014\"\n\n\n Heraal, who had planted himself in front of my desk, drowned him out\n with a roar. \"Earthman, you have mortally insulted the Clan Gursdrinn!\"\nSitting with my hands poised near the meshgun trigger, I was ready to\n let him have it at the first sight of actual violence.\n\n\n Heraal boomed, \"You are responsible for what is to happen now. I have\n notified the authorities and you prosecuted will be for causing the\n death of a life-form! Suffer, Earthborn ape! Suffer!\"\n\n\n \"Watch it, Chief,\" Stebbins yelled. \"He's going to\u2014\"\n\n\n An instant before my numb fingers could tighten on the meshgun\n trigger, Heraal swung that huge sword through the air and plunged it\n savagely through his body. He toppled forward onto the carpet with the\n sword projecting a couple of feet out of his back. A few driblets of\n bluish-purple blood spread from beneath him.\n\n\n Before I could react to the big life-form's hara-kiri, the office door\n flew open again and three sleek reptilian beings entered, garbed in the\n green sashes of the local police force. Their golden eyes goggled down\n at the figure on the floor, then came to rest on me.\n\n\n \"You are J. F. Corrigan?\" the leader asked.\n\n\n \"Y-yes.\"\n\n\n \"We have received word of a complaint against you. Said complaint\n being\u2014\"\n\n\n \"\u2014that your unethical actions have directly contributed to the\n untimely death of an intelligent life-form,\" filled in the second of\n the Ghrynian policemen.\n\n\n \"The evidence lies before us,\" intoned the leader, \"in the cadaver\n of the unfortunate Kallerian who filed the complaint with us several\n minutes ago.\"\n\n\n \"And therefore,\" said the third lizard, \"it is our duty to arrest\n you for this crime and declare you subject to a fine of no less than\n $100,000 Galactic or two years in prison.\"\n\n\n \"Hold on!\" I stormed. \"You mean that any being from anywhere in the\n Universe can come in here and gut himself on my carpet, and\nI'm\nresponsible?\"\n\n\n \"This is the law. Do you deny that your stubborn refusal to yield to\n this late life-form's request lies at the root of his sad demise?\"\n\n\n \"Well, no, but\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Failure to deny is admission of guilt. You are guilty, Earthman.\"\nClosing my eyes wearily, I tried to wish the whole babbling lot of them\n away. If I had to, I could pony up the hundred-grand fine, but it was\n going to put an awful dent in this year's take. And I shuddered when I\n remembered that any minute that scrawny little Stortulian was likely to\n come bursting in here to kill himself too. Was it a fine of $100,000\n per suicide? At that rate, I could be out of business by nightfall.\n\n\n I was spared further such morbid thoughts by yet another unannounced\n arrival.\n\n\n The small figure of the Stortulian trudged through the open doorway\n and stationed itself limply near the threshold. The three Ghrynian\n policemen and my three assistants forgot the dead Kallerian for a\n moment and turned to eye the newcomer.\n\n\n I had visions of unending troubles with the law here on Ghryne. I\n resolved never to come here on a recruiting trip again\u2014or, if I\ndid\ncome, to figure out some more effective way of screening myself against\n crackpots.\n\n\n In heart-rending tones, the Stortulian declared, \"Life is no longer\n worth living. My last hope is gone. There is only one thing left for me\n to do.\"\n\n\n I was quivering at the thought of another hundred thousand smackers\n going down the drain. \"Stop him, somebody! He's going to kill himself!\n He's\u2014\"\n\n\n Then somebody sprinted toward me, hit me amidships, and knocked me\n flying out from behind my desk before I had a chance to fire the\n meshgun. My head walloped the floor, and for five or six seconds, I\n guess I wasn't fully aware of what was going on.\n\n\n Gradually the scene took shape around me. There was a monstrous hole\n in the wall behind my desk; a smoking blaster lay on the floor, and I\n saw the three Ghrynian policemen sitting on the raving Stortulian. The\n man who called himself Ildwar Gorb was getting to his feet and dusting\n himself off.\n\n\n He helped me up. \"Sorry to have had to tackle you, Corrigan. But that\n Stortulian wasn't here to commit suicide, you see. He was out to get\n you.\"\n\n\n I weaved dizzily toward my desk and dropped into my chair. A flying\n fragment of wall had deflated my pneumatic cushion. The smell of ashed\n plaster was everywhere. The police were effectively cocooning the\n struggling little alien in an unbreakable tanglemesh.\n\n\n \"Evidently you don't know as much as you think you do about Stortulian\n psychology, Corrigan,\" Gorb said lightly. \"Suicide is completely\n abhorrent to them. When they're troubled, they kill the person who\n caused their trouble. In this case, you.\"\nI began to chuckle\u2014more of a tension-relieving snicker than a\n full-bodied laugh.\n\n\n \"Funny,\" I said.\n\n\n \"What is?\" asked the self-styled Wazzenazzian.\n\n\n \"These aliens. Big blustery Heraal came in with murder in his eye and\n killed\nhimself\n, and the pint-sized Stortulian who looked so meek and\n pathetic damn near blew my head off.\" I shuddered. \"Thanks for the\n tackle job.\"\n\n\n \"Don't mention it,\" Gorb said.\n\n\n I glared at the Ghrynian police. \"Well? What are you waiting for? Take\n that murderous little beast out of here! Or isn't murder against the\n local laws?\"\n\n\n \"The Stortulian will be duly punished,\" replied the leader of the\n Ghrynian cops calmly. \"But there is the matter of the dead Kallerian\n and the fine of\u2014\"\n\n\n \"\u2014one hundred thousand dollars. I know.\" I groaned and turned to\n Stebbins. \"Get the Terran Consulate on the phone, Stebbins. Have them\n send down a legal adviser. Find out if there's any way we can get out\n of this mess with our skins intact.\"\n\n\n \"Right, Chief.\" Stebbins moved toward the visiphone.\n\n\n Gorb stepped forward and put a hand on his chest.\n\n\n \"Hold it,\" the Wazzenazzian said crisply. \"The Consulate can't help\n you. I can.\"\n\n\n \"You?\" I said.\n\n\n \"I can get you out of this cheap.\"\n\n\n \"\nHow\ncheap?\"\n\n\n Gorb grinned rakishly. \"Five thousand in cash plus a contract as a\n specimen with your outfit. In advance, of course. That's a heck of a\n lot better than forking over a hundred grand, isn't it?\"\n\n\n I eyed Gorb uncertainly. The Terran Consulate people probably wouldn't\n be much help; they tried to keep out of local squabbles unless they\n were really serious, and I knew from past experiences that no officials\n ever worried much about the state of my pocketbook. On the other hand,\n giving this slyster a contract might be a risky proposition.\n\n\n \"Tell you what,\" I said finally. \"You've got yourself a deal\u2014but on\n a contingency basis. Get me out of this and you'll have five grand and\n the contract. Otherwise, nothing.\"\n\n\n Gorb shrugged. \"What have I to lose?\"",
    "50988": "Bodyguard\nBy CHRISTOPHER GRIMM\n\n\n Illustrated by CAVAT\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction February 1956.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nWhen overwhelming danger is constantly present,of course\n \na man is entitled to have a bodyguard. The annoyance was that\n \nhe had to do it himself ... and his body would not cooperate!\nThe man at the bar was exceptionally handsome, and he knew it. So did\n the light-haired girl at his side, and so did the nondescript man in\n the gray suit who was watching them from a booth in the corner.\n\n\n Everyone in the room was aware of the big young man, and most of the\n humans present were resentful, for he handled himself consciously and\n arrogantly, as if his appearance alone were enough to make him superior\n to anyone. Even the girl with him was growing restless, for she was\n accustomed to adulation herself, and next to Gabriel Lockard she was\n almost ordinary-looking.\n\n\n As for the extraterrestrials\u2014it was a free bar\u2014they were merely\n amused, since to them all men were pathetically and irredeemably\n hideous.\n\n\n Gabe threw his arm wide in one of his expansive gestures. There was a\n short man standing next to the pair\u2014young, as most men and women were\n in that time, thanks to the science which could stave off decay, though\n not death\u2014but with no other apparent physical virtue, for plastic\n surgery had not fulfilled its bright promise of the twentieth century.\n\n\n The drink he had been raising to his lips splashed all over his\n clothing; the glass shattered at his feet. Now he was not only a rather\n ugly little man, but also a rather ridiculous one\u2014or at least he felt\n he was, which was what mattered.\n\n\n \"Sorry, colleague,\" Gabe said lazily. \"All my fault. You must let me\n buy you a replacement.\" He gestured to the bartender. \"Another of the\n same for my fellow-man here.\"\n\n\n The ugly man dabbed futilely at his dripping trousers with a cloth\n hastily supplied by the management.\n\n\n \"You must allow me to pay your cleaning bill,\" Gabe said, taking out\n his wallet and extracting several credit notes without seeming to look\n at them. \"Here, have yourself a new suit on me.\"\nYou could use one\nwas implied.\n\n\n And that, coming on top of Gabriel Lockard's spectacular appearance,\n was too much. The ugly man picked up the drink the bartender had just\n set before him and started to hurl it, glass and all, into Lockard's\n handsome face.\nSuddenly a restraining hand was laid upon his arm. \"Don't do that,\" the\n nondescript man who had been sitting in the corner advised. He removed\n the glass from the little man's slackening grasp. \"You wouldn't want to\n go to jail because of him.\"\n\n\n The ugly man gave him a bewildered stare. Then, seeing the forces\n now ranged against him\u2014including his own belated prudence\u2014were too\n strong, he stumbled off. He hadn't really wanted to fight, only to\n smash back, and now it was too late for that.\n\n\n Gabe studied the newcomer curiously. \"So, it's you again?\"\n\n\n The man in the gray suit smiled. \"Who else in any world would stand up\n for you?\"\n\n\n \"I should think you'd have given up by now. Not that I mind having you\n around, of course,\" Gabriel added too quickly. \"You do come in useful\n at times, you know.\"\n\n\n \"So you don't mind having me around?\" The nondescript man smiled again.\n \"Then what are you running from, if not me? You can't be running from\n yourself\u2014you lost yourself a while back, remember?\"\n\n\n Gabe ran a hand through his thick blond hair. \"Come on, have a drink\n with me, fellow-man, and let's let bygones be bygones. I owe you\n something\u2014I admit that. Maybe we can even work this thing out.\"\n\n\n \"I drank with you once too often,\" the nondescript man said. \"And\n things worked out fine, didn't they? For you.\" His eyes studied the\n other man's incredibly handsome young face, noted the suggestion of\n bags under the eyes, the beginning of slackness at the lips, and were\n not pleased with what they saw. \"Watch yourself, colleague,\" he warned\n as he left. \"Soon you might not be worth the saving.\"\n\n\n \"Who was that, Gabe?\" the girl asked.\n\n\n He shrugged. \"I never saw him before in my life.\" Of course, knowing\n him, she assumed he was lying, but, as a matter of fact, just then he\n happened to have been telling the truth.\nOnce the illuminators were extinguished in Gabriel Lockard's hotel\n suite, it seemed reasonably certain to the man in the gray suit, as\n he watched from the street, that his quarry would not go out again\n that night. So he went to the nearest airstation. There he inserted a\n coin in a locker, into which he put most of his personal possessions,\n reserving only a sum of money. After setting the locker to respond to\n the letter combination\nbodyguard\n, he went out into the street.\n\n\n If he had met with a fatal accident at that point, there would have\n been nothing on his body to identify him. As a matter of fact, no real\n identification was possible, for he was no one and had been no one for\n years.\n\n\n The nondescript man hailed a cruising helicab. \"Where to, fellow-man?\"\n the driver asked.\n\n\n \"I'm new in the parish,\" the other man replied and let it hang there.\n\n\n \"Oh...? Females...? Narcophagi...? Thrill-mills?\"\n\n\n But to each of these questions the nondescript man shook his head.\n\n\n \"Games?\" the driver finally asked, although he could guess what was\n wanted by then. \"Dice...? Roulette...? Farjeen?\"\n\n\n \"Is there a good zarquil game in town?\"\n\n\n The driver moved so he could see the face of the man behind him in the\n teleview. A very ordinary face. \"Look, colleague, why don't you commit\n suicide? It's cleaner and quicker.\"\n\n\n \"I can't contact your attitude,\" the passenger said with a thin\n smile. \"Bet you've never tried the game yourself. Each time it\n happens, there's a ... well, there's no experience to match it at a\n thrill-mill.\" He gave a sigh that was almost an audible shudder, and\n which the driver misinterpreted as an expression of ecstasy.\n\n\n \"Each time, eh? You're a dutchman then?\" The driver spat out of the\n window. \"If it wasn't for the nibble, I'd throw you right out of the\n cab. Without even bothering to take it down even. I hate dutchmen ...\n anybody with any legitimate feelings hates 'em.\"\n\n\n \"But it would be silly to let personal prejudice stand in the way of a\n commission, wouldn't it?\" the other man asked coolly.\n\n\n \"Of course. You'll need plenty of foliage, though.\"\n\n\n \"I have sufficient funds. I also have a gun.\"\n\n\n \"You're the dictator,\" the driver agreed sullenly.\nII\n\n\n It was a dark and rainy night in early fall. Gabe Lockard was in no\n condition to drive the helicar. However, he was stubborn.\n\n\n \"Let me take the controls, honey,\" the light-haired girl urged, but he\n shook his handsome head.\n\n\n \"Show you I can do something 'sides look pretty,\" he said thickly,\n referring to an earlier and not amicable conversation they had held,\n and of which she still bore the reminder on one thickly made-up cheek.\n\n\n Fortunately the car was flying low, contrary to regulations, so that\n when they smashed into the beacon tower on the outskirts of the little\n town, they didn't have far to fall. And hardly had their car crashed\n on the ground when the car that had been following them landed, and a\n short fat man was puffing toward them through the mist.\n\n\n To the girl's indignation, the stranger not only hauled Gabe out onto\n the dripping grass first, but stopped and deliberately examined the\n young man by the light of his minilume, almost as if she weren't there\n at all. Only when she started to struggle out by herself did he seem to\n remember her existence. He pulled her away from the wreck just a moment\n before the fuel tank exploded and the 'copter went up in flames.\n\n\n Gabe opened his eyes and saw the fat man gazing down at him\n speculatively. \"My guardian angel,\" he mumbled\u2014shock had sobered him\n a little, but not enough. He sat up. \"Guess I'm not hurt or you'd have\n thrown me back in.\"\n\n\n \"And that's no joke,\" the fat man agreed.\n\n\n The girl shivered and at that moment Gabriel suddenly seemed to recall\n that he had not been alone. \"How about Helen? She on course?\"\n\n\n \"Seems to be,\" the fat man said. \"You all right, miss?\" he asked,\n glancing toward the girl without, she thought, much apparent concern.\n\n\n \"\nMrs.\n,\" Gabriel corrected. \"Allow me to introduce you to Mrs. Gabriel\n Lockard,\" he said, bowing from his seated position toward the girl.\n \"Pretty bauble, isn't she?\"\n\n\n \"I'm delighted to meet you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard,\" the fat man said,\n looking at her intently. His small eyes seemed to strip the make-up\n from her cheek and examine the livid bruise underneath. \"I hope\n you'll be worthy of the name.\" The light given off by the flaming\n car flickered on his face and Gabriel's and, she supposed, hers too.\n Otherwise, darkness surrounded the three of them.\n\n\n There were no public illuminators this far out\u2014even in town the\n lights were dimming and not being replaced fast enough nor by the\n newer models. The town, the civilization, the planet all were old and\n beginning to slide downhill....\n\n\n Gabe gave a short laugh, for no reason that she could see.\nThere was the feeling that she had encountered the fat man before,\n which was, of course, absurd. She had an excellent memory for faces and\n his was not included in her gallery. The girl pulled her thin jacket\n closer about her chilly body. \"Aren't you going to introduce your\u2014your\n friend to me, Gabe?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know who he is,\" Gabe said almost merrily, \"except that he's\n no friend of mine. Do you have a name, stranger?\"\n\n\n \"Of course I have a name.\" The fat man extracted an identification\n card from his wallet and read it. \"Says here I'm Dominic Bianchi, and\n Dominic Bianchi is a retail milgot dealer.... Only he isn't a retail\n milgot dealer any more; the poor fellow went bankrupt a couple of weeks\n ago, and now he isn't ... anything.\"\n\n\n \"You saved our lives,\" the girl said. \"I'd like to give you some token\n of my\u2014of our appreciation.\" Her hand reached toward her credit-carrier\n with deliberate insult. He might have saved her life, but only\n casually, as a by-product of some larger scheme, and her appreciation\n held little gratitude.\n\n\n The fat man shook his head without rancor. \"I have plenty of money,\n thank you, Mrs. Gabriel Lockard.... Come,\" he addressed her husband,\n \"if you get up, I'll drive you home. I warn you, be more careful in the\n future! Sometimes,\" he added musingly, \"I almost wish you would let\n something happen. Then my problem would not be any problem, would it?\"\n\n\n Gabriel shivered. \"I'll be careful,\" he vowed. \"I promise\u2014I'll be\n careful.\"\nWhen he was sure that his charge was safely tucked in for the night,\n the fat man checked his personal possessions. He then requested a taxi\n driver to take him to the nearest zarquil game. The driver accepted the\n commission phlegmatically. Perhaps he was more hardened than the others\n had been; perhaps he was unaware that the fat man was not a desperate\n or despairing individual seeking one last chance, but what was known\n colloquially as a flying dutchman, a man, or woman, who went from\n one zarquil game to another, loving the thrill of the sport, if you\n could call it that, for its own sake, and not for the futile hope it\n extended and which was its sole shred of claim to moral justification.\n Perhaps\u2014and this was the most likely hypothesis\u2014he just didn't care.\n\n\n Zarquil was extremely illegal, of course\u2014so much so that there were\n many legitimate citizens who weren't quite sure just what the word\n implied, knowing merely that it was one of those nameless horrors so\n deliciously hinted at by the fax sheets under the generic term of\n \"crimes against nature.\" Actually the phrase was more appropriate to\n zarquil than to most of the other activities to which it was commonly\n applied. And this was one crime\u2014for it was crime in law as well as\n nature\u2014in which victim had to be considered as guilty as perpetrator;\n otherwise the whole legal structure of society would collapse.\nPlaying the game was fabulously expensive; it had to be to make it\n profitable for the Vinzz to run it. Those odd creatures from Altair's\n seventh planet cared nothing for the welfare of the completely alien\n human beings; all they wanted was to feather their own pockets with\n interstellar credits, so that they could return to Vinau and buy many\n slaves. For, on Vinau, bodies were of little account, and so to them\n zarquil was the equivalent of the terrestrial game musical chairs.\n Which was why they came to Terra to make profits\u2014there has never been\n big money in musical chairs as such.\n\n\n When the zarquil operators were apprehended, which was not frequent\u2014as\n they had strange powers, which, not being definable, were beyond the\n law\u2014they suffered their sentences with equanimity. No Earth court\n could give an effective prison sentence to a creature whose life\n spanned approximately two thousand terrestrial years. And capital\n punishment had become obsolete on Terra, which very possibly saved the\n terrestrials embarrassment, for it was not certain that their weapons\n could kill the Vinzz ... or whether, in fact, the Vinzz merely expired\n after a period of years out of sheer boredom. Fortunately, because\n trade was more profitable than war, there had always been peace between\n Vinau and Terra, and, for that reason, Terra could not bar the entrance\n of apparently respectable citizens of a friendly planet.\n\n\n The taxi driver took the fat man to one of the rather seedy locales in\n which the zarquil games were usually found, for the Vinzz attempted to\n conduct their operations with as much unobtrusiveness as was possible.\n But the front door swung open on an interior that lacked the opulence\n of the usual Vinoz set-up; it was down-right shabby, the dim olive\n light hinting of squalor rather than forbidden pleasures. That was\n the trouble in these smaller towns\u2014you ran greater risks of getting\n involved in games where the players had not been carefully screened.\n\n\n The Vinoz games were usually clean, because that paid off better, but,\n when profits were lacking, the Vinzz were capable of sliding off into\n darkside practices. Naturally the small-town houses were more likely to\n have trouble in making ends meet, because everybody in the parish knew\n everybody else far too well.\n\n\n The fat man wondered whether that had been his quarry's motive in\n coming to such desolate, off-trail places\u2014hoping that eventually\n disaster would hit the one who pursued him. Somehow, such a plan seemed\n too logical for the man he was haunting.\n\n\n However, beggars could not be choosers. The fat man paid off the\n heli-driver and entered the zarquil house. \"One?\" the small green\n creature in the slightly frayed robe asked.\n\n\n \"One,\" the fat man answered.\nIII\n\n\n The would-be thief fled down the dark alley, with the hot bright rays\n from the stranger's gun lancing out after him in flamboyant but futile\n patterns. The stranger, a thin young man with delicate, angular\n features, made no attempt to follow. Instead, he bent over to examine\n Gabriel Lockard's form, appropriately outstretched in the gutter. \"Only\n weighted out,\" he muttered, \"he'll be all right. Whatever possessed you\n two to come out to a place like this?\"\n\n\n \"I really think Gabriel\nmust\nbe possessed....\" the girl said, mostly\n to herself. \"I had no idea of the kind of place it was going to be\n until he brought me here. The others were bad, but this is even worse.\n It almost seems as if he went around looking for trouble, doesn't it?\"\n\n\n \"It does indeed,\" the stranger agreed, coughing a little. It was\n growing colder and, on this world, the cities had no domes to protect\n them from the climate, because it was Earth and the air was breathable\n and it wasn't worth the trouble of fixing up.\n\n\n The girl looked closely at him. \"You look different, but you\nare\nthe\n same man who pulled us out of that aircar crash, aren't you? And before\n that the man in the gray suit? And before that...?\"\n\n\n The young man's cheekbones protruded as he smiled. \"Yes, I'm all of\n them.\"\n\n\n \"Then what they say about the zarquil games is true? There are people\n who go around changing their bodies like\u2014like hats?\" Automatically she\n reached to adjust the expensive bit of blue synthetic on her moon-pale\n hair, for she was always conscious of her appearance; if she had not\n been so before marriage, Gabriel would have taught her that.\nHe smiled again, but coughed instead of speaking.\n\n\n \"But why do you do it?\nWhy!\nDo you like it? Or is it because of\n Gabriel?\" She was growing a little frantic; there was menace here\n and she could not understand it nor determine whether or not she was\n included in its scope. \"Do you want to keep him from recognizing you;\n is that it?\"\n\n\n \"Ask him.\"\n\n\n \"He won't tell me; he never tells me anything. We just keep running. I\n didn't recognize it as running at first, but now I realize that's what\n we've been doing ever since we were married. And running from you, I\n think?\"\n\n\n There was no change of expression on the man's gaunt face, and she\n wondered how much control he had over a body that, though second- or\n third- or fourth-hand, must be new to him. How well could he make it\n respond? What was it like to step into another person's casing? But she\n must not let herself think that way or she would find herself looking\n for a zarquil game. It would be one way of escaping Gabriel, but not,\n she thought, the best way; her body was much too good a one to risk so\n casually.\nIt was beginning to snow. Light, feathery flakes drifted down on her\n husband's immobile body. She pulled her thick coat\u2014of fur taken from\n some animal who had lived and died light-years away\u2014more closely about\n herself. The thin young man began to cough again.\n\n\n Overhead a tiny star seemed to detach itself from the pale flat disk\n of the Moon and hurl itself upward\u2014one of the interstellar ships\n embarking on its long voyage to distant suns. She wished that somehow\n she could be on it, but she was here, on this solitary old world in a\n barren solar system, with her unconscious husband and a strange man who\n followed them, and it looked as if here she would stay ... all three of\n them would stay....\n\n\n \"If you're after Gabriel, planning to hurt him,\" she asked, \"why then\n do you keep helping him?\"\n\n\n \"I am not helping\nhim\n. And he knows that.\"\n\n\n \"You'll change again tonight, won't you?\" she babbled. \"You always\n change after you ... meet us? I think I'm beginning to be able to\n identify you now, even when you're ... wearing a new body; there's\n something about you that doesn't change.\"\n\n\n \"Too bad he got married,\" the young man said. \"I could have followed\n him for an eternity and he would never have been able to pick me out\n from the crowd. Too bad he got married anyway,\" he added, his voice\n less impersonal, \"for your sake.\"\n\n\n She had come to the same conclusion in her six months of marriage, but\n she would not admit that to an outsider. Though this man was hardly an\n outsider; he was part of their small family group\u2014as long as she had\n known Gabriel, so long he must have known her. And she began to suspect\n that he was even more closely involved than that.\n\n\n \"Why must you change again?\" she persisted, obliquely approaching the\n subject she feared. \"You have a pretty good body there. Why run the\n risk of getting a bad one?\"\n\n\n \"This isn't a good body,\" he said. \"It's diseased. Sure, nobody's\n supposed to play the game who hasn't passed a thorough medical\n examination. But in the places to which your husband has been leading\n me, they're often not too particular, as long as the player has plenty\n of foliage.\"\n\n\n \"How\u2014long will it last you?\"\n\n\n \"Four or five months, if I'm careful.\" He smiled. \"But don't worry, if\n that's what you're doing; I'll get it passed on before then. It'll be\n expensive\u2014that's all. Bad landing for the guy who gets it, but then\n it was tough on me too, wasn't it?\"\n\n\n \"But how did you get into this ... pursuit?\" she asked again. \"And why\n are you doing it?\" People didn't have any traffic with Gabriel Lockard\n for fun, not after they got to know him. And this man certainly should\n know him better than most.\n\n\n \"Ask your husband.\"\n\n\n The original Gabriel Lockard looked down at the prostrate,\n snow-powdered figure of the man who had stolen his body and his name,\n and stirred it with his toe. \"I'd better call a cab\u2014he might freeze to\n death.\"\n\n\n He signaled and a cab came.\n\n\n \"Tell him, when he comes to,\" he said to the girl as he and the driver\n lifted the heavy form of her husband into the helicar, \"that I'm\n getting pretty tired of this.\" He stopped for a long spell of coughing.\n \"Tell him that sometimes I wonder whether cutting off my nose wouldn't,\n in the long run, be most beneficial for my face.\"\n\"Sorry,\" the Vinzz said impersonally, in English that was perfect\n except for the slight dampening of the sibilants, \"but I'm afraid you\n cannot play.\"\n\n\n \"Why not?\" The emaciated young man began to put on his clothes.\n\n\n \"You know why. Your body is worthless. And this is a reputable house.\"\n\n\n \"But I have plenty of money.\" The young man coughed. The Vinzz\n shrugged. \"I'll pay you twice the regular fee.\"\n\n\n The green one shook his head. \"Regrettably, I do mean what I say. This\n game is really clean.\"\n\n\n \"In a town like this?\"\n\n\n \"That is the reason we can afford to be honest.\" The Vinzz' tendrils\n quivered in what the man had come to recognize as amusement through\n long, but necessarily superficial acquaintance with the Vinzz. His\n heavy robe of what looked like moss-green velvet, but might have been\n velvet-green moss, encrusted with oddly faceted alien jewels, swung\n with him.\n\n\n \"We do a lot of business here,\" he said unnecessarily, for the whole\n set-up spelled wealth far beyond the dreams of the man, and he was by\n no means poor when it came to worldly goods. \"Why don't you try another\n town where they're not so particular?\"\n\n\n The young man smiled wryly. Just his luck to stumble on a sunny game.\n He never liked to risk following his quarry in the same configuration.\n And even though only the girl had actually seen him this time, he\n wouldn't feel at ease until he had made the usual body-shift. Was\n he changing because of Gabriel, he wondered, or was he using his own\n discoverment and identification simply as an excuse to cover the fact\n that none of the bodies that fell to his lot ever seemed to fit him?\n Was he activated solely by revenge or as much by the hope that in the\n hazards of the game he might, impossible though it now seemed, some day\n win another body that approached perfection as nearly as his original\n casing had?\n\n\n He didn't know. However, there seemed to be no help for it now; he\n would have to wait until they reached the next town, unless the girl,\n seeing him reappear in the same guise, would guess what had happened\n and tell her husband. He himself had been a fool to admit to her that\n the hulk he inhabited was a sick one; he still couldn't understand\n how he could so casually have entrusted her with so vital a piece of\n information.\nThe Vinzz had been locking antennae with another of his kind. Now they\n detached, and the first approached the man once more. \"There is, as it\n happens, a body available for a private game,\" he lisped. \"No questions\n to be asked or answered. All I can tell you is that it is in good\n health.\"\n\n\n The man hesitated. \"But unable to pass the screening?\" he murmured\n aloud. \"A criminal then.\"\n\n\n The green one's face\u2014if you could call it a face\u2014remained impassive.\n\n\n \"Male?\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" the Vinzz said primly. His kind did have certain ultimate\n standards to which they adhered rigidly, and one of those was the\n curious tabu against mixed games, strictly enforced even though it\n kept them from tapping a vast source of potential players. There had\n also never been a recorded instance of humans and extraterrestrials\n exchanging identities, but whether that was the result of tabu or\n biological impossibility, no one could tell.\n\n\n It might merely be prudence on the Vinzz' part\u2014if it had ever\n been proved that an alien life-form had \"desecrated\" a human body,\n Earthmen would clamor for war ... for on this planet humanity held\n its self-bestowed purity of birthright dear\u2014and the Vinzz, despite\n being unquestionably the stronger, were pragmatic pacifists. It had\n been undoubtedly some rabid member of the anti-alien groups active on\n Terra who had started the rumor that the planetary slogan of Vinau was,\n \"Don't beat 'em; cheat 'em.\"\n\n\n \"It would have to be something pretty nuclear for the other guy to take\n such a risk.\" The man rubbed his chin thoughtfully. \"How much?\"\n\n\n \"Thirty thousand credits.\"\n\n\n \"Why, that's three times the usual rate!\"\n\n\n \"The other will pay five times the usual rate.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, all right,\" the delicate young man gave in. It was a terrific\n risk he was agreeing to take, because, if the other was a criminal, he\n himself would, upon assuming the body, assume responsibility for all\n the crimes it had committed. But there was nothing else he could do.\nHe looked at himself in the mirror and found he had a fine new body;\n tall and strikingly handsome in a dark, coarse-featured way. Nothing to\n match the one he had lost, in his opinion, but there were probably many\n people who might find this one preferable. No identification in the\n pockets, but it wasn't necessary; he recognized the face. Not that it\n was a very famous or even notorious one, but the dutchman was a careful\n student of the \"wanted\" fax that had decorated public buildings from\n time immemorial, for he was ever mindful of the possibility that he\n might one day find himself trapped unwittingly in the body of one of\n the men depicted there. And he knew that this particular man, though\n not an important criminal in any sense of the word, was one whom the\n police had been ordered to burn on sight. The abolishing of capital\n punishment could not abolish the necessity for self-defense, and the\n man in question was not one who would let himself be captured easily,\n nor whom the police intended to capture easily.\nThis might be a lucky break for me after all\n, the new tenant thought,\n as he tried to adjust himself to the body. It, too, despite its obvious\n rude health, was not a very comfortable fit.\nI can do a lot with a\n hulk like this. And maybe I'm cleverer than the original owner; maybe\n I'll be able to get away with it.\nIV\n\n\n \"Look, Gabe,\" the girl said, \"don't try to fool me! I know you\n too well. And I know you have that man's\u2014the real Gabriel\n Lockard's\u2014body.\" She put unnecessary stardust on her nose as she\n watched her husband's reflection in the dressing table mirror.\n\n\n Lockard\u2014Lockard's body, at any rate\u2014sat up and felt his unshaven\n chin. \"That what he tell you?\"\n\n\n \"No, he didn't tell me anything really\u2014just suggested I ask you\n whatever I want to know. But why else should he guard somebody he\n obviously hates the way he hates you? Only because he doesn't want to\n see his body spoiled.\"\n\n\n \"It\nis\na pretty good body, isn't it?\" Gabe flexed softening muscles\n and made no attempt to deny her charge; very probably he was relieved\n at having someone with whom to share his secret.\n\n\n \"Not as good as it must have been,\" the girl said, turning and looking\n at him without admiration. \"Not if you keep on the way you're coursing.\n Gabe, why don't you...?\"\n\n\n \"Give it back to him, eh?\" Lockard regarded his wife appraisingly.\n \"You'd like that, wouldn't you? You'd be\nhis\nwife then. That would be\n nice\u2014a sound mind in a sound body. But don't you think that's a little\n more than you deserve?\"\n\n\n \"I wasn't thinking about that, Gabe,\" she said truthfully enough, for\n she hadn't followed the idea to its logical conclusion. \"Of course I'd\n go with you,\" she went on, now knowing she lied, \"when you got your ...\n old body back.\"\nSure\n, she thought,\nI'd keep going with you to farjeen houses and\n thrill-mills.\nActually she had accompanied him to a thrill-mill only\n once, and from then on, despite all his threats, she had refused to go\n with him again. But that once had been enough; nothing could ever wash\n that experience from her mind or her body.\n\n\n \"You wouldn't be able to get your old body back, though, would you?\"\n she went on. \"You don't know where it's gone, and neither, I suppose,\n does he?\"\n\n\n \"I don't want to know!\" he spat. \"I wouldn't want it if I could get\n it back. Whoever it adhered to probably killed himself as soon as he\n looked in a mirror.\" He swung long legs over the side of his bed.\n \"Christ, anything would be better than that! You can't imagine what a\n hulk I had!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, yes, I can,\" she said incautiously. \"You must have had a body to\n match your character. Pity you could only change one.\"",
    "51046": "... and it comes out here\nBy LESTER DEL REY\n\n\n Illustrated by DON SIBLEY\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction February 1951.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThere is one fact no sane man can quarrel\n\n with ... everything has a beginning and an end.\n\n But some men aren't sane; thus it isn't always so!\nNo, you're wrong. I'm not your father's ghost, even if I do look a bit\n like him. But it's a longish story, and you might as well let me in.\n You will, you know, so why quibble about it? At least, you always\n have ... or do ... or will. I don't know, verbs get all mixed up. We\n don't have the right attitude toward tenses for a situation like this.\n\n\n Anyhow, you'll let me in. I did, so you will.\n\n\n Thanks. You think you're crazy, of course, but you'll find out you\n aren't. It's just that things are a bit confused. And don't look at the\n machine out there too long\u2014until you get used to it, you'll find it's\n hard on the eyes, trying to follow where the vanes go. You'll get used\n to it, of course, but it will take about thirty years.\n\n\n You're wondering whether to give me a drink, as I remember it. Why not?\n And naturally, since we have the same tastes, you can make the same for\n me as you're having. Of course we have the same tastes\u2014we're the same\n person. I'm you thirty years from now, or you're me. I remember just\n how you feel; I felt the same way when he\u2014that is, of course, I or\n we\u2014came back to tell me about it, thirty years ago.\n\n\n Here, have one of these. You'll get to like them in a couple more\n years. And you can look at the revenue stamp date, if you still doubt\n my story. You'll believe it eventually, though, so it doesn't matter.\n\n\n Right now, you're shocked. It's a real wrench when a man meets himself\n for the first time. Some kind of telepathy seems to work between two\n of the same people. You\nsense\nthings. So I'll simply go ahead talking\n for half an hour or so, until you get over it. After that you'll come\n along with me. You know, I could try to change things around by telling\n what happened to me; but he\u2014I\u2014told me what I was going to do, so I\n might as well do the same. I probably couldn't help telling you the\n same thing in the same words, even if I tried\u2014and I don't intend to\n try. I've gotten past that stage in worrying about all this.\n\n\n So let's begin when you get up in half an hour and come out with me.\n You'll take a closer look at the machine, then. Yes, it'll be pretty\n obvious it must be a time machine. You'll sense that, too. You've seen\n it, just a small little cage with two seats, a luggage compartment, and\n a few buttons on a dash. You'll be puzzling over what I'll tell you,\n and you'll be getting used to the idea that you are the man who makes\n atomic power practical. Jerome Boell, just a plain engineer, the man\n who put atomic power in every home. You won't exactly believe it, but\n you'll want to go along.\nI'll be tired of talking by then, and in a hurry to get going. So I\n cut off your questions, and get you inside. I snap on a green button,\n and everything seems to cut off around us. You can see a sort of\n foggy nothing surrounding the cockpit; it is probably the field that\n prevents passage through time from affecting us. The luggage section\n isn't protected, though.\nYou start to say something, but by then I'm pressing a black button,\n and everything outside will disappear. You look for your house, but\n it isn't there. There is exactly nothing there\u2014in fact, there is no\nthere\n. You are completely outside of time and space, as best you can\n guess how things are.\n\n\n You can't feel any motion, of course. You try to reach a hand out\n through the field into the nothing around you and your hand goes out,\n all right, but nothing happens. Where the screen ends, your hand just\n turns over and pokes back at you. Doesn't hurt, and when you pull your\n arm back, you're still sound and uninjured. But it looks frightening\n and you don't try it again.\n\n\n Then it comes to you slowly that you're actually traveling in time.\n You turn to me, getting used to the idea. \"So this is the fourth\n dimension?\" you ask.\n\n\n Then you feel silly, because you'll remember that I said you'd ask\n that. Well, I asked it after I was told, then I came back and told it\n to you, and I still can't help answering when you speak.\n\n\n \"Not exactly,\" I try to explain. \"Maybe it's no dimension\u2014or it might\n be the fifth; if you're going to skip over the so-called fourth without\n traveling along it, you'd need a fifth. Don't ask me. I didn't invent\n the machine and I don't understand it.\"\n\n\n \"But....\"\n\n\n I let it go, and so do you. If you don't, it's a good way of going\n crazy. You'll see later why I couldn't have invented the machine. Of\n course, there may have been a start for all this once. There may have\n been a time when you did invent the machine\u2014the atomic motor first,\n then the time-machine. And when you closed the loop by going back and\n saving yourself the trouble, it got all tangled up. I figured out once\n that such a universe would need some seven or eight time and space\n dimensions. It's simpler just to figure that this is the way time got\n bent back on itself. Maybe there is no machine, and it's just easier\n for us to imagine it. When you spend thirty years thinking about it, as\n I did\u2014and you will\u2014you get further and further from an answer.\n\n\n Anyhow, you sit there, watching nothing all around you, and no time,\n apparently, though there is a time effect back in the luggage space.\n You look at your watch and it's still running. That means you either\n carry a small time field with you, or you are catching a small\n increment of time from the main field. I don't know, and you won't\n think about that then, either.\nI'm smoking, and so are you, and the air in the machine is getting a\n bit stale. You suddenly realize that everything in the machine is wide\n open, yet you haven't seen any effects of air loss.\n\n\n \"Where are we getting our air?\" you ask. \"Or why don't we lose it?\"\n\n\n \"No place for it to go,\" I explain. There isn't. Out there is neither\n time nor space, apparently. How could the air leak out? You still feel\n gravity, but I can't explain that, either. Maybe the machine has a\n gravity field built in, or maybe the time that makes your watch run is\n responsible for gravity. In spite of Einstein, you have always had the\n idea that time is an effect of gravity, and I sort of agree, still.\n\n\n Then the machine stops\u2014at least, the field around us cuts off. You\n feel a dankish sort of air replace the stale air, and you breathe\n easier, though we're in complete darkness, except for the weak light in\n the machine, which always burns, and a few feet of rough dirty cement\n floor around. You take another cigaret from me and you get out of the\n machine, just as I do.\n\n\n I've got a bundle of clothes and I start changing. It's a sort\n of simple, short-limbed, one-piece affair I put on, but it feels\n comfortable.\n\n\n \"I'm staying here,\" I tell you. \"This is like the things they wear in\n this century, as near as I can remember it, and I should be able to\n pass fairly well. I've had all my fortune\u2014the one you make on that\n atomic generator\u2014invested in such a way I can get it on using some\n identification I've got with me, so I'll do all right. I know they\n still use some kind of money, you'll see evidence of that. And it's a\n pretty easygoing civilization, from what I could see. We'll go up and\n I'll leave you. I like the looks of things here, so I won't be coming\n back with you.\"\n\n\n You nod, remembering I've told you about it. \"What century is this,\n anyway?\"\n\n\n I'd told you that, too, but you've forgotten. \"As near as I can guess,\n it's about 2150. He told me, just as I'm telling you, that it's an\n interstellar civilization.\"\n\n\n You take another cigaret from me, and follow me. I've got a small\n flashlight and we grope through a pile of rubbish, out into a corridor.\n This is a sub-sub-sub-basement. We have to walk up a flight of stairs,\n and there is an elevator waiting, fortunately with the door open.\n\n\n \"What about the time machine?\" you ask.\n\n\n \"Since nobody ever stole it, it's safe.\"\nWe get in the elevator, and I say \"first\" to it. It gives out a\n coughing noise and the basement openings begin to click by us. There's\n no feeling of acceleration\u2014some kind of false gravity they use in the\n future. Then the door opens, and the elevator says \"first\" back at us.\n\n\n It's obviously a service elevator and we're in a dim corridor, with\n nobody around. I grab your hand and shake it. \"You go that way. Don't\n worry about getting lost; you never did, so you can't. Find the museum,\n grab the motor, and get out. And good luck to you.\"\n\n\n You act as if you're dreaming, though you can't believe it's a dream.\n You nod at me and I move out into the main corridor. A second later,\n you see me going by, mixed into a crowd that is loafing along toward\n a restaurant, or something like it, that is just opening. I'm asking\n questions of a man, who points, and I turn and move off.\n\n\n You come out of the side corridor and go down a hall, away from the\n restaurant. There are quiet little signs along the hall. You look at\n them, realizing for the first time that things have changed.\nSteij:neri, Faunten, Z:rgat Dispenseri.\nThe signs are very quiet and\n dignified. Some of them can be decoded to stationery shops, fountains,\n and the like. What a zergot is, you don't know. You stop at a sign\n that announces:\nTrav:l Biwrou\u2014F:rst-Clas Twrz\u2014Marz, Viin*s, and\n x: Trouj:n Planets. Spej:l reits tu aol s*nz wixin 60 lyt iirz!\nBut\n there is only a single picture of a dull-looking metal sphere, with\n passengers moving up a ramp, and the office is closed. You begin to get\n the hang of the spelling they use, though.\n\n\n Now there are people around you, but nobody pays much attention to you.\n Why should they? You wouldn't care if you saw a man in a leopard-skin\n suit; you'd figure it was some part in a play and let it go. Well,\n people don't change much.\n\n\n You get up your courage and go up to a boy selling something that might\n be papers on tapes.\n\n\n \"Where can I find the Museum of Science?\"\n\n\n \"Downayer rien turn lefa the sign. Stoo bloss,\" he tells you. Around\n you, you hear some pretty normal English, but there are others using\n stuff as garbled as his. The educated and uneducated? I don't know.\n\n\n You go right until you find a big sign built into the rubbery surface\n of the walk:\nMiuzi:m *v Syens\n. There's an arrow pointing and you turn\n left. Ahead of you, two blocks on, you can see a pink building, with\n faint aqua trimming, bigger than most of the others. They are building\n lower than they used to, apparently. Twenty floors up seems about the\n maximum. You head for it, and find the sidewalk is marked with the\n information that it is the museum.\nYou go up the steps, but you see that it seems to be closed. You\n hesitate for a moment, then. You're beginning to think the whole affair\n is complete nonsense, and you should get back to the time machine and\n go home. But then a guard comes to the gate. Except for the short legs\n in his suit and the friendly grin on his face, he looks like any other\n guard.\n\n\n What's more, he speaks pretty clearly. Everyone says things in a sort\n of drawl, with softer vowels and slurred consonants, but it's rather\n pleasant.\n\n\n \"Help you, sir? Oh, of course. You must be playing in 'Atoms and\n Axioms.' The museum's closed, but I'll be glad to let you study\n whatever you need for realism in your role. Nice show. I saw it twice.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks,\" you mutter, wondering what kind of civilization can produce\n guards as polite as that. \"I\u2014I'm told I should investigate your\n display of atomic generators.\"\n\n\n He beams at that. \"Of course.\" The gate is swung to behind you, but\n obviously he isn't locking it. In fact, there doesn't seem to be a\n lock. \"Must be a new part. You go down that corridor, up one flight\n of stairs and left. Finest display in all the known worlds. We've got\n the original of the first thirteen models. Professor Jonas was using\n them to check his latest theory of how they work. Too bad he could\n not explain the principle, either. Someone will, some day, though.\n Lord, the genius of that twentieth century inventor! It's quite a\n hobby with me, sir. I've read everything I could get on the period.\n Oh\u2014congratulations on your pronunciation. Sounds just like some of our\n oldest tapes.\"\n\n\n You get away from him, finally, after some polite thanks. The building\n seems deserted and you wander up the stairs. There's a room on your\n right filled with something that proclaims itself the first truly\n plastic diamond former, and you go up to it. As you come near, it\n goes through a crazy wiggle inside, stops turning out a continual row\n of what seem to be bearings, and slips something the size of a penny\n toward you.\n\n\n \"Souvenir,\" it announces in a well-modulated voice. \"This is a typical\n gem of the twentieth century, properly cut to 58 facets, known\n technically as a Jaegger diamond, and approximately twenty carats\n in size. You can have it made into a ring on the third floor during\n morning hours for one-tenth credit. If you have more than one child,\n press the red button for the number of stones you desire.\"\n\n\n You put it in your pocket, gulping a little, and get back to the\n corridor. You turn left and go past a big room in which models of\n spaceships\u2014from the original thing that looks like a V-2, and is\n labeled first Lunar rocket, to a ten-foot globe, complete with\n miniature manikins\u2014are sailing about in some kind of orbits. Then\n there is one labeled\nWep:nz\n, filled with everything from a crossbow\n to a tiny rod four inches long and half the thickness of a pencil,\n marked\nFynal Hand Arm\n. Beyond is the end of the corridor, and a big\n place that bears a sign,\nMad:lz *v Atamic Pau:r Sorsez\n.\nBy that time, you're almost convinced. And you've been doing a lot of\n thinking about what you can do. The story I'm telling has been sinking\n in, but you aren't completely willing to accept it.\n\n\n You notice that the models are all mounted on tables and that they're a\n lot smaller than you thought. They seem to be in chronological order,\n and the latest one, marked\n2147\u2014Rincs Dyn*pat:\n, is about the size\n of a desk telephone. The earlier ones are larger, of course, clumsier,\n but with variations, probably depending on the power output. A big sign\n on the ceiling gives a lot of dope on atomic generators, explaining\n that this is the first invention which leaped full blown into basically\n final form.\n\n\n You study it, but it mentions casually the inventor, without giving\n his name. Either they don't know it, or they take it for granted that\n everyone does, which seems more probable. They call attention to the\n fact that they have the original model of the first atomic generator\n built, complete with design drawings, original manuscript on operation,\n and full patent application.\n\n\n They state that it has all major refinements, operating on any fuel,\n producing electricity at any desired voltage up to five million, any\n chosen cyclic rate from direct current to one thousand megacycles,\n and any amperage up to one thousand, its maximum power output being\n fifty kilowatts, limited by the current-carrying capacity of the\n outputs. They also mention that the operating principle is still being\n investigated, and that only such refinements as better alloys and the\n addition of magnetric and nucleatric current outlets have been added\n since the original.\n\n\n So you go to the end and look over the thing. It's simply a square box\n with a huge plug on each side, and a set of vernier controls on top,\n plus a little hole marked, in old-style spelling,\nDrop BBs or wire\n here\n. Apparently that's the way it's fueled. It's about one foot on\n each side.\n\n\n \"Nice,\" the guard says over your shoulder. \"It finally wore out one of\n the cathogrids and we had to replace that, but otherwise it's exactly\n as the great inventor made it. And it still operates as well as ever.\n Like to have me tell you about it?\"\n\n\n \"Not particularly,\" you begin, and then realize bad manners might be\n conspicuous here. While you're searching for an answer, the guard pulls\n something out of his pocket and stares at it.\n\n\n \"Fine, fine. The mayor of Altasecarba\u2014Centaurian, you know\u2014is\n arriving, but I'll be back in about ten minutes. He wants to examine\n some of the weapons for a monograph on Centaurian primitives compared\n to nineteenth century man. You'll pardon me?\"\n\n\n You pardon him pretty eagerly and he wanders off happily. You go up\n to the head of the line, to that Rinks Dynapattuh, or whatever it\n transliterates to. That's small and you can carry it. But the darned\n thing is absolutely fixed. You can't see any bolts, but you can't budge\n it, either.\nYou work down the line. It'd be foolish to take the early model if you\n can get one with built-in magnetic current terminals\u2014Ehrenhaft or\n some other principle?\u2014and nuclear binding-force energy terminals. But\n they're all held down by the same whatchamaycallem effect.\n\n\n And, finally, you're right back beside the original first model. It's\n probably bolted down, too, but you try it tentatively and you find it\n moves. There's a little sign under it, indicating you shouldn't touch\n it, since the gravostatic plate is being renewed.\n\n\n Well, you won't be able to change the time cycle by doing anything I\n haven't told you, but a working model such as that is a handy thing.\n You lift it; it only weighs about fifty pounds! Naturally, it can be\n carried.\n\n\n You expect a warning bell, but nothing happens. As a matter of fact,\n if you'd stop drinking so much of that scotch and staring at the time\n machine out there now, you'd hear what I'm saying and know what will\n happen to you. But of course, just as I did, you're going to miss a\n lot of what I say from now on, and have to find out for yourself. But\n maybe some of it helps. I've tried to remember how much I remembered,\n after he told me, but I can't be sure. So I'll keep on talking. I\n probably can't help it, anyhow. Pre-set, you might say.\n\n\n Well, you stagger down the corridor, looking out for the guard, but all\n seems clear. Then you hear his voice from the weapons room. You bend\n down and try to scurry past, but you know you're in full view. Nothing\n happens, though.\n\n\n You stumble down the stairs, feeling all the futuristic rays in the\n world on your back, and still nothing happens. Ahead of you, the gate\n is closed. You reach it and it opens obligingly by itself. You breathe\n a quick sigh of relief and start out onto the street.\n\n\n Then there's a yell behind you. You don't wait. You put one leg in\n front of the other and you begin racing down the walk, ducking past\n people, who stare at you with expressions you haven't time to see.\n There's another yell behind you.\n\n\n Something goes over your head and drops on the sidewalk just in front\n of your feet, with a sudden ringing sound. You don't wait to find out\n about that, either. Somebody reaches out a hand to catch you and you\n dart past.\nThe street is pretty clear now and you jolt along, with your arms\n seeming to come out of the sockets, and that atomic generator getting\n heavier at every step.\n\n\n Out of nowhere, something in a blue uniform about six feet tall and\n on the beefy side appears\u2014and the badge hasn't changed much. The cop\n catches your arm and you know you're not going to get away, so you stop.\n\n\n \"You can't exert yourself that hard in this heat, fellow,\" the cop\n says. \"There are laws against that, without a yellow sticker. Here, let\n me grab you a taxi.\"\nReaction sets in a bit and your knees begin to buckle, but you shake\n your head and come up for air.\n\n\n \"I\u2014I left my money home,\" you begin.\n\n\n The cop nods. \"Oh, that explains it. Fine, I won't have to give you\n an appearance schedule. But you should have come to me.\" He reaches\n out and taps a pedestrian lightly on the shoulder. \"Sir, an emergency\n request. Would you help this gentleman?\"\nThe pedestrian grins, looks at his watch, and nods. \"How far?\"\n\n\n You did notice the name of the building from which you came and you\n mutter it. The stranger nods again, reaches out and picks up the other\n side of the generator, blowing a little whistle the cop hands him.\n Pedestrians begin to move aside, and you and the stranger jog down the\n street at a trot, with a nice clear path, while the cop stands beaming\n at you both.\n\n\n That way, it isn't so bad. And you begin to see why I decided I might\n like to stay in the future. But all the same, the organized cooperation\n here doesn't look too good. The guard can get the same and be there\n before you.\n\n\n And he is. He stands just inside the door of the building as you reach\n it. The stranger lifts an eyebrow and goes off at once when you nod\n at him, not waiting for thanks. And the guard comes up, holding some\n dinkus in his hand, about the size of a big folding camera and not too\n dissimilar in other ways. He snaps it open and you get set to duck.\n\n\n \"You forgot the prints, monograph, and patent applications,\" he says.\n \"They go with the generator\u2014we don't like to have them separated. A\n good thing I knew the production office of 'Atoms and Axioms' was in\n this building. Just let us know when you're finished with the model and\n we'll pick it up.\"\n\n\n You swallow several sets of tonsils you had removed years before, and\n take the bundle of papers he hands you out of the little case. He pumps\n you for some more information, which you give him at random. It seems\n to satisfy your amiable guard friend. He finally smiles in satisfaction\n and heads back to the museum.\n\n\n You still don't believe it, but you pick up the atomic generator and\n the information sheets, and you head down toward the service elevator.\n There is no button on it. In fact, there's no door there.\n\n\n You start looking for other doors or corridors, but you know this is\n right. The signs along the halls are the same as they were.\nThen there's a sort of cough and something dilates in the wall. It\n forms a perfect door and the elevator stands there waiting. You get in,\n gulping out something about going all the way down, and then wonder how\n a machine geared for voice operation can make anything of that. What\n the deuce would that lowest basement be called? But the elevator has\n closed and is moving downward in a hurry. It coughs again and you're at\n the original level. You get out\u2014and realize you don't have a light.\n\n\n You'll never know what you stumbled over, but, somehow, you move back\n in the direction of the time machine, bumping against boxes, staggering\n here and there, and trying to find the right place by sheer feel. Then\n a shred of dim light appears; it's the weak light in the time machine.\n\n\n You've located it.\n\n\n You put the atomic generator in the luggage space, throw the papers\n down beside it, and climb into the cockpit, sweating and mumbling. You\n reach forward toward the green button and hesitate. There's a red one\n beside it and you finally decide on that.\n\n\n Suddenly, there's a confused yell from the direction of the elevator\n and a beam of light strikes against your eyes, with a shout punctuating\n it. Your finger touches the red button.\n\n\n You'll never know what the shouting was about\u2014whether they finally\n doped out the fact that they'd been robbed, or whether they were trying\n to help you. You don't care which it is. The field springs up around\n you and the next button you touch\u2014the one on the board that hasn't\n been used so far\u2014sends you off into nothingness. There is no beam of\n light, you can't hear a thing, and you're safe.\n\n\n It isn't much of a trip back. You sit there smoking and letting your\n nerves settle back to normal. You notice a third set of buttons, with\n some pencil marks over them\u2014\"Press these to return to yourself 30\n years\"\u2014and you begin waiting for the air to get stale. It doesn't\n because there is only one of you this time.\n\n\n Instead, everything flashes off and you're sitting in the machine in\n your own back yard.\n\n\n You'll figure out the cycle in more details later. You get into the\n machine in front of your house, go to the future in the sub-basement,\n land in your back yard, and then hop back thirty years to pick up\n yourself, landing in front of your house. Just that. But right then,\n you don't care. You jump out and start pulling out that atomic\n generator and taking it inside.\nIt isn't hard to disassemble, but you don't learn a thing; just some\n plates of metal, some spiral coils, and a few odds and ends\u2014all\n things that can be made easily enough, all obviously of common metals.\n But when you put it together again, about an hour later, you notice\n something.\n\n\n Everything in it is brand-new and there's one set of copper wires\n missing! It won't work. You put some #12 house wire in, exactly like\n the set on the other side, drop in some iron filings, and try it again.\n\n\n And with the controls set at 120 volts, 60 cycles and 15 amperes, you\n get just that. You don't need the power company any more. And you\n feel a little happier when you realize that the luggage space wasn't\n insulated from time effects by a field, so the motor has moved backward\n in time, somehow, and is back to its original youth\u2014minus the\n replaced wires the guard mentioned\u2014which probably wore out because of\n the makeshift job you've just done.\n\n\n But you begin getting more of a jolt when you find that the papers are\n all in your own writing, that your name is down as the inventor, and\n that the date of the patent application is 1951.\n\n\n It will begin to soak in, then. You pick up an atomic generator in the\n future and bring it back to the past\u2014your present\u2014so that it can be\n put in the museum with you as the inventor so you can steal it to be\n the inventor. And you do it in a time machine which you bring back to\n yourself to take yourself into the future to return to take back to\n yourself....\n\n\n Who invented what? And who built which?\n\n\n Before long, your riches from the generator are piling in. Little\n kids from school are coming around to stare at the man who changed\n history and made atomic power so common that no nation could hope to\n be anything but a democracy and a peaceful one\u2014after some of the\n worst times in history for a few years. Your name eventually becomes as\n common as Ampere, or Faraday, or any other spelled without a capital\n letter.\n\n\n But you're thinking of the puzzle. You can't find any answer.\n\n\n One day you come across an old poem\u2014something about some folks\n calling it evolution and others calling it God. You go out, make a few\n provisions for the future, and come back to climb into the time machine\n that's waiting in the building you had put around it. Then you'll be\n knocking on your own door, thirty years back\u2014or right now, from your\n view\u2014and telling your younger self all these things I'm telling you.\n\n\n But now....\n\n\n Well, the drinks are finished. You're woozy enough to go along with me\n without protest, and I want to find out just why those people up there\n came looking for you and shouting, before the time machine left.\n\n\n Let's go.",
    "51433": "HUNT the HUNTER\nBY KRIS NEVILLE\n\n\n Illustrated by ELIZABETH MacINTYRE\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction June 1951.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nOf course using live bait is the best\n\n way to lure dangerous alien animals ...\n\n unless it turns out that you are the bait!\n\"We're somewhat to the south, I think,\" Ri said, bending over the crude\n field map. \"That ridge,\" he pointed, \"on our left, is right here.\" He\n drew a finger down the map. \"It was over here,\" he moved the finger,\n \"over the ridge, north of here, that we sighted them.\"\n\n\n Extrone asked, \"Is there a pass?\"\n\n\n Ri looked up, studying the terrain. He moved his shoulders. \"I don't\n know, but maybe they range this far. Maybe they're on this side of the\n ridge, too.\"\n\n\n Delicately, Extrone raised a hand to his beard. \"I'd hate to lose a day\n crossing the ridge,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" Ri said. Suddenly he threw back his head. \"Listen!\"\n\n\n \"Eh?\" Extrone said.\n\n\n \"Hear it? That cough? I think that's one, from over there. Right up\n ahead of us.\"\n\n\n Extrone raised his eyebrows.\n\n\n This time, the coughing roar was more distant, but distinct.\n\n\n \"It is!\" Ri said. \"It's a farn beast, all right!\"\n\n\n Extrone smiled, almost pointed teeth showing through the beard. \"I'm\n glad we won't have to cross the ridge.\"\n\n\n Ri wiped his forehead on the back of his sleeve. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n \"We'll pitch camp right here, then,\" Extrone said. \"We'll go after it\n tomorrow.\" He looked at the sky. \"Have the bearers hurry.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n Ri moved away, his pulse gradually slowing. \"You, there!\" he called.\n \"Pitch camp, here!\"\n\n\n He crossed to Mia, who, along with him, had been pressed into Extrone's\n party as guides. Once more, Ri addressed the bearers, \"Be quick, now!\"\n And to Mia, \"God almighty, he was getting mad.\" He ran a hand under his\n collar. \"It's a good thing that farn beast sounded off when it did. I'd\n hate to think of making him climb that ridge.\"\n\n\n Mia glanced nervously over his shoulder. \"It's that damned pilot's\n fault for setting us down on this side. I told him it was the other\n side. I told him so.\"\n\n\n Ri shrugged hopelessly.\n\n\n Mia said, \"I don't think he even saw a blast area over here. I think he\n wanted to get us in trouble.\"\n\n\n \"There shouldn't be one. There shouldn't be a blast area on this side\n of the ridge, too.\"\n\n\n \"That's what I mean. The pilot don't like businessmen. He had it in for\n us.\"\n\n\n Ri cleared his throat nervously. \"Maybe you're right.\"\n\n\n \"It's the Hunting Club he don't like.\"\n\n\n \"I wish to God I'd never heard of a farn beast,\" Ri said. \"At least,\n then, I wouldn't be one of his guides. Why didn't he hire somebody\n else?\"\nMia looked at his companion. He spat. \"What hurts most, he pays us for\n it. I could buy half this planet, and he makes me his guide\u2014at less\n than I pay my secretary.\"\n\n\n \"Well, anyway, we won't have to cross that ridge.\"\n\n\n \"Hey, you!\" Extrone called.\n\n\n The two of them turned immediately.\n\n\n \"You two scout ahead,\" Extrone said. \"See if you can pick up some\n tracks.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" Ri said, and instantly the two of them readjusted their\n shoulder straps and started off.\n\n\n Shortly they were inside of the scrub forest, safe from sight. \"Let's\n wait here,\" Mia said.\n\n\n \"No, we better go on. He may have sent a spy in.\"\n\n\n They pushed on, being careful to blaze the trees, because they were not\n professional guides.\n\n\n \"We don't want to get too near,\" Ri said after toiling through the\n forest for many minutes. \"Without guns, we don't want to get near\n enough for the farn beast to charge us.\"\n\n\n They stopped. The forest was dense, the vines clinging.\n\n\n \"He'll want the bearers to hack a path for him,\" Mia said. \"But we go\n it alone. Damn him.\"\n\n\n Ri twisted his mouth into a sour frown. He wiped at his forehead. \"Hot.\n By God, it's hot. I didn't think it was this hot, the first time we\n were here.\"\n\n\n Mia said, \"The first time,\nwe\nweren't guides. We didn't notice it so\n much then.\"\n\n\n They fought a few yards more into the forest.\n\n\n Then it ended. Or, rather, there was a wide gap. Before them lay a\n blast area, unmistakable. The grass was beginning to grow again, but\n the tree stumps were roasted from the rocket breath.\n\n\n \"This isn't ours!\" Ri said. \"This looks like it was made nearly a year\n ago!\"\n\n\n Mia's eyes narrowed. \"The military from Xnile?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Ri said. \"They don't have any rockets this small. And I don't\n think there's another cargo rocket on this planet outside of the one we\n leased from the Club. Except the one\nhe\nbrought.\"\n\n\n \"The ones who discovered the farn beasts in the first place?\" Mia\n asked. \"You think it's their blast?\"\n\n\n \"So?\" Ri said. \"But who are they?\"\nIt was Mia's turn to shrug. \"Whoever they were, they couldn't have been\n hunters. They'd have kept the secret better.\"\n\n\n \"We didn't do so damned well.\"\n\n\n \"We didn't have a chance,\" Mia objected. \"Everybody and his brother had\n heard the rumor that farn beasts were somewhere around here. It wasn't\n our fault Extrone found out.\"\n\n\n \"I wish we hadn't shot our guide, then. I wish he was here instead of\n us.\"\n\n\n Mia shook perspiration out of his eyes. \"We should have shot our pilot,\n too. That was our mistake. The pilot must have been the one who told\n Extrone we'd hunted this area.\"\n\n\n \"I didn't think a Club pilot would do that.\"\n\n\n \"After Extrone said he'd hunt farn beasts, even if it meant going to\n the alien system? Listen, you don't know.... Wait a minute.\"\n\n\n There was perspiration on Ri's upper lip.\n\n\n \"\nI\ndidn't tell Extrone, if that's what you're thinking,\" Mia said.\n\n\n Ri's mouth twisted. \"I didn't say you did.\"\n\n\n \"Listen,\" Mia said in a hoarse whisper. \"I just thought. Listen. To\n hell with how he found out. Here's the point. Maybe he'll shoot us,\n too, when the hunt's over.\"\n\n\n Ri licked his lips. \"No. He wouldn't do that. We're not\u2014not just\n anybody. He couldn't kill us like that. Not even\nhim\n. And besides,\n why would he want to do that? It wouldn't do any good to shoot us. Too\n many people already know about the farn beasts. You said that yourself.\"\n\n\n Mia said, \"I hope you're right.\" They stood side by side, studying the\n blast area in silence. Finally, Mia said, \"We better be getting back.\"\n\n\n \"What'll we tell him?\"\n\n\n \"That we saw tracks. What else can we tell him?\"\n\n\n They turned back along their trail, stumbling over vines.\n\n\n \"It gets hotter at sunset,\" Ri said nervously.\n\n\n \"The breeze dies down.\"\n\n\n \"It's screwy. I didn't think farn beasts had this wide a range. There\n must be a lot of them, to be on both sides of the ridge like this.\"\n\n\n \"There may be a pass,\" Mia said, pushing a vine away.\n\n\n Ri wrinkled his brow, panting. \"I guess that's it. If there were a lot\n of them, we'd have heard something before we did. But even so, it's\n damned funny, when you think about it.\"\n\n\n Mia looked up at the darkening sky. \"We better hurry,\" he said.\nWhen it came over the hastily established camp, the rocket was low,\n obviously looking for a landing site. It was a military craft, from the\n outpost on the near moon, and forward, near the nose, there was the\n blazoned emblem of the Ninth Fleet. The rocket roared directly over\n Extrone's tent, turned slowly, spouting fuel expensively, and settled\n into the scrub forest, turning the vegetation beneath it sere by its\n blasts.\n\n\n Extrone sat on an upholstered stool before his tent and spat\n disgustedly and combed his beard with his blunt fingers.\n\n\n Shortly, from the direction of the rocket, a group of four high-ranking\n officers came out of the forest, heading toward him. They were spruce,\n the officers, with military discipline holding their waists in and\n knees almost stiff.\n\n\n \"What in hell do you want?\" Extrone asked.\n\n\n They stopped a respectful distance away. \"Sir....\" one began.\n\n\n \"Haven't I told you gentlemen that rockets frighten the game?\" Extrone\n demanded, ominously not raising his voice.\n\n\n \"Sir,\" the lead officer said, \"it's another alien ship. It was sighted\n a few hours ago, off this very planet, sir.\"\n\n\n Extrone's face looked much too innocent. \"How did it get there,\n gentlemen? Why wasn't it destroyed?\"\n\n\n \"We lost it again, sir. Temporarily, sir.\"\n\n\n \"So?\" Extrone mocked.\n\n\n \"We thought you ought to return to a safer planet, sir. Until we could\n locate and destroy it.\"\n\n\n Extrone stared at them for a space. Then, indifferently, he turned\n away, in the direction of a resting bearer. \"You!\" he said. \"Hey! Bring\n me a drink!\" He faced the officers again. He smiled maliciously. \"I'm\n staying here.\"\n\n\n The lead officer licked his firm lower lip. \"But, sir....\"\n\n\n Extrone toyed with his beard. \"About a year ago, gentlemen, there was\n an alien ship around here then, wasn't there? And you destroyed it,\n didn't you?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. When we located it, sir.\"\n\n\n \"You'll destroy this one, too,\" Extrone said.\n\n\n \"We have a tight patrol, sir. It can't slip through. But it might try a\n long range bombardment, sir.\"\nExtrone said, \"To begin with, they probably don't even know I'm here.\n And they probably couldn't hit this area if they did know. And you\n can't afford to let them get a shot at me, anyway.\"\n\n\n \"That's why we'd like you to return to an inner planet, sir.\"\n\n\n Extrone plucked at his right ear lobe, half closing his eyes. \"You'll\n lose a fleet before you'll dare let anything happen to me, gentlemen.\n I'm quite safe here, I think.\"\n\n\n The bearer brought Extrone his drink.\n\n\n \"Get off,\" Extrone said quietly to the four officers.\n\n\n Again they turned reluctantly. This time, he did not call them back.\n Instead, with amusement, he watched until they disappeared into the\n tangle of forest.\n\n\n Dusk was falling. The takeoff blast of the rocket illuminated the area,\n casting weird shadows on the gently swaying grasses; there was a hot\n breath of dry air and the rocket dwindled toward the stars.\n\n\n Extrone stood up lazily, stretching. He tossed the empty glass away,\n listened for it to shatter. He reached out, parted the heavy flap to\n his tent.\n\n\n \"Sir?\" Ri said, hurrying toward him in the gathering darkness.\n\n\n \"Eh?\" Extrone said, turning, startled. \"Oh, you. Well?\"\n\n\n \"We ... located signs of the farn beast, sir. To the east.\"\n\n\n Extrone nodded. After a moment he said, \"You killed one, I believe, on\nyour\ntrip?\"\n\n\n Ri shifted. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n Extrone held back the flap of the tent. \"Won't you come in?\" he asked\n without any politeness whatever.\n\n\n Ri obeyed the order.\n\n\n The inside of the tent was luxurious. The bed was of bulky feathers,\n costly of transport space, the sleep curtains of silken gauze. The\n floor, heavy, portable tile blocks, not the hollow kind, were neatly\n and smoothly inset into the ground. Hanging from the center, to the\n left of the slender, hand-carved center pole, was a chain of crystals.\n They tinkled lightly when Extrone dropped the flap. The light was\n electric from a portable dynamo. Extrone flipped it on. He crossed to\n the bed, sat down.\n\n\n \"You were, I believe, the first ever to kill a farn beast?\" he said.\n\n\n \"I.... No, sir. There must have been previous hunters, sir.\"\nExtrone narrowed his eyes. \"I see by your eyes that you are\n envious\u2014that is the word, isn't it?\u2014of my tent.\"\n\n\n Ri looked away from his face.\n\n\n \"Perhaps I'm envious of your reputation as a hunter. You see, I have\n never killed a farn beast. In fact, I haven't\nseen\na farn beast.\"\n\n\n Ri glanced nervously around the tent, his sharp eyes avoiding Extrone's\n glittering ones. \"Few people have seen them, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Oh?\" Extrone questioned mildly. \"I wouldn't say that. I understand\n that the aliens hunt them quite extensively ... on some of their\n planets.\"\n\n\n \"I meant in our system, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Of course you did,\" Extrone said, lazily tracing the crease of his\n sleeve with his forefinger. \"I imagine these are the only farn beasts\n in our system.\"\n\n\n Ri waited uneasily, not answering.\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Extrone said, \"I imagine they are. It would have been a shame if\n you had killed the last one. Don't you think so?\"\n\n\n Ri's hands worried the sides of his outer garment. \"Yes, sir. It would\n have been.\"\n\n\n Extrone pursed his lips. \"It wouldn't have been very considerate of you\n to\u2014But, still, you gained valuable experience. I'm glad you agreed to\n come along as my guide.\"\n\n\n \"It was an honor, sir.\"\n\n\n Extrone's lip twisted in wry amusement. \"If I had waited until it was\n safe for me to hunt on an alien planet, I would not have been able to\n find such an illustrious guide.\"\n\n\n \"... I'm flattered, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" Extrone said. \"But you should have spoken to me about it,\n when you discovered the farn beast in our own system.\"\n\n\n \"I realize that, sir. That is, I had intended at the first opportunity,\n sir....\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" Extrone said dryly. \"Like all of my subjects,\" he waved\n his hand in a broad gesture, \"the highest as well as the lowest slave,\n know me and love me. I know your intentions were the best.\"\n\n\n Ri squirmed, his face pale. \"We do indeed love you, sir.\"\n\n\n Extrone bent forward. \"\nKnow\nme and love me.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\nKnow\nyou and love you, sir,\" Ri said.\n\n\n \"Get out!\" Extrone said.\n\"It's frightening,\" Ri said, \"to be that close to him.\"\n\n\n Mia nodded.\n\n\n The two of them, beneath the leaf-swollen branches of the gnarled tree,\n were seated on their sleeping bags. The moon was clear and cold and\n bright in a cloudless sky; a small moon, smooth-surfaced, except for a\n central mountain ridge that bisected it into almost twin hemispheres.\n\n\n \"To think of him. As flesh and blood. Not like the\u2014well; that\u2014what\n we've read about.\"\n\n\n Mia glanced suspiciously around him at the shadows. \"You begin to\n understand a lot of things, after seeing him.\"\n\n\n Ri picked nervously at the cover of his sleeping bag.\n\n\n \"It makes you think,\" Mia added. He twitched. \"I'm afraid. I'm afraid\n he'll.... Listen, we'll talk. When we get back to civilization. You,\n me, the bearers. About him. He can't let that happen. He'll kill us\n first.\"\n\n\n Ri looked up at the moon, shivering. \"No. We have friends. We have\n influence. He couldn't just like that\u2014\"\n\n\n \"He could say it was an accident.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Ri said stubbornly.\n\n\n \"He can say anything,\" Mia insisted. \"He can make people believe\n anything. Whatever he says. There's no way to check on it.\"\n\n\n \"It's getting cold,\" Ri said.\n\n\n \"Listen,\" Mia pleaded.\n\n\n \"No,\" Ri said. \"Even if we tried to tell them, they wouldn't listen.\n Everybody would\nknow\nwe were lying. Everything they've come to\n believe would tell them we were lying. Everything they've read, every\n picture they've seen. They wouldn't believe us.\nHe\nknows that.\"\n\n\n \"Listen,\" Mia repeated intently. \"This is important. Right now he\n couldn't afford to let us talk. Not right now. Because the Army is\n not against him. Some officers were here, just before we came back. A\n bearer overheard them talking. They don't\nwant\nto overthrow him!\"\n\n\n Ri's teeth, suddenly, were chattering.\n\n\n \"That's another lie,\" Mia continued. \"That he protects the people from\n the Army. That's a lie. I don't believe they were\never\nplotting\n against him. Not even at first. I think they\nhelped\nhim, don't you\n see?\"\n\n\n Ri whined nervously.\n\n\n \"It's like this,\" Mia said. \"I see it like this. The Army\nput\nhim in\n power when the people were in rebellion against military rule.\"\nRi swallowed. \"We couldn't make the people believe that.\"\n\n\n \"No?\" Mia challenged. \"Couldn't we? Not today, but what about tomorrow?\n You'll see. Because I think the Army is getting ready to invade the\n alien system!\"\n\n\n \"The people won't support them,\" Ri answered woodenly.\n\n\n \"\nThink.\nIf he tells them to, they will. They trust him.\"\n\n\n Ri looked around at the shadows.\n\n\n \"That explains a lot of things,\" Mia said. \"I think the Army's been\n preparing for this for a long time. From the first, maybe. That's why\n Extrone cut off our trade with the aliens. Partly to keep them from\n learning that he was getting ready to invade them, but more to keep\n them from exposing\nhim\nto the people. The aliens wouldn't be fooled\n like we were, so easy.\"\n\n\n \"No!\" Ri snapped. \"It was to keep the natural economic balance.\"\n\n\n \"You know that's not right.\"\n\n\n Ri lay down on his bed roll. \"Don't talk about it. It's not good to\n talk like this. I don't even want to listen.\"\n\n\n \"When the invasion starts, he'll have to command\nall\ntheir loyalties.\n To keep them from revolt again. They'd be ready to believe us, then.\n He'll have a hard enough time without people running around trying to\n tell the truth.\"\n\n\n \"You're wrong. He's not like that. I know you're wrong.\"\n\n\n Mia smiled twistedly. \"How many has he already killed? How can we even\n guess?\"\n\n\n Ri swallowed sickly.\n\n\n \"Remember our guide? To keep our hunting territory a secret?\"\n\n\n Ri shuddered. \"That's different. Don't you see? This is not at all like\n that.\"\nWith morning came birds' songs, came dew, came breakfast smells.\n The air was sweet with cooking and it was nostalgic, childhoodlike,\n uncontaminated.\n\n\n And Extrone stepped out of the tent, fully dressed, surly, letting the\n flap slap loudly behind him. He stretched hungrily and stared around\n the camp, his eyes still vacant-mean with sleep.\n\n\n \"Breakfast!\" he shouted, and two bearers came running with a folding\n table and chair. Behind them, a third bearer, carrying a tray of\n various foods; and yet behind him, a fourth, with a steaming pitcher\n and a drinking mug.\n\n\n Extrone ate hugely, with none of the delicacy sometimes affected in his\n conversational gestures. When he had finished, he washed his mouth with\n water and spat on the ground.\n\n\n \"Lin!\" he said.\n\n\n His personal bearer came loping toward him.\n\n\n \"Have you read that manual I gave you?\"\n\n\n Lin nodded. \"Yes.\"\n\n\n Extrone pushed the table away. He smacked his lips wetly. \"Very\n ludicrous, Lin. Have you noticed that I have two businessmen for\n guides? It occurred to me when I got up. They would have spat on me,\n twenty years ago, damn them.\"\n\n\n Lin waited.\n\n\n \"Now I can spit on them, which pleases me.\"\n\n\n \"The farn beasts are dangerous, sir,\" Lin said.\n\n\n \"Eh? Oh, yes. Those. What did the manual say about them?\"\n\n\n \"I believe they're carnivorous, sir.\"\n\n\n \"An alien manual. That's ludicrous, too. That we have the only\n information on our newly discovered fauna from an alien manual\u2014and, of\n course, two businessmen.\"\n\n\n \"They have very long, sharp fangs, and, when enraged, are capable of\n tearing a man\u2014\"\n\n\n \"An alien?\" Extrone corrected.\n\n\n \"There's not enough difference between us to matter, sir. Of tearing an\n alien to pieces, sir.\"\n\n\n Extrone laughed harshly. \"It's 'sir' whenever you contradict me?\"\n\n\n Lin's face remained impassive. \"I guess it seems that way. Sir.\"\n\n\n \"Damned few people would dare go as far as you do,\" Extrone said. \"But\n you're afraid of me, too, in your own way, aren't you?\"\n\n\n Lin shrugged. \"Maybe.\"\n\n\n \"I can see you are. Even my wives are. I wonder if anyone can know how\n wonderful it feels to have people\nall\nafraid of you.\"\n\n\n \"The farn beasts, according to the manual....\"\n\n\n \"You are very insistent on one subject.\"\n\n\n \"... It's the only thing I know anything about. The farn beast, as I\n was saying, sir, is the particular enemy of men. Or if you like, of\n aliens. Sir.\"\n\n\n \"All right,\" Extrone said, annoyed. \"I'll be careful.\"\n\n\n In the distance, a farn beast coughed.\n\n\n Instantly alert, Extrone said, \"Get the bearers! Have some of them cut\n a path through that damn thicket! And tell those two businessmen to get\n the hell over here!\"\n\n\n Lin smiled, his eyes suddenly afire with the excitement of the hunt.\nFour hours later, they were well into the scrub forest. Extrone walked\n leisurely, well back of the cutters, who hacked away, methodically, at\n the vines and branches which might impede his forward progress. Their\n sharp, awkward knives snickered rhythmically to the rasp of their heavy\n breathing.\n\n\n Occasionally, Extrone halted, motioned for his water carrier, and drank\n deeply of the icy water to allay the heat of the forest, a heat made\n oppressive by the press of foliage against the outside air.\n\n\n Ranging out, on both sides of the central body, the two businessmen\n fought independently against the wild growth, each scouting the flanks\n for farn beasts, and ahead, beyond the cutters, Lin flittered among the\n tree trunks, sometimes far, sometimes near.\n\n\n Extrone carried the only weapon, slung easily over his shoulder, a\n powerful blast rifle, capable of piercing medium armor in sustained\n fire. To his rear, the water carrier was trailed by a man bearing a\n folding stool, and behind him, a man carrying the heavy, high-powered\n two-way communication set.\n\n\n Once Extrone unslung his blast rifle and triggered a burst at a tiny,\n arboreal mammal, which, upon the impact, shattered asunder, to\n Extrone's satisfied chuckle, in a burst of blood and fur.\n\n\n When the sun stood high and heat exhaustion made the near-naked bearers\n slump, Extrone permitted a rest. While waiting for the march to resume,\n he sat on the stool with his back against an ancient tree and patted,\n reflectively, the blast rifle, lying across his legs.\n\n\n \"For you, sir,\" the communications man said, interrupting his reverie.\n\n\n \"Damn,\" Extrone muttered. His face twisted in anger. \"It better be\n important.\" He took the head-set and mike and nodded to the bearer. The\n bearer twiddled the dials.\n\n\n \"Extrone. Eh?... Oh, you got their ship. Well, why in hell bother\n me?... All right, so they found out I was here. You got them, didn't\n you?\"\n\n\n \"Blasted them right out of space,\" the voice crackled excitedly. \"Right\n in the middle of a radio broadcast, sir.\"\n\n\n \"I don't want to listen to your gabbling when I'm hunting!\" Extrone\n tore off the head-set and handed it to the bearer. \"If they call back,\n find out what they want, first. I don't want to be bothered unless it's\n important.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n Extrone squinted up at the sun; his eyes crinkled under the glare, and\n perspiration stood in little droplets on the back of his hands.\n\n\n Lin, returning to the column, threaded his way among reclining\n bearers. He stopped before Extrone and tossed his hair out of his eyes.\n \"I located a spoor,\" he said, suppressed eagerness in his voice. \"About\n a quarter ahead. It looks fresh.\"\n\n\n Extrone's eyes lit with passion.\n\n\n Lin's face was red with heat and grimy with sweat. \"There were two, I\n think.\"\n\n\n \"Two?\" Extrone grinned, petting the rifle. \"You and I better go forward\n and look at the spoor.\"\n\n\n Lin said, \"We ought to take protection, if you're going, too.\"\n\n\n Extrone laughed. \"This is enough.\" He gestured with the rifle and stood\n up.\n\n\n \"I wish you had let me bring a gun along, sir,\" Lin said.\n\n\n \"One is enough in\nmy\ncamp.\"\nThe two of them went forward, alone, into the forest. Extrone moved\n agilely through the tangle, following Lin closely. When they came to\n the tracks, heavily pressed into drying mud around a small watering\n hole, Extrone nodded his head in satisfaction.\n\n\n \"This way,\" Lin said, pointing, and once more the two of them started\n off.\n\n\n They went a good distance through the forest, Extrone becoming more\n alert with each additional foot. Finally, Lin stopped him with a\n restraining hand. \"They may be quite a way ahead. Hadn't we ought to\n bring up the column?\"\n\n\n The farn beast, somewhere beyond a ragged clump of bushes, coughed.\n Extrone clenched the blast rifle convulsively.\n\n\n The farn beast coughed again, more distant this time.\n\n\n \"They're moving away,\" Lin said.\n\n\n \"Damn!\" Extrone said.\n\n\n \"It's a good thing the wind's right, or they'd be coming back, and\n fast, too.\"\n\n\n \"Eh?\" Extrone said.\n\n\n \"They charge on scent, sight, or sound. I understand they will track\n down a man for as long as a day.\"\n\n\n \"Wait,\" Extrone said, combing his beard. \"Wait a minute.\"\n\n\n \"Yes?\"\n\n\n \"Look,\" Extrone said. \"If that's the case, why do we bother tracking\n them? Why not make them come to us?\"\n\n\n \"They're too unpredictable. It wouldn't be safe. I'd rather have\n surprise on our side.\"\n\n\n \"You don't seem to see what I mean,\" Extrone said. \"\nWe\nwon't be\n the\u2014ah\u2014the bait.\"\n\n\n \"Oh?\"\n\n\n \"Let's get back to the column.\"\n\"Extrone wants to see you,\" Lin said.\n\n\n Ri twisted at the grass shoot, broke it off, worried and unhappy.\n \"What's he want to see\nme\nfor?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know,\" Lin said curtly.\n\n\n Ri got to his feet. One of his hands reached out, plucked nervously\n at Lin's bare forearm. \"Look,\" he whispered. \"You know him. I have\u2014a\n little money. If you were able to ... if he wants,\" Ri gulped, \"to\ndo\nanything to me\u2014I'd pay you, if you could....\"\n\n\n \"You better come along,\" Lin said, turning.\n\n\n Ri rubbed his hands along his thighs; he sighed, a tiny sound,\n ineffectual. He followed Lin beyond an outcropping of shale to where\n Extrone was seated, petting his rifle.\n\n\n Extrone nodded genially. \"The farn beast hunter, eh?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n Extrone drummed his fingers on the stock of the blast rifle. \"Tell me\n what they look like,\" he said suddenly.\n\n\n \"Well, sir, they're ... uh....\"\n\n\n \"Pretty frightening?\"\n\n\n \"No, sir.... Well, in a way, sir.\"\n\n\n \"But\nyou\nweren't afraid of them, were you?\"\n\n\n \"No, sir. No, because....\"\n\n\n Extrone was smiling innocently. \"Good. I want you to do something for\n me.\"\n\n\n \"I ... I....\" Ri glanced nervously at Lin out of the tail of his eye.\n Lin's face was impassive.\n\n\n \"Of\ncourse\nyou will,\" Extrone said genially. \"Get me a rope, Lin. A\n good, long, strong rope.\"\n\n\n \"What are you going to do?\" Ri asked, terrified.\n\n\n \"Why, I'm going to tie the rope around your waist and stake you out as\n bait.\"\n\n\n \"No!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, come now. When the farn beast hears you scream\u2014you\ncan\nscream,\n by the way?\"\n\n\n Ri swallowed.\n\n\n \"We could find a way to make you.\"\n\n\n There was perspiration trickling down Ri's forehead, a single drop,\n creeping toward his nose.\n\n\n \"You'll be safe,\" Extrone said, studying his face with amusement. \"I'll\n shoot the animal before it reaches you.\"\n\n\n Ri gulped for air. \"But ... if there should be more than one?\"\n\n\n Extrone shrugged.\n\n\n \"I\u2014Look, sir. Listen to me.\" Ri's lips were bloodless and his hands\n were trembling. \"It's not me you want to do this to. It's Mia, sir.\nHe\nkilled a farn beast before\nI\ndid, sir. And last night\u2014last\n night, he\u2014\"\n\n\n \"He what?\" Extrone demanded, leaning forward intently.\n\n\n Ri breathed with a gurgling sound. \"He said he ought to kill you, sir.\n That's what he said. I heard him, sir. He said he ought to kill you.\n He's the one you ought to use for bait. Then if there was an accident,\n sir, it wouldn't matter, because he said he ought to kill you. I\n wouldn't....\"\n\n\n Extrone said, \"Which one is he?\"\n\n\n \"That one. Right over there.\"\n\n\n \"The one with his back to me?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. That's him. That's him, sir.\"\n\n\n Extrone aimed carefully and fired, full charge, then lowered the rifle\n and said, \"Here comes Lin with the rope, I see.\"\n\n\n Ri was greenish. \"You ... you....\"\n\n\n Extrone turned to Lin. \"Tie one end around his waist.\"\n\n\n \"Wait,\" Ri begged, fighting off the rope with his hands. \"You don't\n want to use me, sir. Not after I told you.... Please, sir. If anything\n should happen to me.... Please, sir. Don't do it.\"\n\n\n \"Tie it,\" Extrone ordered.\n\n\n \"No, sir. Please. Oh,\nplease\ndon't, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Tie it,\" Extrone said inexorably.\n\n\n Lin bent with the rope; his face was colorless.\nThey were at the watering hole\u2014Extrone, Lin, two bearers, and Ri.\n\n\n Since the hole was drying, the left, partially exposed bank was steep\n toward the muddy water. Upon it was green, new grass, tender-tuffed,\n half mashed in places by heavy animal treads. It was there that they\n staked him out, tying the free end of the rope tightly around the base\n of a scaling tree.\n\n\n \"You will scream,\" Extrone instructed. With his rifle, he pointed\n across the water hole. \"The farn beast will come from this direction, I\n imagine.\"\n\n\n Ri was almost slobbering in fear.\n\n\n \"Let me hear you scream,\" Extrone said.\n\n\n Ri moaned weakly.\n\n\n \"You'll have to do better than that.\" Extrone inclined his head toward\n a bearer, who used something Ri couldn't see.\nRi screamed.\n\n\n \"See that you keep it up that way,\" Extrone said. \"That's the way I\n want you to sound.\" He turned toward Lin. \"We can climb this tree, I\n think.\"\n\n\n Slowly, aided by the bearers, the two men climbed the tree, bark\n peeling away from under their rough boots. Ri watched them hopelessly.\n\n\n Once at the crotch, Extrone settled down, holding the rifle at alert.\n Lin moved to the left, out on the main branch, rested in a smaller\n crotch.\n\n\n Looking down, Extrone said, \"Scream!\" Then, to Lin, \"You feel the\n excitement? It's always in the air like this at a hunt.\"\n\n\n \"I feel it,\" Lin said.\n\n\n Extrone chuckled. \"You were with me on Meizque?\"\n\n\n \"Yes.\"\n\n\n \"That was something, that time.\" He ran his hand along the stock of the\n weapon.\n\n\n The sun headed west, veiling itself with trees; a large insect circled\n Extrone's head. He slapped at it, angry. The forest was quiet,\n underlined by an occasional piping call, something like a whistle. Ri's\n screams were shrill, echoing away, shiveringly. Lin sat quiet, hunched.\n\n\n Extrone's eyes narrowed, and he began to pet the gun stock with quick,\n jerky movements. Lin licked his lips, keeping his eyes on Extrone's\n face. The sun seemed stuck in the sky, and the heat squeezed against\n them, sucking at their breath like a vacuum. The insect went away.\n Still, endless, hopeless, monotonous, Ri screamed.\nA farn beast coughed, far in the matted forest.\n\n\n Extrone laughed nervously. \"He must have heard.\"\n\n\n \"We're lucky to rouse one so fast,\" Lin said.\n\n\n Extrone dug his boot cleats into the tree, braced himself. \"I like\n this. There's more excitement in waiting like this than in anything I\n know.\"\n\n\n Lin nodded.\n\n\n \"The waiting, itself, is a lot. The suspense. It's not only the killing\n that matters.\"\n\n\n \"It's not\nonly\nthe killing,\" Lin echoed.\n\n\n \"You understand?\" Extrone said. \"How it is to wait, knowing in just a\n minute something is going to come out of the forest, and you're going\n to kill it?\"\n\n\n \"I know,\" Lin said.\n\n\n \"But it's not only the killing. It's the waiting, too.\"\n\n\n The farn beast coughed again; nearer.\n\n\n \"It's a different one,\" Lin said.\n\n\n \"How do you know?\"\n\n\n \"Hear the lower pitch, the more of a roar?\"\n\n\n \"Hey!\" Extrone shouted. \"You, down there. There are two coming. Now\n let's hear you really scream!\"\n\n\n Ri, below, whimpered childishly and began to retreat toward the tether\n tree, his eyes wide.\n\n\n \"There's a lot of satisfaction in fooling them, too,\" Extrone said.\n \"Making them come to your bait, where you can get at them.\" He\n opened his right hand. \"Choose your ground, set your trap. Bait it.\"\n He snapped his hand into a fist, held the fist up before his eyes,\n imprisoning the idea. \"Spring the trap when the quarry is inside.\n Clever. That makes the waiting more interesting. Waiting to see if they\n really will come to your bait.\"\n\n\n Lin shifted, staring toward the forest.\n\n\n \"I've always liked to hunt,\" Extrone said. \"More than anything else, I\n think.\"\n\n\n Lin spat toward the ground. \"People should hunt because they have to.\n For food. For safety.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Extrone argued. \"People should hunt for the love of hunting.\"\n\n\n \"Killing?\"\n\n\n \"Hunting,\" Extrone repeated harshly.\nThe farn beast coughed. Another answered. They were very near, and\n there was a noise of crackling underbrush.\n\n\n \"He's good bait,\" Extrone said. \"He's fat enough and he knows how to\n scream good.\"\n\n\n Ri had stopped screaming; he was huddled against the tree, fearfully\n eying the forest across from the watering hole.\n\n\n Extrone began to tremble with excitement. \"Here they come!\"\n\n\n The forest sprang apart. Extrone bent forward, the gun still across his\n lap.\n\n\n The farn beast, its tiny eyes red with hate, stepped out on the bank,\n swinging its head wildly, its nostrils flaring in anger. It coughed.\n Its mate appeared beside it. Their tails thrashed against the scrubs\n behind them, rattling leaves.\n\"Shoot!\" Lin hissed. \"For God's sake, shoot!\"\n\n\n \"Wait,\" Extrone said. \"Let's see what they do.\" He had not moved\n the rifle. He was tense, bent forward, his eyes slitted, his breath\n beginning to sound like an asthmatic pump.\n\n\n The lead farn beast sighted Ri. It lowered its head.\n\n\n \"Look!\" Extrone cried excitedly. \"Here it comes!\"\n\n\n Ri began to scream again.\n\n\n Still Extrone did not lift his blast rifle. He was laughing. Lin\n waited, frozen, his eyes staring at the farn beast in fascination.\n\n\n The farn beast plunged into the water, which was shallow, and, throwing\n a sheet of it to either side, headed across toward Ri.\n\n\n \"Watch! Watch!\" Extrone cried gleefully.\n\n\n And then the aliens sprang their trap.",
    "49165": "Brightside\n\n Crossing\nby Alan E. Nourse\nJAMES BARON was not pleased to hear that he had had\n a visitor when he reached the Red Lion that evening. He\n had no stomach for mysteries, vast or trifling, and there\n were pressing things to think about at this time. Yet the doorman\n had flagged him as he came in from the street: \u201cA thousand\n pardons, Mr. Baron. The gentleman\u2014he would leave no\n name. He said you\u2019d want to see him. He will be back by\n eight.\u201d\nNow Baron drummed his fingers on the table top, staring\n about the quiet lounge. Street trade was discouraged at the\n Red Lion, gently but persuasively; the patrons were few in\n number. Across to the right was a group that Baron knew\n vaguely\u2014Andean climbers, or at least two of them were. Over\n near the door he recognized old Balmer, who had mapped\n the first passage to the core of Vulcan Crater on Venus. Baron\n returned his smile with a nod. Then he settled back and\n waited impatiently for the intruder who demanded his time\n without justifying it.\nPresently a small, grizzled man crossed the room and sat\n down at Baron\u2019s table. He was short and wiry. His face held\n no key to his age\u2014he might have been thirty or a thousand\u2014but\n he looked weary and immensely ugly. His cheeks and\n forehead were twisted and brown, with scars that were still\n healing.\nThe stranger said, \u201cI\u2019m glad you waited. I\u2019ve heard you\u2019re\n planning to attempt the Brightside.\u201d\nBaron stared at the man for a moment. \u201cI see you can read\n telecasts,\u201d he said coldly. \u201cThe news was correct. We are going\n to make a Brightside Crossing.\u201d\n\u201cAt perihelion?\u201d\n\u201cOf course. When else?\u201d\nThe grizzled man searched Baron\u2019s face for a moment\n without expression. Then he said slowly, \u201cNo, I\u2019m afraid you\u2019re\n not going to make the Crossing.\u201d\n\u201cSay, who are you, if you don\u2019t mind?\u201d Baron demanded.\n\u201cThe name is Claney,\u201d said the stranger.\nThere was a silence. Then: \u201cClaney?\nPeter\nClaney?\u201d\n\u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d\nBaron\u2019s eyes were wide with excitement, all trace of anger\n gone. \u201cGreat balls of fire, man\u2014\nwhere have you been hiding?\nWe\u2019ve been trying to contact you for months!\u201d\n\u201cI know. I was hoping you\u2019d quit looking and chuck the\n whole idea.\u201d\n\u201cQuit looking!\u201d Baron bent forward over the table. \u201cMy\n friend, we\u2019d given up hope, but we\u2019ve never quit looking.\n Here, have a drink. There\u2019s so much you can tell us.\u201d His\n fingers were trembling.\nPeter Claney shook his head. \u201cI can\u2019t tell you anything you\n want to hear.\u201d\n\u201cBut you\u2019ve\ngot\nto. You\u2019re the only man on Earth who\u2019s\n attempted a Brightside Crossing and lived through it! And the\n story you cleared for the news\u2014it was nothing. We need\ndetails\n. Where did your equipment fall down? Where did you\n miscalculate? What were the trouble spots?\u201d Baron jabbed a\n finger at Claney\u2019s face. \u201cThat, for instance\u2014epithelioma?\n Why? What was wrong with your glass? Your filters? We\u2019ve\n got to know those things. If you can tell us, we can make\n it across where your attempt failed\u2014\u201d\n\u201cYou want to know why we failed?\u201d asked Claney.\n\u201cOf course we want to know. We\nhave\nto know.\u201d\n\u201cIt\u2019s simple. We failed because it can\u2019t be done. We couldn\u2019t\n do it and neither can you. No human beings will ever cross\n the Brightside alive, not if they try for centuries.\u201d\n\u201cNonsense,\u201d Baron declared. \u201cWe will.\u201d\nClaney shrugged. \u201cI was there. I know what I\u2019m saying. You\n can blame the equipment or the men\u2014there were flaws in\n both quarters\u2014but we just didn\u2019t know what we were fighting.\n It was the\nplanet\nthat whipped us, that and the\nSun\n. They\u2019ll\n whip you, too, if you try it.\u201d\n\u201cNever,\u201d said Baron.\n\u201cLet me tell you,\u201d Peter Claney said.\nI\u2019d been interested in the Brightside for almost as long as\n I can remember (Claney said). I guess I was about ten when\n Wyatt and Carpenter made the last attempt\u2014that was in 2082,\n I think. I followed the news stories like a tri-V serial and then\n I was heartbroken when they just disappeared.\nI know now that they were a pair of idiots, starting off without\n proper equipment, with practically no knowledge of surface\n conditions, without any charts\u2014they couldn\u2019t have made\n a hundred miles\u2014but I didn\u2019t know that then and it was a\n terrible tragedy. After that, I followed Sanderson\u2019s work in the\n Twilight Lab up there and began to get Brightside into my\n blood, sure as death.\nBut it was Mikuta\u2019s idea to attempt a Crossing. Did you ever\n know Tom Mikuta? I don\u2019t suppose you did. No, not Japanese\u2014Polish-American.\n He was a major in the Interplanetary Service\n for some years and hung onto the title after he gave up\n his commission.\nHe was with Armstrong on Mars during his Service days,\n did a good deal of the original mapping and surveying for\n the Colony there. I first met him on Venus; we spent five\n years together up there doing some of the nastiest exploring\n since the Matto Grasso. Then he made the attempt on Vulcan\n Crater that paved the way for Balmer a few years later.\nI\u2019d always liked the Major\u2014he was big and quiet and cool,\n the sort of guy who always had things figured a little further\n ahead than anyone else and always knew what to do in a tight\n place. Too many men in this game are all nerve and luck,\n with no judgment. The Major had both. He also had the kind\n of personality that could take a crew of wild men and\n make them work like a well-oiled machine across a thousand\n miles of Venus jungle. I liked him and I trusted him.\nHe contacted me in New York and he was very casual at\n first. We spent an evening here at the Red Lion, talking about\n old times; he told me about the Vulcan business, and how he\u2019d\n been out to see Sanderson and the Twilight Lab on Mercury,\n and how he preferred a hot trek to a cold one any day of the\n year\u2014and then he wanted to know what I\u2019d been doing since\n Venus and what my plans were.\n\u201cNo particular plans,\u201d I told him. \u201cWhy?\u201d\nHe looked me over. \u201cHow much do you weigh, Peter?\u201d\nI told him one-thirty-five.\n\u201cThat much!\u201d he said. \u201cWell, there can\u2019t be much fat on\n you, at any rate. How do you take heat?\u201d\n\u201cYou should know,\u201d I said. \u201cVenus was no icebox.\u201d\n\u201cNo, I mean\nreal\nheat.\u201d\nThen I began to get it. \u201cYou\u2019re planning a trip.\u201d\n\u201cThat\u2019s right. A hot trip.\u201d He grinned at me. \u201cMight be\n dangerous, too.\u201d\n\u201cWhat trip?\u201d\n\u201cBrightside of Mercury,\u201d the Major said.\nI whistled cautiously. \u201cAt aphelion?\u201d\nHe threw his head back. \u201cWhy try a Crossing at aphelion?\n What have you done then? Four thousand miles of butcherous\n heat, just to have some joker come along, use your data and\n drum you out of the glory by crossing at perihelion forty-four\n days later? No, thanks. I want the Brightside without any nonsense\n about it.\u201d He leaned across me eagerly. \u201cI want to make\n a Crossing at perihelion and I want to cross on the surface. If\n a man can do that, he\u2019s got Mercury. Until then,\nnobody\u2019s\ngot\n Mercury. I want Mercury\u2014but I\u2019ll need help getting it.\u201d\nI\u2019d thought of it a thousand times and never dared consider\n it. Nobody had, since Wyatt and Carpenter disappeared. Mercury\n turns on its axis in the same time that it wheels around\n the Sun, which means that the Brightside is always facing in.\n That makes the Brightside of Mercury at perihelion the hottest\n place in the Solar System, with one single exception: the\n surface of the Sun itself.\nIt would be a hellish trek. Only a few men had ever learned\n just\nhow\nhellish and they never came back to tell about it. It\n was a real hell\u2019s Crossing, but someday, I thought, somebody\n would cross it.\nI wanted to be along.\nThe Twilight Lab, near the northern pole of Mercury, was the\n obvious jumping-off place. The setup there wasn\u2019t very extensive\u2014a\n rocket landing, the labs and quarters for Sanderson\u2019s\n crew sunk deep into the crust, and the tower that housed\n the Solar \u2019scope that Sanderson had built up there ten years\n before.\nTwilight Lab wasn\u2019t particularly interested in the Brightside,\n of course\u2014the Sun was Sanderson\u2019s baby and he\u2019d picked\n Mercury as the closest chunk of rock to the Sun that could\n hold his observatory. He\u2019d chosen a good location, too. On\n Mercury, the Brightside temperature hits 770\u00b0 F. at perihelion\n and the Darkside runs pretty constant at -410\u00b0 F. No permanent\n installation with a human crew could survive at either\n extreme. But with Mercury\u2019s wobble, the twilight zone between\n Brightside and Darkside offers something closer to survival\n temperatures.\nSanderson built the Lab up near the pole, where the zone\n is about five miles wide, so the temperature only varies 50 to\n 60 degrees with the libration. The Solar \u2019scope could take that\n much change and they\u2019d get good clear observation of the Sun\n for about seventy out of the eighty-eight days it takes the planet\n to wheel around.\nThe Major was counting on Sanderson knowing something\n about Mercury as well as the Sun when we camped at the Lab\n to make final preparations.\nSanderson did. He thought we\u2019d lost our minds and he said\n so, but he gave us all the help he could. He spent a week\n briefing Jack Stone, the third member of our party, who had\n arrived with the supplies and equipment a few days earlier.\n Poor Jack met us at the rocket landing almost bawling, Sanderson\n had given him such a gloomy picture of what Brightside\n was like.\nStone was a youngster\u2014hardly twenty-five, I\u2019d say\u2014but\n he\u2019d been with the Major at Vulcan and had begged to join\n this trek. I had a funny feeling that Jack really didn\u2019t care for\n exploring too much, but he thought Mikuta was God, followed\n him around like a puppy.\nIt didn\u2019t matter to me as long as he knew what he was getting\n in for. You don\u2019t go asking people in this game why they do it\u2014they\u2019re\n liable to get awfully uneasy and none of them can\n ever give you an answer that makes sense. Anyway, Stone had\n borrowed three men from the Lab, and had the supplies and\n equipment all lined up when we got there, ready to check\n and test.\nWe dug right in. With plenty of funds\u2014tri-V money and\n some government cash the Major had talked his way around\u2014our\n equipment was new and good. Mikuta had done the designing\n and testing himself, with a big assist from Sanderson.\n We had four Bugs, three of them the light pillow-tire models,\n with special lead-cooled cut-in engines when the heat set in,\n and one heavy-duty tractor model for pulling the sledges.\nThe Major went over them like a kid at the circus. Then he\n said, \u201cHave you heard anything from McIvers?\u201d\n\u201cWho\u2019s he?\u201d Stone wanted to know.\n\u201cHe\u2019ll be joining us. He\u2019s a good man\u2014got quite a name\n for climbing, back home.\u201d The Major turned to me. \u201cYou\u2019ve\n probably heard of him.\u201d\nI\u2019d heard plenty of stories about Ted McIvers and I wasn\u2019t\n too happy to hear that he was joining us. \u201cKind of a daredevil,\n isn\u2019t he?\u201d\n\u201cMaybe. He\u2019s lucky and skillful. Where do you draw the\n line? We\u2019ll need plenty of both.\u201d\n\u201cHave you ever worked with him?\u201d I asked.\n\u201cNo. Are you worried?\u201d\n\u201cNot exactly. But Brightside is no place to count on luck.\u201d\nThe Major laughed. \u201cI don\u2019t think we need to worry about\n McIvers. We understood each other when I talked up the\n trip to him and we\u2019re going to need each other too much to\n do any fooling around.\u201d He turned back to the supply list.\n \u201cMeanwhile, let\u2019s get this stuff listed and packed. We\u2019ll need\n to cut weight sharply and our time is short. Sanderson says\n we should leave in three days.\u201d\nTwo days later, McIvers hadn\u2019t arrived. The Major didn\u2019t\n say much about it. Stone was getting edgy and so was I. We\n spent the second day studying charts of the Brightside, such as\n they were. The best available were pretty poor, taken from so\n far out that the detail dissolved into blurs on blow-up. They\n showed the biggest ranges of peaks and craters and faults, and\n that was all. Still, we could use them to plan a broad outline\n of our course.\n\u201cThis range here,\u201d the Major said as we crowded around\n the board, \u201cis largely inactive, according to Sanderson. But\n these to the south and west\ncould\nbe active. Seismograph\n tracings suggest a lot of activity in that region, getting worse\n down toward the equator\u2014not only volcanic, but sub-surface\n shifting.\u201d\nStone nodded. \u201cSanderson told me there was probably constant\n surface activity.\u201d\nThe Major shrugged. \u201cWell, it\u2019s treacherous, there\u2019s no\n doubt of it. But the only way to avoid it is to travel over the\n Pole, which would lose us days and offer us no guarantee of\n less activity to the west. Now we might avoid some if we could\n find a pass through this range and cut sharp east\u2014\u201d\nIt seemed that the more we considered the problem, the\n further we got from a solution. We knew there were active\n volcanoes on the Brightside\u2014even on the Darkside, though\n surface activity there was pretty much slowed down and\n localized.\nBut there were problems of atmosphere on Brightside, as\n well. There was an atmosphere and a constant atmospheric\n flow from Brightside to Darkside. Not much\u2014the lighter gases\n had reached escape velocity and disappeared from Brightside\n millennia ago\u2014but there was CO\n 2\n , and nitrogen, and traces of\n other heavier gases. There was also an abundance of sulfur\n vapor, as well as carbon disulfide and sulfur dioxide.\nThe atmospheric tide moved toward the Darkside, where it\n condensed, carrying enough volcanic ash with it for Sanderson\n to estimate the depth and nature of the surface upheavals on\n Brightside from his samplings. The trick was to find a passage\n that avoided those upheavals as far as possible. But in the final\n analysis, we were barely scraping the surface. The only way\n we would find out what was happening where was to be there.\nFinally, on the third day, McIvers blew in on a freight\n rocket from Venus. He\u2019d missed the ship that the Major and\n I had taken by a few hours, and had conned his way to Venus\n in hopes of getting a hop from there. He didn\u2019t seem too upset\n about it, as though this were his usual way of doing things and\n he couldn\u2019t see why everyone should get so excited.\nHe was a tall, rangy man with long, wavy hair prematurely\n gray, and the sort of eyes that looked like a climber\u2019s\u2014half-closed,\n sleepy, almost indolent, but capable of abrupt alertness.\n And he never stood still; he was always moving, always doing\n something with his hands, or talking, or pacing about.\nEvidently the Major decided not to press the issue of his\n arrival. There was still work to do, and an hour later we were\n running the final tests on the pressure suits. That evening,\n Stone and McIvers were thick as thieves, and everything was\n set for an early departure after we got some rest.\n\u201cAnd that,\u201d said Baron, finishing his drink and signaling\n the waiter for another pair, \u201cwas your first big mistake.\u201d\nPeter Claney raised his eyebrows. \u201cMcIvers?\u201d\n\u201cOf course.\u201d\nClaney shrugged, glanced at the small quiet tables around\n them. \u201cThere are lots of bizarre personalities around a place\n like this, and some of the best wouldn\u2019t seem to be the most\n reliable at first glance. Anyway, personality problems weren\u2019t\n our big problem right then.\nEquipment\nworried us first and\nroute\nnext.\u201d\nBaron nodded in agreement. \u201cWhat kind of suits did you\n have?\u201d\n\u201cThe best insulating suits ever made,\u201d said Claney. \u201cEach\n one had an inner lining of a fiberglass modification, to avoid\n the clumsiness of asbestos, and carried the refrigerating unit\n and oxygen storage which we recharged from the sledges every\n eight hours. Outer layer carried a monomolecular chrome reflecting\n surface that made us glitter like Christmas trees. And\n we had a half-inch dead-air space under positive pressure between\n the two layers. Warning thermocouples, of course\u2014at\n 770 degrees, it wouldn\u2019t take much time to fry us to cinders\n if the suits failed somewhere.\u201d\n\u201cHow about the Bugs?\u201d\n\u201cThey were insulated, too, but we weren\u2019t counting on\n them too much for protection.\u201d\n\u201cYou weren\u2019t!\u201d Baron exclaimed. \u201cWhy not?\u201d\n\u201cWe\u2019d be in and out of them too much. They gave us mobility\n and storage, but we knew we\u2019d have to do a lot of\n forward work on foot.\u201d Claney smiled bitterly. \u201cWhich meant\n that we had an inch of fiberglass and a half-inch of dead air\n between us and a surface temperature where lead flowed like\n water and zinc was almost at melting point and the pools of\n sulfur in the shadows were boiling like oatmeal over a campfire.\u201d\nBaron licked his lips. His fingers stroked the cool, wet glass\n as he set it down on the tablecloth.\n\u201cGo on,\u201d he said tautly. \u201cYou started on schedule?\u201d\n\u201cOh, yes,\u201d said Claney, \u201cwe started on schedule, all right.\n We just didn\u2019t quite end on schedule, that was all. But I\u2019m\n getting to that.\u201d\nHe settled back in his chair and continued.\nWe jumped off from Twilight on a course due southeast\n with thirty days to make it to the Center of Brightside. If we\n could cross an average of seventy miles a day, we could hit\n Center exactly at perihelion, the point of Mercury\u2019s closest\n approach to the Sun\u2014which made Center the hottest part of\n the planet at the hottest it ever gets.\nThe Sun was already huge and yellow over the horizon\n when we started, twice the size it appears on Earth. Every day\n that Sun would grow bigger and whiter, and every day the\n surface would get hotter. But once we reached Center, the job\n was only half done\u2014we would still have to travel another\n two thousand miles to the opposite twilight zone. Sanderson\n was to meet us on the other side in the Laboratory\u2019s scout ship,\n approximately sixty days from the time we jumped off.\nThat was the plan, in outline. It was up to us to cross those\n seventy miles a day, no matter how hot it became, no matter\n what terrain we had to cross. Detours would be dangerous and\n time-consuming. Delays could cost us our lives. We all knew\n that.\nThe Major briefed us on details an hour before we left.\n \u201cPeter, you\u2019ll take the lead Bug, the small one we stripped\n down for you. Stone and I will flank you on either side, giving\n you a hundred-yard lead. McIvers, you\u2019ll have the job of\n dragging the sledges, so we\u2019ll have to direct your course pretty\n closely. Peter\u2019s job is to pick the passage at any given point.\n If there\u2019s any doubt of safe passage, we\u2019ll all explore ahead\n on foot before we risk the Bugs. Got that?\u201d\nMcIvers and Stone exchanged glances. McIvers said: \u201cJack\n and I were planning to change around. We figured he could\n take the sledges. That would give me a little more mobility.\u201d\nThe Major looked up sharply at Stone. \u201cDo you buy that,\n Jack?\u201d\nStone shrugged. \u201cI don\u2019t mind. Mac wanted\u2014\u201d\nMcIvers made an impatient gesture with his hands. \u201cIt\n doesn\u2019t matter. I just feel better when I\u2019m on the move. Does\n it make any difference?\u201d\n\u201cI guess it doesn\u2019t,\u201d said the Major. \u201cThen you\u2019ll flank\n Peter along with me. Right?\u201d\n\u201cSure, sure.\u201d McIvers pulled at his lower lip. \u201cWho\u2019s going\n to do the advance scouting?\u201d\n\u201cIt sounds like I am,\u201d I cut in. \u201cWe want to keep the lead\n Bug light as possible.\u201d\nMikuta nodded. \u201cThat\u2019s right. Peter\u2019s Bug is stripped down\n to the frame and wheels.\u201d\nMcIvers shook his head. \u201cNo, I mean the\nadvance\nwork.\n You need somebody out ahead\u2014four or five miles, at least\u2014to\n pick up the big flaws and active surface changes, don\u2019t you?\u201d\n He stared at the Major. \u201cI mean, how can we tell what sort of\n a hole we may be moving into, unless we have a scout up\n ahead?\u201d\n\u201cThat\u2019s what we have the charts for,\u201d the Major said\n sharply.\n\u201cCharts! I\u2019m talking about\ndetail\nwork. We don\u2019t need to\n worry about the major topography. It\u2019s the little faults you\n can\u2019t see on the pictures that can kill us.\u201d He tossed the charts\n down excitedly. \u201cLook, let me take a Bug out ahead and work\n reconnaissance, keep five, maybe ten miles ahead of the column.\n I can stay on good solid ground, of course, but scan the\n area closely and radio back to Peter where to avoid the flaws.\n Then\u2014\u201d\n\u201cNo dice,\u201d the Major broke in.\n\u201cBut why not? We could save ourselves days!\u201d\n\u201cI don\u2019t care what we could save. We stay together. When\n we get to the Center, I want live men along with me. That\n means we stay within easy sight of each other at all times. Any\n climber knows that everybody is safer in a party than one man\n alone\u2014any time, any place.\u201d\nMcIvers stared at him, his cheeks an angry red. Finally he\n gave a sullen nod. \u201cOkay. If you say so.\u201d\n\u201cWell, I say so and I mean it. I don\u2019t want any fancy stuff.\n We\u2019re going to hit Center together, and finish the Crossing together.\n Got that?\u201d\nMcIvers nodded. Mikuta then looked at Stone and me and\n we nodded, too.\n\u201cAll right,\u201d he said slowly. \u201cNow that we\u2019ve got it straight,\n let\u2019s go.\u201d\nIt was hot. If I forget everything else about that trek, I\u2019ll\n never forget that huge yellow Sun glaring down, without a\n break, hotter and hotter with every mile. We knew that the\n first few days would be the easiest and we were rested and\n fresh when we started down the long ragged gorge southeast of\n the Twilight Lab.\nI moved out first; back over my shoulder, I could see the\n Major and McIvers crawling out behind me, their pillow tires\n taking the rugged floor of the gorge smoothly. Behind them,\n Stone dragged the sledges.\nEven at only 30 per cent Earth gravity they were a strain on\n the big tractor, until the ski-blades bit into the fluffy volcanic\n ash blanketing the valley. We even had a path to follow for\n the first twenty miles.\nI kept my eyes pasted to the big polaroid binocs, picking out\n the track the early research teams had made out into the edge\n of Brightside. But in a couple of hours we rumbled past Sanderson\u2019s\n little outpost observatory and the tracks stopped. We\n were in virgin territory and already the Sun was beginning to\n bite.\nWe didn\u2019t\nfeel\nthe heat so much those first days out. We\nsaw\nit. The refrig units kept our skins at a nice comfortable seventy-five\n degrees Fahrenheit inside our suits, but our eyes watched\n that glaring Sun and the baked yellow rocks going past, and\n some nerve pathways got twisted up, somehow. We poured\n sweat as if we were in a superheated furnace.\nWe drove eight hours and slept five. When a sleep period\n came due, we pulled the Bugs together into a square, threw up\n a light aluminum sun-shield and lay out in the dust and rocks.\n The sun-shield cut the temperature down sixty or seventy\n degrees, for whatever help that was. And then we ate from the\n forward sledge\u2014sucking through tubes\u2014protein, carbohydrates,\n bulk gelatin, vitamins.\nThe Major measured water out with an iron hand, because\n we\u2019d have drunk ourselves into nephritis in a week otherwise.\n We were constantly, unceasingly thirsty. Ask the physiologists\n and psychiatrists why\u2014they can give you have a dozen interesting\n reasons\u2014but all we knew, or cared about, was that it\n happened to be so.\nWe didn\u2019t sleep the first few stops, as a consequence. Our\n eyes burned in spite of the filters and we had roaring headaches,\n but we couldn\u2019t sleep them off. We sat around looking\n at each other. Then McIvers would say how good a beer would\n taste, and off we\u2019d go. We\u2019d have murdered our grandmothers\n for one ice-cold bottle of beer.\nAfter a few driving periods, I began to get my bearings at\n the wheel. We were moving down into desolation that made\n Earth\u2019s old Death Valley look like a Japanese rose garden.\n Huge sun-baked cracks opened up in the floor of the gorge,\n with black cliffs jutting up on either side; the air was filled\n with a barely visible yellowish mist of sulfur and sulfurous\n gases.\nIt was a hot, barren hole, no place for any man to go, but\n the challenge was so powerful you could almost feel it. No one\n had ever crossed this land before and escaped. Those who had\n tried it had been cruelly punished, but the land was still there,\n so it had to be crossed. Not the easy way. It had to be crossed\n the hardest way possible: overland, through anything the land\n could throw up to us, at the most difficult time possible.\nYet we knew that even the land might have been conquered\n before, except for that Sun. We\u2019d fought absolute cold before\n and won. We\u2019d never fought heat like this and won. The only\n worse heat in the Solar System was the surface of the Sun\n itself.\nBrightside was worth trying for. We would get it or it would\n get us. That was the bargain.\nI learned a lot about Mercury those first few driving periods.\n The gorge petered out after a hundred miles and we moved\n onto the slope of a range of ragged craters that ran south and\n east. This range had shown no activity since the first landing\n on Mercury forty years before, but beyond it there were active\n cones. Yellow fumes rose from the craters constantly; their\n sides were shrouded with heavy ash.\nWe couldn\u2019t detect a wind, but we knew there was a hot,\n sulfurous breeze sweeping in great continental tides across the\n face of the planet. Not enough for erosion, though. The craters\n rose up out of jagged gorges, huge towering spears of rock and\n rubble. Below were the vast yellow flatlands, smoking and hissing\n from the gases beneath the crust. Over everything was gray\n dust\u2014silicates and salts, pumice and limestone and granite\n ash, filling crevices and declivities\u2014offering a soft, treacherous\n surface for the Bug\u2019s pillow tires.\nI learned to read the ground, to tell a covered fault by the\n sag of the dust; I learned to spot a passable crack, and tell it\n from an impassable cut. Time after time the Bugs ground to\n a halt while we explored a passage on foot, tied together with\n light copper cable, digging, advancing, digging some more\n until we were sure the surface would carry the machines. It\n was cruel work; we slept in exhaustion. But it went smoothly,\n at first.\nToo smoothly, it seemed to me, and the others seemed to\n think so, too.\nMcIvers\u2019 restlessness was beginning to grate on our nerves.\n He talked too much, while we were resting or while we were\n driving; wisecracks, witticisms, unfunny jokes that wore thin\n with repetition. He took to making side trips from the route\n now and then, never far, but a little further each time.\nJack Stone reacted quite the opposite; he grew quieter with\n each stop, more reserved and apprehensive. I didn\u2019t like it, but\n I figured that it would pass off after a while. I was apprehensive\n enough myself; I just managed to hide it better.\nAnd every mile the Sun got bigger and whiter and higher in\n the sky and hotter. Without our ultra-violet screens and glare\n filters we would have been blinded; as it was our eyes ached\n constantly and the skin on our faces itched and tingled at the\n end of an eight-hour trek.\nBut it took one of those side trips of McIvers\u2019 to deliver the\n penultimate blow to our already fraying nerves. He had driven\n down a side-branch of a long canyon running off west of our\n route and was almost out of sight in a cloud of ash when we\n heard a sharp cry through our earphones.\nI wheeled my Bug around with my heart in my throat and\n spotted him through the binocs, waving frantically from the\n top of his machine. The Major and I took off, lumbering down\n the gulch after him as fast as the Bugs could go, with a thousand\n horrible pictures racing through our minds....\nWe found him standing stock-still, pointing down the gorge\n and, for once, he didn\u2019t have anything to say. It was the wreck\n of a Bug; an old-fashioned half-track model of the sort that\n hadn\u2019t been in use for years. It was wedged tight in a cut in\n the rock, an axle broken, its casing split wide open up the\n middle, half-buried in a rock slide. A dozen feet away were\n two insulated suits with white bones gleaming through the\n fiberglass helmets.\nThis was as far as Wyatt and Carpenter had gotten on\ntheir\nBrightside Crossing.\nOn the fifth driving period out, the terrain began to change.\n It looked the same, but every now and then it\nfelt\ndifferent.\n On two occasions I felt my wheels spin, with a howl of protest\n from my engine. Then, quite suddenly, the Bug gave a lurch;\n I gunned my motor and nothing happened.\nI could see the dull gray stuff seeping up around the hubs,\n thick and tenacious, splattering around in steaming gobs as\n the wheels spun. I knew what had happened the moment the\n wheels gave and, a few minutes later, they chained me to the\n tractor and dragged me back out of the mire. It looked for\n all the world like thick gray mud, but it was a pit of molten\n lead, steaming under a soft layer of concealing ash.\nI picked my way more cautiously then. We were getting into\n an area of recent surface activity; the surface was really treacherous.\n I caught myself wishing that the Major had okayed\n McIvers\u2019 scheme for an advanced scout; more dangerous for\n the individual, maybe, but I was driving blind now and I didn\u2019t\n like it.\nOne error in judgment could sink us all, but I wasn\u2019t thinking\n much about the others. I was worried about\nme\n, plenty\n worried. I kept thinking, better McIvers should go than me.\n It wasn\u2019t healthy thinking and I knew it, but I couldn\u2019t get the\n thought out of my mind.\nIt was a grueling eight hours and we slept poorly. Back in\n the Bug again, we moved still more slowly\u2014edging out on a\n broad flat plateau, dodging a network of gaping surface cracks\u2014winding\n back and forth in an effort to keep the machines on\n solid rock. I couldn\u2019t see far ahead, because of the yellow haze\n rising from the cracks, so I was almost on top of it when I saw\n a sharp cut ahead where the surface dropped six feet beyond\n a deep crack.\nI let out a shout to halt the others; then I edged my Bug\n forward, peering at the cleft. It was deep and wide. I moved\n fifty yards to the left, then back to the right.\nThere was only one place that looked like a possible crossing;\n a long, narrow ledge of gray stuff that lay down across\n a section of the fault like a ramp. Even as I watched it, I could\n feel the surface crust under the Bug trembling and saw the\n ledge shift over a few feet.",
    "51249": "Spacemen Die at Home\nBy EDWARD W. LUDWIG\n\n\n Illustrated by THORNE\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction October 1951.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nOne man's retreat is another's prison ... and\n \nit takes a heap of flying to make a hulk a home!\nForty days of heaven and forty nights of hell. That's the way it's\n been, Laura. But how can I make you understand? How can I tell you\n what it's like to be young and a man and to dream of reaching the\n stars? And yet, at the same time, to be filled with a terrible, gnawing\n fear\u2014a fear locked in my mind during the day and bursting out like an\n evil jack-in-the-box at night. I must tell you, Laura.\n\n\n Perhaps if I start at the beginning, the very beginning....\n\n\n It was the Big Day. All the examinations, the physicals and psychos,\n were over. The Academy, with its great halls and classrooms and\n laboratories, lay hollow and silent, an exhausted thing at sleep after\n spawning its first-born.\n\n\n For it was June in this year of 1995, and we were the graduating class\n of the U. S. Academy of Interplanetary Flight.\n\n\n The\nfirst\ngraduating class, Laura. That's why it was so important,\n because we were the\nfirst\n.\n\n\n We sat on a little platform, twenty-five of us. Below us was a beach\n of faces, most of them strange, shining like pebbles in the warm New\n Mexican sunlight. They were the faces of mothers and fathers and\n grandparents and kid brothers and sisters\u2014the people who a short time\n ago had been only scrawled names on letters from home or words spoken\n wistfully at Christmas. They were the memory-people who, to me, had\n never really existed.\n\n\n But today they had become real, and they were here and looking at us\n with pride in their eyes.\n\n\n A voice was speaking, deep, sure, resonant. \"... these boys have worked\n hard for six years, and now they're going to do a lot of big things.\n They're going to bring us the metals and minerals that we desperately\n need. They're going to find new land for our colonists, good rich land\n that will bear food and be a home for our children. And perhaps most\n important of all, they'll make other men think of the stars and look up\n at them and feel humility\u2014for mankind needs humility.\"\n\n\n The speaker was Robert Chandler, who'd brought the first rocket down on\n Mars just five years ago, who'd established the first colony there, and\n who had just returned from his second hop to Venus.\n\n\n Instead of listening to his words, I was staring at his broad shoulders\n and his dark, crew-cut hair and his white uniform which was silk-smooth\n and skin-tight. I was worshiping him and hating him at the same time,\n for I was thinking:\nHe's already reached Mars and Venus. Let him leave Jupiter and the\n others alone! Let us be the first to land somewhere! Let us be the\n first!\nMickey Cameron, sitting next to me, dug an elbow into my ribs. \"I don't\n see 'em, Ben,\" he whispered. \"Where do you suppose they are?\"\n\n\n I blinked. \"Who?\"\n\n\n \"My folks.\"\n\n\n That was something I didn't have to worry about. My parents had died in\n a strato-jet crash when I was four, so I hadn't needed many of those\n \"You are cordially invited\" cards. Just one, which I'd sent to Charlie\n Taggart.\n\n\n Stardust Charlie, we called him, although I never knew why. He was a\n veteran of Everson's first trip to the Moon nearly twenty-five years\n ago, and he was still at it. He was Chief Jetman now on the\nLunar\n Lady\n, a commercial ore ship on a shuttle between Luna City and White\n Sands.\n\n\n I remembered how, as a kid, I'd pestered him in the Long Island\n Spaceport, tagging after him like a puppy, and how he'd grown to like\n me until he became father, mother, and buddy all in one to me. And I\n remembered, too, how his recommendation had finally made me a cadet.\n\n\n My gaze wandered over the faces, but I couldn't find Charlie's. It\n wasn't surprising. The\nLunar Lady\nwas in White Sands now, but\n liberties, as Charlie said, were as scarce as water on Mars.\nIt doesn't matter\n, I told myself.\n\n\n Then Mickey stiffened. \"I see 'em, Ben! There in the fifth row!\"\n\n\n Usually Mickey was the same whether in a furnace-hot engine room or a\n garden party, smiling, accepting whatever the world offered. But now a\n tenseness and an excitement had gripped even him. I was grateful that\n he was beside me; we'd been a good team during those final months at\n the Academy and I knew we'd be a good team in space. The Universe was\n mighty big, but with two of us to face it together, it would be only\n half as big.\n\n\n And then it seemed that all the proud faces were looking at us as if we\n were gods. A shiver went through my body. Though it was daytime, I saw\n the stars in my mind's vision, the great shining balls of silver, each\n like a voice crying out and pleading to be explored, to be touched by\n the sons of Earth.\nThey expect a lot from us. They expect us to make a new kind of\n civilization and a better place out of Earth. They expect all this and\n a hell of a lot more. They think there's nothing we can't do.\nI felt very small and very humble. I was scared. Damned scared.\nAt last it was over, and the proud faces descended upon us in a huge,\n babbling wave.\n\n\n Then I saw him. Good old Stardust Charlie.\n\n\n His wizened little body was shuffling down an aisle, his eyes shining\n like a child's. He'd been sandwiched, evidently, in one of the rear\n rows.\n\n\n But he wasn't the Charlie I'd seen a year ago. He'd become gaunt and\n old, and he walked with an unnatural stiffness. He looked so old that\n it was hard to believe he'd once been young.\n\n\n He scratched his mop of steel-gray hair and grinned.\n\n\n \"You made it, boy,\" he chortled, \"and by Jupiter, we'll celebrate\n tonight. Yes, siree, I got twenty-four hours, and we'll celebrate as\n good spacemen should!\"\n\n\n Then Mickey strode up to us. He was his normal, boyish self again,\n walking lightly, his blond, curly-haired skull swaying as if in rhythm\n with some silent melody.\n\n\n And you, Laura, were with him.\n\n\n \"Meet the Brat,\" he said. \"My sister Laura.\"\n\n\n I stared almost rudely. You were like a doll lost in the immensity\n of your fluffy pink dress. Your hair was long and transformed into a\n golden froth where sunlight touched it. But your eyes were the eyes\n of a woman, glowing like dark stars and reflecting a softness, a\n gentleness that I'd never seen in eyes before.\n\n\n \"I'm happy to meet you, Ben,\" you said. \"I've heard of no one else for\n the past year.\"\n\n\n A tide of heat crept up from my collar. I stuttered through an\n introduction of Charlie.\n\n\n You and Mickey looked strangely at Charlie, and I realized that old\n Stardust was not a cadet's notion of the ideal spaceman. Charlie\n scorned the skin-tight uniforms of the government service and wore a\n shiny black suit that was a relic of Everson's early-day Moon Patrol.\n His tie was clumsily knotted, and a button on his coat was missing.\n\n\n And the left side of his face was streaked with dark scar tissue, the\n result of an atomic blowup on one of the old Moon ships. I was so\n accustomed to the scars, I was seldom aware of them; but others, I\n knew, would find them ugly.\n\n\n You were kind. You shook hands and said, softly: \"It's a privilege to\n meet you, Charlie. Just think\u2014one of Everson's men, one of the first\n to reach the Moon!\"\n\n\n Charlie gulped helplessly, and Mickey said: \"Still going to spend the\n weekend with us, aren't you, Ben?\"\n\n\n I shook my head. \"Charlie has only twenty-four hours liberty. We're\n planning to see the town tonight.\"\n\n\n \"Why don't you both come with us?\" you asked. \"Our folks have their\n own plane, so it would be no problem. And we've got a big guest room.\n Charlie, wouldn't you like a home-cooked meal before going back to the\n Moon?\"\n\n\n Charlie's answer was obscured by a sudden burst of coughing. I knew\n that he'd infinitely prefer to spend his liberty sampling Martian\n fizzes and Plutonian zombies.\n\n\n But this night seemed too sacred for Charlie's kind of celebration.\n\n\n \"We'd really like to come,\" I said.\nOn our way to the 'copter parking field, Dean Dawson passed us. He was\n a tall, willowy man, spectacled, looking the way an academy professor\n should look.\n\n\n \"Ben,\" he called, \"don't forget that offer. Remember you've got two\n months to decide.\"\n\n\n \"No, thanks,\" I answered. \"Better not count on me.\"\n\n\n A moment later Mickey said, frowning, \"What was he talking about, Ben?\n Did he make you an offer?\"\n\n\n I laughed. \"He offered me a job here at the Academy teaching\n astrogation. What a life\nthat\nwould be! Imagine standing in a\n classroom for forty years when I've got the chance to\u2014\"\n\n\n I hesitated, and you supplied the right words: \"When you've got the\n chance to be the first to reach a new planet. That's what most of you\n want, isn't it? That's what Mickey used to want.\"\n\n\n I looked at you as if you were Everson himself, because you seemed to\n understand the hunger that could lie in a man's heart.\n\n\n Then your last words came back and jabbed me: \"That's what Mickey used\n to want.\"\n\n\n \"\nUsed\nto want?\" I asked. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\n You bit your lip, not answering.\n\n\n \"What did she mean, Mickey?\"\n\n\n Mickey looked down at his feet. \"I didn't want to tell you yet, Ben.\n We've been together a long time, planning to be on a rocket. But\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Yes?\"\n\n\n \"Well, what does it add up to? You become a spaceman and wear a pretty\n uniform. You wade through the sands of Mars and the dust of Venus. If\n you're lucky, you're good for five, maybe ten years. Then one thing or\n another gets you. They don't insure rocketmen, you know.\"\n\n\n My stomach was full of churning, biting ice. \"What are you trying to\n say, Mickey?\"\n\n\n \"I've thought about it a long time. They want me for Cargo Supervisor\n of White Sands Port.\" He raised his hand to stop me. \"I know. It's not\n so exciting. I'll just live a lot longer. I'm sorry, Ben.\"\n\n\n I couldn't answer. It was as if someone had whacked the back of my\n knees with the blast of a jet.\n\n\n \"It doesn't change anything, Ben\u2014right now, I mean. We can still have\n a good weekend.\"\n\n\n Charlie was muttering under his breath, smoldering like a bomb about to\n reach critical mass. I shook my head dazedly at him as we got to the\n 'copter.\n\n\n \"Sure,\" I said to Mickey, \"we can still have a good weekend.\"\nI liked your folks, Laura. There was no star-hunger in them, of course.\n They were simple and solid and settled, like green growing things,\n deep-rooted, belonging to Earth. They were content with a home that was\n cool on this warm summer night, with a 'copter and a tri-dimensional\n video, and a handsome automatic home that needed no servants or\n housework.\n\n\n Stardust Charlie was as comfortable as a Martian sand-monkey in a\n shower, but he tried courageously to be himself.\n\n\n At the dinner table he stared glassily at nothing and grated, \"Only hit\n Mars once, but I'll never forget the kid who called himself a medic.\n Skipper started coughing, kept it up for three days. Whoopin' cough,\n the medic says, not knowin' the air had chemicals that turned to acid\n in your lungs. I'd never been to Mars before, but I knew better'n that.\n Hell, I says, that ain't whoopin' cough, that's lung-rot.\"\n\n\n That was when your father said he wasn't so hungry after all.\n\n\n Afterward, you and I walked onto the terrace, into the moonlit night,\n to watch for crimson-tailed continental rockets that occasionally\n streaked up from White Sands.\n\n\n We gazed for a few seconds up into the dark sky, and then you said:\n \"Charlie is funny, isn't he? He's nice and I'm glad he's here, but he's\n sort of funny.\"\n\n\n \"He's an old-time spaceman. You didn't need much education in those\n days, just a lot of brawn and a quick mind. It took guts to be a\n spaceman then.\"\n\n\n \"But he wasn't always a spaceman. Didn't he ever have a family?\"\n\n\n I smiled and shook my head. \"If he had, he never mentioned it. Charlie\n doesn't like to be sentimental, at least not on the outside. As far as\n I know, his life began when he took off for the Moon with Everson.\"\n\n\n You stared at me strangely, almost in a sacred kind of way. I knew\n suddenly that you liked me, and my heart began to beat faster.\n\n\n There was silence.\n\n\n You were lovely, your soft hair like strands of gold, and there were\n flecks of silver in your dark eyes. Somehow I was afraid. I had the\n feeling that I shouldn't have come here.\n\n\n You kept looking at me until I had to ask: \"What are you thinking,\n Laura?\"\n\n\n You laughed, but it was a sad, fearful laugh. \"No, I shouldn't be\n thinking it. You'd hate me if I told you, and I wouldn't want that.\"\n\n\n \"I could never hate you.\"\n\n\n \"It\u2014it's about the stars,\" you said very softly. \"I understand why you\n want to go to them. Mickey and I used to dream about them when we were\n kids. Of course I was a girl, so it was just a game to me. But once I\n dreamed of going to England. Oh, it was going to be so wonderful. I\n lived for months, just thinking about it.\n\n\n \"One summer we went. I had fun. I saw the old buildings and castles,\n and the spaceports and the Channel Tube. But after it was over, I\n realized England wasn't so different from America. Places seem exciting\n before you get to them, and afterward they're not really.\"\n\n\n I frowned. \"And you mean it might be the same with the stars? You think\n maybe I haven't grown up yet?\"\n\n\n Anxiety darkened your features. \"No, it'd be good to be a spaceman,\n to see the strange places and make history. But is it worth it? Is it\n worth the things you'd have to give up?\"\n\n\n I didn't understand at first, and I wanted to ask, \"Give up\nwhat\n?\"\n\n\n Then I looked at you and the promise in your eyes, and I knew.\n\n\n All through the years I'd been walking down a single, narrow path.\n\n\n Government boarding school, the Academy, my eyes always upward and on\n the stars.\n\n\n Now I'd stumbled into a cross-roads, beholding a strange new path that\n I'd never noticed before.\nYou can go into space\n, I thought,\nand try to do as much living in\n ten years as normal men do in fifty. You can be like Everson, who died\n in a Moon crash at the age of 36, or like a thousand others who lie\n buried in Martian sand and Venusian dust. Or, if you're lucky, like\n Charlie\u2014a kind of human meteor streaking through space, eternally\n alone, never finding a home.\nOr there's the other path. To stay on this little prison of an Earth\n in cool, comfortable houses. To be one of the solid, rooted people with\n a wife and kids. To be one of the people who live long enough to grow\n old, who awake to the song of birds instead of rocket grumblings, who\n fill their lungs with the clean rich air of Earth instead of poisonous\n dust.\n\"I'm sorry,\" you said. \"I didn't mean to make you sad, Ben.\"\n\n\n \"It's all right,\" I said, clenching my fists. \"You made sense\u2014a lot of\n sense.\"\nThe next morning Charlie said good-bye in our room. He rubbed his\n scarred face nervously as he cleared his throat with a series of thin,\n tight coughs.\n\n\n Then he pointed to a brown, faded tin box lying on the bed. \"I'm\n leavin' that for you. It's full of old stuff, souvenirs mostly. Thought\n maybe you'd like to have 'em.\"\n\n\n I scowled, not understanding. \"Why, Charlie? What for?\"\n\n\n He shrugged as if afraid he might be accused of sentimentality. \"Oh,\n it's just that I've been dodgin' meteors now for twenty-five years.\n That's a long time, boy. Ain't one spaceman in a thousand that lucky.\n Some of these days, I won't be so lucky.\"\n\n\n I tried to laugh. \"You're good for another twenty-five years, Charlie.\"\n\n\n He shook his head stiffly, staring at nothing. \"Maybe. Anyway, I'm\n gonna get off the Shuttle this time, make one more trip to Mars. Tell\n you what. There's a little stone cafe on Mars, the\nSpace Rat\n, just\n off Chandler Field on the Grand Canal. When you get to Mars, take a\n look inside. I'll probably be there.\"\n\n\n He coughed again, a deep, rasping cough that filled his eyes with tears.\n\n\n \"Not used to this Earth air,\" he muttered. \"What I need's some Martian\n climate.\"\n\n\n Suddenly that cough frightened me. It didn't seem normal. I wondered,\n too, about his stiff movements and glassy stare. It was as if he were\n drugged.\n\n\n I shook the thought away. If Charlie was sick, he wouldn't talk about\n going to Mars. The medics wouldn't let him go even as far as Luna.\n\n\n We watched him leave, you and Mickey and I.\n\n\n \"When will you be back?\" you asked.\n\n\n Charlie's hard face contorted itself into a gargoylish grin. \"Maybe a\n couple of months, maybe a couple of years. You know spacemen.\"\n\n\n Then he waved and strode away, a strange, gray, withered gnome of a man.\n\n\n I wanted him to say something, to tell me the secret that would kill\n the doubt worming through my brain.\n\n\n But he rounded a corner, still grinning and waving, and then he was\n gone.\nThat afternoon Mickey showed me his room. It was more like a boy's\n room than a spaceman's. In it were all the little things that kids\n treasure\u2014pennants, models of Everson's two ships, a tennis trophy,\n books, a home-made video.\n\n\n I began to realize how important a room like this could be to a boy.\n I could imagine, too, the happiness that parents felt as they watched\n their children grow to adulthood.\n\n\n I'd missed something. My folks were shadow-people, my impressions of\n them drawn half from ancient photos, half from imagination. For me, it\n had been a cold, automatic kind of life, the life of dormitories and\n routines and rules. I'd been so blinded by the brilliancy of my dreams,\n I hadn't realized I was different.\nMy folks were killed in a rocket crash. If it weren't for rockets, I'd\n have lived the kind of life a kid should live.\nMickey noticed my frown.\n\n\n \"What's the matter, Ben? Still sore? I feel like a heel, but I'm just\n not like you and Charlie, I guess. I\u2014\"\n\n\n \"No, I understand, Mickey. I'm not sore, really.\"\n\n\n \"Listen, then. You haven't accepted any offer yet, have you?\"\n\n\n \"No. I got a couple of possibilities. Could get a berth on the\nOdyssey\n, the new ship being finished at Los Angeles. They want me,\n too, for the Moon Patrol, but that's old stuff, not much better than\n teaching. I want to be in deep space.\"\n\n\n \"Well, how about staying with us till you decide? Might as well enjoy\n Earth life while you can. Okay?\"\n\n\n I felt like running from the house, to forget that it existed. I wanted\n someone to tell me one of the old stories about space, a tale of\n courage that would put fuel on dying dreams.\n\n\n But I wanted, also, to be with you, Laura, to see your smile and the\n flecks of silver in your eyes and the way your nose turned upward ever\n so slightly when you laughed. You see, I loved you already, almost as\n much as I loved the stars.\n\n\n And I said, slowly, my voice sounding unfamiliar and far away, \"Sure,\n I'll stay, Mickey. Sure.\"\nForty days of joy, forty nights of fear and indecision. We did all the\n little things, like watching the rockets land at White Sands and flying\n down to the Gulf to swim in cool waters. You tried, unsuccessfully, to\n teach me to dance, and we talked about Everson and Charlie and the Moon\n and the stars. You felt you had to give the stars all the beauty and\n promise of a child's dream, because you knew that was what I wanted.\n\n\n One morning I thought,\nWhy must I make a choice? Why can't I have both\n you and the stars? Would that be asking too much?\nAll day the thought lay in my mind like fire.\n\n\n That evening I asked you to marry me. I said it very simply: \"Laura, I\n want you to be my wife.\"\n\n\n You looked up at Venus, and you were silent for a long while, your face\n flushed.\n\n\n Then you murmured, \"I\u2014I want to marry you, Ben, but are you asking me\n to marry a spaceman or a teacher?\"\n\n\n \"Can't a spaceman marry, too?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, a spaceman can marry, but what would it be like? Don't you see,\n Ben? You'd be like Charlie. Gone for\nmaybe\ntwo months,\nmaybe\ntwo\n years. Then you'd have a twenty-four hour liberty\u2014and I'd have what?\"\n\n\n Somehow I'd expected words like these, but still they hurt. \"I wouldn't\n have to be a spaceman forever. I could try it for a couple of years,\n then teach.\"\n\n\n \"Would you, Ben? Would you be satisfied with just seeing Mars? Wouldn't\n you want to go on to Jupiter and Saturn and Uranus and on and on?\"\n\n\n Your voice was choked, and even in the semi-darkness I saw tears\n glittering in your eyes.\n\n\n \"Do you think I'd dare have children, Ben? Mickey told me what happened\n on the\nCyclops\n. There was a leak in the atomic engines. The ship was\n flooded with radiation\u2014just for a second. It didn't seem serious. The\n men had no burns. But a year later the captain had a child. And it\n was\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I know, Laura. Don't say it.\"\n\n\n You had to finish. \"It was a monster.\"\n\n\n That night I lay awake, the fears and doubts too frantic to let me\n sleep.\nYou've got to decide now\n, I told myself.\nYou can't stay here. You've\n got to make a choice.\nThe teaching job was still open. The spot on the\nOdyssey\nwas still\n open\u2014and the big ship, it was rumored, was equipped to make it all the\n way to Pluto.\nYou can take Dean Dawson's job and stay with Laura and have kids and a\n home and live to see what happens in this world sixty years from now.\nOr you can see what's on the other side of the mountain. You can be a\n line in a history book.\nI cursed. I knew what Charlie would say. He'd say, \"Get the hell out\n of there, boy. Don't let a fool woman make a sucker out of you. Get\n out there on the\nOdyssey\nwhere you belong. We got a date on Mars,\n remember? At the\nSpace Rat\n, just off Chandler Field on the Grand\n Canal.\"\n\n\n That's what he'd say.\n\n\n And yet I wanted you, Laura. I wanted to be with you, always.\n\n\n \"Oh God,\" I moaned, \"what shall I do?\"\nNext morning the door chimes pealed, and you went to the door and\n brought back the audiogram. It was addressed to me; I wondered who\n could be sending me a message.\n\n\n I pressed the stud on the little gray cylinder, and a rasping,\n automatic voice droned: \"Luna City, Luna, July 27, 1995. Regret to\n inform you of death of Charles Taggart, Chief Jetman....\"\n\n\n Then there was a Latin name which was more polite than the word\n \"lung-rot\" and the metallic phrase, \"This message brought to you by\n courtesy of United Nations Earth-Luna Communication Corps.\"\n\n\n I stood staring at the cylinder.\n\n\n Charles Taggart was dead.\n\n\n Charles Taggart was Charlie. Stardust Charlie.\n\n\n My heart thudded crazily against my chest. It couldn't be! Not Charlie!\n The audiogram had lied!\n\n\n I pressed the stud again. \"... regret to inform you of death of\n Charles ...\"\n\n\n I hurled the cylinder at the wall. It thudded, fell, rolled. The broken\n voice droned on.\n\n\n You ran to it, shut it off. \"I'm sorry, Ben, so terribly\u2014\"\n\n\n Without answering, I walked into my room. I knew it was true now. I\n remembered Charlie's coughing, his gaunt features, his drugged gaze.\n The metallic words had told the truth.\n\n\n I sat for a long time on my bed, crying inside, but staring dry-eyed at\n Charlie's faded tin box.\n\n\n Then, finally, I fingered his meager possessions\u2014a few wrinkled\n photos, some letters, a small black statue of a forgotten Martian god,\n a gold service medal from the Moon Patrol.\nThis was what remained of Charlie after twenty-five years in space.\n It was a bitter bargain. A statue instead of a wife, yellowed letters\n instead of children, a medal instead of a home.\nIt'd be a great future\n, I thought.\nYou'd dream of sitting in a dingy\n stone dive on the Grand Canal with sand-wasps buzzing around smoky,\n stinking candles. A bottle of luchu juice and a couple of Martian girls\n with dirty feet for company. And a sudden cough that would be the first\n sign of lung-rot.\nTo hell with it!\n\n\n I walked into your living room and called Dean Dawson on the visiphone.\n\n\n I accepted that job teaching.\nAnd now, Laura, it's nearly midnight. You're in your room, sleeping,\n and the house is silent.\n\n\n It's hard to tell you, to make you understand, and that is why I am\n writing this.\n\n\n I looked through Charlie's box again, more carefully this time, reading\n the old letters and studying the photographs. I believe now that\n Charlie sensed my indecision, that he left these things so that they\n could tell me what he could not express in words.\n\n\n And among the things, Laura, I found a ring.\n\n\n A wedding ring.\n\n\n In that past he never talked about, there was a woman\u2014his wife.\n Charlie was young once, his eyes full of dreams, and he faced the same\n decision that I am facing. Two paths were before him, but he tried to\n travel both. He later learned what we already know\u2014that there can be\n no compromise. And you know, too, which path he finally chose.\n\n\n Do you know why he had to drug himself to watch me graduate? So he\n could look at me, knowing that I would see the worlds he could never\n live to see. Charlie didn't leave just a few trinkets behind him. He\n left himself, Laura, for he showed me that a boy's dream can also be a\n man's dream.\n\n\n He made his last trip to Luna when he knew he was going to die. Heaven\n knows how he escaped a checkup. Maybe the captain understood and was\n kind\u2014but that doesn't matter now.\n\n\n Do you know\nwhy\nhe wanted to reach Mars? Do you know why he didn't\n want to die in the clean, cool air of Earth?\n\n\n It was because he wanted to die nearer home. His home, Laura, was the\n Universe, where the ship was his house, the crew his father, mother,\n brothers, the planets his children.\n\n\n You say that the beauty of the other side of the mountain vanishes\n after you reach it. But how can one ever be\nsure\nuntil the journey is\n made? Could I or Charlie or the thousand before us bear to look upon a\n star and think,\nI might have gone there; I could have been the first\n?\n\n\n We said, too, that the life of a spaceman is lonely. Yet how could one\n be lonely when men like Charlie roam the spaceways?\n\n\n Charlie wanted me to himself that night after graduation. He wanted us\n to celebrate as spacemen should, for he knew that this would be his\n last night on Earth. It might have seemed an ugly kind of celebration\n to you, but he wanted it with all his heart, and we robbed him of it.\n\n\n Because of these things, Laura, I will be gone in the morning. Explain\n the best you can to Mickey and to your parents and Dean Dawson.\n\n\n Right now I've got a date that I'm going to keep\u2014at a dingy stone cafe\n on Mars, the\nSpace Rat\n, just off Chandler Field on the Grand Canal.\n\n\n Stardust Charlie will be there; he'll go with me in memory to whatever\n part of the Galaxy I may live to reach. And so will you, Laura.\n\n\n I have two wedding rings with me\u2014his wife's ring and yours.",
    "20032": "eBabe \n\n         This week, soft-porn entrepreneur Ron Harris began auctioning the eggs of fashion models on the Internet. His site, ronsangels.com (named after the 1970s' babe show Charlie's Angels ), invites visitors to \"bid on eggs from beautiful, healthy and intelligent women.\" Like Dr. Richard Seed, who recently declared his intention to clone human beings, Harris has attracted the attention of the media and politicians who are \"looking into\" whether he can be stopped. Most people agree that Harris is a creep and that his site is an outrage. What they don't agree on is why. Here's what the critics have to say about the auction--and each other. \n\n          \n\n            1. Egg auctions will produce designer babies. Harris cites his experience as a horse breeder and asks, \"We bid for everything else in this society--why not eggs?\" Alarmists, agreeing that Harris \"can put you into your own designer baby by selling eggs,\" predict that his success will steer \"the future of human breeding\" toward \"genetic engineering.\" \n\n          \n\n            2. Egg auctions will fail to produce designer babies. While fretting about what will happen if Harris succeeds, fertility experts simultaneously debunk that scenario. \"Not only is it ethically ludicrous, but the fact is, no kid's going to look like the model's picture,\" observes ethicist George Annas. The experts give four reasons. First, the child of an ugly man and a pretty woman is just as likely to be ugly as to be pretty. Second, everyone carries \"recessive\" genes, which are invisible in this generation but may become visible in the next. A model with a small nose can pass on genes for a big nose. Third, even if both parents are attractive, a child can combine their features unattractively. For example, a girl can inherit her mother's weak nose and her father's strong brow. \n\n          \n\n            3. Egg auctions will promote the survival of the fittest. Doomsayers predict that once \"beautiful eggs are available strictly to people who are willing to spend an ungodly sum for them,\" the rich will transform themselves into a \"super-race\" reminiscent of the Nazis. To this, Harris replies, \"It is not our intention to suggest that we make a super society of only beautiful people. This site simply mirrors our current society, in that beauty usually goes to the highest bidder.\" But this reply only fuels concern that gradually, society will separate into \"genetic haves and have nots.\" \n\n          \n\n            4. Egg auctions will promote the survival of the unfittest. Harris writes that only men with \"substantial financial resources\" are fit to give his models' offspring \"a financially secure and stable life.\" But skeptics wonder whether women who sell their eggs to the highest bidder--and men who buy these eggs for the sole purpose of spawning good-looking children--may produce children just as dysfunctional as themselves. As Calgary Sun columnist Sydney Sharpe put it, \"Any woman ... who enters into this mephistophelian pact has a few screws loose. Maybe her kid will, too. Not to mention the buyers who sign her up.\" \n\n          \n\n            5. Egg auctions will fail to promote the survival of the unfittest. Many models, if not most, have had cosmetic surgery. A model who is perfectly ruthless will conceal this fact when selling her eggs. (One of Harris' \"angels\" has already been caught lying about her age.) How does Harris know whether his models have had collagen injections and nose jobs? \"There's no way to know that. You can ask the girl and hope she tells you the truth,\" he says. Annas concludes that since there's \"no way to know how much of their beauty is a product of their genes, plastic surgery, a makeup artist, or exercise,\" only a \"naive\" person would buy their eggs on the basis of the photographs displayed on the site. \"You don't want to see the models,\" he points out. \"You want to see pictures of their parents.\" On this theory, children produced by the egg auction are likely to be the offspring of liars on one side and fools on the other. \n\n          \n\n            6. Beauty doesn't convey health. Harris casually asserts that beauty \"shows healthiness and longevity.\" On his site, he writes, \" 'Natural Selection' is choosing genes that are healthy and beautiful.\" Skeptics question this assumed equivalence, noting that traits men find attractive in women these days--thinness, for example--are often unhealthy. When asked on the Today show how much \"medical screening\" he has given his egg donors, Harris answered, \"None.\" \n\n          \n\n            7. Beauty is less meaningful than intelligence. Harris says he's not the first person to market good genes. Others, he notes, have sold sperm and solicited eggs on the basis of the donor's intelligence. Harris' detractors reply that beauty is \"superficial\" and conveys a \"harmful preoccupation with exterior appearances over intelligence and content of character.\" This critique is usually offered by a blow-dried TV interviewer who, after thanking Harris for his time, urges viewers to stay tuned for the movie starlet who will join the program after a brief commercial break. \n\n          \n\n            8. Beauty is less useful than intelligence. Harris advertises beauty not as an end but as a means to \"success,\" since people who are physically desirable get more attention, power, and favorable treatment. Having chided Harris for exalting social advantage over \"character,\" critics turn around and adopt his ruthless logic. While conceding that beauty is useful, they argue that intelligence is a better weapon in today's meritocratic information economy--and that although Harris claims his models are \"beautiful, healthy and intelligent,\" he offers no evidence of brains, such as IQ or SAT scores. London's Independent envisions \"Bimbo births.\" A fertility expert shrugs, \"If people want to spend $150,000 for the eggs of a gorgeous woman who has an IQ of 68, let them.\" \n\n          \n\n            9. The auction exploits desperate buyers. Harris preaches pure capitalism, saying it's \"unfair to put a limit on a girl's ability to make money\" by auctioning her eggs. In turn, fertility clinic operators accuse Harris of \"taking advantage of couples trying to conceive\" and exploiting \"desperate people ... susceptible to the dreams he is trying to sell.\" USA Today laments, \"This is about human need. And human greed.\" \n\n          \n\n            10. The auction exploits desperate sellers. By late Monday, Harris had only a handful of bids, and only one was verified as legitimate. On the other hand, 50 women had asked him to put their eggs up for auction. Gradually, the media concluded that the donors were the true victims. USA Today described the models as \"struggling actresses,\" reported that they were unaware of the health risks of donating eggs, and quoted one as saying, \"I'd rather do this than do Playboy or Penthouse .\" Harris' sole verified bidder told the paper that selling eggs was \"better than prostitution.\" \n\n         Harris constantly refers to the donors as his \"girls\" and describes them like cattle--\"We have a legitimate bid of $42,000 on one of the girls.\" He gets a 20 percent commission on each winning bid, though he takes no responsibility for executing financial transactions or medical procedures. \"We have no control over the quality, safety or legality of the items advertised, the truth or accuracy of the listings, the ability of sellers to sell items or the ability of buyers to buy items,\" he stipulates. His role, he explains, is simply to \"find beautiful girls, take beautiful photographs of them, [and] put them up on the Web.\" To some critics, the mystery isn't, as Harris suggests, how women throughout history have exploited their sexual power over men, but how pimps like him have come away with the profit. \n\n          \n\n            11. The auction exploits voyeurs. The Washington Post thinks Harris isn't targeting either buyers or sellers. He's not serious about selling eggs, says the Post . He's just using the sex appeal of his models and the intriguing perversity of a human egg auction to drum up publicity and attract Internet traffic to his site, from which he can sell advertising and subscriptions ($24.95 a month to view profiles of the models), hawk his forthcoming book ( Naked Power ), and direct prurient visitors to his various porn sites. A spokesman for fertility doctors suspects that ronsangels.com is really aimed at \"adolescent boys.\" \n\n          \n\n            12. The Internet facilitates monstrous purchases. Technology watchdogs call the egg auction another chapter in the cultural slide marked by Jennycam (a Web site featuring live video of a young woman undressing and doing other normal activities in her apartment), the promised Webcast of a man and woman losing their virginity together (which turned out to be a hoax), and a human kidney auction that was conducted and aborted on eBay last month. \"Ever since the Internet, it seems to snowball more rapidly, this depersonalization of people and selling of eggs,\" one fertility expert complains to the New York Times . USA Today says the egg auction \"just might force an Internet-obsessed society to finally sit down and ask itself: Where is the Internet taking us?\" \n\n          \n\n            13. The Internet cheats people of their monstrous purchases. The only thing worse than buying human eggs on the Internet, according to the critics, is not getting the eggs you paid for. \"When you have large transactions of this kind conducted over the Internet, there may be fraud,\" a computer crime expert warns USA Today . Lori Andrews, a reproductive technology lawyer, warns CNN viewers that \"there's very little that you can do to prove that these eggs actually came from the donors that were expected,\" and \"the Internet just adds ... a layer that it makes it even more difficult to scrutinize where the eggs are coming from.\" \n\n          \n\n            14. Egg buyers will reap unintended consequences. Sophisticated skeptics point out that Harris' application of Darwin's theories to human professional success overlooks the interaction of genetics and human psychology. To begin with, if a child produced by Harris' auction fails to turn out as pretty as the buyer expected, the buyer may shun the child, or the child may grow to hate herself for disappointing her parents. (On the Today show, Harris said of this theory, \"That's a pretty cynical view of human nature.\") Second, if the child turns out pretty but doesn't want to be a beauty queen, her parents may force her in that direction anyway, thereby stifling her true talents and preventing her from becoming successful. Third, the child's good looks may attract too much attention of the wrong kind, eventually destroying her. Critics cite Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe as examples. \n\n          \n\n            15. Other people's eggs don't pass on your genes. In defense of his auction, Harris quotes author Helen Fisher's statement that \"having sex is the most important act of your life. This is how we get our genes to the next generation.\" But Harris seems to have overlooked the crucial words: \"our genes.\" \"The drive to send your own genes into tomorrow is much stronger than the [drive] to pick out of a sperm bank or egg site,\" Fisher observes. This consideration may not affect single men, but it can be a decisive turnoff for couples. On this view, Harris' mistake is not that he focuses too much on selfishness, but that he neglects it. He forgets that you don't care about reproducing unless what you're reproducing is yourself. \n\n          \n\n            16. The power of beauty should be transcended, not exploited. Harris preaches that the world rewards beauty because it's human nature to favor those who are pleasant to look at, and therefore the way to have successful children is to make sure they're attractive. The most ambitious response is to attack the whole \"prejudice\" in favor of beauty. \"The standards of beauty do vary with the culture. And they are social facts, not really genetics facts,\" says Hastings Center ethicist Bruce Jennings. Therefore, \"we should think about\" whether to \"accept the existing prejudices and then try to eugenically manipulate them\" or to transcend those prejudices. \n\n         This critique challenges two precepts of Harris' worldview. First, while pretending to accept human nature as a given, he violates it by peddling strangers' eggs and encouraging the production of children who will probably never know their mothers. Family association, loyalty, and love are among the best parts of human nature. Slavish catering to physically attractive strangers is among the worst. If we're going to challenge human nature, the critics ask, why not start with the latter rather than the former? \n\n         Second, Harris assumes that the perfection parents want in their children coincides with Darwinian perfection. \"Every organism is trying to evolve to its most perfect state,\" he writes. What he doesn't seem to understand is that human beings aren't quite like other animals, just as the rest of the world isn't exactly like the modeling and soft-porn industries of Southern California. Humans have evolved to a stage at which our ideas about virtue, perfection, and success have become more than material. At least, most of us have.",
    "20038": "Eleven-Twelfths of 1999 In Review \n\n         When Chatterbox invited readers to nominate events, significant deaths, good and bad movies, etc., for 1999--a year likely to get little attention in the coming weeks, as news organizations choose instead to review the entire century or millennium--the response was overwhelming. Chatterbox had promised to publish his official \"1999 In Review\" item before Thanksgiving, but some distant memory of a scruple persuaded him to wait till November was over. Nothing ever happens in December. \n\n         OK, that's not quite true. Hordes of protesters in Seattle are making the World Trade Organization's meeting there a much more exciting TV story than anyone expected it to be. Reader Dan Crist (who finds Chatterbox's habit of referring to himself in the third person \"rather annoying and less than professional\") points out that Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in Dec. 1941. Also, Chatterbox (moonlighting as \"Today's Papers\" columnist) observed not quite one year ago that the House of Representatives cast its second presidential-impeachment vote in U.S. history on Dec. 19, 1998. (That same news-filled day, the U.S. ended an air war against Iraq and Bob Livingston said he'd decided not to become House speaker after all.) Two months after the impeachment vote, the Senate failed to convict the president--a highly significant event of 1999 that, for some bizarre reason, slipped Chatterbox's mind until several indignant readers wrote in to remind him of it. \n\n         By now, it should be clear that Chatterbox isn't much good at year-in-review journalism. Fortunately, Chatterbox's readers are very good at it. He will now turn this survey over to them. \n\n         ( Disclaimer: Although Chatterbox previously stated that he wouldn't include opinions he disagreed with, that standard proved too confining. Where Chatterbox has solid information or opinions to the contrary, he occasionally interjects below. Obviously stupid or unnecessarily sour reader comments were discarded, but if you don't find your nominee below it doesn't necessarily mean that it was obviously stupid or unnecessarily sour. ) \n\n         Here are 20 important things that happened in 1999: \n\n         1. Most Hated Celebrity--Ever?              \n\n          \n\n                                The New York Times reported on Nov. 10, 1999, that a new record had been set in the latest Times /CBS poll: [Its] highest negative rating ever scored by a person in the news. The honor went to Reform Party candidate Donald Trump, who managed to make an unfavorable impression upon some 70 percent of those polled. The paper noted that this achievement far eclipsed the last comparably negative rating--the 55 percent score attained by Linda Tripp. Presumably this came as no surprise to Mr. Trump, who, upon announcing the formation of a presidential exploratory committee on Oct. 7, 1999, had cited polls with \"amazing results\"--a remark that was widely misinterpreted at the time.                 \n\n            -- Jodie Allen of U.S. News & World Report (and frequent \n\n                  Slate                    contributor) \n\n          \n\n         2. Most Foolishly Ignored Parts of the World in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               The dog that did bark but no one noticed--the political turmoil in the three great South Asian nations of India, Pakistan, and Indonesia, which now are well on the way to passing the three northern Asian nations of China, Japan, and Russia in population (Indonesia is fourth, Pakistan just passed Japan to seventh, India will soon pass China to first). But Americans are still fixated on northern Asia--Clinton says he must deal with China, because \"you can't ignore a billion people with nuclear weapons,\" but his own policy toward India shows that you sure can!                 \n\n            --Jim Chapin \n\n          \n\n         3. Worst/Best Films of 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               Here's my nominee for worst movie of the year (complete category should be: \"Worst Movie of the Year That Assumedly Adult Male Reviewers Slathered Over\"):                    There's Something About Mary                   --a pathetically sophomoric, penis-obsessed mess that wouldn't even appeal to Larry Flynt!                 \n\n            -- Felicia, Menlo Park, Cal. \n\n          \n\n                         Chatterbox replies:              \n\n          \n\n                               You've got the wrong year. That was 1998 .                                    \n\n          \n\n         [Chatterbox didn't have the heart to add that he thought There's Something About Mary was pretty funny, especially the joke about \"the franks or the beans.\"] \n\n                                            Felicia replies:              \n\n          \n\n                               Oops ... well then, the best of '99 was                    The Red Violin                   --lyrical, magical, musical, wonderful!                 \n\n          \n\n         [Chatterbox hasn't seen it.] \n\n         4. Most Shameless (and Unsuccessful) Attempt To Have It Both Ways in 1999 : \n\n          \n\n                               Sen. Arlen Specter, citing Scottish law, finds Clinton \"not proven\" on the impeachment charges.                 \n\n            --Andrew Solovay \n\n          \n\n         5. Rest in Peace in 1999:              \n\n          \n\n                               Stanley Kubrick (multiple sources) \n\n                               John Kennedy Jr. (multiple sources) \n\n                               Susan Strasberg (anonymous tipster; Strasberg played Anne Frank in the original production of the Broadway adaptation, which some people think wasn't Jewish enough) \n\n                               Mel Torme (Steve Reiness) \n\n                               Mrs. Whozit [ Chatterbox interjects : her name was Anne Sheafe Miller], the first person ever to be saved by penicillin (Blair Bolles) \n\n          \n\n                         6. 1999: The Road Not Taken              \n\n          \n\n                                What an extraordinary year! A right-wing conspiracy topples the president, and the governor of Texas reveals himself in a series of debates to be a natural leader with an innate gift for connecting with his audience, a sure sign of his electoral success next year. A new Thomas Harris book brilliantly takes us deeper into the mind of a serial killer; a new Star Wars movie redefines the very nature of entertainment; a new Stanley Kubrick film changes the whole national dialogue about sex and marriage; a new TV series from the creator of SportsNight --oh, I can't even bring myself to bash that piece of do-gooder twaddle. If only McDonald's had come out with three more boldly adult-flavored hamburgers, it would have been a perfect year for dud megaevents--all leading up of course to Y2K, the limpest milestone in human history.                 \n\n            --Mike Gebert \n\n          \n\n         7 . Children Behaving Badly in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               Don't forget Woodstock 1999 --the concert of \"peace and love\" that ended in a literal blaze of glory when in an hours-long tribute to the original Woodstock, the mob started ripping down vendor booths and anything else that would burn and piling it onto the bonfires scattered about the scene. [ Chatterbox interjects: Didn't people get assaulted and raped, too?] I'm getting all sentimental just thinking about it.                 \n\n            You also left out all the shooting rampages . Several were done in the name of God or love supposedly. They were all committed by \"quiet, shy\" people who \"mostly kept to\" themselves. I've started to hang around only loud, obnoxious people.                 \n\n            --Susan Hoechstetter \n\n          \n\n         8. A Lunatic Rhapsody for the                 New York Yankees              \n\n          \n\n                                The Yankees can actually be referred to as the glue that held the century together. Of course, as the 1999 World Series champions, they are a significant \"story of the year.\" However, this one singular achievement must be considered in a broader context.                 \n\n            1999 represented the team's 25th championship of the century. This beats, by one, the most championships any one team won during the century. The Montreal Canadiens have won 23 Stanley Cups. However, the Yankees, an American team, playing in the \"City of the Century\" (so called by me to reflect the amazing growth and transformation of one city during this period), who play the \"National Pastime,\" are truly an amazing story. \n\n            The team's first championship occurred in 1921; therefore, they have won 25 of the last 78 years, nearly one in three. This level of sustained excellence is not matched in sports or in any other aspect of society. The 1999 win is possibly the most unique. With free-agency, expansion, and three levels of playoffs, it is much harder to win today than in past years. In fact, by winning three of the last four championships, they are the first team to accomplish this feat during the eras of free-agency and of divisional play. \n\n            The Sultan of Swat, the Iron Man, the Yankee Clipper, the Mick, and Yogi--these strong, masculine names are synonymous with the team, the sport, and American history. They went hand in hand with two world wars, Superman, and America's superpower status. The 1999 squad does not feature \"a name.\" This team, with its myriad of human-interest stories, its international roster, and no star, is representative of '90s man, male sensitivity, Pax American interests, and the new political paradigm. \n\n          \n\n         --Jim Landau from North Potomac, Md. (formerly of the Bronx) \n\n         9. A Big Shot Calls for Decriminalizing Drug Use in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson came out for ending drug prohibition. Though this by itself has no immediate effect, it makes it respectable, for the first time, for political leaders to discuss the subject, and thereby brings closer the day when the vast majority of crimes will no longer be committed, when billions of dollars will be freed to help the inner city instead of to ruin black people's lives, and when we will stop, as in Samuel Butler's                    Erewhon                   , imprisoning people for the crime of being sick.                 \n\n            --Henry Cohen \n\n          \n\n                         Chatterbox interjects: Didn't Baltimore Mayor Kurt Schmoke do the same thing 11 years ago? \n\n         10. Don't Worry in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               The Dalai Lama proclaimed that most important thing in the world is to be happy.                 \n\n            --Margaret Taylor \n\n          \n\n         11. The Athletic Bra Seen 'Round the World in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               Public interest and media attention to the women's World Cup in soccer.                 \n\n            --Tom Horton \n\n          \n\n         12. Another Overlooked Foreign-Policy Event in 1999              \n\n          \n\n            Presidential primary elections for the first time ever in Mexico.                 \n\n            --Tom Horton \n\n          \n\n         13. Policing the World Is Shown To Work in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                                I nominate as the most under-reported story of the year (and the last few years) the continuing alarmist predictions by foreign-policy and military experts about peacekeeping efforts, which are then proved wrong and immediately forgotten. This year, the obvious one is Kosovo, but the year is also ending with East Timor, where the Aussies and their allies successfully stopped the slaughter with no casualties.                 \n\n            These followed Haiti, Bosnia, and Rwanda as places where the West delayed sending in troops because of alarmist predictions. \n\n            --Jerry Skurnik \n\n          \n\n         14. Barbara Walters Did This One on Her Year-End Special, But It's Still Good              \n\n          \n\n                               Don't forget, Susan Lucci finally won an Emmy . \n\n                               --anonymous tipster                 \n\n          \n\n         15. Annals of Justice in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               Matthew Shepard: the despicable defense .                 \n\n            -- anonymous tipster                 \n\n          \n\n         16. Get Me a New Century, Quick              \n\n          \n\n                               A sitting president was accused of rape.                 \n\n            --Ananda Gupta \n\n          \n\n                         Chatterbox interjects: Yes, but the evidence was shaky--something the Wall Street Journal 's editorial page, which broke the story, was not very forthcoming about. As Jack Shafer wrote in this column, Ronald Reagan, after he left office, was also accused of having once committed rape. The evidence there was shaky, too. \n\n         17. The Most Important Thing of All That Happened in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               In 1999, more than half of U.S. homes had a PC, for the first time (i.e., home-PC penetration passed 50 percent). Of course, most of these PCs crashed all the time, but it's still a significant development. By the way, Internet hookups in homes are still well below 50 percent.                 \n\n            --Walt Mossberg, \"Personal Technology\" columnist for the Wall Street Journal (and occasional rock-music historian for this column) \n\n          \n\n         18. All Dolled Up and Nowhere To Go in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               General Pinochet                 \n\n                               --Jodie Maurer                 \n\n          \n\n         19. Senate Endorses Nuclear Proliferation in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               The Senate rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty , thereby decapitating nuclear-arms control and sending Iraq, Iran, and North Korea the message that the United States won't raise a big stink if they try to join India and Pakistan. The president woke up to this possibility at about the moment it was realized, and started lobbying for passage of the treaty a day after it became too late.                 \n\n            --Josh Pollack \n\n          \n\n         20. Unremarked Natural Disaster in 1999              \n\n          \n\n                               The Indian Supercyclone is the biggest, this century at least.                 \n\n                               --Samir Raiyani                 \n\n                               Photographs of: Donald Trump by Peter Morgan/Reuters; Natalie Portman by Keith Hamshere/Lucasfilm Ltd./Reuters; New York Yankees players by Gary Hershorn/Reuters; KLA member by Hazir Reka/Reuters.",
    "20019": "Is <A NAME= \n\n         Gambling's would-be federal regulators--the National Gambling Impact Study Commission--went to Las Vegas this week to hold hearings. In today's dispatch, we learn how gambling's foes seek to demonize wagering as a pernicious tobaccolike vice. In yesterday's dispatch, gambling's foes learn the folly of having brought their anti-sin crusade to an adult Disneyland. \n\n         Tuesday's overpowering show of force by the Nevada gambling aristocracy has had at least one audible effect on the National Gambling Impact Study Commission. Wednesday, even commission Chair Kay Coles James, a gambling skeptic, succumbs to the hideous Vegas euphemism: She begins referring to the \"gaming industry.\" \n\n         After Tuesday's casino triumphalism, Wednesday is a comedown, eight hours of policy panels on teen gambling, compulsive gambling, gambling regulation, gambling marketing, and gambling credit practices. It is tough slogging, but for the first time I sense that this commission--though divided, underfunded, timid, and without any power beyond exhortation--isn't entirely useless. It may finally settle this question: Is gambling Hollywood or tobacco? Entertainment or vice? \n\n         The sleek Vegas types, whose Strip palaces scramble casinos, theaters, restaurants, arcades, discos, cabarets, theme parks, concert halls, sports arenas, and museums into one giant orgy of amusement, have been selling the idea that gambling is just entertainment--Disney in the desert. This effort has largely succeeded, because Vegas is still the dominant image of American gambling, if not the dominant reality. \n\n         The antis, meanwhile, cry that gambling is like cigarettes: unsafe for kids, viciously addictive, deceptively marketed, unhealthy, expensive, and unacceptable unless mightily regulated. \n\n          Judging by today's hearings and by conversations with most of the commissioners, the tobacco model is winning. Today's panelists tell the commission that kids are starting to gamble too young and are getting addicted too easily, that compulsive gambling appears to be increasing as gambling spreads, that gambling marketing may be designed to addict customers, and that the industry exploits problem gamblers by allowing them to draw repeated credit card advances from ATMs on casino floors. The testimony clearly impresses the commissioners and seems especially to impress the three nonaligned commissioners who will be the swing votes on the June 1999 report. \n\n         It is starting to become clear what that report will say. The commission won't (and can't) take any grand stand against gambling. Instead it will opt for small, targeted policies, concentrating on compulsive gambling. It will probably propose that casinos and state lotteries fund gambling-addiction research and that casinos take much stronger measures to bar problem gamblers from wagering. The commission may recommend that gaming taxes be used to underwrite treatment of pathological gamblers and that insurance companies be encouraged to cover gambling addiction. Similarly, the commission will try to reduce gamblers' access to cash by limiting the size of ATM advances and prodding casinos to remove the machines from their floors. \n\n         The commission will also push the industry to do more to prevent kids from gambling. It will call for heavier regulation of Indian gambling and will probably try to ban or severely regulate Internet gambling, perhaps by forbidding gambling companies from running online casinos. It will rebuke state lotteries for their deceptive marketing and will try to force them to post odds and stop targeting the poor. In short, it will treat gambling as a tobaccolike vice. \n\n         If the comments of the pro-industry commissioners can be believed, the industry will happily endorse such a report. Gamblers don't quite accept the cigarette analogy--though commission member Bill Bible, a former chief of the Nevada Gaming Commission, did concede that gambling was like alcohol--but they're happy to sign on to the specific measures. The casino industry is even trying to get ahead of the commission. It has already established a (mostly) independent center to fund research into pathological gambling. I suspect that the industry will not only agree to the commission's recommendations but will become their strongest advocate. Casino owners will avidly lobby Congress and state legislatures to enact the recommendations into law. \n\n          Why should the pro-gamblers cooperate with a critical study? Because it provides superb cover for them. It medicalizes the problem of compulsive gambling, blaming it on psychological abnormality rather than industry machination. Likewise, cracking down on compulsives is also politically cost-effective. In exchange for losing a few compulsive gamblers, the casinos will (falsely) appear more concerned with the health of their customers than with profits. \n\n         The cigarette agenda will also distract the commission and the public from the true reasons for worry. A few years ago, gambling was confined to Las Vegas and Atlantic City. It is now thriving in 48 states, and there is no sign that anyone can stop it. In this election, gambling interests dropped $100 million on a single California ballot initiative, toppled governors in two states, and bought senators and representatives by the crate. What the commission ought to be investigating is whether the gambling industry has become so powerful that it's politically untouchable. But it can't, because the gambling industry has become so powerful that it's politically untouchable. \n\n         The antis can call gambling \"tobacco.\" They can call it \"vice.\" They can call it \"a big red balloon\" for all that the industry cares. As long as the commission just nibbles around the edges, the casino operators and state lotteries will be happy to indulge it. The pro-gambling folks will win credit for cooperating, without having to do anything that really hurts. The last national gambling commission was in the mid-1970s. If the gamblers play along with this commission's timid recommendations, they'll be safe for another 20 years. \n\n                         An Apology              \n\n         I owe an apology to Nevada Sen. Richard Bryan, whom I criticized yesterday for using the term \"Indian country\" during a speech critical of Indian casinos. As several readers pointed out to me, \"Indian country\" is a common phrase in the West and has no derogatory connotations. I'm sorry, Senator. \n\n         Talk about quick defeats: The first sign I see outside the MGM Grand ballroom all but declares that the National Gambling Impact Study Commission has already lost. The sign reads: \"National Gaming Impact Study Commission.\" \n\n                         \"Gaming\"?              \n\n         In Las Vegas, the euphemizers reign. Once upon a time, the casino owners decided that \"gambling\" was too crude, too avaricious, to describe their fair business. So \"gambling\" disappeared in Las Vegas, and \"gaming\" has risen in its place. He who controls language controls ideas, and at today's commission hearing, it is perfectly clear who controls the language. Video slot machines crammed into convenience stores--perhaps the most pernicious form of legal gambling there is--are called \"retail gaming.\" People who own casinos are not \"casino owners,\" they are \"gaming visionaries.\" Pathological gamblers are \"problem gamers\"--as if they're having trouble mastering the rules of Monopoly. And the National Gambling Impact Study Commission is reborn as the National Gaming Impact Study Commission. \n\n         The gambling industry did everything in its power to stop the establishment of this commission two years ago, but Congress and a fervent grassroots anti-gambling group eventually foisted it on the industry. The nine member blue-ribbon panel was charged with assessing the social and economic impact of gambling, and it will issue a final report to Congress and the president in June 1999. Even though the panel was carefully balanced between pro- and anti-gambling leaders, it was supposed to be Vegas' nemesis. The industry and Las Vegas' pro-gambling media quaked in anticipation of the onerous regulations and taxes the commission might recommend. \n\n         But they quake no more. Whatever national momentum the anti-gamblers had dissolved in last week's elections. The industry routed opponents in state after state. Missouri voters passed a ballot initiative to allow boat casinos. Californians voted to expand Indian casinos. In South Carolina and Alabama, voters expelled anti-lottery, anti-gambling Republican governors and replaced them with pro-lottery Democrats. The gambling industry spent more than $100 million on political contributions and issue ads. It has never been fatter, happier, or more secure. \n\n         \"My goodness, no politician can withstand their resources,\" Focus on the Family's James Dobson, the commission's leading gambling opponent, tells me. The industry's political clout has emasculated the commission, Dobson continues: \"Our report won't be acted on by the president or Congress. They are too heavily influenced by gambling money. Almost all the leaders of Congress are on the dole.\" It has also become obvious that the commission has too many pro-gambling members to produce a report that recommends taxes or other real penalties on the industry. \n\n          So the commission's two day visit to Gomorrah has been transformed from a charged political event to a kind of victory lap for gaming. Nevada Gov. Bob Miller and the \"gaming visionaries\" have been planning for these hearings for months, hoping to use them to demonstrate the might and sanctity and goodness of the Nevada gambling industry. \n\n         The MGM Grand, which is run by commission member Terrence Lanni, is itself the first exhibit of the Vegas triumphalists. It is gaudy testimony that consumers, at least, have no problem with this business. The MGM Grand, a k a \"The City of Entertainment,\" has 5,000 rooms--the corridor outside my room is 200 yards long, so long I can't see its end--to feed the endless supply of slot machines, craps tables, and roulette wheels. David Cassidy performs here every night--twice! A few steps outside on the Strip is still more overwhelming evidence that Las Vegas has won the popular vote. New York, New York is just across the street, the $1.6 billion Bellagio is one door down, and a half-scale Eiffel Tower is going up next door. The setting has, as the pro-gambling folks no doubt hoped, stunned some of the gambling opponents. I asked one anti-gambling activist who had never before been to Vegas what she thinks of it. She could only blurt out \"Wow.\" \n\n         The hearings, too, reinforce the Glorious Las Vegas theme. Frank Fahrenkopf, the industry's top lobbyist (who is paid so much he can afford monogrammed shirt cuffs --I saw them), holds forth cheerfully outside the ballroom, celebrating the electoral triumph of freedom over religious moralist tyranny. Inside, the room is packed with more than 600 people in neon lime green T-shirts that read \"Unions and Gaming: Together for a Better Life.\" They are members of the major casino union, here to cheer on their employers and their union. (Most of them, it must be said, are getting paid to do this.) \n\n         Chairwoman Kay Coles James, a Christian conservative and skeptic of gambling, opens the hearing by assuring the crowd that the committee is toothless: \"We're not here to take anyone's job. ... We have no power to do anything except make recommendations.\" This sets the mood for most of the day: Vegas is great, so you'd better leave it alone! The local government, by all appearances a wholly owned subsidiary of the casinos, puts on a bravura performance. Gov. Miller opens the show with a 15 minute hymn to Las Vegas. It is the first of many statistical barrages about Nevada's one-ders: No. 1 in job growth, No. 1 in population growth, and No. 1 on planet Earth in per capita Girl Scout troops--and Boy Scout troops! \n\n          Later in the day, Nevada's senators and both its congressmen appear to chew out the commission for even thinking that Nevada might have a dark side. They pay tribute to Nevada's sophisticated gambling industry, especially its regulation (much stricter than other gambling states) and its use of gambling taxes to fund state services. It is one of the ironies of Nevada politics that its Republican congressmen (Jim Gibbons and John Ensign) end up crediting their state's success to government regulation and corporate taxation. \n\n         There are also a fair share of gleeful gambling regulators, bookmakers, and casino employees among the panels of expert witnesses the commission hears from. Critics who gripe about the perils of sports gambling and the evils of convenience store slot machines leaven the pro-gambling folks. Everyone, including the gambling industry shills, agrees that Internet gambling is evil and should be destroyed. Everyone agrees to this because no one in Las Vegas is making any money off Internet gambling. If they were, you can be sure they would explain why it's as American as nickel slots and scratch-off games. \n\n         Pro-Vegas forces are also perfectly happy to take shots at Indian gambling, the chief economic threat to Nevada's prosperity. The expansion of Indian casinos resulting from last week's California voter initiative will slam Las Vegas, cutting its gambling revenues by $400 million a year. So the Vegans repeatedly swing at casinos in \"Indian country\" (that's Nevada Sen. Richard Bryan's term--I'm not joking) for being insufficiently regulated and taxed. One tribal chief I spoke to calls this \"red baiting.\" \n\n         (Pause for an aesthetic observation: I am sitting right behind the witnesses, and after a while I begin to separate them into the Wides and the Narrows. The Wides are men in suits with enormous backs and enormous bellies, men who eat and eat and used to play football. They all testify to their love of gambling. The Narrows are thin and generally disapprove of it. I begin to wonder whether fondness for gambling correlates with general indulgence, and dislike correlates with asceticism, and decide that they probably do.) \n\n         During the last hour of the day, the public comment period, the union sends a parade of casino employees to the microphone to hallelujah the gaming industry. Housekeepers, cooks, and slot change girls, almost all black or Latina, tell the same story: I was working a dead-end job in another state, \"then I heard about Las Vegas, where there's opportunity!\" I moved here, landed a job at a union casino with high pay, free medical insurance, a pension, and \"now I am buying a house.\" The stories are intensely moving, by far the most persuasive tribute to the Strip that I've ever heard. \n\n          Still, for all the Vegan triumphalism in the air, it's impossible not to be charmed by the chief gambling opponent, the Rev. Tom Grey. Grey is utterly irrepressible. A Vietnam rifleman turned Methodist minister, Grey has spent the last eight years evangelizing against gambling. He founded the National Coalition Against Legalized Gambling, the primary force behind the commission's creation. (Grey, in a rare acknowledgement of defeat, has just renamed it the National Coalition Against Gambling Expansion, tacitly recognizing that gambling is here to stay.) He is a genial motormouth and shameless promoter of the cause. He wears a gigantic \"CasiNO\" button in the casino. He posed for People in a shepherd's robe. He says \"I would do anything short of lighting myself on fire in the Capitol rotunda to stop gambling.\" He is so excitable that I have to yank him out of the way of an oncoming car when he gets too wrapped up in one of his soliloquies. \n\n         He and his Las Vegas allies, a former Las Vegas city councilman named Steve Miller and an inner city venture capitalist named Otis Harris, invite me on a tour of Las Vegas. \"Behind the Mirage,\" they call it. For two hours, we cruise the streets behind the casinos. They show me all the evidence of gambling blight you'd never want to see, from a youth-center-turned-crack-house to pawn shops to sex shops to down at heels casinos to quickie motels. All the while, they keep up a patter about how terrible a neighbor the casino industry is and how superficial Las Vegas' prosperity is. \n\n         It's very grim and mostly persuasive. Still, when we turn back on to the Strip, and pass the jaw-dropping Stratosphere and Circus Circus and Bellagio and the MGM Grand--a 30 story tower bathed in fabulous emerald light, I realize why Grey's task is hopeless here. He is committing the cardinal sin of Vegas. All he wants to do is talk about losers. In Las Vegas, under the thrilling lights of the Strip, no one wants to hear about losers. In the land of gaming, not gambling, everyone is sure he's a winner.",
    "20026": "Republican Shakeout \n\n         This weekend's straw poll in Ames, Iowa, kicked off the 2000 presidential race and sorted out the Republican field. Everyone agrees that George W. Bush is the front-runner, that Steve Forbes is in second place, and that Dan Quayle, who finished back in the pack with Lamar Alexander, will soon join Alexander on the sidelines. But Ames failed to resolve the fate of the candidates who came in third and fourth--Elizabeth Dole and Gary Bauer--and the one who skipped Ames, John McCain. For these three, the post-game spin contest is crucial. Here's a playback of their takes on the straw poll results and a look ahead at their playbook of messages for the remainder of the race. \n\n                         Elizabeth Dole              \n\n          \n\n            Playback              \n\n          \n\n            1. Top three. Dole needed to get within striking distance of Bush and to seal off the rest of the pack behind her. On Meet the Press , Face the Nation , and Late Edition , she boasted that she had cracked \"the top three.\" Pundits bought the three-winners line, treating Ames as a horse race (\"win, place, and show\") and noting that \"no one's ever won the Republican nomination without finishing in the top three\" at Ames. Newspapers, cramped for space, confined their headlines to Bush, Forbes, and Dole. Though Dole's 14 percent was closer to Bauer's 9 than to Forbes' 21, she earned a \"solid third\" and a place among the leaders by crossing the \"double-digit\" threshold. As Fox News' Carl Cameron put it: \"The other seven candidates could not crack double digits.\" \n\n          \n\n            2. Race for third. Since Bush and Forbes were expected to finish first and second, many pundits concluded, as Lisa Myers put it on Meet the Press , that \"the real race here was for third. Elizabeth Dole won that.\" The Boston Globe called Dole \"the winner of this contest-within-the-contest.\" Dole touted her \"victory\" on every talk show and cited the Myers and Globe quotes in a press release. At a news conference, an aide introduced Dole as the straw poll's \"real winner.\" \n\n          \n\n            3. Underdog. In every TV interview, Dole claimed to have been \"outspent by millions of dollars.\" Her spokesman told reporters that \"on a dollar-per-vote basis, Elizabeth Dole trounced George Bush and Steve Forbes.\" Reporters love an underdog. \"From a strict cost-benefit standpoint, the big winner may be Elizabeth Dole,\" concluded Time . \n\n          \n\n            4. Comeback kid. Dismissive coverage of Dole before the straw poll played to her advantage, as everyone marveled at her \"surprisingly\" strong third. \"Dole Revived,\" the Washington Post 's front page proclaimed. On This Week , George Will conceded, \"There had been a lot of very skeptical stories about whether her people would show up. She, therefore, I think, is the biggest winner.\" \n\n          \n\n            Playbook              \n\n          \n\n            1. Race for second. Forbes wants to fast-forward the GOP tournament to a finals bracket: Bush vs. Forbes. To prevent this, Dole needs to create a semifinal playoff--Forbes vs. Dole--to determine who gets to play Bush. Despite Forbes' huge financial advantage, \"we finished close to second,\" Dole told reporters Saturday night. \"This is going to become a two-person race.\" The press agreed. \"Forbes had growing hopes ... that he might upset Bush or finish a close second,\" recalled the Post . Instead, \"he finished closer to Dole than to Bush.\" \n\n          \n\n            2. Experience. Having narrowed the field to three, Dole needs to focus the contest on criteria that favor her. The first of these is political experience, of which Bush has little and Forbes has almost none. On every talk show, Dole vowed \"to demonstrate that the candidate with the most experience is more qualified than the candidates with the most money. ... We're talking about president of the United States.\" \n\n          \n\n            3. Gender. This is the more obvious criterion that distinguishes Dole. She hardly needs to mention it--the media bring it up anyway--but she invokes it subtly, alluding (as she did on two Sunday talk shows) to \"women who drive their daughters halfway across the state to shake my hand, a woman they dare to believe in.\" Newspapers hail Dole's female followers as evidence \"that she can attract new voters to the GOP.\" \n\n                         Gary Bauer              \n\n          \n\n            Playback              \n\n          \n\n            1. Top four. Like Dole, Bauer needed to crack the top tier and seal off the pack. Since sports analogies tend to cut off the top tier at three rather than four (e.g., \"bronze medal,\" \"win, place, and show\"), Bauer changed metaphors, telling reporters that he had reached \"the first rung of candidates\" and that lower finishers might soon perish. On Meet the Press , he called himself the \"breakout candidate.\" While some pundits lumped Bauer with the winners, others offered him the next best position--\"leading the rest of the pack\"--or at least distinguished him from the \"losers.\" \n\n          \n\n            2. Social conservative quarterfinal. This was Bauer's big spin win. Like Dole, he won a crucial \"contest-within-the-contest.\" His scant margin over Pat Buchanan--8.9 percent to 7.3 percent--became a huge factor in the post-poll analysis. Pundits concluded that Bauer \"did what he had to do ... beat Pat Buchanan,\" and therefore \"can legitimately say he is the candidate of the Christian right,\" establishing himself as \"one of the winners,\" the \"three or four\" candidates who \"got their tickets punched\" to stay in the race. Talk show hosts reminded Buchanan that he had lost to Bauer and asked whether Buchanan was finished. \n\n          \n\n            3. Conservative semifinal. Having scored well ahead of Bauer and Buchanan, Forbes anointed himself \"the conservative in a two-man race\" against Bush. Bauer disagreed, and the media took his side. \"Forbes, Bauer Battle for Right,\" the Post proclaimed, concluding that because Forbes failed to break away, \"he and Bauer are likely to continue a long and tough fight for the leadership of the conservative wing.\" \n\n          \n\n            4. Underdog. Bauer couldn't claim to be more strapped than Dole, so he claimed underdog status on the basis of low name recognition, inexperience, and working-class heritage. \"I am running against some big bios ... the son of a former president, the son of a tycoon, and the wife of a senator,\" Bauer argued on Late Edition . \"I have never run for president or office before. And yet here we come in fourth place.\" Newsweek 's David Brooks wrote that Bauer \"overcame his own financial disadvantages\" and joined Dole as the two surviving \"Have-Not candidates.\" \n\n          \n\n            Playbook              \n\n          \n\n            1. Buchanan will defect. Since Buchanan's combativeness and loyal base make him hard to write off as a candidate, his rivals have persuaded the media at least to write him off as a Republican by inferring that his low score at Ames will prompt him to transfer to the Reform Party. The more Buchanan fends off comparisons to Bauer by emphasizing his protectionism, the more he plays into this scenario. \n\n          \n\n            2. Populism. With Buchanan out of the way, Bauer will go after Forbes. When asked on television about Forbes' claim to represent the right. Bauer cited Forbes' wealth and called himself \"the son of a maintenance man.\" On This Week , George Stephanopoulos agreed that Bauer \"is becoming the populist in the race,\" noting that Bauer's supporters \"love the fact that he was the son of a janitor.\" \n\n          \n\n            3. Conservatism. If Bauer wins the social conservative quarterfinal and the conservative semifinal, he gets to run as the \"Reagan\" candidate against \"Bush-Gore\" moderation on abortion, Hollywood, China, and other hot-button issues. This bracket-by-bracket tournament strategy reduces Bauer's obstacles from three candidates to two. He can target Forbes, knowing that if he prevails, either Bush or Dole will have vanquished the other in the moderate semifinal. Indeed, Dole's success at Ames arguably helps Bauer by giving Bush a semifinal contest. \n\n                         John McCain              \n\n          \n\n            Playback              \n\n          \n\n            1. Ames meant nothing to him. Despite having skipped the straw poll, McCain was invited onto Face the Nation and Fox News Sunday to discuss it. \"If you're going to be taken seriously,\" Brit Hume asked him, \"don't you have to face up to the fact, when all the other candidates decide that an event is worth attending ... that maybe you've got to play too?\" In reply, McCain repeatedly called Ames \"meaningless.\" His chutzpah bowled over the pundits. Stephanopoulos called McCain's no-show \"a pretty smart move\" and portrayed the 83 votes he won in the straw poll--putting him in last place among active Republican candidates--as evidence of his strength. \n\n          \n\n            2. Ames meant death for others. Noting that McCain had bypassed the event, Quayle explained on Face the Nation that he, too, \"almost took a pass on this. It wasn't until George Bush said he was going to participate that then I said, 'OK, we've got to do it,' out of respect to the Iowa Republican Party.\" The result, Quayle pleaded, was that he lost to candidates who had been in Iowa \"years and months.\" McCain, explaining his decision to stay out, espoused a less sentimental philosophy: \"You always want to fight on ground that is most favorable to you.\" For this, the media executed Quayle and spared McCain. \"Quayle and Lamar Alexander might be gone, but I think McCain is still in,\" concluded NPR's Mara Liasson. Ames was Vietnam in reverse: McCain ducked the fight, and Quayle took the beating. \n\n          \n\n            3. Viability. \"Once the dust has settled from the straw poll,\" McCain regally announced, \"I will review the new political landscape\" and begin \"engaging the other Republican candidates.\" Why does McCain get a bye? Because he has convinced the media that he has enough money and support in New Hampshire, South Carolina, and other states to skip Iowa and catch fire later. Newsweek , the New York Times , the Los Angeles Times , and several TV pundits agreed that McCain remains formidable, wasn't hurt by Ames, and may well end up as the principal alternative to Bush. \n\n          \n\n            4. Vote-buying. To undermine the straw poll's authority as an arbiter of his candidacy, McCain called it a \"fund-raiser,\" \"a sham and a joke\" in which campaigns spent \"millions\" to \"buy\" votes. \"My campaign theme is to try to reform the system that is now awash with money and the influence of special interests,\" he argued on Fox News Sunday . Brit Hume's retort--\"that this whole process isn't quite pure enough for you\"--played right into McCain's hands. McCain doesn't need to persuade the media that his reasons for skipping Ames were morally sound. He just needs to persuade them that his reasons were moral rather than political. \n\n          \n\n            Playbook              \n\n          \n\n            1. Real votes. The vote-buying complaint only gets McCain a bye on the straw poll. To get another bye on February's Iowa caucuses, he'll rely on two other moral arguments. First, he'll claim that caucuses aren't \"real votes.\" \"We'll have real votes in New Hampshire,\" McCain argued on Fox News Sunday . \"That's where real people are motivated to vote.\" On Face the Nation , he suggested that he would focus on \"the genuine balloting process, which takes place in New Hampshire and then South Carolina.\" \n\n          \n\n            2. Ethanol. Many pundits, fancying themselves shrewd, suggest that McCain's true reason for skipping Iowa is that he has \"taken a position on ethanol subsidies that's unpalatable to voters in Iowa.\" On This Week , Stephanopoulos suggested that McCain might \"have to do something dramatic,\" such as \"make a stand and say, 'We're not going to compete in Iowa. We think these ethanol subsidies are an abomination.' \" This is McCain's greatest triumph: He has conned the media into disbelieving his political calculations and accusing him instead of principle. \"I've taken a lot of unpopular positions,\" he conceded on Fox News Sunday . \n\n          \n\n            3. Experience. The longer McCain stays out of the race without damaging his credibility, the more the field narrows to his advantage. Alexander and Rep. John Kasich, R-Ohio, are already gone. Quayle and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, won't be far behind. If the field dwindles to Bush, Forbes, and Bauer, McCain can sell himself as the only experienced officeholder running against Bush. But Dole's third-place finish at Ames, coupled with her victory in the post-Ames spin contest, complicates this plan. \n\n         So here's how the race shapes up. Bauer will frame it as a populist showdown, chiefly between himself and Forbes. Forbes will frame it as a fight between the establishment, led by Bush, and conservatives, led by himself. Dole will exploit feminism as well as feminine stereotypes, pitching herself as the candidate of change, civility, and moral renewal. And McCain will fortify his war chest while his rivals battle and bleed. Ames has organized the contestants. Let the games begin.",
    "20028": "More Booze You Can Use \n\n         When we last heard from them, the members of the \n\n               Slate                 beer-testing team were coping with lagers and trying to see if they could taste the 3-to-1 price difference between the most- and least-expensive brands. (Click for a wrap-up of the first round of beer tasting.) The answer was: They found one beer they really liked, Samuel Adams Boston Lager , and one they really hated, imported Grolsch from Holland. Both were expensive beers--Grolsch was the most expensive in the test--and otherwise the testers had a hard time telling beers apart. The members of the team, as noted in the original article, all hold day jobs at Microsoft, mainly as designers, managers, and coders for Microsoft Word. \n\n         The point of the second test was not to find the difference between cheap and expensive beers but instead to compare a variety of top-of-the-line beers. Was there one kind the tasters preferred consistently? Could they detect any of the subtleties of brewing style and provenance that microbrew customers pay such attention to when choosing some Doppelbock over a cream ale? \n\n         Since the tasting panel had left the first round grumbling that cheap lagers were not a fair test of their abilities, this second round of testing was advertised to the panel as a reward. Every beer in Round 2 would be a fancy beer. A microbrew. A \"craft beer.\" A prestigious import. These were the kinds of beer the panel members said they liked--and the ones they said they were most familiar with. One aspect of the reward was that they would presumably enjoy the actual testing more--fewer rueful beer descriptions along the lines of \"urine\" or \"get it away!\" were expected than in the first round. The other aspect of anticipated reward was the panelists' unspoken but obvious assumption that this time they would \"do better\" on the test. Intellectual vanity being what it is, people who had fought for and won jobs at Microsoft and who still must fight every six months for primacy on the employee-ranking scale (which determines--gasp!--how many new stock options they receive) would assume that their skill as tasters was on trial, just as much as the beer was. Of course they were right, which is what made this round as amusing to administer as the first one had been. \n\n         Here is what happened and what it meant: \n\n                         1.                 Procedure. This was similar in most ways to the experimental approach of Round 1. The nine testers who showed up were a subset of the original 12. The missing three dropped out with excuses of \"my wife is sick\" (one person) and \"meeting is running long\" (two). \n\n         As before, each tester found before him on a table 10 red plastic cups, labeled A through J. Each cup held 3 ounces of one of the beers. The A-to-J labeling scheme was the same for all testers. Instead of saltines for palate-cleansing, this time we had popcorn and nuts. As they began, the tasters were given these and only these clues: \n\n          \n\n            that the flight included one \"holdover\" beer from the previous round (Sam Adams); \n\n            that it included at least one import (Bass); \n\n            that it included at least one macrobrew , specifically, a member of the vast Anheuser-Busch family (Michelob Hefeweizen). \n\n          \n\n         After sampling all beers, the tasters rated them as follows: \n\n          \n\n                               Overall quality points, from zero to 100, reflecting their personal, subjective fondness for the beer. \n\n                               Descriptions of and comments about each beer's taste--\"smooth and nutty,\" \"too strong,\" etc. If the first ranking was a measure of how good each beer was, this was an attempt to explain what made it good. \n\n                               Best                    and Worst , one of each from the group. \n\n                               Name                    that beer! The tasters were told that some of the drinks were Hefeweizens, some might be IPAs (India pale ales), some might be bitters, and so on. They were asked to put each beer in its proper category--and to name a specific brewery and brand if they could. The idea here was to test the veteran beer drinkers' claim to recognize the distinctive tastes of famous brands. (To see all the grids for all the beers, click .) \n\n          \n\n                         2.                 Philosophy. The first round of testing was All Lager. This second round was All Fancy, and Mainly Not Lager. As several correspondents (for instance, the of Best American Beers ) have helpfully pointed out, the definition of lager provided last time was not exactly \"accurate.\" If you want to stay within the realm of textbook definitions, a lager is a beer brewed a particular way--slowly, at cool temperatures, with yeast that settles on the bottom of the vat. This is in contrast with an ale, which is brewed faster, warmer, and with the yeast on top. By this same reasoning, lagers don't have to be light-colored, weak-flavored, and watery, as mainstream American lagers are. In principle, lagers can be dark, fierce, manly. Therefore, the correspondents suggest, it was wrong to impugn Sam Adams or Pete's Wicked for deceptive labeling, in presenting their tawnier, more flavorful beers as lagers too. \n\n         To this the beer scientist must say: Book-learning is fine in its place. But let's be realistic. Actual drinking experience teaches the American beer consumer that a) all cheap beers are lagers; and b) most lagers are light-colored and weak. The first test was designed to evaluate low-end beers and therefore had to be lager-centric. This one is designed to test fancy beers--but in the spirit of open-mindedness and technical accuracy, it includes a few \"strong\" lagers too. \n\n                         3. \n\n            Materials. The 10 test beers were chosen with several goals in mind: \n\n          \n\n            To cover at least a modest range of fancy beer types--extra special bitter, India pale ale, Hefeweizen, and so on. \n\n            To include both imported and domestic beers. Among the domestic microbrews, there's an obvious skew toward beers from the Pacific Northwest. But as Microsoft would put it, that's a feature not a bug. These beers all came from the Safeway nearest the Redmond, Wash., \"main campus\" of Microsoft, and microbrews are supposed to be local. \n\n            To include one holdover from the previous test, as a scientific control on our tasters' preferences. This was Sam Adams , runaway winner of Round 1. \n\n            To include one fancy product from a monster-scale U.S. mass brewery, to see if the tasters liked it better or worse than the cute little microbrews. This was Michelob Hefeweizen , from the pride of St. Louis, Anheuser-Busch. \n\n          \n\n         Click for pricing information and pre-quaffing evaluations. The beers tasted were: \n\n           \n\n           \n\n           \n\n           \n\n           \n\n           \n\n           \n\n           \n\n           \n\n           \n\n                         4. Data Analysis.              \n\n                         a)                 Best and Worst. Compared to the lager test, we would expect the range of \"best\" choices to be more varied, since all the tested beers were supposed to be good. This expectation was most dramatically borne out in the \"Best and Worst\" rankings. \n\n         The nine tasters cast a total of nine Worst votes and 11.5 Best votes. (Tester No. 1 turned in a sheet with three Best selections, or two more than his theoretical quota. Tester No. 4 listed a Best and a Best-minus, which counted as half a vote.) \n\n          The results were clearest at the bottom: three Worsts for Pyramid Hefeweizen , even though most comments about the beer were more or less respectful. (\"Bitter, drinkable.\") But at the top and middle the situation was muddier: \n\n           \n\n         There were three Bests for Full Sail ESB , which most of the tasters later said they weren't familiar with, and 2.5 for Redhook IPA , which all the tasters knew. But each of these also got a Worst vote, and most of the other beers had a mixed reading. So far, the tasters are meeting expectations, finding something to like in nearly all these fancy beers. \n\n                         b)                 Overall preference points. Here the complications increase. The loser was again apparent: Pyramid Hefeweizen came in last on rating points, as it had in the Best/Worst derby. But the amazing dark horse winner was Michelob Hefeweizen . The three elements of surprise here, in ascending order of unexpectedness, are: \n\n          \n\n            This best-liked beer belonged to the same category, Hefeweizen, as the least-liked product, from Pyramid. \n\n            This was also the only outright Anheuser-Busch product in the contest (the Redhooks are 75 percent A-B free). It is safe to say that all tasters would have said beforehand that they would rank an American macrobrew last, and Anheuser-Busch last of all. \n\n            Although it clearly won on overall preference points, Michelob Hefeweizen was the only beer not to have received a single \"Best\" vote. \n\n          \n\n         The first two anomalies can be written off as testament to the power of a blind taste test. The third suggests an important difference in concepts of \"bestness.\" Sometimes a product seems to be the best of a group simply because it's the most unusual or distinctive. This is why very high Wine Spectator ratings often go to wines that mainly taste odd. But another kind of bestness involves an unobtrusive, day-in day-out acceptability. That seems to be Michelob Hefe 's achievement here: no one's first choice, but high on everyone's list. Let's go to the charts: \n\n         This table shows how the beers performed on \"raw score\"--that is, without the advanced statistical adjustment of throwing out the highest and lowest score each beer received. \n\n           \n\n         Next, we have \"corrected average preference points,\" throwing out the high and low marks for each beer. The result is basically the same: \n\n           \n\n         It is worth noting the fate of Sam Adams on these charts. Here it ends up with a score of less than 61. These were the numbers awarded by the very same tasters who gave it a corrected preference rating of 83.33 the last time around--and 10 \"Best\" votes, vs. one Best (and one Worst) this time. The shift in Bests is understandable and demonstrates the importance of picking your competition. The severe drop in preference points illustrates more acutely the ancient principle of being a big fish in a small pond. These same tasters thought that Sam Adams was objectively much better when it was surrounded by Busch and Schmidt's. \n\n                         c)                 Value rankings. Last time this calculation led to what the colorful French would call a bouleversement. One of the cheapest beers, Busch, which had been in the lower ranks on overall preference points, came out at the top on value-for-money ratings, because it was so cheap. The big surprise now is that the highest-rated beer was also the cheapest one, Michelob Hefe , so the value calculation turned into a rout: \n\n           \n\n                         Pyramid \n\n            Hefeweizen was expensive on top of being unpopular, so its position at the bottom was hammered home--but not as painfully as that of Bass Ale . Bass had been in the respectable lower middle class of the preference rankings, so its disappointing Val-u-meter showing mainly reflects the fact that it was the only beer not on \"sale\" and therefore by far the costliest entry in the experiment. \n\n                         d)                 Taster skill. As members of the tasting panel began to suspect, they themselves were being judged while they judged the beer. One of the tasters, No. 7, decided to live dangerously and give specific brands and breweries for Samples A through J. This man was the only panel member whose job does not involve designing Microsoft Word--and the only one to identify two or more of the beers accurately and specifically. (He spotted Redhook IPA and Redhook ESB.) The fact that the beers correctly identified were the two most popular microbrews in the Seattle area suggests that familiarity is the main ingredient in knowing your beer. \n\n         Many others were simply lost. Barely half the tasters, five of nine, recognized that Michelob Hefeweizen                 was a Hefeweizen. Before the test, nine of nine would have said that picking out a Hefe was easy, because of its cloudy look and wheaty flavor. Three tasters thought Sam Adams was an IPA ; two thought Redhook's IPA was a Hefeweizen. In fairness, six of nine testers identified Pyramid Hefeweizen as a Hefe, and six recognized Full Sail ESB as a bitter. Much in the fashion of blind men describing an elephant, here is a how the testers handled Sam Adams Boston Lager : \n\n           \n\n                         5. Implications                 and Directions for Future Research. Science does not always answer questions; often, it raises many new ones. This excursion into beer science mainly raises the question: What kind of people are we? \n\n         If we are Gradgrind-like empiricists, living our life for \"welfare maximization\" as described in introductory econ. courses, the conclusion is obvious. We learned from the first experiment to buy either Sam Adams (when we wanted maximum lager enjoyment per bottle) or Busch (for maximum taste and snob appeal per dollar). From this second round we see an even more efficient possibility: Buy Michelob Hefeweizen and nothing else, since on the basis of this test it's the best liked and the cheapest beer. By the way, if there is a single company whose achievements the testing panel honored, it would be Anheuser-Busch . From its brewing tanks came two of the double-crown winners of the taste tests: plain old Busch , the Taste-o-meter and Snob-o-meter victor of Round 1, and Michelob Hefeweizen , the preference-point and Val-u-meter winner this time. \n\n         But, of course, there is another possibility: that what is excluded in a blind taste test is in fact what we want, and are happy to pay for, when we sit down with a beer. The complicated label, the fancy bottle, the exotic concept that this beer has traveled from some far-off corner of Bohemia or even the Yakima Valley--all this may be cheap at the $1.25-per-pint cost difference between the cheapest and the most expensive beers. In elementary school, we all endured a standard science experiment: If you shut your eyes and pinch your nose closed, can you tell any difference in the taste of a slice of apple, of carrot, of pear? You can't--but that doesn't mean that from then on you should close your eyes, hold your nose, and chew a cheap carrot when you feel like having some fruit. There is a time and place for carrots, but also for juicy pears. There is a time for Busch, but also for Full Sail \"Equinox.\" \n\n         For scientists who want to continue this work at home, here are a few suggestions for further research: \n\n          \n\n            Tell the testers ahead of time what beers they will be drinking. Ask them to rank the beers, 1 through 10, based on how well they like them. Then compare the list with the \"revealed preferences\" that come from the blind test. \n\n            As a variation, show them the list ahead of time and ask them to pick out the beer they know they love and the one they know they hate. Then compare this with the \"after\" list. \n\n            If you're going to test imported lagers, try Foster's or Corona rather than Grolsch. \n\n            Remember to stay strictly in the scientist's role. Don't take the test yourself.",
    "51305": "Confidence Game\nBy JIM HARMON\n\n\n Illustrated by EPSTEIN\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction June 1957.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI admit it: I didn't know if I was coming or\n \ngoing\u2014but I know that if I stuck to the old\n \nman, I was a comer ... even if he was a goner!\nDoc had this solemn human by the throat when I caught up with him.\n\n\n \"Tonight,\" Doc was saying in his old voice that was as crackled and\n important as parchment, \"tonight Man will reach the Moon. The golden\n Moon and the silver ship, symbols of greed. Tonight is the night when\n this is to happen.\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" the man agreed severely, prying a little worriedly at Doc's\n arthritic fingers that were clamped on his collar. \"No argument. Sure,\n up we go. But leave me go or, so help me, I'll fetch you one in the\n teeth!\"\n\n\n I came alongside and carefully started to lever the old man loose,\n one finger at a time. It had to be done this way. I had learned that\n during all these weeks and months. His hands looked old and crippled,\n but I felt they were the strongest in the world. If a half dozen winos\n in Seattle hadn't helped me get them loose, Doc and I would have been\n wanted for the murder of a North American Mountie.\n\n\n It was easier this night and that made me afraid. Doc's thin frame,\n layered with lumpy fat, was beginning to muscle-dance against my side.\n One of his times was coming on him. Then at last he was free of the\n greasy collar of the human.\n\n\n \"I hope you'll forgive him, sir,\" I said, not meeting the man's eyes.\n \"He's my father and very old, as you can see.\" I laughed inside at the\n absurd, easy lie. \"Old events seem recent to him.\"\n\n\n The human nodded, Adam's apple jerking in the angry neon twilight.\n \"'Memory Jump,' you mean. All my great-grandfathers have it. But\n Great-great-grandmother Lupos, funny thing, is like a schoolgirl.\n Sharp, you know. I.... Say, the poor old guy looks sick. Want any help?\"\n\n\n I told the human no, thanks, and walked Doc toward the flophouse three\n doors down. I hoped we would make it. I didn't know what would happen\n if we didn't. Doc was liable to say something that might nova Sol, for\n all I knew.\nMartians approaching the corner were sensing at Doc and me. They\n were just cheap tourists slumming down on Skid Row. I hated tourists\n and especially I hated Martian tourists because I especially hated\n Martians. They were\naliens\n. They weren't\nmen\nlike Doc and me.\n\n\n Then I realized what was about to happen. It was foolish and awful and\n true. I was going to have one of mine at the same time Doc was having\n his. That was bad. It had happened a few times right after I first\n found him, but now it was worse. For some undefinable reason, I felt we\n kept getting closer each of the times.\n\n\n I tried not to think about it and helped Doc through the fly-specked\n flophouse doors.\n\n\n The tubercular clerk looked up from the gaudy comics sections of one of\n those little tabloids that have the funnies a week in advance.\n\n\n \"Fifteen cents a bed,\" he said mechanically.\n\n\n \"We'll use one bed,\" I told him. \"I'll give you twenty cents.\" I felt\n the round hard quarter in my pocket, sweaty hand against sticky lining.\n\n\n \"Fifteen cents a bed,\" he played it back for me.\n\n\n Doc was quivering against me, his legs boneless.\n\n\n \"We can always make it over to the mission,\" I lied.\n\n\n The clerk turned his upper lip as if he were going to spit. \"Awright,\n since we ain't full up. In\nad\nvance.\"\n\n\n I placed the quarter on the desk.\n\n\n \"Give me a nickel.\"\n\n\n The clerk's hand fell on the coin and slid it off into the unknown\n before I could move, what with holding up Doc.\n\n\n \"You've got your nerve,\" he said at me with a fine mist of dew. \"Had a\n quarter all along and yet you Martian me down to twenty cents.\" He saw\n the look on my face. \"I'll give you a\nroom\nfor the two bits. That's\n better'n a bed for twenty.\"\n\n\n I knew I was going to need that nickel.\nDesperately.\nI reached across\n the desk with my free hand and hauled the scrawny human up against the\n register hard. I'm not as strong in my hands as Doc, but I managed.\n\n\n \"Give me a nickel,\" I said.\n\n\n \"What nickel?\" His eyes were big, but they kept looking right at me.\n \"You don't have any nickel. You don't have any quarter, not if I say\n so. Want I should call a cop and tell him you were flexing a muscle?\"\n\n\n I let go of him. He didn't scare me, but Doc was beginning to mumble\n and that\ndid\nscare me. I had to get him alone.\n\n\n \"Where's the room?\" I asked.\nThe room was six feet in all directions and the walls were five feet\n high. The other foot was finished in chicken wire. There was a wino\n singing on the left, a wino praying on the right, and the door didn't\n have any lock on it. At last, Doc and I were alone.\n\n\n I laid Doc out on the gray-brown cot and put his forearm over his face\n to shield it some from the glare of the light bulb. I swept off all the\n bedbugs in sight and stepped on them heavily.\n\n\n Then I dropped down into the painted stool chair and let my burning\n eyes rest on the obscene wall drawings just to focus them. I was so\n dirty, I could feel the grime grinding together all over me. My shaggy\n scalp still smarted from the alcohol I had stolen from a convertible's\n gas tank to get rid of Doc's and my cooties. Lucky that I never needed\n to shave and that my face was so dirty, no one would even notice that I\n didn't need to.\n\n\n The cramp hit me and I folded out of the chair onto the littered,\n uncovered floor.\n\n\n It stopped hurting, but I knew it would begin if I moved. I stared at a\n jagged cut-out nude curled against a lump of dust and lint, giving it\n an unreal distortion.\n\n\n Doc began to mumble louder.\n\n\n I knew I had to move.\n\n\n I waited just a moment, savoring the painless peace. Then, finally, I\n moved.\n\n\n I was bent double, but I got from the floor to the chair and found\n my notebook and orb-point in my hands. I found I couldn't focus both\n my mind and my eyes through the electric flashes of agony, so I\n concentrated on Doc's voice and trusted my hands would follow their\n habit pattern and construct the symbols for his words. They were\n suddenly distinguishable.\n\"\nOutsider\n...\nThoth\n...\nDyzan\n...\nSeven\n...\nHsan\n...\nBeyond Six, Seven, Eight\n...\nTwo boxes\n...\nRalston\n...\nRichard\n Wentworth\n...\nJimmy Christopher\n...\nKent Allard\n...\nAyem\n...\nOh, are\n...\nsee\n....\"\nHis voice rose to a meaningless wail that stretched into non-existence.\n The pen slid across the scribbled face of the notebook and both dropped\n from my numb hands. But I knew. Somehow, inside me,\nI knew\nthat these\n words were what I had been waiting for. They told everything I needed\n to know to become the most powerful man in the Solar Federation.\n\n\n That wasn't just an addict's dream. I knew who Doc was. When I got\n to thinking it was just a dream and that I was dragging this old man\n around North America for nothing, I remembered who he was.\n\n\n I remembered that he was somebody very important whose name and work I\n had once known, even if now I knew him only as Doc.\n\n\n Pain was a pendulum within me, swinging from low throbbing bass to high\n screaming tenor. I had to get out and get some. But I didn't have a\n nickel. Still, I had to get some.\n\n\n I crawled to the door and raised myself by the knob, slick with greasy\n dirt. The door opened and shut\u2014there was no lock. I shouldn't leave\n Doc alone, but I had to.\n\n\n He was starting to cry. He didn't always do that.\n\n\n I listened to him for a moment, then tested and tasted the craving that\n crawled through my veins. I got back inside somehow.\n\n\n Doc was twisting on the cot, tears washing white streaks across his\n face. I shoved Doc's face up against my chest. I held onto him and let\n him bellow. I soothed the lanks of soiled white hair back over his\n lumpy skull.\n\n\n He shut up at last and I laid him down again and put his arm back\n across his face. (You can't turn the light off and on in places like\n that. The old wiring will blow the bulb half the time.)\n\n\n I don't remember how I got out onto the street.\nShe was pink and clean and her platinum hair was pulled straight back,\n drawing her cheek-bones tighter, straightening her wide, appealing\n mouth, drawing her lean, athletic, feminine body erect. She was wearing\n a powder-blue dress that covered all of her breasts and hips and the\n upper half of her legs.\n\n\n The most wonderful thing about her was her perfume. Then I realized it\n wasn't perfume, only the scent of soap. Finally, I knew it wasn't that.\n It was just healthy, fresh-scrubbed skin.\n\n\n I went to her at the bus stop, forcing my legs not to stagger. Nobody\n would help a drunk. I don't know why, but nobody will help you if they\n think you are blotto.\n\n\n \"Ma'am, could you help a man who's not had work?\" I kept my eyes down.\n I couldn't look a human in the eye and ask for help. \"Just a dime for a\n cup of coffee.\" I knew where I could get it for three cents, maybe two\n and a half.\n\n\n I felt her looking at me. She spoke in an educated voice, one she used,\n perhaps, as a teacher or supervising telephone operator. \"Do you want\n it for coffee, or to apply, or a glass or hypo of something else?\"\n\n\n I cringed and whined. She would expect it of me. I suddenly realized\n that anybody as clean as she was had to be a tourist here. I hate\n tourists.\n\n\n \"Just coffee, ma'am.\" She was younger than I was, so I didn't have to\n call her that. \"A little more for food, if you could spare it.\"\n\n\n I hadn't eaten in a day and a half, but I didn't care much.\n\n\n \"I'll buy you a dinner,\" she said carefully, \"provided I can go with\n you and see for myself that you actually eat it.\"\n\n\n I felt my face flushing red. \"You wouldn't want to be seen with a bum\n like me, ma'am.\"\n\n\n \"I'll be seen with you if you really want to eat.\"\n\n\n It was certainly unfair and probably immoral. But I had no choice\n whatever.\n\n\n \"Okay,\" I said, tasting bitterness over the craving.\nThe coffee was in a thick white cup before me on the counter. It was\n pale, grayish brown and steaming faintly. I picked it up in both hands\n to feel its warmth.\n\n\n Out of the corner of my eye, I could see the woman sitting on the stool\n beside me. She had no right to intrude. This moment should be mine, but\n there she sat, marring it for me, a contemptible\ntourist\n.\n\n\n I gulped down the thick, dark liquid brutally. It was all I could\n do. The cramp flowed out of my diaphragm. I took another swallow and\n was able to think straight again. A third swallow and I felt\u2014good.\n Not abnormally stimulated, but strong, alert, poised on the brink of\n exhilaration.\n\n\n That was what coffee did for me.\n\n\n I was a caffeine addict.\n\n\n Earth-norm humans sometimes have the addiction to a slight extent, but\n I knew that as a Centurian I had it infinitely worse. Caffeine affected\n my metabolism like a pure alkaloid. The immediate effects weren't the\n same, but the\nneed\nran as deep.\n\n\n I finished the cup. I didn't order another because I wasn't a pure\n sensualist. I just needed release. Sometimes, when I didn't have the\n price of a cup, I would look around in alleys and find cola bottles\n with a few drops left in them. They have a little caffeine in\n them\u2014not enough, never enough, but better than nothing.\n\n\n \"Now what do you want to eat?\" the woman asked.\n\n\n I didn't look at her. She didn't know. She thought I was a human\u2014an\nEarth\nhuman. I was a\nman\n, of course, not an\nalien\nlike a Martian.\n Earthmen ran the whole Solar Federation, but I was just as good as an\n Earthman. With my suntan and short mane, I could pass, couldn't I? That\n proved it, didn't it?\n\n\n \"Hamburger,\" I said. \"Well done.\" I knew that would probably be all\n they had fit to eat at a place like this. It might be horse meat, but\n then I didn't have the local prejudices.\n\n\n I didn't look at the woman. I couldn't. But I kept remembering how\n clean she looked and I was aware of how clean she smelled. I was so\n dirty, so very dirty that I could never get clean if I bathed every\n hour for the rest of my life.\n\n\n The hamburger was engulfed by five black-crowned, broken fingernails\n and raised to two rows of yellow ivory. I surrounded it like an ameba,\n almost in a single movement of my jaws.\n\n\n Several other hamburgers followed the first. I lost count. I drank a\n glass of milk. I didn't want to black out on coffee with Doc waiting\n for me.\n\n\n \"Could I have a few to take with me, miss?\" I pleaded.\n\n\n She smiled. I caught that out of the edge of my vision, but mostly I\n just felt it.\n\n\n \"That's the first time you've called me anything but 'ma'am',\" she\n said. \"I'm not an old-maid schoolteacher, you know.\"\n\n\n That probably meant she was a schoolteacher, though. \"No, miss,\" I said.\n\n\n \"It's Miss Casey\u2014Vivian Casey,\" she corrected. She was a\n schoolteacher, all right. No other girl would introduce herself as Miss\n Last Name. Then there was something in her voice....\n\n\n \"What's your name?\" she said to me.\n\n\n I choked a little on a bite of stale bun.\n\n\n I\nhad\na name,\nof course\n.\nEverybody has a name, and I knew if I went off somewhere quiet and\n thought about it, mine would come to me. Meanwhile, I would tell the\n girl that my name was ... Kevin O'Malley. Abruptly I realized that that\nwas\nmy name.\n\n\n \"Kevin,\" I told her. \"John Kevin.\"\n\n\n \"Mister Kevin,\" she said, her words dancing with bright absurdity like\n waterhose mist on a summer afternoon, \"I wonder if you could help\nme\n.\"\n\n\n \"Happy to, miss,\" I mumbled.\n\n\n She pushed a white rectangle in front of me on the painted maroon bar.\n \"What do you think of this?\"\n\n\n I looked at the piece of paper. It was a coupon from a magazine.\nDear Acolyte R. I. S.\n:\nPlease send me FREE of obligation, in sealed wrapper, \"The Scarlet\n Book\" revealing to me how I may gain Secret Mastery of the Universe.\nName\n: ........................\nAddress\n: .....................\n\n\n The world disoriented itself and I was on the floor of the somber diner\n and Miss Vivian Casey was out of sight and scent.\n\n\n There was a five dollar bill tight in my fist. The counterman was\n trying to pull it out.\n\n\n I looked up at his stubbled face. \"I had half a dozen hamburgers, a\n cup of coffee and a glass of milk. I want four more 'burgers to go and\n a pint of coffee. By your prices, that will be one sixty-five\u2014if the\n lady didn't pay you.\"\n\n\n \"She didn't,\" he stammered. \"Why do you think I was trying to get that\n bill out of your hand?\"\n\n\n I didn't say anything, just got up off the floor. After the counterman\n put down my change, I spread out the five dollar bill on the vacant\n bar, smoothing it.\n\n\n I scooped up my change and walked out the door. There was no one on the\n sidewalk, only in the doorways.\nFirst I opened the door on an amber world, then an azure one. Neon\n light was coming from the chickenwire border of the room, from a window\n somewhere beyond. The wino on one side of the room was singing and\n the one on the other side was praying, same as before. Only they had\n changed around\u2014prayer came from the left, song from the right.\n\n\n Doc sat on the floor in the half-darkness and he had made a\nthing\n.\nMy heart hammered at my lungs. I\nknew\nthis last time had been\n different. Whatever it was was getting closer. This was the first time\n Doc had ever made anything. It didn't look like much, but it was a\n start.\n\n\n He had broken the light bulb and used the filament and screw bottom.\n His strong hands had unraveled some of the bed \"springs\"\u2014metal\n webbing\u2014and fashioned them to his needs. My orb-point pen had\n dissolved under his touch. All of them, useless parts, were made into a\n meaningful whole.\n\n\n I knew the thing had meaning, but when I tried to follow its design, I\n became lost.\n\n\n I put the paper container of warm coffee and the greasy bag of\n hamburgers on the wooden chair, hoping the odor wouldn't bring any\n hungry rats out of the walls.\n\n\n I knelt beside Doc.\n\n\n \"An order, my boy, an order,\" he whispered.\n\n\n I didn't know what he meant. Was he suddenly trying to give me orders?\n\n\n He held something out to me. It was my notebook. He had used my pen,\n before dismantling it, to write something. I tilted the notebook\n against the neon light, now red wine, now fresh grape. I read it.\n\n\n \"Concentrate,\" Doc said hoarsely. \"Concentrate....\"\n\n\n I wondered what the words meant. Wondering takes a kind of\n concentration.\n\n\n The words \"First Edition\" were what I was thinking about most.\nThe heavy-set man in the ornate armchair was saying, \"The bullet struck\n me as I was pulling on my boot....\"\n\n\n I was kneeling on the floor of a Victorian living room. I'm quite\n familiar with Earth history and I recognized the period immediately.\n\n\n Then I realized what I had been trying to get from Doc all these\n months\u2014time travel.\n\n\n A thin, sickly man was sprawled in the other chair in a rumpled\n dressing gown. My eyes held to his face, his pinpoint pupils and\n whitened nose. He was a condemned snowbird! If there was anything I\n hated or held in more contempt than tourists or Martians, it was a\n snowbird.\n\n\n \"My clients have occasioned singular methods of entry into these\n rooms,\" the thin man remarked, \"but never before have they used\n instantaneous materialization.\"\n\n\n The heavier man was half choking, half laughing. \"I say\u2014I say, I would\n like to see you explain this, my dear fellow.\"\n\n\n \"I have no data,\" the thin man answered coolly. \"In such instance, one\n begins to twist theories into fact, or facts into theories. I must ask\n this unemployed, former professional man who has gone through a serious\n illness and is suffering a more serious addiction to tell me the place\n and\ntime\nfrom which he comes.\"\n\n\n The surprise stung. \"How did you know?\" I asked.\n\n\n He gestured with a pale hand. \"To maintain a logical approach, I must\n reject the supernatural. Your arrival, unless hallucinatory\u2014and\n despite my voluntary use of one drug and my involuntary experiences\n recently with another, I must accept the evidence of my senses or\n retire from my profession\u2014your arrival was then super-normal. I might\n say super-scientific, of a science not of my or the good doctor's time,\n clearly. Time travel is a familiar folk legend and I have been reading\n an article by the entertaining Mr. Wells. Perhaps he will expand it\n into one of his novels of scientific romance.\"\n\n\n I knew who these two men were, with a tormenting doubt. \"But the\n other\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Your hands, though unclean, have never seen physical labor. Your\n cranial construction is of a superior type, or even if you reject my\n theories, concentration does set the facial features. I judge you have\n suffered an illness because of the inhibition of your beard growth.\n Your over-fondness for rum or opium, perhaps, is self-evident. You\n are at too resilient an age to be so sunk by even an amour. Why else\n then would you let yourself fall into such an underfed and unsanitary\n state?\"\nHe was so smug and so sure, this snowbird. I hated him. Because I\n couldn't trust to my own senses as he did.\n\n\n \"You don't exist,\" I said slowly, painfully. \"You are fictional\n creations.\"\n\n\n The doctor flushed darkly. \"You give my literary agent too much credit\n for the addition of professional polish to my works.\"\n\n\n The other man was filling a large, curved pipe from something that\n looked vaguely like an ice-skate. \"Interesting. Perhaps if our visitor\n would tell us something of his age with special reference to the theory\n and practice of temporal transference, Doctor, we would be better\n equipped to judge whether we exist.\"\n\n\n There was no theory or practice of time travel. I told them all I had\n ever heard theorized from Hindu yoga through Extra-sensory Perception\n to Relativity and the positron and negatron.\n\n\n \"Interesting.\" He breathed out suffocating black clouds of smoke.\n \"Presume that the people of your time by their 'Extra-sensory\n Perception' have altered the past to make it as they suppose it to be.\n The great historical figures are made the larger than life-size that we\n know them. The great literary creations assume reality.\"\n\n\n I thought of Cleopatra and Helen of Troy and wondered if they would be\n the goddesses of love that people imagined or the scrawny, big-nosed\n redhead and fading old woman of scholarship. Then I noticed the\n detective's hand that had been resting idly on a round brass weight of\n unknown sort to me. His tapered fingertips had indented the metal.\n\n\n His bright eyes followed mine and he smiled faintly. \"Withdrawal\n symptoms.\"\n\n\n The admiration and affection for this man that had been slowly building\n up behind my hatred unbrinked. I remembered now that he had stopped. He\n was not\nreally\na snowbird.\n\n\n After a time, I asked the doctor a question.\n\n\n \"Why, yes. I'm flattered. This is the first manuscript. Considering my\n professional handwriting, I recopied it more laboriously.\"\nAccepting the sheaf of papers and not looking back at these two great\n and good men, I concentrated on my own time and Doc. Nothing happened.\n My heart raced, but I saw something dancing before me like a dust mote\n in sunlight and stepped toward it....\n\n\n ... into the effective range of Miss Casey's tiny gun.\nShe inclined the lethal silver toy. \"Let me see those papers, Kevin.\"\n\n\n I handed her the doctor's manuscript.\n\n\n Her breath escaped slowly and loudly. \"It's all right. It's all right.\n It exists. It's real. Not even one of the unwritten ones. I've read\n this myself.\"\n\n\n Doc was lying on the cot, half his face twisted into horror.\n\n\n \"Don't move, Kevin,\" she said. \"I'll have to shoot you\u2014maybe not to\n kill, but painfully.\"\n\n\n I watched her face flash blue, red, blue and knew she meant it. But I\n had known too much in too short a time. I had to help Doc, but there\n was something else.\n\n\n \"I just want a drink of coffee from that container on the chair,\" I\n told her.\n\n\n She shook her head. \"I don't know what you think it does to you.\"\n\n\n It was getting hard for me to think. \"Who are you?\"\n\n\n She showed me a card from her wrist purse. Vivian Casey, Constable,\n North American Mounted Police.\n\n\n I had to help Doc. I had to have some coffee. \"What do you want?\"\n\n\n \"Listen, Kevin. Listen carefully to what I am saying. Doc found\n a method of time travel. It was almost a purely mathematical,\n topographical way divorced from modern physical sciences. He kept it\n secret and he wanted to make money with it. He was an idealist\u2014he had\n his crusades. How can you make money with time travel?\"\n\n\n I didn't know whether she was asking me, but I didn't know. All I knew\n was that I had to help Doc and get some coffee.\n\n\n \"It takes money\u2014money Doc didn't have\u2014to make money,\" Miss Casey\n said, \"even if you know what horse will come in and what stock will\n prosper. Besides, horse-racing and the stock market weren't a part of\n Doc's character. He was a scholar.\"\n\n\n Why did she keep using the past tense in reference to Doc? It scared\n me. He was lying so still with the left side of his face so twisted. I\n needed some coffee.\n\n\n \"He became a book finder. He got rare editions of books and magazines\n for his clients in absolutely mint condition. That was all right\u2014until\n he started obtaining books that\ndid not exist\n.\"\nI didn't know what all that was supposed to mean. I got to the chair,\n snatched up the coffee container, tore it open and gulped down the\n soothing liquid.\n\n\n I turned toward her and threw the rest of the coffee into her face.\n\n\n The coffee splashed out over her platinum hair and powder-blue dress\n that looked white when the neon was azure, purple when it was amber.\n The coffee stained and soiled and ruined, and I was fiercely glad,\n unreasonably happy.\n\n\n I tore the gun away from her by the short barrel, not letting my filthy\n hands touch her scrubbed pink ones.\n\n\n I pointed the gun generally at her and backed around the\nthing\non the\n floor to the cot. Doc had a pulse, but it was irregular. I checked for\n a fever and there wasn't one. After that, I didn't know what to do.\n\n\n I looked up finally and saw a Martian in or about the doorway.\n\n\n \"Call me Andre,\" the Martian said. \"A common name but foreign. It\n should serve as a point of reference.\"\n\n\n I had always wondered how a thing like a Martian could talk. Sometimes\n I wondered if they really could.\n\n\n \"You won't need the gun,\" Andre said conversationally.\n\n\n \"I'll keep it, thanks. What do\nyou\nwant?\"\n\n\n \"I'll begin as Miss Casey did\u2014by telling you things. Hundreds of\n people disappeared from North America a few months ago.\"\n\n\n \"They always do,\" I told him.\n\n\n \"They ceased to exist\u2014as human beings\u2014shortly after they received a\n book from Doc,\" the Martian said.\n\n\n Something seemed to strike me in the back of the neck. I staggered, but\n managed to hold onto the gun and stand up.\n\n\n \"Use one of those sneaky Martian weapons again,\" I warned him,\n \"and I'll kill the girl.\" Martians were supposed to be against the\n destruction of any life-form, I had read someplace. I doubted it, but\n it was worth a try.\n\n\n \"Kevin,\" Andre said, \"why don't you take a bath?\"\n\n\n The Martian weapon staggered me again. I tried to say something. I\n tried to explain that I was so dirty that I could never get clean no\n matter how often I bathed. No words formed.\n\n\n \"But, Kevin,\" Andre said, \"you aren't\nthat\ndirty.\"\nThe blow shook the gun from my fingers. It almost fell into the\nthing\non the floor, but at the last moment seemed to change direction and\n miss it.\n\n\n I knew something. \"I don't wash because I drink coffee.\"\n\n\n \"It's all right to drink coffee, isn't it?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Of course,\" I said, and added absurdly, \"That's why I don't wash.\"\n\n\n \"You mean,\" Andre said slowly, ploddingly, \"that if you bathed, you\n would be admitting that drinking coffee was in the same class as any\n other solitary vice that makes people wash frequently.\"\n\n\n I was knocked to my knees.\n\n\n \"Kevin,\" the Martian said, \"drinking coffee represents a major vice\n only in Centurian humanoids, not Earth-norm human beings.\nWhich are\n you?\n\"\n\n\n Nothing came out of my gabbling mouth.\n\n\n \"\nWhat is Doc's full name?\n\"\n\n\n I almost fell in, but at the last instant I caught myself and said,\n \"Doctor Kevin O'Malley, Senior.\"\n\n\n From the bed, Doc said a word. \"Son.\"\n\n\n Then he disappeared.\n\n\n I looked at that which he had made. I wondered where he had gone, in\n search of what.\n\n\n \"He didn't use that,\" Andre said.\n\n\n So I was an Earthman, Doc's son. So my addiction to coffee was all in\n my mind. That didn't change anything. They say sex is all in your mind.\n I didn't want to be cured. I wouldn't be. Doc was gone. That was all I\n had now. That and the\nthing\nhe left.\n\n\n \"The rest is simple,\" Andre said. \"Doc O'Malley bought up all the stock\n in a certain ancient metaphysical order and started supplying members\n with certain books. Can you imagine the effect of the\nBook of Dyzan\nor the\nBook of Thoth\nor the\nSeven Cryptical Books of Hsan\nor the\nNecronomican\nitself on human beings?\"\n\n\n \"But they don't exist,\" I said wearily.\n\n\n \"Exactly, Kevin, exactly. They have never existed any more than your\n Victorian detective friend. But the unconscious racial mind has reached\n back into time and created them. And that unconscious mind, deeper than\n psychology terms the subconscious, has always known about the powers\n of ESP, telepathy, telekinesis, precognition. Through these books,\n the human race can tell itself how to achieve a state of pure logic,\n without food, without sex, without conflict\u2014just as Doc has achieved\n such a state\u2014a little late, true. He had a powerful guilt complex,\n even stronger than your withdrawal, over releasing this blessing on\n the inhabited universe, but reason finally prevailed. He had reached a\n state of pure thought.\"\n\n\n \"The North American government\nhas\nto have this secret, Kevin,\" the\n girl said. \"You can't let it fall into the hands of the Martians.\"\nAndre did not deny that he wanted it to fall into his hands.\n\n\n I knew I could not let Doc's\u2014Dad's\u2014time travel\nthing\nfall into\n anyone's hands. I remembered that all the copies of the books had\n disappeared with their readers now. There must not be any more, I knew.\n\n\n Miss Casey did her duty and tried to stop me with a judo hold, but I\n don't think her heart was in it, because I reversed and broke it.\n\n\n I kicked the\nthing\nto pieces and stomped on the pieces. Maybe you\n can't stop the progress of science, but I knew it might be millenniums\n before Doc's genes and creative environment were recreated and time\n travel was rediscovered. Maybe we would be ready for it then. I knew we\n weren't now.\n\n\n Miss Casey leaned against my dirty chest and cried into it. I didn't\n mind her touching me.\n\n\n \"I'm glad,\" she said.\n\n\n Andre flowed out of the doorway with a sigh. Of relief?\n\n\n I would never know. I supposed I had destroyed\nit\nbecause I didn't\n want the human race to become a thing of pure reason without purpose,\n direction or love, but I would never know for sure. I thought I could\n kick the habit\u2014perhaps with Miss Casey's help\u2014but I wasn't really\n confident.\n\n\n Maybe I had destroyed the time machine because a world without material\n needs would not grow and roast coffee.",
    "51344": "VOYAGE TO FAR N'JURD\nBy KRIS NEVILLE\n\n\n Illustrated by MACK\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Magazine April 1963.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThey would never live to see the trip's\n \nend. So they made a few changes in their way\n \nof life\u2014and many in their way of death!\nI\n\n\n \"I don't see why we have to be here,\" a crewman said. \"He ain't liable\n to say anything.\"\n\n\n \"He shore better,\" the man in front of him said loudly.\n\n\n \"Be still,\" his wife said. \"People's lookin' at ya.\"\n\n\n \"I don't care a smidgen,\" he said, \"if en they ayre.\"\n\n\n \"Please,\" she said.\n\n\n \"Joanne Marie,\" he said, \"you know that when I aims ta do somethin',\n I'm jest natcher'lly bound to do hit. An' iffen I aims ta talk....\"\n\n\n \"Here comes the priest. Now, be still.\"\n\n\n The man looked up. \"So he do; an' I'll tell ya, hit shore is time he's\n a-gittin' hyere. I ain't got no all night fer ta sit.\"\n\n\n The crewman to his left bent over and whispered, \"I'll bet he's gonna\n tell us it's gonna be another postponement.\"\n\n\n \"Iffen he does, I'm jest a-gonna stand up an' yell right out that I\n ain't gonna stand fer hit no longer.\"\n\n\n \"Now, dear,\" said Joanne Marie, \"the captain can hear ya, if you're\n gonna talk so loud.\"\n\n\n \"I hope he does; I jest hope he does. He's th' one that's a-keepin' us\n all from our Reward, an' I jest hope he does heyar me, so he'll know\n I'm a-gittin' mighty tyird uv waitin'.\"\n\n\n \"You tell 'im!\" someone said from two rows behind him.\nThe captain, in the officer's section, sat very straight and tall. He\n was studiously ignoring the crew. This confined his field of vision to\n the left half of the recreation area. While the priest stood before the\n speaker's rostrum waiting for silence, the captain reached back with\n great dignity and scratched his right shoulder blade.\n\n\n Nestir, the priest, was dressed out in the full ceremonial costume\n of office. His high, strapless boots glistened with polish. His fez\n perched jauntily on his shiny, shaven head. The baldness was symbolic\n of diligent mental application to abstruse points of doctrine.\nCotian\n exentiati pablum re overum est\n: \"Grass grows not in the middle of\n a busy thoroughfare.\" The baldness was the result of the diligent\n application of an effective depilatory. His blood-red cloak had been\n freshly cleaned for the occasion, and it rustled around him in silky\n sibilants.\n\n\n \"Men,\" he said. And then, more loudly, \"Men!\"\n\n\n The hiss and sputter of conversation guttered away.\n\n\n \"Men,\" he said.\n\n\n \"The other evening,\" he said, \"\u2014Gelday it was, to be exact\u2014one of the\n crew came to me with a complaint.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I'll be damned,\" Joanne Marie's husband said loudly.\n\n\n Nestir cleared his throat. \"It was about the Casting Off. That's why\n I called you all together today.\" He stared away, at a point over the\n head and to the rear of the audience.\n\n\n \"It puts me in mind of the parable of the six Vergios.\"\n\n\n Joanne Marie's husband sighed deeply.\n\n\n \"Three, you will recall, were wise. When Prophet was at Meizque, they\n came to him and said, 'Prophet, we are afflicted. We have great sores\n upon our bodies.' The Prophet looked at them and did see that it\nwas\ntrue. Then he blessed them and took out His knife and lay open their\n sores. For which the three wise Vergios were passing grateful. And\n within the last week, they were dead of infection. But three were\n foolish and hid their sores; and these three did live.\"\n\n\n The captain rubbed his nose.\n\n\n \"\nCalex i pundendem hoy\n, my children. 'Secrecy makes for a long life,'\n as it says in the\nJarcon\n.\" Nestir tugged behind him at his cloak.\n\n\n \"I want you all to remember that little story. I want you all to take\n it away from here with you and think about it, tonight, in the privacy\n of your cabins.\n\n\n \"And like the three wise Vergios who went to the Prophet, one of the\n crewmen came to me. He came to me, and he said: 'Father, I am weary of\n sailing.'\n\n\n \"Yes, he said, 'I am weary of sailing.'\n\n\n \"Now, don't you think I don't know that. Every one of you\u2014every\n blessed one of you\u2014is weary of sailing. I know that as well as I know\n my own name, yes.\n\n\n \"But because he came to me and said, 'Father, I am weary of sailing,'\n I went to the captain, and I said, 'Captain, the men are weary of\n sailing.'\n\n\n \"And then the captain said: 'All right, Father,' he said, 'I will set\n the day for the Festival of the Casting Off!'\"\nThe little fellow was pleased by the rustle of approval from the\n audience. \"God damn, hit's about time!\" Joanne Marie's husband said.\n\n\n Nestir cleared his throat again.\n\n\n \"Hummm. Uh. And the day is not very far distant,\" said Nestir.\n\n\n \"I knowed there was a catch to hit,\" Joanne Marie's husband said.\n\n\n \"I know you will have many questions; yes, I know you will have\u2014ah,\n ah\u2014well, many questions. You are thinking: 'What kind of a Festival\n can we have here on this ship?' You are thinking: 'What a fine\n thing\u2014ah, what a good thing, that is\u2014ah, how nice it would be to have\n the Casting Off at home, among friends.'\"\n\n\n Nestir waved his hands. \"Well, I just want to tell you: I come from\n Koltah. And you know that Koltah never let any city state outdo her in\n a Festival, uh-huh.\n\n\n \"The arena in Koltah is the greatest arena in the whole system. We have\n as many as sixty thousand accepted applicants. All of them together in\n the arena is a\u2014uh, uh, well\u2014a sight to behold. People come from all\n over to behold it. I never will forget the Festival at which my father\n was accepted. He....\n\n\n \"Well, the point I want to make is this: I just wanted to tell you\n that I know what a Festival should be, and the captain and I will do\n everything in our power to make our Casting Off as wonderful as any\n anywhere.\n\n\n \"And I want to tell you that if you'll come to me with your\n suggestions, I'll do all I can to see that we do this thing just the\n way you want it done. I want you to be proud of this Casting Off\n Festival, so you can look back on it and say, uh, uh\u2014this day was the\n real high point of your whole life!\"\n\n\n Everyone but Joanne Marie's husband cheered. He sat glumly muttering to\n himself.\n\n\n Nestir bobbed his shiny head at them and beamed his cherubic smile. And\n noticed that there was a little blonde, one of the crewmen's wives, in\n the front row that had very cute ankles.\n\n\n While they were still cheering and stomping and otherwise expressing\n their enthusiasm and approval, Nestir walked off the speaker's platform\n and into the officer's corridor. He wiped his forehead indecorously on\n the hem of his cloak and felt quite relieved that the announcement was\n over with and the public speaking done.\nII\n\n\n Dinner that evening was a gala occasion aboard the ship. The steward\n ordered the holiday feast prepared in celebration of Nestir's\n announcement. And, for the officers, he broke out of the special cellar\n the last case allotment for Crew One of the delicate Colta Barauche\n ('94). He ordered the messman to put a bottle of it to the right of\n each plate.\n\n\n The captain came down from his stateroom after the meal had begun. He\n nodded curtly to the officers when he entered the mess hall, walked\n directly to his place at the head of the table, sat down and morosely\n began to work the cork out of his wine bottle with his teeth.\n\n\n \"You'll spoil the flavor, shaking it that way,\" the third mate\n cautioned. He was particularly fond of that year.\n\n\n The captain twisted the bottle savagely, and the cork came free with a\n little pop. He removed the cork from between his teeth, placed it very\n carefully beside his fork, and poured himself a full glass of the wine.\n\n\n \"Very probably,\" he said sadly.\n\n\n \"I don't think hit'll do hit,\" the first mate said. \"He hain't shook\n hard enough to matter.\"\n\n\n The captain picked up the glass, brought it toward his lips\u2014then,\n suddenly having thought of something, he put it back down and turned to\n Nestir.\n\n\n \"I say. Have you decided on this Carstar thing yet, Father?\"\n\n\n The little priest looked up. He laid his knife across the rim of his\n plate. \"It has ramifications,\" he said.\n\n\n When the third mate saw that his opinion on the wine was not\n immediately to be justified, he settled back in his chair with a little\n sigh of disapproval.\n\n\n \"Well, what do you\nthink\nyour decision will be, Father?\" the steward\n asked.\n\n\n Nestir picked up his knife and fork and cut off a piece of meat.\n \"Hummmm,\" he said. \"It's hard to say. The whole issue involves, as a\n core point, the principle of\ncasta cum mae stotiti\n.\"\n\n\n The first mate nodded sagely.\n\n\n \"The intent, of course, could actually be\u2014ah\u2014\nsub mailloux\n; and in\n that event, naturally, the decision would be even more difficult. I\n wish I could talk to higher authority about it; but of course I haven't\n the time. I'll have to decide something.\"\n\"He had a very pretty wife,\" the third mate said.\n\n\n \"Yes, very.\" Nestir agreed. \"But as I was saying, if it could be\n proven that the culstem fell due to no negligence on his part, either\n consciously or subconsciously, then the obvious conclusion would be\n that no stigma would be attached.\" He speared his meat and chewed it\n thoughtfully.\n\n\n \"But it wasn't at all bloody,\" the wife of the second mate said. \"I\n scarcely think he felt it at all. It happened too fast.\"\n\n\n Nestir swallowed the mouthful of food and washed it down with a gulp of\n wine.\n\n\n \"The problem, my dear Helen,\" he said, \"is one of intent. To raise\n the issue of concomitant agonies is to confuse the whole matter. For\n instance. Take Wilson, in my home state of Koltah. Certainly\nhe\ndied\n as miserable a death as anyone could desire.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" said the second mate's wife. \"I remember that. I read about it\n in the newspapers.\"\n\n\n \"But it was a case of obvious\nintent\n,\" continued Nestir, \"and\n therefore constituted a clear out attempt to avoid his duty by\n hastening to his Reward.\"\n\n\n Upon hearing the word duty, the captain brightened.\n\n\n \"That,\" he said to Nestir, \"my dear Father, is the cardinal point of\n the whole game, y'know.\" He scratched the back of his left hand. \"Duty.\n And I must say, I think you're being quite short-sighted about the\n Casting Off date. After all, it's not only a question of\nhow\nwe go,\n but also a question of leaving only after having done our duty. And\n that's equally important.\"\n\n\n \"The Synod of Cathau\u2014\" Nestir began.\n\n\n \"Plague take it, Father! Really, now, I must say. The Synod of Cathau!\n Certainly you've misinterpreted that. Anticipation can be a joy,\n y'know: almost equal to the very Reward. Anticipation should spur man\n in duty. It's all noble and self sacrificing.\" He scratched the back of\n his right hand.\n\n\n The second mate had been trying to get a word in edgewise for several\n minutes; he finally succeeded by utilizing the temporary silence\n following the captain's outburst.\n\n\n \"You don't need to worry about\nyour\nCasting Off, Captain. You can\n leave that to me. I assure you, I have in mind a most ingenious\n method.\"\nThe captain was not visibly cheered; he was still brooding about the\n sad absence of a sense of duty on the part of Nestir. \"I will welcome\n it,\" he said, \"at the proper time, sir. And I certainly hope\u2014\" His\n eyes swept the table. \"I\ncertainly\nhope to be Cast Off by an officer.\n It would be very humiliating, y'know, to have a crew member do it.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, very,\" said the steward.\n\n\n \"I don't know,\" the second mate's wife said, \"whether you better count\n on my husband or not. I have my own plans for him.\"\n\n\n \"This problem of Carstar interests me,\" the third mate said. \"Did I\n ever tell you about my wife? She strangled our second baby.\"\n\n\n \"He was a very annoying child,\" his wife said.\n\n\n \"He probably wouldn't have lived, anyway,\" the third mate said. \"Puny\n baby.\"\n\n\n \"That,\" said Nestir, \"is not at all like the Carstar case. Not at all.\n Yours is a question of\nsaliex y cuminzund\n.\"\n\n\n The first mate nodded.\n\n\n \"It seems to me that the whole thing would depend on the intent of the\n strangler.\"\n\n\n \"Captain,\" the steward said, \"you really must let me give you some of\n that salve.\"\n\n\n \"That's very kind of you, but I....\"\n\n\n \"No bother at all,\" the steward said.\n\n\n \"As I see it,\" Nestir said, \"if the intent was the natural maternal\n instinct of the mother to release her child from its duty, then....\"\n\n\n \"Oh, not at all,\" the third mate's wife said. \"I did it to make him\n stop crying.\"\n\n\n \"Well, in that case, I see no reason why he shouldn't get his Reward.\"\n\n\n \"I certainly hope so,\" the third mate said. \"Jane worries about it all\n the time.\"\n\n\n \"I do not,\" Jane contradicted.\n\n\n \"Now, honey, you know you do so.\"\n\n\n At that moment, he lost interest in his wife and leaned across the\n table toward the captain, \"Well?\" he asked.\n\n\n The captain rolled the wine over his tongue. \"You were right, of\n course.\"\n\n\n The third mate turned triumphantly to the first mate. \"There, I told\n you so.\"\n\n\n The first mate shrugged. \"I never do say nothin' right,\" he said. \"I\n hain't got no luck. I've spent more years un all ya, carpenterin' up a\n duty log that's better un even th' captain's. An' hit's Martha an' me\n that gotta wait an' help th' next crew. Lord above knows how long time\n hit'll be afore we uns'll got ta have a Festival.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, really, now. Now. Duty, duty,\" the captain reprimanded him mildly.\n\n\n \"Duty! Duty! Duty! You all ur in a conspiracy. You all want me ta die\n uv old age.\"\n\n\n \"Nonsense,\" said the steward. \"We don't want anything of the sort.\n After all, someone has to orient the new crew.\"\n\n\n \"Quite right,\" said the captain. \"You ought to be proud.\"\nThe first mate slammed his napkin in the middle of his food and stalked\n out of the mess hall.\n\n\n \"Quite touchy today,\" Nestir observed.\n\n\n \"By the way,\" the third mate said. \"Wanda gave me a petition to give to\n you, Father.\"\n\n\n \"Wanda?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. She's sixteen, now.\"\n\n\n \"Wanda who?\" the steward asked.\n\n\n \"Wanda Miller, the bosun's daughter.\"\n\n\n \"I know her,\" Helen said.\n\n\n \"She's the oldest child on the ship, and she wants you to sign her\n adult petition so she can be in the Festival, Father.\"\n\n\n \"She's so young....\"\n\n\n \"Sixteen, Father.\"\n\n\n \"After all, one must have done some duty,\" the captain said.\n\n\n \"He wants you to sign it so he can take her in the Changing of the\n Wives,\" Jane said.\n\n\n Nestir fidgeted uncomfortably. \"Well, I'll look at her record,\" he\n said.\n\n\n \"It's an idea,\" the second mate said. \"Otherwise, we'll be short one\n woman.\"\n\n\n \"There wouldn't be one short if\nhe\nhad brought a wife,\" the first\n mate's wife said, looking squarely at the captain.\n\n\n \"Now, Martha. I place duty above pleasure. You're just angry, y'know,\n because you have to stay with your husband.\"\n\n\n \"All right, so I am. But it's true. And if Carstar hadn't been killed,\n there would have been two short.\" She shot a wicked glance at Nestir.\n \"Why don't you and him share a woman\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Martha!\"\n\n\n \"Although the Prophet knows what woman in her right mind would consent\n to....\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" said Nestir hesitantly.\n\n\n \"Listen,\" the third mate said, \"the second's right. If you don't sign\n it, someone will have to do without a woman.\"\n\n\n Nestir blushed. \"I'll look it over very carefully, but you must realize\n that the priestcraft....\"\n\n\n \"Actually, in a way, it would be her duty to, you see. Think of it like\n that: as her way to do her duty.\"\n\n\n \"She's too young for you, dear,\" Jane said to her husband.\n\n\n \"Oh, I don't know,\" the steward said. \"Sometimes they're the best, I\n hear.\"\nIII\n\n\n The third mate, whose name was Harry, stood before the mirror combing\n his hair. He had been combing his hair for the last fifteen minutes.\n\n\n \"I suppose the crew is celebrating?\" his wife said.\n\n\n \"I suppose.\"\n\n\n She stood up and walked over to the dresser. Absently she began to\n finger the articles on it.\n\n\n \"You really shouldn't have told them about little Glenn tonight.\"\n\n\n \"Pish-tush.\"\n\n\n \"No, Harry. I mean it. Helen looked at me strangely all through dinner.\n She has three children, you know.\"\n\n\n \"You're imagining things.\"\n\n\n \"But she\ndoes\nhave three children.\"\n\n\n \"I mean about her looking at you.\"\n\n\n \"Oh.\"\n\n\n Harry fiddled with his tie without speaking.\n\n\n \"I mean, as much as to say: 'Well, I raised all of mine.'\"\n\n\n \"But honey, about little Glenn. That was an accident, almost. You\n didn't really mean to choke him that hard.\"\n\n\n \"But still ... it ... I mean, there was Helen, looking at me like I\n wasn't doing my duty. You know.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" he said. \"That's nonsense, Jane. Sheer nonsense. You know what\n the priest said.\"\n\n\n He polished one of his brass buttons with the sleeve of his coat.\n\n\n \"Harry?\"\n\n\n \"Yes?\"\n\n\n \"I don't think all that is necessary just to go on duty.\"\n\n\n \"Probably not.\"\n\n\n She walked to the bed and sat down. \"Harry?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, dear?\"\n\n\n \"Don't you really think she's awful young?\"\n\n\n \"Huh-uh.\"\n\n\n \"I mean, why don't you pick someone else? Like Mary? She's awful sweet.\n I'll bet she'd be better.\"\n\n\n \"Probably.\"\n\n\n \"She's a lot of fun.\"\n\n\n He brushed at his hair again. \"Who do you want, Jane?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I don't know.\" She looked down at her legs, raised them up from\n the floor and held them out in front of her. \"I think I'd kind of like\n Nestir. With his funny bald head. I hope he asks me.\"\n\n\n \"I'll mention it to him.\"\n\n\n \"Would you really, Harry? That would be sweet.\"\n\n\n \"Sure, honey.\" He looked down at his watch.\n\n\n \"Harry? Are you going to meet Wanda in the control room?\"\n\n\n \"Uh-huh.\"\n\n\n \"I thought so. Well, remember this, dear: It isn't the day of the\n Changing of the Wives yet. Don't forget.\"\n\n\n \"Honey! You don't think for a minute that....\"\n\n\n \"No, dear. I know you wouldn't. But just\ndon't\n, I mean.\"\nHe walked over and kissed her forehead and patted her cheek. \"Course\n not,\" he said, comfortingly.\n\n\n He left her sitting on the bed and strolled down the officers'\n corridor, whistling.\n\n\n He made a mental note to have the bosun send some of the crew in\n tomorrow to wash down these bulkheads. They needed it. In one corner a\n spider spun its silver web.\n\n\n He jogged up the companionway, turned left and felt the air as fresh as\n spring when he stepped under the great ventilator.\n\n\n And beneath it lay one of the crew.\n\n\n He kicked the man several times in the ribs until he came to\n consciousness.\n\n\n \"Can't sleep here, my man,\" Harry explained.\n\n\n \"Awww. Go way an' le' me 'lone, huh?\"\n\n\n \"Here. Here.\" He pulled the fellow erect and slapped him in the face\n briskly. \"This is the officers' corridor.\"\n\n\n \"Oh? Ish it? Schorry. Shore schorry, shir. So schorry.\"\n\n\n Harry assisted him to the crew's corridor where he sank to the floor\n and relapsed once more into a profound slumber.\n\n\n Harry continued on to the control room.\n\n\n When he entered it, the second mate was yawning.\n\n\n \"Hi, John. Sleepy?\"\n\n\n \"Uh-huh. You're early.\"\n\n\n \"Don't mind, do you?\"\n\n\n \"No ... Quiet tonight. Had to cut the motors an hour ago. Control\n technician passed out.\"\n\n\n \"Oh?\"\n\n\n The second mate took out a cigarette and lit it. \"Can't blow the ship\n up, you know. Look like hell on the record. Hope the captain don't find\n out about it, though. He'll figure the man was neglecting his duty.\"\n\n\n He blew a smoke ring.\n\n\n \"Might even bar him from the Festival.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" said Harry, \"the captain's funny that way.\"\n\n\n The second mate blew another smoke ring.\n\n\n \"Well,\" Harry said.\n\n\n \"Uh. Harry? Are you really going to take that Wanda girl?\"\n\n\n \"If Nestir lets me.\"\n\n\n \"Say. Harry. Do you suppose your wife would...?\"\nHarry crossed to the second mate and put a hand on his shoulder.\n \"Sorry, old fellow. She's got it in her head to take Nestir.\" He\n shrugged. \"I don't exactly approve, of course, but ... I'm sure if he\n doesn't want her, she'd be glad to hear your offer.\"\n\n\n \"Aw, that's all right,\" John said. \"Don't really matter. Say. By the\n way. Have I told you what I intend to do to the captain? I've got it\n all thought out. You know that saber I picked up on Queglat? Well....\"\n\n\n \"Look. How about telling me another time?\"\n\n\n \"Uh, Sure. If you say so. Uh?\"\n\n\n \"I'm kind of expecting Wanda.\"\n\n\n \"Oh. Sure. I should have known you weren't here early for nothing. In\n that case, I better be shoving off. Luck.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks. See you at breakfast.\"\n\n\n \"Right-o.\"\n\n\n After the second mate left, Harry walked over to the control panel.\n The jet lights were dead. He picked up the intercom and switched over\n the engine call bell. \"'Lo,\" he said into the microphone. \"This is\n the bridge.... Oh, hi, Barney. Harry.... Have you got a sober control\n technician down there yet...? Fine. We'll start the jets again. If the\n captain comes in now\u2014well, you know how he is.... Okay, thanks. Night.\"\n\n\n He replaced the microphone. He reached over and threw the forward\n firing lever. The jet lights came on and the ship began to brake\n acceleration again.\n\n\n Having done that, he switched on the space viewer. The steady buzz of\n the equipment warming sounded in his ears. Wanda would be sure to want\n to look at the stars. She was simple minded.\n\n\n \"Hello.\"\n\n\n He swiveled around. \"Oh, hello, Wanda, honey.\"\n\n\n \"Hello, Haireee. Are you glad little ol' me could come, huh?\"\n\n\n \"Sure am.\"\n\n\n \"Me, too. Can I look at the\u2014oh. It's already on.\"\n\n\n \"Uh-huh. Look. Wanda.\"\n\n\n \"Hum?\"\n\n\n \"I talked to Nestir today.\"\n\n\n \"Goody. What did he say, huh? I can be an adult and get to play in the\n Festival, can I?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know, yet. He's thinking about it. That's why I want to see\n you. He's going to check your record. And Wanda?\"\n\n\n \"Them stars shore are purty.\"\n\n\n \"Wanda, listen to me.\"\n\n\n \"I'm a-listenin', Haireee.\"\n\n\n \"You're simply going to have to stop carrying that doll around with you\n if you want to be an adult.\"\nIn Nestir's cabin the next morning, the captain and the priest held a\n conference.\n\n\n \"No, Captain. I'm afraid I can't agree to that,\" Nestir said.\n\n\n The captain said, \"Oh, don't be unreasonable, Father. After all, this\n is a ship, y'know. And I am, after all, the captain.\"\n\n\n Nestir shook his head. \"The crew and the officers will participate\n together in the Festival. I will not put the officers' corridor off\n limits, and\u2014Oh! Yes? Come in!\"\n\n\n The door opened. \"Father?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, my son? Come in.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you, Father. Good morning, Captain, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Sit down, my son. Now, Captain, as I was saying: no segregation. It's\n contrary to the spirit, if not the wording, of the\nJarcon\n.\"\n\n\n \"But Father! A crewman! In the officers' corridor! Think!\"\n\n\n \"Before the Prophet, we are all equal. I'm sorry, Captain. Now on\n Koltah, we practiced it with very good results, and....\"\n\n\n \"I say, really\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Father?\" said the crewman who had just entered.\n\n\n \"Yes, my son. In one moment. Now, Captain. As I have been explaining:\n The arena method has advantages. In Koltah we always used it. But\n here\u2014due to the\u2014ah\u2014exigencies of deep space\u2014I feel convinced that\n a departure from normal procedure is warranted. It is not without\n precedent. Such things were fairly common,\nin astoli tavoro\n, up\n until centralization, three hundred years before Allth. Indeed, in my\n home city\u2014Koltah\u2014in the year of the seventh plague, a most unusual\n expedient was adopted. It seems....\"\n\n\n \"You're perfectly correct, of course,\" the captain said.\n\n\n \"That's just what I wanted to see you about, Father,\" the crewman said.\n \"Now, in my city state of Ni, for the Festivals, we....\"\n\n\n \"Shut up,\" said the captain softly.\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n \"Now, as I was saying, Captain, when the methods used in....\"\n\n\n \"If you'll excuse me, Father, I really should return to duty,\" said the\n crewman.\n\n\n \"Quite all right, my son. Close the door after you.\"\n\n\n \"I must say, fellow, your sense of duty is commendable.\"\n\n\n \"Well, uh, thank you, sir. And thank you, Father, for your time.\"\n\n\n \"Quite all right, my son. That's what I'm here for. Come in as often as\n you like.\"\n\n\n The crewman closed the door after him.\nHe had been gone only a moment, scarcely time for Nestir to get\n properly launched on his account, when Harry, the third mate, knocked\n on the door and was admitted.\n\n\n \"Oh? Good morning, Captain. I didn't know you were here.\" Then, to the\n priest: \"I'll come back later, Father.\"\n\n\n \"Nonsense,\" said the captain. \"Come in.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I had hoped to see the Father for a minute on ... private\n business.\"\n\n\n \"I have to be toddling along,\" said the captain.\n\n\n \"But Captain! I haven't finished telling you about....\"\n\n\n \"I'll just go down and get a cup of coffee,\" the captain said.\n\n\n \"I'll call you when I'm through,\" said Harry.\n\n\n The captain left the room.\n\n\n \"It's about Wanda, Father,\" said the third mate.\n\n\n The priest studied the table top. He rearranged some papers. \"Ah, yes.\n The young girl.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I mean, it's not only about Wanda,\" said Harry. \"You see, my\n wife, Jane, that is....\"\n\n\n \"Yes?\" said the priest. He took his pen out of the holder.\n\n\n \"I think, with the proper ... ah ... you know. What I mean is, I think\n she might look with favor on you in the Changing of the Wives, if I\n said a few well chosen words in your behalf.\"\n\n\n \"That is very flattering, my son.\" He returned the pen to the holder.\n \"Such bounty, as it says in the\nJarcon\n, is\ncull tensio\n.\"\n\n\n \"And with your permission, Father....\"\n\n\n \"Ah....\"\n\n\n \"She's a very pretty woman.\"\n\n\n \"Ah.... Quite so.\"\n\n\n \"Well, about Wanda. I really shouldn't mention this. But Father, if we\nare\nshort one woman....\"\n\n\n \"Hummmm.\"\n\n\n \"I mean, the girls might think a man gets rusty.\"\n\n\n \"I see what you mean.\" Nestir blinked his eyes. \"It wouldn't be fair,\n all things considered.\"\n\n\n He stood up.\n\n\n \"I may tell you, my son, that, in thinking this matter over last night,\n I decided that Wanda\u2014ah\u2014Miller, yes, has had sufficient duty to merit\n participation in the Festival.\"\n\n\n \"Justice is a priestly virtue,\" Harry said.\n\n\n \"And you really think your wife would...?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, yes, Father.\"\n\n\n \"Well, ahem. But....\"\n\n\n \"Yes, Father?\"\n\n\n \"\nAd dulce verboten.\n\"\n\n\n \"Uh?\"\n\n\n \"That is to say, in order for a woman to join in the ritual of the\n Changing of the Wives, she must, ahem, be married.\"\n\n\n \"I never thought of that,\" said the third mate disconsolately.\n\n\n \"I think that can be arranged, however,\" said Nestir. \"If you go by the\n mess hall on your way out, please tell the captain we can continue our\n discussion at his pleasure.\"\nIV\n\n\n \"Sit down, Captain,\" said Nestir, when the captain entered. \"No. Over\n there, in the comfortable chair. There. Are you comfortable, Captain?\"\n\n\n \"Of course I am.\"\n\n\n \"Good. I have a question to ask you, Captain.\"\n\n\n \"I say?\"\n\n\n Nestir rubbed his bald head. \"Sir,\" he said by way of preamble, \"I know\n you have the greatest sensibility in questions of duty.\"\n\n\n \"That's quite so, y'know. I pride myself upon it, if I do say so.\"\n\n\n \"Exactly.\nArgot y calpex.\nNo sacrifice is too great.\"\n\n\n \"True; true.\"\n\n\n \"Well, then, say the first day of Wenslaus, that would be\u2014ah, a\n Zentahday\u2014I may depend upon you to wed Wanda Miller, the bosun's\n daughter, yes?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" said the captain.\n\n\n \"Come now, sir. I realize she is the daughter of a crewman, but\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Father,\" said the captain, \"did I ever tell you about the time I led\n an expeditionary force against Zelthalta?\"\n\n\n \"I don't believe you have.\"\n\n\n \"Then I will tell you. Came about this way. I was given command of\n fifty-three thousand Barains. Savage devils. Uncivilized, but fine\n fighters. I was to march them ninety-seven miles across the desert\n that....\"\n\n\n \"Captain! I fear I must be very severe with you. I will be forced to\n announce in the mess hall this evening that you have refused to do\n your duty when it was plainly and properly called to your attention.\"\n\n\n \"Very well, Father,\" the captain said after several minutes. \"I will do\n it.\"\n\n\n He was trembling slightly.\nThat morning was to be the time of the captain's wedding. He had\n insisted that it be done in privacy. For the ceremony, he refused to\n make the slightest change in his everyday uniform; nor would he consent\n to Nestir's suggestion that he carry a nosegay of hydroponic flowers.\n He had intended, after the ceremony, to go about his duty as if nothing\n out of the ordinary had happened; but after it was done with, the vast\n indignity of it came home to him even more poignantly than he had\n imagined it would.\n\n\n Without a word, he left the priest's stateroom and walked slowly,\n ponderously, with great dignity, to his own.\n\n\n It was a very fine stateroom. The finest, but for Nestir's, in the\n whole ship. The velvet and gold drapes (his single esthetic joy) were\n scented with exotic perfume. The carpet was an inch and a half thick.\n\n\n He walked through his office without breaking his stride.\n\n\n The bed was large and fluffy. An unbroken expanse of white coverlette\n jutting out from the far bulkhead. It looked as soft as feather down.\n\n\n Without even a sigh, he threw himself upon the bed and lay very, very\n quiet. His left leg was suspended in the air, intersecting, at the\n thigh, the plane of the coverlet at forty-five degrees; the number of\n degrees remained stiffly, unrelaxingly forty-five.\n\n\n Only after a long, long time did he roll over on his back and then it\n was merely to stare fixedly at the ceiling.\n\n\n It is entirely possible that he would have lain there until Doomsday\n had not his introspection been, around noon, interrupted by an\n apologetic tap on the door.\n\n\n \"Come in,\" he whispered, hoping she would not hear him and go away.\n\n\n But she heard him.\n\n\n \"Husband,\" Wanda said simply. She closed the door behind her and stood\n staring at him.\n\n\n \"Madam,\" he said, \"I hope you will have the kindness not to refer to me\n by that indecent appelation a second time.\"\n\n\n \"Gee. You say the cutest things. I'm awful glad you had to marry me,\n huh.\"\n\n\n The captain stood up, adjusted his coat and his shoulders, and walked\n across the room to the dressing table. He opened the left-hand drawer,\n removed a bottle, poured himself half a water-glass full and drank it\n off.\n\n\n \"Ah,\" he said.\n\n\n He returned to the bed and sat down.\n\n\n \"Can'tcha even say hello ta little ol' me, huh?\" she asked.\n\n\n \"Hello,\" he said. \"Madam, sit down. I intend to give you an instructive\n lecture in the natural order of....\"\n\n\n \"Huh?\"\n\n\n \"Ah,\" he said. \"Quite true, of course.\"\n\n\n She walked over to the chair and sat down. \"I don't like them,\" she\n said. \"Them cloth things over there.\"\n\n\n \"Those, Madam,\" he said, \"are priceless drapes I had imported from the\n province of San Xalthan. They have a long, strange history.\n\n\n \"About three thousand years ago, a family by the name of Soong was\n forced to flee from the city of Xan because the eldest son of the\n family had become involved in a conspiracy against the illustrious King\n Fod. As the Soong family was traveling....\"\n\n\n \"I don't like 'em anyway,\" said Wanda.\n\n\n \"Madam,\" said the captain, \"kindly bring me that.\"\n\n\n \"This?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. Thank you.\"\n\n\n He took the doll from her. He got up again, walked to the chest of\n drawers, searched around for a penknife. Finally he located it under a\n stack of socks.",
    "51201": "Volpla\nBy WYMAN GUIN\n\n\n Illustrated by DICK FRANCIS\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction May 1956.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe only kind of gag worth pulling, I always\n \nmaintained, was a cosmic one\u2014till I learned the\n \nCosmos has a really nasty sense of humor!\nThere were three of them. Dozens of limp little mutants that would have\n sent an academic zoologist into hysterics lay there in the metabolic\n accelerator. But there were three of\nthem\n. My heart took a great\n bound.\n\n\n I heard my daughter's running feet in the animal rooms and her\n rollerskates banging at her side. I closed the accelerator and walked\n across to the laboratory door. She twisted the knob violently, trying\n to hit a combination that would work.\n\n\n I unlocked the door, held it against her pushing and slipped out so\n that, for all her peering, she could see nothing. I looked down on her\n tolerantly.\n\n\n \"Can't adjust your skates?\" I asked again.\n\n\n \"Daddy, I've tried and tried and I just can't turn this old key tight\n enough.\"\n\n\n I continued to look down on her.\n\n\n \"Well, Dad-dee, I can't!\"\n\n\n \"Tightly enough.\"\n\n\n \"What?\"\n\n\n \"You can't turn this old key tightly enough.\"\n\n\n \"That's what I\nsay\n-yud.\"\n\n\n \"All right, wench. Sit on this chair.\"\n\n\n I got down and shoved one saddle shoe into a skate. It fitted\n perfectly. I strapped her ankle and pretended to use the key to tighten\n the clamp.\n\n\n Volplas at last. Three of them. Yet I had always been so sure I could\n create them that I had been calling them volplas for ten years. No,\n twelve. I glanced across the animal room to where old Nijinsky thrust\n his graying head from a cage. I had called them volplas since the day\n old Nijinsky's elongated arms and his cousin's lateral skin folds had\n given me the idea of a flying mutant.\nWhen Nijinsky saw me looking at him, he started a little tarantella\n about his cage. I smiled with nostalgia when the fifth fingers of his\n hands, four times as long as the others, uncurled as he spun about the\n cage.\nI turned to the fitting of my daughter's other skate.\n\n\n \"Daddy?\"\n\n\n \"Yes?\"\n\n\n \"Mother says you are eccentric. Is that true?\"\n\n\n \"I'll speak to her about it.\"\n\n\n \"Don't you\nknow\n?\"\n\n\n \"Do you understand the word?\"\n\n\n \"No.\"\n\n\n I lifted her out of the chair and stood her on her skates. \"Tell your\n mother that I retaliate. I say\nshe\nis beautiful.\"\n\n\n She skated awkwardly between the rows of cages from which mutants with\n brown fur and blue fur, too much and too little fur, enormously long\n and ridiculously short arms, stared at her with simian, canine or\n rodent faces. At the door to the outside, she turned perilously and\n waved.\n\n\n Again in the laboratory, I entered the metabolic accelerator and\n withdrew the intravenous needles from my first volplas. I carried their\n limp little forms out to a mattress in the lab, two girls and a boy.\n The accelerator had forced them almost to adulthood in less than a\n month. It would be several hours before they would begin to move, to\n learn to feed and play, perhaps to learn to fly.\n\n\n Meanwhile, it was clear that here was no war of dominant mutations.\n Modulating alleles had smoothed the freakish into a beautiful pattern.\n These were no monsters blasted by the dosage of radiation into crippled\n structures. They were lovely, perfect little creatures.\n\n\n My wife tried the door, too, but more subtly, as if casually touching\n the knob while calling.\n\n\n \"Lunch, dear.\"\n\n\n \"Be right there.\"\n\n\n She peeked too, as she had for fifteen years, but I blocked her view\n when I slipped out.\n\n\n \"Come on, you old hermit. I have a buffet on the terrace.\"\n\n\n \"Our daughter says I'm eccentric. Wonder how the devil she found out.\"\n\n\n \"From me, of course.\"\n\n\n \"But you love me just the same.\"\n\n\n \"I adore you.\" She stretched on tiptoe and put her arms over my\n shoulders and kissed me.\n\n\n My wife did indeed have a delicious-looking buffet ready on the\n terrace. The maid was just setting down a warmer filled with hot\n hamburgers. I gave the maid a pinch and said, \"Hello, baby.\"\n\n\n My wife looked at me with a puzzled smile. \"What on Earth's got into\n you?\"\n\n\n The maid beat it into the house.\n\n\n I flipped a hamburger and a slice of onion onto a plate and picked up\n the ketchup and said, \"I've reached the dangerous age.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, good heavens!\"\nI dowsed ketchup over the hamburger, threw the onion on and closed it.\n I opened a bottle of beer and guzzled from it, blew out my breath and\n looked across the rolling hills and oak woods of our ranch to where the\n Pacific shimmered. I thought, \"All this and three volplas, too.\"\n\n\n I wiped the back of my hand across my mouth and said aloud, \"Yes, sir,\n the dangerous age. And, lady, I'm going to have fun.\"\n\n\n My wife sighed patiently.\n\n\n I walked over and put the arm that held the beer bottle around her\n shoulder and chucked her chin up with my other hand. The golden sun\n danced in her blue eyes. I watched that light in her beautiful eyes and\n said, \"But you're the only one I'm dangerous about.\"\n\n\n I kissed her until I heard rollerskates coming across the terrace from\n one direction and a horse galloping toward the terrace from the other\n direction.\n\n\n \"You have lovely lips,\" I whispered.\n\n\n \"Thanks. Yours deserve the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, too.\"\n\n\n Our son reared the new palomino I had just bought him for his\n fourteenth birthday and yelled down, \"Unhand that maiden, Burrhead, or\n I'll give you lead poisoning.\"\n\n\n I laughed and picked up my plate and sat down in a chair. My wife\n brought me a bowl of salad and I munched the hamburger and watched the\n boy unsaddle the horse and slap it away to the pasture.\n\n\n I thought, \"By God, wouldn't he have a fit if he knew what I have back\n there in that lab! Wouldn't they all!\"\n\n\n The boy carried the saddle up onto the terrace and dropped it. \"Mom,\n I'd like a swim before I eat.\" He started undressing.\n\n\n \"You\nlook\nas though a little water might help,\" she agreed, sitting\n down next to me with her plate.\n\n\n The girl was yanking off her skates. \"And I want one.\"\n\n\n \"All right. But go in the house and put on your swim suit.\"\n\n\n \"Oh,\nMother\n. Why?\"\n\n\n \"Because, dear, I said so.\"\n\n\n The boy had already raced across the terrace and jack-knifed into the\n pool. The cool sound of the dive sent the girl scurrying for her suit.\n\n\n I looked at my wife. \"What's the idea?\"\n\n\n \"She's going to be a young woman soon.\"\n\n\n \"Is that any reason for wearing clothes? Look at him. He's a young\nman\nsooner than already.\"\n\n\n \"Well, if you feel that way about it, they'll both have to start\n wearing clothes.\"\n\n\n I gulped the last of my hamburger and washed it down with the beer.\n \"This place is going to hell,\" I complained. \"The old man isn't allowed\n to pinch the maid and the kids can't go naked.\" I leaned toward her and\n smacked her cheek. \"But the food and the old woman are still the best.\"\n\n\n \"Say, what goes with you? You've been grinning like a happy ape ever\n since you came out of the lab.\"\n\n\n \"I told you\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Oh, not that again! You were dangerous at any age.\"\n\n\n I stood up and put my plate aside and bent over her. \"Just the same,\n I'm going to have a new kind of fun.\"\nShe reached up and grabbed my ear. She narrowed her eyes and put a mock\n grimness on her lips.\n\n\n \"It's a joke,\" I assured her. \"I'm going to play a tremendous joke on\n the whole world. I've only had the feeling once before in a small way,\n but I've always....\"\n\n\n She twisted my ear and narrowed her eyes even more. \"Like?\"\n\n\n \"Well, when my old man was pumping his first fortune out of some oil\n wells in Oklahoma, we lived down there. Outside this little town, I\n found a litter of flat stones that had young black-snakes under each\n slab. I filled a pail with them and took them into town and dumped them\n on the walk in front of the movie just as Theda Bara's matinee let out.\n The best part was that no one had seen me do it. They just couldn't\n understand how so many snakes got there. I learned how great it can be\n to stand around quietly and watch people encounter the surprise that\n you have prepared for them.\"\n\n\n She let go of my ear. \"Is that the kind of fun you're going to have?\"\n\n\n \"Yep.\"\n\n\n She shook her head. \"Did I say you are\neccentric\n?\"\n\n\n I grinned. \"Forgive me if I eat and run, dear. Something in the lab\n can't wait.\"\n\n\n The fact was that I had something more in the lab than I had bargained\n for. I had aimed only at a gliding mammal a little more efficient than\n the Dusky Glider of Australia, a marsupial. Even in the basically\n mutating colony, there had been a decidedly simian appearance in recent\n years, a long shift from the garbage-dump rats I had started with. But\n my first volplas were shockingly humanoid.\n\n\n They were also much faster than had been their predecessors in\n organizing their nervous activity after the slumbrous explosion of\n growth in the metabolic accelerator. When I returned to the lab, they\n were already moving about on the mattress and the male was trying to\n stand.\n\n\n He was a little the larger and stood twenty-eight inches high. Except\n for the face, chest and belly, they were covered with a soft, almost\n golden down. Where it was bare of this golden fur, the skin was pink.\n On their heads and across the shoulders of the male stood a shock of\n fur as soft as chinchilla. The faces were appealingly humanoid, except\n that the eyes were large and nocturnal. The cranium was in the same\n proportion to the body as it is in the human.\nWhen the male spread his arms, the span was forty-eight inches. I held\n his arms out and tried to tease the spars open. They were not new. The\n spars had been common to the basic colony for years and were the result\n of serial mutations effecting those greatly elongated fifth fingers\n that had first appeared in Nijinsky. No longer jointed like a finger,\n the spar turned backward sharply and ran alongside the wrist almost to\n the elbow. Powerful wrist muscles could snap it outward and forward.\n Suddenly, as I teased the male volpla, this happened.\n\n\n The spars added nine inches on each side to his span. As they swept out\n and forward, the lateral skin that had, till now, hung in resting folds\n was tightened in a golden plane that stretched from the tip of the spar\n to his waist and continued four inches wide down his legs to where it\n anchored at the little toe.\n\n\n This was by far the most impressive plane that had appeared till now.\n It was a true gliding plane, perhaps even a soaring one. I felt a\n thrill run along my back.\n\n\n By four o'clock that afternoon, I was feeding them solid food and, with\n the spars closed, they were holding little cups and drinking water from\n them in a most humanlike way. They were active, curious, playful and\n decidedly amorous.\n\n\n Their humanoid qualities were increasingly apparent. There was a lumbar\n curvature and buttocks. The shoulder girdle and pectoral muscles were\n heavy and out of proportion, of course, yet the females had only one\n pair of breasts. The chin and jaw were humanlike instead of simian and\n the dental equipment was appropriate to this structure. What this\n portended was brought home to me with a shock.\n\n\n I was kneeling on the mattress, cuffing and roughing the male as one\n might a puppy dog, when one of the females playfully climbed up my\n back. I reached around and brought her over my shoulder and sat her\n down. I stroked the soft fur on her head and said, \"Hello, pretty one.\n Hello.\"\n\n\n The male watched me, grinning.\n\n\n He said, \"'Ello, 'ello.\"\nAs I walked into the kitchen, giddy with this enormous joke, my wife\n said, \"Guy and Em are flying up for dinner. That rocket of Guy's they\n launched in the desert yesterday was a success. It pulled Guy up to\n Cloud Nine and he wants to celebrate.\"\n\n\n I danced a little jig the way old Nijinsky might do it. \"Oh, great!\n Oh, wonderful! Good old Guy! Everybody's a success. It's great. It's\n wonderful. Success on success!\"\n\n\n I danced into the kitchen table and tipped over a basket of green corn.\n The maid promptly left the kitchen for some other place.\n\n\n My wife just stared at me. \"Have you been drinking the lab alcohol?\"\n\n\n \"I've been drinking the nectar of the gods. My Hera, you're properly\n married to Zeus. I've my own little Greeks descended from Icarus.\"\n\n\n She pretended a hopeless sag of her pretty shoulders. \"Wouldn't you\n just settle for a worldly martini?\"\n\n\n \"I will, yes. But first a divine kiss.\"\n\n\n I sipped at my martini and lounged in a terrace chair watching the\n golden evening slant across the beautiful hills of our ranch. I\n dreamed. I would invent a euphonious set of words to match the Basic\n English vocabulary and teach it to them as their language. They would\n have their own crafts and live in small tree houses.\n\n\n I would teach them legends: that they had come from the stars, that\n they had subsequently watched the first red men and then the first\n white men enter these hills.\n\n\n When they were able to take care of themselves, I would turn them\n loose. There would be volpla colonies all up and down the Coast before\n anyone suspected. One day, somebody would see a volpla. The newspapers\n would laugh.\n\n\n Then someone authoritative would find a colony and observe them. He\n would conclude, \"I am convinced that they have a language and speak it\n intelligently.\"\n\n\n The government would issue denials. Reporters would \"expose the truth\"\n and ask, \"Where have these aliens come from?\" The government would\n reluctantly admit the facts. Linguists would observe at close quarters\n and learn the simple volpla language. Then would come the legends.\n\n\n Volpla wisdom would become a cult\u2014and of all forms of comedy, cults, I\n think, are the funniest.\n\"Darling, are you listening to me?\" my wife asked with impatient\n patience.\n\n\n \"What? Sure. Certainly.\"\n\n\n \"You didn't hear a word. You just sit there and grin into space.\" She\n got up and poured me another martini. \"Here, maybe this will sober you\n up.\"\n\n\n I pointed. \"That's probably Guy and Em.\"\n\n\n A 'copter sidled over the ridge, then came just above the oak woods\n toward us. Guy set it gently on the landing square and we walked down\n to meet them.\n\n\n I helped Em out and hugged her. Guy jumped out, asking, \"Do you have\n your TV set on?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" I answered. \"Should I?\"\n\n\n \"It's almost time for the broadcast. I was afraid we would miss it.\"\n\n\n \"What broadcast?\"\n\n\n \"From the rocket.\"\n\n\n \"Rocket?\"\n\n\n \"For heaven's sake, darling,\" my wife complained, \"I told you about\n Guy's rocket being a success. The papers are full of it. So are the\n broadcasts.\"\n\n\n As we stepped up on the terrace, she turned to Guy and Em. \"He's out of\n contact today. Thinks he's Zeus.\"\n\n\n I asked our son to wheel a TV set out onto the terrace while I made\n martinis for our friends. Then we sat down and drank the cocktails and\n the kids had fruit juice and we watched the broadcast Guy had tuned in.\n\n\n Some joker from Cal Tech was explaining diagrams of a multi-stage\n rocket.\n\n\n After a bit, I got up and said, \"I have something out in the lab I want\n to check on.\"\n\n\n \"Hey, wait a minute,\" Guy objected. \"They're about to show the shots of\n the launching.\"\n\n\n My wife gave me a look; you know the kind. I sat down. Then I got up\n and poured myself another martini and freshened Em's up, too. I sat\n down again.\n\n\n The scene had changed to a desert launching site. There was old Guy\n himself explaining that when he pressed the button before him, the\n hatch on the third stage of the great rocket in the background would\n close and, five minutes later, the ship would fire itself.\n\n\n Guy, on the screen, pushed the button, and I heard Guy, beside me, give\n a sort of little sigh. We watched the hatch slowly close.\n\n\n \"You look real good,\" I said. \"A regular Space Ranger. What are you\n shooting at?\"\n\n\n \"Darling, will you please\u2014be\u2014\nquiet\n?\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, Dad. Can it, will you? You're always gagging around.\"\nOn the screen, Guy's big dead-earnest face was explaining more about\n the project and suddenly I realized that this was an instrument-bearing\n rocket they hoped to land on the Moon. It would broadcast from there.\n Well, now\u2014say, that\nwould\nbe something! I began to feel a little\n ashamed of the way I had been acting and I reached out and slapped old\n Guy on the shoulder. For just a moment, I thought of telling him about\n my volplas. But only for a moment.\n\n\n A ball of flame appeared at the base of the rocket. Miraculously, the\n massive tower lifted, seemed for a moment merely to stand there on a\n flaming pillar, then was gone.\n\n\n The screen returned to a studio, where an announcer explained that the\n film just shown had been taken day before yesterday. Since then, the\n rocket's third stage was known to have landed successfully at the south\n shore of Mare Serenitatis. He indicated the location on a large lunar\n map behind him.\n\n\n \"From this position, the telemeter known as Rocket Charlie will be\n broadcasting scientific data for several months. But now, ladies and\n gentlemen, we will clear the air for Rocket Charlie's only general\n broadcast. Stand by for Rocket Charlie.\"\n\n\n A chronometer appeared on the screen and, for several seconds, there\n was silence.\n\n\n I heard my boy whisper, \"Uncle Guy, this is the biggest!\"\n\n\n My wife said, \"Em, I think I'll just faint.\"\n\n\n Suddenly there was a lunar landscape on the screen, looking just as\n it's always been pictured. A mechanical voice cut in.\n\n\n \"This is Rocket Charlie saying, 'Hello, Earth,' from my position in\n Mare Serenitatis. First I will pan the Menelaus Mountains for fifteen\n seconds. Then I will focus my camera on Earth for five seconds.\"\n\n\n The camera began to move and the mountains marched by, stark and\n awesomely wild. Toward the end of the movement, the shadow of the\n upright third stage appeared in the foreground.\n\n\n Abruptly the camera made a giddy swing, focused a moment, and we were\n looking at Earth. At that time, there was no Moon over California. It\n was Africa and Europe we were looking at.\n\n\n \"This is Rocket Charlie saying, 'Good-by, Earth.'\"\n\n\n Well, when that screen went dead, there was pandemonium around our\n terrace. Big old Guy was so happy, he was wiping tears from his eyes.\n The women were kissing him and hugging him. Everybody was yelling at\n once.\nI used the metabolic accelerator to cut the volplas' gestation down to\n one week. Then I used it to bring the infants to maturity in one month.\n I had luck right off. Quite by accident, the majority of the early\n infants were females, which sped things up considerably.\n\n\n By the next spring, I had a colony of over a hundred volplas and I shut\n down the accelerator. From now on, they could have babies in their own\n way.\n\n\n I had devised the language for them, using Basic English as my model,\n and during the months while every female was busy in the metabolic\n accelerator, I taught the language to the males. They spoke it softly\n in high voices and the eight hundred words didn't seem to tax their\n little skulls a bit.\n\n\n My wife and the kids went down to Santa Barbara for a week and I took\n the opportunity to slip the oldest of the males and his two females out\n of the lab.\n\n\n I put them in the jeep beside me and drove to a secluded little valley\n about a mile back in the ranch.\n\n\n They were all three wide-eyed at the world and jabbered continuously.\n They kept me busy relating their words for \"tree,\" \"rock,\" \"sky\" to the\n objects. They had a little trouble with \"sky.\"\n\n\n Until I had them out in the open country, it had been impossible to\n appreciate fully what lovely little creatures they were. They blended\n perfectly with the California landscape. Occasionally, when they raised\n their arms, the spars would open and spread those glorious planes.\n\n\n Almost two hours went by before the male made it into the air. His\n playful curiosity about the world had been abandoned momentarily and he\n was chasing one of the girls. As usual, she was anxious to be caught\n and stopped abruptly at the bottom of a little knoll.\n\n\n He probably meant to dive for her. But when he spread his arms, the\n spars snapped out and those golden planes sheared into the air. He\n sailed over her in a stunning sweep. Then he rose up and up until he\n hung in the breeze for a long moment, thirty feet above the ground.\n\n\n He turned a plaintive face back to me, dipped worriedly and skimmed\n straight for a thorn bush. He banked instinctively, whirled toward us\n in a golden flash and crashed with a bounce to the grass.\n\n\n The two girls reached him before I did and stroked and fussed over him\n so that I could not get near. Suddenly he laughed with a shrill little\n whoop. After that, it was a carnival.\nThey learned quickly and brilliantly. They were not fliers; they were\n gliders and soarers. Before long, they took agilely to the trees and\n launched themselves in beautiful glides for hundreds of feet, banking,\n turning and spiraling to a gentle halt.\n\n\n I laughed out loud with anticipation. Wait till the first pair of these\n was brought before a sheriff! Wait till reporters from the\nChronicle\nmotored out into the hills to witness this!\n\n\n Of course, the volplas didn't want to return to the lab. There was a\n tiny stream through there and at one point it formed a sizable pool.\n They got into this and splashed their long arms about and they scrubbed\n each other. Then they got out and lay on their backs with the planes\n stretched to dry.\n\n\n I watched them affectionately and wondered about the advisability of\n leaving them out here. Well, it had to be done sometime. Nothing I\n could tell them about surviving would help them as much as a little\n actual surviving. I called the male over to me.\n\n\n He came and squatted, conference fashion, the elbows resting on the\n ground, the wrists crossed at his chest. He spoke first.\n\n\n \"Before the red men came, did we live here?\"\n\n\n \"You lived in places like this all along these mountains. Now there\n are very few of you left. Since you have been staying at my place, you\n naturally have forgotten the ways of living outdoors.\"\n\n\n \"We can learn again. We want to stay here.\" His little face was so\n solemn and thoughtful that I reached out and stroked the fur on his\n head reassuringly.\n\n\n We both heard the whir of wings overhead. Two mourning doves flew\n across the stream and landed in an oak on the opposite hillside.\n\n\n I pointed. \"There's your food, if you can kill it.\"\n\n\n He looked at me. \"How?\"\n\n\n \"I don't think you can get at them in the tree. You'll have to soar up\n above and catch one of them on the wing when they fly away. Think you\n can get up that high?\"\n\n\n He looked around slowly at the breeze playing in the branches and\n dancing along the hillside grass. It was as if he had been flying a\n thousand years and was bringing antique wisdom to bear. \"I can get up\n there. I can stay for a while. How long will they be in the tree?\"\n\n\n \"Chances are they won't stay long. Keep your eye on the tree in case\n they leave while you are climbing.\"\nHe ran to a nearby oak and clambered aloft. Presently he launched\n himself, streaked down-valley a way and caught a warm updraft on a\n hillside. In no time, he was up about two hundred feet. He began\n criss-crossing the ridge, working his way back to us.\n\n\n The two girls were watching him intently. They came over to me\n wonderingly, stopping now and then to watch him. When they were\n standing beside me, they said nothing. They shaded their eyes with\n tiny hands and watched him as he passed directly above us at about two\n hundred and fifty feet. One of the girls, with her eyes fast on his\n soaring planes, reached out and grasped my sleeve tightly.\n\n\n He flashed high above the stream and hung behind the crest of the hill\n where the doves rested. I heard their mourning from the oak tree. It\n occurred to me they would not leave that safety while the hawklike\n silhouette of the volpla marred the sky so near.\n\n\n I took the girl's hand from my sleeve and spoke to her, pointing as I\n did so. \"He is going to catch a bird. The bird is in that tree. You\n can make the bird fly so that he can catch it. Look here.\" I got up and\n found a stick. \"Can you do this?\"\nI threw the stick up into a tree near us. Then I found her a stick. She\n threw it better than I had expected.\n\n\n \"Good, pretty one. Now run across the stream and up to that tree and\n throw a stick into it.\"\n\n\n She climbed skillfully into the tree beside us and launched herself\n across the stream. She swooped up the opposite hillside and landed\n neatly in the tree where the doves rested.\n\n\n The birds came out of the tree, climbing hard with their graceful\n strokes.\n\n\n I looked back, as did the girl remaining beside me. The soaring volpla\n half closed his planes and started dropping. He became a golden flash\n across the sky.\n\n\n The doves abruptly gave up their hard climbing and fell away with\n swiftly beating wings. I saw one of the male volpla's planes open a\n little. He veered giddily in the new direction and again dropped like a\n molten arrow.\n\n\n The doves separated and began to zigzag down the valley. The volpla did\n something I would not have anticipated\u2014he opened his planes and shot\n lower than the bird he was after, then swept up and intercepted the\n bird's crossward flight.\n\n\n I saw the planes close momentarily. Then they opened again and the bird\n plummeted to a hillside. The volpla landed gently atop the hill and\n stood looking back at us.\n\n\n The volpla beside me danced up and down shrieking in a language all her\n own. The girl who had raised the birds from the tree volplaned back to\n us, yammering like a bluejay.\nIt was a hero's welcome. He had to walk back, of course\u2014he had no\n way to carry such a load in flight. The girls glided out to meet\n him. Their lavish affection held him up for a time, but eventually he\n strutted in like every human hunter.\n\n\n They were raptly curious about the bird. They poked at it, marveled at\n its feathers and danced about it in an embryonic rite of the hunt. But\n presently the male turned to me.\n\n\n \"We\neat\nthis?\"\n\n\n I laughed and took his tiny, four-fingered hand. In a sandy spot\n beneath a great tree that overhung the creek, I built a small fire for\n them. This was another marvel, but first I wanted to teach them how to\n clean the bird. I showed them how to spit it and turn it over their\n fire.\n\n\n Later, I shared a small piece of the meat in their feast. They were\n gleeful and greasily amorous during the meal.\n\n\n When I had to leave, it was dark. I warned them to stand watches, keep\n the fire burning low and take to the tree above if anything approached.\n The male walked a little away with me when I left the fire.\n\n\n I said again, \"Promise me you won't leave here until we've made you\n ready for it.\"\n\n\n \"We like it here. We will stay. Tomorrow you bring more of us?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. I will bring many more of you, if you promise to keep them all\n here in this woods until they're ready to leave.\"\n\n\n \"I promise.\" He looked up at the night sky and, in the firelight, I saw\n his wonder. \"You say we came from there?\"\n\n\n \"The old ones of your kind told me so. Didn't they tell you?\"\n\n\n \"I can't remember any old ones. You tell me.\"\n\n\n \"The old ones told me you came long before the red men in a ship from\n the stars.\" Standing there in the dark, I had to grin, visioning the\n Sunday supplements that would be written in about a year, maybe even\n less.\n\n\n He looked into the sky for a long time. \"Those little lights are the\n stars?\"\n\n\n \"That's right.\"\n\n\n \"Which star?\"\n\n\n I glanced about and presently pointed over a tree. \"From Venus.\" Then\n I realized I had blundered by passing him an English name. \"In your\n language, Pohtah.\"\n\n\n He looked at the planet a long time and murmured, \"Venus. Pohtah.\"\nThat next week, I transported all of the volplas out to the oak woods.\n There were a hundred and seven men, women and children. With no design\n on my part, they tended to segregate into groups consisting of four to\n eight couples together with the current children of the women. Within\n these groups, the adults were promiscuous, but apparently not outside\n the group. The group thus had the appearance of a super-family and the\n males indulged and cared for all the children without reference to\n actual parenthood.\n\n\n By the end of the week, these super-families were scattered over\n about four square miles of the ranch. They had found a new delicacy,\n sparrows, and hunted them easily as they roosted at night. I had taught\n the volplas to use the fire drill and they were already utilizing the\n local grasses, vines and brush to build marvelously contrived tree\n houses in which the young, and sometimes the adults, slept through\n midday and midnight.\n\n\n The afternoon my family returned home, I had a crew of workmen out\n tearing down the animal rooms and lab building. The caretakers\n had anesthetized all the experimental mutants, and the metabolic\n accelerator and other lab equipment was being dismantled. I wanted\n nothing around that might connect the sudden appearance of the volplas\n with my property. It was already apparent that it would take the\n volplas only a few more weeks to learn their means of survival and\n develop an embryonic culture of their own. Then they could leave my\n ranch and the fun would be on.\n\n\n My wife got out of the car and looked around at the workmen hurrying\n about the disemboweled buildings and she said, \"What on Earth is going\n on here?\"\n\n\n \"I've finished my work and we no longer need the buildings. I'm going\n to write a paper about my results.\"\n\n\n My wife looked at me appraisingly and shook her head. \"I thought you\n meant it. But you really ought to. It would be your first.\"\n\n\n My son asked, \"What happened to the animals?\"\n\n\n \"Turned them over to the university for further study,\" I lied.\n\n\n \"Well,\" he said to her, \"you can't say our pop isn't a man of decision.\"\n\n\n Twenty-four hours later, there wasn't a sign of animal experimentation\n on the ranch.\n\n\n Except, of course, that the woods were full of volplas. At night, I\n could hear them faintly when I sat out on the terrace. As they passed\n through the dark overhead, they chattered and laughed and sometimes\n moaned in winged love. One night a flight of them soared slowly across\n the face of the full Moon, but I was the only one who noticed.",
    "20074": "Fight Clubbed \n\n                         Fight Club , a movie about a fictional organization of men who strip down and beat each other to pulp, has provoked more than its share of media hand-wringing, particularly diatribes about Hollywood's infatuation with violence and Faludi-esque ruminations about the emasculated American male. Fight Club , however, has not sparked an iota of interest in a real organization of men who strip down and beat each other to pulp: the Ultimate Fighting Championship. UFC's flameout from national sensation to total irrelevance is a tragedy of American sports, a cautionary tale of prudishness, heavy-handed politics, and cultural myopia. \n\n         UFC began in 1993 as a locker-room fantasy. What would happen if a kickboxer fought a wrestler? A karate champion fought a sumo champion? Promoters built an octagonal chain-link cage, invited eight top martial artists, and set them loose in no-holds-barred, bare-knuckles fights. \"There are no rules!\" bragged an early press release. Contestants would fight till \"knockout, submission, doctor's intervention, or death.\" UFC allowed, even promoted, all notions of bad sportsmanship: kicking a man when he's down, hitting him in the groin, choking. Four-hundred-pound men were sent into the Octagon to maul guys half their size. Only biting and eye-gouging were forbidden. \n\n         The gimmick entranced thousands of people (well, men). What happens when a 620-pound sumo champion fights a 200-pound kickboxer? Answer: The kickboxer knocks him silly in 35 seconds. They tuned in for bloodshed--\"the damage,\" as fans like to call it. UFC fights could be horrifying. Tank Abbott, an ill-tempered, 270-pound street fighter, knocks out hapless opponent John Matua in 15 seconds. Then, before the ref can intervene, Abbott belts the unconscious Matua in the head, sending him into a fit, limbs quivering uncontrollably, blood spurting from his mouth. Abbott, naturally, became a cult hero and won a guest spot on Friends . (Matua walked out of the ring.) Soon, UFC was selling out huge arenas and drawing 300,000 pay-per-view subscribers for its quarterly competitions. \n\n         But a subtle sport was emerging from the gimmicks and carnage. My passion for ultimate fighting (which is also called \"extreme\" or \"no-holds-barred\" fighting) began when I saw the finals of UFC IV. Royce Gracie, a 180-pound Brazilian jujitsu specialist, was matched against a 275-pound beast named Dan Severn, one of the top heavyweight wrestlers in the world and a national champion many times over. In 30 seconds, Severn had grabbed Gracie, flung him to the canvas, and mounted him. For the next 15 minutes, Severn pummeled and elbowed and head-butted the smaller man. Gracie's face grew drawn, and he squirmed wildly to avoid Severn's bombardment. Then, all of sudden, Gracie, still lying on his back, saw an opening, wrapped his arms and legs around Severn like a python and choked the giant into submission. \n\n         UFC's caged matches revolutionized the idea of fighting. Nursed on boxing and Hollywood, Americans imagine fights as choreography, a dance of elegant combinations, roundhouse kicks, clean knockouts. The UFC punctured this. Boxers floundered. Experts in striking martial arts such as karate and tae kwon do, who fancied themselves the world's greatest fighters, found themselves pretzeled by jujitsu masters, who pulled them to the ground and slowly choked or leg-locked them. \"UFC immediately debunked a lot of myths of fighting, of boxing, karate, kung fu. It showed the reality of what works in an actual fight,\" says Dave Meltzer, editor of Wrestling Observer . \n\n         Instead of being carnivals of gore, UFC fights looked strangely like ... sex. Almost all fights ended on the ground, one man mounting the other in missionary position, the pair of them wiggling mysteriously along the canvas for five, 10, even 30 minutes. There were few spectacular knockouts. The referee--yes, there was always a referee--stopped many bouts, and in most others, fighters \"tapped out,\" surrendering to mild-looking but agonizing chokes and joint locks. It was not barbarism. It was science. \n\n         The UFC spawned a new breed of \"mixed martial artists.\" World-class wrestlers learned to kickbox. Champion kickboxers learned to grapple. (The karate experts learned to stay home.) They became, without doubt, the best fighters in the world. (Click for more about the fighters.) Mike Tyson wouldn't last 30 seconds in an ultimate fighting match. When Olympic gold medal wrestler Kevin Jackson came to the UFC, a fighter named Frank Shamrock KO'd him with a submission hold in 16 seconds. Ultimate fighting schools began sprouting up all over the country, replacing the stylized gestures of the Eastern martial arts with techniques that actually work. \n\n         UFC's promoters predicted that it would supplant boxing as America's martial art. Instead, it fell apart. The collapse began in 1996, when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., saw a UFC tape. McCain, a lifelong boxing fan, was horrified at the ground fighting, kicks, and head butts. It was \"barbaric,\" he said. It was \"not a sport.\" He sent letters to all 50 governors asking them to ban ultimate fighting. The outcry against \"human cockfighting\" became a crusade, and like many crusades, it was founded on misunderstanding. \n\n         UFC fell victim to cultural determinism about what a fight is. In countries such as Brazil and Japan, where no-holds-barred fighting has a long history, it is popular and uncontroversial. But Americans adhere to the Marquis of Queensbury rules. A fight consists of an exchange of upper-body blows that halts when one fighter falls. \n\n         Any blood sport can be barbaric, whether it's boxing or wrestling or ultimate fighting. It is impossible to draw a bright line between ultimate fighting and boxing. If anything, ultimate fighting is safer and less cruel than America's blood sport. For example, critics pilloried ultimate fighting because competitors fought with bare knuckles: To a nation accustomed to boxing gloves, this seemed revolting, an invitation to brain damage. But it's just the reverse: The purpose of boxing gloves is not to cushion the head but to shield the knuckles. Without gloves, a boxer would break his hands after a couple of punches to the skull. That's why ultimate fighters won't throw multiple skull punches. As a result, they avoid the concussive head wounds that kill boxers--and the long-term neurological damage that cripples them. \n\n         Similarly, the chain-link fence surrounding the octagon looks grotesque. Critics have demanded that UFC install ropes instead. But ropes are a major cause of death and injury in boxing: Fighters hyperextend their necks when they are punched against the ropes, because nothing stops their heads from snapping back. The chain-link fence prevents hyperextension. \n\n         When I tell people I'm an ultimate fighting fan, they invariably respond: \"Don't people get killed all the time doing that?\" But no one has ever been killed at the UFC--though boxers are killed every year. No one has even been seriously injured at the UFC. On the rare occasions when a bout has ended with a bloody knockout, the loser has always walked out of the ring. \n\n         But this does not impress boxing fans, who are the most vigorous opponents of extreme fighting. McCain sat ringside at a boxing match where a fighter was killed. When I asked him to explain the moral distinction between boxing and ultimate fighting, he exploded at me, \"If you can't see the moral distinction, then we have nothing to talk about!\" Then he cut our interview short and stormed out of his office. \n\n         But logic has not served the UFC well. Where McCain led, a prudish nation followed. George Will opined against UFC. The American Medical Association recommended a ban. New York state outlawed ultimate fighting, as did other states. The Nevada Athletic Commission refused to sanction UFC bouts, barring the UFC from the lucrative casino market. (One public TV station refused a UFC sponsorship ad. The only other organization the station ever rejected was the Ku Klux Klan.) Lawsuits blocked or delayed UFC events all over the country, forcing the promoters to spend millions in legal fees. The UFC was exiled from mega-arenas to ever-smaller venues in ever more out-of-the-way states: Louisiana, Iowa, and Alabama. The match I attended in October 1997 was held in the parking lot of a small Mississippi casino. \n\n         The cable TV industry struck the fatal blow. In early 1997, McCain became chairman of the commerce committee, which oversees the cable industry. In April 1997, the president of the National Cable Television Association warned that UFC broadcasts could jeopardize the cable industry's influence in Washington. Time Warner, TCI, Request, Cablevision Systems, Viewer's Choice, and other major operators stopped airing UFC events, saying they were too violent for children. Never mind that 1) UFC only aired on pay-per-view, so children could not see it unless their parents paid for it; and 2) the same cable outfits carried boxing matches, R and NC-17 movies, and professional wrestling shows far more violent than UFC. The UFC's \"addressable audience\"--the potential number of PPV subscribers--shrank from 35 million at its peak to 7.5 million today. \n\n         \"It was a very cheap way for the cable companies to portray themselves as anti-violence. It did not cost them much and it made them look good in Washington,\" says Carol Klenfner, spokeswoman for UFC's parent company, SEG. \n\n         The ultimate fighting industry did little to help its own cause. The UFC promoted itself less as a serious sport than as a circus of carnage. Its early ads emphasized extreme fighting's potential for death. UFC folks accused McCain, without any evidence, of opposing the sport as a favor to campaign contributors. Extreme fighting was tarnished when fighters from the other ultimate fighting operation, the now-defunct Battlecade, were arrested for violating Canadian prizefighting laws when they fought on an Indian reservation outside Montreal. \n\n         In the past two years, an increasingly desperate UFC has been trying to assuage its critics. The competition, which had been gradually adding safety rules since the first fight, imposed even more. It institued rounds and a \"10-point must\" scoring system. It banned head butts and groin strikes. You can no longer kick a downed man or elbow someone in the back of the head. Fighters are required to wear thin martial arts gloves (a purely cosmetic change). The UFC imposed weight classes, ending the David-and-Goliath mismatches that made early fights so compelling. \n\n         None of this soothed the cable operators, who have kept UFC off the air. The pay-per-view audience has plunged from 300,000 per show to 15,000. UFC can no longer afford its best fighters: Some are fighting overseas. Others, notably Ken Shamrock (Frank's brother), have become pro wrestlers. Fights have deteriorated. UFC is limping along, but it has been reduced to scheduling events in Japan and Brazil. \n\n         \"Sports fans want to grow with the sport,\" says former UFC fighter David Beneteau. \"They want to recognize the athletes. They want to see the same fighters come back. When you compare UFC now to what it was, the fighters are not the same, the rules are not the same. The fans have no story to follow.\" \n\n         Even as it disappears from public view, ultimate fighting is returning to its roots. Away from the scrutiny of the major media, state legislators, and McCain, kids are still learning mixed martial-arts techniques, and small-time promoters are quietly staging events. You can see Kage Kombat competitions at Dancing Waters nightclub in San Pedro, Calif. You can watch the Warrior's Challenge at a small Indian casino outside Sacramento. Texans compete in Houston's Dungal All Styles Fighting Championship. Tribal casinos in Northern Idaho are hosting small Pankration tournaments. The Extreme Fighting Challenge is popular in Iowa. The money is low; the crowds are small; and there's not a TV camera in sight. Ultimate fighting should have become boxing. Instead it has gone underground. It has become Fight Club.",
    "20066": "More Bang for the Buck \n\n         A friend of mine offers a theory about why Bill Clinton's poll numbers stayed so high throughout the Lewinsky scandal: The news made it possible for serious-minded people to spend lots of time--at the office and over lunch--talking about semen stains, vaginal insertions, and blow jobs. And the people were grateful. \n\n         That's probably because they're not getting all that much themselves. A recent University of Chicago survey of 10,000 adults found that Americans are having considerably less sex than was generally thought. Only one American in 20 has sex three times a week. One in five didn't score at all last year. \n\n         If that's true, many of us could use a little sexual self-improvement. Not me, of course. I have been happily married for 26 years, since the age of 21. Deb and I have what seems to us to be a perfectly fine amorous life, yet everywhere I turn the culture tells me--almost mocks me-- you can do better! What would happen to our sex life then, if Deb (who participated in this story because she loves me and because she has tenure) and I tried for the first time to make something happen to it? \n\n         And so it was that we found ourselves for the first time ever in a sex-toy store, A Touch of Romance, located near our home in Los Angeles, across the street from a Macy's. The idea behind shops like these is to make obtaining the materials of sexual experimentation as ordinary as purchasing plumbing supplies or housewares. \n\n         Which sort of works--the only sexual thrill I got from the visit was knowing that Microsoft just bought a cock ring. Choosing it wasn't easy. Most of them came in presized sets of three. I couldn't figure out which would fit right and intuited that try-ons weren't an option. So I opted instead for an adjustable circumference version, a little strip of vinyl with snaps for $11.95. Man, what a rip-off! Unless it works. \n\n         It doesn't. Back home, I derived a certain depraved buzz in cinching the device on, but that was soon eclipsed. The thing works on the Roach Motel principle--your blood gets in but it can't get out. But then I got to thinking: Under battlefield conditions it doesn't get out anyway. And while I should have been paying more attention to other things, this led to thinking about the old joke with the punch line \"... and right ball go POW.\" My wife hadn't noticed any difference at all. \n\n                         Overall rating, on a scale of 1 to 10: 2 toes curled.              \n\n         A woman I know says women's magazines are the best places in America to find sex tips. She's right--go ahead, just try to find a sewing pattern in Redbook . You're much more likely to land on \"Try phone sex, dirty notes, porn videos, fantasy games and sex in new places. ... Try lingerie and no underwear. ... Try talking dirty and silk scarves. Try anything at all,\" or articles such as \"Eight New Games for the Foreplay Challenged.\" \n\n         An article in the April Cosmopolitan , \"The Six Best Sex Positions,\" seemed more promising than the Redbook playbook. Each position was accompanied by a succinct write-up and a stick-figure diagram. The position we settled on was \"The Butterfly,\" which we had to read three times to comprehend. The man stands, the woman remains supine on a bed or counter-top with her feet up on his shoulders. The whole idea is to produce a pelvic tilt for better access to the G spot. Instead, we experienced an uncomfortable pretzel feeling that stick figures must be immune to. And in general, Cosmopolitan 's exotic sex positions require the sort of body placement you can't remember in the moment of passion and even if you could, for proper alignment, you still might need mood-killing accessories such as a plumb line and a laser pen. \n\n                         Rating: 3 toes curled.              \n\n         Next we tried those \"Better Sex\" instructional videos advertised in the New York Times                 Book Review. I ordered Better Sexual Techniques , Advanced Sexual Techniques , Making Sex Fun , and Advanced Oral Sex Techniques (priced about $11.95 each, not including shipping and handling). My wife couldn't bear to watch them; I persevered but must admit it was a chore. The oral-sex tape starts with \"well-known sex therapist\" Diana Wiley, in her poofy hair and broad-shouldered blue power suit, looking like she was about to explain how the sales force could increase its third-quarter productivity. Instead she runs through all the euphemisms for oral sex and then the video cuts to XXX action with gratuitous commentary. \n\n         Wiley's overexplanation of everything two people can do to each other with their mouths raises this question: Do you really need a five-minute video segment on whether or not to swallow? In the great tradition of hotel and travel ads, the guys tend to be markedly less attractive than the women. No way he'd be with her if this wasn't an instructional sex video! The inanity of the experts and the dubious casting make these films about as erotic as ... well, as the New York Times . You could learn more from any randomly selected porn video. \n\n                         Rating: 0 toes curled.              \n\n         Another approach is food. The notion that certain foods, such as oysters or rhino horn, are aphrodisiacs has been pretty much discounted. But it's plausible to think that cooking a meal together and then dining on it, just the two of you, could be erotic. Especially if (like me) your schedule frequently forces you to eat alone and you often find yourself standing in front of the microwave, screaming, \"Come on, goddammit!\" Intercourses , by Martha Hopkins and Randall Lockridge ($24.95, Terrace Publishing, 1997), preaches that for every time of day and every phase of a relationship there is a type of eating experience that will heighten sexual response. (There's also a chart showing which foods are good for eating off which body parts.) Deb and I blocked off a whole Saturday afternoon and evening for the Intercourses experiment, settling on rosemary-scented lamb over pasta (Page 87) followed by frozen coffee almond dessert (Page 31). According to the book, rosemary is sexy because of its fragrance (used in many perfumes) and because of its texture, which, so the text assured, tickles nerve endings. The dessert was mostly coffee, rum, and Kahlua, which has worked before. \n\n         We shopped for the food together and cooked together, drinking wine and beer along the way. At one point while I was working on the dessert, I asked my wife how long to beat the heavy cream mixture. \"Till it's stiff--it's an aphrodisiac,\" she said. Preparation took less than an hour, and everything came out perfectly. Eating at our dining room table for the first time ever without guests, we were having fun by candlelight. But the mood was romantic, not erotic. \n\n                         Overall rating: 4 toes curled.              \n\n         That's when we went for the Viagra ($212.50 for 10 doses, which includes a \"consultation\" fee). The drug was prescribed by a doctor, whom I've never met, and ordered from a pharmacy in Miami Beach, Fla., where I've never been. I completed the transaction via the Internet after filling out a cover-their-ass questionnaire in three minutes. \n\n         We each decided to take one pill, clinked our glasses, and gulped. And then what? It felt awkward sitting in our bedroom, knowing that it could take up to an hour for Viagra to \"work.\" I suggested that we play strip poker, something I'd never done. Deb had never even played poker, so I had to explain the rules. I won in about six hands, auspiciously I thought, with three aces. But we still weren't really in the mood yet. \n\n         So then I got out the other purchase I'd made at A Touch of Romance--\"Dirty Dice\" ($4.95). One of the two pink cubes is marked with these words instead of dots: \"lips,\" \"above waist,\" \"ear,\" \"breast,\" \"below waist,\" and \"?\". The other cube is labeled \"kiss,\" \"squeeze,\" \"lick,\" \"blow,\" \"suck,\" and \"eat.\" We took turns throwing the dice, but the activities generated seemed forced and arbitrary. Finally, as they say at NASA, there was word from the pad that the launch sequence was initiating. It was pretty much like all other sex, except for a slight lightheadedness. Deb said she noticed a remote tingling sensation. On the plus side, there was no priapism and neither of us experienced disruption of our color vision nor a fatal heart attack, which was nice. \n\n                         Overall rating: 5 toes curled.              \n\n         St. Augustine held lust to be a fitting punishment for man's disobedience to God: the body's disobeying of the mind, the will, the spirit, and even of itself. (The paradigm of this for him is the unbidden hard-on.) Jean-Paul Sartre discovered something similar, although celebrating it rather than deploring it: Essential to the erotic is the body's defiance of design and control. (The paradigm of this for him is the jiggle.) Sartre's view yields a sort of sexual Heisenberg principle: There is an inherent tension between physically abandoning yourself to another on the one hand and sexual planning on the other. The more of the one, the less of the other. And this, I discovered, is the chief obstacle to sexual self-help. Getting an erection is sexy. Making one is not. As my wife said about Viagra, \"You start to have a new feeling and then you realize where it came from and then you don't have it so much. ... Anything that makes you think about it like that is just creepy.\" \n\n         This is not to say there isn't a way out of this conflict between desire and design. With homage to our potent POTUS, there is, I think, a Third Way that's neither sexual complacency nor standard self-help. If the intrusion of consciousness is the problem, then maybe the answer is to block it out. Sure, you could do this the old-fashioned way: with alcohol and drugs. But then you have all the traditional drawbacks, including diminished physical attractiveness and degraded sexual performance. \n\n         So how about this instead? Go for all the sexual self-help you can, but do it covertly . Watch a sex video (or porn flick) if you want--but by yourself, and then try to share what you learned without sharing how you learned it. Don't tell your partner you took Viagra. Or give each other standing permission to slip it into the odd after-dinner drink, saying nothing. (Of course, when you do it you'll still know, but having an unselfconsciously turned-on partner is a real compensation for that, and next time, your partner can surprise you. And yes, this requires trust. But why would you be having sex with someone you don't trust?) My main conclusion is that contrary to our blabby culture, the key to a better sex life is less communication.",
    "20067": "It's Time To Keelhaul U-Haul! \n\n         Like all superheroes worthy of the title, the Shopping Avenger has an Achilles' heel. In the case of the Shopping Avenger, his Achilles' heel is not animal, vegetable, or mineral but something less tangible. \n\n         An explanation: Last week, the magazine you are currently reading forced the Shopping Avenger at gunpoint to read a series of treacle-filled self-help books, and then to . The Shopping Avenger, who can withstand radiation, extreme heat and cold, hail, bear attacks, and Eyes Wide Shut , almost succumbed to terminal jejuneness after reading these books. Except for one thing: One of the books, The Art of Happiness , which collects and simplifies the Dalai Lama's philosophy, got the Shopping Avenger to thinking. This, in a way, is the Shopping Avenger's Achilles' heel: thinking. Perhaps it is wrong, the Shopping Avenger thought, to complain about the petty insults and inconveniences of life in the materialistic '90s. The Shopping Avenger felt that perhaps he should counsel those who write seeking help to meditate, to accept bad service the way one accepts the change of seasons, and to extend a compassionate hand of forgiveness to those who provide poor customer care. \n\n         But then the Shopping Avenger sat down, and the feeling passed. \n\n         The Shopping Avenger does not make light of the Dalai Lama or of the notion that there is more to life than the impatient acquisition of material goods. If the Shopping Avenger were not, for a superhero, extremely nonjudgmental--as opposed to his alter ego, who is considered insufferably judgmental by his alter ego's wife--the Shopping Avenger would tell the occasional correspondent to let go of his petty grievance and get a life. \n\n         But the Shopping Avenger also believes that the Dalai Lama has never tried to rent a truck from U-Haul. If he had tried to rent from U-Haul, he never would have escaped from Tibet. (For the complete back story, see \"Shopping Avenger\" column and one.) \n\n         The complaints about U-Haul's nonreservation reservation policy continue to pour in through the electronic mail. One correspondent, B.R., wrote in with this cautionary tale: \"Last weekend, I went to San Francisco to help my brother and his family move into their first house. My brother had reserved a moving truck with U-Haul for the big day. I warned my brother about U-Haul's 'not really a reservation per se' policy that I learned from the Shopping Avenger. He didn't believe such a thing would happen to him, so he didn't act on my warning.\" \n\n         B.R. continues--as if you don't know what happened already--\"I went to U-Haul with my brother to get our 'reserved' truck. The store had many customers standing around looking frustrated. When we got to the front of the line, the clerk informed us that our 'reserved' truck had not yet been returned. We asked if we could rent one of the many trucks sitting idle in the parking lot. The clerk laughed and said the keys to those trucks were lost.\" \n\n         B.R. and his chastened brother--the Shopping Avenger is resisting the urge to gloat--went to Ryder. \"Ryder had a truck available for us. The gentleman who helped us at Ryder said Ryder prides itself on being everything U-Haul is not.\" \n\n         The Shopping Avenger has still not received a call from U-Haul spokeswoman Johna Burke explaining why U-Haul refuses to provide trucks to people who reserve trucks, but the Shopping Avenger is pleased to note that several correspondents have written in over the past month saying that, based on what they have read in this column, they will be taking their business to Ryder or Budget or elsewhere. \n\n         The Shopping Avenger will undoubtedly return to the sorry state of affairs at U-Haul in the next episode, but now on to this month's airline debacle. \n\n         Before we begin, though, the Shopping Avenger nearly forgot to announce the winner of last month's contest, in which readers were asked to answer the question, \"What's the difference between pests and airlines?\" \n\n         The winner is one Tom Morgan, who wrote, \"You can hire someone to kill pests.\" Tom is the winner of a year's supply of Turtle Wax, and he will receive his prize just as soon as the Shopping Avenger figures out how much Turtle Wax actually constitutes a year's supply. The new contest question: How much Turtle Wax comprises a year's supply of Turtle Wax? \n\n         This month's airline in the spotlight is Southwest. Loyal readers will recall that last month the Shopping Avenger praised Southwest Airlines for its \"sterling\" customer service. This brought forth a small number of articulate dissensions. The most articulate, and the most troubling, came from M., who wrote, \"Last year, flying from Baltimore to Chicago with my entire family (two really little kids included), we set down at Midway in a rainstorm. And waited for our bags. And waited for bags. And waited for bags.\" \n\n         An hour later, M. says, the bags showed up, \"soaked through. We took them to baggage services at SW and were faced with the most complicated, unclear, and confusing mechanism for filing a claim we experienced flyers have ever seen.\" \n\n         When they arrived at their destination, M. and her family made a terrible discovery, \"We discovered that our clothes were soaked through--the top clothes were so wet that the dye had bled through down to the lower levels, destroying lots of other clothes. Obviously, our bags had just been sitting out on the runway in the rain. To this day, I've never heard a thing from SW, despite calls and letters.\" \n\n         This, of course, is where Shopping Avenger steps in. Shopping Avenger knows that Southwest is different from the average airline, in that it doesn't go out of its way to infuriate its paying customers (see: ), so I expected a quick and generous resolution to M.'s problem. \n\n         What I got at first, though, was a load of corporate hoo-ha. \n\n         \"The airline's policy, which is consistent with all contracts of carriage at all airlines, requires that passengers file a report in person for lost or damaged luggage within four hours of arrival at their destination,\" a Southwest spokeswoman, Linda Rutherford, e-mailed me. \"[M.] indicates she called for a few days, but did not file a report in person until April 12--three days later. Southwest, as a courtesy, took her report anyway and asked for follow up information and written inventory of the damage.\" Rutherford said that M. should have submitted detailed receipts and photographs of the damage in order to make a claim. \n\n         Harrumph, the Shopping Avenger says. It is a bad hair day at Southwest when its officials defend themselves by comparing their airline to other airlines. I forwarded this message to M., who replied: \n\n         \"Wow. Well, of course I didn't file it at the airport on the 9 th because I didn't know the clothes were ruined at the airport. I didn't know until I opened the baggage at my hotel and saw the ruined stuff. (And it's worth noting that we had already waited for about an hour for our luggage with two little kids and impatient in-laws nipping at our heels.)\" \n\n         She goes on, \"I did call that evening ... and was told that that sufficed. This is the first time I've been told that I had to file a complaint in person within four hours. ... When I filed on the 12 th , I was never told that I needed any receipts or photos or other type of documentation. The baggage folks seemed pretty uninterested in all of this. ... They know that the type of 'evidence' they want is impossible to obtain. They also know that on April 9 they screwed up the luggage retrieval and left bags out in the rain a long time.\" \n\n         Southwest's response actually served to anger M. more than the original problem. \"Before, they had a mildly annoyed but loyal customer (who would have been placated by an apology and thrilled with some modest token of their regret). Now they have a pissed-off customer.\" \n\n         Things do look bad for Southwest, don't they? The Shopping Avenger sent M.'s response to Rutherford, who e-mailed back saying she thought the Shopping Avenger was asking for \"policy information.\" The Shopping Avenger e-mailed back again, stressing to Rutherford that the Great Court of Consumer Justice would, if this case were brought to trial, undoubtedly find for the plaintiff (the Shopping Avenger serves as prosecutor, judge, and jury in the Great Court of Consumer Justice--defendants are represented by the president of U-Haul), and that Southwest was precipitously close to feeling the sword of retribution at its neck. \n\n         But then she came through, provisionally, \"Yep, you can be sure if [M.] will call me we will get everything squared away. I'm sorry it's taken this long for her to get someone who can help, but we will take care of it from here.\" \n\n         Stay tuned, shoppers, to hear whether Southwest makes good it promise to compensate M. and apologize to her for her troubles. \n\n         The story of M. reminds the Shopping Avenger of a central truth of consumer service: It's not the crime, it's the cover-up. \n\n         Take the case of K., who found himself waiting in vain for Circuit City to repair his television. Televisions break, even 1-year-old televisions, as is the case with K's. But Circuit City, where he bought the television, gave him a terrible runaround. The Shopping Avenger dispatched his sidekick, Tad the Deputy Avenger, to get to the bottom of K.'s story. This is what he found: K. grew concerned, Tad the Deputy Avenger reports, after his television had been in the Circuit City shop for a week. When he called, he was told to \"check back next week.\" When he asked if someone from the store could call him with more information, he was refused. Weeks went by. When K. told one Circuit City employee that he really would like to get his television back, the employee, K. says, asked him, \"Don't you have another television in your house?\" \n\n         More than a month later--after hours and hours and hours of telephone calls and days missed at work--K. received his television back. \n\n         Mistakes happen, but not, Tad the Deputy Avenger found out, at Circuit City. The case, K. was told by a Circuit City official, was \"handled perfectly.\" Another official, Morgan Stewart in public relations, assured Deputy Avenger Tad that \"We got to be a big and successful company by treating customers better than the other guy.\" The Shopping Avenger and his loyal sidekick would like to hear from other Circuit City customers: Does Circuit City, in fact, treat its customers better than the other guy? \n\n         Stay tuned for answers. And next month, a Shopping Avenger clergy special: TWA screws with a Hasidic rabbi's travel plans, leaving the rabbi's wife crying at the airport. Find out if the Shopping Avenger can save TWA from certain heavenly punishment, in the next episode. \n\n                                            Got a consumer score you want settled? Send e-mail to shoppingavenger@slate.com.",
    "51651": "Conditionally Human\nBy WALTER M. MILLER, JR.\n\n\n Illustrated by DAVID STONE\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction February 1952.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThey were such cute synthetic creatures, it\n \nwas impossible not to love them. Of course,\n \nthat was precisely why they were dangerous!\nThere was no use hanging around after breakfast. His wife was in a hurt\n mood, and he could neither endure the hurt nor remove it. He put on his\n coat in the kitchen and stood for a moment with his hat in his hands.\n His wife was still at the table, absently fingering the handle of her\n cup and staring fixedly out the window at the kennels behind the house.\n He moved quietly up behind her and touched her silk-clad shoulder. The\n shoulder shivered away from him, and her dark hair swung shiningly as\n she shuddered. He drew his hand back and his bewildered face went slack\n and miserable.\n\n\n \"Honeymoon's over, huh?\"\n\n\n She said nothing, but shrugged faintly.\n\n\n \"You knew I worked for the F.B.A.,\" he said. \"You knew I'd have charge\n of a district pound. You knew it before we got married.\"\n\n\n \"I didn't know you killed them,\" she said venomously.\n\n\n \"I won't have to kill many. Besides, they're only animals.\"\n\n\n \"\nIntelligent\nanimals!\"\n\n\n \"Intelligent as a human imbecile, maybe.\"\n\n\n \"A small child is an imbecile. Would you kill a small child?\"\n\n\n \"You're taking intelligence as the only criterion of humanity,\" he\n protested hopelessly, knowing that a logical defense was useless\n against sentimentality. \"Baby\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't call me baby! Call\nthem\nbaby!\"\n\n\n Norris backed a few steps toward the door. Against his better judgment,\n he spoke again. \"Anne honey, look! Think of the\ngood\nthings about the\n job. Sure, everything has its ugly angles. But think\u2014we get this house\n rent-free; I've got my own district with no bosses around; I make my\n own hours; you'll meet lots of people that stop in at the pound. It's a\nfine\njob, honey!\"\n\n\n She sipped her coffee and appeared to be listening, so he went on.\n\n\n \"And what can I do? You know how the Federation handles employment.\n They looked over my aptitude tests and sent me to Bio-Administration.\n If I don't want to follow my aptitudes, the only choice is common\n labor. That's the\nlaw\n.\"\n\n\n \"I suppose you have an aptitude for killing babies?\" she said sweetly.\n\n\n Norris withered. His voice went desperate. \"They assigned me to it\n because I\nliked\nbabies. And because I have a B.S. in biology and an\n aptitude for dealing with people. Can't you understand? Destroying\n unclaimed units is the smallest part of it. Honey, before the\n evolvotron, before Anthropos went into the mutant-animal business,\n people used to elect dogcatchers. Think of it that way\u2014I'm just a\n dogcatcher.\"\n\n\n Her cool green eyes turned slowly to meet his gaze. Her face was\n delicately cut from cold marble. She was a small woman, slender and\n fragile, but her quiet contempt made her loom.\n\n\n He backed closer to the door.\n\n\n \"Well, I've got to get on the job.\" He put on his hat and picked at a\n splinter on the door. He frowned studiously at the splinter. \"I\u2014I'll\n see you tonight.\" He ripped the splinter loose when it became obvious\n that she didn't want to be kissed.\n\n\n He grunted a nervous good-by and stumbled down the hall and out of the\n house. The honeymoon was over, all right.\n\n\n He climbed in the kennel-truck and drove east toward the highway. The\n suburban street wound among the pastel plasticoid cottages that were\n set approximately two to an acre on the lightly wooded land. With its\n population legally fixed at three hundred million, most of the country\n had become one big suburb, dotted with community centers and lined\n with narrow belts of industrial development. Norris wished there were\n someplace where he could be completely alone.\n\n\n As he approached an intersection, he saw a small animal sitting on the\n curb, wrapped in its own bushy tail. Its oversized head was bald on\n top, but the rest of its body was covered with blue-gray fur. Its tiny\n pink tongue was licking daintily at small forepaws with prehensile\n thumbs. It was a cat-Q-5. It glanced curiously at the truck as Norris\n pulled to a halt.\n\n\n He smiled at it from the window and called, \"What's your name, kitten?\"\n\n\n The cat-Q-5 stared at him impassively for a moment, let out a\n stuttering high-pitched wail, then: \"Kiyi Rorry.\"\n\n\n \"Whose child are you, Rorry?\" he asked. \"Where do you live?\"\n\n\n The cat-Q-5 took its time about answering. There were no houses near\n the intersection, and Norris feared that the animal might be lost.\n It blinked at him, sleepily bored, and resumed its paw-washing. He\n repeated the questions.\n\n\n \"Mama kiyi,\" said the cat-Q-5 disgustedly.\n\n\n \"That's right, Mama's kitty. But where is Mama? Do you suppose she ran\n away?\"\n\n\n The cat-Q-5 looked startled. It stuttered for a moment, and its fur\n crept slowly erect. It glanced around hurriedly, then shot off down the\n street at a fast scamper. He followed it in the truck until it darted\n onto a porch and began wailing through the screen, \"Mama no run ray!\n Mama no run ray!\"\n\n\n Norris grinned and drove on. A class-C couple, allowed no children\n of their own, could get quite attached to a cat-Q-5. The felines\n were emotionally safer than the quasi-human chimp-K series called\n \"neutroids.\" When a pet neutroid died, a family was broken with grief;\n but most couples could endure the death of a cat-Q or a dog-F. Class-C\n couples were allowed two lesser units or one neutroid.\n\n\n His grin faded as he wondered which Anne would choose. The Norrises\n were class-C\u2014defective heredity.\nHe found himself in Sherman III Community Center\u2014eight blocks of\n commercial buildings, serving the surrounding suburbs. He stopped at\n the message office to pick up his mail. There was a memo from Chief\n Franklin. He tore it open nervously and read it in the truck. It was\n something he had been expecting for several days.\n\n\n Attention All District Inspectors:\n\n Subject: Deviant Neutroid.\n\n\n You will immediately begin a systematic and thorough survey of all\n animals whose serial numbers fall in the Bermuda-K-99 series for\n birth dates during July 2234. This is in connection with the Delmont\n Negligency Case. Seize all animals in this category, impound, and run\n proper sections of normalcy tests. Watch for mental and glandular\n deviation. Delmont has confessed to passing only one non-standard\n unit, but there may be others. He disclaims memory of deviant's serial\n number. This could be a ruse to bring a stop to investigations when\n one animal is found. Be thorough.\n\n\n If allowed to reach age-set or adulthood, such a deviant could be\n dangerous to its owner or to others. Hold all seized K-99s who show\n the slightest abnormality in the normalcy tests. Forward to central\n lab. Return standard units to their owners. Accomplish entire survey\n project within seven days.\nC. Franklin\n\n\n Norris frowned at the last sentence. His district covered about two\n hundred square miles. Its replacement-quota of new neutroids was around\n three hundred animals a month. He tried to estimate how many of July's\n influx had been K-99s from Bermuda Factory. Forty, at least. Could he\n do it in a week? And there were only eleven empty neutroid cages in his\n kennel. The other forty-nine were occupied by the previous inspector's\n \"unclaimed\" inventory\u2014awaiting destruction.\n\n\n He wadded the memo in his pocket, then nosed the truck onto the highway\n and headed toward Wylo City and the district wholesale offices of\n Anthropos, Inc. They should be able to give him a list of all July's\n Bermuda K-99 serial numbers that had entered his territory, together\n with the retailers to whom the animals had been sold. A week's deadline\n for finding and testing forty neutroids would put him in a tight\n squeeze.\n\n\n He was halfway to Wylo City when the radiophone buzzed on his\n dashboard. He pulled into the slow lane and answered quickly, hoping\n for Anne's voice. A polite professional purr came instead.\n\n\n \"Inspector Norris? This is Doctor Georges. We haven't met, but I\n imagine we will. Are you extremely busy at the moment?\"\n\n\n Norris hesitated. \"Extremely,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Well, this won't take long. One of my patients\u2014a Mrs. Sarah\n Glubbes\u2014called a while ago and said her baby was sick. I must be\n getting absent-minded, because I forgot she was class C until I got\n there.\" He hesitated. \"The baby turned out to be a neutroid. It's\n dying. Eighteenth order virus.\"\n\n\n \"So?\"\n\n\n \"Well, she's\u2014uh\u2014rather a\npeculiar\nwoman, Inspector. Keeps telling\n me how much trouble she had in childbirth, and how she can't ever\n have another one. It's pathetic. She\nbelieves\nit's her own. Do you\n understand?\"\n\n\n \"I think so,\" Norris replied slowly. \"But what do you want me to do?\n Can't you send the neutroid to a vet?\"\n\n\n \"She insists it's going to a hospital. Worst part is that she's heard\n of the disease. Knows it can be cured with the proper treatment\u2014in\n humans. Of course, no hospital would play along with her fantasy and\n take a neutroid, especially since she couldn't pay for its treatment.\"\n\n\n \"I still don't see\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I thought perhaps you could help me fake a substitution. It's a K-48\n series, five-year-old, three-year set. Do you have one in the pound\n that's not claimed?\"\n\n\n Norris thought for a moment. \"I think I have\none\n. You're welcome to\n it, Doctor, but you can't fake a serial number. She'll know it. And\n even though they look exactly alike, the new one won't recognize her.\n It'll be spooky.\"\n\n\n There was a long pause, followed by a sigh. \"I'll try it anyway. Can I\n come get the animal now?\"\n\n\n \"I'm on the highway\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Please, Norris! This is urgent. That woman will lose her mind\n completely if\u2014\"\n\n\n \"All right, I'll call my wife and tell her to open the pound for you.\n Pick out the K-48 and sign for it. And listen\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Yes?\"\n\n\n \"Don't let me catch you falsifying a serial number.\"\n\n\n Doctor Georges laughed faintly. \"I won't, Norris. Thanks a million.\" He\n hung up quickly.\n\n\n Norris immediately regretted his consent. It bordered on being illegal.\n But he saw it as a quick way to get rid of an animal that might later\n have to be killed.\n\n\n He called Anne. Her voice was dull. She seemed depressed, but not\n angry. When he finished talking, she said, \"All right, Terry,\" and hung\n up.\nBy noon, he had finished checking the shipping lists at the wholesale\n house in Wylo City. Only thirty-five of July's Bermuda-K-99s had\n entered his territory, and they were about equally divided among five\n pet shops, three of which were in Wylo City.\n\n\n After lunch, he called each of the retail dealers, read them the serial\n numbers, and asked them to check the sales records for names and\n addresses of individual buyers. By three o'clock, he had the entire\n list filled out, and the task began to look easier. All that remained\n was to pick up the thirty-five animals.\n\n\n And\nthat\n, he thought, was like trying to take a year-old baby away\n from its doting mother. He sighed and drove to the Wylo suburbs to\n begin his rounds.\n\n\n Anne met him at the door when he came home at six. He stood on the\n porch for a moment, smiling at her weakly. The smile was not returned.\n\n\n \"Doctor Georges came,\" she told him. \"He signed for the\u2014\" She stopped\n to stare at him. \"Darling, your face! What happened?\"\n\n\n Gingerly he touch the livid welts down the side of his cheek. \"Just\n scratched a little,\" he muttered. He pushed past her and went to the\n phone in the hall. He sat eying it distastefully for a moment, not\n liking what he had to do. Anne came to stand beside him and examine the\n scratches.\n\n\n Finally he lifted the phone and dialed the Wylo exchange. A grating\n mechanical voice answered, \"Locator center. Your party, please.\"\n\n\n \"Sheriff Yates,\" Norris grunted.\n\n\n The robot operator, which had on tape the working habits of each Wylo\n City citizen, began calling numbers. It found the off-duty sheriff on\n its third try, in a Wylo pool hall.\n\n\n \"I'm getting so I hate that infernal gadget,\" Yates grumbled. \"I think\n it's got me psyched. What do you want, Norris?\"\n\n\n \"Cooperation. I'm mailing you three letters charging three Wylo\n citizens with resisting a Federal official\u2014namely\nme\n\u2014and charging\n one of them with assault. I tried to pick up their neutroids for a\n pound inspection\u2014\"\n\n\n Yates bellowed lusty laughter into the phone.\n\n\n \"It's not funny. I've got to get those neutroids. It's in connection\n with the Delmont case.\"\n\n\n Yates stopped laughing. \"Oh. Well, I'll take care of it.\"\n\n\n \"It's a rush-order, Sheriff. Can you get the warrants tonight and pick\n up the animals in the morning?\"\n\n\n \"Easy on those warrants, boy. Judge Charleman can't be disturbed just\n any time. I can get the newts to you by noon, I guess, provided we\n don't have to get a helicopter posse to chase down the mothers.\"\n\n\n \"That'll be all right. And listen, Yates\u2014fix it so the charges will\n be dropped if they cooperate. Don't shake those warrants around unless\n they just won't listen to reason. But get those neutroids.\"\n\n\n \"Okay, boy. Gotcha.\"\n\n\n Norris gave him the names and addresses of the three unwilling mothers.\n As soon as he hung up, Anne touched his shoulders and said, \"Sit\n still.\" She began smoothing a chilly ointment over his burning cheek.\n\n\n \"Hard day?\" she asked.\n\n\n \"Not too hard. Those were just three out of fifteen. I got the other\n twelve. They're in the truck.\"\n\n\n \"That's good,\" she said. \"You've got only twelve empty cages.\"\n\n\n He neglected to tell her that he had stopped at twelve for just this\n reason. \"Guess I better get them unloaded,\" he said, standing up.\n\n\n \"Can I help you?\"\n\n\n He stared at her for a moment, saying nothing. She smiled a little and\n looked aside. \"Terry, I'm sorry\u2014about this morning. I\u2014I know you've\n got a job that has to be\u2014\" Her lip quivered slightly.\n\n\n Norris grinned, caught her shoulders, and pulled her close.\n\n\n \"Honeymoon's on again, huh?\" she whispered against his neck.\n\n\n \"Come on,\" he grunted. \"Let's unload some neutroids, before I forget\n all about work.\"\nThey went out to the kennels together. The cages were inside a\n sprawling concrete barn, which was divided into three large rooms\u2014one\n for the fragile neuter humanoid creatures, and another for the lesser\n mutants, such as cat-Qs, dog-Fs, dwarf bears, and foot-high lambs that\n never matured into sheep. The third room contained a small gas chamber\n with a conveyor belt leading from it to a crematory-incinerator.\nNorris kept the third locked lest his wife see its furnishings.\n\n\n The doll-like neutroids began their mindless chatter as soon as their\n keepers entered the building. Dozens of blazing blond heads began\n dancing about their cages. Their bodies thwacked against the wire mesh\n as they leaped about their compartments with monkey grace.\n\n\n Their human appearance was broken by only two distinct features: short\n beaverlike tails decorated with fluffy curls of fur, and an erect\n thatch of scalp-hair that grew up into a bright candleflame. Otherwise,\n they appeared completely human, with baby-pink skin, quick little\n smiles, and cherubic faces. They were sexually neuter and never grew\n beyond a predetermined age-set which varied for each series. Age-sets\n were available from one to ten years human equivalent. Once a neutroid\n reached its age-set, it remained at the set's child-development level\n until death.\n\n\n \"They must be getting to know you pretty well,\" Anne said, glancing\n around at the cages.\n\n\n Norris was wearing a slight frown as he inspected the room. \"They've\n never gotten this excited before.\"\n\n\n He walked along a row of cages, then stopped by a K-76 to stare.\n\n\n \"\nApple cores!\n\" He turned to face his wife. \"How did apples get in\n there?\"\n\n\n She reddened. \"I felt sorry for them, eating that goo from the\n mechanical feeder. I drove down to Sherman III and bought six dozen\n cooking apples.\"\n\n\n \"That was a mistake.\"\n\n\n She frowned irritably. \"We can afford it.\"\n\n\n \"That's not the point. There's a reason for the mechanical feeders.\" He\n paused, wondering how he could tell her the truth. He blundered on:\n \"They get to love whoever feeds them.\"\n\n\n \"I can't see\u2014\"\n\n\n \"How would you feel about disposing of something that loved you?\"\n\n\n Anne folded her arms and stared at him. \"Planning to dispose of any\n soon?\" she asked acidly.\n\n\n \"Honeymoon's off again, eh?\"\n\n\n She turned away. \"I'm sorry, Terry. I'll try not to mention it again.\"\n\n\n He began unloading the truck, pulling the frightened and squirming\n doll-things forth one at a time with a snare-pole. They were one-man\n pets, always frightened of strangers.\n\n\n \"What's the Delmont case, Terry?\" Anne asked while he worked.\n\n\n \"Huh?\"\n\n\n \"I heard you mention it on the phone. Anything to do with why you got\n your face scratched?\"\n\n\n He nodded sourly. \"Indirectly, yes. It's a long story.\"\n\n\n \"Tell me.\"\n\n\n \"Well, Delmont was a green-horn evolvotron operator at the Bermuda\n plant. His job was taking the unfertilized chimpanzee ova out of the\n egg-multiplier, mounting them in his machine, and bombarding the\n gene structure with sub-atomic particles. It's tricky business. He\n flashes a huge enlargement of the ovum on the electron microscope\n screen\u2014large enough so he can see the individual protein molecules. He\n has an artificial gene pattern to compare it with. It's like shooting\n sub-atomic billiards. He's got to fire alpha-particles into the gene\n structure and displace certain links by just the right amount. And\n he's got to be quick about it before the ovum dies from an overdose of\n radiation from the enlarger. A good operator can get one success out of\n seven tries.\n\n\n \"Well, Delmont worked a week and spoiled over a hundred ova without a\n single success. They threatened to fire him. I guess he got hysterical.\n Anyway, he reported one success the next day. It was faked. The ovum\n had a couple of flaws\u2014something wrong in the central nervous system's\n determinants, and in the glandular makeup. Not a standard neutroid\n ovum. He passed it on to the incubators to get a credit, knowing it\n wouldn't be caught until after birth.\"\n\n\n \"It wasn't caught at all?\" Anne asked.\n\n\n \"Funny thing, he was afraid it wouldn't be. He got to worrying about\n it, thought maybe a mental-deviant would pass, and that it might be\n dangerous. So he went back to its incubator and cut off the hormone\n flow into its compartment.\"\n\n\n \"Why that?\"\n\n\n \"So it\nwould\ndevelop sexuality. A neutroid would be born a female\n if they didn't give it suppressive doses of male hormone prenatally.\n That keeps ovaries from developing and it comes out neuter. But\n Delmont figured a female would be caught and stopped before the final\n inspection. They'd dispose of her without even bothering to examine for\n the other defects. And he could blame the sexuality on an equipment\n malfunction. He thought it was pretty smart. Trouble was they didn't\n catch the female. She went on through; they all\nlook\nfemale.\"\n\n\n \"How did they find out about it now?\"\n\n\n \"He got caught last month, trying it again. And he confessed to doing\n it once before. No telling how many times he\nreally\ndid it.\"\n\n\n Norris held up the final kicking, squealing, tassel-haired doll from\n the back of the kennel-truck. He grinned at his wife. \"This little\n fellow, for instance. It might be a potential she. It might also be a\n potential murderer.\nAll\nthese kiddos are from the machines in the\n section where Delmont worked.\"\n\n\n Anne snorted and caught the baby-creature in her arms. It struggled and\n tried to bite, but subsided a little when she disentangled it from the\n snare. \"Kkr-r-reee,\" it cooed nervously. \"Kkr-r-reee!\"\n\n\n \"You tell him you're no murderer,\" Anne purred to it.\n\n\n Norris watched disapprovingly while she fondled it. One thing he had\n learned: to steer clear of emotional attachments. It was eight months\n old and looked like a child of two years\u2014a year short of its age-set.\n And it was designed to be as affectionate as a human child.\n\n\n \"Put it in the cage, Anne,\" he said quietly.\n\n\n She looked up and shook her head.\n\n\n \"It belongs to somebody else. If it fixes a libido attachment on you,\n you're actually robbing its owner. They can't love many people at once.\"\n\n\n She snorted, but installed the thing in its cage.\n\n\n \"Anne\u2014\" Norris hesitated, hating to approach the subject. \"Do\n you\u2014want one\u2014for yourself? I can sign an unclaimed one over to you to\n keep in the house. It won't cost us anything.\"\n\n\n Slowly she shook her head, and her pale eyes went moody and luminous.\n \"I'm going to have one of my own,\" she said.\n\n\n He stood in the back of the truck, staring down at her. \"Do you realize\n what\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I know what I'm saying. We're class-C on account of heart-trouble in\n both our families. Well, I don't care, Terry. I'm not going to waste a\n heart over one of these pathetic little artificial animals. We're going\n to have a baby.\"\n\n\n \"You know what they'd do to us?\"\n\n\n \"If they catch us, yes\u2014compulsory divorce, sterilization. But they\n won't catch us. I'll have it at home, Terry. Not even a doctor. We'll\n hide it.\"\n\n\n \"I won't let you do such a thing.\"\n\n\n She faced him angrily. \"Oh, this whole rotten\nworld\n!\" she choked.\n Suddenly she turned and fled out of the building. She was sobbing.\nNorris climbed slowly down from the truck and wandered on into the\n house. She was not in the kitchen nor the living room. The bedroom door\n was locked. He shrugged and went to sit on the sofa. The television\n set was on, and a newscast was coming from a local station.\n\n\n \"... we were unable to get shots of the body,\" the announcer was\n saying. \"But here is a view of the Georges residence. I'll switch you\n to our mobile unit in Sherman II, James Duncan reporting.\"\n\n\n Norris frowned with bewilderment as the scene shifted to a two-story\n plasticoid house among the elm trees. It was after dark, but the mobile\n unit's powerful floodlights made daylight of the house and its yard and\n the police 'copters sitting in a side lot. An ambulance was parked in\n the street. A new voice came on the audio.\n\n\n \"This is James Duncan, ladies and gentlemen, speaking to you from our\n mobile unit in front of the late Doctor Hiram Georges' residence just\n west of Sherman II. We are waiting for the stretcher to be brought out,\n and Police Chief Erskine Miler is standing here beside me to give us a\n word about the case. Doctor Georges' death has shocked the community\n deeply. Most of you local listeners have known him for many years\u2014some\n of you have depended upon his services as a family physician. He was a\n man well known, well loved. But now let's listen to Chief Miler.\"\n\n\n Norris sat breathing quickly. There could scarcely be two Doctor\n Georges in the community, but only this morning....\n\n\n A growling drawl came from the audio. \"This's Chief Miler speaking,\n folks. I just want to say that if any of you know the whereabouts of a\n Mrs. Sarah Glubbes, call me immediately. She's wanted for questioning.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you, Chief. This is James Duncan again. I'll review the facts\n for you briefly again, ladies and gentlemen. At seven o'clock,\n less than an hour ago, a woman\u2014allegedly Mrs. Glubbes\u2014burst into\n Doctor Georges' dining room while the family was at dinner. She was\n brandishing a pistol and screaming, 'You stole my baby! You gave me the\n wrong baby! Where's my baby?'\n\n\n \"When the doctor assured her that there was no other baby, she fired,\n shattering his salad plate. Glancing off it, the bullet pierced his\n heart. The woman fled. A peculiar feature of the case is that Mrs.\n Glubbes, the alleged intruder,\nhas no baby\n. Just a minute\u2014just a\n minute\u2014here comes the stretcher now.\"\n\n\n Norris turned the set off and went to call the police. He told them\n what he knew and promised to make himself available for questioning if\n it became necessary. When he turned from the phone, Anne was standing\n in the bedroom doorway. She might have been crying a little, but she\n concealed it well.\n\n\n \"What was all that?\" she asked.\n\n\n \"Woman killed a man. I happened to know the motive.\"\n\n\n \"What was it?\"\n\n\n \"Neutroid trouble.\"\n\n\n \"You meet up with a lot of unpleasantness in this business, don't you?\"\n\n\n \"Lot of unpleasant emotions tangled up in it,\" he admitted.\n\n\n \"I know. Well, supper's been keeping hot for two hours. Shall we eat?\"\nThey went to bed at midnight, but it was after one when he became\n certain that his wife was asleep. He lay in darkness for a time,\n listening to her even breathing. Then he cautiously eased himself out\n of bed and tiptoed quietly through the door, carrying his shoes and\n trousers. He put them on in the kitchen and stole silently out to the\n kennels. A half moon hung low in a misty sky, and the wind was chilly\n out of the north.\n\n\n He went into the neutroid room and flicked a switch. A few sleepy\n chatters greeted the light.\n\n\n One at a time, he awoke twenty-three of the older doll-things and\n carried them to a large glass-walled compartment. These were the\n long-time residents; they knew him well, and they came with him\n willingly\u2014like children after the Piper of Hamlin. When he had gotten\n them in the glass chamber, he sealed the door and turned on the gas.\n The conveyor would automatically carry them on to the incinerator.\n\n\n Now he had enough cages for the Bermuda-K-99s.\n\n\n He hurriedly quit the kennels and went to sit on the back steps. His\n eyes were burning, but the thought of tears made him sicker. It was\n like an assassin crying while he stabbed his victim. It was more honest\n just to retch.\n\n\n When he tiptoed back inside, he got as far as the hall. Then he saw\n Anne's small figure framed in the bedroom window, silhouetted against\n the moonlit yard. She had slipped into her negligee and was sitting on\n the narrow windowstool, staring silently out at the dull red tongue of\n exhaust gases from the crematory's chimney.\n\n\n Norris backed away. He went to the parlor and lay down on the couch.\n\n\n After a while he heard her come into the room. She paused in the center\n of the rug, a fragile mist in the darkness. He turned his face away and\n waited for the rasping accusation. But soon she came to sit on the edge\n of the sofa. She said nothing. Her hand crept out and touched his cheek\n lightly. He felt her cool finger-tips trace a soft line up his temple.\n\n\n \"It's all right, Terry,\" she whispered.\n\n\n He kept his face averted. Her fingers traced a last stroke. Then she\n padded quietly back to the bedroom. He lay awake until dawn, knowing\n that it would never be all right, neither the creating nor the killing,\n until he\u2014and the whole world\u2014completely lost sanity. And then\n everything would be all right, only it still wouldn't make sense.\nAnne was asleep when he left the house. The night mist had gathered\n into clouds that made a gloomy morning of it. He drove on out in the\n kennel-truck, meaning to get the rest of the Bermuda-K-99s so that he\n could begin his testing.\n\n\n Still he felt the night's guilt, like a sticky dew that refused to\n depart with morning. Why should he have to kill the things? The answer\n was obvious. Society manufactured them because killing them was\n permissible. Human babies could not be disposed of when the market\n became glutted. The neutroids offered solace to childless women, kept\n them satisfied with a restricted birth rate. And why a restricted\n birth rate? Because by keeping the population at five billions, the\n Federation could insure a decent living standard for everybody.\n\n\n Where there was giving, Norris thought glumly, there was also taking\n away. Man had always deluded himself by thinking that he \"created,\" but\n he created nothing. He thought that he had created\u2014with his medical\n science and his end to wars\u2014a longer life for the individual. But he\n found that he had only taken the lives of the unborn and added them to\n the years of the aged. Man now had a life expectancy of eighty, except\n that he had damn little chance of being born to enjoy it.\n\n\n A neutroid filled the cradle in his stead. A neutroid that never ate\n as much, or grew up to be unemployed. A neutroid could be killed if\n things got tough, but could still satisfy a woman's craving to mother\n something small.\n\n\n Norris gave up thinking about it. Eventually he would have to adjust\n to it. He was already adjusted to a world that loved the artificial\n mutants as children. He had been brought up in it. Emotion came in\n conflict with the grim necessities of his job. Somehow he would have\n to love them in the parlor and kill them in the kennel. It was only a\n matter of adjustment.\nAt noon, he brought back another dozen K-99s and installed them in his\n cages. There had been two highly reluctant mothers, but he skipped\n them and left the seizure to the local authorities. Yates had already\n brought in the three from yesterday.\n\n\n \"No more scratches?\" Anne asked him while they ate lunch. They did not\n speak of the night's mass-disposal.\n\n\n Norris smiled mechanically. \"I learned my lesson yesterday. If\n they bare their fangs, I get out without another word. Funny thing\n though\u2014I've got a feeling one mother pulled a fast one.\"\n\n\n \"What happened?\"\n\n\n \"Well, I told her what I wanted and why. She didn't like it, but she\n let me in. I started out with her newt, but she wanted a receipt. So I\n gave her one; took the serial number off my checklist. She looked at\n it and said, 'Why, that's not Chichi's number!' I looked at the newt's\n foot, and sure enough it wasn't. I had to leave it. It was a K-99, but\n not even from Bermuda.\"\n\n\n \"I thought they were all registered,\" Anne said.\n\n\n \"They are. I told her she had the wrong neutroid, but she got mad. Went\n and got the sales receipt. It checked with her newt, and it was from\n O'Reilley's pet shop\u2014right place, wrong number. I just don't get it.\"\n\n\n \"Nothing to worry about, is it Terry?\"\n\n\n He looked at her peculiarly. \"Ever think what might happen if someone\n started a black market in neutroids?\"\n\n\n They finished the meal in silence. After lunch he went out again to\n gather up the rest of the group. By four o'clock, he had gotten all\n that were to be had without the threat of a warrant. The screams and\n pleas and tears of the owners left him gloomily despising himself.\n\n\n If Delmont's falsification had been widespread, he might have to turn\n several of the thirty-five over to central lab for dissection and\n ultimate destruction. That would bring the murderous wrath of their\n owners down upon him. He began to understand why bio-inspectors were\n frequently shifted from one territory to another.\n\n\n On the way home, he stopped in Sherman II to check on the missing\n number. It was the largest of the Sherman communities, covering fifty\n blocks of commercial buildings. He parked in the outskirts and took a\n sidewalk escalator toward O'Reilley's address.\n\n\n It was on a dingy sidestreet, reminiscent of past centuries, a street\n of small bars and bowling alleys and cigar stores. There was even a\n shop with three gold balls above the entrance, but the place was now\n an antique store. A light mist was falling when he stepped off the\n escalator and stood in front of the pet shop. A sign hung out over the\n sidewalk, announcing:\nJ. \"DOGGY\" O'REILLEY\n\n PETS FOR SALE\n\n DUMB BLONDES AND GOLDFISH\n\n MUTANTS FOR THE CHILDLESS\n\n BUY A BUNDLE OF JOY\n\n\n Norris frowned at the sign and wandered inside. The place was warm\n and gloomy. He wrinkled his nose at the strong musk of animal odors.\n O'Reilley's was not a shining example of cleanliness.\n\n\n Somewhere a puppy was yapping, and a parrot croaked the lyrics of\nA\n Chimp to Call My Own\n, which Norris recognized as the theme song of a\n popular soap-opera about a lady evolvotron operator.\n\n\n He paused briefly by a tank of silk-draped goldfish. The shop had a\n customer. An elderly lady was haggling with a wizened manager over the\n price of a half grown second-hand dog-F. She was shaking her last dog's\n death certificate under his nose and demanding a guarantee of the dog's\n alleged F-5 intelligence. The old man offered to swear on a Bible, but\n he demurred when it came to swearing on a ledger.\n\n\n The dog was saying, \"Don' sell me, Dada. Don' sell me.\"\n\n\n Norris smiled sardonically to himself. The non-human pets were smarter\n than the neutroids. A K-108 could speak a dozen words, and a K-99\n never got farther than \"mamma,\" \"pappa,\" and \"cookie.\" Anthropos was\n afraid to make the quasi-humans too intelligent, lest sentimentalists\n proclaim them really human.\n\n\n He wandered on toward the back of the building, pausing briefly by\n the cash register to inspect O'Reilley's license, which hung in a\n dusty frame on the wall behind the counter. \"James Fallon\n O'Reilley ... authorized dealer in mutant animals ... all non-predatory\n mammals including chimpanzee-K series ... license expires June 1, 2235.\"\n\n\n It seemed in order, although the expiration date was approaching. He\n started toward a bank of neutroid cages along the opposite wall, but\n O'Reilley was mincing across the floor to meet him. The customer had\n gone. The little manager wore an elfin professional smile, and his bald\n head bobbled in a welcoming nod.\n\n\n \"Good day, sir, good day! May I show you a dwarf kangaroo, or a\u2014\" He\n stopped and adjusted his spectacles. He blinked and peered as Norris\n flashed his badge. His smile waned.\n\n\n \"I'm Agent Norris, Mr. O'Reilley. Called you yesterday for that rundown\n on K-99 sales.\"\n\n\n O'Reilley looked suddenly nervous. \"Oh, yes. Find 'em all?\"\n\n\n Norris shook his head. \"No. That's why I stopped by. There's some\n mistake on\u2014\" he glanced at his list\u2014\"on K-99-LJZ-351. Let's check it\n again.\"\n\n\n O'Reilley seemed to cringe. \"No mistake. I gave you the buyer's name.\"\n\n\n \"She has a different number.\"\n\n\n \"Can I help it if she traded with somebody?\"\n\n\n \"She didn't. She bought it here. I saw the receipt.\"\n\n\n \"Then she traded with one of my other customers!\" snapped the old man.\n\n\n \"Two of your customers have the same name\u2014Adelia Schultz? Not likely.\n Let's see your duplicate receipt book.\"\n\n\n O'Reilley's wrinkled face set itself into a stubborn mask. \"Doubt if\n it's still around.\"\n\n\n Norris frowned. \"Look, pop, I've had a rough day. I\ncould\nstart\n naming some things around here that need fixing\u2014sanitary violations\n and such. Not to mention that sign\u2014'dumb blondes.' They outlawed that\n one when they executed that shyster doctor for shooting K-108s full\n of growth hormones, trying to raise himself a harem to sell. Besides,\n you're required to keep sales records until they've been micro-filmed.\n There hasn't been a microfilming since July.\"\n\n\n The wrinkled face twitched with frustrated anger. O'Reilley shuffled\n to the counter while Norris followed. He got a fat binder from under\n the register and started toward a wooden stairway.\n\n\n \"Where you going?\" Norris called.\n\n\n \"Get my old glasses,\" the manager grumbled. \"Can't see through these\n new things.\"\n\n\n \"Leave the book here and\nI'll\ncheck it,\" Norris offered.\n\n\n But O'Reilley was already limping quickly up the stairs. He seemed not\n to hear. He shut the door behind him, and Norris heard the lock click.\n The bio-agent waited. Again the thought of a black market troubled him.\n Unauthorized neutroids could mean lots of trouble.",
    "51407": "SEA LEGS\nBy FRANK QUATTROCCHI\n\n\n Illustrated by EMSH\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Science Fiction November 1951.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nRootless and footloose, a man in space can't help\n \nbut dream of coming home. But something nobody should\n \ndo is bet on the validity of a homesick dream!\nFlight Officer Robert Craig surrendered the tube containing his service\n record tapes and stood waiting while the bored process clerk examined\n the seal.\n\n\n \"Your clearance,\" said the clerk.\n\n\n Craig handed him a battered punch card and watched the man insert it in\n the reproducer. He felt anxiety as the much-handled card refused for a\n time to match the instrument's metal contact points. The line of men\n behind Craig fidgeted.\n\n\n \"You got to get this punched by Territorial,\" said the clerk. \"Take it\n back to your unit's clearance office.\"\n\n\n \"Look again, Sergeant,\" Craig said, repressing his irritation.\n\n\n \"It ain't notched.\"\n\n\n \"The hell it isn't.\"\n\n\n The man examined the card with squinting care and nodded finally. \"It's\n so damn notched,\" he complained. \"You ought to take care of that card;\n can't get on without one.\"\n\n\n Craig hesitated before moving.\n\n\n \"Next,\" said the clerk, \"What you waiting for?\"\n\n\n \"Don't I take my 201 file?\"\n\n\n \"We send it on ahead. Go to Grav 1 desk.\"\n\n\n A murmur greeted the order. Craig experienced the thrill of knowing\n the envy of the others. Grav 1\u2014that meant Terra. He crossed the long,\n dreary room, knowing the eyes of the other men were upon him.\n\n\n \"Your service tapes,\" the next noncom said. \"Where you going?\"\n\n\n \"Grav 1\u2014Terra,\" fumbled Craig. \"Los Angeles.\"\n\n\n \"Los Angeles, eh? Where in Los Angeles?\"\n\n\n \"I\u2014I\u2014\" Craig muttered, fumbling in his pockets.\n\n\n \"No specific destination,\" supplied the man as he punched a key on a\n small instrument, \"Air-lock ahead and to your right. Strip and follow\n the robot's orders. Any metal?\"\n\n\n \"Metal?\" asked Craig.\n\n\n \"You know,\nmetal\n.\"\n\n\n \"Well, my identification key.\"\n\n\n \"Here,\" commanded the clerk, extending a plastic envelope.\n\n\n Craig moved in the direction indicated. He fought the irrational fear\n that he had missed an important step in the complicated clerical\n process. He cursed the grudging attitude of the headquarters satellite\n personnel and felt the impotence of a spaceman who had long forgotten\n the bureaucracy of a rear area base. The knowledge that much of it was\n motivated by envy soothed him as he clumsily let himself into the lock.\n\n\n \"Place your clothing in the receptacle provided and assume a stationary\n position on the raised podium in the center of the lock.\"\n\n\n Craig obeyed the robot voice and began reluctantly to remove his flight\n jacket. Its incredibly fine-grained leather would carry none of the\n strange, foreign associations for the base station clerk who would\n appropriate it. He would never know the beautiful, gentle beast that\n supplied this skin.\n\n\n \"You are retarding the progress of others. Please respond more quickly\n to your orders.\"\n\n\n Craig quickly removed the last of his clothing. It was impossible\n to hate a robot, but one could certainly hate those who set it into\n operation.\n\n\n \"You will find a red button at your feet. Lower your head and depress\n that button.\"\n\n\n Stepping on the button with his bare foot produced an instant of\n brilliant blue illumination. A small scratch on his arm stung briefly\n and he was somewhat blinded by the flash even through his eyelids, but\n that was all there was to the sterilizing process.\n\n\n \"Your clothing and effects will be in the dressing room immediately\n beyond the locked door.\"\n\n\n He found his clothing cleanly and neatly hung on plastic hangers just\n inside the door to the dressing room. The few personal items he carried\n in his pockets were still there. The Schtann flight jacket was actually\n there, looking like new, its space-blue unfaded and as wonderfully\n pliant as before.\n\n\n \"Insert your right arm into the instrument on the central table,\"\n commanded the same voice he had heard before. \"Turn your arm until the\n scratch is in contact with the metal plate. There will be a slight\n pain, but it is necessary to treat the small injury you have been\n disregarding.\"\n\n\n Craig obeyed and clenched his teeth against a sharp stinging. His\n respect for the robot-controlled equipment of bases had risen. When\n he withdrew his arm, the scratch was neatly coated with a layer of\n flesh-colored plastic material.\n\n\n He dressed quickly and was on the verge of asking the robot for\n instructions, when a man appeared in the open doorway.\n\n\n \"I am Captain Wyandotte,\" said the man in a pleasant voice.\n\n\n \"Well, what's next?\" asked Craig somewhat more belligerently than he\n had intended.\n\n\n The man smiled. \"Your reaction is quite natural. You are somewhat\n aggressive after Clerical, eh?\"\n\n\n \"I'm a little anxious to get home, I suppose,\" said Craig defensively.\n\n\n \"By 'home' you mean Terra. But you've never been there, have you?\"\n\n\n \"No, but my father\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Your parents left Terra during the Second Colonization of Cassiopeia\n II, didn't they?\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Craig said. He was uncomfortable; Wyandotte seemed to know all\n about him.\n\n\n \"We might say you've been away quite a while, eh?\"\n\n\n \"I was entered as a spaceman when I was 16,\" Craig said. \"I've never\n been down for any period as yet.\"\n\n\n \"You mean you haven't been in a gravity system?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I've landed a few times, even walked around for a while....\"\n\n\n \"With the help of paraoxylnebutal,\" supplied the captain.\n\n\n \"Well, sure.\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Craig, I suppose you've guessed that the next step in our little\n torture system here is psych.\"\n\n\n \"So I gathered.\"\n\n\n The captain laughed reassuringly. \"No, don't put up your guard again.\n The worst is over. Short of Gravitational conditioning, there is\n nothing to stop you from going to Terra.\"\n\n\n \"Sorry, I guess I'm a little touchy. This is my first time....\"\n\n\n \"Quite natural. But it being your first time\u2014in quite a number of\n ways, I might add\u2014it will be necessary for you to undergo some\n conditioning.\"\n\n\n \"Conditioning?\" asked Craig.\n\n\n \"Yes. You have spent eleven years in space. Your body is conditioned to\n a normal state of free fall, or at best to a state of acceleration.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, I know. Once on Gerymeade....\"\n\n\n \"You were ill, couldn't keep your balance, felt dizzy. That is why\n all spacemen carry PON, paraoxylnebutal, with them. It helps\n suppress certain physiological reactions to an entirely new set of\n conditions. Channels of the ear, for example. They play an important\n part in our awareness of balance. They operate on a simple gravity\n principle. Without gravity they act up for a time, then gradually lose\n function. Returning to gravity is rather frightening at first.\"\n\n\n \"I know all about this, Captain.\"\n\n\n \"You've undoubtedly read popularizations in tapezines. But you have\n experienced it briefly.\"\n\n\n \"I expect to have some trouble at first.\" Craig was disturbed by the\n wordy psychologist. What was the man actually saying?\n\n\n \"Do you know what sailors of ancient times meant by 'sea legs?'\" asked\n Wyandotte. \"Men on a rolling ocean acclimated themselves to a rolling\n horizontal. They had trouble when they went ashore and the horizontal\n didn't roll any more.\n\n\n \"It meant more than that. There were excellent psychological reasons\n for the old stereotype, the 'drunken sailor.' A port city was a\n frightening thing to an old sailor\u2014but let's begin our little job at\n the beginning. I'll turn you over to psychometry for the usual tests\n and pick you up tomorrow morning at, say, 0900.\"\nDuring the days that followed, the psychologist seemed to Craig to\n become progressively more didactic. He would deliver long speeches\n about the \"freedom of open space.\" He spoke repetitiously of the\n \"growing complexity of Terran society.\" And yet the man could not\n be pinned down to any specific condition the spaceman would find\n intolerable.\n\n\n Craig began to hate the delay that kept him from Terra. Through the\n ports of the headquarters base satellite, he scanned the constellations\n for the scores of worlds he had visited during his eleven years in\n space. They were incredibly varied, even those that supported life. He\n had weathered difficult landings on worlds with rip-tide gravities, had\n felt the pull of the incredible star-tides imparted by twin and even\n triple star systems. He had been on Einstein IV, the planet of eight\n moons, and had felt the pulse of all eight of the satellites at once\n that no PON could completely nullify.\n\n\n But even if he could accept the psychologist's authority for the\n cumulative effect of a gravity system, he could not understand the\n unspoken warning he felt underlying all that the man said.\n\n\n \"Of course it has changed,\" Craig was protesting. \"Anyway, I never\n really knew very much about Terra. So what? I know it won't be as it\n was in tapezines either.\"\n\n\n \"Yet you are so completely sure you will want to live out your life\n there, that you are willing to give up space service for it.\"\n\n\n \"We've gone through this time and time again,\" Craig said wearily. \"I\n gave you my reasons for quitting space. We analyzed them. You agreed\n that you could not decide that for me and that my decision is logical.\n You tell me spacemen don't settle down on Terra. Yet you won't\u2014or\n can't\u2014tell me why. I've got a damned good job there\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You may find that 'damned good jobs' become boring.\"\n\n\n \"So I'll transfer. I don't know what you're trying to get at, Captain,\n but you're not talking me out of going back. If the service needs men\n so badly, let them get somebody else. I've put in\nmy\ntime.\"\n\n\n \"Do you really think that's my reason?\"\n\n\n \"Sure. What else can it be?\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Craig,\" the psychologist said slowly, \"you have my authorization\n for you to return to Terra as a private citizen of that planet. You\n will be given a very liberal supply of PON\u2014which you will\n definitely need. Good luck. You'll need that too.\"\nOn the eighth day, two attendants, who showed the effects of massive\n doses of PON to protect themselves from the centrifugal force,\n had to carry a man out of the tank. Many others asked to be removed,\n begged to be allowed to withdraw their resignations.\n\n\n \"The twelfth day is the worst,\" a grizzled spaceman told Craig. \"That's\n when the best of 'em want out.\"\n\n\n Craig clenched the iron rung of his bed and struggled to bring the old\n man's face into focus.\n\n\n \"How ... how do they know when you ought ... to come out?\" he asked\n between waves of nausea.\n\n\n \"Blood pressure. They get you just before you go into shock.\"\n\n\n \"How can they tell?\" Craig fought down his growing panic. \"I can't.\"\n\n\n \"That strap around your belly. You mean you ain't noticed it?\"\n\n\n \"Haven't noticed much of anything.\"\n\n\n \"Well, it's keyed to give them some kind of signal.\"\n\n\n The old man lapsed into silence. Craig wished him to continue. He\n desperately wanted something to distract his mind from the ghastly\n conditioning process.\n\n\n Slowly at first, the lines formed by seams in the metal ceiling began\n to bend. Here it came again!\n\n\n \"Old man!\" shouted Craig.\n\n\n \"Yeah, son. They've dropped it down a notch.\"\n\n\n \"Dropped ... it ... down?\"\n\n\n \"Maybe that ain't scientific, but it's the way I always think of it.\"\n\n\n \"Can't they ... drop it down continuously?\"\n\n\n \"They tried that a few times\u2014once when I was aboard. You wouldn't like\n it, kid. You wouldn't like it at all.\"\n\n\n \"How ... many times ... do they drop it?\"\n\n\n \"Four times during the day, three at night. Twenty days.\"\n\n\n A nightmare of visual sensations ebbed into Craig's mind. He was\n vaguely aware of the moans of other men in the vaultlike room. Wave\n upon wave of nausea swept him as he watched the seam lines bend and\n warp fantastically. He snapped his eyelids shut, only to begin feeling\n the nightmarish bodily sensations once more. He felt the cot slowly\n rise longitudinally, felt himself upside down, then the snap of turning\n right side up once more\u2014and he knew that neither he nor the cot had\n moved so much as an inch.\n\n\n Craig heard the voices around him, muffled, as though talking through\n wadding.\n\n\n \"... got it bad.\"\n\n\n \"We better take him out.\"\n\n\n \"... pretty bad.\"\n\n\n \"He'll go into shock.\"\n\n\n \"... never make it the twelfth.\"\n\n\n \"We better yank him.\"\n\n\n \"I'm ... all right,\" Craig mumbled at the voices. He struggled with the\n bonds of his cot. With terrible effort he forced his eyes open. Two\n white-clad figures, ridiculously out of proportion, hovered wraithlike\n over him. Four elongated eyes peered at him.\nAttendants coming for to take me home....\n\"Touch me and I'll kick your teeth in!\" he yelled. \"I'm going to Terra.\n Wish you were going to Terra?\"\n\n\n Then it was better. Oddly, he passed the twelfth day easily. By the\n fourteenth day, Craig knew he could stand Grav 1. The whine of the\n centrifuge's motors had diminished to a low hum. Either that or they\n had begun to produce ultra-sonic waves. Craig was not sure.\n\n\n Most of the men had passed through the torments of gravitational\n conditioning. The huge headquarters base centrifuge aboard the man-made\n satellite had gradually caused their bodies to respond once more to a\n single source of pull. They were now ready to become inhabitants of\n planets again, instead of free-falling ships.\n\n\n On the eighteenth day, automatic machinery freed them from their\n imprisoning cots. Clumsily and awkwardly at first, the men began to\n walk, to hold their heads and arms in proper attitudes. They laughed\n and joked about it and kidded those who were slow at adjusting.\n Then they again began taking paraoxylnebutal in preparation for the\n free-fall flight to Terra.\n\n\n Only one of the score of men in the centrifuge tank remained\n voluntarily in his cot.\n\n\n \"Space article violator,\" the old man informed Craig. \"Psycho, I think.\n Went amuck with some extraterritorials. Killed a dozen.\"\n\n\n \"What will they do, exile him?\"\n\n\n \"Not to Chociante, if that's what you mean. They just jerked his space\n card and gave him a one-way ticket to Terra.\"\n\n\n \"For twelve murders?\" asked Craig incredulously.\n\n\n \"That's enough, son.\" The old man eyed Craig for an instant before\n looking away. \"Pick something to talk about. What do you figure on\n doing when you get to Terra, for instance?\"\n\n\n \"I'm going into Import. My father was in it for twenty years.\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" said the old spaceman, watching a group of young crewmen\n engaged in an animated conversation.\n\n\n \"It's a good job. There's a future to it.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah.\"\n\n\n Why did he have to explain anything at all to the old space tramp?\n\n\n \"Once I get set up, I'll probably try to open my own business.\"\n\n\n \"And spend your weekends on Luna.\"\n\n\n Craig half rose from his cot, jarred into anger.\n\n\n But the old spaceman turned, smiling wryly. \"Don't get hot, kid. I\n guess I spent too long in Zone V.\" He paused to examine his wrinkled\n hands. They were indelibly marked with lever callouses. \"You get to\n thinking anyone who stays closer'n eighty light years from Terra is a\n land-lubber.\"\n\n\n Craig relaxed, realizing he had acted childishly. \"Used to think the\n same. Then I took the exam and got this job.\"\n\n\n \"Whereabouts?\"\n\n\n \"Los Angeles.\"\n\n\n The old man looked up at Craig. \"You don't know much about Terra, do\n you, son?\"\n\n\n \"Not much.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah. Well, I hope you ain't disappointed.\"\n\n\n \"My father was born there, but I never saw it. Never hit the Solar\n System, matter of fact. Never saw much of anything close up. I stood it\n a long time, old man, this hitting atmospheres all over the Universe.\"\n\n\n But the spaceman seemed to have lost interest. He was unpacking some\n personal belongings from a kit.\n\n\n \"What are you doing in Grav 1?\" Craig asked.\n\n\n The old man's face clouded for an instant. \"In the old days, they used\n to say us old-timers acted like clocks. They used to say we just ran\n down. Now they got some fancy psychology name for it.\"\n\n\n Craig regretted his question. He would have muttered some word of\n apology, but the old man continued.\n\n\n \"Maybe you've read some of the old sea stories, or more'n likely had\n 'em read to you. Sailors could go to sea until they just sort of dried\n up. The sea tanned their skins and stiffened their bones, but it never\n stiffened their hearts. When they got old, it just pulled them in.\n\n\n \"But space is different. Space is raw and new. It tugs at your guts. It\n sends the blood rushing through your veins. It's like loving. You don't\n become a part of space the way you do the old sea, though. It leaves\n you strictly alone. Except that it sucks you dry, takes all the soup\n out of you, leaves you brittle and old\u2014old as a dehydrated piece of\n split leather.\n\n\n \"Then one day it shoots a spurt of blood around in one of your old\n veins. Something gives. Space is through with you then. And if you can\n stand this whirligig conditioning, you're through with space.\"\n\"\nYou can't figure it. Some of 'em urp all over and turn six shades of\n green.\n\"\n\n\n \"\nYou got to watch the ones that don't.\n\"\n\n\n \"\nYeah, you got to watch the ones that don't. Especially the old ones.\n\"\n\n\n \"\nHe's old. You think it was his heart?\n\"\n\n\n \"\nWho knows?\n\"\n\n\n \"\nThey'll dump him, won't they?\n\"\n\n\n \"\nAfter a tracer is sent through. But it won't do any good.\n\"\n\n\n \"\nHe probably outlived everybody that ever knew him.\n\"\n\n\n \"\nWouldn't be surprised. Here, grab his leg.\n\"\nRobert Craig folded the flight jacket tightly and stuffed it into the\n cylindrical carton. A sleeve unwound just as he did so, making it\n difficult to fit into the place he had made for it. Exasperated, he\n refolded it and jammed it in place. Smaller rolls of underclothing were\n then fitted in. When he was satisfied with the layer, he tossed in a\n small handful of crystals and began to fill the next layer. After the\n carton was completely filled, he ignited the sealing strip and watched\n as the plastic melted into a single, seamless whole. It was ready for\n irradiation. Probably in another ten years his son-to-be would put it\n on and play spaceman. But Craig swore he'd make sure that the kid knew\n what a stinking life it was.\n\n\n At 1300 hours, the ferry bumped heavily alongside the starboard lock.\n It was the signal for relief in the passengers' quarters; many were\n beginning to feel a reaction to the short free-fall flight from the\n headquarters satellite.\n\n\n The audio called out: \"Flight Officer Robert Craig. Flight Officer\n Robert Craig. Report to Orderly 12. Report to Orderly 12 through the\n aft door.\"\n\n\n With pangs of anxiety he could not completely suppress, Craig obeyed.\n\n\n Orderly 12 handed him a message container.\n\n\n \"Who's it from? Somebody on Terra?\"\n\n\n \"From a private spaceman named Morgan Brockman.\"\n\n\n \"\nBrockman?\n\"\n\n\n \"He was with you in the grav tank.\"\n\n\n \"The old man!\"\n\n\n The message container produced a battered punch card. Craig\n straightened it and was about to reach into his pocket for a hand\n transcriber. But then he noticed the card bore only a few irregular\n punches and was covered with rough hand printing.\n\n\n Son, when the flunkies get around to giving you this, they'll have\n shot me out the tube. How do I know? Same way you know when your\n turbos are going to throw a blade. It's good this way.\n\n\n There's something you can do for me if you want to. Way back, some\n fifty years ago, there was a woman. She was my wife. It's a long story\n I won't bother you with. Anyway, I left her. Wanted to take her along\n with me, but she wouldn't go.\n\n\n Earth was a lot different then than it is now. They don't have to tell\n me; I know. I saw it coming and so did Ethel. We talked about it and I\n knew I had to go. She wouldn't or couldn't go. Wanted me to stay, but\n I couldn't.\n\n\n I tried to send her some units once in a while. Don't know if she ever\n got them. Sometimes I forgot to send them at all. You know, you're way\n out across the Galaxy, while she's home.\n\n\n Go see her if you can, son. Will you? Make sure she gets the unit\n transfer I made out. It isn't much out of seventy years of living,\n but she may need it. And maybe you can tell her a little bit about\n what it means to be out there. Tell her it's open and free and when\n you got hold of those levers and you're trying for an orbit on\n something big and new and green.... Hell, you remember. You know how\n to tell her.\n\n\n Her name is Ethel Brockman. I know she'll still use my name. Her\n address is or was East 71, North 101, Number 4. You can trace her\n easy if she moved. Women don't generally shove off and not leave a\n forwarding address. Not Ethel, at least.\n\n\n Craig put the battered card in his pocket and walked back through the\n door to the passenger room. How did you explain to an old woman why her\n husband deserted her fifty years before? Some kind of story about one's\n duty to the Universe? No, the old man had not been in Intergalactic. He\n had been a tramp spaceman. Well, why\nhad\nhe left?\n\n\n Fifty years in space.\nFifty\nyears! Zone V had been beyond anybody's\n imagination that long ago. He must have been in on the first Cetusian\n flights and shot the early landings in Cetus II. God only knew how many\n times he had battled Zone 111b pirates....\n\n\n Damn the old man! How did one explain?\nCraig descended the ramp from the huge jet and concentrated on his\n impressions. One day he would recall this moment, his first on the\n planet Terra. He tried to recall his first thrill at seeing Los\n Angeles, 1500 square miles of it, from the ship as it entered the\n atmosphere.\n\n\n He was about to step off the last step when a man appeared hurriedly. A\n rather plump man, he displayed a toothy smile on his puffy red face.\n\n\n \"A moment, sir. Just a little greeting from the Terra. You understand,\n of course. Purely routine.\"\n\n\n Craig remained on the final step of the ramp, puzzled. The man turned\n to a companion at his right.\n\n\n \"We can see that this gentleman has come from a long, long way off,\n can't we?\"\n\n\n The other man did not look up. He was peering into what seemed to Craig\n to be a kind of camera.\n\n\n \"We can allow the gentlemen to continue now, can't we? It wasn't that\n we believed for a minute, you understand ... purely routine.\"\n\n\n Both men were gone in an instant, leaving Craig completely bewildered.\n\n\n \"You goin' to move on, buddy, or you want to go back?\"\n\n\n Craig turned to face a line of his fellow passengers up the ramp behind\n him.\n\n\n \"Who was that?\" Craig asked.\n\n\n \"Customs. Bet you never got such a smooth screening before, eh?\"\n\n\n \"You mean he\nscreened\nme? What for?\"\n\n\n \"Hard to say,\" the other passenger said. \"You'll get used to this. They\n get it over with quick.\"\n\n\n Craig made his way toward the spaceport administration building. His\n first physical contact with Terra had passed unnoticed.\n\n\n \"Sir! Sir!\" cried a voice behind him.\n\n\n He wheeled to see a man walking briskly toward him.\n\n\n \"You dropped this, sir. Quite by accident, of course.\"\n\n\n Craig examined the small object the man had given him before rushing\n off toward an exit.\n\n\n It was an empty PON tube he had just discarded. He couldn't\n understand why the man had bothered until he realized that the\n plastaloid floor of the lobby displayed not the faintest scrap of paper\n nor trace of dirt.\nThe Import personnel man was toying with a small chip of gleaming\n metal. He did not look directly at Craig for more than an instant at a\n time, and commented on Craig's description of his trip through the city\n only very briefly between questions.\n\n\n \"It's a good deal bigger than I imagined,\" Craig was saying. \"Haven't\n seen much of it, of course. Thought I'd check in here with you first.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, naturally.\"\n\n\n \"Thought you could give me some idea of conditions....\"\n\n\n \"Conditions?\"\n\n\n \"For instance, what part of the city I should live in. That is, what\n part is closest to where I'll work.\"\n\n\n \"I see,\" said the man noncommittally. It seemed to Craig that he was\n about to add something. He did not, however, but instead rose from his\n chair and walked to the large window overlooking an enormous section of\n the city far below. He stared out the window for a time, leaving Craig\n seated uncomfortably in the silent room. There was a distracted quality\n about him, Craig thought.\n\n\n \"You are the first man we have had from the Intergalactic Service,\" the\n personnel man said finally.\n\n\n \"That so?\"\n\n\n \"Yes.\" He turned to face Craig briefly before continuing. \"You must\n find it very strange here.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I've never seen a city so big.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, so big. And also....\" He seemed to consider many words before\n completing the sentence. \"And also different.\"\n\n\n \"I haven't been here very long,\" said Craig. \"Matter of fact, I haven't\n been anywhere very long. This is my first real experience with life on\n a planet. As an adult, anyway.\"\n\n\n The personnel man seated himself once more and pressed a button on a\n small instrument. A secretary entered the office from a door to Craig's\n left.\n\n\n \"Miss Wendel, this is Mr. Craig. Mr. Craig, my secretary. Mr. Craig\n will enter Minerals and Metals, Zone V.\"\n\n\n They exchanged formal greetings. She was a moderately pretty girl of\n medium height and, to Craig, a pleasantly rounded figure. He would have\n attempted to catch her eye had she not immediately occupied herself\n with unfolding the legs of a small instrument she was carrying.\n\n\n \"This is Mr. Craig's first landing on Terra, Miss Wendel,\" the\n personnel man continued. \"Actually, we shall have to consider him in\n much the same way we would an extraterrestrial.\"\n\n\n The girl glanced at Craig, casting him a cool, impersonal smile.\n\n\n \"He was formerly a flight officer in the Intergalactic Space Service.\"\n The statement was delivered in an almost exaggeratedly casual tone.\n\n\n The girl glanced at him once more, this time with a definite quizzical\n look in her brown eyes.\n\n\n \"Three complete tours of duty, I believe.\"\n\n\n \"Four,\" corrected Craig. \"Four tours of three years each, minus a\n year's terminal leave.\"\n\n\n \"I take it you have no identification card?\" the man asked.\n\n\n \"The one I held in the service. It's pretty comprehensive.\"\n\n\n The other turned to the secretary. \"You'll see that he is assisted in\n filing his application, won't you? A provisional Code II. That will\n enable you to enter all Import offices freely, Mr. Craig.\"\n\n\n \"Will he need a food and\u2014clothing ration also?\" asked the girl,\n without looking at Craig.\n\n\n \"Yes.\" The man laughed. \"You'll excuse us, Mr. Craig. We realize that\n you couldn't be expected to be familiar with Terra's fashions. In your\n present outfit you would certainly be typed as a ... well, you'd be\n made uncomfortable.\"\n\n\n Craig reddened in spite of himself. He had bought the suit on Ghandii.\n\n\n \"A hick,\" he supplied.\n\n\n \"I wouldn't go that far, but some people might.\"\nCraig noted the pleasant way the girl filled her trim, rather severe\n business suit. He amused himself by calculating stress patterns in its\n plain woven material as she assembled the forms for him.\n\n\n \"Here, Mr. Craig. I believe these are complete.\"\n\n\n \"They look pretty complicated.\"\n\n\n \"Not at all. The questions are quite explicit.\"\n\n\n Craig looked them over quickly.\n\n\n \"I guess so. Say, Miss Wendel, I was wondering\u2014I don't know the city\n at all. Maybe you could go with me to have dinner. It must be almost\n dinnertime now. You could sort of check me out on some....\"\n\n\n \"I'm afraid that would be quite impossible. You couldn't gain\n admittance to any office you need to visit tonight. Therefore, it is\n impossible for me to be of any assistance to you.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, come now, Miss Wendel. There are women aboard spaceships. I'm not\n a starved wolf.\"\n\n\n \"Certainly you are not, Mr. Craig. But it is not possible for me....\"\n\n\n \"You said that already, but you can have dinner with me. Just company.\"\n\n\n \"I'm afraid I don't understand.\"\nThe Galactic hotel strove to preserve an archaic tone of hospitality.\n It advertised \"a night's lodgings\" and it possessed a bellboy. The\n bellboy actually carried Craig's plasticarton and large file of punch\n cards and forms to his room. Tired from the long, confusing day, Craig\n was not impressed. He vaguely wondered if the little drama of the\n hotel carried so far as a small fee to be paid the bellboy, and he\n hoped he would have the right size of Terran units in his wallet.\n\n\n Outside the door to the room, the bellboy stopped and turned to Craig.\n\n\n \"For five I'll tell you where it is,\" he said in a subdued tone.\n\n\n \"Tell me where what is?\"\n\n\n \"You know, the mike.\"\n\n\n \"Mike?\"\n\n\n \"All right, mister, three units, then. I wasn't trying to hold you up.\"\n\n\n \"You mean a microphone?\" asked Craig, mechanically fishing for his\n wallet.\n\n\n \"Sure, they don't put in screens here. Wanted to, but the boss\n convinced 'em there aren't any Freedomites ever stay here.\"\n\n\n \"Where is the microphone?\" Craig asked as he found a ten unit note.\n He was too puzzled to wonder what he was expected to do with the\n information.\n\n\n \"It's in the bed illuminator. You can short it out with a razor blade.\n Or I'll do it for another two.\"\n\n\n \"Never mind,\" Craig said wearily. He waited while the bellboy inserted\n a key into the door and opened it for him.\n\n\n \"I can get you a sensatia-tape,\" whispered the boy when they had\n entered. He nudged Craig wickedly. \"You know what they're like?\"\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" Craig said disgustedly. Traffic in the illicit mental-image\n tapes was known as far into space as lonely men had penetrated.\n Intergalactic considered them as great a menace to mental and moral\n stability as the hectopiates. Craig wearily got the man out of the\n room, took a PON pill, and eased himself into the bed.\n\n\n It had been a weird day and he had not liked it. There was no telling\n how long it would take him to shake his\u2014sea legs, the psychologist\n had called it. One thing was sure: Terra aggressively went after its\n strangers.",
    "43046": "PLANET of DREAD\nBy MURRAY LEINSTER\nIllustrator ADKINS\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Fantastic Stories of\n Imagination May 1962. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence\n that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI.\nMoran cut apart the yard-long monstrosity with a slash of flame.\n The thing presumably died, but it continued to writhe senselessly.\n He turned to see other horrors crawling toward him. Then he knew he\n was being marooned on a planet of endless terrors.\nMoran, naturally, did not mean to help in the carrying out of the plans\n which would mean his destruction one way or another. The plans were\n thrashed out very painstakingly, in formal conference on the space-yacht\nNadine\n, with Moran present and allowed to take part in the discussion.\n From the viewpoint of the\nNadine's\nship's company, it was simply\n necessary to get rid of Moran. In their predicament he might have come\n to the same conclusion; but he was not at all enthusiastic about their\n decision. He would die of it.\n\n\n The\nNadine\nwas out of overdrive and all the uncountable suns of the\n galaxy shone steadily, remotely, as infinitesimal specks of light of\n every color of the rainbow. Two hours since, the sun of this solar\n system had been a vast glaring disk off to port, with streamers and\n prominences erupting about its edges. Now it lay astern, and Moran\n could see the planet that had been chosen for his marooning. It was a\n cloudy world. There were some dim markings near one lighted limb, but\n nowhere else. There was an ice-cap in view. The rest was\u2014clouds.\nThe ice-cap, by its existence and circular shape, proved that the planet\n rotated at a not unreasonable rate. The fact that it was water-ice told\n much. A water-ice ice-cap said that there were no poisonous gases in the\n planet's atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide or chlorine, for example, would not\n allow the formation of water-ice. It would have to be sulphuric-acid or\n hydrochloric-acid ice. But the ice-cap was simple snow. Its size, too,\n told about temperature-distribution on the planet. A large cap would\n have meant a large area with arctic and sub-arctic temperatures, with\n small temperate and tropical climate-belts. A small one like this meant\n wide tropical and sub-tropical zones. The fact was verified by the\n thick, dense cloud-masses which covered most of the surface,\u2014all the\n surface, in fact, outside the ice-cap. But since there were ice-caps\n there would be temperate regions. In short, the ice-cap proved that a\n man could endure the air and temperature conditions he would find.\nMoran observed these things from the control-room of the\nNadine\n, then\n approaching the world on planetary drive. He was to be left here, with\n no reason ever to expect rescue. Two of the\nNadine's\nfour-man crew\n watched out the same ports as the planet seemed to approach. Burleigh\n said encouragingly;\n\n\n \"It doesn't look too bad, Moran!\"\n\n\n Moran disagreed, but he did not answer. He cocked an ear instead. He\n heard something. It was a thin, wabbling, keening whine. No natural\n radiation sounds like that. Moran nodded toward the all-band speaker.\n\n\n \"Do you hear what I do?\" he asked sardonically.\n\n\n Burleigh listened. A distinctly artificial signal came out of the\n speaker. It wasn't a voice-signal. It wasn't an identification beacon,\n such as are placed on certain worlds for the convenience of interstellar\n skippers who need to check their courses on extremely long runs. This\n was something else.\n\n\n Burleigh said:\n\n\n \"Hm ... Call the others, Harper.\"\n\n\n Harper, prudently with him in the control-room, put his head into the\n passage leading away. He called. But Moran observed with grudging\n respect that he didn't give him a chance to do anything drastic. These\n people on the\nNadine\nwere capable. They'd managed to recapture the\nNadine\nfrom him, but they were matter-of-fact about it. They didn't\n seem to resent what he'd tried to do, or that he'd brought them an\n indefinite distance in an indefinite direction from their last\n landing-point, and they had still to re-locate themselves.\nThey'd been on Coryus Three and they'd gotten departure clearance from\n its space-port. With clearance-papers in order, they could land\n unquestioned at any other space-port and take off again\u2014provided the\n other space-port was one they had clearance for. Without rigid control\n of space-travel, any criminal anywhere could escape the consequences of\n any crime simply by buying a ticket to another world. Moran couldn't\n have bought a ticket, but he'd tried to get off the planet Coryus on the\nNadine\n. The trouble was that the\nNadine\nhad clearance papers\n covering five persons aboard\u2014four men and a girl Carol. Moran made six.\n Wherever the yacht landed, such a disparity between its documents and\n its crew would spark an investigation. A lengthy, incredibly minute\n investigation. Moran, at least, would be picked out as a fugitive from\n Coryus Three. The others were fugitives too, from some unnamed world\n Moran did not know. They might be sent back where they came from. In\n effect, with six people on board instead of five, the\nNadine\ncould not\n land anywhere for supplies. With five on board, as her papers declared,\n she could. And Moran was the extra man whose presence would rouse\n space-port officials' suspicion of the rest. So he had to be dumped.\n\n\n He couldn't blame them. He'd made another difficulty, too. Blaster in\n hand, he'd made the\nNadine\ntake off from Coryus III with a trip-tape\n picked at random for guidance. But the trip-tape had been computed for\n another starting-point, and when the yacht came out of overdrive it was\n because the drive had been dismantled in the engine-room. So the ship's\n location was in doubt. It could have travelled at almost any speed in\n practically any direction for a length of time that was at least\n indefinite. A liner could re-locate itself without trouble. It had\n elaborate observational equipment and tri-di star-charts. But smaller\n craft had to depend on the Galactic Directory. The process would be to\n find a planet and check its climate and relationship to other planets,\n and its flora and fauna against descriptions in the Directory. That was\n the way to find out where one was, when one's position became doubtful.\n The\nNadine\nneeded to make a planet-fall for this.\n\n\n The rest of the ship's company came into the control-room. Burleigh\n waved his hand at the speaker.\n\n\n \"Listen!\"\nThey heard it. All of them. It was a trilling, whining sound among the\n innumerable random noises to be heard in supposedly empty space.\n\n\n \"That's a marker,\" Carol announced. \"I saw a costume-story tape once\n that had that sound in it. It marked a first-landing spot on some planet\n or other, so the people could find that spot again. It was supposed to\n be a long time ago, though.\"\n\n\n \"It's weak,\" observed Burleigh. \"We'll try answering it.\"\n\n\n Moran stirred, and he knew that every one of the others was conscious of\n the movement. But they didn't watch him suspiciously. They were alert by\n long habit. Burleigh said they'd been Underground people, fighting the\n government of their native world, and they'd gotten away to make it seem\n the revolt had collapsed. They'd go back later when they weren't\n expected, and start it up again. Moran considered the story probable.\n Only people accustomed to desperate actions would have remained so calm\n when Moran had used desperate measures against them.\n\n\n Burleigh picked up the transmitter-microphone.\n\n\n \"Calling ground,\" he said briskly. \"Calling ground! We pick up your\n signal. Please reply.\"\n\n\n He repeated the call, over and over and over. There was no answer.\n Cracklings and hissings came out of the speaker as before, and the thin\n and reedy wabbling whine continued. The\nNadine\nwent on toward the\n enlarging cloudy mass ahead.\n\n\n Burleigh said;\n\n\n \"Well?\"\n\n\n \"I think,\" said Carol, \"that we should land. People have been here. If\n they left a beacon, they may have left an identification of the planet.\n Then we'd know where we are and how to get to Loris.\"\n\n\n Burleigh nodded. The\nNadine\nhad cleared for Loris. That was where it\n should make its next landing. The little yacht went on. All five of its\n proper company watched as the planet's surface enlarged. The ice-cap\n went out of sight around the bulge of the globe, but no markings\n appeared. There were cloud-banks everywhere, probably low down in the\n atmosphere. The darker vague areas previously seen might have been\n highlands.\n\n\n \"I think,\" said Carol, to Moran, \"that if it's too tropical where this\n signal's coming from, we'll take you somewhere near enough to the\n ice-cap to have an endurable climate. I've been figuring on food, too.\n That will depend on where we are from Loris because we have to keep\n enough for ourselves. But we can spare some. We'll give you the\n emergency-kit, anyhow.\"\nThe emergency-kit contained antiseptics, seeds, and a weapon or two,\n with elaborate advice to castaways. If somebody were wrecked on an even\n possibly habitable planet, the especially developed seed-strains would\n provide food in a minimum of time. It was not an encouraging thought,\n though, and Moran grimaced.\n\n\n She hadn't said anything about being sorry that he had to be marooned.\n Maybe she was, but rebels learn to be practical or they don't live long.\n Moran wondered, momentarily, what sort of world they came from and why\n they had revolted, and what sort of set-back to the revolt had sent the\n five off in what they considered a strategic retreat but their\n government would think defeat. Moran's own situation was perfectly\n clear.\n\n\n He'd killed a man on Coryus III. His victim would not be mourned by\n anybody, and somebody formerly in very great danger would now be safe,\n which was the reason for what Moran had done. But the dead man had been\n very important, and the fact that Moran had forced him to fight and\n killed him in fair combat made no difference. Moran had needed to get\n off-planet, and fast. But space-travel regulations are especially\n designed to prevent such escapes.\n\n\n He'd made a pretty good try, at that. One of the controls on\n space-traffic required a ship on landing to deposit its fuel-block in\n the space-port's vaults. The fuel-block was not returned until clearance\n for departure had been granted. But Moran had waylaid the messenger\n carrying the\nNadine's\nfuel-block back to that space-yacht. He'd\n knocked the messenger cold and presented himself at the yacht with the\n fuel. He was admitted. He put the block in the engine's gate. He duly\n took the plastic receipt-token the engine only then released, and he\n drew a blaster. He'd locked two of the\nNadine's\ncrew in the\n engine-room, rushed to the control-room without encountering the others,\n dogged the door shut, and threaded in the first trip-tape to come to\n hand. He punched the take-off button and only seconds later the\n overdrive. Then the yacht\u2014and Moran\u2014was away. But his present\n companions got the drive dismantled two days later and once the yacht\n was out of overdrive they efficiently gave him his choice of\n surrendering or else. He surrendered, stipulating that he wouldn't be\n landed back on Coryus; he still clung to hope of avoiding return\u2014which\n was almost certain anyhow. Because nobody would want to go back to a\n planet from which they'd carried away a criminal, even though they'd\n done it unwillingly. Investigation of such a matter might last for\n months.\n\n\n Now the space-yacht moved toward a vast mass of fleecy whiteness without\n any visible features. Harper stayed with the direction-finder. From time\n to time he gave readings requiring minute changes of course. The\n wabbling, whining signal was louder now. It became louder than all the\n rest of the space-noises together.\nThe yacht touched atmosphere and Burleigh said;\n\n\n \"Watch our height, Carol.\"\n\n\n She stood by the echometer. Sixty miles. Fifty. Thirty. A correction of\n course. Fifteen miles to surface below. Ten. Five. At twenty-five\n thousand feet there were clouds, which would be particles of ice so\n small that they floated even so high. Then clear air, then lower clouds,\n and lower ones still. It was not until six thousand feet above the\n surface that the planet-wide cloud-level seemed to begin. From there on\n down it was pure opacity. Anything could exist in that dense, almost\n palpable grayness. There could be jagged peaks.\n\n\n The\nNadine\nwent down and down. At fifteen hundred feet above the\n unseen surface, the clouds ended. Below, there was only haze. One could\n see the ground, at least, but there was no horizon. There was only an\n end to visibility. The yacht descended as if in the center of a sphere\n in which one could see clearly nearby, less clearly at a little\n distance, and not at all beyond a quarter-mile or so.\n\n\n There was a shaded, shadowless twilight under the cloud-bank. The ground\n looked like no ground ever seen before by anyone. Off to the right a\n rivulet ran between improbable-seeming banks. There were a few very\n small hills of most unlikely appearance. It was the ground, the matter\n on which one would walk, which was strangest. It had color, but the\n color was not green. Much of it was a pallid, dirty-yellowish white. But\n there were patches of blue, and curious veinings of black, and here and\n there were other colors, all of them unlike the normal color of\n vegetation on a planet with a sol-type sun.\n\n\n Harper spoke from the direction-finder;\n\n\n \"The signal's coming from that mound, yonder.\"\n\n\n There was a hillock of elongated shape directly in line with the\nNadine's\ncourse in descent. Except for the patches of color, it was\n the only considerable landmark within the half-mile circle in which\n anything could be seen at all.\n\n\n The\nNadine\nchecked her downward motion. Interplanetary drive is rugged\n and sure, but it does not respond to fine adjustment. Burleigh used\n rockets, issuing great bellowings of flame, to make actual contact. The\n yacht hovered, and as the rocket-flames diminished slowly she sat down\n with practically no impact at all. But around her there was a monstrous\n tumult of smoke and steam. When the rockets went off, she lay in a\n burned-out hollow some three or four feet deep with a bottom of solid\n stone. The walls of the hollow were black and scorched. It seemed that\n at some places they quivered persistently.\n\n\n There was silence in the control-room save for the whining noise which\n now was almost deafening. Harper snapped off the switch. Then there was\n true silence. The space-yacht had come to rest possibly a hundred yards\n from the mound which was the source of the space-signal. That mound\n shared the peculiarity of the ground as far as they could see through\n the haze. It was not vegetation in any ordinary sense. Certainly it was\n no mineral surface! The landing-pockets had burned away three or four\n feet of it, and the edge of the burned area smoked noisesomely, and\n somehow it looked as if it would reek. And there were places where it\n stirred.\n\n\n Burleigh blinked and stared. Then he reached up and flicked on the\n outside microphones. Instantly there was bedlam. If the landscape was\n strange, here, the sounds that came from it were unbelievable.\nThere were grunting noises. There were clickings, uncountable clickings\n that made a background for all the rest. There were discordant howls and\n honkings. From time to time some thing unknown made a cry that sounded\n very much like a small boy trailing a stick against a picket fence, only\n much louder. Something hooted, maintaining the noise for an impossibly\n long time. And persistently, sounding as if they came from far away,\n there were booming noises, unspeakably deep-bass, made by something\n alive. And something shrieked in lunatic fashion and something else\n still moaned from time to time with the volume of a steam-whistle....\n\n\n \"This sounds and looks like a nice place to live,\" said Moran with fine\n irony.\n\n\n Burleigh did not answer. He turned down the outside sound.\n\n\n \"What's that stuff there, the ground?\" he demanded. \"We burned it away\n in landing. I've seen something like it somewhere, but never taking the\n place of grass!\"\n\n\n \"That,\" said Moran as if brightly, \"that's what I'm to make a garden in.\n Of evenings I'll stroll among my thrifty plantings and listen to the\n delightful sounds of nature.\"\n\n\n Burleigh scowled. Harper flicked off the direction-finder.\n\n\n \"The signal still comes from that hillock yonder,\" he said with\n finality.\n\n\n Moran said bitingly;\n\n\n \"That ain't no hillock, that's my home!\"\n\n\n Then, instantly he'd said it, he recognized that it could be true. The\n mound was not a fold in the ground. It was not an up-cropping of the\n ash-covered stone on which the\nNadine\nrested. The enigmatic,\n dirty-yellow-dirty-red-dirty-blue-and-dirty-black ground-cover hid\n something. It blurred the shape it covered, very much as enormous\n cobwebs made solid and opaque would have done. But when one looked\n carefully at the mound, there was a landing-fin sticking up toward the\n leaden skies. It was attached to a large cylindrical object of which the\n fore part was crushed in. The other landing-fins could be traced.\n\n\n \"It's a ship,\" said Moran curtly. \"It crash-landed and its crew set up a\n signal to call for help. None came, or they'd have turned the beacon\n off. Maybe they got the lifeboats to work and got away. Maybe they lived\n as I'm expected to live until they died as I'm expected to die.\"\n\n\n Burleigh said angrily;\n\n\n \"You'd do what we are doing if you were in our shoes!\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" said Moran, \"but a man can gripe, can't he?\"\n\n\n \"You won't have to live here,\" said Burleigh. \"We'll take you somewhere\n up by the ice-cap. As Carol said, we'll give you everything we can\n spare. And meanwhile we'll take a look at that wreck yonder. There might\n be an indication in it of what solar system this is. There could be\n something in it of use to you, too. You'd better come along when we\n explore.\"\n\n\n \"Aye, aye, sir,\" said Moran with irony. \"Very kind of you, sir. You'll\n go armed, sir?\"\n\n\n Burleigh growled;\n\n\n \"Naturally!\"\n\n\n \"Then since I can't be trusted with a weapon,\" said Moran, \"I suggest\n that I take a torch. We may have to burn through that loathesome stuff\n to get in the ship.\"\n\n\n \"Right,\" growled Burleigh again. \"Brawn and Carol, you'll keep ship. The\n rest of us wear suits. We don't know what that stuff is outside.\"\nMoran silently went to the space-suit rack and began to get into a\n suit. Modern space-suits weren't like the ancient crudities with bulging\n metal casings and enormous globular helmets. Non-stretch fabrics took\n the place of metal, and constant-volume joints were really practical\n nowadays. A man could move about in a late-model space-suit almost as\n easily as in ship-clothing. The others of the landing-party donned their\n special garments with the brisk absence of fumbling that these people\n displayed in every action.\n\n\n \"If there's a lifeboat left,\" said Carol suddenly, \"Moran might be able\n to do something with it.\"\n\n\n \"Ah, yes!\" said Moran. \"It's very likely that the ship hit hard enough\n to kill everybody aboard, but not smash the boats!\"\n\n\n \"Somebody survived the crash,\" said Burleigh, \"because they set up a\n beacon. I wouldn't count on a boat, Moran.\"\n\n\n \"I don't!\" snapped Moran.\n\n\n He flipped the fastener of his suit. He felt all the openings catch. He\n saw the others complete their equipment. They took arms. So far they had\n seen no moving thing outside, but arms were simple sanity on an unknown\n world. Moran, though, would not be permitted a weapon. He picked up a\n torch. They filed into the airlock. The inner door closed. The outer\n door opened. It was not necessary to check the air specifically. The\n suits would take care of that. Anyhow the ice-cap said there were no\n water-soluble gases in the atmosphere, and a gas can't be an active\n poison if it can't dissolve.\n\n\n They filed out of the airlock. They stood on ash-covered stone, only\n slightly eroded by the processes which made life possible on this\n planet. They looked dubiously at the scorched, indefinite substance\n which had been ground before the\nNadine\nlanded. Moran moved scornfully\n forward. He kicked at the burnt stuff. His foot went through the char.\n The hole exposed a cheesy mass of soft matter which seemed riddled with\n small holes.\n\n\n Something black came squirming frantically out of one of the openings.\n It was eight or ten inches long. It had a head, a thorax, and an\n abdomen. It had wing-cases. It had six legs. It toppled down to the\n stone on which the\nNadine\nrested. Agitatedly, it spread its\n wing-covers and flew away, droning loudly. The four men heard the sound\n above even the monstrous cacophony of cries and boomings and grunts and\n squeaks which seemed to fill the air.\n\n\n \"What the devil\u2014.\"\n\n\n Moran kicked again. More holes. More openings. More small tunnels in the\n cheese-like, curd-like stuff. More black things squirming to view in\n obvious panic. They popped out everywhere. It was suddenly apparent\n that the top of the soil, here, was a thick and blanket-like sheet over\n the whitish stuff. The black creatures lived and thrived in tunnels\n under it.\nCarol's voice came over the helmet-phones.\n\n\n \"\nThey're\u2014bugs!\n\" she said incredulously. \"\nThey're beetles! They're\n twenty times the size of the beetles we humans have been carrying around\n the galaxy, but that's what they are!\n\"\n\n\n Moran grunted. Distastefully, he saw his predicament made worse. He knew\n what had happened here. He could begin to guess at other things to be\n discovered. It had not been practical for men to move onto new planets\n and subsist upon the flora and fauna they found there. On some new\n planets life had never gotten started. On such worlds a highly complex\n operation was necessary before humanity could move in. A complete\n ecological complex had to be built up; microbes to break down the rock\n for soil, bacteria to fix nitrogen to make the soil fertile; plants to\n grow in the new-made dirt and insects to fertilize the plants so they\n would multiply, and animals and birds to carry the seeds planet-wide. On\n most planets, to be sure, there were local, aboriginal plants and\n animals. But still terrestrial creatures had to be introduced if a\n colony was to feed itself. Alien plants did not supply satisfactory\n food. So an elaborate adaptation job had to be done on every planet\n before native and terrestrial living things settled down together. It\n wasn't impossible that the scuttling things were truly beetles, grown\n large and monstrous under the conditions of a new planet. And the\n ground....\n\n\n \"This ground stuff,\" said Moran distastefully, \"is yeast or some sort of\n toadstool growth. This is a seedling world. It didn't have any life on\n it, so somebody dumped germs and spores and bugs to make it ready for\n plants and animals eventually. But nobody's come back to finish up the\n job.\"\n\n\n Burleigh grunted a somehow surprised assent. But it wasn't surprising;\n not wholly so. Once one mentioned yeasts and toadstools and fungi\n generally, the weird landscape became less than incredible. But it\n remained actively unpleasant to think of being marooned on it.\n\n\n \"Suppose we go look at the ship?\" said Moran unpleasantly. \"Maybe you\n can find out where you are, and I can find out what's ahead of me.\"\n\n\n He climbed up on the unscorched surface. It was elastic. The\n parchment-like top skin yielded. It was like walking on a mass of\n springs.\n\n\n \"We'd better spread out,\" added Moran, \"or else we'll break through that\n skin and be floundering in this mess.\"\n\n\n \"I'm giving the orders, Moran!\" said Burleigh shortly. \"But what you say\n does make sense.\"\nHe and the others joined Moran on the yielding surface. Their footing\n was uncertain, as on a trampoline. They staggered. They moved toward the\n hillock which was a covered-over wrecked ship.\n\n\n The ground was not as level as it appeared from the\nNadine's\ncontrol-room. There were undulations. But they could not see more than a\n quarter-mile in any direction. Beyond that was mist. But Burleigh, at\n one end of the uneven line of advancing men, suddenly halted and stood\n staring down at something he had not seen before. The others halted.\n\n\n Something moved. It came out from behind a very minor spire of whitish\n stuff that looked like a dirty sheet stretched over a tall stone. The\n thing that appeared was very peculiar indeed. It was a\u2014worm. But it was\n a foot thick and ten feet long, and it had a group of stumpy legs at its\n fore end\u2014where there were eyes hidden behind bristling hair-like\n growths\u2014and another set of feet at its tail end. It progressed sedately\n by reaching forward with its fore-part, securing a foothold, and then\n arching its middle portion like a cat arching its back, to bring its\n hind part forward. Then it reached forward again. It was of a dark olive\n color from one end to the other. Its manner of walking was insane but\n somehow sedate.\n\n\n Moran heard muffled noises in his helmet-phone as the others tried to\n speak. Carol's voice came anxiously;\n\n\n \"\nWhat's the matter? What do you see?\n\"\n\n\n Moran said with savage precision;\n\n\n \"We're looking at an inch-worm, grown up like the beetles only more so.\n It's not an inch-worm any longer. It's a yard-worm.\" Then he said\n harshly to the men with him; \"It's not a hunting creature on worlds\n where it's smaller. It's not likely to have turned deadly here. Come\n on!\"\n\n\n He went forward over the singularly bouncy ground. The others followed.\n It was to be noted that Hallet the engineer, avoided the huge harmless\n creature more widely than most.\nThey reached the mound which was the ship. Moran unlimbered his torch.\n He said sardonically;\n\n\n \"This ship won't do anybody any good. It's old-style. That thick belt\n around its middle was dropped a hundred years ago, and more.\" There was\n an abrupt thickening of the cylindrical hull at the middle. There was an\n equally abrupt thinning, again, toward the landing-fins. The sharpness\n of the change was blurred over by the revolting ground-stuff growing\n everywhere. \"We're going to find that this wreck has been here a century\n at least!\"\n\n\n Without orders, he turned on the torch. A four-foot flame of pure\n blue-white leaped out. He touched its tip to the fungoid soil. Steam\n leaped up. He used the flame like a gigantic scalpel, cutting a square a\n yard deep in the whitish stuff, and then cutting it across and across to\n destroy it. Thick fumes arose, and quiverings and shakings began. Black\n creatures in their labyrinths of tunnels began to panic. Off to the\n right the blanket-like surface ripped and they poured out. They scuttled\n crazily here and there. Some took to wing. By instinct the other\n men\u2014the armed ones\u2014moved back from the smoke. They wore space-helmets\n but they felt that there should be an intolerable smell.\n\n\n Moran slashed and slashed angrily with the big flame, cutting a way to\n the metal hull that had fallen here before his grandfather was born.\n Sometimes the flame cut across things that writhed, and he was sickened.\n But above all he raged because he was to be marooned here. He could not\n altogether blame the others. They couldn't land at any colonized world\n with him on board without his being detected as an extra member of the\n crew. His fate would then be sealed. But they also would be\n investigated. Official queries would go across this whole sector of the\n galaxy, naming five persons of such-and-such description and\n such-and-such fingerprints, voyaging in a space-yacht of such-and-such\n size and registration. The world they came from would claim them as\n fugitives. They would be returned to it. They'd be executed.\n\n\n Then Carol's voice came in his helmet-phone. She cried out;\n\n\n \"\nLook out! It's coming! Kill it! Kill it\u2014.\n\"\n\n\n He heard blast-rifles firing. He heard Burleigh pant commands. He was on\n his way out of the hollow he'd carved when he heard Harper cry out\n horribly.\n\n\n He got clear of the newly burned-away stuff. There was still much smoke\n and stream. But he saw Harper. More, he saw the thing that had Harper.\n\n\n It occurred to him instantly that if Harper died, there would not be too\n many people on the\nNadine\n. They need not maroon him. In fact, they\n wouldn't dare.\n\n\n A ship that came in to port with two few on board would be investigated\n as thoroughly as one that had too many. Perhaps more thoroughly. So if\n Harper were killed, Moran would be needed to take his place. He'd go on\n from here in the\nNadine\n, necessarily accepted as a member of her crew.\n\n\n Then he rushed, the flame-torch making a roaring sound.\nII.\nThey went back to the\nNadine\nfor weapons more adequate for\n encountering the local fauna when it was over. Blast-rifles were not\n effective against such creatures as these. Torches were contact weapons\n but they killed. Blast-rifles did not. And Harper needed to pull himself\n together again, too. Also, neither Moran nor any of the others wanted to\n go back to the still un-entered wreck while the skinny, somehow\n disgusting legs of the thing still kicked spasmodically\u2014quite\n separate\u2014on the whitish ground-stuff. Moran had disliked such creatures\n in miniature form on other worlds. Enlarged like this.\n\n\n It seemed insane that such creatures, even in miniature, should\n painstakingly be brought across light-years of space to the new worlds\n men settled on. But it had been found to be necessary. The ecological\n system in which human beings belonged had turned out to be infinitely\n complicated. It had turned out, in fact, to be the ecological system of\n Earth, and unless all parts of the complex were present, the total was\n subtly or glaringly wrong. So mankind distastefully ferried pests as\n well as useful creatures to its new worlds as they were made ready for\n settlement. Mosquitos throve on the inhabited globes of the Rim Stars.\n Roaches twitched nervous antennae on the settled planets of the\n Coal-sack. Dogs on Antares had fleas, and scratched their bites, and\n humanity spread through the galaxy with an attendant train of insects\n and annoyances. If they left their pests behind, the total system of\n checks and balances which make life practical would get lopsided. It\n would not maintain itself. The vagaries that could result were admirably\n illustrated in and on the landscape outside the\nNadine\n. Something had\n been left out of the seeding of this planet. The element\u2014which might be\n a bacterium or a virus or almost anything at all\u2014the element that kept\n creatures at the size called \"normal\" was either missing or inoperable\n here. The results were not desirable.",
    "20069": "A Good Year for the Roses? \n\n         Early in American Beauty , Lester Burnham (Kevin Spacey), a weary reporter for a media magazine, masturbates in the shower while informing us in voice-over that we're witnessing the highlight of his day. He peers through tired eyes out the window at his manicured suburban tract-house lawn, where his wife, Carolyn (Annette Bening)--whose gardening clogs, he points out, are color-coordinated with the handles of her shears--snips roses (American beauties) and twitters about Miracle-Gro to a gay yuppie (Scott Bakula) on the other side of a white picket fence. \"I have lost something,\" says Lester. \"I'm not exactly sure what it is but I know I didn't always feel this ... sedated.\" Apparently, Lester doesn't realize that snipped roses are garden-variety symbols of castration, or he'd know what he has lost. But the makers of American Beauty are about to give Lester his roses back. At a high-school basketball game, Lester is transfixed by a blonde cheerleader named Angela (Mena Suvari), who is twirling alongside his daughter, Jane (Thora Burch). Ambient noise falls away, the crowd disappears, and there she is, Lester's angel, writhing in slow motion--just for him. She opens her jacket (she's naked underneath) and red rose petals drift out. Later, Lester envisions her on a bed of red petals, then immersed in a bath of red petals. Back in the roses for the first time in years, he's soon pumping iron, smoking pot, and telling off his frigid wife and faceless bosses, convinced that whatever he has lost he's getting back, baby. \n\n         The movie is convinced, too--which is odd, since the fantasy of an underage cheerleader making a middle-aged man's wilted roses bloom is a tad ... primitive. But American Beauty doesn't feel primitive. It feels lustrously hip and aware, and a lot of critics are making big claims for it. The script, by Alan Ball, a playwright and former sitcom writer, carries an invigorating blast of counterculture righteousness, along with the kind of pithily vicious marital bickering that makes some viewers (especially male) say, \"Yeah! Tell that bitch off!\" More important, it has a vein of metaphysical yearning, which the director, Sam Mendes, mines brilliantly. A hotshot English theater director (his Cabaret revival is still on the boards in New York), Mendes gives the film a patina of New Age lyricism and layer upon layer of visual irony. The movie's surface is velvety and immaculate--until the action is abruptly viewed through the video camera of the teen-age voyeur next door (Wes Bentley), and the graininess of the video image (along with the plangent music) suggests how unstable the molecules that constitute our \"reality\" really are. Mendes can distend the real into the surreal with imperceptible puffs. Aided by his cinematographer, Conrad Hall, and editors, Tariq Anwar and Chris Greenbury, he creates an entrancing vision of the American nuclear family on the verge of a meltdown. \n\n         A merican                 Beauty is so wittily written and gorgeously directed that you might think you're seeing something archetypal--maybe even the Great American Movie. But when you stop and smell the roses ... Well, that scent isn't Miracle-Gro. The hairpin turns from farce to melodrama, from satire to bathos, are fresh and deftly navigated, but almost every one of the underlying attitudes is smug and easy: from the corporate flunky named \"Brad\" to the interchangeable gay neighbors (they're both called \"Jim\") to the brutally homophobic patriarch next door, an ex-Marine colonel (Chris Cooper) who has reduced his wife (the normally exuberant Allison Janney) to a catatonic mummy and his son, Ricky (Bentley), to a life of subterranean deception. (The colonel's idea of bliss is watching an old Ronald Reagan military picture on television: How's that for subtle?) Lester's wife, Carolyn, is even more stridently caricatured. A real-estate broker who fails to sell a big house (her only potential customers are blank-faced African-Americans, Indian-Americans, and surly lesbians), she wears a mask of perky efficiency and insists on listening to Muzak while she and her husband and daughter eat her \"nutritious yet savory\" dinners. It's amazing that Mendes and Ball get away with recycling so many stale and reactionary ideas under the all-purpose rubric of \"black comedy.\" \n\n         But it's also possible that those ideas have rarely been presented so seductively. Several months ago, Daniel Menaker in                    Slate                 in contemporary film in which the protagonist attempts to break through our cultural and technological anesthetization into \"the real.\" That's the theme here, too, and it's extraordinarily potent, at times even heartbreaking. The symbols, however, have been cunningly reversed. In movies like sex, lies, and videotape (1989), the protagonist has to put away the video camera to \"get real\"; in American Beauty , it's Ricky Fitts, the damaged stoner videomaker next door, who sees beauty where nonartists see only horror or nothingness. In the film's most self-consciously poetic set piece, Ricky shows Lester's dour daughter Jane--in whom he recognizes a kindred spirit--a video of a plastic bag fluttering up, down, and around on invisible currents of wind. Ricky speaks of glimpsing in the bag's trajectory an \"entire life behind things\"--a \"benevolent force\" that holds the universe together. The teen-ager, who likes to train his lenses on dead bodies of animals and people, sells wildly expensive marijuana to Lester and somehow passes on this notion of \"beauty.\" By the end, Lester is mouthing the same sentiments and has acquired the same deadpan radiance. That must be some really good shit they're smoking. \n\n         It's not the druggy philosophizing, however, that makes American Beauty an emotional workout. It's that the caricatures are grounded in sympathy instead of derision. Everyone on screen is in serious pain. The manipulative sexpot Angela, who taunts her friend Jane with the idea of seducing her dad, acts chiefly out of a terror of appearing ordinary. As the military martinet, Cooper goes against the grain, turning Col. Fitts into a sour bulldog whose capaciously baggy eyes are moist with sadness over his inability to reach out. (When he stands helplessly in the rain at the end, the deluge completes him.) The character of Carolyn is so shrill as to constitute a libel on the female sex, but there isn't a second when Bening sends the woman up. She doesn't transcend the part, she fills it to the brim, anatomizes it. You can't hate Carolyn because the woman is trying so hard--to appear confident, composed, in control. When she fails to sell that house, she closes the shades and lets go with a naked wail--it's the sound of a vacuum crying to be filled--then furiously slaps herself while sputtering, \"Shut up--you're weak--shut up. \" Then she breathes, regains her go-get-'em poise, replaces her mask. Carolyn isn't a complicated dramatic construction, but Bening gives her a primal force. An actress who packs more psychological detail into a single gesture than others get into whole scenes, Bening was barreling down the road to greatness before she hit a speed bump called Warren. It's a joy to observe her--both here and in Neil Jordan's In Dreams (1999)--back at full throttle. \n\n                         American Beauty is Spacey's movie, though. He gives it--how weird to write this about Spacey, who made his name playing flamboyantly self-involved psychopaths--a heart. Early on, he lets his face and posture go slack and his eyes blurry. He mugs like crazy, telegraphing Lester's \"loserness.\" But Spacey's genius is for mugging in character. He makes us believe that it's Lester who's caricaturing himself , and that bitter edge paves the way for the character's later, more comfortably Spacey-like scenes of insult and mockery. He even makes us take Lester's final, improbably rhapsodic moments straight. \n\n         But do the filmmakers take them straight? If I read it correctly, the movie is saying that American society is unjust and absurd and loveless--full of people so afraid of seeming ordinary that they lose their capacity to see. It's saying that our only hope is to cultivate a kind of stoned aesthetic detachment whereby even a man with his brains blown out becomes an object of beauty and a signpost to a Higher Power. But to scrutinize a freshly dead body and not ask how it got that way--or if there's anyone nearby with a gun who might want to add to the body count--strikes me as either moronic or insane or both. The kind of detachment the movie is peddling isn't artistic, it isn't life--it's nihilism at its most fatuous. In the end, American Beauty is New Age Nihilism. \n\n         Kevin Costner is 11 years older than he was as Crash Davis, the over-the-hill minor-league catcher in Bull Durham (1988), but he can still get away with playing a professional ballplayer. He moves and acts like a celebrity jock, and he can make his narcissistic self-containment look as if he's keeping something in reserve--to protect his \"instrument,\" as it were. In For Love of the Game , he's a 40ish Detroit Tigers pitcher having his last hurrah: The team has been sold and the new owners don't necessarily want him back. For about half an hour, it's a great sports movie. Costner stands on the mound shaking off the signals of his longtime catcher (John C. Reilly); he forces himself to tune out the huge Yankee Stadium crowd (the background blurs before our eyes and the sound drops out); and he mutters darkly at a succession of batters, some old nemeses, some old buddies. \n\n         He also thinks about his Manhattan-based ex-girlfriend (Kelly Preston), who tearfully told him that morning that things were absolutely over and she was moving to London. There's an appealing flashback to how they met (he stopped to fix her car while on the way to Yankee Stadium), then it's back to the game for more nail-biting at bats. But pretty soon the relationship flashbacks start coming thick and fast, and the balance of the movie shifts to whether Kevin can commit to Kelly and Kelly can commit to Kevin or whether his only commitment could ever be to the ball and the diamond and the game. \n\n         Maybe it's because I'm a baseball nut that I hated to leave the mound. But maybe it's also because the relationships scenes are soft-focus, generic, and woozily drawn-out, whereas the stuff in the stadium is sharply edited and full of texture. The rhythms of the game feel right; the rhythms of the romance feel embarrassingly Harlequin, and the picture drags on for over two hours. I can't believe that the director, Sam Raimi ( The Evil Dead , 1983; last year's A Simple Plan ) thought that all those scenes of Costner and Preston staring into space while the piano plinks would end up in the final cut, but Raimi apparently gave up control of the final cut for the sake of making his first, real mainstream picture. He might as well have stuck his head over the plate and said, \"Bean me.\"",
    "20072": "Machines in the Garden \n\n         In the animated ecological epic                    Princess Mononoke                , the camera travels over landscapes with a clear, steady gaze, like a Zen hang glider. The images have none of the comin'-at-ya pop-surrealism of American cartoons, many of which have characters that spring out of the frame like jack-in-the-boxes. The Japanese director, Hayao Miyazaki, who spent three years on Princess Mononoke and is reported to have done 70 percent of its paintings himself, seems to work from the outside in: to begin with the curve of the earth, then the mossy hills, the watercolor foliage, the nubby stones, the whorls on the wood, the meticulous carvings on a teacup. He captures the texture of light and the currents of air. You could almost settle down in this landscape. A view of nature that some would call \"tree-hugging\" doesn't feel softheaded when the trees are rendered in such brilliant and robust detail. \n\n         But then, \"soft\" is not a word you can apply to Princess Mononoke , however pantheistic its worldview. The film, which is rated PG-13, is full of splattery carnage. If Miyazaki in long shot is contemplative, in close-up he's ferocious. He's both inside and outside the action: He knows when to rock your world and when to induce a state of sorrowful detachment. According to the New                 York Times , Toy Story animators screened reels of his work when their imaginations flagged, and writers for Star Trek named an alien species after one of his features. Watching Princess                 Mononoke --which has been dubbed to Disney/Miramax specifications by American and English stars but retains its two-hour-plus length, its gory beheadings, and its grim, near-apocalyptic finale--you can understand their worship. It isn't that Miyazaki's work is technically so dazzling in this age of digitized miracles; it's that everything is sublimely in proportion. \n\n         The movie has a scope that makes Hollywood's homiletic, follow-your-dream fables look even more solipsistic. Miyazaki is after nothing less than the moment in our history (the film is set in the 14 th and 15 th centuries) when the power shifted from a \"natural\" world to one shaped by human technology. It's the beginning of what Bill McKibben called \"the end of nature\"--that is, when nature became no longer an autonomous, self-regulating force but one touched (and, in Miyazaki's view, poisoned) by human industry. \n\n         The hero, Ashitaka, a warrior from the isolationist Emishi clan, is forced in the first scene to kill a marauding boar--a god turned into a demon (covered in roiling, corrosive worms) by an iron ball lodged in its body. Infected, destined to be consumed by--and to die of--rage, Ashitaka leaves his village in search of the iron ball's source. He discovers a fortress-cum-arms-manufacturing plant called Irontown, presided over by one of the most complex villains in modern film: the regal Lady Eboshi. On one hand, she's a benevolent industrialist who presides over a warmly matriarchal society; on the other, she wants to destroy the forest, harness its resources, and exterminate its animal deities--chiefly the Spirit of the Forest, a magnificent deer god whose touch brings instant life or death, and who transforms at dusk into the towering Night Walker. \n\n         P rincess Mononoke builds to a full-scale war between humans and the animal kingdom--which does not, by the way, consist of your father's cartoon critters. In fact, the boars and apes have little patience with Ashitaka's call for nature and mankind to live together in harmony; they'd like to eat him. The wolf god, Moro, is slightly more sympathetic, but that's because her adopted \"daughter,\" San (a k a Princess Mononoke), is human. San is first seen sucking a wound of her huge wolf mother, then, as the gore drips from her mouth, training her dark eyes on Ashitaka with feral hatred. Her second appearance--a lone attack on Irontown to assassinate Lady Eboshi--is one of the movie's high points. It's Miyazaki's use of sound--and silence--that takes your breath away: the determined tap of the wolf princess's shoes as she scuttles over the fortress's rooftops; the silence of Eboshi and her army as they stare at this tiny yet formidable tomboy against the black sky. Their battle is so furious that the blades streak and lose definition--it's almost subliminal. \n\n         It's a shame that the wolf princess warms up to Ashitaka and spends the rest of the film either saving him or being saved by him. She loses that punk-bitch allure. The voice of Claire Danes doesn't help. When Danes says, \"I'd do anything to get you humans out of my forest,\" she sounds like a Valley Girl peeved over lack of parking spaces at the mall. (San needs a more ragged voice--I'd be interested to hear the original Japanese actress.) Billy Crudup is just as Disneyfied (Miramaxed?), but that doesn't hurt as much because Ashitaka is conceived from the start as a rather bland ing\u00c3\u00a9nu. Gillian Anderson's growling Moro sounds silly (she doesn't have the breath control), and the fey-hick tones of Billy Bob Thornton are too recognizable as the Akim Tamiroff-like mercenary, Jigo. But Minnie Driver--coming off a triumphantly dizzy Jane in Tarzan --once again provides a voice that the animators deserve. \"Bring the strange-ah to me late-ah,\" she commands in sexy Martian Queen cadences that will stir the loins of Flash Gordon fans everywhere. \"I would like to thank him puh-sonally.\" \n\n         The overfamiliar voices nudge Princess Mononoke closer to its American counterparts--but not by a lot. There's always something wondrously strange. The \"kodamas\" are little tree spirits on doughboy bodies. They cock their trapezoidal dice heads and emit a series of clicks; then their heads pop back with a conclusive rattle. Something about them seems just right; I could watch them for hours. (Miyazaki limits their appearances to seconds--he doesn't wear out their mystery the way that, say, George Lucas would.) And no Hollywood animated feature would end with such a powerful vision of apocalypse, as the land is bestridden by a colossus dropping a thick, caustic, tarlike gel that recalls the post-Hiroshima \"black rain.\" Can you take the kids? I think so. As Miyazaki said at a New York Film Festival press conference, \"Children understand intuitively that the world they have been born into is not a blessed world.\" Princess Mononoke , at least, can tell them why. \n\n         \"A special smile ... a certain touch ...\" So begins the elevator-music theme song of                    Music of the Heart                 ... \"I never had a lot that I loved so much.\" The credits had just started and I was already looking for a barf bag. Did Miramax and director Wes Craven have to work so hard to schlockify the story of Roberta Guaspari (played here by Meryl Streep), whose violin courses in East Harlem elementary schools have become a beacon for such programs nationwide? A fabled taskmaster (her story was told in the 1996 documentary Small Wonders ), Guaspari used music as a way to teach self-discipline--along with the healthy self-respect that follows in its wake. When the New York school board cut the funding for her program, she proved a marvel of self-promotion, attracting features in all the major dailies and ending up along with her best students at Carnegie Hall for a benefit \"Fiddlefest\"--along with Itzhak Perlman, Isaac Stern, and other legendary \"fiddlers.\" \n\n         Streep has said that she spent so much of the time on the set learning the violin (she doesn't play any instruments) that she didn't bring the full force of her acting technique to bear on Roberta. Maybe that's why the performance seems so natural. Let her always learn an instrument on the set! Still, she doesn't make much sense of Guaspari. The script, by Pamela Gray ( A Walk on the Moon ), has her students complain of her nastiness and perfectionism, but Streep--who has made herself look dumpy, thick-waisted, and bedraggled--is so busy telegraphing her vulnerability that all we get is dippy niceness. Instead of a monument to an individual's iron will, Music of the Heart becomes the story of a woman so helpless that she arouses the kindness of strangers. \n\n         Directors of violent genre pieces like Craven (who got this mainstream gig in return for doing the Scream sequels) or Carl Franklin or Sam Raimi sometimes want so badly to belong to Establishment Hollywood--to go to the Academy Awards--that they neuter themselves. Bending over backward to show how sensitive they can be, they forget that violence--even if it's just emotional violence--belongs in \"ordinary\" dramas, too. Craven does good work with the young actors in the classroom scenes, but the film has a reticence common to most biopics and a mushy, TV-movie humanism that blands out its texture. OK, I was a puddle after some scenes, like the one where Guaspari pushes a student to get her to improve her posture and discovers that the girl is wearing a leg brace. But how much more emotional the Carnegie Hall climax would have been if instead of suddenly seeing these East Harlem kids on stage with Perlman, Stern, Joshua Bell, etc., we'd seen them rehearsing first and struggling to keep up. There's too much music of the heart and not enough music of the callused fingers. \n\n         In outline,                    The Limey                  is a lean little B-movie revenge melodrama about a felonious Brit (Terence Stamp) who's newly sprung from prison and flies to Southern California to get to the bottom of his beautiful daughter's death: \"My name's Wilson ... Who dunnit?\" The film, directed by Steven Soderbergh, would be worth seeing just for Stamp's performance, at once rock-hard and goofily blinkered, and for Peter Fonda's wittily self-parodic turn as the suspected killer, a music producer who coasts on '60s counterculture easiness while his lackeys do the dirty work. (\"Oh, man,\" he says, the fear finally seeping through the ether. \"This is getting all too close to me.\") \n\n         But the picture's glory is its layered and intricate syntax. The dialogue moves ahead--there are great gobs of exposition--but the images continually double back: to Stamp and Lesley Ann Warren, as his daughter's acting teacher, simply gazing at each other; or to Stamp sitting on a plane, remembering his daughter as a girl on the beach, the lens of his home movie camera creating an eerily bright--almost supernatural--spot that dances over her face. The film's most violent act happens well off screen. (You hear the distant \"pop-pop-pop-pop-pop\" of the hero's gun.) The rest is only half-glimpsed, fantasized, or saturated by memory--or is the present the memory? Is all of The Limey a temporal hiccup? \n\n         Some, including the critic at Time , have questioned Soderbergh's sanity. (But of course--Soderbergh flouts time!) I see a method to his madness. Less grandiosely than Harmony Korine in Julien Donkey-Boy , Soderbergh pores over every scene in search of its essential dramatic gesture. He's saying: This --not all that other stuff--is what's important. He telegraphs the ending--you know the Limey will somehow be at the root of his daughter's death--but it's still an emotional wow. The climax justifies the technique. It says the point of this odyssey isn't revenge but regret--for irredeemably blown chances and a tragic waste of love. \n\n         Soderbergh is one of those rare filmmakers who learn on the job. Working within a tight genre structure, he's discovering hundreds of ways of editing a given scene that can give it the richness of a novel. Is he totally successful? No; he misses now and then, which is why the technique sticks out. But what a fantastic effort. See it and weep for what's missing in most other movies.",
    "20071": "Boys Do Bleed \n\n         Fight Club is silly stuff, sensationalism that mistakes itself for satire, but it's also a brash and transporting piece of moviemaking, like Raging Bull on acid. The film opens with--literally--a surge of adrenalin, which travels through the bloodstream and into the brain of its protagonist, Jack (Edward Norton), who's viewed, as the camera pulls out of his insides, with a gun stuck in his mouth. How'd he get into this pickle? He's going to tell you, breezily, and the director, David Fincher, is going to illustrate his narrative--violently. Fincher ( Seven , 1995; The Game , 1997) is out to bombard you with so much feverish imagery that you have no choice but to succumb to the movie's reeling, punch-drunk worldview. By the end, you might feel as if you, too, have a mouthful of blood. \n\n         Not to mention a hole in your head. Fight Club careers from one resonant satirical idea to the next without quite deciding whether its characters are full of crap or are Gen X prophets. It always gives you a rush, though. At first, it goofs on the absurd feminization of an absurdly macho culture. An increasingly desperate insomniac, Jack finds relief (and release) only at meetings for the terminally ill. At a testicular cancer group, he's enfolded in the ample arms of Bob (the singer Meat Loaf Aday), a former bodybuilder who ruined his health with steroids and now has \"bitch tits.\" Jack and Bob subscribe to a new form of male bonding: They cling to each other and sob. But Jack's idyll is rudely disrupted by--wouldn't you know it?--a woman. A dark-eyed, sepulchral head case named Marla Singer (Helena Bonham Carter) begins showing up at all the same disparate meetings for essentially the same voyeuristic ends, and the presence of this \"tourist\" makes it impossible for Jack to emote. \n\n         Jack finds another outlet, though. On a plane, he meets Tyler Durden (Brad Pitt), a cryptic hipster with a penchant for subversive acts both large (he makes high-priced soaps from liposuctioned human fat) and small (he splices frames from porn flicks into kiddie movies). When Jack's apartment mysteriously explodes--along with his carefully chosen IKEA furniture--he moves into Tyler's squalid warehouse and helps to found a new religion: Fight Club, in which young males gather after hours in the basement of a nightclub to pound one another (and be pounded) to a bloody pulp. That last parenthesis isn't so parenthetical. In some ways, it's the longing to be beaten into oblivion that's the strongest. \"Self-improvement,\" explains Tyler, \"is masturbation\"; self-destruction is the new way. Tyler's manifesto calls for an end to consumerism (\"Things you own end up owning you\"), and since society is going down (\"Martha Stewart is polishing brass on the Titanic \"), the only creative outlet left is annihilation. \"It's only after we've lost everything that we're free to do anything,\" he says. \n\n         Fincher and his screenwriter, Jim Uhls, seem to think they've broken new ground in Fight                 Club , that their metaphor for our discontents hits harder than anyone else's. Certainly it produces more bloody splatter. But 20 years ago, the same impulse was called punk and, as Greil Marcus documents in Lipstick Traces , it was other things before that. Yes, the mixture of Johnny Rotten, Jake La Motta, and Jesus is unique; and the Faludi-esque emasculation themes are more explicit. But there's something deeply movie-ish about the whole conceit, as if the novelist and director were weaned on Martin Scorsese pictures and never stopped dreaming of recapturing that first masochistic rush. \n\n         The novel, the first by Chuck Palahniuk (the surname sounds like Eskimo for \"palooka\"--which somehow fits), walks a line between the straight and ironic--it isn't always clear if its glib sociological pronouncements are meant to be taken straight or as the ravings of a delusional mama's boy. But onscreen, when Pitt announces to the assembled fighters that they are the \"middle children of history\" with \"no purpose and no place\"--emasculated on one hand by the lack of a unifying crisis (a world war or depression) and on the other by lack of material wealth as promised by television--he seems meant to be intoning gospel. \"We are a generation of men raised by women,\" Tyler announces, and adds, \"If our fathers bail, what does that tell you about God?\" (I give up: What?) \n\n         F ight                 Club could use a few different perspectives: a woman's, obviously, but also an African-American's--someone who'd have a different take on the \"healing\" properties of violence. It's also unclear just what has emasculated Jack: Is it that he's a materialist or that the materials themselves (i.e., IKEA's lacquered particle boards) don't measure up to his fantasies of opulence? Is he motivated by spiritual hunger or envy? Tyler's subsequent idea of confining his group's mayhem to franchise coffee bars and corporate-subsidized art is a witty one--it's like a parody of neo-Nazism as re-enacted by yuppies. It might have been a howl if performed by, say, the troupe of artsy German nihilists in Joel and Ethan Coen's The Big Lebowski (1998). Somehow Brad Pitt doesn't have the same piquancy. \n\n         Actually, Pitt isn't as terrible as usual: He's playing not a character but a conceit, and he can bask in his movie-idol arrogance, which seems to be the most authentic emotion he has. But the film belongs to Norton. As a ferocious skinhead in last year's American History X , Norton was taut and ropy, his long torso curled into a sneer; here, he's skinny and wilting, a quivering pansy. Even when he fights he doesn't transform--he's a raging wimp. The performance is marvelous, and it makes poetic sense in light of the movie's climactic twist. But that twist will annoy more people than it will delight, if only because it shifts the drama from the realm of the sociological to that of the psychoanalytic. The finale, scored with the Pixies' great \"Where Is My Mind?\" comes off facetiously--as if Fincher is throwing the movie away. \n\n         Until then, however, he has done a fabulous job of keeping it spinning. The most thrilling thing about Fight Club isn't what it says but how Uhls and Fincher pull you into its narrator's head and simulate his adrenalin rushes. A veteran of rock videos, Fincher is one of those filmmakers who helps make the case that MTV--along with digital editing--has transformed cinema for better as well as worse. The syntax has become more intricate. Voice-over narration, once considered uncinematic, is back in style, along with novelistic asides, digressions, fantasies, and flashbacks. To make a point, you can jazzily interject anything--even, as in Three Kings , a shot of a bullet slicing through internal organs. Films like Fight Club might not gel, but they have a breathless, free-associational quality that points to new possibilities in storytelling. Or maybe old possibilities: The language of movies hasn't seemed this unfettered since the pre-sound days of Sergei Eisenstein and Abel Gance. \n\n         An actress named Hilary Swank gives one of the most rapturous performances I've ever seen as the cross-dressing Brandon Teena (a k a Teena Brandon) in Kimberly Peirce's stark and astonishingly beautiful debut feature,                    Boys Don't Cry                . The movie opens with Teena being shorn of her hated female tresses and becoming \"Brandon,\" who swaggers around in tight jeans and leather jackets. The joy is in watching the actor transform, and I don't just mean Swank: I mean Teena Brandon playing Brandon Teena--the role she has been longing for her whole life. In a redneck Nebraska bar, Brandon throws back a shot of whiskey and the gesture--a macho clich\u00e9--becomes an act of self-discovery. Every gesture does. \"You're gonna have a shiner in the morning,\" someone tells Brandon after a barroom brawl, and he takes the news with a glee that's almost mystical: \"I am????? Oh, shit!!!\" he cries, grinning. That might be my favorite moment in the picture, because Swank's ecstatic expression carries us through the next hour, as Brandon acts out his urban-cowboy fantasies--\"surfing\" from the bumper of a pickup truck, rolling in the mud, and straddling a barstool with one hand on a brewski and the other on the shoulder of a gorgeous babe. \n\n         That the people with whom Brandon feels most at home would kill him if they knew his true gender is the movie's most tragic irony--and the one that lifts it out of the realm of gay-martyr hagiography and into something more complex and irreducible: a meditation on the irrelevance of gender. Peirce's triumph is to make these scenes at once exuberant (occasionally hilarious) and foreboding, so that all the seeds of Brandon's killing are right there on the screen. John (Peter Sarsgaard), one of his future rapists and murderers, calls him \"little buddy\" and seems almost attracted to him; Sarsgaard's performance is a finely chiseled study of how unresolved emotion can suddenly resolve itself into violence. \n\n         Though harrowing, the second half of Boys Don't Cry isn't as great as the first. The early scenes evoke elation and dread simultaneously, the later ones just dread; and the last half-hour is unrelieved torture. What keeps the movie tantalizing is Chlo\u00eb Sevigny's Lana, who might or might not know that Brandon is a girl but who's entranced by him anyway. With her lank hair, hooded eyes, and air of sleepy sensuality, Sevigny--maybe even more than Swank--embodies the mystery of sex that's at the core of Boys Don't Cry . Everything she does is deliberate, ironic, slightly unreadable--and unyielding. She's could be saying, \"I'm in this world but not of it. ... You'd never dream what's underneath.\" \n\n         I n                 brief: If a friend tells you you'll love                    Happy Texas                , rethink the friendship. This clunky mistaken-identity comedy about escaped cons who impersonate gay pageant directors doesn't even make sense on its own low farcical terms; it's mostly one lame homo joke after another. The only bright spot is Steve Zahn, who could be the offspring of Michael J. Fox and Crispin Glover if they'd mated on the set of Back to the Future (1985). \n\n         It's hard to make a serious case for Lawrence Kasdan's                    Mumford                , which has apparently flopped but which you can still catch at second- and third-tier theaters. It looks peculiar--a Norman Rockwell painting with noir shadows. And its tale of a small town healed by a depressive (Loren Dean) posing as a psychologist is full of doddering misconceptions about psychotherapy. I almost don't know why I loved it, but the relaxed pacing and the witty turns by Martin Short, Ted Danson, David Paymer, and Mary McDonnell surely helped. I can't decide if the weirdly affectless Dean is inspired or inept, but my indecision suggests why he works in the role. There's no doubt, however, about his even more depressive love object, Hope Davis, who posseses the cinema's most expressive honking-nasal voice and who slumps through the movie like the world's most lyrical anti-ballerina. Even her puffy cheeks are eloquent: They made me think of Mumford as the home of the psychological mumps.",
    "23588": "Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science Fiction November 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.\nA FILBERT IS A NUT\nBY RICK RAPHAEL\nThat the gentleman in question was a nut was beyond question. He was an institutionalized\n psychotic. He was nutty enough to think he could make an atom bomb out of modeling clay!\nIllustrated by Freas\nMiss Abercrombie, the manual therapist patted the old man on the\n shoulder. \"You're doing just fine, Mr. Lieberman. Show it to me when you\n have finished.\"\n\n\n The oldster in the stained convalescent suit gave her a quick, shy smile\n and went back to his aimless smearing in the finger paints.\n\n\n Miss Abercrombie smoothed her smock down over trim hips and surveyed the\n other patients working at the long tables in the hospital's arts and\n crafts shop. Two muscular and bored attendants in spotless whites,\n lounged beside the locked door and chatted idly about the Dodgers'\n prospects for the pennant.\n\n\n Through the barred windows of the workshop, rolling green hills were\n seen, their tree-studded flanks making a pleasant setting for the mental\n institution. The crafts building was a good mile away from the main\n buildings of the hospital and the hills blocked the view of the austere\n complex of buildings that housed the main wards.\n\n\n The therapist strolled down the line of tables, pausing to give a word\n of advice here, and a suggestion there.\n\n\n She stopped behind a frowning, intense patient, rapidly shaping blobs of\n clay into odd-sized strips and forms. As he finished each piece, he\n carefully placed it into a hollow shell hemisphere of clay.\n\n\n \"And what are we making today, Mr. Funston?\" Miss Abercrombie asked.\n\n\n The flying fingers continued to whip out the bits of shaped clay as the\n patient ignored the question. He hunched closer to his table as if to\n draw away from the woman.\n\n\n \"We mustn't be antisocial, Mr. Funston,\" Miss Abercrombie said lightly,\n but firmly. \"You've been coming along famously and you must remember to\n answer when someone talks to you. Now what are you making? It looks very\n complicated.\" She stared professionally at the maze of clay parts.\n\n\n Thaddeus Funston continued to mold the clay bits and put them in place.\n\n\n Without looking up from his bench he muttered a reply.\n\n\n \"Atom bomb.\"\n\n\n A puzzled look crossed the therapist's face. \"Pardon me, Mr. Funston. I\n thought you said an 'atom bomb.'\"\n\n\n \"Did,\" Funston murmured.\n\n\n Safely behind the patient's back, Miss Abercrombie smiled ever so\n slightly. \"Why that's very good, Mr. Funston. That shows real creative\n thought. I'm very pleased.\"\n\n\n She patted him on the shoulder and moved down the line of patients.\n\n\n A few minutes later, one of the attendants glanced at his watch, stood\n up and stretched.\n\n\n \"All right, fellows,\" he called out, \"time to go back. Put up your\n things.\"\n\n\n There was a rustle of paint boxes and papers being shuffled and chairs\n being moved back. A tall, blond patient with a flowing mustache, put one\n more dab of paint on his canvas and stood back to survey the meaningless\n smears. He sighed happily and laid down his palette.\n\n\n At the clay table, Funston feverishly fabricated the last odd-shaped bit\n of clay and slapped it into place. With a furtive glance around him, he\n clapped the other half of the clay sphere over the filled hemisphere and\n then stood up. The patients lined up at the door, waiting for the walk\n back across the green hills to the main hospital. The attendants made a\n quick count and then unlocked the door. The group shuffled out into the\n warm, afternoon sunlight and the door closed behind them.\n\n\n Miss Abercrombie gazed around the cluttered room and picked up her chart\n book of patient progress. Moving slowly down the line of benches, she\n made short, precise notes on the day's work accomplished by each\n patient.\n\n\n At the clay table, she carefully lifted the top half of the clay ball\n and stared thoughtfully at the jumbled maze of clay strips laced through\n the lower hemisphere. She placed the lid back in place and jotted\n lengthily in her chart book.\n\n\n When she had completed her rounds, she slipped out of the smock, tucked\n the chart book under her arm and left the crafts building for the day.\n\n\n The late afternoon sun felt warm and comfortable as she walked the mile\n to the main administration building where her car was parked.\n\n\n As she drove out of the hospital grounds, Thaddeus Funston stood at the\n barred window of his locked ward and stared vacantly over the hills\n towards the craft shop. He stood there unmoving until a ward attendant\n came and took his arm an hour later to lead him off to the patients'\n mess hall.\nThe sun set, darkness fell over the stilled hospital grounds and the\n ward lights winked out at nine o'clock, leaving just a single light\n burning in each ward office. A quiet wind sighed over the still-warm\n hills.\n\n\n At 3:01 a.m., Thaddeus Funston stirred in his sleep and awakened. He sat\n up in bed and looked around the dark ward. The quiet breathing and\n occasional snores of thirty other sleeping patients filled the room.\n Funston turned to the window and stared out across the black hills that\n sheltered the deserted crafts building.\n\n\n He gave a quick cry, shut his eyes and clapped his hands over his face.\n\n\n The brilliance of a hundred suns glared in the night and threw stark\n shadows on the walls of the suddenly-illuminated ward.\n\n\n An instant later, the shattering roar and blast of the explosion struck\n the hospital buildings in a wave of force and the bursting crash of a\n thousand windows was lost in the fury of the explosion and the wild\n screams of the frightened and demented patients.\n\n\n It was over in an instant, and a stunned moment later, recessed ceiling\n lights began flashing on throughout the big institution.\n\n\n Beyond the again-silent hills, a great pillar of smoke, topped by a\n small mushroom-shaped cloud, rose above the gaping hole that had been\n the arts and crafts building.\n\n\n Thaddeus Funston took his hands from his face and lay back in his bed\n with a small, secret smile on his lips. Attendants and nurses scurried\n through the hospital, seeing how many had been injured in the\n explosion.\n\n\n None had. The hills had absorbed most of the shock and apart from a\n welter of broken glass, the damage had been surprisingly slight.\n\n\n The roar and flash of the explosion had lighted and rocked the\n surrounding countryside. Soon firemen and civil defense disaster units\n from a half-dozen neighboring communities had gathered at the\n still-smoking hole that marked the site of the vanished crafts building.\n\n\n Within fifteen minutes, the disaster-trained crews had detected heavy\n radiation emanating from the crater and there was a scurry of men and\n equipment back to a safe distance, a few hundred yards away.\n\n\n At 5:30 a.m., a plane landed at a nearby airfield and a platoon of\n Atomic Energy Commission experts, military intelligence men, four FBI\n agents and an Army full colonel disembarked.\n\n\n At 5:45 a.m. a cordon was thrown around both the hospital and the blast\n crater.\n\n\n In Ward 4-C, Thaddeus Funston slept peacefully and happily.\n\n\n \"It's impossible and unbelievable,\" Colonel Thomas Thurgood said for the\n fifteenth time, later that morning, as he looked around the group of\n experts gathered in the tent erected on the hill overlooking the crater.\n \"How can an atom bomb go off in a nut house?\"\n\n\n \"It apparently was a very small bomb, colonel,\" one of the haggard AEC\n men offered timidly. \"Not over three kilotons.\"\n\n\n \"I don't care if it was the size of a peanut,\" Thurgood screamed. \"How\n did it get here?\"\n\n\n A military intelligence agent spoke up. \"If we knew, sir, we wouldn't be\n standing around here. We don't know, but the fact remains that it WAS an\n atomic explosion.\"\n\n\n Thurgood turned wearily to the small, white-haired man at his side.\n\n\n \"Let's go over it once more, Dr. Crane. Are you sure you knew everything\n that was in that building?\" Thurgood swept his hand in the general\n direction of the blast crater.\n\n\n \"Colonel, I've told you a dozen times,\" the hospital administrator said\n with exasperation, \"this was our manual therapy room. We gave our\n patients art work. It was a means of getting out of their systems,\n through the use of their hands, some of the frustrations and problems\n that led them to this hospital. They worked with oil and water paints\n and clay. If you can make an atomic bomb from vermillion pigments, then\n Madame Curie was a misguided scrubwoman.\"\n\n\n \"All I know is that you say this was a crafts building. O.K. So it was,\"\n Thurgood sighed. \"I also know that an atomic explosion at 3:02 this\n morning blew it to hell and gone.\n\n\n \"And I've got to find out how it happened.\"\n\n\n Thurgood slumped into a field chair and gazed tiredly up at the little\n doctor.\n\n\n \"Where's that girl you said was in charge of this place?\"\n\n\n \"We've already called for Miss Abercrombie and she's on her way here\n now,\" the doctor snapped.\nOutside the tent, a small army of military men and AEC technicians moved\n around the perimeter of the crater, scintillators in hand, examining\n every tiny scrap that might have been a part of the building at one\n time.\n\n\n A jeep raced down the road from the hospital and drew up in front of the\n tent. An armed MP helped Miss Abercrombie from the vehicle.\n\n\n She walked to the edge of the hill and looked down with a stunned\n expression.\n\n\n \"He did make an atom bomb,\" she cried.\n\n\n Colonel Thurgood, who had snapped from his chair at her words, leaped\n forward to catch her as she collapsed in a faint.\n\n\n At 4:00 p.m., the argument was still raging in the long, narrow staff\n room of the hospital administration building.\n\n\n Colonel Thurgood, looking more like a patient every minute, sat on the\n edge of his chair at the head of a long table and pounded with his fist\n on the wooden surface, making Miss Abercrombie's chart book bounce with\n every beat.\n\n\n \"It's ridiculous,\" Thurgood roared. \"We'll all be the laughingstocks of\n the world if this ever gets out. An atomic bomb made out of clay. You\n are all nuts. You're in the right place, but count me out.\"\n\n\n At his left, Miss Abercrombie cringed deeper into her chair at the\n broadside. Down both sides of the long table, psychiatrists, physicists,\n strategists and radiologists sat in various stages of nerve-shattered\n weariness.\n\n\n \"Miss Abercrombie,\" one of the physicists spoke up gently, \"you say that\n after the patients had departed the building, you looked again at\n Funston's work?\"\n\n\n The therapist nodded unhappily.\n\n\n \"And you say that, to the best of your knowledge,\" the physicist\n continued, \"there was nothing inside the ball but other pieces of clay.\"\n\n\n \"I'm positive that's all there was in it,\" Miss Abercrombie cried.\n\n\n There was a renewed buzz of conversation at the table and the senior AEC\n man present got heads together with the senior intelligence man. They\n conferred briefly and then the intelligence officer spoke.\n\n\n \"That seems to settle it, colonel. We've got to give this Funston\n another chance to repeat his bomb. But this time under our supervision.\"\n\n\n Thurgood leaped to his feet, his face purpling.\n\n\n \"Are you crazy?\" he screamed. \"You want to get us all thrown into this\n filbert factory? Do you know what the newspapers would do to us if they\n ever got wind of the fact, that for one, tiny fraction of a second,\n anyone of us here entertained the notion that a paranoidal idiot with\n the IQ of an ape could make an atomic bomb out of kid's modeling clay?\n\n\n \"They'd crucify us, that's what they'd do!\"\n\n\n At 8:30 that night, Thaddeus Funston, swathed in an Army officer's\n greatcoat that concealed the strait jacket binding him and with an\n officer's cap jammed far down over his face, was hustled out of a small\n side door of the hospital and into a waiting staff car. A few minutes\n later, the car pulled into the flying field at the nearby community and\n drove directly to the military transport plane that stood at the end of\n the runway with propellers turning.\n\n\n Two military policemen and a brace of staff psychiatrists sworn to\n secrecy under the National Atomic Secrets Act, bundled Thaddeus aboard\n the plane. They plopped him into a seat directly in front of Miss\n Abercrombie and with a roar, the plane raced down the runway and into\n the night skies.\n\n\n The plane landed the next morning at the AEC's atomic testing grounds in\n the Nevada desert and two hours later, in a small hot, wooden shack\n miles up the barren desert wastelands, a cluster of scientists and\n military men huddled around a small wooden table.\n\n\n There was nothing on the table but a bowl of water and a great lump of\n modeling clay. While the psychiatrists were taking the strait jacket off\n Thaddeus in the staff car outside, Colonel Thurgood spoke to the weary\n Miss Abercrombie.\n\n\n \"Now you're positive this is just about the same amount and the same\n kind of clay he used before?\"\n\n\n \"I brought it along from the same batch we had in the store room at the\n hospital,\" she replied, \"and it's the same amount.\"\n\n\n Thurgood signaled to the doctors and they entered the shack with\n Thaddeus Funston between them. The colonel nudged Miss Abercrombie.\n\n\n She smiled at Funston.\n\n\n \"Now isn't this nice, Mr. Funston,\" she said. \"These nice men have\n brought us way out here just to see you make another atom bomb like the\n one you made for me yesterday.\"\n\n\n A flicker of interest lightened Thaddeus' face. He looked around the\n shack and then spotted the clay on the table. Without hesitation, he\n walked to the table and sat down. His fingers began working the damp\n clay, making first the hollow, half-round shell while the nation's top\n atomic scientists watched in fascination.\n\n\n His busy fingers flew through the clay, shaping odd, flat bits and clay\n parts that were dropped almost aimlessly into the open hemisphere in\n front of him.\n\n\n Miss Abercrombie stood at his shoulder as Thaddeus hunched over the\n table just as he had done the previous day. From time to time she\n glanced at her watch. The maze of clay strips grew and as Funston\n finished shaping the other half hemisphere of clay, she broke the tense\n silence.\n\n\n \"Time to go back now, Mr. Funston. You can work some more tomorrow.\" She\n looked at the men and nodded her head.\n\n\n The two psychiatrists went to Thaddeus' side as he put the upper lid of\n clay carefully in place. Funston stood up and the doctors escorted him\n from the shack.\n\n\n There was a moment of hushed silence and then pandemonium burst. The\n experts converged on the clay ball, instruments blossoming from nowhere\n and cameras clicking.\n\n\n For two hours they studied and gently probed the mass of child's clay\n and photographed it from every angle.\n\n\n Then they left for the concrete observatory bunker, several miles down\n range where Thaddeus and the psychiatrists waited inside a ring of\n stony-faced military policemen.\n\n\n \"I told you this whole thing was asinine,\" Thurgood snarled as the\n scientific teams trooped into the bunker.\n\n\n Thaddeus Funston stared out over the heads of the MPs through the open\n door, looking uprange over the heat-shimmering desert. He gave a sudden\n cry, shut his eyes and clapped his hands over his face.\n\n\n A brilliance a hundred times brighter than the glaring Nevada sun lit\n the dim interior of the bunker and the pneumatically-operated door\n slammed shut just before the wave of the blast hit the structure.\nSix hours and a jet plane trip later, Thaddeus, once again in his strait\n jacket, sat between his armed escorts in a small room in the Pentagon.\n Through the window he could see the hurried bustle of traffic over the\n Potomac and beyond, the domed roof of the Capitol.\n\n\n In the conference room next door, the joint chiefs of staff were\n closeted with a gray-faced and bone-weary Colonel Thurgood and his\n baker's dozen of AEC brains. Scraps of the hot and scornful talk drifted\n across a half-opened transom into the room where Thaddeus Funston sat in\n a neatly-tied bundle.\n\n\n In the conference room, a red-faced, four-star general cast a chilling\n glance at the rumpled figure of Colonel Thurgood.\n\n\n \"I've listened to some silly stories in my life, colonel,\" the general\n said coldly, \"but this takes the cake. You come in here with an insane\n asylum inmate in a strait jacket and you have the colossal gall to sit\n there and tell me that this poor soul has made not one, but two atomic\n devices out of modeling clay and then has detonated them.\"\n\n\n The general paused.\n\n\n \"Why don't you just tell me, colonel, that he can also make spaceships\n out of sponge rubber?\" the general added bitingly.\n\n\n In the next room, Thaddeus Funston stared out over the sweeping panorama\n of the Washington landscape. He stared hard.\n\n\n In the distance, a white cloud began billowing up from the base of the\n Washington Monument, and with an ear-shattering, glass-splintering roar,\n the great shaft rose majestically from its base and vanished into space\n on a tail of flame.\nTHE END",
    "23592": "Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science\n Fiction December 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence\n that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.\nBREAKAWAY\nBY STANLEY GIMBLE\nIllustrated by Freas\nShe surely got her wish ... but there was some question about getting\n what she wanted.\nPhil Conover pulled the zipper of his flight suit up the front of his\n long, thin body and came into the living room. His face, usually serious\n and quietly handsome, had an alive, excited look. And the faint lines\n around his dark, deep-set eyes were accentuated when he smiled at his\n wife.\n\n\n \"All set, honey. How do I look in my monkey suit?\"\n\n\n His wife was sitting stiffly on the flowered couch that was still not\n theirs completely. In her fingers she held a cigarette burned down too\n far. She said, \"You look fine, Phil. You look just right.\" She managed a\n smile. Then she leaned forward and crushed the cigarette in the ash\n tray on the maple coffee table and took another from the pack.\n\n\n He came to her and touched his hands to her soft blond hair, raising her\n face until she was looking into his eyes. \"You're the most beautiful\n girl I know. Did I ever tell you that?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, I think so. Yes, I'm sure you did,\" she said, finishing the\n ritual; but her voice broke, and she turned her head away. Phil sat\n beside her and put his arm around her small shoulders. He had stopped\n smiling.\n\n\n \"Honey, look at me,\" he said. \"It isn't going to be bad. Honestly it\n isn't. We know exactly how it will be. If anything could go wrong, they\n wouldn't be sending me; you know that. I told you that we've sent five\n un-manned ships up and everyone came back without a hitch.\"\n\n\n She turned, facing him. There were tears starting in the corners of her\n wide, brown eyes, and she brushed them away with her hand.\n\n\n \"Phil, don't go. Please don't. They can send Sammy. Sammy doesn't have a\n wife. Can't he go? They'd understand, Phil. Please!\" She was holding his\n arms tightly with her hands, and the color had drained from her cheeks.\n\n\n \"Mary, you know I can't back out now. How could I? It's been three\n years. You know how much I've wanted to be the first man to go. Nothing\n would ever be right with me again if I didn't go. Please don't make it\n hard.\" He stopped talking and held her to him and stroked the back of\n her head. He could feel her shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. He\n released her and stood up.\n\n\n \"I've got to get started, Mary. Will you come to the field with me?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, I'll come to say good-by.\" She paused and dropped her eyes. \"Phil,\n if you go, I won't be here when you get back\u2014if you get back. I won't\n be here because I won't be the wife of a space pilot for the rest of my\n life. It isn't the kind of life I bargained for. No matter how much I\n love you, I just couldn't take that, Phil. I'm sorry. I guess I'm not\n the noble sort of wife.\"\n\n\n She finished and took another cigarette from the pack on the coffee\n table and put it to her lips. Her hand was trembling as she touched the\n lighter to the end of the cigarette and drew deeply. Phil stood watching\n her, the excitement completely gone from his eyes.\n\n\n \"I wish you had told me this a long time ago, Mary,\" Phil said. His\n voice was dry and low. \"I didn't know you felt this way about it.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, you did. I told you how I felt. I told you I could never be the\n wife of a space pilot. But I don't think I ever really believed it was\n possible\u2014not until this morning when you said tonight was the take-off.\n It's so stupid to jeopardize everything we've got for a ridiculous\n dream!\"\n\n\n He sat down on the edge of the couch and took her hands between his.\n \"Mary, listen to me,\" he said. \"It isn't a dream. It's real. There's\n nothing means anything more to me than you do\u2014you know that. But no\n man ever had the chance to do what I'm going to do tonight\u2014no man ever.\n If I backed out now for any reason, I'd never be able to look at the sky\n again. I'd be through.\"\n\n\n She looked at him without seeing him, and there was nothing at all in\n her eyes.\n\n\n \"Let's go, if you're still going,\" she finally said.\nThey drove through the streets of the small town with its small\n bungalows, each alike. There were no trees and very little grass. It was\n a new town, a government built town, and it had no personality yet. It\n existed only because of the huge ship standing poised in the take-off\n zone five miles away in the desert. Its future as a town rested with the\n ship, and the town seemed to feel the uncertainty of its future, seemed\n ready to stop existing as a town and to give itself back to the desert,\n if such was its destiny.\n\n\n Phil turned the car off the highway onto the rutted dirt road that led\n across the sand to the field where the ship waited. In the distance they\n could see the beams of the searchlights as they played across the\n take-off zone and swept along the top of the high wire fence stretching\n out of sight to right and left. At the gate they were stopped by the\n guard. He read Phil's pass, shined his flashlight in their faces, and\n then saluted. \"Good luck, colonel,\" he said, and shook Phil's hand.\n\n\n \"Thanks, sergeant. I'll be seeing you next week,\" Phil said, and smiled.\n They drove between the rows of wooden buildings that lined the field,\n and he parked near the low barbed fence ringing the take-off zone. He\n turned off the ignition, and sat quietly for a moment before lighting a\n cigarette. Then he looked at his wife. She was staring through the\n windshield at the rocket two hundred yards away. Its smooth polished\n surface gleamed in the spotlight glare, and it sloped up and up until\n the eye lost the tip against the stars.\n\n\n \"She's beautiful, Mary. You've never seen her before, have you?\"\n\n\n \"No, I've never seen her before,\" she said. \"Hadn't you better go?\" Her\n voice was strained and she held her hands closed tightly in her lap.\n \"Please go now, Phil,\" she said.\n\n\n He leaned toward her and touched her cheek. Then she was in his arms,\n her head buried against his shoulder.\n\n\n \"Good-by, darling,\" she said.\n\n\n \"Wish me luck, Mary?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Yes, good luck, Phil,\" she said. He opened the car door and got out.\n The noise of men and machines scurrying around the ship broke the spell\n of the rocket waiting silently for flight.\n\n\n \"Mary, I\u2014\" he began, and then turned and strode toward the\n administration building without looking back.\nInside the building it was like a locker room before the big game. The\n tension stood alone, and each man had the same happy, excited look that\n Phil had worn earlier. When he came into the room, the noise and bustle\n stopped. They turned as one man toward him, and General Small came up to\n him and took his hand.\n\n\n \"Hello, Phil. We were beginning to think you weren't coming. You all\n set, son?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir, I'm all set, I guess,\" Phil said.\n\n\n \"I'd like you to meet the Secretary of Defense, Phil. He's over here by\n the radar.\"\n\n\n As they crossed the room, familiar faces smiled, and each man shook his\n hand or touched his arm. He saw Sammy, alone, by the coffee urn. Sammy\n waved to him, but he didn't smile. Phil wanted to talk to him, to say\n something; but there was nothing to be said now. Sammy's turn would come\n later.\n\n\n \"Mr. Secretary,\" the general said, \"this is Colonel Conover. He'll be\n the first man in history to see the other side of the Moon. Colonel\u2014the\n Secretary of Defense.\"\n\n\n \"How do you do, sir. I'm very proud to meet you,\" Phil said.\n\n\n \"On the contrary, colonel. I'm very proud to meet you. I've been looking\n at that ship out there and wondering. I almost wish I were a young man\n again. I'd like to be going. It's a thrilling thought\u2014man's first\n adventure into the universe. You're lighting a new dawn of history,\n colonel. It's a privilege few men have ever had; and those who have had\n it didn't realize it at the time. Good luck, and God be with you.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you, sir. I'm aware of all you say. It frightens me a little.\"\n\n\n The general took Phil's arm and they walked to the briefing room. There\n were chairs set up for the scientists and Air Force officers directly\n connected with the take-off. They were seated now in a semicircle in\n front of a huge chart of the solar system. Phil took his seat, and the\n last minute briefing began. It was a routine he knew by heart. He had\n gone over and over it a thousand times, and he only half listened now.\n He kept thinking of Mary outside, alone by the fence.\n\n\n The voice of the briefing officer was a dull hum in his ears.\n\n\n \"... And orbit at 18,000-mph. You will then accelerate for the breakaway\n to 24,900-mph for five minutes and then free-coast for 116 hours\n until\u2014\"\n\n\n Phil asked a few questions about weather and solar conditions. And then\n the session was done. They rose and looked at each other, the same\n unanswered questions on each man's face. There were forced smiles and\n handshakes. They were ready now.\n\n\n \"Phil,\" the general said, and took him aside.\n\n\n \"Sir?\"\n\n\n \"Phil, you're ... you feel all right, don't you, son?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. I feel fine. Why?\"\n\n\n \"Phil, I've spent nearly every day with you for three years. I know you\n better than I know myself in many ways. And I've studied the\n psychologist's reports on you carefully. Maybe it's just nervousness,\n Phil, but I think there's something wrong. Is there?\"\n\n\n \"No, sir. There's nothing wrong,\" Phil said, but his voice didn't carry\n conviction. He reached for a cigarette.\n\n\n \"Phil, if there is anything\u2014anything at all\u2014you know what it might\n mean. You've got to be in the best mental and physical condition of your\n life tonight. You know better than any man here what that means to our\n success. I think there is something more than just natural apprehension\n wrong with you. Want to tell me?\"\nOutside, the take-off zone crawled with men and machines at the base of\n the rocket. For ten hours, the final check-outs had been in progress;\n and now the men were checking again, on their own time. The thing they\n had worked toward for six years was ready to happen, and each one felt\n that he was sending just a little bit of himself into the sky. Beyond\n the ring of lights and moving men, on the edge of the field, Mary stood.\n Her hands moved slowly over the top of the fence, twisting the barbs of\n wire. But her eyes were on the ship.\n\n\n And then they were ready. A small group of excited men came out from the\n administration building and moved forward. The check-out crews climbed\n into their machines and drove back outside the take-off zone. And,\n alone, one man climbed the steel ladder up the side of the\n rocket\u2014ninety feet into the air. At the top he waved to the men on the\n ground and then disappeared through a small port.\n\n\n Mary waved to him. \"Good-by,\" she said to herself, but the words stuck\n tight in her throat.\n\n\n The small group at the base of the ship turned and walked back to the\n fence. And for an eternity the great ship stood alone, waiting. Then,\n from deep inside, a rumble came, increasing in volume to a gigantic roar\n that shook the earth and tore at the ears. Slowly, the first manned\n rocket to the Moon lifted up and up to the sky.\nFor a long time after the rocket had become a tiny speck of light in the\n heavens, she stood holding her face in her hands and crying softly to\n herself. And then she felt the touch of a hand on her arm. She turned.\n\n\n \"Phil! Oh, Phil.\" She held tightly to him and repeated his name over and\n over.\n\n\n \"They wouldn't let me go, Mary,\" he said finally. \"The general would not\n let me go.\"\n\n\n She looked at him. His face was drawn tight, and there were tears on his\n cheeks. \"Thank, God,\" she said. \"It doesn't matter, darling. The only\n thing that matters is you didn't go.\"\n\n\n \"You're right, Mary,\" he said. His voice was low\u2014so low she could\n hardly hear him. \"It doesn't matter. Nothing matters now.\" He stood with\n his hands at his sides, watching her. And then turned away and walked\n toward the car.\nTHE END",
    "23767": "By H. B. Fyfe\nTHE TALKATIVE\n\n TREE\nDang vines! Beats all how some plants\n have no manners\u2014but what do you expect,\n when they used to be men!\nAll\n things considered\u2014the\n obscure star, the undetermined\n damage to the\n stellar drive and the way the\n small planet's murky atmosphere\n defied precision scanners\u2014the\n pilot made a reasonably\n good landing. Despite\n sour feelings for the space\n service of Haurtoz, steward\n Peter Kolin had to admit that\n casualties might have been\n far worse.\n\n\n Chief Steward Slichow led\n his little command, less two\n third-class ration keepers\n thought to have been trapped\n in the lower hold, to a point\n two hundred meters from the\n steaming hull of the\nPeace\n State\n. He lined them up as if\n on parade. Kolin made himself\n inconspicuous.\n\n\n \"Since the crew will be on\n emergency watches repairing\n the damage,\" announced the\n Chief in clipped, aggressive\n tones, \"I have volunteered my\n section for preliminary scouting,\n as is suitable. It may be\n useful to discover temporary\n sources in this area of natural\n foods.\"\n\n\n Volunteered HIS section!\n thought Kolin rebelliously.\n\n\n Like the Supreme Director\n of Haurtoz! Being conscripted\n into this idiotic space fleet\n that never fights is bad\n enough without a tin god on\n jets like Slichow!\n\n\n Prudently, he did not express\n this resentment overtly.\n\n\n His well-schooled features\n revealed no trace of the idea\u2014or\n of any other idea. The\n Planetary State of Haurtoz\n had been organized some fifteen\n light-years from old\n Earth, but many of the home\n world's less kindly techniques\n had been employed. Lack of\n complete loyalty to the state\n was likely to result in a siege\n of treatment that left the subject\n suitably \"re-personalized.\"\n Kolin had heard of instances\n wherein mere unenthusiastic\n posture had betrayed\n intentions to harbor\n treasonable thoughts.\n\n\n \"You will scout in five details\n of three persons each,\"\n Chief Slichow said. \"Every\n hour, each detail will send\n one person in to report, and\n he will be replaced by one of\n the five I shall keep here to\n issue rations.\"\n\n\n Kolin permitted himself to\n wonder when anyone might\n get some rest, but assumed a\n mildly willing look. (Too eager\n an attitude could arouse\n suspicion of disguising an improper\n viewpoint.) The maintenance\n of a proper viewpoint\n was a necessity if the Planetary\n State were to survive\n the hostile plots of Earth and\n the latter's decadent colonies.\n That, at least, was the official\n line.\n\n\n Kolin found himself in a\n group with Jak Ammet, a\n third cook, and Eva Yrtok,\n powdered foods storekeeper.\n Since the crew would be eating\n packaged rations during\n repairs, Yrtok could be spared\n to command a scout detail.\n\n\n Each scout was issued a\n rocket pistol and a plastic water\n tube. Chief Slichow emphasized\n that the keepers of\n rations could hardly, in an\n emergency, give even the appearance\n of favoring themselves\n in regard to food. They\n would go without. Kolin\n maintained a standard expression\n as the Chief's sharp\n stare measured them.\n\n\n Yrtok, a dark, lean-faced\n girl, led the way with a quiet\n monosyllable. She carried the\n small radio they would be\n permitted to use for messages\n of utmost urgency. Ammet\n followed, and Kolin brought\n up the rear.\nTo\n reach their assigned\n sector, they had to climb\n a forbidding ridge of rock\n within half a kilometer. Only\n a sparse creeper grew along\n their way, its elongated leaves\n shimmering with bronze-green\n reflections against a\n stony surface; but when they\n topped the ridge a thick forest\n was in sight.\n\n\n Yrtok and Ammet paused\n momentarily before descending.\n\n\n Kolin shared their sense of\n isolation. They would be out\n of sight of authority and responsible\n for their own actions.\n It was a strange sensation.\n\n\n They marched down into\n the valley at a brisk pace, becoming\n more aware of the\n clouds and atmospheric haze.\n Distant objects seemed\n blurred by the mist, taking on\n a somber, brooding grayness.\n For all Kolin could tell, he\n and the others were isolated\n in a world bounded by the\n rocky ridge behind them and\n a semi-circle of damp trees\n and bushes several hundred\n meters away. He suspected\n that the hills rising mistily\n ahead were part of a continuous\n slope, but could not be\n sure.\n\n\n Yrtok led the way along\n the most nearly level ground.\n Low creepers became more\n plentiful, interspersed with\n scrubby thickets of tangled,\n spike-armored bushes. Occasionally,\n small flying things\n flickered among the foliage.\n Once, a shrub puffed out an\n enormous cloud of tiny\n spores.\n\n\n \"Be a job to find anything\n edible here,\" grunted Ammet,\n and Kolin agreed.\n\n\n Finally, after a longer hike\n than he had anticipated, they\n approached the edge of the\n deceptively distant forest.\n Yrtok paused to examine some\n purple berries glistening dangerously\n on a low shrub. Kolin\n regarded the trees with\n misgiving.\n\n\n \"Looks as tough to get\n through as a tropical jungle,\"\n he remarked.\n\n\n \"I think the stuff puts out\n shoots that grow back into\n the ground to root as they\n spread,\" said the woman.\n \"Maybe we can find a way\n through.\"\n\n\n In two or three minutes,\n they reached the abrupt border\n of the odd-looking trees.\n\n\n Except for one thick\n trunked giant, all of them\n were about the same height.\n They craned their necks to estimate\n the altitude of the\n monster, but the top was hidden\n by the wide spread of\n branches. The depths behind\n it looked dark and impenetrable.\n\n\n \"We'd better explore along\n the edge,\" decided Yrtok.\n \"Ammet, now is the time to\n go back and tell the Chief\n which way we're\u2014\n Ammet!\n \"\n\n\n Kolin looked over his shoulder.\n Fifty meters away, Ammet\n sat beside the bush with\n the purple berries, utterly\n relaxed.\n\n\n \"He must have tasted\n some!\" exclaimed Kolin. \"I'll\n see how he is.\"\n\n\n He ran back to the cook and\n shook him by the shoulder.\n Ammet's head lolled loosely\n to one side. His rather heavy\n features were vacant, lending\n him a doped appearance. Kolin\n straightened up and beckoned\n to Yrtok.\n\n\n For some reason, he had\n trouble attracting her attention.\n Then he noticed that she\n was kneeling.\n\n\n \"Hope she didn't eat some\n stupid thing too!\" he grumbled,\n trotting back.\n\n\n As he reached her, whatever\n Yrtok was examining\n came to life and scooted into\n the underbrush with a flash\n of greenish fur. All Kolin\n saw was that it had several\n legs too many.\n\n\n He pulled Yrtok to her\n feet. She pawed at him weakly,\n eyes as vacant as Ammet's.\n When he let go in sudden\n horror, she folded gently to\n the ground. She lay comfortably\n on her side, twitching\n one hand as if to brush something\n away.\n\n\n When she began to smile\n dreamily, Kolin backed away.\nThe\n corners of his mouth\n felt oddly stiff; they had\n involuntarily drawn back to\n expose his clenched teeth. He\n glanced warily about, but\n nothing appeared to threaten\n him.\n\n\n \"It's time to end this scout,\"\n he told himself. \"It's dangerous.\n One good look and I'm\n jetting off! What I need is\n an easy tree to climb.\"\n\n\n He considered the massive\n giant. Soaring thirty or forty\n meters into the thin fog and\n dwarfing other growth, it\n seemed the most promising\n choice.\n\n\n At first, Kolin saw no way,\n but then the network of vines\n clinging to the rugged trunk\n suggested a route. He tried\n his weight gingerly, then began\n to climb.\n\n\n \"I should have brought\n Yrtok's radio,\" he muttered.\n \"Oh, well, I can take it when\n I come down, if she hasn't\n snapped out of her spell by\n then. Funny \u2026 I wonder if\n that green thing bit her.\"\n\n\n Footholds were plentiful\n among the interlaced lianas.\n Kolin progressed rapidly.\n When he reached the first\n thick limbs, twice head\n height, he felt safer.\n\n\n Later, at what he hoped was\n the halfway mark, he hooked\n one knee over a branch and\n paused to wipe sweat from his\n eyes. Peering down, he discovered\n the ground to be obscured\n by foliage.\n\n\n \"I should have checked\n from down there to see how\n open the top is,\" he mused.\n \"I wonder how the view will\n be from up there?\"\n\n\n \"Depends on what you're\n looking for, Sonny!\" something\n remarked in a soughing wheeze.\n\n\n Kolin, slipping, grabbed\n desperately for the branch.\n His fingers clutched a handful\n of twigs and leaves, which\n just barely supported him until\n he regained a grip with\n the other hand.\n\n\n The branch quivered resentfully\n under him.\n\n\n \"Careful, there!\" whooshed\n the eerie voice. \"It took me\n all summer to grow those!\"\n\n\n Kolin could feel the skin\n crawling along his backbone.\n\n\n \"Who\n are\n you?\" he gasped.\n\n\n The answering sigh of\n laughter gave him a distinct\n chill despite its suggestion of\n amiability.\n\n\n \"Name's Johnny Ashlew.\n Kinda thought you'd start\n with\n what\n I am. Didn't figure\n you'd ever seen a man grown\n into a tree before.\"\n\n\n Kolin looked about, seeing\n little but leaves and fog.\n\n\n \"I have to climb down,\" he\n told himself in a reasonable\n tone. \"It's bad enough that the\n other two passed out without\n me going space happy too.\"\n\n\n \"What's your hurry?\" demanded\n the voice. \"I can talk\n to you just as easy all the way\n down, you know. Airholes in\n my bark\u2014I'm not like an\n Earth tree.\"\n\n\n Kolin examined the bark of\n the crotch in which he sat. It\n did seem to have assorted\n holes and hollows in its rough\n surface.\n\n\n \"I never saw an Earth tree,\"\n he admitted. \"We came from\n Haurtoz.\"\n\n\n \"Where's that? Oh, never\n mind\u2014some little planet. I\n don't bother with them all,\n since I came here and found\n out I could be anything I\n wanted.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean, anything\n you wanted?\" asked\n Kolin, testing the firmness of\n a vertical vine.\n\"Just\n what I said,\" continued\n the voice, sounding\n closer in his ear as his\n cheek brushed the ridged bark\n of the tree trunk. \"And, if\n I do have to remind you, it\n would be nicer if you said\n 'Mr. Ashlew,' considering my\n age.\"\n\n\n \"Your age? How old\u2014?\"\n\n\n \"Can't really count it in\n Earth years any more. Lost\n track. I always figured bein'\n a tree was a nice, peaceful\n life; and when I remembered\n how long some of them live,\n that settled it. Sonny, this\n world ain't all it looks like.\"\n\n\n \"It isn't, Mr. Ashlew?\"\n asked Kolin, twisting about\n in an effort to see what the\n higher branches might hide.\n\n\n \"Nope. Most everything\n here is run by the Life\u2014that\n is, by the thing that first\n grew big enough to do some\n thinking, and set its roots\n down all over until it had\n control. That's the outskirts\n of it down below.\"\n\n\n \"The other trees? That jungle?\"\n\n\n \"It's more'n a jungle, Sonny.\n When I landed here, along\n with the others from the\nArcturan Spark\n, the planet\n looked pretty empty to me,\n just like it must have to\u2014Watch\n it, there, Boy! If I\n didn't twist that branch over\n in time, you'd be bouncing off\n my roots right now!\"\n\n\n \"Th-thanks!\" grunted Kolin,\n hanging on grimly.\n\n\n \"Doggone vine!\" commented\n the windy whisper. \"\n He\n ain't one of my crowd. Landed\n years later in a ship from\n some star towards the center\n of the galaxy. You should\n have seen his looks before\n the Life got in touch with his\n mind and set up a mental field\n to help him change form. He\n looks twice as good as a\n vine!\"\n\n\n \"He's very handy,\" agreed\n Kolin politely. He groped for\n a foothold.\n\n\n \"Well \u2026 matter of fact, I\n can't get through to him\n much, even with the Life's\n mental field helping. Guess\n he started living with a different\n way of thinking. It\n burns me. I thought of being\n a tree, and then he came along\n to take advantage of it!\"\n\n\n Kolin braced himself securely\n to stretch tiring muscles.\n\n\n \"Maybe I'd better stay a\n while,\" he muttered. \"I don't\n know where I am.\"\n\n\n \"You're about fifty feet\n up,\" the sighing voice informed\n him. \"You ought to\n let me tell you how the Life\n helps you change form. You\n don't\n have\n to be a tree.\"\n\n\n \"No?\"\n\n\n \"\n Uh\n -uh! Some of the boys\n that landed with me wanted\n to get around and see things.\n Lots changed to animals or\n birds. One even stayed a man\u2014on\n the outside anyway.\n Most of them have to change\n as the bodies wear out, which\n I don't, and some made bad\n mistakes tryin' to be things\n they saw on other planets.\"\n\n\n \"I wouldn't want to do\n that, Mr. Ashlew.\"\n\n\n \"There's just one thing.\n The Life don't like taking\n chances on word about this\n place gettin' around. It sorta\n believes in peace and quiet.\n You might not get back to\n your ship in any form that\n could tell tales.\"\n\n\n \"Listen!\" Kolin blurted\n out. \"I wasn't so much enjoying\n being what I was that\n getting back matters to me!\"\n\n\n \"Don't like your home planet,\n whatever the name was?\"\n\n\n \"Haurtoz. It's a rotten\n place. A Planetary State! You\n have to think and even look\n the way that's standard thirty\n hours a day, asleep or\n awake. You get scared to\n sleep for fear you might\n dream\n treason and they'd find\n out somehow.\"\n\n\n \"Whooeee! Heard about\n them places. Must be tough\n just to live.\"\n\n\n Suddenly, Kolin found himself\n telling the tree about life\n on Haurtoz, and of the officially\n announced threats to\n the Planetary State's planned\n expansion. He dwelt upon the\n desperation of having no\n place to hide in case of trouble\n with the authorities. A\n multiple system of such\n worlds was agonizing to\n imagine.\nSomehow,\n the oddity of\n talking to a tree wore off.\n Kolin heard opinions spouting\n out which he had prudently\n kept bottled up for\n years.\n\n\n The more he talked and\n stormed and complained, the\n more relaxed he felt.\n\n\n \"If there was ever a fellow\n ready for this planet,\" decided\n the tree named Ashlew,\n \"you're it, Sonny! Hang on\n there while I signal the Life\n by root!\"\n\n\n Kolin sensed a lack of direct\n attention. The rustle\n about him was natural, caused\n by an ordinary breeze. He\n noticed his hands shaking.\n\n\n \"Don't know what got into\n me, talking that way to a\n tree,\" he muttered. \"If Yrtok\n snapped out of it and heard,\n I'm as good as re-personalized\n right now.\"\n\n\n As he brooded upon the\n sorry choice of arousing a\n search by hiding where he\n was or going back to bluff\n things out, the tree spoke.\n\n\n \"Maybe you're all set, Sonny.\n The Life has been thinkin'\n of learning about other\n worlds. If you can think of a\n safe form to jet off in, you\n might make yourself a deal.\n How'd you like to stay here?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know,\" said Kolin.\n \"The penalty for desertion\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Whoosh! Who'd find you?\n You could be a bird, a tree,\n even a cloud.\"\n\n\n Silenced but doubting, Kolin\n permitted himself to try\n the dream on for size.\n\n\n He considered what form\n might most easily escape the\n notice of search parties and\n still be tough enough to live\n a long time without renewal.\n Another factor slipped into\n his musings: mere hope of escape\n was unsatisfying after\n the outburst that had defined\n his fuming hatred for Haurtoz.\n\n\n I'd better watch myself!\n he\n thought.\n Don't drop diamonds\n to grab at stars!\n\n\n \"What I wish I could do is\n not just get away but get even\n for the way they make us\n live \u2026 the whole damn set-up.\n They could just as easy make\n peace with the Earth colonies.\n You know why they\n don't?\"\n\n\n \"Why?\" wheezed Ashlew.\n\n\n \"They're scared that without\n talk of war, and scouting\n for Earth fleets that never\n come, people would have time\n to think about the way they\n have to live and who's running\n things in the Planetary\n State. Then the gravy train\n would get blown up\u2014and I\n mean blown up!\"\n\n\n The tree was silent for a\n moment. Kolin felt the\n branches stir meditatively.\n Then Ashlew offered a suggestion.\n\n\n \"I could tell the Life your\n side of it,\" he hissed. \"Once\n in with us, you can always\n make thinking connections,\n no matter how far away.\n Maybe you could make a deal\n to kill two birds with one\n stone, as they used to say on\n Earth\u2026.\"\nChief\n Steward Slichow\n paced up and down beside\n the ration crate turned up to\n serve him as a field desk. He\n scowled in turn, impartially,\n at his watch and at the weary\n stewards of his headquarters\n detail. The latter stumbled\n about, stacking and distributing\n small packets of emergency\n rations.\n\n\n The line of crewmen released\n temporarily from repair\n work was transient as to\n individuals but immutable as\n to length. Slichow muttered\n something profane about disregard\n of orders as he glared\n at the rocky ridges surrounding\n the landing place.\n\n\n He was so intent upon planning\n greetings with which to\n favor the tardy scouting parties\n that he failed to notice\n the loose cloud drifting over\n the ridge.\n\n\n It was tenuous, almost a\n haze. Close examination\n would have revealed it to be\n made up of myriads of tiny\n spores. They resembled those\n cast forth by one of the\n bushes Kolin's party had\n passed. Along the edges, the\n haze faded raggedly into thin\n air, but the units evidently\n formed a cohesive body. They\n drifted together, approaching\n the men as if taking intelligent\n advantage of the breeze.\n\n\n One of Chief Slichow's\n staggering flunkies, stealing\n a few seconds of relaxation\n on the pretext of dumping an\n armful of light plastic packing,\n wandered into the haze.\n\n\n He froze.\n\n\n After a few heartbeats, he\n dropped the trash and stared\n at ship and men as if he had\n never seen either. A hail from\n his master moved him.\n\n\n \"Coming, Chief!\" he called\n but, returning at a moderate\n pace, he murmured, \"My\n name is Frazer. I'm a second\n assistant steward. I'll think as\n Unit One.\"\n\n\n Throughout the cloud of\n spores, the mind formerly\n known as Peter Kolin congratulated\n itself upon its\n choice of form.\n\n\n Nearer to the original\n shape of the Life than Ashlew\n got\n , he thought.\n\n\n He paused to consider the\n state of the tree named Ashlew,\n half immortal but rooted\n to one spot, unable to float on\n a breeze or through space itself\n on the pressure of light.\n Especially, it was unable to\n insinuate any part of itself\n into the control center of another\n form of life, as a second\n spore was taking charge of\n the body of Chief Slichow at\n that very instant.\n\n\n There are not enough men\n ,\n thought Kolin.\n Some of me\n must drift through the airlock.\n In space, I can spread\n through the air system to the\n command group.\n\n\n Repairs to the\nPeace State\nand the return to Haurtoz\n passed like weeks to some of\n the crew but like brief moments\n in infinity to other\n units. At last, the ship parted\n the air above Headquarters\n City and landed.\n\n\n The unit known as Captain\n Theodor Kessel hesitated before\n descending the ramp. He\n surveyed the field, the city\n and the waiting team of inspecting\n officers.\n\n\n \"Could hardly be better,\n could it?\" he chuckled to the\n companion unit called Security\n Officer Tarth.\n\n\n \"Hardly, sir. All ready for\n the liberation of Haurtoz.\"\n\n\n \"Reformation of the Planetary\n State,\" mused the captain,\n smiling dreamily as he\n grasped the handrail. \"And\n then\u2014formation of the Planetary\n Mind!\"\nEND\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis e-text was produced from\n Worlds of If January 1962\n .\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this\n publication was renewed.",
    "23942": "UNBORN\n\n TOMORROW\nBY MACK REYNOLDS\nUnfortunately\n, there was only\n one thing he could bring back\n from the wonderful future ...\n and though he didn't want to\n ... nevertheless he did....\nIllustrated by Freas\n\n\n Betty\n looked up from\n her magazine. She said\n mildly, \"You're late.\"\n\n\n \"Don't yell at me, I\n feel awful,\" Simon told\n her. He sat down at his desk, passed\n his tongue over his teeth in distaste,\n groaned, fumbled in a drawer for the\n aspirin bottle.\n\n\n He looked over at Betty and said,\n almost as though reciting, \"What I\n need is a vacation.\"\n\n\n \"What,\" Betty said, \"are you going\n to use for money?\"\n\n\n \"Providence,\" Simon told her\n whilst fiddling with the aspirin bottle,\n \"will provide.\"\n\n\n \"Hm-m-m. But before providing\n vacations it'd be nice if Providence\n turned up a missing jewel deal, say.\n Something where you could deduce\n that actually the ruby ring had gone\n down the drain and was caught in the\n elbow. Something that would net\n about fifty dollars.\"\n\n\n Simon said, mournful of tone,\n \"Fifty dollars? Why not make it five\n hundred?\"\n\n\n \"I'm not selfish,\" Betty said. \"All\n I want is enough to pay me this\n week's salary.\"\n\n\n \"Money,\" Simon said. \"When you\n took this job you said it was the romance\n that appealed to you.\"\n\n\n \"Hm-m-m. I didn't know most\n sleuthing amounted to snooping\n around department stores to check on\n the clerks knocking down.\"\n\n\n Simon said, enigmatically, \"Now\n it comes.\"\nThere was a knock.\n\n\n Betty bounced up with Olympic\n agility and had the door swinging\n wide before the knocking was quite\n completed.\n\n\n He was old, little and had bug\n eyes behind pince-nez glasses. His\n suit was cut in the style of yesteryear\n but when a suit costs two or\n three hundred dollars you still retain\n caste whatever the styling.\n\n\n Simon said unenthusiastically,\n \"Good morning, Mr. Oyster.\" He indicated\n the client's chair. \"Sit down,\n sir.\"\n\n\n The client fussed himself with\n Betty's assistance into the seat, bug-eyed\n Simon, said finally, \"You know\n my name, that's pretty good. Never\n saw you before in my life. Stop fussing\n with me, young lady. Your ad\n in the phone book says you'll investigate\n anything.\"\n\n\n \"Anything,\" Simon said. \"Only\n one exception.\"\n\n\n \"Excellent. Do you believe in time\n travel?\"\n\n\n Simon said nothing. Across the\n room, where she had resumed her\n seat, Betty cleared her throat. When\n Simon continued to say nothing she\n ventured, \"Time travel is impossible.\"\n\n\n \"Why?\"\n\n\n \"Why?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, why?\"\n\n\n Betty looked to her boss for assistance.\n None was forthcoming. There\n ought to be some very quick, positive,\n definite answer. She said, \"Well,\n for one thing, paradox. Suppose you\n had a time machine and traveled back\n a hundred years or so and killed your\n own great-grandfather. Then how\n could you ever be born?\"\n\n\n \"Confound it if I know,\" the little\n fellow growled. \"How?\"\n\n\n Simon said, \"Let's get to the point,\n what you wanted to see me about.\"\n\n\n \"I want to hire you to hunt me up\n some time travelers,\" the old boy\n said.\n\n\n Betty was too far in now to maintain\n her proper role of silent secretary.\n \"Time travelers,\" she said, not\n very intelligently.\n\n\n The potential client sat more erect,\n obviously with intent to hold the\n floor for a time. He removed the\n pince-nez glasses and pointed them\n at Betty. He said, \"Have you read\n much science fiction, Miss?\"\n\n\n \"Some,\" Betty admitted.\n\n\n \"Then you'll realize that there are\n a dozen explanations of the paradoxes\n of time travel. Every writer in\n the field worth his salt has explained\n them away. But to get on. It's my\n contention that within a century or\n so man will have solved the problems\n of immortality and eternal youth, and\n it's also my suspicion that he will\n eventually be able to travel in time.\n So convinced am I of these possibilities\n that I am willing to gamble a\n portion of my fortune to investigate\n the presence in our era of such time\n travelers.\"\n\n\n Simon seemed incapable of carrying\n the ball this morning, so Betty\n said, \"But ... Mr. Oyster, if the\n future has developed time travel why\n don't we ever meet such travelers?\"\n\n\n Simon put in a word. \"The usual\n explanation, Betty, is that they can't\n afford to allow the space-time continuum\n track to be altered. If, say, a\n time traveler returned to a period of\n twenty-five years ago and shot Hitler,\n then all subsequent history would be\n changed. In that case, the time traveler\n himself might never be born. They\n have to tread mighty carefully.\"\n\n\n Mr. Oyster was pleased. \"I didn't\n expect you to be so well informed\n on the subject, young man.\"\n\n\n Simon shrugged and fumbled\n again with the aspirin bottle.\nMr. Oyster went on. \"I've been\n considering the matter for some time\n and\u2014\"\n\n\n Simon held up a hand. \"There's\n no use prolonging this. As I understand\n it, you're an elderly gentleman\n with a considerable fortune and you\n realize that thus far nobody has succeeded\n in taking it with him.\"\n\n\n Mr. Oyster returned his glasses to\n their perch, bug-eyed Simon, but then\n nodded.\n\n\n Simon said, \"You want to hire me\n to find a time traveler and in some\n manner or other\u2014any manner will\n do\u2014exhort from him the secret of\n eternal life and youth, which you figure\n the future will have discovered.\n You're willing to pony up a part of\n this fortune of yours, if I can deliver\n a bona fide time traveler.\"\n\n\n \"Right!\"\n\n\n Betty had been looking from one\n to the other. Now she said, plaintively,\n \"But where are you going to find\n one of these characters\u2014especially if\n they're interested in keeping hid?\"\n\n\n The old boy was the center again.\n \"I told you I'd been considering it\n for some time. The\nOktoberfest\n,\n that's where they'd be!\" He seemed\n elated.\n\n\n Betty and Simon waited.\n\n\n \"The\nOktoberfest\n,\" he repeated.\n \"The greatest festival the world has\n ever seen, the carnival,\nferia\n,\nfiesta\nto beat them all. Every year it's held\n in Munich. Makes the New Orleans\n Mardi gras look like a quilting\n party.\" He began to swing into the\n spirit of his description. \"It originally\n started in celebration of the wedding\n of some local prince a century\n and a half ago and the Bavarians had\n such a bang-up time they've been\n holding it every year since. The\n Munich breweries do up a special\n beer,\nMarzenbr\u00e4u\nthey call it, and\n each brewery opens a tremendous tent\n on the fair grounds which will hold\n five thousand customers apiece. Millions\n of liters of beer are put away,\n hundreds of thousands of barbecued\n chickens, a small herd of oxen are\n roasted whole over spits, millions of\n pair of\nweisswurst\n, a very special\n sausage, millions upon millions of\n pretzels\u2014\"\n\n\n \"All right,\" Simon said. \"We'll accept\n it. The\nOktoberfest\nis one whale\n of a wingding.\"\n\"Well,\" the old boy pursued, into\n his subject now, \"that's where they'd\n be, places like the\nOktoberfest\n. For\n one thing, a time traveler wouldn't\n be conspicuous. At a festival like this\n somebody with a strange accent, or\n who didn't know exactly how to wear\n his clothes correctly, or was off the\n ordinary in any of a dozen other\n ways, wouldn't be noticed. You could\n be a four-armed space traveler from\n Mars, and you still wouldn't be conspicuous\n at the\nOktoberfest\n. People\n would figure they had D.T.'s.\"\n\n\n \"But why would a time traveler\n want to go to a\u2014\" Betty began.\n\n\n \"Why not! What better opportunity\n to study a people than when they\n are in their cups? If\nyou\ncould go\n back a few thousand years, the things\n you would wish to see would be a\n Roman Triumph, perhaps the Rites\n of Dionysus, or one of Alexander's\n orgies. You wouldn't want to wander\n up and down the streets of, say,\n Athens while nothing was going on,\n particularly when you might be revealed\n as a suspicious character not\n being able to speak the language, not\n knowing how to wear the clothes and\n not familiar with the city's layout.\"\n He took a deep breath. \"No ma'am,\n you'd have to stick to some great\n event, both for the sake of actual\n interest and for protection against being\n unmasked.\"\n\n\n The old boy wound it up. \"Well,\n that's the story. What are your rates?\n The\nOktoberfest\nstarts on Friday and\n continues for sixteen days. You can\n take the plane to Munich, spend a\n week there and\u2014\"\n\n\n Simon was shaking his head. \"Not\n interested.\"\n\n\n As soon as Betty had got her jaw\n back into place, she glared unbelievingly\n at him.\n\n\n Mr. Oyster was taken aback himself.\n \"See here, young man, I realize\n this isn't an ordinary assignment,\n however, as I said, I am willing to\n risk a considerable portion of my\n fortune\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Sorry,\" Simon said. \"Can't be\n done.\"\n\n\n \"A hundred dollars a day plus expenses,\"\n Mr. Oyster said quietly. \"I\n like the fact that you already seem\n to have some interest and knowledge\n of the matter. I liked the way you\n knew my name when I walked in the\n door; my picture doesn't appear often\n in the papers.\"\n\n\n \"No go,\" Simon said, a sad quality\n in his voice.\n\n\n \"A fifty thousand dollar bonus if\n you bring me a time traveler.\"\n\n\n \"Out of the question,\" Simon\n said.\n\n\n \"But\nwhy\n?\" Betty wailed.\n\n\n \"Just for laughs,\" Simon told the\n two of them sourly, \"suppose I tell\n you a funny story. It goes like\n this:\"\nI got a thousand dollars from Mr.\n Oyster (Simon began) in the way\n of an advance, and leaving him with\n Betty who was making out a receipt,\n I hustled back to the apartment and\n packed a bag. Hell, I'd wanted a vacation\n anyway, this was a natural. On\n the way to Idlewild I stopped off at\n the Germany Information Offices for\n some tourist literature.\n\n\n It takes roughly three and a half\n hours to get to Gander from Idlewild.\n I spent the time planning the\n fun I was going to have.\n\n\n It takes roughly seven and a half\n hours from Gander to Shannon and\n I spent that time dreaming up material\n I could put into my reports to\n Mr. Oyster. I was going to have to\n give him some kind of report for his\n money. Time travel yet! What a\n laugh!\n\n\n Between Shannon and Munich a\n faint suspicion began to simmer in\n my mind. These statistics I read on\n the\nOktoberfest\nin the Munich tourist\n pamphlets. Five million people\n attended annually.\n\n\n Where did five million people\n come from to attend an overgrown\n festival in comparatively remote\n Southern Germany? The tourist season\n is over before September 21st,\n first day of the gigantic beer bust.\n Nor could the Germans account for\n any such number. Munich itself has\n a population of less than a million,\n counting children.\n\n\n And those millions of gallons of\n beer, the hundreds of thousands of\n chickens, the herds of oxen. Who\n ponied up all the money for such expenditures?\n How could the average\n German, with his twenty-five dollars\n a week salary?\n\n\n In Munich there was no hotel\n space available. I went to the Bahnhof\n where they have a hotel service\n and applied. They put my name\n down, pocketed the husky bribe,\n showed me where I could check my\n bag, told me they'd do what they\n could, and to report back in a few\n hours.\n\n\n I had another suspicious twinge.\n If five million people attended this\n beer bout, how were they accommodated?\n\n\n The\nTheresienwiese\n, the fair\n ground, was only a few blocks\n away. I was stiff from the plane ride\n so I walked.\nThere are seven major brewers in\n the Munich area, each of them represented\n by one of the circuslike tents\n that Mr. Oyster mentioned. Each tent\n contained benches and tables for\n about five thousand persons and from\n six to ten thousands pack themselves\n in, competing for room. In the center\n is a tremendous bandstand, the\n musicians all\nlederhosen\nclad, the\n music as Bavarian as any to be found\n in a Bavarian beer hall. Hundreds of\n peasant garbed\nfr\u00e4uleins\ndarted about\n the tables with quart sized earthenware\n mugs, platters of chicken, sausage,\n kraut and pretzels.\n\n\n I found a place finally at a table\n which had space for twenty-odd beer\n bibbers. Odd is right. As weird an\n assortment of Germans and foreign\n tourists as could have been dreamed\n up, ranging from a seventy- or\n eighty-year-old couple in Bavarian\n costume, to the bald-headed drunk\n across the table from me.\n\n\n A desperate waitress bearing six\n mugs of beer in each hand scurried\n past. They call them\nmasses\n, by the\n way, not mugs. The bald-headed\n character and I both held up a finger\n and she slid two of the\nmasses\nover\n to us and then hustled on.\n\n\n \"Down the hatch,\" the other said,\n holding up his\nmass\nin toast.\n\n\n \"To the ladies,\" I told him. Before\n sipping, I said, \"You know, the\n tourist pamphlets say this stuff is\n eighteen per cent. That's nonsense.\n No beer is that strong.\" I took a long\n pull.\n\n\n He looked at me, waiting.\n\n\n I came up. \"Mistaken,\" I admitted.\n\n\n A\nmass\nor two apiece later he looked\n carefully at the name engraved on\n his earthenware mug. \"L\u00f6wenbr\u00e4u,\"\n he said. He took a small notebook\n from his pocket and a pencil, noted\n down the word and returned the\n things.\n\n\n \"That's a queer looking pencil you\n have there,\" I told him. \"German?\"\n\n\n \"Venusian,\" he said. \"Oops, sorry.\n Shouldn't have said that.\"\n\n\n I had never heard of the brand so\n I skipped it.\n\n\n \"Next is the Hofbr\u00e4u,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Next what?\" Baldy's conversation\n didn't seem to hang together very\n well.\n\n\n \"My pilgrimage,\" he told me. \"All\n my life I've been wanting to go back\n to an\nOktoberfest\nand sample every\n one of the seven brands of the best\n beer the world has ever known. I'm\n only as far as L\u00f6wenbr\u00e4u. I'm afraid\n I'll never make it.\"\n\n\n I finished my\nmass\n. \"I'll help\n you,\" I told him. \"Very noble endeavor.\n Name is Simon.\"\n\n\n \"Arth,\" he said. \"How could you\n help?\"\n\n\n \"I'm still fresh\u2014comparatively.\n I'll navigate you around. There are\n seven beer tents. How many have you\n got through, so far?\"\n\n\n \"Two, counting this one,\" Arth\n said.\n\n\n I looked at him. \"It's going to be\n a chore,\" I said. \"You've already got\n a nice edge on.\"\n\n\n Outside, as we made our way to\n the next tent, the fair looked like\n every big State-Fair ever seen, except\n it was bigger. Games, souvenir\n stands, sausage stands, rides, side\n shows, and people, people, people.\n\n\n The Hofbr\u00e4u tent was as overflowing\n as the last but we managed to\n find two seats.\n\n\n The band was blaring, and five\n thousand half-swacked voices were\n roaring accompaniment.\nIn Muenchen steht ein Hofbr\u00e4uhaus!\nEins, Zwei, G'sufa!\nAt the\nG'sufa\neverybody upped\n with the mugs and drank each other's\n health.\n\n\n \"This is what I call a real beer\n bust,\" I said approvingly.\n\n\n Arth was waving to a waitress. As\n in the L\u00f6wenbr\u00e4u tent, a full quart\n was the smallest amount obtainable.\n\n\n A beer later I said, \"I don't know\n if you'll make it or not, Arth.\"\n\n\n \"Make what?\"\n\n\n \"All seven tents.\"\n\n\n \"Oh.\"\n\n\n A waitress was on her way by,\n mugs foaming over their rims. I gestured\n to her for refills.\n\n\n \"Where are you from, Arth?\" I\n asked him, in the way of making\n conversation.\n\n\n \"2183.\"\n\n\n \"2183 where?\"\n\n\n He looked at me, closing one eye\n to focus better. \"Oh,\" he said. \"Well,\n 2183 South Street, ah, New Albuquerque.\"\n\n\n \"New Albuquerque? Where's\n that?\"\n\n\n Arth thought about it. Took another\n long pull at the beer. \"Right\n across the way from old Albuquerque,\"\n he said finally. \"Maybe we\n ought to be getting on to the\n Pschorrbr\u00e4u tent.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe we ought to eat something\n first,\" I said. \"I'm beginning to feel\n this. We could get some of that barbecued\n ox.\"\n\n\n Arth closed his eyes in pain.\n \"Vegetarian,\" he said. \"Couldn't possibly\n eat meat. Barbarous. Ugh.\"\n\n\n \"Well, we need some nourishment,\"\n I said.\n\n\n \"There's supposed to be considerable\n nourishment in beer.\"\n\n\n That made sense. I yelled, \"\nFr\u00e4ulein!\n Zwei neu bier!\n\"\nSomewhere along in here the fog\n rolled in. When it rolled out again,\n I found myself closing one eye the\n better to read the lettering on my\n earthenware mug. It read Augustinerbr\u00e4u.\n Somehow we'd evidently\n navigated from one tent to another.\n\n\n Arth was saying, \"Where's your\n hotel?\"\n\n\n That seemed like a good question.\n I thought about it for a while. Finally\n I said, \"Haven't got one. Town's\n jam packed. Left my bag at the Bahnhof.\n I don't think we'll ever make\n it, Arth. How many we got to\n go?\"\n\n\n \"Lost track,\" Arth said. \"You can\n come home with me.\"\n\n\n We drank to that and the fog rolled\n in again.\n\n\n When the fog rolled out, it was\n daylight. Bright, glaring, awful daylight.\n I was sprawled, complete with\n clothes, on one of twin beds. On the\n other bed, also completely clothed,\n was Arth.\n\n\n That sun was too much. I stumbled\n up from the bed, staggered to\n the window and fumbled around for\n a blind or curtain. There was none.\n\n\n Behind me a voice said in horror,\n \"Who ... how ... oh,\nWodo\n,\n where'd you come from?\"\n\n\n I got a quick impression, looking\n out the window, that the Germans\n were certainly the most modern, futuristic\n people in the world. But I\n couldn't stand the light. \"Where's\n the shade,\" I moaned.\n\n\n Arth did something and the window\n went opaque.\n\n\n \"That's quite a gadget,\" I groaned.\n \"If I didn't feel so lousy, I'd\n appreciate it.\"\n\n\n Arth was sitting on the edge of\n the bed holding his bald head in his\n hands. \"I remember now,\" he sorrowed.\n \"You didn't have a hotel.\n What a stupidity. I'll be phased.\n Phased all the way down.\"\n\n\n \"You haven't got a handful of\n aspirin, have you?\" I asked him.\n\n\n \"Just a minute,\" Arth said, staggering\n erect and heading for what\n undoubtedly was a bathroom. \"Stay\n where you are. Don't move. Don't\n touch anything.\"\n\n\n \"All right,\" I told him plaintively.\n \"I'm clean. I won't mess up the\n place. All I've got is a hangover, not\n lice.\"\n\n\n Arth was gone. He came back in\n two or three minutes, box of pills in\n hand. \"Here, take one of these.\"\n\n\n I took the pill, followed it with a\n glass of water.\nAnd went out like a light.\n\n\n Arth was shaking my arm. \"Want\n another\nmass\n?\"\n\n\n The band was blaring, and five\n thousand half-swacked voices were\n roaring accompaniment.\nIn Muenchen steht ein Hofbr\u00e4uhaus!\nEins, Zwei, G'sufa!\nAt the\nG'sufa\neverybody upped\n with their king-size mugs and drank\n each other's health.\n\n\n My head was killing me. \"This is\n where I came in, or something,\" I\n groaned.\n\n\n Arth said, \"That was last night.\"\n He looked at me over the rim of his\n beer mug.\n\n\n Something, somewhere, was\n wrong. But I didn't care. I finished\n my\nmass\nand then remembered. \"I've\n got to get my bag. Oh, my head.\n Where did we spend last night?\"\n\n\n Arth said, and his voice sounded\n cautious, \"At my hotel, don't you remember?\"\n\n\n \"Not very well,\" I admitted. \"I\n feel lousy. I must have dimmed out.\n I've got to go to the Bahnhof and\n get my luggage.\"\n\n\n Arth didn't put up an argument\n on that. We said good-by and I could\n feel him watching after me as I pushed\n through the tables on the way\n out.\n\n\n At the Bahnhof they could do me\n no good. There were no hotel rooms\n available in Munich. The head was\n getting worse by the minute. The\n fact that they'd somehow managed\n to lose my bag didn't help. I worked\n on that project for at least a couple\n of hours. Not only wasn't the bag\n at the luggage checking station, but\n the attendant there evidently couldn't\n make heads nor tails of the check\n receipt. He didn't speak English and\n my high school German was inadequate,\n especially accompanied by a\n blockbusting hangover.\n\n\n I didn't get anywhere tearing my\n hair and complaining from one end\n of the Bahnhof to the other. I drew\n a blank on the bag.\n\n\n And the head was getting worse\n by the minute. I was bleeding to\n death through the eyes and instead\n of butterflies I had bats in my stomach.\n Believe me,\nnobody\nshould drink\n a gallon or more of Marzenbr\u00e4u.\nI decided the hell with it. I took\n a cab to the airport, presented my return\n ticket, told them I wanted to\n leave on the first obtainable plane to\n New York. I'd spent two days at the\nOktoberfest\n, and I'd had it.\n\n\n I got more guff there. Something\n was wrong with the ticket, wrong\n date or some such. But they fixed\n that up. I never was clear on what\n was fouled up, some clerk's error,\n evidently.\n\n\n The trip back was as uninteresting\n as the one over. As the hangover began\n to wear off\u2014a little\u2014I was almost\n sorry I hadn't been able to stay.\n If I'd only been able to get a room I\nwould\nhave stayed, I told myself.\n\n\n From Idlewild, I came directly to\n the office rather than going to my\n apartment. I figured I might as well\n check in with Betty.\n\n\n I opened the door and there I\n found Mr. Oyster sitting in the chair\n he had been occupying four\u2014or was\n it five\u2014days before when I'd left.\n I'd lost track of the time.\n\n\n I said to him, \"Glad you're here,\n sir. I can report. Ah, what was it\n you came for? Impatient to hear if\n I'd had any results?\" My mind was\n spinning like a whirling dervish in\n a revolving door. I'd spent a wad of\n his money and had nothing I could\n think of to show for it; nothing but\n the last stages of a grand-daddy\n hangover.\n\n\n \"Came for?\" Mr. Oyster snorted.\n \"I'm merely waiting for your girl to\n make out my receipt. I thought you\n had already left.\"\n\n\n \"You'll miss your plane,\" Betty\n said.\n\n\n There was suddenly a double dip\n of ice cream in my stomach. I walked\n over to my desk and looked down at\n the calendar.\n\n\n Mr. Oyster was saying something\n to the effect that if I didn't leave today,\n it would have to be tomorrow,\n that he hadn't ponied up that thousand\n dollars advance for anything\n less than immediate service. Stuffing\n his receipt in his wallet, he fussed\n his way out the door.\n\n\n I said to Betty hopefully, \"I suppose\n you haven't changed this calendar\n since I left.\"\n\n\n Betty said, \"What's the matter\n with you? You look funny. How did\n your clothes get so mussed? You tore\n the top sheet off that calendar yourself,\n not half an hour ago, just before\n this marble-missing client came\n in.\" She added, irrelevantly, \"Time\n travelers yet.\"\n\n\n I tried just once more. \"Uh, when\n did you first see this Mr. Oyster?\"\n\n\n \"Never saw him before in my\n life,\" she said. \"Not until he came\n in this morning.\"\n\n\n \"This morning,\" I said weakly.\n\n\n While Betty stared at me as though\n it was\nme\nthat needed candling by a\n head shrinker preparatory to being\n sent off to a pressure cooker, I fished\n in my pocket for my wallet, counted\n the contents and winced at the\n pathetic remains of the thousand.\n I said pleadingly, \"Betty, listen,\n how long ago did I go out that door\u2014on\n the way to the airport?\"\n\n\n \"You've been acting sick all morning.\n You went out that door about\n ten minutes ago, were gone about\n three minutes, and then came back.\"\n\"See here,\" Mr. Oyster said (interrupting\n Simon's story), \"did you\n say this was supposed to be amusing,\n young man? I don't find it so. In\n fact, I believe I am being ridiculed.\"\n\n\n Simon shrugged, put one hand to\n his forehead and said, \"That's only\n the first chapter. There are two\n more.\"\n\n\n \"I'm not interested in more,\" Mr.\n Oyster said. \"I suppose your point\n was to show me how ridiculous the\n whole idea actually is. Very well,\n you've done it. Confound it. However,\n I suppose your time, even when\n spent in this manner, has some value.\n Here is fifty dollars. And good day,\n sir!\"\n\n\n He slammed the door after him\n as he left.\n\n\n Simon winced at the noise, took\n the aspirin bottle from its drawer,\n took two, washed them down with\n water from the desk carafe.\n\n\n Betty looked at him admiringly.\n Came to her feet, crossed over and\n took up the fifty dollars. \"Week's\n wages,\" she said. \"I suppose that's\n one way of taking care of a crackpot.\n But I'm surprised you didn't\n take his money and enjoy that vacation\n you've been yearning about.\"\n\n\n \"I did,\" Simon groaned. \"Three\n times.\"\n\n\n Betty stared at him. \"You mean\u2014\"\n\n\n Simon nodded, miserably.\n\n\n She said, \"But\nSimon\n. Fifty thousand\n dollars bonus. If that story was\n true, you should have gone back\n again to Munich. If there was one\n time traveler, there might have\n been\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I keep telling you,\" Simon said\n bitterly, \"I went back there three\n times. There were hundreds of them.\n Probably thousands.\" He took a deep\n breath. \"Listen, we're just going to\n have to forget about it. They're not\n going to stand for the space-time\n continuum track being altered. If\n something comes up that looks like\n it might result in the track being\n changed, they set you right back at\n the beginning and let things start\u2014for\n you\u2014all over again. They just\n can't allow anything to come back\n from the future and change the\n past.\"\n\n\n \"You mean,\" Betty was suddenly\n furious at him, \"you've given up!\n Why this is the biggest thing\u2014 Why\n the fifty thousand dollars is nothing.\n The future! Just think!\"\n\n\n Simon said wearily, \"There's just\n one thing you can bring back with\n you from the future, a hangover compounded\n of a gallon or so of Marzenbr\u00e4u.\n What's more you can pile\n one on top of the other, and another\n on top of that!\"\n\n\n He shuddered. \"If you think I'm\n going to take another crack at this\n merry-go-round and pile a fourth\n hangover on the three I'm already\n nursing, all at once, you can think\n again.\"\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAstounding Science Fiction\nJune\n 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "23960": "... After a Few Words ...\nby Seaton McKettrig\nIllustrated by Summer\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog October 1962.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright\n on this publication was renewed.]\nThis is a science-fiction story. History is a science; the other\n part is, as all Americans know, the most fictional field we have\n today.\nHe settled himself comfortably in his seat, and carefully put the helmet\n on, pulling it down firmly until it was properly seated. For a moment,\n he could see nothing.\n\n\n Then his hand moved up and, with a flick of the wrist, lifted the visor.\n Ahead of him, in serried array, with lances erect and pennons flying,\n was the forward part of the column. Far ahead, he knew, were the Knights\n Templars, who had taken the advance. Behind the Templars rode the mailed\n knights of Brittany and Anjou. These were followed by King Guy of\n Jerusalem and the host of Poitou.\n\n\n He himself, Sir Robert de Bouain, was riding with the Norman and English\n troops, just behind the men of Poitou. Sir Robert turned slightly in his\n saddle. To his right, he could see the brilliant red-and-gold banner of\n the lion-hearted Richard of England\u2014\ngules, in pale three lions passant\n guardant or\n. Behind the standard-bearer, his great war horse moving\n with a steady, measured pace, his coronet of gold on his steel helm\n gleaming in the glaring desert sun, the lions of England on his\n firm-held shield, was the King himself.\n\n\n Further behind, the Knights Hospitallers protected the rear, guarding\n the column of the hosts of Christendom from harassment by the Bedouins.\n\n\n \"By our Lady!\" came a voice from his left. \"Three days out from Acre,\n and the accursed Saracens still elude us.\"\n\n\n Sir Robert de Bouain twisted again in his saddle to look at the knight\n riding alongside him. Sir Gaeton de l'Arc-Tomb\u00e9 sat tall and straight in\n his saddle, his visor up, his blue eyes narrowed against the glare of\n the sun.\n\n\n Sir Robert's lips formed a smile. \"They are not far off, Sir Gaeton.\n They have been following us. As we march parallel to the seacoast, so\n they have been marching with us in those hills to the east.\"\n\n\n \"Like the jackals they are,\" said Sir Gaeton. \"They assail us from the\n rear, and they set up traps in our path ahead. Our spies tell us that\n the Turks lie ahead of us in countless numbers. And yet, they fear to\n face us in open battle.\"\n\n\n \"Is it fear, or are they merely gathering their forces?\"\n\n\n \"Both,\" said Sir Gaeton flatly. \"They fear us, else they would not dally\n to amass so fearsome a force. If, as our informers tell us, there are\n uncounted Turks to the fore, and if, as we are aware, our rear is being\n dogged by the Bedouin and the black horsemen of Egypt, it would seem\n that Saladin has at hand more than enough to overcome us, were they all\n truly Christian knights.\"\n\n\n \"Give them time. We must wait for their attack, sir knight. It were\n foolhardy to attempt to seek them in their own hills, and yet they must\n stop us. They will attack before we reach Jerusalem, fear not.\"\n\n\n \"We of Gascony fear no heathen Musselman,\" Sir Gaeton growled. \"It's\n this Hellish heat that is driving me mad.\" He pointed toward the eastern\n hills. \"The sun is yet low, and already the heat is unbearable.\"\n\n\n Sir Robert heard his own laugh echo hollowly within his helmet. \"Perhaps\n 'twere better to be mad when the assault comes. Madmen fight better than\n men of cooler blood.\" He knew that the others were baking inside their\n heavy armor, although he himself was not too uncomfortable.\n\n\n Sir Gaeton looked at him with a smile that held both irony and respect.\n \"In truth, sir knight, it is apparent that you fear neither men nor\n heat. Nor is your own blood too cool. True, I ride with your Normans and\n your English and your King Richard of the Lion's Heart, but I am a\n Gascon, and have sworn no fealty to him. But to side with the Duke of\n Burgundy against King Richard\u2014\" He gave a short, barking laugh. \"I\n fear no man,\" he went on, \"but if I had to fear one, it would be Richard\n of England.\"\n\n\n Sir Robert's voice came like a sword: steely, flat, cold, and sharp. \"My\n lord the King spoke in haste. He has reason to be bitter against Philip\n of France, as do we all. Philip has deserted the field. He has returned\n to France in haste, leaving the rest of us to fight the Saracen for the\n Holy Land leaving only the contingent of his vassal the Duke of Burgundy\n to remain with us.\"\n\n\n \"Richard of England has never been on the best of terms with Philip\n Augustus,\" said Sir Gaeton.\n\n\n \"No, and with good cause. But he allowed his anger against Philip to\n color his judgment when he spoke harshly against the Duke of Burgundy.\n The Duke is no coward, and Richard Plantagenet well knows it. As I said,\n he spoke in haste.\"\n\n\n \"And you intervened,\" said Sir Gaeton.\n\n\n \"It was my duty.\" Sir Robert's voice was stubborn. \"Could we have\n permitted a quarrel to develop between the two finest knights and\n warleaders in Christendom at this crucial point? The desertion of Philip\n of France has cost us dearly. Could we permit the desertion of Burgundy,\n too?\"\n\n\n \"You did what must be done in honor,\" the Gascon conceded, \"but you have\n not gained the love of Richard by doing so.\"\n\n\n Sir Robert felt his jaw set firmly. \"My king knows I am loyal.\"\n\n\n Sir Gaeton said nothing more, but there was a look in his eyes that\n showed that he felt that Richard of England might even doubt the loyalty\n of Sir Robert de Bouain.\nSir Robert rode on in silence, feeling the movement of the horse beneath\n him.\n\n\n There was a sudden sound to the rear. Like a wash of the tide from the\n sea came the sound of Saracen war cries and the clash of steel on steel\n mingled with the sounds of horses in agony and anger.\n\n\n Sir Robert turned his horse to look.\n\n\n The Negro troops of Saladin's Egyptian contingent were thundering down\n upon the rear! They clashed with the Hospitallers, slamming in like a\n rain of heavy stones, too close in for the use of bows. There was only\n the sword against armor, like the sound of a thousand hammers against a\n thousand anvils.\n\n\n \"Stand fast! Stand fast! Hold them off!\" It was the voice of King\n Richard, sounding like a clarion over the din of battle.\n\n\n Sir Robert felt his horse move, as though it were urging him on toward\n the battle, but his hand held to the reins, keeping the great charger in\n check. The King had said \"Stand fast!\" and this was no time to disobey\n the orders of Richard.\n\n\n The Saracen troops were coming in from the rear, and the Hospitallers\n were taking the brunt of the charge. They fought like madmen, but they\n were slowly being forced back.\n\n\n The Master of the Hospitallers rode to the rear, to the King's standard,\n which hardly moved in the still desert air, now that the column had\n stopped moving.\n\n\n The voice of the Duke of Burgundy came to Sir Robert's ears.\n\n\n \"Stand fast. The King bids you all to stand fast,\" said the duke, his\n voice fading as he rode on up the column toward the knights of Poitou\n and the Knights Templars.\n\n\n The Master of the Hospitallers was speaking in a low, urgent voice to\n the King: \"My lord, we are pressed on by the enemy and in danger of\n eternal infamy. We are losing our horses, one after the other!\"\n\n\n \"Good Master,\" said Richard, \"it is you who must sustain their attack.\n No one can be everywhere at once.\"\n\n\n The Master of the Hospitallers nodded curtly and charged back into the\n fray.\n\n\n The King turned to Sir Baldwin de Carreo, who sat ahorse nearby, and\n pointed toward the eastern hills. \"They will come from there, hitting us\n in the flank; we cannot afford to amass a rearward charge. To do so\n would be to fall directly into the hands of the Saracen.\"\n\n\n A voice very close to Sir Robert said: \"Richard is right. If we go to\n the aid of the Hospitallers, we will expose the column to a flank\n attack.\" It was Sir Gaeton.\n\n\n \"My lord the King,\" Sir Robert heard his voice say, \"is right in all but\n one thing. If we allow the Egyptians to take us from the rear, there\n will be no need for Saladin and his Turks to come down on our flank. And\n the Hospitallers cannot hold for long at this rate. A charge at full\n gallop would break the Egyptian line and give the Hospitallers breathing\n time. Are you with me?\"\n\n\n \"Against the orders of the King?\"\n\n\n \"The King cannot see everything! There are times when a man must use his\n own judgment! You said you were afraid of no man. Are you with me?\"\n\n\n After a moment's hesitation, Sir Gaeton couched his lance. \"I'm with\n you, sir knight! Live or die, I follow! Strike and strike hard!\"\n\n\n \"Forward then!\" Sir Robert heard himself shouting. \"Forward for St.\n George and for England!\"\n\n\n \"St. George and England!\" the Gascon echoed.\nTwo great war horses began to move ponderously forward toward the battle\n lines, gaining momentum as they went. Moving in unison, the two knights,\n their horses now at a fast trot, lowered their lances, picking their\n Saracen targets with care. Larger and larger loomed the Egyptian\n cavalrymen as the horses changed pace to a thundering gallop.\n\n\n The Egyptians tried to dodge, as they saw, too late, the approach of the\n Christian knights.\n\n\n Sir Robert felt the shock against himself and his horse as the steel tip\n of the long ash lance struck the Saracen horseman in the chest. Out of\n the corner of his eye, he saw that Sir Gaeton, too, had scored.\n\n\n The Saracen, impaled on Sir Robert's lance, shot from the saddle as he\n died. His lighter armor had hardly impeded the incoming spear-point, and\n now his body dragged it down as he dropped toward the desert sand.\n Another Moslem cavalryman was charging in now, swinging his curved\n saber, taking advantage of Sir Robert's sagging lance.\n\n\n There was nothing else to do but drop the lance and draw his heavy\n broadsword. His hand grasped it, and it came singing from its scabbard.\n\n\n The Egyptian's curved sword clanged against Sir Robert's helm, setting\n his head ringing. In return, the knight's broadsword came about in a\n sweeping arc, and the Egyptian's horse rode on with the rider's headless\n body.\n\n\n Behind him, Sir Robert heard further cries of \"St. George and England!\"\n\n\n The Hospitallers, taking heart at the charge, were going in! Behind them\n came the Count of Champagne, the Earl of Leister, and the Bishop of\n Beauvais, who carried a great warhammer in order that he might not break\n Church Law by shedding blood.\n\n\n Sir Robert's own sword rose and fell, cutting and hacking at the enemy.\n He himself felt a dreamlike detachment, as though he were watching the\n battle rather than participating in it.\n\n\n But he could see that the Moslems were falling back before the Christian\n onslaught.\n\n\n And then, quite suddenly, there seemed to be no foeman to swing at.\n Breathing heavily, Sir Robert sheathed his broadsword.\n\n\n Beside him, Sir Gaeton did the same, saying: \"It will be a few minutes\n before they can regroup, sir knight. We may have routed them\n completely.\"\n\n\n \"Aye. But King Richard will not approve of my breaking ranks and\n disobeying orders. I may win the battle and lose my head in the end.\"\n\n\n \"This is no time to worry about the future,\" said the Gascon. \"Rest for\n a moment and relax, that you may be the stronger later. Here\u2014have an\nOld Kings\n.\"\n\n\n He had a pack of cigarettes in his gauntleted hand, which he profferred\n to Sir Robert. There were three cigarettes protruding from it, one\n slightly farther than the others. Sir Robert's hand reached out and took\n that one.\n\n\n \"Thanks. When the going gets rough, I really enjoy an\nOld Kings\n.\"\n\n\n He put one end of the cigarette in his mouth and lit the other from the\n lighter in Sir Gaeton's hand.\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" said Sir Gaeton, after lighting his own cigarette, \"\nOld\n Kings\nare the greatest. They give a man real, deep-down smoking\n pleasure.\"\n\n\n \"There's no doubt about it,\nOld Kings\nare a\nman's\ncigarette.\" Sir\n Robert could feel the soothing smoke in his lungs as he inhaled deeply.\n \"That's great. When I want a cigarette, I don't want just\nany\ncigarette.\"\n\n\n \"Nor I,\" agreed the Gascon. \"\nOld Kings\nis the only real cigarette when\n you're doing a real\nman's\nwork.\"\n\n\n \"That's for sure.\" Sir Robert watched a smoke ring expand in the air.\n\n\n There was a sudden clash of arms off to their left. Sir Robert dropped\n his cigarette to the ground. \"The trouble is that doing a real he-man's\n work doesn't always allow you to enjoy the fine, rich tobaccos of\nOld\n Kings\nright down to the very end.\"\n\n\n \"No, but you can always light another later,\" said the Gascon knight.\nKing Richard, on seeing his army moving suddenly toward the harassed\n rear, had realized the danger and had charged through the Hospitallers\n to get into the thick of the fray. Now the Turks were charging down from\n the hills, hitting\u2014not the flank as he had expected, but the rear!\n Saladin had expected him to hold fast!\n\n\n Sir Robert and Sir Gaeton spurred their chargers toward the flapping\n banner of England.\n\n\n The fierce warrior-king of England, his mighty sword in hand, was\n cutting down Turks as though they were grain-stalks, but still the\n Saracen horde pressed on. More and more of the terrible Turks came\n boiling down out of the hills, their glittering scimitars swinging.\n\n\n Sir Robert lost all track of time. There was nothing to do but keep his\n own great broadsword moving, swinging like some gigantic metronome as he\n hacked down the Moslem foes.\n\n\n And then, suddenly, he found himself surrounded by the Saracens! He was\n isolated and alone, cut off from the rest of the Christian forces! He\n glanced quickly around as he slashed another Saracen from pate to\n breastbone. Where was Sir Gaeton? Where were the others? Where was the\n red-and-gold banner of Richard?\n\n\n He caught a glimpse of the fluttering banner far to the rear and started\n to fall back.\n\n\n And then he saw another knight nearby, a huge man who swung his\n sparkling blade with power and force. On his steel helm gleamed a golden\n coronet! Richard!\n\n\n And the great king, in spite of his prowess was outnumbered heavily and\n would, within seconds, be cut down by the Saracen horde!\n\n\n Without hesitation, Sir Robert plunged his horse toward the surrounded\n monarch, his great blade cutting a path before him.\n\n\n He saw Richard go down, falling from the saddle of his charger, but by\n that time his own sword was cutting into the screaming Saracens and\n they had no time to attempt any further mischief to the King. They had\n their hands full with Sir Robert de Bouain.\n\n\n He did not know how long he fought there, holding his charger motionless\n over the inert body of the fallen king, hewing down the screaming enemy,\n but presently he heard the familiar cry of \"For St. George and for\n England\" behind him. The Norman and English troops were charging in,\n bringing with them the banner of England!\n\n\n And then Richard was on his feet, cleaving the air about him with his\n own broadsword. Its bright edge, besmeared with Saracen blood, was\n biting viciously into the foe.\n\n\n The Turks began to fall back. Within seconds, the Christian knights were\n boiling around the embattled pair, forcing the Turks into retreat. And\n for the second time, Sir Robert found himself with no one to fight.\n\n\n And then a voice was saying: \"You have done well this day, sir knight.\n Richard Plantagenet will not forget.\"\n\n\n Sir Robert turned in his saddle to face the smiling king.\n\n\n \"My lord king, be assured that I would never forget my loyalty to my\n sovereign and liege lord. My sword and my life are yours whenever you\n call.\"\n\n\n King Richard's gauntleted hand grasped his own. \"If it please God, I\n shall never ask your life. An earldom awaits you when we return to\n England, sir knight.\"\n\n\n And then the king mounted his horse and was running full gallop after\n the retreating Saracens.\nRobert took off his helmet.\n\n\n He blinked for a second to adjust his eyes to the relative dimness of\n the studio. After the brightness of the desert that the televicarion\n helmet had projected into his eyes, the studio seemed strangely\n cavelike.\n\n\n \"How'd you like it, Bob?\" asked one of the two producers of the show.\n\n\n Robert Bowen nodded briskly and patted the televike helmet. \"It was\n O.K.,\" he said. \"Good show. A little talky at the beginning, and it\n needs a better fade-out, but the action scenes were fine. The sponsor\n ought to like it\u2014for a while, at least.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean, 'for a while'?\"\n\n\n Robert Bowen sighed. \"If this thing goes on the air the way it is, he'll\n lose sales.\"\n\n\n \"Why? Commercial not good enough?\"\n\n\n \"\nToo\ngood! Man, I've smoked\nOld Kings\n, and, believe me, the real\n thing never tasted as good as that cigarette did in the commercial!\"",
    "24150": "DISTURBING SUN\nBy PHILIP LATHAM\nIllustrated by Freas\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science\n Fiction May 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThis, be it understood, is fiction\u2014nothing but fiction\u2014and not,\n under any circumstances, to be considered as having any truth\n whatever to it. It's obviously utterly impossible ... isn't it?\nAn interview with Dr. I. M. Niemand, Director of the Psychophysical\n Institute of Solar and Terrestrial Relations, Camarillo, California.\nIn the closing days of December, 1957, at the meeting of the American\n Association for the Advancement of Science in New York, Dr. Niemand\n delivered a paper entitled simply, \"On the Nature of the Solar\n S-Regions.\" Owing to its unassuming title the startling implications\n contained in the paper were completely overlooked by the press. These\n implications are discussed here in an exclusive interview with Dr.\n Niemand by Philip Latham.\nLATHAM. Dr. Niemand, what would you say is your main job?\n\n\n NIEMAND. I suppose you might say my main job today is to find out all I\n can between activity on the Sun and various forms of activity on the\n Earth.\n\n\n LATHAM. What do you mean by activity on the Sun?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Well, a sunspot is a form of solar activity.\n\n\n LATHAM. Just what is a sunspot?\n\n\n NIEMAND. I'm afraid I can't say just what a sunspot is. I can only\n describe it. A sunspot is a region on the Sun that is cooler than its\n surroundings. That's why it looks dark. It isn't so hot. Therefore not\n so bright.\n\n\n LATHAM. Isn't it true that the number of spots on the Sun rises and\n falls in a cycle of eleven years?\n\n\n NIEMAND. The number of spots on the Sun rises and falls in a cycle of\nabout\neleven years. That word\nabout\nmakes quite a difference.\n\n\n LATHAM. In what way?\n\n\n NIEMAND. It means you can only approximately predict the future course\n of sunspot activity. Sunspots are mighty treacherous things.\n\n\n LATHAM. Haven't there been a great many correlations announced between\n sunspots and various effects on the Earth?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Scores of them.\n\n\n LATHAM. What is your opinion of these correlations?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Pure bosh in most cases.\n\n\n LATHAM. But some are valid?\n\n\n NIEMAND. A few. There is unquestionably a correlation between\n sunspots and disturbances of the Earth's magnetic field ... radio\n fade-outs ... auroras ... things like that.\n\n\n LATHAM. Now, Dr. Niemand, I understand that you have been investigating\n solar and terrestrial relationships along rather unorthodox lines.\n\n\n NIEMAND. Yes, I suppose some people would say so.\n\n\n LATHAM. You have broken new ground?\n\n\n NIEMAND. That's true.\n\n\n LATHAM. In what way have your investigations differed from those of\n others?\n\n\n NIEMAND. I think our biggest advance was the discovery that sunspots\n themselves are not the direct cause of the disturbances we have been\n studying on the Earth. It's something like the eruptions in rubeola.\n Attention is concentrated on the bright red papules because they're such\n a conspicuous symptom of the disease. Whereas the real cause is an\n invisible filterable virus. In the solar case it turned out to be these\n S-Regions.\n\n\n LATHAM. Why S-Regions?\n\n\n NIEMAND. We had to call them something. Named after the Sun, I suppose.\n\n\n LATHAM. You say an S-Region is invisible?\n\n\n NIEMAND. It is quite invisible to the eye but readily detected by\n suitable instrumental methods. It is extremely doubtful, however, if the\n radiation we detect is the actual cause of the disturbing effects\n observed.\n\n\n LATHAM. Just what are these effects?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Well, they're common enough, goodness knows. As old as the\n world, in fact. Yet strangely enough it's hard to describe them in exact\n terms.\n\n\n LATHAM. Can you give us a general idea?\n\n\n NIEMAND. I'll try. Let's see ... remember that speech from \"Julius\n Caesar\" where Cassius is bewailing the evil times that beset ancient\n Rome? I believe it went like this: \"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in\n our stars but in ourselves that we are underlings.\"\n\n\n LATHAM. I'm afraid I don't see\u2014\n\n\n NIEMAND. Well, Shakespeare would have been nearer the truth if he had\n put it the other way around. \"The fault, dear Brutus, is not in\n ourselves but in our stars\" or better \"in the Sun.\"\nLATHAM. In the Sun?\n\n\n NIEMAND. That's right, in the Sun. I suppose the oldest problem in the\n world is the origin of human evil. Philosophers have wrestled with it\n ever since the days of Job. And like Job they have usually given up in\n despair, convinced that the origin of evil is too deep for the human\n mind to solve. Generally they have concluded that man is inherently\n wicked and sinful and that is the end of it. Now for the first time\n science has thrown new light on this subject.\n\n\n LATHAM. How is that?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Consider the record of history. There are occasional periods\n when conditions are fairly calm and peaceful. Art and industry\n flourished. Man at last seemed to be making progress toward some higher\n goal. Then suddenly\u2014\nfor no detectable reason\n\u2014conditions are\n reversed. Wars rage. People go mad. The world is plunged into an orgy of\n bloodshed and misery.\n\n\n LATHAM. But weren't there reasons?\n\n\n NIEMAND. What reasons?\n\n\n LATHAM. Well, disputes over boundaries ... economic rivalry ... border\n incidents....\n\n\n NIEMAND. Nonsense. Men always make some flimsy excuse for going to war.\n The truth of the matter is that men go to war because they want to go\n to war. They can't help themselves. They are impelled by forces over\n which they have no control. By forces outside of themselves.\n\n\n LATHAM. Those are broad, sweeping statements. Can't you be more\n specific?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Perhaps I'd better go back to the beginning. Let me see.... It\n all started back in March, 1955, when I started getting patients\n suffering from a complex of symptoms, such as profound mental\n depression, anxiety, insomnia, alternating with fits of violent rage and\n resentment against life and the world in general. These people were\n deeply disturbed. No doubt about that. Yet they were not psychotic and\n hardly more than mildly neurotic. Now every doctor gets a good many\n patients of this type. Such a syndrome is characteristic of menopausal\n women and some men during the climacteric, but these people failed to\n fit into this picture. They were married and single persons of both\n sexes and of all ages. They came from all walks of life. The onset of\n their attack was invariably sudden and with scarcely any warning. They\n would be going about their work feeling perfectly all right. Then in a\n minute the whole world was like some scene from a nightmare. A week or\n ten days later the attack would cease as mysteriously as it had come and\n they would be their old self again.\n\n\n LATHAM. Aren't such attacks characteristic of the stress and strain of\n modern life?\n\n\n NIEMAND. I'm afraid that old stress-and-strain theory has been badly\n overworked. Been hearing about it ever since I was a pre-med student at\n ucla\n . Even as a boy I can remember my grandfather deploring the stress\n and strain of modern life when he was a country doctor practicing in\n Indiana. In my opinion one of the most valuable contributions\n anthropologists have made in recent years is the discovery that\n primitive man is afflicted with essentially the same neurotic conditions\n as those of us who live a so-called civilized life. They have found\n savages displaying every symptom of a nervous breakdown among the\n mountain tribes of the Elgonyi and the Aruntas of Australia. No, Mr.\n Latham, it's time the stress-and-strain theory was relegated to the junk\n pile along with demoniac possession and blood letting.\n\n\n LATHAM. You must have done something for your patients\u2014\n\n\n NIEMAND. A doctor must always do something for the patients who come to\n his office seeking help. First I gave them a thorough physical\n examination. I turned up some minor ailments\u2014a slight heart murmur or a\n trace of albumin in the urine\u2014but nothing of any significance. On the\n whole they were a remarkably healthy bunch of individuals, much more so\n than an average sample of the population. Then I made a searching\n inquiry into their personal life. Here again I drew a blank. They had no\n particular financial worries. Their sex life was generally satisfactory.\n There was no history of mental illness in the family. In fact, the only\n thing that seemed to be the matter with them was that there were times\n when they felt like hell.\n\n\n LATHAM. I suppose you tried tranquilizers?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Oh, yes. In a few cases in which I tried tranquilizing pills of\n the meprobamate type there was some slight improvement. I want to\n emphasize, however, that I do not believe in prescribing shotgun\n remedies for a patient. To my way of thinking it is a lazy slipshod way\n of carrying on the practice of medicine. The only thing for which I do\n give myself credit was that I asked my patients to keep a detailed\n record of their symptoms taking special care to note the time of\n exacerbation\u2014increase in the severity of the symptoms\u2014as accurately as\n possible.\n\n\n LATHAM. And this gave you a clue?\n\n\n NIEMAND. It was the beginning. In most instances patients reported the\n attack struck with almost the impact of a physical blow. The prodromal\n symptoms were usually slight ... a sudden feeling of uneasiness and\n guilt ... hot and cold flashes ... dizziness ... double vision. Then\n this ghastly sense of depression coupled with a blind insensate rage at\n life. One man said he felt as if the world were closing in on him.\n Another that he felt the people around him were plotting his\n destruction. One housewife made her husband lock her in her room for\n fear she would injure the children. I pored over these case histories\n for a long time getting absolutely nowhere. Then finally a pattern began\n to emerge.\nLATHAM. What sort of pattern?\n\n\n NIEMAND. The first thing that struck me was that the attacks all\n occurred during the daytime, between the hours of about seven in the\n morning and five in the evening. Then there were these coincidences\u2014\n\n\n LATHAM. Coincidences?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Total strangers miles apart were stricken at almost the same\n moment. At first I thought nothing of it but as my records accumulated I\n became convinced it could not be attributed to chance. A mathematical\n analysis showed the number of coincidences followed a Poisson\n distribution very closely. I couldn't possibly see what daylight had to\n do with it. There is some evidence that mental patients are most\n disturbed around the time of full moon, but a search of medical\n literature failed to reveal any connection with the Sun.\n\n\n LATHAM. What did you do?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Naturally I said nothing of this to my patients. I did,\n however, take pains to impress upon them the necessity of keeping an\n exact record of the onset of an attack. The better records they kept the\n more conclusive was the evidence. Men and women were experiencing nearly\n simultaneous attacks of rage and depression all over southern\n California, which was as far as my practice extended. One day it\n occurred to me: if people a few miles apart could be stricken\n simultaneously, why not people hundreds or thousands of miles apart? It\n was this idea that prompted me to get in touch with an old colleague of\n mine I had known at UC medical school, Dr. Max Hillyard, who was in\n practice in Utica, New York.\n\n\n LATHAM. With what result?\n\n\n NIEMAND. I was afraid the result would be that my old roommate would\n think I had gone completely crazy. Imagine my surprise and gratification\n on receiving an answer by return mail to the effect that he also had\n been getting an increasing number of patients suffering with the same\n identical symptoms as my own. Furthermore, upon exchanging records we\ndid\nfind that in many cases patients three thousand miles apart had\n been stricken simultaneously\u2014\n\n\n LATHAM. Just a minute. I would like to know how you define\n \"simultaneous.\"\n\n\n NIEMAND. We say an attack is simultaneous when one occurred on the east\n coast, for example, not earlier or later than five minutes of an attack\n on the west coast. That is about as close as you can hope to time a\n subjective effect of this nature. And now another fact emerged which\n gave us another clue.\n\n\n LATHAM. Which was?\n\n\n NIEMAND. In every case of a simultaneous attack the Sun was shining at\n both New York and California.\n\n\n LATHAM. You mean if it was cloudy\u2014\n\n\n NIEMAND. No, no. The weather had nothing to do with it. I mean the Sun\n had to be above the horizon at both places. A person might undergo an\n attack soon after sunrise in New York but there would be no\n corresponding record of an attack in California where it was still dark.\n Conversely, a person might be stricken late in the afternoon in\n California without a corresponding attack in New York where the Sun had\n set. Dr. Hillyard and I had been searching desperately for a clue. We\n had both noticed that the attacks occurred only during the daylight\n hours but this had not seemed especially significant. Here we had\n evidence pointing directly to the source of trouble. It must have some\n connection with the Sun.\n\n\n LATHAM. That must have had you badly puzzled at first.\n\n\n NIEMAND. It certainly did. It looked as if we were headed back to the\n Middle Ages when astrology and medicine went hand in hand. But since it\n was our only lead we had no other choice but to follow it regardless of\n the consequences. Here luck played somewhat of a part, for Hillyard\n happened to have a contact that proved invaluable to us. Several years\n before Hillyard had gotten to know a young astrophysicist, Henry\n Middletown, who had come to him suffering from a severe case of myositis\n in the arms and shoulders. Hillyard had been able to effect a complete\n cure for which the boy was very grateful, and they had kept up a\n desultory correspondence. Middletown was now specializing in radio\n astronomy at the government's new solar observatory on Turtle Back\n Mountain in Arizona. If it had not been for Middletown's help I'm afraid\n our investigation would never have gotten past the clinical stage.\n\n\n LATHAM. In what way was Middletown of assistance?\n\n\n NIEMAND. It was the old case of workers in one field of science being\n completely ignorant of what was going on in another field. Someday we\n will have to establish a clearing house in science instead of keeping it\n in tight little compartments as we do at present. Well, Hillyard and I\n packed up for Arizona with considerable misgivings. We were afraid\n Middletown wouldn't take our findings seriously but somewhat to our\n surprise he heard our story with the closest attention. I guess\n astronomers have gotten so used to hearing from flying saucer\n enthusiasts and science-fiction addicts that nothing surprises them any\n more. When we had finished he asked to see our records. Hillyard had\n them all set down for easy numerical tabulation. Middletown went to work\n with scarcely a word. Within an hour he had produced a chart that was\n simply astounding.\nLATHAM. Can you describe this chart for us?\n\n\n NIEMAND. It was really quite simple. But if it had not been for\n Middletown's experience in charting other solar phenomena it would never\n have occurred to us to do it. First, he laid out a series of about\n thirty squares horizontally across a sheet of graph paper. He dated\n these beginning March 1, 1955, when our records began. In each square he\n put a number from 1 to 10 that was a rough index of the number and\n intensity of the attacks reported on that day. Then he laid out another\n horizontal row below the first one dated twenty-seven days later. That\n is, the square under March 1st in the top row was dated March 28th in\n the row below it. He filled in the chart until he had an array of dozens\n of rows that included all our data down to May, 1958.\n\n\n When Middletown had finished it was easy to see that the squares of\n highest index number did not fall at random on the chart. Instead they\n fell in slightly slanting parallel series so that you could draw\n straight lines down through them. The connection with the Sun was\n obvious.\n\n\n LATHAM. In what way?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Why, because twenty-seven days is about the synodic period of\n solar rotation. That is, if you see a large spot at the center of the\n Sun's disk today, there is a good chance if it survives that you will\n see it at the same place twenty-seven days later. But that night\n Middletown produced another chart that showed the connection with the\n Sun in a way that was even more convincing.\n\n\n LATHAM. How was that?\n\n\n NIEMAND. I said that the lines drawn down through the days of greatest\n mental disturbance slanted slightly. On this second chart the squares\n were dated under one another not at intervals of twenty-seven days, but\n at intervals of twenty-seven point three days.\n\n\n LATHAM. Why is that so important?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Because the average period of solar rotation in the sunspot\n zone is not twenty-seven days but twenty-seven point three days. And on\n this chart the lines did not slant but went vertically downward. The\n correlation with the synodic rotation of the Sun was practically\n perfect.\n\n\n LATHAM. But how did you get onto the S-Regions?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Middletown was immediately struck by the resemblance between\n the chart of mental disturbance and one he had been plotting over the\n years from his radio observations. Now when he compared the two charts\n the resemblance between the two was unmistakable. The pattern shown by\n the chart of mental disturbance corresponded in a striking way with the\n solar chart but with this difference. The disturbances on the Earth\n started two days later on the average than the disturbances due to the\n S-Regions on the Sun. In other words, there was a lag of about\n forty-eight hours between the two. But otherwise they were almost\n identical.\n\n\n LATHAM. But if these S-Regions of Middletown's are invisible how could\n he detect them?\n\n\n NIEMAND. The S-Regions are invisible to the eye through an\noptical\ntelescope, but are detected with ease by a\nradio\ntelescope. Middletown\n had discovered them when he was a graduate student working on radio\n astronomy in Australia, and he had followed up his researches with the\n more powerful equipment at Turtle Back Mountain. The formation of an\n S-Region is heralded by a long series of bursts of a few seconds\n duration, when the radiation may increase up to several thousand times\n that of the background intensity. These noise storms have been recorded\n simultaneously on wavelengths of from one to fifteen meters, which so\n far is the upper limit of the observations. In a few instances, however,\n intense bursts have also been detected down to fifty cm.\n\n\n LATHAM. I believe you said the periods of mental disturbance last for\n about ten or twelve days. How does that tie-in with the S-Regions?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Very closely. You see it takes about twelve days for an\n S-Region to pass across the face of the Sun, since the synodic rotation\n is twenty-seven point three days.\n\n\n LATHAM. I should think it would be nearer thirteen or fourteen days.\n\n\n NIEMAND. Apparently an S-Region is not particularly effective when it is\n just coming on or just going off the disk of the Sun.\n\n\n LATHAM. Are the S-Regions associated with sunspots?\n\n\n NIEMAND. They are connected in this way: that sunspot activity and\n S-Region activity certainly go together. The more sunspots the more\n violent and intense is the S-Region activity. But there is not a\n one-to-one correspondence between sunspots and S-Regions. That is, you\n cannot connect a particular sunspot group with a particular S-Region.\n The same thing is true of sunspots and magnetic storms.\n\n\n LATHAM. How do you account for this?\n\n\n NIEMAND. We don't account for it.\nLATHAM. What other properties of the S-Regions have you discovered?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Middletown says that the radio waves emanating from them are\n strongly circularly polarized. Moreover, the sense of rotation remains\n constant while one is passing across the Sun. If the magnetic field\n associated with an S-Region extends into the high solar corona through\n which the rays pass, then the sense of rotation corresponds to the\n ordinary ray of the magneto-ionic theory.\n\n\n LATHAM. Does this mean that the mental disturbances arise from some form\n of electromagnetic radiation?\n\n\n NIEMAND. We doubt it. As I said before, the charts show a lag of about\n forty-eight hours between the development of an S-Region and the onset\n of mental disturbance. This indicates that the malignant energy\n emanating from an S-Region consists of some highly penetrating form of\n corpuscular radiation, as yet unidentified.\n [A]\n\n\n LATHAM. A question that puzzles me is why some people are affected by\n the S-Regions while others are not.\n\n\n NIEMAND. Our latest results indicate that probably\nno one\nis\n completely immune. All are affected in\nsome\ndegree. Just why some\n should be affected so much more than others is still a matter of\n speculation.\n\n\n LATHAM. How long does an S-Region last?\n\n\n NIEMAND. An S-Region may have a lifetime of from three to perhaps a\n dozen solar rotations. Then it dies out and for a time we are free from\n this malignant radiation. Then a new region develops in perhaps an\n entirely different region of the Sun. Sometimes there may be several\n different S-Regions all going at once.\n\n\n LATHAM. Why were not the S-Regions discovered long ago?\n\n\n NIEMAND. Because the radio exploration of the Sun only began since the\n end of World War II.\n\n\n LATHAM. How does it happen that you only got patients suffering from\n S-radiation since about 1955?\n\n\n NIEMAND. I think we did get such patients previously but not in large\n enough numbers to attract attention. Also the present sunspot cycle\n started its rise to maximum about 1954.\n\n\n LATHAM. Is there no way of escaping the S-radiation?\n\n\n NIEMAND. I'm afraid the only sure way is to keep on the unilluminated\n side of the Earth which is rather difficult to do. Apparently the\n corpuscular beam from an S-Region is several degrees wide and not very\n sharply defined, since its effects are felt simultaneously over the\n entire continent. Hillyard and Middletown are working on some form of\n shielding device but so far without success.\n\n\n LATHAM. What is the present state of S-Region activity?\n\n\n NIEMAND. At the present moment there happens to be no S-Region activity\n on the Sun. But a new one may develop at any time. Also, the outlook for\n a decrease in activity is not very favorable. Sunspot activity continues\n at a high level and is steadily mounting in violence. The last sunspot\n cycle had the highest maximum of any since 1780, but the present cycle\n bids fair to set an all time record.\n\n\n LATHAM. And so you believe that the S-Regions are the cause of most of\n the present trouble in the world. That it is not ourselves but something\n outside ourselves\u2014\n\n\n NIEMAND. That is the logical outcome of our investigation. We are\n controlled and swayed by forces which in many cases we are powerless to\n resist.\n\n\n LATHAM. Could we not be warned of the presence of an S-Region?\n\n\n NIEMAND. The trouble is they seem to develop at random on the Sun. I'm\n afraid any warning system would be worse than useless. We would be\n crying WOLF! all the time.\n\n\n LATHAM. How may a person who is not particularly susceptible to this\n malignant radiation know that one of these regions is active?\n\n\n NIEMAND. If you have a feeling of restlessness and anxiety, if you are\n unable to concentrate, if you feel suddenly depressed and discouraged\n about yourself, or are filled with resentment toward the world, then you\n may be pretty sure that an S-Region is passing across the face of the\n Sun. Keep a tight rein on yourself. For it seems that evil will always\n be with us ... as long as the Sun shall continue to shine upon this\n little world.\nTHE END\n[A]\n Middletown believes that the Intense radiation recently\n discovered from information derived from Explorer I and III has no\n connection with the corpuscular S-radiation.",
    "24161": "ALL DAY SEPTEMBER\nBy ROGER KUYKENDALL\nIllustrated by van Dongen\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Astounding Science\n Fiction June 1959. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nSome men just haven't got good sense. They just can't seem to\n learn the most fundamental things. Like when there's no use\n trying\u2014when it's time to give up because it's hopeless....\nThe meteor, a pebble, a little larger than a match head, traveled\n through space and time since it came into being. The light from the star\n that died when the meteor was created fell on Earth before the first\n lungfish ventured from the sea.\n\n\n In its last instant, the meteor fell on the Moon. It was impeded by\n Evans' tractor.\n\n\n It drilled a small, neat hole through the casing of the steam turbine,\n and volitized upon striking the blades. Portions of the turbine also\n volitized; idling at eight thousand RPM, it became unstable. The shaft\n tried to tie itself into a knot, and the blades, damaged and undamaged\n were spit through the casing. The turbine again reached a stable state,\n that is, stopped. Permanently stopped.\n\n\n It was two days to sunrise, where Evans stood.\n\n\n It was just before sunset on a spring evening in September in Sydney.\n The shadow line between day and night could be seen from the Moon to be\n drifting across Australia.\n\n\n Evans, who had no watch, thought of the time as a quarter after\n Australia.\n\n\n Evans was a prospector, and like all prospectors, a sort of jackknife\n geologist, selenologist, rather. His tractor and equipment cost two\n hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Fifty thousand was paid for. The\n rest was promissory notes and grubstake shares. When he was broke, which\n was usually, he used his tractor to haul uranium ore and metallic sodium\n from the mines at Potter's dike to Williamson Town, where the rockets\n landed.\n\n\n When he was flush, he would prospect for a couple of weeks. Once he\n followed a stampede to Yellow Crater, where he thought for a while that\n he had a fortune in chromium. The chromite petered out in a month and a\n half, and he was lucky to break even.\n\n\n Evans was about three hundred miles east of Williamson Town, the site of\n the first landing on the Moon.\n\n\n Evans was due back at Williamson Town at about sunset, that is, in about\n sixteen days. When he saw the wrecked turbine, he knew that he wouldn't\n make it. By careful rationing, he could probably stretch his food out to\n more than a month. His drinking water\u2014kept separate from the water in\n the reactor\u2014might conceivably last just as long. But his oxygen was too\n carefully measured; there was a four-day reserve. By diligent\n conservation, he might make it last an extra day. Four days\n reserve\u2014plus one is five\u2014plus sixteen days normal supply equals\n twenty-one days to live.\n\n\n In seventeen days he might be missed, but in seventeen days it would be\n dark again, and the search for him, if it ever began, could not begin\n for thirteen more days. At the earliest it would be eight days too late.\n\"Well, man, 'tis a fine spot you're in now,\" he told himself.\n\n\n \"Let's find out how bad it is indeed,\" he answered. He reached for the\n light switch and tried to turn it on. The switch was already in the \"on\"\n position.\n\n\n \"Batteries must be dead,\" he told himself.\n\n\n \"What batteries?\" he asked. \"There're no batteries in here, the power\n comes from the generator.\"\n\n\n \"Why isn't the generator working, man?\" he asked.\n\n\n He thought this one out carefully. The generator was not turned by the\n main turbine, but by a small reciprocating engine. The steam, however,\n came from the same boiler. And the boiler, of course, had emptied itself\n through the hole in the turbine. And the condenser, of course\u2014\n\n\n \"The condenser!\" he shouted.\n\n\n He fumbled for a while, until he found a small flashlight. By the light\n of this, he reinspected the steam system, and found about three gallons\n of water frozen in the condenser. The condenser, like all condensers,\n was a device to convert steam into water, so that it could be reused in\n the boiler. This one had a tank and coils of tubing in the center of a\n curved reflector that was positioned to radiate the heat of the steam\n into the cold darkness of space. When the meteor pierced the turbine,\n the water in the condenser began to boil. This boiling lowered the\n temperature, and the condenser demonstrated its efficiency by quickly\n freezing the water in the tank.\n\n\n Evans sealed the turbine from the rest of the steam system by closing\n the shut-off valves. If there was any water in the boiler, it would\n operate the engine that drove the generator. The water would condense in\n the condenser, and with a little luck, melt the ice in there. Then, if\n the pump wasn't blocked by ice, it would return the water to the boiler.\n\n\n But there was no water in the boiler. Carefully he poured a cup of his\n drinking water into a pipe that led to the boiler, and resealed the\n pipe. He pulled on a knob marked \"Nuclear Start/Safety Bypass.\" The\n water that he had poured into the boiler quickly turned into steam, and\n the steam turned the generator briefly.\n\n\n Evans watched the lights flicker and go out, and he guessed what the\n trouble was.\n\n\n \"The water, man,\" he said, \"there is not enough to melt the ice in the\n condenser.\"\n\n\n He opened the pipe again and poured nearly a half-gallon of water into\n the boiler. It was three days' supply of water, if it had been carefully\n used. It was one day's supply if used wastefully. It was ostentatious\n luxury for a man with a month's supply of water and twenty-one days to\n live.\n\n\n The generator started again, and the lights came on. They flickered as\n the boiler pressure began to fail, but the steam had melted some of the\n ice in the condenser, and the water pump began to function.\n\n\n \"Well, man,\" he breathed, \"there's a light to die by.\"\nThe sun rose on Williamson Town at about the same time it rose on Evans.\n It was an incredibly brilliant disk in a black sky. The stars next to\n the sun shone as brightly as though there were no sun. They might have\n appeared to waver slightly, if they were behind outflung corona flares.\n If they did, no one noticed. No one looked toward the sun without dark\n filters.\n\n\n When Director McIlroy came into his office, he found it lighted by the\n rising sun. The light was a hot, brilliant white that seemed to pierce\n the darkest shadows of the room. He moved to the round window, screening\n his eyes from the light, and adjusted the polaroid shade to maximum\n density. The sun became an angry red brown, and the room was dark again.\n McIlroy decreased the density again until the room was comfortably\n lighted. The room felt stuffy, so he decided to leave the door to the\n inner office open.\n\n\n He felt a little guilty about this, because he had ordered that all\n doors in the survey building should remain closed except when someone\n was passing through them. This was to allow the air-conditioning system\n to function properly, and to prevent air loss in case of the highly\n improbable meteor damage. McIlroy thought that on the whole, he was\n disobeying his own orders no more flagrantly than anyone else in the\n survey.\n\n\n McIlroy had no illusions about his ability to lead men. Or rather, he\n did have one illusion; he thought that he was completely unfit as a\n leader. It was true that his strictest orders were disobeyed with\n cheerful contempt, but it was also true his mildest requests were\n complied with eagerly and smoothly.\n\n\n Everyone in the survey except McIlroy realized this, and even he\n accepted this without thinking about it. He had fallen into the habit of\n suggesting mildly anything that he wanted done, and writing orders he\n didn't particularly care to have obeyed.\n\n\n For example, because of an order of his stating that there would be no\n alcoholic beverages within the survey building, the entire survey was\n assured of a constant supply of home-made, but passably good liquor.\n Even McIlroy enjoyed the surreptitious drinking.\n\n\n \"Good morning, Mr. McIlroy,\" said Mrs. Garth, his secretary. Morning to\n Mrs. Garth was simply the first four hours after waking.\n\n\n \"Good morning indeed,\" answered McIlroy. Morning to him had no meaning\n at all, but he thought in the strictest sense that it would be morning\n on the Moon for another week.\n\n\n \"Has the power crew set up the solar furnace?\" he asked. The solar\n furnace was a rough parabola of mirrors used to focus the sun's heat on\n anything that it was desirable to heat. It was used mostly, from sun-up\n to sun-down, to supplement the nuclear power plant.\n\n\n \"They went out about an hour ago,\" she answered, \"I suppose that's what\n they were going to do.\"\n\n\n \"Very good, what's first on the schedule?\"\n\n\n \"A Mr. Phelps to see you,\" she said.\n\n\n \"How do you do, Mr. Phelps,\" McIlroy greeted him.\n\n\n \"Good afternoon,\" Mr. Phelps replied. \"I'm here representing the\n Merchants' Bank Association.\"\n\n\n \"Fine,\" McIlroy said, \"I suppose you're here to set up a bank.\"\n\n\n \"That's right, I just got in from Muroc last night, and I've been going\n over the assets of the Survey Credit Association all morning.\"\n\n\n \"I'll certainly be glad to get them off my hands,\" McIlroy said. \"I hope\n they're in good order.\"\n\n\n \"There doesn't seem to be any profit,\" Mr. Phelps said.\n\n\n \"That's par for a nonprofit organization,\" said McIlroy. \"But we're\n amateurs, and we're turning this operation over to professionals. I'm\n sure it will be to everyone's satisfaction.\"\n\n\n \"I know this seems like a silly question. What day is this?\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" said McIlroy, \"that's not so silly. I don't know either.\"\n\n\n \"Mrs. Garth,\" he called, \"what day is this?\"\n\n\n \"Why, September, I think,\" she answered.\n\n\n \"I mean what\nday\n.\"\n\n\n \"I don't know, I'll call the observatory.\"\n\n\n There was a pause.\n\n\n \"They say what day where?\" she asked.\n\n\n \"Greenwich, I guess, our official time is supposed to be Greenwich Mean\n Time.\"\n\n\n There was another pause.\n\n\n \"They say it's September fourth, one thirty\n a.m.\n \"\n\n\n \"Well, there you are,\" laughed McIlroy, \"it isn't that time doesn't mean\n anything here, it just doesn't mean the same thing.\"\n\n\n Mr. Phelps joined the laughter. \"Bankers' hours don't mean much, at any\n rate,\" he said.\nThe power crew was having trouble with the solar furnace. Three of the\n nine banks of mirrors would not respond to the electric controls, and\n one bank moved so jerkily that it could not be focused, and it\n threatened to tear several of the mirrors loose.\n\n\n \"What happened here?\" Spotty Cade, one of the electrical technicians\n asked his foreman, Cowalczk, over the intercommunications radio. \"I've\n got about a hundred pinholes in the cables out here. It's no wonder they\n don't work.\"\n\n\n \"Meteor shower,\" Cowalczk answered, \"and that's not half of it. Walker\n says he's got a half dozen mirrors cracked or pitted, and Hoffman on\n bank three wants you to replace a servo motor. He says the bearing was\n hit.\"\n\n\n \"When did it happen?\" Cade wanted to know.\n\n\n \"Must have been last night, at least two or three days ago. All of 'em\n too small for Radar to pick up, and not enough for Seismo to get a\n rumble.\"\n\n\n \"Sounds pretty bad.\"\n\n\n \"Could have been worse,\" said Cowalczk.\n\n\n \"How's that?\"\n\n\n \"Wasn't anybody out in it.\"\n\n\n \"Hey, Chuck,\" another technician, Lehman, broke in, \"you could maybe get\n hurt that way.\"\n\n\n \"I doubt it,\" Cowalczk answered, \"most of these were pinhead size, and\n they wouldn't go through a suit.\"\n\n\n \"It would take a pretty big one to damage a servo bearing,\" Cade\n commented.\n\n\n \"That could hurt,\" Cowalczk admitted, \"but there was only one of them.\"\n\n\n \"You mean only one hit our gear,\" Lehman said. \"How many missed?\"\n\n\n Nobody answered. They could all see the Moon under their feet. Small\n craters overlapped and touched each other. There was\u2014except in the\n places that men had obscured them with footprints\u2014not a square foot\n that didn't contain a crater at least ten inches across, there was not a\n square inch without its half-inch crater. Nearly all of these had been\n made millions of years ago, but here and there, the rim of a crater\n covered part of a footprint, clear evidence that it was a recent one.\nAfter the sun rose, Evans returned to the lava cave that he had been\n exploring when the meteor hit. Inside, he lifted his filter visor, and\n found that the light reflected from the small ray that peered into the\n cave door lighted the cave adequately. He tapped loose some white\n crystals on the cave wall with his geologist's hammer, and put them into\n a collector's bag.\n\n\n \"A few mineral specimens would give us something to think about, man.\n These crystals,\" he said, \"look a little like zeolites, but that can't\n be, zeolites need water to form, and there's no water on the Moon.\"\n\n\n He chipped a number of other crystals loose and put them in bags. One of\n them he found in a dark crevice had a hexagonal shape that puzzled him.\n\n\n One at a time, back in the tractor, he took the crystals out of the bags\n and analyzed them as well as he could without using a flame which would\n waste oxygen. The ones that looked like zeolites were zeolites, all\n right, or something very much like it. One of the crystals that he\n thought was quartz turned out to be calcite, and one of the ones that he\n was sure could be nothing but calcite was actually potassium nitrate.\n\"Well, now,\" he said, \"it's probably the largest natural crystal of\n potassium nitrate that anyone has ever seen. Man, it's a full inch\n across.\"\n\n\n All of these needed water to form, and their existence on the Moon\n puzzled him for a while. Then he opened the bag that had contained the\n unusual hexagonal crystals, and the puzzle resolved itself. There was\n nothing in the bag but a few drops of water. What he had taken to be a\n type of rock was ice, frozen in a niche that had never been warmed by\n the sun.\nThe sun rose to the meridian slowly. It was a week after sunrise. The\n stars shone coldly, and wheeled in their slow course with the sun. Only\n Earth remained in the same spot in the black sky. The shadow line crept\n around until Earth was nearly dark, and then the rim of light appeared\n on the opposite side. For a while Earth was a dark disk in a thin halo,\n and then the light came to be a crescent, and the line of dawn began to\n move around Earth. The continents drifted across the dark disk and into\n the crescent. The people on Earth saw the full moon set about the same\n time that the sun rose.\nNickel Jones was the captain of a supply rocket. He made trips from and\n to the Moon about once a month, carrying supplies in and metal and ores\n out. At this time he was visiting with his old friend McIlroy.\n\n\n \"I swear, Mac,\" said Jones, \"another season like this, and I'm going\n back to mining.\"\n\n\n \"I thought you were doing pretty well,\" said McIlroy, as he poured two\n drinks from a bottle of Scotch that Jones had brought him.\n\n\n \"Oh, the money I like, but I will say that I'd have more if I didn't\n have to fight the union and the Lunar Trade Commission.\"\n\n\n McIlroy had heard all of this before. \"How's that?\" he asked politely.\n\n\n \"You may think it's myself running the ship,\" Jones started on his\n tirade, \"but it's not. The union it is that says who I can hire. The\n union it is that says how much I must pay, and how large a crew I need.\n And then the Commission ...\" The word seemed to give Jones an unpleasant\n taste in his mouth, which he hurriedly rinsed with a sip of Scotch.\n\n\n \"The Commission,\" he continued, making the word sound like an obscenity,\n \"it is that tells me how much I can charge for freight.\"\n\n\n McIlroy noticed that his friend's glass was empty, and he quietly filled\n it again.\n\n\n \"And then,\" continued Jones, \"if I buy a cargo up here, the Commission\n it is that says what I'll sell it for. If I had my way, I'd charge only\n fifty cents a pound for freight instead of the dollar forty that the\n Commission insists on. That's from here to Earth, of course. There's no\n profit I could make by cutting rates the other way.\"\n\n\n \"Why not?\" asked McIlroy. He knew the answer, but he liked to listen to\n the slightly Welsh voice of Jones.\n\n\n \"Near cost it is now at a dollar forty. But what sense is there in\n charging the same rate to go either way when it takes about a seventh of\n the fuel to get from here to Earth as it does to get from there to\n here?\"\n\n\n \"What good would it do to charge fifty cents a pound?\" asked McIlroy.\n\n\n \"The nickel, man, the tons of nickel worth a dollar and a half on Earth,\n and not worth mining here; the low-grade ores of uranium and vanadium,\n they need these things on Earth, but they can't get them as long as it\n isn't worth the carrying of them. And then, of course, there's the water\n we haven't got. We could afford to bring more water for more people, and\n set up more distilling plants if we had the money from the nickel.\n\n\n \"Even though I say it who shouldn't, two-eighty a quart is too much to\n pay for water.\"\n\n\n Both men fell silent for a while. Then Jones spoke again:\n\n\n \"Have you seen our friend Evans lately? The price of chromium has gone\n up, and I think he could ship some of his ore from Yellow Crater at a\n profit.\"\n\n\n \"He's out prospecting again. I don't expect to see him until sun-down.\"\n\n\n \"I'll likely see him then. I won't be loaded for another week and a\n half. Can't you get in touch with him by radio?\"\n\n\n \"He isn't carrying one. Most of the prospectors don't. They claim that a\n radio that won't carry beyond the horizon isn't any good, and one that\n will bounce messages from Earth takes up too much room.\"\n\n\n \"Well, if I don't see him, you let him know about the chromium.\"\n\n\n \"Anything to help another Welshman, is that the idea?\"\n\n\n \"Well, protection it is that a poor Welshman needs from all the English\n and Scots. Speaking of which\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Oh, of course,\" McIlroy grinned as he refilled the glasses.\n\n\n \"\nSlainte, McIlroy, bach.\n\" [Health, McIlroy, man.]\n\n\n \"\nSlainte mhor, bach.\n\" [Great Health, man.]\nThe sun was halfway to the horizon, and Earth was a crescent in the sky\n when Evans had quarried all the ice that was available in the cave. The\n thought grew on him as he worked that this couldn't be the only such\n cave in the area. There must be several more bubbles in the lava flow.\n\n\n Part of his reasoning proved correct. That is, he found that by\n chipping, he could locate small bubbles up to an inch in diameter, each\n one with its droplet of water. The average was about one per cent of the\n volume of each bubble filled with ice.\n\n\n A quarter of a mile from the tractor, Evans found a promising looking\n mound of lava. It was rounded on top, and it could easily be the dome of\n a bubble. Suddenly, Evans noticed that the gauge on the oxygen tank of\n his suit was reading dangerously near empty. He turned back to his\n tractor, moving as slowly as he felt safe in doing. Running would use up\n oxygen too fast. He was halfway there when the pressure warning light\n went on, and the signal sounded inside his helmet. He turned on his\n ten-minute reserve supply, and made it to the tractor with about five\n minutes left. The air purifying apparatus in the suit was not as\n efficient as the one in the tractor; it wasted oxygen. By using the suit\n so much, Evans had already shortened his life by several days. He\n resolved not to leave the tractor again, and reluctantly abandoned his\n plan to search for a large bubble.\nThe sun stood at half its diameter above the horizon. The shadows of the\n mountains stretched out to touch the shadows of the other mountains. The\n dawning line of light covered half of Earth, and Earth turned beneath\n it.\n\n\n Cowalczk itched under his suit, and the sweat on his face prickled\n maddeningly because he couldn't reach it through his helmet. He pushed\n his forehead against the faceplate of his helmet and rubbed off some of\n the sweat. It didn't help much, and it left a blurred spot in his\n vision. That annoyed him.\n\n\n \"Is everyone clear of the outlet?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"All clear,\" he heard Cade report through the intercom.\n\n\n \"How come we have to blow the boilers now?\" asked Lehman.\n\n\n \"Because I say so,\" Cowalczk shouted, surprised at his outburst and\n ashamed of it. \"Boiler scale,\" he continued, much calmer. \"We've got to\n clean out the boilers once a year to make sure the tubes in the reactor\n don't clog up.\" He squinted through his dark visor at the reactor\n building, a gray concrete structure a quarter of a mile distant. \"It\n would be pretty bad if they clogged up some night.\"\n\n\n \"Pressure's ten and a half pounds,\" said Cade.\n\n\n \"Right, let her go,\" said Cowalczk.\n\n\n Cade threw a switch. In the reactor building, a relay closed. A motor\n started turning, and the worm gear on the motor opened a valve on the\n boiler. A stream of muddy water gushed into a closed vat. When the vat\n was about half full, the water began to run nearly clear. An electric\n eye noted that fact and a light in front of Cade turned on. Cade threw\n the switch back the other way, and the relay in the reactor building\n opened. The motor turned and the gears started to close the valve. But a\n fragment of boiler scale held the valve open.\n\n\n \"Valve's stuck,\" said Cade.\n\n\n \"Open it and close it again,\" said Cowalczk. The sweat on his forehead\n started to run into his eyes. He banged his hand on his faceplate in an\n unconscious attempt to wipe it off. He cursed silently, and wiped it off\n on the inside of his helmet again. This time, two drops ran down the\n inside of his faceplate.\n\n\n \"Still don't work,\" said Cade.\n\n\n \"Keep trying,\" Cowalczk ordered. \"Lehman, get a Geiger counter and come\n with me, we've got to fix this thing.\"\n\n\n Lehman and Cowalczk, who were already suited up started across to the\n reactor building. Cade, who was in the pressurized control room without\n a suit on, kept working the switch back and forth. There was light that\n indicated when the valve was open. It was on, and it stayed on, no\n matter what Cade did.\n\n\n \"The vat pressure's too high,\" Cade said.\n\n\n \"Let me know when it reaches six pounds,\" Cowalczk requested. \"Because\n it'll probably blow at seven.\"\n\n\n The vat was a light plastic container used only to decant sludge out of\n the water. It neither needed nor had much strength.\n\n\n \"Six now,\" said Cade.\n\n\n Cowalczk and Lehman stopped halfway to the reactor. The vat bulged and\n ruptured. A stream of mud gushed out and boiled dry on the face of the\n Moon. Cowalczk and Lehman rushed forward again.\n\n\n They could see the trickle of water from the discharge pipe. The motor\n turned the valve back and forth in response to Cade's signals.\n\"What's going on out there?\" demanded McIlroy on the intercom.\n\n\n \"Scale stuck in the valve,\" Cowalczk answered.\n\n\n \"Are the reactors off?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. Vat blew. Shut up! Let me work, Mac!\"\n\n\n \"Sorry,\" McIlroy said, realizing that this was no time for officials.\n \"Let me know when it's fixed.\"\n\n\n \"Geiger's off scale,\" Lehman said.\n\n\n \"We're probably O.K. in these suits for an hour,\" Cowalczk answered. \"Is\n there a manual shut-off?\"\n\n\n \"Not that I know of,\" Lehman answered. \"What about it, Cade?\"\n\n\n \"I don't think so,\" Cade said. \"I'll get on the blower and rouse out an\n engineer.\"\n\n\n \"O.K., but keep working that switch.\"\n\n\n \"I checked the line as far as it's safe,\" said Lehman. \"No valve.\"\n\n\n \"O.K.,\" Cowalczk said. \"Listen, Cade, are the injectors still on?\"\n\n\n \"Yeah. There's still enough heat in these reactors to do some damage.\n I'll cut 'em in about fifteen minutes.\"\n\n\n \"I've found the trouble,\" Lehman said. \"The worm gear's loose on its\n shaft. It's slipping every time the valve closes. There's not enough\n power in it to crush the scale.\"\n\n\n \"Right,\" Cowalczk said. \"Cade, open the valve wide. Lehman, hand me that\n pipe wrench!\"\n\n\n Cowalczk hit the shaft with the back of the pipe wrench, and it broke at\n the motor bearing.\n\n\n Cowalczk and Lehman fitted the pipe wrench to the gear on the valve, and\n turned it.\n\n\n \"Is the light off?\" Cowalczk asked.\n\n\n \"No,\" Cade answered.\n\n\n \"Water's stopped. Give us some pressure, we'll see if it holds.\"\n\n\n \"Twenty pounds,\" Cade answered after a couple of minutes.\n\n\n \"Take her up to ... no, wait, it's still leaking,\" Cowalczk said. \"Hold\n it there, we'll open the valve again.\"\n\n\n \"O.K.,\" said Cade. \"An engineer here says there's no manual cutoff.\"\n\n\n \"Like Hell,\" said Lehman.\n\n\n Cowalczk and Lehman opened the valve again. Water spurted out, and\n dwindled as they closed the valve.\n\n\n \"What did you do?\" asked Cade. \"The light went out and came on again.\"\n\n\n \"Check that circuit and see if it works,\" Cowalczk instructed.\n\n\n There was a pause.\n\n\n \"It's O.K.,\" Cade said.\n\n\n Cowalczk and Lehman opened and closed the valve again.\n\n\n \"Light is off now,\" Cade said.\n\n\n \"Good,\" said Cowalczk, \"take the pressure up all the way, and we'll see\n what happens.\"\n\n\n \"Eight hundred pounds,\" Cade said, after a short wait.\n\n\n \"Good enough,\" Cowalczk said. \"Tell that engineer to hold up a while, he\n can fix this thing as soon as he gets parts. Come on, Lehman, let's get\n out of here.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I'm glad that's over,\" said Cade. \"You guys had me worried for a\n while.\"\n\n\n \"Think we weren't worried?\" Lehman asked. \"And it's not over.\"\n\n\n \"What?\" Cade asked. \"Oh, you mean the valve servo you two bashed up?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" said Lehman, \"I mean the two thousand gallons of water that we\n lost.\"\n\n\n \"Two thousand?\" Cade asked. \"We only had seven hundred gallons reserve.\n How come we can operate now?\"\n\n\n \"We picked up twelve hundred from the town sewage plant. What with using\n the solar furnace as a radiator, we can make do.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, God, I suppose this means water rationing again.\"\n\n\n \"You're probably right, at least until the next rocket lands in a couple\n of weeks.\"\nPROSPECTOR FEARED LOST ON MOON\n\n\n IPP Williamson Town, Moon, Sept. 21st. Scientific survey director\n McIlroy released a statement today that Howard Evans, a prospector\n is missing and presumed lost. Evans, who was apparently exploring\n the Moon in search of minerals was due two days ago, but it was\n presumed that he was merely temporarily delayed.\n\n\n Evans began his exploration on August 25th, and was known to be\n carrying several days reserve of oxygen and supplies. Director\n McIlroy has expressed a hope that Evans will be found before his\n oxygen runs out.\n\n\n Search parties have started from Williamson Town, but telescopic\n search from Palomar and the new satellite observatory are hindered\n by the fact that Evans is lost on the part of the Moon which is now\n dark. Little hope is held for radio contact with the missing man as\n it is believed he was carrying only short-range,\n intercommunications equipment. Nevertheless, receivers are ...\n\n\n Captain Nickel Jones was also expressing a hope: \"Anyway, Mac,\" he was\n saying to McIlroy, \"a Welshman knows when his luck's run out. And never\n a word did he say.\"\n\n\n \"Like as not, you're right,\" McIlroy replied, \"but if I know Evans, he'd\n never say a word about any forebodings.\"\n\n\n \"Well, happen I might have a bit of Welsh second sight about me, and it\n tells me that Evans will be found.\"\n\n\n McIlroy chuckled for the first time in several days. \"So that's the\n reason you didn't take off when you were scheduled,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Well, yes,\" Jones answered. \"I thought that it might happen that a\n rocket would be needed in the search.\"\n\n\n The light from Earth lighted the Moon as the Moon had never lighted\n Earth. The great blue globe of Earth, the only thing larger than the\n stars, wheeled silently in the sky. As it turned, the shadow of sunset\n crept across the face that could be seen from the Moon. From full Earth,\n as you might say, it moved toward last quarter.\n\n\n The rising sun shone into Director McIlroy's office. The hot light\n formed a circle on the wall opposite the window, and the light became\n more intense as the sun slowly pulled over the horizon. Mrs. Garth\n walked into the director's office, and saw the director sleeping with\n his head cradled in his arms on the desk. She walked softly to the\n window and adjusted the shade to darken the office. She stood looking at\n McIlroy for a moment, and when he moved slightly in his sleep, she\n walked softly out of the office.\n\n\n A few minutes later she was back with a cup of coffee. She placed it in\n front of the director, and shook his shoulder gently.\n\n\n \"Wake up, Mr. McIlroy,\" she said, \"you told me to wake you at sunrise,\n and there it is, and here's Mr. Phelps.\"\n\n\n McIlroy woke up slowly. He leaned back in his chair and stretched. His\n neck was stiff from sleeping in such an awkward position.\n\n\n \"'Morning, Mr. Phelps,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Good morning,\" Phelps answered, dropping tiredly into a chair.\n\n\n \"Have some coffee, Mr. Phelps,\" said Mrs. Garth, handing him a cup.\n\n\n \"Any news?\" asked McIlroy.\n\n\n \"About Evans?\" Phelps shook his head slowly. \"Palomar called in a few\n minutes back. Nothing to report and the sun was rising there. Australia\n will be in position pretty soon. Several observatories there. Then\n Capetown. There are lots of observatories in Europe, but most of them\n are clouded over. Anyway the satellite observatory will be in position\n by the time Europe is.\"\n\n\n McIlroy was fully awake. He glanced at Phelps and wondered how long it\n had been since he had slept last. More than that, McIlroy wondered why\n this banker, who had never met Evans, was losing so much sleep about\n finding him. It began to dawn on McIlroy that nearly the whole\n population of Williamson Town was involved, one way or another, in the\n search.\n\n\n The director turned to ask Phelps about this fact, but the banker was\n slumped in his chair, fast asleep with his coffee untouched.\n\n\n It was three hours later that McIlroy woke Phelps.\n\n\n \"They've found the tractor,\" McIlroy said.\n\n\n \"Good,\" Phelps mumbled, and then as comprehension came; \"That's fine!\n That's just line! Is Evans\u2014?\"\n\n\n \"Can't tell yet. They spotted the tractor from the satellite\n observatory. Captain Jones took off a few minutes ago, and he'll report\n back as soon as he lands. Hadn't you better get some sleep?\"\nEvans was carrying a block of ice into the tractor when he saw the\n rocket coming in for a landing. He dropped the block and stood waiting.\n When the dust settled from around the tail of the rocket, he started to\n run forward. The air lock opened, and Evans recognized the vacuum suited\n figure of Nickel Jones.\n\n\n \"Evans, man!\" said Jones' voice in the intercom. \"Alive you are!\"\n\n\n \"A Welshman takes a lot of killing,\" Evans answered.\nLater, in Evans' tractor, he was telling his story:\n\n\n \"... And I don't know how long I sat there after I found the water.\" He\n looked at the Goldburgian device he had made out of wire and tubing.\n \"Finally I built this thing. These caves were made of lava. They must\n have been formed by steam some time, because there's a floor of ice in\n all of 'em.\n\n\n \"The idea didn't come all at once, it took a long time for me to\n remember that water is made out of oxygen and hydrogen. When I\n remembered that, of course, I remembered that it can be separated with\n electricity. So I built this thing.\n\n\n \"It runs an electric current through water, lets the oxygen loose in the\n room, and pipes the hydrogen outside. It doesn't work automatically, of\n course, so I run it about an hour a day. My oxygen level gauge shows how\n long.\"\n\n\n \"You're a genius, man!\" Jones exclaimed.\n\n\n \"No,\" Evans answered, \"a Welshman, nothing more.\"\n\n\n \"Well, then,\" said Jones, \"are you ready to start back?\"\n\n\n \"Back?\"\n\n\n \"Well, it was to rescue you that I came.\"\n\n\n \"I don't need rescuing, man,\" Evans said.\n\n\n Jones stared at him blankly.\n\n\n \"You might let me have some food,\" Evans continued. \"I'm getting short\n of that. And you might have someone send out a mechanic with parts to\n fix my tractor. Then maybe you'll let me use your radio to file my\n claim.\"\n\n\n \"Claim?\"\n\n\n \"Sure, man, I've thousands of tons of water here. It's the richest mine\n on the Moon!\"\n\n\n THE END",
    "24192": "THE FIRST ONE\nBy HERBERT D. KASTLE\nIllustrated by von Dongen\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from Analog July 1961.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright\n on this publication was renewed.]\nThe first man to return from beyond the Great Frontier may be\n welcomed ... but will it be as a curiosity, rather than as a\n hero...?\nThere was the usual welcoming crowd for a celebrity, and the usual\n speeches by the usual politicians who met him at the airport which had\n once been twenty miles outside of Croton, but which the growing city had\n since engulfed and placed well within its boundaries. But everything\n wasn't usual. The crowd was quiet, and the mayor didn't seem quite as\n at-ease as he'd been on his last big welcoming\u2014for Corporal Berringer,\n one of the crew of the spaceship\nWashington\n, first to set Americans\n upon Mars. His Honor's handclasp was somewhat moist and cold. His\n Honor's eyes held a trace of remoteness.\n\n\n Still, he was the honored home-comer, the successful returnee, the\n hometown boy who had made good in a big way, and they took the triumphal\n tour up Main Street to the new square and the grandstand. There he sat\n between the mayor and a nervous young coed chosen as homecoming queen,\n and looked out at the police and fire department bands, the National\n Guard, the boy scouts and girl scouts, the Elks and Masons. Several of\n the churches in town had shown indecision as to how to instruct their\n parishioners to treat him. But they had all come around. The tremendous\n national interest, the fact that he was the First One, had made them\n come around. It was obvious by now that they would have to adjust as\n they'd adjusted to all the other firsts taking place in these\u2014as the\n newspapers had dubbed the start of the Twenty-first Century\u2014the\n Galloping Twenties.\n\n\n He was glad when the official greeting was over. He was a very tired man\n and he had come farther, traveled longer and over darker country, than\n any man who'd ever lived before. He wanted a meal at his own table, a\n kiss from his wife, a word from his son, and later to see some old\n friends and a relative or two. He didn't want to talk about the journey.\n He wanted to forget the immediacy, the urgency, the terror; then perhaps\n he would talk.\n\n\n Or would he? For he had very little to tell. He had traveled and he had\n returned and his voyage was very much like the voyages of the great\n mariners, from Columbus onward\u2014long, dull periods of time passing,\n passing, and then the arrival.\n\n\n The house had changed. He saw that as soon as the official car let him\n off at 45 Roosevelt Street. The change was, he knew, for the better.\n They had put a porch in front. They had rehabilitated, spruced up,\n almost rebuilt the entire outside and grounds. But he was sorry. He had\n wanted it to be as before.\n\n\n The head of the American Legion and the chief of police, who had\n escorted him on this trip from the square, didn't ask to go in with him.\n He was glad. He'd had enough of strangers. Not that he was through with\n strangers. There were dozens of them up and down the street, standing\n beside parked cars, looking at him. But when he looked back at them,\n their eyes dropped, they turned away, they began moving off. He was\n still too much the First One to have his gaze met.\n\n\n He walked up what had once been a concrete path and was now an ornate\n flagstone path. He climbed the new porch and raised the ornamental\n knocker on the new door and heard the soft music sound within. He was\n surprised that he'd had to do this. He'd thought Edith would be watching\n at a window.\n\n\n And perhaps she\nhad\nbeen watching ... but she hadn't opened the door.\n\n\n The door opened; he looked at her. It hadn't been too long and she\n hadn't changed at all. She was still the small, slender girl he'd loved\n in high school, the small, slender woman he'd married twelve years ago.\n Ralphie was with her. They held onto each other as if seeking mutual\n support, the thirty-three-year old woman and ten-year-old boy. They\n looked at him, and then both moved forward, still together. He said,\n \"It's good to be home!\"\n\n\n Edith nodded and, still holding to Ralphie with one hand, put the other\n arm around him. He kissed her\u2014her neck, her cheek\u2014and all the old\n jokes came to mind, the jokes of travel-weary, battle-weary men, the\n and-\nthen\n-I'll-put-my-pack-aside jokes that spoke of terrible hunger.\n She was trembling, and even as her lips came up to touch his he felt the\n difference, and because of this difference he turned with urgency to\n Ralphie and picked him up and hugged him and said, because he could\n think of nothing else to say, \"What a big fella, what a big fella.\"\n\n\n Ralphie stood in his arms as if his feet were still planted on the\n floor, and he didn't look at his father but somewhere beyond him. \"I\n didn't grow much while you were gone, Dad, Mom says I don't eat enough.\"\n\n\n So he put him down and told himself that it would all change, that\n everything would loosen up just as his commanding officer, General\n Carlisle, had said it would early this morning before he left\n Washington.\n\n\n \"Give it some time,\" Carlisle had said. \"You need the time; they need\n the time. And for the love of heaven, don't be sensitive.\"\nEdith was leading him into the living room, her hand lying still in his,\n a cool, dead bird lying still in his. He sat down on the couch, she sat\n down beside him\u2014but she had hesitated. He\nwasn't\nbeing sensitive; she\n had hesitated. His wife had hesitated before sitting down beside him.\n\n\n Carlisle had said his position was analogous to Columbus', to Vasco De\n Gama's, to Preshoff's when the Russian returned from the Moon\u2014but more\n so. Carlisle had said lots of things, but even Carlisle who had worked\n with him all the way, who had engineered the entire fantastic\n journey\u2014even Carlisle the Nobel prize winner, the multi-degreed genius\n in uniform, had not actually spoken to him as one man to another.\nThe eyes. It always showed in their eyes.\nHe looked across the room at Ralphie, standing in the doorway, a boy\n already tall, already widening in the shoulders, already large of\n feature. It was like looking into the mirror and seeing himself\n twenty-five years ago. But Ralphie's face was drawn, was worried in a\n way that few ten-year-old faces are.\n\n\n \"How's it going in school?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Gee, Dad, it's the second month of summer vacation.\"\n\n\n \"Well, then, before summer vacation?\"\n\n\n \"Pretty good.\"\n\n\n Edith said, \"He made top forum the six-month period before vacation, and\n he made top forum the six-month period you went away, Hank.\"\n\n\n He nodded, remembering that, remembering everything, remembering the\n warmth of her farewell, the warmth of Ralphie's farewell, their tears as\n he left for the experimental flight station in the Aleutians. They had\n feared for him, having read of the many launchings gone wrong even in\n continent-to-continent experimental flight.\n\n\n They had been right to worry. He had suffered much after that blow-up.\n But now they should be rejoicing, because he had survived and made the\n long journey. Ralphie suddenly said, \"I got to go, Dad. I promised Walt\n and the others I'd pitch. It's Inter-Town Little League, you know. It's\n Harmon, you know. I got to keep my word.\" Without waiting for an answer,\n he waved his hand\u2014it shook; a ten-year-old boy's hand that shook\u2014and\n ran from the room and from the house.\n\n\n He and Edith sat beside each other, and he wanted badly to take her in\n his arms, and yet he didn't want to oppress her. He stood up. \"I'm very\n tired. I'd like to lie down a while.\" Which wasn't true, because he'd\n been lying down all the months of the way back.\n\n\n She said, \"Of course. How stupid of me, expecting you to sit around and\n make small talk and pick up just where you left off.\"\n\n\n He nodded. But that was exactly what he wanted to do\u2014make small talk\n and pick up just where he'd left off. But they didn't expect it of him;\n they wouldn't let him; they felt he had changed too much.\nShe led him upstairs and along the foyer past Ralphie's room and past\n the small guest room to their bedroom. This, too, had changed. It was\n newly painted and it had new furniture. He saw twin beds separated by an\n ornate little table with an ornate little lamp, and this looked more\n ominous a barrier to him than the twelve-foot concrete-and-barbed-wire\n fence around the experimental station.\n\n\n \"Which one is mine,\" he asked, and tried to smile.\n\n\n She also tried to smile. \"The one near the window. You always liked the\n fresh air, the sunshine in the morning. You always said it helped you\n to get up on time when you were stationed at the base outside of town.\n You always said it reminded you\u2014being able to see the sky\u2014that you\n were going to go up in it, and that you were going to come down from it\n to this bed again.\"\n\n\n \"Not this bed,\" he murmured, and was a little sorry afterward.\n\n\n \"No, not this bed,\" she said quickly. \"Your lodge donated the bedroom\n set and I really didn't know\u2014\" She waved her hand, her face white.\n\n\n He was sure then that she\nhad\nknown, and that the beds and the barrier\n between them were her own choice, if only an unconscious choice. He went\n to the bed near the window, stripped off his Air Force blue jacket,\n began to take off his shirt, but then remembered that some arm scars\n still showed. He waited for her to leave the room.\n\n\n She said, \"Well then, rest up, dear,\" and went out.\n\n\n He took off his shirt and saw himself in the mirror on the opposite\n wall; and then took off his under-shirt. The body scars were faint, the\n scars running in long lines, one dissecting his chest, the other slicing\n diagonally across his upper abdomen to disappear under his trousers.\n There were several more on his back, and one on his right thigh. They'd\n been treated properly and would soon disappear. But she had never seen\n them.\n\n\n Perhaps she never would. Perhaps pajamas and robes and dark rooms would\n keep them from her until they were gone.\n\n\n Which was not what he'd considered at all important on leaving Walter\n Reed Hospital early this morning; which was something he found\n distasteful, something he felt beneath them both. And, at the same time,\n he began to understand that there would be many things, previously\n beneath them both, which would have to be considered. She had changed;\n Ralphie had changed; all the people he knew had probably\n changed\u2014because they thought\nhe\nhad changed.\n\n\n He was tired of thinking. He lay down and closed his eyes. He let\n himself taste bitterness, unhappiness, a loneliness he had never known\n before.\n\n\n But sometime later, as he was dozing off, a sense of reassurance began\n filtering into his mind. After all, he was still Henry Devers, the same\n man who had left home eleven months ago, with a love for family and\n friends which was, if anything, stronger than before. Once he could\n communicate this, the strangeness would disappear and the First One\n would again become good old Hank. It was little enough to ask for\u2014a\n return to old values, old relationships, the normalcies of the backwash\n instead of the freneticisms of the lime-light. It would certainly be\n granted to him.\n\n\n He slept.\nDinner was at seven\n p.m.\n His mother came; his Uncle Joe and Aunt Lucille\n came. Together with Edith, Ralphie and himself, they made six, and ate\n in the dining room at the big table.\n\n\n Before he'd become the First One, it would have been a noisy affair. His\n family had never been noted for a lack of ebullience, a lack of\n talkativeness, and Ralphie had always chosen mealtimes\u2014especially with\n company present\u2014to describe everything and anything that had happened\n to him during the day. And Edith herself had always chatted, especially\n with his mother, though they didn't agree about much. Still, it had been\n good-natured; the general tone of their lives had been good-natured.\n\n\n This wasn't good-natured. Exactly what it was he wasn't sure. \"Stiff\"\n was perhaps the word.\n\n\n They began with grapefruit, Edith and Mother serving quickly,\n efficiently from the kitchen, then sitting down at the table. He looked\n at Mother as he raised his first spoonful of chilled fruit, and said,\n \"Younger than ever.\" It was nothing new; he'd said it many many times\n before, but his mother had always reacted with a bright smile and a quip\n something like, \"Young for the Golden Age Center, you mean.\" This time\n she burst into tears. It shocked him. But what shocked him even more was\n the fact that no one looked up, commented, made any attempt to comfort\n her; no one indicated in any way that a woman was sobbing at the table.\n\n\n He was sitting directly across from Mother, and reached out and touched\n her left hand which lay limply beside the silverware. She didn't move\n it\u2014she hadn't touched him once beyond that first, quick, strangely-cool\n embrace at the door\u2014then a few seconds later she withdrew it and let it\n drop out of sight.\n\n\n So there he was, Henry Devers, at home with the family. So there he was,\n the hero returned, waiting to be treated as a human being.\n\n\n The grapefruit shells were cleaned away and the soup served. Uncle Joe\n began to talk. \"The greatest little development of circular uniform\n houses you ever did see,\" he boomed in his powerful salesman's voice.\n \"Still going like sixty. We'll sell out before\u2014\" At that point he\n looked at Hank, and Hank nodded encouragement, desperately interested in\n this normalcy, and Joe's voice died away. He looked down at his plate,\n mumbled, \"Soup's getting cold,\" and began to eat. His hand shook a\n little; his ruddy face was not quite as ruddy as Hank remembered it.\n\n\n Aunt Lucille made a few quavering statements about the Ladies' Tuesday\n Garden Club, and Hank looked across the table to where she sat between\n Joe and Mother\u2014his wife and son bracketed him, and yet he felt\n alone\u2014and said, \"I've missed fooling around with the lawn and the rose\n bushes. Here it is August and I haven't had my hand to a mower or\n trowel.\"\n\n\n Aunt Lucille smiled, if you could call it that\u2014a pitiful twitching of\n the lips\u2014and nodded. She threw her eyes in his direction, and past him,\n and then down to her plate. Mother, who was still sniffling, said, \"I\n have a dismal headache. I'm going to lie down in the guest room a\n while.\" She touched his shoulder in passing\u2014his affectionate, effusive\n mother who would kiss stray dogs and strange children, who had often\n irritated him with an excess of physical and verbal caresses\u2014she barely\n touched his shoulder and fled.\n\n\n So now five of them sat at the table. The meat was served\u2014thin, rare\n slices of beef, the pink blood-juice oozing warmly from the center. He\n cut into it and raised a forkful to his mouth, then glanced at Ralphie\n and said, \"Looks fresh enough to have been killed in the back yard.\"\n Ralphie said, \"Yeah, Dad.\" Aunt Lucille put down her knife and fork and\n murmured something to her husband. Joe cleared his throat and said\n Lucille was rapidly becoming a vegetarian and he guessed she was going\n into the living room for a while. \"She'll be back for dessert, of\n course,\" he said, his laugh sounding forced.\n\n\n Hank looked at Edith; Edith was busy with her plate. Hank looked at\n Ralphie; Ralphie was busy with his plate. Hank looked at Joe; Joe was\n chewing, gazing out over their heads to the kitchen. Hank looked at\n Lucille; she was disappearing into the living room.\n\n\n He brought his fist down on the table. The settings jumped; a glass\n overturned, spilling water. He brought it down again and again. They\n were all standing now. He sat there and pounded the table with his big\n right fist\u2014Henry Devers, who would never have thought of making such a\n scene before, but who was now so sick and tired of being treated as the\n First One, of being stood back from, looked at in awe of, felt in fear\n of, that he could have smashed more than a table.\n\n\n Edith said, \"Hank!\"\n\n\n He said, voice hoarse, \"Shut up. Go away. Let me eat alone. I'm sick of\n the lot of you.\"\nMother and Joe returned a few minutes later where he sat forcing food\n down his throat. Mother said, \"Henry dear\u2014\" He didn't answer. She began\n to cry, and he was glad she left the house then. He had never said\n anything really bad to his mother. He was afraid this would have been\n the time. Joe merely cleared his throat and mumbled something about\n getting together again soon and \"drop out and see the new development\"\n and he, too, was gone. Lucille never did manage to speak to him.\n\n\n He finished his beef and waited. Soon Edith came in with the special\n dessert she'd been preparing half the day\u2014a magnificent English trifle.\n She served him, and spooned out a portion for herself and Ralphie. She\n hesitated near his chair, and when he made no comment she called the\n boy. Then the three of them were sitting, facing the empty side of the\n table. They ate the trifle. Ralphie finished first and got up and said,\n \"Hey, I promised\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You promised the boys you'd play baseball or football or handball or\n something; anything to get away from your father.\"\n\n\n Ralphie's head dropped and he muttered, \"Aw, no, Dad.\"\n\n\n Edith said, \"He'll stay home, Hank. We'll spend an evening\n together\u2014talking, watching TV, playing Monopoly.\"\n\n\n Ralphie said, \"Gee, sure, Dad, if you want to.\"\n\n\n Hank stood up. \"The question is not whether I want to. You both know I\n want to. The question is whether\nyou\nwant to.\"\n\n\n They answered together that of course they wanted to. But their\n eyes\u2014his wife's and son's eyes\u2014could not meet his, and so he said he\n was going to his room because he was, after all, very tired and would in\n all probability continue to be very tired for a long, long time and that\n they shouldn't count on him for normal social life.\n\n\n He fell asleep quickly, lying there in his clothes.\n\n\n But he didn't sleep long. Edith shook him and he opened his eyes to a\n lighted room. \"Phil and Rhona are here.\" He blinked at her. She smiled,\n and it seemed her old smile. \"They're so anxious to see you, Hank. I\n could barely keep Phil from coming up and waking you himself. They want\n to go out and do the town. Please, Hank, say you will.\"\n\n\n He sat up. \"Phil,\" he muttered. \"Phil and Rhona.\" They'd had wonderful\n times together, from grammar school on. Phil and Rhona, their oldest and\n closest friends. Perhaps this would begin his real homecoming.\n\n\n Do the town? They'd paint it and then tear it down!\nIt didn't turn out that way. He was disappointed; but then again, he'd\n also expected it. This entire first day at home had conditioned him to\n expect nothing good. They went to the bowling alleys, and Phil sounded\n very much the way he always had\u2014soft spoken and full of laughter and\n full of jokes. He patted Edith on the head the way he always had, and\n clapped Hank on the shoulder (but not the way he always had\u2014so much\n more gently, almost remotely), and insisted they all drink more than was\n good for them as he always had. And for once, Hank was ready to go along\n on the drinking. For once, he matched Phil shot for shot, beer for beer.\n\n\n They didn't bowl very long. At ten o'clock they crossed the road to\n Manfred's Tavern, where Phil and the girls ordered sandwiches and coffee\n and Hank went right on drinking. Edith said something to him, but he\n merely smiled and waved his hand and gulped another ounce of nirvana.\n\n\n There was dancing to a juke box in Manfred's Tavern. He'd been there\n many times before, and he was sure several of the couples recognized\n him. But except for a few abortive glances in his direction, it was as\n if he were a stranger in a city halfway around the world.\n\n\n At midnight, he was still drinking. The others wanted to leave, but he\n said, \"I haven't danced with my girl Rhona.\" His tongue was thick, his\n mind was blurred, and yet he could read the strange expression on her\n face\u2014pretty Rhona, who'd always flirted with him, who'd made a ritual\n of flirting with him. Pretty Rhona, who now looked as if she were going\n to be sick.\n\n\n \"So let's rock,\" he said and stood up.\n\n\n They were on the dance floor. He held her close, and hummed and chatted.\n And through the alcoholic haze saw she was a stiff-smiled, stiff-bodied,\n mechanical dancing doll.\n\n\n The number finished; they walked back to the booth. Phil said,\n \"Beddy-bye time.\"\n\n\n Hank said, \"First one dance with my loving wife.\"\n\n\n He and Edith danced. He didn't hold her close as he had Rhona. He waited\n for her to come close on her own, and she did, and yet she didn't.\n Because while she put herself against him, there was something in her\n face\u2014no, in her eyes; it always showed in the eyes\u2014that made him know\n she was trying to be the old Edith and not succeeding. This time when\n the music ended, he was ready to go home.\n\n\n They rode back to town along Route Nine, he and Edith in the rear of\n Phil's car, Rhona driving because Phil had drunk just a little too much,\n Phil singing and telling an occasional bad joke, and somehow not his old\n self. No one was his old self. No one would ever be his old self with\n the First One.\n\n\n They turned left, to take the short cut along Hallowed Hill Road, and\n Phil finished a story about a Martian and a Hollywood sex queen and\n looked at his wife and then past her at the long, cast-iron fence\n paralleling the road. \"Hey,\" he said, pointing, \"do you know why that's\n the most popular place on earth?\"\n\n\n Rhona glanced to the left, and so did Hank and Edith. Rhona made a\n little sound, and Edith seemed to stop breathing, but Phil went on a\n while longer, not yet aware of his supposed\nfaux pas\n.\n\n\n \"You know why?\" he repeated, turning to the back seat, the laughter\n rumbling up from his chest. \"You know why, folks?\"\n\n\n Rhona said, \"Did you notice Carl Braken and his wife at\u2014\"\n\n\n Hank said, \"No, Phil, why is it the most popular place on earth?\"\n\n\n Phil said, \"Because people are\u2014\" And then he caught himself and waved\n his hand and muttered, \"I forgot the punch line.\"\n\n\n \"Because people are dying to get in,\" Hank said, and looked through the\n window, past the iron fence, into the large cemetery at the fleeting\n tombstones.\n\n\n The car was filled with horrified silence when there should have been\n nothing but laughter, or irritation at a too-old joke. \"Maybe you should\n let me out right here,\" Hank said. \"I'm home\u2014or that's what everyone\n seems to think. Maybe I should lie down in an open grave. Maybe that\n would satisfy people. Maybe that's the only way to act, like Dracula or\n another monster from the movies.\"\n\n\n Edith said, \"Oh, Hank, don't, don't!\"\n\n\n The car raced along the road, crossed a macadam highway, went four\n blocks and pulled to a stop. He didn't bother saying good night. He\n didn't wait for Edith. He just got out and walked up the flagstone path\n and entered the house.\n\"Hank,\" Edith whispered from the guest room doorway, \"I'm so sorry\u2014\"\n\n\n \"There's nothing to be sorry about. It's just a matter of time. It'll\n all work out in time.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" she said quickly, \"that's it. I need a little time. We all need a\n little time. Because it's so strange, Hank. Because it's so frightening.\n I should have told you that the moment you walked in. I think I've hurt\n you terribly, we've all hurt you terribly, by trying to hide that we're\n frightened.\"\n\n\n \"I'm going to stay in the guest room,\" he said, \"for as long as\n necessary. For good if need be.\"\n\n\n \"How could it be for good? How, Hank?\"\n\n\n That question was perhaps the first firm basis for hope he'd had since\n returning. And there was something else; what Carlisle had told him,\n even as Carlisle himself had reacted as all men did.\n\n\n \"There are others coming, Edith. Eight that I know of in the tanks right\n now. My superior, Captain Davidson, who died at the same moment I\n did\u2014seven months ago next Wednesday\u2014he's going to be next. He was\n smashed up worse than I was, so it took a little longer, but he's almost\n ready. And there'll be many more, Edith. The government is going to save\n all they possibly can from now on. Every time a young and healthy man\n loses his life by accident, by violence, and his body can be recovered,\n he'll go into the tanks and they'll start the regenerative brain and\n organ process\u2014the process that made it all possible. So people have to\n get used to us. And the old stories, the old terrors, the ugly old\n superstitions have to die, because in time each place will have some of\n us; because in time it'll be an ordinary thing.\"\n\n\n Edith said, \"Yes, and I'm so grateful that you're here, Hank. Please\n believe that. Please be patient with me and Ralphie and\u2014\" She paused.\n \"There's one question.\"\n\n\n He knew what the question was. It had been the first asked him by\n everyone from the president of the United States on down.\n\n\n \"I saw nothing,\" he said. \"It was as if I slept those six and a half\n months\u2014slept without dreaming.\"\n\n\n She came to him and touched his face with her lips, and he was\n satisfied.\n\n\n Later, half asleep, he heard a dog howling, and remembered stories of\n how they announced death and the presence of monsters. He shivered and\n pulled the covers closer to him and luxuriated in being safe in his own\n home.\nTHE END",
    "24278": "Transcriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from Analog, January 1961.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.\nTHE\n\n GREEN\n\n BERET\nBy TOM PURDOM\nIt's not so much the decisions a man does make that mark\n him as a Man\u2014but the ones he refrains from making. Like the\n decision \"I've had enough!\"\nIllustrated by Schoenherr\nRead locked the door and drew his pistol. Sergeant Rashid handed\n Premier Umluana the warrant.\n\n\n \"We're from the UN Inspector Corps,\" Sergeant Rashid said. \"I'm\n very sorry, but we have to arrest you and bring you in for trial\n by the World Court.\"\n\n\n If Umluana noticed Read's gun, he didn't show it. He read the\n warrant carefully. When he finished, he said something in Dutch.\n\n\n \"I don't know your language,\" Rashid said.\n\n\n \"Then I'll speak English.\" Umluana was a small man with wrinkled\n brow, glasses and a mustache. His skin was a shade lighter than\n Read's. \"The Inspector General doesn't have the power to arrest a\n head of state\u2014especially the Premier of Belderkan. Now, if\n you'll excuse me, I must return to my party.\"\n\n\n In the other room people laughed and talked. Glasses clinked in\n the late afternoon. Read knew two armed men stood just outside\n the door. \"If you leave, Premier, I'll have to shoot you.\"\n\n\n \"I don't think so,\" Umluana said. \"No, if you kill me, all Africa\n will rise against the world. You don't want me dead. You want me\n in court.\"\n\n\n Read clicked off the safety.\n\n\n \"Corporal Read is very young,\" Rashid said, \"but he's a crack\n shot. That's why I brought him with me. I think he\nlikes\nto\n shoot, too.\"\n\n\n Umluana turned back to Rashid a second too soon. He saw the\n sergeant's upraised hand before it collided with his neck.\n\n\n \"Help!\nKidnap.\n\"\n\n\n Rashid judo chopped him and swung the inert body over his\n shoulders. Read pulled a flat grenade from his vest pocket. He\n dropped it and yellow psycho gas hissed from the valve.\n\n\n \"Let's be off,\" Rashid said.\n\n\n The door lock snapped as they went out the window. Two men with\n rifles plunged into the gas; sighing, they fell to the floor in a\n catatonic trance.\n\n\n A little car skimmed across the lawn. Bearing the Scourge of\n Africa, Rashid struggled toward it. Read walked backward,\n covering their retreat.\n\n\n The car stopped, whirling blades holding it a few inches off the\n lawn. They climbed in.\n\n\n \"How did it go?\" The driver and another inspector occupied the\n front seat.\n\n\n \"They'll be after us in half a minute.\"\n\n\n The other inspector carried a light machine gun and a box of\n grenades. \"I better cover,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Thanks,\" Rashid said.\n\n\n The inspector slid out of the car and ran to a clump of bushes.\n The driver pushed in the accelerator. As they swerved toward the\n south, Read saw a dozen armed men run out of the house. A grenade\n arced from the bushes and the pursuers recoiled from the cloud\n that rose before them.\n\n\n \"Is he all right?\" the driver asked.\n\n\n \"I don't think I hurt him.\" Rashid took a syrette from his vest\n pocket. \"Well, Read, it looks like we're in for a fight. In a few\n minutes Miaka Station will know we're coming. And God knows what\n will happen at the Game Preserve.\"\n\n\n Read wanted to jump out of the car. He could die any minute. But\n he had set his life on a well-oiled track and he couldn't get off\n until they reached Geneva.\n\n\n \"They don't know who's coming,\" he said. \"They don't make them\n tough enough to stop this boy.\"\n\n\n Staring straight ahead, he didn't see the sergeant smile.\nTwo types of recruits are accepted by the UN Inspector Corps:\n those with a fanatic loyalty to the ideals of peace and world\n order, and those who are loyal to nothing but themselves. Read\n was the second type.\n\n\n A tall, lanky Negro he had spent his school days in one of the\n drab suburbs that ring every prosperous American city. It was the\n home of factory workers, clerks, semiskilled technicians, all who\n do the drudge work of civilization and know they will never do\n more. The adults spent their days with television, alcohol and\n drugs; the young spent their days with gangs, sex, television and\n alcohol. What else was there? Those who could have told him\n neither studied nor taught at his schools. What he saw on the\n concrete fields between the tall apartment houses marked the\n limits of life's possibilities.\n\n\n He had belonged to a gang called The Golden Spacemen. \"Nobody\n fools with me,\" he bragged. \"When Harry Read's out, there's a\n tiger running loose.\" No one knew how many times he nearly ran\n from other clubs, how carefully he picked the safest spot on the\n battle line.\n\n\n \"A man ought to be a man,\" he once told a girl. \"He ought to do a\n man's work. Did you ever notice how our fathers look, how they\n sleep so much? I don't want to be like that. I want to be\n something proud.\"\n\n\n He joined the UN Inspector Corps at eighteen, in 1978. The\n international cops wore green berets, high buttonless boots, bush\n jackets. They were very special men.\n\n\n For the first time in his life, his father said something about\n his ambitions.\n\n\n \"Don't you like America, Harry? Do you\nwant\nto be without a\n country? This is the best country in the world. All my life I've\n made a good living. Haven't you had everything you ever wanted?\n I've been a king compared to people overseas. Why, you stay here\n and go to trade school and in two years you'll be living just\n like me.\"\n\n\n \"I don't want that,\" Read said.\n\n\n \"What do you mean, you don't want that?\"\n\n\n \"You could join the American Army,\" his mother said. \"That's as\n good as a trade school. If you have to be a soldier.\"\n\n\n \"I want to be a UN man. I've already enlisted. I'm in! What do\n you care what I do?\"\n\n\n The UN Inspector Corps had been founded to enforce the Nuclear\n Disarmament Treaty of 1966. Through the years it had acquired\n other jobs. UN men no longer went unarmed. Trained to use small\n arms and gas weapons, they guarded certain borders, bodyguarded\n diplomats and UN officials, even put down riots that threatened\n international peace. As the UN evolved into a strong world\n government, the UN Inspector Corps steadily acquired new powers.\n\n\n Read went through six months training on Madagascar.\n\n\n Twice he nearly got expelled for picking fights with smaller men.\n Rather than resign, he accepted punishment which assigned him to\n weeks of dull, filthy extra labor. He hated the restrictions and\n the iron fence of regulations. He hated boredom, loneliness and\n isolation.\n\n\n And yet he responded with enthusiasm. They had given him a job. A\n job many people considered important.\n\n\n He took his turn guarding the still disputed borders of Korea. He\n served on the rescue teams that patrol the busy Polar routes. He\n mounted guard at the 1980 World's Fair in Rangoon.\n\n\n \"I liked Rangoon,\" he even told a friend. \"I even liked Korea.\n But I think I liked the Pole job best. You sit around playing\n cards and shooting the bull and then there's a plane crash or\n something and you go out and win a medal. That's great for me.\n I'm lazy and I like excitement.\"\nOne power implied in the UN Charter no Secretary General or\n Inspector General had ever tried to use. The power to arrest any\n head of state whose country violated international law. Could the\n World Court try and imprison a politician who had conspired to\n attack another nation?\n\n\n For years Africa had been called \"The South America of the Old\n World.\" Revolution followed revolution. Colonies became\n democracies. Democracies became dictatorships or dissolved in\n civil war. Men planted bases on the moon and in four years,\n 1978-82, ringed the world with matter transmitters; but the black\n population of Africa still struggled toward political equality.\n\n\n Umluana took control of Belderkan in 1979. The tiny, former Dutch\n colony, had been a tottering democracy for ten years. The very\n day he took control the new dictator and his African party began\n to build up the Belderkan Army. For years he had preached a new\n Africa, united, free of white masters, the home of a vigorous and\n perfect Negro society. His critics called him a hypocritical\n racist, an opportunist using the desires of the African people to\n build himself an empire.\n\n\n He began a propaganda war against neighboring South Africa,\n promising the liberation of that strife-torn land. Most Negro\n leaders, having just won representation in the South African\n Parliament, told him to liberate his own country. They believed\n they could use their first small voice in the government to win\n true freedom for their people.\n\n\n But the radio assault and the arms buildup continued. Early in\n 1982, South Africa claimed the Belderkan Army exceeded the size\n agreed to in the Disarmament Treaty. The European countries and\n some African nations joined in the accusation. China called the\n uproar a vicious slur on a new African nation. The United States\n and Russia, trying not to get entangled, asked for more\n investigation by the UN.\n\n\n But the evidence was clear. Umluana was defying world law. If he\n got away with it, some larger and more dangerous nation might\n follow his precedent. And the arms race would begin again.\n\n\n The Inspector General decided. They would enter Belderkan, arrest\n Umluana and try him by due process before the World Court. If the\n plan succeeded, mankind would be a long step farther from nuclear\n war.\n\n\n Read didn't know much about the complicated political reasons for\n the arrest. He liked the Corp and he liked being in the Corp. He\n went where they sent him and did what they told him to do.\nThe car skimmed above the tree-tops. The driver and his two\n passengers scanned the sky.\n\n\n A plane would have been a faster way to get out of the country.\n But then they would have spent hours flying over Africa, with\n Belderkan fighters in hot pursuit, other nations joining the\n chase and the world uproar gaining volume. By transmitter, if all\n went well, they could have Umluana in Geneva in an hour.\n\n\n They were racing toward Miaka, a branch transmitter station. From\n Miaka they would transmit to the Belderkan Preserve, a famous\n tourist attraction whose station could transmit to any point on\n the globe. Even now a dozen inspectors were taking over the Game\n Preserve station and manning its controls.\n\n\n They had made no plans to take over Miaka. They planned to get\n there before it could be defended.\n\n\n \"There's no military base near Miaka,\" Rashid said. \"We might get\n there before the Belderkans.\"\n\n\n \"Here comes our escort,\" Read said.\n\n\n A big car rose from the jungle. This one had a recoilless rifle\n mounted on the roof. The driver and the gunner waved and fell in\n behind them.\n\n\n \"One thing,\" Read said, \"I don't think they'll shoot at us while\nhe's\nin the car.\"\n\n\n \"Don't be certain, corporal. All these strong-arm movements are\n alike. I'll bet Umluana's lieutenants are hoping he'll become a\n dead legend. Then they can become live conquerors.\"\n\n\n Sergeant Rashid came from Cairo. He had degrees in science and\n history from Cambridge but only the Corp gave him work that\n satisfied his conscience. He hated war. It was that simple.\n\n\n Read looked back. He saw three spots of sunlight about two\n hundred feet up and a good mile behind.\n\n\n \"Here they come, Sarge.\"\n\n\n Rashid turned his head. He waved frantically. The two men in the\n other car waved back.\n\n\n \"Shall I duck under the trees?\" the driver asked.\n\n\n \"Not yet. Not until we have to.\"\n\n\n Read fingered the machine gun he had picked up when he got in the\n car. He had never been shot at. Twice he had faced an unarmed\n mob, but a few shots had sent them running.\n\n\n Birds flew screaming from their nests. Monkeys screeched and\n threw things at the noisy, speeding cars. A little cloud of birds\n surrounded each vehicle.\n\n\n The escort car made a sharp turn and charged their pursuers. The\n big rifle fired twice. Read saw the Belderkan cars scatter.\n Suddenly machine-gun bullets cracked and whined beside him.\n\n\n \"Evade,\" Rashid said. \"Don't go down.\"\n\n\n Without losing any forward speed, the driver took them straight\n up. Read's stomach bounced.\n\n\n A shell exploded above them. The car rocked. He raised his eyes\n and saw a long crack in the roof.\n\n\n \"Hit the floor,\" Rashid said.\n\n\n They knelt on the cramped floor. Rashid put on his gas mask and\n Read copied him. Umluana breathed like a furnace, still\n unconscious from the injection Rashid had given him.\nI can't do anything\n, Read thought.\nThey're too far away to\n shoot back. All we can do is run.\nThe sky was clear and blue. The jungle was a noisy bazaar of\n color. In the distance guns crashed. He listened to shells\n whistle by and the whipcrack of machine-gun bullets. The car\n roller-coastered up and down. Every time a shell passed, he\n crawled in waves down his own back.\n\n\n Another explosion, this time very loud.\n\n\n Rashid raised his eyes above the seat and looked out the rear\n window. \"Two left. Keep down, Read.\"\n\n\n \"Can't we go down?\" Read said.\n\n\n \"They'll get to Miaka before us.\"\n\n\n He shut his eyes when he heard another loud explosion.\n\n\n Sergeant Rashid looked out the window again. He swore bitterly in\n English and Egyptian. Read raised his head. The two cars behind\n them weren't fighting each other. A long way back the tree-tops\n burned.\n\n\n \"How much farther?\" Rashid said. The masks muffled their voices.\n\n\n \"There it is now. Shall I take us right in?\"\n\n\n \"I think you'd better.\"\nThe station was a glass diamond in a small clearing. The driver\n slowed down, then crashed through the glass walls and hovered by\n the transmitter booth.\n\n\n Rashid opened the door and threw out two grenades. Read jumped\n out and the two of them struggled toward the booth with Umluana.\n The driver, pistol in hand, ran for the control panel.\n\n\n There were three technicians in the station and no passengers.\n All three panicked when the psycho gas enveloped them. They ran\n howling for the jungle.\n\n\n Through the window of his mask, Read saw their pursuers land in\n the clearing. Machine-gun bullets raked the building. They got\n Umluana in the booth and hit the floor. Read took aim and opened\n fire on the largest car.\n\n\n \"Now, I can shoot back,\" he said. \"Now we'll see what they do.\"\n\n\n \"Are you ready, Rashid?\" yelled the driver.\n\n\n \"Man, get us out of here!\"\n\n\n The booth door shut. When it opened, they were at the Game\n Preserve.\n\n\n The station jutted from the side of a hill. A glass-walled\n waiting room surrounded the bank of transmitter booths. Read\n looked out the door and saw his first battlefield.\n\n\n Directly in front of him, his head shattered by a bullet, a dead\n inspector lay behind an overturned couch.\n\n\n Read had seen dozens of training films taken during actual\n battles or after atomic attacks. He had laughed when other\n recruits complained. \"That's the way this world is. You people\n with the weak stomachs better get used to it.\"\n\n\n Now he slid against the rear wall of the transmitter booth.\n\n\n A wounded inspector crawled across the floor to the booth. Read\n couldn't see his wound, only the pain scratched on his face and\n the blood he deposited on the floor.\n\n\n \"Did you get Umluana?\" he asked Sergeant Rashid.\n\n\n \"He's in the booth. What's going on?\" Rashid's Middle East Oxford\n seemed more clipped than ever.\n\n\n \"They hit us with two companies of troops a few minutes ago. I\n think half our men are wounded.\"\n\n\n \"Can we get out of here?\"\n\n\n \"They machine-gunned the controls.\"\n\n\n Rashid swore. \"You heard him, Read! Get out there and help those\n men.\"\n\n\n He heard the screams of the wounded, the crack of rifles and\n machine guns, all the terrifying noise of war. But since his\n eighteenth year he had done everything his superiors told him to\n do.\n\n\n He started crawling toward an easy-chair that looked like good\n cover. A bullet cracked above his head, so close he felt the\n shock wave. He got up, ran panicky, crouched, and dove behind the\n chair.\n\n\n An inspector cracked the valve on a smoke grenade. A white fog\n spread through the building. They could see anyone who tried to\n rush them but the besiegers couldn't pick out targets.\n\n\n Above the noise, he heard Rashid.\n\n\n \"I'm calling South Africa Station for a copter. It's the only way\n out of here. Until it comes, we've got to hold them back.\"\n\n\n Read thought of the green beret he had stuffed in his pocket that\n morning. He stuck it on his head and cocked it. He didn't need\n plain clothes anymore and he wanted to wear at least a part of\n his uniform.\n\n\n Bullets had completely shattered the wall in front of him. He\n stared through the murk, across the broken glass. He was Corporal\n Harry Read, UN Inspector Corps\u2014a very special man. If he didn't\n do a good job here, he wasn't the man he claimed to be. This\n might be the only real test he would ever face.\nHe heard a shout in rapid French. He turned to his right. Men in\n red loincloths ran zigzagging toward the station. They carried\n light automatic rifles. Half of them wore gas masks.\n\n\n \"Shoot the masks,\" he yelled. \"Aim for the masks.\"\n\n\n The machine gun kicked and chattered on his shoulder. He picked a\n target and squeezed off a burst. Tensely, he hunted for another\n mask. Three grenades arced through the air and yellow gas spread\n across the battlefield. The attackers ran through it. A few yards\n beyond the gas, some of them turned and ran for their own lines.\n In a moment only half a dozen masked men still advanced. The\n inspectors fired a long, noisy volley. When they stopped only\n four attackers remained on their feet. And they were running for\n cover.\n\n\n The attackers had come straight up a road that led from the Game\n Preserve to the station. They had not expected any resistance.\n The UN men had already taken over the station, chased out the\n passengers and technicians and taken up defense positions; they\n had met the Belderkans with a dozen grenades and sent them\n scurrying for cover. The fight so far had been vicious but\n disorganized. But the Belderkans had a few hundred men and knew\n they had wrecked the transmitter controls.\n\n\n The first direct attack had been repulsed. They could attack many\n more times and continue to spray the building with bullets. They\n could also try to go around the hill and attack the station from\n above; if they did, the inspectors had a good view of the hill\n and should see them going up.\n\n\n The inspectors had taken up good defensive positions. In spite of\n their losses, they still had enough firepower to cover the area\n surrounding the station.\n\n\n Read surveyed his sector of fire. About two hundred yards to his\n left, he saw the top of a small ditch. Using the ditch for cover,\n the Belderkans could sneak to the top of the hill.\n\n\n Gas grenades are only three inches long. They hold cubic yards of\n gas under high pressure. Read unclipped a telescoping rod from\n his vest pocket. He opened it and a pair of sights flipped up. A\n thin track ran down one side.\n\n\n He had about a dozen grenades left, three self-propelling. He\n slid an SP grenade into the rod's track and estimated windage and\n range. Sighting carefully, not breathing, muscles relaxed, the\n rod rock steady, he fired and lobbed the little grenade into the\n ditch. He dropped another grenade beside it.\n\n\n The heavy gas would lie there for hours.\n\n\n Sergeant Rashid ran crouched from man to man. He did what he\n could to shield the wounded.\n\n\n \"Well, corporal, how are you?\"\n\n\n \"Not too bad, sergeant. See that ditch out there? I put a little\n gas in it.\"\n\n\n \"Good work. How's your ammunition?\"\n\n\n \"A dozen grenades. Half a barrel of shells.\"\n\n\n \"The copter will be here in half an hour. We'll put Umluana on,\n then try to save ourselves. Once he's gone, I think we ought to\n surrender.\"\n\n\n \"How do you think they'll treat us?\"\n\n\n \"That we'll have to see.\"\n\n\n An occasional bullet cracked and whined through the misty room.\n Near him a man gasped frantically for air. On the sunny field a\n wounded man screamed for help.\n\n\n \"There's a garage downstairs,\" Rashid said. \"In case the copter\n doesn't get here on time, I've got a man filling wine bottles\n with gasoline.\"\n\n\n \"We'll stop them, Sarge. Don't worry.\"\nRashid ran off. Read stared across the green land and listened to\n the pound of his heart. What were the Belderkans planning? A mass\n frontal attack? To sneak in over the top of the hill?\n\n\n He didn't think, anymore than a rabbit thinks when it lies hiding\n from the fox or a panther thinks when it crouches on a branch\n above the trail. His skin tightened and relaxed on his body.\n\n\n \"Listen,\" said a German.\n\n\n Far down the hill he heard the deep-throated rumble of a big\n motor.\n\n\n \"Armor,\" the German said.\n\n\n The earth shook. The tank rounded the bend. Read watched the\n squat, angular monster until its stubby gun pointed at the\n station. It stopped less than two hundred yards away.\n\n\n A loud-speaker blared.\n\n\n ATTENTION UN SOLDIERS.\n\n ATTENTION UN SOLDIERS.\n\n YOU MAY THINK US SAVAGES\n\n BUT WE HAVE MODERN WEAPONS.\n\n WE HAVE ATOMIC WARHEADS,\n\n ALL GASES, ROCKETS\n\n AND FLAME THROWERS. IF\n\n YOU DO NOT SURRENDER\n\n OUR PREMIER, WE WILL DESTROY YOU.\n\n\n\n \"They know we don't have any big weapons,\" Read said. \"They know\n we have only gas grenades and small arms.\"\n\n\n He looked nervously from side to side. They couldn't bring the\n copter in with that thing squatting out there.\n\n\n A few feet away, sprawled behind a barricade of tables, lay a man\n in advanced shock. His deadly white skin shone like ivory. They\n wouldn't even look like that. One nuclear shell from that gun and\n they'd be vaporized. Or perhaps the tank had sonic projectors;\n then the skin would peel off their bones. Or they might be\n burned, or cut up by shrapnel, or gassed with some new mist their\n masks couldn't filter.\n\n\n Read shut his eyes. All around him he heard heavy breathing,\n mumbled comments, curses. Clothes rustled as men moved restlessly.\n\n\n But already the voice of Sergeant Rashid resounded in the murky\n room.\n\n\n \"We've got to knock that thing out before the copter comes.\n Otherwise, he can't land. I have six Molotov cocktails here. Who\n wants to go hunting with me?\"\n\n\n For two years Read had served under Sergeant Rashid. To him, the\n sergeant was everything a UN inspector should be. Rashid's\n devotion to peace had no limits.\n\n\n Read's psych tests said pride alone drove him on. That was good\n enough for the UN; they only rejected men whose loyalties might\n conflict with their duties. But an assault on the tank required\n something more than a hunger for self-respect.\n\n\n Read had seen the inspector who covered their getaway. He had\n watched their escort charge three-to-one odds. He had seen\n another inspector stay behind at Miaka Station. And here, in this\n building, lay battered men and dead men.\n\n\n All UN inspectors. All part of his life.\n\n\n And he was part of their life. Their blood, their sacrifice, and\n pain, had become a part of him.\n\n\n \"I'll take a cocktail, Sarge.\"\n\n\n \"Is that Read?\"\n\n\n \"Who else did you expect?\"\n\n\n \"Nobody. Anybody else?\"\n\n\n \"I'll go,\" the Frenchman said. \"Three should be enough. Give us a\n good smoke screen.\"\nRashid snapped orders. He put the German inspector in charge of\n Umluana. Read, the Frenchman and himself, he stationed at\n thirty-foot intervals along the floor.\n\n\n \"Remember,\" Rashid said. \"We have to knock out that gun.\"\n\n\n Read had given away his machine gun. He held a gas-filled bottle\n in each hand. His automatic nestled in its shoulder holster.\n\n\n Rashid whistled.\n\n\n Dozens of smoke grenades tumbled through the air. Thick mist\n engulfed the tank. Read stood up and ran forward. He crouched but\n didn't zigzag. Speed counted most here.\n\n\n Gunfire shook the hill. The Belderkans couldn't see them but they\n knew what was going on and they fired systematically into the\n smoke.\n\n\n Bullets ploughed the ground beside him. He raised his head and\n found the dim silhouette of the tank. He tried not to think about\n bullets ploughing through his flesh.\n\n\n A bullet slammed into his hip. He fell on his back, screaming.\n \"Sarge.\nSarge.\n\"\n\n\n \"I'm hit, too,\" Rashid said. \"Don't stop if you can move.\"\nListen to him. What's he got, a sprained ankle?\nBut he didn't feel any pain. He closed his eyes and threw himself\n onto his stomach. And nearly fainted from pain. He screamed and\n quivered. The pain stopped. He stretched out his hands, gripping\n the wine bottles, and inched forward. Pain stabbed him from\n stomach to knee.\n\n\n \"I can't move, Sarge.\"\n\n\n \"Read, you've got to. I think you're the only\u2014\"\n\n\n \"What?\"\n\n\n Guns clattered. Bullets cracked.\n\n\n \"Sergeant Rashid! Answer me.\"\n\n\n He heard nothing but the lonely passage of the bullets in the\n mist.\n\n\n \"I'm a UN man,\" he mumbled. \"You people up there know what a UN\n man is? You know what happens when you meet one?\"\n\n\n When he reached the tank, he had another bullet in his right arm.\n But they didn't know he was coming and when you get within ten\n feet of a tank, the men inside can't see you.\n\n\n He just had to stand up and drop the bottle down the gun barrel.\n That was all\u2014with a broken hip and a wounded right arm.\n\n\n He knew they would see him when he stood up but he didn't think\n about that. He didn't think about Sergeant Rashid, about the\n complicated politics of Africa, about crowded market streets. He\n had to kill the tank. That was all he thought about. He had\n decided something in the world was more important than himself,\n but he didn't know it or realize the psychologists would be\n surprised to see him do this. He had made many decisions in the\n last few minutes. He had ceased to think about them or anything\n else.\n\n\n With his cigarette lighter, he lit the rag stuffed in the end of\n the bottle.\n\n\n Biting his tongue, he pulled himself up the front of the tank.\n His long arm stretched for the muzzle of the gun. He tossed the\n bottle down the dark throat.\n\n\n As he fell, the machine-gun bullets hit him in the chest, then in\n the neck. He didn't feel them. He had fainted the moment he felt\n the bottle leave his hand.\n\n\n The copter landed ten minutes later. Umluana left in a shower of\n bullets. A Russian private, the ranking man alive in the station,\n surrendered the survivors to the Belderkans.\nHis mother hung the Global Medal above the television set.\n\n\n \"He must have been brave,\" she said. \"We had a fine son.\"\n\n\n \"He was our only son,\" her husband said. \"What did he volunteer\n for? Couldn't somebody else have done it?\"\n\n\n His wife started to cry. Awkwardly, he embraced her. He wondered\n what his son had wanted that he couldn't get at home.\nTHE END",
    "24517": "ACCIDENTAL DEATH\nBY PETER BAILY\nThe most\n dangerous of weapons\n  \n is the one you don't know is loaded.\nIllustrated by Schoenherr\nThe\n wind howled out of\n the northwest, blind\n with snow and barbed\n with ice crystals. All\n the way up the half-mile\n precipice it fingered and wrenched\n away at groaning ice-slabs. It\n screamed over the top, whirled snow\n in a dervish dance around the hollow\n there, piled snow into the long furrow\n plowed ruler-straight through\n streamlined hummocks of snow.\n\n\n The sun glinted on black rock\n glazed by ice, chasms and ridges and\n bridges of ice. It lit the snow slope\n to a frozen glare, penciled black\n shadow down the long furrow, and\n flashed at the furrow's end on a\n thing of metal and plastics, an artifact\n thrown down in the dead wilderness.\n\n\n Nothing grew, nothing flew, nothing\n walked, nothing talked. But the\n thing in the hollow was stirring in\n stiff jerks like a snake with its back\n broken or a clockwork toy running\n down. When the movements stopped,\n there was a click and a strange\n sound began. Thin, scratchy, inaudible\n more than a yard away, weary\n but still cocky, there leaked from the\n shape in the hollow the sound of a\n human voice.\n\n\n \"I've tried my hands and arms\n and they seem to work,\" it began.\n \"I've wiggled my toes with entire\n success. It's well on the cards that\n I'm all in one piece and not broken\n up at all, though I don't see how it\n could happen. Right now I don't\n feel like struggling up and finding\n out. I'm fine where I am. I'll just lie\n here for a while and relax, and get\n some of the story on tape. This suit's\n got a built-in recorder, I might as\n well use it. That way even if I'm not\n as well as I feel, I'll leave a message.\n You probably know we're back\n and wonder what went wrong.\n\n\n \"I suppose I'm in a state of shock.\n That's why I can't seem to get up.\n Who wouldn't be shocked after luck\n like that?\n\n\n \"I've always been lucky, I guess.\n Luck got me a place in the\nWhale\n.\n Sure I'm a good astronomer but so\n are lots of other guys. If I were ten\n years older, it would have been an\n honor, being picked for the first long\n jump in the first starship ever. At my\n age it was luck.\n\n\n \"You'll want to know if the ship\n worked. Well, she did. Went like a\n bomb. We got lined up between\n Earth and Mars, you'll remember,\n and James pushed the button marked\n 'Jump'. Took his finger off the button\n and there we were:\nAlpha Centauri\n.\n Two months later your time,\n one second later by us. We covered\n our whole survey assignment like\n that, smooth as a pint of old and\n mild which right now I could certainly\n use. Better yet would be a pint\n of hot black coffee with sugar in.\n Failing that, I could even go for a\n long drink of cold water. There was\n never anything wrong with the\nWhale\ntill right at the end and even then I\n doubt if it was the ship itself that\n fouled things up.\n\n\n \"That was some survey assignment.\n We astronomers really lived.\n Wait till you see\u2014but of course you\n won't. I could weep when I think of\n those miles of lovely color film, all\n gone up in smoke.\n\"I'm shocked all right. I never said\n who I was. Matt Hennessy, from Farside\n Observatory, back of the Moon,\n just back from a proving flight\ncum\nastronomical survey in the starship\nWhale\n. Whoever you are who finds\n this tape, you're made. Take it to\n any radio station or newspaper office.\n You'll find you can name your price\n and don't take any wooden nickels.\n\n\n \"Where had I got to? I'd told you\n how we happened to find Chang,\n hadn't I? That's what the natives called\n it. Walking, talking natives on a\n blue sky planet with 1.1 g gravity\n and a twenty per cent oxygen atmosphere\n at fifteen p.s.i. The odds\n against finding Chang on a six-sun\n survey on the first star jump ever\n must be up in the googols. We certainly\n were lucky.\n\n\n \"The Chang natives aren't very\n technical\u2014haven't got space travel\n for instance. They're good astronomers,\n though. We were able to show\n them our sun, in their telescopes. In\n their way, they're a highly civilized\n people. Look more like cats than\n people, but they're people all right.\n If you doubt it, chew these facts\n over.\n\n\n \"One, they learned our language\n in four weeks. When I say they, I\n mean a ten-man team of them.\n\n\n \"Two, they brew a near-beer that's\n a lot nearer than the canned stuff we\n had aboard the\nWhale\n.\n\n\n \"Three, they've a great sense of\n humor. Ran rather to silly practical\n jokes, but still. Can't say I care for\n that hot-foot and belly-laugh stuff\n myself, but tastes differ.\n\n\n \"Four, the ten-man language team\n also learned chess and table tennis.\n\n\n \"But why go on? People who talk\n English, drink beer, like jokes and\n beat me at chess or table-tennis are\n people for my money, even if they\n look like tigers in trousers.\n\n\n \"It was funny the way they won\n all the time at table tennis. They certainly\n weren't so hot at it. Maybe\n that ten per cent extra gravity put us\n off our strokes. As for chess, Svendlov\n was our champion. He won\n sometimes. The rest of us seemed to\n lose whichever Chingsi we played.\n There again it wasn't so much that\n they were good. How could they be,\n in the time? It was more that we all\n seemed to make silly mistakes when\n we played them and that's fatal in\n chess. Of course it's a screwy situation,\n playing chess with something\n that grows its own fur coat, has yellow\n eyes an inch and a half long\n and long white whiskers. Could\nyou\nhave kept your mind on the game?\n\n\n \"And don't think I fell victim to\n their feline charm. The children were\n pets, but you didn't feel like patting\n the adults on their big grinning\n heads. Personally I didn't like the one\n I knew best. He was called\u2014well, we\n called him Charley, and he was the\n ethnologist, ambassador, contact man,\n or whatever you like to call him, who\n came back with us. Why I disliked\n him was because he was always trying\n to get the edge on you. All the\n time he had to be top. Great sense\n of humor, of course. I nearly broke\n my neck on that butter-slide he fixed\n up in the metal alleyway to the\nWhale's\nengine room. Charley laughed\n fit to bust, everyone laughed, I\n even laughed myself though doing it\n hurt me more than the tumble had.\n Yes, life and soul of the party, old\n Charley ...\n\n\n \"My last sight of the\nMinnow\nwas\n a cabin full of dead and dying men,\n the sweetish stink of burned flesh\n and the choking reek of scorching insulation,\n the boat jolting and shuddering\n and beginning to break up,\n and in the middle of the flames, still\n unhurt, was Charley. He was laughing ...\n\n\n \"My God, it's dark out here. Wonder\n how high I am. Must be all of\n fifty miles, and doing eight hundred\n miles an hour at least. I'll be doing\n more than that when I land. What's\n final velocity for a fifty-mile fall?\n Same as a fifty thousand mile fall, I\n suppose; same as escape; twenty-four\n thousand miles an hour. I'll make a\n mess ...\n\"That's better. Why didn't I close\n my eyes before? Those star streaks\n made me dizzy. I'll make a nice\n shooting star when I hit air. Come to\n think of it, I must be deep in air\n now. Let's take a look.\n\n\n \"It's getting lighter. Look at those\n peaks down there! Like great knives.\n I don't seem to be falling as fast as\n I expected though. Almost seem to be\n floating. Let's switch on the radio\n and tell the world hello. Hello, earth\n ... hello, again ... and good-by ...\n\n\n \"Sorry about that. I passed out. I\n don't know what I said, if anything,\n and the suit recorder has no playback\n or eraser. What must have happened\n is that the suit ran out of\n oxygen, and I lost consciousness due\n to anoxia. I dreamed I switched on\n the radio, but I actually switched on\n the emergency tank, thank the Lord,\n and that brought me round.\n\n\n \"Come to think of it, why not\n crack the suit and breath fresh air\n instead of bottled?\n\n\n \"No. I'd have to get up to do that.\n I think I'll just lie here a little bit\n longer and get properly rested up\n before I try anything big like standing\n up.\n\n\n \"I was telling about the return\n journey, wasn't I? The long jump\n back home, which should have dumped\n us between the orbits of Earth\n and Mars. Instead of which, when\n James took his finger off the button,\n the mass-detector showed nothing\n except the noise-level of the universe.\n\n\n \"We were out in that no place for\n a day. We astronomers had to establish\n our exact position relative to the\n solar system. The crew had to find\n out exactly what went wrong. The\n physicists had to make mystic passes\n in front of meters and mutter about\n residual folds in stress-free space.\n Our task was easy, because we were\n about half a light-year from the sun.\n The crew's job was also easy: they\n found what went wrong in less than\n half an hour.\n\n\n \"It still seems incredible. To program\n the ship for a star-jump, you\n merely told it where you were and\n where you wanted to go. In practical\n terms, that entailed first a series of\n exact measurements which had to be\n translated into the somewhat abstruse\n co-ordinate system we used based on\n the topological order of mass-points\n in the galaxy. Then you cut a tape on\n the computer and hit the button.\n Nothing was wrong with the computer.\n Nothing was wrong with the\n engines. We'd hit the right button\n and we'd gone to the place we'd aimed\n for. All we'd done was aim for\n the wrong place. It hurts me to tell\n you this and I'm just attached personnel\n with no space-flight tradition. In\n practical terms, one highly trained\n crew member had punched a wrong\n pattern of holes on the tape. Another\n equally skilled had failed to notice\n this when reading back. A childish\n error, highly improbable; twice repeated,\n thus squaring the improbability.\n Incredible, but that's what\n happened.\n\n\n \"Anyway, we took good care with\n the next lot of measurements. That's\n why we were out there so long. They\n were cross-checked about five times.\n I got sick so I climbed into a spacesuit\n and went outside and took some\n photographs of the Sun which I hoped\n would help to determine hydrogen\n density in the outer regions. When\n I got back everything was ready. We\n disposed ourselves about the control\n room and relaxed for all we were\n worth. We were all praying that this\n time nothing would go wrong, and\n all looking forward to seeing Earth\n again after four months subjective\n time away, except for Charley, who\n was still chuckling and shaking his\n head, and Captain James who was\n glaring at Charley and obviously\n wishing human dignity permitted him\n to tear Charley limb from limb. Then\n James pressed the button.\n\n\n \"Everything twanged like a bowstring.\n I felt myself turned inside out,\n passed through a small sieve, and\n poured back into shape. The entire\n bow wall-screen was full of Earth.\n Something was wrong all right, and\n this time it was much, much worse.\n We'd come out of the jump about\n two hundred miles above the Pacific,\n pointed straight down, traveling at a\n relative speed of about two thousand\n miles an hour.\n\n\n \"It was a fantastic situation. Here\n was the\nWhale\n, the most powerful\n ship ever built, which could cover\n fifty light-years in a subjective time\n of one second, and it was helpless.\n For, as of course you know, the\n star-drive couldn't be used again for\n at least two hours.\n\n\n \"The\nWhale\nalso had ion rockets\n of course, the standard deuterium-fusion\n thing with direct conversion.\n As again you know, this is good for\n interplanetary flight because you can\n run it continuously and it has extremely\n high exhaust velocity. But in\n our situation it was no good because\n it has rather a low thrust. It would\n have taken more time than we had to\n deflect us enough to avoid a smash.\n We had five minutes to abandon\n ship.\n\n\n \"James got us all into the\nMinnow\nat a dead run. There was no time to\n take anything at all except the clothes\n we stood in. The\nMinnow\nwas meant\n for short heavy hops to planets or\n asteroids. In addition to the ion drive\n it had emergency atomic rockets,\n using steam for reaction mass. We\n thanked God for that when Cazamian\n canceled our downwards velocity\n with them in a few seconds. We\n curved away up over China and from\n about fifty miles high we saw the\nWhale\nhit the Pacific. Six hundred\n tons of mass at well over two thousand\n miles an hour make an almighty\n splash. By now you'll have divers\n down, but I doubt they'll salvage\n much you can use.\n\n\n \"I wonder why James went down\n with the ship, as the saying is? Not\n that it made any difference. It must\n have broken his heart to know that\n his lovely ship was getting the chopper.\n Or did he suspect another human\n error?\n\n\n \"We didn't have time to think\n about that, or even to get the radio\n working. The steam rockets blew\n up. Poor Cazamian was burnt to a\n crisp. Only thing that saved me was\n the spacesuit I was still wearing. I\n snapped the face plate down because\n the cabin was filling with fumes. I\n saw Charley coming out of the toilet\u2014that's\n how he'd escaped\u2014and I\n saw him beginning to laugh. Then\n the port side collapsed and I fell out.\n\n\n \"I saw the launch spinning away,\n glowing red against a purplish black\n sky. I tumbled head over heels towards\n the huge curved shield of\n earth fifty miles below. I shut my\n eyes and that's about all I remember.\n I don't see how any of us could have\n survived. I think we're all dead.\n\n\n \"I'll have to get up and crack this\n suit and let some air in. But I can't.\n I fell fifty miles without a parachute.\n I'm dead so I can't stand up.\"\nThere was silence for a while except\n for the vicious howl of the wind.\n Then snow began to shift on the\n ledge. A man crawled stiffly out and\n came shakily to his feet. He moved\n slowly around for some time. After\n about two hours he returned to the\n hollow, squatted down and switched\n on the recorder. The voice began\n again, considerably wearier.\n\n\n \"Hello there. I'm in the bleakest\n wilderness I've ever seen. This place\n makes the moon look cozy. There's\n precipice around me every way but\n one and that's up. So it's up I'll have\n to go till I find a way to go down.\n I've been chewing snow to quench\n my thirst but I could eat a horse. I\n picked up a short-wave broadcast on\n my suit but couldn't understand a\n word. Not English, not French, and\n there I stick. Listened to it for fifteen\n minutes just to hear a human voice\n again. I haven't much hope of reaching\n anyone with my five milliwatt\n suit transmitter but I'll keep trying.\n\n\n \"Just before I start the climb there\n are two things I want to get on tape.\n The first is how I got here. I've remembered\n something from my military\n training, when I did some parachute\n jumps. Terminal velocity for a\n human body falling through air is\n about one hundred twenty m.p.h.\n Falling fifty miles is no worse than\n falling five hundred feet. You'd be\n lucky to live through a five hundred\n foot fall, true, but I've been lucky.\n The suit is bulky but light and probably\n slowed my fall. I hit a sixty mile\n an hour updraft this side of the\n mountain, skidded downhill through\n about half a mile of snow and fetched\n up in a drift. The suit is part\n worn but still operational. I'm fine.\n\n\n \"The second thing I want to say is\n about the Chingsi, and here it is:\n watch out for them. Those jokers are\n dangerous. I'm not telling how because\n I've got a scientific reputation\n to watch. You'll have to figure it out\n for yourselves. Here are the clues:\n(1) The Chingsi talk and laugh but\n after all they aren't human. On\n an alien world a hundred light-years\n away, why shouldn't alien\n talents develop? A talent that's\n so uncertain and rudimentary\n here that most people don't believe\n it, might be highly developed\n out there.\n(2) The\nWhale\nexpedition did fine\n till it found Chang. Then it hit\n a seam of bad luck. Real stinking\n bad luck that went on and\n on till it looks fishy. We lost\n the ship, we lost the launch, all\n but one of us lost our lives. We\n couldn't even win a game of\n ping-pong.\n\n\n \"So what is luck, good or bad?\n Scientifically speaking, future chance\n events are by definition chance. They\n can turn out favorable or not. When\n a preponderance of chance events has\n occurred unfavorably, you've got bad\n luck. It's a fancy name for a lot of\n chance results that didn't go your\n way. But the gambler defines it differently.\n For him, luck refers to the\n future, and you've got bad luck when\n future chance events won't go your\n way. Scientific investigations into this\n have been inconclusive, but everyone\n knows that some people are lucky and\n others aren't. All we've got are hints\n and glimmers, the fumbling touch of\n a rudimentary talent. There's the evil\n eye legend and the Jonah, bad luck\n bringers. Superstition? Maybe; but\n ask the insurance companies about\n accident prones. What's in a name?\n Call a man unlucky and you're superstitious.\n Call him accident prone and\n that's sound business sense. I've said\n enough.\n\n\n \"All the same, search the space-flight\n records, talk to the actuaries.\n When a ship is working perfectly\n and is operated by a hand-picked\n crew of highly trained men in perfect\n condition, how often is it wrecked\n by a series of silly errors happening\n one after another in defiance of\n probability?\n\n\n \"I'll sign off with two thoughts,\n one depressing and one cheering. A\n single Chingsi wrecked our ship and\n our launch. What could a whole\n planetful of them do?\n\n\n \"On the other hand, a talent that\n manipulates chance events is bound\n to be chancy. No matter how highly\n developed it can't be surefire. The\n proof is that I've survived to tell the\n tale.\"\nAt twenty below zero and fifty\n miles an hour the wind ravaged the\n mountain. Peering through his polarized\n vizor at the white waste and the\n snow-filled air howling over it, sliding\n and stumbling with every step\n on a slope that got gradually steeper\n and seemed to go on forever, Matt\n Hennessy began to inch his way up\n the north face of Mount Everest.\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAstounding Science Fiction\nFebruary 1959.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "24521": "IN CASE OF FIRE\nBy RANDALL GARRETT\nThere are times when a broken tool is better\n than a sound one, or a twisted personality\n more useful than a whole one. For\n instance, a whole beer bottle isn't half\n the weapon that half a beer bottle is ...\nIllustrated by Martinez\nIn his\n office apartment,\n on the top floor of the\n Terran Embassy Building\n in Occeq City, Bertrand\n Malloy leafed\n casually through the dossiers of the\n four new men who had been assigned\n to him. They were typical of the kind\n of men who were sent to him, he\n thought. Which meant, as usual, that\n they were atypical. Every man in the\n Diplomatic Corps who developed a\n twitch or a quirk was shipped to\n Saarkkad IV to work under Bertrand\n Malloy, Permanent Terran Ambassador\n to His Utter Munificence, the\n Occeq of Saarkkad.\n\n\n Take this first one, for instance.\n Malloy ran his finger down the columns\n of complex symbolism that\n showed the complete psychological\n analysis of the man. Psychopathic\n paranoia. The man wasn't technically\n insane; he could be as lucid as the next\n man most of the time. But he was\n morbidly suspicious that every man's\n hand was turned against him. He\n trusted no one, and was perpetually\n on his guard against imaginary plots\n and persecutions.\n\n\n Number two suffered from some\n sort of emotional block that left him\n continually on the horns of one dilemma\n or another. He was psychologically\n incapable of making a decision\n if he were faced with two or more\n possible alternatives of any major\n importance.\n\n\n Number three ...\n\n\n Malloy sighed and pushed the dossiers\n away from him. No two men\n were alike, and yet there sometimes\n seemed to be an eternal sameness\n about all men. He considered himself\n an individual, for instance, but wasn't\n the basic similarity there, after all?\n\n\n He was\u2014how old? He glanced at\n the Earth calendar dial that was automatically\n correlated with the Saarkkadic\n calendar just above it. Fifty-nine\n next week. Fifty-nine years old. And\n what did he have to show for it besides\n flabby muscles, sagging skin, a\n wrinkled face, and gray hair?\n\n\n Well, he had an excellent record in\n the Corps, if nothing else. One of the\n top men in his field. And he had his\n memories of Diane, dead these ten\n years, but still beautiful and alive in\n his recollections. And\u2014he grinned\n softly to himself\u2014he had Saarkkad.\n\n\n He glanced up at the ceiling, and\n mentally allowed his gaze to penetrate\n it to the blue sky beyond it.\n\n\n Out there was the terrible emptiness\n of interstellar space\u2014a great, yawning,\n infinite chasm capable of swallowing\n men, ships, planets, suns, and\n whole galaxies without filling its insatiable\n void.\n\n\n Malloy closed his eyes. Somewhere\n out there, a war was raging. He\n didn't even like to think of that, but\n it was necessary to keep it in mind.\n Somewhere out there, the ships of\n Earth were ranged against the ships\n of the alien Karna in the most important\n war that Mankind had yet\n fought.\n\n\n And, Malloy knew, his own position\n was not unimportant in that war.\n He was not in the battle line, nor\n even in the major production line, but\n it was necessary to keep the drug supply\n lines flowing from Saarkkad, and\n that meant keeping on good terms\n with the Saarkkadic government.\n\n\n The Saarkkada themselves were humanoid\n in physical form\u2014if one allowed\n the term to cover a wide range\n of differences\u2014but their minds just\n didn't function along the same lines.\n\n\n For nine years, Bertrand Malloy\n had been Ambassador to Saarkkad,\n and for nine years, no Saarkkada had\n ever seen him. To have shown himself\n to one of them would have\n meant instant loss of prestige.\n\n\n To their way of thinking, an important\n official was aloof. The greater\n his importance, the greater must be\n his isolation. The Occeq of Saarkkad\n himself was never seen except by a\n handful of picked nobles, who, themselves,\n were never seen except by their\n underlings. It was a long, roundabout\n way of doing business, but it was the\n only way Saarkkad would do any\n business at all. To violate the rigid\n social setup of Saarkkad would mean\n the instant closing off of the supply\n of biochemical products that the\n Saarkkadic laboratories produced\n from native plants and animals\u2014products\n that were vitally necessary\n to Earth's war, and which could be\n duplicated nowhere else in the\n known universe.\n\n\n It was Bertrand Malloy's job to\n keep the production output high and\n to keep the materiel flowing towards\n Earth and her allies and outposts.\n\n\n The job would have been a snap\n cinch in the right circumstances; the\n Saarkkada weren't difficult to get\n along with. A staff of top-grade men\n could have handled them without\n half trying.\n\n\n But Malloy didn't have top-grade\n men. They couldn't be spared from\n work that required their total capacity.\n It's inefficient to waste a man on a\n job that he can do without half trying\n where there are more important jobs\n that will tax his full output.\n\n\n So Malloy was stuck with the culls.\n Not the worst ones, of course; there\n were places in the galaxy that were\n less important than Saarkkad to the\n war effort. Malloy knew that, no matter\n what was wrong with a man, as\n long as he had the mental ability to\n dress himself and get himself to\n work, useful work could be found for\n him.\n\n\n Physical handicaps weren't at all\n difficult to deal with. A blind man can\n work very well in the total darkness\n of an infrared-film darkroom. Partial\n or total losses of limbs can be compensated\n for in one way or another.\n\n\n The mental disabilities were harder\n to deal with, but not totally impossible.\n On a world without liquor, a\n dipsomaniac could be channeled easily\n enough; and he'd better not try fermenting\n his own on Saarkkad unless\n he brought his own yeast\u2014which\n was impossible, in view of the sterilization\n regulations.\n\n\n But Malloy didn't like to stop at\n merely thwarting mental quirks; he\n liked to find places where they were\nuseful\n.\nThe phone chimed. Malloy flipped\n it on with a practiced hand.\n\n\n \"Malloy here.\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Malloy?\" said a careful voice.\n \"A special communication for you has\n been teletyped in from Earth. Shall I\n bring it in?\"\n\n\n \"Bring it in, Miss Drayson.\"\n\n\n Miss Drayson was a case in point.\n She was uncommunicative. She liked\n to gather in information, but she\n found it difficult to give it up once it\n was in her possession.\n\n\n Malloy had made her his private\n secretary. Nothing\u2014but\nnothing\n\u2014got\n out of Malloy's office without his\n direct order. It had taken Malloy a\n long time to get it into Miss Drayson's\n head that it was perfectly all\n right\u2014even desirable\u2014for her to\n keep secrets from everyone except\n Malloy.\n\n\n She came in through the door,\n a rather handsome woman in her middle\n thirties, clutching a sheaf of\n papers in her right hand as though\n someone might at any instant snatch\n it from her before she could turn it\n over to Malloy.\n\n\n She laid them carefully on the\n desk. \"If anything else comes in, I'll\n let you know immediately, sir,\" she\n said. \"Will there be anything else?\"\n\n\n Malloy let her stand there while he\n picked up the communique. She wanted\n to know what his reaction was\n going to be; it didn't matter because\n no one would ever find out from her\n what he had done unless she was\n ordered to tell someone.\n\n\n He read the first paragraph, and his\n eyes widened involuntarily.\n\n\n \"Armistice,\" he said in a low\n whisper. \"There's a chance that the\n war may be over.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" said Miss Drayson in a\n hushed voice.\n\n\n Malloy read the whole thing\n through, fighting to keep his emotions\n in check. Miss Drayson stood\n there calmly, her face a mask; her\n emotions were a secret.\n\n\n Finally, Malloy looked up. \"I'll let\n you know as soon as I reach a decision,\n Miss Drayson. I think I hardly\n need say that no news of this is to\n leave this office.\"\n\n\n \"Of course not, sir.\"\n\n\n Malloy watched her go out the door\n without actually seeing her. The war\n was over\u2014at least for a while. He\n looked down at the papers again.\n\n\n The Karna, slowly being beaten\n back on every front, were suing for\n peace. They wanted an armistice conference\u2014immediately.\n\n\n Earth was willing. Interstellar war\n is too costly to allow it to continue\n any longer than necessary, and this\n one had been going on for more than\n thirteen years now. Peace was necessary.\n But not peace at any price.\n\n\n The trouble was that the Karna had\n a reputation for losing wars and winning\n at the peace table. They were\n clever, persuasive talkers. They could\n twist a disadvantage to an advantage,\n and make their own strengths look\n like weaknesses. If they won the armistice,\n they'd be able to retrench and\n rearm, and the war would break out\n again within a few years.\n\n\n Now\u2014at this point in time\u2014they\n could be beaten. They could be forced\n to allow supervision of the production\n potential, forced to disarm, rendered\n impotent. But if the armistice went to\n their own advantage ...\n\n\n Already, they had taken the offensive\n in the matter of the peace talks.\n They had sent a full delegation to\n Saarkkad V, the next planet out from\n the Saarkkad sun, a chilly world inhabited\n only by low-intelligence animals.\n The Karna considered this to be\n fully neutral territory, and Earth\n couldn't argue the point very well. In\n addition, they demanded that the conference\n begin in three days, Terrestrial\n time.\n\n\n The trouble was that interstellar\n communication beams travel a devil\n of a lot faster than ships. It would\n take more than a week for the Earth\n government to get a vessel to Saarkkad\n V. Earth had been caught unprepared\n for an armistice. They\n objected.\n\n\n The Karna pointed out that the\n Saarkkad sun was just as far from\n Karn as it was from Earth, that it\n was only a few million miles from a\n planet which was allied with Earth,\n and that it was unfair for Earth to\n take so much time in preparing for an\n armistice. Why hadn't Earth been prepared?\n Did they intend to fight to the\n utter destruction of Karn?\n\n\n It wouldn't have been a problem at\n all if Earth and Karn had fostered the\n only two intelligent races in the galaxy.\n The sort of grandstanding the\n Karna were putting on had to be\n played to an audience. But there were\n other intelligent races throughout the\n galaxy, most of whom had remained\n as neutral as possible during the\n Earth-Karn war. They had no intention\n of sticking their figurative noses\n into a battle between the two most\n powerful races in the galaxy.\n\n\n But whoever won the armistice\n would find that some of the now-neutral\n races would come in on their\n side if war broke out again. If the\n Karna played their cards right, their\n side would be strong enough next\n time to win.\n\n\n So Earth had to get a delegation to\n meet with the Karna representatives\n within the three-day limit or lose what\n might be a vital point in the negotiations.\n\n\n And that was where Bertrand Malloy\n came in.\n\n\n He had been appointed Minister\n and Plenipotentiary Extraordinary to\n the Earth-Karn peace conference.\n\n\n He looked up at the ceiling again.\n \"What\ncan\nI do?\" he said softly.\nOn the second day after the arrival\n of the communique, Malloy\n made his decision. He flipped on his\n intercom and said: \"Miss Drayson,\n get hold of James Nordon and Kylen\n Braynek. I want to see them both immediately.\n Send Nordon in first, and\n tell Braynek to wait.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n \"And keep the recorder on. You\n can file the tape later.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n Malloy knew the woman would\n listen in on the intercom anyway, and\n it was better to give her permission to\n do so.\n\n\n James Nordon was tall, broad-shouldered,\n and thirty-eight. His hair\n was graying at the temples, and his\n handsome face looked cool and efficient.\n\n\n Malloy waved him to a seat.\n\n\n \"Nordon, I have a job for you. It's\n probably one of the most important\n jobs you'll ever have in your life. It\n can mean big things for you\u2014promotion\n and prestige if you do it well.\"\n\n\n Nordon nodded slowly. \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n Malloy explained the problem of\n the Karna peace talks.\n\n\n \"We need a man who can outthink\n them,\" Malloy finished, \"and judging\n from your record, I think you're that\n man. It involves risk, of course. If\n you make the wrong decisions, your\n name will be mud back on Earth. But\n I don't think there's much chance of\n that, really. Do you want to handle\n small-time operations all your life?\n Of course not.\n\n\n \"You'll be leaving within an hour\n for Saarkkad V.\"\n\n\n Nordon nodded again. \"Yes, sir;\n certainly. Am I to go alone?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" said Malloy, \"I'm sending\n an assistant with you\u2014a man named\n Kylen Braynek. Ever heard of him?\"\n\n\n Nordon shook his head. \"Not that\n I recall, Mr. Malloy. Should I have?\"\n\n\n \"Not necessarily. He's a pretty\n shrewd operator, though. He knows a\n lot about interstellar law, and he's\n capable of spotting a trap a mile away.\n You'll be in charge, of course, but I\n want you to pay special attention to\n his advice.\"\n\n\n \"I will, sir,\" Nordon said gratefully.\n \"A man like that can be useful.\"\n\n\n \"Right. Now, you go into the anteroom\n over there. I've prepared a summary\n of the situation, and you'll have\n to study it and get it into your head\n before the ship leaves. That isn't\n much time, but it's the Karna who are\n doing the pushing, not us.\"\n\n\n As soon as Nordon had left, Malloy\n said softly: \"Send in Braynek,\n Miss Drayson.\"\n\n\n Kylen Braynek was a smallish man\n with mouse-brown hair that lay flat\n against his skull, and hard, penetrating,\n dark eyes that were shadowed by\n heavy, protruding brows. Malloy asked\n him to sit down.\n\n\n Again Malloy went through the explanation\n of the peace conference.\n\n\n \"Naturally, they'll be trying to\n trick you every step of the way,\" Malloy\n went on. \"They're shrewd and\n underhanded; we'll simply have to\n be more shrewd and more underhanded.\n Nordon's job is to sit\n quietly and evaluate the data; yours\n will be to find the loopholes they're\n laying out for themselves and plug\n them. Don't antagonize them, but\n don't baby them, either. If you see\n anything underhanded going on, let\n Nordon know immediately.\"\n\n\n \"They won't get anything by me,\n Mr. Malloy.\"\nBy the time the ship from Earth\n got there, the peace conference had\n been going on for four days. Bertrand\n Malloy had full reports on the whole\n parley, as relayed to him through the\n ship that had taken Nordon and Braynek\n to Saarkkad V.\n\n\n Secretary of State Blendwell stopped\n off at Saarkkad IV before going\n on to V to take charge of the conference.\n He was a tallish, lean man with\n a few strands of gray hair on the top\n of his otherwise bald scalp, and he\n wore a hearty, professional smile that\n didn't quite make it to his calculating\n eyes.\n\n\n He took Malloy's hand and shook\n it warmly. \"How are you, Mr. Ambassador?\"\n\n\n \"Fine, Mr. Secretary. How's everything\n on Earth?\"\n\n\n \"Tense. They're waiting to see\n what is going to happen on Five. So\n am I, for that matter.\" His eyes were\n curious. \"You decided not to go\n yourself, eh?\"\n\n\n \"I thought it better not to. I sent a\n good team, instead. Would you like\n to see the reports?\"\n\n\n \"I certainly would.\"\n\n\n Malloy handed them to the secretary,\n and as he read, Malloy watched\n him. Blendwell was a political appointee\u2014a\n good man, Malloy had to\n admit, but he didn't know all the\n ins and outs of the Diplomatic Corps.\n\n\n When Blendwell looked up from\n the reports at last, he said: \"Amazing!\n They've held off the Karna at\n every point! They've beaten them\n back! They've managed to cope with\n and outdo the finest team of negotiators\n the Karna could send.\"\n\n\n \"I thought they would,\" said Malloy,\n trying to appear modest.\n\n\n The secretary's eyes narrowed.\n \"I've heard of the work you've been\n doing here with ... ah ... sick men.\n Is this one of your ... ah ... successes?\"\n\n\n Malloy nodded. \"I think so. The\n Karna put us in a dilemma, so I\n threw a dilemma right back at them.\"\n\n\n \"How do you mean?\"\n\n\n \"Nordon had a mental block\n against making decisions. If he took\n a girl out on a date, he'd have trouble\n making up his mind whether to kiss\n her or not until she made up his mind\n for him, one way or the other. He's\n that kind of guy. Until he's presented\n with one, single, clear decision which\n admits of no alternatives, he can't\n move at all.\n\n\n \"As you can see, the Karna tried\n to give us several choices on each\n point, and they were all rigged. Until\n they backed down to a single point\n and proved that it\nwasn't\nrigged,\n Nordon couldn't possibly make up his\n mind. I drummed into him how important\n this was, and the more importance\n there is attached to his decisions,\n the more incapable he becomes\n of making them.\"\n\n\n The Secretary nodded slowly.\n \"What about Braynek?\"\n\n\n \"Paranoid,\" said Malloy. \"He\n thinks everyone is plotting against\n him. In this case, that's all to the good\n because the Karna\nare\nplotting against\n him. No matter what they put forth,\n Braynek is convinced that there's a\n trap in it somewhere, and he digs to\n find out what the trap is. Even if\n there isn't a trap, the Karna can't\n satisfy Braynek, because he's convinced\n that there\nhas\nto be\u2014somewhere.\n As a result, all his advice to\n Nordon, and all his questioning on\n the wildest possibilities, just serves\n to keep Nordon from getting unconfused.\n\n\n \"These two men are honestly doing\n their best to win at the peace conference,\n and they've got the Karna reeling.\n The Karna can see that we're not\n trying to stall; our men are actually\n working at trying to reach a decision.\n But what the Karna don't see is that\n those men, as a team, are unbeatable\n because, in this situation, they're psychologically\n incapable of losing.\"\n\n\n Again the Secretary of State nodded\n his approval, but there was still\n a question in his mind. \"Since you\n know all that, couldn't you have handled\n it yourself?\"\n\n\n \"Maybe, but I doubt it. They might\n have gotten around me someway by\n sneaking up on a blind spot. Nordon\n and Braynek have blind spots, but\n they're covered with armor. No, I'm\n glad I couldn't go; it's better this\n way.\"\n\n\n The Secretary of State raised an\n eyebrow. \"\nCouldn't\ngo, Mr. Ambassador?\"\n\n\n Malloy looked at him. \"Didn't you\n know? I wondered why you appointed\n me, in the first place. No, I\n couldn't go. The reason why I'm here,\n cooped up in this office, hiding from\n the Saarkkada the way a good Saarkkadic\n bigshot should, is because I\nlike\nit that way. I suffer from agoraphobia\n and xenophobia.\n\n\n \"I have to be drugged to be put on\n a spaceship because I can't take all\n that empty space, even if I'm protected\n from it by a steel shell.\" A\n look of revulsion came over his face.\n \"And I can't\nstand\naliens!\"\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAstounding Science Fiction\nMarch 1960.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "24958": "SECOND LANDING\nBy FLOYD WALLACE\nA gentle fancy for the Christmas Season\u2014an\n oft-told tale with a wistful twistful of Something\n that left the Earth with a wing and a prayer.\nEarth\n was so far away that\n it wasn't visible. Even the\n sun was only a twinkle. But this\n vast distance did not mean that\n isolation could endure forever.\n Instruments within the ship intercepted\n radio broadcasts and,\n within the hour, early TV signals.\n Machines compiled dictionaries\n and grammars and began\n translating the major languages.\n The history of the planet was\n tabulated as facts became available.\n\n\n The course of the ship changed\n slightly; it was not much out of\n the way to swing nearer Earth.\n For days the two within the ship\n listened and watched with little\n comment. They had to decide\n soon.\n\n\n \"We've got to make or break,\"\n said the first alien.\n\n\n \"You know what I'm in favor\n of,\" said the second.\n\n\n \"I can guess,\" said Ethaniel,\n who had spoken first. \"The place\n is a complete mess. They've never\n done anything except fight\n each other\u2014and invent better\n weapons.\"\n\n\n \"It's not what they've done,\"\n said Bal, the second alien. \"It's\n what they're going to do, with\n that big bomb.\"\n\n\n \"The more reason for stopping,\"\n said Ethaniel. \"The big\n bomb can destroy them. Without\n our help they may do just that.\"\n\n\n \"I may remind you that in two\n months twenty-nine days we're\n due in Willafours,\" said Bal.\n \"Without looking at the charts\n I can tell you we still have more\n than a hundred light-years to\n go.\"\n\n\n \"A week,\" said Ethaniel. \"We\n can spare a week and still get\n there on time.\"\n\n\n \"A week?\" said Bal. \"To settle\n their problems? They've had two\n world wars in one generation\n and that the third and final one\n is coming up you can't help feeling\n in everything they do.\"\n\n\n \"It won't take much,\" said\n Ethaniel. \"The wrong diplomatic\n move, or a trigger-happy soldier\n could set it off. And it wouldn't\n have to be deliberate. A meteor\n shower could pass over and their\n clumsy instruments could interpret\n it as an all-out enemy\n attack.\"\n\n\n \"Too bad,\" said Bal. \"We'll\n just have to forget there ever\n was such a planet as Earth.\"\n\n\n \"Could you? Forget so many\n people?\"\n\n\n \"I'm doing it,\" said Bal. \"Just\n give them a little time and they\n won't be here to remind me that\n I have a conscience.\"\n\n\n \"My memory isn't convenient,\"\n said Ethaniel. \"I ask you\n to look at them.\"\nBal rustled, flicking the screen\n intently. \"Very much like ourselves,\"\n he said at last. \"A bit\n shorter perhaps, and most certainly\n incomplete. Except for the\n one thing they lack, and that's\n quite odd, they seem exactly like\n us. Is that what you wanted me\n to say?\"\n\n\n \"It is. The fact that they are\n an incomplete version of ourselves\n touches me. They actually\n seem defenseless, though I suppose\n they're not.\"\n\n\n \"Tough,\" said Bal. \"Nothing\n we can do about it.\"\n\n\n \"There is. We can give them\n a week.\"\n\n\n \"In a week we can't negate\n their entire history. We can't\n begin to undo the effect of the\n big bomb.\"\n\n\n \"You can't tell,\" said Ethaniel.\n \"We can look things over.\"\n\n\n \"And then what? How much\n authority do we have?\"\n\n\n \"Very little,\" conceded Ethaniel.\n \"Two minor officials on the\n way to Willafours\u2014and we run\n directly into a problem no one\n knew existed.\"\n\n\n \"And when we get to Willafours\n we'll be busy. It will be a\n long time before anyone comes\n this way again.\"\n\n\n \"A very long time. There's\n nothing in this region of space\n our people want,\" said Ethaniel.\n \"And how long can Earth last?\n Ten years? Even ten months?\n The tension is building by the\n hour.\"\n\n\n \"What can I say?\" said Bal.\n \"I suppose we can stop and look\n them over. We're not committing\n ourselves by looking.\"\n\n\n They went much closer to\n Earth, not intending to commit\n themselves. For a day they circled\n the planet, avoiding radar\n detection, which for them was\n not difficult, testing, and sampling.\n Finally Ethaniel looked up\n from the monitor screen. \"Any\n conclusions?\"\n\n\n \"What's there to think? It's\n worse than I imagined.\"\n\n\n \"In what way?\"\n\n\n \"Well, we knew they had the\n big bomb. Atmospheric analysis\n showed that as far away as we\n were.\"\n\n\n \"I know.\"\n\n\n \"We also knew they could deliver\n the big bomb, presumably\n by some sort of aircraft.\"\n\n\n \"That was almost a certainty.\n They'd have no use for the big\n bomb without aircraft.\"\n\n\n \"What's worse is that I now\n find they also have missiles,\n range one thousand miles and\n upward. They either have or are\n near a primitive form of space\n travel.\"\n\n\n \"Bad,\" said Ethaniel. \"Sitting\n there, wondering when it's going\n to hit them. Nervousness could\n set it off.\"\n\n\n \"It could, and the missiles\n make it worse,\" said Bal. \"What\n did you find out at your end?\"\n\n\n \"Nothing worthwhile. I was\n looking at the people while you\n were investigating their weapons.\"\n\n\n \"You must think something.\"\n\n\n \"I wish I knew what to think.\n There's so little time,\" Ethaniel\n said. \"Language isn't the difficulty.\n Our machines translate\n their languages easily and I've\n taken a cram course in two or\n three of them. But that's not\n enough, looking at a few plays,\n listening to advertisements, music,\n and news bulletins. I should\n go down and live among them,\n read books, talk to scholars, work\n with them, play.\"\n\n\n \"You could do that and you'd\n really get to know them. But\n that takes time\u2014and we don't\n have it.\"\n\n\n \"I realize that.\"\n\n\n \"A flat yes or no,\" said Bal.\n\n\n \"No. We can't help them,\" said\n Ethaniel. \"There is nothing we\n can do for them\u2014but we have to\n try.\"\n\n\n \"Sure, I knew it before we\n started,\" said Bal. \"It's happened\n before. We take the trouble to\n find out what a people are like\n and when we can't help them we\n feel bad. It's going to be that\n way again.\" He rose and stretched.\n \"Well, give me an hour to\n think of some way of going at\n it.\"\nIt was longer than that before\n they met again. In the meantime\n the ship moved much closer to\n Earth. They no longer needed instruments\n to see it. The planet\n revolved outside the visionports.\n The southern plains were green,\n coursed with rivers; the oceans\n were blue; and much of the\n northern hemisphere was glistening\n white. Ragged clouds covered\n the pole, and a dirty pall\n spread over the mid-regions of\n the north.\n\n\n \"I haven't thought of anything\n brilliant,\" said Ethaniel.\n\n\n \"Nor I,\" said Bal. \"We're going\n to have to go down there\n cold. And it will be cold.\"\n\n\n \"Yes. It's their winter.\"\n\n\n \"I did have an idea,\" said Bal.\n \"What about going down as supernatural\n beings?\"\n\n\n \"Hardly,\" said Ethaniel. \"A\n hundred years ago it might have\n worked. Today they have satellites.\n They are not primitives.\"\n\n\n \"I suppose you're right,\" said\n Bal. \"I did think we ought to\n take advantage of our physical\n differences.\"\n\n\n \"If we could I'd be all for it.\n But these people are rough and\n desperate. They wouldn't be\n fooled by anything that crude.\"\n\n\n \"Well, you're calling it,\" said\n Bal.\n\n\n \"All right,\" said Ethaniel.\n \"You take one side and I the\n other. We'll tell them bluntly\n what they'll have to do if they're\n going to survive, how they can\n keep their planet in one piece so\n they can live on it.\"\n\n\n \"That'll go over big. Advice is\n always popular.\"\n\n\n \"Can't help it. That's all we\n have time for.\"\n\n\n \"Special instructions?\"\n\n\n \"None. We leave the ship here\n and go down in separate landing\n craft. You can talk with me any\n time you want to through our\n communications, but don't unless\n you have to.\"\n\n\n \"They can't intercept the\n beams we use.\"\n\n\n \"They can't, and even if they\n did they wouldn't know what to\n do with our language. I want\n them to think that we don't\nneed\nto talk things over.\"\n\n\n \"I get it. Makes us seem better\n than we are. They think we know\n exactly what we're doing even\n though we don't.\"\n\n\n \"If we're lucky they'll think\n that.\"\nBal looked out of the port at\n the planet below. \"It's going to\n be cold where I'm going. You too.\n Sure we don't want to change\n our plans and land in the southern\n hemisphere? It's summer\n there.\"\n\n\n \"I'm afraid not. The great\n powers are in the north. They\n are the ones we have to reach to\n do the job.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, but I was thinking of\n that holiday you mentioned.\n We'll be running straight into it.\n That won't help us any.\"\n\n\n \"I know, they don't like their\n holidays interrupted. It can't be\n helped. We can't wait until it's\n over.\"\n\n\n \"I'm aware of that,\" said Bal.\n \"Fill me in on that holiday, anything\n I ought to know. Probably\n religious in origin. That so?\"\n\n\n \"It was religious a long time\n ago,\" said Ethaniel. \"I didn't\n learn anything exact from radio\n and TV. Now it seems to be\n chiefly a time for eating, office\n parties, and selling merchandise.\"\n\n\n \"I see. It has become a business\n holiday.\"\n\n\n \"That's a good description. I\n didn't get as much of it as I\n ought to have. I was busy studying\n the people, and they're hard\n to pin down.\"\n\n\n \"I see. I was thinking there\n might be some way we could tie\n ourselves in with this holiday.\n Make it work for us.\"\n\n\n \"If there is I haven't thought\n of it.\"\n\n\n \"You ought to know. You're\n running this one.\" Bal looked\n down at the planet. Clouds were\n beginning to form at the twilight\n edge. \"I hate to go down\n and leave the ship up here with\n no one in it.\"\n\n\n \"They can't touch it. No matter\n how they develop in the next\n hundred years they still won't be\n able to get in or damage it in\n any way.\"\n\n\n \"It's myself I'm thinking\n about. Down there, alone.\"\n\n\n \"I'll be with you. On the other\n side of the Earth.\"\n\n\n \"That's not very close. I'd like\n it better if there were someone\n in the ship to bring it down in a\n hurry if things get rough. They\n don't think much of each other.\n I don't imagine they'll like aliens\n any better.\"\n\n\n \"They may be unfriendly,\"\n Ethaniel acknowledged. Now he\n switched a monitor screen until\n he looked at the slope of a mountain.\n It was snowing and men\n were cutting small green trees in\n the snow. \"I've thought of a\n trick.\"\n\n\n \"If it saves my neck I'm for\n it.\"\n\n\n \"I don't guarantee anything,\"\n said Ethaniel. \"This is what I\n was thinking of: instead of hiding\n the ship against the sun\n where there's little chance it will\n be seen, we'll make sure that\n they do see it. Let's take it\n around to the night side of the\n planet and light it up.\"\n\n\n \"Say, pretty good,\" said Bal.\n\n\n \"They can't imagine that we'd\n light up an unmanned ship,\" said\n Ethaniel. \"Even if the thought\n should occur to them they'll have\n no way of checking it. Also, they\n won't be eager to harm us with\n our ship shining down on them.\"\n\n\n \"That's thinking,\" said Bal,\n moving to the controls. \"I'll move\n the ship over where they can see\n it best and then I'll light it up.\n I'll really light it up.\"\n\n\n \"Don't spare power.\"\n\n\n \"Don't worry about that.\n They'll see it. Everybody on\n Earth will see it.\" Later, with the\n ship in position, glowing against\n the darkness of space, pulsating\n with light, Bal said: \"You know,\n I feel better about this. We may\n pull it off. Lighting the ship may\n be just the help we need.\"\n\n\n \"It's not we who need help, but\n the people of Earth,\" said Ethaniel.\n \"See you in five days.\" With\n that he entered a small landing\n craft, which left a faintly luminescent\n trail as it plunged toward\n Earth. As soon as it was\n safe to do so, Bal left in another\n craft, heading for the other side\n of the planet.\nAnd the spaceship circled\n Earth, unmanned, blazing and\n pulsing with light. No star in the\n winter skies of the planet below\n could equal it in brilliancy. Once\n a man-made satellite came near\n but it was dim and was lost sight\n of by the people below. During\n the day the ship was visible as\n a bright spot of light. At evening\n it seemed to burn through\n the sunset colors.\n\n\n And the ship circled on,\n bright, shining, seeming to be a\n little piece clipped from the center\n of a star and brought near\n Earth to illuminate it. Never, or\n seldom, had Earth seen anything\n like it.\n\n\n In five days the two small landing\n craft that had left it arched\n up from Earth and joined the\n orbit of the large ship. The two\n small craft slid inside the large\n one and doors closed behind\n them. In a short time the aliens\n met again.\n\n\n \"We did it,\" said Bal exultantly\n as he came in. \"I don't know\n how we did it and I thought we\n were going to fail but at the last\n minute they came through.\"\n\n\n Ethaniel smiled. \"I'm tired,\"\n he said, rustling.\n\n\n \"Me too, but mostly I'm cold,\"\n said Bal, shivering. \"Snow.\n Nothing but snow wherever I\n went. Miserable climate. And yet\n you had me go out walking after\n that first day.\"\n\n\n \"From my own experience it\n seemed to be a good idea,\" said\n Ethaniel. \"If I went out walking\n one day I noticed that the next\n day the officials were much more\n cooperative. If it worked for me\n I thought it might help you.\"\n\n\n \"It did. I don't know why, but\n it did,\" said Bal. \"Anyway, this\n agreement they made isn't the\n best but I think it will keep them\n from destroying themselves.\"\n\n\n \"It's as much as we can expect,\"\n said Ethaniel. \"They may\n have small wars after this, but\n never the big one. In fifty or a\n hundred years we can come back\n and see how much they've\n learned.\"\n\n\n \"I'm not sure I want to,\" said\n Bal. \"Say, what's an angel?\"\n\n\n \"Why?\"\n\n\n \"When I went out walking\n people stopped to look. Some\n knelt in the snow and called me\n an angel.\"\n\n\n \"Something like that happened\n to me,\" said Ethaniel.\n\n\n \"I didn't get it but I didn't let\n it upset me,\" said Bal. \"I smiled\n at them and went about my business.\"\n He shivered again. \"It was\n always cold. I walked out, but\n sometimes I flew back. I hope\n that was all right.\"\n\n\n In the cabin Bal spread his\n great wings. Renaissance painters\n had never seen his like but\n knew exactly how he looked. In\n their paintings they had pictured\n him innumerable times.\n\n\n \"I don't think it hurt us that\n you flew,\" said Ethaniel. \"I did\n so myself occasionally.\"\n\n\n \"But you don't know what an\n angel is?\"\n\n\n \"No. I didn't have time to find\n out. Some creature of their folklore\n I suppose. You know, except\n for our wings they're very much\n like ourselves. Their legends are\n bound to resemble ours.\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" said Bal. \"Anyway,\n peace on Earth.\"\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAmazing Science Fiction Stories\nJanuary\n 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "24966": "SURVIVAL\n\n TACTICS\nBy AL SEVCIK\nILLUSTRATOR NOVICK\nThe robots were built to serve\n Man; to do his work, see to his\n comforts, make smooth his way.\n Then the robots figured out an\n additional service\u2014putting Man\n out of his misery.\nThere\n was a sudden crash\n that hung sharply in the air,\n as if a tree had been hit by\n lightning some distance away.\n Then another. Alan stopped,\n puzzled. Two more blasts, quickly\n together, and the sound of a\n scream faintly.\n\n\n Frowning, worrying about the\n sounds, Alan momentarily forgot\n to watch his step until his foot\n suddenly plunged into an ant\n hill, throwing him to the jungle\n floor. \"Damn!\" He cursed again,\n for the tenth time, and stood\n uncertainly in the dimness.\n From tall, moss-shrouded trees,\n wrist-thick vines hung quietly,\n scraping the spongy ground like\n the tentacles of some monstrous\n tree-bound octopus. Fitful little\n plants grew straggly in the\n shadows of the mossy trunks,\n forming a dense underbrush that\n made walking difficult. At midday\n some few of the blue sun's\n rays filtered through to the\n jungle floor, but now, late afternoon\n on the planet, the shadows\n were long and gloomy.\n\n\n Alan peered around him at the\n vine-draped shadows, listening\n to the soft rustlings and faint\n twig-snappings of life in the\n jungle. Two short, popping\n sounds echoed across the stillness,\n drowned out almost immediately\n and silenced by an\n explosive crash. Alan started,\n \"Blaster fighting! But it can't\n be!\"\n\n\n Suddenly anxious, he slashed\n a hurried X in one of the trees\n to mark his position then turned\n to follow a line of similar marks\n back through the jungle. He\n tried to run, but vines blocked\n his way and woody shrubs\n caught at his legs, tripping him\n and holding him back. Then,\n through the trees he saw the\n clearing of the camp site, the\n temporary home for the scout\n ship and the eleven men who,\n with Alan, were the only humans\n on the jungle planet, Waiamea.\nStepping through the low\n shrubbery at the edge of the\n site, he looked across the open\n area to the two temporary structures,\n the camp headquarters\n where the power supplies and\n the computer were; and the\n sleeping quarters. Beyond, nose\n high, stood the silver scout ship\n that had brought the advance\n exploratory party of scientists\n and technicians to Waiamea\n three days before. Except for a\n few of the killer robots rolling\n slowly around the camp site on\n their quiet treads, there was no\n one about.\n\n\n \"So, they've finally got those\n things working.\" Alan smiled\n slightly. \"Guess that means I\n owe Pete a bourbon-and-soda\n for sure. Anybody who can\n build a robot that hunts by homing\n in on animals' mind impulses ...\"\n He stepped forward\n just as a roar of blue flame dissolved\n the branches of a tree,\n barely above his head.\n\n\n Without pausing to think,\n Alan leaped back, and fell\n sprawling over a bush just as\n one of the robots rolled silently\n up from the right, lowering its\n blaster barrel to aim directly at\n his head. Alan froze. \"My God,\n Pete built those things wrong!\"\n\n\n Suddenly a screeching whirlwind\n of claws and teeth hurled\n itself from the smoldering\n branches and crashed against the\n robot, clawing insanely at the\n antenna and blaster barrel.\n With an awkward jerk the robot\n swung around and fired its blaster,\n completely dissolving the\n lower half of the cat creature\n which had clung across the barrel.\n But the back pressure of the\n cat's body overloaded the discharge\n circuits. The robot started\n to shake, then clicked sharply\n as an overload relay snapped\n and shorted the blaster cells.\n The killer turned and rolled back\n towards the camp, leaving Alan\n alone.\n\n\n Shakily, Alan crawled a few\n feet back into the undergrowth\n where he could lie and watch the\n camp, but not himself be seen.\n Though visibility didn't make\n any difference to the robots, he\n felt safer, somehow, hidden. He\n knew now what the shooting\n sounds had been and why there\n hadn't been anyone around the\n camp site. A charred blob lying\n in the grass of the clearing confirmed\n his hypothesis. His stomach\n felt sick.\n\n\n \"I suppose,\" he muttered to\n himself, \"that Pete assembled\n these robots in a batch and then\n activated them all at once, probably\n never living to realize that\n they're tuned to pick up human\n brain waves, too. Damn!\n Damn!\" His eyes blurred and\n he slammed his fist into the soft\n earth.\n\n\n When he raised his eyes again\n the jungle was perceptibly darker.\n Stealthy rustlings in the\n shadows grew louder with the\n setting sun. Branches snapped\n unaccountably in the trees overhead\n and every now and then\n leaves or a twig fell softly to the\n ground, close to where he lay.\n Reaching into his jacket, Alan\n fingered his pocket blaster. He\n pulled it out and held it in his\n right hand. \"This pop gun\n wouldn't even singe a robot, but\n it just might stop one of those\n pumas.\"\nThey said the blast with your name on it would find\n you anywhere. This looked like Alan's blast.\nSlowly Alan looked around,\n sizing up his situation. Behind\n him the dark jungle rustled forbiddingly.\n He shuddered. \"Not a\n very healthy spot to spend the\n night. On the other hand, I certainly\n can't get to the camp with\n a pack of mind-activated mechanical\n killers running around.\n If I can just hold out until morning,\n when the big ship arrives ...\n The big ship! Good\n Lord, Peggy!\" He turned white;\n oily sweat punctuated his forehead.\n Peggy, arriving tomorrow\n with the other colonists, the\n wives and kids! The metal killers,\n tuned to blast any living\n flesh, would murder them the\n instant they stepped from the\n ship!\nA pretty girl, Peggy, the girl\n he'd married just three weeks\n ago. He still couldn't believe it.\n It was crazy, he supposed, to\n marry a girl and then take off\n for an unknown planet, with her\n to follow, to try to create a home\n in a jungle clearing. Crazy maybe,\n but Peggy and her green eyes\n that changed color with the\n light, with her soft brown hair,\n and her happy smile, had ended\n thirty years of loneliness and\n had, at last, given him a reason\n for living. \"Not to be killed!\"\n Alan unclenched his fists and\n wiped his palms, bloody where\n his fingernails had dug into the\n flesh.\n\n\n There was a slight creak above\n him like the protesting of a\n branch too heavily laden. Blaster\n ready, Alan rolled over onto his\n back. In the movement, his elbow\n struck the top of a small\n earthy mound and he was instantly\n engulfed in a swarm of\n locust-like insects that beat disgustingly\n against his eyes and\n mouth. \"Fagh!\" Waving his\n arms before his face he jumped\n up and backwards, away from\n the bugs. As he did so, a dark\n shapeless thing plopped from\n the trees onto the spot where he\n had been lying stretched out.\n Then, like an ambient fungus,\n it slithered off into the jungle\n undergrowth.\n\n\n For a split second the jungle\n stood frozen in a brilliant blue\n flash, followed by the sharp report\n of a blaster. Then another.\n Alan whirled, startled. The\n planet's double moon had risen\n and he could see a robot rolling\n slowly across the clearing in his\n general direction, blasting indiscriminately\n at whatever mind\n impulses came within its pickup\n range, birds, insects, anything.\n Six or seven others also left the\n camp headquarters area and\n headed for the jungle, each to a\n slightly different spot.\n\n\n Apparently the robot hadn't\n sensed him yet, but Alan didn't\n know what the effective range\n of its pickup devices was. He\n began to slide back into the\n jungle. Minutes later, looking\n back he saw that the machine,\n though several hundred yards\n away, had altered its course and\n was now headed directly for\n him.\n\n\n His stomach tightened. Panic.\n The dank, musty smell of the\n jungle seemed for an instant to\n thicken and choke in his throat.\n Then he thought of the big ship\n landing in the morning, settling\n down slowly after a lonely two-week\n voyage. He thought of a\n brown-haired girl crowding with\n the others to the gangway, eager\n to embrace the new planet, and\n the next instant a charred nothing,\n unrecognizable, the victim\n of a design error or a misplaced\n wire in a machine. \"I have to\n try,\" he said aloud. \"I have to\n try.\" He moved into the blackness.\n\n\n Powerful as a small tank, the\n killer robot was equipped to\n crush, slash, and burn its way\n through undergrowth. Nevertheless,\n it was slowed by the\n larger trees and the thick, clinging\n vines, and Alan found that\n he could manage to keep ahead\n of it, barely out of blaster range.\n Only, the robot didn't get tired.\n Alan did.\n\n\n The twin moons cast pale, deceptive\n shadows that wavered\n and danced across the jungle\n floor, hiding debris that tripped\n him and often sent him sprawling\n into the dark. Sharp-edged\n growths tore at his face and\n clothes, and insects attracted by\n the blood matted against his\n pants and shirt. Behind, the robot\n crashed imperturbably after\n him, lighting the night with fitful\n blaster flashes as some\n winged or legged life came within\n its range.\n\n\n There was movement also, in\n the darkness beside him, scrapings\n and rustlings and an occasional\n low, throaty sound like an\n angry cat. Alan's fingers tensed\n on his pocket blaster. Swift\n shadowy forms moved quickly in\n the shrubs and the growling became\n suddenly louder. He fired\n twice, blindly, into the undergrowth.\n Sharp screams punctuated\n the electric blue discharge as\n a pack of small feline creatures\n leaped snarling and clawing\n back into the night.\nMentally, Alan tried to figure\n the charge remaining in his blaster.\n There wouldn't be much.\n \"Enough for a few more shots,\n maybe. Why the devil didn't I\n load in fresh cells this morning!\"\n\n\n The robot crashed on, louder\n now, gaining on the tired human.\n Legs aching and bruised,\n stinging from insect bites, Alan\n tried to force himself to run\n holding his hands in front of\n him like a child in the dark. His\n foot tripped on a barely visible\n insect hill and a winged swarm\n exploded around him. Startled,\n Alan jerked sideways, crashing\n his head against a tree. He\n clutched at the bark for a second,\n dazed, then his knees\n buckled. His blaster fell into the\n shadows.\n\n\n The robot crashed loudly behind\n him now. Without stopping\n to think, Alan fumbled along the\n ground after his gun, straining\n his eyes in the darkness. He\n found it just a couple of feet to\n one side, against the base of a\n small bush. Just as his fingers\n closed upon the barrel his other\n hand slipped into something\n sticky that splashed over his\n forearm. He screamed in pain\n and leaped back, trying frantically\n to wipe the clinging,\n burning blackness off his arm.\n Patches of black scraped off onto\n branches and vines, but the rest\n spread slowly over his arm as\n agonizing as hot acid, or as flesh\n being ripped away layer by\n layer.\n\n\n Almost blinded by pain, whimpering,\n Alan stumbled forward.\n Sharp muscle spasms shot from\n his shoulder across his back and\n chest. Tears streamed across his\n cheeks.\n\n\n A blue arc slashed at the trees\n a mere hundred yards behind.\n He screamed at the blast. \"Damn\n you, Pete! Damn your robots!\n Damn, damn ... Oh, Peggy!\"\n He stepped into emptiness.\n\n\n Coolness. Wet. Slowly, washed\n by the water, the pain began to\n fall away. He wanted to lie there\n forever in the dark, cool, wetness.\n For ever, and ever, and ...\n The air thundered.\n\n\n In the dim light he could see\n the banks of the stream, higher\n than a man, muddy and loose.\n Growing right to the edge of the\n banks, the jungle reached out\n with hairy, disjointed arms as\n if to snag even the dirty little\n stream that passed so timidly\n through its domain.\n\n\n Alan, lying in the mud of the\n stream bed, felt the earth shake\n as the heavy little robot rolled\n slowly and inexorably towards\n him. \"The Lord High Executioner,\"\n he thought, \"in battle\n dress.\" He tried to stand but his\n legs were almost too weak and\n his arm felt numb. \"I'll drown\n him,\" he said aloud. \"I'll drown\n the Lord High Executioner.\" He\n laughed. Then his mind cleared.\n He remembered where he was.\nAlan trembled. For the first\n time in his life he understood\n what it was to live, because for\n the first time he realized that he\n would sometime die. In other\n times and circumstances he\n might put it off for a while, for\n months or years, but eventually,\n as now, he would have to watch,\n still and helpless, while death\n came creeping. Then, at thirty,\n Alan became a man.\n\n\n \"Dammit, no law says I have\n to flame-out\nnow\n!\" He forced\n himself to rise, forced his legs\n to stand, struggling painfully in\n the shin-deep ooze. He worked\n his way to the bank and began to\n dig frenziedly, chest high, about\n two feet below the edge.\n\n\n His arm where the black thing\n had been was swollen and tender,\n but he forced his hands to dig,\n dig, dig, cursing and crying to\n hide the pain, and biting his\n lips, ignoring the salty taste of\n blood. The soft earth crumbled\n under his hands until he had a\n small cave about three feet deep\n in the bank. Beyond that the\n soil was held too tightly by the\n roots from above and he had to\n stop.\nThe air crackled blue and a\n tree crashed heavily past Alan\n into the stream. Above him on\n the bank, silhouetting against\n the moons, the killer robot stopped\n and its blaster swivelled\n slowly down. Frantically, Alan\n hugged the bank as a shaft of\n pure electricity arced over him,\n sliced into the water, and exploded\n in a cloud of steam. The\n robot shook for a second, its\n blaster muzzle lifted erratically\n and for an instant it seemed almost\n out of control, then it\n quieted and the muzzle again\n pointed down.\n\n\n Pressing with all his might,\n Alan slid slowly along the bank\n inches at a time, away from the\n machine above. Its muzzle turned\n to follow him but the edge of\n the bank blocked its aim. Grinding\n forward a couple of feet,\n slightly overhanging the bank,\n the robot fired again. For a split\n second Alan seemed engulfed in\n flame; the heat of hell singed his\n head and back, and mud boiled\n in the bank by his arm.\n\n\n Again the robot trembled. It\n jerked forward a foot and its\n blaster swung slightly away. But\n only for a moment. Then the gun\n swung back again.\n\n\n Suddenly, as if sensing something\n wrong, its tracks slammed\n into reverse. It stood poised for\n a second, its treads spinning\n crazily as the earth collapsed underneath\n it, where Alan had\n dug, then it fell with a heavy\n splash into the mud, ten feet\n from where Alan stood.\n\n\n Without hesitation Alan\n threw himself across the blaster\n housing, frantically locking his\n arms around the barrel as the\n robot's treads churned furiously\n in the sticky mud, causing it to\n buck and plunge like a Brahma\n bull. The treads stopped and the\n blaster jerked upwards wrenching\n Alan's arms, then slammed\n down. Then the whole housing\n whirled around and around, tilting\n alternately up and down like\n a steel-skinned water monster\n trying to dislodge a tenacious\n crab, while Alan, arms and legs\n wrapped tightly around the blaster\n barrel and housing, pressed\n fiercely against the robot's metal\n skin.\n\n\n Slowly, trying to anticipate\n and shift his weight with the\n spinning plunges, Alan worked\n his hand down to his right hip.\n He fumbled for the sheath clipped\n to his belt, found it, and extracted\n a stubby hunting knife.\n Sweat and blood in his eyes,\n hardly able to move on the wildly\n swinging turret, he felt down\n the sides to the thin crack between\n the revolving housing and\n the stationary portion of the robot.\n With a quick prayer he\n jammed in the knife blade\u2014and\n was whipped headlong into the\n mud as the turret literally snapped\n to a stop.\n\n\n The earth, jungle and moons\n spun in a pinwheeled blur,\n slowed, and settled to their proper\n places. Standing in the sticky,\n sweet-smelling ooze, Alan eyed\n the robot apprehensively. Half\n buried in mud, it stood quiet in\n the shadowy light except for an\n occasional, almost spasmodic\n jerk of its blaster barrel. For\n the first time that night Alan\n allowed himself a slight smile.\n \"A blade in the old gear box,\n eh? How does that feel, boy?\"\n\n\n He turned. \"Well, I'd better\n get out of here before the knife\n slips or the monster cooks up\n some more tricks with whatever\n it's got for a brain.\" Digging\n little footholds in the soft bank,\n he climbed up and stood once\n again in the rustling jungle\n darkness.\n\n\n \"I wonder,\" he thought, \"how\n Pete could cram enough brain\n into one of those things to make\n it hunt and track so perfectly.\"\n He tried to visualize the computing\n circuits needed for the\n operation of its tracking mechanism\n alone. \"There just isn't\n room for the electronics. You'd\n need a computer as big as the\n one at camp headquarters.\"\nIn the distance the sky blazed\n as a blaster roared in the jungle.\n Then Alan heard the approaching\n robot, crunching and snapping\n its way through the undergrowth\n like an onrushing forest\n fire. He froze. \"Good Lord!\n They communicate with each\n other! The one I jammed must\n be calling others to help.\"\n\n\n He began to move along the\n bank, away from the crashing\n sounds. Suddenly he stopped, his\n eyes widened. \"Of course! Radio!\n I'll bet anything they're\n automatically controlled by the\n camp computer. That's where\n their brain is!\" He paused.\n \"Then, if that were put out of\n commission ...\" He jerked away\n from the bank and half ran, half\n pulled himself through the undergrowth\n towards the camp.\n\n\n Trees exploded to his left as\n another robot fired in his direction,\n too far away to be effective\n but churning towards him\n through the blackness.\n\n\n Alan changed direction slightly\n to follow a line between the\n two robots coming up from\n either side, behind him. His eyes\n were well accustomed to the dark\n now, and he managed to dodge\n most of the shadowy vines and\n branches before they could snag\n or trip him. Even so, he stumbled\n in the wiry underbrush and\n his legs were a mass of stinging\n slashes from ankle to thigh.\n\n\n The crashing rumble of the\n killer robots shook the night behind\n him, nearer sometimes,\n then falling slightly back, but\n following constantly, more\n unshakable than bloodhounds\n because a man can sometimes cover\n a scent, but no man can stop his\n thoughts. Intermittently, like\n photographers' strobes, blue\n flashes would light the jungle\n about him. Then, for seconds\n afterwards his eyes would see\n dancing streaks of yellow and\n sharp multi-colored pinwheels\n that alternately shrunk and expanded\n as if in a surrealist's\n nightmare. Alan would have to\n pause and squeeze his eyelids\n tight shut before he could see\n again, and the robots would\n move a little closer.\n\n\n To his right the trees silhouetted\n briefly against brilliance as\n a third robot slowly moved up\n in the distance. Without thinking,\n Alan turned slightly to the\n left, then froze in momentary\n panic. \"I should be at the camp\n now. Damn, what direction am\n I going?\" He tried to think\n back, to visualize the twists and\n turns he'd taken in the jungle.\n \"All I need is to get lost.\"\n\n\n He pictured the camp computer\n with no one to stop it, automatically\n sending its robots in\n wider and wider forays, slowly\n wiping every trace of life from\n the planet. Technologically advanced\n machines doing the job\n for which they were built, completely,\n thoroughly, without feeling,\n and without human masters\n to separate sense from futility.\n Finally parts would wear out,\n circuits would short, and one by\n one the killers would crunch to\n a halt. A few birds would still\n fly then, but a unique animal\n life, rare in the universe, would\n exist no more. And the bones of\n children, eager girls, and their\n men would also lie, beside a\n rusty hulk, beneath the alien\n sun.\n\n\n \"Peggy!\"\n\n\n As if in answer, a tree beside\n him breathed fire, then exploded.\n In the brief flash of the\n blaster shot, Alan saw the steel\n glint of a robot only a hundred\n yards away, much nearer than\n he had thought. \"Thank heaven\n for trees!\" He stepped back, felt\n his foot catch in something,\n clutched futilely at some leaves\n and fell heavily.\n\n\n Pain danced up his leg as he\n grabbed his ankle. Quickly he\n felt the throbbing flesh. \"Damn\n the rotten luck, anyway!\" He\n blinked the pain tears from his\n eyes and looked up\u2014into a robot's\n blaster, jutting out of the\n foliage, thirty yards away.\nInstinctively, in one motion\n Alan grabbed his pocket blaster\n and fired. To his amazement the\n robot jerked back, its gun wobbled\n and started to tilt away.\n Then, getting itself under control,\n it swung back again to face\n Alan. He fired again, and again\n the robot reacted. It seemed familiar\n somehow. Then he remembered\n the robot on the river\n bank, jiggling and swaying for\n seconds after each shot. \"Of\n course!\" He cursed himself for\n missing the obvious. \"The blaster\n static blanks out radio\n transmission from the computer\n for a few seconds. They even do\n it to themselves!\"\n\n\n Firing intermittently, he\n pulled himself upright and hobbled\n ahead through the bush.\n The robot shook spasmodically\n with each shot, its gun tilted upward\n at an awkward angle.\n\n\n Then, unexpectedly, Alan saw\n stars, real stars brilliant in the\n night sky, and half dragging his\n swelling leg he stumbled out of\n the jungle into the camp clearing.\n Ahead, across fifty yards of\n grass stood the headquarters\n building, housing the robot-controlling\n computer. Still firing at\n short intervals he started across\n the clearing, gritting his teeth\n at every step.\n\n\n Straining every muscle in\n spite of the agonizing pain, Alan\n forced himself to a limping run\n across the uneven ground, carefully\n avoiding the insect hills\n that jutted up through the grass.\n From the corner of his eye he\n saw another of the robots standing\n shakily in the dark edge of\n the jungle waiting, it seemed,\n for his small blaster to run dry.\n\n\n \"Be damned! You can't win\n now!\" Alan yelled between blaster\n shots, almost irrational from\n the pain that ripped jaggedly\n through his leg. Then it happened.\n A few feet from the\n building's door his blaster quit.\n A click. A faint hiss when he\n frantically jerked the trigger\n again and again, and the spent\n cells released themselves from\n the device, falling in the grass\n at his feet. He dropped the useless\n gun.\n\n\n \"No!\" He threw himself on\n the ground as a new robot suddenly\n appeared around the edge\n of the building a few feet away,\n aimed, and fired. Air burned\n over Alan's back and ozone tingled\n in his nostrils.\n\n\n Blinding itself for a few seconds\n with its own blaster static,\n the robot paused momentarily,\n jiggling in place. In this\n instant, Alan jammed his hands\n into an insect hill and hurled the\n pile of dirt and insects directly\n at the robot's antenna. In a flash,\n hundreds of the winged things\n erupted angrily from the hole in\n a swarming cloud, each part of\n which was a speck of life\n transmitting mental energy to the\n robot's pickup devices.\n\n\n Confused by the sudden dispersion\n of mind impulses, the\n robot fired erratically as Alan\n crouched and raced painfully for\n the door. It fired again, closer,\n as he fumbled with the lock\n release. Jagged bits of plastic and\n stone ripped past him, torn loose\n by the blast.\n\n\n Frantically, Alan slammed\n open the door as the robot, sensing\n him strongly now, aimed\n point blank. He saw nothing, his\n mind thought of nothing but the\n red-clad safety switch mounted\n beside the computer. Time stopped.\n There was nothing else in\n the world. He half-jumped, half-fell\n towards it, slowly, in tenths\n of seconds that seemed measured\n out in years.\n\n\n The universe went black.\n\n\n Later. Brilliance pressed upon\n his eyes. Then pain returned, a\n multi-hurting thing that crawled\n through his body and dragged\n ragged tentacles across his\n brain. He moaned.\n\n\n A voice spoke hollowly in the\n distance. \"He's waking. Call his\n wife.\"\n\n\n Alan opened his eyes in a\n white room; a white light hung\n over his head. Beside him, looking\n down with a rueful smile,\n stood a young man wearing\n space medical insignia. \"Yes,\"\n he acknowledged the question in\n Alan's eyes, \"you hit the switch.\n That was three days ago. When\n you're up again we'd all like to\n thank you.\"\n\n\n Suddenly a sobbing-laughing\n green-eyed girl was pressed\n tightly against him. Neither of\n them spoke. They couldn't. There\n was too much to say.\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAmazing Science Fiction Stories\nOctober 1958. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "24977": "THE PERFECTIONISTS\nBy ARNOLD CASTLE\nILLUSTRATED by SUMMERS\nIs there something wrong with you?\n Do you fail to fit in with your group?\n Nervous, anxious, ill-at-ease? Happy\n about it? Lucky you!\nFrank Pembroke\n sat behind\n the desk of his shabby\n little office over Lemark's Liquors\n in downtown Los Angeles and\n waited for his first customer. He\n had been in business for a week\n and as yet had had no callers.\n Therefore, it was with a mingled\n sense of excitement and satisfaction\n that he greeted the tall,\n dark, smooth-faced figure that\n came up the stairs and into the\n office shortly before noon.\n\n\n \"Good day, sir,\" said Pembroke\n with an amiable smile. \"I\n see my advertisement has interested\n you. Please stand in that\n corner for just a moment.\"\n\n\n Opening the desk drawer,\n which was almost empty, Pembroke\n removed an automatic pistol\n fitted with a silencer. Pointing\n it at the amazed customer, he\n fired four .22 caliber longs into\n the narrow chest. Then he made\n a telephone call and sat down to\n wait. He wondered how long it\n would be before his next client\n would arrive.\nThe series of events leading up\n to Pembroke's present occupation\n had commenced on a dismal,\n overcast evening in the South\n Pacific a year earlier. Bound for\n Sydney, two days out of Valparaiso,\n the Colombian tramp\n steamer\nElena Mia\nhad encountered\n a dense greenish fog which\n seemed vaguely redolent of citrus\n trees. Standing on the forward\n deck, Pembroke was one of the\n first to perceive the peculiar odor\n and to spot the immense gray\n hulk wallowing in the murky distance.\n\n\n Then the explosion had come,\n from far below the waterline,\n and the decks were awash with\n frantic crewmen, officers, and the\n handful of passengers. Only two\n lifeboats were launched before\n the\nElena Mia\nwent down. Pembroke\n was in the second. The\n roar of the sinking ship was the\n last thing he heard for some\n time.\n\n\n Pembroke came as close to being\n a professional adventurer as\n one can in these days of regimented\n travel, organized peril,\n and political restriction. He had\n made for himself a substantial\n fortune through speculation in a\n great variety of properties, real\n and otherwise. Life had given\n him much and demanded little,\n which was perhaps the reason\n for his restiveness.\nLoyalty to person or to people\n was a trait Pembroke had never\n recognized in himself, nor had it\n ever been expected of him. And\n yet he greatly envied those\n staunch patriots and lovers who\n could find it in themselves to\n elevate the glory and safety of\n others above that of themselves.\n\n\n Lacking such loyalties, Pembroke\n adapted quickly to the situation\n in which he found himself\n when he regained consciousness.\n He awoke in a small room in\n what appeared to be a typical\n modern American hotel. The wallet\n in his pocket contained exactly\n what it should, approximately\n three hundred dollars.\n His next thought was of food.\n He left the room and descended\n via the elevator to the restaurant.\n Here he observed that it\n was early afternoon. Ordering\n a full dinner, for he was unusually\n hungry, he began to study the\n others in the restaurant.\n\n\n Many of the faces seemed familiar;\n the crew of the ship,\n probably. He also recognized several\n of the passengers. However,\n he made no attempt to speak to\n them. After his meal, he bought\n a good corona and went for a\n walk. His situation could have\n been any small western American\n seacoast city. He heard the hiss\n of the ocean in the direction the\n afternoon sun was taking. In his\n full-gaited walk, he was soon approaching\n the beach.\n\n\n On the sand he saw a number\n of sun bathers. One in particular,\n an attractive woman of about\n thirty, tossed back her long,\n chestnut locks and gazed up intently\n at Pembroke as he passed.\n Seldom had he enjoyed so ingenuous\n an invitation. He halted\n and stared down at her for a few\n moments.\n\n\n \"You are looking for someone?\"\n she inquired.\n\n\n \"Much of the time,\" said the\n man.\n\n\n \"Could it be me?\"\n\n\n \"It could be.\"\n\n\n \"Yet you seem unsure,\" she\n said.\n\n\n Pembroke smiled, uneasily.\n There was something not entirely\n normal about her conversation.\n Though the rest of her compensated\n for that.\n\n\n \"Tell me what's wrong with\n me,\" she went on urgently. \"I'm\n not good enough, am I? I mean,\n there's something wrong with\n the way I look or act. Isn't there?\n Please help me, please!\"\n\n\n \"You're not casual enough, for\n one thing,\" said Pembroke, deciding\n to play along with her for\n the moment. \"You're too tense.\n Also you're a bit knock-kneed,\n not that it matters. Is that what\n you wanted to hear?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, yes\u2014I mean, I suppose\n so. I can try to be more casual.\n But I don't know what to do\n about my knees,\" she said wistfully,\n staring across at the\n smooth, tan limbs. \"Do you think\n I'm okay otherwise? I mean, as a\n whole I'm not so bad, am I? Oh,\n please tell me.\"\n\n\n \"How about talking it over at\n supper tonight?\" Pembroke proposed.\n \"Maybe with less distraction\n I'll have a better picture of\n you\u2014as a whole.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, that's very generous of\n you,\" the woman told him. She\n scribbled a name and an address\n on a small piece of paper and\n handed it to him. \"Any time\n after six,\" she said.\n\n\n Pembroke left the beach and\n walked through several small\n specialty shops. He tried to get\n the woman off his mind, but the\n oddness of her conversation continued\n to bother him. She was\n right about being different, but\n it was her concern about being\n different that made her so. How\n to explain\nthat\nto her?\nThen he saw the weird little\n glass statuette among the usual\n bric-a-brac. It rather resembled\n a ground hog, had seven fingers\n on each of its six limbs, and\n smiled up at him as he stared.\n\n\n \"Can I help you, sir?\" a middle-aged\n saleswoman inquired.\n \"Oh, good heavens, whatever is\n that thing doing here?\"\n\n\n Pembroke watched with lifted\n eyebrows as the clerk whisked\n the bizarre statuette underneath\n the counter.\n\n\n \"What the hell was that?\"\n Pembroke demanded.\n\n\n \"Oh, you know\u2014or don't you?\n Oh, my,\" she concluded, \"are you\n one of the\u2014strangers?\"\n\n\n \"And if I were?\"\n\n\n \"Well, I'd certainly appreciate\n it if you'd tell me how I walk.\"\nShe came around in front of\n the counter and strutted back\n and forth a few times.\n\n\n \"They tell me I lean too far\n forward,\" she confided. \"But I\n should think you'd fall down if\n you didn't.\"\n\n\n \"Don't try to go so fast and\n you won't fall down,\" suggested\n Pembroke. \"You're in too much\n of a hurry. Also those fake flowers\n on your blouse make you look\n frumpy.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I'm supposed to look\n frumpy,\" the woman retorted.\n \"That's the type of person I am.\n But you can look frumpy and still\n walk natural, can't you? Everyone\n says you can.\"\n\n\n \"Well, they've got a point,\"\n said Pembroke. \"Incidentally,\n just where are we, anyway?\n What city is this?\"\n\n\n \"Puerto Pacifico,\" she told\n him. \"Isn't that a lovely name?\n It means peaceful port. In Spanish.\"\n\n\n That was fine. At least he now\n knew where he was. But as he\n left the shop he began checking\n off every west coast state, city,\n town, and inlet. None, to the best\n of his knowledge, was called\n Puerto Pacifico.\n\n\n He headed for the nearest\n service station and asked for a\n map. The attendant gave him one\n which showed the city, but nothing\n beyond.\n\n\n \"Which way is it to San Francisco?\"\n asked Pembroke.\n\n\n \"That all depends on where\n you are,\" the boy returned.\n\n\n \"Okay, then where am I?\"\n\n\n \"Pardon me, there's a customer,\"\n the boy said. \"This is\n Puerto Pacifico.\"\n\n\n Pembroke watched him hurry\n off to service a car with a sense\n of having been given the runaround.\n To his surprise, the boy\n came back a few minutes later\n after servicing the automobile.\n\n\n \"Say, I've just figured out who\n you are,\" the youngster told him.\n \"I'd sure appreciate it if you'd\n give me a little help on my lingo.\n Also, you gas up the car first,\n then try to sell 'em the oil\u2014right?\"\n\n\n \"Right,\" said Pembroke wearily.\n \"What's wrong with your\n lingo? Other than the fact that\n it's not colloquial enough.\"\n\n\n \"Not enough slang, huh? Well,\n I guess I'll have to concentrate\n on that. How about the smile?\"\n\n\n \"Perfect,\" Pembroke told him.\n\n\n \"Yeah?\" said the boy delightedly.\n \"Say, come back again,\n huh? I sure appreciate the help.\n Keep the map.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks. One more thing,\"\n Pembroke said. \"What's over\n that way\u2014outside the city?\"\n\n\n \"Sand.\"\n\n\n \"How about that way?\" he\n asked, pointing north. \"And that\n way?\" pointing south.\n\n\n \"More of the same.\"\n\n\n \"Any railroads?\"\n\n\n \"That we ain't got.\"\n\n\n \"Buses? Airlines?\"\n\n\n The kid shook his head.\n\n\n \"Some city.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, it's kinda isolated. A\n lot of ships dock here, though.\"\n\n\n \"All cargo ships, I'll bet. No\n passengers,\" said Pembroke.\n\n\n \"Right,\" said the attendant,\n giving with his perfect smile.\n\n\n \"No getting out of here, is\n there?\"\n\n\n \"That's for sure,\" the boy said,\n walking away to wait on another\n customer. \"If you don't like the\n place, you've had it.\"\nPembroke returned to the\n hotel. Going to the bar, he recognized\n one of the\nElena Mia's\npaying\n passengers. He was a short,\n rectangular little man in his fifties\n named Spencer. He sat in a\n booth with three young women,\n all lovely, all effusive. The topic\n of the conversation turned out\n to be precisely what Pembroke\n had predicted.\n\n\n \"Well, Louisa, I'd say your\n only fault is the way you keep\n wigglin' your shoulders up 'n'\n down. Why'n'sha try holdin' 'em\n straight?\"\n\n\n \"I thought it made me look\n sexy,\" the redhead said petulantly.\n\n\n \"Just be yourself, gal,\" Spencer\n drawled, jabbing her intimately\n with a fat elbow, \"and\n you'll qualify.\"\n\n\n \"Me, me,\" the blonde with a\n feather cut was insisting. \"What\n is wrong with me?\"\n\n\n \"You're perfect, sweetheart,\"\n he told her, taking her hand.\n\n\n \"Ah, come on,\" she pleaded.\n \"Everyone tells me I chew gum\n with my mouth open. Don't you\n hate that?\"\n\n\n \"Naw, that's part of your\n charm,\" Spencer assured her.\n\n\n \"How 'bout me, sugar,\" asked\n the girl with the coal black hair.\n\n\n \"Ah, you're perfect, too. You\n are all perfect. I've never seen\n such a collection of dolls as parade\n around this here city.\n C'mon, kids\u2014how 'bout another\n round?\"\n\n\n But the dolls had apparently\n lost interest in him. They got up\n one by one and walked out of the\n bar. Pembroke took his rum and\n tonic and moved over to Spencer's\n booth.\n\n\n \"Okay if I join you?\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" said the fat man.\n \"Wonder what the hell got into\n those babes?\"\n\n\n \"You said they were perfect.\n They know they're not. You've\n got to be rough with them in this\n town,\" said Pembroke. \"That's\n all they want from us.\"\n\n\n \"Mister, you've been doing\n some thinkin', I can see,\" said\n Spencer, peering at him suspiciously.\n \"Maybe you've figured\n out where we are.\"\n\n\n \"Your bet's as good as mine,\"\n said Pembroke. \"It's not Wellington,\n and it's not Brisbane, and\n it's not Long Beach, and it's not\n Tahiti. There are a lot of places\n it's not. But where the hell it is,\n you tell me.\n\n\n \"And, by the way,\" he added,\n \"I hope you like it in Puerto\n Pacifico. Because there isn't any\n place to go from here and there\n isn't any way to get there if\n there were.\"\n\n\n \"Pardon me, gentlemen, but\n I'm Joe Valencia, manager of the\n hotel. I would be very grateful if\n you would give me a few minutes\n of honest criticism.\"\n\n\n \"Ah, no, not you, too,\" groaned\n Spencer. \"Look, Joe, what's\n the gag?\"\n\n\n \"You are newcomers, Mr.\n Spencer,\" Valencia explained.\n \"You are therefore in an excellent\n position to point out our\n faults as you see them.\"\n\n\n \"Well, so what?\" demanded\n Spencer. \"I've got more important\n things to do than to worry\n about your troubles. You look\n okay to me.\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Valencia,\" said Pembroke.\n \"I've noticed that you\n walk with a very slight limp. If\n you have a bad leg, I should\n think you would do better to develop\n a more pronounced limp.\n Otherwise, you may appear to\n be self-conscious about it.\"\nSpencer opened his mouth to\n protest, but saw with amazement\n that it was exactly this that\n Valencia was seeking. Pembroke\n was amused at his companion's\n reaction but observed that Spencer\n still failed to see the point.\n\n\n \"Also, there is a certain effeminateness\n in the way in which\n you speak,\" said Pembroke. \"Try\n to be a little more direct, a little\n more brusque. Speak in a monotone.\n It will make you more acceptable.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you so much,\" said the\n manager. \"There is much food\n for thought in what you have\n said, Mr. Pembroke. However,\n Mr. Spencer, your value has failed\n to prove itself. You have only\n yourself to blame. Cooperation is\n all we require of you.\"\n\n\n Valencia left. Spencer ordered\n another martini. Neither he nor\n Pembroke spoke for several minutes.\n\n\n \"Somebody's crazy around\n here,\" the fat man muttered\n after a few moments. \"Is it me,\n Frank?\"\n\n\n \"No. You just don't belong\n here, in this particular place,\"\n said Pembroke thoughtfully.\n \"You're the wrong type. But they\n couldn't know that ahead of time.\n The way they operate it's a\n pretty hit-or-miss operation. But\n they don't care one bit about us,\n Spencer. Consider the men who\n went down with the ship. That\n was just part of the game.\"\n\n\n \"What the hell are you sayin'?\"\n asked Spencer in disbelief.\n \"You figure\nthey\nsunk the ship?\n Valencia and the waitress and\n the three babes? Ah, come on.\"\n\n\n \"It's what you think that will\n determine what you do, Spencer.\n I suggest you change your attitude;\n play along with them for a\n few days till the picture becomes\n a little clearer to you. We'll talk\n about it again then.\"\n\n\n Pembroke rose and started out\n of the bar. A policeman entered\n and walked directly to Spencer's\n table. Loitering at the juke box,\n Pembroke overheard the conversation.\n\n\n \"You Spencer?\"\n\n\n \"That's right,\" said the fat\n man sullenly.\n\n\n \"What don't you like about\n me? The\ntruth\n, buddy.\"\n\n\n \"Ah, hell! Nothin' wrong\n with you at all, and nothin'll\n make me say there is,\" said Spencer.\n\n\n \"You're the guy, all right. Too\n bad, Mac,\" said the cop.\n\n\n Pembroke heard the shots as\n he strolled casually out into the\n brightness of the hotel lobby.\n While he waited for the elevator,\n he saw them carrying the body\n into the street. How many others,\n he wondered, had gone out on\n their backs during their first day\n in Puerto Pacifico?\nPembroke shaved, showered,\n and put on the new suit and shirt\n he had bought. Then he took\n Mary Ann, the woman he had\n met on the beach, out to dinner.\n She would look magnificent even\n when fully clothed, he decided,\n and the pale chartreuse gown she\n wore hardly placed her in that\n category. Her conversation seemed\n considerably more normal\n after the other denizens of\n Puerto Pacifico Pembroke had\n listened to that afternoon.\n\n\n After eating they danced for\n an hour, had a few more drinks,\n then went to Pembroke's room.\n He still knew nothing about her\n and had almost exhausted his\n critical capabilities, but not once\n had she become annoyed with\n him. She seemed to devour every\n factual point of imperfection\n about herself that Pembroke\n brought to her attention. And,\n fantastically enough, she actually\n appeared to have overcome every\n little imperfection he had been\n able to communicate to her.\n\n\n It was in the privacy of his\n room that Pembroke became\n aware of just how perfect, physically,\n Mary Ann was. Too perfect.\n No freckles or moles anywhere\n on the visible surface of\n her brown skin, which was more\n than a mere sampling. Furthermore,\n her face and body were\n meticulously symmetrical. And\n she seemed to be wholly ambidextrous.\n\n\n \"With so many beautiful\n women in Puerto Pacifico,\" said\n Pembroke probingly, \"I find it\n hard to understand why there are\n so few children.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, children are decorative,\n aren't they,\" said Mary Ann. \"I\n do wish there were more of\n them.\"\n\n\n \"Why not have a couple of\n your own?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Oh, they're only given to maternal\n types. I'd never get one.\n Anyway, I won't ever marry,\"\n she said. \"I'm the paramour\n type.\"\n\n\n It was obvious that the liquor\n had been having some effect.\n Either that, or she had a basic\n flaw of loquacity that no one else\n had discovered. Pembroke decided\n he would have to cover his\n tracks carefully.\n\n\n \"What type am I?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Silly, you're real. You're not\n a type at all.\"\n\n\n \"Mary Ann, I love you very\n much,\" Pembroke murmured,\n gambling everything on this one\n throw. \"When you go to Earth\n I'll miss you terribly.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, but you'll be dead by\n then,\" she pouted. \"So I mustn't\n fall in love with you. I don't want\n to be miserable.\"\n\n\n \"If I pretended I was one of\n you, if I left on the boat with\n you, they'd let me go to Earth\n with you. Wouldn't they?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, yes, I'm sure they would.\"\n\n\n \"Mary Ann, you have two\n other flaws I feel I should mention.\"\n\n\n \"Yes? Please tell me.\"\n\n\n \"In the first place,\" said Pembroke,\n \"you should be willing to\n fall in love with me even if it\n will eventually make you unhappy.\n How can you be the paramour\n type if you refuse to fall in\n love foolishly? And when you\n have fallen in love, you should be\n very loyal.\"\n\n\n \"I'll try,\" she said unsurely.\n \"What else?\"\n\n\n \"The other thing is that, as\n my mistress, you must never\n mention me to anyone. It would\n place me in great danger.\"\n\n\n \"I'll never tell anyone anything\n about you,\" she promised.\n\n\n \"Now try to love me,\" Pembroke\n said, drawing her into his\n arms and kissing with little\n pleasure the smooth, warm perfection\n of her tanned cheeks.\n \"Love me my sweet, beautiful,\n affectionate Mary Ann. My paramour.\"\n\n\n Making love to Mary Ann was\n something short of ecstasy. Not\n for any obvious reason, but because\n of subtle little factors that\n make a woman a woman. Mary\n Ann had no pulse. Mary Ann did\n not perspire. Mary Ann did not\n fatigue gradually but all at once.\n Mary Ann breathed regularly\n under all circumstances. Mary\n Ann talked and talked and talked.\n But then, Mary Ann was not\n a human being.\n\n\n When she left the hotel at midnight,\n Pembroke was quite sure\n that she understood his plan and\n that she was irrevocably in love\n with him. Tomorrow might bring\n his death, but it might also ensure\n his escape. After forty-two\n years of searching for a passion,\n for a cause, for a loyalty, Frank\n Pembroke had at last found his.\n Earth and the human race that\n peopled it. And Mary Ann would\n help him to save it.\nThe next morning Pembroke\n talked to Valencia about hunting.\n He said that he planned to go\n shooting out on the desert which\n surrounded the city. Valencia\n told him that there were no living\n creatures anywhere but in\n the city. Pembroke said he was\n going out anyway.\n\n\n He picked up Mary Ann at her\n apartment and together they\n went to a sporting goods store.\n As he guessed there was a goodly\n selection of firearms, despite the\n fact that there was nothing to\n hunt and only a single target\n range within the city. Everything,\n of course, had to be just\n like Earth. That, after all, was\n the purpose of Puerto Pacifico.\n\n\n By noon they had rented a\n jeep and were well away from\n the city. Pembroke and Mary\n Ann took turns firing at the paper\n targets they had purchased. At\n twilight they headed back to the\n city. On the outskirts, where the\n sand and soil were mixed and no\n footprints would be left, Pembroke\n hopped off. Mary Ann\n would go straight to the police\n and report that Pembroke had attacked\n her and that she had shot\n him. If necessary, she would conduct\n the authorities to the place\n where they had been target\n shooting, but would be unable to\n locate the spot where she had\n buried the body. Why had she\n buried it? Because at first she\n was not going to report the incident.\n She was frightened. It\n was not airtight, but there would\n probably be no further investigation.\n And they certainly would\n not prosecute Mary Ann for killing\n an Earthman.\n\n\n Now Pembroke had himself to\n worry about. The first step was\n to enter smoothly into the new\n life he had planned. It wouldn't\n be so comfortable as the previous\n one, but should be considerably\n safer. He headed slowly for the\n \"old\" part of town, aging his\n clothes against buildings and\n fences as he walked. He had already\n torn the collar of the shirt\n and discarded his belt. By morning\n his beard would grow to\n blacken his face. And he would\n look weary and hungry and aimless.\n Only the last would be a deception.\nTwo weeks later Pembroke\n phoned Mary Ann. The police\n had accepted her story without\n even checking. And when, when\n would she be seeing him again?\n He had aroused her passion and\n no amount of long-distance love\n could requite it. Soon, he assured\n her, soon.\n\n\n \"Because, after all, you do owe\n me something,\" she added.\n\n\n And that was bad because it\n sounded as if she had been giving\n some womanly thought to the situation.\n A little more of that and\n she might go to the police again,\n this time for vengeance.\n\n\n Twice during his wanderings\n Pembroke had seen the corpses\n of Earthmen being carted out of\n buildings. They had to be Earthmen\n because they bled. Mary Ann\n had admitted that she did not.\n There would be very few Earthmen\n left in Puerto Pacifico, and\n it would be simple enough to locate\n him if he were reported as\n being on the loose. There was\n no out but to do away with Mary\n Ann.\n\n\n Pembroke headed for the\n beach. He knew she invariably\n went there in the afternoon. He\n loitered around the stalls where\n hot dogs and soft drinks were\n sold, leaning against a post in\n the hot sun, hat pulled down over\n his forehead. Then he noticed\n that people all about him were\n talking excitedly. They were discussing\n a ship. It was leaving\n that afternoon. Anyone who\n could pass the interview would\n be sent to Earth.\n\n\n Pembroke had visited the\n docks every day, without being\n able to learn when the great\n exodus would take place. Yet he\n was certain the first lap would be\n by water rather than by spaceship,\n since no one he had talked\n to in the city had ever heard of\n spaceships. In fact, they knew\n very little about their masters.\n\n\n Now the ship had arrived and\n was to leave shortly. If there was\n any but the most superficial examination,\n Pembroke would no\n doubt be discovered and exterminated.\n But since no one seemed\n concerned about anything but his\n own speech and behavior, he assumed\n that they had all qualified\n in every other respect. The reason\n for transporting Earth People\n to this planet was, of course,\n to apply a corrective to any of\n the Pacificos' aberrant mannerisms\n or articulation. This was\n the polishing up phase.\nPembroke began hobbling toward\n the docks. Almost at once\n he found himself face to face\n with Mary Ann. She smiled happily\n when she recognized him.\nThat\nwas a good thing.\n\n\n \"It is a sign of poor breeding\n to smile at tramps,\" Pembroke\n admonished her in a whisper.\n \"Walk on ahead.\"\n\n\n She obeyed. He followed. The\n crowd grew thicker. They neared\n the docks and Pembroke saw that\n there were now set up on the\n roped-off wharves small interviewing\n booths. When it was\n their turn, he and Mary Ann\n each went into separate ones.\n Pembroke found himself alone in\n the little room.\n\n\n Then he saw that there was\n another entity in his presence\n confined beneath a glass dome. It\n looked rather like a groundhog\n and had seven fingers on each of\n its six limbs. But it was larger\n and hairier than the glass one\n he had seen at the gift store.\n With four of its limbs it tapped\n on an intricate keyboard in front\n of it.\n\n\n \"What is your name?\" queried\n a metallic voice from a speaker\n on the wall.\n\n\n \"I'm Jerry Newton. Got no\n middle initial,\" Pembroke said in\n a surly voice.\n\n\n \"Occupation?\"\n\n\n \"I work a lot o' trades. Fisherman,\n fruit picker, fightin' range\n fires, vineyards, car washer. Anything.\n You name it. Been out of\n work for a long time now,\n though. Goin' on five months.\n These here are hard times, no\n matter what they say.\"\n\n\n \"What do you think of the\n Chinese situation?\" the voice inquired.\n\n\n \"Which situation's 'at?\"\n\n\n \"Where's Seattle?\"\n\n\n \"Seattle? State o' Washington.\"\n\n\n And so it went for about five\n minutes. Then he was told he\n had qualified as a satisfactory\n surrogate for a mid-twentieth\n century American male, itinerant\n type.\n\n\n \"You understand your mission,\n Newton?\" the voice asked. \"You\n are to establish yourself on\n Earth. In time you will receive\n instructions. Then you will attack.\n You will not see us, your\n masters, again until the atmosphere\n has been sufficiently chlorinated.\n In the meantime, serve\n us well.\"\n\n\n He stumbled out toward the\n docks, then looked about for\n Mary Ann. He saw her at last\n behind the ropes, her lovely face\n in tears.\n\n\n Then she saw him. Waving\n frantically, she called his name\n several times. Pembroke mingled\n with the crowd moving toward\n the ship, ignoring her. But still\n the woman persisted in her\n shouting.\n\n\n Sidling up to a well-dressed\n man-about-town type, Pembroke\n winked at him and snickered.\n\n\n \"You Frank?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Hell, no. But some poor\n punk's sure red in the face, I'll\n bet,\" the man-about-town said\n with a chuckle. \"Those high-strung\n paramour types always\n raising a ruckus. They never do\n pass the interview. Don't know\n why they even make 'em.\"\n\n\n Suddenly Mary Ann was quiet.\n\n\n \"Ambulance squad,\" Pembroke's\n companion explained.\n \"They'll take her off to the buggy\n house for a few days and bring\n her out fresh and ignorant as the\n day she was assembled. Don't\n know why they keep making 'em,\n as I say. But I guess there's a\n call for that type up there on\n Earth.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, I reckon there is at\n that,\" said Pembroke, snickering\n again as he moved away from the\n other. \"And why not? Hey?\n Why not?\"\n\n\n Pembroke went right on hating\n himself, however, till the\n night he was deposited in a field\n outside of Ensenada, broke but\n happy, with two other itinerant\n types. They separated in San\n Diego, and it was not long before\n Pembroke was explaining to the\n police how he had drifted far\n from the scene of the sinking of\n the\nElena Mia\non a piece of\n wreckage, and had been picked\n up by a Chilean trawler. How he\n had then made his way, with\n much suffering, up the coast to\n California. Two days later, his\n identity established and his circumstances\n again solvent, he was\n headed for Los Angeles to begin\n his save-Earth campaign.\nNow, seated at his battered\n desk in the shabby rented office\n over Lemark's Liquors, Pembroke\n gazed without emotion at\n the two demolished Pacificos that\n lay sprawled one atop the other\n in the corner. His watch said\n one-fifteen. The man from the\n FBI should arrive soon.\n\n\n There were footsteps on the\n stairs for the third time that\n day. Not the brisk, efficient steps\n of a federal official, but the hesitant,\n self-conscious steps of a\n junior clerk type.\n\n\n Pembroke rose as the young\n man appeared at the door. His\n face was smooth, unpimpled,\n clean-shaven, without sweat on a\n warm summer afternoon.\n\n\n \"Are you Dr. Von Schubert?\"\n the newcomer asked, peering into\n the room. \"You see, I've got a\n problem\u2014\"\n\n\n The four shots from Pembroke's\n pistol solved his problem\n effectively. Pembroke tossed his\n third victim onto the pile, then\n opened a can of lager, quaffing\n it appreciatively. Seating himself\n once more, he leaned back in\n the chair, both feet upon the\n desk.\n\n\n He would be out of business\n soon, once the FBI agent had got\n there. Pembroke was only in it to\n get the proof he would need to\n convince people of the truth of\n his tale. But in the meantime he\n allowed himself to admire the\n clipping of the newspaper ad he\n had run in all the Los Angeles\n papers for the past week. The\n little ad that had saved mankind\n from God-knew-what insidious\n menace. It read:\nARE YOU IMPERFECT?\nLET DR. VON SCHUBERT POINT OUT\n\n YOUR FLAWS\nIT IS HIS GOAL TO MAKE YOU THE\n\n AVERAGE FOR YOUR TYPE\nFEE\u2014$3.75\nMONEY BACK IF NOT SATISFIED!\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAmazing Science Fiction Stories\nJanuary 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "25086": "The saucer was interesting, but where was the delegate?\nThe\n\n DELEGATE\n\n FROM\n\n VENUS\nBy HENRY SLESAR\nILLUSTRATOR NOVICK\nEverybody was waiting to see\n what the delegate from Venus\n looked like. And all they got\n for their patience was the\n biggest surprise since David\n clobbered Goliath.\n\"\n Let\n me put it this way,\"\n Conners said paternally.\n \"We expect a certain amount of\n decorum from our Washington\n news correspondents, and that's\n all I'm asking for.\"\n\n\n Jerry Bridges, sitting in the\n chair opposite his employer's\n desk, chewed on his knuckles\n and said nothing. One part of\n his mind wanted him to play it\n cagey, to behave the way the\n newspaper wanted him to behave,\n to protect the cozy Washington\n assignment he had waited\n four years to get. But another\n part of him, a rebel part,\n wanted him to stay on the trail\n of the story he felt sure was\n about to break.\n\n\n \"I didn't mean to make trouble,\n Mr. Conners,\" he said casually.\n \"It just seemed strange, all\n these exchanges of couriers in\n the past two days. I couldn't\n help thinking something was\n up.\"\n\n\n \"Even if that's true, we'll\n hear about it through the usual\n channels,\" Conners frowned.\n \"But getting a senator's secretary\n drunk to obtain information\u2014well,\n that's not only indiscreet,\n Bridges. It's downright\n dirty.\"\n\n\n Jerry grinned. \"I didn't take\nthat\nkind of advantage, Mr.\n Conners. Not that she wasn't a\n toothsome little dish ...\"\n\n\n \"Just thank your lucky stars\n that it didn't go any further.\n And from now on\u2014\" He waggled\n a finger at him. \"Watch\n your step.\"\n\n\n Jerry got up and ambled to the\n door. But he turned before leaving\n and said:\n\n\n \"By the way. What do\nyou\nthink is going on?\"\n\n\n \"I haven't the faintest idea.\"\n\n\n \"Don't kid me, Mr. Conners.\n Think it's war?\"\n\n\n \"That'll be all, Bridges.\"\nThe reporter closed the door\n behind him, and then strolled\n out of the building into the sunlight.\n\n\n He met Ruskin, the fat little\n AP correspondent, in front of\n the Pan-American Building on\n Constitution Avenue. Ruskin\n was holding the newspaper that\n contained the gossip-column\n item which had started the\n whole affair, and he seemed\n more interested in the romantic\n rather than political implications.\n As he walked beside him,\n he said:\n\n\n \"So what really happened,\n pal? That Greta babe really let\n down her hair?\"\n\n\n \"Where's your decorum?\"\n Jerry growled.\n\n\n Ruskin giggled. \"Boy, she's\n quite a dame, all right. I think\n they ought to get the Secret\n Service to guard her. She really\n fills out a size 10, don't she?\"\n\n\n \"Ruskin,\" Jerry said, \"you\n have a low mind. For a week,\n this town has been acting like\n the\n39 Steps\n, and all you can\n think about is dames. What's\n the matter with you? Where\n will you be when the big mushroom\n cloud comes?\"\n\n\n \"With Greta, I hope,\" Ruskin\n sighed. \"What a way to get\n radioactive.\"\n\n\n They split off a few blocks\n later, and Jerry walked until he\n came to the Red Tape Bar &\n Grill, a favorite hangout of the\n local journalists. There were\n three other newsmen at the bar,\n and they gave him snickering\n greetings. He took a small table\n in the rear and ate his meal in\n sullen silence.\n\n\n It wasn't the newsmen's jibes\n that bothered him; it was the\n certainty that something of\n major importance was happening\n in the capitol. There had\n been hourly conferences at the\n White House, flying visits by\n State Department officials, mysterious\n conferences involving\n members of the Science Commission.\n So far, the byword\n had been secrecy. They knew\n that Senator Spocker, chairman\n of the Congressional Science\n Committee, had been involved\n in every meeting, but Senator\n Spocker was unavailable. His\n secretary, however, was a little\n more obliging ...\n\n\n Jerry looked up from his\n coffee and blinked when he saw\n who was coming through the\n door of the Bar & Grill. So did\n every other patron, but for different\n reasons. Greta Johnson\n had that effect upon men. Even\n the confining effect of a mannishly-tailored\n suit didn't hide\n her outrageously feminine qualities.\n\n\n She walked straight to his\n table, and he stood up.\n\n\n \"They told me you might be\n here,\" she said, breathing hard.\n \"I just wanted to thank you for\n last night.\"\n\n\n \"Look, Greta\u2014\"\nWham!\nHer hand, small and\n delicate, felt like a slab of lead\n when it slammed into his cheek.\n She left a bruise five fingers\n wide, and then turned and stalked\n out.\nHe ran after her, the restaurant\n proprietor shouting about\n the unpaid bill. It took a rapid\n dog-trot to reach her side.\n\n\n \"Greta, listen!\" he panted.\n \"You don't understand about\n last night. It wasn't the way\n that lousy columnist said\u2014\"\n\n\n She stopped in her tracks.\n\n\n \"I wouldn't have minded so\n much if you'd gotten me drunk.\n But to\nuse\nme, just to get a\n story\u2014\"\n\n\n \"But I'm a\nreporter\n, damn it.\n It's my job. I'd do it again if\n I thought you knew anything.\"\n\n\n She was pouting now. \"Well,\n how do you suppose I feel,\n knowing you're only interested\n in me because of the Senator?\n Anyway, I'll probably lose my\n job, and then you won't have\nany\nuse for me.\"\n\n\n \"Good-bye, Greta,\" Jerry said\n sadly.\n\n\n \"What?\"\n\n\n \"Good-bye. I suppose you\n won't want to see me any more.\"\n\n\n \"Did I say that?\"\n\n\n \"It just won't be any use.\n We'll always have this thing between\n us.\"\n\n\n She looked at him for a moment,\n and then touched his\n bruised cheek with a tender,\n motherly gesture.\n\n\n \"Your poor face,\" she murmured,\n and then sighed. \"Oh,\n well. I guess there's no use\n fighting it. Maybe if I\ndid\ntell\n you what I know, we could act\nhuman\nagain.\"\n\n\n \"Greta!\"\n\n\n \"But if you print one\nword\nof it, Jerry Bridges, I'll never\n speak to you again!\"\n\n\n \"Honey,\" Jerry said, taking\n her arm, \"you can trust me like\n a brother.\"\n\n\n \"That's\nnot\nthe idea,\" Greta\n said stiffly.\n\n\n In a secluded booth at the rear\n of a restaurant unfrequented by\n newsmen, Greta leaned forward\n and said:\n\n\n \"At first, they thought it was\n another sputnik.\"\n\n\n \"\nWho\ndid?\"\n\n\n \"The State Department, silly.\n They got reports from the observatories\n about another sputnik\n being launched by the Russians.\n Only the Russians denied\n it. Then there were joint meetings,\n and nobody could figure\n out\nwhat\nthe damn thing was.\"\n\n\n \"Wait a minute,\" Jerry said\n dizzily. \"You mean to tell me\n there's another of those metal\n moons up there?\"\n\n\n \"But it's not a moon. That's\n the big point. It's a spaceship.\"\n\n\n \"A\nwhat\n?\"\n\n\n \"A spaceship,\" Greta said\n coolly, sipping lemonade. \"They\n have been in contact with it now\n for about three days, and they're\n thinking of calling a plenary\n session of the UN just to figure\n out what to do about it. The\n only hitch is, Russia doesn't\n want to wait that long, and is\n asking for a hurry-up summit\n meeting to make a decision.\"\n\n\n \"A decision about what?\"\n\n\n \"About the Venusians, of\n course.\"\n\n\n \"Greta,\" Jerry said mildly, \"I\n think you're still a little woozy\n from last night.\"\n\n\n \"Don't be silly. The spaceship's\n from Venus; they've already\n established that. And the\n people on it\u2014I\nguess\nthey're\n people\u2014want to know if they\n can land their delegate.\"\n\n\n \"Their what?\"\n\n\n \"Their delegate. They came\n here for some kind of conference,\n I guess. They know about\n the UN and everything, and\n they want to take part. They\n say that with all the satellites\n being launched, that our affairs\n are\ntheir\naffairs, too. It's kind\n of confusing, but that's what\n they say.\"\n\n\n \"You mean these Venusians\n speak English?\"\n\n\n \"And Russian. And French.\n And German. And everything I\n guess. They've been having\n radio talks with practically\n every country for the past three\n days. Like I say, they want to\n establish diplomatic relations\n or something. The Senator\n thinks that if we don't agree,\n they might do something drastic,\n like blow us all up. It's kind\n of scary.\" She shivered delicately.\n\n\n \"You're taking it mighty\n calm,\" he said ironically.\n\n\n \"Well, how else can I take it?\n I'm not even supposed to\nknow\nabout it, except that the Senator\n is so careless about\u2014\" She\n put her fingers to her lips. \"Oh,\n dear, now you'll really think I'm\n terrible.\"\n\n\n \"Terrible? I think you're\n wonderful!\"\n\n\n \"And you promise not to print\n it?\"\n\n\n \"Didn't I say I wouldn't?\"\n\n\n \"Y-e-s. But you know, you're\n a liar sometimes, Jerry. I've noticed\n that about you.\"\nThe press secretary's secretary,\n a massive woman with\n gray hair and impervious to\n charm, guarded the portals of\n his office with all the indomitable\n will of the U. S. Marines.\n But Jerry Bridges tried.\n\n\n \"You don't understand, Lana,\"\n he said. \"I don't want to\nsee\nMr.\n Howells. I just want you to\ngive\nhim something.\"\n\n\n \"My name's not Lana, and I\ncan't\ndeliver any messages.\"\n\n\n \"But this is something he\nwants\nto see.\" He handed her\n an envelope, stamped URGENT.\n \"Do it for me, Hedy. And I'll\n buy you the flashiest pair of\n diamond earrings in Washington.\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" the woman said,\n thawing slightly. \"I\ncould\ndeliver\n it with his next batch of mail.\"\n\n\n \"When will that be?\"\n\n\n \"In an hour. He's in a terribly\n important meeting right\n now.\"\n\n\n \"You've got some mail right\n there. Earrings and a bracelet\n to match.\"\n\n\n She looked at him with exasperation,\n and then gathered up\n a stack of memorandums and\n letters, his own envelope atop\n it. She came out of the press\n secretary's office two minutes\n later with Howells himself, and\n Howells said: \"You there,\n Bridges. Come in here.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\nsir\n!\" Jerry said, breezing\n by the waiting reporters\n with a grin of triumph.\n\n\n There were six men in the\n room, three in military uniform.\n Howells poked the envelope towards\n Jerry, and snapped:\n\n\n \"This note of yours. Just what\n do you think it means?\"\n\n\n \"You know better than I do,\n Mr. Howells. I'm just doing my\n job; I think the public has a\n right to know about this spaceship\n that's flying around\u2014\"\nHis words brought an exclamation\n from the others. Howells\n sighed, and said:\n\n\n \"Mr. Bridges, you don't make\n it easy for us. It's our opinion\n that secrecy is essential, that\n leakage of the story might cause\n panic. Since you're the only unauthorized\n person who knows of\n it, we have two choices. One of\n them is to lock you up.\"\n\n\n Jerry swallowed hard.\n\n\n \"The other is perhaps more\n practical,\" Howells said. \"You'll\n be taken into our confidence, and\n allowed to accompany those officials\n who will be admitted to the\n landing site. But you will\nnot\nbe\n allowed to relay the story to the\n press until such a time as\nall\ncorrespondents are informed.\n That won't give you a 'scoop' if\n that's what you call it, but you'll\n be an eyewitness. That should\n be worth something.\"\n\n\n \"It's worth a lot,\" Jerry said\n eagerly. \"Thanks, Mr. Howells.\"\n\n\n \"Don't thank me, I'm not doing\n you any\npersonal\nfavor. Now\n about the landing tonight\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You mean the spaceship's\n coming down?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. A special foreign ministers\n conference was held this\n morning, and a decision was\n reached to accept the delegate.\n Landing instructions are being\n given at Los Alamos, and the\n ship will presumably land\n around midnight tonight. There\n will be a jet leaving Washington\n Airport at nine, and you'll be\n on it. Meanwhile, consider yourself\n in custody.\"\nThe USAF jet transport\n wasn't the only secrecy-shrouded\n aircraft that took off that evening\n from Washington Airport.\n But Jerry Bridges, sitting in\n the rear seat flanked by two\n Sphinx-like Secret Service men,\n knew that he was the only passenger\n with non-official status\n aboard.\n\n\n It was only a few minutes\n past ten when they arrived at\n the air base at Los Alamos. The\n desert sky was cloudy and starless,\n and powerful searchlights\n probed the thick cumulus. There\n were sleek, purring black autos\n waiting to rush the air passengers\n to some unnamed destination.\n They drove for twenty\n minutes across a flat ribbon of\n desert road, until Jerry sighted\n what appeared to be a circle of\n newly-erected lights in the middle\n of nowhere. On the perimeter,\n official vehicles were parked\n in orderly rows, and four USAF\n trailer trucks were in evidence,\n their radarscopes turning slowly.\n There was activity everywhere,\n but it was well-ordered\n and unhurried. They had done a\n good job of keeping the excitement\n contained.\n\n\n He was allowed to leave the\n car and stroll unescorted. He\n tried to talk to some of the\n scurrying officials, but to no\n avail. Finally, he contented\n himself by sitting on the sand,\n his back against the grill of a\n staff car, smoking one cigarette\n after another.\n\n\n As the minutes ticked off, the\n activity became more frenetic\n around him. Then the pace slowed,\n and he knew the appointed\n moment was approaching. Stillness\n returned to the desert, and\n tension was a tangible substance\n in the night air.\n\n\n The radarscopes spun slowly.\n\n\n The searchlights converged\n in an intricate pattern.\n\n\n Then the clouds seemed to\n part!\n\n\n \"Here she comes!\" a voice\n shouted. And in a moment, the\n calm was shattered. At first, he\n saw nothing. A faint roar was\n started in the heavens, and it\n became a growl that increased\n in volume until even the shouting\n voices could no longer be\n heard. Then the crisscrossing\n lights struck metal, glancing off\n the gleaming body of a descending\n object. Larger and larger\n the object grew, until it assumed\n the definable shape of a squat\n silver funnel, falling in a perfect\n straight line towards the center\n of the light-ringed area. When it\n hit, a dust cloud obscured it from\n sight.\nA loudspeaker blared out an\n unintelligible order, but its message\n was clear. No one moved\n from their position.\n\n\n Finally, a three-man team,\n asbestos-clad, lead-shielded, stepped\n out from the ring of spectators.\n They carried geiger counters\n on long poles before them.\n\n\n Jerry held his breath as they\n approached the object; only\n when they were yards away did\n he appreciate its size. It wasn't\n large; not more than fifteen feet\n in total circumference.\n\n\n One of the three men waved\n a gloved hand.\n\n\n \"It's okay,\" a voice breathed\n behind him. \"No radiation ...\"\n\n\n Slowly, the ring of spectators\n closed tighter. They were twenty\n yards from the ship when the\n voice spoke to them.\n\n\n \"Greetings from Venus,\" it\n said, and then repeated the\n phrase in six languages. \"The\n ship you see is a Venusian Class\n 7 interplanetary rocket, built\n for one-passenger. It is clear of\n all radiation, and is perfectly\n safe to approach. There is a\n hatch which may be opened by\n an automatic lever in the side.\n Please open this hatch and remove\n the passenger.\"\n\n\n An Air Force General whom\n Jerry couldn't identify stepped\n forward. He circled the ship\n warily, and then said something\n to the others. They came closer,\n and he touched a small lever on\n the silvery surface of the funnel.\n\n\n A door slid open.\n\n\n \"It's a box!\" someone said.\n\n\n \"A crate\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Colligan! Moore! Schaffer!\n Lend a hand here\u2014\"\n\n\n A trio came forward and\n hoisted the crate out of the ship.\n Then the voice spoke again;\n Jerry deduced that it must have\n been activated by the decreased\n load of the ship.\n\n\n \"Please open the crate. You\n will find our delegate within.\n We trust you will treat him\n with the courtesy of an official\n emissary.\"\n\n\n They set to work on the crate,\n its gray plastic material giving\n in readily to the application of\n their tools. But when it was\n opened, they stood aside in\n amazement and consternation.\n\n\n There were a variety of metal\n pieces packed within, protected\n by a filmy packing material.\n\n\n \"Wait a minute,\" the general\n said. \"Here's a book\u2014\"\n\n\n He picked up a gray-bound\n volume, and opened its cover.\n\n\n \"'Instructions for assembling\n Delegate,'\" he read aloud.\n \"'First, remove all parts and\n arrange them in the following\n order. A-1, central nervous system\n housing. A-2 ...'\" He looked\n up. \"It's an instruction book,\"\n he whispered. \"We're supposed\n to\nbuild\nthe damn thing.\"\nThe Delegate, a handsomely\n constructed robot almost eight\n feet tall, was pieced together\n some three hours later, by a\n team of scientists and engineers\n who seemed to find the Venusian\n instructions as elementary as a\n blueprint in an Erector set. But\n simple as the job was, they were\n obviously impressed by the\n mechanism they had assembled.\n It stood impassive until they\n obeyed the final instruction.\n \"Press Button K ...\"\n\n\n They found button K, and\n pressed it.\n\n\n The robot bowed.\n\n\n \"Thank you, gentlemen,\" it\n said, in sweet, unmetallic accents.\n \"Now if you will please\n escort me to the meeting\n place ...\"\nIt wasn't until three days\n after the landing that Jerry\n Bridges saw the Delegate again.\n Along with a dozen assorted\n government officials, Army officers,\n and scientists, he was\n quartered in a quonset hut in\n Fort Dix, New Jersey. Then,\n after seventy-two frustrating\n hours, he was escorted by Marine\n guard into New York City.\n No one told him his destination,\n and it wasn't until he saw the\n bright strips of light across the\n face of the United Nations\n building that he knew where the\n meeting was to be held.\n\n\n But his greatest surprise was\n yet to come. The vast auditorium\n which housed the general\n assembly was filled to its capacity,\n but there were new faces\n behind the plaques which designated\n the member nations.\n He couldn't believe his eyes at\n first, but as the meeting got\n under way, he knew that it was\n true. The highest echelons of the\n world's governments were represented,\n even\u2014Jerry gulped\n at the realization\u2014Nikita Khrushchev\n himself. It was a summit\n meeting such as he had never\n dreamed possible, a summit\n meeting without benefit of long\n foreign minister's debate. And\n the cause of it all, a placid,\n highly-polished metal robot, was\n seated blithely at a desk which\n bore the designation:\nVENUS.\n\n\n The robot delegate stood up.\n\n\n \"Gentlemen,\" it said into the\n microphone, and the great men\n at the council tables strained to\n hear the translator's version\n through their headphones, \"Gentlemen,\n I thank you for your\n prompt attention. I come as a\n Delegate from a great neighbor\n planet, in the interests of peace\n and progress for all the solar\n system. I come in the belief that\n peace is the responsibility of individuals,\n of nations, and now\n of worlds, and that each is dependent\n upon the other. I speak\n to you now through the electronic\n instrumentation which\n has been created for me, and I\n come to offer your planet not\n merely a threat, a promise, or\n an easy solution\u2014but a challenge.\"\n\n\n The council room stirred.\n\n\n \"Your earth satellites have\n been viewed with interest by the\n astronomers of our world, and\n we foresee the day when contact\n between our planets will be commonplace.\n As for ourselves, we\n have hitherto had little desire\n to explore beyond our realm,\n being far too occupied with internal\n matters. But our isolation\n cannot last in the face of\n your progress, so we believe that\n we must take part in your\n affairs.\n\n\n \"Here, then, is our challenge.\n Continue your struggle of ideas,\n compete with each other for the\n minds of men, fight your bloodless\n battles, if you know no\n other means to attain progress.\n But do all this\nwithout\nunleashing\n the terrible forces of power\n now at your command. Once\n unleashed, these forces may or\n may not destroy all that you\n have gained. But we, the scientists\n of Venus, promise you this\u2014that\n on the very day your conflict\n deteriorates into heedless\n violence, we will not stand by\n and let the ugly contagion\n spread. On that day, we of\n Venus will act swiftly, mercilessly,\n and relentlessly\u2014to destroy\n your world completely.\"\n\n\n Again, the meeting room exploded\n in a babble of languages.\n\n\n \"The vessel which brought me\n here came as a messenger of\n peace. But envision it, men of\n Earth, as a messenger of war.\n Unstoppable, inexorable, it may\n return, bearing a different Delegate\n from Venus\u2014a Delegate of\n Death, who speaks not in words,\n but in the explosion of atoms.\n Think of thousands of such Delegates,\n fired from a vantage\n point far beyond the reach of\n your retaliation. This is the\n promise and the challenge that\n will hang in your night sky from\n this moment forward. Look at\n the planet Venus, men of Earth,\n and see a Goddess of Vengeance,\n poised to wreak its wrath upon\n those who betray the peace.\"\n\n\n The Delegate sat down.\nFour days later, a mysterious\n explosion rocked the quiet sands\n of Los Alamos, and the Venus\n spacecraft was no more. Two\n hours after that, the robot delegate,\n its message delivered, its\n mission fulfilled, requested to be\n locked inside a bombproof\n chamber. When the door was\n opened, the Delegate was an exploded\n ruin.\n\n\n The news flashed with lightning\n speed over the world, and\n Jerry Bridges' eyewitness accounts\n of the incredible event\n was syndicated throughout the\n nation. But his sudden celebrity\n left him vaguely unsatisfied.\n\n\n He tried to explain his feeling\n to Greta on his first night back\n in Washington. They were in his\n apartment, and it was the first\n time Greta had consented to pay\n him the visit.\n\n\n \"Well, what's\nbothering\nyou?\"\n Greta pouted. \"You've had the\n biggest story of the year under\n your byline. I should think you'd\n be tickled pink.\"\n\n\n \"It's not that,\" Jerry said\n moodily. \"But ever since I heard\n the Delegate speak, something's\n been nagging me.\"\n\n\n \"But don't you think he's done\n good? Don't you think they'll be\n impressed by what he said?\"\n\n\n \"I'm not worried about that.\n I think that damn robot did\n more for peace than anything\n that's ever come along in this\n cockeyed world. But still ...\"\n\n\n Greta snuggled up to him on\n the sofa. \"You worry too much.\n Don't you ever think of anything\n else? You should learn to\n relax. It can be fun.\"\n\n\n She started to prove it to him,\n and Jerry responded the way a\n normal, healthy male usually\n does. But in the middle of an\n embrace, he cried out:\n\n\n \"Wait a minute!\"\n\n\n \"What's the matter?\"\n\n\n \"I just thought of something!\n Now where the hell did I put\n my old notebooks?\"\n\n\n He got up from the sofa and\n went scurrying to a closet. From\n a debris of cardboard boxes, he\n found a worn old leather brief\n case, and cackled with delight\n when he found the yellowed\n notebooks inside.\n\n\n \"What\nare\nthey?\" Greta said.\n\n\n \"My old school notebooks.\n Greta, you'll have to excuse me.\n But there's something I've got\n to do, right away!\"\n\n\n \"That's all right with me,\"\n Greta said haughtily. \"I know\n when I'm not wanted.\"\n\n\n She took her hat and coat from\n the hall closet, gave him one\n last chance to change his mind,\n and then left.\n\n\n Five minutes later, Jerry\n Bridges was calling the airlines.\nIt had been eleven years since\n Jerry had walked across the\n campus of Clifton University,\n heading for the ivy-choked\n main building. It was remarkable\n how little had changed, but\n the students seemed incredibly\n young. He was winded by the\n time he asked the pretty girl at\n the desk where Professor Martin\n Coltz could be located.\n\n\n \"Professor Coltz?\" She stuck\n a pencil to her mouth. \"Well, I\n guess he'd be in the Holland\n Laboratory about now.\"\n\n\n \"Holland Laboratory? What's\n that?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I guess that was after\n your time, wasn't it?\"\n\n\n Jerry felt decrepit, but managed\n to say: \"It must be something\n new since I was here.\n Where is this place?\"\n\n\n He followed her directions,\n and located a fresh-painted\n building three hundred yards\n from the men's dorm. He met a\n student at the door, who told\n him that Professor Coltz would\n be found in the physics department.\n\n\n The room was empty when\n Jerry entered, except for the\n single stooped figure vigorously\n erasing a blackboard. He turned\n when the door opened. If the\n students looked younger, Professor\n Coltz was far older than\n Jerry remembered. He was a\n tall man, with an unruly confusion\n of straight gray hair. He\n blinked when Jerry said:\n\n\n \"Hello, Professor. Do you remember\n me? Jerry Bridges?\"\n\n\n \"Of course! I thought of you\n only yesterday, when I saw your\n name in the papers\u2014\"\n\n\n They sat at facing student\n desks, and chatted about old\n times. But Jerry was impatient\n to get to the point of his visit,\n and he blurted out:\n\n\n \"Professor Coltz, something's\n been bothering me. It bothered\n me from the moment I heard\n the Delegate speak. I didn't\n know what it was until last\n night, when I dug out my old\n college notebooks. Thank God\n I kept them.\"\n\n\n Coltz's eyes were suddenly\n hooded.\n\n\n \"What do you mean, Jerry?\"\n\n\n \"There was something about\n the Robot's speech that sounded\n familiar\u2014I could have sworn\n I'd heard some of the words\n before. I couldn't prove anything\n until I checked my old\n notes, and here's what I found.\"\n\n\n He dug into his coat pocket\n and produced a sheet of paper.\n He unfolded it and read aloud.\n\n\n \"'It's my belief that peace is\n the responsibility of individuals,\n of nations, and someday, even of\n worlds ...' Sound familiar, Professor?\"\n\n\n Coltz shifted uncomfortably.\n \"I don't recall every silly thing\n I said, Jerry.\"\n\n\n \"But it's an interesting coincidence,\n isn't it, Professor?\n These very words were spoken\n by the Delegate from Venus.\"\n\n\n \"A coincidence\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Is it? But I also remember\n your interest in robotics. I'll\n never forget that mechanical\n homing pigeon you constructed.\n And you've probably learned\n much more these past eleven\n years.\"\n\n\n \"What are you driving at,\n Jerry?\"\n\n\n \"Just this, Professor. I had a\n little daydream, recently, and I\n want you to hear it. I dreamed\n about a group of teachers, scientists,\n and engineers, a group\n who were suddenly struck by\n an exciting, incredible idea. A\n group that worked in the quiet\n and secrecy of a University on a\n fantastic scheme to force the\n idea of peace into the minds of\n the world's big shots. Does my\n dream interest you, Professor?\"\n\n\n \"Go on.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I dreamt that this\n group would secretly launch an\n earth satellite of their own, and\n arrange for the nose cone to\n come down safely at a certain\n time and place. They would install\n a marvelous electronic robot\n within the cone, ready to be\n assembled. They would beam a\n radio message to earth from the\n cone, seemingly as if it originated\n from their 'spaceship.'\n Then, when the Robot was assembled,\n they would speak\n through it to demand peace for\n all mankind ...\"\n\n\n \"Jerry, if you do this\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You don't have to say it,\n Professor, I know what you're\n thinking. I'm a reporter, and my\n business is to tell the world\n everything I know. But if I\n did it, there might not be a\n world for me to write about,\n would there? No, thanks, Professor.\n As far as I'm concerned,\n what I told you was nothing\n more than a daydream.\"\nJerry braked the convertible\n to a halt, and put his arm\n around Greta's shoulder. She\n looked up at the star-filled night,\n and sighed romantically.\n\n\n Jerry pointed. \"That one.\"\n\n\n Greta shivered closer to him.\n\n\n \"And to think what that terrible\n planet can do to us!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I dunno. Venus is also\n the Goddess of Love.\"\n\n\n He swung his other arm\n around her, and Venus winked\n approvingly.\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAmazing Science Fiction Stories\nOctober 1958.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "26066": "Transcriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAmazing Stories\nDecember 1961 and\n was first published in\nAmazing Stories\nNovember 1930. Extensive\n research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on\n this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.\nA Classic Reprint from AMAZING STORIES, November, 1930\nCopyright 1931, by Experimenter Publications Inc.\nThe Cosmic Express\nBy JACK WILLIAMSON\nIntroduction by Sam Moskowitz\nThe\nyear 1928 was a great\n year of discovery for\nAMAZING\n STORIES\n .\nThey were uncovering\n new talent at such a great rate,\n (Harl Vincent, David H. Keller,\n E. E. Smith, Philip Francis Nowlan,\n Fletcher Pratt and Miles J.\n Breuer), that Jack Williamson\n barely managed to become one of\n a distinguished group of discoveries\n by stealing the cover of the\n December issue for his first story\nThe Metal Man.\nA disciple of A. Merritt, he attempted\n to imitate in style, mood\n and subject the magic of that\n late lamented master of fantasy.\n The imitation found great favor\n from the readership and almost\n instantly Jack Williamson became\n an important name on the\n contents page of\nAMAZING STORIES\n .\nHe followed his initial success\n with two short novels\n, The\n Green Girl\nin\nAMAZING STORIES\nand\nThe Alien Intelligence\nin\nSCIENCE WONDER STORIES\n ,\nanother\n Gernsback publication. Both of\n these stories were close copies of\n A. Merritt, whose style and method\n Jack Williamson parlayed into\n popularity for eight years.\nYet the strange thing about it\n was that Jack Williamson was\n one of the most versatile science\n fiction authors ever to sit down\n at the typewriter. When the\n vogue for science-fantasy altered\n to super science, he created the\n memorable super lock-picker\n Giles Habilula as the major attraction\n in a rousing trio of space\n operas\n, The Legion of Space, The\n Cometeers\nand\nOne Against the\n Legion.\nWhen grim realism was\n the order of the day, he produced\nCrucible of Power\nand when they\n wanted extrapolated theory in\n present tense, he assumed the\n disguise of Will Stewart and\n popularized the concept of contra\n terrene matter in science fiction\n with\nSeetee Ship\nand\nSeetee\n Shock.\nFinally, when only psychological\n studies of the future\n would do, he produced\n\"With\n Folded Hands ...\" \"... And\n Searching Mind.\"\n\n\n The Cosmic Express\nis of special\n interest because it was written\n during Williamson's A. Merritt\n \"kick,\" when he was writing\n little else but, and it gave the\n earliest indication of a more general\n capability. The lightness of\n the handling is especially modern,\n barely avoiding the farcical\n by the validity of the notion that\n wireless transmission of matter\n is the next big transportation\n frontier to be conquered. It is\n especially important because it\n stylistically forecast a later trend\n to accept the background for\n granted, regardless of the quantity\n of wonders, and proceed with\n the story. With only a few thousand\n scanning-disk television sets\n in existence at the time of the\n writing, the surmise that this\n media would be a natural for\n westerns was particularly astute.\nJack Williamson was born in\n 1908 in the Arizona territory\n when covered wagons were the\n primary form of transportation\n and apaches still raided the settlers.\n His father was a cattle\n man, but for young Jack, the\n ranch was anything but glamorous.\n \"My days were filled,\" he remembers,\n \"with monotonous\n rounds of what seemed an endless,\n heart-breaking war with\n drought and frost and dust-storms,\n poison-weeds and hail,\n for the sake of survival on the\nLlano Estacado.\"\nThe discovery\n of\nAMAZING STORIES\nwas the escape\n he sought and his goal was\n to be a science fiction writer. He\n labored to this end and the first\n he knew that a story of his had\n been accepted was when he\n bought the December, 1929 issue\n of\nAMAZING STORIES\n .\nSince then,\n he has written millions of words\n of science fiction and has gone on\n record as follows: \"I feel that\n science-fiction is the folklore of\n the new world of science, and\n the expression of man's reaction\n to a technological environment.\n By which I mean that it is the\n most interesting and stimulating\n form of literature today.\"\nMr. Eric Stokes-Harding\n tumbled out of the\n rumpled bed-clothing, a striking\n slender figure in purple-striped\n pajamas. He smiled fondly across\n to the other of the twin beds,\n where Nada, his pretty bride,\n lay quiet beneath light silk covers.\n With a groan, he stood up\n and began a series of fantastic\n bending exercises. But after a\n few half-hearted movements, he\n gave it up, and walked through\n an open door into a small bright\n room, its walls covered with bookcases\n and also with scientific appliances\n that would have been\n strange to the man of four or\n five centuries before, when the\n Age of Aviation was beginning.\nSuddenly there was a sharp tingling\n sensation where they touched\n the polished surface.\nYawning, Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding\n stood before the great\n open window, staring out. Below\n him was a wide, park-like space,\n green with emerald lawns, and\n bright with flowering plants.\n Two hundred yards across it rose\n an immense pyramidal building\u2014an\n artistic structure, gleaming\n with white marble and bright\n metal, striped with the verdure\n of terraced roof-gardens,\n its slender peak rising to\n help support the gray, steel-ribbed\n glass roof above. Beyond,\n the park stretched away in\n illimitable vistas, broken with\n the graceful columned buildings\n that held up the great glass roof.\n\n\n Above the glass, over this New\n York of 2432 A. D., a freezing\n blizzard was sweeping. But small\n concern was that to the lightly\n clad man at the window, who was\n inhaling deeply the fragrant air\n from the plants below\u2014air kept,\n winter and summer, exactly at\n 20\u00b0 C.\n\n\n With another yawn, Mr. Eric\n Stokes-Harding turned back to\n the room, which was bright with\n the rich golden light that poured\n in from the suspended globes of\n the cold ato-light that illuminated\n the snow-covered city.\n With a distasteful grimace, he\n seated himself before a broad,\n paper-littered desk, sat a few\n minutes leaning back, with his\n hands clasped behind his head.\n At last he straightened reluctantly,\n slid a small typewriter\n out of its drawer, and began\n pecking at it impatiently.\n\n\n For Mr. Eric Stokes-Harding\n was an author. There was a whole\n shelf of his books on the wall, in\n bright jackets, red and blue and\n green, that brought a thrill of\n pleasure to the young novelist's\n heart when he looked up from his\n clattering machine.\n\n\n He wrote \"thrilling action romances,\"\n as his enthusiastic publishers\n and television directors\n said, \"of ages past, when men\n were men. Red-blooded heroes responding\n vigorously to the stirring\n passions of primordial life!\"\nHe\n was impartial as to the\n source of his thrills\u2014provided\n they were distant enough\n from modern civilization. His\n hero was likely to be an ape-man\n roaring through the jungle, with\n a bloody rock in one hand and\n a beautiful girl in the other.\n Or a cowboy, \"hard-riding, hard-shooting,\"\n the vanishing hero of\n the ancient ranches. Or a man\n marooned with a lovely woman\n on a desert South Sea island.\n His heroes were invariably\n strong, fearless, resourceful fellows,\n who could handle a club on\n equal terms with a cave-man, or\n call science to aid them in defending\n a beautiful mate from\n the terrors of a desolate wilderness.\n\n\n And a hundred million read\n Eric's novels, and watched the\n dramatization of them on the\n television screens. They thrilled\n at the simple, romantic lives his\n heroes led, paid him handsome\n royalties, and subconsciously\n shared his opinion that civilization\n had taken all the best from\n the life of man.\n\n\n Eric had settled down to the\n artistic satisfaction of describing\n the sensuous delight of his\n hero in the roasted marrow-bones\n of a dead mammoth, when\n the pretty woman in the other\n room stirred, and presently came\n tripping into the study, gay and\n vivacious, and\u2014as her husband\n of a few months most justly\n thought\u2014altogether beautiful in\n a bright silk dressing gown.\n\n\n Recklessly, he slammed the\n machine back into its place, and\n resolved to forget that his next\n \"red-blooded action thriller\" was\n due in the publisher's office at the\n end of the month. He sprang up\n to kiss his wife, held her embraced\n for a long happy moment.\n And then they went hand in\n hand, to the side of the room and\n punched a series of buttons on a\n panel\u2014a simple way of ordering\n breakfast sent up the automatic\n shaft from the kitchens below.\n\n\n Nada Stokes-Harding was also\n an author. She wrote poems\u2014\"back\n to nature stuff\"\u2014simple\n lyrics of the sea, of sunsets, of\n bird songs, of bright flowers and\n warm winds, of thrilling communion\n with Nature, and growing\n things. Men read her poems\n and called her a genius. Even\n though the whole world had\n grown up into a city, the birds\n were extinct, there were no wild\n flowers, and no one had time to\n bother about sunsets.\n\n\n \"Eric, darling,\" she said, \"isn't\n it terrible to be cooped up here\n in this little flat, away from the\n things we both love?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, dear. Civilization has\n ruined the world. If we could only\n have lived a thousand years ago,\n when life was simple and natural,\n when men hunted and killed their\n meat, instead of drinking synthetic\n stuff, when men still had\n the joys of conflict, instead of\n living under glass, like hot-house\n flowers.\"\n\n\n \"If we could only go somewhere\u2014\"\n\n\n \"There isn't anywhere to go. I\n write about the West, Africa,\n South Sea Islands. But they\n were all filled up two hundred\n years ago. Pleasure resorts, sanatoriums,\n cities, factories.\"\n\n\n \"If only we lived on Venus!\n I was listening to a lecture on\n the television, last night. The\n speaker said that the Planet\n Venus is younger than the Earth,\n that it has not cooled so much. It\n has a thick, cloudy atmosphere,\n and low, rainy forests. There's\n simple, elemental life there\u2014like\n Earth had before civilization\n ruined it.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, Kinsley, with his new infra-red\n ray telescope, that penetrates\n the cloud layers of the\n planet, proved that Venus rotates\n in about the same period as\n Earth; and it must be much like\n Earth was a million years ago.\"\n\n\n \"Eric, I wonder if we could go\n there! It would be so thrilling to\n begin life like the characters in\n your stories, to get away from\n this hateful civilization, and live\n natural lives. Maybe a rocket\u2014\"\nThe\n young author's eyes were\n glowing. He skipped across the\n floor, seized Nada, kissed her\n ecstatically. \"Splendid! Think of\n hunting in the virgin forest, and\n bringing the game home to you!\n But I'm afraid there is no way.\u2014Wait!\n The Cosmic Express.\"\n\n\n \"The Cosmic Express?\"\n\n\n \"A new invention. Just perfected\n a few weeks ago, I understand.\n By Ludwig Von der Valls,\n the German physicist.\"\n\n\n \"I've quit bothering about science.\n It has ruined nature, filled\n the world with silly, artificial\n people, doing silly, artificial\n things.\"\n\n\n \"But this is quite remarkable,\n dear. A new way to travel\u2014by\n ether!\"\n\n\n \"By ether!\"\n\n\n \"Yes. You know of course that\n energy and matter are interchangeable\n terms; both are simply\n etheric vibration, of different\n sorts.\"\n\n\n \"Of course. That's elementary.\"\n She smiled proudly. \"I can\n give you examples, even of the\n change. The disintegration of the\n radium atom, making helium\n and lead and\nenergy\n. And Millikan's\n old proof that his Cosmic\n Ray is generated when particles\n of electricity are united to form\n an atom.\"\n\n\n \"Fine! I thought you said you\n weren't a scientist.\" He glowed\n with pride. \"But the method, in\n the new Cosmic Express, is simply\n to convert the matter to be\n carried into power, send it out\n as a radiant beam and focus the\n beam to convert it back into\n atoms at the destination.\"\n\n\n \"But the amount of energy\n must be terrific\u2014\"\n\n\n \"It is. You know short waves\n carry more energy than long\n ones. The Express Ray is an\n electromagnetic vibration of frequency\n far higher than that of\n even the Cosmic Ray, and correspondingly\n more powerful and\n more penetrating.\"\n\n\n The girl frowned, running slim\n fingers through golden-brown\n hair. \"But I don't see how they\n get any recognizable object, not\n even how they get the radiation\n turned back into matter.\"\n\n\n \"The beam is focused, just like\n the light that passes through a\n camera lens. The photographic\n lens, using light rays, picks up a\n picture and reproduces it again\n on the plate\u2014just the same as\n the Express Ray picks up an\n object and sets it down on the\n other side of the world.\n\n\n \"An analogy from television\n might help. You know that by\n means of the scanning disc, the\n picture is transformed into mere\n rapid fluctuations in the brightness\n of a beam of light. In a\n parallel manner, the focal plane\n of the Express Ray moves slowly\n through the object, progressively,\n dissolving layers of the\n thickness of a single atom, which\n are accurately reproduced at the\n other focus of the instrument\u2014which\n might be in Venus!\n\n\n \"But the analogy of the lens\n is the better of the two. For no\n receiving instrument is required,\n as in television. The object is\n built up of an infinite series of\n plane layers, at the focus of the\n ray, no matter where that may\n be. Such a thing would be impossible\n with radio apparatus\n because even with the best beam\n transmission, all but a tiny fraction\n of the power is lost, and\n power is required to rebuild the\n atoms. Do you understand,\n dear?\"\n\n\n \"Not altogether. But I should\n worry! Here comes breakfast.\n Let me butter your toast.\"\n\n\n A bell had rung at the shaft.\n She ran to it, and returned with\n a great silver tray, laden with\n dainty dishes, which she set on a\n little side table. They sat down\n opposite each other, and ate, getting\n as much satisfaction from\n contemplation of each other's\n faces as from the excellent food.\n When they had finished, she carried\n the tray to the shaft, slid\n it in a slot, and touched a button\u2014thus\n disposing of the culinary\n cares of the morning.\n\n\n She ran back to Eric, who was\n once more staring distastefully\n at his typewriter.\n\n\n \"Oh, darling! I'm thrilled to\n death about the Cosmic Express!\n If we could go to Venus, to a new\n life on a new world, and get\n away from all this hateful conventional\n society\u2014\"\n\n\n \"We can go to their office\u2014it's\n only five minutes. The chap\n that operates the machine for\n the company is a pal of mine.\n He's not supposed to take passengers\n except between the offices\n they have scattered about the\n world. But I know his weak\n point\u2014\"\n\n\n Eric laughed, fumbled with a\n hidden spring under his desk. A\n small polished object, gleaming\n silvery, slid down into his hand.\n\n\n \"Old friendship,\nplus\nthis,\n would make him\u2014like spinach.\"\nFive\n minutes later Mr. Eric\n Stokes-Harding and his pretty\n wife were in street clothes,\n light silk tunics of loose, flowing\n lines\u2014little clothing being required\n in the artificially warmed\n city. They entered an elevator\n and dropped thirty stories to the\n ground floor of the great building.\n\n\n There they entered a cylindrical\n car, with rows of seats down\n the sides. Not greatly different\n from an ancient subway car, except\n that it was air-tight, and\n was hurled by magnetic attraction\n and repulsion through a\n tube exhausted of air, at a speed\n that would have made an old\n subway rider gasp with amazement.\n\n\n In five more minutes their car\n had whipped up to the base of\n another building, in the business\n section, where there was no room\n for parks between the mighty\n structures that held the unbroken\n glass roofs two hundred stories\n above the concrete pavement.\n\n\n An elevator brought them up a\n hundred and fifty stories. Eric\n led Nada down a long, carpeted\n corridor to a wide glass door,\n which bore the words:\nCOSMIC EXPRESS\nstenciled in gold capitals across\n it.\n\n\n As they approached, a lean\n man, carrying a black bag, darted\n out of an elevator shaft opposite\n the door, ran across the corridor,\n and entered. They pushed in after\n him.\n\n\n They were in a little room,\n cut in two by a high brass grill.\n In front of it was a long bench\n against the wall, that reminded\n one of the waiting room in an old\n railroad depot. In the grill was a\n little window, with a lazy, brown-eyed\n youth leaning on the shelf\n behind it. Beyond him was a\n great, glittering piece of mechanism,\n half hidden by the brass.\n A little door gave access to the\n machine from the space before\n the grill.\n\n\n The thin man in black, whom\n Eric now recognized as a prominent\n French heart-specialist, was\n dancing before the window, waving\n his bag frantically, raving at\n the sleepy boy.\n\n\n \"Queek! I have tell you zee\n truth! I have zee most urgent\n necessity to go queekly. A patient\n I have in Paree, zat ees in\n zee most creetical condition!\"\n\n\n \"Hold your horses just a minute,\n Mister. We got a client in\n the machine now. Russian diplomat\n from Moscow to Rio de\n Janeiro.... Two hundred seventy\n dollars and eighty cents,\n please.... Your turn next. Remember\n this is just an experimental\n service. Regular installations\n all over the world in a year....\n Ready now. Come on in.\"\n\n\n The youth took the money,\n pressed a button. The door\n sprang open in the grill, and the\n frantic physician leaped through\n it.\n\n\n \"Lie down on the crystal, face\n up,\" the young man ordered.\n \"Hands at your sides, don't\n breathe. Ready!\"\n\n\n He manipulated his dials and\n switches, and pressed another\n button.\n\n\n \"Why, hello, Eric, old man!\"\n he cried. \"That's the lady you\n were telling me about? Congratulations!\"\n A bell jangled before\n him on the panel. \"Just a minute.\n I've got a call.\"\n\n\n He punched the board again.\n Little bulbs lit and glowed for a\n second. The youth turned toward\n the half-hidden machine, spoke\n courteously.\n\n\n \"All right, madam. Walk out.\n Hope you found the transit pleasant.\"\n\n\n \"But my Violet! My precious\n Violet!\" a shrill female voice\n came from the machine. \"Sir,\n what have you done with my\n darling Violet?\"\n\n\n \"I'm sure I don't know, madam.\n You lost it off your hat?\"\n\n\n \"None of your impertinence,\n sir! I want my dog.\"\n\n\n \"Ah, a dog. Must have jumped\n off the crystal. You can have\n him sent on for three hundred\n and\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Young man, if any harm\n comes to my Violet\u2014I'll\u2014I'll\u2014I'll\n appeal to the Society for the\n Prevention of Cruelty to Animals!\"\n\n\n \"Very good, madam. We appreciate\n your patronage.\"\nThe\n door flew open again.\n A very fat woman, puffing\n angrily, face highly colored,\n clothing shimmering with artificial\n gems, waddled pompously\n out of the door through which\n the frantic French doctor had\n so recently vanished. She rolled\n heavily across the room, and out\n into the corridor. Shrill words\n floated back:\n\n\n \"I'm going to see my lawyer!\n My precious Violet\u2014\"\n\n\n The sallow youth winked.\n \"And now what can I do for you,\n Eric?\"\n\n\n \"We want to go to Venus, if\n that ray of yours can put us\n there.\"\n\n\n \"To Venus? Impossible. My\n orders are to use the Express\n merely between the sixteen designated\n stations, at New York,\n San Francisco, Tokyo, London,\n Paris\u2014\"\n\n\n \"See here, Charley,\" with a\n cautious glance toward the door,\n Eric held up the silver flask.\n \"For old time's sake, and for\n this\u2014\"\n\n\n The boy seemed dazed at sight\n of the bright flask. Then, with a\n single swift motion, he snatched\n it out of Eric's hand, and bent\n to conceal it below his instrument\n panel.\n\n\n \"Sure, old boy. I'd send you to\n heaven for that, if you'd give me\n the micrometer readings to set\n the ray with. But I tell you, this\n is dangerous. I've got a sort of\n television attachment, for focusing\n the ray. I can turn that on\n Venus\u2014I've been amusing myself,\n watching the life there, already.\n Terrible place. Savage. I\n can pick a place on high land to\n set you down. But I can't be responsible\n for what happens afterward.\"\n\n\n \"Simple, primitive life is what\n we're looking for. And now what\n do I owe you\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Oh, that's all right. Between\n friends. Provided that stuff's\n genuine! Walk in and lie down on\n the crystal block. Hands at your\n sides. Don't move.\"\n\n\n The little door had swung\n open again, and Eric led Nada\n through. They stepped into a little\n cell, completely surrounded\n with mirrors and vast prisms\n and lenses and electron tubes. In\n the center was a slab of transparent\n crystal, eight feet square\n and two inches thick, with an\n intricate mass of machinery below\n it.\n\n\n Eric helped Nada to a place\n on the crystal, lay down at her\n side.\n\n\n \"I think the Express Ray is\n focused just at the surface of the\n crystal, from below,\" he said. \"It\n dissolves our substance, to be\n transmitted by the beam. It\n would look as if we were melting\n into the crystal.\"\n\n\n \"Ready,\" called the youth.\n \"Think I've got it for you. Sort\n of a high island in the jungle.\n Nothing bad in sight now. But,\n I say\u2014how're you coming back?\n I haven't got time to watch you.\"\n\n\n \"Go ahead. We aren't coming\n back.\"\n\n\n \"Gee! What is it? Elopement?\n I thought you were married already.\n Or is it business difficulties?\n The Bears did make an awful\n raid last night. But you better\n let me set you down in Hong\n Kong.\"\n\n\n A bell jangled. \"So long,\" the\n youth called.\n\n\n Nada and Eric felt themselves\n enveloped in fire. Sheets of white\n flame seemed to lap up about\n them from the crystal block. Suddenly\n there was a sharp tingling\n sensation where they touched\n the polished surface. Then blackness,\n blankness.\nThe\n next thing they knew, the\n fires were gone from about\n them. They were lying in something\n extremely soft and fluid;\n and warm rain was beating in\n their faces. Eric sat up, found\n himself in a mud-puddle. Beside\n him was Nada, opening her eyes\n and struggling up, her bright\n garments stained with black\n mud.\n\n\n All about rose a thick jungle,\n dark and gloomy\u2014and very wet.\n Palm-like, the gigantic trees\n were, or fern-like, flinging clouds\n of feathery green foliage high\n against a somber sky of unbroken\n gloom.\n\n\n They stood up, triumphant.\n\n\n \"At last!\" Nada cried. \"We're\n free! Free of that hateful old\n civilization! We're back to Nature!\"\n\n\n \"Yes, we're on our feet now,\n not parasites on the machines.\"\n\n\n \"It's wonderful to have a fine,\n strong man like you to trust in,\n Eric. You're just like one of the\n heroes in your books!\"\n\n\n \"You're the perfect companion,\n Nada.... But now we\n must be practical. We must\n build a fire, find weapons, set up\n a shelter of some kind. I guess it\n will be night, pretty soon. And\n Charley said something about\n savage animals he had seen in\n the television.\n\n\n \"We'll find a nice dry cave,\n and have a fire in front of the\n door. And skins of animals to\n sleep on. And pottery vessels to\n cook in. And you will find seeds\n and grown grain.\"\n\n\n \"But first we must find a flint-bed.\n We need flint for tools, and\n to strike sparks to make a fire\n with. We will probably come\n across a chunk of virgin copper,\n too\u2014it's found native.\"\n\n\n Presently they set off through\n the jungle. The mud seemed to\n be very abundant, and of a most\n sticky consistence. They sank\n into it ankle deep at every step,\n and vast masses of it clung to\n their feet. A mile they struggled\n on, without finding where a provident\n nature had left them even\n a single fragment of quartz, to\n say nothing of a mass of pure\n copper.\n\n\n \"A darned shame,\" Eric grumbled,\n \"to come forty million\n miles, and meet such a reception\n as this!\"\n\n\n Nada stopped. \"Eric,\" she\n said, \"I'm tired. And I don't believe\n there's any rock here, anyway.\n You'll have to use wooden\n tools, sharpened in the fire.\"\n\n\n \"Probably you're right. This\n soil seemed to be of alluvial origin.\n Shouldn't be surprised if\n the native rock is some hundreds\n of feet underground. Your\n idea is better.\"\n\n\n \"You can make a fire by rubbing\n sticks together, can't you?\"\n\n\n \"It can be done, I'm sure. I've\n never tried it, myself. We need\n some dry sticks, first.\"\n\n\n They resumed the weary\n march, with a good fraction of\n the new planet adhering to their\n feet. Rain was still falling from\n the dark heavens in a steady,\n warm downpour. Dry wood\n seemed scarce as the proverbial\n hen's teeth.\n\n\n \"You didn't bring any matches,\n dear?\"\n\n\n \"Matches! Of course not!\n We're going back to Nature.\"\n\n\n \"I hope we get a fire pretty\n soon.\"\n\n\n \"If dry wood were gold dust,\n we couldn't buy a hot dog.\"\n\n\n \"Eric, that reminds me that\n I'm hungry.\"\n\n\n He confessed to a few pangs of\n his own. They turned their attention\n to looking for banana\n trees, and coconut palms, but\n they did not seem to abound in\n the Venerian jungle. Even small\n animals that might have been\n slain with a broken branch had\n contrary ideas about the matter.\n\n\n At last, from sheer weariness,\n they stopped, and gathered\n branches to make a sloping shelter\n by a vast fallen tree-trunk.\n\n\n \"This will keep out the rain\u2014maybe\u2014\"\n Eric said hopefully.\n \"And tomorrow, when it has quit\n raining\u2014I'm sure we'll do better.\"\n\n\n They crept in, as gloomy night\n fell without. They lay in each\n other's arms, the body warmth\n oddly comforting. Nada cried a\n little.\n\n\n \"Buck up,\" Eric advised her.\n \"We're back to nature\u2014where\n we've always wanted to be.\"\nWith\n the darkness, the temperature\n fell somewhat, and\n a high wind rose, whipping cold\n rain into the little shelter, and\n threatening to demolish it.\n Swarms of mosquito-like insects,\n seemingly not inconvenienced in\n the least by the inclement elements,\n swarmed about them in\n clouds.\n\n\n Then came a sound from the\n dismal stormy night, a hoarse,\n bellowing roar, raucous, terrifying.\n\n\n Nada clung against Eric.\n \"What is it, dear?\" she chattered.\n\n\n \"Must be a reptile. Dinosaur,\n or something of the sort. This\n world seems to be in about the\n same state as the Earth when\n they flourished there.... But\n maybe it won't find us.\"\n\n\n The roar was repeated, nearer.\n The earth trembled beneath a\n mighty tread.\n\n\n \"Eric,\" a thin voice trembled.\n \"Don't you think\u2014it might have\n been better\u2014 You know the old\n life was not so bad, after all.\"\n\n\n \"I was just thinking of our\n rooms, nice and warm and\n bright, with hot foods coming up\n the shaft whenever we pushed\n the button, and the gay crowds\n in the park, and my old typewriter.\"\n\n\n \"Eric?\" she called softly.\n\n\n \"Yes, dear.\"\n\n\n \"Don't you wish\u2014we had\n known better?\"\n\n\n \"I do.\" If he winced at the\n \"we\" the girl did not notice.\n\n\n The roaring outside was closer.\n And suddenly it was answered\n by another raucous bellow, at\n considerable distance, that echoed\n strangely through the forest.\n The fearful sounds were repeated,\n alternately. And always\n the more distant seemed nearer,\n until the two sounds were together.\n\n\n And then an infernal din\n broke out in the darkness. Bellows.\n Screams. Deafening\n shrieks. Mighty splashes, as if\n struggling Titans had upset\n oceans. Thunderous crashes, as\n if they were demolishing forests.\n\n\n Eric and Nada clung to each\n other, in doubt whether to stay\n or to fly through the storm.\n Gradually the sound of the conflict\n came nearer, until the earth\n shook beneath them, and they\n were afraid to move.\n\n\n Suddenly the great fallen tree\n against which they had erected\n the flimsy shelter was rolled\n back, evidently by a chance blow\n from the invisible monsters. The\n pitiful roof collapsed on the bedraggled\n humans. Nada burst\n into tears.\n\n\n \"Oh, if only\u2014if only\u2014\"\nSuddenly\n flame lapped up\n about them, the same white\n fire they had seen as they lay on\n the crystal block. Dizziness, insensibility\n overcame them. A few\n moments later, they were lying\n on the transparent table in the\n Cosmic Express office, with all\n those great mirrors and prisms\n and lenses about them.\n\n\n A bustling, red-faced official\n appeared through the door in the\n grill, fairly bubbling apologies.\n\n\n \"So sorry\u2014an accident\u2014inconceivable.\n I can't see how he\n got it! We got you back as soon\n as we could find a focus. I sincerely\n hope you haven't been injured.\"\n\n\n \"Why\u2014what\u2014what\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Why I happened in, found\n our operator drunk. I've no idea\n where he got the stuff. He muttered\n something about Venus. I\n consulted the auto-register, and\n found two more passengers registered\n here than had been recorded\n at our other stations. I\n looked up the duplicate beam coordinates,\n and found that it had\n been set on Venus. I got men on\n the television at once, and we\n happened to find you.\n\n\n \"I can't imagine how it happened.\n I've had the fellow locked\n up, and the 'dry-laws' are on the\n job. I hope you won't hold us for\n excessive damages.\"\n\n\n \"No, I ask nothing except that\n you don't press charges against\n the boy. I don't want him to suffer\n for it in any way. My wife and\n I will be perfectly satisfied to get\n back to our apartment.\"\n\n\n \"I don't wonder. You look like\n you've been through\u2014I don't\n know what. But I'll have you\n there in five minutes. My private car\u2014\"\nMr. Eric Stokes-Harding, noted\n author of primitive life and love,\n ate a hearty meal with his pretty\n spouse, after they had washed\n off the grime of another planet.\n He spent the next twelve hours\n in bed.\n\n\n At the end of the month he\n delivered his promised story to\n his publishers, a thrilling tale of\n a man marooned on Venus, with\n a beautiful girl. The hero made\n stone tools, erected a dwelling\n for himself and his mate, hunted\n food for her, defended her from\n the mammoth saurian monsters\n of the Venerian jungles.\n\n\n The book was a huge success.\nTHE END",
    "26741": "One can't be too cautious about the\n  \n people one meets in Tangier. They're all\n  \n weirdies of one kind or another.\n  \n Me? Oh,\nI'm A Stranger\n \nHere Myself\nBy MACK REYNOLDS\nThe\n Place de France is the\n town's hub. It marks the end\n of Boulevard Pasteur, the main\n drag of the westernized part of\n the city, and the beginning of\n Rue de la Libert\u00e9, which leads\n down to the Grand Socco and\n the medina. In a three-minute\n walk from the Place de France\n you can go from an ultra-modern,\n California-like resort to the\n Baghdad of Harun al-Rashid.\n\n\n It's quite a town, Tangier.\n\n\n King-size sidewalk cafes occupy\n three of the strategic\n corners on the Place de France.\n The Cafe de Paris serves the\n best draft beer in town, gets all\n the better custom, and has three\n shoeshine boys attached to the\n establishment. You can sit of a\n sunny morning and read the\n Paris edition of the New York\nHerald Tribune\nwhile getting\n your shoes done up like mirrors\n for thirty Moroccan francs\n which comes to about five cents\n at current exchange.\n\n\n You can sit there, after the\n paper's read, sip your expresso\n and watch the people go by.\n\n\n Tangier is possibly the most\n cosmopolitan city in the world.\n In native costume you'll see\n Berber and Rif, Arab and Blue\n Man, and occasionally a Senegalese\n from further south. In\n European dress you'll see Japs\n and Chinese, Hindus and Turks,\n Levantines and Filipinos, North\n Americans and South Americans,\n and, of course, even Europeans\u2014from\n both sides of the\n Curtain.\n\n\n In Tangier you'll find some of\n the world's poorest and some of\n the richest. The poorest will try\n to sell you anything from a\n shoeshine to their not very lily-white\n bodies, and the richest will\n avoid your eyes, afraid\nyou\nmight try to sell them something.\n\n\n In spite of recent changes, the\n town still has its unique qualities.\n As a result of them the permanent\n population includes\n smugglers and black-marketeers,\n fugitives from justice and international\n con men, espionage\n and counter-espionage agents,\n homosexuals, nymphomaniacs, alcoholics,\n drug addicts, displaced\n persons, ex-royalty, and subversives\n of every flavor. Local law\n limits the activities of few of\n these.\n\n\n Like I said, it's quite a town.\nI looked up from my\nHerald\n Tribune\nand said, \"Hello, Paul.\n Anything new cooking?\"\n\n\n He sank into the chair opposite\n me and looked around for\n the waiter. The tables were all\n crowded and since mine was a\n face he recognized, he assumed\n he was welcome to intrude. It was\n more or less standard procedure\n at the Cafe de Paris. It wasn't\n a place to go if you wanted to\n be alone.\n\n\n Paul said, \"How are you,\n Rupert? Haven't seen you for\n donkey's years.\"\n\n\n The waiter came along and\n Paul ordered a glass of beer.\n Paul was an easy-going, sallow-faced\n little man. I vaguely remembered\n somebody saying he\n was from Liverpool and in\n exports.\n\n\n \"What's in the newspaper?\"\n he said, disinterestedly.\n\n\n \"Pogo and Albert are going\n to fight a duel,\" I told him, \"and\n Lil Abner is becoming a rock'n'roll\n singer.\"\n\n\n He grunted.\n\n\n \"Oh,\" I said, \"the intellectual\n type.\" I scanned the front page.\n \"The Russkies have put up\n another manned satellite.\"\n\n\n \"They have, eh? How big?\"\n\n\n \"Several times bigger than\n anything we Americans have.\"\n\n\n The beer came and looked\n good, so I ordered a glass too.\n\n\n Paul said, \"What ever happened\n to those poxy flying\n saucers?\"\n\n\n \"What flying saucers?\"\n\n\n A French girl went by with a\n poodle so finely clipped as to look\n as though it'd been shaven. The\n girl was in the latest from\n Paris. Every pore in place. We\n both looked after her.\n\n\n \"You know, what everybody\n was seeing a few years ago. It's\n too bad one of these bloody manned\n satellites wasn't up then.\n Maybe they would've seen one.\"\n\n\n \"That's an idea,\" I said.\n\n\n We didn't say anything else for\n a while and I began to wonder\n if I could go back to my paper\n without rubbing him the wrong\n way. I didn't know Paul very\n well, but, for that matter, it's\n comparatively seldom you ever\n get to know anybody very well\n in Tangier. Largely, cards are\n played close to the chest.\nMy beer came and a plate of\n tapas for us both. Tapas at the\n Cafe de Paris are apt to be\n potato salad, a few anchovies,\n olives, and possibly some cheese.\n Free lunch, they used to call it\n in the States.\n\n\n Just to say something, I said,\n \"Where do you think they came\n from?\" And when he looked\n blank, I added, \"The Flying\n Saucers.\"\n\n\n He grinned. \"From Mars or\n Venus, or someplace.\"\n\n\n \"Ummmm,\" I said. \"Too bad\n none of them ever crashed, or\n landed on the Yale football field\n and said\nTake me to your cheerleader\n,\n or something.\"\n\n\n Paul yawned and said, \"That\n was always the trouble with those\n crackpot blokes' explanations of\n them. If they were aliens from\n space, then why not show themselves?\"\n\n\n I ate one of the potato chips.\n It'd been cooked in rancid olive\n oil.\n\n\n I said, \"Oh, there are various\n answers to that one. We could\n probably sit around here and\n think of two or three that made\n sense.\"\n\n\n Paul was mildly interested.\n \"Like what?\"\n\n\n \"Well, hell, suppose for instance\n there's this big Galactic League\n of civilized planets. But it's restricted,\n see. You're not eligible\n for membership until you, well,\n say until you've developed space\n flight. Then you're invited into\n the club. Meanwhile, they send\n secret missions down from time\n to time to keep an eye on your\n progress.\"\n\n\n Paul grinned at me. \"I see you\n read the same poxy stuff I do.\"\n\n\n A Moorish girl went by dressed\n in a neatly tailored gray\n jellaba, European style high-heeled\n shoes, and a pinkish silk\n veil so transparent that you\n could see she wore lipstick. Very\n provocative, dark eyes can be\n over a veil. We both looked\n after her.\n\n\n I said, \"Or, here's another\n one. Suppose you have a very\n advanced civilization on, say,\n Mars.\"\n\n\n \"Not Mars. No air, and too\n bloody dry to support life.\"\n\n\n \"Don't interrupt, please,\" I\n said with mock severity. \"This\n is a very old civilization and as\n the planet began to lose its\n water and air, it withdrew underground.\n Uses hydroponics and\n so forth, husbands its water and\n air. Isn't that what we'd do, in\n a few million years, if Earth lost\n its water and air?\"\n\n\n \"I suppose so,\" he said. \"Anyway,\n what about them?\"\n\n\n \"Well, they observe how man\n is going through a scientific\n boom, an industrial boom, a\n population boom. A boom, period.\n Any day now he's going to have\n practical space ships. Meanwhile,\n he's also got the H-Bomb and\n the way he beats the drums on\n both sides of the Curtain, he's\n not against using it, if he could\n get away with it.\"\n\n\n Paul said, \"I got it. So they're\n scared and are keeping an eye on\n us. That's an old one. I've read\n that a dozen times, dished up\n different.\"\n\n\n I shifted my shoulders. \"Well,\n it's one possibility.\"\n\n\n \"I got a better one. How's\n this. There's this alien life form\n that's way ahead of us. Their\n civilization is so old that they\n don't have any records of when\n it began and how it was in the\n early days. They've gone beyond\n things like wars and depressions\n and revolutions, and greed for\n power or any of these things\n giving us a bad time here on\n Earth. They're all like scholars,\n get it? And some of them are\n pretty jolly well taken by Earth,\n especially the way we are right\n now, with all the problems, get\n it? Things developing so fast we\n don't know where we're going\n or how we're going to get there.\"\nI finished my beer and clapped\n my hands for Mouley. \"How do\n you mean,\nwhere we're going\n?\"\n\n\n \"Well, take half the countries\n in the world today. They're trying\n to industrialize, modernize,\n catch up with the advanced countries.\n Look at Egypt, and Israel,\n and India and China, and Yugoslavia\n and Brazil, and all the\n rest. Trying to drag themselves\n up to the level of the advanced\n countries, and all using different\n methods of doing it. But look\n at the so-called advanced countries.\n Up to their bottoms in\n problems. Juvenile delinquents,\n climbing crime and suicide rates,\n the loony-bins full of the balmy,\n unemployed, threat of war,\n spending all their money on armaments\n instead of things like\n schools. All the bloody mess of\n it. Why, a man from Mars would\n be fascinated, like.\"\n\n\n Mouley came shuffling up in\n his babouche slippers and we\n both ordered another schooner\n of beer.\n\n\n Paul said seriously, \"You\n know, there's only one big snag\n in this sort of talk. I've sorted\n the whole thing out before, and\n you always come up against this\n brick wall. Where are they, these\n observers, or scholars, or spies\n or whatever they are? Sooner\n or later we'd nab one of them.\n You know, Scotland Yard, or\n the F.B.I., or Russia's secret\n police, or the French S\u00fbret\u00e9, or\n Interpol. This world is so deep\n in police, counter-espionage outfits\n and security agents that an\n alien would slip up in time, no\n matter how much he'd been\n trained. Sooner or later, he'd slip\n up, and they'd nab him.\"\n\n\n I shook my head. \"Not necessarily.\n The first time I ever considered\n this possibility, it seemed\n to me that such an alien would\n base himself in London or New\n York. Somewhere where he could\n use the libraries for research,\n get the daily newspapers and\n the magazines. Be right in the\n center of things. But now I don't\n think so. I think he'd be right\n here in Tangier.\"\n\n\n \"Why Tangier?\"\n\n\n \"It's the one town in the world\n where anything goes. Nobody\n gives a damn about you or your\n affairs. For instance, I've known\n you a year or more now, and I\n haven't the slightest idea of how\n you make your living.\"\n\n\n \"That's right,\" Paul admitted.\n \"In this town you seldom even\n ask a man where's he's from. He\n can be British, a White Russian,\n a Basque or a Sikh and nobody\n could care less. Where are\nyou\nfrom, Rupert?\"\n\n\n \"California,\" I told him.\n\n\n \"No, you're not,\" he grinned.\n\n\n I was taken aback. \"What do\n you mean?\"\n\n\n \"I felt your mind probe back\n a few minutes ago when I was\n talking about Scotland Yard or\n the F.B.I. possibly flushing an\n alien. Telepathy is a sense not\n trained by the humanoids. If\n they had it, your job\u2014and mine\u2014would\n be considerably more\n difficult. Let's face it, in spite of\n these human bodies we're disguised\n in, neither of us is\n humanoid. Where are you really\n from, Rupert?\"\n\n\n \"Aldebaran,\" I said. \"How\n about you?\"\n\n\n \"Deneb,\" he told me, shaking.\n\n\n We had a laugh and ordered\n another beer.\n\n\n \"What're you doing here on\n Earth?\" I asked him.\n\n\n \"Researching for one of our\n meat trusts. We're protein\n eaters. Humanoid flesh is considered\n quite a delicacy. How\n about you?\"\n\n\n \"Scouting the place for thrill\n tourists. My job is to go around\n to these backward cultures and\n help stir up inter-tribal, or international,\n conflicts\u2014all according\n to how advanced they\n are. Then our tourists come in\u2014well\n shielded, of course\u2014and get\n their kicks watching it.\"\n\n\n Paul frowned. \"That sort of\n practice could spoil an awful\n lot of good meat.\"\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAmazing Stories\nDecember 1960.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "26957": "STAR MOTHER\nBy ROBERT F. YOUNG\nA touching story of the most\n enduring love in all eternity.\nThat\n night her son was the\n first star.\n\n\n She stood motionless in the\n garden, one hand pressed against\n her heart, watching him rise\n above the fields where he had\n played as a boy, where he had\n worked as a young man; and she\n wondered whether he was thinking\n of those fields now, whether\n he was thinking of her standing\n alone in the April night with her\n memories; whether he was\n thinking of the verandahed\n house behind her, with its empty\n rooms and silent halls, that once\n upon a time had been his birthplace.\n\n\n Higher still and higher he\n rose in the southern sky, and\n then, when he had reached his\n zenith, he dropped swiftly down\n past the dark edge of the Earth\n and disappeared from sight. A\n boy grown up too soon, riding\n round and round the world on\n a celestial carousel, encased in\n an airtight metal capsule in an\n airtight metal chariot ...\nWhy don't they leave the stars\n alone?\nshe thought.\nWhy don't\n they leave the stars to God?\nThe general's second telegram\n came early the next morning:\n Explorer XII\ndoing splendidly.\n Expect to bring your son down\n sometime tomorrow\n.\n\n\n She went about her work as\n usual, collecting the eggs and\n allocating them in their cardboard\n boxes, then setting off in\n the station wagon on her Tuesday\n morning run. She had expected\n a deluge of questions\n from her customers. She was not\n disappointed. \"Is Terry really\n way up there all alone, Martha?\"\n \"Aren't you\nscared\n, Martha?\" \"I\n do hope they can get him back\n down all right, Martha.\" She\n supposed it must have given\n them quite a turn to have their\n egg woman change into a star\n mother overnight.\n\n\n She hadn't expected the TV interview,\n though, and she would\n have avoided it if it had been\n politely possible. But what could\n she do when the line of cars and\n trucks pulled into the drive and\n the technicians got out and started\n setting up their equipment in\n the backyard? What could she\n say when the suave young man\n came up to her and said, \"We\n want you to know that we're all\n very proud of your boy up there,\n ma'am, and we hope you'll do us\n the honor of answering a few\n questions.\"\n\n\n Most of the questions concerned\n Terry, as was fitting.\n From the way the suave young\n man asked them, though, she got\n the impression that he was trying\n to prove that her son was\n just like any other average\n American boy, and such just\n didn't happen to be the case. But\n whenever she opened her mouth\n to mention, say, how he used to\n study till all hours of the night,\n or how difficult it had been for\n him to make friends because of\n his shyness, or the fact that he\n had never gone out for football\u2014whenever\n she started to mention\n any of these things, the\n suave young man was in great\n haste to interrupt her and to\n twist her words, by requestioning,\n into a different meaning\n altogether, till Terry's behavior\n pattern seemed to coincide with\n the behavior pattern which the\n suave young man apparently considered\n the norm, but which, if\n followed, Martha was sure,\n would produce not young men\n bent on exploring space but\n young men bent on exploring\n trivia.\n\n\n A few of the questions concerned\n herself: Was Terry her\n only child? (\"Yes.\") What had\n happened to her husband? (\"He\n was killed in the Korean War.\")\n What did she think of the new\n law granting star mothers top\n priority on any and all information\n relating to their sons? (\"I\n think it's a fine law ... It's too\n bad they couldn't have shown\n similar humanity toward the\n war mothers of World War II.\")\nIt was late in the afternoon\n by the time the TV crew got\n everything repacked into their\n cars and trucks and made their\n departure. Martha fixed herself\n a light supper, then donned an\n old suede jacket of Terry's and\n went out into the garden to wait\n for the sun to go down. According\n to the time table the general\n had outlined in his first telegram,\n Terry's first Tuesday\n night passage wasn't due to occur\n till 9:05. But it seemed only\n right that she should be outside\n when the stars started to come\n out. Presently they did, and she\n watched them wink on, one by\n one, in the deepening darkness\n of the sky. She'd never been\n much of a one for the stars;\n most of her life she'd been much\n too busy on Earth to bother with\n things celestial. She could remember,\n when she was much\n younger and Bill was courting\n her, looking up at the moon\n sometimes; and once in a while,\n when a star fell, making a wish.\n But this was different. It was\n different because now she had\n a personal interest in the sky, a\n new affinity with its myriad inhabitants.\n\n\n And how bright they became\n when you kept looking at them!\n They seemed to come alive, almost,\n pulsing brilliantly down\n out of the blackness of the night ...\n And they were different colors,\n too, she noticed with a start.\n Some of them were blue and\n some were red, others were yellow\n ... green ... orange ...\n\n\n It grew cold in the April garden\n and she could see her breath.\n There was a strange crispness,\n a strange clarity about the\n night, that she had never known\n before ... She glanced at her\n watch, was astonished to see that\n the hands indicated two minutes\n after nine. Where had the time\n gone? Tremulously she faced the\n southern horizon ... and saw\n her Terry appear in his shining\n chariot, riding up the star-pebbled\n path of his orbit, a star in\n his own right, dropping swiftly\n now, down, down, and out of\n sight beyond the dark wheeling\n mass of the Earth ... She took\n a deep, proud breath, realized\n that she was wildly waving her\n hand and let it fall slowly to her\n side. Make a wish! she thought,\n like a little girl, and she wished\n him pleasant dreams and a safe\n return and wrapped the wish in\n all her love and cast it starward.\nSometime tomorrow, the general's\n telegram had said\u2014\n\n\n That meant sometime today!\n\n\n She rose with the sun and fed\n the chickens, fixed and ate her\n breakfast, collected the eggs and\n put them in their cardboard\n boxes, then started out on her\n Wednesday morning run. \"My\n land, Martha, I don't see how\n you stand it with him way up\n there! Doesn't it get on your\nnerves\n?\" (\"Yes ... Yes, it\n does.\") \"Martha, when are they\n bringing him back down?\"\n (\"Today ...\nToday\n!\") \"It must\n be wonderful being a star mother,\n Martha.\" (\"Yes, it is\u2014in a\n way.\")\n\n\n Wonderful ... and terrible.\n\n\n If only he can last it out for\n a few more hours, she thought.\n If only they can bring him down\n safe and sound. Then the vigil\n will be over, and some other\n mother can take over the awesome\n responsibility of having a\n son become a star\u2014\n\n\n If only ...\nThe general's third telegram\n arrived that afternoon:\nRegret\n to inform you that meteorite impact\n on satellite hull severely\n damaged capsule-detachment\n mechanism, making ejection impossible.\n Will make every effort\n to find another means of accomplishing\n your son's return.\nTerry!\u2014\n\n\n See the little boy playing beneath\n the maple tree, moving his\n tiny cars up and down the tiny\n streets of his make-believe village;\n the little boy, his fuzz of\n hair gold in the sunlight, his\n cherub-cheeks pink in the summer\n wind\u2014\nTerry!\u2014\nUp the lane the blue-denimed\n young man walks, swinging his\n thin tanned arms, his long legs\n making near-grownup strides\n over the sun-seared grass; the\n sky blue and bright behind him,\n the song of cicada rising and\n falling in the hazy September\n air\u2014\nTerry ...\n\u2014probably won't get a chance\n to write you again before take-off,\n but don't worry, Ma. The\nExplorer XII\nis the greatest bird\n they ever built. Nothing short of\n a direct meteorite hit can hurt\n it, and the odds are a million to\n one ...\nWhy don't they leave the stars\n alone? Why don't they leave the\n stars to God?\nThe afternoon shadows lengthened\n on the lawn and the sun\n grew red and swollen over the\n western hills. Martha fixed supper,\n tried to eat, and couldn't.\n After a while, when the light\n began to fade, she slipped into\n Terry's jacket and went outside.\n\n\n Slowly the sky darkened and\n the stars began to appear. At\n length\nher\nstar appeared, but its\n swift passage blurred before her\n eyes. Tires crunched on the\n gravel then, and headlights\n washed the darkness from the\n drive. A car door slammed.\n\n\n Martha did not move.\nPlease\n God\n, she thought,\nlet it be Terry\n,\n even though she knew that it\n couldn't possibly be Terry. Footsteps\n sounded behind her, paused.\n Someone coughed softly. She\n turned then\u2014\n\n\n \"Good evening, ma'am.\"\n\n\n She saw the circlet of stars\n on the gray epaulet; she saw the\n stern handsome face; she saw\n the dark tired eyes. And she\n knew. Even before he spoke\n again, she knew\u2014\n\n\n \"The same meteorite that\n damaged the ejection mechanism,\n ma'am. It penetrated the\n capsule, too. We didn't find out\n till just a while ago\u2014but there\n was nothing we could have done\n anyway ... Are you all right,\n ma'am?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. I'm all right.\"\n\n\n \"I wanted to express my regrets\n personally. I know how you\n must feel.\"\n\n\n \"It's all right.\"\n\n\n \"We will, of course, make\n every effort to bring back his ... remains ... so\n that he can\n have a fitting burial on Earth.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" she said.\n\n\n \"I beg your pardon, ma'am?\"\n\n\n She raised her eyes to the\n patch of sky where her son had\n passed in his shining metal sarcophagus.\n Sirius blossomed\n there, blue-white and beautiful.\n She raised her eyes still higher\u2014and\n beheld the vast parterre\n of Orion with its central motif\n of vivid forget-me-nots, its far-flung\n blooms of Betelguese and\n Rigel, of Bellatrix and Saiph ...\n And higher yet\u2014and there\n flamed the exquisite flower beds\n of Taurus and Gemini, there\n burgeoned the riotous wreath of\n the Crab; there lay the pulsing\n petals of the Pleiades ... And\n down the ecliptic garden path,\n wafted by a stellar breeze, drifted\n the ocher rose of Mars ...\n\n\n \"No,\" she said again.\n\n\n The general had raised his\n eyes, too; now, slowly, he lowered\n them. \"I think I understand,\n ma'am. And I'm glad\n that's the way you want it ...\n The stars\nare\nbeautiful tonight,\n aren't they.\"\n\n\n \"More beautiful than they've\n ever been,\" she said.\nAfter the general had gone,\n she looked up once more at the\n vast and variegated garden of\n the sky where her son lay buried,\n then she turned and walked\n slowly back to the memoried\n house.\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAmazing Stories\nJanuary 1959.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "27110": "THE\n\n ETERNAL\n\n WALL\nBy RAYMOND Z. GALLUN\nA scream of brakes, the splash\n into icy waters, a long descent\n into alkaline depths ... it was\n death. But Ned Vince lived\n again\u2014a million years later!\n\"See\n you in half an hour,\n Betty,\" said Ned Vince\n over the party telephone. \"We'll\n be out at the Silver Basket before\n ten-thirty....\"\n\n\n Ned Vince was eager for the\n company of the girl he loved.\n That was why he was in a hurry\n to get to the neighboring town\n of Hurley, where she lived. His\n old car rattled and roared as he\n swung it recklessly around Pit\n Bend.\n\n\n There was where Death tapped\n him on the shoulder. Another car\n leaped suddenly into view, its\n lights glaring blindingly past a\n high, up-jutting mass of Jurassic\n rock at the turn of the road.\n\n\n Dazzled, and befuddled by his\n own rash speed, Ned Vince had\n only swift young reflexes to rely\n on to avoid a fearful, telescoping\n collision. He flicked his wheel\n smoothly to the right; but the\n County Highway Commission\n hadn't yet tarred the traffic-loosened\n gravel at the Bend.\nAn incredible science, millions of years old, lay in the minds of these creatures.\nNed could scarcely have chosen\n a worse place to start sliding and\n spinning. His car hit the white-painted\n wooden rail sideways,\n crashed through, tumbled down\n a steep slope, struck a huge boulder,\n bounced up a little, and\n arced outward, falling as gracefully\n as a swan-diver toward the\n inky waters of the Pit, fifty feet\n beneath....\n\n\n Ned Vince was still dimly conscious\n when that black, quiet\n pool geysered around him in a\n mighty splash. He had only a\n dazing welt on his forehead, and\n a gag of terror in his throat.\n\n\n Movement was slower now, as\n he began to sink, trapped inside\n his wrecked car. Nothing that he\n could imagine could mean doom\n more certainly than this. The Pit\n was a tremendously deep pocket\n in the ground, spring-fed. The\n edges of that almost bottomless\n pool were caked with a rim of\n white\u2014for the water, on which\n dead birds so often floated, was\n surcharged with alkali. As that\n heavy, natronous liquid rushed\n up through the openings and\n cracks beneath his feet, Ned\n Vince knew that his friends and\n his family would never see his\n body again, lost beyond recovery\n in this abyss.\n\n\n The car was deeply submerged.\n The light had blinked out on the\n dash-panel, leaving Ned in absolute\n darkness. A flood rushed\n in at the shattered window. He\n clawed at the door, trying to\n open it, but it was jammed in\n the crash-bent frame, and he\n couldn't fight against the force\n of that incoming water. The\n welt, left by the blow he had received\n on his forehead, put a\n thickening mist over his brain,\n so that he could not think clearly.\n Presently, when he could no\n longer hold his breath, bitter\n liquid was sucked into his lungs.\n\n\n His last thoughts were those\n of a drowning man. The machine-shop\n he and his dad had\n had in Harwich. Betty Moore,\n with the smiling Irish eyes\u2014like\n in the song. Betty and he\n had planned to go to the State\n University this Fall. They'd\n planned to be married sometime....\n Goodbye, Betty ...\n\n\n The ripples that had ruffled\n the surface waters in the Pit,\n quieted again to glassy smoothness.\n The eternal stars shone\n calmly. The geologic Dakota\n hills, which might have seen the\n dinosaurs, still bulked along the\n highway. Time, the Brother of\n Death, and the Father of\n Change, seemed to wait....\n\"Kaalleee! Tik!... Tik, tik,\n tik!... Kaalleee!...\"\n\n\n The excited cry, which no human\n throat could quite have duplicated\n accurately, arose thinly\n from the depths of a powder-dry\n gulch, water-scarred from an inconceivable\n antiquity. The noon-day\n Sun was red and huge. The\n air was tenuous, dehydrated,\n chill.\n\n\n \"Kaalleee!... Tik, tik,\n tik!...\"\n\n\n At first there was only one\n voice uttering those weird, triumphant\n sounds. Then other\n vocal organs took up that trilling\n wail, and those short, sharp\n chuckles of eagerness. Other\n questioning, wondering notes\n mixed with the cadence. Lacking\n qualities identifiable as human,\n the disturbance was still like the\n babble of a group of workmen\n who have discovered something\n remarkable.\n\n\n The desolate expanse around\n the gulch, was all but without\n motion. The icy breeze tore tiny\n puffs of dust from grotesque,\n angling drifts of soil, nearly\n waterless for eons. Patches of\n drab lichen grew here and there\n on the up-jutting rocks, but in\n the desert itself, no other life\n was visible. Even the hills had\n sagged away, flattened by incalculable\n ages of erosion.\nAt a mile distance, a crumbling\n heap of rubble arose. Once\n it had been a building. A gigantic,\n jagged mass of detritus\n slanted upward from its crest\u2014red\n debris that had once been\n steel. A launching catapult for\n the last space ships built by the\n gods in exodus, perhaps it was\u2014half\n a million years ago. Man\n was gone from the Earth. Glacial\n ages, war, decadence, disease,\n and a final scattering of those\n ultimate superhumans to newer\n worlds in other solar systems,\n had done that.\n\n\n \"Kaalleee!... Tik, tik, tik!...\"\n The sounds were not human.\n They were more like the chatter\n and wail of small desert animals.\n\n\n But there was a seeming paradox\n here in the depths of that\n gulch, too. The glint of metal,\n sharp and burnished. The flat,\n streamlined bulk of a flying machine,\n shiny and new. The bell-like\n muzzle of a strange excavator-apparatus,\n which seemed to\n depend on a blast of atoms to\n clear away rock and soil. Thus\n the gulch had been cleared of the\n accumulated rubbish of antiquity.\n Man, it seemed, had a successor,\n as ruler of the Earth.\n\n\n Loy Chuk had flown his geological\n expedition out from the\n far lowlands to the east, out\n from the city of Kar-Rah. And\n he was very happy now\u2014flushed\n with a vast and unlooked-for\n success.\n\n\n He crouched there on his\n haunches, at the dry bottom of\n the Pit. The breeze rumpled his\n long, brown fur. He wasn't very\n different in appearance from his\n ancestors. A foot tall, perhaps,\n as he squatted there in that antique\n stance of his kind. His tail\n was short and furred, his undersides\n creamy. White whiskers\n spread around his inquisitive,\n pink-tipped snout.\n\n\n But his cranium bulged up and\n forward between shrewd, beady\n eyes, betraying the slow heritage\n of time, of survival of the fittest,\n of evolution. He could think and\n dream and invent, and the civilization\n of his kind was already\n far beyond that of the ancient\n Twentieth Century.\n\n\n Loy Chuk and his fellow workers\n were gathered, tense and\n gleeful, around the things their\n digging had exposed to the daylight.\n There was a gob of junk\u2014scarcely\n more than an irregular\n formation of flaky rust. But imbedded\n in it was a huddled form,\n brown and hard as old wood. The\n dry mud that had encased it\n like an airtight coffin, had by\n now been chipped away by the\n tiny investigators; but soiled\n clothing still clung to it, after\n perhaps a million years. Metal\n had gone into decay\u2014yes. But\n not this body. The answer to this\n was simple\u2014alkali. A mineral\n saturation that had held time\n and change in stasis. A perfect\n preservative for organic tissue,\n aided probably during most of\n those passing eras by desert dryness.\n The Dakotas had turned\n arid very swiftly. This body was\n not a mere fossil. It was a\n mummy.\n\"Kaalleee!\" Man, that meant.\n Not the star-conquering demi-gods,\n but the ancestral stock\n that had built the first\n machines on Earth, and in the\n early Twenty-first Century, the\n first interplanetary rockets. No\n wonder Loy Chuk and his co-workers\n were happy in their\n paleontological enthusiasm! A\n strange accident, happening in a\n legendary antiquity, had aided\n them in their quest for knowledge.\n\n\n At last Loy Chuk gave a soft,\n chirping signal. The chant of\n triumph ended, while instruments\n flicked in his tiny hands.\n The final instrument he used to\n test the mummy, looked like a\n miniature stereoscope, with complicated\n details. He held it over\n his eyes. On the tiny screen\n within, through the agency of\n focused X-rays, he saw magnified\n images of the internal organs\n of this ancient human\n corpse.\n\n\n What his probing gaze revealed\n to him, made his pleasure\n even greater than before. In\n twittering, chattering sounds, he\n communicated his further knowledge\n to his henchmen. Though\n devoid of moisture, the mummy\n was perfectly preserved, even to\n its brain cells! Medical and biological\n sciences were far advanced\n among Loy Chuk's kind.\n Perhaps, by the application of\n principles long known to them,\n this long-dead body could be\n made to live again! It might\n move, speak, remember its past!\n What a marvelous subject for\n study it would make, back there\n in the museums of Kar-Rah!\n\n\n \"Tik, tik, tik!...\"\n\n\n But Loy silenced this fresh,\n eager chattering with a command.\n Work was always more\n substantial than cheering.\nWith infinite care\u2014small,\n sharp hand-tools were used, now\u2014the\n mummy of Ned Vince was\n disengaged from the worthless\n rust of his primitive automobile.\n With infinite care it was crated\n in a metal case, and hauled into\n the flying machine.\n\n\n Flashing flame, the latter\n arose, bearing the entire hundred\n members of the expedition.\n The craft shot eastward at bullet-like\n speed. The spreading\n continental plateau of North\n America seemed to crawl backward,\n beneath. A tremendous\n sand desert, marked with low,\n washed-down mountains, and the\n vague, angular, geometric\n mounds of human cities that\n were gone forever.\n\n\n Beyond the eastern rim of the\n continent, the plain dipped downward\n steeply. The white of dried\n salt was on the hills, but there\n was a little green growth here,\n too. The dead sea-bottom of the\n vanished Atlantic was not as\n dead as the highlands.\n\n\n Far out in a deep valley, Kar-Rah,\n the city of the rodents,\n came into view\u2014a crystalline\n maze of low, bubble-like structures,\n glinting in the red sunshine.\n But this was only its surface\n aspect. Loy Chuk's people\n had built their homes mostly underground,\n since the beginning\n of their foggy evolution. Besides,\n in this latter day, the\n nights were very cold, the shelter\n of subterranean passages and\n rooms was welcome.\n\n\n The mummy was taken to Loy\n Chuk's laboratory, a short distance\n below the surface. Here at\n once, the scientist began his\n work. The body of the ancient\n man was put in a large vat.\n Fluids submerged it, slowly\n soaking from that hardened flesh\n the alkali that had preserved it\n for so long. The fluid was\n changed often, until woody muscles\n and other tissues became\n pliable once more.\n\n\n Then the more delicate processes\n began. Still submerged in\n liquid, the corpse was submitted\n to a flow of restorative energy,\n passing between complicated\n electrodes. The cells of antique\n flesh and brain gradually took on\n a chemical composition nearer to\n that of the life that they had\n once known.\nAt last the final liquid was\n drained away, and the mummy\n lay there, a mummy no more, but\n a pale, silent figure in its tatters\n of clothing. Loy Chuk put an odd,\n metal-fabric helmet on its head,\n and a second, much smaller helmet\n on his own. Connected with\n this arrangement, was a black\n box of many uses. For hours he\n worked with his apparatus,\n studying, and guiding the recording\n instruments. The time\n passed swiftly.\n\n\n At last, eager and ready for\n whatever might happen now,\n Loy Chuk pushed another switch.\n With a cold, rosy flare, energy\n blazed around that moveless\n form.\n\n\n For Ned Vince, timeless eternity\n ended like a gradual fading\n mist. When he could see clearly\n again, he experienced that inevitable\n shock of vast change\n around him. Though it had been\n dehydrated, his brain had been\n kept perfectly intact through the\n ages, and now it was restored.\n So his memories were as vivid as\n yesterday.\n\n\n Yet, through that crystalline\n vat in which he lay, he could see\n a broad, low room, in which he\n could barely have stood erect. He\n saw instruments and equipment\n whose weird shapes suggested\n alienness, and knowledge beyond\n the era he had known! The walls\n were lavender and phosphorescent.\n Fossil bone-fragments were\n mounted in shallow cases. Dinosaur\n bones, some of them\n seemed, from their size. But\n there was a complete skeleton of\n a dog, too, and the skeleton of a\n man, and a second man-skeleton\n that was not quite human. Its\n neck-vertebrae were very thick\n and solid, its shoulders were\n wide, and its skull was gigantic.\n\n\n All this weirdness had a violent\n effect on Ned Vince\u2014a sudden,\n nostalgic panic. Something\n was fearfully wrong!\n\n\n The nervous terror of the unknown\n was on him. Feeble and\n dizzy after his weird resurrection,\n which he could not understand,\n remembering as he did\n that moment of sinking to certain\n death in the pool at Pit\n Bend, he caught the edge of the\n transparent vat, and pulled himself\n to a sitting posture. There\n was a muffled murmur around\n him, as of some vast, un-Earthly\n metropolis.\n\n\n \"Take it easy, Ned Vince....\"\n\n\n The words themselves, and the\n way they were assembled, were\n old, familiar friends. But the\n tone was wrong. It was high,\n shrill, parrot-like, and mechanical.\n Ned's gaze searched for the\n source of the voice\u2014located the\n black box just outside of his\n crystal vat. From that box the\n voice seemed to have originated.\n Before it crouched a small,\n brownish animal with a bulging\n head. The animal's tiny-fingered\n paws\u2014hands they were, really\u2014were\n touching rows of keys.\n\n\n To Ned Vince, it was all utterly\n insane and incomprehensible.\n A rodent, looking like a prairie dog,\n a little; but plainly possessing\n a high order of intelligence.\n And a voice whose soothingly\n familiar words were more repugnant\n somehow, simply because\n they could never belong in a\n place as eerie as this.\n\n\n Ned Vince did not know how\n Loy Chuk had probed his brain,\n with the aid of a pair of helmets,\n and the black box apparatus. He\n did not know that in the latter,\n his language, taken from his\n own revitalized mind, was recorded,\n and that Loy Chuk had\n only to press certain buttons to\n make the instrument express his\n thoughts in common, long-dead\n English. Loy, whose vocal organs\n were not human, would have had\n great difficulty speaking English\n words, anyway.\n\n\n Ned's dark hair was wildly\n awry. His gaunt, young face\n held befuddled terror. He gasped\n in the thin atmosphere. \"I've\n gone nuts,\" he pronounced with\n a curious calm. \"Stark\u2014starin'\u2014nuts....\"\nLoy's box, with its recorded\n English words and its sonic detectors,\n could translate for its\n master, too. As the man spoke,\n Loy read the illuminated symbols\n in his own language, flashed\n on a frosted crystal plate before\n him. Thus he knew what Ned\n Vince was saying.\n\n\n Loy Chuk pressed more keys,\n and the box reproduced his answer:\n \"No, Ned, not nuts. Not a\n bit of it! There are just a lot of\n things that you've got to get\n used to, that's all. You drowned\n about a million years ago. I discovered\n your body. I brought you\n back to life. We have science\n that can do that. I'm Loy\n Chuk....\"\nIt took only a moment for the\n box to tell the full story in clear,\n bold, friendly terms. Thus Loy\n sought, with calm, human logic,\n to make his charge feel at home.\n Probably, though, he was a fool,\n to suppose that he could succeed,\n thus.\n\n\n Vince started to mutter,\n struggling desperately to reason\n it out. \"A prairie dog,\" he said.\n \"Speaking to me. One million\n years. Evolution. The scientists\n say that people grew up from\n fishes in the sea. Prairie dogs\n are smart. So maybe super-prairie-dogs\n could come from\n them. A lot easier than men\n from fish....\"\n\n\n It was all sound logic. Even\n Ned Vince knew that. Still, his\n mind, tuned to ordinary, simple\n things, couldn't quite realize all\n the vast things that had happened\n to himself, and to the\n world. The scope of it all was too\n staggeringly big. One million\n years. God!...\n\n\n Ned Vince made a last effort\n to control himself. His knuckles\n tightened on the edge of the vat.\n \"I don't know what you've been\n talking about,\" he grated wildly.\n \"But I want to get out of here!\n I want to go back where I came\n from! Do you understand\u2014whoever,\n or whatever you are?\"\n\n\n Loy Chuk pressed more keys.\n \"But you can't go back to the\n Twentieth Century,\" said the\n box. \"Nor is there any better\n place for you to be now, than\n Kar-Rah. You are the only man\n left on Earth. Those men that\n exist in other star systems are\n not really your kind anymore,\n though their forefathers originated\n on this planet. They have\n gone far beyond you in evolution.\n To them you would be only a\n senseless curiosity. You are\n much better off with my people\u2014our\n minds are much more like\n yours. We will take care of you,\n and make you comfortable....\"\n\n\n But Ned Vince wasn't listening,\n now. \"You are the only\n man left on Earth.\" That had\n been enough for him to hear. He\n didn't more than half believe it.\n His mind was too confused for\n conviction about anything. Everything\n he saw and felt and\n heard might be some kind of\n nightmare. But then it might all\n be real instead, and that was\n abysmal horror. Ned was no\n coward\u2014death and danger of\n any ordinary Earthly kind, he\n could have faced bravely. But the\n loneliness here, and the utter\n strangeness, were hideous like\n being stranded alone on another\n world!\n\n\n His heart was pounding heavily,\n and his eyes were wide. He\n looked across this eerie room.\n There was a ramp there at the\n other side, leading upward instead\n of a stairway. Fierce impulse\n to escape this nameless\n lair, to try to learn the facts for\n himself, possessed him. He\n bounded out of the vat, and\n with head down, dashed for the\n ramp.\nHe had to go most of the way\n on his hands and knees, for the\n up-slanting passage was low. Excited\n animal chucklings around\n him, and the occasional touch of\n a furry body, hurried his feverish\n scrambling. But he emerged\n at last at the surface.\n\n\n He stood there panting in that\n frigid, rarefied air. It was night.\n The Moon was a gigantic, pock-marked\n bulk. The constellations\n were unrecognizable. The rodent\n city was a glowing expanse of\n shallow, crystalline domes, set\n among odd, scrub trees and\n bushes. The crags loomed on all\n sides, all their jaggedness lost\n after a million years of erosion\n under an ocean that was gone.\n In that ghastly moonlight, the\n ground glistened with dry salt.\n\n\n \"Well, I guess it's all true,\n huh?\" Ned Vince muttered in a\n flat tone.\n\n\n Behind him he heard an excited,\n squeaky chattering. Rodents\n in pursuit. Looking back,\n he saw the pinpoint gleams of\n countless little eyes. Yes, he\n might as well be an exile on another\n planet\u2014so changed had the\n Earth become.\n\n\n A wave of intolerable homesickness\n came over him as he\n sensed the distances of time that\n had passed\u2014those inconceivable\n eons, separating himself from\n his friends, from Betty, from almost\n everything that was familiar.\n He started to run, away\n from those glittering rodent\n eyes. He sensed death in that\n cold sea-bottom, but what of it?\n What reason did he have left to\n live? He'd be only a museum\n piece here, a thing to be caged\n and studied....\n\n\n Prison or a madhouse would\n be far better. He tried to get\n hold of his courage. But what\n was there to inspire it? Nothing!\n He laughed harshly as he\n ran, welcoming that bitter, killing\n cold. Nostalgia had him in\n its clutch, and there was no answer\n in his hell-world, lost beyond\n the barrier of the years....\nLoy Chuk and his followers\n presently came upon Ned Vince's\n unconscious form, a mile from\n the city of Kar-Rah. In a flying\n machine they took him back, and\n applied stimulants. He came to,\n in the same laboratory room as\n before. But he was firmly\n strapped to a low platform this\n time, so that he could not escape\n again. There he lay, helpless,\n until presently an idea occurred\n to him. It gave him a few crumbs\n of hope.\n\n\n \"Hey, somebody!\" he called.\n\n\n \"You'd better get some rest,\n Ned Vince,\" came the answer\n from the black box. It was Loy\n Chuk speaking again.\n\n\n \"But listen!\" Ned protested.\n \"You know a lot more than we\n did in the Twentieth Century.\n And\u2014well\u2014there's that thing\n called time-travel, that I used to\n read about. Maybe you know how\n to make it work! Maybe you\n could send me back to my own\n time after all!\"\n\n\n Little Loy Chuk was in a\n black, discouraged mood, himself.\n He could understand the\n utter, sick dejection of this\n giant from the past, lost from\n his own kind. Probably insanity\n looming. In far less extreme circumstances\n than this, death from\n homesickness had come.\n\n\n Loy Chuk was a scientist. In\n common with all real scientists,\n regardless of the species from\n which they spring, he loved the\n subjects of his researches. He\n wanted this ancient man to live\n and to be happy. Or this creature\n would be of scant value for\n study.\n\n\n So Loy considered carefully\n what Ned Vince had suggested.\n Time-travel. Almost a legend. An\n assault upon an intangible wall\n that had baffled far keener wits\n than Loy's. But he was bent,\n now, on the well-being of this\n anachronism he had so miraculously\n resurrected\u2014this human,\n this Kaalleee....\n\n\n Loy jabbed buttons on the\n black box. \"Yes, Ned Vince,\"\n said the sonic apparatus. \"Time-travel.\n Perhaps that is the only\n thing to do\u2014to send you back\n to your own period of history.\n For I see that you will never be\n yourself, here. It will be hard to\n accomplish, but we'll try. Now\n I shall put you under an anesthetic....\"\n\n\n Ned felt better immediately,\n for there was real hope now,\n where there had been none before.\n Maybe he'd be back in his\n home-town of Harwich again.\n Maybe he'd see the old machine-shop,\n there. And the trees greening\n out in Spring. Maybe he'd\n be seeing Betty Moore in Hurley,\n soon.... Ned relaxed, as a tiny\n hypo-needle bit into his arm....\n\n\n As soon as Ned Vince passed\n into unconsciousness, Loy Chuk\n went to work once more, using\n that pair of brain-helmets again,\n exploring carefully the man's\n mind. After hours of research,\n he proceeded to prepare his\n plans. The government of Kar-Rah\n was a scientific oligarchy,\n of which Loy was a prime member.\n It would be easy to get the\n help he needed.\n\n\n A horde of small, grey-furred\n beings and their machines, toiled\n for many days.\nNed Vince's mind swam\n gradually out of the blur that\n had enveloped it. He was wandering\n aimlessly about in a familiar\n room. The girders of the\n roof above were of red-painted\n steel. His tool-benches were\n there, greasy and littered with\n metal filings, just as they had\n always been. He had a tractor to\n repair, and a seed-drill. Outside\n of the machine-shop, the old,\n familiar yellow sun was shining.\n Across the street was the small\n brown house, where he lived.\n\n\n With a sudden startlement, he\n saw Betty Moore in the doorway.\n She wore a blue dress, and a mischievous\n smile curved her lips.\n As though she had succeeded in\n creeping up on him, for a surprise.\n\n\n \"Why, Ned,\" she chuckled.\n \"You look as though you've been\n dreaming, and just woke up!\"\n\n\n He grimaced ruefully as she\n approached. With a kind of fierce\n gratitude, he took her in his\n arms. Yes, she was just like\n always.\n\n\n \"I guess I\nwas\ndreaming,\n Betty,\" he whispered, feeling\n that mighty sense of relief. \"I\n must have fallen asleep at the\n bench, here, and had a nightmare.\n I thought I had an accident\n at Pit Bend\u2014and that a\n lot of worse things happened....\n But it wasn't true ...\"\n\n\n Ned Vince's mind, over which\n there was still an elusive fog that\n he did not try to shake off, accepted\n apparent facts simply.\n\n\n He did not know anything\n about the invisible radiations\n beating down upon him, soothing\n and dimming his brain, so that\n it would never question or doubt,\n or observe too closely the incongruous\n circumstances that must\n often appear. The lack of traffic\n in the street without, for instance\u2014and\n the lack of people\n besides himself and Betty.\n\n\n He didn't know that this machine-shop\n was built from his\n own memories of the original.\n He didn't know that this Betty\n was of the same origin\u2014a miraculous\n fabrication of metal\n and energy-units and soft plastic.\n The trees outside were only\n lantern-slide illusions.\n\n\n It was all built inside a great,\n opaque dome. But there were\n hidden television systems, too.\n Thus Loy Chuk's kind could\n study this ancient man\u2014this\n Kaalleee. Thus, their motives\n were mostly selfish.\n\n\n Loy, though, was not observing,\n now. He had wandered far\n out into cold, sad sea-bottom, to\n ponder. He squeaked and chatted\n to himself, contemplating the\n magnificent, inexorable march of\n the ages. He remembered the ancient\n ruins, left by the final supermen.\n\n\n \"The Kaalleee believes himself\n home,\" Loy was thinking. \"He\n will survive and be happy. But\n there was no other way. Time is\n an Eternal Wall. Our archeological\n researches among the cities\n of the supermen show the truth.\n Even they, who once ruled Earth,\n never escaped from the present\n by so much as an instant....\"\nTHE END\nPRINTED IN U. S. A.\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAmazing Stories\nApril 1956 and\n was first published in\nAmazing Stories\nNovember 1942.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "27588": "Transcriber's Note:\nEvery effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully as\n possible; changes (corrections of spelling and punctuation) made to\n the original text are marked\n like this\n .\n The original text appears when hovering the cursor over the marked text.\n\n\n This e-text was produced from\n Amazing Science Fiction Stories\n March 1959.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.\u00a0S. copyright on this\n publication was renewed.\n\n\n 50\nTHE\n\n JUPITER\n\n WEAPON\nBy CHARLES L. FONTENAY\nHe was a living weapon of\n\n destruction\u2014\n immeasurably\n\n powerful, utterly invulnerable.\n\n There was only one\n\n question: Was he human?\nTrella\n feared she was in\n for trouble even before Motwick's\n head dropped forward on\n his arms in a drunken stupor.\n The two evil-looking men at the\n table nearby had been watching\n her surreptitiously, and now\n they shifted restlessly in their\n chairs.\n\n\n Trella had not wanted to come\n to the Golden Satellite. It was a\n squalid saloon in the rougher\n section of Jupiter's View, the\n terrestrial dome-colony on Ganymede.\n Motwick,\n already\n drunk,\n had insisted.\n\n\n A woman could not possibly\n make her way through these\n streets alone to the better section\n of town, especially one clad\n in a silvery evening dress. Her\n only hope was that this place\n had a telephone. Perhaps she\n could call one of Motwick's\n friends; she had no one on Ganymede\n she could call a real friend\n herself.\n\n\n Tentatively, she pushed her\n chair back from the table and\n arose. She had to brush close by\n the other table to get to the bar.\n As she did, the dark, slick-haired\n man reached out and grabbed\n her around the waist with a\n steely arm.\n\n\n Trella swung with her whole\n body, and slapped him so hard\n he nearly fell from his chair. As\n she walked swiftly toward the\n bar, he leaped up to follow her.\n\n\n There were only two other\n people in the Golden Satellite:\n the fat, mustached bartender\n and a short, square-built man at\n the bar. The latter swung\n around at the pistol-like report\n of her slap, and she saw that,\n though no more than four and a\n half feet tall, he was as heavily\n muscled as a lion.\n\n\n 51\n His face was clean and open,\n with close-cropped blond hair\n and honest blue eyes. She ran to\n him.\n\n\n \u201cHelp me!\u201d she cried. \u201cPlease\n help me!\u201d\n\n\n He began to back away from\n her.\n\n\n \u201cI can't,\u201d he muttered in a\n deep voice. \u201cI can't help you. I\n can't do anything.\u201d\nThe dark man was at her\n heels. In desperation, she dodged\n around the short man and took\n refuge behind him. Her protector\n was obviously unwilling, but\n the dark man, faced with his\n massiveness, took no chances.\n He stopped and shouted:\n\n\n \u201cKregg!\u201d\n\n\n The other man at the table\n arose, ponderously, and lumbered\n toward them. He was immense,\n at least six and a half\n feet tall, with a brutal, vacant\n face.\n\n\n Evading her attempts to stay\n behind him, the squat man began\n to move down the bar away\n from the approaching Kregg.\n The dark man moved in on\n Trella again as Kregg overtook\n his quarry and swung a huge\n fist like a sledgehammer.\n\n\n Exactly what happened, Trella\n wasn't sure. She had the impression\n that Kregg's fist connected\n squarely with the short man's\n chin\n before\n he dodged to one\n side in a movement so fast it\n was a blur. But that couldn't\n have been, because the short\n man wasn't moved by that blow\n that would have felled a steer,\n and Kregg roared in pain, grabbing\n his injured fist.\n\n\n \u201cThe bar!\u201d yelled Kregg. \u201cI\n hit the damn bar!\u201d\n\n\n At this juncture, the bartender\n took a hand. Leaning far\n over the bar, he swung a full\n bottle in a complete arc. It\n smashed on Kregg's head,\n splashing the floor with liquor,\n and Kregg sank stunned to his\n knees. The dark man, who had\n grabbed Trella's arm, released\n her and ran for the door.\n\n\n Moving agilely around the end\n of the bar, the bartender stood\n over Kregg, holding the jagged-edged\n bottleneck in his hand\n menacingly.\n\n\n \u201cGet out!\u201d rumbled the bartender.\n \u201cI'll have no coppers\n raiding my place for the likes of\n you!\u201d\n\n\n Kregg stumbled to his feet\n and staggered out. Trella ran to\n the unconscious Motwick's side.\n\n\n \u201cThat means you, too, lady,\u201d\n said the bartender beside her.\n \u201cYou and your boy friend get\n out of here. You oughtn't to\n have come here in the first\n place.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cMay I help you, Miss?\u201d asked\n a deep, resonant voice behind\n her.\n\n\n She straightened from her\n anxious examination of Motwick.\n The squat man was standing\n there, an apologetic look on\n his face.\n\n\n She looked contemptuously at\n the massive muscles whose help\n had been denied her. Her arm\n ached where the dark man had\n grasped it. The broad face before\n 52\n her was not unhandsome,\n and the blue eyes were disconcertingly\n direct, but she despised\n him for a coward.\n\n\n \u201cI'm sorry I couldn't fight\n those men for you, Miss, but I\n just couldn't,\u201d he said miserably,\n as though reading her thoughts.\n \u201cBut no one will bother you on\n the street if I'm with you.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cA lot of protection you'd be\n if they did!\u201d she snapped. \u201cBut\n I'm desperate. You can carry\n him to the Stellar Hotel for me.\u201d\nThe gravity of Ganymede was\n hardly more than that of Earth's\n moon, but the way the man\n picked up the limp Motwick with\n one hand and tossed him over a\n shoulder was startling: as\n though he lifted a feather pillow.\n He followed Trella out the door\n of the Golden Satellite and fell\n in step beside her. Immediately\n she was grateful for his presence.\n The dimly lighted street\n was not crowded, but she didn't\n like the looks of the men she\n saw.\n\n\n The transparent dome of Jupiter's\n View was faintly visible\n in the reflected night lights of\n the colonial city, but the lights\n were overwhelmed by the giant,\n vari-colored disc of Jupiter itself,\n riding high in the sky.\n\n\n \u201cI'm Quest Mansard, Miss,\u201d\n said her companion. \u201cI'm just in\n from Jupiter.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI'm Trella Nuspar,\u201d she said,\n favoring him with a green-eyed\n glance. \u201cYou mean Io, don't you\u2014or\n Moon Five?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNo,\u201d he said, grinning at\n her. He had an engaging grin,\n with even white teeth. \u201cI meant\n Jupiter.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cYou're lying,\u201d she said flatly.\n \u201cNo one has ever landed on\n Jupiter. It would be impossible\n to blast off again.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cMy parents landed on Jupiter,\n and I blasted off from it,\u201d\n he said soberly. \u201cI was born\n there. Have you ever heard of\n Dr. Eriklund Mansard?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI certainly have,\u201d she said,\n her interest taking a sudden\n upward turn. \u201cHe developed the\n surgiscope, didn't he? But his\n ship was drawn into Jupiter and\n lost.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt was drawn into Jupiter,\n but he landed it successfully,\u201d\n said Quest. \u201cHe and my mother\n lived on Jupiter until the oxygen\n equipment wore out at last. I\n was born and brought up there,\n and I was finally able to build\n a small rocket with a powerful\n enough drive to clear the\n planet.\u201d\n\n\n She looked at him. He was\n short, half a head shorter than\n she, but broad and powerful as\n a man might be who had grown\n up in heavy gravity. He trod the\n street with a light, controlled\n step, seeming to deliberately\n hold himself down.\n\n\n \u201cIf Dr. Mansard succeeded in\n landing on Jupiter, why didn't\n anyone ever hear from him\n again?\u201d she demanded.\n\n\n \u201cBecause,\u201d said Quest, \u201chis\n radio was sabotaged, just as his\n ship's drive was.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cJupiter strength,\u201d she murmured,\n looking him over coolly.\n 53\n \u201cYou wear Motwick on your\n shoulder like a scarf. But you\n couldn't bring yourself to help\n a woman against two thugs.\u201d\n\n\n He flushed.\n\n\n \u201cI'm sorry,\u201d he said. \u201cThat's\n something I couldn't help.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhy not?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI don't know. It's not that\n I'm afraid, but there's something\n in me that makes me back\n away from the prospect of fighting\n anyone.\u201d\n\n\n Trella sighed. Cowardice was\n a state of mind. It was peculiarly\n inappropriate, but not unbelievable,\n that the strongest and\n most agile man on Ganymede\n should be a coward. Well, she\n thought with a rush of sympathy,\n he couldn't help being\n what he was.\nThey had reached the more\n brightly lighted section of the\n city now. Trella could get a cab\n from here, but the Stellar Hotel\n wasn't far. They walked on.\n\n\n Trella had the desk clerk call\n a cab to deliver the unconscious\n Motwick to his home. She and\n Quest had a late sandwich in the\n coffee shop.\n\n\n \u201cI landed here only a week\n ago,\u201d he told her, his eyes frankly\n admiring her honey-colored\n hair and comely face. \u201cI'm heading\n for Earth on the next spaceship.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWe'll be traveling companions,\n then,\u201d she said. \u201cI'm going\n back on that ship, too.\u201d\n\n\n For some reason she decided\n against telling him that the\n assignment on which she had\n come to the Jupiter system was\n to gather his own father's notebooks\n and take them back to\n Earth.\nMotwick was an irresponsible\n playboy whom Trella had known\n briefly on Earth, and Trella was\n glad to dispense with his company\n for the remaining three\n weeks before the spaceship\n blasted off. She found herself\n enjoying the steadier companionship\n of Quest.\n\n\n As a matter of fact, she found\n herself enjoying his companionship\n more than she intended to.\n She found herself falling in love\n with him.\n\n\n Now this did not suit her at\n all. Trella had always liked her\n men tall and dark. She had determined\n that when she married\n it would be to a curly-haired six-footer.\n\n\n She was not at all happy about\n being so strongly attracted to a\n man several inches shorter than\n she. She was particularly unhappy\n about feeling drawn to a\n man who was a coward.\n\n\n The ship that they boarded on\n Moon Nine was one of the newer\n ships that could attain a hundred-mile-per-second\n velocity\n and take a hyperbolic path to\n Earth, but it would still require\n fifty-four days to make the trip.\n So Trella was delighted to find\n that the ship was the\nCometfire\nand its skipper was her old\n friend, dark-eyed, curly-haired\n Jakdane Gille.\n\n\n \u201cJakdane,\u201d she said, flirting\n with him with her eyes as in\n 54\n days gone by, \u201cI need a chaperon\n this trip, and you're ideal for\n the job.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI never thought of myself in\n quite that light, but maybe\n I'm getting old,\u201d he answered,\n laughing. \u201cWhat's your trouble,\n Trella?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI'm in love with that huge\n chunk of man who came aboard\n with me, and I'm not sure I\n ought to be,\u201d she confessed. \u201cI\n may need protection against myself\n till we get to Earth.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIf it's to keep you out of another\n fellow's clutches, I'm your\n man,\u201d agreed Jakdane heartily.\n \u201cI always had a mind to save\n you for myself. I'll guarantee\n you won't have a moment alone\n with him the whole trip.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cYou don't have to be that\n thorough about it,\u201d she protested\n hastily. \u201cI want to get a little\n enjoyment out of being in love.\n But if I feel myself weakening\n too much, I'll holler for help.\u201d\n\n\n The\nCometfire\nswung around\n great Jupiter in an opening arc\n and plummeted ever more swiftly\n toward the tight circles of the\n inner planets. There were four\n crew members and three passengers\n aboard the ship's tiny personnel\n sphere, and Trella was\n thrown with Quest almost constantly.\n She enjoyed every minute\n of it.\n\n\n She told him only that she\n was a messenger, sent out to\n Ganymede to pick up some important\n papers and take them\n back to Earth. She was tempted\n to tell him what the papers were.\n Her employer had impressed upon\n her that her mission was confidential,\n but surely Dom\n Blessing\n could not object to Dr.\n Mansard's son knowing about it.\n\n\n All these things had happened\n before she was born, and she\n did not know what Dom Blessing's\n relation to Dr. Mansard\n had been, but it must have been\n very close. She knew that Dr.\n Mansard had invented the surgiscope.\n\n\n This was an instrument with\n a three-dimensional screen as its\n heart. The screen was a cubical\n frame in which an apparently\n solid image was built up of an\n object under an electron microscope.\nThe actual cutting instrument\n of the surgiscope was an ion\n stream. By operating a tool in\n the three-dimensional screen,\n corresponding movements were\n made by the ion stream on the\n object under the microscope.\n The\n principle\n was the same as\n that used in operation of remote\n control \u201chands\u201d in atomic laboratories\n to handle hot material,\n and with the surgiscope very\n delicate operations could be performed\n at the cellular level.\n\n\n Dr. Mansard and his wife had\n disappeared into the turbulent\n atmosphere of Jupiter just after\n his invention of the surgiscope,\n and it had been developed by\n Dom Blessing. Its success had\n built Spaceway Instruments, Incorporated,\n which Blessing headed.\n\n\n Through all these years since\n Dr. Mansard's disappearance,\n 55\n Blessing had been searching the\n Jovian moons for a second, hidden\n laboratory of Dr. Mansard.\n When it was found at last, he\n sent Trella, his most trusted\n secretary, to Ganymede to bring\n back to him the notebooks found\n there.\n\n\n Blessing would, of course, be\n happy to learn that a son of Dr.\n Mansard lived, and would see\n that he received his rightful\n share of the inheritance. Because\n of this, Trella was tempted\n to tell Quest the good news\n herself; but she decided against\n it. It was Blessing's privilege to\n do this his own way, and he\n might not appreciate her meddling.\nAt midtrip, Trella made a rueful\n confession to Jakdane.\n\n\n \u201cIt seems I was taking unnecessary\n precautions when I asked\n you to be a chaperon,\u201d she said.\n \u201cI kept waiting for Quest to do\n something, and when he didn't\n I told him I loved him.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat did he say?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt's very peculiar,\u201d she said\n unhappily. \u201cHe said he\n can't\n love me. He said he wants to\n love me and he feels that he\n should, but there's something in\n him that refuses to permit it.\u201d\n\n\n She expected Jakdane to salve\n her wounded feelings with a\n sympathetic pleasantry, but he\n did not. Instead, he just looked\n at her very thoughtfully and\n said no more about the matter.\n\n\n He explained his attitude\n after Asrange ran amuck.\n\n\n Asrange was the third passenger.\n He was a lean, saturnine\n individual who said little and\n kept to himself as much as possible.\n He was distantly polite in\n his relations with both crew and\n other passengers, and never\n showed the slightest spark of\n emotion \u2026 until the day Quest\n squirted coffee on him.\n\n\n It was one of those accidents\n that can occur easily in space.\n The passengers and the two\n crewmen on that particular waking\n shift (including Jakdane)\n were eating lunch on the center-deck.\n Quest picked up his bulb\n of coffee, but inadvertently\n pressed it before he got it to his\n lips. The coffee squirted all over\n the front of Asrange's clean\n white tunic.\n\n\n \u201cI'm sorry!\u201d exclaimed Quest\n in distress.\n\n\n The man's eyes went wide and\n he snarled. So quickly it seemed\n impossible, he had unbuckled\n himself from his seat and hurled\n himself backward from the table\n with an incoherent cry. He\n seized the first object his hand\n touched\u2014it happened to be a\n heavy wooden cane leaning\n against Jakdane's bunk\u2014propelled\n himself like a projectile at\n Quest.\n\n\n Quest rose from the table in\n a sudden uncoiling of movement.\n He did not unbuckle his safety\n belt\u2014he rose and it snapped like\n a string.\n\n\n For a moment Trella thought\n he was going to meet Asrange's\n assault. But he fled in a long\n leap toward the companionway\n leading to the astrogation deck\n 56\n above. Landing feet-first in the\n middle of the table and rebounding,\n Asrange pursued with the\n stick upraised.\n\n\n In his haste, Quest missed the\n companionway in his leap and\n was cornered against one of the\n bunks. Asrange descended on\n him like an avenging angel and,\n holding onto the bunk with one\n hand, rained savage blows on his\n head and shoulders with the\n heavy stick.\n\n\n Quest made no effort to retaliate.\n He cowered under the attack,\n holding his hands in front\n of him as if to ward it off. In a\n moment, Jakdane and the other\n crewman had reached Asrange\n and pulled him off.\nWhen they had Asrange in\n irons, Jakdane turned to Quest,\n who was now sitting unhappily\n at the table.\n\n\n \u201cTake it easy,\u201d he advised.\n \u201cI'll wake the psychosurgeon\n and have him look you over. Just\n stay there.\u201d\n\n\n Quest shook his head.\n\n\n \u201cDon't bother him,\u201d he said.\n \u201cIt's nothing but a few bruises.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBruises? Man, that club\n could have broken your skull!\n Or a couple of ribs, at the very\n least.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI'm all right,\u201d insisted\n Quest; and when the skeptical\n Jakdane insisted on examining\n him carefully, he had to admit\n it. There was hardly a mark on\n him from the blows.\n\n\n \u201cIf it didn't hurt you any\n more than that, why didn't you\n take that stick away from him?\u201d\n demanded Jakdane. \u201cYou could\n have, easily.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI couldn't,\u201d said Quest miserably,\n and turned his face\n away.\n\n\n Later, alone with Trella on\n the control deck, Jakdane gave\n her some sober advice.\n\n\n \u201cIf you think you're in love\n with Quest, forget it,\u201d he said.\n\n\n \u201cWhy? Because he's a coward?\n I know that ought to make\n me despise him, but it doesn't\n any more.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNot because he's a coward.\n Because he's an android!\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat? Jakdane, you can't be\n serious!\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI am. I say he's an android,\n an artificial imitation of a man.\n It all figures.\n\n\n \u201cLook, Trella, he said he was\n born on Jupiter. A human could\n stand the gravity of Jupiter, inside\n a dome or a ship, but what\n human could stand the rocket acceleration\n necessary to break\n free of Jupiter? Here's a man\n strong enough to break a spaceship\n safety belt just by getting\n up out of his chair against it,\n tough enough to take a beating\n with a heavy stick without being\n injured. How can you believe\n he's really human?\u201d\n\n\n Trella remembered the thug\n Kregg striking Quest in the face\n and then crying that he had injured\n his hand on the bar.\n\n\n \u201cBut he said Dr. Mansard was\n his father,\u201d protested Trella.\n\n\n \u201cRobots and androids frequently\n look on their makers as\n their parents,\u201d said Jakdane.\n \u201cQuest may not even know he's\n 57\n artificial. Do you know how\n Mansard died?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThe oxygen equipment failed,\n Quest said.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cYes. Do you know when?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNo. Quest never did tell me,\n that I remember.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cHe told me: a year before\n Quest made his rocket flight to\n Ganymede! If the oxygen equipment\n failed, how do you think\n Quest\n lived in the poisonous atmosphere\n of Jupiter, if he's human?\u201d\n\n\n Trella was silent.\n\n\n \u201cFor the protection of humans,\n there are two psychological\n traits built into every robot\n and android,\u201d said Jakdane\n gently. \u201cThe first is that they\n can never, under any circumstances,\n attack a human being,\n even in self defense. The second\n is that, while they may understand\n sexual desire objectively,\n they can never experience it\n themselves.\n\n\n \u201cThose characteristics fit your\n man Quest to a T, Trella. There\n is no other explanation for him:\n he must be an android.\u201d\nTrella did not want to believe\n Jakdane was right, but his reasoning\n was unassailable. Looking\n upon Quest as an android,\n many things were explained: his\n great strength, his short, broad\n build, his immunity to injury,\n his refusal to defend himself\n against a human, his inability to\n return Trella's love for him.\n\n\n It was not inconceivable that\n she should have unknowingly\n fallen in love with an android.\n Humans could love androids,\n with real affection, even knowing\n that they were artificial.\n There were instances of android\n nursemaids who were virtually\n members of the families owning\n them.\n\n\n She was glad now that she\n had not told Quest of her mission\n to Ganymede. He thought\n he was Dr. Mansard's son, but\n an android had no legal right of\n inheritance from his owner. She\n would leave it to Dom Blessing\n to decide what to do about Quest.\n\n\n Thus she did not, as she had\n intended originally, speak to\n Quest about seeing him again\n after she had completed her assignment.\n Even if Jakdane was\n wrong and Quest was human\u2014as\n now seemed unlikely\u2014Quest\n had told her he could not love\n her. Her best course was to try\n to forget him.\n\n\n Nor did Quest try to arrange\n with her for a later meeting.\n\n\n \u201cIt has been pleasant knowing\n you, Trella,\u201d he said when they\n left the G-boat at White Sands.\n A faraway look came into his\n blue eyes, and he added: \u201cI'm\n sorry things couldn't have been\n different, somehow.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cLet's don't be sorry for what\n we can't help,\u201d she said gently,\n taking his hand in farewell.\n\n\n Trella took a fast plane from\n White Sands, and twenty-four\n hours later walked up the front\n steps of the familiar brownstone\n house on the outskirts of Washington.\n\n\n Dom Blessing himself met her\n at the door, a stooped, graying\n 58\n man who peered at her over his\n spectacles.\n\n\n \u201cYou have the papers, eh?\u201d\n he said, spying the brief case.\n \u201cGood, good. Come in and we'll\n see what we have, eh?\u201d\n\n\n She accompanied him through\n the bare, windowless anteroom\n which had always seemed to her\n such a strange feature of this\n luxurious house, and they entered\n the big living room. They sat\n before a fire in the old-fashioned\n fireplace and Blessing opened the\n brief case with trembling hands.\n\n\n \u201cThere are things here,\u201d he\n said, his eyes sparkling as he\n glanced through the notebooks.\n \u201cYes, there are things here. We\n shall make something of these,\n Miss Trella, eh?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI'm glad they're something\n you can use, Mr. Blessing,\u201d she\n said. \u201cThere's something else I\n found on my trip, that I think\n I should tell you about.\u201d\n\n\n She told him about Quest.\n\n\n \u201cHe thinks he's the son of Dr.\n Mansard,\u201d she finished, \u201cbut apparently\n he is, without knowing\n it, an android Dr. Mansard built\n on Jupiter.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cHe came back to Earth with\n you, eh?\u201d asked Blessing intently.\n\n\n \u201cYes. I'm afraid it's your decision\n whether to let him go on\n living as a man or to tell him\n he's an android and claim ownership\n as Dr. Mansard's heir.\u201d\n\n\n Trella planned to spend a few\n days resting in her employer's\n spacious home, and then to take\n a short vacation before resuming\n her duties as his confidential\n secretary. The next morning\n when she came down from her\n room, a change had been made.\n\n\n Two armed men were with\n Dom Blessing at breakfast and\n accompanied him wherever he\n went. She discovered that two\n more men with guns were stationed\n in the bare anteroom and\n a guard was stationed at every\n entrance to the house.\n\n\n \u201cWhy all the protection?\u201d she\n asked Blessing.\n\n\n \u201cA wealthy man must be careful,\u201d\n said Blessing cheerfully.\n \u201cWhen we don't understand all\n the implications of new circumstances,\n we must be prepared for\n anything, eh?\u201d\n\n\n There was only one new circumstance\n Trella could think\n of. Without actually intending\n to, she exclaimed:\n\n\n \u201cYou aren't afraid of Quest?\n Why, an android can't hurt a\n human!\u201d\n\n\n Blessing peered at her over his\n spectacles.\n\n\n \u201cAnd what if he isn't an android,\n eh? And if he is\u2014what if\n old Mansard didn't build in the\n prohibition against harming humans\n that's required by law?\n What about that, eh?\u201d\n\n\n Trella was silent, shocked.\n There was something here she\n hadn't known about, hadn't even\n suspected. For some reason, Dom\n Blessing feared Dr. Eriklund\n Mansard \u2026 or his heir \u2026 or\n his mechanical servant.\nShe was sure that Blessing\n was wrong, that Quest, whether\n man or android, intended no\n 59\n harm to him. Surely, Quest\n would have said something of\n such bitterness during their long\n time together on Ganymede and\n aspace, since he did not know of\n Trella's connection with Blessing.\n But, since this was to be\n the atmosphere of Blessing's\n house, she was glad that he decided\n to assign her to take the\n Mansard papers to the New\n York laboratory.\n\n\n Quest came the day before she\n was scheduled to leave.\n\n\n Trella was in the living room\n with Blessing, discussing the instructions\n she was to give to the\n laboratory officials in New York.\n The two bodyguards were with\n them. The other guards were at\n their posts.\n\n\n Trella heard the doorbell ring.\n The heavy oaken front door was\n kept locked now, and the guards\n in the anteroom examined callers\n through a tiny window.\n\n\n Suddenly alarm bells rang all\n over the house. There was a terrific\n crash outside the room as\n the front door splintered. There\n were shouts and the sound of a\n shot.\n\n\n \u201cThe steel doors!\u201d cried Blessing,\n turning white. \u201cLet's get\n out of here.\u201d\n\n\n He and his bodyguards ran\n through the back of the house\n out of the garage.\n\n\n Blessing, ahead of the rest,\n leaped into one of the cars and\n started the engine.\n\n\n The door from the house shattered\n and Quest burst through.\n The two guards turned and fired\n together.\n\n\n He could be hurt by bullets.\n He was staggered momentarily.\n\n\n Then, in a blur of motion, he\n sprang forward and swept the\n guards aside with one hand with\n such force that they skidded\n across the floor and lay in an\n unconscious heap against the\n rear of the garage. Trella had\n opened the door of the car, but\n it was wrenched from her hand\n as Blessing stepped on the accelerator\n and it leaped into the\n driveway with spinning wheels.\n\n\n Quest was after it, like a\n chunky deer, running faster\n than Trella had ever seen a man\n run before.\n\n\n Blessing slowed for the turn\n at the end of the driveway and\n glanced back over his shoulder.\n Seeing Quest almost upon him,\n he slammed down the accelerator\n and twisted the wheel hard.\n\n\n The car whipped into the\n street, careened, and rolled over\n and over, bringing up against a\n tree on the other side in a twisted\n tangle of wreckage.\n\n\n With a horrified gasp, Trella\n ran down the driveway toward\n the smoking heap of metal.\n Quest was already beside it,\n probing it. As she reached his\n side, he lifted the torn body of\n Dom Blessing. Blessing was\n dead.\n\n\n \u201cI'm lucky,\u201d said Quest soberly.\n \u201cI would have murdered\n him.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut why, Quest? I knew he\n was afraid of you, but he didn't\n tell me why.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt was conditioned into me,\u201d\n answered Quest \u201cI didn't know\n 60\n it until just now, when it ended,\n but my father conditioned me\n psychologically from my birth\n to the task of hunting down\n Dom Blessing and killing him. It\n was an unconscious drive in me\n that wouldn't release me until\n the task was finished.\n\n\n \u201cYou see, Blessing was my father's\n assistant on Ganymede.\n Right after my father completed\n development of the surgiscope,\n he and my mother blasted off for\n Io. Blessing wanted the valuable\n rights to the surgiscope, and he\n sabotaged the ship's drive so it\n would fall into Jupiter.\n\n\n \u201cBut my father was able to\n control it in the heavy atmosphere\n of Jupiter, and landed it\n successfully. I was born there,\n and he conditioned me to come\n to Earth and track down Blessing.\n I know now that it was\n part of the conditioning that I\n was unable to fight any other\n man until my task was finished:\n it might have gotten me in trouble\n and diverted me from that\n purpose.\u201d\n\n\n More gently than Trella would\n have believed possible for his\n Jupiter-strong muscles, Quest\n took her in his arms.\n\n\n \u201cNow I can say I love you,\u201d\n he said. \u201cThat was part of the\n conditioning too: I couldn't love\n any woman until my job was\n done.\u201d\n\n\n Trella disengaged herself.\n\n\n \u201cI'm sorry,\u201d she said. \u201cDon't\n you know this, too, now: that\n you're not a man, but an android?\u201d\n\n\n He looked at her in astonishment,\n stunned by her words.\n\n\n \u201cWhat in space makes you\n think that?\u201d he demanded.\n\n\n \u201cWhy, Quest, it's obvious,\u201d\n she cried, tears in her eyes.\n \u201cEverything about you \u2026 your\n build, suited for Jupiter's gravity \u2026\n your strength \u2026 the\n fact that you were able to live\n in Jupiter's atmosphere after\n the oxygen equipment failed.\n I know you think Dr. Mansard\n was your father, but androids\n often believe that.\u201d\n\n\n He grinned at her.\n\n\n \u201cI'm no android,\u201d he said confidently.\n \u201cDo you forget my father\n was inventor of the surgiscope?\n He knew I'd have to grow\n up on Jupiter, and he operated\n on the genes before I was born.\n He altered my inherited characteristics\n to adapt me to the climate\n of Jupiter \u2026 even to\n being able to breathe a chlorine\n atmosphere as well as an oxygen\n atmosphere.\u201d\n\n\n Trella looked at him. He was\n not badly hurt, any more than\n an elephant would have been,\n but his tunic was stained with\n red blood where the bullets had\n struck him. Normal android\n blood was green.\n\n\n \u201cHow can you be sure?\u201d she\n asked doubtfully.\n\n\n \u201cAndroids are made,\u201d he answered\n with a laugh. \u201cThey\n don't grow up. And I remember\n my boyhood on Jupiter very\n well.\u201d\n\n\n He took her in his arms again,\n and this time she did not resist.\n His lips were very human.\nTHE END",
    "27665": "Fallout is, of course, always disastrous\u2014\n \none way or another\nJUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT\nBY WILLIAM LEE\nILLUSTRATED BY SCHOENHERR\n\"What would you think,\" I asked\n Marjorie over supper, \"if I should undertake\n to lead a junior achievement\n group this summer?\"\n\n\n She pondered it while she went to\n the kitchen to bring in the dessert.\n It was dried apricot pie, and very\n tasty, I might add.\n\n\n \"Why, Donald,\" she said, \"it could\n be quite interesting, if I understand\n what a junior achievement group is.\n What gave you the idea?\"\n\n\n \"It wasn't my idea, really,\" I admitted.\n \"Mr. McCormack called me\n to the office today, and told me that\n some of the children in the lower\n grades wanted to start one. They\n need adult guidance of course, and\n one of the group suggested my name.\"\n\n\n I should explain, perhaps, that I\n teach a course in general science in\n our Ridgeville Junior High School,\n and another in general physics in the\n Senior High School. It's a privilege\n which I'm sure many educators must\n envy, teaching in Ridgeville, for our\n new school is a fine one, and our\n academic standards are high. On the\n other hand, the fathers of most of\n my students work for the Commission\n and a constant awareness of the Commission\n and its work pervades the\n town. It is an uneasy privilege then,\n at least sometimes, to teach my old-fashioned\n brand of science to these\n children of a new age.\n\n\n \"That's very nice,\" said Marjorie.\n \"What does a junior achievement\n group do?\"\n\n\n \"It has the purpose,\" I told her,\n \"of teaching the members something\n about commerce and industry. They\n manufacture simple compositions\n like polishing waxes and sell them\n from door-to-door. Some groups have\n built up tidy little bank accounts\n which are available for later educational\n expenses.\"\n\n\n \"Gracious, you wouldn't have to\n sell from door-to-door, would you?\"\n\n\n \"Of course not. I'd just tell the\n kids how to do it.\"\n\n\n Marjorie put back her head and\n laughed, and I was forced to join her,\n for we both recognize that my understanding\n and \"feel\" for commercial\n matters\u2014if I may use that expression\u2014is\n almost nonexistent.\n\n\n \"Oh, all right,\" I said, \"laugh at\n my commercial aspirations. But don't\n worry about it, really. Mr. McCormack\n said we could get Mr. Wells from\n Commercial Department to help out\n if he was needed. There is one problem,\n though. Mr. McCormack is going\n to put up fifty dollars to buy any\n raw materials wanted and he rather\n suggested that I might advance another\n fifty. The question is, could we\n do it?\"\n\n\n Marjorie did mental arithmetic.\n \"Yes,\" she said, \"yes, if it's something\n you'd like to do.\"\n\n\n We've had to watch such things\n rather closely for the last ten\u2014no,\n eleven years. Back in the old Ridgeville,\n fifty-odd miles to the south, we\n had our home almost paid for, when\n the accident occurred. It was in the\n path of the heaviest fallout, and we\n couldn't have kept on living there\n even if the town had stayed. When\n Ridgeville moved to its present site,\n so, of course, did we, which meant\n starting mortgage payments all over\n again.\nThus it was that on a Wednesday\n morning about three weeks later, I\n was sitting at one end of a plank picnic\n table with five boys and girls\n lined up along the sides. This was to\n be our headquarters and factory for\n the summer\u2014a roomy unused barn\n belonging to the parents of one of\n the group members, Tommy Miller.\n\n\n \"O.K.,\" I said, \"let's relax. You\n don't need to treat me as a teacher,\n you know. I stopped being a school\n teacher when the final grades went in\n last Friday. I'm on vacation now. My\n job here is only to advise, and I'm\n going to do that as little as possible.\n You're going to decide what to do,\n and if it's safe and legal and possible\n to do with the starting capital we\n have, I'll go along with it and help\n in any way I can. This is your meeting.\"\n\n\n Mr. McCormack had told me, and\n in some detail, about the youngsters\n I'd be dealing with. The three who\n were sitting to my left were the ones\n who had proposed the group in the\n first place.\n\n\n Doris Enright was a grave young\n lady of ten years, who might, I\n thought, be quite a beauty in a few\n more years, but was at the moment\n rather angular\u2014all shoulders and elbows.\n Peter Cope, Jr. and Hilary Matlack\n were skinny kids, too. The three\n were of an age and were all tall for\n ten-year-olds.\n\n\n I had the impression during that\n first meeting that they looked rather\n alike, but this wasn't so. Their features\n were quite different. Perhaps\n from association, for they were close\n friends, they had just come to have\n a certain similarity of restrained gesture\n and of modulated voice. And\n they were all tanned by sun and wind\n to a degree that made their eyes seem\n light and their teeth startlingly white.\n\n\n The two on my right were cast in\n a different mold. Mary McCready\n was a big husky redhead of twelve,\n with a face full of freckles and an\n infectious laugh, and Tommy Miller,\n a few months younger, was just an\n average, extroverted, well adjusted\n youngster, noisy and restless, tee-shirted\n and butch-barbered.\n\n\n The group exchanged looks to see\n who would lead off, and Peter Cope\n seemed to be elected.\n\n\n \"Well, Mr. Henderson, a junior\n achievement group is a bunch of kids\n who get together to manufacture and\n sell things, and maybe make some\n money.\"\n\n\n \"Is that what you want to do,\" I\n asked, \"make money?\"\n\n\n \"Why not?\" Tommy asked.\n \"There's something wrong with making\n money?\"\n\n\n \"Well, sure, I suppose we want to,\"\n said Hilary. \"We'll need some money\n to do the things we want to do later.\"\n\n\n \"And what sort of things would\n you like to make and sell?\" I asked.\n\n\n The usual products, of course, with\n these junior achievement efforts, are\n chemical specialties that can be made\n safely and that people will buy and\n use without misgivings\u2014solvent to\n free up rusty bolts, cleaner to remove\n road tar, mechanic's hand soap\u2014that\n sort of thing. Mr. McCormack had\n told me, though, that I might find\n these youngsters a bit more ambitious.\n \"The Miller boy and Mary McCready,\"\n he had said, \"have exceptionally\n high IQ's\u2014around one forty\n or one fifty. The other three are hard\n to classify. They have some of the\n attributes of exceptional pupils, but\n much of the time they seem to have\n little interest in their studies. The\n junior achievement idea has sparked\n their imaginations. Maybe it'll be just\n what they need.\"\n\n\n Mary said, \"Why don't we make a\n freckle remover? I'd be our first customer.\"\n\"The thing to do,\" Tommy offered,\n \"is to figure out what people in\n Ridgeville want to buy, then sell it\n to them.\"\n\n\n \"I'd like to make something by\n powder metallurgy techniques,\" said\n Pete. He fixed me with a challenging\n eye. \"You should be able to make\n ball bearings by molding, then densify\n them by electroplating.\"\n\n\n \"And all we'd need is a hydraulic\n press,\" I told him, \"which, on a guess,\n might cost ten thousand dollars. Let's\n think of something easier.\"\n\n\n Pete mulled it over and nodded\n reluctantly. \"Then maybe something\n in the electronics field. A hi-fi sub-assembly\n of some kind.\"\n\n\n \"How about a new detergent?\" Hilary\n put in.\n\n\n \"Like the liquid dishwashing detergents?\"\n I asked.\n\n\n He was scornful. \"No, they're formulations\u2014you\n know, mixtures.\n That's cookbook chemistry. I mean a\n brand new synthetic detergent. I've\n got an idea for one that ought to be\n good even in the hard water we've\n got around here.\"\n\n\n \"Well, now,\" I said, \"organic synthesis\n sounds like another operation\n calling for capital investment. If we\n should keep the achievement group\n going for several summers, it might\n be possible later on to carry out a\n safe synthesis of some sort. You're\n Dr. Matlack's son, aren't you? Been\n dipping into your father's library?\"\n\n\n \"Some,\" said Hilary, \"and I've got\n a home laboratory.\"\n\n\n \"How about you, Doris?\" I prompted.\n \"Do you have a special field of interest?\"\n\n\n \"No.\" She shook her head in mock\n despondency. \"I'm not very technical.\n Just sort of miscellaneous. But if the\n group wanted to raise some mice, I'd\n be willing to turn over a project I've\n had going at home.\"\n\n\n \"You could sell mice?\" Tommy demanded\n incredulously.\n\n\n \"Mice,\" I echoed, then sat back and\n thought about it. \"Are they a pure\n strain? One of the recognized laboratory\n strains? Healthy mice of the\n right strain,\" I explained to Tommy,\n \"might be sold to laboratories. I have\n an idea the Commission buys a supply\n every month.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" said Doris, \"these aren't laboratory\n mice. They're fancy ones. I\n got the first four pairs from a pet\n shop in Denver, but they're red\u2014sort\n of chipmunk color, you know. I've\n carried them through seventeen generations\n of careful selection.\"\n\n\n \"Well, now,\" I admitted, \"the market\n for red mice might be rather limited.\n Why don't you consider making\n an after-shave lotion? Denatured alcohol,\n glycerine, water, a little color\n and perfume. You could buy some\n bottles and have some labels printed.\n You'd be in business before you\n knew it.\"\n\n\n There was a pause, then Tommy\n inquired, \"How do you sell it?\"\n\n\n \"Door-to-door.\"\n\n\n He made a face. \"Never build up\n any volume. Unless it did something\n extra. You say we'd put color in it.\n How about enough color to leave\n your face looking tanned. Men won't\n use cosmetics and junk, but if they\n didn't have to admit it, they might\n like the shave lotion.\"\n\n\n Hilary had been deep in thought.\n He said suddenly, \"Gosh, I think I\n know how to make a\u2014what do you\n want to call it\u2014a before-shave lotion.\"\n\n\n \"What would that be?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"You'd use it before you shaved.\"\n\n\n \"I suppose there might be people\n who'd prefer to use it beforehand,\"\n I conceded.\n\n\n \"There will be people,\" he said\n darkly, and subsided.\n\n\n Mrs. Miller came out to the barn\n after a while, bringing a bucket of\n soft drinks and ice, a couple of loaves\n of bread and ingredients for a variety\n of sandwiches. The parents had\n agreed to underwrite lunches at the\n barn and Betty Miller philosophically\n assumed the role of commissary\n officer. She paused only to say hello\n and to ask how we were progressing\n with our organization meeting.\n\n\n I'd forgotten all about organization,\n and that, according to all the\n articles I had perused, is most important\n to such groups. It's standard practice\n for every member of the group\n to be a company officer. Of course a\n young boy who doesn't know any better,\n may wind up a sales manager.\n\n\n Over the sandwiches, then, I suggested\n nominating company officers,\n but they seemed not to be interested.\n Peter Cope waved it off by remarking\n that they'd each do what came\n naturally. On the other hand, they\n pondered at some length about a\n name for the organization, without\n reaching any conclusions, so we returned\n to the problem of what to\n make.\n\n\n It was Mary, finally, who advanced\n the thought of kites. At first there\n was little enthusiasm, then Peter said,\n \"You know, we could work up something\n new. Has anybody ever seen a\n kite made like a wind sock?\"\n\n\n Nobody had. Pete drew figures in\n the air with his hands. \"How about\n the hole at the small end?\"\n\n\n \"I'll make one tonight,\" said Doris,\n \"and think about the small end.\n It'll work out all right.\"\n\n\n I wished that the youngsters weren't\n starting out by inventing a new\n article to manufacture, and risking an\n almost certain disappointment, but to\n hold my guidance to the minimum, I\n said nothing, knowing that later I\n could help them redesign it along\n standard lines.\nAt supper I reviewed the day's\n happenings with Marjorie and tried\n to recall all of the ideas which had\n been propounded. Most of them were\n impractical, of course, for a group of\n children to attempt, but several of\n them appeared quite attractive.\n\n\n Tommy, for example, wanted to\n put tooth powder into tablets that\n one would chew before brushing the\n teeth. He thought there should be\n two colors in the same bottle\u2014orange\n for morning and blue for night,\n the blue ones designed to leave the\n mouth alkaline at bed time.\n\n\n Pete wanted to make a combination\n nail and wood screw. You'd\n drive it in with a hammer up to the\n threaded part, then send it home with\n a few turns of a screwdriver.\n\n\n Hilary, reluctantly forsaking his\n ideas on detergents, suggested we\n make black plastic discs, like poker\n chips but thinner and as cheap as\n possible, to scatter on a snowy sidewalk\n where they would pick up extra\n heat from the sun and melt the\n snow more rapidly. Afterward one\n would sweep up and collect the discs.\n\n\n Doris added to this that if you\n could make the discs light enough to\n float, they might be colored white\n and spread on the surface of a reservoir\n to reduce evaporation.\n\n\n These latter ideas had made unknowing\n use of some basic physics,\n and I'm afraid I relapsed for a few\n minutes into the role of teacher and\n told them a little bit about the laws\n of radiation and absorption of heat.\n\n\n \"My,\" said Marjorie, \"they're really\n smart boys and girls. Tommy Miller\n does sound like a born salesman.\n Somehow I don't think you're going\n to have to call in Mr. Wells.\"\n\n\n I do feel just a little embarrassed\n about the kite, even now. The fact\n that it flew surprised me. That it flew\n so confoundedly well was humiliating.\n Four of them were at the barn\n when I arrived next morning; or\n rather on the rise of ground just beyond\n it, and the kite hung motionless\n and almost out of sight in the pale\n sky. I stood and watched for a moment,\n then they saw me.\n\n\n \"Hello, Mr. Henderson,\" Mary said,\n and proffered the cord which was\n wound on a fishing reel. I played the\n kite up and down for a few minutes,\n then reeled it in. It was, almost exactly,\n a wind sock, but the hole at the\n small end was shaped\u2014by wire\u2014into\n the general form of a kidney bean.\n It was beautifully made, and had a\n sort of professional look about it.\n\n\n \"It flies too well,\" Mary told Doris.\n \"A kite ought to get caught in a tree\n sometimes.\"\n\n\n \"You're right,\" Doris agreed. \"Let's\n see it.\" She gave the wire at the small\n end the slightest of twists. \"There, it\n ought to swoop.\"\n\n\n Sure enough, in the moderate\n breeze of that morning, the kite\n swooped and yawed to Mary's entire\n satisfaction. As we trailed back to the\n barn I asked Doris, \"How did you\n know that flattening the lower edge\n of the hole would create instability?\"\n She looked doubtful.\n\n\n \"Why it would have to, wouldn't\n it? It changed the pattern of air pressures.\"\n She glanced at me quickly.\n \"Of course, I tried a lot of different\n shapes while I was making it.\"\n\n\n \"Naturally,\" I said, and let it go at\n that. \"Where's Tommy?\"\n\n\n \"He stopped off at the bank,\" Pete\n Cope told me, \"to borrow some money.\n We'll want to buy materials to\n make some of these kites.\"\n\n\n \"But I said yesterday that Mr. McCormack\n and I were going to advance\n some cash to get started.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, sure, but don't you think it\n would be better to borrow from a\n bank? More businesslike?\"\n\n\n \"Doubtless,\" I said, \"but banks generally\n want some security.\" I would\n have gone on and explained matters\n further, except that Tommy walked\n in and handed me a pocket check\n book.\n\n\n \"I got two hundred and fifty,\" he\n volunteered\u2014not without a hint of\n complacency in his voice. \"It didn't\n take long, but they sure made it out\n a big deal. Half the guys in the bank\n had to be called in to listen to the\n proposition. The account's in your\n name, Mr. Henderson, and you'll have\n to make out the checks. And they\n want you to stop in at the bank and\n give them a specimen signature. Oh,\n yes, and cosign the note.\"\n\n\n My heart sank. I'd never had any\n dealings with banks except in the\n matter of mortgages, and bank people\n make me most uneasy. To say\n nothing of finding myself responsible\n for a two-hundred-and-fifty-dollar\n note\u2014over two weeks salary. I made\n a mental vow to sign very few checks.\n\n\n \"So then I stopped by at Apex\n Stationers,\" Tommy went on, \"and ordered\n some paper and envelopes. We\n hadn't picked a name yesterday, but I\n figured what's to lose, and picked one.\n Ridge Industries, how's that?\" Everybody\n nodded.\n\n\n \"Just three lines on the letterhead,\"\n he explained. \"Ridge Industries\u2014Ridgeville\u2014Montana.\"\n\n\n I got my voice back and said, \"Engraved,\n I trust.\"\n\n\n \"Well, sure,\" he replied. \"You can't\n afford to look chintzy.\"\nMy appetite was not at its best\n that evening, and Marjorie recognized\n that something was concerning\n me, but she asked no questions, and\n I only told her about the success of\n the kite, and the youngsters embarking\n on a shopping trip for paper, glue\n and wood splints. There was no use\n in both of us worrying.\n\n\n On Friday we all got down to work,\n and presently had a regular production\n line under way; stapling the\n wood splints, then wetting them with\n a resin solution and shaping them\n over a mandrel to stiffen, cutting the\n plastic film around a pattern, assembling\n and hanging the finished kites\n from an overhead beam until the cement\n had set. Pete Cope had located\n a big roll of red plastic film from\n somewhere, and it made a wonderful-looking\n kite. Happily, I didn't know\n what the film cost until the first kites\n were sold.\n\n\n By Wednesday of the following\n week we had almost three hundred\n kites finished and packed into flat\n cardboard boxes, and frankly I didn't\n care if I never saw another. Tommy,\n who by mutual consent, was our\n authority on sales, didn't want to sell\n any until we had, as he put it, enough\n to meet the demand, but this quantity\n seemed to satisfy him. He said he\n would sell them the next week and\n Mary McCready, with a fine burst of\n confidence, asked him in all seriousness\n to be sure to hold out a dozen.\n\n\n Three other things occurred that\n day, two of which I knew about immediately.\n Mary brought a portable\n typewriter from home and spent part\n of the afternoon banging away at\n what seemed to me, since I use two\n fingers only, a very creditable speed.\n\n\n And Hilary brought in a bottle of\n his new detergent. It was a syrupy\n yellow liquid with a nice collar of\n suds. He'd been busy in his home\n laboratory after all, it seemed.\n\n\n \"What is it?\" I asked. \"You never\n told us.\"\n\n\n Hilary grinned. \"Lauryl benzyl\n phosphonic acid, dipotassium salt, in\n 20% solution.\"\n\n\n \"Goodness.\" I protested, \"it's been\n twenty-five years since my last course\n in chemistry. Perhaps if I saw the\n formula\u2014.\"\n\n\n He gave me a singularly adult\n smile and jotted down a scrawl of\n symbols and lines. It meant little to\n me.\n\n\n \"Is it good?\"\n\n\n For answer he seized the ice bucket,\n now empty of its soda bottles,\n trickled in a few drops from the bottle\n and swished the contents. Foam\n mounted to the rim and spilled over.\n \"And that's our best grade of Ridgeville\n water,\" he pointed out. \"Hardest\n in the country.\"\n\n\n The third event of Wednesday\n came to my ears on Thursday morning.\n\n\n I was a little late arriving at the\n barn, and was taken a bit aback to\n find the roadway leading to it rather\n full of parked automobiles, and the\n barn itself rather full of people, including\n two policemen. Our Ridgeville\n police are quite young men, but\n in uniform they still look ominous\n and I was relieved to see that they\n were laughing and evidently enjoying\n themselves.\n\n\n \"Well, now,\" I demanded, in my\n best classroom voice. \"What is all\n this?\"\n\n\n \"Are you Henderson?\" the larger\n policeman asked.\n\n\n \"I am indeed,\" I said, and a flash\n bulb went off. A young lady grasped\n my arm.\n\n\n \"Oh, please, Mr. Henderson, come\n outside where it's quieter and tell me\n all about it.\"\n\n\n \"Perhaps,\" I countered, \"somebody\n should tell me.\"\n\n\n \"You mean you don't know, honestly?\n Oh, it's fabulous. Best story I've\n had for ages. It'll make the city papers.\"\n She led me around the corner\n of the barn to a spot of comparative\n quiet.\n\n\n \"You didn't know that one of your\n junior whatsisnames poured detergent\n in the Memorial Fountain basin\n last night?\"\n\n\n I shook my head numbly.\n\n\n \"It was priceless. Just before rush\n hour. Suds built up in the basin and\n overflowed, and down the library\n steps and covered the whole street.\n And the funniest part was they kept\n right on coming. You couldn't imagine\n so much suds coming from that\n little pool of water. There was a\n three-block traffic jam and Harry got\n us some marvelous pictures\u2014men\n rolling up their trousers to wade\n across the street. And this morning,\"\n she chortled, \"somebody phoned in\n an anonymous tip to the police\u2014of\n course it was the same boy that did\n it\u2014Tommy\u2014Miller?\u2014and so here\n we are. And we just saw a demonstration\n of that fabulous kite and saw\n all those simply captivating mice.\"\n\n\n \"Mice?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, of course. Who would ever\n have thought you could breed mice\n with those cute furry tails?\"\nWell, after a while things quieted\n down. They had to. The police left\n after sobering up long enough to\n give me a serious warning against\n letting such a thing happen again.\n Mr. Miller, who had come home to\n see what all the excitement was, went\n back to work and Mrs. Miller went\n back to the house and the reporter\n and photographer drifted off to file\n their story, or whatever it is they do.\n Tommy was jubilant.\n\n\n \"Did you hear what she said? It'll\n make the city papers. I wish we had\n a thousand kites. Ten thousand. Oh\n boy, selling is fun. Hilary, when can\n you make some more of that stuff?\n And Doris, how many mice do you\n have?\"\n\n\n Those mice! I have always kept\n my enthusiasm for rodents within\n bounds, but I must admit they were\n charming little beasts, with tails as\n bushy as miniature squirrels.\n\n\n \"How many generations?\" I asked\n Doris.\n\n\n \"Seventeen. No, eighteen, now.\n Want to see the genetic charts?\"\n\n\n I won't try to explain it as she did\n to me, but it was quite evident that\n the new mice were breeding true.\n Presently we asked Betty Miller to\n come back down to the barn for a\n conference. She listened and asked\n questions. At last she said, \"Well, all\n right, if you promise me they can't\n get out of their cages. But heaven\n knows what you'll do when fall\n comes. They won't live in an unheated\n barn and you can't bring them\n into the house.\"\n\n\n \"We'll be out of the mouse business\n by then,\" Doris predicted. \"Every pet\n shop in the country will have\n them and they'll be down to nothing\n apiece.\"\n\n\n Doris was right, of course, in spite\n of our efforts to protect the market.\n Anyhow that ushered in our cage\n building phase, and for the next\n week\u2014with a few interruptions\u2014we\n built cages, hundreds of them, a good\n many for breeding, but mostly for\n shipping.\n\n\n It was rather regrettable that, after\n the\nCourier\ngave us most of the third\n page, including photographs, we rarely\n had a day without a few visitors.\n Many of them wanted to buy mice or\n kites, but Tommy refused to sell any\n mice at retail and we soon had to disappoint\n those who wanted kites. The\n Supermarket took all we had\u2014except\n a dozen\u2014and at a dollar fifty\n each. Tommy's ideas of pricing rather\n frightened me, but he set the value\n of the mice at ten dollars a pair\n and got it without any arguments.\n\n\n Our beautiful stationery arrived,\n and we had some invoice forms printed\n up in a hurry\u2014not engraved, for\n a wonder.\n\n\n It was on Tuesday\u2014following the\n Thursday\u2014that a lanky young man\n disentangled himself from his car\n and strolled into the barn. I looked\n up from the floor where I was tacking\n squares of screening onto wooden\n frames.\n\n\n \"Hi,\" he said. \"You're Donald\n Henderson, right? My name is McCord\u2014Jeff\n McCord\u2014and I work in\n the Patent Section at the Commission's\n downtown office. My boss sent\n me over here, but if he hadn't, I\n think I'd have come anyway. What\n are you doing to get patent protection\n on Ridge Industries' new developments?\"\n\n\n I got my back unkinked and dusted\n off my knees. \"Well, now,\" I said,\n \"I've been wondering whether something\n shouldn't be done, but I know\n very little about such matters\u2014.\"\n\n\n \"Exactly,\" he broke in, \"we guessed\n that might be the case, and there are\n three patent men in our office who'd\n like to chip in and contribute some\n time. Partly for the kicks and partly\n because we think you may have some\n things worth protecting. How about\n it? You worry about the filing and\n final fees. That's sixty bucks per\n brainstorm. We'll worry about everything\n else.\"\n\n\n \"What's to lose,\" Tommy interjected.\n\n\n And so we acquired a patent attorney,\n several of them, in fact.\n\n\n The day that our application on\n the kite design went to Washington,\n Mary wrote a dozen toy manufacturers\n scattered from New York to Los\n Angeles, sent a kite to each one and\n offered to license the design. Result,\n one licensee with a thousand dollar\n advance against next season's royalties.\nIt was a rainy morning about three\n weeks later that I arrived at the barn.\n Jeff McCord was there, and the whole\n team except Tommy. Jeff lowered his\n feet from the picnic table and said,\n \"Hi.\"\n\n\n \"Hi yourself,\" I told him. \"You\n look pleased.\"\n\n\n \"I am,\" he replied, \"in a cautious\n legal sense, of course. Hilary and I\n were just going over the situation on\n his phosphonate detergent. I've spent\n the last three nights studying the patent\n literature and a few standard\n texts touching on phosphonates.\n There are a zillion patents on synthetic\n detergents and a good round\n fifty on phosphonates, but it looks\"\u2014he\n held up a long admonitory hand\u2014\"it\n just looks as though we had a clear\n spot. If we do get protection, you've\n got a real salable property.\"\n\n\n \"That's fine, Mr. McCord,\" Hilary\n said, \"but it's not very important.\"\n\n\n \"No?\" Jeff tilted an inquiring eyebrow\n at me, and I handed him a small\n bottle. He opened and sniffed at it\n gingerly. \"What gives?\"\n\n\n \"Before-shave lotion,\" Hilary told\n him. \"You've shaved this morning,\n but try some anyway.\"\n\n\n Jeff looked momentarily dubious,\n then puddled some in his palm and\n moistened his jaw line. \"Smells\n good,\" he noted, \"and feels nice and\n cool. Now what?\"\n\n\n \"Wipe your face.\" Jeff located a\n handkerchief and wiped, looked at\n the cloth, wiped again, and stared.\n\n\n \"What is it?\"\n\n\n \"A whisker stiffener. It makes each\n hair brittle enough to break off right\n at the surface of your skin.\"\n\n\n \"So I perceive. What is it?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, just a mixture of stuff. Cookbook\n chemistry. Cysteine thiolactone\n and a fat-soluble magnesium compound.\"\n\n\n \"I see. Just a mixture of stuff. And\n do your whiskers grow back the next\n day?\"\n\n\n \"Right on schedule,\" I said.\n\n\n McCord unfolded his length and\n stood staring out into the rain. Presently\n he said, \"Henderson, Hilary\n and I are heading for my office. We\n can work there better than here, and\n if we're going to break the hearts of\n the razor industry, there's no better\n time to start than now.\"\n\n\n When they had driven off I turned\n and said, \"Let's talk a while. We can\n always clean mouse cages later.\n Where's Tommy?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, he stopped at the bank to get\n a loan.\"\n\n\n \"What on earth for? We have over\n six thousand in the account.\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" Peter said, looking a little\n embarrassed, \"we were planning to\n buy a hydraulic press. You see, Doris\n put some embroidery on that scheme\n of mine for making ball bearings.\"\n He grabbed a sheet of paper. \"Look,\n we make a roller bearing, this shape\n only it's a permanent magnet. Then\n you see\u2014.\" And he was off.\n\n\n \"What did they do today, dear?\"\n Marge asked as she refilled my coffee\n cup.\n\n\n \"Thanks,\" I said. \"Let's see, it was\n a big day. We picked out a hydraulic\n press, Doris read us the first chapter\n of the book she's starting, and we\n found a place over a garage on\n Fourth Street that we can rent for\n winter quarters. Oh, yes, and Jeff is\n starting action to get the company\n incorporated.\"\n\n\n \"Winter quarters,\" Marge repeated.\n \"You mean you're going to try to\n keep the group going after school\n starts?\"\n\n\n \"Why not? The kids can sail\n through their courses without thinking\n about them, and actually they\n won't put in more than a few hours\n a week during the school year.\"\n\n\n \"Even so, it's child labor, isn't it?\"\n\n\n \"Child labor nothing. They're the\n employers. Jeff McCord and I will\n be the only employees\u2014just at first,\n anyway.\"\n\n\n Marge choked on something. \"Did\n you say you'd be an employee?\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" I told her. \"They've offered\n me a small share of the company,\n and I'd be crazy to turn it down. After\n all, what's to lose?\"\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAnalog Science Fact & Fiction\nJuly 1962.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "51597": "GOURMET\nBy ALLEN KIM LANG\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Magazine April 1962.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThis was the endless problem of all\n \nspaceship cooks: He had to feed the men\n \ntomorrow on what they had eaten today!\nUnable to get out to the ballgame and a long way off from the girls,\n men on ships think about, talk about, bitch about their food. It's\n true that Woman remains a topic of thoughtful study, but discussion\n can never replace practice in an art. Food, on the other hand, is a\n challenge shipmen face three times a day, so central to their thoughts\n that a history of sea-faring can be read from a commissary list.\n\n\n In the days when salt-sea sailors were charting islands and spearing\n seals, for example, the fo'c's'le hands called themselves Lobscousers,\n celebrating the liquid hash then prominent in the marine menu. The\n Limey sailor got the name of the anti-scorbutic citrus squeezed into\n his diet, a fruit known to us mariners of a more sophisticated age\n only as garnish for our groundside gin-and-tonic. And today we Marsmen\n are called Slimeheads, honoring in our title the\nChlorella\nand\nScenedesmus\nalgae that, by filling up the spaces within, open the\n road to the larger Space without.\n\n\n Should any groundsman dispute the importance of belly-furniture in\n history\u2014whether it be exterminating whales, or introducing syphilis\n to the Fiji Islanders, or settling the Australian littoral with\n cross-coves from Middlesex and Hampshire\u2014he is referred to the\n hundred-and-first chapter of\nMoby Dick\n, a book spooled in the\n amusement tanks of all but the smallest spacers. I trust, however, that\n no Marsman will undertake to review this inventory of refreshment more\n than a week from groundfall. A catalogue of sides of beef and heads of\n Leyden cheese and ankers of good Geneva would prove heavy reading for a\n man condemned to snack on the Chlorella-spawn of cis-Martian space.\n\n\n The\nPequod's\ncrew ate wormy biscuit and salt beef. Nimitz's men won\n their war on canned pork and beans. The\nTriton\nmade her underwater\n periplus of Earth with a galley stocked with frozen pizza and\n concentrated apple-juice. But then, when sailors left the seas for the\n skies, a decline set in.\n\n\n The first amenity of groundside existence to be abandoned was decent\n food. The earliest men into the vacuum swallowed protein squeezings\n from aluminum tubes, and were glad enough to drop back to the\n groundsman's diet of steak and fried potatoes.\nLong before I was a boy in Med School, itching to look at black sky\n through a view-port, galley science had fulfilled the disgusting\n exordium of\nIsaiah\n36:12, to feed the Slimeheads for breakfast today\n what was day-before-yesterday's table-scraps and jakes-water.\n\n\n The Ship's Cook, the man who accomplishes the daily miracle of turning\n offal into eatables, is in many ways the most vital man aboard a\n spacer. He can make morale or foment a mutiny. His power is paramount.\n Slimeheads remember the H. M. S.\nAjax\nfiasco, for example, in which a\n galleyman leveled his Chlorella tanks with heavy water from the ship's\n shielding. Four officers and twenty-one Other Ranks were rescued from\n the\nAjax\nin deep space, half dead from deuterium poisoning. We think\n of the\nBenjo Maru\nincident, too, caused by a Ship's Cook who allowed\n his algaeal staff-of-life to become contaminated with a fast-growing\nSaccharomycodes\nyeast. The Japanese vessel staggered to her pad at\n Piano West after a twenty-week drunk: the alien yeast had got into\n the stomach of every man aboard, where it fermented each subsequent\n bite he ate to a superior grade of\nsake\n. And for a third footnote to\n the ancient observation, \"God sends food, and the Devil sends cooks,\"\n Marsmen will recall what happened aboard my ship the\nCharles Partlow\n Sale\n.\n\n\n The\nSale\nblasted off from Brady Station in the middle of August, due\n in at Piano West in early May. In no special hurry, we were taking\n the low-energy route to Mars, a pathway about as long in time as the\n human period of gestation. Our cargo consisted mostly of Tien-Shen fir\n seedlings and some tons of an arctic grass-seed\u2014these to be planted\n in the\nmaria\nto squeeze out the native blue bugberry vines. We had\n aboard the Registry minimum of six men and three officers. Ship's\n Surgeon was myself, Paul Vilanova. Our Captain was Willy Winkelmann,\n the hardest man in space and very likely the fattest. Ship's Cook was\n Robert Bailey.\n\n\n Cooking aboard a spacer is a job combining the more frustrating\n tensions of biochemistry, applied mycology, high-speed farming,\n dietetics and sewage engineering. It's the Cook's responsibility to\n see that each man aboard gets each day no less than five pounds of\n water, two pounds of oxygen, and one-and-a-half pounds of dry food.\n This isn't just a paragraph from the Spacer Union Contract. It's a\n statement of the least fuel a man can run on.\n\n\n Twelve tons of water, oxygen, and food would have filled the cargo\n compartments to bursting, and left a small ship like the\nC. P. Sale\nno reason to reach for Mars. By allowing a colony of Chlorella algae to\n work over our used air, water and other effluvia, though, three tons\n of metabolites would see us through from Brady Station to Piano West\n and back. Recycling was the answer. The molecule of carbohydrate, fat,\n protein or mineral that didn't feed the crew fed the algae. And the\n algae fed us.\n\n\n All waste was used to fertilize our liquid fields. Even the stubble\n from our 2,680 shaves and the clippings from our 666 haircuts en route\n and back would be fed into the Chlorella tanks. Human hair is rich in\n essential amino acids.\n\n\n The algae\u2014dried by the Cook, bleached with methyl alcohol to kill the\n smell and make the residue more digestible, disguised and seasoned in a\n hundred ways\u2014served as a sort of meat-and-potatoes that never quite\n wore out. Our air and water were equally immortal. Each molecule of\n oxygen would be conversant with the alveoli of every man aboard by the\n end of our trip. Every drop of water would have been intimate with the\n glomeruli of each kidney on the ship before we grounded in. Groundling\n politicians are right enough when they say that we spacers are a\n breed apart. We're the one race of men who can't afford the luxury of\n squeamishness.\nThough I'm signed aboard as Ship's Surgeon, I seldom lift a knife\n in space. My employment is more in the nature of TS-card-puncher\n extraordinary. My duties are to serve as wailing-wall, morale officer,\n guardian of the medicinal whiskey and frustrator of mutual murder.\n Generally the man aboard who'd serve as the most popular murder-victim\n is the Cook. This trip, the-man-you-love-to-hate was our Captain.\n\n\n If the Cook hadn't problems enough with the chemical and psychic duties\n of his office, Winkelmann supplied the want. Captain Willy Winkelmann\n was the sort of man who, if he had to go into space at all, had best do\n so alone. If the Prussians had a Marine Corps, Winkelmann would have\n done splendidly as Drill Instructor for their boot camp. His heart\n was a chip of helium ice, his voice dripped sarcastic acid. The planet\n Earth was hardly large enough to accommodate a wart as annoying as\n Willy Winkelmann. Cheek-by-jowl every day in a nacelle the size of a\n Pullman car, our Captain quickly established himself as a major social\n hemorrhoid.\n\n\n The Captain's particular patsy was, of course, young Bailey the Cook.\n It was Winkelmann who saw humorous possibilities in the entry, \"Bailey,\n Robert,\" on Ship's Articles. He at once renamed our unfortunate\n shipmate \"Belly-Robber.\" It was Winkelmann who discussed\nhaut\n cuisine\nand the properties of the nobler wines while we munched our\n algaeburgers and sipped coffee that tasted of utility water. And it was\n Captain Willy Winkelmann who never referred to the ship's head by any\n other name than The Kitchen Cabinet.\n\n\n Bailey tried to feed us by groundside standards. He hid the taste\n of synthetic methionine\u2014an essential amino acid not synthesized by\n Chlorella\u2014by seasoning our algaeal repasts with pinches of oregano\n and thyme. He tinted the pale-green dollops of pressed Chlorella pink,\n textured the mass to the consistency of hamburger and toasted the\n slabs to a delicate brown in a forlorn attempt to make mock-meat.\n For dessert, he served a fudge compounded from the dextrose-paste of\n the carbohydrate recycler. The crew thanked him. The Captain did not.\n \"Belly-Robber,\" he said, his tone icy as winter wind off the North Sea,\n \"you had best cycle this mess through the tanks again. There is a pun\n in my home country:\nMensch ist was er isst.\nIt means, you are what\n you eat. I think you are impertinent to suggest I should become this\nSchweinerei\nyou are feeding me.\" Captain Winkelmann blotted his chin\n with his napkin, heaved his bulk up from the table, and climbed up the\n ladder from the dining-cubby.\n\"Doc, do you like Winkelmann?\" the Cook asked me.\n\n\n \"Not much,\" I said. \"I suspect that the finest gift our Captain can\n give his mother is to be absent from her on Mother's Day. But we've got\n to live with him. He's a good man at driving a ship.\"\n\n\n \"I wish he'd leave off driving this Cook,\" Bailey said. \"The fat swine!\"\n\n\n \"His plumpness is an unwitting tribute to your cooking, Bailey,\" I\n said. \"He eats well. We all do. I've dined aboard a lot of spacers in\n my time, and I'll testify that you set a table second to none.\"\n\n\n Bailey took a handful of dried Chlorella from a bin and fingered it. It\n was green, smelled of swamp, and looked appetizing as a bedsore. \"This\n is what I have to work with,\" he said. He tossed the stuff back into\n its bin. \"In Ohio, which is my home country, in the presence of ladies,\n we'd call such garbage Horse-Leavings.\"\n\n\n \"You'll never make Winkelmann happy,\" I said. \"Even the simultaneous\n death of all other human beings could hardly make him smile. Keep up\n the good work, though, and you'll keep our Captain fat.\"\n\n\n Bailey nodded from his one-man cloud of gloom. I got a bottle of rye\n from Medical Stores and offered him a therapeutic draught. The Cook\n waved my gift aside. \"Not now, Doc,\" he said. \"I'm thinking about\n tomorrow's menu.\"\n\n\n The product of Bailey's cerebrations was on the mess table at noon the\n next day. We were each served an individual head of lettuce, dressed\n with something very like vinegar and oil, spiced with tiny leaves of\n burnet. How Bailey had constructed those synthetic lettuces I can only\n guess: the hours spent preparing a green Chlorella paste, rolling and\n drying and shaping each artificial leaf, the fitting together of nine\n heads like crisp, three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles. The\npi\u00e8ce de\n r\u00e9sistance\nwas again a \"hamburger steak;\" but this time the algaeal\n mass that made it up was buried in a rich, meaty gravy that was only\n faintly green. The essence-of-steak used in these Chlorella cutlets had\n been sprinkled with a lavish hand. Garlic was richly in evidence. \"It's\n so tender,\" the radioman joked, \"that I can hardly believe it's really\n steak.\"\n\n\n Bailey stared across the dining-cubby toward Winkelmann, silently\n imploring the Captain's ratification of his masterpiece. The big\n man's pink cheeks bulged and jumped with his chewing. He swallowed.\n \"Belly-Robber,\" Winkelmann said, \"I had almost rather you served me\n this pond-scum raw than have it all mucked-up with synthetic onions and\n cycler-salt.\"\n\"You seem able enough to choke down Bailey's chow, Captain,\" I said. I\n gazed at Winkelmann's form, bulbous from a lifetime of surfeit feeding.\n\n\n \"Yes, I eat it,\" the Captain said, taking and talking through another\n bite. \"But I eat only as a man in the desert will eat worms and\n grasshoppers, to stay alive.\"\n\n\n \"Sir, what in heaven's name do you expect from me?\" Bailey pleaded.\n\n\n \"Only good food,\" Winkelmann mumbled through his mouthful of disguised\n algae. He tapped his head with a finger. \"This\u2014the brain that guides\n the ship\u2014cannot be coaxed to work on hog-slop. You understand me,\n Belly-Robber?\"\n\n\n Bailey, his hands fisted at his sides, nodded. \"Yes, sir. But I really\n don't know what I can do to please you.\"\n\n\n \"You are a spacer and a Ship's Cook, not a suburban\nHausfrau\nwith the\n vapors,\" Winkelmann said. \"I do not expect from you hysterics, tantrums\n or weeping. Only\u2014can you understand this, so simple?\u2014food that will\n keep my belly content and my brain alive.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir,\" Bailey said, his face a picture of that offense the British\n term Dumb Insolence.\n\n\n Winkelmann got up and climbed the ladder to the pilot-cubicle. I\n followed him. \"Captain,\" I said, \"you're driving Bailey too hard.\n You're asking him to make bricks without straw.\"\n\n\n Winkelmann regarded me with his pale-blue stare. \"You think, Doctor,\n that my cruelty to the Belly-Robber is the biliousness of a middle-aged\n man?\"\n\n\n \"Frankly, I can't understand your attitude at all,\" I said.\n\n\n \"You accuse me of driving a man to make bricks without straw,\"\n Winkelmann said. \"Very well, Doctor. It is my belief that if the\n Pharaoh's taskmaster had had my firmness of purpose, the Children of\n Israel would have made bricks with stubble. Necessity, Doctor, is the\n mother of invention. I am Bailey's necessity. My unkindnesses make him\n uncomfortable, I doubt that not. But I am forcing him to experiment,\n to improvise, to widen the horizons of his ingenuity. He will learn\n somehow to bring good food from Chlorella tanks.\"\n\n\n \"You're driving him too hard, Sir,\" I said. \"He'll crack.\"\n\n\n \"Bailey will have some fifty thousand dollars' salary waiting when we\n ground at Brady Station,\" Captain Winkelmann said. \"So much money buys\n many discomforts. That will be all, Doctor Vilanova.\"\n\n\n \"Crew morale on the ship....\" I began.\n\n\n \"That will be all, Doctor Vilanova,\" Captain Winkelmann repeated.\nBailey grew more silent as we threaded our way along the elliptical\n path to Mars. Each meal he prepared was a fresh attempt to propitiate\n the appetite of our splenetic Captain. Each such offering was condemned\n by that heartless man. Bailey began to try avoiding the Captain at\n mealtimes, but was frustrated by Winkelmann's orders. \"Convey my\n compliments to the Chef, please,\" the Captain would instruct one of\n the crew, \"and ask him to step down here a moment.\" And the Cook would\n cheerlessly appear in the dining-cubby, to have his culinary genius\n acidly called in question again.\n\n\n I myself do not doubt that Bailey was the finest Cook ever to go\n into Hohmann orbit. His every meal established a higher benchmark in\n brilliant galleymanship. We were served, for instance, an\nersatz\nhot\n turkey supreme. The cheese-sauce was almost believable, the Chlorella\n turkey-flesh was white and tender. Bailey served with this delicacy\n a grainy and delicious \"cornbread,\" and had extracted from his algae\n a lipid butter-substitute that soaked into the hot \"bread\" with a\n genuinely dairy smell. \"Splendid, Bailey,\" I said.\n\n\n \"We are not amused,\" said Captain Winkelmann, accepting a second\n helping of the pseudo-turkey. \"You are improving, Belly-Robber, but\n only arithmetically. Your first efforts were so hideous as to require\n a geometric progression of improving excellence to raise them to mere\n edibility. By the time we are halfway 'round the Sun, I trust you will\n have learned to cook with the competence of a freshman Home Economics\n student. That will be all, Bailey.\"\n\n\n The crew and my fellow-officers were amused by Winkelmann's riding of\n Bailey; they were in addition gratified that the battle between their\n Captain and their Cook served to feed them so well. Most spacers embark\n on an outward voyage somewhat plump, having eaten enough on their last\n few days aground to smuggle several hundred calories of fat and many\n memories of good food aboard with them. This trip, none of the men had\n lost weight during the first four months in space. Winkelmann, indeed,\n seemed to have gained. His uniform was taut over his plump backside,\n and he puffed a bit up the ladders. I was considering suggesting to our\n Captain that he curtail his diet for reasons of health, a bit of advice\n that would have stood unique in the annals of space medicine, when\n Winkelmann produced his supreme insult to our Cook.\nEach man aboard a spacer is allowed ten kilograms of personal effects\n besides his uniforms, these being considered Ship's Furnishing. As\n his rank and responsibility merit, the Captain is allowed double this\n ration. He may thus bring aboard with him some forty-five pounds of\n books, playing-cards, knitting-wool, whiskey or what have you to help\n him while away the hours between the planets. Bailey, I knew for a\n fact, had used up his weight-allowance in bringing aboard a case of\n spices: marjoram and mint, costmary, file powder, basil and allspice,\n and a dozen others.\n\n\n Captain Winkelmann was not a reader, and had brought no books. Cards\n interested him not at all, as card-playing implies a sociability alien\n to his nature. He never drank aboard ship. I had supposed that he'd\n exercised his option of returning his personal-effects weight allowance\n to the owners for the consideration of one hundred dollars a kilogram.\n To collect the maximum allowance, spacers have been known to come\n aboard their ship mother-naked.\n\n\n But this was not the case with Winkelmann. His personal-effects\n baggage, an unlabeled cardboard box, appeared under the table at noon\n mess some hundred days out from Piano West. Winkelmann rested his feet\n on the mysterious box as he sat to eat.\n\n\n \"What disgusting form does the ship's garbage appear in today,\n Belly-Robber?\" he asked the Cook.\n\n\n Bailey frowned, but kept his temper, an asceticism in which by now he'd\n had much practice. \"I've been working on the problem of steak, Sir,\"\n he said. \"I think I've whipped the taste; what was left was to get the\n texture steak-like. Do you understand, Sir?\"\n\n\n \"I understand,\" Winkelmann growled. \"You intend that your latest mess\n should feel like steak to the mouth, and not like baby-food. Right?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, Sir,\" Bailey said. \"Well, I squeezed the\n steak-substrate\u2014Chlorella, of course, with all sorts of special\n seasonings\u2014through a sieve, and blanched the strands in hot algaeal\n oil. Then I chopped those strands to bits and rolled them out.\nVoila!\nI had something very close in texture to the muscle-fibers of genuine\n meat.\"\n\n\n \"Remarkable, Bailey,\" I said.\n\n\n \"It rather throws me off my appetite to hear how you muddle about with\n our food,\" the Captain said, his jowls settling into an expression of\n distaste. \"It's quite all right to eat lobster, for example, but I\n never cared to see the ugly beast boiled before my eyes. Detail spoils\n the meal.\"\n\n\n Bailey lifted the cover off the electric warming-pan at the center of\n the table and tenderly lifted a small \"steak\" onto each of our plates.\n \"Try it,\" he urged the Captain.\nCaptain Winkelmann sliced off a corner of his algaeal steak. The\n color was an excellent medium-rare, the odor was the rich smell\n of fresh-broiled beef. Winkelmann bit down, chewed, swallowed. \"Not\n too bad, Belly-Robber,\" he said, nodding. Bailey grinned and bobbed\n his head, his hands folded before him in an ecstasy of pleasure. A\n kind word from the Captain bettered the ruffles-and-flourishes of a\n more reasonable man. \"But it still needs something ... something,\"\n Winkelmann went on, slicing off another portion of the tasty Chlorella.\n \"Aha! I have it!\"\n\n\n \"Yes, Sir?\" Bailey asked.\n\n\n \"This, Belly-Robber!\" Winkelmann reached beneath the mess-table and\n ripped open his cardboard carton. He brought out a bottle and unscrewed\n the cap. \"Ketchup,\" he said, splattering the red juice over Bailey's\n masterpiece. \"The scarlet burial-shroud for the failures of Cooks.\"\n Lifting a hunk of the \"steak,\" streaming ketchup, to his mouth,\n Winkelmann chewed. \"Just the thing,\" he smiled.\n\n\n \"Damn you!\" Bailey shouted.\n\n\n Winkelmann's smile flicked off, and his blue eyes pierced the Cook.\n\n\n \"... Sir,\" Bailey added.\n\n\n \"That's better,\" Winkelmann said, and took another bite. He said\n meditatively, \"Used with caution, and only by myself, I believe I have\n sufficient ketchup here to see me through to Mars. Please keep a\n bottle on the table for all my future meals, Belly-Robber.\"\n\n\n \"But, Sir....\" Bailey began.\n\n\n \"You must realize, Belly-Robber, that a dyspeptic Captain is a threat\n to the welfare of his ship. Were I to continue eating your surrealistic\n slops for another hundred days, without the small consolation of\n this sauce I had the foresight to bring with me, I'd likely be in\n no condition to jet us safely down to the Piano West pad. Do you\n understand, Belly-Robber?\" he demanded.\n\n\n \"I understand that you're an ungrateful, impossible, square-headed,\n slave-driving....\"\n\n\n \"Watch your noun,\" Winkelmann cautioned the Cook. \"Your adjectives are\n insubordinate; your noun might prove mutinous.\"\n\n\n \"Captain, you've gone too far,\" I said. Bailey, his fists knotted, was\n scarlet, his chest heaving with emotion.\n\n\n \"Doctor, I must point out to you that it ill behooves the Ship's\n Surgeon to side with the Cook against the Captain,\" Winkelmann said.\n\n\n \"Sir, Bailey has tried hard to please you,\" I said. \"The other officers\n and the men have been more than satisfied with his work.\"\n\n\n \"That only suggests atrophy of their taste buds,\" Winkelmann said.\n \"Doctor, you are excused. As are you, Belly-Robber,\" he added.\nBailey and I climbed from the mess compartment together. I steered him\n to my quarters, where the medical supplies were stored. He sat on my\n bunk and exploded into weeping, banging his fists against the metal\n bulkhead. \"You'll have that drink now,\" I said.\n\n\n \"No, dammit!\" he shouted.\n\n\n \"Orders,\" I said. I poured us each some fifty cc's of rye. \"This is\n therapy, Bailey,\" I told him. He poured the fiery stuff down his throat\n like water and silently held out his glass for a second. I provided it.\n\n\n After a few minutes Bailey's sobbing ceased. \"Sorry, Doc,\" he said.\n\n\n \"You've taken more pressure than most men would,\" I said. \"Nothing to\n be ashamed of.\"\n\n\n \"He's crazy. What sane man would expect me to dip Wiener schnitzel\n and sauerkraut and\nBackhahndl nach suddeutscher Art\nout of an algae\n tank? I've got nothing but microscopic weeds to cook for him! Worn-out\n molecules reclaimed from the head; packaged amino acid additives. And\n he expects meals that would take the blue ribbon at the annual banquet\n of the Friends of Escoffier!\"\n\n\n \"Yours is an ancient plaint, Bailey,\" I said. \"You've worked your\n fingers to the bone, slaving over a hot stove, and you're not\n appreciated. But you're not married to Winkelmann, remember. A year\n from now you'll be home in Ohio, fifty grand richer, set to start that\n restaurant of yours and forget about our fat Flying Dutchman.\"\n\n\n \"I hate him,\" Bailey said with the simplicity of true emotion. He\n reached for the bottle. I let him have it. Sometimes alcohol can be\n an apt confederate of\nvis medicatrix naturae\n, the healing power of\n nature. Half an hour later I strapped Bailey into his bunk to sleep it\n off. That therapeutic drunk seemed to be just what he'd needed.\n\n\n For morning mess the next day we had a broth remarkable in\n horribleness, a pottage or boiled\nChlorella vulgaris\nthat looked\n and tasted like the vomit of some bottom-feeding sea-beast. Bailey,\n red-eyed and a-tremble, made no apology, and stared at Winkelmann as\n though daring him to comment. The Captain lifted a spoonful of the\n disgusting stuff to his lips, smacked and said, \"Belly-Robber, you're\n improving a little at last.\"\n\n\n Bailey nodded and smiled. \"Thank you, Sir,\" he said.\n\n\n I smiled, too. Bailey had conquered himself. His psychic defenses were\n now strong enough to withstand the Captain's fiercest assaults of\n irony. Our food would likely be bad the rest of this trip, but that was\n a price I was willing to pay for seeing destroyed the Willy Winkelmann\n theory of forcing a Cook to make bricks without straw. The Captain\n had pushed too hard. He'd need that ketchup for the meals to come, I\n thought.\n\n\n Noon mess was nearly as awful as breakfast had been. The coffee tasted\n of salt, and went largely undrunk. The men in the mess compartment were\n vehement in their protests, blaming the Captain, in his absence, for\n the decline in culinary standards. Bailey seemed not to care. He served\n the algaeburgers with half a mind, and hurried back into his galley\n oblivious of the taunts of his crewmates.\nThere being only three seats in the\nSale's\nmess compartment, we ate\n our meals in three shifts. That evening, going down the ladder to\n supper, my nose was met with a spine-tingling barbecue tang, a smell\n to make a man think of gray charcoal glowing in a picnic brazier,\n of cicadas chirping and green grass underfoot, of the pop and hiss\n of canned beer being church-keyed. \"He's done it, Doc!\" one of the\n first-shift diners said. \"It actually tastes of food!\"\n\n\n \"Then he's beat the Captain at his game,\" I said.\n\n\n \"The Dutchman won't want to mess ketchup on these steaks,\" the crewman\n said.\n\n\n I sat, unfolded my napkin, and looked with hope to the electric\n warming-pan at the center of the table. Bailey served the three of\n us with the small \"steaks.\" Each contained about a pound of dried\n Chlorella, I judged, teasing mine with my fork. But they were drenched\n in a gravy rich as the stuff grandma used to make in her black iron\n skillet, peppery and seasoned with courageous bits of garlic. I cut\n a bit from my steak and chewed it. Too tender, of course; there are\n limits to art. But the pond-scum taste was gone. Bailey appeared in the\n galley door. I gestured for him to join me. \"You've done it, Bailey,\"\n I said. \"Every Slimehead in orbit will thank you for this. This is\n actually\ngood\n.\"\n\n\n \"Thanks, Doc,\" Bailey said.\n\n\n I smiled and took another bite. \"You may not realize it, Bailey; but\n this is a victory for the Captain, too. He drove you to this triumph;\n you couldn't have done it without him.\"\n\n\n \"You mean he was just whipping me on, trying to make me do better?\"\n Bailey asked.\n\n\n \"He was driving you to do the impossible,\" I said; \"and you did it. Our\n Captain may be a hard man, Bailey; but he did know how to coax maximum\n performance out of his Ship's Cook.\"\n\n\n Bailey stood up. \"Do you like Captain Winkelmann, Doctor?\" he asked.\n\n\n I thought about his question a moment. Winkelmann was good at his job.\n He persuaded his men by foul means, true; but it was all for the good\n of the ship and his crew. \"Do I like Captain Winkelmann?\" I asked,\n spearing another piece of my artificial steak. \"Bailey, I'm afraid I'll\n have to admit that I do.\"\n\n\n Bailey smiled and lifted a second steak from the warming-pan onto my\n plate. \"Then have another piece,\" he said.",
    "60995": "FEBRUARY STRAWBERRIES\nBy JIM HARMON\nHow much is the impossible worth?\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, March 1961.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nLinton lay down his steel fork beside the massively solid transparency\n of the restaurant water glass.\n\n\n \"Isn't that Rogers Snead at that table?\" he heard himself say stupidly.\n\n\n Howell, the man across the table from him, looked embarrassed without\n looking. \"Not at all. Somebody who looks like him. Twin brother. You\n know how it is. Snead's dead, don't you remember?\"\n\n\n Linton remembered. Howell had to know that he would remember. What\n were they trying to pull on him? \"The man who isn't Snead is leaving,\"\n Linton said, describing the scene over Howell's shoulder. \"If that's\n Snead's brother, I might catch him to pay my respects.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Howell said, \"I wouldn't do that.\"\n\n\n \"Snead came to Greta's funeral. It's the least I could do.\"\n\n\n \"I wouldn't. Probably no relation to Snead at all. Somebody who looks\n like him.\"\n\n\n \"He's practically running,\" Linton said. \"He almost ran out of the\n restaurant.\"\n\n\n \"Who? Oh, the man who looked like Snead, you mean.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Linton said.\n\n\n A thick-bodied man at the next table leaned his groaning chair back\n intimately against Linton's own chair.\n\n\n \"That fellow who just left looked like a friend of yours, huh?\" the\n thick man said.\n\n\n \"Couldn't have been him, though,\" Linton answered automatically. \"My\n friend's dead.\"\n\n\n The thick man rocked forward and came down on all six feet. He threw\n paper money on the table as if he were disgusted with it. He plodded\n out of the place quickly.\n\n\n Howell breathed in deeply and sucked back Linton's attention. \"Now\n you've probably got old Snead into trouble.\"\n\n\n \"Snead's dead,\" Linton said.\n\n\n \"Oh, well, 'dead,'\" Howell replied.\n\n\n \"What do you say it like that for?\" Linton demanded angrily. \"The\n man's dead. Plain dead. He's not Sherlock Holmes or the Frankenstein\n Monster\u2014there's no doubt or semantic leeway to the thing.\"\n\n\n \"You know how it is,\" Howell said.\n\n\n Linton had thought he had known how death was. He had buried his wife,\n or rather he had watched the two workmen scoop and shove dirt in on\n the sawdust-fresh pine box that held the coffin. He had known what he\n sincerely felt to be a genuine affection for Greta. Even after they had\n let him out of the asylum as cured, he still secretly believed he had\n known a genuine affection for her. But it didn't seem he knew about\n death at all.\n\n\n Linton felt that his silence was asking Howell by this time.\n\n\n \"I don't know, mind you,\" Howell said, puffing out tobacco smoke, \"but\n I suppose he might have been resurrected.\"\n\n\n \"Who by?\" Linton asked, thinking:\nGod?\n\"The Mafia, I guess. Who knows who runs it?\"\n\n\n \"You mean, somebody has invented a way to bring dead people back to\n life?\" Linton said.\nHe knew, of course, that Howell did not mean that. Howell meant that\n some people had a system of making it appear that a person had died\n in order to gain some illegal advantage. But by saying something so\n patently ridiculous, Linton hoped to bring the contradicting truth to\n the surface immediately.\n\n\n \"An invention? I guess that's how it is,\" Howell agreed. \"I don't know\n much about people like that. I'm an honest businessman.\"\n\n\n \"But it's wonderful,\" Linton said, thinking his immediate thoughts.\n \"Wonderful! Why should a thing like that be illegal? Why don't I know\n about it?\"\n\n\n \"Sh-h,\" Howell said uneasily. \"This is a public place.\"\n\n\n \"I don't understand,\" Linton said helplessly.\n\n\n \"Look, Frank, you can't legalize a thing like resurrection,\" Howell\n said with feigned patience. \"There are strong religious convictions to\n consider. The undertakers have a lobby. I've heard they got spies right\n in the White House, ready to assassinate if they have to. Death is\n their whole life. You got to realize that.\"\n\n\n \"That's not enough. Not nearly enough.\"\n\n\n \"Think of all the problems it would cause. Insurance, for one thing.\n Overpopulation. Birth control is a touchy subject. They'd have to take\n it up if everybody got resurrected when they died, wouldn't they?\"\n\n\n \"But what do they do about it? Against it?\"\n\n\n \"There are a lot of fakes and quacks in the resurrection business. When\n the cops find out about a place, they break in, smash all the equipment\n and arrest everybody in sight. That's about all they can do. The\n charges, if any, come under general vice classification.\"\n\n\n \"I don't understand,\" Linton complained. \"Why haven't I heard about it?\"\n\n\n \"They didn't talk much about white slavery in Victorian England. I read\n an article in\nTime\nthe other day that said 'death' was our dirty\n word, not sex. You want to shock somebody, you tell him, 'You're going\n to be dead someday,' not anything sexual. You know how it is. The\n opposite of 'live' these days is 'video-taped.'\"\n\n\n \"I see,\" Linton said.\n\n\n He tried to assimilate it. Of course he had, he reminded himself, been\n out of touch for some time. It might be true. Then again, they might be\n trying to trick him. They used to do that to see if he was really well.\n But the temptation was too strong.\n\n\n \"Tell me, Howell, where could I find a resurrectionist?\"\n\n\n Howell looked away. \"Frank, I don't have anything to do with that kind\n of people and if you're smart, you'll not either.\"\n\n\n Linton's fingers imprinted the linen. \"Damn you, Howell, you tell me!\"\n\n\n Howell climbed to his feet hurriedly. \"I take you out to dinner to\n console you over the loss of your wife a half a year ago, and to make\n you feel welcome back to the society of your fellows after being in the\n hospital for a nervous breakdown. I do all that, and for thanks, you\n yell at me and curse me. You kooks are all alike!\"\n\n\n Howell threw money on the table with the same kind of disinterest as\n the thick-set man and stalked out.\n\n\n I've got to hurry too, Linton thought. It's Resurrection Day!\nThe doctor fluttered his hands and chirped about the office. \"Well,\n well, Mr. Linton, we understand you've been causing disturbances.\"\n\n\n \"Not really,\" Linton said modestly.\n\n\n \"Come, come,\" the doctor chided. \"You started riots in two places,\n attempted to bribe an officer. That's disturbing, Mr. Linton, very\n disturbing.\"\n\n\n \"I was only trying to find out something,\" Linton maintained. \"They\n could have told me. Everybody seems to know but me.\"\n\n\n The doctor clucked his tongue. \"Let's not think any such thing. People\n don't know more than you do.\"\n\n\n Linton rubbed his shoulder. \"That cop knew more about Judo holds than I\n did.\"\n\n\n \"A few specific people know a few specific things you don't. But let me\n ask you, Mr. Linton, could Einstein bake a pie?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know. Who the hell ever wasted Einstein's time asking him a\n thing like that?\"\n\n\n \"People who want to know the answers to questions have to ask them. You\n can find out anything by asking the right questions of the right person\n at the right time.\"\n\n\n Linton stared suspiciously. \"Do you know where I can find a\n resurrectionist?\"\n\n\n \"I am a resurrectionist.\"\n\n\n \"But the policeman brought me to you!\"\n\n\n \"Well, that's what you paid him to do, wasn't it? Did you think a\n policeman would just steal your money? Cynics\u2014all you young people are\n cynics.\"\n\n\n Linton scooted forward on the insultingly cold metal chair and really\n looked at the doctor for the first time.\n\n\n \"Doctor, can you\nreally\nresurrect the dead?\"\n\n\n \"Will you stop being cynical? Of course I can!\"\n\n\n \"Doctor, I'm beginning to believe in you,\" Linton said, \"but tell me,\n can you resurrect the\nlong\ndead?\"\n\n\n \"Size has nothing to do with it.\"\n\n\n \"No, my wife has been dead a long time. Months.\"\n\n\n \"Months?\" The doctor snapped those weeks away with his fingers. \"It\n could be years. Centuries. It's all mathematics, my boy. I need only\n one fragment of the body and my computers can compute what the rest\n of it was like and recreate it. It's infallible. Naturally there is a\n degree of risk involved.\"\n\n\n \"Infallible risk, yes,\" Linton murmured. \"Could you go to work right\n away?\"\n\n\n \"First, I must follow an ancient medical practice. I must bleed you.\"\n\n\n Linton grasped the situation immediately. \"You mean you want money. You\n realize I've just got out of an institution....\"\n\n\n \"I've often been in institutions myself, for alcoholism, narcotics\n addiction and more.\"\n\n\n \"What a wonderful professional career,\" Linton said, when he couldn't\n care less.\n\n\n \"Oh, yes\u2014yes, indeed. But I didn't come out broke.\"\n\n\n \"Neither did I,\" Linton said hastily. \"I invested in shifty stocks,\n faltering bonds, and while I was away they sank to rock bottom.\"\n\n\n \"Then\u2014\"\n\n\n \"When they hit rock bottom, they bounced up. If I hadn't found you, I\n would have been secure for the rest of my lonely, miserable life.\"\n\n\n \"All that's ended now,\" the doctor assured him. \"Now we must go dig up\n the corpse. The female corpse, eh?\"\n\n\n Resurrection Day!\n\n\n \"Doctor,\" Linton whispered, \"my mind is singing with battalions of\n choirs. I hope that doesn't sound irreverent to you.\"\n\n\n The doctor stroked his oily palms together. \"Oh, but it does.\n Beautifully.\"\nThe certificate to allow reburial in Virginia hadn't been impossible\n to obtain. The doctor had taken the body and Linton's fortune and fed\n them both into the maw of his calculators, and by means of the secret,\n smuggled formulae, Greta would be cybernetically reborn.\n\n\n Linton shook his head. It seemed impossible. But Greta opened the\n olive-drab slab of metal of the door to the doctor's inner-inner\n sanctum and walked out into the medicinal cold fluorescent lighting.\n\n\n It wasn't fair at all, Linton thought. He should have had some time to\n prepare himself.\n\n\n Greta lifted her arms, stretching the white smock over the lines of her\n body. \"Darling!\" she said.\n\n\n \"Greta!\" he said, feeling a slight revulsion but repressing it. No\n doubt he would be able to adjust to her once having been dead the same\n way he had learned to accept the, to him, distasteful duty of kissing\n her ears the way she enjoyed.\n\n\n Greta swirled across the room and folded her arms across his shoulders.\n She kissed his cheek. \"It's so wonderful to be back. This calls for a\n celebration. We must see Nancy, Oscar, Johnny, all our old friends.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" he said, his heart lurching for her sad ignorance. \"But tell\n me\u2014how was it being\naway\n?\"\n\n\n The curves and angles of her flesh changed their positions against his\n Ivy dacron. Her attitude altered.\n\n\n \"I can't remember,\" she said. \"I can't really remember anything. Not\n really. My memories are ghosts....\"\n\n\n \"Now, now,\" Linton said, \"we mustn't get excited. You've been through a\n trial.\"\n\n\n She accepted the verdict. She pulled away and touched at her hair. It\n was the same hair, black as evil, contrasting with her inner purity. Of\n course it would be; it hadn't changed even in the grave. He remembered\n the snaky tendrils of it growing out of the water-logged casket.\n\n\n \"I must see all our old friends,\" Greta persisted. \"Helen and\n Johnny....\"\n\n\n \"My darling,\" he said gently, \"about Johnny\u2014\"\n\n\n Her fine black brows made Gothic arches. \"Yes? What about Johnny?\"\n\n\n \"It was a terrible accident right after\u2014that is, about five months\n ago. He was killed.\"\n\n\n \"Killed?\" Greta repeated blankly. \"Johnny Gorman was killed?\"\n\n\n \"Traffic accident. Killed instantly.\"\n\n\n \"But Johnny was your friend, your best friend. Why didn't you have him\n resurrected the same way you did me?\"\n\n\n \"Darling, resurrection is a risky business and an expensive one. You\n have to pay premium prices for strawberries in February. I no longer\n have the money to pay for a resurrection of Johnny.\"\n\n\n Greta turned her back to him. \"It's just as well. You shouldn't bring\n back Johnny to this dream of life, give him a ghost of mind and the\n photograph of a soul. It's monstrous. No one should do that. No one.\n But you're\nsure\nyou haven't the money to do it?\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Linton said. \"I'm sold out. I've borrowed on my insurance to the\n hilt. It won't pay any more until I'm buried, and then, of course, you\n can resurrect me.\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" Greta said. She sighed. \"Poor Johnny. He was such a good\n friend of yours. You must miss him. I'm so sorry for you.\"\n\n\n \"I have you,\" he said with great simplicity.\n\n\n \"Frank,\" she said, \"you should see that place in there. There are\n foaming acid baths, great whale-toothed disposals, barrels of chemicals\n to quench death and smother decay. It's\nperfect\n.\"\n\n\n \"It sounds carnal,\" he said uneasily.\n\n\n \"No, dear, it's perfect for some things that have to be done.\"\n\n\n Her eyes flashed around the doctor's office and settled somewhere, on\n something.\n\n\n Linton followed the direction of Greta's gaze and found only an ashtray\n stand, looking vaguely like a fanatic's idol to a heathen religion on a\n pedestal.\n\n\n Greta pounced on the stand, hefted it at the base and ran toward him\n with it over her head.\n\n\n Linton leaped aside and Greta hit the edge of the desk instead of him.\n\n\n Brain damage, he concluded nervously. Cell deterioration.\nGreta raised it again and he caught her wrists high over her head. She\n writhed against him provocatively. \"Frank, I'm sorry, dear, but I have\n to have that insurance money. It's hell!\"\n\n\n Linton understood immediately. He felt foolish, humiliated. All that\n money! He had resurrected a gold ring that had turned his knuckles\n green. No one must ever know.\n\n\n Linton twisted the stand away from his wife and watched her face\n in some appalled form of satisfaction as it registered horror and\n acceptance of the crumpled metal disk falling toward it.\n\n\n He split her head open and watched her float to the floor.\n\n\n Linton was surprised at the fine wire mesh just below the skin and\n those shiny little tabs that looked like pictures of transistors in\n institutional advertising.\n\n\n He knelt beside the body and poked into the bleeding, smoldering\n wreckage.\n\n\n Yes, it seemed they had to automate and modify the bodies somewhat\n in resurrection. They couldn't chemically revive the old corpse like\n pouring water on a wilted geranium.\n\n\n Or\u2014\n\n\n Did they use the old bodies at all? What were all those acid baths for\n if the bodies were used? Didn't the resurrectionists just destroy the\n old corpses and make androids, synthetic creatures, to take their place?\n\n\n But it didn't matter. Not a bit.\n\n\n She had thought she was his wife, sharing her viewpoint down to the\n finest detail, and he had thought she was his wife.\n\n\n It was what you thought was real that made it so, not the other way\n around.\n\n\n \"I've killed my wife!\" Linton called, rising from his knees, stretching\n his hands out to something.\n\n\n The pain stung him to sleep\u2014a pain in his neck like a needle that left\n a hole big enough for a camel to pass through and big enough for him to\n follow the camel in his turn.\nHe opened his eyes to the doctor's spotless, well-ordered office. The\n doctor looked down at him consolingly. \"You'll have to go back, Mr.\n Linton. But they'll cure you. You'll be cured of ever thinking your\n wife was brought back to life and that you killed her all over again.\"\n\n\n \"Do you\nreally\nthink so, Doctor?\" Linton asked hopefully.",
    "25627": "THE\n\n HUNTED\n\n HEROES\nBy ROBERT SILVERBERG\nThe planet itself was tough enough\u2014barren, desolate,\n forbidding; enough to stop the most adventurous and\n dedicated. But they had to run head-on against a mad\n genius who had a motto:\nDeath to all Terrans!\n\"Let's\n keep moving,\" I told\n Val. \"The surest way to\n die out here on Mars is to\n give up.\" I reached over and\n turned up the pressure on her\n oxymask to make things a\n little easier for her. Through\n the glassite of the mask, I\n could see her face contorted\n in an agony of fatigue.\n\n\n And she probably thought\n the failure of the sandcat was\n all my fault, too. Val's usually\n about the best wife a guy\n could ask for, but when she\n wants to be she can be a real\n flying bother.\n\n\n It was beyond her to see\n that some grease monkey back\n at the Dome was at fault\u2014whoever\n it was who had failed\n to fasten down the engine\n hood. Nothing but what had\n stopped us\ncould\nstop a sandcat:\n sand in the delicate\n mechanism of the atomic engine.\n\n\n But no; she blamed it all on\n me somehow: So we were out\n walking on the spongy sand\n of the Martian desert. We'd\n been walking a good eight\n hours.\n\n\n \"Can't we turn back now,\n Ron?\" Val pleaded. \"Maybe\n there isn't any uranium in\n this sector at all. I think\n we're crazy to keep on searching\n out here!\"\n\n\n I started to tell her that the\n UranCo chief had assured me\n we'd hit something out this\n way, but changed my mind.\n When Val's tired and overwrought\n there's no sense in\n arguing with her.\n\n\n I stared ahead at the bleak,\n desolate wastes of the Martian\n landscape. Behind us\n somewhere was the comfort\n of the Dome, ahead nothing\n but the mazes and gullies of\n this dead world.\nHe was a cripple in a wheelchair\u2014helpless as a rattlesnake.\n\"Try to keep going, Val.\"\n My gloved hand reached out\n and clumsily enfolded hers.\n \"Come on, kid. Remember\u2014we're\n doing this for Earth.\n We're heroes.\"\n\n\n She glared at me. \"Heroes,\n hell!\" she muttered. \"That's\n the way it looked back home,\n but, out there it doesn't seem\n so glorious. And UranCo's\n pay is stinking.\"\n\n\n \"We didn't come out here\n for the pay, Val.\"\n\n\n \"I know, I know, but just\n the same\u2014\"\n\n\n It must have been hell for\n her. We had wandered fruitlessly\n over the red sands all\n day, both of us listening for\n the clicks of the counter. And\n the geigers had been obstinately\n hushed all day, except\n for their constant undercurrent\n of meaningless noises.\n\n\n Even though the Martian\n gravity was only a fraction of\n Earth's, I was starting to\n tire, and I knew it must have\n been really rough on Val with\n her lovely but unrugged legs.\n\n\n \"Heroes,\" she said bitterly.\n \"We're not heroes\u2014we're\n suckers! Why did I ever let\n you volunteer for the Geig\n Corps and drag me along?\"\n\n\n Which wasn't anywhere\n close to the truth. Now I\n knew she was at the breaking\n point, because Val didn't lie\n unless she was so exhausted\n she didn't know what she was\n doing. She had been just as\n much inflamed by the idea of\n coming to Mars to help in the\n search for uranium as I was.\n We knew the pay was poor,\n but we had felt it a sort of\n obligation, something we\n could do as individuals to\n keep the industries of radioactives-starved\n Earth going.\n And we'd always had a roving\n foot, both of us.\n\n\n No, we had decided together\n to come to Mars\u2014the\n way we decided together on\n everything. Now she was\n turning against me.\nI tried to jolly her. \"Buck\n up, kid,\" I said. I didn't dare\n turn up her oxy pressure any\n higher, but it was obvious she\n couldn't keep going. She was\n almost sleep-walking now.\n\n\n We pressed on over the\n barren terrain. The geiger\n kept up a fairly steady click-pattern,\n but never broke into\n that sudden explosive tumult\n that meant we had found pay-dirt.\n I started to feel tired\n myself, terribly tired. I longed\n to lie down on the soft,\n spongy Martian sand and\n bury myself.\n\n\n I looked at Val. She was\n dragging along with her eyes\n half-shut. I felt almost guilty\n for having dragged her out to\n Mars, until I recalled that I\n hadn't. In fact, she had come\n up with the idea before I did.\n I wished there was some way\n of turning the weary, bedraggled\n girl at my side back into\n the Val who had so enthusiastically\n suggested we join\n the Geigs.\n\n\n Twelve steps later, I decided\n this was about as far as\n we could go.\n\n\n I stopped, slipped out of\n the geiger harness, and lowered\n myself ponderously to\n the ground. \"What'samatter,\n Ron?\" Val asked sleepily.\n \"Something wrong?\"\n\n\n \"No, baby,\" I said, putting\n out a hand and taking hers.\n \"I think we ought to rest a\n little before we go any further.\n It's been a long, hard\n day.\"\n\n\n It didn't take much to persuade\n her. She slid down beside\n me, curled up, and in a\n moment she was fast asleep,\n sprawled out on the sands.\nPoor kid\n, I thought. Maybe\n we shouldn't have come to\n Mars after all. But, I reminded\n myself,\nsomeone\nhad to do\n the job.\n\n\n A second thought appeared,\n but I squelched it:\n\n\n Why the hell me?\n\n\n I looked down at Valerie's\n sleeping form, and thought of\n our warm, comfortable little\n home on Earth. It wasn't\n much, but people in love don't\n need very fancy surroundings.\n\n\n I watched her, sleeping\n peacefully, a wayward lock of\n her soft blonde hair trailing\n down over one eyebrow, and\n it seemed hard to believe that\n we'd exchanged Earth and all\n it held for us for the raw, untamed\n struggle that was Mars.\n But I knew I'd do it again, if\n I had the chance. It's because\n we wanted to keep what we\n had. Heroes? Hell, no. We\n just liked our comforts, and\n wanted to keep them. Which\n took a little work.\nTime to get moving.\nBut\n then Val stirred and rolled\n over in her sleep, and I didn't\n have the heart to wake her. I\n sat there, holding her, staring\n out over the desert, watching\n the wind whip the sand up\n into weird shapes.\n\n\n The Geig Corps preferred\n married couples, working in\n teams. That's what had finally\n decided it for us\u2014we were a\n good team. We had no ties on\n Earth that couldn't be broken\n without much difficulty. So\n we volunteered.\nAnd here we are.\nHeroes.\n The wind blasted a mass of\n sand into my face, and I felt\n it tinkle against the oxymask.\n\n\n I glanced at the suit-chronometer.\n Getting late. I decided\n once again to wake Val.\n But she was tired. And I was\n tired too, tired from our\n wearying journey across the\n empty desert.\n\n\n I started to shake Val. But\n I never finished. It would be\nso\nnice just to lean back and\n nuzzle up to her, down in the\n sand. So nice. I yawned, and\n stretched back.\nI awoke with a sudden startled\n shiver, and realized angrily\n I had let myself doze off.\n \"Come on, Val,\" I said savagely,\n and started to rise to\n my feet.\n\n\n I couldn't.\n\n\n I looked down. I was neatly\n bound in thin, tough, plastic\n tangle-cord, swathed from\n chin to boot-bottoms, my\n arms imprisoned, my feet\n caught. And tangle-cord is\n about as easy to get out of as\n a spider's web is for a trapped\n fly.\n\n\n It wasn't Martians that\n had done it. There weren't\n any Martians, hadn't been for\n a million years. It was some\n Earthman who had bound us.\n\n\n I rolled my eyes toward\n Val, and saw that she was\n similarly trussed in the sticky\n stuff. The tangle-cord was still\n fresh, giving off a faint, repugnant\n odor like that of drying\n fish. It had been spun on\n us only a short time ago, I\n realized.\n\n\n \"Ron\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't try to move, baby.\n This stuff can break your\n neck if you twist it wrong.\"\n She continued for a moment\n to struggle futilely, and I had\n to snap, \"Lie still, Val!\"\n\n\n \"A very wise statement,\"\n said a brittle, harsh voice\n from above me. I looked up\n and saw a helmeted figure\n above us. He wasn't wearing\n the customary skin-tight pliable\n oxysuits we had. He\n wore an outmoded, bulky\n spacesuit and a fishbowl helmet,\n all but the face area\n opaque. The oxygen cannisters\n weren't attached to his\n back as expected, though.\n They were strapped to the\n back of the wheelchair in\n which he sat.\n\n\n Through the fishbowl I\n could see hard little eyes, a\n yellowed, parchment-like face,\n a grim-set jaw. I didn't recognize\n him, and this struck me\n odd. I thought I knew everyone\n on sparsely-settled Mars.\n Somehow I'd missed him.\n\n\n What shocked me most was\n that he had no legs. The\n spacesuit ended neatly at the\n thighs.\n\n\n He was holding in his left\n hand the tanglegun with\n which he had entrapped us,\n and a very efficient-looking\n blaster was in his right.\n\n\n \"I didn't want to disturb\n your sleep,\" he said coldly.\n \"So I've been waiting here\n for you to wake up.\"\n\n\n I could just see it. He might\n have been sitting there for\n hours, complacently waiting\n to see how we'd wake up.\n That was when I realized he\n must be totally insane. I could\n feel my stomach-muscles\n tighten, my throat constrict\n painfully.\n\n\n Then anger ripped through\n me, washing away the terror.\n \"What's going on?\" I demanded,\n staring at the half\n of a man who confronted us\n from the wheelchair. \"Who\n are you?\"\n\n\n \"You'll find out soon\n enough,\" he said. \"Suppose\n now you come with me.\" He\n reached for the tanglegun,\n flipped the little switch on its\n side to MELT, and shot a\n stream of watery fluid over\n our legs, keeping the blaster\n trained on us all the while.\n Our legs were free.\n\n\n \"You may get up now,\" he\n said. \"Slowly, without trying\n to make trouble.\" Val and I\n helped each other to our feet\n as best we could, considering\n our arms were still tightly\n bound against the sides of our\n oxysuits.\n\n\n \"Walk,\" the stranger said,\n waving the tanglegun to indicate\n the direction. \"I'll be\n right behind you.\" He holstered\n the tanglegun.\n\n\n I glimpsed the bulk of an\n outboard atomic rigging behind\n him, strapped to the\n back of the wheelchair. He\n fingered a knob on the arm of\n the chair and the two exhaust\n ducts behind the wheel-housings\n flamed for a moment,\n and the chair began to roll.\n\n\n Obediently, we started\n walking. You don't argue\n with a blaster, even if the\n man pointing it is in a wheelchair.\n\"What's going on, Ron?\"\n Val asked in a low voice as we\n walked. Behind us the wheelchair\n hissed steadily.\n\n\n \"I don't quite know, Val.\n I've never seen this guy before,\n and I thought I knew\n everyone at the Dome.\"\n\n\n \"Quiet up there!\" our captor\n called, and we stopped\n talking. We trudged along together,\n with him following\n behind; I could hear the\ncrunch-crunch\nof the wheelchair\n as its wheels chewed\n into the sand. I wondered\n where we were going, and\n why. I wondered why we had\n ever left Earth.\n\n\n The answer to that came to\n me quick enough: we had to.\n Earth needed radioactives,\n and the only way to get them\n was to get out and look. The\n great atomic wars of the late\n 20th Century had used up\n much of the supply, but the\n amount used to blow up half\n the great cities of the world\n hardly compared with the\n amount we needed to put\n them back together again.\n\n\n In three centuries the shattered\n world had been completely\n rebuilt. The wreckage\n of New York and Shanghai\n and London and all the other\n ruined cities had been hidden\n by a shining new world of\n gleaming towers and flying\n roadways. We had profited by\n our grandparents' mistakes.\n They had used their atomics\n to make bombs. We used ours\n for fuel.\n\n\n It was an atomic world.\n Everything: power drills,\n printing presses, typewriters,\n can openers, ocean liners,\n powered by the inexhaustible\n energy of the dividing atom.\n\n\n But though the energy is\n inexhaustible, the supply of\n nuclei isn't. After three centuries\n of heavy consumption,\n the supply failed. The mighty\n machine that was Earth's industry\n had started to slow\n down.\n\n\n And that started the chain\n of events that led Val and me\n to end up as a madman's prisoners,\n on Mars. With every\n source of uranium mined dry\n on Earth, we had tried other\n possibilities. All sorts of\n schemes came forth. Project\n Sea-Dredge was trying to get\n uranium from the oceans. In\n forty or fifty years, they'd\n get some results, we hoped.\n But there wasn't forty or\n fifty years' worth of raw stuff\n to tide us over until then. In a\n decade or so, our power would\n be just about gone. I could\n picture the sort of dog-eat-dog\n world we'd revert back\n to. Millions of starving, freezing\n humans tooth-and-clawing\n in it in the useless shell of\n a great atomic civilization.\n\n\n So, Mars. There's not much\n uranium on Mars, and it's not\n easy to find or any cinch to\n mine. But what little is there,\n helps. It's a stopgap effort,\n just to keep things moving\n until Project Sea-Dredge\n starts functioning.\n\n\n Enter the Geig Corps: volunteers\n out on the face of\n Mars, combing for its uranium\n deposits.\n\n\n And here we are, I thought.\nAfter we walked on a\n while, a Dome became visible\n up ahead. It slid up over the\n crest of a hill, set back between\n two hummocks on the\n desert. Just out of the way\n enough to escape observation.\n\n\n For a puzzled moment I\n thought it was our Dome, the\n settlement where all of UranCo's\n Geig Corps were located,\n but another look told me that\n this was actually quite near\n us and fairly small. A one-man\n Dome, of all things!\n\n\n \"Welcome to my home,\" he\n said. \"The name is Gregory\n Ledman.\" He herded us off to\n one side of the airlock, uttered\n a few words keyed to his\n voice, and motioned us inside\n when the door slid up. When\n we were inside he reached up,\n clumsily holding the blaster,\n and unscrewed the ancient\n spacesuit fishbowl.\n\n\n His face was a bitter,\n dried-up mask. He was a man\n who hated.\n\n\n The place was spartanly\n furnished. No chairs, no tape-player,\n no decoration of any\n sort. Hard bulkhead walls,\n rivet-studded, glared back\n at us. He had an automatic\n chef, a bed, and a writing-desk,\n and no other furniture.\n\n\n Suddenly he drew the tanglegun\n and sprayed our legs\n again. We toppled heavily to\n the floor. I looked up angrily.\n\"I imagine you want to\n know the whole story,\" he\n said. \"The others did, too.\"\n\n\n Valerie looked at me anxiously.\n Her pretty face was a\n dead white behind her oxymask.\n \"What others?\"\n\n\n \"I never bothered to find\n out their names,\" Ledman\n said casually. \"They were\n other Geigs I caught unawares,\n like you, out on the\n desert. That's the only sport I\n have left\u2014Geig-hunting. Look\n out there.\"\n\n\n He gestured through the\n translucent skin of the Dome,\n and I felt sick. There was a\n little heap of bones lying\n there, looking oddly bright\n against the redness of the\n sands. They were the dried,\n parched skeletons of Earthmen.\n Bits of cloth and plastic,\n once oxymasks and suits, still\n clung to them.\n\n\n Suddenly I remembered.\n There had been a pattern\n there all the time. We didn't\n much talk about it; we chalked\n it off as occupational hazards.\n There had been a pattern\n of disappearances on the desert.\n I could think of six, eight\n names now. None of them\n had been particularly close\n friends. You don't get time to\n make close friends out here.\n But we'd vowed it wouldn't\n happen to us.\n\n\n It had.\n\n\n \"You've been hunting\n Geigs?\" I asked. \"\nWhy?\nWhat've they ever done to\n you?\"\n\n\n He smiled, as calmly as if\n I'd just praised his house-keeping.\n \"Because I hate\n you,\" he said blandly. \"I intend\n to wipe every last one of\n you out, one by one.\"\n\n\n I stared at him. I'd never\n seen a man like this before; I\n thought all his kind had died\n at the time of the atomic\n wars.\n\n\n I heard Val sob, \"He's a\n madman!\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Ledman said evenly.\n \"I'm quite sane, believe me.\n But I'm determined to drive\n the Geigs\u2014and UranCo\u2014off\n Mars. Eventually I'll scare\n you all away.\"\n\n\n \"Just pick us off in the desert?\"\n\n\n \"Exactly,\" replied Ledman.\n \"And I have no fears of an\n armed attack. This place is\n well fortified. I've devoted\n years to building it. And I'm\n back against those hills. They\n couldn't pry me out.\" He let\n his pale hand run up into his\n gnarled hair. \"I've devoted\n years to this. Ever since\u2014ever\n since I landed here on\n Mars.\"\n\"What are you going to do\n with us?\" Val finally asked,\n after a long silence.\n\n\n He didn't smile this time.\n \"Kill you,\" he told her. \"Not\n your husband. I want him as\n an envoy, to go back and tell\n the others to clear off.\" He\n rocked back and forth in his\n wheelchair, toying with the\n gleaming, deadly blaster in\n his hand.\n\n\n We stared in horror. It was\n a nightmare\u2014sitting there,\n placidly rocking back and\n forth, a nightmare.\n\n\n I found myself fervently\n wishing I was back out there\n on the infinitely safer desert.\n\n\n \"Do I shock you?\" he asked.\n \"I shouldn't\u2014not when\n you see my motives.\"\n\n\n \"We don't see them,\" I\n snapped.\n\n\n \"Well, let me show you.\n You're on Mars hunting uranium,\n right? To mine and\n ship the radioactives back to\n Earth to keep the atomic engines\n going. Right?\"\n\n\n I nodded over at our geiger\n counters.\n\n\n \"We volunteered to come to\n Mars,\" Val said irrelevantly.\n\n\n \"Ah\u2014two young heroes,\"\n Ledman said acidly. \"How\n sad. I could almost feel sorry\n for you. Almost.\"\n\n\n \"Just what is it you're\n after?\" I said, stalling, stalling.\n\n\n \"Atomics cost me my legs,\"\n he said. \"You remember the\n Sadlerville Blast?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Of course.\" And I did, too.\n I'd never forget it. No one\n would. How could I forget\n that great accident\u2014killing\n hundreds, injuring thousands\n more, sterilizing forty miles\n of Mississippi land\u2014when\n the Sadlerville pile went up?\n\n\n \"I was there on business at\n the time,\" Ledman said. \"I\n represented Ledman Atomics.\n I was there to sign a new\n contract for my company.\n You know who I am, now?\"\n\n\n I nodded.\n\n\n \"I was fairly well shielded\n when it happened. I never got\n the contract, but I got a good\n dose of radiation instead. Not\n enough to kill me,\" he said.\n \"Just enough to necessitate\n the removal of\u2014\" he indicated\n the empty space at his\n thighs. \"So I got off lightly.\"\n He gestured at the wheelchair\n blanket.\n\n\n I still didn't understand.\n \"But why kill us Geigs?\nWe\nhad nothing to do with it.\"\n\n\n \"You're just in this by accident,\"\n he said. \"You see, after\n the explosion and the amputation,\n my fellow-members on\n the board of Ledman Atomics\n decided that a semi-basket\n case like myself was a poor\n risk as Head of the Board,\n and they took my company\n away. All quite legal, I assure\n you. They left me almost a\n pauper!\" Then he snapped\n the punchline at me.\n\n\n \"They renamed Ledman\n Atomics. Who did you say you\n worked for?\"\n\n\n I began, \"Uran\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Don't bother. A more inventive\n title than Ledman\n Atomics, but not quite as\n much heart, wouldn't you\n say?\" He grinned. \"I saved\n for years; then I came to\n Mars, lost myself, built this\n Dome, and swore to get even.\n There's not a great deal of\n uranium on this planet, but\n enough to keep me in a style\n to which, unfortunately, I'm\n no longer accustomed.\"\nHe consulted his wrist\n watch. \"Time for my injection.\"\n He pulled out the tanglegun\n and sprayed us again,\n just to make doubly certain.\n \"That's another little souvenir\n of Sadlerville. I'm short\n on red blood corpuscles.\"\n\n\n He rolled over to a wall\n table and fumbled in a container\n among a pile of hypodermics.\n \"There are other injections,\n too. Adrenalin, insulin.\n Others. The Blast turned\n me into a walking pin-cushion.\n But I'll pay it all\n back,\" he said. He plunged\n the needle into his arm.\n\n\n My eyes widened. It was\n too nightmarish to be real. I\n wasn't seriously worried\n about his threat to wipe out\n the entire Geig Corps, since\n it was unlikely that one man\n in a wheelchair could pick us\n all off. No, it wasn't the\n threat that disturbed me, so\n much as the whole concept, so\n strange to me, that the human\n mind could be as warped\n and twisted as Ledman's.\n\n\n I saw the horror on Val's\n face, and I knew she felt the\n same way I did.\n\n\n \"Do you really think you\n can succeed?\" I taunted him.\n \"Really think you can kill\n every Earthman on Mars? Of\n all the insane, cockeyed\u2014\"\n\n\n Val's quick, worried head-shake\n cut me off. But Ledman\n had felt my words, all right.\n\n\n \"Yes! I'll get even with\n every one of you for taking\n away my legs! If we hadn't\n meddled with the atom in the\n first place, I'd be as tall and\n powerful as you, today\u2014instead\n of a useless cripple in a\n wheelchair.\"\n\n\n \"You're sick, Gregory Ledman,\"\n Val said quietly.\n \"You've conceived an impossible\n scheme of revenge and\n now you're taking it out on\n innocent people who've done\n nothing, nothing at all to you.\n That's not sane!\"\n\n\n His eyes blazed. \"Who are\n you to talk of sanity?\"\nUneasily I caught Val's\n glance from a corner of my\n eye. Sweat was rolling down\n her smooth forehead faster\n than the auto-wiper could\n swab it away.\n\n\n \"Why don't you do something?\n What are you waiting\n for, Ron?\"\n\n\n \"Easy, baby,\" I said. I\n knew what our ace in the hole\n was. But I had to get Ledman\n within reach of me first.\n\n\n \"Enough,\" he said. \"I'm going\n to turn you loose outside,\n right after\u2014\"\n\n\n \"\nGet sick!\n\" I hissed to Val,\n low. She began immediately\n to cough violently, emitting\n harsh, choking sobs. \"Can't\n breathe!\" She began to yell,\n writhing in her bonds.\n\n\n That did it. Ledman hadn't\n much humanity left in him,\n but there was a little. He lowered\n the blaster a bit and\n wheeled one-hand over to see\n what was wrong with Val.\n She continued to retch and\n moan most horribly. It almost\n convinced me. I saw Val's\n pale, frightened face turn to\n me.\n\n\n He approached and peered\n down at her. He opened his\n mouth to say something, and\n at that moment I snapped my\n leg up hard, tearing the tangle-cord\n with a snicking rasp,\n and kicked his wheelchair\n over.\n\n\n The blaster went off, burning\n a hole through the Dome\n roof. The automatic sealers\n glued-in instantly. Ledman\n went sprawling helplessly out\n into the middle of the floor,\n the wheelchair upended next\n to him, its wheels slowly revolving\n in the air. The blaster\n flew from his hands at the\n impact of landing and spun\n out near me. In one quick motion\n I rolled over and covered\n it with my body.\nLedman clawed his way to\n me with tremendous effort\n and tried wildly to pry the\n blaster out from under me,\n but without success. I twisted\n a bit, reached out with my\n free leg, and booted him\n across the floor. He fetched\n up against the wall of the\n Dome and lay there.\n\n\n Val rolled over to me.\n\n\n \"Now if I could get free of\n this stuff,\" I said, \"I could get\n him covered before he comes\n to. But how?\"\n\n\n \"Teamwork,\" Val said. She\n swivelled around on the floor\n until her head was near my\n boot. \"Push my oxymask off\n with your foot, if you can.\"\n\n\n I searched for the clamp\n and tried to flip it. No luck,\n with my heavy, clumsy boot.\n I tried again, and this time it\n snapped open. I got the tip\n of my boot in and pried upward.\n The oxymask came off,\n slowly, scraping a jagged red\n scratch up the side of Val's\n neck as it came.\n\n\n \"There,\" she breathed.\n \"That's that.\"\n\n\n I looked uneasily at Ledman.\n He was groaning and\n beginning to stir.\n\n\n Val rolled on the floor and\n her face lay near my right\n arm. I saw what she had in\n mind. She began to nibble the\n vile-tasting tangle-cord, running\n her teeth up and down\n it until it started to give. She\n continued unfailingly.\n\n\n Finally one strand snapped.\n Then another. At last I\n had enough use of my hand\n to reach out and grasp the\n blaster. Then I pulled myself\n across the floor to Ledman,\n removed the tanglegun, and\n melted the remaining tangle-cord\n off.\n\n\n My muscles were stiff and\n bunched, and rising made me\n wince. I turned and freed Val.\n Then I turned and faced Ledman.\n\n\n \"I suppose you'll kill me\n now,\" he said.\n\n\n \"No. That's the difference\n between sane people and insane,\"\n I told him. \"I'm not\n going to kill you at all. I'm\n going to see to it that you're\n sent back to Earth.\"\n\n\n \"\nNo!\n\" he shouted. \"No!\n Anything but back there. I\n don't want to face them again\u2014not\n after what they did to\n me\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Not so loud,\" I broke in.\n \"They'll help you on Earth.\n They'll take all the hatred and\n sickness out of you, and turn\n you into a useful member of\n society again.\"\n\n\n \"I hate Earthmen,\" he spat\n out. \"I hate all of them.\"\n\n\n \"I know,\" I said sarcastically.\n \"You're just all full of\n hate. You hated us so much\n that you couldn't bear to hang\n around on Earth for as much\n as a year after the Sadlerville\n Blast. You had to take right\n off for Mars without a moment's\n delay, didn't you? You\n hated Earth so much you\nhad\nto leave.\"\n\n\n \"Why are you telling all\n this to me?\"\n\n\n \"Because if you'd stayed\n long enough, you'd have used\n some of your pension money\n to buy yourself a pair of prosthetic\n legs, and then you\n wouldn't need this wheelchair.\"\n\n\n Ledman scowled, and then\n his face went belligerent\n again. \"They told me I was\n paralyzed below the waist.\n That I'd never walk again,\n even with prosthetic legs, because\n I had no muscles to fit\n them to.\"\n\n\n \"You left Earth too quickly,\"\n Val said.\n\n\n \"It was the only way,\" he\n protested. \"I had to get off\u2014\"\n\n\n \"She's right,\" I told him.\n \"The atom can take away, but\n it can give as well. Soon after\n you left they developed\natomic-powered\nprosthetics\u2014amazing\n things, virtually robot\n legs. All the survivors of\n the Sadlerville Blast were\n given the necessary replacement\n limbs free of charge. All\n except you. You were so sick\n you had to get away from the\n world you despised and come\n here.\"\n\n\n \"You're lying,\" he said.\n \"It's not true!\"\n\n\n \"Oh, but it is,\" Val smiled.\n\n\n I saw him wilt visibly, and\n for a moment I almost felt\n sorry for him, a pathetic legless\n figure propped up against\n the wall of the Dome at\n blaster-point. But then I remembered\n he'd killed twelve\n Geigs\u2014or more\u2014and would\n have added Val to the number\n had he had the chance.\n\"You're a very sick man,\n Ledman,\" I said. \"All this\n time you could have been\n happy, useful on Earth, instead\n of being holed up here\n nursing your hatred. You\n might have been useful, on\n Earth. But you decided to\n channel everything out as revenge.\"\n\n\n \"I still don't believe it\u2014those\n legs. I might have walked\n again. No\u2014no, it's all a lie.\n They told me I'd never walk,\"\n he said, weakly but stubbornly\n still.\n\n\n I could see his whole structure\n of hate starting to topple,\n and I decided to give it\n the final push.\n\n\n \"Haven't you wondered\n how I managed to break the\n tangle-cord when I kicked you\n over?\"\n\n\n \"Yes\u2014human legs aren't\n strong enough to break tangle-cord\n that way.\"\n\n\n \"Of course not,\" I said. I\n gave Val the blaster and slipped\n out of my oxysuit.\n \"Look,\" I said. I pointed to\n my smooth, gleaming metal\n legs. The almost soundless\n purr of their motors was the\n only noise in the room. \"I was\n in the Sadlerville Blast, too,\"\n I said. \"But I didn't go crazy\n with hate when I lost\nmy\nlegs.\"\n\n\n Ledman was sobbing.\n\n\n \"Okay, Ledman,\" I said.\n Val got him into his suit, and\n brought him the fishbowl helmet.\n \"Get your helmet on and\n let's go. Between the psychs\n and the prosthetics men,\n you'll be a new man inside of\n a year.\"\n\n\n \"But I'm a murderer!\"\n\n\n \"That's right. And you'll be\n sentenced to psych adjustment.\n When they're finished,\n Gregory Ledman the killer\n will be as dead as if they'd\n electrocuted you, but there'll\n be a new\u2014and sane\u2014Gregory\n Ledman.\" I turned to Val.\n\n\n \"Got the geigers, honey?\"\n\n\n For the first time since\n Ledman had caught us, I remembered\n how tired Val had\n been out on the desert. I realized\n now that I had been driving\n her mercilessly\u2014me, with\n my chromium legs and atomic-powered\n muscles. No wonder\n she was ready to fold!\n And I'd been too dense to see\n how unfair I had been.\n\n\n She lifted the geiger harnesses,\n and I put Ledman\n back in his wheelchair.\n\n\n Val slipped her oxymask\n back on and fastened it shut.\n\n\n \"Let's get back to the Dome\n in a hurry,\" I said. \"We'll\n turn Ledman over to the authorities.\n Then we can catch\n the next ship for Earth.\"\n\n\n \"Go back?\nGo back?\nIf you\n think I'm backing down now\n and quitting you can find\n yourself another wife! After\n we dump this guy I'm sacking\n in for twenty hours, and then\n we're going back out there to\n finish that search-pattern.\n Earth needs uranium, honey,\n and I know you'd never be\n happy quitting in the middle\n like that.\" She smiled. \"I\n can't wait to get out there\n and start listening for those\n tell-tale clicks.\"\n\n\n I gave a joyful whoop and\n swung her around. When I\n put her down, she squeezed\n my hand, hard.\n\n\n \"Let's get moving, fellow\n hero,\" she said.\n\n\n I pressed the stud for the\n airlock, smiling.\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAmazing Stories\nSeptember 1956.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "60283": "The Birds and the Bees\nBY DAVE E. FISHER\nWhich goes to prove that, in some\n \ninstances, being heroic is easy!\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1957.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nI was wandering among the tall grass of the slopes, listening to the\n soft whistling of the wind; allowing the grass to caress my toga and\n thighs. It was a day soft and clear; a day accepted by the young,\n cherished by we old. Across the gently undulating hills stood the\n magnificent Melopolis, encradling the Oracle of Delni. I do not, of\n course, believe in the gods per se; still there is a grandeur in the\n very stones that transcends their human sculptors, and it is no wonder\n to me that many cling tenaciously, and ignorantly, to the old religion.\n Cling to the gods of old, who drew man upward from wherever he began.\n In whose names Man killed and plundered, while struggling up. In whose\n names Man finally left this earth, to seek his cousins among the stars.\n\n\n But of course there were no cousins. There was nothing. And Man\n returned, and settled down to live. Saddened, but resigned and content\n to live in peace with his knowledge and his power. Gone now are all the\n ancient evils, wars, emergencies.\n\n\n \"Sias! Sias\u2014\" And they were upon me.\n\n\n That is, Xeon was upon me. But I knew that where Xeon is, Melia must\n soon appear. And indeed it was but a moment before Melia slipped\n through the high grass to stand at his side. Their youthful voices were\n babbling in excitement.\n\n\n Melia was a She, with the swelling breasts that were, so tradition\n states, quite prevalent among members of the race long ago, and are\n seldom seen today. Indeed, Melia was on this account made the butt of\n many jokes and, I fear, would have had a lonely life of it had it not\n been for the friendship of Xeon.\n\n\n \"Sias,\" they were saying, \"the Maternite's gone.\"\n\n\n I stared in amazement.\n\n\n \"Gone? It cannot be gone. It has always been\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Oh my gods!\" Xeon shouted. \"I tell you it's gone! Will you\u2014\"\n\n\n Melia interrupted him quietly. \"Xeon, will you lose all respect for\n the Elder?\" Then turned to me, and said calmly, \"The watcher at the\n Maternite Machine, it appears, has been drunk. The heat rose above the\n warning, continued to rise, and then\u2014poof. Everything has evaporated\n in Maternite. All the Prelife is gone.\"\n\n\n \"All of it?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"There is nothing left,\" Melia insisted. \"Can more be made? And if not,\n what will happen with no more children?\"\n\n\n \"That is for the priests to say, not I,\" I replied. In moments of\n emergency, it is wise to speak with caution. That is, I suppose so. I\n have never before been in a real emergency.\nA man my age does not hurry in the heat of the midday sun\u2014maddugs\n nenglishmin go out in the midday sun, as the ancients say, although I\n often wonder why\u2014but Xeon and Melia ran all the way down to the city.\n They are of an age to enter manhood, and have all the energy such young\n men do.\n\n\n As we entered the city, we were surrounded by confusion and\n consternation. And can the simple people be blamed? They were aware\n that they stood in the midst of an unprecedented happening; indeed, an\n emergency. For a machine had failed!\n\n\n Not in the memory of the eldest among us has a machine failed. They\n were created so long ago, indeed, that the ignorant believe them\n to have been constructed by the gods themselves. And never, so far\n as I know, has one failed. Small wonder that the watcher had been\n negligent. Indeed, the watcher is more a tradition than a necessity.\n Besides, had he been sober, he would not have known what to do. For who\n knows the mysterious workings of the machines?\nI hastened to the City Hall and found the Conclave assembled, waiting\n for me to bring them to order. Xeon and Melia stopped as I mounted the\n steps, but I smiled and motioned them in. They accompanied me past\n the marble pillars into the cool recesses of the Hall, then seated\n themselves on the floor as I took my place by the great table.\n\n\n Well, you know how these things are. At such a time, many men feel\n impelled to make speeches, and one must not be disrespectful. Prayers\n and supplications were offered to the gods, priests were sent to\n sacrifice, and finally, as the light of the sun was falling between the\n pillars, the High Priest of the Maternite Machine was heard.\n\n\n He rambled through the customary opening remarks and then, continually\n smoothing his white beard\u2014of which he is excessively proud\u2014approached\n the crux of the matter and the Conclave finally heard the facts it had\n assembled to hear. By this time, unfortunately, many of the Conclave\n had departed for home and supper. Yet perhaps it is for the best, for\n those left were the most earnest and intelligent.\n\n\n \"I would not bore you,\" he said, \"with details of which only the gods\n are sure. Know, then, that once granted a few cells of Prelife, it is\n an easy matter for the Maternite Machine to add more and more; thus\n assuring us, as has always been, a continuous source of Prelife to be\n born by the Generating Machine as children. The machines bear the exact\n number of children each year to balance the number of us whom the gods\n claim. Such it has always been from time immemorial.\"\n\n\n A murmur of assent and approval of these virtuous words whispered\n around the Hall.\n\n\n \"But now,\" he continued, however, with less assurance and indeed with\n even a stutter here and there, \"an unprecedented situation has arisen.\n Indeed, I might call it an emergency. For the M-Maternite Machine has\n actually failed.\"\n\n\n Cries of \"Treason\" sprang up, and I fear it might have gone hard for\n the priest had I not been able to insure order.\n\n\n \"That is not the worst,\" he cried, as if in defiance. \"All the Prelife\n has been dried up. It will not function. There is no more. And there\n will be no more children!\"\n\n\n At this I feared the Conclave was about to riot. It is at such times\n that I most revere the wisdom of the ancients, who decreed seventy\n years the minimum age for a member of the Conclave. They shouted and\n began to beat their fists, but for how long can a man of seventy years\n roar like a youngster? They quieted, breathing heavily, and I asked,\n\n\n \"Is there no way, then, to produce more Prelife in order that the\n machines may produce more children for us?\n\n\n \"As I have said,\" he replied, \"give the machines but a bit of Prelife\n and they will produce more. But take away that least bit, and they are\n helpless.\"\n\n\n Such heresy could have brought a sad end to the priest had not the\n Conclave been so exhausted by the events of the day. We leaned back to\n think.\n\n\n Rocsates leaned forward and asked, \"Must there not\u2014must there not have\n been a beginning to Prelife? For the Machine, it seems, cannot make it;\n and yet it came from somewhere.\"\n\n\n \"Riddles are not called for,\" I answered severely.\n\n\n \"Are not riddles often the beginning of knowledge?\" he asked, in that\n irritating dumber-than-thou attitude of his. \"Must there not, long ago,\n have been a source of Prelife: a source now forgotten? And may it not\n even now\u2014should we discover it\u2014be available to us? I am reminded of\n the story of the animals of old\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I fear your mind is wandering, Rocsates,\" I was forced to interrupt.\n \"I know well the legend of the animals, but what does it have to\n do\u2014\" The heads of the Conclave were turning to me, quizzically. I\n hastened to explain the legend of the animals. \"It is said that many\n thousands of years ago, time without reckoning, there existed on the\n earth creatures who were alive like us, and yet not like us. It is said\n they had four legs or more, and no arms, were covered with hair, and\n although not mute, they could not speak.\"\n\n\n Rocsates' voice made itself heard. \"It is true. Such creatures did\n indeed exist. It is recorded most scientifically in the films.\"\n\n\n \"If it be so,\" I said, quieting the hub-bub that followed, \"and I would\n not doubt your word, Rocsates, for all know you are the wisest of\n men\u2014if it were so, then, what of it?\"\n\n\n \"May it not be,\" Rocsates put in, \"that these animals had no machines\n to reproduce their kind? For surely the gods would not grant machines\n to such creatures. And indeed, if they had Maternite Machines, why then\n we would yet have these animals among us.\"\n\n\n \"And how, then, did these animals reproduce?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"How, indeed? And is there not a legend\u2014admitted only a legend\u2014that\n says there was a time before the machines, and before the Maternite\n Machine, and that at such a time both the animals and Men reproduced\n from within their own bodies?\"\n\n\n At this two members of the Conclave fell immediately into a faint, and\n I would gladly have joined them. I hoped that the youngsters, Xeon\n and Melia, had not heard, but as I turned they were listening most\n attentively to Rocsates, who, amid cries of \"Heresy\" and \"Treason\",\n went on:\n\n\n \"I should like to ask the Conclave for permission to search the ancient\n records, in the hope of finding some such knowledge that would prove or\n disprove my words.\"\n\n\n \"You wish to search the films\u2014\" I began.\n\n\n \"Not the films, Sias, but the books.\"\n\n\n Gods, this Rocsates! The books, as well he knows, are so ancient,\n and so delicate, that they are kept in an air-tight tomb; lest,\n being handled, they be destroyed and all knowledge within them lost.\n Therefore, they have not been read in the known history of our race.\n And Rocsates has been anxious for an excuse\u2014\n\n\n \"Sias,\" he went on, \"if there exists such knowledge as I seek, is it\n not indeed lost to the memory of Man? And if so, are not the books the\n only place where it may be found?\"\n\n\n Rocsates, it is suspected, will never ask a question unless he knows\n the answer beforehand. And so I acquiesced, and agreed, and granted\n permission. And with much misgiving and foreboding of evil, the\n Conclave adjourned.\nSeveral weeks elapsed before Rocsates requested that the Conclave meet.\n I called the meeting at dawn and so it was yet early in the afternoon\n when formalities were concluded and Rocsates granted leave to speak.\n\n\n \"Some of those among you are She's,\" he began. \"And you know you are\n different from the rest of us. To the advantage, your skin is fairer\n and your features more often handsomer than ours. To the disadvantage,\n your excretory system is not so mechanically dextrous as ours. And, you\n may say, why should this not be so? There is, indeed, no reason why we\n should all be identical. Perforce you have the advantage, perforce we\n do. Yet there is one other distinction.\n\n\n \"Some among you She's have the swelling of the breasts. And does there\n exist no reason for this? Was there not, perhaps in ancient times, a\n cause for this? Do you not wonder, She's, whence you come and for what\n reason?\"\n\n\n \"Rocsates,\" I interrupted. \"All this is fascinating, of course. But if\n you could be quick\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" he replied. \"In the course of my reading I have read\n many books, and while they are all vague on the subject, this I have\n discovered:\n\n\n \"That there was indeed a time before the machines, in fact the books\n were created in that time, for not one of them mentions the machines.\n Then reproduction was carried on by individuals, without help of the\n then nonexistent machines. The She's are not wanderers from another\n land, but they have lived with us for all time; they are not another\n race, but we are all types of one race. And the fact of reproduction is\n somehow intimately related to the physical distinctions of the She's!\"\n\n\n These last sentences were shouted to be heard above the roar of the\n crowd. Yet when Rocsates stopped, so also did the noise, so shocked and\n amazed at his words were they. And I confess, myself also.\n\n\n \"In fact,\" Rocsates added, sitting down, \"this process of reproduction\n seems to have been so simple that there was once a problem of\n over-population.\"\n\n\n Order was lost among the Conclave as each man turned to speak to his\n neighbor, and for some time I could not restore order. I realized that\n something had to be done to save Rocsates before the outrage of the\n assembled overwhelmed him.\n\n\n \"It seems,\" I shouted, \"that there is a flaw in your logic.\" For if\n such there was, I was hopeful of dismissing the entire affair with\n no harm done. \"For if people reproduced too often, why then this\n reproduction must have been a pleasant thing to do; otherwise they\n would not have done so to excess. And if it was a pleasant thing to do,\n where is the necessity for the machines, and why were they created?\"\n\n\n Rocsates seemed perplexed by this problem, whereupon Xeon, who together\n with Melia were at the Conclave without permission, shouted, \"Perhaps\n the process of reproduction was of\nsuch\na pleasure that the Conclave\n ruled it to be a sin? And therefore the machines were necessary!\"\n\n\n At this impudence the Conclave dissolved in an uproar, and I was beyond\n power to restrain them from placing Xeon under arrest. Privately,\n however, I had to admit that his supposition was a possibility, and\n thus I authorized Rocsates to continue his search.\nNow indeed I was sorely worried concerning Xeon, for he must languish\n in the dungeon until the Conclave is satisfied to release him, and this\n they cannot do until they meet again.\n\n\n I needed a sufficient excuse to call a meeting of the Conclave,\n whereupon I might argue for the lad. When I heard that Rocsates again\n desired audience, I immediately proclaimed a meeting of the Conclave\n to be held the next day at dawn, and so that night slept well.\n\n\n The Conclave had come to order and formalities had been initiated when\n Rocsates entered and took his place. He clutched under one shoulder\n a thin, rectangular object, but that is not what impressed me. His\n appearance\u2014he looked as if he had not slept of late, nor eaten either.\n His eyes were sunken, and his features had doubled in age. He was bent\n and tired. But it was his eyes. There was a horror in them.\n\n\n I was shocked, and could not help staring at him. And then the\n formalities were over. I intended to speak for Xeon, but Rocsates was\n on his feet and I gave way.\n\n\n \"I have indeed discovered the secret of reproduction,\" he began. \"After\n many searchings, I came upon this\u2014\" and he held forth the object he\n had carried in. \"It is a book. It is entitled, 'Living a Normal Sex\n Life.' It seems to be some sort of a do-it-yourself pamphlet.\" He\n dropped the book on the table and rubbed his hands over his eyes.\n\n\n There was something in the man's behavior that commanded everyone's\n attention. He went on, speaking low. \"The word 'Sex' is not defined,\n but it seems to mean....\" His words trailed off. He was obviously\n unsure of how to continue. \"I had better start at the beginning, I\n suppose,\" he said. \"You see, once upon a time there were birds and\n bees....\"\nWhen he finished the Conclave sat in horrified silence. His words,\n with all their horror, had the ring of truth and there were no cries of\n 'Heresy'. There was only stunned disbelief and the beginnings of nausea.\n\n\n It is the mark of honor that a leader shall carry on when others fear\n to move. I cleared my throat.\n\n\n \"Shall not these organs which you mention have atrophied by now? With\n no use throughout all these generations, will they not have evolved\n into nothingness?\"\n\n\n \"I do not think so,\" Rocsates replied after a while. \"What to us is\n an eon, to evolution is but an instant. And then the swelling of the\n breasts, I believe, proves that there is still reproductive activity in\n some, at least, of the She's.\"\n\n\n We sat shaking our heads, bowed under terrible reality.\n\n\n \"Then we must experiment,\" I said. \"But whom could we ask to submit to\n such horror?\"\n\n\n \"I have already taken the liberty of asking for volunteers,\" Rocsates\n replied. \"The She, of course, must be one with the swelling of the\n breasts. Melia has volunteered, on condition that Xeon be released from\n dungeon. Are there any objections?\"\nThere were none, of course. Who would refuse a boon to one who would\n undergo such an ordeal for the City?\n\n\n \"And who will be the partner?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"In all honor, could Xeon allow Melia to surpass him in courage? It\n shall be he,\" Rocsates said. And with his word the two entered the Hall\n and stood, noble and naked.\n\n\n Rocsates gestured to the table, and Melia started to climb upon it,\n but Xeon stepped forward.\n\n\n \"My lords,\" he said, \"would not better results be obtained were we to\n conduct the experiment in the fields before the Oracle of Delni, that\n the gods may help us?\"\n\n\n His glance reached into my soul, and I was proud of Xeon. A true\n friend, he thought even now of the comfort of Melia. The marble table\n was indeed hard, and from Rocsates' description it seemed that Melia's\n position would be as uncomfortable as it would be undignified. The soft\n fields might be some slight help.\n\n\n I voiced my assent, and the entire Conclave adjourned to the fields.\nIt was nearly dark when we walked home, Rocsates and I, arm in arm. It\n had been a horrible day. The inhuman indignity, the cries\u2014\n\n\n We tarried before my home, leaned on the stone, stared at the first\n stars.\n\n\n \"They seemed finally to accomplish all the book described,\" I muttered.\n\n\n \"They may indeed have succeeded,\" Rocsates replied. \"There is mentioned\n a time lapse which is necessary. The child does not appear immediately.\"\n\n\n \"It doesn't matter,\" I said disconsolately. \"Who could ask them to go\n through such an ordeal again?\"\n\n\n And then I looked down to earth again, and saw them standing before me.\n Melia cast her eyes down, and would not raise them. Xeon held his arm\n about her shoulders, as if to protect her, but I know not from whom.\n\n\n \"Sias,\" he said. Then stopped, embarrassed.\n\n\n I waited, and Rocsates was silent, and he continued.\n\n\n \"Sias, we come to tell.... We will....\" He raised his eyes to mine and\n said manfully, \"We shall try again.\"\n\n\n I am afraid that tears came to my eyes. Such sacrifice\u2014\n\n\n \"We beg one favor,\" Xeon went on. \"We are agreed that\u2014Well, we should\n like to be left alone, in private, to try.\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" I replied. Anything they might want they could have. My\n relief and gratitude must have showed, for Xeon took a deep breath and\n spoke again.\n\n\n \"We do not deserve praise, Sias,\" he said. \"The truth is, we ... we\n sort of enjoy it.\"\n\n\n I watched them turn and wander off together under the stars.\n\n\n My heart has a warmth in it, and I no longer fear for the future of our\n race when our young people can show such nobility and sacrifice.",
    "32836": "WHEN THE MOUNTAIN SHOOK\nBy Robert Abernathy\nIllustrated by Kelly Freas\n[Transcriber Note: This etext was produced from IF Worlds of Science\n Fiction March 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nDark was the Ryzga mountain and forbidding; steep were its\n cliffs and sheer its crevasses. But its outward perils could not compare\n with the Ryzgas themselves, who slept within, ready to wake and\n conquer....\nAt sunset they were in sight of the Ryzga mountain. Strangely it towered\n among the cliffs and snow-slopes of the surrounding ranges: an immense\n and repellently geometric cone, black, its sides blood-tinted by the\n dying sun.\n\n\n Neena shivered, even though the surrounding cold could not reach her.\n The ice-wind blew from the glacier, but Var's love was round her as a\n warming cloak, a cloak that glowed softly golden in the deepening\n twilight, even as her love was about him.\n\n\n Var said, \"The Watcher's cave should be three miles beyond this pass.\"\n He stood rigid, trying to catch an echo of the Watcher's thoughts, but\n there was nothing. Perhaps the old man was resting. From the other\n direction, the long way that they two had come, it was not difficult to\n sense the thought of Groz. That thought was powerful, and heavy with\n vengeance.\n\n\n \"Hurry,\" said Neena. \"They're closer than they were an hour ago.\"\n\n\n She was beautiful and defiant, facing the red sunset and the black\n mountain. Var sensed her fear, and the love that had conquered it. He\n felt a wave of tenderness and bitterness. For him she had come to this.\n For the flame that had sprung between them at the Truce of New Grass,\n she had challenged the feud of their peoples and had left her home, to\n follow him. Now, if her father and his kinsmen overtook them, it would\n be death for Var, and for Neena living shame. Which of the two was worse\n was no longer a simple problem to Var, who had grown much older in the\n last days.\n\n\n \"Wait,\" he commanded. While she waited he spun a dream, attaching it to\n the crags that loomed over the pass, and to the frozen ground underfoot.\n It was black night, as it would really be when Groz and his henchmen\n reached this place; lurid fire spewed from the Ryzga mountain, and\n strange lights dipped above it; and for good measure there was an\n avalanche in the dream, and hideous beasts rushed snapping and ravening\n from the crevices of the rock.\n\n\n \"Oh!\" cried Neena in involuntary alarm.\n\n\n Var sighed, shaking his head. \"It won't hold them for long, but it's the\n best I can do now. Come on.\"\n\n\n There was no path. Now they were descending the steeper face of the\n sierra, and the way led over bottomless crevasses, sheer drops and sheer\n ascents, sheets of traitorous glare ice. Place after place had to be\n crossed on the air, and both grew weary with the effort such crossings\n cost. They hoarded their strength, helping one another; one alone might\n never have won through.\n\n\n It was starry night already when they saw the light from the Watcher's\n cave. The light shone watery and dim from beneath the hoary back of the\n glacier, and as they came nearer they saw why: the cave entrance was\n sealed by a sheet of ice, a frozen waterfall that fell motionless from\n the rocks above. They heard no sound.\n\n\n The two young people stared for a long minute, intrigued and fearful.\n Both had heard of this place, and the ancient who lived there to keep\n watch on the Ryzga mountain, as a part of the oldest legends of their\n childhood; but neither had been here before.\n\n\n But this was no time for shyness. Var eyed the ice-curtain closely to\n make sure that it was real, not dream-stuff; then he struck it boldly\n with his fist. It shattered and fell in a rain of splinters, sparkling\n in the light that poured from within.\nThey felt the Watcher rouse, heard his footsteps, and finally saw him\u2014a\n shrunken old man, white-haired, with a lined beardless face. The sight\n of him, more marred by age than anyone they had ever seen before, was\n disappointing. They had expected something more\u2014an ancient giant, a\n tower of wisdom and strength. The Watcher was four hundred years old;\n beside him even Groz, who had always seemed so ancient, was like a boy.\n\n\n The Watcher peered at them in turn. \"Welcome,\" he said in a cracked\n voice. He did not speak again; the rest of his conversation was in\n thought only. \"Welcome indeed. I am too much alone here.\"\n\n\n \"You were asleep!\" said Var. Shock made his thought accusing, though he\n had not meant to be.\n\n\n The old man grinned toothlessly. \"Never fear. Asleep or awake, I watch.\n Come in! You're letting in the wind.\"\n\n\n Inside the cave it was warm as summer. Var saw with some surprise that\n all the walls were sheathed in ice\u2014warm to the touch, bound fast\n against melting by the Watcher's will. Light blazed in reflections from\n the ice walls, till there was no shadow in the place. Behind them began\n a tinkling of falling water, thawed from the glacial ridges above to\n descend sheet-wise over the cave mouth, freezing as it fell into\n lengthening icicles. The old man gazed at his work for a moment, then\n turned questioningly to the young pair.\n\n\n \"We need a little rest out of the cold,\" said Var. \"And food, if you can\n spare it. We're pursued.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, yes. You shall have what I can give you. Make yourselves\n comfortable, and in one minute.... Pursued, eh? A pity. I see the world\n is as bad as it was when I was last in it.\"\n\n\n Hot food and drink were before them almost at once. The Watcher regarded\n them with compassion as their eyes brightened and some of the shadow of\n weariness lifted from them. \"You have stolen your enemy's daughter, no\n doubt, young man? Such things happened when I was young.\"\n\n\n Warming to the old man now, Var sketched his and Neena's history\n briefly. \"We should have been safe among my people by now. And before\n very long, I'm sure, I would have performed some deed which Groz would\n recognize as a worthy exploit, and would thus have healed the feud\n between our families. But our flight was found out too soon. They cut us\n off and forced us into the mountains, and now they are only a few hours\n behind us.\"\n\n\n \"A pity, indeed. I would like to help you\u2014but, you understand, I am the\n Mountain Watcher. I must be above feuds and families.\"\n\n\n Var nodded somberly, thinking that an old recluse would in any case be\n able to do little for them against Groz and his violent kinsfolk.\n\n\n \"And what will you do now?\"\n\n\n Var grinned mirthlessly. \"We haven't much choice, since they're\n overtaking us. I have only one idea left: we can go where Groz may fear\n to follow us.\"\n\n\n \"To the mountain, you mean.\"\n\n\n \"And into it, if need be.\"\n\n\n The Watcher was broodingly silent; his eyes shifted to Neena, where she\n nestled by Var's side. He asked, \"And you\u2014are you willing to follow\n your lover in this?\"\n\n\n Neena returned his gaze without flinching; then she looked sidelong at\n Var, and her lips curled with a proud and tender mockery. \"Follow? Why,\n I will lead, if his courage should fail him.\"\nThe old man said, \"It is no part of my duty to dissuade you from this\n thing. You are free persons. But I must be sure that you know what you\n are doing. That is the second part of the law the First Watcher made: to\n guard lest the unwary and the ignorant should bring harm on themselves\n and on all men.\"\n\n\n \"We know the stories,\" Var said brusquely. \"In the hollow heart of their\n mountain the Ryzgas sleep, as they chose to do when their world\n crumbled. But if they are wakened, the mountain will tremble, and the\n Ryzgas will come forth.\"\n\n\n \"Do you believe that?\"\n\n\n \"As one believes stories.\"\n\n\n \"It is true,\" said the Watcher heavily. \"In my youth I penetrated\n farther into the mountain than anyone before, farther even than did the\n First Watcher. I did not see the sleepers, nor will any man until they\n come again, but I met their sentries, the sentinel machines that guard\n them now as they have for two thousand years. When I had gone that far,\n the mountain began to shake, the force that is in the Earth rumbled\n below, and I returned in time.\" Now for the first time Var sensed the\n power in the old man's look, the power of four hundred years' wisdom.\n Var stared down at his hands.\n\n\n \"The Ryzgas also were men,\" said the Watcher. \"But they were such a race\n as the world has not seen before or since. There were tyrannies before\n the Ryzgas, there was lust for power, and atrocious cruelty; but such\n tyranny, power, and cruelty as theirs, had never been known. They ruled\n the Earth for four generations, and the Earth was too little for them.\n They laid the world waste, stripped it of metals and fuels and bored to\n its heart for energy, poisoned its seas and its air with the fume of\n their works, wrung its peoples dry for their labor ... and in each of\n those four generations they launched a ship of space. They were great\n and evil as no other people has been, because they wanted the stars.\n\n\n \"Because of them we must build with dreams instead of iron, and our only\n fire is that of the Sun, and even now, two thousand years later, the\n Earth is still slowly recovering from the pangs and poison of that age.\n If you turn up the sod in the plain where the wild herds graze, you will\n find numberless fragments of rusted or corroded metal, bits of glass and\n strange plastic substances, debris of artifacts still showing the marks\n of their shaping\u2014the scattered wreckage of the things they made. And\n we\u2014we too are a remnant, the descendants of the few out of all humanity\n that survived when the Ryzgas' world went down in flame and thunder.\n\n\n \"In the last generation of their power the Ryzgas knew by their science\n that the race of man would endure them no longer. They made ready their\n weapons, they mined the cities and the factories for destruction, making\n sure that their works and their knowledge would perish with them.\n Meanwhile they redoubled the yoke and the punishments, hastening the\n completion of the last of the starships.\n\n\n \"From the memories that the old Watchers have left here, and from the\n memories of dead men that still echo in the air, I have gathered a\n picture of that world's end. I will show it to you....\"\nVar and Neena stared, unstirring, with wide vacant eyes, while the old\n man wove a dream around them, and the bright ice-cave faded from their\n vision, and they saw\u2014\n\n\n Black starless night, a sky of rolling smoke above the greatest city\n that was ever built. Only the angry light of fires relieved the city's\n darkness\u2014that, and the blue-white lightning flashes that silhouetted\n the naked skeletons of buildings and were followed by thunder and a\n shaking of the earth.\n\n\n Along lightless streets, half choked with rubble and with the dead,\n poured a mad, hating horde. The recurrent flashes lit scarred faces,\n naked bodies blackened and maimed from the hell of the workshops where\n the Ryzgas' might had been forged, eyes that stared white and half\n sightless from the glare of the furnaces, gnarled hands that now at long\n last clutched the weapons of the last rebellion\u2014a rebellion without\n hope of new life on a world gutted and smoldering from the fulfilment of\n the Ryzgas' dream, without slogans other than a cry for blood.\n\n\n Before them death waited around the citadel where the masters still\n fought. All round, from the lowest and most poisonous levels of the\n shattered city, the slaves swarmed up in their millions. And the\n lightning blazed, and the city howled and screamed and burned.\n\n\n Then, unbelievably, the thunder fell silent, and the silence swept\n outward like a wave, from ruined street to street. The mouths that had\n shouted their wrath were speechless, and the rage-blinded eyes were\n lifted in sudden awe. From the center, over the citadel, an immense\n white globe soared upward, rising swiftly without sound.\n\n\n They had never seen its like, but they knew. It was the last starship,\n and it was leaving.\n\n\n It poised motionless. For an instant the burning city lay mute; then the\n millions found voice. Some roared ferocious threats and curses; others\n cried desolately\u2014\nwait!\nThen the whole city, the dark tumuli of its buildings and its leaping\n fires and tormented faces, and the black sky over it, seemed to twist\n and swim, like a scene under water when a great fish sweeps past, and\n the ship was gone.\n\n\n The stunned paralysis fell apart in fury. Flame towered over the\n citadel. The hordes ran and shrieked again toward the central inferno,\n and the city burned and burned....\nVar blinked dazedly in the shadowless glow of the ice-cave. His arm\n tightened about Neena till she gasped. He was momentarily uncertain that\n he and she were real and here, such had been the force of the dream, a\n vision of such scope and reality as Var had never seen\u2014no, lived\n through\u2014before. With deep respect now he gazed upon the bent old man\n who was the Mountain Watcher.\n\n\n \"Some of the Ryzgas took flight to the stars, and some perished on\n Earth. But there was a group of them who believed that their time to\n rule would come again. These raised a black mountain from the Earth's\n heart, and in hollows within it cast themselves into deathless sleep,\n their deathless and lifeless sentinels round them, to wait till someone\n dare arouse them, or until their chosen time\u2014no one knows surely.\n\n\n \"I have told you the story you know, and have shown you a glimpse of the\n old time, because I must make sure that you do not approach the mountain\n in ignorance. Our world is unwise and sometimes evil, full of arrogance,\n folly, and passion that are in the nature of man. Yet it is a happy\n world, compared to that the Ryzgas made and will make again.\"\n\n\n The Watcher eyed them speculatively. \"Before all,\" he said finally,\n \"this is a world where you are free to risk wakening the old tyrants, if\n in your own judgment your great need renders the chance worth taking.\"\n\n\n Neena pressed her face against Var's shoulder, hiding her eyes. In her\n mind as it groped for his there was a confusion of horror and pity. Var\n looked grimly at the Watcher, and would have spoken; but the Watcher\n seemed suddenly a very long way off, and Var could no longer feel his\n own limbs, his face was a numb mask. Dully he heard the old man say,\n \"You are tired. Best sleep until morning.\"\n\n\n Var strove to cry out that there was no time, that Groz was near and\n that sleep was for infants and the aged, but his intention sank and\n drowned under wave upon wave of unconquerable languor. The bright cave\n swam and dissolved; his eyelids closed.\nVar woke. Daylight glimmered through the ice of the cave mouth. He had\n been unconscious, helpless, for hours! At the thought of that, panic\n gripped him. He had not slept since childhood, and he had forgotten how\n it was.\n\n\n He came to his feet in one quick movement, realizing in that action that\n sleep had refreshed his mind and body\u2014realizing also that a footstep\n had wakened him. Across the cave he faced a young man who watched him\n coolly with dark piercing eyes that were familiar though he did not know\n the face.\n\n\n Neena sat up and stifled a cry of fright. Var growled, \"Who are you?\n Where's the Watcher?\"\n\n\n The other flashed white teeth in a smile. \"I'm the Watcher,\" he\n answered. \"Often I become a youth at morning, and relax into age as the\n day passes. A foolish amusement, no doubt, but amusements are few here.\"\n\n\n \"You made us fall asleep. Groz will be on us\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Groz and his people could not detect your thoughts as you slept. They\n were all night chasing elusive dreams on the high ridges, miles away.\"\n\n\n Var passed a hand across bewildered eyes. Neena said softly, \"Thank you,\n Watcher.\"\n\n\n \"Don't thank me. I take no sides in your valley feuds. But now you are\n rested, your minds are clear. Do you still mean to go on to the Ryzga\n mountain?\"\n\n\n Not looking at the Watcher, Var muttered unsteadily, \"We have no\n alternative.\"\n\n\n There was a liquid tinkling as the ice-curtain collapsed; the fresh\n breeze of morning swept into the cave. The youth beckoned to them, and\n they followed him outside.\n\n\n The glacial slope on which the cavern opened faced toward the mountain.\n It rose black and forbidding in the dawn as it had by sunset. To right\n and left of it, the grand cliffs, ocher and red, were lit splendidly by\n the morning sun, but the mountain of the Ryzgas drank in the light and\n gave nothing back.\n\n\n Below their feet the slope fell away into an opaque sea of fog, filling\n a mile-wide gorge. There was a sound of turbulent water, of a river\n dashed from rock to rock in its struggle toward the plain, but the\n curling fog hid everything.\n\n\n \"You have an alternative,\" said the Watcher crisply. The two took their\n eyes from the black mountain and gazed at him in sudden hope, but his\n face was unsmiling. \"It is this. You, Var, can flee up the canyon to the\n north, by a way I will show you, disguising your thoughts and masking\n your presence as well as you are able, while the girl goes in the other\n direction, southward, without seeking to conceal herself. Your pursuers\n will be deceived and follow her, and by the time they catch her it will\n be too late for them to overtake Var.\"\n\n\n That possibility had not occurred to them at all. Var and Neena looked\n at one another. Then by common consent they blended their minds into\n one.\n\n\n They thought, in the warm intimacy of unreserved understanding: \"\nIt\n would work: I-you would make the sacrifice of shame and mockery\u2014yet\n these can be borne\u2014that I-you might be saved from death\u2014which is alone\n irreparable.... But to become\nI\nand\nyou\nagain\u2014that cannot be\n borne.\n\"\n\n\n They said in unison, \"No. Not that.\"\n\n\n The Watcher's face did not change. He said gravely, \"Very well. I will\n give you what knowledge I have that may help you when you enter the\n Ryzga mountain.\"\n\n\n Quickly, he impressed on them what he had learned of the structure of\n the mountain and of its guardian machines. Var closed his eyes, a little\n dizzied by the rapid flood of detail.\n\n\n \"You are ready to go,\" said the Watcher. He spoke aloud, and his voice\n was cracked and harsh. Var opened his eyes in surprise, and saw that the\n Watcher had become again the hoary ancient of last night.\n\n\n Var felt a twinge of unfamiliar emotion; only by its echo in Neena's\n mind did he recognize it as a sense of guilt. He said stiffly, \"You\n don't blame us?\"\n\n\n \"You have taken life in your own hands,\" rasped the Watcher. \"Who does\n that needs no blessing and feels no curse. Go!\"\nThey groped through the fog above blank abysses that hid the snarling\n river, crept hand in hand, sharing their strength, across unstable dream\n bridges from crag to crag. Groz and his pack, in their numbers, would\n cross the gorge more surely and swiftly. When Var and Neena set foot at\n last on the cindery slope of the great volcanic cone, they sensed that\n the pursuit already halved their lead.\n\n\n They stood high on the side of the Ryzga mountain, and gazed at the\n doorway. It was an opaque yet penetrable well of darkness, opening into\n the face of a lava cliff, closed only by an intangible curtain\u2014so\n little had the Ryzgas feared those who might assail them in their sleep.\n\n\n Var sent his thoughts probing beyond the curtain, listened intently,\n head thrown back, to their echoes that returned. The tunnel beyond\n slanted steeply downward. Var's hands moved, molding a radiant globe\n from the feeble sunshine that straggled through the fog-bank. With an\n abrupt motion he hurled it. The sun-globe vanished, as if the darkness\n had drunk it up, but though sight did not serve they both sensed that it\n had passed through to light up the depths beyond. For within the\n mountain something snapped suddenly alert\u2014something alive yet not\n living, seeing yet blind. They felt light-sensitive cells tingle in\n response, felt electric currents sting along buried, long-idle\n circuits....\n\n\n The two stood shivering together.\n\n\n The morning wind stirred, freshening, the fog lifted a little, and they\n heard a great voice crying, \"There they are!\"\n\n\n Var and Neena turned. Far out in the sea of fog, on a dream bridge that\n they could not see, stood Groz. He shook the staff he carried. It was\n too far to discern the rage that must contort his features, but the\n thought he hurled at them was a soundless bellow: \"Young fools! I've\n caught you now!\"\n\n\n Behind Groz the figures of his followers loomed up as striding shadows.\n Neena's hand tightened on Var's. Var sent a thought of defiance: \"Go\n back! Or you'll drive us to enter the mountain!\"\n\n\n Groz seemed to hesitate. Then he swung his staff up like a weapon, and\n for the two on the mountainside the world turned upside down, the\n mountain's black shoulder hung inverted above them and the dizzy gulf of\n sky was beneath. Var fought for footing with his balance gone, feeling\n Neena reel against him until, summoning all his strength, he broke the\n grip of the illusion and the world seemed to right itself. The mist\n billowed again and Groz was out of sight, but they could hear him\n exhorting his men to haste.\n\n\n Neena's face was deadly pale and her lips trembled, but her urgent\n whisper said, \"Come on!\"\n\n\n Together they plunged into the curtain of darkness.\nAt Var's thought command Neena froze instantly. \"Feel that!\" he\n muttered, and she, listening, sensed it too: the infinitesimal trickle\n of currents behind what appeared to be a blank tunnel wall, a rising\n potential that seemed to whisper\nReady ... ready....\nThe sun-globe floated behind them, casting light before them down the\n featureless tunnel that sloped always toward the mountain's heart. Var\n summoned it, and it drifted ahead, a dozen feet, a little more\u2014\n\n\n Between wall and wall a blinding spindle of flame sprang into being,\n pulsed briefly with radiant energy that pained the eyes, and went out.\n The immaterial globe of light danced on before them.\n\n\n \"Forward, before the charge builds up again!\" said Var. A few feet\n further on, they stumbled over a pile of charred bones. Someone else had\n made it only this far. It was farther than the Watcher had gone into\n these uncharted regions, and only the utmost alertness of mind and sense\n had saved them from death in traps like this. But as yet the way was not\n blocked....\n\n\n Then they felt the mountain begin to tremble. A very faint and remote\n vibration at first, then an increasingly potent shuddering of the floor\n under their feet and the walls around them. Somewhere far below immense\n energies were stirring for the first time in centuries. The power that\n was in the Earth was rising; great wheels commenced to turn, the\n mechanical servitors of the Ryzgas woke one by one and began to make\n ready, while their masters yet slept, for the moment of rebirth that\n might be near at hand.\n\n\n From behind, up the tunnel, came a clear involuntary thought of dismay,\n then a directed thought, echoing and ghostly in the confinement of the\n dark burrow:\n\n\n \"\nStop!\n\u2014before you go too far!\"\n\n\n Var faced that way and thought coldly: \"Only if you return and let us go\n free.\"\n\n\n In the black reaches of the shaft his will groped for and locked with\n that of Groz, like the grip of two strong wrestlers. In that grip each\n knew with finality that the other's stubbornness matched his own\u2014that\n neither would yield, though the mountain above them and the world\n outside should crumble to ruin around them.\n\n\n \"Follow us, then!\"\n\n\n They plunged deeper into the mountain. And the shaking of the mountain\n increased with every step, its vibrations became sound, and its sound\n was like that of the terrible city which they had seen in the dream.\n Through the slow-rolling thunder of the hidden machines seemed to echo\n the death-cries of a billion slaves, the despair of all flesh and blood\n before their monstrous and inhuman power.\n\n\n Without warning, lights went on. Blinking in their glare, Var and Neena\n saw that fifty paces before them the way opened out into a great rounded\n room that was likewise ablaze with light. Cautiously they crept forward\n to the threshold of that chamber at the mountain's heart.\n\n\n Its roof was vaulted; its circular walls were lined with panels studded\n with gleaming control buttons, levers, colored lights. As they watched\n light flicked on and off in changing patterns, registering the\n progressive changes in the vast complex of mechanisms for which this\n must be the central control station. Behind those boards circuits opened\n and closed in bewildering confusion; the two invaders felt the rapid\n shifting of magnetic fields, the fury of electrons boiling in vacuum....\n\n\n For long moments they forgot the pursuit, forgot everything in wonder at\n this place whose remotest like they had never seen in the simplicity of\n their machineless culture. In all the brilliant space there was no life.\n They looked at one another, the same thought coming to both at once:\n perhaps, after two thousand years, the masters were dead after all, and\n only the machines remained? As if irresistibly drawn, they stepped over\n the threshold.\n\n\n There was a clang of metal like a signal. Halfway up the wall opposite,\n above a narrow ramp that descended between the instrument panels, a\n massive doorway swung wide, and in its opening a figure stood.\n\n\n Var and Neena huddled frozenly, half expecting each instant to be their\n last. And the Ryzga too stood motionless, looking down at them.\nHe was a man of middle height and stocky build, clad in a garment of\n changing colors, of fabric delicate as dream-stuff. In his right hand,\n with the care one uses with a weapon, he grasped a gleaming metal tube;\n his other hand rested as for support against the frame of the doorway.\n That, and his movements when he came slowly down the ramp toward them,\n conveyed a queer suggestion of weariness or weakness, as if he were yet\n not wholly roused from his two millenia of slumber. But the Ryzga's\n manner and his mind radiated a consciousness of power, a pride and\n assurance of self that smote them like a numbing blow.\n\n\n With a new shock, Var realized that the Ryzga's thoughts were quite\n open. They had a terse, disconnected quality that was strange and\n unsettling, and in part they were couched in alien and unintelligible\n symbols. But there was no block. Apparently the Ryzga felt no need to\n close his mind in the presence of inferior creatures....\n\n\n He paused with his back to the central control panel, and studied the\n interlopers with the dispassionate gaze of a scientist examining a new,\n but not novel, species of insect. His thoughts seemed to click, like\n metal parts of a mechanism falling into places prepared for them. The\n image occurred oddly to Var, to whom such a comparison would ordinarily\n have been totally strange.\n\n\n \"Culture: late barbarism. Handwork of high quality\u2014good. Physically\n excellent stock....\" There was a complicated and incomprehensible\n schemata of numbers and abstract forms. \"The time: two thousand\n years\u2014more progress might have been expected, if any survivors at all\n initially postulated; but this will do. The pessimists were mistaken. We\n can begin again.\" Then, startlingly super-imposed on the cool\n progression of logical thought, came a wave of raw emotion, devastating\n in its force. It was a lustful image of a world once more obedient,\n crawling, laboring to do the Ryzgas' will\u2014\ntoward the stars, the\n stars!\nThe icy calculation resumed: \"Immobilize these and the ones\n indicated in the passage above. Then wake the rest....\"\n\n\n Var was staring in fascination at the Ryzga's face. It was a face formed\n by the custom of unquestioned command; yet it was lined by a deeply\n ingrained weariness, the signs of premature age\u2014denied, overridden by\n the driving will they had sensed a moment earlier. It was a sick man's\n face.\n\n\n The Ryzga's final thought clicked into place:\nDecision!\nHe turned\n toward the switchboard behind him, reaching with practised certainty for\n one spot upon it.\n\n\n Neena screamed.\n\n\n Between the Ryzga and the control panel a nightmare shape reared up\n seven feet tall, flapping black amorphous limbs and flashing red eyes\n and white fangs. The Ryzga recoiled, and the weapon in his hand came up.\n There was an instantaneous glare like heat lightning, and the monster\n crumpled in on itself, twitched briefly and vanished.\n\n\n But in that moment a light of inspiration had flashed upon Var, and it\n remained. As the Ryzga stretched out his hand again, Var acted. The\n Ryzga froze, teetering off balance and almost falling, as a numbing grip\n closed down on all his motor nerves.\n\n\n Holding that grip, Var strode across the floor and looked straight into\n the Ryzga's frantic eyes. They glared back at him with such hatred and\n such evil that for an instant he almost faltered. But the Ryzga's\n efforts, as he strove to free himself from the neural hold, were as\n misdirected and unavailing as those of a child who has not learned to\n wrestle with the mind.\n\n\n Var had guessed right. When Neena in her terror had flung a dream\n monster into the Ryzga's way\u2014a mere child's bogey out of a fairy\n tale\u2014the Ryzga had not recognized it as such, but had taken it for a\n real being. Var laughed aloud, and with great care, as one communicates\n with an infant, he projected his thoughts into the other's mind. \"There\n will be no new beginning for you in\nour\nworld, Ryzga! In two thousand\n years, we've learned some new things. Now at last I understand why you\n built so many machines, such complicated arrangements of matter and\n energy to do simple tasks\u2014it was because you knew no other way.\"\n\n\n Behind the hate-filled eyes the cold brain tried to reason still.\n \"Barbarians...? Our party was wrong after all. After us the machine\n civilization could never rise again, because it was a fire that consumed\n its fuel. After us\nman\ncould not survive on the Earth, because the\n conditions that made him great were gone. The survivors must be\n something else\u2014capacities undeveloped by our science\u2014after us the end\n of man, the beginning.... But those of us who chose to die were right.\"\n\n\n The tide of hate and sick desire rose up to drown all coherence. The\n Ryzga made a savage, wholly futile effort to lift the weapon in his\n paralyzed hand. Then his eyes rolled upward, and abruptly he went limp\n and fell in a heap, like a mechanical doll whose motive power has\n failed.\n\n\n Var felt Neena beside him, and drew her close. As she sobbed her relief,\n he continued to look down absently at the dead man. When at last he\n raised his head, he saw that the drama's end had had a further audience.\n In the outer doorway, backed by his clansmen, stood Groz, gazing first\n in stupefaction at the fallen Ryzga, then with something like awe at\n Var.\n\n\n Var eyed him for a long moment; then he smiled, and asked, \"Well, Groz?\n Is our feud finished, or does your ambition for a worthy son-in-law go\n beyond the conqueror of the Ryzgas?\"",
    "31355": "Transcriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from Space Science Fiction May 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.\nTO EACH HIS STAR\nby\nBRYCE WALTON\n\"Nothing around those other suns but ashes and dried\n blood,\" old Dunbar told the space-wrecked, desperate men.\n \"Only one way to go, where we can float down through the\n clouds to Paradise. That's straight ahead to the sun with\n the red rim around it.\"\nBut Dunbar's eyes were old and uncertain. How could they\n believe in his choice when every star in this forsaken\n section of space was surrounded by a beckoning red rim?\nThere was just blackness, frosty glimmering terrible blackness, going\n out and out forever in all directions. Russell didn't think they could\n remain sane in all this blackness much longer. Bitterly he thought of\n how they would die\u2014not knowing within maybe thousands of light years\n where they were, or where they were going.\n\n\n After the wreck, the four of them had floated a while, floated and\n drifted together, four men in bulbous pressure suits like small\n individual rockets, held together by an awful pressing need for each\n other and by the \"gravity-rope\" beam.\n\n\n Dunbar, the oldest of the four, an old space-buster with a face\n wrinkled like a dried prune, burned by cosmic rays and the suns of\n worlds so far away they were scarcely credible, had taken command.\n Suddenly, Old Dunbar had known where they were. Suddenly, Dunbar knew\n where they were going.\n\n\n They could talk to one another through the etheric transmitters inside\n their helmets. They could live ... if this was living ... a long time,\n if only a man's brain would hold up, Russell thought. The suits were\n complete units. 700 pounds each, all enclosing shelters, with\n atmosphere pressure, temperature control, mobility in space, and\n electric power. Each suit had its own power-plant, reprocessing\n continuously the precious air breathed by the occupants, putting it\n back into circulation again after enriching it. Packed with food\n concentrates. Each suit a rocket, each human being part of a rocket,\n and the special \"life-gun\" that went with each suit each blast of\n which sent a man a few hundred thousand miles further on toward\n wherever he was going.\n\n\n Four men, thought Russell, held together by an invisible string of\n gravity, plunging through a lost pocket of hell's dark where there had\n never been any sound or life, with old Dunbar the first in line,\n taking the lead because he was older and knew where he was and where\n he was going. Maybe Johnson, second in line, and Alvar who was third,\n knew too, but were afraid to admit it.\n\n\n But Russell knew it and he'd admitted it from the first\u2014that old\n Dunbar was as crazy as a Jovian juke-bird.\n\n\n A lot of time had rushed past into darkness. Russell had no idea now\n how long the four of them had been plunging toward the red-rimmed sun\n that never seemed to get any nearer. When the ultra-drive had gone\n crazy the four of them had blanked out and nobody could say now how\n long an interim that had been. Nobody knew what happened to a man who\n suffered a space-time warping like that. When they had regained\n consciousness, the ship was pretty banged up, and the meteor-repeller\n shields cracked. A meteor ripped the ship down the center like an old\n breakfast cannister.\n\n\n How long ago that had been, Russell didn't know. All Russell knew was\n that they were millions of light years from any place he had ever\n heard about, where the galactic space lanterns had absolutely no\n recognizable pattern. But Dunbar knew. And Russell was looking at\n Dunbar's suit up ahead, watching it more and more intently, thinking\n about how Dunbar looked inside that suit\u2014and hating Dunbar more and\n more for claiming he knew when he didn't, for his drooling\n optimism\u2014because he was taking them on into deeper darkness and\n calling their destination Paradise.\n\n\n Russell wanted to laugh, but the last time he'd given way to this\n impulse, the results inside his helmet had been too unpleasant to\n repeat.\n\n\n Sometimes Russell thought of other things besides his growing hatred\n of the old man. Sometimes he thought about the ship, lost back there\n in the void, and he wondered if wrecked space ships were ever found.\n Compared with the universe in which one of them drifted, a wrecked\n ship was a lot smaller than a grain of sand on a nice warm beach back\n on Earth, or one of those specks of silver dust that floated like\n strange seeds down the night winds of Venus.\n\n\n And a human was smaller still, thought Russell when he was not hating\n Dunbar. Out here, a human being is the smallest thing of all. He\n thought then of what Dunbar would say to such a thought, how Dunbar\n would laugh that high piping squawking laugh of his and say that the\n human being was bigger than the Universe itself.\n\n\n Dunbar had a big answer for every little thing.\n\n\n When the four of them had escaped from that prison colony on a\n sizzling hot asteroid rock in the Ronlwhyn system, that wasn't enough\n for Dunbar. Hell no\u2014Dunbar had to start talking about a place they\n could go where they'd never be apprehended, in a system no one else\n had ever heard of, where they could live like gods on a green soft\n world like the Earth had been a long time back.\n\n\n And Dunbar had spouted endlessly about a world of treasure they would\n find, if they would just follow old Dunbar. That's what all four of\n them had been trying to find all their lives in the big cold grabbag\n of eternity\u2014a rich star, a rich far fertile star where no one else\n had ever been, loaded with treasure that had no name, that no one had\n ever heard of before. And was, because of that, the richest treasure\n of all.\n\n\n We all look alike out here in these big rocket pressure suits, Russell\n thought. No one for God only knew how many of millions of light years\n away could see or care. Still\u2014we might have a chance to live, even\n now, Russell thought\u2014if it weren't for old crazy Dunbar.\n\n\n They might have a chance if Alvar and Johnson weren't so damn lacking\n in self-confidence as to put all their trust in that crazed old\n rum-dum. Russell had known now for some time that they were going in\n the wrong direction. No reason for knowing. Just a hunch. And Russell\n was sure his hunch was right.\nRussell said. \"Look\u2014look to your left and to your right and behind\n us. Four suns. You guys see those other three suns all around you,\n don't you?\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" someone said.\n\n\n \"Well, if you'll notice,\" Russell said, \"the one on the left also now\n has a red rim around it. Can't you guys see that?\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, I see it,\" Alvar said.\n\n\n \"So now,\" Johnson said, \"there's two suns with red rims around them.\"\n\n\n \"We're about in the middle of those four suns aren't we, Dunbar?\"\n Russell said.\n\n\n \"That's right, boys!\" yelled old Dunbar in that sickeningly optimistic\n voice. Like a hysterical old woman's. \"Just about in the sweet dark\n old middle.\"\n\n\n \"You're still sure it's the sun up ahead ... that's the only one with\n life on it, Dunbar ... the only one we can live on?\" Russell asked.\n\n\n \"That's right! That's right,\" Dunbar yelled. \"That's the only one\u2014and\n it's a paradise. Not just a place to live, boys\u2014but a place you'll\n have trouble believing in because it's like a dream!\"\n\n\n \"And none of these other three suns have worlds we could live on,\n Dunbar?\" Russell asked. Keep the old duck talking like this and maybe\n Alvar and Johnson would see that he was cracked.\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" said Alvar. \"You still say that, Dunbar?\"\n\n\n \"No life, boys, nothing,\" Dunbar laughed. \"Nothing on these other\n worlds but ashes ... just ashes and iron and dried blood, dried a\n million years or more.\"\n\n\n \"When in hell were you ever here?\" Johnson said. \"You say you were\n here before. You never said when, or why or anything!\"\n\n\n \"It was a long time back boys. Don't remember too well, but it was\n when we had an old ship called the DOG STAR that I was here. A pirate\n ship and I was second in command, and we came through this sector.\n That was\u2014hell, it musta' been fifty years ago. I been too many places\n nobody's ever bothered to name or chart, to remember where it is, but\n I been here. I remember those four suns all spotted to form a perfect\n circle from this point, with us squarely in the middle. We explored\n all these suns and the worlds that go round 'em. Trust me, boys, and\n we'll reach the right one. And that one's just like Paradise.\"\n\n\n \"Paradise is it,\" Russell whispered hoarsely.\n\n\n \"Paradise and there we'll be like gods, like Mercuries with wings\n flying on nights of sweet song. These other suns, don't let them\n bother you. They're Jezebels of stars. All painted up in the darkness\n and pretty and waiting and calling and lying! They make you think of\n nice green worlds all running waters and dews and forests thick as\n fleas on a wet dog. But it ain't there, boys. I know this place. I\n been here, long time back.\"\n\n\n Russell said tightly. \"It'll take us a long time won't it? If it's got\n air we can breath, and water we can drink and shade we can rest\n in\u2014that'll be paradise enough for us. But it'll take a long time\n won't it? And what if it isn't there\u2014what if after all the time we\n spend hoping and getting there\u2014there won't be nothing but ashes and\n cracked clay?\"\n\n\n \"I know we're going right,\" Dunbar said cheerfully. \"I can tell. Like\n I said\u2014you can tell it because of the red rim around it.\"\n\n\n \"But the sun on our left, you can see\u2014it's got a red rim too now,\"\n Russell said.\n\n\n \"Yeah, that's right,\" said Alvar. \"Sometimes I see a red rim around\n the one we're going for, sometimes a red rim around that one on the\n left. Now, sometimes I'm not sure either of them's got a red rim. You\n said that one had a red rim, Dunbar, and I wanted to believe it. So\n now maybe we're all seeing a red rim that was never there.\"\n\n\n Old Dunbar laughed. The sound brought blood hotly to Russell's face.\n \"We're heading to the right one, boys. Don't doubt me ... I been here.\n We explored all these sun systems. And I remember it all. The second\n planet from that red-rimmed sun. You come down through a soft\n atmosphere, floating like in a dream. You see the green lakes coming\n up through the clouds and the women dancing and the music playing. I\n remember seeing a ship there that brought those women there, a long\n long time before ever I got there. A land like heaven and women like\n angels singing and dancing and laughing with red lips and arms white\n as milk, and soft silky hair floating in the winds.\"\n\n\n Russell was very sick of the old man's voice. He was at least glad he\n didn't have to look at the old man now. His bald head, his skinny\n bobbing neck, his simpering watery blue eyes. But he still had to\n suffer that immutable babbling, that idiotic cheerfulness ... and\n knowing all the time the old man was crazy, that he was leading them\n wrong.\n\n\n I'd break away, go it alone to the right sun, Russell thought\u2014but I'd\n never make it alone. A little while out here alone and I'd be nuttier\n than old Dunbar will ever be, even if he keeps on getting nuttier all\n the time.\n\n\n Somewhere, sometime then ... Russell got the idea that the only way\n was to get rid of Dunbar.\nYou mean to tell us there are people living by that red-rimmed sun,\"\n Russell said.\n\n\n \"Lost people ... lost ... who knows how long,\" Dunbar said, as the\n four of them hurtled along. \"You never know where you'll find people\n on a world somewhere nobody's ever named or knows about. Places where\n a lost ship's landed and never got up again, or wrecked itself so far\n off the lanes they'll never be found except by accident for millions\n of years. That's what this world is, boys. Must have been a ship load\n of beautiful people, maybe actresses and people like that being hauled\n to some outpost to entertain. They're like angels now, living in a\n land all free from care. Every place you see green forests and fields\n and blue lakes, and at nights there's three moons that come around the\n sky in a thousand different colors. And it never gets cold ... it's\n always spring, always spring, boys, and the music plays all night,\n every night of a long long year....\"\n\n\n Russell suddenly shouted. \"Keep quiet, Dunbar. Shut up will you?\"\n\n\n Johnson said. \"Dunbar\u2014how long'll it take us?\"\n\n\n \"Six months to a year, I'd say,\" Dunbar yelled happily. \"That is\u2014of\n our hereditary time.\"\n\n\n \"What?\" croaked Alvar.\n\n\n Johnson didn't say anything at all.\n\n\n Russell screamed at Dunbar, then quieted down. He whispered. \"Six\n months to a year\u2014out here\u2014cooped up in these damn suits. You're\n crazy as hell, Dunbar. Crazy ... crazy! Nobody could stand it. We'll\n all be crazier than you are\u2014\"\n\n\n \"We'll make it, boys. Trust ole' Dunbar. What's a year when we know\n we're getting to Paradise at the end of it? What's a year out here ...\n it's paradise ain't it, compared with that prison hole we were rotting\n in? We can make it. We have the food concentrates, and all the rest.\n All we need's the will, boys, and we got that. The whole damn Universe\n isn't big enough to kill the will of a human being, boys. I been over\n a whole lot of it, and I know. In the old days\u2014\"\n\n\n \"The hell with the old days,\" screamed Russell.\n\n\n \"Now quiet down, Russ,\" Dunbar said in a kind of dreadful crooning\n whisper. \"You calm down now. You younger fellows\u2014you don't look at\n things the way we used to. Thing is, we got to go straight. People\n trapped like this liable to start meandering. Liable to start losing\n the old will-power.\"\n\n\n He chuckled.\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" said Alvar. \"Someone says maybe we ought to go left, and\n someone says to go right, and someone else says to go in another\n direction. And then someone says maybe they'd better go back the old\n way. An' pretty soon something breaks, or the food runs out, and\n you're a million million miles from someplace you don't care about any\n more because you're dead. All frozen up in space ... preserved like a\n piece of meat in a cold storage locker. And then maybe in a million\n years or so some lousy insect man from Jupiter comes along and finds\n you and takes you away to a museum....\"\n\n\n \"Shut up!\" Johnson yelled.\n\n\n Dunbar laughed. \"Boys, boys, don't get panicky. Keep your heads. Just\n stick to old Dunbar and he'll see you through. I'm always lucky. Only\n one way to go ... an' that's straight ahead to the sun with the\n red-rim around it ... and then we tune in the gravity repellers, and\n coast down, floating and singing down through the clouds to\n paradise.\"\n\n\n After that they traveled on for what seemed months to Russell, but it\n couldn't have been over a day or two of the kind of time-sense he had\n inherited from Earth.\n\n\n Then he saw how the other two stars also were beginning to develop red\n rims. He yelled this fact out to the others. And Alvar said. \"Russ's\n right. That sun to the right, and the one behind us ... now they ALL\n have red rims around them. Dunbar\u2014\" A pause and no awareness of\n motion.\n\n\n Dunbar laughed. \"Sure, they all maybe have a touch of red, but it\n isn't the same, boys. I can tell the difference. Trust me\u2014\"\n\n\n Russell half choked on his words. \"You old goat! With those old eyes\n of yours, you couldn't see your way into a fire!\"\n\n\n \"Don't get panicky now. Keep your heads. In another year, we'll be\n there\u2014\"\n\n\n \"God, you gotta' be sure,\" Alvar said. \"I don't mind dyin' out here.\n But after a year of this, and then to get to a world that was only\n ashes, and not able to go any further\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I always come through, boys. I'm lucky. Angel women will take us to\n their houses on the edges of cool lakes, little houses that sit there\n in the sun like fancy jewels. And we'll walk under colored fountains,\n pretty colored fountains just splashing and splashing like pretty rain\n on our hungry hides. That's worth waiting for.\"\n\n\n Russell did it before he hardly realized he was killing the old man.\n It was something he had had to do for a long time and that made it\n easy. There was a flash of burning oxygen from inside the suit of\n Dunbar. If he'd aimed right, Russell knew the fire-bullet should have\n pierced Dunbar's back. Now the fire was gone, extinguished\n automatically by units inside the suit. The suit was still inflated,\n self-sealing. Nothing appeared to have changed. The four of them\n hurtling on together, but inside that first suit up there on the front\n of the gravity rope, Dunbar was dead.\n\n\n He was dead and his mouth was shut for good.\n\n\n Dunbar's last faint cry from inside his suit still rang in Russell's\n ears, and he knew Alvar and Johnson had heard it too. Alvar and\n Johnson both called Dunbar's name a few times. There was no answer.\n\n\n \"Russ\u2014you shouldn't have done that,\" Johnson whispered. \"You\n shouldn't have done that to the old man!\"\n\n\n \"No,\" Alvar said, so low he could barely be heard. \"You shouldn't have\n done it.\"\n\n\n \"I did it for the three of us,\" Russell said. \"It was either him or us.\n Lies ... lies that was all he had left in his crazy head. Paradise ...\n don't tell me you guys don't see the red rims around all four suns, all\n four suns all around us. Don't tell me you guys didn't know he was batty,\n that you really believed all that stuff he was spouting all the time!\"\n\n\n \"Maybe he was lying, maybe not,\" Johnson said. \"Now he's dead anyway.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe he was wrong, crazy, full of lies,\" Alvar said. \"But now he's\n dead.\"\n\n\n \"How could he see any difference in those four stars?\" Russell said,\n louder.\n\n\n \"He thought he was right,\" Alvar said. \"He wanted to take us to\n paradise. He was happy, nothing could stop the old man\u2014but he's dead\n now.\"\n\n\n He sighed.\n\n\n \"He was taking us wrong ... wrong!\" Russell screamed. \"Angels\u2014music\n all night\u2014houses like jewels\u2014and women like angels\u2014\"\n\n\n \"\nShhhh\n,\" said Alvar. It was quiet. How could it be so quiet, Russell\n thought? And up ahead the old man's pressure suit with a corpse inside\n went on ahead, leading the other three at the front of the\n gravity-rope.\n\n\n \"Maybe he was wrong,\" Alvar said. \"But now do we know which way is\n right?\"\nSometime later, Johnson said, \"We got to decide now. Let's forget the\n old man. Let's forget him and all that's gone and let's start now and\n decide what to do.\"\n\n\n And Alvar said, \"Guess he was crazy all right, and I guess we trusted\n him because we didn't have the strength to make up our own minds. Why\n does a crazy man's laugh sound so good when you're desperate and don't\n know what to do?\"\n\n\n \"I always had a feeling we were going wrong,\" Johnson said. \"Anyway,\n it's forgotten, Russ. It's swallowed up in the darkness all around.\n It's never been.\"\n\n\n Russell said, \"I've had a hunch all along that maybe the old man was\n here before, and that he was right about there being a star here with\n a world we can live on. But I've known we was heading wrong. I've had\n a hunch all along that the right star was the one to the left.\"\n\n\n \"I don't know,\" Johnson sighed. \"I been feeling partial toward that\n one on the right. What about you, Alvar?\"\n\n\n \"I always thought we were going straight in the opposite direction\n from what we should, I guess. I always wanted to turn around and go\n back. It won't make over maybe a month's difference. And what does a\n month matter anyway out here\u2014hell there never was any time out here\n until we came along. We make our own time here, and a month don't\n matter to me.\"\n\n\n Sweat ran down Russell's face. His voice trembled. \"No\u2014that's wrong.\n You're both wrong.\" He could see himself going it alone. Going crazy\n because he was alone. He'd have broken away, gone his own direction,\n long ago but for that fear.\n\n\n \"How can we tell which of us is right?\" Alvar said. \"It's like\n everything was changing all the time out here. Sometimes I'd swear\n none of those suns had red rims, and at other times\u2014like the old man\n said, they're all pretty and lying and saying nothing, just changing\n all the time. Jezebel stars, the old man said.\"\n\n\n \"I know I'm right,\" Russell pleaded. \"My hunches always been right.\n My hunch got us out of that prison didn't it? Listen\u2014I tell you it's\n that star to the left\u2014\"\n\n\n \"The one to the right,\" said Johnson.\n\n\n \"We been going away from the right one all the time,\" said Alvar.\n\n\n \"We got to stay together,\" said Russell. \"Nobody could spend a year\n out here ... alone....\"\n\n\n \"Ah ... in another month or so we'd be lousy company anyway,\" Alvar\n said. \"Maybe a guy could get to the point where he'd sleep most of the\n time ... just wake up enough times to give himself another boost with\n the old life-gun.\"\n\n\n \"We got to face it,\" Johnson said finally. \"We three don't go on\n together any more.\"\n\n\n \"That's it,\" said Alvar. \"There's three suns that look like they might\n be right seeing as how we all agree the old man was wrong. But we\n believe there is one we can live by, because we all seem to agree that\n the old man might have been right about that. If we stick together,\n the chance is three to one against us. But if each of us makes for one\n star, one of us has a chance to live. Maybe not in paradise like the\n old man said, but a place where we can live. And maybe there'll be\n intelligent life, maybe even a ship, and whoever gets the right star\n can come and help the other two....\"\n\n\n \"No ... God no....\" Russell whispered over and over. \"None of us can\n ever make it alone....\"\n\n\n Alvar said, \"We each take the star he likes best. I'll go back the\n other way. Russ, you take the left. And you, Johnson, go to the\n right.\"\n\n\n Johnson started to laugh. Russell was yelling wildly at them, and\n above his own yelling he could hear Johnson's rising laughter. \"Every\n guy's got a star of his own,\" Johnson said when he stopped laughing.\n \"And we got ours. A nice red-rimmed sun for each of us to call his\n very own.\"\n\n\n \"Okay,\" Alvar said. \"We cut off the gravity rope, and each to his own\n sun.\"\n\n\n Now Russell wasn't saying anything.\n\n\n \"And the old man,\" Alvar said, \"can keep right on going toward what he\n thought was right. And he'll keep on going. Course he won't be able to\n give himself another boost with the life-gun, but he'll keep going.\n Someday he'll get to that red-rimmed star of his. Out here in space,\n once you're going, you never stop ... and I guess there isn't any\n other body to pull him off his course. And what will time matter to\n old Dunbar? Even less than to us, I guess. He's dead and he won't\n care.\"\n\n\n \"Ready,\" Johnson said. \"I'll cut off the gravity rope.\"\n\n\n \"I'm ready,\" Alvar said. \"To go back toward whatever it was I started\n from.\"\n\n\n \"Ready, Russ?\"\n\n\n Russell couldn't say anything. He stared at the endless void which now\n he would share with no one. Not even crazy old Dunbar.\n\n\n \"All right,\" Johnson said. \"Good-bye.\"\n\n\n Russell felt the release, felt the sudden inexplicable isolation and\n aloneness even before Alvar and Johnson used their life-guns and shot\n out of sight, Johnson toward the left and Alvar back toward that other\n red-rimmed sun behind them.\n\n\n And old Dunbar shooting right on ahead. And all three of them\n dwindling and dwindling and blinking out like little lights.\n\n\n Fading, he could hear their voices. \"Each to his own star,\" Johnson\n said. \"On a bee line.\"\n\n\n \"On a bee line,\" Alvar said.\n\n\n Russell used his own life-gun and in a little while he didn't hear\n Alvar or Johnson's voices, nor could he see them. They were thousands\n of miles away, and going further all the time.\n\n\n Russell's head fell forward against the front of his helmet, and he\n closed his eyes. \"Maybe,\" he thought, \"I shouldn't have killed the old\n man. Maybe one sun's as good as another....\"\n\n\n Then he raised his body and looked out into the year of blackness that\n waited for him, stretching away to the red-rimmed sun. Even if he were\n right\u2014he was sure now he'd never make it alone.\nThe body inside the pressure suit drifted into a low-level orbit\n around the second planet from the sun of its choice, and drifted there\n a long time. A strato-cruiser detected it by chance because of the\n strong concentration of radio-activity that came from it.\n\n\n They took the body down to one of the small, quiet towns on the edge\n of one of the many blue lakes where the domed houses were like bright\n joyful jewels. They got the leathery, well-preserved body from the\n pressure suit.\n\n\n \"An old man,\" one of them mused. \"A very old man. From one of the lost\n sectors. I wonder how and why he came so very far from his home?\"\n\n\n \"Wrecked a ship out there, probably,\" one of the others said. \"But he\n managed to get this far. It looks as though a small meteor fragment\n pierced his body. Here. You see?\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" another of them said. \"But what amazes me is that this old man\n picked this planet out of all the others. The only one in this entire\n sector that would sustain life.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe he was just a very lucky old man. Yes ... a man who attains\n such an age was usually lucky. Or at least that is what they say about\n the lost sectors.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe he knew the way here. Maybe he was here before\u2014sometime.\"\n\n\n The other shook his head. \"I don't think so. They say some humans from\n that far sector did land here\u2014but that's probably only a myth. And if\n they did, it was well over a thousand years ago.\"\n\n\n Another said. \"He has a fine face, this old man. A noble face. Whoever\n he is ... wherever he came from, he died bravely and he knew the way,\n though he never reached this haven of the lost alive.\"\n\n\n \"Nor is it irony that he reached here dead,\" said the Lake Chieftain.\n He had been listening and he stepped forward and raised his arm. \"He\n was old. It is obvious that he fought bravely, that he had great\n courage, and that he knew the way. He will be given a burial suitable\n to his stature, and he will rest here among the brave.\n\n\n \"Let the women dance and the music play for this old man. Let the\n trumpets speak, and the rockets fly up. And let flowers be strewn over\n the path above which the women will carry him to rest.\"",
    "29168": "Every writer must seek his own Flowery Kingdom in imagination's wide\n demesne, and if that search can begin and end on Earth his problem has\n been greatly simplified. In post-war Japan Walt Sheldon has found not only\n serenity, but complete freedom to write undisturbed about the things he\n treasures most. A one-time Air Force officer, he has turned to fantasy in\n his lighter moments, to bring us such brightly sparkling little gems as this.\nhoulihan's\n \nequation\nby ... Walt Sheldon\nThe tiny spaceship had been built for a journey to a star. But its\n small, mischievous pilots had a rendezvous with destiny\u2014on Earth.\nI\u00a0must\n admit that at first I\n wasn't sure I was hearing those\n noises. It was in a park near the\n nuclear propulsion center\u2014a cool,\n green spot, with the leaves all telling\n each other to hush, be quiet,\n and the soft breeze stirring them up\n again. I had known precisely such\n a secluded little green sanctuary just\n over the hill from Mr. Riordan's\n farm when I was a boy.\n\n\n Now it was a place I came to\n when I had a problem to thrash out.\n That morning I had been trying to\n work out an equation to give the\n coefficient of discharge for the matter\n in combustion. You may call it\n gas, if you wish, for we treated it\n like gas at the center for convenience\u2014as\n it came from the rocket\n tubes in our engine.\n\n\n Without this coefficient to give\n us control, we would have lacked a\n workable equation when we set\n about putting the first moon rocket\n around those extraordinary engines\n of ours, which were still in the undeveloped\n blueprint stage.\n\n\n I see I shall have to explain this,\n although I had hoped to get right\n along with my story. When you\n start from scratch, matter discharged\n from any orifice has a velocity directly\n proportional to the square\n root of the pressure-head driving it.\n But when you actually put things\n together, contractions or expansions\n in the gas, surface roughness\n and other factors make the velocity\n a bit smaller.\n\n\n At the terrible discharge speed\n of nuclear explosion\u2014which is\n what the drive amounts to despite\n the fact that it is simply water in\n which nuclear salts have been previously\n dissolved\u2014this small factor\n makes quite a difference. I had\n to figure everything into it\u2014diameter\n of the nozzle, sharpness of the\n edge, the velocity of approach to the\n point of discharge, atomic weight\n and structure\u2014 Oh, there is so\n much of this that if you're not a\n nuclear engineer yourself it's certain\n to weary you.\n\n\n Perhaps you had better take my\n word for it that without this equation\u2014correctly\n stated, mind you\u2014mankind\n would be well advised not\n to make a first trip to the moon.\n And all this talk of coefficients and\n equations sits strangely, you might\n say, upon the tongue of a man\n named Kevin Francis Houlihan.\n But I am, after all, a scientist. If I\n had not been a specialist in my field\n I would hardly have found myself\n engaged in vital research at the\n center.\n\n\n Anyway, I heard these little\n noises in the park. They sounded\n like small working sounds, blending\n in eerily mysterious fashion with a\n chorus of small voices. I thought at\n first it might be children at play,\n but then at the time I was a bit\n absent-minded. I tiptoed to the edge\n of the trees, not wanting to deprive\n any small scalawags of their pleasure,\n and peered out between the\n branches. And what do you suppose\n I saw? Not children, but a\n group of little people, hard at work.\n\n\n There was a leader, an older one\n with a crank face. He was beating\n the air with his arms and piping:\n \"Over here, now! All right, bring\n those electrical connections over\n here\u2014and see you're not slow as\n treacle about it!\"\n\n\n There were perhaps fifty of the\n little people. I was more than startled\n by it, too. I had not seen little\n people in\u2014oh, close to thirty years.\n I had seen them first as a boy of\n eight, and then, very briefly again,\n on my tenth birthday. And I had\n become convinced they could\nnever\nbe seen here in America. I had\n never seen them so busy, either.\n They were building something in\n the middle of the glade. It was long\n and shiny and upright and a little\n over five feet in height.\n\n\n \"Come along now, people!\" said\n this crotchety one, looking straight\n at me. \"Stop starin' and get to\n work! You'll not be needin' to\n mind that man standin' there! You\n know he can't see nor hear us!\"\n\n\n Oh, it was good to hear the rich\n old tongue again. I smiled, and the\n foreman of the leprechauns\u2014if\n that's what he was\u2014saw me smile\n and became stiff and alert for a moment,\n as though suspecting that perhaps\n I actually could see him. Then\n he shrugged and turned away, clearly\n deeming such a thing impossible.\n\n\n I said, \"Just a minute, friend,\n and I'll beg your pardon. It so happens\n I\ncan\nsee you.\"\n\n\n He whirled to face me again,\n staring open-mouthed. Then he\n said, \"What? What's that, now?\"\n\n\n \"I can see you,\" I said.\n\n\n \"Ohhh!\" he said and put his\n palms to his cheekbones. \"Saints be\n with us! He's a believer! Run everybody\u2014run\n for your lives!\"\n\n\n And they all began running, in\n as many directions as there were\n little souls. They began to scurry\n behind the trees and bushes, and a\n sloping embankment nearby.\n\n\n \"No, wait!\" I said. \"Don't go\n away! I'll not be hurting you!\"\n\n\n They continued to scurry.\n\n\n I knew what it was they feared.\n \"I don't intend catching one of\n you!\" I said. \"Come back, you daft\n little creatures!\"\n\n\n But the glade was silent, and they\n had all disappeared. They thought I\n wanted their crock of gold, of\n course. I'd be entitled to it if I could\n catch one and keep him. Or so the\n legends affirmed, though I've wondered\n often about the truth of them.\n But I was after no gold. I only wanted\n to hear the music of an Irish\n tongue. I was lonely here in America,\n even if I had latched on to a fine\n job of work for almost shamefully\n generous pay. You see, in a place as\n full of science as the nuclear propulsion\n center there is not much\n time for the old things. I very much\n wanted to talk to the little people.\n\n\n I walked over to the center of\n the glade where the curious shiny\n object was standing. It was as\n smooth as glass and shaped like a\n huge cigar. There were a pair of\n triangular fins down at the bottom,\n and stubby wings amidships. Of\n course it was a spaceship, or a\n miniature replica of one. I looked\n at it more closely. Everything seemed\n almost miraculously complete\n and workable.\n\n\n I shook my head in wonder, then\n stepped back from the spaceship\n and looked about the glade. I knew\n they were all hiding nearby, watching\n me apprehensively. I lifted my\n head to them.\n\n\n \"Listen to me now, little people!\"\n I called out. \"My name's\n Houlihan of the Roscommon Houlihans.\n I am descended from King\n Niall himself\u2014or so at least my\n father used to say! Come on out\n now, and pass the time o' day!\"\n\n\n Then I waited, but they didn't\n answer. The little people always\n had been shy. Yet without reaching\n a decision in so many words I knew\n suddenly that I\nhad\nto talk to them.\n I'd come to the glen to work out a\n knotty problem, and I was up\n against a blank wall. Simply because\n I was so lonely that my mind had\n become clogged.\n\n\n I knew that if I could just once\n hear the old tongue again, and talk\n about the old things, I might be able\n to think the problem through to a\n satisfactory conclusion.\n\n\n So I stepped back to the tiny\n spaceship, and this time I struck it\n a resounding blow with my fist.\n \"Hear me now, little people! If you\n don't show yourselves and come out\n and talk to me, I'll wreck this spaceship\n from stem to stern!\"\nI heard only the leaves rustling\n softly.\n\n\n \"Do you understand? I'll give\n you until I count three to make an\n appearance! One!\"\n\n\n The glade remained deathly silent.\n\n\n \"Two!\"\n\n\n I thought I heard a stirring somewhere,\n as if a small, brittle twig had\n snapped in the underbrush.\n\n\n \"\nThree!\n\"\n\n\n And with that the little people\n suddenly appeared.\n\n\n The leader\u2014he seemed more\n wizened and bent than before\u2014approached\n me slowly and warily as I\n stood there. The others all followed\n at a safe distance. I smiled to reassure\n them and then waved my arm\n in a friendly gesture of greeting.\n\n\n \"Good morning,\" I said.\n\n\n \"Good morning,\" the foreman\n said with some caution. \"My name\n is Keech.\"\n\n\n \"And mine's Houlihan, as I've\n told you. Are you convinced now\n that I have no intention of doing\n you any injury?\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Houlihan,\" said Keech,\n drawing a kind of peppered dignity\n up about himself, \"in such matters\n I am never fully convinced. After\n living for many centuries I am all\n too acutely aware of the perversity\n of human nature.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" I said. \"Well, as you will\n quickly see, all I want to do is\n talk.\" I nodded as I spoke, and sat\n down cross-legged upon the grass.\n\n\n \"Any Irishman wants to talk, Mr.\n Houlihan.\"\n\n\n \"And often that's\nall\nhe wants,\"\n I said. \"Sit down with me now, and\n stop staring as if I were a snake\n returned to the Island.\"\n\n\n He shook his head and remained\n standing. \"Have your say, Mr.\n Houlihan. And afterward we'll appreciate\n it if you'll go away and\n leave us to our work.\"\n\n\n \"Well, now, your work,\" I said,\n and glanced at the spaceship.\n \"That's exactly what's got me curious.\"\n\n\n The others had edged in a bit\n now and were standing in a circle,\n intently staring at me. I took out my\n pipe. \"Why,\" I asked, \"would a\n group of little people be building a\n spaceship here in America\u2014out in\n this lonely place?\"\n\n\n Keech stared back without much\n expression, and said, \"I've been\n wondering how you guessed it was\n a spaceship. I was surprised enough\n when you told me you could see us\n but not overwhelmingly so. I've run\n into believers before who could see\n the little people. It happens every\n so often, though not as frequently\n as it did a century ago. But knowing\n a spaceship at first glance! Well, I\n must confess that\ndoes\nastonish\n me.\"\n\n\n \"And why wouldn't I know a\n spaceship when I see one?\" I said.\n \"It just so happens I'm a doctor of\n science.\"\n\n\n \"A doctor of science, now,\" said\n Keech.\n\n\n \"Invited by the American government\n to work on the first moon\n rocket here at the nuclear propulsion\n center. Since it's no secret I\n can advise you of it.\"\n\n\n \"A scientist, is it,\" said Keech.\n \"Well, now, that's very interesting.\"\n\n\n \"I'll make no apologies for it,\" I\n said.\n\n\n \"Oh, there's no need for apology,\"\n said Keech. \"Though in truth\n we prefer poets to scientists. But it\n has just now crossed my mind, Mr.\n Houlihan that you, being a scientist,\n might be of help to us.\"\n\n\n \"How?\" I asked.\n\n\n \"Well, I might try starting at the\n beginning,\" he replied.\n\n\n \"You might,\" I said. \"A man\n usually does.\"\n\n\n Keech took out his own pipe\u2014a\n clay dudeen\u2014and looked hopeful.\n I gave him a pinch of tobacco from\n my pouch. \"Well, now,\" he said,\n \"first of all you're no doubt surprised\n to find us here in America.\"\n\n\n \"I am surprised from time to\n time to find myself here,\" I said.\n \"But continue.\"\n\n\n \"We had to come here,\" said\n Keech, \"to learn how to make a\n spaceship.\"\n\n\n \"A spaceship, now,\" I said, unconsciously\n adopting some of the\n old manner.\n\n\n \"Leprechauns are not really mechanically\n inclined,\" said Keech.\n \"Their major passions are music\n and laughter and mischief, as anyone\n knows.\"\n\n\n \"Myself included,\" I agreed.\n \"Then why do you need a spaceship?\"\n\n\n \"Well, if I may use an old expression,\n we've had a feelin' lately\n that we're not long for this world.\n Or let me put it this way. We feel\n the world isn't long for itself.\"\n\n\n I scratched my cheek. \"How\n would a man unravel a statement\n such as that?\"\n\n\n \"It's very simple. With all the\n super weapons you mortals have\n developed, there's the distinct possibility\n you might be blowin' us all\n up in the process of destroying\n yourselves.\"\n\n\n \"There\nis\nthat possibility,\" I said.\n\n\n \"Well, then, as I say,\" said\n Keech, \"the little people have decided\n to leave the planet in a spaceship.\n Which we're buildin' here and\n now. We've spied upon you and\n learned how to do it. Well\u2014almost\n how to do it. We haven't learned\n yet how to control the power\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Hold on, now,\" I said. \"Leaving\n the planet, you say. And where\n would you be going?\"\n\n\n \"There's another committee\n working on that. 'Tis not our concern.\n I was inclined to suggest the\n constellation Orion, which sounds\n as though it has a good Irish name,\n but I was hooted down. Be that as it\n may, my own job was to go into\n your nuclear center, learn how to\n make the ship, and proceed with its\n construction. Naturally, we didn't\n understand all of your high-flyin'\n science, but some of our people are\n pretty clever at gettin' up replicas\n of things.\"\n\n\n \"You mean you've been spying\n on us at the center all this time? Do\n you know, we often had the feeling\n we were being watched, but we\n thought it was by the Russians.\n There's one thing which puzzles\n me, though. If you've been constantly\n around us\u2014and I'm still\n able to see the little people\u2014why\n did I never see you before?\"\n\n\n \"It may be we never crossed your\n path. It may be you can only see us\n when you're thinkin' of us, and of\n course truly believin' in us. I don't\n know\u2014'tis a thing of the mind, and\n not important at the moment.\n What's important is for us to get\n our first ship to workin' properly\n and then we'll be on our way.\"\n\n\n \"You're determined to go.\"\n\n\n \"Truly we are, Mr. Houlihan.\n Now\u2014to business. Just during\n these last few minutes a certain matter\n has crossed my mind. That's\n why I'm wastin' all this time with\n you, sir. You say you are a scientist.\"\n\n\n \"A nuclear engineer.\"\n\n\n \"Well, then, it may be that you\n can help us\u2014now that you know\n we're here.\"\n\n\n \"Help you?\"\n\n\n \"The power control, Mr. Houlihan.\n As I understand it, 'tis necessary\n to know at any instant exactly\n how much thrust is bein' delivered\n through the little holes in back.\n And on paper it looks simple\n enough\u2014the square of somethin' or\n other. I've got the figures jotted in\n a book when I need 'em. But when\n you get to doin' it it doesn't come\n out exactly as it does on paper.\"\n\n\n \"You're referring to the necessity\n for a coefficient of discharge.\"\n\n\n \"Whatever it might be named,\"\n said Keech, shrugging. \"'Tis the\n one thing we lack. I suppose eventually\n you people will be gettin'\n around to it. But meanwhile we\n need it right now, if we're to make\n our ship move.\"\n\n\n \"And you want me to help you\n with this?\"\n\n\n \"That is exactly what crossed my\n mind.\"\n\n\n I nodded and looked grave and\n kneaded my chin for a moment softly.\n \"Well, now, Keech,\" I said\n finally, \"why should I help you?\"\n\n\n \"Ha!\" said Keech, grinning, but\n not with humor, \"the avarice of\n humans! I knew it! Well, Mr. Houlihan,\n I'll give you reason enough.\n The pot o' gold, Mr. Houlihan!\"\n\n\n \"The one at the end of the rainbow?\"\n\n\n \"It's not at the end of the rainbow.\n That's a grandmother's tale.\n Nor is it actually in an earthen\n crock. But there's gold, all right,\n enough to make you rich for the\n rest of your life. And I'll make you\n a proposition.\"\n\n\n \"Go ahead.\"\n\n\n \"We'll not be needin' gold where\n we're goin'. It's yours if you show\n us how to make our ship work.\"\n\n\n \"Well, now, that's quite an\n offer,\" I said. Keech had the goodness\n to be quiet while I sat and\n thought for a while. My pipe had\n gone out and I lit it again. I finally\n said, \"Let's have a look at your\n ship's drive and see what we can\n see.\"\n\n\n \"You accept the proposition\n then?\"\n\n\n \"Let's have a look,\" I said, and\n that was all.\n\n\n Well, we had a look, and then\n several looks, and before the morning\n was out we had half the spaceship\n apart, and were deep in argument\n about the whole project.\n\n\n It was a most fascinating session.\n I had often wished for a true working\n model at the center, but no allowance\n had been inserted in the\n budget for it. Keech brought me\n paper and pencil and I talked with\n the aid of diagrams, as engineers\n are wont to do. Although the pencils\n were small and I had to hold\n them between thumb and forefinger,\n as you would a needle, I was\n able to make many sensible observations\n and even a few innovations.\n\n\n I came back again the next day\u2014and\n every day for the following\n two weeks. It rained several times,\n but Keech and his people made a\n canopy of boughs and leaves and I\n was comfortable enough. Every once\n in a while someone from the town\n or the center itself would pass by,\n and stop to watch me. But of course\n they wouldn't see the leprechauns\n or anything the leprechauns had\n made, not being believers.\n\n\n I would halt work, pass the time\n of day, and then, in subtle fashion,\n send the intruder on his way. Keech\n and the little people just stood by\n and grinned all the while.\n\n\n At the end of sixteen days I had\n the entire problem all but whipped.\n It is not difficult to understand why.\n The working model and the fact\n that the small people with their\n quick eyes and clever fingers could\n spot all sorts of minute shortcomings\n was a great help. And I was\n hearing the old tongue and talking\n of the old things every day, and\n truly that went far to take the clutter\n out of my mind. I was no longer\n so lonely that I couldn't think properly.\n\n\n On the sixteenth day I covered a\n piece of paper with tiny mathematical\n symbols and handed it to Keech.\n \"Here is your equation,\" I said. \"It\n will enable you to know your thrust\n at any given moment, under any\n circumstances, in or out of gravity,\n and under all conditions of friction\n and combustion.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you, Mr. Houlihan,\" said\n Keech. All his people had gathered\n in a loose circle, as though attending\n a rite. They were all looking at\n me quietly.\n\n\n \"Mr. Houlihan,\" said Keech,\n \"you will not be forgotten by the\n leprechauns. If we ever meet again,\n upon another world perchance,\n you'll find our friendship always\n eager and ready.\"\n\n\n \"Thank you,\" I said.\n\n\n \"And now, Mr. Houlihan,\" said\n Keech, \"I'll see that a quantity of\n gold is delivered to your rooms tonight,\n and so keep my part of the\n bargain.\"\n\n\n \"I'll not be needing the gold,\" I\n said.\n\n\n Keech's eyebrows popped upward.\n \"What's this now?\"\n\n\n \"I'll not be needing it,\" I repeated.\n \"I don't feel it would be\n right to take it for a service of this\n sort.\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" said Keech in surprise,\n and in some awe, too, \"well, now,\n musha Lord help us! 'Tis the first\n time I ever heard such a speech\n from a mortal.\" He turned to his\n people. \"We'll have three cheers\n now, do you hear, for Mr. Houlihan\u2014friend\n of the little people as\n long as he shall live!\"\n\n\n And they cheered. And little tears\n crept into the corners of some of\n their turned-up eyes.\n\n\n We shook hands, all of us, and I\n left.\nI walked through the park, and\n back to the nuclear propulsion center.\n It was another cool, green morning\n with the leaves making only\n soft noises as the breezes came\n along. It smelled exactly like a\n wood I had known in Roscommon.\n\n\n And I lit my pipe and smoked it\n slowly and chuckled to myself at\n how I had gotten the best of the\n little people. Surely it was not every\n mortal who could accomplish that. I\n had given them the wrong equation,\n of course. They would never get\n their spaceship to work now, and\n later, if they tried to spy out the\n right information I would take special\n measures to prevent it, for I had\n the advantage of being able to see\n them.\n\n\n As for our own rocket ship, it\n should be well on its way by next\n St. Patrick's Day. For I had indeed\n determined the true coefficient of\n discharge, which I never could have\n done so quickly without those sessions\n in the glade with Keech and\n his working model.\n\n\n It would go down in scientific\n literature now, I suppose, as Houlihan's\n Equation, and that was honor\n and glory enough for me. I could\n do without Keech's pot of gold,\n though it would have been pleasant\n to be truly rich for a change.\n\n\n There was no sense in cheating\n him out of the gold to boot, for\n leprechauns are most clever in matters\n of this sort and he would have\n had it back soon enough\u2014or else\n made it a burden in some way.\n\n\n Indeed, I had done a piece of\n work greatly to my advantage, and\n also to the advantage of humankind,\n and when a man can do the first and\n include the second as a fortunate byproduct\n it is a most happy accident.\n\n\n For if I had shown the little people\n how to make a spaceship they\n would have left our world. And\n this world, as long as it lasts\u2014what\n would it be in that event? I ask you\n now, wouldn't we be even\nmore\nlikely to blow ourselves to Kingdom\n Come without the little people here\n for us to believe in every now and\n then?\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nFantastic Universe\nSeptember 1955.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "99903": "Face value\nWhen the BBC broadcast the recent documentary by Louis Theroux that looked back at the time he spent in the company of Jimmy Savile, there was disbelief across social media that no one had stepped in to stop Savile from committing his crimes. Some blamed the BBC, some blamed those in Savile's immediate circle, but others blamed a simple error of human judgment.  \n\n \"He literally couldn't look more like a paedophile,\" read one post \u2013 one of many to state a supposedly incontrovertible truth: that Savile's criminal tendencies could have been detected from the shape of his features, his eyes, his hair. Moreover, this has nothing to do with the benefit of hindsight and should have been picked up at the time. His looks, they suggested, were a moral indicator, with a wealth of compelling visual evidence to support the claim. \n\n We know that paedophiles, murderers and other violent criminals come in many shapes and sizes. If we knew nothing about their criminal history, some of their photos might even appear attractive. But the idea that someone's features betray their character is something rooted deep within us; it's the reason why certain photos perform well on dating apps, or why trustworthy-looking politicians might rack up votes. But how wrong are our hunches of perceived criminality?  \n\n A recent paper, published by Xiaolin Wu and Xi Zhang of Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, claims to be the first to use machine learning and neural networks to attempt a fully automated inference of criminality from facial images, removing prejudice from the equation and testing the validity of our gut feelings. \"What facial features influence the average Joe's impulsive and yet consensual judgments on social attributes?\" they ask. Through a study of 1,856 images (\"controlled for race, gender, age and facial expression\") they claim to have established the validity of \"automated, face-induced inference on criminality, despite the historical controversy surrounding this line of enquiry.\"  \n\n In other words, they believe that they've found a relationship between looking like a criminal and actually being one. \n\n It's a claim that's been made many times over the years. Physiognomy, the 'science' of judging people by their appearance, was first theorised by the ancient Greeks in around the 5th century BC. Aristotle's pronouncement that \"it is possible to infer character from features\" led to a number of works relating to 'Physiognomica', a word derived from\nphysis\n(nature),\nnomos\n(law) and (or)\ngnomon\n(judge or interpreter).  \n\n All of Greek society, it was claimed, could benefit from this skill: it could assist with choosing an employee, a slave or a spouse, while its inherent vagueness made it intriguing to philosophers and useful for scientists who bent the theories to support their own beliefs. It became a recognised science in the Islamic world, and was used and taught in Europe throughout late antiquity and the early Middle Ages, despite nagging doubts among thinkers and physicians of the day. In the early 16th century, Leonardo da Vinci claimed not to \"concern myself with false physiognomy, because these chimeras have no scientific foundation.\" \n\n Theories of physiognomy, however, would persist beyond the Renaissance. In 1586, Italian scholar Giambattista della Porta published a book, De humana physiognomonia libri IIII, which established him as the 'father of Physiognomy'. Della Porta's thinking was based on the 'doctrine of signatures'; the idea that the appearance of plants and animals offers clues to their nature. For example, as one writer of the time suggested, walnuts are good for curing headaches because they're shaped a bit like a human head. The theories in della Porta's book were supported by dozens of detailed illustrations which, by comparing human faces to those of animals, suggested that they must surely share similar character traits.\nIn the 17th century, Swiss poet Johann Caspar Lavater took della Porta's methodology and ran with it, commissioning artists to illustrate his popular Essays On Physiognomy \u2013 which, to the chagrin of his contemporary, the writer Hannah More, sold for \"fifteen guineas a set\u2026 while in vain we boast that philosophy [has] broken down all the strongholds of prejudice, ignorance, and superstition.\" \n\n Lavater's work was criticised for being ridden with bias (black faces rarely emerged well from his analyses) but he was right in one respect: \"Whether they are or are not sensible of it,\" he wrote, \"all men are daily influenced by physiognomy.\" \n\n Many studies have been done into our psychological response to faces, and it's clear that a so-called halo effect will inevitably work its magic. \"Attractive people are regarded as better at everything,\" says Professor Peter Hancock, lecturer in Psychology at Stirling University. \"And we can't shake that off because there's some truth to it. Good genes produce intelligent people, attractive faces, fit bodies, and we imagine that they're going to be good at everything else, too. We don't have good insight into our own behaviour. We tend to think we understand what we're doing, but we don't.\" \n\n Hancock describes attending a conference where one speaker showed a series of black faces and white faces to students (who were mostly white) and asked them what they thought the experiment was about. \"They knew that he was trying to assess whether they would rate the black ones as more criminal,\" says Hancock. \"But then they did!\" \n\n We attribute social characteristics based on opinions we already hold about certain kinds of faces: whether they look unusual in some way, whether they resemble a partner, a family member or even ourselves, or perhaps have some other cultural association. Physiognomy ultimately stems from what Alexander Todorov, professor of psychology at Princeton University, calls an 'overgeneralisation hypothesis'. \"People,\" he wrote, \"use easily accessible facial information (eg an expression such as a smile, cues to gender and ethnic group) to make social attributions congruent with this information (eg a nice person).\" \n\n In a social media age, the pictures we choose to represent ourselves online are a form of self-presentation driven by those social attributions and the knowledge that our pictures are being judged.  \n\n Experiments at Princeton found that we take less than one tenth of a second to form an opinion of strangers from their pictures, and those opinions tend to stand firm even if we're exposed to those pictures for a longer period of time. That tendency to judge instantly gives rise to a number of selfie tropes that are deemed to elicit positive responses, particularly when it comes to photos on dating profiles: certain angles, particular expressions, minute adjustments of eyebrows and lips that might appear to be about narcissism and vanity, but are more about a fear of being incorrectly assessed. After all, false suppositions based on people's faces are hugely influential within society, and in extreme cases they can have a huge impact on people's lives.  \n\n When retired teacher Christopher Jefferies was held by police in connection with the murder of Joanna Yeates in Bristol back in 2010, more than half a dozen newspapers gave his unusual appearance particular scrutiny and made assumptions accordingly, which in turn influenced public opinion. This culminated in substantial damages for defamation, two convictions for contempt of court and a painful ordeal for Jefferies, who was entirely innocent. \n\n This kind of deep-seated bias looms large throughout physiognomic works of the 19th and 20th centuries, from absurdities such as Vaught's Practical Character Reader of 1902 (handy if you want to find out what a \"deceitful chin\" looks like) to more inherently troubling volumes such as Cesare Lombroso's Criminal Man.  \n\n After performing a number of autopsies on criminals, the Italian physician claimed to have discovered a number of common characteristics, and it's worth listing them if only to establish the supposed criminality of pretty much everyone you know:\nUnusually short or tall height; small head, but large face; fleshy lips, but thin upper lip; protuberances on head and around ear; wrinkles on forehead and face; large sinus cavities or bumpy face; tattoos; receding hairline; large incisors; bushy eyebrows, tending to meet across nose; large eye sockets but deep-set eyes; beaked or flat nose; strong jaw line; small and sloping forehead; small or weak chin; thin neck; sloping shoulders but large chest; large, protruding ears; long arms; high cheek bones; pointy or snubbed fingers or toes.\nIn a woeful misreading of Darwinian theory, Lombroso unwittingly founded the field of anthropological criminology, and more specifically the idea of the born criminal: a hereditary quality that posed a danger to society and must be rooted out. His theories became discredited during the 20th century, but the kind of bias displayed by Lombroso can still be found in legal systems across the world; studies show that people with stereotypically 'untrustworthy' faces tend to receive harsher treatment than those who don't. There's evidently some consensus over people's attitudes toward certain faces, but it doesn't follow that the consensus is correct. \n\n The only attributes that we're reasonably good at detecting, according to research done at the University of Michigan in the 1960s and later tested at the University of Stirling in 2007, are extroversion and conscientiousness. For other traits there's insufficient evidence that our hunches are correct, with anomalies explained by our evolved aversion to 'ugliness', established links between broader faces and powerful physiques, or cultural associations with certain demographics which are reinforced with nagging regularity by newspapers, books, television and film. \n\n Data-driven studies, based upon huge quantities of facial data, would seem to offer the final word on this. Since 2005, computational models have used various techniques to test for links between social attributes and facial features, resulting in suggestions that our faces can betray, for example, political leanings, sexual orientation and criminality. One BBC Future article from 2015 even describes the 'discipline' of physiognomy as 'gaining credibility'. But Todorov details many problems with these studies, pointing out the challenging nature of doing such experiments with sufficient rigour \u2013 not least because different images of the same people can prompt wildly differing results.  \n\n The aforementioned study at Shanghai's Jiao Tong University, with its enthusiastic, data-driven analyses of such questions as \"What features of a human face betray its owner's propensity for crimes?\" prompted a wave of press coverage.\nThe vision outlined in these articles is of an unethical dystopia where neural networks can assess our faces and establish a likely score for criminality \u2013 but Todorov is scathing about this paper, too. \"The main problem is the sampling of the images,\" he says. \"There is not enough information about the [nature of] the images of the people who were convicted. Second, clearly, there are huge differences between the two samples [of convicts and non-convicts] [in terms of] education and socio-economic status.\"\nIn other words, your appearance is affected by the kind of life you've led, so the classifiers within the computer program are simply distinguishing between different demographics rather than detecting a propensity for criminal behaviour. \n\n Todorov is also wary of these classifiers misidentifying more 'innocent' people than identifying actual criminals, and accuracy is a concern shared by Peter Hancock. \"Networks don't assess faces in the same way that we do,\" he says. \"One of our systems, which is a deep network, has a recognition engine which generates an ordered list of how similar various faces are. And sometimes you get good matches \u2013 but other times you look at them and say, well, it's the wrong race! To humans they look completely different. And that underlines the fact that the networks are working in a different sort of way, and actually you don't really know how they're working. They're the ultimate black box.\" \n\n This isn't to say that the use of big data, and particularly the use of composite imagery (digitally blending together certain types of faces) doesn't give us useful information and fascinating correlations. \"You can, for example, take a given face and use computer software to make it look more or less trustworthy,\" says Hancock. \"I remember a colleague playing with this and he made a less trustworthy version of George W Bush \u2013 and how shifty did he look! I'm surprised that they're not using these techniques in political advertising, because you couldn't tell that anything had been done [to the picture], but when you look at it you think 'I wouldn't trust him'.\" \n\n The revitalisation of the theory of physiognomy by the Shanghai students is, according to Todorov, deeply problematic on a theoretical level. \"Are we back to Lombroso's theory,\" he asks, \"that criminals were anomalous creatures, evolutionary degenerates? How does one become criminal, and what role do various life forces play into this? There are people making claims that you just need to look at the face to predict personality and behaviour, but many of these people have not given much thought to their underlying assumptions.\"  \n\n While it's true that we judge books by their covers, covers are more than just faces; we piece together all kinds of cues from people to form our impressions of them. Jimmy Savile's appearance was unusual by any standards, but we absorbed a great deal of information about him over the years that will have influenced our opinions \u2013 not least from the original Louis Theroux programme from 2000 that was reexamined in that recent BBC documentary. Savile's vague resemblance to the Child Catcher from the film Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is convenient but ultimately misleading, and the way it reinforces the idea of what a paedophile might 'look like' is unfortunate; not least because it helps to sustain a low-level belief in the 'science' of physiognomy, despite its tendency to crumble under the slightest cross examination.\nThis article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.",
    "99901": "AI: what's the worst that could happen?\nThe Centre for the Future of Intelligence is seeking to investigate the implications of artificial intelligence for humanity, and make sure humans take advantage of the opportunities while dodging the risks. It launched at the University of Cambridge last October, and is a collaboration between four universities and colleges \u2013 Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial and Berkeley \u2013 backed with a 10-year, \u00a310m grant from the Leverhulme Trust. \n\n Because no single discipline is ideally suited to this task, the centre emphasises the importance of interdisciplinary knowledge-sharing and collaboration. It is bringing together a diverse community of some of the world's best researchers, philosophers, psychologists, lawyers and computer scientists. \n\nExecutive director of the centre is Stephen Cave, a writer, philosopher and former diplomat. Harry Armstrong, head of futures at Nesta, which publishes The Long + Short, spoke with Cave about the impact of AI. \n\n Their conversation has been edited.\nHarry  Armstrong: Do you see the interdisciplinary nature of the centre as one of its key values and one of the key impacts you hope it will have on the field?\nStephen Cave: Thinking about the impact of AI is not something that any one discipline owns or does in any very systematic way. So if academia is going to rise to the challenge and provide thought leadership on this hugely important issue, then we\u2019re going to need to do it by breaking down current disciplinary boundaries and bringing people with very different expertise together.  \n\n That means bringing together the technologists and the experts at developing these algorithms together with social scientists, philosophers, legal scholars and so forth.  \n\n I think there are many areas of science where more interdisciplinary engagement would be valuable. Biotech\u2019s another example. In that sense AI isn\u2019t unique, but I think because thinking about AI is still in very early stages, we have an opportunity to shape the way in which we think about it, and build that community. \n\n We want to create a space where many different disciplines can come together and develop a shared language, learn from each other\u2019s approaches, and hopefully very quickly move to be able to actually develop new ideas, new conclusions, together. But the first step is learning how to talk to each other.\nAt a recent talk, Naomi Klein said that addressing the challenge of climate change could not have come at a worse time. The current dominant political and economic ideologies, along with growing isolationist sentiment, runs contrary to the bipartisan, collaborative approaches needed to solve global issues like climate change. Do you see the same issues hampering a global effort to respond to the challenges AI raises?\nClimate change suffers from the problem that the costs are not incurred in any direct way by the industrialists who own the technology and are profiting from it. With AI, that has been the case so far; although not on the same scale. There has been disruption but so far, compared to industrialisation, the impact has been fairly small. That will probably change. \n\n AI companies, and in particular the big tech companies, are very concerned that this won't go like climate change, but rather it will go like GMOs: that people will have a gut reaction to this technology as soon as the first great swathe of job losses take hold. People speculate that 50m jobs could be lost in the US if trucking is automated, which is conceivable within 10 years. You could imagine a populist US government therefore simply banning driverless cars. \n\n So I think there is anxiety in the tech industry that there could be a serious reaction against this technology at any point. And so my impression is that there is a feeling within these companies that these ethical and social implications need to be taken very seriously, now. And that a broad buy-in by society into some kind of vision of the future in which this technology plays a role is required, if a dangerous \u2013 or to them dangerous \u2013 counteraction is to be avoided.\nMy personal experience working with these tech companies is that they are concerned for their businesses and genuinely want to do the right thing. Of course there are intellectual challenges and there is money to be made, but equally they are people who don't think when they get up in the morning that they're going to put people out of jobs or bring about the downfall of humanity. As the industry matures it's developing a sense of responsibility. \n\n So I think we've got a real opportunity, despite the general climate, and in some ways because of it. There's a great opportunity to bring industry on board to make sure the technology is developed in the right way.\nOne of the dominant narratives around not only AI but technology and automation more generally is that we, as humans, are at the mercy of technological progress. If you try and push against this idea you can be labelled as being anti-progress and stuck in the past. But we do have a lot more control than we give ourselves credit for. For example, routineness and susceptibility to automation are not inevitable features of occupations, job design is hugely important. How do we design jobs? How do we create jobs that allow people to do the kind of work they want to do? There can be a bit of a conflict between being impacted by what's happening and having some sort of control over what we want to happen.\nCertainly, we encounter technological determinism a lot. And it's understandable. For us as individuals, of course it does feel like it always is happening and we just have to cope. No one individual can do much about it, other than adapt. \n\n But that's different when we consider ourselves at a level of a society, as a polis [city state], or as an international community. I think we can shape the way in which technology develops. We have various tools. In any given country, we have regulations. There's a possibility of international regulation. \n\n Technology is emerging from a certain legal, political, normative, cultural, and social framework. It's coming from a certain place. And it is shaped by all of those things. \n\n And I think the more we understand a technology's relationship with those things, and the more we then consciously try to shape those things, the more we are going to influence the technology. So, for example, developing a culture of responsible innovation. For example, a kind of Hippocratic oath for AI developers. These things are within the realms of what is feasible, and I think will help to shape the future.\nOne of the problems with intervention, generally, is that we cannot control the course of events. We can attempt to, but we don't know how things are going to evolve. The reality is, societies are much too complex for us to be able to shape them in any very specific way, as plenty of ideologies and political movements have found to their cost. There are often unforeseen consequences that can derail a project. \n\n I think, nonetheless, there are things we can do. We can try to imagine how things might go very badly wrong, and then work hard to develop systems that will stop that from happening. We can also try collectively to imagine how things could go very right. The kind of society that we actually want to live in that uses this technology. And I'm sure that will be skewed in all sorts of ways, and we might imagine things that seem wonderful and actually have terrible by-products. \n\n This conversation cannot be in the hands of any one group. It oughtn't be in the hands of Silicon Valley billionaires alone. They've got their role to play, but this is a conversation we need to be having as widely as possible.\nThe centre is developing some really interesting projects but perhaps one of the most interesting is the discussion of what intelligence might be. Could you go into a bit more detail about the kinds of questions you are trying to explore in this area?\nYou mean kinds of intelligence?\nYeah.\nI think this is very important because historically, we've had an overwhelming tendency to anthropomorphise. We define what intelligence is, historically, as being human-like. And then within that, being like certain humans. \n\n And it's taken a very long time for the academic community to accept that there could be such a thing as non-human intelligence at all. We know that crows, for example, who have had a completely different evolutionary history, or octopuses, who have an even more different evolutionary history, might have a kind of intelligence that's very different to ours. That in some ways rivals our own, and so forth. \n\n But luckily, we have got to that point in recent years of accepting that we are not the only form of intelligence. But now, AI is challenging that from a different direction. Just as we are accepting that the natural world offers this enormous range of different intelligences, we are at the same time inventing new intelligences that are radically different to humans. \n\n And I think, still, this anthropomorphic picture of the kind of humanoid android, the robot, dominates our idea of what AI is too much. And too many people, and the industry as well, talk about human-level artificial intelligence as a goal, or general AI, which basically means like a human. But actually what we're building is nothing like a human. \n\n When the first pocket calculator was made, it didn't do maths like a human. It was vastly better. It didn't make the occasional mistake. When we set about creating these artificial agents to solve these problems, because they have a completely different evolutionary history to humans, they solve problems in very different ways.\nAnd until now, people have been fairly shy about describing them as intelligent. Or rather, in the history of AIs, we think solving a particular problem would require intelligence. Then we solve it. And then that's no longer intelligence, because we've solved it. Chess is a good example. \n\n But the reality is, we are creating a whole new world of different artificial agents. And we need to understand that world. We need to understand all the different ways of being clever, if you like. How you can be extremely sophisticated at some particular rational process, and yet extremely bad at another one in a way that bears no relation to the way humans are on these axes. \n\n And this is important, partly because we need to expand our sense of what is intelligent, like we have done with the natural world. Because lots of things follow from saying something is intelligent. Historically, we have a long tradition in Western philosophy of saying those who are intelligent should rule. So if intelligence equates to power, then obviously we need to think about what we mean by intelligence. Who has it and who doesn't. Or how it equates to rights and responsibilities. \n\n It certainly is a very ambitious project to create the atlas of intelligence.\nThere was a point I read in something you wrote on our ideas of intelligence that I thought was very interesting. We actually tend to think of intelligence at the societal level when we think about human ability, rather than at the individual level but in the end conflate the two. I think that's a very good point, when we think about our capabilities, we think about what we can achieve as a whole, not individually. But when we talk about AI, we tend to think about that individual piece of technology, or that individual system. So for example if we think about the internet of things and AI, we should discuss intelligence as something encompassed by the whole.\nYeah, absolutely. Yes, right now, perhaps it is a product of our anthropomorphising bias. But there is a tendency to see a narrative of AI versus humanity, as if it's one or the other. And yet, obviously, there are risks in this technology long before it acquires any kind of manipulative agency. \n\n Robotic technology is dangerous. Or potentially dangerous. But at the same time, most of what we're using technology for is to enhance ourselves, to increase our capacities. And a lot of what AI is going to be doing is augmenting us \u2013 we're going to be working as teams, AI-human teams.\nWhere do you think this AI-human conflict, or concept of a conflict, comes from? Do you think that's just a reflection of historical conversations we've had about automation, or do you think it is a deeper fear?\nI do think it comes both from some biases that might well be innate, such as anthropomorphism, or our human tendency to ascribe agency to other objects, particularly moving ones, is well-established and probably has sound evolutionary roots. If it moves, it's probably wise to start asking yourself questions like, \"What is it? What might it want? Where might it be going? Might it be hungry? Do I look like food to it?\" I think it makes sense, it's natural for us to think in terms of agency. And when we do, it's natural for us to project our own ways of being and acting. And we, as primates, are profoundly co-operative. \n\n But at the same time, we're competitive and murderous. We have a strong sense of in-group versus out-group, which is responsible for both a great deal of cooperation, within the in-group, but also terrible crimes. Murder, rape, pillage, genocide; and they're pointed at the out-group. \n\n And so I think it's very natural for us to see AIs in terms of agents. We anthropomorphise them as these kind of android robots. And then we think about, well, you know, are they part of our in-group, or are they some other group? If they're some other group, it's us against them. Who's going to win? Well, let's see. So I think that's very natural, I think that's very human.\nThere is this long tradition, in Western culture in particular, with associating intelligence and dominance and power. It's interesting to speculate about how, and I wish I knew more about it, and I'd like to see more research on this, about how different cultures perceive AI. It's well known that Japan is very accepting of technology and robots, for example. \n\n You can think, well, we in the West have long been justifying power relations of a certain kind on the basis that we're 'cleverer'. That's why men get to vote and women don't, or whatever. In a culture where power is not based on intelligence but, say, on a caste system, which is purely hereditary, we\u2019d build an AI, and it would just tune in, drop out, attain enlightenment, just sit in the corner. Or we beg it to come back and help us find enlightenment. It might be that we find a completely different narrative to the one that's dominant in the West.\nOne of the projects the centre is running is looking into what kind of AI breakthroughs may come, when and what the social consequences could be. What do you think the future holds? What are your fears \u2013 what do you think could go right and wrong in the short, medium and long term?\nThat's a big question. Certainly I don't lie awake at night worried that robots are going to knock the door down and come in with a machine gun. If the robots take over the world, it won't be by knocking the door down. At the moment, I think it's certainly as big a risk that we have a GMO moment, and there's a powerful reaction against the technology which prevents us from reaping the benefits, which are enormous. I think that's as big a risk as the risks from the technologies themselves. \n\n I think one worry that we haven't talked about is that we've become extremely dependent  upon this technology. And that we essentially become deskilled. There's an extent to which the history of civilisation is the history of the domestication of the human species sort of by ourselves, and also by our technology, to some extent. And AI certainly allows for that to reach a whole new level. \n\n Just think about GPs with diagnostic tools. Even now, my GP consults the computer fairly regularly. But as diagnostic tools get better, what are they going to be doing other than just typing something into the computer and reading out what comes back? At which point, you might as well do away with the GP. But then, who does know about medicine? \n\n And so we do need to worry about deskilling and about becoming dependent. And it is entirely possible that you can imagine a society in which we're all sort of prosperous, in a sense. Our basic bodily needs are provided for, perhaps, in a way, to an extent that we've never before even dreamed of. Unprecedented in human history. \n\n And yet, we're stripped of any kind of meaningful work. We have no purpose. We're escaping to virtual reality. And then you could imagine all sorts of worrying countercultures or Luddite movements or what have you. I guess that's the kind of scenario that \u2013 I haven't sketched it terribly well \u2013 but that's the kind of thing that worries me more than missile-toting giant robots. \n\n As to utopian, yes, that's interesting. I certainly mentioned a couple of things. One thing that I hope is that this new technological revolution enables us to undo some of the damage of the last one. That's a very utopian thought and not terribly realistic, but we use fossil fuels so incredibly efficiently. The idea that driverless cars that are shared, basically a kind of shared service located off a Brownfield site does away with 95 per cent of all cars, freeing up a huge amount of space in the city to be greener, many fewer cars need to be produced, they would be on the road much less, there'd be fewer traffic jams. \n\n It's just one example, but the idea that we can live much more resource-efficiently, because we are living more intelligently through using these tools. And therefore can undo some of the damage of the last Industrial Revolution. That's my main utopian hope, I guess.\nVintage toy robot image by josefkubes/Shutterstock\nThis article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.",
    "99902": "Divided we stand\nSara lets the Lyft park itself in the drive, lets out a sigh, and tweets\nwish me luck\nplus some emojis before slipping her phone into a hoody pocket. Curtains twitch, and before she can get her bag out of the back Mom is there, right there next to her, their hands touching on the handle as they compete for control. \n\n \"It's OK Mom, I got it.\" \n\n \"You should have let us come pick you up.\" \n\n \"It's fine, there was no need. I didn't want to put any-\" \n\n \"But you shouldn't be wasting money, not with how much rent you pay and-\" \n\n Jesus. Not this already. \"Mom. I can afford a cab ride. I'm not\nthat\nmuch of a failure.\" \n\n Mom sighs, shoulders falling, looks at Sara directly. \"I'm sorry honey.\" She looks old, Sara thinks, watching a resigned tiredness flicker across her face in a way she'd not noticed before. Like she's exhausted by conflict, surrendered to it. \"Now, don't I get a hug?\" \n\n Sara smiles. They hold each other for a few long seconds, rubbing and squeezing each other as the Lyft silently backs itself out of the driveway. When they part it's Mom's hand that's on the bag's handle.  \n\n Inside she unwraps herself from scarves and layers, the heat in the house almost a shock after the cold air. Michigan in February. Mom is already halfway up the stairs, bag in tow, headed for her room. \n\n \"Mom, just leave that and I'll\u2026\" \n\n \"Your father's in the front room,\" she says, just before she disappears from view. \"Go say hi.\" \n\n For a few seconds Sara is alone in the hallway, the smell of cooking meat coming from one doorway, the sound of rolling news from another. She shakes her head, kicks off shoes, tucks hair behind her ears. Braces herself.\nHe's sat in the living room, reclining in the Lazy Boy. He doesn't hear her enter - her socked feet silent on the pile carpet floor, his attention lost in the screen that fills most of the wall. Fox News. She braces herself again. \n\n \"Hey Dad.\" \n\n His head jerks to look at her. \"Hey! When did you get here?\" He starts to push himself up. \n\n \"Don't get up Dad, it's fine. Really.\" She takes a seat on the couch. \"I just got here, like two minutes ago.\" \n\n \"Good flight?\" \n\n \"Yeah. Fine. Y'know. Same as always.\" \n\n He smiles back at her, nods knowingly. \n\n Their first words in nearly a year. Fine. So far. She relaxes. Of course it is. How bad could it be? \n\n \"I thought I was gonna come pick you up from the airport?\" \n\n \"Ah, no. I got a cab. I didn't want to bother you.\" \n\n \"Bother me? You think I'm too old and infirm to pick my own daughter up from the airport?\" \n\n \"No Dad, of course not.\"\nThe war spills out of Fox News, casualty figures scrolling across monochrome drone footage, attack helicopters circling over Caracas apartment blocks, pundits with bronzed skin and immaculate blond hair smiling from four-way split screens.\n\"So you just got a cab?\" \n\n \"Yeah.\" \n\n \"How much did that cost?\" \n\n \"Not much. Really. I can afford-\" \n\n \"Cabs are expensive. You shouldn't be wasting your money.\" \n\n \"It wasn't expensive. It wasn't a cab, it was a Lyft.\" \n\n \"One of those driverless things?\" \n\n \"Yeah.\" \n\n Ad break. An elderly couple ride a tandem bicycle through a park, laughing and smiling in Instagram-perfect sunshine, as a calm, relaxing voice lists the potentially lethal side effects of a diabetes drug. \n\n Dad shakes his head. \"I don't know how you can use those things. I don't trust them.\" \n\n \"Dad, they're perfectly safe.\" \n\n \"That's not what I mean. They're stealing people's jobs.\" \n\n There's a brief second, a fleeting moment, where Sara can bite her lip, let it go. She misses it. \"But I thought it was immigrants that are stealing people's jobs?\" \n\n \"You might think it's funny little lady, but let me tell you  - you remember Kyle and Max, Bill Cooper's boys? Live up off Lafayette, past the Checkers?\" \n\n \"Nope.\" \n\n \"Well let me tell you,\" He shifts in the recliner, with some obvious pain and effort, to face her. \"Both of 'em lost their jobs just this last year. Both of 'em were truckers. Both of 'em been driving trucks since high school. Now the damn trucks are driving themselves and they're both out of work. And they got families to support. Kids.\"  \n\n \"Well I'm sure they'll be fine.\" She regrets the sarcasm as soon as she hears it in her own voice, but she still can't stop herself, like it's expected, like it's part of the routine. Part of their schtick. \"They just got to get themselves out there, huh Dad? Pull themselves up by their bootstraps. That's the American way, right?\" \n\n \"I'm glad you think this is funny, I really do. But what you New York types need to realise is-\" \n\n \"Ed!\" Mom had appeared in the doorway. \"Please! Both of you. No fighting today, please.\" \n\n \"Sheryl-\" \n\n \"No. I don't want to hear you two as much as disagreeing about anything today, unless it's about the game. And even then you'd better keep it civil. Otherwise you can both go hungry. Understand?\" \n\n Awkward pause. \n\n \"Fine.\" \n\n \"Sorry Mom.\" \n\n Sara turns back to the TV, to watching the war, to trying to work out which one it is.\nIt had always been this way, ever since she was about thirteen. Up until then it just seemed like constant warmth, as though she didn't have any childhood concept of Dad apart from him getting home from work, then her sitting on his knee, eating cookies and watching football highlights until Mom came in and scolded them both for ruining their appetites before dinner. \n\n And then everything changed. Suddenly there was rap music and nose rings, sneaking out of the house to see her friends and not wanting to go to church. Suddenly he was no longer this lovable bear-man that ruffled her hair and gave her candy and explained defensive plays to her, but this huge obelisk of injustice that just wanted to crush her high school life into dust. It was constant warfare; every opinion she had became a battle, every decision she made a conflict. Getting away to college gave her escape, but bred resentment too; he hated that she went to New York, even though NYU was a good school, and her decision to stay there after she finished made things even worse. And then politics got all crazy, weirder then ever, and it became impossible for them to talk without it erupting into fights almost instantly. It was bad enough when the smart, young guy she liked was president and Dad constantly spewed his hate for him at her, but somehow it got even worse when the old, racist, women hating war-starter he liked won. Twice. \n\n So they didn't talk much now, barely online, never on the phone. Since her second year of school he'd never been to NYC to visit her. She came back when she could face it; sometimes for birthdays, sometimes for Thanksgiving. Maybe for Christmas. But somehow always, like now, for the Super Bowl. Like football was the one thing they still had, that one thing they could still sit in the same room together for. Shouting at players, screaming at the ref, laughing at the ads.\nDad is in the bathroom, and Sara has had enough of Fox and whichever war this is. She reaches over and grabs the remote from the arm of his chair, and tries to find something else to watch. The government had scrapped all the rules about how the internet worked, and for most people like her parents it had suddenly gotten a lot cheaper to get their TV through Facebook, so all she can find is\nFox, Breitbart News, Family Values TV, Info Wars, The Rebel, Glenn Beck, The Voice of America, America First, The Bible Today\nand lots of hunting and sports channels she doesn't even recognise. It's signed in to her Dad's FB account, and the last thing she wants is to try and log in on hers before he gets back from the john. Yeah. There was no way that would end up with them keeping it civil.\nIn her pocket her phone vibrates, purrs against her skin, reminding her it's there, making sure she's not forgotten where her real friends are, that there's a world outside, beyond Dad and his TV. She takes it out and cradles it in her hands, the dark screen fleetingly reflecting back her face before it jumps awake at her very touch, opening up to bathe her in blue light, in comfort and warmth and the familiar. For the first time since she got home she feels herself relax.\nDinner is Mom's meatloaf, with gravy and mashed potatoes. Cornbread and broccoli. Every mouthful tastes like nostalgia, and Sara can feel herself being encompassed by a bubble, this barrier of warm air and long forgotten simplicity enveloping her body, protecting her from the confusion of the world outside. \n\n \"How's work, honey?\" Mom asks. \n\n \"Yeah, going OK.\" Sara works for a non-profit in Brooklyn that helps big organisations to transition to renewable energy. The pay is lousy but it feels important. \"We just got the last few schools in the city to agree to put solar panels on their roofs. Big deal for us. I've been working on them for the last two years.\" \n\n Mom says nothing, just looks down at her plate. \n\n Dad finishes chewing his mouthful, swallows, wipes his beard with a napkin. Sighs, barely controlled anger simmering behind his face. \"Solar panels cause cancer.\" \n\n Sara laughs, covering her mouth as she nearly chokes on chewed food. \"What? No they don't Dad.\" \n\n \"They do. The material they use to coat them reacts to sunlight, and produces an airborne carcinogen. It's based on a particular kind of rare earth. It's a bit like teflon. The Chinese have known about this for decades but have kept it covered up, because they-\" \n\n \"Dad, no. Just no. Trust me.\"\n\"-because they are the world's largest manufacturers of solar panels. But the research has been done. The scientific evidence is out there. Look it up.\" \n\n \"Look it up?\" Sara shakes her head, not knowing where to even start. \"Dad, who is telling you this stuff?\" \n\n \"No one is telling me it, Sara. I read it. It's in the news. I mean, really, I'm surprised you've not seen it. It was all over Facebook.\" \n\n \"Maybe on yours, but it's not all over my Facebook.\" She doesn't have the heart to tell him she muted him six months ago. \n\n \"Well, I don't read the news and I don't know any science,\" says Mom, \"But I do know this: after they opened that solar farm up near Mary, within just a few years her and two of her neighbours had cancer. I mean I don't know anything for sure honey, but given the risk are you sure it's safe to be putting these panels on top of schools?\" \n\n \"There's no risk, Mom. None at all. Dad, I wish you'd stop believing everything you see on Facebook.\" \n\n \"Well, maybe you should read things yourself before passing judgement on them.\" He pushes himself up from his seat, steps away from the table. Sara sighs, thinking she's upset him that much that he's actually abandoning his dinner, but he stops to grab something off a nearby shelf. His iPad. He heads back and takes his seat again.\nOh, here we fucking go\nshe thinks to herself. \n\n He stabs at the screen, looks for a while, stabs again. Flips it over and hands it to her. \"Here. Read.\" \n\n Reluctantly, she takes it. His Facebook feed. Somewhere in the middle of it is the article, a very to the point CHINESE SOLAR PANELS CAUSE CANCER headline. But she can't even focus on it, because the rest of the screen is filled with distractions, looping videos and animated gifs, all adverts, and all for guns. Or security systems. Panic rooms. Back up power generators. Emergency rations. More guns. \n\n \"Jesus Christ Dad, these ads!\" \n\n \"No blasphemy at the dinner table, please honey\" says Mom. \n\n \"What about them?\" \n\n \"Just\u2026 just look at them. They're terrifying. They're like\u2026 like adverts for the end of the world! You know they show you this stuff just to make you scared, right? Just to keep you paranoid.\" \n\n \"They show me this stuff because they've got products to sell. That's how the economy works. That's how we create jobs. Godammit Sara, are you telling me you hate\nadvertising\nnow? Do you just hate everything about America?\"  \n\n Sara looks over to Mom, who looks like she's on the brink of tears. Suddenly she finds she's also lost the will to fight. Gently she closes the iPad and puts it down on the table, next to her plate. \n\n \"No, of course not Dad. Maybe I'll read this later, after the game.\"\nAfter dinner she helps Mom clean-up, the two of them loading the dishwasher in near silence. She's leaning against the counter, scrolling through Twitter on her phone, when Mom finally speaks. \n\n \"You should go easy on your father, you know. He's worried about a lot of things.\" \n\n \"What things? Solar panel cancer?\" \n\n \"Don't joke Sara, I'm serious. There's a lot that bothers him. The state of the world. The future. All these damn wars.\" \n\n \"We're all worried about all that, Mom.\" \n\n \"He's worried about his health.\nI'm\nworried about his health. Probably more than he is.\" \n\n Sara looks up from her phone, genuine concern. \"Is he OK?\" \n\n \"I don't know. He won't go to the doctor. Hasn't been in months. He's worried about his insurance.\" \n\n \"I had no idea-\" \n\n \"Yeah, well you know your father. Doesn't like to talk about it. Doesn't want to burden other people with his problems. Hates pity.\" She pauses, looks out the window into the yard. When she turns back to Sara her eyes are damp. \"This is why I was so excited about you coming back. Why he was so excited! I thought it'd take his mind of all this. He was so excited to see you. You know he loves watching the game with you, Sara.\" \n\n \"I know. I'm sorry I-\" \n\n \"And the ads! The Super Bowl ads! You know how much he loves watching the new ads with you. It's a stupid thing, sure, but he loves it. Talks about it all the time. It's like a tradition to him. That's why he got so upset over dinner when you got angry at his ads. It's something special he has with you, he doesn't want to lose it.\" \n\n Sara slips her phone into her pocket, genuine guilt. Feels like a spoiled kid. \"I didn't realise. I'm sorry.\" \n\n Mom smiles, walks over and kisses her on the forehead. \"It's OK honey. Don't feel bad. Just go. Just go sit in there with him and watch some TV. Please.\"\nIt's the second down on the Falcon's 60 yard line with 30 yards to cover, and the Lions need one touchdown to equalise. Sara and her Dad are sat in the front room, working their way through a family sized pack of Oreos, when the ad break starts.\nDawn. Red skies over the desert. A Chevrolet truck pulls up next to a large, trailer. Low shot next to the front tire, as a cowboy booted foot drops down from the door, disturbing dust.\nCut to: internal shot of the trailer, darkness split by morning light through the opening door. The figure enters, flicks on lights. The room is full of equipment, computers. The figure takes a seat, puts on a headset, thumbs on screens. Rests their hands on two large joysticks on the desk.\nCut to: airfield, the desert. The distinctive silhouette of a Predator drone taxis across the screen, rising heat shimmering the air around it.\nCut to: interior of the trailer. The faceless figure works controls, the joysticks, touch screens.\nVoiceover: They say you need to get up pretty early to get past America's finest. But the truth is we never sleep.\nCut to: a uniformed guard on top of the border wall. He looks up and gives a salute to the drone as it soars above him, out and across the desert.\nCut to: drone footage. Grainy, monochrome. A group of figures move slowly through the desert. The camera tracks them. Zooms in. The pilot punches buttons. The figures become highlighted by a computer overlay, text appears next to them. ILLEGAL ENTRY ATTEMPT SUSPECTED. GROUND PATROLS ALERTED.\n\"Fuck this,\" says Sara, getting up from her seat. \n\n \"Sara!\" says Mom. \n\n \"No I'm sorry, I can't. I can't sit here and watch this\u2026 this bullshit. This propaganda.\" She storms out of the room. \n\n \"Sara!\" Mom makes to get up. \n\n \"No, just leave her,\" says Dad, gently, his eyes still fixed on the screen. \"Just let her go.\"\nOut in the kitchen Sara sits at the table and wants to scream. She's angry, mainly with herself. She should never have fucking come here. She should have known better. There was never any fucking way anything good was going to come from this. As much as Mom wants to romanticise things, to make them sound cute and adorable, the truth is shit with Dad has never been right since she was a teenager. Too much resentment, too much bad blood, too much control and rebellion. They hadn't agreed on anything - they hadn't managed to have a simple conversation that didn't descend into fighting - in 15 goddamn years, and no amount of eating cookies and watching fucking Super Bowl ads on the TV was going to fix that. \n\n She sighs, wipes a tear from her cheek. On autopilot she takes her phone from her pocket, feels its reassuring warmth in her hand, and swipes open Twitter. \n\n Everybody seems to be talking about the same thing.\nomg im crying\nholy shit that chevrolet ad /fire emoji\nthat was sooooo beautiful\nwho knew chevrolet were so woke\ni can't believe they did that, so amazing\nHang on, are they taking about the same ad? \n\n Hastily she opens her FB TV app, pulls up the game. The ad is just finishing. She hits the 10-second rewind icon a couple of times, then leans the phone on its side against a ketchup bottle.\nCut to: drone footage. Grainy, monochrome. A group of figures move slowly through the desert. The camera tracks them. Zooms in. The pilot punches buttons. The figures become highlighted by a computer overlay, text appears next to them. ILLEGAL ENTRY ATTEMPT SUSPECTED. GROUND PATROLS ALERTED.\nCut to: on the ground, in the desert. The group of figures are revealed to be a Mexican family, maybe two. Men, women, children. They look tired, hungry. They stop to rest, sipping the little water they have left from tattered plastic bottles.\nA little way away from the main group sits a small child, a girl. Maybe 8 years old. She is drawing shapes in the dust with a stick. She's drawn quite a bit it looks like, but from our angle we can't see what.\nCut to: drone footage. The pilot is watching the group. As he tracks away from the main party to where the girl is sat, the camera reveals what she has drawn.\nA large, child's rendition of the American flag.\nUnderneath it, it childlike handwriting, some words. 'I have a dream'\nText flashes across the screen. ALERT CANCELLED. ALL PATROLS: STAND DOWN\nCut to: the drone, banking and turning, flying away.\nCut to: exterior shot of the trailer. The still anonymous pilot exits, walks back towards his jeep.\nVoiceover: Keeping America safe means never sleeping, but keeping America great means never forgetting who we are, and how we got here.\nThe jeep starts up, pulls away from the camera in a cloud of dust.\nFade to black. Chevrolet logo. White text against black.\n'We know what really makes America great'\nSara finds herself in the front room, sobbing. \n\n \"Honey?\" \n\n Dad pauses the TV, looks up at her. It looks like he's been crying too. \"Sara?\" \n\n \"Did you - did you watch it?\" \n\n \"The Chevrolet ad?\" \n\n \"Yeah.\" \n\n \"Yeah, we did.\" Embarrassed, he wipes a tear from his cheek. \"It was\u2026 it was very moving.\" \n\n She falls on him, wrapping her arms around his neck, burying her face in his chest. \"I'm sorry Dad. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to be so mean-\" \n\n \"It's OK, honey. It really is.\" \n\n \"No, no it's not. We always fight. And I know that's mainly my fault-\" \n\n 'Well, now, c'mon-\" \n\n \"No, it is. It's my fault. I got myself into thinking we can never agree on anything, that we can never see eye to eye. That we've got nothing in common anymore.\" She lifts her head to look up at him. \"But I know that's wrong. That I shouldn't assume things about you. That there's still things that can bring us together.\" \n\n He grins back at her. \"Like Super Bowl ads?\" \n\n She laughs. \"I guess. But you know what I mean, really.\" \n\n \"I know honey. And I'm sorry too. I didn't mean what I said earlier. I know you don't really hate this country.\" He gestures to the couch next to him. \"Why don't you sit down, huh? We can watch the rest of the game together.\" \n\n She straightens herself up, wipes her eyes. Suddenly feels a little self conscious. \"Sure. Let me just go freshen up first.\" \n\n \"Of course honey.\" \n\n Mom and Dad watch Sara leave the room, and then look at each other. \n\n \"Well.\" \n\n \"Well indeed.\" \n\n \"What did I tell you? You two just needed to spend some time together. Some quality time.\" \n\n \"I guess so. What did I ever do to deserve a woman as hot and as smart as you, huh Sheryl?\" \n\n Mom stands up and makes to leave the room, leaning down to kiss him as she passes. \"I ask myself that question every day.\" \n\n Alone, seen only by the TV, Dad smiles to himself. He picks up the remote, but instead of hitting play, he finds himself hitting rewind.\nCut to: drone footage. Grainy, monochrome. A group of figures move slowly through the desert. The camera tracks them. Zooms in. The pilot punches buttons. The figures become highlighted by a computer overlay, text appears next to them. ILLEGAL ENTRY ATTEMPT SUSPECTED. GROUND PATROLS ALERTED.\nCut to: on the ground, in the desert. The group of figures are all men. Dirty, scruffy, furtive. Like they mean business.They carry guns, pistols, and assault riffles. Bad hombres. One of them pulls open a bag, looks inside.\nCut to: close up of the inside of the bag. Inside are packets of white powder.\nSuddenly, one of the party looks up, shouts something in Spanish. They all go to grab their guns.\nBut it's too late.\nFrom three different directions, three different Chevrolet jeeps appear, screeching to a halt, kicking up dust. From them jump Border Patrol agents and Minutemen militia, guns drawn and ready.\nThe gang of men don't even put up a fight. They know they're surrounded, they drop their weapons and pathetically raise their hands.\nAll except one. The guy with the bag full of drugs. He's got nothing to lose. He reaches for his rifle.\nCut to: Border Patrol agents, opening fire.\nText flashes across the screen. ALERT CANCELLED. THREAT NEUTRALISED.\nCut to: the drone, banking and turning, flying away.\nCut to: exterior shot of the trailer. The still anonymous pilot exits, walks back towards his jeep.\nVoiceover: Keeping America safe means never sleeping, but keeping America great means never forgetting who we are, and what keeps us strong.\nThe jeep starts up, pulls away from the camera in a cloud of dust.\nFade to black. Chevrolet logo. White text against black.\n'We know what really makes America great'\nDad wipes another team from his eye. \"I think we're going to be OK,\" he says to himself. \"I think we're going to be just fine.\"\nThis article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.",
    "60713": "COUNTERWEIGHT\nBy JERRY SOHL\nEvery town has crime\u2014but\n \nespecially a town that is\n \ntraveling from star to star!\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, November 1959.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nSure I'm a Nilly, and I've died seven times, always in the blackness\n of the outer reaches, and I'm not alone, although there aren't very\n many of us, never were.\nIt made sense. Interstellar was new and they wanted him on the ship\n because he was a trained observer. They wanted facts, not gibberish.\n But to ask a man to give up two years of his life\u2014well, that was\n asking a lot. Two years in a sardine can. Still, it had an appeal Keith\n Ellason knew he couldn't deny, a newsman's joy of the clean beat, a\n planetary system far afield, a closeup view of the universe, history in\n the making.\n\n\n Interstellar Chief Rexroad knocked the dottle from his pipe in a tray,\n saying, \"Transworld Press is willing to let you have a leave of\n abscence, if you're interested.\"\n\n\n He knew Secretary Phipps from years of contacting, and now Phipps said,\n \"Personally, I don't want to see anybody else on the job. You've got a\n fine record in this sort of thing.\"\n\n\n Keith Ellason smiled, but just barely. \"You should have called me for\n the first trip.\"\n\n\n Phipps nodded. \"I wish we had had you on the\nWeblor I\n.\"\n\n\n \"Crewmen,\" Rexroad said, \"make poor reporters.\"\n\n\n The\nWeblor I\nhad taken off on the first trip to Antheon five years\n before with a thousand families, reached the planet with less than five\n hundred surviving colonists. Upon the return to Earth a year later, the\n crew's report of suffering and chaos during the year's outgoing voyage\n was twisted, distorted and fragmentary. Ellason remembered it well. The\n decision of Interstellar was that the colonists started a revolution\n far out in space, that it was fanned by the ignorance of Captain\n Sessions in dealing with such matters.\n\n\n \"Space affects men in a peculiar way,\" Phipps said. \"We have conquered\n the problem of small groups in space\u2014witness the discovery of\n Antheon, for example\u2014but when there are large groups, control is more\n difficult.\"\n\n\n \"Sessions,\" Rexroad said, \"was a bully. The trouble started at about\n the halfway point. It ended with passengers engaging in open warfare\n with each other and the crew. Sessions was lucky to escape with his\n life.\"\n\n\n \"As I recall,\" Ellason said, \"there was something about stunners.\"\n\n\n Phipps rubbed his chin. \"No weapons were allowed on the ship, but you\n must remember the colonists were selected for their intelligence and\n resourcefulness. They utilized these attributes to set up weapon shops\n to arm themselves.\"\n\n\n \"The second trip is history,\" Rexroad said. \"And a puzzle.\"\nEllason nodded. \"The ship disappeared.\"\n\n\n \"Yes. We gave control to the colonists.\"\n\n\n \"Assuming no accident in space,\" Phipps said, \"it was a wrong decision.\n They probably took over the ship.\"\n\n\n \"And now,\" Ellason said, \"you're going to try again.\"\n\n\n Rexroad said very gravely, \"We've got the finest captain in\n Interplanetary. Harvey Branson. No doubt you've heard of him. He's\n spent his life in our own system, and he's handpicking his own crew. We\n have also raised prerequisites for applicants. We don't think anything\n is going to happen, but if it does, we want to get an impersonal,\n unprejudiced view. That's where you come in. You do the observing, the\n reporting. We'll evaluate it on your return.\"\n\n\n \"If I return,\" said Ellason.\n\n\n \"I suppose that's problematical,\" Phipps said, \"but I think you will.\n Captain Branson and his fifty crewmen want to return as badly as you\n do.\" He grinned. \"You can write that novel you're always talking about\n on your return trip on the\nWeblor II\n.\"\nBeing a Nilly is important, probably as important as running the ship,\n and I think it is this thought that keeps us satisfied, willing to be\n what we are.\nThe\nWeblor II\nhad been built in space, as had its predecessor, the\nWeblor I\n, at a tremendous cost. Basically, it was an instrument\n which would open distant vistas to colonization, reducing the\n shoulder-to-shoulder pressure of a crowded solar system. A gigantic,\n hollow spike, the ship would never land anywhere, but would circle\n Antheon as it circled Earth, shuttling its cargo and passengers to the\n promised land, the new frontier. A space-borne metropolis, it would\n be the home for three thousand persons outward bound, only the crew\n on the return trip. It was equipped with every conceivable facility\n and comfort\u2014dining rooms, assembly hall, individual and family\n compartments, recreation areas, swimming pool, library, theater.\n Nothing had been overlooked.\n\n\n The captain's briefing room was crowded, the air was heavy with the\n breathing of so many men, and the ventilators could not quite clear the\n air of tobacco smoke that drifted aimlessly here and there before it\n was caught and whisked away.\n\n\n In the tradition of newspaperman and observer, Keith Ellason tried\n to be as inconspicuous as possible, pressing against a bulkhead, but\n Captain Branson's eyes sought his several times as Branson listened\n to final reports from his engineers, record keepers, fuel men,\n computermen, and all the rest. He grunted his approval or disapproval,\n made a suggestion here, a restriction there. There was no doubt that\n Branson was in charge, yet there was a human quality about him that\n Ellason liked. The captain's was a lean face, well tanned, and his eyes\n were chunks of blue.\n\n\n \"Gentlemen,\" Branson said at last, as Ellason knew he would, \"I want\n to introduce Keith Ellason, whose presence Interstellar has impressed\n upon us. On loan from Transworld, he will have an observer status.\" He\n introduced him to the others. All of them seemed friendly; Ellason\n thought it was a good staff.\n\n\n Branson detained him after the others had gone. \"One thing, Mr.\n Ellason. To make it easier for you, I suggest you think of this journey\n strictly from the observer viewpoint. There will be no story for\n Transworld at the end.\"\n\n\n Ellason was startled. While he had considered the possibility, he had\n not dwelt on it. Now it loomed large in his mind. \"I don't understand,\n Captain Branson. It seems to me\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Let me put it differently. Let me say that you will not understand why\n I say that until the journey ends.\" He smiled. \"Perhaps I shouldn't\n have mentioned it.\"\nEllason left the captain's quarters with an odd taste in his mouth. Now\n why had Branson said that? Why hadn't Rexroad or Phipps said something,\n if it was important?\n\n\n He made himself comfortable in his seven-foot-by-seven-foot cubicle,\n which is to say he dropped on his bed, found it more comfortable than\n he thought it would be, put his arms behind his head, stared at the\n ceiling. Metal walls, no windows, one floor vent, one ceiling vent,\n and a solitary ceiling molding tube-light. This would be his home for\n a year, just as there were homes like it for three thousand others,\n except that the family rooms would be larger. His quarters were near\n the front of the spike near the officers' quarters.\n\n\n He felt rather than heard the dull rumble. It was a sound he knew would\n be with him for two years\u2014one year going and one year returning.\n\n\n He looked at his watch, picked up his notebook and made an entry. The\n ship right now would be slipping ever so slowly away from Earth. He got\n up. He'd have to go forward to the observation dome to see that. Last\n view of Earth for two years.\nThe penetration of space by large groups is the coming out from under\n the traditions of thousands of years, and as these planet-orginated\n rules fall away, the floundering group seeks a new control, for they\n are humanity adrift, rudderless, for whom the stars are no longer\n bearings but nonexistent things, and values are altered if they are not\n shown the way.\nThe theft of Carver Janssen's attache case occurred on the thirty-first\n day out. In Ellason's mind the incident, though insignificant from the\n standpoint of the ship as a whole, could very well be the cause of\n dissension later on. His notes covering it were therefore very thorough.\n\n\n Janssen's case contained vegetable and flower seeds\u2014thousands of\n them, according to the Captain's Bulletin, the ship's daily newsletter\n which went to all hands and passengers. In the Bulletin the captain\n appealed to the thief to return the case to Mr. Janssen. He said it\n was significant that all en route had passed stability tests, and that\n it was to the ship's discredit that someone with criminal tendencies\n should have been permitted aboard.\n\n\n Ellason had to smile at that. What did Captain Branson think of those\n colonists who killed each other on the\nWeblor I\n? They had passed\n stability tests too. This, then, was what happened when you took three\n thousand strangers and stuck them in a can for a year.\nWhen Ellason saw Branson about it, the captain said, \"Of course I\n realize it takes only a little thing like this to set things off. I\n know people get tired of seeing each other, playing the same tapes,\n looking at the stars from the observation dome, walking down the same\n corridors, reading the same books, eating the same meals, though God\n knows we try to vary it as much as we can. Space creates rough edges.\n But the point is, we know all this, and knowing it, we shouldn't let it\n happen. We've got to find that thief.\"\n\n\n \"What would he want seeds for? Have you thought of that?\"\n\n\n \"Of course. They'd have real value on Antheon.\"\n\n\n Ellason sought out Carver Janssen. He was a middle-aged man with a\n tired face and sad eyes. He said, \"Now what am I going to Antheon\n for? I could only take along so much baggage and I threw out some\n comfort items to make room for the seeds. I'm a horticulturist, and\n Interstellar asked me to go along. But what use am I now? Where am\n I going to get seeds like those? Do you know how long it took me to\n collect them? They're not ordinary seeds, Mr. Ellason.\"\n\n\n There was an appeal from Janssen in the next day's newsletter\n describing the seeds, telling of their value, and requesting their\n return in the interests of the Antheon colony and of humanity.\n\n\n On the thirty-fourth day a witness turned up who said he had seen a\n man emerging from Janssen's compartment with the black case. \"I didn't\n think anything of it at the time,\" Jamieson Dievers said.\n\n\n Branson asked him to describe the man.\n\n\n \"Oh, he was about six feet tall, stocky build, and he wore a red rubber\n mask that covered his head completely.\"\n\n\n \"Didn't you think that was important?\" Branson asked in an outraged\n voice. \"A man wearing a red mask?\"\n\n\n Dievers shrugged. \"This is a spaceship. How would I know whether a red\n mask\u2014or a blue or green one\u2014does or doesn't belong on a spaceship?\"\n\n\n Although Dievers' account appeared in the newsletter, it was largely\n discounted.\n\n\n \"If it is true,\" Branson told Ellason, \"the theft must be the work of\n a psychotic. But I don't believe Jamieson Dievers. It may well be he's\n the psychotic.\" He snorted. \"Red rubber mask! I think I'll have Dievers\n put through psychiatry.\"\n\n\n Attendant to taking notes on this incident, Ellason noted a strange\n thing. Janssen lived in that part of the ship known as the First\n Quadrant, and those who lived in that quadrant\u2014more than seven hundred\n men, women and children\u2014felt that the thief must surely live in\n Quadrant Two or Four. Elias Cromley, who had the compartment next to\n Janssen's, sounded the consensus when he said, \"Surely a man wouldn't\n steal from his own quadrant, now would he, Mr. Ellason?\"\n\n\n And so, Ellason observed in his notebook, are wars created.\nSeen in space, stars are unmoving, silent, sterile bright eyes ever\n watchful and accusing. To men unused to it, such a sight numbs,\n compresses, stultifies. He introduces a countermeasure, proof he\n exists, which is any overt act, sometimes violent.\nOn the forty-fifth day June Failright, the young wife of one of the\n passenger meteorologists, ran screaming down one of the long corridors\n of the Third Quadrant. She told the captain she had been attacked in\n her compartment while her husband was in the ship's library. She was\n taken to one of the ship's doctors, who confirmed it.\n\n\n She said the culprit was a husky man wearing a red rubber mask, and\n though her description of what he had done did not appear in the story\n in the newsletter, it lost no time in penetrating every compartment of\n the ship.\n\n\n Ellason was present when a delegation from the Third Quadrant called on\n Captain Branson, demanding action.\n\n\n Branson remained seated behind his desk, unperturbed, saying, \"I have\n no crewmen to spare for police duty.\"\n\n\n The delegation commenced speaking vehemently, to be quieted by\n Branson's raised hand.\n\n\n \"I sympathize,\" Branson said, \"but it is up to each quadrant to deal\n with its problems, whatever they may be. My job is to get us to\n Antheon.\"\n\n\n The group left in a surly mood.\n\n\n \"You wonder at my reluctance, Mr. Ellason,\" Captain Branson said. \"But\n suppose I assign the crew to patrol duties, the culprit isn't caught,\n and further incidents occur. What then? It soon becomes the crew's\n fault. And soon the colonists will begin thinking these things might be\n the crew's doing in the first place.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Ellason said, \"but what if the intruder is a crewman?\"\n\n\n \"I know my men,\" Branson said flatly.\n\n\n \"You could have a shake-down for the mask and the seed case.\"\n\n\n \"Do you think it is a member of the crew?\" Branson's eyes were bright.\n \"No, I trust my men. I won't violate that trust.\"\n\n\n Ellason left, feeling uneasy. If he were Branson, he'd initiate an\n investigation, if nothing else than to prove the crew guiltless. Why\n couldn't Branson see the wisdom of setting an example for the colonists?\nAs a Nilly, I knew that space breeds hate. There is a seed of\n malevolence in every man. It sometimes blossoms out among the stars. On\n the\nWeblor II\nit was ready for ripening.\nRaymond Palugger was killed in the ship's hospital on the sixty-first\n day. Palugger, a Fourth Quadrant passenger, had complained of feeling\n ill, had been hospitalized with a diagnosis of ileus. He had put his\n money belt in the drawer of the small stand beside his bed. A man\n in a red mask was seen hurrying from the hospital area, and a staff\n investigation revealed that Palugger had died trying to prevent the\n theft of the belt.\n\n\n Captain Branson did not wait for the newsletter. Through the ship's\n speaker system, he reported that Palugger had a fortune in credits\n in the belt and had died of a severe beating. He said that since the\n incident occurred in the staff section of the ship, his crew would be\n forced to submit to a thorough inspection in an effort to find the\n mask, the seed case, the money and the man.\n\n\n \"I will not countenance such an act by a crewman,\" Branson said. \"If\n and when he is found, he will be severely dealt with. But he might not\n be a member of the crew. I am ordering an assembly of all passengers at\n nine tomorrow morning in the auditorium. I will speak to you all then.\"\nFaces were angry, tongues were sharp at the meeting, eyes suspicious\n and tempers short. Above it all was the overpowering presence of\n Captain Branson speaking to them.\n\n\n \"It is not my desire to interfere in passenger affairs,\" he said.\n \"Insofar as the ship is concerned, it is my duty to make certain no\n crewman is guilty. This I am doing. But my crew is not and cannot be\n a police force for you. It is up to you people to police and protect\n yourselves.\"\n\n\n \"How can we protect ourselves without stunners?\" one colonist called\n out.\n\n\n \"Has Red Mask a gun?\" Branson retorted. \"It seems to me you have a\n better weapon than any gun.\"\n\n\n \"What's that?\"\n\n\n \"This ship is only so wide, so long and so deep. If every inch is\n searched, you'll find your man. He has to be somewhere aboard.\"\n\n\n The colonists quieted. Benjamin Simpson, one of the older men, was\n elected president of the newly formed Quadrant Council. One man from\n each of the quadrants was named to serve under him. Each of these men\n in turn selected five others from his own group.\n\n\n Those assembled waited in the hall while each team of six inspected\n the compartments of the others. These compartments were then locked,\n everyone returned to his compartment, and the larger search was\n conducted. It took twenty hours.\n\n\n No mask was found. No mask, no case, no money, no man.\n\n\n The captain reported that his search had been equally fruitless.\n At another assembly the following day it was decided to make the\n inspection teams permanent, to await further moves on the part of Red\n Mask. The Quadrant Council held periodic meetings to set up a method of\n trial for him when he was caught. It was all recorded in the newsletter\n and by Keith Ellason.\nWe Nillys know about hate and about violence. We know too that where\n there is hate there is violence, and where there is violence there is\n death.\nDuring sleep time on the seventy-ninth day Barbara Stoneman, awakened\n by a strange sound, sat up in the bed of her compartment to find a\n man in a red mask in her room. Her cries brought neighbors into the\n corridor. The flight of the man was witnessed by many, and several men\n tried to stop him. But the intruder was light on his feet and fast. He\n escaped.\n\n\n The Quadrant Council confronted the captain, demanding weapons.\n\n\n \"Are you out of your minds?\" Branson exclaimed.\n\n\n Tom Tilbury, Fourth Quadrant leader, said, \"We want to set up a police\n force, Captain. We want stunners.\"\n\n\n \"There's no law against it,\" Branson said, \"but it's a rule of mine\n that no weapons are to be issued en route.\"\n\n\n \"If we had had a gun, we'd have got Red Mask,\" Tilbury said.\n\n\n \"And I might have a murder on my conscience.\"\n\n\n Tilbury said, \"We've also thought of that. Suppose you supply us with\n half-power stunners? That way we can stun but not kill.\"\n\n\n They got their guns. Now there were twenty-four policemen on duty in\n the corridors\u2014eight on at a time. Ellason observed that for the first\n time the passengers seemed relaxed.\n\n\n Let Red Mask move against armed men, they said.\n\n\n Yeah, let him see what happens now.\n\n\n Red Mask did.\nOn the 101st day he was seen in a corridor in Quadrant Four. Emil\n Pierce, policeman on duty, managed to squeeze off several shots at his\n retreating figure.\n\n\n Red Mask was seen again on the 120th day, on the 135th day, and the\n 157th day. He was seen, shot at, but not hit. He was also unable to\n commit any crime.\n\n\n We've got him on the run, the colonists said.\n\n\n He's afraid to do anything, now that we've got police protection, they\n said smugly.\n\n\n The Quadrant Council congratulated itself. The passengers were proud\n of themselves. A special congratulatory message from Captain Branson\n appeared one day in the Bulletin newsletter.\n\n\n The colonists settled down to living out the rest of the voyage until\n the landing on Antheon.\n\n\n But on the 170th day calamity struck. Red Mask appropriated one of the\n stunners, made his way down one whole corridor section in Quadrant Two,\n put occupants to sleep as he went, taking many articles of value and\n leaving disorder behind.\n\n\n Ellason interviewed as many victims as he could, noted it all in\n his book. The things taken were keepsakes, photographs and items of\n personal value. It seemed to be the work of a madman. If Red Mask\n wanted to make everyone furious, he certainly succeeded.\n\n\n \"What does he want that stuff for?\" Casey Stromberg, a passenger\n doctor, asked. \"I can see him taking my narcotics, my doctor's kit\u2014but\n my dead wife's picture? That I don't understand.\"\n\n\n It was the same with others. \"The man's insane, Mr. Ellason. Positively\n insane.\" Many people said it.\n\n\n The council issued orders that all passengers from now on would be\n required to lock their compartments at all times. More guns were\n obtained from the captain. More policemen were appointed.\n\n\n Ellason was busy noting it all in his book. It became filled with\n jottings about innocent people being accidentally stunned when\n trigger-happy policemen thought their movements suspicious, about one\n man's suspicion of another and the ensuing search of compartments,\n people who saw Red Mask here, saw him there. Hardly a day went by\n without some new development.\n\n\n \"Oh, yes, Mr. Ellason, we're going to get him,\" said Tilbury, now chief\n of police, cracking his knuckles, his eyes glowing at the thought.\n \"We're bound to get him. We've got things worked out to the finest\n detail. He won't be able to get through our fingers now. Just let him\n make so much as a move.\"\n\n\n \"And what will you do when you get him?\"\n\n\n \"Kill him,\" Tilbury said, licking his lips, his eyes glowing more\n fiercely than ever.\n\n\n \"Without a trial?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, there'll be a trial, Mr. Ellason, but you don't think any jury'd\n let him live after all the things he's done, do you?\"\nRed Mask was stunned in Quadrant Four in a corridor by a policeman\n named Terryl Placer on the 201st day. The criminal was carried to the\n assembly room surrounded by guards, for he surely would have been\n mauled, if not killed, by angry colonists who crowded around. In the\n assembly hall his mask was whipped off. The crowd gasped. Nobody knew\n him.\n\n\n Ellason's first thought was that he must be a stowaway, but then he\n remembered the face, and Captain Branson, who came to have a look at\n him, unhappily admitted the man was a member of the crew. His name was\n Harrel Critten and he was a record keeper third class.\n\n\n \"Well, Critten,\" Branson roared at him, \"what have you got to say for\n yourself?\"\n\n\n \"Go to hell,\" Critten said quietly. As if it were an afterthought, he\n spat at the captain.\n\n\n Branson looked as if he were going to kill the man himself right there\n and then.\n\n\n It was a long trial\u2014from the 220th to the 241st day\u2014and there didn't\n seem to be much doubt about the outcome, for Critten didn't help his\n own cause during any of it.\n\n\n Lemuel Tarper, who was appointed prosecutor, asked him, \"What did you\n do with the loot, Critten?\"\n\n\n Critten looked him square in the eye and said, \"I threw it out one of\n the escape chutes. Does that answer your question?\"\n\n\n \"Threw it away?\" Tarper and the crowd were incredulous.\n\n\n \"Sure,\" Critten said. \"You colonists got the easy life as passengers,\n just sitting around. I had to work my head off keeping records for you\n lazy bastards.\"\n\n\n The verdict was, of course, death.\n\n\n They executed Harrel Critten on the morning of the 270th day with\n blasts from six stunners supplied with full power. It was witnessed\n by a great crowd in the assembly hall. A detail from the ship's crew\n disposed of his body through a chute.\n\n\n It was all duly recorded in Keith Ellason's notebooks.\nDying is easy for a Nilly. Especially if it's arranged for beforehand,\n which it always is.\nThe\nWeblor II\nwas only one day out of orbit when Captain Branson sent\n for Ellason and introduced him to the executed man.\n\n\n \"Hello,\" Critten said, grinning from ear to ear.\n\n\n \"I figured as much,\" Ellason said. \"I've been doing a lot of thinking.\"\n\n\n \"You're perhaps a little too good as an observer,\" Branson said. \"Or\n maybe it was because you really weren't one of the colonists. But no\n matter, Critten did a good job. He was trained by an old friend of mine\n for this job, Gelthorpe Nill. Nill used to be in counter-espionage when\n there were wars.\"\n\n\n \"You were excellent,\" Ellason said.\n\n\n \"Can't say I enjoyed the role,\" said Critten, \"but I think it saved\n lives.\"\n\n\n \"Let me get this straight. Interstellar thought that it was idleness\n and boredom that caused the killings on the\nWeblor I\n, so they had you\n trained to be a scapegoat. Is that right?\"\n\n\n Critten nodded. \"When great numbers are being transported, they are apt\n to magnify each little event because so little happens. It was my job\n to see that they directed none of their venom against each other or the\n crew, only toward me.\"\n\n\n Branson smiled. \"It made the time pass quickly and interestingly for\n the passengers.\"\n\n\n \"To say nothing of me,\" Critten said.\n\n\n \"And you, Mr. Ellason, were along to observe it all,\" Captain Branson\n put in. \"Interstellar wanted an accurate picture of this. If it worked,\n they told me they'd use it on other trips to Antheon.\"\n\n\n Ellason nodded. \"No time for brooding, for differences of opinion on\n small matters. Just time to hate Mr. Critten. Unanimously.\"\n\n\n \"Probably,\" Critten said, \"you are wondering about the execution.\"\n\n\n \"Naturally.\"\n\n\n \"We removed the charges before the guns were used.\"\n\n\n \"And Carver Janssen's case?\"\n\n\n \"He'll get it back when he's shuttled to Antheon. And all the other\n items will be returned. They're all tagged with their owner's names.\n Captain Branson will say they were found somewhere on the ship. You\n see, I was a liar.\"\n\n\n \"How about that assault on June Failright?\"\n\n\n Critten grinned again. \"She played right into our hands. She ran out\n into the hall claiming I'd attacked her, which I did not. She was\n certainly amazed when the ship's physicians agreed with her. Of course\n Captain Branson told them to do that.\"\n\n\n \"And the murder?\"\n\n\n \"Raymond Palugger died in the hospital all right, but he died from\n his illness on the operating table. We turned it into an advantage by\n making it look suspicious.\"\n\n\n Ellason brightened. \"And by that time everybody was seeing Red Mask\n everywhere and the colonists organized against him.\"\n\n\n \"Gave them something to do,\" Branson said.\n\n\n \"Every time things got dull, I livened them up. I got a stunner and\n robbed along the corridor. That really stirred them. Lucky nobody got\n hurt during any of it, including that Stoneman woman. I was trying to\n rob her when she woke up.\"\nBranson cleared his throat. \"Ah, Ellason about that story. You\n understand you can't write it, don't you?\"\n\n\n Ellason said regretfully that he did understand.\n\n\n \"The colonists will never know the truth,\" Branson went on. \"There will\n be other ships outward bound.\"\n\n\n Critten sighed. \"And I'll have to be caught again.\"\nYes, we're anonymous, nameless, we Nillys, for that's what we call\n each other, and are a theme, with variations, in the endless stretches\n of deep space, objects of hatred and contempt, professional heels,\n dying once a trip when the time is ripe, antidote to boredom, and we'll\n ply our trade, our little tragedies, on a thousand ships bringing\n humanity to new worlds.",
    "60747": "Nuts to wild talents! Mine was no\n \nsatisfaction, never earned me a penny\u2014and\n \nnow it had me fighting for my life in\n...\nTHE LITTLE RED BAG\nBy JERRY SOHL\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1960.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nAbout an hour out of San Francisco on the flight to Los Angeles, I made\n the discovery. I had finished reading the\nChronicle\n, folded and put\n it beside me, turned and looked out the window, expecting to see the\n San Joaquin Valley but finding only a sea of clouds instead. So I\n returned my attention to the inside of the plane, to the overstuffed\n gray-haired woman asleep beside me, to the backs of heads in seats\n before me, across the aisle to other heads, and down to the blonde.\n\n\n I had seen her in the concourse and at the gate, a shapely thing. Now\n she had crossed her legs and I was privileged to view a trim ankle and\n calf, and her profile as she stared moodily across the aisle and out a\n window where there was nothing to see.\n\n\n I slid my eyes past her to others. A crossword-puzzle worker, a\n togetherness-type-magazine reader.\n\n\n Inventory completed, I went back to looking at the clouds, knowing I\n should be thinking about the printing order I was going to Los Angeles\n for, and not wanting to.\n\n\n So I started going through the purse of the woman next to me. Perhaps\n that sounds bad. It wasn't. I'd been doing it for years and nobody ever\n complained.\n\n\n It started when I was a kid, this business of being able to explore\n the insides of things like purses and sealed boxes and locked drawers\n and\u2014well, human beings. But human beings aren't worth the trouble.\n It's like swimming through spaghetti. And I've got to stay away from\n electric wires. They hurt. Now don't ask me\nhow\nthey hurt.\n\n\n Maybe you think it's fun. For the most part, it really isn't. I always\n knew what was in Christmas presents before I unwrapped them, and\n therefore Christmas was always spoiled for me as a kid. I can't feel\n the color of anything, just its consistency. An apple senses about the\n same as a potato, except for the core and the stem. I can't even tell\n if there's writing on a piece of paper. So you see it isn't much. Just\n the feel of shapes, the hardnesses and softnesses. But I've learned to\n become pretty good at guessing.\n\n\n Like this woman next to me. She had a short, cylindrical metal object\n in her purse with waxlike stuff inside it\u2014a lipstick. A round, hard\n object with dust inside\u2014a compact. Handkerchief, chewing gum, a small\n book, probably an address book, money in a change purse\u2014a few bills\n and coins. Not much else.\n\n\n I was a little disappointed. I've run across a gun or two in my time.\n But I never say anything.\nI learned the wisdom of keeping my mouth shut in the fourth grade when\n Miss Winters, a stern, white-haired disciplinarian, ordered me to eat\n my sack lunch in the classroom with her instead of outside with some\n of the other kids. This was the punishment for some minor infraction.\n Lunchtime was nearly over and we'd both finished eating; she said she'd\n be gone for a few moments and that I was to erase the blackboard during\n her absence, which I dutifully did.\n\n\n Class had hardly resumed when she started looking around the desk for\n her favorite mechanical pencil, asking if any of us had seen it, and\n looking straight at me. I didn't want her to think I had taken it while\n she was out of the room, so I probed the contents of her purse, which\n she always kept in the upper right drawer of her desk.\n\n\n \"It's in your purse,\" I blurted out.\n\n\n I was sent home with a stinging note.\n\n\n Since then I've kept quiet. At one time I assumed everybody was able\n to sense. I've known better for years. Still, I wonder how many other\n people are as close-mouthed about their special gift as I am about mine.\n\n\n I used to think that some day I'd make a lot of money out of it, but\n how? I can't read thoughts. I can't even be sure what some of the\n things I sense in probing really are.\n\n\n But I've learned to move things. Ever so little. A piece of paper. A\n feather. Once I stopped one of those little glass-enclosed light or\n heat-powered devices with vanes you see now and then in a jeweler's\n window. And I can stop clocks.\n\n\n Take this morning, for example. I had set my alarm for five-thirty\n because I had to catch the seven o'clock plane at San Francisco\n International Airport. This being earlier than I usually get up, it\n seems all I did during the night was feel my way past the escapement\n and balance wheel to see where the notch for the alarm was. The last\n time I did it there was just the merest fraction of an inch between the\n pawl and the notch. So I sighed and moved to the balance wheel and its\n delicate ribbon of spiraling steel. I hung onto the wheel, exerting\n influence to decrease the restoring torque.\n\n\n The wheel slowed down until there was no more ticking. It took quite\n a bit of effort, as it always does, but I did it, as I usually do. I\n can't stand the alarm.\n\n\n When I first learned to do this, I thought I had it made. I even went\n to Las Vegas to try my hand, so to speak, with the ratchets and pawls\n and cams and springs on the slot machines. But there's nothing delicate\n about a slot machine, and the spring tensions are too strong. I dropped\n quite a lot of nickels before I finally gave up.\n\n\n So I'm stuck with a talent I've found little real use for. Except that\n it amuses me. Sometimes. Not like this time on the plane.\n\n\n The woman beside me stirred, sat up suddenly and looked across me out\n the window. \"Where are we?\" she asked in a surprised voice. I told her\n we were probably a little north of Bakersfield. She said, \"Oh,\" glanced\n at her wristwatch and sank back again.\n\n\n Soon the stewardesses would bring coffee and doughnuts around, so I\n contented myself with looking at the clouds and trying to think about\n Amos Magaffey, who was purchasing agent for a Los Angeles amusement\n chain, and how I was going to convince him our printing prices were\n maybe a little higher but the quality and service were better. My mind\n wandered below where I was sitting, idly moving from one piece of\n luggage to another, looking for my beat-up suitcase. I went through\n slips and slippers, lingerie and laundry, a jig saw puzzle and a\n ukulele.\n\n\n I never did find my suitcase because I found the bomb first.\nThe bomb was in a small bag\u2014a woman's bag judging by the soft,\n flimsy things you'd never find in a man's\u2014and I didn't know it was a\n bomb right away. I thought it was just a clock, one of those small,\n quiet alarms. I was going to pass it by and go on, but what held me\n was that something was taped to it. By the feel, I knew it must be\n electrician's tape. Interested and curious, I explored the clock more\n closely, found two wires. One went to a battery and the other to hard\n round cylinders taped together. The hairs stood up at the base of my\n neck when I suddenly realized what it was.\n\n\n The clock's balance wheel was rocking merrily. Quickly I went up past\n the train of gears to the alarm wheel. If this was anything like my own\n alarm clock, this one had something like ten minutes to go.\n\n\n It was forty minutes to Burbank and Lockheed Air Terminal.\n\n\n My mind was churning when I turned from the window to look around\n at the unconcerned passengers, the woman at my side asleep again. I\n thought: Which one of these.... No, none of them would know it was\n there. I glanced out the window again; clouds were still in the way.\n We'd be leaving the valley for the mountain range north of Los Angeles\n soon, if we hadn't left it already. No place to land the plane there.\n\n\n But of course that had been the plan!\n\n\n My heart was beating in jackhammer rhythm; my mouth was dry and my mind\n was numb. Tell somebody about the bomb before it's too late! No, they'd\n think I put it there. Besides, what good would it do? There would be\n panic and they'd never get the plane down in time\u2014if they believed me.\n\n\n \"Sir.\" My head jerked around. The stewardess stood in the aisle,\n smiling, extending a tray to me, a brown plastic tray bearing a small\n paper cup of tomato juice, a cup of coffee, a cellophane-wrapped\n doughnut, paper spoon, sugar and dehydrated cream envelopes, and a\n napkin.\n\n\n I goggled at her, managed to croak, \"No, thanks.\" She gave me an odd\n look and moved along. My seatmate had accepted hers and was tearing at\n the cellophane. I couldn't bear to watch her.\n\n\n I closed my eyes, forced my mind back to the luggage compartment, spent\n a frantic moment before I found the bag again. I had to stop that\n balance wheel, just as I stopped my alarm clock every morning. I tried\n to close everything off\u2014the throb of engines, the rush of air, the\n woman sipping coffee noisily beside me\u2014and I went into the clock and\n surrounded the seesawing wheel. When it went forward, I pulled it back;\n when it went back, I pulled it forward. I struggled with it, and it was\n like trying to work with greasy hands, and I was afraid I wasn't going\n to be able to stop it.\n\n\n Then, little by little, it started to slow its beat. But I could not\n afford to relax. I pushed and pulled and didn't dare release my hold\n until it came to a dead stop.\n\n\n \"Anything the matter?\"\n\n\n My eyelids flew open and I looked into the eyes of the woman next to\n me. There was sugar from the doughnut around her mouth and she was\n still chewing.\n\n\n \"No,\" I said, letting out my breath. \"I'm all right.\"\n\n\n \"You were moaning, it sounded like. And you kept moving your head back\n and forth.\"\n\n\n \"Must have been dreaming,\" I said as I rang for the stewardess. When\n she came I told her I'd take some of that coffee now. No, nothing else,\n just coffee. I didn't tell her how much I needed it. I sat there clammy\n with sweat until she returned. Coffee never tasted so good.\nAll right, so I had stopped the bomb's timer. My mind raced ahead to\n the landing. When they unloaded the luggage, the balance wheel would\n start again. I wouldn't be able to stay with it, keeping it still.\n I considered telling the authorities as soon as we landed, or maybe\n calling in ahead, but wouldn't that just bring suspicion, questions.\n Maybe I could convince them I could stop a clock\u2014but not before the\n bomb exploded. And then what? My secret would be out and my life would\n be changed. I'd be a man not to be trusted, a prying man, a man\n literally with gimlet eyes.\n\n\n Mountain crags jutted through the clouds. We were in the range north of\n the city. Here and there were clear spots and I could see roads below,\n but there were also clouds far above us. It was very beautiful, but it\n was also very bumpy, and we started to slip and slide.\n\n\n To my horror I found that the balance wheel was rocking again. Closing\n my eyes and gritting my teeth, I forced my senses to the wheel, tugging\n and pulling and shoving and pushing until it finally stopped.\n\n\n A jab in the shoulder. I jumped, startled.\n\n\n \"Your cup,\" my seat partner said, pointing.\n\n\n I looked down at the coffee cup I had crushed in my hands. Then I\n looked up into the eyes of the stewardess. I handed it to her. She took\n it without a word and went away.\n\n\n \"Were you really asleep that time?\"\n\n\n \"Not really,\" I said. I was tempted to tell the woman I was subject to\n fits, but I didn't.\n\n\n It was only a few minutes to landing, but they became the longest\n minutes of my life as time after time I stopped the rocking wheel when\n the plane dipped and bumped to a landing.\n\n\n Leaving the apron with the other passengers, I tried to walk as\n unconcernedly as they through the exit gate. I would have liked walking\n through the terminal and out the entrance and away, but I could not. I\n had my suitcase to get, for one thing. The damned bomb was the other.\n So I strolled out into the concourse again to look at the plane and\n watch the baggagemen at work, transferring the luggage to two airfield\n carts. They weren't as careful as I would have been.\n\n\n It was impossible to tell from this distance just which bag contained\n the bomb; I could hardly identify my own scarred suitcase. The\n assortment of bags\u2014a strange conglomeration of sizes and colors\u2014was\n packed in some places six deep, and it rolled toward the gate where\n I was standing. I didn't know whether to stay or run, imagining the\n balance wheel now happily rocking again. The load went past me down a\n ramp to the front of the air terminal where the luggage was unloaded\n and placed in a long rack. I went with it.\n\n\n There was a flurry of ticket matching, hands grabbing for suitcases,\n and a general exodus on the part of my fellow passengers, too fast to\n determine who had got the one with the bomb. Now all that was left was\n the attendant and I had two bags\u2014my own battered veteran of years, and\n a fine new red overnight case, small enough to be the one.\n\n\n I lit a cigarette, reached out. Inside were a woman's things and\u2014a\n clock. The escapement was clicking vigorously.\n\n\n I didn't moan this time. I just closed my eyes, stretched toward\n and grabbed the balance wheel I was getting to know like my own. I\n entered into a union with it so strong that after I had reduced it to\n immobility, it was like waking when I opened my eyes.\nThe baggage claim attendant was staring at me. For only a moment I\n stared back. Then I quickly reached for my baggage check and presented\n it to him. His hand hovered over the handle of the little red bag and I\n was ready to yell at him. But then, matching numbers on the tags with\n his eyes, his hand grasped the handle of my own suitcase and pushed it\n toward me.\n\n\n \"Thanks,\" I said, taking it. I glanced ever so casually toward the\n remaining bag. \"One left over, eh?\"\n\n\n \"Yeah.\" He was so bored I was tempted to tell him what was in it. But\n he was eying me with a \"well-why-don't-you-get-along?\" look.\n\n\n I said, \"What happens if nobody claims it?\"\n\n\n \"Take it inside. Why?\"\n\n\n He was getting too curious. \"Oh, I just wondered, that's all.\"\n\n\n I stepped on my cigarette and walked toward the air terminal entrance\n and put my suitcase on the stone steps there. A redcap came hurrying\n over.\n\n\n \"Cab?\"\n\n\n I shook my head. \"Just waiting.\"\n\n\n Just waiting for somebody to pick up a bomb.\n\n\n I lit another cigarette and glanced now and then toward the baggage\n claim area. The red bag was still there. All sorts of theories ran\n through my head as to why it should still be there, and none satisfied\n me.\n\n\n I should not have been there, that much I knew; I should be with a\n man named Amos Magaffey on Sixth Street at ten o'clock, discussing\n something very mundane, the matter of a printing order. But what could\n I do? If I left the airport, the attendant would eventually take the\n bag inside and there would be an explosion, and I wouldn't be able to\n live with myself.\n\n\n No. I had to stay to keep the balance wheel stationary until\u2014until\n what?\n\n\n A man in tan gabardine, wearing a police cap and badge, walked out of\n the entrance to stand on the stone steps beside me while he put on a\n pair of dark glasses. A member of the airport police detail. I could\n tell him. I could take him down to the little red bag and explain the\n whole thing. Then it would be his baby and I would be off on my own\n business.\n\n\n But he moved on down the steps, nodded at the redcap, and started\n across the street to the parking area. I could have called to him,\n \"Hey, officer, let me tell you about a bomb in a little red bag.\" But\n I didn't. I didn't because I caught a movement at the baggage claim\n counter out of the side of my eye.\n\n\n The attendant had picked up the bag and was walking with it up the ramp\n to the rear of the air terminal. Picking up my own suitcase, I went\n inside in time to see him enter through a side door and deposit the bag\n on the scales at the airline desk and say something to the clerk. The\n clerk nodded and moved the bag to the rear room.\n\n\n I could visualize the balance wheel once again rocking like crazy. How\n many minutes\u2014or seconds\u2014were left? I was sweating when I moved to the\n counter, and it wasn't because of the sunshine I'd been soaking in. I\n had to get as close to the bag as I could if I was going to stop the\n clock again.\n\n\n \"Can I help you?\" the clerk asked.\n\n\n \"No. I'm waiting for someone.\"\n\n\n I turned my back to him, put down my suitcase, leaned against the\n counter and reached out for the wheel. I found I could reach the\n device, but it was far away. When I tried to dampen it, the wheel\n escaped my grasp.\n\n\n \"Do you have my suitcase?\"\n\n\n I blinked my eyes open and looked around. The blonde in the plane stood\n there looking very fresh and bright and unconcerned. In her right hand\n she had a green baggage claim check.\n\n\n The clerk took it, nodded, and in a moment brought out the overnight\n case and set it on the scales. The girl thanked him, picked it up,\n glanced at me indifferently, and then started for the entrance with it.\n\n\n \"Just a moment,\" I found myself saying, grabbing my bag and hurrying\n after her.\nAt her side and a little ahead of her, I said, \"Listen to me.\"\n\n\n She looked annoyed and increased her stride toward the door.\n\n\n \"It's a matter of life or death,\" I said. I wanted to wrest the bag\n from her and hurl it out through the doorway into the street, but I\n restrained myself.\n\n\n She stopped and stared. I noticed a short, fat man in a rumpled\n suitcoat and unpressed pants staring, too. Ignoring him, I said,\n \"Please put the bag down. Over there.\" I indicated a spot beside a\n telephone booth where it would be out of the way.\n\n\n She didn't move. She just said, \"Why?\"\n\n\n \"For God's sake!\" I took the case. She offered no resistance. I put her\n bag and mine next to the booth. When I turned around she was standing\n there looking at me as if I had gone out of my mind. Her eyes were blue\n and brown-flecked, very pretty eyes, and my thought at the moment was,\n I'm glad the bomb didn't go off; these eyes wouldn't be looking at me\n or anything else right now if it had.\n\n\n \"I've got to talk to you. It's very important.\"\n\n\n The girl said, \"Why?\" I was beginning to think it was the only word she\n knew. At the same time I was wondering why anyone would want to kill\n someone so lovely.\n\n\n \"I'll explain in a moment. Please stand right here while I make a\n telephone call.\" I moved toward the phone booth, paused and said, \"And\n don't ask me why.\"\n\n\n She gave me a speculative look.\n\n\n I must not have seemed a complete idiot because she said, \"All right,\n but\u2014\"\n\n\n I didn't listen for the rest. I went into the booth, closed the door,\n pretended to drop a coin and dial a number. But all the time I was in\n there, I was reaching out through the glass for the clock. At this\n range it wasn't difficult to stop the balance wheel.\n\n\n Just the same, when I came out I was wringing wet.\n\n\n \"Now will you please tell me what this is all about?\" she said stiffly.\n\n\n \"Gladly. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and I'll explain.\"\n\n\n She glanced at the bags. I told her they'd be all right. We followed\n the short, fat man into the coffee shop.\n\n\n Over coffee I explained it all to her, how I had this extrasensory\n ability, how she was the first person I had ever revealed it to, and\n how I had discovered what was in her overnight bag.\n\n\n During the telling, her untouched coffee grew a skin, her face grew\n pale, her eyes grew less curious and more troubled. There were tears\n there when I finished. I asked her who put the bomb in her bag.\n\n\n \"Joe did,\" she said in a toneless voice, not looking at me any more but\n staring vacantly across the room. \"Joe put it there.\" Behind her eyes\n she was reliving some recent scene.\n\n\n \"Who is Joe?\"\n\n\n \"My husband.\" I thought she was going to really bawl, but she got\n control again. \"This trip was his idea, my coming down here to visit my\n sister.\" Her smile was bleak. \"I see now why he wanted to put in those\n books. I'd finished packing and was in the bathroom. He said he'd put\n in some books we'd both finished reading\u2014for my sister. That's when he\n must have put the\u2014put it in there.\"\n\n\n I said gently, \"Why would he want to do a thing like that?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know.\" She shook her head. \"I just don't know.\" And she was\n close to bawling again. Then she recovered and said, \"I'm not sure I\n want to know.\" I admired her for saying it. Joe must have been crazy.\n\n\n \"It's all right now?\" she asked.\n\n\n I nodded. \"As long as we don't move it.\"\n\n\n I told her I didn't know how much more time there was, that I'd been\n thinking it over and that the only way out seemed to be to tell the\n airport policeman. After I explained it to her, the girl\u2014she said her\n name was Julia Claremont\u2014agreed to tell him she thought there was a\n bomb in her bag, that she had noticed a ticking and had become worried\n because she knew she hadn't packed a clock. It wasn't good, but it\n would have to do.\n\n\n \"We've got to get it deactivated,\" I said, watching the fat man pay for\n his coffee and leave. \"The sooner the better.\"\nI finished my coffee in one gulp and went to pay the bill with her.\n I asked her why she didn't claim the bag at the same time the other\n people had. She said she had called her sister and the phone was busy\n for a long while.\n\n\n \"She was supposed to meet me, and when she wasn't here, I got worried.\n She said she isn't feeling well and asked me to take a cab.\" She smiled\n a little. It was a bright, cheery thing. I had the feeling it was all\n for me. \"That's where I was going when you caught up with me.\"\n\n\n It had become a very nice day. But the bottom dropped out of it again\n when we reached the lobby.\n\n\n The two bags weren't there.\n\n\n I ran to the entrance and nearly collided with the redcap.\n\n\n \"See anybody go out of here with a little red bag and an old battered\n suitcase?\"\n\n\n \"Bag? Suitcase?\" he mumbled. Then he became excited. \"Why, a man just\n stepped out of here\u2014\" He turned to look down the street. \"That's him.\"\n\n\n The dumpy man I'd seen was walking off; Julia's bag in his right hand,\n mine in his left. He seemed in no hurry.\n\n\n \"Hey!\" I shouted, starting toward him.\n\n\n The man turned, took one look at me, and started to run. He came\n abreast an old gray, mud-spattered coupe, ran around, opened the door\n and threw both bags into the rear seat as he got in.\n\n\n The car was a hundred feet away and gathering speed by the time I\n reached where it had been parked. I watched it for a moment, then\n walked back to the entranceway where Julia was standing with the\n redcap, who said, \"That man steal them suitcases?\"\n\n\n \"That he did,\" I said.\n\n\n Just then the airport policeman started across the street from the\n parking lot. Redcap said, \"Better tell him about it.\"\n\n\n The policeman was sympathetic and concerned. He said, \"We'd better get\n over to the office.\"\n\n\n But we never left the spot because an explosion some blocks distant\n shattered the air. Julia's hand grasped my arm. Hard.\n\n\n \"Jets,\" the redcap said, eying the sky.\n\n\n \"I don't know,\" the policeman said. \"Didn't sound much like a jet to\n me.\"\n\n\n We stood there. I could visualize the wreckage of an old gray coupe\n in the middle of a street, but I couldn't visualize the driver. That\n was all right. I didn't want to see him. I didn't know what Julia was\n thinking.\n\n\n She said, \"About those bags,\" and looked at me.\n\n\n The officer said, \"Yes, miss?\"\n\n\n \"I\u2014I don't care about mine. I didn't have much of anything in it.\"\n\n\n \"I feel the same way,\" I said. \"Would it be all right if we didn't\n bother to report it?\"\n\n\n \"Well,\" the policeman said, \"I can't\nmake\nyou report it.\"\n\n\n \"I'd rather not then,\" Julia said. She turned to me. \"I'd like some\n air. Can't we walk a little?\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" I said.\n\n\n We started down the street, her arm in mine, as the air began to fill\n with the distant sounds of sirens.",
    "27492": "UPSTARTS\nBy L. J. STECHER, JR.\nIllustrated by DILLON\nThe\n sight of an Earthman\n on Vega III, where it was\n impossible for an outlander\n to be, brought angry crowds to surround\n John Crownwall as he strode\n toward the palace of Viceroy\n Tronn Ffallk, ruler of Sector XII\n of the Universal Holy Empire of\n Sunda. He ignored the snarling, the\n spitting, the waving of boneless\n prehensile fingers, as he ignored the\n heavy gravity and heavier air of\n the unfamiliar planet.\n\n\n John Crownwall, florid, red-headed\n and bulky, considered himself\n to be a bold man. But here,\n surrounded by this writhing, slithering\n mass of eight-foot creatures,\n he felt distinctly unhappy. Crownwall\n had heard about creatures that\n slavered, but he had never before\n seen it done. These humanoids had\n large mouths and sharp teeth, and\n they unquestionably slavered. He\n wished he knew more about them.\n If they carried out the threats of\n their present attitude, Earth would\n have to send Marshall to replace\n him. And if Crownwall couldn't do\n the job, thought Crownwall, then\n it was a sure bet that Marshall\n wouldn't have a chance.\n\n\n He climbed the great ramp, with\n its deeply carved Greek key design,\n toward the mighty entrance\n gate of the palace. His manner\n demonstrated an elaborate air of\n unconcern that he felt sure was entirely\n wasted on these monsters.\n The clashing teeth of the noisiest\n of them were only inches from the\n quivering flesh of his back as he\n reached the upper level. Instantly,\n and unexpectedly to Crownwall,\n the threatening crowd dropped\n back fearfully, so that he walked\n the last fifty meters alone.\n\n\n Crownwall all but sagged with\n relief. A pair of guards, their purple\n hides smoothly polished and gleaming\n with oil, crossed their ceremonial\n pikes in front of him as he\n approached the entrance.\n\n\n \"And just what business do you\n have here, stranger?\" asked the\n senior of the guards, his speaking\n orifice framing with difficulty the\n sibilances of Universal Galactic.\n\n\n \"What business\nwould\nI have at\n the Viceroy's Palace?\" asked\n Crownwall. \"I want to see Ffallk.\"\n\n\n \"Mind your tongue,\" growled\n the guard. \"If you mean His Effulgence,\n Right Hand of the Glorious\n Emperor, Hereditary Ruler of the\n Seventy Suns, Viceroy of the\n Twelfth Sector of the Universal\n Holy Empire\"\u2014Universal Galactic\n had a full measure of ceremonial\n words\u2014\"he sees only those whom\n he summons. If you know what's\n good for you, you'll get out of here\n while you can still walk. And if you\n run fast enough, maybe you can\n even get away from that crowd out\n there, but I doubt it.\"\n\n\n \"Just tell him that a man has\n arrived from Earth to talk to him.\n He'll summon me fast enough.\n Meanwhile, my highly polished\n friends, I'll just wait here, so why\n don't you put those heavy pikes\n down?\"\n\n\n Crownwall sat on the steps,\n puffed alight a cigarette, and blew\n expert smoke rings toward the\n guards.\n\n\n An elegant courtier, with elaborately\n jeweled harness, bustled\n from inside the palace, obviously\n trying to present an air of strolling\n nonchalance. He gestured fluidly\n with a graceful tentacle. \"You!\" he\n said to Crownwall. \"Follow me. His\n Effulgence commands you to appear\n before him at once.\" The two\n guards withdrew their pikes and\n froze into immobility at the sides\n of the entrance.\n\n\n Crownwall stamped out his\n smoke and ambled after the hurrying\n courtier along tremendous corridors,\n through elaborate waiting\n rooms, under guarded doorways,\n until he was finally bowed through\n a small curtained arch.\n\n\n At the far side of the comfortable,\n unimpressive room, a plump\n thing, hide faded to a dull violet,\n reclined on a couch. Behind him\n stood a heavy and pompous appearing\n Vegan in lordly trappings.\n They examined Crownwall with\n great interest for a few moments.\n\n\n \"It's customary to genuflect\n when you enter the Viceroy's presence,\"\n said the standing one at\n last. \"But then I'm told you're an\n Earthling. I suppose we can expect\n you to be ignorant of those niceties\n customary among civilized peoples.\"\n\n\n \"It's all right, Ggaran,\" said the\n Viceroy languidly. He twitched a\n tentacle in a beckoning gesture.\n \"Come closer, Earthling. I bid you\n welcome to my capital. I have been\n looking forward to your arrival for\n some time.\"\nCrownwall\n put his hands\n in his pockets. \"That's hardly\n possible,\" he said. \"It was only decided\n yesterday, back on Earth,\n that I would be the one to make\n the trip here. Even if you could\n spy through buildings on Earth\n from space, which I doubt, your\n communications system can't get\n the word through that fast.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, I didn't mean\nyou\nin particular,\"\n the Vegan said with a\n negligent wave. \"Who can tell one\n Earthling from another? What I\n meant was that I expected someone\n from Earth to break through\n our blockade and come here. Most\n of my advisors\u2014even Ggaran here\u2014thought\n it couldn't be done, but\n I never doubted that you'd manage\n it. Still, if you were on your\n home planet only yesterday, that's\n astonishing even to me. Tell me,\n how did you manage to get here so\n fast, and without even alerting my\n detection web?\"\n\n\n \"You're doing the talking,\" said\n Crownwall. \"If you wanted someone\n from Earth to come here to see\n you, why did you put the cordon\n around Earth? And why did you\n drop a planet-buster in the Pacific\n Ocean, and tell us that it was triggered\n to go off if we tried to use\n the distorter drive? That's hardly\n the action of somebody who expects\n visitors.\"\n\n\n Ffallk glanced up at Ggaran. \"I\n told you that Earthlings were unbelievably\n bold.\" He turned back\n to Crownwall. \"If you couldn't\n come to me in spite of the trifling\n inconveniences I put in your way,\n your presence here would be useless\n to both of us. But you did\n come, so I can tell you that although\n I am the leader of one of\n the mightiest peoples in the Galaxy,\n whereas there are scarcely six\n billions of you squatting on one\n minor planet, we still need each\n other. Together, there is nothing\n we can't do.\"\n\n\n \"I'm listening,\" said Crownwall.\n\n\n \"We offer you partnership with\n us to take over the rule of the\n Galaxy from the Sunda\u2014the so-called\n Master Race.\"\n\n\n \"It would hardly be an equal\n partnership, would it, considering\n that there are so many more of you\n than there are of us?\"\n\n\n His Effulgence twitched his ear\n stalks in amusement. \"I'm Viceroy\n of one of the hundred Sectors of\n the Empire. I rule over a total of\n a hundred Satrapies; these average\n about a hundred Provinces each.\n Provinces consist, in general, of\n about a hundred Clusters apiece,\n and every Cluster has an average\n of a hundred inhabited solar systems.\n There are more inhabited\n planets in the Galaxy than there\n are people on your single world.\n I, personally, rule three hundred\n trillion people, half of them of my\n own race. And yet I tell you that\n it would be an equal partnership.\"\n\n\n \"I don't get it. Why?\"\n\n\n \"Because you came to me.\"\n\n\n Crownwall shrugged. \"So?\"\nThe\n Vegan reached up and engulfed\n the end of a drinking\n tube with his eating orifice. \"You\n upstart Earthlings are a strange\n and a frightening race,\" he said.\n \"Frightening to the Sunda, especially.\n When you showed up in the\n spaceways, it was decreed that you\n had to be stopped at once. There\n was even serious discussion of destroying\n Earth out of hand, while\n it is still possible.\n\n\n \"Your silly little planet was carefully\n examined at long range in a\n routine investigation just about fifty\n thousand years ago. There were\n at that time three different but\n similar racial strains of pulpy bipeds,\n numbering a total of perhaps\n a hundred thousand individuals.\n They showed many signs of an\n ability to reason, but a complete\n lack of civilization. While these\n creatures could by no means be\n classed among the intelligent races,\n there was a general expectation,\n which we reported to the Sunda,\n that they would some day come to\n be numbered among the Servants\n of the Emperor. So we let you\n alone, in order that you could develop\n in your own way, until you\n reached a high enough civilization\n to be useful\u2014if you were going to.\n\n\n \"Intelligence is very rare in the\n Galaxy. In all, it has been found\n only fifteen times. The other races\n we have watched develop, and\n some we have actively assisted to\n develop. It took the quickest of\n them just under a million years.\n One such race we left uncontrolled\n too long\u2014but no matter.\n\n\n \"You Earthlings, in defiance of\n all expectation and all reason, have\n exploded into space. You have developed\n in an incredibly short\n space of time. But even that isn't\n the most disconcerting item of your\n development. As an Earthling, you\n have heard of the details of the\n first expedition of your people into\n space, of course?\"\n\n\n \"\nHeard\nabout it?\" exclaimed\n Crownwall. \"I was\non\nit.\" He settled\n down comfortably on a couch,\n without requesting permission, and\n thought back to that first tremendous\n adventure; an adventure that\n had taken place little more than\n ten years before.\n\n\n The\nStar Seeker\nhad been built\n in space, about forty thousand kilometers\n above the Earth. It had\n been manned by a dozen adventurous\n people, captained by Crownwall,\n and had headed out on its ion\n drive until it was safely clear of\n the warping influence of planetary\n masses. Then, after several impatient\n days of careful study and calculation,\n the distorter drive had\n been activated, for the first time\n in Earth's history, and, for the\n twelve, the stars had winked out.\n\n\n The men of Earth had decided\n that it should work in theory. They\n had built the drive\u2014a small machine,\n as drives go\u2014but they had\n never dared to try it, close to a\n planet. To do so, said their theory,\n would usually\u2014seven point three\n four times out of 10\u2014destroy the\n ship, and everything in space for\n thousands of miles around, in a\n ravening burst of raw energy.\n\n\n So the drive had been used for\n the first time without ever having\n been tested. And it had worked.\n\n\n In less than a week's time, if\n time has any meaning under such\n circumstances, they had flickered\n back into normal space, in the vicinity\n of Alpha Centauri. They had\n quickly located a dozen planets,\n and one that looked enough like\n Earth to be its twin sister. They\n had headed for that planet confidently\n and unsuspectingly, using\n the ion drive.\n\n\n Two weeks later, while they\n were still several planetary diameters\n from their destination, they\n had been shocked to find more\n than two score alien ships of space\n closing in on them\u2014ships that\n were swifter and more maneuverable\n than their own. These ships\n had rapidly and competently englobed\n the\nStar Seeker\n, and had\n then tried to herd it away from the\n planet it had been heading toward.\nAlthough\n caught by surprise,\n the Earthmen had acted\n swiftly. Crownwall recalled the discussion\u2014the\n council of war, they\n had called it\u2014and their unanimous\n decision. Although far within the\n dangerous influence of a planetary\n mass, they had again activated the\n distorter drive, and they had beaten\n the odds. On the distorter drive,\n they had returned to Earth as swiftly\n as they had departed. Earth had\n immediately prepared for war\n against her unknown enemy.\n\n\n \"Your reaction was savage,\" said\n Ggaran, his tentacles stiffening\n with shock at the memory. \"You\n bloody-minded Earthlings must\n have been aware of the terrible\n danger.\"\n\n\n Ffallk rippled in agreement.\n \"The action you took was too swift\n and too foolhardy to be believed.\n You knew that you could have destroyed\n not only yourself, but also\n all who live on that planet. You\n could also have wrecked the planet\n itself and the ships and those of\n my own race who manned them.\n We had tried to contact you, but\n since you had not developed subspace\n radio, we were of course not\n successful. Our englobement was\n just a routine quarantine. With\n your total lack of information\n about us, what you did was more\n than the height of folly. It was madness.\"\n\n\n \"Could we have done anything\n else that would have kept you from\n landing on Earth and taking us\n over?\" asked Crownwall.\n\n\n \"Would that have been so bad?\"\n said Ggaran. \"We can't tolerate\n wild and warlike races running free\n and uncontrolled in the Galaxy.\n Once was enough for that.\"\n\n\n \"But what about my question?\n Was there any other way for us to\n stay free?\"\n\n\n \"Well, no. But you didn't have\n enough information to realize that\n when you acted so precipitously. As\n a matter of fact, we didn't expect\n to have much trouble, even after\n your surprising action. Of course,\n it took us a little time to react. We\n located your planet quickly enough,\n and confirmed that you were a new\n race. But by the time we could\n try to set up communications and\n send ambassadors, you had already\n organized a not inconsiderable defense.\n Your drones blew up our unmanned\n ships as fast as we could\n send them down to your planet.\n And by the time we had organized\n properly for war against you, it was\n obvious that we could not conquer\n you. We could only destroy you.\"\n\n\n \"That old fool on Sunda, the\n Emperor, decided that we should\n blow you up, but by that time I\n had decided,\" said His Effulgence,\n \"that you might be useful to me\u2014that\n is, that we might be useful to\n each other. I traveled halfway\n across the Galaxy to meet him, to\n convince him that it would be sufficient\n just to quarantine you.\n When we had used your radio system\n to teach a few of you the Universal\n Galactic tongue, and had\n managed to get what you call the\n 'planet-buster' down into the\n largest of your oceans, he figured\n we had done our job.\n\n\n \"With his usual lack of imagination,\n he felt sure that we were safe\n from you\u2014after all, there was no\n way for you to get off the planet.\n Even if you could get down to the\n bottom of the ocean and tamper\n with the bomb, you would only succeed\n in setting it off, and that's\n what the Sunda had been in favor\n of in the first place.\n\n\n \"But I had different ideas. From\n what you had already done, I suspected\n it wouldn't be long before\n one of you amazing Earthlings\n would dream up some device or\n other, head out into space, and\n show up on our planet. So I've been\n waiting for you, and here you are.\"\n\n\n \"It was the thinking of a genius,\"\n murmured Ggaran.\n\n\n \"All right, then, genius, here I\n am,\" said Crownwall. \"So what's\n the pitch?\"\n\n\n \"Ggaran, you explain it to the\n Earthling,\" said His Effulgence.\nGgaran\n bowed. \"The crustaceans\n on Sunda\u2014the lobsterlike\n creatures that rule the Galaxy\u2014are\n usurpers. They have no rights\n to their position of power. Our race\n is much older than theirs. We were\n alone when we found the Sundans\u2014a\n primitive tribe, grubbing in the\n mud at the edge of their shallow\n seas, unable even to reason. In\n those days we were desperately\n lonely. We needed companionship\n among the stars, and we helped\n them develop to the point where,\n in their inferior way, they were able\n to reason, almost as well as we, The\n People, can. And then they cheated\n us of our rightful place.\n\n\n \"The Emperor at Sunda is one\n of them. They provide sixty-eight\n of the hundred Viceroys; we provide\n only seventeen. It is a preposterous\n and intolerable situation.\n\n\n \"For more than two million\n years we have waited for the opportunity\n for revenge. And now\n that you have entered space, that\n opportunity is at hand.\"\n\n\n \"If you haven't been able to help\n yourselves for two million years,\"\n asked Crownwall, \"how does the\n sight of me give you so much gumption\n all of a sudden?\"\n\n\n Ggaran's tentacles writhed, and\n he slavered in fury, but the clashing\n of his teeth subsided instantly\n at a soothing wave from His Effulgence.\n\n\n \"War in space is almost an impossibility,\"\n said the aged ruler.\n \"We can destroy planets, of course,\n but with few exceptions, we cannot\n conquer them. I rule a total of\n seven races in my Sector. I rule\n them, but I don't let them intermingle.\n Each race settles on the\n planets that best suit it. Each of\n those planets is quite capable of defending\n itself from raids, or even\n large-scale assaults that would result\n in its capture and subjugation\u2014just\n as your little Earth can defend\n itself.\n\n\n \"Naturally, each is vulnerable to\n economic blockade\u2014trade provides\n a small but vital portion of the\n goods each planet uses. All that a\n world requires for a healthy and\n comfortable life cannot be provided\n from the resources of that\n single world alone, and that gives\n us a very considerable measure of\n control.\n\n\n \"And it is true that we can always\n exterminate any planet that\n refuses to obey the just and legal\n orders of its Viceroy. So we achieve\n a working balance in our Empire.\n We control it adequately, and we\n live in peace.\n\n\n \"The Sundans, for example,\n though they took the rule of the\n Empire that was rightfully ours\n away from us, through trickery,\n were unable to take over the\n Sectors we control. We are still\n powerful. And soon we will be all-powerful.\n In company with you\n Earthlings, that is.\"\n\n\n Crownwall nodded. \"In other\n words, you think that we Earthmen\n can break up this two-million-year-old\n stalemate. You've got the\n idea that, with our help, you can\n conquer planets without the necessity\n of destroying them, and thereby\n take over number one spot from\n these Sunda friends of yours.\"\n\n\n \"Don't call those damn lobsters\n friends,\" growled Ggaran. He subsided\n at the Viceroy's gesture.\n\n\n \"Exactly,\" said His Effulgence\n to Crownwall. \"You broke our\n blockade without any trouble. Our\n instruments didn't even wiggle\n when you landed here on my capital\n world. You can do the same on\n the worlds of the Sunda. Now, just\n tell us how you did it, and we're\n partners.\"\nCrownwall\n lifted one eyebrow\n quizzically, but remained\n silent. He didn't expect his facial\n gesture to be interpreted correctly,\n but he assumed that his silence\n would be. He was correct.\n\n\n \"Of course,\" His Effulgence said,\n \"we will give you any assurances\n that your people may desire in order\n to feel safe, and we will guarantee\n them an equal share in the\n government of the Galaxy.\"\n\n\n \"Bunk,\" said Crownwall.\n\n\n His Effulgence lifted a tentacle\n swiftly, before Ggaran, lunging angrily\n forward, could speak. \"Then\n what do you want of us?\"\n\n\n \"It seems to me that we need\n no wordy assurances from each\n other,\" said Crownwall, and he\n puffed a cigarette aglow. \"We can\n arrange something a little more\n trustworthy, I believe. On your\n side, you have the power to destroy\n our only planet at any time. That\n is certainly adequate security for\n our own good behavior and sincerity.\n\n\n \"It is impossible for us of Earth\n to destroy all of your planets. As\n you have said, there are more planets\n that belong to you than there\n are human beings on Earth. But\n there is a way for us to be reasonably\n sure that you will behave\n yourselves. You will transfer to us,\n at once, a hundred of your planet-destroying\n bombs. That will be a\n sufficient supply to let us test some\n of them, to see that they are in\n good working order. Then, if you\n try any kind of double-cross, we\n will be able to use our own methods\u2014which\n you cannot prevent\u2014to\n send one of those bombs here to\n destroy this planet.\n\n\n \"And if you try to move anywhere\n else, by your clumsy distorter\n drive, we can follow you, and\n destroy any planet you choose to\n land on. You would not get away\n from us. We can track you without\n any difficulty.\n\n\n \"We wouldn't use the bombs\n lightly, to be sure, because of what\n would happen to Earth. And don't\n think that blowing up our planet\n would save you, because we naturally\n wouldn't keep the bombs on\n Earth. How does that sound to\n you?\"\n\n\n \"Ridiculous,\" snorted Ggaran.\n \"Impossible.\"\n\n\n After several minutes of silent\n consideration, \"It is an excellent\n plan,\" said His Effulgence. \"It is\n worthy of the thinking of The People\n ourselves. You Earthlings will\n make very satisfactory allies. What\n you request will be provided without\n delay. Meanwhile, I see no reason\n why we cannot proceed with\n our discussions.\"\n\n\n \"Nor do I,\" consented Crownwall.\n \"But your stooge here doesn't\n seem very happy about it all.\"\n\n\n His Effulgence wiggled his tentacles.\n \"I'm afraid that Ggaran had\n expected to take what you Earthlings\n have to offer without giving\n anything in return. I never had any\n such ideas. I have not underestimated\n you, you see.\"\n\n\n \"That's nice,\" said Crownwall\n graciously.\n\n\n \"And now,\" Ggaran put in, \"I\n think it's time for you to tell us\n something about how you get\n across light-years of space in a few\n hours, without leaving any traces\n for us to detect.\" He raised a tentacle\n to still Crownwall's immediate\n exclamation of protest. \"Oh,\n nothing that would give us a chance\n to duplicate it\u2014just enough to\nindicate\nhow we can make use of\n it, along with you\u2014enough to allow\n us to\nbegin\nto make intelligent\n plans to beat the claws off the Master\n Race.\"\nAfter\n due consideration,\n Crownwall nodded. \"I don't\n see why not. Well, then, let me tell\n you that we don't travel in space\n at all. That's why I didn't show up\n on any of your long-range detection\n instruments. Instead, we travel\n in time. Surely any race that has\n progressed as far as your own must\n know, at least theoretically, that\n time travel is entirely possible. After\n all, we knew it, and we haven't\n been around nearly as long as you\n have.\"\n\n\n \"We know about it,\" said Ffallk,\n \"but we've always considered it\n useless\u2014and very dangerous\u2014knowledge.\"\n\n\n \"So have we, up until the time\n you planted that bomb on us. Anyone\n who tried to work any changes\n in his own past would be almost\n certain to end up finding himself\n never having been born. So we\n don't do any meddling. What we\n have discovered is a way not only\n of moving back into the past, but\n also of making our own choice of\n spatial references while we do it,\n and of changing our spatial anchor\n at will.\n\n\n \"For example, to reach this\n planet, I went back far enough, using\n Earth as the spatial referent,\n to move with Earth a little more\n than a third of the way around this\n spiral nebula that is our Galaxy.\n Then I shifted my frame of reference\n to that of the group of galaxies\n of which ours is such a distinguished\n member.\n\n\n \"Then of course, as I continued\n to move in time, the whole Galaxy\n moved spatially with reference to\n my own position. At the proper instant\n I shifted again, to the reference\n frame of this Galaxy itself.\n Then I was stationary in the Galaxy,\n and as I continued time traveling,\n your own mighty sun moved\n toward me as the Galaxy revolved.\n I chose a point where there was a\n time intersection of your planet's\n position and my own. When you\n got there, I just changed to the reference\n plane of this planet I'm on\n now, and then came on back with\n it to the present. So here I am. It\n was a long way around to cover a\n net distance of 26 light-years, but\n it was really very simple.\n\n\n \"And there's no danger of meeting\n myself, or getting into any anachronistic\n situation. As you probably\n know, theory shows that these\n are excluded times for me, as is the\n future\u2014I can't stop in them.\"\n\n\n \"Are you sure that you haven't\n given us a little too much information\n for your own safety?\" asked\n Ffallk softly.\n\n\n \"Not at all. We were enormously\n lucky to have learned how to control\n spatial reference frames ourselves.\n I doubt if you could do it in\n another two million years.\" Crownwall\n rose to his feet. \"And now,\n Your Effulgence, I think it's about\n time I went back to my ship and\n drove it home to Earth to make my\n report, so we can pick up those\n bombs and start making arrangements.\"\n\n\n \"Excellent,\" said Ffallk. \"I'd better\n escort you; my people don't like\n strangers much.\"\n\n\n \"I'd noticed that,\" Crownwall\n commented drily.\n\n\n \"Since this is a very important\n occasion, I think it best that we\n make this a Procession of Full\n Ceremony. It's a bother, but the\n proprieties have to be observed.\"\nGgaran\n stepped out into the\n broad corridor and whistled a\n shrill two-tone note, using both his\n speaking and his eating orifices. A\n cohort of troops, pikes at the ready\n and bows strapped to their backs,\n leaped forward and formed a\n double line leading from His Effulgence's\n sanctum to the main door.\n Down this lane, carried by twenty\n men, came a large sedan chair.\n\n\n \"Protocol takes a lot of time,\"\n said His Effulgence somewhat sadly,\n \"but it must be observed. At\n least, as Ambassador, you can ride\n with me in the sedan, instead of\n walking behind it, like Ggaran.\"\n\n\n \"I'm glad of that,\" said Crownwall.\n \"Too bad Ggaran can't join\n us.\" He climbed into the chair beside\n Ffallk. The bearers trotted\n along at seven or eight kilometers\n an hour, carrying their contraption\n with absolute smoothness. Blasts\n from horns preceded them as they\n went.\n\n\n When they passed through the\n huge entrance doors of the palace\n and started down the ramp toward\n the street, Crownwall was astonished\n to see nobody on the previously\n crowded streets, and mentioned\n it to Ffallk.\n\n\n \"When the Viceroy of the Seventy\n Suns,\" said the Viceroy of the\n Seventy Suns, \"travels in state, no\n one but my own entourage is permitted\n to watch. And my guests, of\n course,\" he added, bowing slightly\n to Crownwall.\n\n\n \"Of course,\" agreed Crownwall,\n bowing back. \"Kind of you, I'm\n sure. But what happens if somebody\n doesn't get the word, or\n doesn't hear your trumpeters, or\n something like that?\"\n\n\n Ggaran stepped forward, already\n panting slightly. \"A man with knots\n in all of his ear stalks is in a very\n uncomfortable position,\" he explained.\n \"Wait. Let me show you.\n Let us just suppose that that runner\n over there\"\u2014he gestured toward\n a soldier with a tentacle\u2014\"is\n a civilian who has been so unlucky\n as to remain on the street\n after His Effulgence's entourage arrived.\"\n He turned to one of the\n bowmen who ran beside the sedan\n chair, now strung and at the ready.\n \"Show him!\" he ordered peremptorily.\n\n\n In one swift movement the bowman\n notched an arrow, drew and\n fired. The arrow hissed briefly, and\n then sliced smoothly through the\n soldier's throat.\n\n\n \"You see,\" said Ggaran complacently,\n \"we have very little trouble\n with civilians who violate this particular\n tradition.\"\n\n\n His Effulgence beckoned to the\n bowman to approach. \"Your results\n were satisfactory,\" he said, \"but\n your release was somewhat shaky.\n The next time you show such sloppy\n form, you will be given thirty\n lashes.\"\n\n\n He leaned back on the cushion\n and spoke again to Crownwall.\n \"That's the trouble with these requirements\n of civilization. The men\n of my immediate guard must practice\n with such things as pikes and\n bows and arrows, which they seldom\n get an opportunity to use. It\n would never do for them to use\n modern weapons on occasions of\n ceremony, of course.\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" said Crownwall,\n then added, \"It's too bad that you\n can't provide them with live targets\n a little more often.\" He stifled\n a shudder of distaste. \"Tell me,\n Your Effulgence, does the Emperor's\n race\u2014the Master Race\u2014also\n enjoy the type of civilization\n you have just had demonstrated\n for me?\"\n\n\n \"Oh, no. They are far too brutal,\n too morally degraded, to know anything\n of these finer points of etiquette\n and propriety. They are\n really an uncouth bunch. Why, do\n you know, I am certain that they\n would have had the bad taste to\n use an energy weapon to dispose\n of the victim in a case such as you\n just witnessed! They are really\n quite unfit to rule. They can scarcely\n be called civilized at all. But we\n will soon put a stop to all of that\u2014your\n race and mine, of course.\"\n\n\n \"I sincerely hope so,\" said\n Crownwall.\nRefreshments\n were served\n to His Effulgence and to\n Crownwall during the trip, without\n interrupting the smooth progress\n of the sedan. The soldiers of\n the cohort, the bearers and Ggaran\n continued to run\u2014without food,\n drink or, except for Ggaran, evidence\n of fatigue.\n\n\n After several hours of travel, following\n Crownwall's directions, the\n procession arrived at the copse in\n which he had concealed his small\n transportation machine. The machine,\n for spatial mobility, was\n equipped with the heavy and grossly\n inefficient anti-gravity field generator\n developed by Kowalsky. It\n occupied ten times the space of the\n temporal translation and coordination\n selection systems combined,\n but it had the great advantage of\n being almost undetectable in use. It\n emitted no mass or radiation.\n\n\n After elaborate and lengthy farewells,\n Crownwall climbed into his\n machine and fell gently up until he\n was out of the atmosphere, before\n starting his enormous journey\n through time back to Earth. More\n quickly than it had taken him to\n reach his ship from the palace of\n His Effulgence, he was in the Council\n Chamber of the Confederation\n Government of Earth, making a full\n report on his trip to Vega.\n\n\n When he had finished, the President\n sighed deeply. \"Well,\" he\n said, \"we gave you full plenipotentiary\n powers, so I suppose we'll\n have to stand behind your agreements\u2014especially\n in view of the\n fact that we'll undoubtedly be\n blown into atoms if we don't. But\n from what you say, I'd rather be\n in bed with a rattler than have a\n treaty with a Vegan. They sound\n ungodly murderous to me. There\n are too many holes in that protection\n plan of yours. It's only a question\n of time before they'll find some\n way around it, and then\u2014poof\u2014we'll\n all be dust.\"\n\n\n \"Things may not be as bad as\n they seem,\" answered Crownwall\n complacently. \"After I got back a\n few million years, I'm afraid I got\n a little careless and let my ship dip\n down into Vega III's atmosphere\n for a while. I was back so far that\n the Vegans hadn't appeared yet.\n Now, I didn't land\u2014or\ndeliberately\nkill anything\u2014but I'd be mighty\n surprised if we didn't find a change\n or two. Before I came in here, I\n asked Marshall to take the ship out\n and check on things. He should be\n back with his report before long.\n Why don't we wait and see what\n he has to say?\"\nMarshall\n was excited when\n he was escorted into the\n Council Chamber. He bowed briefly\n to the President and began to\n speak rapidly.\n\n\n \"They're gone without trace\u2014\nall\n of them\n!\" he cried. \"I went clear\n to Sunda and there's no sign of\n intelligent life anywhere! We're all\n alone now!\"\n\n\n \"There, you see?\" exclaimed\n Crownwall. \"Our enemies are all\n gone!\"\n\n\n He looked around, glowing with\n victory, at the others at the table,\n then slowly quieted and sat down.\n He turned his head away from\n their accusing eyes.\n\n\n \"Alone,\" he said, and unconsciously\n repeated Marshall's words:\n \"We're all alone now.\"\n\n\n In silence, the others gathered\n their papers together and left the\n room, leaving Crownwall sitting at\n the table by himself. He shivered\n involuntarily, and then leaped to\n his feet to follow after them.\n\n\n Loneliness, he found, was something\n that he couldn't face alone.\n\u2014L. J. STECHER, JR.\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nGalaxy Magazine\nJune 1960.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "51699": "THE GOD NEXT DOOR\nBy BILL DOEDE\n\n\n Illustrated by IVIE\n\n\n [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Galaxy Magazine August 1961.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThe sand-thing was powerful, lonely and\n \nstrange. No doubt it was a god\u2014but who wasn't?\nStinson lay still in the sand where he fell, gloating over the success\n of his arrival.\n\n\n He touched the pencil-line scar behind his ear where the cylinder was\n buried, marveling at the power stored there, power to fling him from\n earth to this fourth planet of the Centaurian system in an instant.\n It had happened so fast that he could almost feel the warm, humid\n Missouri air, though he was light years from Missouri.\n\n\n He got up. A gray, funnel-shaped cloud of dust stood off to his left.\n This became disturbing, since there was scarcely enough wind to move\n his hair. He watched it, trying to recall what he might know about\n cyclones. But he knew little. Weather control made cyclones and other\n climatic phenomena on earth practically non-existent. The cloud\n did not move, though, except to spin on its axis rapidly, emitting\n a high-pitched, scarcely audible whine, like a high speed motor. He\n judged it harmless.\n\n\n He stood on a wide valley floor between two mountain ranges. Dark\n clouds capped one peak of the mountains on his left. The sky was deep\n blue.\n\n\n He tested the gravity by jumping up and down. Same as Earth gravity.\n The sun\u2014no, not\nthe\nsun. Not Sol. What should he call it, Alpha or\n Centaurus? Well, perhaps neither. He was here and Earth was somewhere\n up there. This was\nthe\nsun of this particular solar system. He was\n right the first time.\n\n\n The sun burned fiercely, although he would have said it was about four\n o'clock in the afternoon, if this had been Earth. Not a tree, nor a\n bush, nor even a wisp of dry grass was in sight. Everywhere was desert.\n\n\n The funnel of sand had moved closer and while he watched it, it seemed\n to drift in the wind\u2014although there was no wind. Stinson backed away.\n It stopped. It was about ten feet tall by three feet in diameter at the\n base. Then Stinson backed away again. It was changing. Now it became a\n blue rectangle, then a red cube, a violet sphere.\n\n\n He wanted to run. He wished Benjamin were here. Ben might have an\n explanation. \"What am I afraid of?\" he said aloud, \"a few grains of\n sand blowing in the wind? A wind devil?\"\n\n\n He turned his back and walked away. When he looked up the wind devil\n was there before him. He looked back. Only one. It had moved. The sun\n shone obliquely, throwing Stinson's shadow upon the sand. The wind\n devil also had a shadow, although the sun shone through it and the\n shadow was faint. But it moved when the funnel moved. This was no\n illusion.\n\n\n Again Stinson felt the urge to run, or to use the cylinder to project\n himself somewhere else, but he said, \"No!\" very firmly to himself. He\n was here to investigate, to determine if this planet was capable of\n supporting life.\n\n\n Life? Intelligence? He examined the wind devil as closely as he dared,\n but it was composed only of grains of sand. There was no core, no\n central place you could point to and say, here is the brain, or the\n nervous system. But then, how could a group of loosely spaced grains of\n sand possibly have a nervous system?\n\n\n It was again going through its paces. Triangle, cube, rectangle,\n sphere. He watched, and when it became a triangle again, he smoothed\n a place in the sand and drew a triangle with his forefinger. When it\n changed to a cube he drew a square, a circle for a sphere, and so on.\n When the symbols were repeated he pointed to each in turn, excitement\n mounting. He became so absorbed in doing this that he failed to notice\n how the wind devil drew closer and closer, but when he inhaled the\n first grains of sand, the realization of what was happening dawned with\n a flash of fear. Instantly he projected himself a thousand miles away.\nNow he was in an area of profuse vegetation. It was twilight. As he\n stood beside a small creek, a chill wind blew from the northwest. He\n wanted to cover himself with the long leaves he found, but they were\n dry and brittle, for here autumn had turned the leaves. Night would be\n cold.\n\n\n He was not a woodsman. He doubted if he could build a fire without\n matches. So he followed the creek to where it flowed between two great\n hills. Steam vapors rose from a crevice. A cave was nearby and warm air\n flowed from its mouth. He went inside.\n\n\n At first he thought the cave was small, but found instead that he was\n in a long narrow passageway. The current of warm air flowed toward him\n and he followed it, cautiously, stepping carefully and slowly. Then it\n was not quite so dark. Soon he stepped out of the narrow passageway\n into a great cavern with a high-vaulted ceiling.\n\n\n The light source was a mystery. He left no shadow on the floor. A\n great crystal sphere hung from the ceiling, and he was curious about\n its purpose, but a great pool of steaming water in the center of the\n cavern drew his attention. He went close, to warm himself. A stone\n wall surrounding the pool was inscribed with intricate art work and\n indecipherable symbols.\n\n\n Life. Intelligence. The planet was inhabited.\n\n\n Should he give up and return to earth? Or was there room here for\n his people? Warming his hands there over the great steaming pool he\n thought of Benjamin, and Straus, and Jamieson\u2014all those to whom he had\n given cylinders, and who were now struggling for life against those who\n desired them.\n\n\n He decided it would not be just, to give up so easily.\n\n\n The wide plaza between the pool and cavern wall was smooth as polished\n glass. Statues lined the wall. He examined them.\n\n\n The unknown artist had been clever. From one angle they were animals,\n from another birds, from a third they were vaguely humanoid creatures,\n glowering at him with primitive ferocity. The fourth view was so\n shocking he had to turn away quickly. No definable form or sculptured\n line was visible, yet he felt, or saw\u2014he did not know which senses\n told him\u2014the immeasurable gulf of a million years of painful\n evolution. Then nothing. It was not a curtain drawn to prevent him from\n seeing more.\n\n\n There was no more.\nHe stumbled toward the pool's wall and clutched for support, but\n his knees buckled. His hand slid down the wall, over the ancient\n inscriptions. He sank to the floor. Before he lost consciousness he\n wondered, fleetingly, if a lethal instrument was in the statue.\n\n\n He woke with a ringing in his ears, feeling drugged and sluggish.\n Sounds came to him. He opened his eyes.\n\n\n The cavern was crowded. These creatures were not only humanoid, but\n definitely human, although more slight of build than earth people. The\n only difference he could see at first sight was that they had webbed\n feet. All were dressed from the waist down only, in a shimmering skirt\n that sparkled as they moved. They walked with the grace of ballet\n dancers, moving about the plaza, conversing in a musical language with\n no meaning for Stinson. The men were dark-skinned, the women somewhat\n lighter, with long flowing hair, wide lips and a beauty that was\n utterly sensual.\n\n\n He was in chains! They were small chains, light weight, of a metal that\n looked like aluminum. But all his strength could not break them.\n\n\n They saw him struggling. Two of the men came over and spoke to him in\n the musical language.\n\n\n \"My name is Stinson,\" he said, pointing to himself. \"I'm from the\n planet Earth.\"\n\n\n They looked at each other and jabbered some more.\n\n\n \"Look,\" he said, \"Earth. E-A-R-T-H, Earth.\" He pointed upward,\n described a large circle, then another smaller, and showed how Earth\n revolved around the sun.\n\n\n One of the men poked him with a stick, or tube of some kind. It did not\n hurt, but angered him. He left the chains by his own method of travel,\n and reappeared behind the two men. They stared at the place where he\n had been. The chains tinkled musically. He grasped the shoulder of the\n offender, spun him around and slapped his face.\n\n\n A cry of consternation rose from the group, echoing in the high\n ceilinged cavern. \"SBTL!\" it said, \"ZBTL ... XBTL ... zbtl.\"\n\n\n The men instantly prostrated themselves before him. The one who had\n poked Stinson with the stick rose, and handed it to him. Still angered,\n Stinson grasped it firmly, with half a notion to break it over his\n head. As he did so, a flash of blue fire sprang from it. The man\n disappeared. A small cloud of dust settled slowly to the floor.\n\n\n Disintegrated!\n\n\n Stinson's face drained pale, and suddenly, unaccountably, he was\n ashamed because he had no clothes.\n\n\n \"I didn't mean to kill him!\" he cried. \"I was angry, and....\"\n\n\n Useless. They could not understand. For all he knew, they might think\n he was threatening them. The object he had thought of as a stick was\n in reality a long metal tube, precisely machined, with a small button\n near one end.\n\n\n This weapon was completely out of place in a culture such as this.\n Or was it? What did he know of these people? Very little. They were\n humanoid. They had exhibited human emotions of anger, fear and, that\n most human of all characteristics, curiosity. But up to now the tube\n and the chain was the only evidence of an advanced technology, unless\n the ancient inscriptions in the stone wall of the pool, and the statues\n lining the wall were evidences.\nThere was a stirring among the crowd. An object like a pallet was\n brought, carried by four of the women. They laid it at his feet, and\n gestured for him to sit. He touched it cautiously, then sat.\n\n\n Instantly he sprang to his feet. There, at the cavern entrance, the\n wind devil writhed and undulated in a brilliant harmony of colors. It\n remained in one spot, though, and he relaxed somewhat.\n\n\n One of the women came toward him, long golden hair flowing, firm\n breasts dipping slightly at each step. Her eyes held a language all\n their own, universal. She pressed her body against him and bore him to\n the pallet, her kisses fire on his face.\n\n\n Incongruously, he thought of Benjamin back on earth, and all the others\n with cylinders, who might be fighting for their lives at this moment.\n He pushed her roughly aside.\nShe spoke, and he understood! Her words were still the same gibberish,\n but now he knew their meaning. Somehow he knew also that the wind devil\n was responsible for his understanding.\n\n\n \"You do not want me?\" she said sadly. \"Then kill me.\"\n\n\n \"Why should I kill you?\"\n\n\n She shrugged her beautiful shoulders. \"It is the way of the Gods,\" she\n said. \"If you do not, then the others will.\"\n\n\n He took the tube-weapon in his hands, careful not to touch the button.\n \"Don't be afraid. I didn't mean to kill the man. It was an accident. I\n will protect you.\"\n\n\n She shook her head. \"One day they will find me alone, and they'll kill\n me.\"\n\n\n \"Why?\"\n\n\n She shrugged. \"I have not pleased you.\"\n\n\n \"On the contrary, you have. There is a time and place for everything,\n though.\"\n\n\n Suddenly a great voice sounded in the cavern, a voice with no\n direction. It came from the ceiling, the floor, the walls, the steaming\n pool. It was in the language of the web-footed people; it was in his\n own tongue. \"No harm must come to this woman. The God with fingers on\n his feet has decreed this.\"\n\n\n Those in the cavern looked at the woman with fear and respect. She\n kissed Stinson's feet. Two of the men came and gave her a brilliant\n new skirt. She smiled at him, and he thought he had never seen a more\n beautiful face.\nThe great, bodiless voice sounded again, but those in the cavern went\n about their activities. They did not hear.\n\n\n \"Who are you?\"\n\n\n Stinson looked at the wind devil, since it could be no one else\n speaking, and pointed to himself. \"Me?\"\n\n\n \"Yes.\"\n\n\n \"I am Stinson, of the planet Earth.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, I see it in your mind, now. You want to live here, on this\n planet.\"\n\n\n \"Then you must know where I came from, and how.\"\n\n\n \"I do not understand how. You have a body, a physical body composed\n of atoms. It is impossible to move a physical body from one place to\n another by a mere thought and a tiny instrument, yet you have done so.\n You deserted me out in the desert.\"\n\n\n \"I deserted you?\" Stinson cried angrily, \"You tried to kill me!\"\n\n\n \"I was attempting communication. Why should I kill you?\"\n\n\n He was silent a moment, looking at the people in the cavern. \"Perhaps\n because you feared I would become the God of these people in your\n place.\"\n\n\n Stinson felt a mental shrug. \"It is of no importance. When they arrived\n on this planet I attempted to explain that I was not a God, but the\n primitive is not deeply buried in them. They soon resorted to emotion\n rather than reason. It is of no importance.\"\n\n\n \"I'd hardly call them primitive, with such weapons.\"\n\n\n \"The tube is not of their technology. That is, they did not make\n it directly. These are the undesirables, the incorrigibles, the\n nonconformists from the sixth planet. I permit them here because it\n occupies my time, to watch them evolve.\"\n\n\n \"You should live so long.\"\n\n\n \"Live?\" the wind devil said. \"Oh, I see your meaning. I'd almost\n forgotten. You are a strange entity. You travel by a means even I\n cannot fully understand, yet you speak of time as if some event\n were about to take place. I believe you think of death. I see your\n physical body has deteriorated since yesterday. Your body will cease to\n exist, almost as soon as those of the sixth planet peoples. I am most\n interested in you. You will bring your people, and live here.\"\n\n\n \"I haven't decided. There are these web-footed people, who were hostile\n until they thought I was a God. They have destructive weapons. Also, I\n don't understand you. I see you as a cone of sand which keeps changing\n color and configuration. Is it your body? Where do you come from? Is\n this planet populated with your kind?\"\n\n\n The wind devil hesitated.\n\n\n \"Where do I originate? It seems I have always been. You see this\n cavern, the heated pool, the statues, the inscriptions. Half a million\n years ago my people were as you. That is, they lived in physical\n bodies. Our technology surpassed any you have seen. The tube these\n webfoots use is a toy by comparison. Our scientists found the ultimate\n nature of physical law. They learned to separate the mind from the\n body. Then my people set a date. Our entire race was determined to free\n itself from the confines of the body. The date came.\"\n\n\n \"What happened?\"\n\n\n \"I do not know. I alone exist. I have searched all the levels of time\n and matter from the very beginning. My people are gone. Sometimes it\n almost comes to me, why they are gone. And this is contrary to the\n greatest law of all\u2014that an entity, once in existence, can never cease\n to exist.\"\nStinson was silent, thinking of the endless years of searching through\n the great gulf of time. His eyes caught sight of the woman, reclining\n now on the pallet. The men had left her and stood in groups, talking,\n glancing at him, apparently free of their awe and fear already.\n\n\n The woman looked at him, and she was not smiling. \"Please ask the Sand\n God,\" she said, \"to speak to my people again. Their fear of him does\n not last. When He is gone they will probably kill us.\"\n\n\n \"As for the webfoots,\" the wind devil, or Sand God, said, \"I will\n destroy them. You and your people will have the entire planet.\"\n\n\n \"Destroy them?\" Stinson asked, incredulously, \"all these people? They\n have a right to live like any one else.\"\n\n\n \"Right? What is it\u2014'right?' They are entities. They exist, therefore\n they always will. My people are the only entities who ever died. To\n kill the body is unimportant.\"\n\n\n \"No. You misunderstand. Listen, you spoke of the greatest law. Your law\n is a scientific hypothesis. It has to do with what comes after physical\n existence, not with existence itself. The greatest law is this, that an\n entity, once existing, must not be harmed in any way. To do so changes\n the most basic structure of nature.\"\n\n\n The Sand God did not reply. The great bodiless, directionless voice was\n silent, and Stinson felt as if he had been taken from some high place\n and set down in a dark canyon. The cone of sand was the color of wood\n ashes. It pulsed erratically, like a great heart missing a beat now and\n then. The web-footed people milled about restlessly. The woman's eyes\n pleaded.\n\n\n When he looked back, the Sand God was gone.\n\n\n Instantly a new note rose in the cavern. The murmur of unmistakable mob\n fury ran over the webfoots. Several of the men approached the woman\n with hatred in their voices. He could not understand the words now.\n\n\n But he understood her. \"They'll kill me!\" she cried.\n\n\n Stinson pointed the disintegrating weapon at them and yelled. They\n dropped back. \"We'll have to get outside,\" he told her. \"This mob will\n soon get out of hand. Then the tube won't stop them. They will rush in.\n I can't kill them all at once, even if I wanted to. And I don't.\"\n\n\n Together they edged toward the cavern entrance, ran quickly up the\n inclined passageway, and came out into crisp, cold air. The morning sun\n was reflected from a million tiny mirrors on the rocks, the trees and\n grass. A silver thaw during the night had covered the whole area with\n a coating of ice. Stinson shivered. The woman handed him a skirt she\n had thoughtfully brought along from the cavern. He took it, and they\n ran down the slippery path leading away from the entrance. From the\n hiding place behind a large rock they watched, as several web-footed\n men emerged into the sunlight. They blinked, covered their eyes, and\n jabbered musically among themselves. One slipped and fell on the ice.\n They re-entered the cave.\nStinson donned the shimmering skirt, smiling as he did so. The others\n should see him now. Benjamin and Straus and Jamieson. They would\n laugh. And Ben's wife, Lisa, she would give her little-girl laugh, and\n probably help him fasten the skirt. It had a string, like a tobacco\n pouch, which was tied around the waist. It helped keep him warm.\n\n\n He turned to the woman. \"I don't know what I'll do with you, but now\n that we're in trouble together, we may as well introduce ourselves. My\n name is Stinson.\"\n\n\n \"I am Sybtl,\" she said.\n\n\n \"Syb-tl.\" He tried to imitate her musical pronunciation. \"A very nice\n name.\"\n\n\n She smiled, then pointed to the cavern. \"When the ice is gone, they\n will come out and follow us.\"\n\n\n \"We'd better make tracks.\"\n\n\n \"No,\" she said, \"we must run, and make no tracks.\"\n\n\n \"Okay, Sis,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Sis?\"\n\n\n \"That means, sister.\"\n\n\n \"I am not your sister. I am your wife.\"\n\n\n \"\nWhat?\n\"\n\n\n \"Yes. When a man protects a woman from harm, it is a sign to all that\n she is his chosen. Otherwise, why not let her die? You are a strange\n God.\"\n\n\n \"Listen, Sybtl,\" he said desperately, \"I am not a God and you are not\n my wife. Let's get that straight.\"\n\n\n \"But....\"\n\n\n \"No buts. Right now we'd better get out of here.\"\n\n\n He took her hand and they ran, slid, fell, picked themselves up again,\n and ran. He doubted the wisdom of keeping her with him. Alone, the\n webfoots were no match for him. He could travel instantly to any spot\n he chose. But with Sybtl it was another matter; he was no better than\n any other man, perhaps not so good as some because he was forty, and\n never had been an athlete.\n\n\n How was he to decide if this planet was suitable for his people,\n hampered by a woman, slinking through a frozen wilderness like an\n Indian? But the woman's hand was soft. He felt strong knowing she\n depended on him.\n\n\n Anyway, he decided, pursuit was impossible. They left no tracks on the\n ice. They were safe, unless the webfoots possessed talents unknown to\n him.\n\n\n So they followed the path leading down from the rocks, along the creek\n with its tumbling water. Frozen, leafless willows clawed at their\n bodies. The sun shone fiercely in a cloudless sky. Already water ran in\n tiny rivulets over the ice. The woman steered him to the right, away\n from the creek.\nStinson's bare feet were numb from walking on ice. Christ, he thought,\n what am I doing here, anyway? He glanced down at Sybtl and remembered\n the webfoots. He stopped, tempted to use his cylinder and move to a\n warmer, less dangerous spot.\n\n\n The woman pulled on his arm. \"We must hurry!\"\n\n\n He clutched the tube-weapon. \"How many shots in this thing?\"\n\n\n \"Shots?\"\n\n\n \"How often can I use it?\"\n\n\n \"As often as you like. It is good for fifty years. Kaatr\u2014he is the one\n you destroyed\u2014brought it from the ship when we came. Many times he has\n used it unwisely.\"\n\n\n \"When did you come?\"\n\n\n \"Ten years ago. I was a child.\"\n\n\n \"I thought only criminals were brought here.\"\n\n\n She nodded. \"Criminals, and their children.\"\n\n\n \"When will your people come again?\"\n\n\n She shook her head. \"Never. They are no longer my people. They have\n disowned us.\"\n\n\n \"And because of me even those in the cavern have disowned you.\"\n\n\n Suddenly she stiffened beside him. There, directly in their path, stood\n the Sand God. It was blood red now. It pulsed violently. The great\n voice burst forth.\n\n\n \"Leave the woman!\" it demanded angrily. \"The webfoots are nearing your\n position.\"\n\n\n \"I cannot leave her. She is helpless against them.\"\n\n\n \"What form of primitive stupidity are you practicing now? Leave, or\n they will kill you.\"\n\n\n Stinson shook his head.\n\n\n The Sand God pulsed more violently than before. Ice melted in a wide\n area around it. Brown, frozen grass burned to ashes.\n\n\n \"You will allow them to kill you, just to defend her life? What\n business is it of yours if she lives or dies? My race discarded such\n primitive logic long before it reached your level of development.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Stinson said, \"and your race no longer exists.\"\n\n\n The Sand God became a sphere of blue flame. A wave of intense heat\n drove them backward. \"Earthman,\" the great voice said, \"go back to your\n Earth. Take your inconsistencies with you. Do not come here again to\n infect my planet with your primitive ideas. The webfoots are not as\n intelligent as you, but they are sane. If you bring your people here, I\n shall destroy you all.\"\n\n\n The sphere of blue fire screamed away across the frozen wilderness, and\n the thunder of its passing shook the ground and echoed among the lonely\n hills.\nSybtl shivered against his arm. \"The Sand God is angry,\" she said. \"My\n people tell how he was angry once before, when we first came here. He\n killed half of us and burned the ship that brought us. That is how\n Kaatr got the tube-weapon. It was the only thing the Sand God didn't\n burn, that and the skirts. Then, when he had burned the ship, the Sand\n God went to the sixth planet and burned two of the largest cities, as a\n warning that no more of us must come here.\"\n\n\n Well, Stinson said to himself, that does it. We are better off on\n Earth. We can't fight a monster like him.\n\n\n Sybtl touched his arm. \"Why did the Sand God come? He did not speak.\"\n\n\n \"He spoke to me.\"\n\n\n \"I did not hear.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, I know now. His voice sounds like thunder in the sky, but it is a\n voice that speaks only in the mind. He said I must leave this planet.\"\n\n\n She glanced at him with suddenly awakened eyes, as if thinking of it\n for the first time. \"Where is your ship?\"\n\n\n \"I have no ship.\"\n\n\n \"Then he will kill you.\" She touched her fingers on his face. \"I am\n sorry. It was all for me.\"\n\n\n \"Don't worry. The Sand God travels without a ship, why shouldn't I?\"\n\n\n \"Now?\"\n\n\n \"As soon as you are safe. Come.\"\n\n\n Steam rose from the burned area, charred like a rocket launching pit.\n They stepped around it carefully. Stinson felt warm air, but there was\n no time, now, to warm cold feet or dwell on the vagaries of Sand Gods.\n\n\n Together they crossed the narrow valley. Sybtl led him toward a tall\n mound of rock. Here they came to the creek again, which flowed into a\n small canyon. They climbed the canyon wall. Far away, small figures\n moved. The webfoots were on their trail.\n\n\n She drew him into a small cave. It was heated, like the great cavern,\n but held no walled pool nor mysterious lighting. But it was warm, and\n the small entrance made an excellent vantage point for warding off\n attack.\n\n\n \"They will not find us....\"\n\n\n A high-pitched keening burst suddenly around them. Stinson knew they\n had heard, or felt the sound for some time, that now its frequency was\n in an audible range.\n\n\n \"The Sand God,\" Sybtl said. \"Sometimes he plays among the clouds. He\n makes it rain in a dry summer, or sometimes warms the whole world\n for days at a time in winter, so the snow melts and the grass begins\n to green. Then he tires and lets winter come back again. He is the\n loneliest God in the universe.\"\n\n\n \"What makes you think he's lonely?\"\n\n\n She shrugged her shoulders. \"I just know. But he's an angry God now.\n See those clouds piling in the East? Soon they will hide the sun. Then\n he will make them churn and boil, like river whirlpools in spring. At\n least he does this when he plays. Who knows what he will do when he's\n angry?\"\n\n\n \"The Sand God isn't doing this,\" Stinson said. \"It's only a storm.\"\n\n\n She covered his lips with her fingers. \"Don't say that. He may hear you\n and be more angry.\"\n\n\n \"But it is, don't you see? You give him powers he does not possess.\"\n\n\n Sybtl shook her head and stroked his face with her long, slim fingers.\n \"Poor little God-with-fingers-on-his-feet,\" she said. \"You do not\n understand. The Sand God is terrible, even when he plays. See the\n lightning? It is blue. The lightning of a storm that comes by itself is\n not blue. He is running around the world on feet like the rockets of\n space ships, and when he strikes the clouds, blue fire shoots away.\"\nThe clouds continued to build on one another. Soon the blue flashes of\n lightning extended across the sky from horizon to horizon. The earth\n trembled. Sybtl moved closer, trembling also.\n\n\n \"He never did this before,\" she said. \"He never made the earth shake\n before.\"\n\n\n Great boulders crashed down the canyon walls and dropped into the\n creek. They dared not move from the cave, although death seemed certain\n if they stayed.\n\n\n \"I'll leave for a moment,\" he said. \"I'll be back soon.\"\n\n\n \"You're leaving?\" There was panic in her voice.\n\n\n \"Only for a moment.\"\n\n\n \"And you won't come back. You will go to your world.\"\n\n\n \"No. I'll be back.\"\n\n\n \"Promise? No, don't promise. The promises of Gods often are forgotten\n before the sounds die away.\"\n\n\n \"I'll be back.\"\n\n\n He disappeared at once, giving her no chance to object again, and went\n to the desert of sand, where he had first arrived on the planet. He\n wanted to see if the storm were world-wide.\n\n\n Stinson had never been in a sand storm before, even on Earth. He could\n not breathe. He could not see. Bullets of sand stung his skin. Bullets\n of sand shot into his eyes. Clouds of sand howled around him. He fell,\n and the wind rolled him over and over in the sand like a tumbleweed.\n The skirt flew up around his face. He could not get up again.\n\n\n He returned to the cave.\n\n\n Soon after, while they sat huddled together, watching the chaos of\n tumbling rocks, lightning, and driving rain, the high-pitched keening\n came again. A sphere of blue fire appeared in the east. Its brilliance\n put the lightning to shame. It bore down on the cave swiftly,\n purposefully. Stinson prepared himself to leave. In spite of his desire\n to protect Sybtl, it was useless to get himself killed when he was\n powerless to help her. But at the last moment it veered off.\n\n\n \"Fiend!\" Stinson screamed the word, vaguely marvelling at his own fury.\n\n\n The blue sphere turned and came back.\n\n\n \"Monster!\"\n\n\n Again.\n\n\n \"Murderer!\"\n\n\n \"Adolescent!\"\n\n\n This time it kept going. The rain and wind ceased. Lightning stopped.\n Thunder rumbled distantly. Clouds disappeared. Stinson and Sybtl\n emerged from the cave.\n\n\n There was no longer a question of attack from the webfoots, the storm\n had taken care of that. The fierce sun began its work of drying rocks\n and throwing shadows and coaxing life out into the open again. Down in\n the canyon a bird sang, a lonely, cheerful twitter.\n\n\n \"The Sand God is tired,\" Sybtl said. \"He is not angry now. I'm glad.\n Perhaps he will let you stay.\"\n\n\n \"No. Even if he allowed it, I couldn't stay. My people could never live\n here with a God who is half devil.\"\nThe cone of sand suddenly appeared. It stood in the canyon, its base\n on a level with the cave. It was quiet. It was dull gray in color. It\n exuded impressions of death, of hopeful words solemnly spoken over\n lowered coffins, of cold earth and cold space, of dank, wet catacombs,\n of creeping, crawling nether things.\n\n\n The bird's twitter stopped abruptly.\n\n\n \"Earthman,\" the Sand God said, as if he were about to make a statement.\n\n\n Stinson ignored him. He glanced down at Sybtl, who sensed that this was\n a time for good-bys. He thought, perhaps I can stay here alone with\n her. The webfoots might find us, or the Sand God might destroy us in\n one of his fits, but it might be worth it.\n\n\n \"Don't go,\" she said. \"Not yet.\"\n\n\n \"Earthman, hear me.\"\n\n\n \"I hear you.\"\n\n\n \"Why does your mind shrink backward?\"\n\n\n \"I've decided not to bring my people here.\"\n\n\n \"\nYou\ndecided?\"\n\n\n \"Certainly,\" Stinson said boldly. \"Call it rationalization, if you\n wish. You ordered us away; and I have several good reasons for not\n coming here if the door was open.\"\n\n\n \"I've changed my mind. You will be welcomed.\"\n\n\n \"Listen to that, will you?\" Stinson said angrily. \"Just listen! You\n set yourself up as a God for the webfoots. You get them eating out of\n your hand. Then what do you do? You throw a fit. Yes, a fit! Like an\n adolescent. Worse.\"\n\n\n \"Earthman, wait....\"\n\n\n \"No!\" Stinson shot back. \"You've owned this planet for a million\n years. You have brooded here alone since before my people discovered\n fire, and in all those ages you never learned self-control. I can't\n subject my people to the whims of an entity who throws a planetary fit\n when it pleases him.\"\n\n\n Stinson relaxed. He'd had his say. Sybtl trembled beside him. A small\n mammal, round, furry, hopped by, sniffing inquisitively.\n\n\n Sybtl said, \"Is the Sand God happy?\" She shook her head. \"No, he is not\n happy. He is old, old, old. I can feel it. My people say that when one\n gets too old it is well to die. But Gods never die, do they? I would\n not like to be a God.\"\n\n\n \"Stinson,\" the Sand God said. \"You said I was adolescent. You are\n correct. Do you remember I told you how my people, the entire race,\n left their bodies at the same time? Do you imagine all of us were\n adults?\"\n\n\n \"I suppose not. Sounds reasonable. How old were you?\"\n\n\n \"Chronologically, by our standards, I was nine years old.\"\n\n\n \"But you continued to develop after....\"\n\n\n \"No.\"\nStinson tried to imagine it. At first there must have been a single\n voice crying into a monstrous emptiness, \"Mother, where are you?\nMOTHER!\nWhere is\neveryone\n?\" A frenzied searching of the planet,\n the solar system, the galaxy. Then a returning to the planet. Empty....\n Change. Buildings, roads, bridges weathering slowly. Such a race would\n have built of durable metal. Durable? Centuries, eons passed. Buildings\n crumbled to dust, dust blew away. Bridges eroded, fell, decomposed\n into basic elements. The shape of constellations changed. All trace\n of civilization passed except in the cavern of the heated pool.\n Constellations disappeared, new patterns formed in the night sky. The\n unutterably total void of time\u2014FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS!\n\n\n And a nine-year-old child brooding over an empty world.\n\n\n \"I don't understand why your development stopped,\" Stinson said.\n\n\n \"Nor do I. But perhaps ... well, I sense that I would continue, if you\n brought your people here. You have already taught me the value of\n life. There is a oneness, a bond that ties each living thing to every\n other living thing. It is a lesson my people never knew. Select any\n portion of this planet that suits you. Take the web-footed woman for\n your wife. Have children. I promise never to harm you in any way.\"\n\n\n \"The webfoots?\"\n\n\n \"You and they shall share the planet.\"\n\n\n The Sand God disappeared. Sybtl said; \"Is the Sand God angry again?\"\n\n\n \"No, he is not angry.\"\n\n\n \"I'm glad. You will leave now?\"\n\n\n \"No. This is my home.\"\n\n\n She laughed softly. \"You are a strange God.\"\n\n\n \"Listen,\" he said, \"I am not a God. Get that through your head.\"\n\n\n She drew him into the cave. Her lips were cool and sweet. The cave was\n pleasantly warm.",
    "58733": "SPATIAL DELIVERY\nBY RANDALL GARRETT\nWomen on space station assignments\n \nshouldn't get pregnant. But there's a first\n \ntime for everything. Here's the story of\n \nsuch a time\u2014\u2014and an historic situation.\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, October 1954.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nOne thousand seventy-five miles above the wrinkled surface of Earth, a\n woman was in pain.\n\n\n There, high in the emptiness of space, Space Station One swung in its\n orbit. Once every two hours, the artificial satellite looped completely\n around the planet, watching what went on below. Outside its bright\n steel hull was the silence of the interplanetary vacuum; inside, in the\n hospital ward, Lieutenant Alice Britton clutched at the sheets of her\n bed in pain, then relaxed as it faded away.\n\n\n Major Banes looked at her and smiled a little. \"How do you feel,\n Lieutenant?\"\n\n\n She smiled back; she knew the pain wouldn't return for a few minutes\n yet. \"Fine, doctor. It's no worse than I was expecting. How long will\n it before we can contact White Sands?\"\n\n\n The major looked nervously at his wristwatch. \"Nearly an hour. You'll\n be all right.\"\n\n\n \"Certainly,\" she agreed, running a hand through her brown hair, \"I'll\n be okay. Just you be on tap when I call.\"\n\n\n The major's grin broadened. \"You don't think I'd miss a historical\n event like this, do you? You take it easy. We're over Eastern Europe\n now, but as soon as we get within radio range of New Mexico, I'll beam\n a call in.\" He paused, then repeated, \"You just take it easy. Call the\n nurse if anything happens.\" Then he turned and walked out of the room.\n\n\n Alice Britton closed her eyes. Major Banes was all smiles and cheer\n now, but he hadn't been that way five months ago. She chuckled softly\n to herself as she thought of his blistering speech.\n\n\n \"Lieutenant Britton, you're either careless or brainless; I don't\n know which! Your husband may be the finest rocket jockey in the Space\n Service, but that doesn't give him the right to come blasting up here\n on a supply rocket just to get you pregnant!\"\n\n\n Alice had said: \"I'm sure the thought never entered his mind, doctor. I\n know it never entered mine.\"\n\n\n \"But that was two and a half months ago! Why didn't you come to\n me before this? Of all the tom-fool\u2014\" His voice had died off in\n suppressed anger.\n\n\n \"I didn't know,\" she had said stolidly. \"You know my medical record.\"\n\n\n \"I know. I know.\" A puzzled frown had come over his face then, a frown\n which almost hid the green eyes that contrasted so startlingly with the\n flaming red of his hair. \"The question is: what do we do next? We're\n not equipped for obstetrics up here.\"\n\n\n \"Send me back down to Earth, of course.\"\n\n\n And he had looked up at her scathingly. \"Lieutenant Britton, it is\n my personal opinion that you need your head examined, and not by a\n general practitioner, either! Why, I wouldn't let you get into an\n airplane, much less land on Earth in a rocket! If you think I'd permit\n you to subject yourself to eight gravities of acceleration in a rocket\n landing, you're daffy!\"\n\n\n She hadn't thought of it before, but the major was right. The terrible\n pressure of a rocket landing would increase her effective body weight\n to nearly half a ton; an adult human being couldn't take that sort of\n punishment for long, much less the tiny life that was growing within\n her.\n\n\n So she had stayed on in the Space Station, doing her job as always.\n As Chief Radar Technician, she was important in the operation of the\n station. Her pregnancy had never made her uncomfortable; the slow\n rotation of the wheel-shaped station about its axis gave an effective\n gravity at the rim only half that of Earth's surface, and the closer to\n the hub she went, the less her weight became.\n\n\n According to the major, the baby was due sometime around the first of\n September. \"Two hundred and eighty days,\" he had said. \"Luckily, we can\n pinpoint it almost exactly. And at a maximum of half of Earth gravity,\n you shouldn't weigh more than seventy pounds then. You're to report to\n me at least once a week, Lieutenant.\"\n\n\n As the words went through her mind, another spasm of pain hit her, and\n she clenched her fists tightly on the sheets again. It went away, and\n she took a deep breath.\n\n\n Everything had been fine until today. And then, only half an hour ago,\n a meteor had hit the radar room. It had been only a tiny bit of rock,\n no bigger than a twenty-two bullet, and it hadn't been traveling more\n than ten miles per second, but it had managed to punch its way through\n the shielding of the station.\n\n\n The self-sealing walls had closed the tiny hole quickly, but even in\n that short time, a lot of air had gone whistling out into the vacuum of\n space.\n\n\n The depressurization hadn't hurt her too much, but the shock had been\n enough to start labor. The baby was going to come two months early.\n\n\n She relaxed a little more, waiting for the next pain. There was nothing\n to worry about; she had absolute faith in the red-haired major.\n\n\n The major himself was not so sure. He sat in his office, massaging his\n fingertips and looking worriedly at the clock on the wall.\n\n\n The Chief Nurse at a nearby desk took off her glasses and looked at him\n speculatively. \"Something wrong, doctor?\"\n\n\n \"Incubator,\" he said, without taking his eyes off the clock.\n\n\n \"I beg your pardon?\"\n\n\n \"Incubator. We can't deliver a seven-month preemie without an\n incubator.\"\n\n\n The nurse's eyes widened. \"Good Lord! I never thought of that! What are\n you going to do?\"\n\n\n \"Right now, I can't do anything. I can't beam a radio message through\n to the Earth. But as soon as we get within radio range of White Sands,\n I'll ask them to send up an emergency rocket with an incubator. But\u2014\"\n\n\n \"But what?\"\n\n\n \"Will we have time? The pains are coming pretty fast now. It will be at\n least three hours before they can get a ship up here. If they miss us\n on the next time around, it'll be five hours. She can't hold out that\n long.\"\n\n\n The Chief Nurse turned her eyes to the slowly moving second hand of the\n wall clock. She could feel a lump in her throat.\n\n\n Major Banes was in the Communications Center a full five minutes\n before the coastline of California appeared on the curved horizon of\n the globe beneath them. He had spent the hour typing out a complete\n report of what had happened to Alice Britton and a list of what he\n needed. He handed it to the teletype operator and paced the floor\n impatiently as he waited for the answer.\n\n\n When the receiver teletype began clacking softly, he leaned over the\n page, waiting anxiously for every word.\n\n\n WHITE SANDS ROCKET BASE 4 JULY 1984 0913 HRS URGENT TO: MAJ PETER\n BANES (MC) 0-266118 SS-1 MEDICAL OFFICER FROM: GEN DAVID BARRETT\n 0-199515 COMMANDING WSRB ROCKET. ORBIT NOW BEING COMPUTED FOR\n RENDEZVOUS WITH SS-1 AS OF NEXT PASSAGE ABOVE USA. CAPT. JAMES\n BRITTON PILOTING. MEDICS LOADING SHIP TWELVE WITH INCUBATOR AND OTHER\n SUPPLIES. BASE OBSTETRICIAN LT COL GATES ALSO COMING TO ASSIST IN\n DELIVERY. HANG ON. OVER.\n\n\n Banes nodded and turned to the operator. \"I want a direct open\n telephone line to my office in case I have to get another message to\n the base before we get out of range again.\"\n\n\n He turned and left through the heavy door. Each room of the space\n station was protected by airtight doors and individual heating units;\n if some accident, such as a really large meteor hit, should release the\n air from one room, nearby rooms would be safe.\n\n\n Banes' next stop was the hospital ward.\n\n\n Alice Britton was resting quietly, but there were lines of strain\n around her eyes which hadn't been there an hour before.\n\n\n \"How's it coming, Lieutenant?\"\n\n\n She smiled, but another spasm hit her before she could answer. After a\n time, she said: \"I'm doing fine, but you look as if you'd been through\n the mill. What's eating you?\"\n\n\n He forced a nervous smile. \"Nothing but the responsibility. You're\n going to be a very famous woman, you know. You'll be the mother of the\n first child born in space. And it's my job to see to it that you're\n both all right.\"\n\n\n She grinned. \"Another Dr. Dafoe?\"\n\n\n \"Something on that order, I suppose. But it won't be all my glory.\n Colonel Gates, the O.B. man, was supposed to come up for the delivery\n in September, so when White Sands contacted us, they said he was coming\n immediately.\" He paused, and a genuine smile crossed his face. \"Your\n husband is bringing him up.\"\n\n\n \"Jim! Coming up here? Wonderful! But I'm afraid the colonel will be too\n late. This isn't going to last that long.\"\n\n\n Banes had to fight hard to keep his face smiling when she said that,\n but he managed an easy nod. \"We'll see. Don't hurry it, though. Let\n nature take its course. I'm not such a glory hog that I'd not let Gates\n have part of it\u2014or all of it, for that matter. Relax and take it easy.\"\n\n\n He went on talking, trying to keep the conversation light, but his eyes\n kept wandering to his wristwatch, timing Alice's pain intervals. They\n were coming too close together to suit him.\n\n\n There was a faint rap, and the heavy airtight door swung open to admit\n the Chief Nurse. \"There's a message for you in your office, doctor.\n I'll send a nurse in to be with her.\"\n\n\n He nodded, then turned back to Alice. \"Stiff uppah lip, and all that\n sort of rot,\" he said in a phony British accent.\n\n\n \"Oh, raw\nther\n, old chap,\" she grinned.\n\n\n Back in his office, Banes picked up the teletype flimsy.\n\n\n WHITE SANDS ROCKET BASE 4 JULY 1984 0928 HRS URGENT TO: MAJ PETER\n BANES (MC) 0-266118 SS-1 MEDICAL OFFICER FROM: GEN DAVID BARRETT\n 0-199515 COMMANDING WSRB ROCKET. ORBIT COMPUTED FOR RENDEZVOUS AT 1134\n HRS MST. CAPT BRITTON SENDS PERSONAL TO LT BRITTON AS FOLLOWS: HOLD\n THE FORT, BABY, THE WHOLE WORLD IS PRAYING FOR YOU. OUT.\nBanes sat on the edge of his desk, pounding a fist into the palm of\n his left hand. \"Two hours. It isn't soon enough. She'll never hold out\n that long. And we don't have an incubator.\" His voice was a clipped\n monotone, timed with the rhythmic slamming of his fist.\n\n\n The Chief Nurse said: \"Can't we build something that will do until the\n rocket gets here?\"\n\n\n Banes looked at her, his face expressionless. \"What would we build it\n out of? There's not a spare piece of equipment in the station. It costs\n money to ship material up here, you know. Anything not essential is\n left on the ground.\"\n\n\n The phone rang. Banes picked it up and identified himself.\n\n\n The voice at the other end said: \"This is Communications, Major. I tape\n recorded all the monitor pickups from the Earth radio stations, and it\n looks as though the Space Service has released the information to the\n public. Lieutenant Britton's husband was right when he said the whole\n world's praying for her. Do you want to hear the tapes?\"\n\n\n \"Not now, but thanks for the information.\" He hung up and looked into\n the Chief Nurse's eyes. \"They've released the news to the public.\"\n\n\n She frowned. \"That really puts you on the spot. If the baby dies,\n they'll blame you.\"\n\n\n Banes slammed his fist to the desk. \"Do you think I give a tinker's dam\n about that? I'm interested in saving a life, not in worrying about what\n people may think!\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. I just thought\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Well, think about something useful! Think about how we're going to\n save that baby!\" He paused as he saw her eyes. \"I'm sorry, Lieutenant.\n My nerves are all raw, I guess. But, dammit, my field is space\n medicine. I can handle depressurization, space sickness, and things\n like that, but I don't know anything about babies! I know what I read\n in medical school, and I watched a delivery once, but that's all I\n know. I don't even have any references up here; people aren't supposed\n to go around having babies on a space station!\"\n\n\n \"It's all right, doctor. Shall I prepare the delivery room?\"\n\n\n His laugh was hard and short. \"Delivery room! I wish to Heaven we had\n one! Prepare the ward room next to the one she's in now, I guess. It's\n the best we have.\n\n\n \"So help me Hannah, I'm going to see some changes made in regulations!\n A situation like this won't happen again!\"\n\n\n The nurse left quietly. She knew Banes wasn't really angry at the\n Brittons; it was simply his way of letting off steam to ease the\n tension within him.\n\n\n The slow, monotonous rotation of the second hand on the wall clock\n seemed to drag time grudgingly along with it. Banes wished he could\n smoke to calm his raw nerves, but it was strictly against regulations.\n Air was too precious to be used up by smoking. Every bit of air on\n board had had to be carried up in rockets when the station was built\n in space. The air purifiers in the hydroponics section could keep the\n air fresh enough for breathing, but fire of any kind would overtax the\n system, leaving too little oxygen in the atmosphere.\n\n\n It was a few minutes of ten when he decided he'd better get back to\n Alice Britton. She was trying to read a book between spasms, but she\n wasn't getting much read. She dropped it to the floor when he came in.\n\n\n \"Am I glad to see you! It won't be long now.\" She looked at him\n analytically. \"Say! Just what\nis\neating you? You look more haggard\n than I do!\"\n\n\n Again he tried to force a smile, but it didn't come off too well.\n \"Nothing serious. I just want to make sure everything comes out all\n right.\"\n\n\n She smiled. \"It will. You're all set. You ordered the instruments\n months ago. Or did you forget something?\"\n\n\n That hit home, but he just grinned feebly. \"I forgot to get somebody to\n boil water.\"\n\n\n \"Whatever for?\"\n\n\n \"Coffee, of course. Didn't you know that? Papa always heats up the\n water; that keeps him out of the way, and the doctor has coffee\n afterwards.\"\n\n\n Alice's hands grasped the sheet again, and Banes glanced at his watch.\n Ninety seconds! It was long and hard.\n\n\n When the pain had ebbed away, he said: \"We've got the delivery room all\n ready. It won't be much longer now.\"\n\n\n \"I'll say it won't! How about the incubator?\"\n\n\n There was a long pause. Finally, he said softly: \"There isn't any\n incubator. I didn't take the possibility of a premature delivery into\n account. It's my fault. I've done what I could, though; the ship is\n bringing one up. I\u2014I think we'll be able to keep the child alive\n until\u2014\"\n\n\n He stopped. Alice was bubbling up with laughter.\n\n\n \"Lieutenant! Lieutenant Britton! Alice! This is no time to get\n hysterical! Stop it!\"\n\n\n Her laughter slowed to a chuckle. \"\nMe\nget hysterical! That's a good\n one! What about you? You're so nervous you couldn't sip water out of a\n bathtub without spilling it!\"\n\n\n He blinked. \"What do you mean?\"\n\n\n Another pain came, and he had to wait until it was over before he got\n her answer. \"Doctor,\" she said, \"I thought you would have figured it\n out. Ask yourself just one question. Ask yourself, 'Why is a space\n station like an incubator?'\"\nSpace Ship Twelve docked at Space Station One at exactly eleven\n thirty-four, and two men in spacesuits pushed a large, bulky package\n through the airlock.\n\n\n Major Peter Banes, haggard but smiling, met Captain Britton in the\n corridor as he and the colonel entered the hospital ward.\n\n\n Banes nodded to Colonel Gates, then turned to Britton. \"I don't know\n whether to congratulate you or take a poke at you, Captain, but I\n suppose congratulations come first. Your son, James Edward Britton II,\n is doing fine, thank you.\"\n\n\n \"You mean\u2014\nalready\n?\"\n\n\n The colonel said nothing, but he raised an eyebrow.\n\n\n \"Over an hour ago,\" said Banes.\n\n\n \"But\u2014but\u2014the incubator\u2014\"\n\n\n Banes' grin widened. \"We'll put the baby in it, now that we've got it,\n but it really isn't necessary. Your wife figured that one out. A space\n station is a kind of incubator itself, you see. It protects us poor,\n weak humans from the terrible conditions of space. So all we had to do\n was close up one of the airtight rooms, sterilize it, warm it up, and\n put in extra oxygen from the emergency tanks. Young James is perfectly\n comfortable.\"\n\n\n \"Excellent, Major!\" said the colonel.\n\n\n \"Don't thank me. It was Captain Britton's wife who\u2014\"\n\n\n But Captain Britton wasn't listening any more. He was headed toward his\n wife's room at top speed.",
    "60291": "BRAMBLE BUSH\nBY ALAN E. NOURSE\n[Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from\n\n Worlds of If Science Fiction, August 1957.\n\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that\n\n the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]\nThere was a man in our town, and he was wondrous wise;\nHe jumped into a bramble bush and scratched out both his eyes.\nAnd when he saw what he had done, with all his might and main\nHe jumped into another bush and scratched them in again.\nMOTHER GOOSE\nDr. David Lessing found Jack Dorffman and the boy waiting in his office\n when he arrived at the Hoffman Center that morning. Dorffman looked as\n though he'd been running all night. There were dark pouches under his\n eyes; his heavy unshaven face seemed to sag at every crease. Lessing\n glanced sharply at his Field Director and sank down behind his desk\n with a sigh. \"All right, Jack\u2014what's wrong?\"\n\n\n \"This kid is driving me nuts,\" said Dorffman through clenched teeth.\n \"He's gone completely hay-wire. Nobody's been able to get near him\n for three weeks, and now at six o'clock this morning he decides he's\n leaving the Farm. I talk to him, I sweat him down, I do everything but\n tie him to the bed, and I waste my time. He's leaving the Farm. Period.\"\n\n\n \"So you bring him down here,\" said Lessing sourly. \"The worst place he\n could be, if something's really wrong.\" He looked across at the boy.\n \"Tommy? Come over and sit down.\"\n\n\n There was nothing singular about the boy's appearance. He was thin,\n with a pale freckled face and the guileless expression of any normal\n eight-year-old as he blinked across the desk at Lessing. The awkward\n grey monitor-helmet concealed a shock of sandy hair. He sat with a mute\n appeal in his large grey eyes as Lessing flipped the reader-switch and\n blinked in alarm at the wildly thrashing pattern on the tape.\n\n\n The boy was terrorized. He was literally pulsating with fear.\n\n\n Lessing sat back slowly. \"Tell me about it, Tommy,\" he said gently.\n\n\n \"I don't want to go back to the Farm,\" said the boy.\n\n\n \"Why?\"\n\n\n \"I just don't. I hate it there.\"\n\n\n \"Are you frightened?\"\n\n\n The boy bit his lip and nodded slowly.\n\n\n \"Of me? Of Dr. Dorffman?\"\n\n\n \"No. Oh, no!\"\n\n\n \"Then what?\"\n\n\n Again the mute appeal in the boy's eyes. He groped for words, and none\n came. Finally he said, \"If I could only take this off\u2014\" He fingered\n the grey plastic helmet.\n\n\n \"You think\nthat\nwould make you feel better?\"\n\n\n \"It would, I know it would.\"\n\n\n Lessing shook his head. \"I don't think so, Tommy. You know what the\n monitor is for, don't you?\"\n\n\n \"It stops things from going out.\"\n\n\n \"That's right. And it stops things from going in. It's an insulator.\n You need it badly. It would hurt you a great deal if you took it off,\n away from the Farm.\"\n\n\n The boy fought back tears. \"But I don't want to go back there\u2014\" The\n fear-pattern was alive again on the tape. \"I don't feel good there. I\n never want to go back.\"\n\n\n \"Well, we'll see. You can stay here for a while.\" Lessing nodded at\n Dorffman and stepped into an adjoining room with him. \"You say this has\n been going on for\nthree weeks\n?\"\n\n\n \"I'm afraid so. We thought it was just a temporary pattern\u2014we see so\n much of that up there.\"\n\n\n \"I know, I know.\" Lessing chewed his lip. \"I don't like it. We'd better\n set up a battery on him and try to spot the trouble. And I'm afraid\n you'll have to set it up. I've got that young Melrose from Chicago to\n deal with this morning\u2014the one who's threatening to upset the whole\n Conference next month with some crazy theories he's been playing with.\n I'll probably have to take him out to the Farm to shut him up.\" Lessing\n ran a hand through sparse grey hair. \"See what you can do for the boy\n downstairs.\"\n\n\n \"Full psi precautions?\" asked Dorffman.\n\n\n \"Certainly! And Jack\u2014in this case, be\nsure\nof it. If Tommy's in the\n trouble I think he's in, we don't dare risk a chance of Adult Contact\n now. We could end up with a dead boy on our hands.\"\nTwo letters were waiting on Lessing's desk that morning. The first was\n from Roberts Bros., announcing another shift of deadline on the book,\n and demanding the galley proofs two weeks earlier than scheduled.\n Lessing groaned. As director of psionic research at the Hoffman Medical\n Center, he had long since learned how administrative detail could suck\n up daytime hours. He knew that his real work was at the Farm\u2014yet he\n hadn't even been to the Farm in over six weeks. And now, as the book\n approached publication date, Lessing wondered if he would ever really\n get back to work again.\n\n\n The other letter cheered him a bit more. It bore the letterhead of the\n International Psionics Conference:\n\n\n Dear Dr. Lessing:\n\n\n In recognition of your position as an authority on human Psionic\n behavior patterns, we would be gratified to schedule you as principle\n speaker at the Conference in Chicago on October 12th. A few remarks in\n discussion of your forthcoming book would be entirely in order\u2014\n\n\n They were waiting for it, then! He ran the galley proofs into the\n scanner excitedly. They knew he had something up his sleeve. His\n earlier papers had only hinted at the direction he was going\u2014but the\n book would clear away the fog. He scanned the title page proudly. \"A\n Theory of Psionic Influence on Infant and Child Development.\" A good\n title\u2014concise, commanding, yet modest. They would read it, all right.\n And they would find it a light shining brightly in the darkness, a\n guide to the men who were floundering in the jungle of a strange and\n baffling new science.\n\n\n For they were floundering. When they were finally forced to recognize\n that this great and powerful force did indeed exist in human minds,\n with unimaginable potential if it could only be unlocked, they had\n plunged eagerly into the search, and found themselves in a maddening\n bramble bush of contradictions and chaos. Nothing worked, and\n everything worked too well. They were trying to study phenomena which\n made no sense, observing things that defied logic. Natural laws came\n crashing down about their ears as they stood sadly by and watched\n things happen which natural law said could never happen. They had never\n been in this jungle before, nor in any jungle remotely like it. The\n old rules didn't work here, the old methods of study failed. And the\n more they struggled, the thicker and more impenetrable the bramble bush\n became\u2014\n\n\n But now David Lessing had discovered a pathway through that jungle, a\n theory to work by\u2014\n\n\n At his elbow the intercom buzzed. \"A gentleman to see you,\" the girl\n said. \"A Dr. Melrose. He's very impatient, sir.\"\n\n\n He shut off the scanner and said, \"Send him in, please.\"\nDr. Peter Melrose was tall and thin, with jet black hair and dark\n mocking eyes. He wore a threadbare sport coat and a slouch. He offered\n Lessing a bony hand, then flung himself into a chair as he stared about\n the office in awe.\n\n\n \"I'm really overwhelmed,\" he said after a moment. \"Within the\n stronghold of psionic research at last. And face to face with the\n Master in the trembling flesh!\"\n\n\n Lessing frowned. \"Dr. Melrose, I don't quite understand\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Oh, it's just that I'm impressed,\" the young man said airily. \"Of\n course, I've seen old dried-up Authorities before\u2014but never before\n a brand spanking new one, just fresh out of the pupa, so to speak!\"\n He touched his forehead in a gesture of reverence. \"I bow before the\n Oracle. Speak, oh Motah, live forever! Cast a pearl at my feet!\"\n\n\n \"If you've come here to be insulting,\" Lessing said coldly, \"you're\n just wasting time.\" He reached for the intercom switch.\n\n\n \"I think you'd better wait before you do that,\" Melrose said sharply,\n \"because I'm planning to take you apart at the Conference next month\n unless I like everything I see and hear down here today. And if you\n don't think I can do it, you're in for quite a dumping.\"\n\n\n Lessing sat back slowly. \"Tell me\u2014just what, exactly, do you want?\"\n\n\n \"I want to hear this fairy tale you're about to publish in the name of\n 'Theory',\" Melrose said. \"I want to see this famous Farm of yours up in\n Connecticut and see for myself how much pressure these experimental\n controls you keep talking about will actually bear. But mostly, I want\n to see just what in psionic hell you're so busy making yourself an\n Authority about.\" There was no laughter in the man's sharp brown eyes.\n\n\n \"You couldn't touch me with a ten foot pole at this conference,\"\n snapped Lessing.\n\n\n The other man grinned. \"Try me! We shook you up a little bit last year,\n but you didn't seem to get the idea.\"\n\n\n \"Last year was different.\" Lessing scowled. \"As for our 'fairy tale',\n we happen to have a staggering body of evidence that says that it's\n true.\"\n\n\n \"If the papers you've already published are a preview, we think it's\n false as Satan.\"\n\n\n \"And our controls are above suspicion.\"\n\n\n \"So far, we haven't found any way to set up logical controls,\" said\n Melrose. \"We've done a lot of work on it, too.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, yes\u2014I've heard about your work. Not bad, really. A little\n misdirected, is all.\"\n\n\n \"According to your Theory, that is.\"\n\n\n \"Wildly unorthodox approach to psionics\u2014but at least you're energetic\n enough.\"\n\n\n \"We haven't been energetic enough to find an orthodox approach that got\n us anywhere. We doubt if you have, either. But maybe we're all wrong.\"\n Melrose grinned unpleasantly. \"We're not unreasonable, your Majesty. We\n just ask to be shown. If you dare, that is.\"\n\n\n Lessing slammed his fist down on the desk angrily. \"Have you got the\n day to take a trip?\"\n\n\n \"I've got 'til New Year.\"\n\n\n Lessing shouted for his girl. \"Get Dorffman up here. We're going to the\n Farm this afternoon.\"\n\n\n The girl nodded, then hesitated. \"But what about your lunch?\"\n\n\n \"Bother lunch.\" He gave Melrose a sidelong glare. \"We've got a guest\n here who's got a lot of words he's going to eat for us....\"\nTen minutes later they rode the elevator down to the transit levels\n and boarded the little shuttle car in the terminal below the\n Hoffman Center. They sat in silence as the car dipped down into the\n rapid-transit channels beneath the great city, swinging northward in\n the express circuit through Philadelphia and Camden sectors, surfacing\n briefly in Trenton sector, then dropping underground once again for the\n long pull beneath Newark, Manhattan and Westchester sectors. In less\n than twenty minutes the car surfaced on a Parkway channel and buzzed\n north and east through the verdant Connecticut countryside.\n\n\n \"What about Tommy?\" Lessing asked Dorffman as the car sped along\n through the afternoon sun.\n\n\n \"I just finished the prelims. He's not cooperating.\"\n\n\n Lessing ground his teeth. \"I should be running him now instead of\n beating the bushes with this\u2014\" He broke off to glare at young Melrose.\n\n\n Melrose grinned. \"I've heard you have quite a place up here.\"\n\n\n \"It's\u2014unconventional, at any rate,\" Lessing snapped.\n\n\n \"Well, that depends on your standards. Sounds like a country day\n school, from what I've heard. According to your papers, you've even\n used conventional statistical analysis on your data from up here.\"\n\n\n \"Until we had to throw it out. We discovered that what we were trying\n to measure didn't make sense in a statistical analysis.\"\n\n\n \"Of course, you're sure you were measuring\nsomething\n.\"\n\n\n \"Oh, yes. We certainly were.\"\n\n\n \"Yet you said that you didn't know what.\"\n\n\n \"That's right,\" said Lessing. \"We don't.\"\n\n\n \"And you don't know\nwhy\nyour instruments measure whatever they're\n measuring.\" The Chicago man's face was thoughtful. \"In fact, you can't\n really be certain that your instruments are measuring the children at\n all. It's not inconceivable that the\nchildren\nmight be measuring the\ninstruments\n, eh?\"\n\n\n Lessing blinked. \"It's conceivable.\"\n\n\n \"Mmmm,\" said Melrose. \"Sounds like a real firm foundation to build a\n theory on.\"\n\n\n \"Why not?\" Lessing growled. \"It wouldn't be the first time the tail\n wagged the dog. The psychiatrists never would have gotten out of their\n rut if somebody hadn't gotten smart and realized that one of their new\n drugs worked better in combatting schizophrenia when the doctor took\n the medicine instead of the patient. That was quite a wall to climb.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, wasn't it,\" mused Melrose, scratching his bony jaw. \"Only took\n them seventy years to climb it, thanks to a certain man's theories.\n I wonder how long it'll take psionics to crawl out of the pit you're\n digging for it?\"\n\n\n \"We're not digging any pit,\" Lessing exploded angrily. \"We're\n exploring\u2014nothing more. A phenomenon exists. We've known that, one way\n or another, for centuries. The fact that it doesn't seem to be bound by\n the same sort of natural law we've observed elsewhere doesn't mean that\n it isn't governed by natural law. But how can we define the law? How\n can we define the limits of the phenomenon, for that matter? We can't\n work in the dark forever\u2014we've\ngot\nto have a working hypothesis to\n guide us.\"\n\n\n \"So you dreamed up this 'tadpole' idea,\" said Melrose sourly.\n\n\n \"For a working hypothesis\u2014yes. We've known for a long time that every\n human being has extrasensory potential to one degree or another. Not\n just a few here and there\u2014every single one. It's a differentiating\n quality of the human mind. Just as the ability to think logically in a\n crisis instead of giving way to panic is a differentiating quality.\"\n\n\n \"Fine,\" said Melrose. \"Great. We can't\nprove\nthat, of course, but\n I'll play along.\"\n\n\n Lessing glared at him. \"When we began studying this psi-potential, we\n found out some curious things. For one thing, it seemed to be immensely\n more powerful and active in infants and children than in adults.\n Somewhere along the line as a child grows up, something happens. We\n don't know what. We do know that the child's psi-potential gradually\n withdraws deeper and deeper into his mind, burying itself farther and\n farther out of reach, just the way a tadpole's tail is absorbed deeper\n and deeper into the growing frog until there just isn't any tail any\n more.\" Lessing paused, packing tobacco into his pipe. \"That's why we\n have the Farm\u2014to try to discover why. What forces that potential\n underground? What buries it so deeply that adult human beings can't get\n at it any more?\"\n\n\n \"And you think you have an answer,\" said Melrose.\n\n\n \"We think we might be near an answer. We have a theory that explains\n the available data.\"\n\n\n The shuttle car bounced sharply as it left the highway automatics.\n Dorffman took the controls. In a few moments they were skimming through\n the high white gates of the Farm, slowing down at the entrance to a\n long, low building.\n\n\n \"All right, young man\u2014come along,\" said Lessing. \"I think we can show\n you our answer.\"\nIn the main office building they donned the close-fitting psionic\n monitors required of all personnel at the Farm. They were of a\n hard grey plastic material, with a network of wiring buried in the\n substance, connected to a simple pocket-sized power source.\n\n\n \"The major problem,\" Lessing said, \"has been to shield the children\n from any external psionic stimuli, except those we wished to expose\n them to. Our goal is a perfectly controlled psi environment. The\n monitors are quite effective\u2014a simple Renwick scrambler screen.\"\n\n\n \"It blocks off all types of psi activity?\" asked Melrose.\n\n\n \"As far as we can measure, yes.\"\n\n\n \"Which may not be very far.\"\n\n\n Jack Dorffman burst in: \"What Dr. Lessing is saying is that they seem\n effective for our purposes.\"\n\n\n \"But you don't know why,\" added Melrose.\n\n\n \"All right, we don't know why. Nobody knows why a Renwick screen\n works\u2014why blame us?\" They were walking down the main corridor and out\n through an open areaway. Behind the buildings was a broad playground. A\n baseball game was in progress in one corner; across the field a group\n of swings, slides, ring bars and other playground paraphernalia was in\n heavy use. The place was teeming with youngsters, all shouting in a\n fury of busy activity. Occasionally a helmeted supervisor hurried by;\n one waved to them as she rescued a four-year-old from the parallel bars.\n\n\n They crossed into the next building, where classes were in progress.\n \"Some of our children are here only briefly,\" Lessing explained as\n they walked along, \"and some have been here for years. We maintain a\n top-ranking curriculum\u2014your idea of a 'country day school' wasn't\n so far afield at that\u2014with scholarships supported by Hoffman Center\n funds. Other children come to us\u2014foundlings, desertees, children from\n broken homes, children of all ages from infancy on. Sometimes they\n stay until they have reached college age, or go on to jobs. As far as\n psionics research is concerned, we are not trying to be teachers. We\n are strictly observers. We try to place the youngsters in positions\n where they can develope what potential they have\u2014\nwithout\nthe\n presence of external psionic influences they would normally be subject\n to. The results have been remarkable.\"\n\n\n He led them into a long, narrow room with chairs and ash trays, facing\n a wide grey glass wall. The room fell into darkness, and through the\n grey glass they could see three children, about four years old, playing\n in a large room.\n\n\n \"They're perfectly insulated from us,\" said Lessing. \"A variety of\n recording instruments are working. And before you ask, Dr. Melrose,\n they are all empirical instruments, and they would all defy any\n engineer's attempts to determine what makes them go. We don't know what\n makes them go, and we don't care\u2014they go. That's all we need. Like\n that one, for instance\u2014\"\n\n\n In the corner a flat screen was flickering, emitting a pale green\n fluorescent light. It hung from the wall by two plastic rods which\n penetrated into the children's room. There was no sign of a switch,\n nor a power source. As the children moved about, the screen flickered.\n Below it, a recording-tape clicked along in little spurts and starts of\n activity.\n\n\n \"What are they doing?\" Melrose asked after watching the children a few\n moments.\n\n\n \"Those three seem to work as a team, somehow. Each one, individually,\n had a fairly constant recordable psi potential of about seventeen on\n the arbitrary scale we find useful here. Any two of them scale in at\n thirty-four to thirty-six. Put the three together and they operate\n somewhere in the neighborhood of six hundred on the same scale.\"\n Lessing smiled. \"This is an isolated phenomenon\u2014it doesn't hold for\n any other three children on the Farm. Nor did we make any effort to\n place them together\u2014they drew each other like magnets. One of our\n workers spent two weeks trying to find out why the instruments weren't\n right. It wasn't the instruments, of course.\"\n\n\n Lessing nodded to an attendant, and peered around at Melrose. \"Now, I\n want you to watch this very closely.\"\n\n\n He opened a door and walked into the room with the children. The\n fluorescent screen continued to flicker as the children ran to Lessing.\n He inspected the block tower they were building, and stooped down to\n talk to them, his lips moving soundlessly behind the observation wall.\n The children laughed and jabbered, apparently intrigued by the game he\n was proposing. He walked to the table and tapped the bottom block in\n the tower with his thumb.\n\n\n The tower quivered, and the screen blazed out with green light, but the\n tower stood. Carefully Lessing jogged all the foundation blocks out of\n place until the tower hung in midair, clearly unsupported. The children\n watched it closely, and the foundation blocks inched still further out\n of place....\nThen, quite casually, Lessing lifted off his monitor. The children\n continued staring at the tower as the screen gave three or four violent\n bursts of green fire and went dark.\n\n\n The block tower fell with a crash.\n\n\n Moments later Lessing was back in the observation room, leaving the\n children busily putting the tower back together. There was a little\n smile on his lips as he saw Melrose's face. \"Perhaps you're beginning\n to see what I'm driving at,\" he said slowly.\n\n\n \"Yes,\" said Melrose. \"I think I'm beginning to see.\" He scratched his\n jaw. \"You think that it's adult psi-contact that drives the child's\n potential underground\u2014that somehow adult contact acts like a damper, a\n sort of colossal candle-snuffer.\"\n\n\n \"That's what I think,\" said Lessing.\n\n\n \"How do you know those children didn't make you take off your monitor?\"\n\n\n Lessing blinked. \"Why should they?\"\n\n\n \"Maybe they enjoy the crash when the blocks fall down.\"\n\n\n \"But that wouldn't make any difference, would it? The blocks still fall\n down.\"\n\n\n Melrose paced down the narrow room. \"This is very good,\" he said\n suddenly, his voice earnest. \"You have fine facilities here, good\n workers. And in spite of my flippancy, Dr. Lessing, I have never\n imagined for a moment that you were not an acute observer and a\n careful, highly imaginative worker. But suppose I told you, in perfect\n faith, that we have data that flatly contradicts everything you've told\n me today. Reproducible data, utterly incompatable with yours. What\n would you say to that?\"\n\n\n \"I'd say you were wrong,\" said Lessing. \"You couldn't have such data.\n According to the things I am certain are true, what you're saying is\n sheer nonsense.\"\n\n\n \"And you'd express that opinion in a professional meeting?\"\n\n\n \"I would.\"\n\n\n \"And as an Authority on psionic behavior patterns,\" said Melrose\n slowly, \"you would kill us then and there. You would strangle us\n professionally, discredit anything we did, cut us off cold.\" The\n tall man turned on him fiercely. \"Are you blind, man? Can't you see\n what danger you're in? If you publish your book now, you will become\n an Authority in a field where the most devastating thing that could\n possibly happen would be\u2014\nthe appearance of an Authority\n.\"\nLessing and Dorffman rode back to the Hoffman Center in grim silence.\n At first Lessing pretended to work; finally he snapped off the tape\n recorder in disgust and stared out the shuttle-car window. Melrose had\n gone on to Idlewild to catch a jet back to Chicago. It was a relief to\n see him go, Lessing thought, and tried to force the thin, angry man\n firmly out of his mind. But somehow Melrose wouldn't force.\n\n\n \"Stop worrying about it,\" Dorffman urged. \"He's a crackpot. He's\n crawled way out on a limb, and now he's afraid your theory is going to\n cut it off under him. Well, that's his worry, not yours.\" Dorffman's\n face was intense. \"Scientifically, you're on unshakeable ground. Every\n great researcher has people like Melrose sniping at him. You just have\n to throw them off and keep going.\"\n\n\n Lessing shook his head. \"Maybe. But this field of work is different\n from any other, Jack. It doesn't follow the rules. Maybe scientific\n grounds aren't right at all, in this case.\"\n\n\n Dorffman snorted. \"Surely there's nothing wrong with theorizing\u2014\"\n\n\n \"He wasn't objecting to the theory. He's afraid of what happens after\n the theory.\"\n\n\n \"So it seems. But why?\"\n\n\n \"Have you ever considered what makes a man an Authority?\"\n\n\n \"He knows more about his field than anybody else does.\"\n\n\n \"He\nseems\nto, you mean. And therefore, anything he says about it\n carries more weight than what anybody else says. Other workers follow\n his lead. He developes ideas, formulates theories\u2014and then\ndefends\n them for all he's worth\n.\"\n\n\n \"But why shouldn't he?\"\n\n\n \"Because a man can't fight for his life and reputation and still keep\n his objectivity,\" said Lessing. \"And what if he just happens to be\n wrong? Once he's an Authority the question of what's right and what's\n wrong gets lost in the shuffle. It's\nwhat he says\nthat counts.\"\n\n\n \"But we\nknow\nyou're right,\" Dorffman protested.\n\n\n \"Do we?\"\n\n\n \"Of course we do! Look at our work! Look at what we've seen on the\n Farm.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, I know.\" Lessing's voice was weary. \"But first I think we'd\n better look at Tommy Gilman, and the quicker we look, the better\u2014\"\n\n\n A nurse greeted them as they stepped off the elevator. \"We called\n you at the Farm, but you'd already left. The boy\u2014\" She broke off\n helplessly. \"He's sick, Doctor. He's sicker than we ever imagined.\"\n\n\n \"What happened?\"\n\n\n \"Nothing exactly\u2014happened. I don't quite know how to describe it.\"\n She hurried them down the corridor and opened a door into a large\n children's playroom. \"See what you think.\"\n\n\n The boy sat stolidly in the corner of the room. He looked up as they\n came in, but there was no flicker of recognition or pleasure on his\n pale face. The monitor helmet was still on his head. He just sat there,\n gripping a toy fire engine tightly in his hands.\n\n\n Lessing crossed the room swiftly. \"Tommy,\" he said.\n\n\n The boy didn't even look at him. He stared stupidly at the fire engine.\n\n\n \"Tommy!\" Lessing reached out for the toy. The boy drew back in terror,\n clutching it to his chest. \"Go away,\" he choked. \"Go away, go away\u2014\"\n When Lessing persisted the boy bent over swiftly and bit him hard on\n the hand.\n\n\n Lessing sat down on the table. \"Tommy, listen to me.\" His voice was\n gentle. \"I won't try to take it again. I promise.\"\n\n\n \"Go away.\"\n\n\n \"Do you know who I am?\"\n\n\n Tommy's eyes shifted haltingly to Lessing's face. He nodded. \"Go away.\"\n\n\n \"Why are you afraid, Tommy?\"\n\n\n \"I hurt. My head hurts. I hurt all over. Go away.\"\n\n\n \"Why do you hurt?\"\n\n\n \"I\u2014can't get it\u2014off,\" the boy said.\nThe monitor\n, Lessing thought suddenly. Something had suddenly gone\n horribly wrong\u2014could the boy really be sensing the source of the\n trouble? Lessing felt a cold knot gather in the pit of his stomach. He\n knew what happened when adult psi-contact struck a psi-high youngster's\n mind. He had seen it a hundred times at the Farm. But even more\u2014he\n had felt it in his own mind, bursting from the child. Like a violent\n physical blow, the hate and fear and suspicion and cruelty buried and\n repressed in the adult mind, crushing suddenly into the raw receptors\n of the child's mind like a smothering fog\u2014it was a fearful thing. A\n healthy youngster could survive it, even though the scar remained. But\n this youngster was sick\u2014\n\n\n And yet\nan animal instinctively seeks its own protection\n. With\n trembling fingers Lessing reached out and opened the baffle-snap on the\n monitor. \"Take it off, Tommy,\" he whispered.\n\n\n The boy blinked in amazement, and pulled the grey helmet from his head.\n Lessing felt the familiar prickly feeling run down his scalp as the\n boy stared at him. He could feel deep in his own mind the cold chill\n of terror radiating from the boy. Then, suddenly, it began to fade. A\n sense of warmth\u2014peace and security and comfort\u2014swept in as the fear\n faded from the boy's face.\n\n\n The fire engine clattered to the floor.\nThey analyzed the tapes later, punching the data cards with greatest\n care, filing them through the machines for the basic processing and\n classification that all their data underwent. It was late that night\n when they had the report back in their hands.\n\n\n Dorffman stared at it angrily. \"It's obviously wrong,\" he grated. \"It\n doesn't fit. Dave, it doesn't agree with\nanything\nwe've observed\n before. There must be an error.\"\n\n\n \"Of course,\" said Lessing. \"According to the theory. The theory says\n that adult psi-contact is deadly to the growing child. It smothers\n their potential through repeated contact until it dries up completely.\n We've proved that, haven't we? Time after time. Everything goes\n according to the theory\u2014except Tommy. But Tommy's psi-potential was\n drying up there on the Farm, until the distortion was threatening the\n balance of his mind. Then he made an adult contact, and we saw how he\n bloomed.\" Lessing sank down to his desk wearily. \"What are we going to\n do, Jack? Formulate a separate theory for Tommy?\"\n\n\n \"Of course not,\" said Dorffman. \"The instruments were wrong. Somehow we\n misread the data\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Didn't you see his\nface\n?\" Lessing burst out. \"Didn't you see how he\nacted\n? What do you want with an instrument reading?\" He shook his\n head. \"It's no good, Jack. Something different happened here, something\n we'd never counted on. It's something the theory just doesn't allow\n for.\"\n\n\n They sat silently for a while. Then Dorffman said: \"What are you going\n to do?\"\n\n\n \"I don't know,\" said Lessing. \"Maybe when we fell into this bramble\n bush we blinded ourselves with the urge to classify\u2014to line everything\n up in neat rows like pins in a paper. Maybe we were so blind we missed\n the path altogether.\"\n\n\n \"But the book is due! The Conference speech\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I think we'll make some changes in the book,\" Lessing said slowly.\n \"It'll be costly\u2014but it might even be fun. It's a pretty dry, logical\n presentation of ideas, as it stands. Very austere and authoritarian.\n But a few revisions could change all that\u2014\" He rubbed his hands\n together thoughtfully. \"How about it, Jack? Do we have nerve enough to\n be laughed at? Do you think we could stand a little discredit, making\n silly asses of ourselves? Because when I finish this book, we'll be\n laughed out of existence. There won't be any Authority in psionics for\n a while\u2014and maybe that way one of the lads who's\nreally\nsniffing out\n the trail will get somebody to listen to him!\n\n\n \"Get a pad, get a pencil! We've got work to do. And when we finish, I\n think we'll send a carbon copy out Chicago way. Might even persuade\n that puppy out there to come here and work for me\u2014\"",
    "29196": "MUTINEER\nBy ROBERT J. SHEA\nFor every weapon there was a defense, but not against\n the deadliest weapon\u2014man himself!\nRaging\n , Trooper Lane\n hovered three thousand\n feet above Tammany Square.\n\n\n The cool cybrain surgically\n implanted in him was working\n on the problem. But Lane\n had no more patience. They'd\n sweat, he thought, hating the\n chill air-currents that threw\n his hovering body this way\n and that. He glared down at\n the three towers bordering on\n the Square. He spat, and\n watched the little white speck\n fall, fall.\nLock me up in barracks.\n All I wanted was a\n little time off. Did I fight in\n Chi for them? Damn right I\n did. Just a little time off, so\n I shouldn't blow my top. Now\n the lid's gone.\nHe was going over all their\n heads. He'd bowled those city\n cops over like paper dolls,\n back at the Armory. The\n black dog was on Lane's back.\n Old Mayor himself was going\n to hear about it.\nWhy not? Ain't old Mayor\n the CinC of the Newyork\n Troopers?\nThe humming paragrav-paks\n embedded beneath his\n shoulder blades held him\n motionless above Newyork's\n three administrative towers.\n Tammany Hall. Mayor's Palace.\n Court House. Lane cursed\n his stupidity. He hadn't found\n out which one was which\n ahead of time.\nThey keep\n Troopers in the Armory and\n teach them how to fight. They\n don't teach them about their\n own city, that they'll be fighting\n for. There's no time. From\n seven years old up, Troopers\n have too much to learn about\n fighting.\nThe Mayor was behind one\n of those thousands of windows.\n\n\n Old cybrain, a gift from the\n Trooper surgeons, compliments\n of the city, would have\n to figure out which one. Blood\n churned in his veins, nerves\n shrieked with impatience.\n Lane waited for the electronic\n brain to come up with the answer.\n\n\n Then his head jerked up, to\n a distant buzz. There were\n cops coming. Two black paragrav-boats\n whirred along the\n translucent underside of Newyork's\n anti-missile force-shield,\n the Shell.\nOld cybrain better be fast.\n Damn fast!\nThe cybrain jolted an impulse\n through his spine. Lane\n somersaulted. Cybrain had\n taken charge of his motor\n nerves. Lane's own mind was\n just along for the ride.\nHis\n body snapped into a\n stiff dive position. He began\n to plummet down, picking\n up speed. His mailed hands\n glittered like arrowheads out\n in front. They pointed to a\n particular window in one of\n the towers. A predatory excitement\n rippled through him\n as he sailed down through the\n air. It was like going into\n battle again. A little red-white-and-green\n flag fluttered\n on a staff below the window.\n Whose flag? The city flag was\n orange and blue. He shrugged\n away the problem. Cybrain\n knew what it was doing.\n\n\n The little finger of his right\n hand vibrated in its metal\n sheath. A pale vibray leaped\n from the lensed fingertip.\n Breakthrough! The glasstic\n pane dissolved. Lane streamed\n through the window.\n\n\n The paragrav-paks cut off.\n Lane dropped lightly to the\n floor, inside the room, in battle-crouch.\n A 3V set was yammering.\n A girl screamed. Lane's\n hand shot out automatically.\n A finger vibrated. Out of the\n corner of his eye, Lane saw\n the girl fold to the floor. There\n was no one else in the room.\n Lane, still in a crouch, chewed\n his lip.\nThe Mayor?\nHis head swung around and\n he peered at the 3V set. He\n saw his own face.\n\n\n \"Lashing police with his\n vibray,\" said the announcer,\n \"Lane broke through the cordon\n surrounding Manhattan\n Armory. Two policemen were\n killed, four others seriously\n injured. Tammany Hall has\n warned that this man is extremely\n dangerous. Citizens\n are cautioned to keep clear of\n him. Lane is an insane killer.\n He is armed with the latest\n military weapons. A built-in\n electronic brain controls his\n reflexes\u2014\"\n\n\n \"At ease with that jazz,\"\n said Lane, and a sheathed finger\n snapped out. There was a\n loud bang. The 3V screen dissolved\n into a puddle of glasstic.\nThe Mayor.\nLane strode to the window.\n The two police boats were\n hovering above the towers.\n Lane's mailed hand snapped\n open a pouch at his belt. He\n flipped a fist-sized cube to the\n floor.\n\n\n The force-bomb \"exploded\"\u2014swelled\n or inflated, really,\n but with the speed of a blast.\n Lane glanced out the window.\n A section of the energy globe\n bellied out from above. It\n shaded the view from his window\n and re-entered the tower\n wall just below.\n\n\n Now the girl.\n\n\n He turned back to the room.\n \"Wake up, outa-towner.\" He\n gave the blonde girl a light\n dose of the vibray to slap her\n awake.\n\n\n \"Who are you?\" she said,\n shakily.\n\n\n Lane grinned. \"Trooper\n Lane, of the Newyork Special\n Troops, is all.\" He threw her\n a mock salute. \"You from\n outa-town, girlie. I ain't seen\n a Newyork girl with yellow\n hair in years. Orange or\n green is the action. Whatcha\n doing in the Mayor's room?\"\nThe\n girl pushed herself to\n her feet. Built, Lane saw.\n She was pretty and clean-looking,\n very out-of-town. She\n held herself straight and her\n blue-violet eyes snapped at\n him.\n\n\n \"What the devil do you\n think you're doing, soldier? I\n am a diplomat of the Grassroots\n Republic of Mars. This\n is an embassy, if you know\n what that means.\"\n\n\n \"I don't,\" said Lane, unconcerned.\n\n\n \"Well, you should have had\n brains enough to honor the\n flag outside this window.\n That's the Martian flag, soldier.\n If you've never heard of\n diplomatic immunity, you'll\n suffer for your ignorance.\"\n Her large, dark eyes narrowed.\n \"Who sent you?\"\n\n\n \"My cybrain sent me.\"\n\n\n She went openmouthed.\n \"You're\nLane\n.\"\n\n\n \"I'm the guy they told you\n about on the 3V. Where's the\n Mayor? Ain't this his place?\"\n\n\n \"No. No, you're in the\n wrong room. The wrong building.\n That's the Mayor's suite\n over there.\" She pointed. \"See\n where the balcony is? This is\n the Embassy suite. If you\n want the Mayor you'll have to\n go over there.\"\n\n\n \"Whaddaya know,\" said\n Lane. \"Cybrain didn't know,\n no more than me.\"\n\n\n The girl noticed the dark\n swell of the force-globe.\n \"What's that out there?\"\n\n\n \"Force-screen. Nothing gets\n past, except maybe a full-size\n blaster-beam. Keeps cops out.\n Keeps you in. You anybody\n important?\"\n\n\n \"I told you, I'm an ambassador.\n From Mars. I'm on a\n diplomatic mission.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah? Mars a big city?\"\n\n\n She stared at him, violet\n eyes wide. \"The\nplanet\nMars.\"\n\n\n \"Planet? Oh,\nthat\nMars.\n Sure, I've heard of it\u2014you\n gotta go by spaceship. What's\n your name?\"\n\n\n \"Gerri Kin. Look, Lane,\n holding me is no good. It'll\n just get you in worse trouble.\n What are you trying to do?\"\n\n\n \"I wanna see the Mayor. Me\n and my buddies, we just come\n back from fighting in Chi,\n Gerri. We won. They got a\n new Mayor out there in Chi.\n He takes orders from Newyork.\"\n\n\n Gerri Kin said, \"That's\n what the force-domes did. The\n perfect defense. But also the\n road to the return to city-states.\n Anarchy.\"\n\n\n Lane said, \"Yeah? Well, we\n done what they wanted us to\n do. We did the fighting for\n them. So we come back home\n to Newyork and they lock us\n up in the Armory. Won't pay\n us. Won't let us go nowhere.\n They had cops guarding us.\n City cops.\" Lane sneered. \"I\n busted out. I wanna see the\n Mayor and find out why we\n can't have time off. I don't\n play games, Gerri. I go right\n to the top.\"\n\n\n Lane broke off. There was\n a hum outside the window. He\n whirled and stared out. The\n rounded black hulls of the two\n police paragrav-boats were\n nosing toward the force-screen.\n Lane could read the\n white numbers painted on\n their bows.\n\n\n A loudspeaker shouted into\n the room: \"Come out of there,\n Lane, or we'll blast you out.\"\n\n\n \"You can't,\" Lane called.\n \"This girl from Mars is here.\"\n\n\n \"I repeat, Lane\u2014come out\n or we'll blast you out.\"\n\n\n Lane turned to the girl. \"I\n thought you were important.\"\nShe\n stood there with her\n hands together, calmly\n looking at him. \"I am. But\n you are too, to them. Mars is\n millions of miles away, and\n you're right across the Square\n from the Mayor's suite.\"\n\n\n \"Yeah, but\u2014\" Lane shook\n his head and turned back to\n the window. \"All right, look!\n Move them boats away and\n I'll let this girl out!\"\n\n\n \"No deal, Lane. We're coming\n in.\" The police boats\n backed away slowly, then shot\n straight up, out of the line of\n vision.\n\n\n Lane looked down at the\n Square. Far below, the long,\n gleaming barrel of a blaster\n cannon caught the dim light\n filtering down through Newyork's\n Shell. The cannon trundled\n into the Square on its\n olive-drab, box-shaped caterpillar\n mounting and took up a\n position equidistant from the\n bases of the three towers.\n\n\n Now a rumble of many\n voices rose from below. Lane\n stared down to see a large\n crowd gathering in Tammany\n Square. Sound trucks were\n rolling to a stop around the\n edges of the crowd. The people\n were all looking up.\n\n\n Lane looked across the\n Square. The windows of the\n tower opposite, the ones he\n could see clearly, were crowded\n with faces. There were\n white dot faces on the balcony\n that Gerri Kin had pointed\n out as the Mayor's suite.\n\n\n The voice of a 3V newscaster\n rolled up from the Square,\n reechoing against the tower\n walls.\n\n\n \"Lane is holding the Martian\n Ambassador, Gerri Kin,\n hostage. You can see the Martian\n tricolor behind his force-globe.\n Police are bringing up\n blaster cannon. Lane's defense\n is a globe of energy\n similar to the one which protects\n Newyork from aerial attack.\"\n\n\n Lane grinned back at Gerri\n Kin. \"Whole town's down\n there.\" Then his grin faded.\n Nice-looking, nice-talking girl\n like this probably cared a lot\n more about dying than he did.\n Why the hell didn't they give\n him a chance to let her out?\n Maybe he could do it now.\n\n\n Cybrain said no. It said the\n second he dropped his force-screen,\n they'd blast this room\n to hell. Poor girl from Mars,\n she didn't have a chance.\n\n\n Gerri Kin put her hand to\n her forehead. \"Why did you\n have to pick my room? Why\n did they send me to this crazy\n city? Private soldiers. Twenty\n million people living under\n a Shell like worms in a corpse.\n Earth is sick and it's going to\n kill me. What's going to happen?\"\n\n\n Lane looked sadly at her.\n Only two kinds of girls ever\n went near a Trooper\u2014the\n crazy ones and the ones the\n city paid. Why did he have to\n be so near getting killed when\n he met one he liked? Now that\n she was showing a little less\n fear and anger, she was talking\n straight to him. She was\n good, but she wasn't acting as\n if she was too good for him.\n\n\n \"They'll start shooting pretty\n quick,\" said Lane. \"I'm\n sorry about you.\"\n\n\n \"I wish I could write a letter\n to my parents,\" she said.\n\n\n \"What?\"\n\n\n \"Didn't you understand\n what I said?\"\n\n\n \"What's a letter?\"\n\n\n \"You don't know where\n Mars is. You don't know what\n a letter is. You probably can't\n even read and write!\"\nLane\n shrugged. He carried\n on the conversation disinterestedly,\n professionally relaxed\n before battle. \"What's\n these things I can't do? They\n important?\"\n\n\n \"Yes. The more I see of this\n city and its people, the more\n important I realize they are.\n You know how to fight, don't\n you? I'll bet you're perfect\n with those weapons.\"\n\n\n \"Listen. They been training\n me to fight since I was a little\n kid. Why shouldn't I be a\n great little fighter?\"\n\n\n \"Specialization,\" said the\n girl from Mars.\n\n\n \"What?\"\n\n\n \"Specialization. Everyone\n I've met in this city is a specialist.\n SocioSpecs run the\n government. TechnoSpecs run\n the machinery. Troopers fight\n the wars. And ninety per cent\n of the people don't work at all\n because they're not trained to\n do anything.\"\n\n\n \"The Fans,\" said Lane.\n \"They got it soft. That's them\n down there, come to watch the\n fight.\"\n\n\n \"You know why you were\n kept in the Armory, Lane? I\n heard them talking about it,\n at the dinner I went to last\n night.\"\n\n\n \"Why?\"\n\n\n \"Because they're afraid of\n the Troopers. You men did too\n good a job out in Chi. You are\n the deadliest weapon that has\n ever been made. You. Single\n airborne infantrymen!\"\n\n\n Lane said, \"They told us in\n Trooper Academy that it's the\n men that win the wars.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, but people had forgotten\n it until the SocioSpecs of\n Newyork came up with the\n Troopers. Before the Troopers,\n governments concentrated\n on the big weapons, the\n missiles, the bombs. And the\n cities, with the Shells, were\n safe from bombs. They learned\n to be self-sufficient under\n the Shells. They were so safe,\n so isolated, that national governments\n collapsed. But you\n Troopers wiped out that feeling\n of security, when you infiltrated\n Chi and conquered\n it.\"\n\n\n \"We scared them, huh?\"\n\n\n Gerri said, \"You scared\n them so much that they were\n afraid to let you have a furlough\n in the city when you\n came back. Afraid you Troopers\n would realize that you\n could easily take over the city\n if you wanted to. You scared\n them so much that they'll let\n me be killed. They'll actually\n risk trouble with Mars just to\n kill you.\"\n\n\n \"I'm sorry about you. I\n mean it, I like\u2014\"\n\n\n At that moment a titanic,\n ear-splitting explosion hurled\n him to the carpet, deafened\n and blinded him.\n\n\n He recovered and saw Gerri\n a few feet away, dazed, groping\n on hands and knees.\n\n\n Lane jumped to the window,\n looked quickly, sprang\n back. Cybrain pumped orders\n to his nervous system.\n\n\n \"Blaster cannon,\" he said.\n \"But just one. Gotcha, cybrain.\n I can beat that.\"\n\n\n He picked up the black box\n that generated his protective\n screen. Snapping it open with\n thumb-pressure, he turned a\n small dial. Then he waited.\n\n\n Again an enormous, brain-shattering\n concussion.\n\n\n Again Lane and Gerri were\n thrown to the floor. But this\n time there was a second explosion\n and a blinding flash\n from below.\n\n\n Lane laughed boyishly and\n ran to the window.\n\n\n \"Look!\" he called to Gerri.\nThere\n was a huge gap in\n the crowd below. The\n pavement was blackened and\n shattered to rubble. In and\n around the open space\n sprawled dozens of tiny black\n figures, not moving.\n\n\n \"Backfire,\" said Lane. \"I set\n the screen to throw their\n blaster beam right back at\n them.\"\n\n\n \"And they knew you might\u2014and\n yet they let a crowd\n congregate!\"\n\n\n Gerri reeled away from the\n window, sick.\n\n\n Lane said, \"I can do that a\n couple times more, but it\n burns out the force-globe.\n Then I'm dead.\"\n\n\n He heard the 3V newscaster's\n amplified voice: \"\u2014approximately\n fifty killed. But\n Lane is through now. He has\n been able to outthink police\n with the help of his cybrain.\n Now police are feeding the\n problem to their giant analogue\n computer in the sub-basement\n of the Court House.\n The police analogue computer\n will be able to outthink Lane's\n cybrain, will predict Lane's\n moves in advance. Four more\n blaster cannon are coming\n down Broadway\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Why don't they clear those\n people out of the Square?\"\n Gerri cried.\n\n\n \"What? Oh, the Fans\u2014nobody\n clears them out.\" He\n paused. \"I got one more\n chance to try.\" He raised a\n mailed glove to his mouth and\n pressed a small stud in the\n wrist. He said, \"Trooper HQ,\n this is Lane.\"\n\n\n A voice spoke in his helmet.\n \"Lane, this is Trooper\n HQ. We figured you'd call.\"\n\n\n \"Get me Colonel Klett.\"\n\n\n Thirty seconds passed. Lane\n could hear the clank of caterpillar\n treads as the mobile\n blaster cannon rolled into\n Tammany Square.\n\n\n The voice of the commanding\n officer of the Troopers\n rasped into Lane's ear:\n \"Meat-head! You broke out\n against my orders!\nNow\nlook\n at you!\"\n\n\n \"I knew you didn't mean\n them orders, sir.\"\n\n\n \"If you get out of there\n alive, I'll hang you for disobeying\n them!\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. Sir, there's a girl\n here\u2014somebody important\u2014from\n Mars. You know, the\n planet. Sir, she told me we\n could take over the city if we\n got loose. That right, sir?\"\n\n\n There was a pause. \"Your\n girl from Mars is right, Lane.\n But it's too late now. If we\n had moved first, captured the\n city government, we might\n have done it. But they're\n ready for us. They'd chop us\n down with blaster cannon.\"\n\n\n \"Sir, I'm asking for help. I\n know you're on my side.\"\n\n\n \"I am, Lane.\" The voice of\n Colonel Klett was lower. \"I'd\n never admit it if you had a\n chance of getting out of there\n alive. You've had it, son. I'd\n only lose more men trying to\n rescue you. When they feed\n the data into that analogue\n computer, you're finished.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\n \"I'm sorry, Lane.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, sir. Over and out.\"\n\n\n Lane pressed the stud on\n his gauntlet again. He turned\n to Gerri.\n\n\n \"You're okay. I wish I\n could let you out. Old cybrain\n says I can't. Says if I drop the\n force-globe for a second,\n they'll fire into the room, and\n then we'll both be dead.\"\nGerri\n stood with folded\n arms and looked at him.\n \"Do what you have to do. As\n far as I can see, you're the\n only person in this city that\n has even a little bit of right\n on his side.\"\n\n\n Lane laughed. \"Any of them\n purple-haired broads I know\n would be crazy scared. You're\n different.\"\n\n\n \"When my grandparents\n landed on Mars, they found\n out that selfishness was a luxury.\n Martians can't afford\n it.\"\n\n\n Lane frowned with the effort\n of thinking. \"You said I\n had a little right on my side.\n That's a good feeling. Nobody\n ever told me to feel that way\n about myself before. It'll be\n better to die knowing that.\"\n\n\n \"I know,\" she said.\n\n\n The amplified voice from\n below said, \"The police analogue\n computer is now hooked\n directly to the controls of the\n blaster cannon battery. It will\n outguess Lane's cybrain and\n check his moves ahead of\n time.\"\n\n\n Lane looked at Gerri. \"How\n about giving me a kiss before\n they get us? Be nice if I kissed\n a girl like you just once in\n my life.\"\n\n\n She smiled and walked forward.\n \"You deserve it, Lane.\"\n\n\n He kissed her and it filled\n him with longings for things\n he couldn't name. Then he\n stepped back and shook his\n head. \"It ain't right you\n should get killed. If I take a\n dive out that window, they\n shoot at me, not in here.\"\n\n\n \"And kill you all the sooner.\"\n\n\n \"Better than getting burned\n up in this lousy little room.\n You also got right on your\n side. There's too many damn\n Troopers and not enough good\n persons like you. Old cybrain\n says stay here, but I don't\n guess I will. I'm gonna pay\n you back for that kiss.\"\n\n\n \"But you're safe in here!\"\n\n\n \"Worry about yourself, not\n about me.\" Lane picked up the\n force-bomb and handed it to\n her. \"When I say now, press\n this. Then take your hand off,\n real fast. It'll shut off the\n screen for a second.\"\n\n\n He stepped up on to the\n window ledge. Automatically,\n the cybrain cut in his paragrav-paks.\n \"So long, outa-towner.\nNow!\n\"\n\n\n He jumped. He was hurtling\n across the Square when the\n blaster cannons opened up.\n They weren't aimed at the\n window where the little red-white-and-green\n tricolor was\n flying. But they weren't aimed\n at Lane, either. They were\n shooting wild.\nWhich way now? Looks\n like I got a chance. Old cybrain\n says fly right for the\n cannons.\nHe saw the Mayor's balcony\n ahead.\nGo to hell, old cybrain.\n I'm doing all right by myself.\n I come to see the Mayor, and\n I'm gonna see him.\nLane plunged forward. He\n heard the shouts of frightened\n men.\n\n\n He swooped over the balcony\n railing. A man was\n pointing a blaster pistol at\n him. There were five men\n on the balcony\u2014emergency!\n Years of training and cybrain\n took over. Lane's hand shot\n out, fingers vibrating. As he\n dropped to the balcony floor in\n battle-crouch, the men slumped\n around him.\n\n\n He had seen the man with\n the blaster pistol before. It\n was the Mayor of Newyork.\n\n\n Lane stood for a moment in\n the midst of the sprawled\n men, the shrieks of the crowd\n floating up to him. Then he\n raised his glove to his lips. He\n made contact with Manhattan\n Armory.\n\n\n \"Colonel Klett, sir. You\n said if we captured the city\n government we might have a\n chance. Well, I captured the\n city government. What do we\n do with it now?\"\nLane\n was uncomfortable in\n his dress uniform. First\n there had been a ceremony in\n Tammany Square inaugurating\n Newyork's new Military\n Protectorate, and honoring\n Trooper Lane. Now there was\n a formal dinner. Colonel Klett\n and Gerri Kin sat on either\n side of Lane.\n\n\n Klett said, \"Call me an opportunist\n if you like, Miss\n Kin, my government will be\n stable, and Mars can negotiate\n with it.\" He was a lean, sharp-featured\n man with deep\n grooves in his face, and gray\n hair.\n\n\n Gerri shook her head. \"Recognition\n for a new government\n takes time. I'm going\n back to Mars, and I think\n they'll send another ambassador\n next time. Nothing personal\u2014I\n just don't like it\n here.\"\n\n\n Lane said, \"I'm going to\n Mars, too.\"\n\n\n \"Did she ask you to?\" demanded\n Klett.\n\n\n Lane shook his head. \"She's\n got too much class for me. But\n I like what she told me about\n Mars. It's healthy, like.\"\n\n\n Klett frowned. \"If I thought\n there was a gram of talent involved\n in your capture of the\n Mayor, Lane, I'd never release\n you from duty. But I\n know better. You beat that\n analogue computer by sheer\n stupidity\u2014by disregarding\n your cybrain.\"\n\n\n Lane said, \"It wasn't so stupid\n if it worked.\"\n\n\n \"That's what bothers me. It\n calls for a revision in our tactics.\n We've got a way of beating\n those big computers now,\n should anyone use them\n against us.\"\n\n\n \"I just didn't want her to\n be hurt.\"\n\n\n \"Exactly. The computer\n could outguess a machine, like\n your cybrain. But you introduced\n a totally unpredictable\n factor\u2014human emotion.\n Which proves what I, as a\n military man, have always\n maintained\u2014that the deadliest\n weapon in man's arsenal\n is still, and will always be, the\n individual soldier.\"\n\n\n \"What you just said there,\n sir,\" said Lane. \"That's why\n I'm leaving Newyork.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean?\" asked\n Colonel Klett.\n\n\n \"I'm tired of being a weapon,\n sir. I want to be a human\n being.\"\nEND\nWork is the elimination of the traces of work.\n\u2014Michelangelo\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nIf\nJuly 1959.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "99920": "COMPLEXITY AND HUMANITY\nWe have all seen the images. Volunteers pitching in. People working day\n and night; coming up with the most ingenious, improvised solutions to\n everything from food and shelter to communications and security. Working\n together; patching up the fabric that is rent. Disaster, natural or\n otherwise, is a breakdown of systems. For a time, chaos reigns. For a\n time, what will happen in the next five minutes, five hours, and five\n days is unknown. All we have to rely on are our wits, fortitude, and\n common humanity\nContemporary life is not chaotic, in the colloquial sense we apply to\n disaster zones. It is, however, complex and rapidly changing; much more\n so than life was in the past; even the very near past. Life, of course,\n was never simple. But the fact that day-to-day behaviors in Shenzhen and\n Bangalore have direct and immediate effects on people from Wichita to\n Strasbourg, from Rio de Janeiro to Sydney, or that unscrupulous lenders\n and careless borrowers in the United States can upend economic\n expectations everywhere else in the world, no matter how carefully\n others have planned, means that there are many more moving parts that\n affect each other. And from this scale of practical effects, complexity\n emerges. New things too were ever under the sun; but the systematic\n application of knowledge to the creation of new knowledge, innovation to\n innovation, and information to making more information has become\n pervasive; and with it the knowledge that next year will be very\n different than this. The Web, after all, is less than a generation old.\nThese two features\u2212the global scale of interdependence of human action,\n and the systematic acceleration of innovation, make contemporary life a\n bit like a slow motion disaster, in one important respect. Its very\n unpredictability makes it unwise to build systems that take too much\n away from what human beings do best: look, think, innovate, adapt,\n discuss, learn, and repeat. That is why we have seen many more systems\n take on a loose, human centric model in the last decade and a half: from\n the radical divergence of Toyota\u2019s production system from the highly\n structured model put in place by Henry Ford, to the Internet\u2019s radical\n departure from the AT&T system that preceded it, and on to the way\n Wikipedia constructs human knowledge on the fly, incrementally, in ways\n that would have been seen, until recently, as too chaotic ever to work\n (and are still seen so be many). But it is time we acknowledge that\n systems work best by making work human.\nModern Times\nModern times were hard enough. Trains and planes, telegraph and\n telephone, all brought many people into the same causal space. The\n solution to this increased complexity in the late 19th, early 20th\n century was to increase the role of structure and improve its design.\n During the first two-thirds of the twentieth century, this type of\n rationalization took the form of ever-more complex managed systems, with\n crisp specification of roles, lines of authority, communication and\n control.\nIn business, this rationalization was typified by Fredrick Taylor\u2019s\n Scientific Management, later embodied in Henry Ford\u2019s assembly line. The\n ambition of these approaches was to specify everything that needed doing\n in minute detail, to enforce it through monitoring and rewards, and\n later to build it into the very technology of work\u2212the assembly line.\n The idea was to eliminate human error and variability in the face of\n change by removing thinking to the system, and thus neutralizing the\n variability of the human beings who worked it. Few images captured that\n time, and what it did to humanity, more vividly than Charlie Chaplin\u2019s\n assembly line worker in Modern Times.\nAt the same time, government experienced the rise of bureaucratization\n and the administrative state. Nowhere was this done more brutally than\n in the totalitarian states of mid-century. But the impulse to build\n fully-specified systems, designed by experts, monitored and controlled\n so as to limit human greed and error and to manage uncertainty, was\n basic and widespread. It underlay the development of the enormously\n successful state bureaucracies that responded to the Great Depression\n with the New Deal. It took shape in the Marshall Plan to pull Europe out\n of the material abyss into which it had been plunged by World War II,\n and shepherded Japan\u2019s industrial regeneration from it. In technical\n systems too, we saw in mid-century marvels like the AT&T telephone\n system and the IBM mainframe. For a moment in history, these large scale\n managed systems were achieving efficiencies that seemed to overwhelm\n competing models: from the Tennessee Valley Authority to Sputnik, from\n Watson\u2019s IBM to General Motors. Yet, to list these paragons from today\u2019s\n perspective is already to presage the demise of the belief in their\n inevitable victory.\nThe increasing recognition of the limits of command-and-control systems\n led to a new approach; but it turned out to be a retrenchment, not an\n abandonment, of the goal of perfect rationalization of systems design,\n which assumed much of the human away. What replaced planning and control\n in these systems was the myth of perfect markets. This was achieved\n through a hyper-simplification of human nature, wedded to mathematical\n modeling of what hyper-simplified selfish rational actors, looking only\n to their own interests, would do under diverse conditions. This approach\n was widespread and influential; it still is. And yet it led to such\n unforgettable gems as trying to understand why people do, or do not, use\n condoms by writing sentences like: \u201cThe expected utility (EU) of unsafe\n sex for m and for f is equal to the benefits (B) of unsafe sex minus its\n expected costs, and is given by EUm = B - C(1-Pm)(Pf) and EUf = B -\n C(1-Pf)(Pm),\u201d and believing that you will learn anything useful about\n lust and desire, recklessness and helplessness, or how to slow down the\n transmission of AIDS. Only by concocting such a thin model of\n humanity\u2212no more than the economists\u2019 utility curve\u2212and neglecting any\n complexities of social interactions that could not be conveyed through\n prices, could the appearance of rationalization be maintained. Like\n bureaucratic rationalization, perfect-market rationalization also had\n successes. But, like its predecessor, its limits as an approach to human\n systems design are becoming cleare\nWork, Trust and Play\nPricing perfectly requires perfect information. And perfect information,\n while always an illusion, has become an ever receding dream in a world\n of constant, rapid change and complex global interactions. What we are\n seeing instead is the rise of human systems that increasingly shy away\n from either control or perfect pricing. Not that there isn\u2019t control.\n Not that there aren\u2019t markets. And not that either of these approaches\n to coordinating human action will disappear. But these managed systems\n are becoming increasingly interlaced with looser structures, which\n invite and enable more engaged human action by drawing on intrinsic\n motivations and social relations. Dress codes and a culture of play in\n the workplace in Silicon Valley, like the one day per week that Google\n employees can use to play at whatever ideas they like, do not exist to\n make the most innovative region in the United States a Ludic paradise,\n gratifying employees at the expense of productivity, but rather to\n engage the human and social in the pursuit of what is, in the long term,\n the only core business competency\u2212innovation. Wikipedia has eclipsed all\n the commercial encyclopedias except Britannica not by issuing a large\n IPO and hiring the smartest guys in the room, but by building an open\n and inviting system that lets people learn together and pursue their\n passion for knowledge, and each other\u2019s company.\nThe set of human systems necessary for action in this complex,\n unpredictable set of conditions, combining rationalization with human\n agency, learning and adaptation, is as different from managed systems\n and perfect markets as the new Toyota is from the old General Motors, or\n as the Internet now is from AT&T then. The hallmarks of these newer\n systems are: (a) location of authority and practical capacity to act at\n the edges of the system, where potentialities for sensing the\n environment, identifying opportunities and challenges to action and\n acting upon them, are located; (b) an emphasis on the human: on trust,\n cooperation, judgment and insight; (c) communication over the lifetime\n of the interaction; and (d) loosely-coupled systems: systems in which\n the regularities and dependencies among objects and processes are less\n strictly associated with each other; where actions and interactions can\n occur through multiple systems simultaneously, have room to fail,\n maneuver, and be reoriented to fit changing conditions and new learning,\n or shift from one system to another to achieve a solution.\nConsider first of all the triumph of Toyota over the programs of Taylor\n and Ford. Taylorism was typified by the ambition to measure and specify\n all human and material elements of the production system. The ambition\n of scientific management was to offer a single, integrated system where\n all human variance (the source of slothful shirking and inept error)\n could be isolated and controlled. Fordism took that ambition and\n embedded the managerial knowledge in the technological platform of the\n assembly line, guided by a multitude of rigid task specifications and\n routines. Toyota Production System, by comparison, has a substantially\n smaller number of roles that are also more loosely defined, with a\n reliance on small teams where each team member can perform all tasks,\n and who are encouraged to experiment, improve, fail, adapt, but above\n all communicate. The system is built on trust and a cooperative dynamic.\n The enterprise functions through a managerial control system, but also\n through social cooperation mechanisms built around teamwork and trust.\n However, even Toyota might be bested in this respect by the even more\n loosely coupled networks of innovation and supply represented by\n Taiwanese original-design manufacturers.\nBut let us also consider the system in question that has made this work\n possible, the Internet, and compare it to the design principles of the\n AT&T network in its heyday. Unlike the Internet, AT&T\u2019s network was\n fully managed. Mid-century, the company even retained ownership of the\n phones at the endpoints, arguing that it needed to prohibit customers\n from connecting unlicensed phones to the system (ostensibly to ensure\n proper functioning of the networking and monitoring of customer\n behavior, although it didn\u2019t hurt either that this policy effectively\n excluded competitors). This generated profit, but any substantial\n technical innovations required the approval of management and a\n re-engineering of the entire network. The Internet, on the other hand,\n was designed to be as general as possible. The network hardware merely\n delivers packets of data using standardized addressing information. The\n hard processing work\u2212manipulating a humanly-meaningful communication (a\n letter or a song, a video or a software package) and breaking it up into\n a stream of packets\u2212was to be done by its edge devices, in this case\n computers owned by users. This system allowed the breathtaking rate of\n innovation that we have seen, while also creating certain\n vulnerabilities in online security.\nThese vulnerabilities have led some to argue that a new system to manage\n the Internet is needed. We see first of all that doubts about trust and\n security on the Internet arise precisely because the network was\n originally designed for people who could more-or-less trust each other,\n and offloaded security from the network to the edges. As the network\n grew and users diversified, trust (the practical belief that other human\n agents in the system were competent and benign, or at least sincere)\n declined. This decline was met with arguments in favor of building\n security into the technical system, both at its core, in the network\n elements themselves, and at its periphery, through \u201ctrusted computing.\u201d\n A \u201ctrusted computer\u201d will, for example, not run a program or document\n that its owner wants to run, unless it has received authorization from\n some other locus: be it the copyright owner, the virus protection\n company, or the employer. This is thought to be the most completely\n effective means of preventing copyright infringement or system failure,\n and preserving corporate security (these are the main reasons offered\n for implementing such systems). Trusted computing in this form is the\n ultimate reversal of the human-centric, loosely-coupled design approach\n of the Internet. Instead of locating authority and capacity to act at\n the endpoints, where human beings are located and can make decisions\n about what is worthwhile, it implements the belief that\n machines\u2212technical systems\u2212are trustworthy, while their human users are\n malevolent, incompetent, or both.\nReintroducing the Human\nTaylorism, the Bell system and trusted computing are all efforts to\n remove human agency from action and replace it with well-designed,\n tightly-bound systems. That is, the specifications and regularities of\n the system are such that they control or direct action and learning over\n time. Human agency, learning, communication and adaptation are minimized\n in managed systems, if not eliminated, and the knowledge in the system\n comes from the outside, from the designer, in the initial design over\n time, and through observation of the system\u2019s performance by someone\n standing outside its constraints\u2212a manager or systems designer. By\n contrast, loosely-coupled systems affirmatively eschew this level of\n control, and build in room for human agency, experimentation, failure,\n communication, learning and adaptation. Loose-coupling is central to the\n new systems. It is a feature of system design that leaves room for human\n agency over time, only imperfectly constraining and enabling any given\n action by the system itself. By creating such domains of human agency,\n system designers are accepting the limitations of design and foresight,\n and building in the possibilities of learning over time through action\n in the system, by agents acting within\nTo deal with the new complexity of contemporary life we need to\n re-introduce the human into the design of systems. We must put the soul\n back into the system. If years of work on artificial intelligence have\n taught us anything, it is that what makes for human insight is extremely\n difficult to replicate or systematize. At the center of these new\n systems, then, sits a human being who has a capacity to make judgments,\n experiment, learn and adapt. But enabling human agency also provides\n scope of action for human frailty. Although this idea is most alien to\n the mainstream of system design in the twentieth century, we must now\n turn our attention to building systems that support human sociality\u2212our\n ability to think of others and their needs, and to choose for ourselves\n goals consistent with a broader social concern than merely our own\n self-interest. The challenge of the near future is to build systems that\n will allow us to be largely free to inquire, experiment, learn and\n communicate, that will encourage us to cooperate, and that will avoid\n the worst of what human beings are capable of, and elicit what is best.\n Free software, Wikipedia, Creative Commons and the thousands of emerging\n human practices of productive social cooperation in the networked\n information economy give us real existence proofs that human-centric\n systems can not merely exist, but thrive, as can the human beings and\n social relations that make them.",
    "99924": "What Is Open Access?\nShifting from ink on paper to digital text suddenly allows us to make perfect copies of our work. Shifting from isolated computers to a globe-spanning network of connected computers suddenly allows us to share perfect copies of our work with a worldwide audience at essentially no cost. About thirty years ago this kind of free global sharing became something new under the sun. Before that, it would have sounded like a quixotic dream.\nDigital technologies have created more than one revolution. Let\u2019s call this one the access revolution.\nWhy don\u2019t more authors take advantage of the access revolution to reach more readers? The answer is pretty clear. Authors who share their works in this way aren\u2019t selling them, and even authors with purposes higher than money depend on sales to make a living. Or at least they appreciate sales.\nLet\u2019s sharpen the question, then, by putting to one side authors who want to sell their work. We can even acknowledge that we\u2019re putting aside the vast majority of authors.\nImagine a tribe of authors who write serious and useful work, and who follow a centuries-old custom of giving it away without charge. I don\u2019t mean a group of rich authors who don\u2019t need money. I mean a group of authors defined by their topics, genres, purposes, incentives, and institutional circumstances, not by their wealth. In fact, very few are wealthy. For now, it doesn\u2019t matter who these authors are, how rare they are, what they write, or why they follow this peculiar custom. It\u2019s enough to know that their employers pay them salaries, freeing them to give away their work, that they write for impact rather than money, and that they score career points when they make the kind of impact they hoped to make. Suppose that selling their work would actually harm their interests by shrinking their audience, reducing their impact, and distorting their professional goals by steering them toward popular topics and away from the specialized questions on which they are experts.\nIf authors like that exist, at least they should take advantage of the access revolution. The dream of global free access can be a reality for them, even if most other authors hope to earn royalties and feel obliged to sit out this particular revolution.\nThese lucky authors are scholars, and the works they customarily write and publish without payment are peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals.\nOpen access\nis the name of the revolutionary kind of access these authors, unencumbered by a motive of financial gain, are free to provide to their readers.\nOpen access (OA) literature is digital, online, free of charge, and free of most copyright and licensing restrictions.\nWe could call it \u201cbarrier-free\u201d access, but that would emphasize the negative rather than the positive. In any case, we can be more specific about which access barriers OA removes.\nA price tag\nis a significant access barrier. Most works with price tags are individually affordable. But when a scholar needs to read or consult hundreds of works for one research project, or when a library must provide access for thousands of faculty and students working on tens of thousands of topics, and when the volume of new work grows explosively every year, price barriers become insurmountable. The resulting access gaps harm authors by limiting their audience and impact, harm readers by limiting what they can retrieve and read, and thereby harm research from both directions. OA removes price barriers.\nCopyright\ncan also be a significant access barrier. If you have access to a work for reading but want to translate it into another language, distribute copies to colleagues, copy the text for mining with sophisticated software, or reformat it for reading with new technology, then you generally need the permission of the copyright holder. That makes sense when the author wants to sell the work and when the use you have in mind could undermine sales. But for research articles we\u2019re generally talking about authors from the special tribe who want to share their work as widely as possible. Even these authors, however, tend to transfer their copyrights to intermediaries\u2014publishers\u2014who want to sell their work. As a result, users may be hampered in their research by barriers erected to serve intermediaries rather than authors. In addition, replacing user freedom with permission-seeking harms research authors by limiting the usefulness of their work, harms research readers by limiting the uses they may make of works even when they have access, and thereby harms research from both directions. OA removes these permission barriers.\nRemoving price barriers means that readers are not limited by their own ability to pay, or by the budgets of the institutions where they may have library privileges. Removing permission barriers means that scholars are free to use or reuse literature for scholarly purposes. These purposes include reading and searching, but also redistributing, translating, text mining, migrating to new media, long-term archiving, and innumerable new forms of research, analysis, and processing we haven\u2019t yet imagined. OA makes work more useful in both ways, by making it available to more people who can put it to use, and by freeing those people to use and reuse it.\nTerminology\nWhen we need to, we can be more specific about access vehicles and access barriers. In the jargon, OA delivered by journals is called\ngold OA\n, and OA delivered by repositories is called\ngreen OA\n. Work that is not open access, or that is available only for a price, is called\ntoll access\n(TA). Over the years I\u2019ve asked publishers for a neutral, nonpejorative and nonhonorific term for toll-access publishers, and\nconventional publishers\nis the suggestion I hear most often. While every kind of OA removes price barriers, there are many different permission barriers we could remove if we wanted to. If we remove price barriers alone, we provide\ngratis OA\n, and if we remove at least some permission barriers as well, we provide\nlibre OA\n. (Also see section 3.1 on green/gold and section 3.3 on gratis/libre.)\nOA was defined in three influential public statements: the Budapest Open Access Initiative (February 2002), the Bethesda Statement on Open Access Publishing (June 2003), and the Berlin Declaration on Open Access to Knowledge in the Sciences and Humanities (October 2003).\n                                      \n                                          I sometimes refer to their overlap or common ground as the BBB definition of OA. My definition here is the BBB definition reduced to its essential elements and refined with some post-BBB terminology (green, gold, gratis, libre) for speaking precisely about subspecies of OA. Here\u2019s how the Budapest statement defined OA:\nThere are many degrees and kinds of wider and easier access to [research] literature. By \u201copen access\u201d to this literature, we mean its free availability on the public internet, permitting any users to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of these articles, crawl them for indexing, pass them as data to software, or use them for any other lawful purpose, without financial, legal, or technical barriers other than those inseparable from gaining access to the internet itself. The only constraint on reproduction and distribution, and the only role for copyright in this domain, should be to give authors control over the integrity of their work and the right to be properly acknowledged and cited.\nHere\u2019s how the Bethesda and Berlin statements put it: For a work to be OA, the copyright holder must consent in advance to let users \u201ccopy, use, distribute, transmit and display the work publicly and to make and distribute derivative works, in any digital medium for any responsible purpose, subject to proper attribution of authorship.\u201d\nNote that all three legs of the BBB definition go beyond removing price barriers to removing permission barriers, or beyond gratis OA to libre OA. But at the same time, all three allow at least one limit on user freedom: an obligation to attribute the work to the author. The purpose of OA is to remove barriers to all legitimate scholarly uses for scholarly literature, but there\u2019s no legitimate scholarly purpose in suppressing attribution to the texts we use. (That\u2019s why my shorthand definition says that OA literature is free of \u201cmost\u201d rather than \u201call\u201d copyright and licensing restrictions.)\nThe basic idea of OA is simple: Make research literature available online without price barriers and without most permission barriers. Even the implementation is simple enough that the volume of peer-reviewed OA literature and the number of institutions providing it have grown at an increasing rate for more than a decade. If there are complexities, they lie in the transition from where we are now to a world in which OA is the default for new research. This is complicated because the major obstacles are not technical, legal, or economic, but cultural. (More in \n                                         chapter 9\n                                          on the future.)\nIn principle, any kind of digital content can be OA, since any digital content can be put online without price or permission barriers. Moreover, any kind of content can be digital: texts, data, images, audio, video, multimedia, and executable code. We can have OA music and movies, news and novels, sitcoms and software\u2014and to different degrees we already do. But the term \u201copen access\u201d was coined by researchers trying to remove access barriers to research. The next section explains why.\n1.1 What Makes OA Possible?\nOA is made possible by the internet and copyright-holder consent. But why would a copyright holder consent to OA?\nTwo background facts suggest the answer. First, authors are the copyright holders for their work until or unless they transfer rights to someone else, such as a publisher.\nSecond, scholarly journals generally don\u2019t pay authors for their research articles, which frees this special tribe of authors to consent to OA without losing revenue. This fact distinguishes scholars decisively from musicians and moviemakers, and even from most other kinds of authors. This is why controversies about OA to music and movies don\u2019t carry over to OA for research articles.\nBoth facts are critical, but the second is nearly unknown outside the academic world. It\u2019s not a new fact of academic life, arising from a recent economic downturn in the publishing industry. Nor is it a case of corporate exploitation of unworldly academics. Scholarly journals haven\u2019t paid authors for their articles since the first scholarly journals, the\nPhilosophical Transactions\nof the Royal Society of London and the\nJournal des s\u00e7avans\n, launched in London and Paris in 1665.\nThe academic custom to write research articles for impact rather than money may be a lucky accident that could have been otherwise. Or it may be a wise adaptation that would eventually evolve in any culture with a serious research subculture. (The optimist in me wants to believe the latter, but the evolution of copyright law taunts that optimism.) This peculiar custom does more than insulate cutting-edge research from the market and free scholars to consent to OA without losing revenue. It also supports academic freedom and the kinds of serious inquiry that advance knowledge. It frees researchers to challenge conventional wisdom and defend unpopular ideas, which are essential to academic freedom. At the same time it frees them to microspecialize and defend ideas of immediate interest to just a handful people in the world, which are essential to pushing the frontiers of knowledge.\nThis custom doesn\u2019t guarantee that truth-seeking won\u2019t be derailed by profit-seeking, and it doesn\u2019t guarantee that we\u2019ll eventually fill the smallest gaps in our collaborative understanding of the world. It doesn\u2019t even guarantee that scholars won\u2019t sometimes play for the crowd and detour into fad thinking. But it removes a major distraction by allowing them, if they wish, to focus on what is likely to be true rather than what is likely to sell. It\u2019s a payment structure we need for good research itself, not just for good access to research, and it\u2019s the key to the legal and economic lock that would otherwise shackle steps toward OA.\nCreative people who live by royalties, such as novelists, musicians, and moviemakers, may consider this scholarly tradition a burden and sacrifice for scholars. We might even agree, provided we don\u2019t overlook a few facts. First, it\u2019s a sacrifice that scholars have been making for nearly 350 years. OA to research articles doesn\u2019t depend on asking royalty-earning authors to give up their royalties. Second, academics have salaries from universities, freeing them to dive deeply into their research topics and publish specialized articles without market appeal. Many musicians and moviemakers might envy that freedom to disregard sales and popular taste. Third, academics receive other, less tangible rewards from their institutions\u2014like promotion and tenure\u2014when their research is recognized by others, accepted, cited, applied, and built upon.\nIt\u2019s no accident that faculty who advance knowledge in their fields also advance their careers. Academics are passionate about certain topics, ideas, questions, inquiries, or disciplines. They feel lucky to have jobs in which they may pursue these passions and even luckier to be rewarded for pursuing them. Some focus single-mindedly on carrying an honest pebble to the pile of knowledge (as John Lange put it), having an impact on their field, or scooping others working on the same questions. Others focus strategically on building the case for promotion and tenure. But the two paths converge, which is not a fortuitous fact of nature but an engineered fact of life in the academy. As incentives for productivity, these intangible career benefits may be stronger for the average researcher than royalties are for the average novelist or musician. (In both domains, bountiful royalties for superstars tell us nothing about effective payment models for the long tail of less stellar professionals.)\nThere\u2019s no sense in which research would be more free, efficient, or effective if academics took a more \u201cbusinesslike\u201d position, behaved more like musicians and moviemakers, abandoned their insulation from the market, and tied their income to the popularity of their ideas. Nonacademics who urge academics to come to their senses and demand royalties even for journal articles may be more naive about nonprofit research than academics are about for-profit business.\nWe can take this a step further. Scholars can afford to ignore sales because they have salaries and research grants to take the place of royalties. But why do universities pay salaries and why do funding agencies award grants? They do it to advance research and the range of public interests served by research. They don\u2019t do it to earn profits from the results. They are all nonprofit. They certainly don\u2019t do it to make scholarly writings into gifts to enrich publishers, especially when conventional publishers erect access barriers at the expense of research. Universities and funding agencies pay researchers to make their research into gifts to the public in the widest sense.\nPublic and private funding agencies are essentially public and private charities, funding research they regard as useful or beneficial. Universities have a public purpose as well, even when they are private institutions. We support the public institutions with public funds, and we support the private ones with tax exemptions for their property and tax deductions for their donors.\nWe\u2019d have less knowledge, less academic freedom, and less OA if researchers worked for royalties and made their research articles into commodities rather than gifts. It should be no surprise, then, that more and more funding agencies and universities are adopting strong OA policies. Their mission to advance research leads them directly to logic of OA: With a few exceptions, such as classified research, research that is worth funding or facilitating is worth sharing with everyone who can make use of it. (See \n                                         chapter 4\n                                          on OA policies.)\nNewcomers to OA often assume that OA helps readers and hurts authors, and that the reader side of the scholarly soul must beg the author side to make the necessary sacrifice. But OA benefits authors as well as readers. Authors want access to readers at least as much as readers want access to authors. All authors want to cultivate a larger audience and greater impact. Authors who work for royalties have reason to compromise and settle for the smaller audience of paying customers. But authors who aren\u2019t paid for their writing have no reason to compromise.\nIt takes nothing away from a disinterested desire to advance knowledge to recognize that scholarly publication is accompanied by a strong interest in impact and career building. The result is a mix of interested and disinterested motives. The reasons to make work OA are essentially the same as the reasons to publish. Authors who make their work OA are always serving others but not always acting from altruism. In fact, the idea that OA depends on author altruism slows down OA progress by hiding the role of author self-interest.\nAnother aspect of author self-interest emerges from the well-documented phenomenon that OA articles are cited more often than non-OA articles, even when they are published in the same issue of the same journal. There\u2019s growing evidence that OA articles are downloaded more often as well, and that journals converting to OA see a rise in their submissions and citation impact.\nThere are many hypotheses to explain the correlation between OA and increased citations, but it\u2019s likely that ongoing studies will show that much of the correlation is simply due to the larger audience and heightened visibility provided by OA itself. When you enlarge the audience for an article, you also enlarge the subset of the audience that will later cite it, including professionals in the same field at institutions unable to afford subscription access. OA enlarges the potential audience, including the potential professional audience, far beyond that for even the most prestigious and popular subscription journals.\nIn any case, these studies bring a welcome note of author self-interest to the case for OA. OA is not a sacrifice for authors who write for impact rather than money. It increases a work\u2019s visibility, retrievability, audience, usage, and citations, which all convert to career building. For publishing scholars, it would be a bargain even if it were costly, difficult, and time-consuming. But as we\u2019ll see, it\u2019s not costly, not difficult, and not time-consuming.\nMy colleague Stevan Harnad frequently compares research articles to advertisements. They advertise the author\u2019s research. Try telling advertisers that they\u2019re making a needless sacrifice by allowing people to read their ads without having to pay for the privilege. Advertisers give away their ads and even pay to place them where they might be seen. They do this to benefit themselves, and scholars have the same interest in sharing their message as widely as possible.\nBecause any content can be digital, and any digital content can be OA, OA needn\u2019t be limited to royalty-free literature like research articles. Research articles are just ripe examples of low-hanging fruit. OA could extend to royalty-producing work like monographs, textbooks, novels, news, music, and movies. But as soon as we cross the line into OA for royalty-producing work, authors will either lose revenue or fear that they will lose revenue. Either way, they\u2019ll be harder to persuade. But instead of concluding that royalty-producing work is off limits to OA, we should merely conclude that it\u2019s higher-hanging fruit. In many cases we can still persuade royalty-earning authors to consent to OA. (See section 5.3 on OA for books.)\nAuthors of scholarly research articles aren\u2019t the only players who work without pay in the production of research literature. In general, scholarly journals don\u2019t pay editors or referees either. In general, editors and referees are paid salaries by universities to free them, like authors, to donate their time and labor to ensure the quality of new work appearing in scholarly journals. An important consequence follows. All the key players in peer review can consent to OA without losing revenue. OA needn\u2019t dispense with peer review or favor unrefereed manuscripts over refereed articles. We can aim for the prize of OA to peer-reviewed scholarship. (See section 5.1 on peer review.)\nOf course, conventional publishers are not as free as authors, editors, and referees to forgo revenue. This is a central fact in the transition to OA, and it explains why the interests of scholars and conventional publishers diverge more in the digital age than they diverged earlier. But not all publishers are conventional, and not all conventional publishers will carry print-era business models into the digital age.\nAcademic publishers are not monolithic. Some new ones were born OA and some older ones have completely converted to OA. Many provide OA to some of their work but not all of it. Some are experimenting with OA, and some are watching the experiments of others. Most allow green OA (through repositories) and a growing number offer at least some kind of gold OA (through journals). Some are supportive, some undecided, some opposed. Among the opposed, some have merely decided not to provide OA themselves, while others lobby actively against policies to encourage or require OA. Some oppose gold but not green OA, while others oppose green but not gold OA.\nOA gains nothing and loses potential allies by blurring these distinctions. This variety reminds us (to paraphrase Tim O\u2019Reilly) that OA doesn\u2019t threaten publishing; it only threatens existing publishers who do not adapt.\nA growing number of journal publishers have chosen business models allowing them to dispense with subscription revenue and offer OA. They have expenses but they also have revenue to cover their expenses. In fact, some OA publishers are for-profit and profitable. (See chapter 7 on economics.)\nMoreover, peer review is done by dedicated volunteers who don\u2019t care how a journal pays its bills, or even whether the journal is in the red or the black. If all peer-reviewed journals converted to OA overnight, the authors, editors, and referees would have the same incentives to participate in peer review that they had the day before. They needn\u2019t stop offering their services, needn\u2019t lower their standards, and needn\u2019t make sacrifices they weren\u2019t already making. They volunteer their time not because of a journal\u2019s choice of business model but because of its contribution to research. They could carry on with solvent or insolvent subscription publishers, with solvent or insolvent OA publishers, or even without publishers.\nThe Budapest Open Access Initiative said in February 2002: \u201cAn old tradition and a new technology have converged to make possible an unprecedented public good. The old tradition is the willingness of scientists and scholars to publish the fruits of their research in scholarly journals without payment. . . . The new technology is the internet.\u201d\n                                         \n                                          To see what this willingness looks like without the medium to give it effect, look at scholarship in the age of print. Author gifts turned into publisher commodities, and access gaps for readers were harmfully large and widespread. (Access gaps are still harmfully large and widespread, but only because OA is not yet the default for new research.) To see what the medium looks like without the willingness, look at music and movies in the age of the internet. The need for royalties keeps creators from reaching everyone who would enjoy their work.\nA beautiful opportunity exists where the willingness and the medium overlap. A scholarly custom that evolved in the seventeenth century frees scholars to take advantage of the access revolution in the twentieth and twenty-first. Because scholars are nearly unique in following this custom, they are nearly unique in their freedom to take advantage of this revolution without financial risk. In this sense, the planets have aligned for scholars. Most other authors are constrained to fear rather than seize the opportunities created by the internet.\n1.2 What OA Is Not\nWe can dispel a cloud of objections and misunderstandings simply by pointing out a few things that OA is not. (Many of these points will be elaborated in later chapters.)\nOA isn\u2019t an attempt to bypass peer review. OA is compatible with every kind of peer review, from the most conservative to the most innovative, and all the major public statements on OA insist on its importance. Because scholarly journals generally don\u2019t pay peer-reviewing editors and referees, just as they don\u2019t pay authors, all the participants in peer review can consent to OA without losing revenue. While OA to unrefereed preprints is useful and widespread, the OA movement isn\u2019t limited to unrefereed preprints and, if anything, focuses on OA to peer-reviewed articles. (More in section 5.1 on peer review.)\nOA isn\u2019t an attempt to reform, violate, or abolish copyright. It\u2019s compatible with copyright law as it is. OA would benefit from the right kinds of copyright reforms, and many dedicated people are working on them. But it needn\u2019t wait for reforms and hasn\u2019t waited. OA literature avoids copyright problems in exactly the same way that conventional toll-access literature does. For older works, it takes advantage of the public domain, and for newer works, it rests on copyright-holder consent. (More in chapter 4 on policies and chapter 6 on copyright.)\nOA isn\u2019t an attempt to deprive royalty-earning authors of income. The OA movement focuses on research articles precisely because they don\u2019t pay royalties. In any case, inside and outside that focus, OA for copyrighted work depends on copyright-holder consent. Hence, royalty-earning authors have nothing to fear but persuasion that the benefits of OA might outweigh the risks to royalties. (More in section 5.3 on OA for books.)\nOA isn\u2019t an attempt to deny the reality of costs. No serious OA advocate has ever argued that OA literature is costless to produce, although many argue that it is less expensive to produce than conventionally published literature, even less expensive than born-digital toll-access literature. The question is not whether research literature can be made costless, but whether there are better ways to pay the bills than charging readers and creating access barriers. (More in chapter 7 on economics.)\nTerminology\nWe could talk about vigilante OA, infringing OA, piratical OA, or OA without consent. That sort of OA could violate copyrights and deprive royalty-earning authors of royalties against their will. But we could also talk about vigilante publishing, infringing publishing, piratical publishing, or publishing without consent. Both happen. However, we generally reserve the term \u201cpublishing\u201d for lawful publishing, and tack on special adjectives to describe unlawful variations on the theme. Likewise, I\u2019ll reserve the term \u201copen access\u201d for lawful OA that carries the consent of the relevant rightsholder.\nOA isn\u2019t an attempt to reduce authors\u2019 rights over their work. On the contrary, OA depends on author decisions and requires authors to exercise more rights or control over their work than they are allowed to exercise under traditional publishing contracts. One OA strategy is for authors to retain some of the rights they formerly gave publishers, including the right to authorize OA. Another OA strategy is for publishers to permit more uses than they formerly permitted, including permission for authors to make OA copies of their work. By contrast, traditional journal-publishing contracts demand that authors transfer all rights to publishers, and author rights or control cannot sink lower than that. (See chapters \n                                                 4\n                                                  on policies and \n                                                 6\n                                                  on copyright.)\nOA isn\u2019t an attempt to reduce academic freedom. Academic authors remain free to submit their work to the journals or publishers of their choice. Policies requiring OA do so conditionally, for example, for researchers who choose to apply for a certain kind of grant. In addition, these policies generally build in exceptions, waiver options, or both. Since 2008 most university OA policies have been adopted by faculty deeply concerned to preserve and even enhance their prerogatives. (See \n                                                 chapter 4\n                                                  on OA policies.)\nOA isn\u2019t an attempt to relax rules against plagiarism. All the public definitions of OA support author attribution, even construed as a \u201crestriction\u201d on users. All the major open licenses require author attribution. Moreover, plagiarism is typically punished by the plagiarist\u2019s institution rather than by courts, that is, by social norms rather than by law. Hence, even when attribution is not legally required, plagiarism is still a punishable offense and no OA policy anywhere interferes with those punishments. In any case, if making literature digital and online makes plagiarism easier to commit, then OA makes plagiarism easier to detect. Not all plagiarists are smart, but the smart ones will not steal from OA sources indexed in every search engine. In this sense, OA deters plagiarism.\nOA isn\u2019t an attempt to punish or undermine conventional publishers. OA is an attempt to advance the interests of research, researchers, and research institutions. The goal is constructive, not destructive. If OA does eventually harm toll-access publishers, it will be in the way that personal computers harmed typewriter manufacturers. The harm was not the goal, but a side effect of developing something better. Moreover, OA doesn\u2019t challenge publishers or publishing per se, just one business model for publishing, and it\u2019s far easier for conventional publishers to adapt to OA than for typewriter manufacturers to adapt to computers. In fact, most toll-access publishers are already adapting, by allowing author-initiated OA, providing some OA themselves, or experimenting with OA. (See section 3.1 on green OA and chapter 8 on casualties.)\nOA doesn\u2019t require boycotting any kind of literature or publisher. It doesn\u2019t require boycotting toll-access research any more than free online journalism requires boycotting priced online journalism. OA doesn\u2019t require us to strike toll-access literature from our personal reading lists, course syllabi, or libraries. Some scholars who support OA decide to submit new work only to OA journals, or to donate their time as editors or referees only to OA journals, in effect boycotting toll-access journals as authors, editors, and referees. But this choice is not forced by the definition of OA, by a commitment to OA, or by any OA policy, and most scholars who support OA continue to work with toll-access journals. In any case, even those scholars who do boycott toll-access journals as authors, editors, or referees don\u2019t boycott them as readers. (Here we needn\u2019t get into the complexity that some toll-access journals effectively create involuntary reader boycotts by pricing their journals out of reach of readers who want access.)\nOA isn\u2019t primarily about bringing access to lay readers. If anything, the OA movement focuses on bringing access to professional researchers whose careers depend on access. But there\u2019s no need to decide which users are primary and which are secondary. The publishing lobby sometimes argues that the primary beneficiaries of OA are lay readers, perhaps to avoid acknowledging how many professional researchers lack access, or perhaps to set up the patronizing counter-argument that lay people don\u2019t care to read research literature and wouldn\u2019t understand it if they tried. OA is about bringing access to everyone with an internet connection who wants access, regardless of their professions or purposes. There\u2019s no doubt that if we put \u201cprofessional researchers\u201d and \u201ceveryone else\u201d into separate categories, a higher percentage of researchers will want access to research literature, even after taking into account that many already have paid access through their institutions. But it\u2019s far from clear why that would matter, especially when providing OA to all internet users is cheaper and simpler than providing OA to just a subset of worthy internet users.\nIf party-goers in New York and New Jersey can both enjoy the Fourth of July fireworks in New York Harbor, then the sponsors needn\u2019t decide that one group is primary, even if a simple study could show which group is more numerous. If this analogy breaks down, it\u2019s because New Jersey residents who can\u2019t see the fireworks gain nothing from New Yorkers who can. But research does offer this double or indirect benefit. When OA research directly benefits many lay readers, so much the better. But when it doesn\u2019t, it still benefits everyone indirectly by benefiting researchers directly. (Also see section 5.5.1 on access for lay readers.)\nFinally, OA isn\u2019t universal access. Even when we succeed at removing price and permission barriers, four other kinds of access barrier might remain in place:\nFiltering and censorship barriers\nMany schools, employers, ISPs, and governments want to limit what users can see.\nLanguage barriers\nMost online literature is in English, or another single language, and machine translation is still very weak.\nHandicap access barriers\nMost web sites are not yet as accessible to handicapped users as they should be.\nConnectivity barriers\nThe digital divide keeps billions of people offline, including millions of scholars, and impedes millions of others with slow, flaky, or low-bandwidth internet connections.\nMost us want to remove all four of these barriers. But there\u2019s no reason to save the term\nopen access\nuntil we succeed. In the long climb to universal access, removing price and permission barriers is a significant plateau worth recognizing with a special name.",
    "99910": "New money: Do local currencies actually work?\nIt's lunchtime at Glasgow Chambers in late November, and Councillor George Redmond is getting worked up at the prospect a Glasgow Pound. \"We would be Glasgow-centric about it,\" he says conspiratorially, as though there is any other way to be. \"Can you imagine having the face of Billy Connolly on our local currency? Or Alex Ferguson, or Kenny Dalglish?\" \n\n Inventing an alternative to sterling might sound far-fetched, even illegal. But it's not that strange. In the UK we think of the pound like fish think about water, which is to say not at all. It might never have occurred to many of us that there are other types of exchange that can stand in for ragged bank notes tucked away in pockets, or other objects that can stand in for those notes.  \n\n Not every country is so lucky. In crisis-hit Greece, where the euro can be hard to come by, businesses and citizens have turned to bartering using a points system where goods like pianos, pot and pans can be exchanged for security services or loaned farming equipment. In India last year, desperate people burned sacks of illegal cash after the government withdrew two high-denomination notes as part of a crackdown on corruption. Hoarders woke up to discover the banknotes under their mattresses were suddenly worthless. \n\n The pound has been trading at its lowest level since 1985 since the UK voted to leave the European Union and there are fears that it could dip further as Brexit ensues. Timebanks, local exchange trading systems (LETS) and digital inventions like bitcoin can provide alternative ways for people to pay for goods and services when mainstream currencies hit crises. But they will only work if Britons are ready to accept that they have the power to invent their own currency. \n\n \"At the moment, if the pound stops working for us, the whole economy grinds to a halt because there aren't alternatives,\" Duncan McCann, a researcher at the New Economics Foundation, tells those gathered in a gilded room at Glasgow Chambers to discuss the Glasgow Pound. McCann is a long-time advocate of alternative means of exchange. He is behind the ScotPound, a proposal for a new national currency for Scotland that emerged after the referendum on Scottish independence. It's an idea he no longer thinks will work, because the debate, since Brexit, has shifted from the currency issue back to ideas about Scottish independence. \n\n Today, he's preaching to the converted. Alex Walker, the chairman of the 250-person Ekopia community in Northern Scotland, listens at the back. The Eko has been the main means of buying everything from beer to bananas in Ekopia since Walker founded it 20 years ago. On an adjacent table, Tracy Duff, a community learning and development worker from Clackmannanshire Council, digs out some papers. She runs the Clacks Youth Timebank, a scheme where 12- to 15-year-olds can earn credit for volunteering. Taking notes up front is Ailie Rutherford, one of the people who organised the meeting. Rutherford runs the People's Bank of Govanhill, a currency that changes value depending on the income of the user. \"I don't see any reason why we shouldn't invent our own currency and play with it,\" she says.\nEveryone has gathered to decide what a Glasgow Pound might look like at a time when many are asking if local currencies can work at all. Councillor Redmond says Glasgow has been closely watching existing alternative currencies like the Brixton Pound in London, which was introduced in 2011. \n\n The founders of the Brixton Pound wanted to do something to stop 80p of every \u00a31 spent locally from leaking out of the area into the pockets of corporations, at the expense of small local traders. So they printed a currency that would have the same value as the pound, but could only be traded in independent Brixton shops, where the shopkeeper would also have to spend it locally. This year the Brixton Pound got its own cashpoint, from where people can withdraw local banknotes bearing colourful images of local heroes, like David Bowie and secret Agent Violette Szabo, to spend in over 150 local shops. It can also be used by residents to pay council tax and by employers to pay wages.\nNo two local currencies are exactly the same. But the Brixton Pound and other recent schemes follow the example ten years ago of the Totnes Pound, a 'complementary currency': that is, one supplementing the national currency. As fears for financial stability took hold during the recession, complementary currencies grew in popularity. The Bank of England does not consider these forms of currency legal tender, but the notes hold value in the same way as a gift-card from a department store, with the same kind of restrictions about where they can be spent. Proponents say complementary currencies boost spending in smaller geographical areas, which can have environmental benefits as businesses cut transport distances to deal with local suppliers. Detractors say they have no real economic impact and work only as a game for the middle classes, who can afford to buy from independent shops rather than chains. \n\n In Britain, there are now schemes in Totnes, Lewes, Brixton, Bristol and Exeter. Hull has its own local digital currency that can be earned from volunteering and used to pay council tax. Kingston, Birmingham and Liverpool have schemes underway. Glasgow could be next. But the working group has some serious questions to answer first, not least: do complementary currencies actually work?\n\"People don't understand money,\" Molly Scott Cato, Green MEP for the South West of England and Gibraltar, says over the phone. \n\n Scott Cato says the fish-in-water problem \u2013 the idea that sterling is so ubiquitous, it is never questioned \u2013 is the biggest challenge for complementary currencies. She knows all about it as a founder of the Stroud Pound in 2010, a currency that has since gone out of circulation. \n\n \"[People] think they put money into a bank and someone else takes it out. What they don't understand is that banks have the power to create money. We've given the power to create money to private corporations and people don't understand that we can have it back,\" she says. \n\n In Stroud, suspicion of the local currency among local businesses became a barrier to success. Scott-Cato said traders refused to join the scheme because they were \"running a business\", as though putting the community first and placing the needs of others as equivalent to their own was in itself bad business practice, or as though they were somehow being disloyal to sterling. \n\n The Bristol Pound (\u00a3B) entered into circulation in September 2012. By June 2015, 1m \u00a3B had been issued, with \u00a3B700,000 of that still in circulation. In a population of some 450,000 people, that's the equivalent of each Bristolian carrying less than \u00a3B2 in change in their pocket. \n\n \"The small scale is a problem and a strength,\" says Stephen Clarke, chief financial officer of the Bristol Pound. \"The benefit comes from the fact that local currencies are trusted organisations: we're a Community Interest Company limited by guarantee.\" That means assets owned by the the Bristol Pound have to be used for the good of the community, rather than purely for profit.\nWithout enough currency in circulation, it ceases to work. Scott-Cato says Stroud's size meant meant the Stroud Pound was never viable: \"We couldn't get the velocity of circulation right, which contrasts with the Bristol Pound.\"\nClarke also says the small scale of local currencies means they are \"always scrabbling around looking for money\". One way founders of the Bristol Pound have addressed his is by setting up an umbrella organisation, the Guild of Independent Currencies, to share information between local currencies in the UK and help new organisations. \"At the moment we're all reinventing the wheel every time,\" Clarke says. \n\n Technology might also have a solution. Peter Ferry, a commercial director, travels to Glasgow to tell those working on the Glasgow Pound that that his company Wallet has come up with a way to use the blockchain, the technology behind bitcoin, to make it easier for people to use multiple types of currency. \"There might be many currencies around the country that people want to use. We need to make it simple for them to do that and also to make it simple to earn these currencies in many ways,\" he says. \n\n Size doesn't always matter. Sometimes, the smallest places \u2013 like Totnes and the Ekopia community \u2013 are best able to support complementary currencies because the people who live there are engaged with their local economy in a meaningful way. \n\n \"Bristol is seen as a quirky, individualistic kind of place,\" Clarke says. \"When we first produced the Bristol Pound note, people were really proud of it. It got through to people not just sat around coffee shops. I'm not sure a London Pound would work, because people identify with their local area in London rather than the city as a whole.\"\nBristol Pound users don't have high incomes necessarily, but surveys show they are engaged with their local community and they have a higher educational attainment than average. In the years since the financial crisis, as local authority budgets have shrunk, some areas have relied heavily on engaged communities to fill in gaps in public services. By contrast, deprived areas where people cannot afford time and money to put into their community have become more deprived, making them even harder for local currencies to reach.\n\"It is difficult to get into more disadvantaged areas,\" Stephen Clarke says. \"We have a ten-year life expectancy gap between different parts of the city. When you go to disadvantaged areas with the Bristol Pound hat on you realise there aren't independent shops there, there's an Aldi and Lidl and that's it.\" \n\n More than a third of children grow up in poverty in Glasgow. A Glasgow Pound might struggle to get poorer families to buy into a local currency that ties them to shopping at more expensive, independent shops, rather than getting deals at big supermarket chains.\nWhen Scott-Cato and her colleagues wrote about the experience of setting up the Stroud Pound, they said it was telling that complementary currencies have been accused of being a game for middle-class people, rather than a genuine economic solution. \n\n Perhaps for that reason, experts like Duncan McCann have stopped thinking of complementary currencies as a one-size-fits-all solution. He said they can function as a kind of 'gateway drug' to introduce people to a new way of thinking about money. \"That is especially for those who use it, but also for those who just become aware of it,\" he says. \n\n Ciaran Mundy, CEO of the Bristol Pound, says it is important to think of the systemic impact rather than looking for targeted treatment of symptoms of economic deprivation. \"Poverty has many causes,\" he says. \"One of these is how the economy is structured in terms of how money flows out of poor areas due to high dependence on larger national and international companies paying lower wages and using offshore accounts to hide the money from the tax man.\" \n\n Nothing is tying Glasgow to existing models for complementary currencies. But during the first meeting about setting up the Glasgow Pound, the workshop shows just how hard it would be to invent a new system that works for everyone.  \n\n Each table is handed a wad of Post-it notes and a piece of white paper. A table leader asks everyone to write on the Post-its what they want the Glasgow Pound to achieve. Elbowing teacups out the way, people get to work. They scrawl a dizzying number of proposals, from keeping more wealth in the local area to empowering people who feel cut out of the national economy, or to moving towards land reform and saving the environment. Team leaders try to assemble these ideas in themes to report back to the room. \n\n On one table, Duncan McCann encourages people to urge businesses to do things they have never done before. \"One of the goals should be to move businesses from where they are today into the future,\" he says. \n\n After years of researc,h McCann believes the only way complementary currencies can create real value for local economies is if they make transactions happen that wouldn't otherwise have taken place. \n\n \"They need to create additional spending power. This is this what the local currencies, despite all their good points, fail to do,\" McCann says.\nEvery time a Brixton Pound transaction is made, 1.5 per cent goes into a Brixton Fund. This is used to give micro-grants of between a few hundred and \u00a32000 to local projects and community groups. \"We aim to target projects that aren't large enough to apply for more formal grant funding,\" says Lucy \u00c7ava, project manager at the Brixton Pound. \n\n \"We see this as part of community building \u2013 linking the Brixton Pound user with community groups, so both groups become more visible to each other through the currency and fund. This is particularly important in Brixton because of the gentrification debates which are very salient round there,\" \u00c7ava says. \n\n Meanwhile, the people behind the Bristol Pound are readying a mutual credit network called Bristol Prospects. Through this network, businesses in Bristol can exchange credit in the form of loans that are neutralised within the network, helping one another to grow without relying on the high rates of commercial lenders.  \n\n Once operational, loans offered through the Prospects network will have negative interest, so that businesses are encouraged to pass credit on as quickly as possible. \"That's the plan,\" says Clarke, \"because it's rather like a hot potato: people will want to pass it on.\"  \n\n \"We know from research that a number of small businesses in Bristol are struggling to get money on reasonable terms,\" says Clarke, \"and that banks are not interested in smaller loans to businesses. So we think there is a strength in the Bristol Pound network to start something like this that is linked, but separate.\" \n\n Duncan McCann, with all his experience, knows that challenge is worthwhile. \"As people we have a right to make credit and loan money. We mustn't forget that. We mustn't leave that to corporations and the state,\" he says.\nThis article is part of a series on local economies Hazel is documenting at farnearer.org, with funding from the Friends Provident Foundation\nIllustration by PureSolution/Shutterstock\nThis article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.",
    "31357": "Transcriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from Space Science Fiction May 1952. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.\nTHE ULTROOM ERROR\nby\nJERRY SOHL\nSmith admitted he had made an error involving a few\n murders\u2014and a few thousand years. He was entitled to a\n sense of humor, though, even in the Ultroom!\nHB73782. Ultroom error. Tendal 13. Arvid 6. Kanad transfer\n out of 1609 complete, intact, but too near limit of 1,000\n days. Next Kanad transfer ready. 1951. Reginald, son of Mr.\n and Mrs. Martin Laughton, 3495 Orland Drive, Marionville,\n Illinois, U. S. A. Arrive his 378th day. TB73782.\nNancy Laughton sat on the blanket she had spread on the lawn in her\n front yard, knitting a pair of booties for the PTA bazaar.\n Occasionally she glanced at her son in the play pen, who was getting\n his daily dose of sunshine. He was gurgling happily, examining a ball,\n a cheese grater and a linen baby book, all with perfunctory interest.\n\n\n When she looked up again she noticed a man walking by\u2014except he\n turned up the walk and crossed the lawn to her.\n\n\n He was a little taller than her husband, had piercing blue eyes and a\n rather amused set to his lips.\n\n\n \"Hello, Nancy,\" he said.\n\n\n \"Hello, Joe,\" she answered. It was her brother who lived in Kankakee.\n\n\n \"I'm going to take the baby for a while,\" he said.\n\n\n \"All right, Joe.\"\n\n\n He reached into the pen, picked up the baby. As he did so the baby's\n knees hit the side of the play pen and young Laughton let out a\n scream\u2014half from hurt and half from sudden lack of confidence in his\n new handler. But this did not deter Joe. He started off with the\n child.\n\n\n Around the corner and after the man came a snarling mongrel dog, eyes\n bright, teeth glinting in the sunlight. The man did not turn as the\n dog threw himself at him, burying his teeth in his leg. Surprised, the\n man dropped the screaming child on the lawn and turned to the dog. Joe\n seemed off balance and he backed up confusedly in the face of the\n snapping jaws. Then he suddenly turned and walked away, the dog at his\n heels.\n\n\n \"I tell you, the man said he was my brother and he made me think he\n was,\" Nancy told her husband for the tenth time. \"I don't even have a\n brother.\"\n\n\n Martin Laughton sighed. \"I can't understand why you believed him. It's\n just\u2014just plain nuts, Nancy!\"\n\n\n \"Don't you think I know it?\" Nancy said tearfully. \"I feel like I'm\n going crazy. I can't say I dreamt it because there was Reggie with his\n bleeding knees, squalling for all he was worth on the grass\u2014Oh, I\n don't even want to think about it.\"\n\n\n \"We haven't lost Reggie, Nancy, remember that. Now why don't you try\n to get some rest?\"\n\n\n \"You\u2014you don't believe me at all, do you, Martin?\"\n\n\n When her husband did not answer, her head sank to her arms on the\n table and she sobbed.\n\n\n \"Nancy, for heaven's sake, of course I believe you. I'm trying to\n think it out, that's all. We should have called the police.\"\n\n\n Nancy shook her head in her arms. \"They'd\u2014never\u2014believe me either,\"\n she moaned.\n\n\n \"I'd better go and make sure Reggie's all right.\" Martin got up out of\n his chair and went to the stairs.\n\n\n \"I'm going with you,\" Nancy said, hurriedly rising and coming over to\n him.\n\n\n \"We'll go up and look at him together.\"\n\n\n They found Reggie peacefully asleep in his crib in his room upstairs.\n They checked the windows and tucked in the blankets. They paused in\n the room for a moment and then Martin stole his arm around his wife\n and led her to the door.\n\n\n \"As I've said, sergeant, this fellow hypnotized my wife. He made her\n think he was her brother. She doesn't even have a brother. Then he\n tried to get away with the baby.\" Martin leaned down and patted the\n dog. \"It was Tiger here who scared him off.\"\n\n\n The police sergeant looked at the father, at Nancy and then at the\n dog. He scribbled notes in his book.\n\n\n \"Are you a rich man, Mr. Laughton?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"Not at all. The bank still owns most of the house. I have a few\n hundred dollars, that's all.\"\n\n\n \"What do you do?\"\n\n\n \"Office work, mostly. I'm a junior executive in an insurance company.\"\n\n\n \"Any enemies?\"\n\n\n \"No ... Oh, I suppose I have a few people I don't get along with, like\n anybody else. Nobody who'd do anything like this, though.\"\n\n\n The sergeant flipped his notebook closed. \"You'd better keep your dog\n inside and around the kid as much as possible. Keep your doors and\n windows locked. I'll see that the prowl car keeps an eye on the house.\n Call us if anything seems unusual or out of the way.\"\n\n\n Nancy had taken a sedative and was asleep by the time Martin finished\n cleaning the .30-.30 rifle he used for deer hunting. He put it by the\n stairs, ready for use, fully loaded, leaning it against the wall next\n to the telephone stand.\nThe front door bell rang. He answered it. It was Dr. Stuart and\n another man.\n\n\n \"I came as soon as I could, Martin,\" the young doctor said, stepping\n inside with the other man. \"This is my new assistant, Dr. Tompkins.\"\n\n\n Martin and Tompkins shook hands.\n\n\n \"The baby\u2014?\" Dr. Stuart asked.\n\n\n \"Upstairs,\" Martin said.\n\n\n \"You'd better get him, Dr. Tompkins, if we're to take him to the\n hospital. I'll stay here with Mr. Laughton. How've you been, Martin?\"\n\n\n \"Fine.\"\n\n\n \"How's everything at the office?\"\n\n\n \"Fine.\"\n\n\n \"And your wife?\"\n\n\n \"She's fine, too.\"\n\n\n \"Glad to hear it, Martin. Mighty glad. Say, by the way, there's that\n bill you owe me. I think it's $32, isn't that right?\"\n\n\n \"Yes, I'd almost forgotten about it.\"\n\n\n \"Why don't you be a good fellow and write a check for it? It's been\n over a year, you know.\"\n\n\n \"That's right. I'll get right at it.\" Martin went over to his desk,\n opened it and started looking for his checkbook. Dr. Stuart stood by\n him, making idle comment until Dr. Tompkins came down the stairs with\n the sleeping baby cuddled against his shoulder.\n\n\n \"Never mind the check, now, Martin. I see we're ready to go.\" He went\n over to his assistant and took the baby. Together they walked out the\n front door.\n\n\n \"Good-bye,\" Martin said, going to the door.\n\n\n Then he was nearly bowled over by the discharge of the .30-.30. Dr.\n Stuart crumpled to the ground, the baby falling to the lawn. Dr.\n Tompkins whirled and there was a second shot. Dr. Tompkins pitched\n forward on his face.\n\n\n The figure of a woman ran from the house, retrieved the now squalling\n infant and ran back into the house. Once inside, Nancy slammed the\n door, gave the baby to the stunned Martin and headed for the\n telephone.\n\n\n \"One of them was the same man!\" she cried.\n\n\n Martin gasped, sinking into a chair with the baby. \"I believed them,\"\n he said slowly and uncomprehendingly. \"They made me believe them!\"\n\n\n \"Those bodies,\" the sergeant said. \"Would you mind pointing them out\n to me, please?\"\n\n\n \"Aren't they\u2014aren't they on the walk?\" Mrs. Laughton asked.\n\n\n \"There is nothing on the walk, Mrs. Laughton.\"\n\n\n \"But there\nmust\nbe! I tell you I shot these men who posed as\n doctors. One of them was the same man who tried to take the baby this\n afternoon. They hypnotized my husband\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Yes, I know, Mrs. Laughton. We've been through that.\" The sergeant\n went to the door and opened it. \"Say, Homer, take another look around\n the walk and the bushes. There's supposed to be two of them. Shot with\n a .30-.30.\"\n\n\n He turned and picked up the gun and examined it again. \"Ever shoot a\n gun before, Mrs. Laughton?\"\n\n\n \"Many times. Martin and I used to go hunting together before we had\n Reggie.\"\n\n\n The sergeant nodded. \"You were taking an awful chance, shooting at a\n guy carrying your baby, don't you think?\"\n\n\n \"I shot him in the legs. The other\u2014the other turned and I shot him in\n the chest. I could even see his eyes when he turned around. If I\n hadn't pulled the trigger then ... I don't want to remember it.\"\n\n\n The patrolman pushed the door open. \"There's no bodies out here but\n there's some blood. Quite a lot of blood. A little to one side of the\n walk.\"\n\n\n The policemen went out.\n\n\n \"Thank God you woke up, Nancy,\" Martin said. \"I'd have let them have\n the baby.\" He reached over and smoothed the sleeping Reggie's hair.\n\n\n Nancy, who was rocking the boy, narrowed her eyes.\n\n\n \"I wonder why they want our baby? He's just like any other baby. We\n don't have any money. We couldn't pay a ransom.\"\n\n\n \"Reggie's pretty cute, though,\" Martin said. \"You will have to admit\n that.\"\n\n\n Nancy smiled. Then she suddenly stopped rocking.\n\n\n \"Martin!\"\n\n\n He sat up quickly.\n\n\n \"Where's Tiger?\"\n\n\n Together they rose and walked around the room. They found him in a\n corner, eyes open, tongue protruding. He was dead.\nIf we keep Reggie in the house much longer he'll turn out to be a\n hermit,\" Martin said at breakfast a month later. \"He needs fresh air\n and sunshine.\"\n\n\n \"I'm not going to sit on the lawn alone with him, Martin. I just\n can't, that's all. I'd be able to think of nothing but that day.\"\n\n\n \"Still thinking about it? I think we'd have heard from them again if\n they were coming back. They probably got somebody else's baby by this\n time.\" Martin finished his coffee and rose to kiss her good-bye. \"But\n for safety's sake I guess you'd better keep that gun handy.\"\n\n\n The morning turned into a brilliant, sunshiny day. Puffs of clouds\n moved slowly across the summer sky and a warm breeze rustled the\n trees. It would be a crime to keep Reggie inside on a day like this,\n Nancy thought.\n\n\n So she called Mrs. MacDougal, the next door neighbor. Mrs. MacDougal\n was familiar with what had happened to the Laughtons and she agreed to\n keep an eye on Nancy and Reggie and to call the police at the first\n sign of trouble.\n\n\n With a fearful but determined heart Nancy moved the play pen and set\n it up in the front yard. She spread a blanket for herself and put\n Reggie in the pen. Her heart pounded all the while and she watched the\n street for any strangers, ready to flee inside if need be. Reggie just\n gurgled with delight at the change in environment.\nThis peaceful scene was disturbed by a speeding car in which two men\n were riding. The car roared up the street, swerved toward the parkway,\n tires screaming, bounced over the curb and sidewalk, straight toward\n the child and mother. Reggie, attracted by the sudden noise, looked up\n to see the approaching vehicle. His mother stood up, set her palms\n against her cheeks and shrieked.\n\n\n The car came on, crunched over the play pen, killing the child. The\n mother was hit and instantly killed, force of the blow snapping her\n spine and tossing her against the house. The car plunged on into a\n tree, hitting it a terrible blow, crumbling the car's forward end so\n it looked like an accordion. The men were thrown from the machine.\n\n\n \"We'll never be able to prosecute in this case,\" the states attorney\n said. \"At least not on a drunken driving basis.\"\n\n\n \"I can't get over it,\" the chief of police said. \"I've got at least\n six men who will swear the man was drunk. He staggered, reeled and\n gave the usual drunk talk. He reeked of whiskey.\"\n\n\n The prosecutor handed the report over the desk. \"Here's the analysis.\n Not a trace of alcohol. He couldn't have even had a smell of near\n beer. Here's another report. This is his physical exam made not long\n afterwards. The man was in perfect health. Only variations are he had\n a scar on his leg where something, probably a dog, bit him once. And\n then a scar on his chest. It looked like an old gunshot wound, they\n said. Must have happened years ago.\"\n\n\n \"That's odd. The man who accosted Mrs. Laughton in the afternoon was\n bitten by their dog. Later that night she said she shot the same man\n in the chest. Since the scars are healed it obviously couldn't be the\n same man. But there's a real coincidence for you. And speaking of the\n dogbite, the Laughton dog died that night. His menu evidently didn't\n agree with him. Never did figure what killed him, actually.\"\n\n\n \"Any record of treatment on the man she shot?\"\n\n\n \"The\nmen\n. You'll remember, there were two. No, we never found a\n trace of either. No doctor ever made a report of a gunshot wound that\n night. No hospital had a case either\u2014at least not within several\n hundred miles\u2014that night or several nights afterwards. Ever been shot\n with .30-.30?\"\n\n\n The state attorney shook his head. \"I wouldn't be here if I had.\"\n\n\n \"I'll say you wouldn't. The pair must have crawled away to die God\n knows where.\"\n\n\n \"Getting back to the man who ran over the child and killed Mrs.\n Laughton. Why did he pretend to be drunk?\"\n\n\n It was the chief's turn to shake his head. \"Your guess is as good as\n mine. There are a lot of angles to this case none of us understand. It\n looks deliberate, but where's the motive?\"\n\n\n \"What does the man have to say?\"\n\n\n \"I was afraid you'd get to him,\" the chief said, his neck reddening.\n \"It's all been rather embarrassing to the department.\" He coughed\n self-consciously. \"He's proved a strange one, all right. He says his\n name is John Smith and he's got cards to prove it, too\u2014for example, a\n social security card. It looks authentic, yet there's no such number\n on file in Washington, so we've discovered. We've had him in jail for\n a week and we've all taken turns questioning him. He laughs and admits\n his guilt\u2014in fact, he seems amused by most everything. Sometimes all\n alone in his cell he'll start laughing for no apparent reason. It\n gives you the creeps.\"\nThe states attorney leaned back in his chair. \"Maybe it's a case for\n an alienist.\"\n\n\n \"One jump ahead of you. Dr. Stone thinks he's normal, but won't put\n down any I.Q. Actually, he can't figure him out himself. Smith seems\n to take delight in answering questions\u2014sort of anticipates them and\n has the answer ready before you're half through asking.\"\n\n\n \"Well, if Dr. Stone says he's normal, that's enough for me.\" The\n prosecutor was silent for a moment. Then, \"How about the husband?\"\n\n\n \"Laughton? We're afraid to let him see him. All broken up. No telling\n what kind of a rumpus he'd start\u2014especially if Smith started his\n funny business.\"\n\n\n \"Guess you're right. Well, Mr. Smith won't think it's so funny when we\n hang criminal negligence or manslaughter on him. By the way, you've\n checked possible family connections?\"\n\n\n \"Nobody ever saw John Smith before. Even at the address on his\n driver's license. And there's no duplicate of that in Springfield, in\n case you're interested.\"\n\n\n The man who had laughingly told police his name was John Smith lay on\n his cot in the county jail, his eyes closed, his arms folded across\n his chest. This gave him the appearance of being alert despite\n reclining. Even as he lay, his mouth held a hint of a smile.\n\n\n Arvid 6\u2014for John Smith\nwas\nArvid 6\u2014had lain in that position for\n more than four hours, when suddenly he snapped his eyes open and\n appeared to be listening. For a moment a look of concern crossed his\n face and he swung his legs to the floor and sat there expectantly.\n Arvid 6 knew Tendal 13 had materialized and was somewhere in the\n building.\n\n\n Eventually there were some sounds from beyond the steel cell and\n doorway. There was a clang when the outer doorway was opened and Arvid\n 6 rose from his cot.\n\n\n \"Your lawyer's here to see you,\" the jailer said, indicating the man\n with the brief case. \"Ring the buzzer when you're through.\" The jailer\n let the man in, locked the cell door and walked away.\n\n\n The man threw the brief case on the jail cot and stood glaring.\n\n\n \"Your damned foolishness has gone far enough. I'm sick and tired of\n it,\" he declared. \"If you carry on any more we'll never get back to\n the Ultroom!\"\n\n\n \"I'm sorry, Tendal,\" the man on the cot said. \"I didn't think\u2014\"\n\n\n \"You're absolutely right. You didn't think. Crashing that car into\n that tree and killing that woman\u2014that was the last straw. You don't\n even deserve to get back to our era. You ought to be made to rot\n here.\"\n\n\n \"I'm\nreally\nsorry about that,\" Arvid 6 said.\nYou know the instructions. Just because you work in the Ultroom don't\n get to thinking human life doesn't have any value. We wouldn't be here\n if it hadn't. But to unnecessarily kill\u2014\" The older man shook his\n head. \"You could have killed yourself as well and we'd never get the\n job done. As it is, you almost totally obliterated me.\" Tendal 13\n paced the length of the cell and back again, gesturing as he talked.\n\n\n \"It was only with the greatest effort I pulled myself back together\n again. I doubt that you could have done it. And then all the while\n you've been sitting here, probably enjoying yourself with your special\n brand of humor I have grown to despise.\"\n\n\n \"You didn't have to come along at all, you know,\" Arvid 6 said.\n\n\n \"How well I know! How sorry I am that I ever did! It was only because\n I was sorry for you, because someone older and more experienced than\n you was needed. I volunteered. Imagine that! I volunteered! Tendal 13\n reaches the height of stupidity and volunteers to help Arvid 6 go back\n 6,000 years to bring Kanad back, to correct a mistake Arvid 6 made!\"\n He snorted. \"I still can't believe I was ever that stupid. I only\n prove it when I pinch myself and here I am.\n\n\n \"Oh, you've been a joy to be with! First it was that hunt in ancient\n Mycenae when you let the lion escape the hunters' quaint spears and we\n were partly eaten by the lion in the bargain, although you dazzled the\n hunters, deflecting their spears. And then your zest for drink when we\n were with Octavian in Alexandria that led to everybody's amusement but\n ours when we were ambushed by Anthony's men. And worst of all, that\n English barmaid you became engrossed with at our last stop in 1609,\n when her husband mistook me for you and you let him take me apart\n piece by piece\u2014\"\n\n\n \"All right, all right,\" Arvid 6 said. \"I'll admit I've made some\n mistakes. You're just not adventurous, that's all.\"\n\n\n \"Shut up! For once you're going to listen to me. Our instructions\n specifically stated we were to have as little as possible to do with\n these people. But at every turn you've got us more and more enmeshed\n with them. If that's adventure, you can have it.\" Tendal 13 sat down\n wearily and sank his head in his hands. \"It was you who conceived the\n idea of taking Reggie right out of his play pen. 'Watch me take that\n child right out from under its mother's nose' were your exact words.\n And before I could stop you, you did. Only you forgot an important\n factor in the equation\u2014the dog, Tiger. And you nursed a dogbite most\n of the afternoon before it healed. And then you took your spite out on\n the poor thing by suggesting suffocation to it that night.\n\n\n \"And speaking of that night, you remember we agreed I was to do the\n talking. But no, you pulled a switch and captured Martin Laughton's\n attention. 'I came as soon as I could, Martin,' you said. And suddenly\n I played a very minor role. 'This is my new assistant, Dr. Tompkins,'\n you said. And then what happened? I get shot in the legs and you get a\n hole in your back. We were both nearly obliterated that time and we\n didn't even come close to getting the child.\n\n\n \"Still you wanted to run the whole show. 'I'm younger than you,' you\n said. 'I'll take the wheel.' And the next thing I know I'm floating in\n space halfway to nowhere with two broken legs, a spinal injury,\n concussion and some of the finest bruises you ever saw.\"\nThese twentieth century machines aren't what they ought to be,\" Arvid\n 6 said.\n\n\n \"You never run out of excuses, do you, Arvid? Remember what you said\n in the Ultroom when you pushed the lever clear over and transferred\n Kanad back 6,000 years? 'My hand slipped.' As simple as that. 'My hand\n slipped.' It was so simple everyone believed you. You were given no\n real punishment. In a way it was a reward\u2014at least to you\u2014getting to\n go back and rescue the life germ of Kanad out of each era he'd be born\n in.\"\n\n\n Tendal 13 turned and looked steadily and directly at Arvid 6. \"Do you\n know what I think? I think you deliberately pushed the lever over as\n far as it would go\njust to see what would happen\n. That's how simple\n I think it was.\"\n\n\n Arvid 6 flushed, turned away and looked at the floor.\n\n\n \"What crazy things have you been doing since I've been gone?\" Tendal\n 13 asked.\n\n\n Arvid 6 sighed. \"After what you just said I guess it wouldn't amuse\n you, although it has me. They got to me right after the accident\n before I had a chance to collect my wits, dematerialize or\n anything\u2014you said we shouldn't dematerialize in front of anybody.\"\n\n\n \"That's right.\"\n\n\n \"Well, I didn't know what to do. I could see they thought I was drunk,\n so I was. But they had a blood sample before I could manufacture any\n alcohol in my blood, although I implanted a memory in them that I\n reeked of it.\" He laughed. \"I fancy they're thoroughly confused.\"\n\n\n \"And you're thoroughly amused, no doubt. Have they questioned you?\"\n\n\n \"At great length. They had a psychiatrist in to see me. He was a queer\n fellow with the most stupid set of questions and tests I ever saw.\"\n\n\n \"And you amused yourself with him.\"\n\n\n \"I suppose you'd think so.\"\n\n\n \"Who do you tell them you are?\"\n\n\n \"John Smith. A rather prevalent name here, I understand. I\n manufactured a pasteboard called a social security card and a driver's\n license\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Never mind. It's easy to see you've been your own inimitable self.\n Believe me, if I ever get back to the Ultroom I hope I never see you\n again. And I hope I'll never leave there again though I'm rejuvenated\n through a million years.\"\n\n\n \"Was Kanad's life germ transferred all right this time?\"\n\n\n Tendal 13 shook his head. \"I haven't heard. The transfers are getting\n more difficult all the time. In 1609, you'll remember, it was a case\n of pneumonia for the two-year-old. A simple procedure. It wouldn't\n work here. Medicine's too far along.\" He produced a notebook. \"The\n last jump was 342 years, a little more than average. The next ought to\n be around 2250. Things will be more difficult than ever there,\n probably.\"\n\n\n \"Do you think Kanad will be angry about all this?\"\n\n\n \"How would you like to have to go through all those birth processes,\n to have your life germ knocked from one era to the next?\"\n\n\n \"Frankly, I didn't think he'd go back so far.\"\n\n\n \"If it had been anybody but Kanad nobody'd ever have thought of going\n back after it. The life germ of the head of the whole galactic system\n who came to the Ultroom to be transplanted to a younger body\u2014and then\n sending him back beyond his original birth date\u2014\" Tendal 13 got up\n and commenced his pacing again. \"Oh, I suppose Kanad's partly to\n blame, wanting rejuvenating at only 300 years. Some have waited a\n thousand or more or until their bones are like paper.\"\n\n\n \"I just wonder how angry Kanad will be,\" Arvid muttered.\nHB92167. Ultroom Error. Tendal 13. Arvid 6. Kanad transfer\n out of 1951 complete. Next Kanad transfer ready. 2267.\n Phullam 19, son of Orla 39 and Rhoda R, 22H Level M,\n Hemisphere B, Quadrant 3, Sector I. Arrive his 329th Day.\nTB92167\nArvid 6 rose from the cot and the two men faced each other.\n\n\n \"Before we leave, Arvid,\" Tendal 13 started to say.\n\n\n \"I know, I know. You want me to let you handle everything.\"\n\n\n \"Exactly. Is that too much to ask after all you've done?\"\n\n\n \"I guess I have made mistakes. From now on you be the boss. I'll do\n whatever you say.\"\n\n\n \"I hope I can count on that.\" Tendal 13 rang the jail buzzer.\n\n\n The jailer unlocked the cell door.\n\n\n \"You remember the chief said it's all right to take him with me,\n Matthews,\" Tendal 13 told the jailer.\n\n\n \"Yes, I remember,\" the jailer said mechanically, letting them both out\n of the cell.\n\n\n They walked together down the jail corridor. When they came to another\n barred door the jailer fumbled with the keys and clumsily tried\n several with no luck.\n\n\n Arvid 6, an amused set to his mouth and devilment in his eyes, watched\n the jailer's expression as he walked through the bars of the door. He\n laughed as he saw the jailer's eyes bulge.\n\n\n \"Arvid!\"\n\n\n Tendal 13 walked briskly through the door, snatched Arvid 6 by the\n shoulders and shook him.\n\n\n The jailer watched stupified as the two men vanished in the middle of\n a violent argument.",
    "24275": "Letter\n\n of\n\n the\n\n Law\nby Alan E. Nourse\nThe\n place was dark and damp, and smelled like moldy leaves.\n Meyerhoff followed the huge, bear-like Altairian guard\n down the slippery flagstones of the corridor, sniffing the\n dead, musty air with distaste. He drew his carefully tailored\n Terran-styled jacket closer about his shoulders, shivering as his\n eyes avoided the black, yawning cell-holes they were passing.\n His foot slipped on the slimy flags from time to time, and\n finally he paused to wipe the caked mud from his trouser leg.\n \"How much farther is it?\" he shouted angrily.\n\n\n The guard waved a heavy paw vaguely into the blackness\n ahead. Quite suddenly the corridor took a sharp bend, and the\n Altairian stopped, producing a huge key ring from some obscure\n fold of his hairy hide. \"I still don't see any reason for\n all the fuss,\" he grumbled in a wounded tone. \"We've treated\n him like a brother.\"\n\n\n One of the huge steel doors clicked open. Meyerhoff peered\n into the blackness, catching a vaguely human outline against\n the back wall. \"Harry?\" he called sharply.\n\n\n There was a startled gasp from within, and a skinny, gnarled\n little man suddenly appeared in the guard's light, like a grotesque,\n twisted ghost out of the blackness. Wide blue eyes\n regarded Meyerhoff from beneath uneven black eyebrows, and\n then the little man's face broke into a crafty grin. \"Paul! So\n they sent\nyou\n! I knew I could count on it!\" He executed a\n deep, awkward bow, motioning Meyerhoff into the dark\n cubicle. \"Not much to offer you,\" he said slyly, \"but it's the\n best I can do under the circumstances.\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff scowled, and turned abruptly to the guard. \"We'll\n have some privacy now, if you please. Interplanetary ruling.\n And leave us the light.\"\n\n\n The guard grumbled, and started for the door. \"It's about\n time you showed up!\" cried the little man in the cell. \"Great\n day! Lucky they sent you, pal. Why, I've been in here for\n years\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Look, Zeckler, the name is Meyerhoff, and I'm not your\n pal,\" Meyerhoff snapped. \"And you've been here for two\n weeks, three days, and approximately four hours. You're getting\n as bad as your gentle guards when it comes to bandying\n the truth around.\" He peered through the dim light at the\n gaunt face of the prisoner. Zeckler's face was dark with a\n week's beard, and his bloodshot eyes belied the cocky grin\n on his lips. His clothes were smeared and sodden, streaked\n with great splotches of mud and moss. Meyerhoff's face softened\n a little. \"So Harry Zeckler's in a jam again,\" he said.\n \"You\nlook\nas if they'd treated you like a brother.\"\n\n\n The little man snorted. \"These overgrown teddy-bears don't\n know what brotherhood means, nor humanity, either. Bread\n and water I've been getting, nothing more, and then only if they\n feel like bringing it down.\" He sank wearily down on the rock\n bench along the wall. \"I thought you'd never get here! I sent\n an appeal to the Terran Consulate the first day I was arrested.\n What happened? I mean, all they had to do was get a man\n over here, get the extradition papers signed, and provide transportation\n off the planet for me. Why so much time? I've been\n sitting here rotting\u2014\" He broke off in mid-sentence and stared\n at Meyerhoff. \"You\nbrought\nthe papers, didn't you? I mean,\n we can leave now?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff stared at the little man with a mixture of pity and\n disgust. \"You are a prize fool,\" he said finally. \"Did you know\n that?\"\n\n\n Zeckler's eyes widened. \"What do you mean, fool? So I\n spend a couple of weeks in this pneumonia trap. The deal was\n worth it! I've got three million credits sitting in the Terran\n Consulate on Altair V, just waiting for me to walk in and pick\n them up. Three million credits\u2014do you hear? That's enough\n to set me up for life!\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff nodded grimly. \"\nIf\nyou live long enough to walk\n in and pick them up, that is.\"\n\n\n \"What do you mean, if?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff sank down beside the man, his voice a tense\n whisper in the musty cell. \"I mean that right now you are\n practically dead. You may not know it, but you are. You walk\n into a newly opened planet with your smart little bag of tricks,\n walk in here with a shaky passport and no permit, with no\n knowledge of the natives outside of two paragraphs of inaccuracies\n in the Explorer's Guide, and even then you're not\n content to come in and sell something legitimate, something\n the natives might conceivably be able to use. No, nothing so\n simple for you. You have to pull your usual high-pressure stuff.\n And this time, buddy, you're paying the piper.\"\n\n\n \"\nYou mean I'm not being extradited?\n\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff grinned unpleasantly. \"I mean precisely that.\n You've committed a crime here\u2014a major crime. The Altairians\n are sore about it. And the Terran Consulate isn't willing\n to sell all the trading possibilities here down the river just to\n get you out of a mess. You're going to stand trial\u2014and these\n natives are out to get you. Personally, I think they're\ngoing\nto get you.\"\n\n\n Zeckler stood up shakily. \"You can't believe anything the\n natives say,\" he said uneasily. \"They're pathological liars.\n Why, you should see what they tried to sell\nme\n! You've never\n seen such a pack of liars as these critters.\" He glanced up at\n Meyerhoff. \"They'll probably drop a little fine on me and let\n me go.\"\n\n\n \"A little fine of one Terran neck.\" Meyerhoff grinned nastily.\n \"You've committed the most heinous crime these creatures can\n imagine, and they're going to get you for it if it's the last thing\n they do. I'm afraid, my friend, that your con-man days are\n over.\"\n\n\n Zeckler fished in the other man's pocket, extracted a cigarette,\n and lighted it with trembling fingers. \"It's bad, then,\"\n he said finally.\n\n\n \"It's bad, all right.\"\n\n\n Some shadow of the sly, elfin grin crept over the little con-man's\n face. \"Well, at any rate, I'm glad they sent you over,\"\n he said weakly. \"Nothing like a good lawyer to handle a trial.\"\n\n\n \"\nLawyer?\nNot me! Oh, no. Sorry, but no thanks.\" Meyerhoff\n chuckled. \"I'm your advisor, old boy. Nothing else. I'm here\n to keep you from botching things up still worse for the Trading\n Commission, that's all. I wouldn't get tangled up in a mess\n with those creatures for anything!\" He shook his head. \"You're\n your own lawyer, Mr. Super-salesman. It's all your show. And\n you'd better get your head out of the sand, or you're going to\n lose a case like it's never been lost before!\"\nMeyerhoff watched the man's pale face, and shook his head.\n In a way, he thought, it was a pity to see such a change in the\n rosy-cheeked, dapper, cocksure little man who had talked his\n way glibly in and out of more jams than Meyerhoff could\n count. Trading brought scalpers; it was almost inevitable that\n where rich and unexploited trading ground was uncovered, it\n would first fall prey to the fast-trading boys. They spread out\n from Terra with the first wave of exploration\u2014the slick, fast-talking\n con-men who could work new territories unfettered by\n the legal restrictions that soon closed down the more established\n planets. The first men in were the richest out, and\n through some curious quirk of the Terrestrial mind, they knew\n they could count on Terran protection, however crooked and\n underhand their methods.\n\n\n But occasionally a situation arose where the civilization and\n social practices of the alien victims made it unwise to tamper\n with them. Altair I had been recognized at once by the Trading\n Commission as a commercial prize of tremendous value, but\n early reports had warned of the danger of wildcat trading on\n the little, musty, jungle-like planet with its shaggy, three-eyed\n inhabitants\u2014warned specifically against the confidence tactics\n so frequently used\u2014but there was always somebody, Meyerhoff\n reflected sourly, who just didn't get the word.\n\n\n Zeckler puffed nervously on his cigarette, his narrow face\n a study in troubled concentration. \"But I didn't\ndo\nanything!\"\n he exploded finally. \"So I pulled an old con game. So what?\n Why should they get so excited? So I clipped a few thousand\n credits, pulled a little fast business.\" He shrugged eloquently,\n spreading his hands. \"Everybody's doing it. They do it to each\n other without batting an eye. You should\nsee\nthese critters\n operate on each other. Why, my little scheme was peanuts by\n comparison.\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff pulled a pipe from his pocket, and began stuffing\n the bowl with infinite patience. \"And precisely what sort of\n con game was it?\" he asked quietly.\n\n\n Zeckler shrugged again. \"The simplest, tiredest, moldiest\n old racket that ever made a quick nickel. Remember the old\n Terran gag about the Brooklyn Bridge? The same thing. Only\n these critters didn't want bridges. They wanted land\u2014this\n gooey, slimy swamp they call 'farm land.' So I gave them\n what they wanted. I just sold them some land.\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff nodded fiercely. \"You sure did. A hundred square\n kilos at a swipe. Only you sold the same hundred square kilos\n to a dozen different natives.\" Suddenly he threw back his hands\n and roared. \"Of all the things you\nshouldn't\nhave done\u2014\"\n\n\n \"But what's a chunk of land?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff shook his head hopelessly. \"If you hadn't been\n so greedy, you'd have found out what a chunk of land was to\n these natives before you started peddling it. You'd have found\n out other things about them, too. You'd have learned that\n in spite of all their bumbling and fussing and squabbling\n they're not so dull. You'd have found out that they're marsupials,\n and that two out of five of them get thrown out of\n their mother's pouch before they're old enough to survive.\n You'd have realized that they have to start fighting for individual\n rights almost as soon as they're born. Anything goes,\n as long as it benefits them as individuals.\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff grinned at the little man's horrified face. \"Never\n heard of that, had you? And you've never heard of other things,\n too. You've probably never heard that there are just too many\n Altairians here for the food their planet can supply, and their\n diet is so finicky that they just can't live on anything that\n doesn't grow here. And consequently, land is the key factor\n in their economy, not money; nothing but land. To get land,\n it's every man for himself, and the loser starves, and their\n entire legal and monetary system revolves on that principle.\n They've built up the most confusing and impossible system of\n barter and trade imaginable, aimed at individual survival, with\n land as the value behind the credit. That explains the lying\u2014of\n course they're liars, with an economy like that. They've\n completely missed the concept of truth. Pathological? You bet\n they're pathological! Only a fool would tell the truth when his\n life depended on his being a better liar than the next guy!\n Lying is the time-honored tradition, with their entire legal\n system built around it.\"\n\n\n Zeckler snorted. \"But how could they\npossibly\nhave a legal\n system? I mean, if they don't recognize the truth when it slaps\n them in the face?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff shrugged. \"As we understand legal systems, I\n suppose they don't have one. They have only the haziest idea\n what truth represents, and they've shrugged off the idea as\n impossible and useless.\" He chuckled maliciously. \"So you\n went out and found a chunk of ground in the uplands, and\n sold it to a dozen separate, self-centered, half-starved natives!\n Encroachment on private property is legal grounds for murder\n on this planet, and twelve of them descended on the same\n chunk of land at the same time, all armed with title-deeds.\"\n Meyerhoff sighed. \"You've got twelve mad Altairians in your\n hair. You've got a mad planet in your hair. And in the meantime,\n Terra's most valuable uranium source in five centuries\n is threatening to cut off supply unless they see your blood\n splattered liberally all the way from here to the equator.\"\n\n\n Zeckler was visibly shaken. \"Look,\" he said weakly, \"so I\n wasn't so smart. What am I going to do? I mean, are you\n going to sit quietly by and let them butcher me? How could\n I defend myself in a legal setup like\nthis\n?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff smiled coolly. \"You're going to get your sly little\n con-man brain to working, I think,\" he said softly. \"By Interplanetary\n Rules, they have to give you a trial in Terran legal\n form\u2014judge, jury, court procedure, all that folderol. They\n think it's a big joke\u2014after all, what could a judicial oath mean\n to them?\u2014but they agreed. Only thing is, they're going to\n hang you, if they die trying. So you'd better get those stunted\n little wits of yours clicking\u2014and if you try to implicate\nme\n,\n even a little bit, I'll be out of there so fast you won't know\n what happened.\"\n\n\n With that Meyerhoff walked to the door. He jerked it inward\n sharply, and spilled two guards over on their faces.\n \"Privacy,\" he grunted, and started back up the slippery corridor.\nIt certainly\nlooked\nlike a courtroom, at any rate. In the front\n of the long, damp stone room was a bench, with a seat behind\n it, and a small straight chair to the right. To the left was a stand\n with twelve chairs\u2014larger chairs, with a railing running along\n the front. The rest of the room was filled almost to the door\n with seats facing the bench. Zeckler followed the shaggy-haired\n guard into the room, nodding approvingly. \"Not such a bad\n arrangement,\" he said. \"They must have gotten the idea fast.\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff wiped the perspiration from his forehead, and\n shot the little con-man a stony glance. \"At least you've got\n a courtroom, a judge, and a jury for this mess. Beyond that\u2014\"\n He shrugged eloquently. \"I can't make any promises.\"\n\n\n In the back of the room a door burst open with a bang.\n Loud, harsh voices were heard as half a dozen of the huge\n Altairians attempted to push through the door at once. Zeckler\n clamped on the headset to his translator unit, and watched the\n hubbub in the anteroom with growing alarm. Finally the question\n of precedent seemed to be settled, and a group of the\n Altairians filed in, in order of stature, stalking across the room\n in flowing black robes, pug-nosed faces glowering with self-importance.\n They descended upon the jury box, grunting and\n scrapping with each other for the first-row seats, and the judge\n took his place with obvious satisfaction behind the heavy\n wooden bench. Finally, the prosecuting attorney appeared,\n flanked by two clerks, who took their places beside him. The\n prosecutor eyed Zeckler with cold malevolence, then turned\n and delivered a sly wink at the judge.\n\n\n In a moment the room was a hubbub as it filled with the\n huge, bumbling, bear-like creatures, jostling each other and\n fighting for seats, growling and complaining. Two small fights\n broke out in the rear, but were quickly subdued by the group\n of gendarmes guarding the entrance. Finally the judge glared\n down at Zeckler with all three eyes, and pounded the bench top\n with a wooden mallet until the roar of activity subsided. The\n jurymen wriggled uncomfortably in their seats, exchanging\n winks, and finally turned their attention to the front of the\n court.\n\n\n \"We are reading the case of the people of Altair I,\" the\n judge's voice roared out, \"against one Harry Zeckler\u2014\" he\n paused for a long, impressive moment\u2014\"Terran.\" The courtroom\n immediately burst into an angry growl, until the judge\n pounded the bench five or six times more. \"This\u2014creature\u2014is\n hereby accused of the following crimes,\" the judge bellowed.\n \"Conspiracy to overthrow the government of Altair I. Brutal\n murder of seventeen law-abiding citizens of the village of\n Karzan at the third hour before dawn in the second period\n after his arrival. Desecration of the Temple of our beloved\n Goddess Zermat, Queen of the Harvest. Conspiracy with the\n lesser gods to cause the unprecedented drought in the Dermatti\n section of our fair globe. Obscene exposure of his pouch-marks\n in a public square. Four separate and distinct charges of jail-break\n and bribery\u2014\" The judge pounded the bench for order\u2014\"Espionage\n with the accursed scum of Altair II in preparation\n for interplanetary invasion.\"\n\n\n The little con-man's jaw sagged lower and lower, the color\n draining from his face. He turned, wide-eyed, to Meyerhoff,\n then back to the judge.\n\n\n \"The Chairman of the Jury,\" said the Judge succinctly, \"will\n read the verdict.\"\n\n\n The little native in the front of the jury-box popped up like\n a puppet on a string. \"Defendant found guilty on all counts,\"\n he said.\n\n\n \"Defendant is guilty! The court will pronounce sentence\u2014\"\n\n\n \"\nNow wait a minute!\n\" Zeckler was on his feet, wild-eyed.\n \"What kind of railroad job\u2014\"\n\n\n The judge blinked disappointedly at Paul Meyerhoff. \"Not\n yet?\" he asked, unhappily.\n\n\n \"No.\" Meyerhoff's hands twitched nervously. \"Not yet, Your\n Honor. Later, Your Honor. The trial comes\nfirst\n.\"\n\n\n The judge looked as if his candy had been stolen. \"But you\nsaid\nI should call for the verdict.\"\n\n\n \"Later. You have to have the trial before you can have the\n verdict.\"\n\n\n The Altairian shrugged indifferently. \"Now\u2014later\u2014\" he\n muttered.\n\n\n \"Have the prosecutor call his first witness,\" said Meyerhoff.\n\n\n Zeckler leaned over, his face ashen. \"These charges,\" he\n whispered. \"They're insane!\"\n\n\n \"Of course they are,\" Meyerhoff whispered back.\n\n\n \"But what am I going to\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Sit tight. Let\nthem\nset things up.\"\n\n\n \"But those\nlies\n. They're liars, the whole pack of them\u2014\" He\n broke off as the prosecutor roared a name.\n\n\n The shaggy brute who took the stand was wearing a bright\n purple hat which sat rakishly over one ear. He grinned the\n Altairian equivalent of a hungry grin at the prosecutor. Then\n he cleared his throat and started. \"This Terran riffraff\u2014\"\n\n\n \"The oath,\" muttered the judge. \"We've got to have the\n oath.\"\n\n\n The prosecutor nodded, and four natives moved forward,\n carrying huge inscribed marble slabs to the front of the court.\n One by one the chunks were reverently piled in a heap at the\n witness's feet. The witness placed a huge, hairy paw on the\n cairn, and the prosecutor said, \"Do you swear to tell the truth,\n the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you\u2014\" he\n paused to squint at the paper in his hand, and finished on a\n puzzled note, \"\u2014Goddess?\"\n\n\n The witness removed the paw from the rock pile long enough\n to scratch his ear. Then he replaced it, and replied, \"Of course,\"\n in an injured tone.\n\n\n \"Then tell this court what you have seen of the activities of\n this abominable wretch.\"\n\n\n The witness settled back into the chair, fixing one eye on\n Zeckler's face, another on the prosecutor, and closing the third\n as if in meditation. \"I think it happened on the fourth night\n of the seventh crossing of Altair II (may the Goddess cast\n a drought upon it)\u2014or was it the seventh night of the fourth\n crossing?\u2014\" he grinned apologetically at the judge\u2014\"when I\n was making my way back through town toward my blessed\n land-plot, minding my own business, Your Honor, after weeks\n of bargaining for the crop I was harvesting. Suddenly from the\n shadow of the building, this creature\u2014\" he waved a paw at\n Zeckler\u2014\"stopped me in my tracks with a vicious cry. He had\n a weapon I'd never seen before, and before I could find my\n voice he forced me back against the wall. I could see by the\n cruel glint in his eyes that there was no warmth, no sympathy\n in his heart, that I was\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Objection!\" Zeckler squealed plaintively, jumping to his\n feet. \"This witness can't even remember what night he's talking\n about!\"\n\n\n The judge looked startled. Then he pawed feverishly through\n his bundle of notes. \"Overruled,\" he said abruptly. \"Continue,\n please.\"\n\n\n The witness glowered at Zeckler. \"As I was saying before\n this loutish interruption,\" he muttered, \"I could see that I was\n face to face with the most desperate of criminal types, even\n for Terrans. Note the shape of his head, the flabbiness of his\n ears. I was petrified with fear. And then, helpless as I was, this\n two-legged abomination began to shower me with threats of\n evil to my blessed home, dark threats of poisoning my land\n unless I would tell him where he could find the resting place\n of our blessed Goddess\u2014\"\n\n\n \"I never saw him before in my life,\" Zeckler moaned to\n Meyerhoff. \"Listen to him! Why should I care where their\n Goddess\u2014\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff gave him a stony look. \"The Goddess runs things\n around here. She makes it rain. If it doesn't rain, somebody's\n insulted her. It's very simple.\"\n\n\n \"But how can I fight testimony like that?\"\n\n\n \"I doubt if you\ncan\nfight it.\"\n\n\n \"But they can't prove a word of it\u2014\" He looked at the jury,\n who were listening enraptured to the second witness on the\n stand. This one was testifying regarding the butcherous slaughter\n of eighteen (or was it twenty-three? Oh, yes, twenty-three)\n women and children in the suburban village of Karzan. The\n pogrom, it seemed, had been accomplished by an energy\n weapon which ate great, gaping holes in the sides of buildings.\n A third witness took the stand, continuing the drone as the\n room grew hotter and muggier. Zeckler grew paler and paler,\n his eyes turning glassy as the testimony piled up. \"But it's not\ntrue\n,\" he whispered to Meyerhoff.\n\n\n \"Of course it isn't! Can't you understand?\nThese people\n have no regard for truth.\nIt's stupid, to them, silly, a mark of\n low intelligence. The only thing in the world they have any\n respect for is a liar bigger and more skillful than they are.\"\n\n\n Zeckler jerked around abruptly as he heard his name bellowed\n out. \"Does the defendant have anything to say before\n the jury delivers the verdict?\"\n\n\n \"Do I have\u2014\" Zeckler was across the room in a flash, his\n pale cheeks suddenly taking on a feverish glow. He sat down\n gingerly on the witness chair, facing the judge, his eyes bright\n with fear and excitement. \"Your\u2014Your Honor, I\u2014I have a\n statement to make which will have a most important bearing\n on this case. You must listen with the greatest care.\" He\n glanced quickly at Meyerhoff, and back to the judge. \"Your\n Honor,\" he said in a hushed voice. \"You are in gravest of\n danger. All of you. Your lives\u2014your very land is at stake.\"\n\n\n The judge blinked, and shuffled through his notes hurriedly\n as a murmur arose in the court. \"Our land?\"\n\n\n \"Your lives, your land, everything you hold dear,\" Zeckler\n said quickly, licking his lips nervously. \"You must try to\n understand me\u2014\" he glanced apprehensively over his shoulder\n \"now, because I may not live long enough to repeat what\n I am about to tell you\u2014\"\n\n\n The murmur quieted down, all ears straining in their headsets\n to hear his words. \"These charges,\" he continued, \"all of\n them\u2014they're perfectly true. At least, they\nseem\nto be perfectly\n true. But in every instance, I was working with heart and\n soul, risking my life, for the welfare of your beautiful planet.\"\n\n\n There was a loud hiss from the back of the court. Zeckler\n frowned and rubbed his hands together. \"It was my misfortune,\"\n he said, \"to go to the wrong planet when I first came to\n Altair from my homeland on Terra. I\u2014I landed on Altair II,\n a grave mistake, but as it turned out, a very fortunate error.\n Because in attempting to arrange trading in that frightful place,\n I made certain contacts.\" His voice trembled, and sank lower.\n \"I learned the horrible thing which is about to happen to this\n planet, at the hands of those barbarians. The conspiracy is\n theirs, not mine. They have bribed your Goddess, flattered her\n and lied to her, coerced her all-powerful goodness to their own\n evil interests, preparing for the day when they could persuade\n her to cast your land into the fiery furnace of a ten-year-drought\u2014\"\n\n\n Somebody in the middle of the court burst out laughing.\n One by one the natives nudged one another, and booed, and\n guffawed, until the rising tide of racket drowned out Zeckler's\n words. \"The defendant is obviously lying,\" roared the prosecutor\n over the pandemonium. \"Any fool knows that the Goddess\n can't be bribed. How could she be a Goddess if she could?\"\n\n\n Zeckler grew paler. \"But\u2014perhaps they were very clever\u2014\"\n\n\n \"And how could they flatter her, when she knows, beyond\n doubt, that she is the most exquisitely radiant creature in all\n the Universe? And\nyou\ndare to insult her, drag her name in\n the dirt.\"\n\n\n The hisses grew louder, more belligerent. Cries of \"Butcher\n him!\" and \"Scald his bowels!\" rose from the courtroom. The\n judge banged for silence, his eyes angry.\n\n\n \"Unless the defendant wishes to take up more of our precious\n time with these ridiculous lies, the jury\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Wait! Your Honor, I request a short recess before I present\n my final plea.\"\n\n\n \"Recess?\"\n\n\n \"A few moments to collect my thoughts, to arrange my\n case.\"\n\n\n The judge settled back with a disgusted snarl. \"Do I have\n to?\" he asked Meyerhoff.\n\n\n Meyerhoff nodded. The judge shrugged, pointing over his\n shoulder to the anteroom. \"You can go in there,\" he said.\n\n\n Somehow, Zeckler managed to stumble from the witness\n stand, amid riotous boos and hisses, and tottered into the anteroom.\nZeckler puffed hungrily on a cigarette, and looked up at\n Meyerhoff with haunted eyes. \"It\u2014it doesn't look so good,\"\n he muttered.\n\n\n Meyerhoff's eyes were worried, too. For some reason, he\n felt a surge of pity and admiration for the haggard con-man.\n \"It's worse than I'd anticipated,\" he admitted glumly. \"That\n was a good try, but you just don't know enough about them\n and their Goddess.\" He sat down wearily. \"I don't see what\n you can do. They want your blood, and they're going to have\n it. They just won't believe you, no matter\nhow\nbig a lie you\n tell.\"\n\n\n Zeckler sat in silence for a moment. \"This lying business,\"\n he said finally, \"exactly how does it work?\"\n\n\n \"The biggest, most convincing liar wins. It's as simple as\n that. It doesn't matter how outlandish a whopper you tell.\n Unless, of course, they've made up their minds that you just\n naturally aren't as big a liar as they are. And it looks like that's\n just what they've done. It wouldn't make any difference to\n them\nwhat\nyou say\u2014unless, somehow, you could\nmake\nthem\n believe it.\"\n\n\n Zeckler frowned. \"And how do they regard the\u2014the biggest\n liar? I mean, how do they feel toward him?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff shifted uneasily. \"It's hard to say. It's been my\n experience that they respect him highly\u2014maybe even fear him\n a little. After all, the most convincing liar always wins in any\n transaction, so he gets more land, more food, more power.\n Yes, I think the biggest liar could go where he pleased without\n any interference.\"\n\n\n Zeckler was on his feet, his eyes suddenly bright with excitement.\n \"Wait a minute,\" he said tensely. \"To tell them a lie\n that they'd have to believe\u2014a lie they simply couldn't\nhelp\nbut believe\u2014\" He turned on Meyerhoff, his hands trembling.\n \"Do they\nthink\nthe way we do? I mean, with logic, cause and\n effect, examining evidence and drawing conclusions? Given\n certain evidence, would they have to draw the same conclusions\n that we have to draw?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff blinked. \"Well\u2014yes. Oh, yes, they're perfectly\n logical.\"\n\n\n Zeckler's eyes flashed, and a huge grin broke out on his\n sallow face. His thin body fairly shook. He started hopping\n up and down on one foot, staring idiotically into space. \"If I\n could only think\u2014\" he muttered. \"Somebody\u2014somewhere\u2014something\n I read.\"\n\n\n \"Whatever are you talking about?\"\n\n\n \"It was a Greek, I think\u2014\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff stared at him. \"Oh, come now. Have you gone\n off your rocker completely? You've got a problem on your\n hands, man.\"\n\n\n \"No, no, I've got a problem in the bag!\" Zeckler's cheeks\n flushed. \"Let's go back in there\u2014I think I've got an answer!\"\n\n\n The courtroom quieted the moment they opened the door,\n and the judge banged the gavel for silence. As soon as Zeckler\n had taken his seat on the witness stand, the judge turned to\n the head juryman. \"Now, then,\" he said with happy finality.\n \"The jury\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Hold on! Just one minute more.\"\n\n\n The judge stared down at Zeckler as if he were a bug on a\n rock. \"Oh, yes. You had something else to say. Well, go ahead\n and say it.\"\n\n\n Zeckler looked sharply around the hushed room. \"You want\n to convict me,\" he said softly, \"in the worst sort of way. Isn't\n that right?\"\n\n\n Eyes swung toward him. The judge broke into an evil grin.\n \"That's right.\"\n\n\n \"But you can't really convict me until you've considered\n carefully any statement I make in my own defense. Isn't that\n right?\"\n\n\n The judge looked uncomfortable. \"If you've got something\n to say, go ahead and say it.\"\n\n\n \"I've got just one statement to make. Short and sweet. But\n you'd better listen to it, and think it out carefully before you\n decide that you really want to convict me.\" He paused, and\n glanced slyly at the judge. \"You don't think much of those\n who tell the truth, it seems. Well, put\nthis\nstatement in your\n record, then.\" His voice was loud and clear in the still room.\n \"\nAll Earthmen are absolutely incapable of telling the truth.\n\"\n\n\n Puzzled frowns appeared on the jury's faces. One or two\n exchanged startled glances, and the room was still as death.\n The judge stared at him, and then at Meyerhoff, then back.\n \"But you\"\u2014he stammered. \"You're\"\u2014He stopped in mid-sentence,\n his jaw sagging.\n\n\n One of the jurymen let out a little squeak, and fainted dead\n away. It took, all in all, about ten seconds for the statement\n to soak in.\n\n\n And then pandemonium broke loose in the courtroom.\n\"Really,\" said Harry Zeckler loftily, \"it was so obvious I'm\n amazed that it didn't occur to me first thing.\" He settled himself\n down comfortably in the control cabin of the Interplanetary\n Rocket and grinned at the outline of Altair IV looming larger\n in the view screen.\n\n\n Paul Meyerhoff stared stonily at the controls, his lips compressed\n angrily. \"You might at least have told me what you\n were planning.\"\n\n\n \"And take the chance of being overheard? Don't be silly.\n It had to come as a bombshell. I had to establish myself as a\n liar\u2014the prize liar of them all, but I had to tell the sort of lie\n that they simply could not cope with. Something that would\n throw them into such utter confusion that they wouldn't\ndare\nconvict me.\" He grinned impishly at Meyerhoff. \"The paradox\n of Epimenides the Cretan. It really stopped them cold. They\nknew\nI was an Earthmen, which meant that my statement that\n Earthmen were liars was a lie, which meant that maybe I wasn't\n a liar, in which case\u2014oh, it was tailor-made.\"\n\n\n \"It sure was.\" Meyerhoff's voice was a snarl.\n\n\n \"Well, it made me out a liar in a class they couldn't approach,\n didn't it?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff's face was purple with anger. \"Oh, indeed it did!\n And it put\nall\nEarthmen in exactly the same class, too.\"\n\n\n \"So what's honor among thieves? I got off, didn't I?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff turned on him fiercely. \"Oh, you got off just fine.\n You scared the living daylights out of them. And in an eon of\n lying they never have run up against a short-circuit like that.\n You've also completely botched any hope of ever setting up\n a trading alliance with Altair I, and that includes uranium, too.\n Smart people don't gamble with loaded dice. You scared them\n so badly they don't want anything to do with us.\"\n\n\n Zeckler's grin broadened, and he leaned back luxuriously.\n \"Ah, well. After all, the Trading Alliance was\nyour\noutlook,\n wasn't it? What a pity!\" He clucked his tongue sadly. \"Me,\n I've got a fortune in credits sitting back at the consulate waiting\n for me\u2014enough to keep me on silk for quite a while, I\n might say. I think I'll just take a nice, long vacation.\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff turned to him, and a twinkle of malignant glee\n appeared in his eyes. \"Yes, I think you will. I'm quite sure of\n it, in fact. Won't cost you a cent, either.\"\n\n\n \"Eh?\"\n\n\n Meyerhoff grinned unpleasantly. He brushed an imaginary\n lint fleck from his lapel, and looked up at Zeckler slyly. \"That\u2014uh\u2014jury\n trial. The Altairians weren't any too happy to\n oblige. They wanted to execute you outright. Thought a trial\n was awfully silly\u2014until they got their money back, of course.\n Not too much\u2014just three million credits.\"\n\n\n Zeckler went white. \"But that money was in banking custody!\"\n\n\n \"Is that right? My goodness. You don't suppose they could\n have lost those papers, do you?\" Meyerhoff grinned at the\n little con-man. \"And incidentally, you're under arrest, you\n know.\"\n\n\n A choking sound came from Zeckler's throat. \"\nArrest!\n\"\n\n\n \"Oh, yes. Didn't I tell you? Conspiring to undermine the\n authority of the Terran Trading Commission. Serious charge,\n you know. Yes, I think we'll take a nice long vacation together,\n straight back to Terra. And there I think you'll face a jury\n trial.\"\n\n\n Zeckler spluttered. \"There's no evidence\u2014you've got nothing\n on me! What kind of a frame are you trying to pull?\"\n\n\n \"A\nlovely\nframe. Airtight. A frame from the bottom up, and\n you're right square in the middle. And this time\u2014\" Meyerhoff\n tapped a cigarette on his thumb with happy finality\u2014\"this time\n I\ndon't\nthink you'll get off.\"\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from \"Tiger by the Tail and Other Science Fiction\n Stories by Alan E. Nourse\" and was first published in\nIf Magazine\nJanuary 1954. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright\n on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "23791": "SCRIMSHAW\nThe old man\n just wanted to get back his\n memory\u2014and the methods he used were\n gently hellish, from the viewpoint of the\n others....\nBY MURRAY LEINSTER\nIllustrated by Freas\n\n\n Pop Young was the one known\n man who could stand life on the\n surface of the Moon's far side, and,\n therefore, he occupied the shack on\n the Big Crack's edge, above the\n mining colony there. Some people\n said that no normal man could do\n it, and mentioned the scar of a\n ghastly head-wound to explain his\n ability. One man partly guessed the\n secret, but only partly. His name was\n Sattell and he had reason not to\n talk. Pop Young alone knew the\n whole truth, and he kept his mouth\n shut, too. It wasn't anybody else's\n business.\n\n\n The shack and the job he filled\n were located in the medieval notion\n of the physical appearance of hell.\n By day the environment was heat and\n torment. By night\u2014lunar night, of\n course, and lunar day\u2014it was frigidity\n and horror. Once in two weeks\n Earth-time a rocketship came around\n the horizon from Lunar City with\n stores for the colony deep underground.\n Pop received the stores and\n took care of them. He handed over\n the product of the mine, to be forwarded\n to Earth. The rocket went\n away again. Come nightfall Pop\n lowered the supplies down the long\n cable into the Big Crack to the colony\n far down inside, and freshened up\n the landing field marks with magnesium\n marking-powder if a rocket-blast\n had blurred them. That was\n fundamentally all he had to do. But\n without him the mine down in the\n Crack would have had to shut\n down.\n\n\n The Crack, of course, was that\n gaping rocky fault which stretches\n nine hundred miles, jaggedly, over\n the side of the Moon that Earth\n never sees. There is one stretch where\n it is a yawning gulf a full half-mile\n wide and unguessably deep. Where\n Pop Young's shack stood it was only\n a hundred yards, but the colony was\n a full mile down, in one wall. There\n is nothing like it on Earth, of course.\n When it was first found, scientists\n descended into it to examine the exposed\n rock-strata and learn the history\n of the Moon before its craters\n were made. But they found more\n than history. They found the reason\n for the colony and the rocket landing\n field and the shack.\n\n\n The reason for Pop was something\n else.\n\n\n The shack stood a hundred feet\n from the Big Crack's edge. It looked\n like a dust-heap thirty feet high, and\n it was. The outside was surface\n moondust, piled over a tiny dome to\n be insulation against the cold of\n night and shadow and the furnace\n heat of day. Pop lived in it all alone,\n and in his spare time he worked\n industriously at recovering some\n missing portions of his life that Sattell\n had managed to take away from\n him.\n\n\n He thought often of Sattell, down\n in the colony underground. There\n were galleries and tunnels and living-quarters\n down there. There were\n air-tight bulkheads for safety, and a\n hydroponic garden to keep the air\n fresh, and all sorts of things to make\n life possible for men under if not\n on the Moon.\n\n\n But it wasn't fun, even underground.\n In the Moon's slight gravity,\n a man is really adjusted to existence\n when he has a well-developed case\n of agoraphobia. With such an aid, a\n man can get into a tiny, coffinlike\n cubbyhole, and feel solidity above\n and below and around him, and\n happily tell himself that it feels delicious.\n Sometimes it does.\n\n\n But Sattell couldn't comfort himself\n so easily. He knew about Pop,\n up on the surface. He'd shipped out,\n whimpering, to the Moon to get far\n away from Pop, and Pop was just\n about a mile overhead and there was\n no way to get around him. It was\n difficult to get away from the mine,\n anyhow. It doesn't take too long for\n the low gravity to tear a man's\n nerves to shreds. He has to develop\n kinks in his head to survive. And\n those kinks\u2014\n\n\n The first men to leave the colony\n had to be knocked cold and shipped\n out unconscious. They'd been underground\u2014and\n in low gravity\u2014long\n enough to be utterly unable to face\n the idea of open spaces. Even now\n there were some who had to be carried,\n but there were some tougher\n ones who were able to walk to the\n rocketship if Pop put a tarpaulin\n over their heads so they didn't have\n to see the sky. In any case Pop was\n essential, either for carrying or\n guidance.\nSattell got the shakes when he\n thought of Pop, and Pop rather\n probably knew it. Of course, by the\n time he took the job tending the\n shack, he was pretty certain about\n Sattell. The facts spoke for themselves.\n\n\n Pop had come back to consciousness\n in a hospital with a great\n wound in his head and no memory\n of anything that had happened before\n that moment. It was not that his\n identity was in question. When he\n was stronger, the doctors told him\n who he was, and as gently as possible\n what had happened to his wife\n and children. They'd been murdered\n after he was seemingly killed defending\n them. But he didn't remember\n a thing. Not then. It was\n something of a blessing.\n\n\n But when he was physically recovered\n he set about trying to pick\n up the threads of the life he could\n no longer remember. He met Sattell\n quite by accident. Sattell looked familiar.\n Pop eagerly tried to ask him\n questions. And Sattell turned gray\n and frantically denied that he'd ever\n seen Pop before.\n\n\n All of which happened back on\n Earth and a long time ago. It seemed\n to Pop that the sight of Sattell had\n brought back some vague and cloudy\n memories. They were not sharp,\n though, and he hunted up Sattell\n again to find out if he was right.\n And Sattell went into panic when\n he returned.\n\n\n Nowadays, by the Big Crack, Pop\n wasn't so insistent on seeing Sattell,\n but he was deeply concerned with\n the recovery of the memories that\n Sattell helped bring back. Pop was\n a highly conscientious man. He took\n good care of his job. There was a\n warning-bell in the shack, and when\n a rocketship from Lunar City got\n above the horizon and could send a\n tight beam, the gong clanged loudly,\n and Pop got into a vacuum-suit\n and went out the air lock. He usually\n reached the moondozer about the\n time the ship began to brake for\n landing, and he watched it come in.\n\n\n He saw the silver needle in the\n sky fighting momentum above a line\n of jagged crater-walls. It slowed, and\n slowed, and curved down as it drew\n nearer. The pilot killed all forward\n motion just above the field and came\n steadily and smoothly down to land\n between the silvery triangles that\n marked the landing place.\n\n\n Instantly the rockets cut off,\n drums of fuel and air and food came\n out of the cargo-hatch and Pop swept\n forward with the dozer. It was a\n miniature tractor with a gigantic\n scoop in front. He pushed a great\n mound of talc-fine dust before him\n to cover up the cargo. It was necessary.\n With freight costing what it\n did, fuel and air and food came\n frozen solid, in containers barely\n thicker than foil. While they stayed\n at space-shadow temperature, the foil\n would hold anything. And a cover of\n insulating moondust with vacuum\n between the grains kept even air\n frozen solid, though in sunlight.\n\n\n At such times Pop hardly thought\n of Sattell. He knew he had plenty\n of time for that. He'd started to follow\n Sattell knowing what had happened\n to his wife and children, but\n it was hearsay only. He had no memory\n of them at all. But Sattell stirred\n the lost memories. At first Pop followed\n absorbedly from city to city,\n to recover the years that had been\n wiped out by an axe-blow. He did\n recover a good deal. When Sattell\n fled to another continent, Pop followed\n because he had some distinct\n memories of his wife\u2014and the way\n he'd felt about her\u2014and some fugitive\n mental images of his children.\n When Sattell frenziedly tried to deny\n knowledge of the murder in Tangier,\n Pop had come to remember both his\n children and some of the happiness\n of his married life.\n\n\n Even when Sattell\u2014whimpering\u2014signed\n up for Lunar City, Pop tracked\n him. By that time he was quite\n sure that Sattell was the man who'd\n killed his family. If so, Sattell had\n profited by less than two days' pay\n for wiping out everything that Pop\n possessed. But Pop wanted it back.\n He couldn't prove Sattell's guilt.\n There was no evidence. In any case,\n he didn't really want Sattell to die.\n If he did, there'd be no way to recover\n more lost memories.\n\n\n Sometimes, in the shack on the far\n side of the Moon, Pop Young had\n odd fancies about Sattell. There was\n the mine, for example. In each two\n Earth-weeks of working, the mine-colony\n nearly filled up a three-gallon\n cannister with greasy-seeming white\n crystals shaped like two pyramids\n base to base. The filled cannister\n would weigh a hundred pounds on\n Earth. Here it weighed eighteen. But\n on Earth its contents would be computed\n in carats, and a hundred\n pounds was worth millions. Yet here\n on the Moon Pop kept a waiting cannister\n on a shelf in his tiny dome,\n behind the air-apparatus. It rattled\n if he shook it, and it was worth no\n more than so many pebbles. But\n sometimes Pop wondered if Sattell\n ever thought of the value of the\n mine's production. If he would kill\n a woman and two children and think\n he'd killed a man for no more than\n a hundred dollars, what enormity\n would he commit for a three-gallon\n quantity of uncut diamonds?\nBut he did not dwell on such\n speculation. The sun rose very, very\n slowly in what by convention was\n called the east. It took nearly two\n hours to urge its disk above the\n horizon, and it burned terribly in\n emptiness for fourteen times twenty-four\n hours before sunset. Then there\n was night, and for three hundred\n and thirty-six consecutive hours there\n were only stars overhead and the\n sky was a hole so terrible that a man\n who looked up into it\u2014what with\n the nagging sensation of one-sixth\n gravity\u2014tended to lose all confidence\n in the stability of things. Most men\n immediately found it hysterically necessary\n to seize hold of something\n solid to keep from falling upward.\n But nothing felt solid. Everything\n fell, too. Wherefore most men tended\n to scream.\n\n\n But not Pop. He'd come to the\n Moon in the first place because Sattell\n was here. Near Sattell, he found\n memories of times when he was a\n young man with a young wife who\n loved him extravagantly. Then pictures\n of his children came out of\n emptiness and grew sharp and clear.\n He found that he loved them very\n dearly. And when he was near Sattell\n he literally recovered them\u2014in\n the sense that he came to know new\n things about them and had new\n memories of them every day. He\n hadn't yet remembered the crime\n which lost them to him. Until he\n did\u2014and the fact possessed a certain\n grisly humor\u2014Pop didn't even hate\n Sattell. He simply wanted to be near\n him because it enabled him to recover\n new and vivid parts of his\n youth that had been lost.\n\n\n Otherwise, he was wholly matter-of-fact\u2014certainly\n so for the far side\n of the Moon. He was a rather fussy\n housekeeper. The shack above the\n Big Crack's rim was as tidy as any\n lighthouse or fur-trapper's cabin. He\n tended his air-apparatus with a fine\n precision. It was perfectly simple. In\n the shadow of the shack he had an\n unfailing source of extreme low\n temperature. Air from the shack\n flowed into a shadow-chilled pipe.\n Moisture condensed out of it here,\n and CO\n 2\n froze solidly out of it there,\n and on beyond it collected as restless,\n transparent liquid air. At the same\n time, liquid air from another tank\n evaporated to maintain the proper\n air pressure in the shack. Every so\n often Pop tapped the pipe where the\n moisture froze, and lumps of water\n ice clattered out to be returned to the\n humidifier. Less often he took out the\n CO\n 2\n snow, and measured it, and\n dumped an equivalent quantity of\n pale-blue liquid oxygen into the liquid\n air that had been purified by\n cold. The oxygen dissolved. Then the\n apparatus reversed itself and supplied\n fresh air from the now-enriched\n fluid, while the depleted other\n tank began to fill up with cold-purified\n liquid air.\n\n\n Outside the shack, jagged stony\n pinnacles reared in the starlight, and\n craters complained of the bombardment\n from space that had made them.\n But, outside, nothing ever happened.\n Inside, it was quite different.\n\n\n Working on his memories, one\n day Pop made a little sketch. It\n helped a great deal. He grew deeply\n interested. Writing-material was\n scarce, but he spent most of the time\n between two particular rocket-landings\n getting down on paper exactly\n how a child had looked while sleeping,\n some fifteen years before. He\n remembered with astonishment that\n the child had really looked exactly\n like that! Later he began a sketch of\n his partly-remembered wife. In time\u2014he\n had plenty\u2014it became a really\n truthful likeness.\n\n\n The sun rose, and baked the\n abomination of desolation which was\n the moonscape. Pop Young meticulously\n touched up the glittering\n triangles which were landing guides\n for the Lunar City ships. They glittered\n from the thinnest conceivable\n layer of magnesium marking-powder.\n He checked over the moondozer.\n He tended the air apparatus. He did\n everything that his job and survival\n required. Ungrudgingly.\n\n\n Then he made more sketches. The\n images to be drawn came back more\n clearly when he thought of Sattell,\n so by keeping Sattell in mind he recovered\n the memory of a chair that\n had been in his forgotten home.\n Then he drew his wife sitting in it,\n reading. It felt very good to see her\n again. And he speculated about\n whether Sattell ever thought of millions\n of dollars' worth of new-mined\n diamonds knocking about unguarded\n in the shack, and he suddenly recollected\n clearly the way one of his\n children had looked while playing\n with her doll. He made a quick\n sketch to keep from forgetting that.\n\n\n There was no purpose in the\n sketching, save that he'd lost all his\n young manhood through a senseless\n crime. He wanted his youth back. He\n was recovering it bit by bit. The\n occupation made it absurdly easy to\n live on the surface of the far side of\n the Moon, whether anybody else\n could do it or not.\n\n\n Sattell had no such device for adjusting\n to the lunar state of things.\n Living on the Moon was bad enough\n anyhow, then, but living one mile\n underground from Pop Young was\n much worse. Sattell clearly remembered\n the crime Pop Young hadn't\n yet recalled. He considered that Pop\n had made no overt attempt to revenge\n himself because he planned\n some retaliation so horrible and lingering\n that it was worth waiting for.\n He came to hate Pop with an insane\n ferocity. And fear. In his mind the\n need to escape became an obsession\n on top of the other psychotic states\n normal to a Moon-colonist.\n\n\n But he was helpless. He couldn't\n leave. There was Pop. He couldn't\n kill Pop. He had no chance\u2014and he\n was afraid. The one absurd, irrelevant\n thing he could do was write\n letters back to Earth. He did that.\n He wrote with the desperate, impassioned,\n frantic blend of persuasion\n and information and genius-like invention\n of a prisoner in a high-security\n prison, trying to induce someone\n to help him escape.\n\n\n He had friends, of a sort, but for\n a long time his letters produced\n nothing. The Moon swung in vast\n circles about the Earth, and the Earth\n swung sedately about the Sun. The\n other planets danced their saraband.\n The rest of humanity went about its\n own affairs with fascinated attention.\n But then an event occurred which\n bore directly upon Pop Young and\n Sattell and Pop Young's missing\n years.\n\n\n Somebody back on Earth promoted\n a luxury passenger-line of spaceships\n to ply between Earth and\n Moon. It looked like a perfect set-up.\n Three spacecraft capable of the journey\n came into being with attendant\n reams of publicity. They promised a\n thrill and a new distinction for the\n rich. Guided tours to Lunar! The\n most expensive and most thrilling\n trip in history! One hundred thousand\n dollars for a twelve-day cruise\n through space, with views of the\n Moon's far side and trips through\n Lunar City and a landing in Aristarchus,\n plus sound-tapes of the journey\n and fame hitherto reserved for\n honest explorers!\n\n\n It didn't seem to have anything\n to do with Pop or with Sattell. But\n it did.\n\n\n There were just two passenger\n tours. The first was fully booked.\n But the passengers who paid so highly,\n expected to be pleasantly thrilled\n and shielded from all reasons for\n alarm. And they couldn't be. Something\n happens when a self-centered\n and complacent individual unsuspectingly\n looks out of a spaceship\n port and sees the cosmos unshielded\n by mists or clouds or other aids to\n blindness against reality. It is shattering.\n\n\n A millionaire cut his throat when\n he saw Earth dwindled to a mere\n blue-green ball in vastness. He could\n not endure his own smallness in the\n face of immensity. Not one passenger\n disembarked even for Lunar\n City. Most of them cowered in their\n chairs, hiding their eyes. They were\n the simple cases of hysteria. But the\n richest girl on Earth, who'd had five\n husbands and believed that nothing\n could move her\u2014she went into\n catatonic withdrawal and neither\n saw nor heard nor moved. Two other\n passengers sobbed in improvised\n strait jackets. The first shipload\n started home. Fast.\n\n\n The second luxury liner took off\n with only four passengers and turned\n back before reaching the Moon.\n Space-pilots could take the strain of\n space-flight because they had work\n to do. Workers for the lunar mines\n could make the trip under heavy\n sedation. But it was too early in the\n development of space-travel for\n pleasure-passengers. They weren't\n prepared for the more humbling\n facts of life.\n\n\n Pop heard of the quaint commercial\n enterprise through the micro-tapes\n put off at the shack for the men\n down in the mine. Sattell probably\n learned of it the same way. Pop didn't\n even think of it again. It seemed\n to have nothing to do with him. But\n Sattell undoubtedly dealt with it\n fully in his desperate writings back\n to Earth.\nPop matter-of-factly tended the\n shack and the landing field and the\n stores for the Big Crack mine. Between-times\n he made more drawings\n in pursuit of his own private objective.\n Quite accidentally, he developed\n a certain talent professional artists\n might have approved. But he was not\n trying to communicate, but to discover.\n Drawing\u2014especially with his\n mind on Sattell\u2014he found fresh incidents\n popping up in his recollection.\n Times when he was happy. One\n day he remembered the puppy his\n children had owned and loved. He\n drew it painstakingly\u2014and it was\n his again. Thereafter he could remember\n it any time he chose. He did\n actually recover a completely vanished\n past.\n\n\n He envisioned a way to increase\n that recovery. But there was a marked\n shortage of artists' materials on the\n Moon. All freight had to be hauled\n from Earth, on a voyage equal to\n rather more than a thousand times\n around the equator of the Earth.\n Artists' supplies were not often included.\n Pop didn't even ask.\n\n\n He began to explore the area outside\n the shack for possible material\n no one would think of sending from\n Earth. He collected stones of various\n sorts, but when warmed up in the\n shack they were useless. He found\n no strictly lunar material which\n would serve for modeling or carving\n portraits in the ground. He found\n minerals which could be pulverized\n and used as pigments, but nothing\n suitable for this new adventure in\n the recovery of lost youth. He even\n considered blasting, to aid his search.\n He could. Down in the mine, blasting\n was done by soaking carbon black\u2014from\n CO\n 2\n \u2014in liquid oxygen, and then\n firing it with a spark. It exploded\n splendidly. And its fumes were\n merely more CO\n 2\n which an air-apparatus\n handled easily.\n\n\n He didn't do any blasting. He didn't\n find any signs of the sort of\n mineral he required. Marble would\n have been perfect, but there is no\n marble on the Moon. Naturally! Yet\n Pop continued to search absorbedly\n for material with which to capture\n memory. Sattell still seemed necessary,\n but\u2014\n\n\n Early one lunar morning he was\n a good two miles from his shack\n when he saw rocket-fumes in the\n sky. It was most unlikely. He wasn't\n looking for anything of the sort, but\n out of the corner of his eye he observed\n that something moved. Which\n was impossible. He turned his head,\n and there were rocket-fumes coming\n over the horizon, not in the direction\n of Lunar City. Which was more\n impossible still.\n\n\n He stared. A tiny silver rocket to\n the westward poured out monstrous\n masses of vapor. It decelerated swiftly.\n It curved downward. The rockets\n checked for an instant, and flamed\n again more violently, and checked\n once more. This was not an expert\n approach. It was a faulty one. Curving\n surface-ward in a sharply changing\n parabola, the pilot over-corrected\n and had to wait to gather down-speed,\n and then over-corrected again.\n It was an altogether clumsy landing.\n The ship was not even perfectly vertical\n when it settled not quite in the\n landing-area marked by silvery triangles.\n One of its tail-fins crumpled\n slightly. It tilted a little when fully\n landed.\n\n\n Then nothing happened.\n\n\n Pop made his way toward it in\n the skittering, skating gait one uses\n in one-sixth gravity. When he was\n within half a mile, an air-lock door\n opened in the ship's side. But nothing\n came out of the lock. No space-suited\n figure. No cargo came drifting\n down with the singular deliberation\n of falling objects on the Moon.\n\n\n It was just barely past lunar sunrise\n on the far side of the Moon.\n Incredibly long and utterly black\n shadows stretched across the plain,\n and half the rocketship was dazzling\n white and half was blacker than\n blackness itself. The sun still hung\n low indeed in the black, star-speckled\n sky. Pop waded through moondust,\n raising a trail of slowly settling\n powder. He knew only that the ship\n didn't come from Lunar City, but\n from Earth. He couldn't imagine\n why. He did not even wildly connect\n it with what\u2014say\u2014Sattell might\n have written with desperate plausibility\n about greasy-seeming white\n crystals out of the mine, knocking\n about Pop Young's shack in cannisters\n containing a hundred Earth-pounds\n weight of richness.\nPop reached the rocketship. He\n approached the big tail-fins. On one\n of them there were welded ladder-rungs\n going up to the opened air-lock\n door.\n\n\n He climbed.\n\n\n The air-lock was perfectly normal\n when he reached it. There was a\n glass port in the inner door, and he\n saw eyes looking through it at him.\n He pulled the outer door shut and\n felt the whining vibration of admitted\n air. His vacuum suit went slack\n about him. The inner door began to\n open, and Pop reached up and gave\n his helmet the practiced twisting\n jerk which removed it.\n\n\n Then he blinked. There was a red-headed\n man in the opened door. He\n grinned savagely at Pop. He held a\n very nasty hand-weapon trained on\n Pop's middle.\n\n\n \"Don't come in!\" he said mockingly.\n \"And I don't give a damn\n about how you are. This isn't social.\n It's business!\"\n\n\n Pop simply gaped. He couldn't\n quite take it in.\n\n\n \"This,\" snapped the red-headed\n man abruptly, \"is a stickup!\"\n\n\n Pop's eyes went through the inner\n lock-door. He saw that the interior\n of the ship was stripped and bare.\n But a spiral stairway descended from\n some upper compartment. It had a\n handrail of pure, transparent, water-clear\n plastic. The walls were bare insulation,\n but that trace of luxury remained.\n Pop gazed at the plastic,\n fascinated.\n\n\n The red-headed man leaned forward,\n snarling. He slashed Pop\n across the face with the barrel of his\n weapon. It drew blood. It was wanton,\n savage brutality.\n\n\n \"Pay attention!\" snarled the red-headed\n man. \"A stickup, I said! Get\n it? You go get that can of stuff\n from the mine! The diamonds!\n Bring them here! Understand?\"\n\n\n Pop said numbly: \"What the\n hell?\"\n\n\n The red-headed man hit him\n again. He was nerve-racked, and,\n therefore, he wanted to hurt.\n\n\n \"Move!\" he rasped. \"I want the\n diamonds you've got for the ship\n from Lunar City! Bring 'em!\" Pop\n licked blood from his lips and the\n man with the weapon raged at him.\n \"Then phone down to the mine!\n Tell Sattell I'm here and he can\n come on up! Tell him to bring any\n more diamonds they've dug up since\n the stuff you've got!\"\n\n\n He leaned forward. His face was\n only inches from Pop Young's. It\n was seamed and hard-bitten and\n nerve-racked. But any man would be\n quivering if he wasn't used to space\n or the feel of one-sixth gravity on\n the Moon. He panted:\n\n\n \"And get it straight! You try\n any tricks and we take off! We\n swing over your shack! The rocket-blast\n smashes it! We burn you\n down! Then we swing over the cable\n down to the mine and the rocket-flame\n melts it! You die and everybody\n in the mine besides! No tricks!\n We didn't come here for nothing!\"\n\n\n He twitched all over. Then he\n struck cruelly again at Pop Young's\n face. He seemed filled with fury, at\n least partly hysterical. It was the tension\n that space-travel\u2014then, at its\n beginning\u2014produced. It was meaningless\n savagery due to terror. But,\n of course, Pop was helpless to resent\n it. There were no weapons on the\n Moon and the mention of Sattell's\n name showed the uselessness of bluff.\n He'd pictured the complete set-up\n by the edge of the Big Crack. Pop\n could do nothing.\n\n\n The red-headed man checked\n himself, panting. He drew back and\n slammed the inner lock-door. There\n was the sound of pumping.\n\n\n Pop put his helmet back on and\n sealed it. The outer door opened.\n Outrushing air tugged at Pop. After\n a second or two he went out and\n climbed down the welded-on ladder-bars\n to the ground.\n\n\n He headed back toward his shack.\n Somehow, the mention of Sattell had\n made his mind work better. It always\n did. He began painstakingly to\n put things together. The red-headed\n man knew the routine here in every\n detail. He knew Sattell. That part\n was simple. Sattell had planned this\n multi-million-dollar coup, as a man\n in prison might plan his break. The\n stripped interior of the ship identified\n it.\n\n\n It was one of the unsuccessful\n luxury-liners sold for scrap. Or perhaps\n it was stolen for the journey\n here. Sattell's associates had had to\n steal or somehow get the fuel, and\n somehow find a pilot. But there were\n diamonds worth at least five million\n dollars waiting for them, and the\n whole job might not have called for\n more than two men\u2014with Sattell as\n a third. According to the economics\n of crime, it was feasible. Anyhow it\n was being done.\n\n\n Pop reached the dust-heap which\n was his shack and went in the air\n lock. Inside, he went to the vision-phone\n and called the mine-colony\n down in the Crack. He gave the\n message he'd been told to pass on.\n Sattell to come up, with what diamonds\n had been dug since the\n regular cannister was sent up for the\n Lunar City ship that would be due\n presently. Otherwise the ship on the\n landing strip would destroy shack\n and Pop and the colony together.\n\n\n \"I'd guess,\" said Pop painstakingly,\n \"that Sattell figured it out. He's\n probably got some sort of gun to\n keep you from holding him down\n there. But he won't know his friends\n are here\u2014not right this minute he\n won't.\"\n\n\n A shaking voice asked questions\n from the vision-phone.\n\n\n \"No,\" said Pop, \"they'll do it anyhow.\n If we were able to tell about\n 'em, they'd be chased. But if I'm\n dead and the shacks smashed and\n the cable burnt through, they'll be\n back on Earth long before a new\n cable's been got and let down to you.\n So they'll do all they can no matter\n what I do.\" He added, \"I wouldn't\n tell Sattell a thing about it, if I were\n you. It'll save trouble. Just let him\n keep on waiting for this to happen.\n It'll save you trouble.\"\n\n\n Another shaky question.\n\n\n \"Me?\" asked Pop. \"Oh, I'm going\n to raise what hell I can. There's\n some stuff in that ship I want.\"\n\n\n He switched off the phone. He\n went over to his air apparatus. He\n took down the cannister of diamonds\n which were worth five millions or\n more back on Earth. He found a\n bucket. He dumped the diamonds\n casually into it. They floated downward\n with great deliberation and\n surged from side to side like a liquid\n when they stopped. One-sixth gravity.\n\n\n Pop regarded his drawings meditatively.\n A sketch of his wife as he\n now remembered her. It was very\n good to remember. A drawing of his\n two children, playing together. He\n looked forward to remembering\n much more about them. He grinned.\n\n\n \"That stair-rail,\" he said in deep\n satisfaction. \"That'll do it!\"\n\n\n He tore bed linen from his bunk\n and worked on the emptied cannister.\n It was a double container with a\n thermware interior lining. Even on\n Earth newly-mined diamonds sometimes\n fly to pieces from internal\n stress. On the Moon, it was not desirable\n that diamonds be exposed to\n repeated violent changes of temperature.\n So a thermware-lined cannister\n kept them at mine-temperature once\n they were warmed to touchability.\n\n\n Pop packed the cotton cloth in the\n container. He hurried a little, because\n the men in the rocket were shaky and\n might not practice patience. He took\n a small emergency-lamp from his\n spare spacesuit. He carefully cracked\n its bulb, exposing the filament within.\n He put the lamp on top of the\n cotton and sprinkled magnesium\n marking-powder over everything.\n Then he went to the air-apparatus\n and took out a flask of the liquid\n oxygen used to keep his breathing-air\n in balance. He poured the frigid,\n pale-blue stuff into the cotton. He\n saturated it.\n\n\n All the inside of the shack was\n foggy when he finished. Then he\n pushed the cannister-top down. He\n breathed a sigh of relief when it was\n in place. He'd arranged for it to\n break a frozen-brittle switch as it\n descended. When it came off, the\n switch would light the lamp with its\n bare filament. There was powdered\n magnesium in contact with it and\n liquid oxygen all about.\n\n\n He went out of the shack by the\n air lock. On the way, thinking about\n Sattell, he suddenly recovered a completely\n new memory. On their first\n wedding anniversary, so long ago,\n he and his wife had gone out to\n dinner to celebrate. He remembered\n how she looked: the almost-smug\n joy they shared that they would be\n together for always, with one complete\n year for proof.\n\n\n Pop reflected hungrily that it was\n something else to be made permanent\n and inspected from time to time.\n But he wanted more than a drawing\n of this! He wanted to make the memory\n permanent and to extend it\u2014\n\n\n If it had not been for his vacuum\n suit and the cannister he carried, Pop\n would have rubbed his hands.\nTall, jagged crater-walls rose\n from the lunar plain. Monstrous, extended\n inky shadows stretched\n enormous distances, utterly black.\n The sun, like a glowing octopod,\n floated low at the edge of things and\n seemed to hate all creation.\n\n\n Pop reached the rocket. He\n climbed the welded ladder-rungs to\n the air lock. He closed the door. Air\n whined. His suit sagged against his\n body. He took off his helmet.\n\n\n When the red-headed man opened\n the inner door, the hand-weapon\n shook and trembled. Pop said\n calmly:\n\n\n \"Now I've got to go handle the\n hoist, if Sattell's coming up from\n the mine. If I don't do it, he don't\n come up.\"\n\n\n The red-headed man snarled. But\n his eyes were on the cannister whose\n contents should weigh a hundred\n pounds on Earth.\n\n\n \"Any tricks,\" he rasped, \"and you\n know what happens!\"\n\n\n \"Yeah,\" said Pop.\n\n\n He stolidly put his helmet back\n on. But his eyes went past the red-headed\n man to the stair that wound\n down, inside the ship, from some\n compartment above. The stair-rail was\n pure, clear, water-white plastic, not\n less than three inches thick. There\n was a lot of it!\n\n\n The inner door closed. Pop opened\n the outer. Air rushed out. He\n climbed painstakingly down to the\n ground. He started back toward the\n shack.\n\n\n There was the most luridly bright\n of all possible flashes. There was no\n sound, of course. But something\n flamed very brightly, and the ground\n thumped under Pop Young's vacuum\n boots. He turned.\n\n\n The rocketship was still in the act\n of flying apart. It had been a splendid\n explosion. Of course cotton sheeting\n in liquid oxygen is not quite as\n good an explosive as carbon-black,\n which they used down in the mine.\n Even with magnesium powder to\n start the flame when a bare light-filament\n ignited it, the cannister-bomb\n hadn't equaled\u2014say\u2014T.N.T.\n But the ship had fuel on board for\n the trip back to Earth. And it blew,\n too. It would be minutes before all\n the fragments of the ship returned\n to the Moon's surface. On the Moon,\n things fall slowly.\n\n\n Pop didn't wait. He searched\n hopefully. Once a mass of steel plating\n fell only yards from him, but it\n did not interrupt his search.\n\n\n When he went into the shack, he\n grinned to himself. The call-light of\n the vision-phone flickered wildly.\n When he took off his helmet the bell\n clanged incessantly. He answered. A\n shaking voice from the mining-colony\n panted:\n\n\n \"We felt a shock! What happened?\n What do we do?\"\n\n\n \"Don't do a thing,\" advised Pop.\n \"It's all right. I blew up the ship and\n everything's all right. I wouldn't\n even mention it to Sattell if I were\n you.\"\n\n\n He grinned happily down at a section\n of plastic stair-rail he'd found\n not too far from where the ship exploded.\n When the man down in the\n mine cut off, Pop got out of his\n vacuum suit in a hurry. He placed\n the plastic zestfully on the table\n where he'd been restricted to drawing\n pictures of his wife and children\n in order to recover memories of\n them.\n\n\n He began to plan, gloatingly, the\n thing he would carve out of a four-inch\n section of the plastic. When it\n was carved, he'd paint it. While he\n worked, he'd think of Sattell, because\n that was the way to get back the\n missing portions of his life\u2014the\n parts Sattell had managed to get\n away from him. He'd get back more\n than ever, now!\n\n\n He didn't wonder what he'd do\n if he ever remembered the crime\n Sattell had committed. He felt, somehow,\n that he wouldn't get that back\n until he'd recovered all the rest.\n\n\n Gloating, it was amusing to remember\n what people used to call\n such art-works as he planned, when\n carved by other lonely men in other\n faraway places. They called those\n sculptures scrimshaw.\n\n\n But they were a lot more than\n that!\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAstounding Science Fiction\nSeptember\n 1955. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "24247": "Illustrated by van Dongen\nA gun is an interesting weapon; it can be hired, of\n course, and naturally doesn't care who hires it. Something\n much the same can be said of the gunman, too....\nGUN FOR HIRE\nBy\nMACK\n\n REYNOLDS\nJoe Prantera\n called\n softly, \"Al.\" The pleasurable,\n comfortable,\n warm feeling began\n spreading over him, the\n way it always did.\n\n\n The older man stopped and\n squinted, but not suspiciously, even\n now.\n\n\n The evening was dark, it was unlikely\n that the other even saw the\n circle of steel that was the mouth of\n the shotgun barrel, now resting on\n the car's window ledge.\n\n\n \"Who's it?\" he growled.\n\n\n Joe Prantera said softly, \"Big Louis\n sent me, Al.\"\n\n\n And he pressed the trigger.\n\n\n And at that moment, the universe\n caved inward upon Joseph Marie\n Prantera.\n\n\n There was nausea and nausea upon\n nausea.\n\n\n There was a falling through all\n space and through all time. There was\n doubling and twisting and twitching\n of every muscle and nerve.\n\n\n There was pain, horror and tumultuous\n fear.\n\n\n And he came out of it as quickly\n and completely as he'd gone in.\n\n\n He was in, he thought, a hospital\n and his first reaction was to think,\nThis here California. Everything different.\nThen his second thought was\nSomething went wrong. Big Louis, he\n ain't going to like this.\nHe brought his thinking to the\n present. So far as he could remember,\n he hadn't completely pulled the trigger.\n That at least meant that whatever\n the rap was it wouldn't be too\n tough. With luck, the syndicate would\n get him off with a couple of years at\n Quentin.\n\n\n A door slid open in the wall in a\n way that Joe had never seen a door\n operate before.\nThis here California.\nThe clothes on the newcomer were\n wrong, too. For the first time, Joe\n Prantera began to sense an alienness\u2014a\n something that was awfully\n wrong.\n\n\n The other spoke precisely and\n slowly, the way a highly educated man\n speaks a language which he reads\n and writes fluently but has little occasion\n to practice vocally. \"You have recovered?\"\n\n\n Joe Prantera looked at the other\n expressionlessly. Maybe the old duck\n was one of these foreign doctors, like.\n\n\n The newcomer said, \"You have undoubtedly\n been through a most harrowing\n experience. If you have any\n untoward symptoms, possibly I could\n be of assistance.\"\n\n\n Joe couldn't figure out how he\n stood. For one thing, there should\n have been some kind of police guard.\n\n\n The other said, \"Perhaps a bit of\n stimulant?\"\n\n\n Joe said flatly, \"I wanta lawyer.\"\n\n\n The newcomer frowned at him. \"A\n lawyer?\"\n\n\n \"I'm not sayin' nothin'. Not until I\n get a mouthpiece.\"\n\n\n The newcomer started off on another\n tack. \"My name is Lawrence\n Reston-Farrell. If I am not mistaken,\n you are Joseph Salviati-Prantera.\"\n\n\n Salviati happened to be Joe's mother's\n maiden name. But it was unlikely\n this character could have known that.\n Joe had been born in Naples and his\n mother had died in childbirth. His\n father hadn't brought him to the\n States until the age of five and by that\n time he had a stepmother.\n\n\n \"I wanta mouthpiece,\" Joe said\n flatly, \"or let me outta here.\"\n\n\n Lawrence Reston-Farrell said, \"You\n are not being constrained. There are\n clothes for you in the closet there.\"\n\n\n Joe gingerly tried swinging his\n feet to the floor and sitting up, while\n the other stood watching him, strangely.\n He came to his feet. With the exception\n of a faint nausea, which\n brought back memories of that extreme\n condition he'd suffered during\n ... during what? He hadn't the\n vaguest idea of what had happened.\n\n\n He was dressed in a hospital-type\n nightgown. He looked down at it and\n snorted and made his way over to the\n closet. It opened on his approach, the\n door sliding back into the wall in\n much the same manner as the room's\n door had opened for Reston-Farrell.\n\n\n Joe Prantera scowled and said,\n \"These ain't my clothes.\"\n\n\n \"No, I am afraid not.\"\n\n\n \"You think I'd be seen dead wearing\n this stuff? What is this, some religious\n crackpot hospital?\"\n\n\n Reston-Farrell said, \"I am afraid,\n Mr. Salviati-Prantera, that these are\n the only garments available. I suggest\n you look out the window there.\"\n\n\n Joe gave him a long, chill look\n and then stepped to the window. He\n couldn't figure the other. Unless he\n was a fruitcake. Maybe he was in\n some kind of pressure cooker and\n this was one of the fruitcakes.\n\n\n He looked out, however, not on the\n lawns and walks of a sanitarium but\n upon a wide boulevard of what was\n obviously a populous city.\n\n\n And for a moment again, Joe Prantera\n felt the depths of nausea.\n\n\n This was not his world.\n\n\n He stared for a long, long moment.\n The cars didn't even have wheels, he\n noted dully. He turned slowly and\n faced the older man.\n\n\n Reston-Farrell said compassionately,\n \"Try this, it's excellent cognac.\"\n\n\n Joe Prantera stared at him, said finally,\n flatly, \"What's it all about?\"\n\n\n The other put down the unaccepted\n glass. \"We were afraid first\n realization would be a shock to you,\"\n he said. \"My colleague is in the adjoining\n room. We will be glad to explain\n to you if you will join us there.\"\n\n\n \"I wanta get out of here,\" Joe said.\n\n\n \"Where would you go?\"\n\n\n The fear of police, of Al Rossi's\n vengeance, of the measures that\n might be taken by Big Louis on his\n failure, were now far away.\n\n\n Reston-Farrell had approached the\n door by which he had entered and it\n reopened for him. He went through\n it without looking back.\n\n\n There was nothing else to do. Joe\n dressed, then followed him.\nIn the adjoining room was a circular\n table that would have accommodated\n a dozen persons. Two were\n seated there now, papers, books and\n soiled coffee cups before them. There\n had evidently been a long wait.\n\n\n Reston-Farrell, the one Joe had already\n met, was tall and drawn of face\n and with a chainsmoker's nervousness.\n The other was heavier and more\n at ease. They were both, Joe estimated,\n somewhere in their middle fifties.\n They both looked like docs. He\n wondered, all over again, if this was\n some kind of pressure cooker.\n\n\n But that didn't explain the view\n from the window.\n\n\n Reston-Farrell said, \"May I present\n my colleague, Citizen Warren Brett-James?\n Warren, this is our guest from\n ... from yesteryear, Mr. Joseph Salviati-Prantera.\"\n\n\n Brett-James nodded to him, friendly,\n so far as Joe could see. He said\n gently, \"I think it would be Mr. Joseph\n Prantera, wouldn't it? The maternal\n linage was almost universally\n ignored.\" His voice too gave the impression\n he was speaking a language\n not usually on his tongue.\n\n\n Joe took an empty chair, hardly\n bothering to note its alien qualities.\n His body seemed to\nfit\ninto the piece\n of furniture, as though it had been\n molded to his order.\n\n\n Joe said, \"I think maybe I'll take\n that there drink, Doc.\"\n\n\n Reston-Farrell said, \"Of course,\"\n and then something else Joe didn't\n get. Whatever the something else\n was, a slot opened in the middle of\n the table and a glass, so clear of texture\n as to be all but invisible, was\n elevated. It contained possibly three\n ounces of golden fluid.\n\n\n Joe didn't allow himself to think\n of its means of delivery. He took up\n the drink and bolted it. He put the\n glass down and said carefully,\n \"What's it all about, huh?\"\n\n\n Warren Brett-James said soothingly,\n \"Prepare yourself for somewhat\n of a shock, Mr. Prantera. You are no\n longer in Los Angeles\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Ya think I'm stupid? I can see\n that.\"\n\n\n \"I was about to say, Los Angeles of\n 1960. Mr. Prantera, we welcome you\n to Nuevo Los Angeles.\"\n\n\n \"Ta where?\"\n\n\n \"To Nuevo Los Angeles and to\n the year\u2014\" Brett-James looked at his\n companion. \"What is the date, Old\n Calendar?\"\n\n\n \"2133,\" Reston-Farrell said. \"2133\n A.D. they would say.\"\n\n\n Joe Prantera looked from one of\n them to the other, scowling. \"What\n are you guys talking about?\"\n\n\n Warren Brett-James said softly,\n \"Mr. Prantera, you are no longer in\n the year 1960, you are now in the\n year 2133.\"\n\n\n He said, uncomprehendingly, \"You\n mean I been, like, unconscious for\u2014\"\n He let the sentence fall away as he\n realized the impossibility.\n\n\n Brett-James said gently, \"Hardly\n for one hundred and seventy years,\n Mr. Prantera.\"\n\n\n Reston-Farrell said, \"I am afraid we\n are confusing you. Briefly, we have\ntransported\nyou, I suppose one might\n say, from your own era to ours.\"\n\n\n Joe Prantera had never been exposed\n to the concept of time travel.\n He had simply never associated with\n anyone who had ever even remotely\n considered such an idea. Now he said,\n \"You mean, like, I been asleep all\n that time?\"\n\n\n \"Not exactly,\" Brett-James said,\n frowning.\n\n\n Reston-Farrell said, \"Suffice to say,\n you are now one hundred and seventy-three\n years after the last memory you\n have.\"\n\n\n Joe Prantera's mind suddenly reverted\n to those last memories and his\n eyes narrowed dangerously. He felt\n suddenly at bay. He said, \"Maybe\n you guys better let me in on what's\n this all about.\"\n\n\n Reston-Farrell said, \"Mr. Prantera,\n we have brought you from your era\n to perform a task for us.\"\n\n\n Joe stared at him, and then at the\n other. He couldn't believe he was getting\n through to them. Or, at least,\n that they were to him.\n\n\n Finally he said, \"If I get this, you\n want me to do a job for you.\"\n\n\n \"That is correct.\"\n\n\n Joe said, \"You guys know the kind\n of jobs I do?\"\n\n\n \"That is correct.\"\n\n\n \"Like hell you do. You think I'm\n stupid? I never even seen you before.\"\n Joe Prantera came abruptly to\n his feet. \"I'm gettin' outta here.\"\n\n\n For the second time, Reston-Farrell\n said, \"Where would you go, Mr.\n Prantera?\"\n\n\n Joe glared at him. Then sat down\n again, as abruptly as he'd arisen.\n\"Let's start all over again. I got this\n straight, you brought me, some\n screwy way, all the way ... here.\n O.K., I'll buy that. I seen what it looks\n like out that window\u2014\" The real\n comprehension was seeping through\n to him even as he talked. \"Everybody\n I know, Jessie, Tony, the Kid, Big\n Louis, everybody, they're dead. Even\n Big Louis.\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Brett-James said, his voice\n soft. \"They are all dead, Mr. Prantera.\n Their children are all dead, and their\n grandchildren.\"\n\n\n The two men of the future said\n nothing more for long minutes while\n Joe Prantera's mind whirled its confusion.\n\n\n Finally he said, \"What's this bit\n about you wanting me to give it to\n some guy.\"\n\n\n \"That is why we brought you here,\n Mr. Prantera. You were ... you\n are, a professional assassin.\"\n\n\n \"Hey, wait a minute, now.\"\n\n\n Reston-Farrell went on, ignoring\n the interruption. \"There is small\n point in denying your calling. Pray\n remember that at the point when we\n ...\ntransported\nyou, you were about\n to dispose of a contemporary named\n Alphonso Annunziata-Rossi. A citizen,\n I might say, whose demise would\n probably have caused small dismay to\n society.\"\n\n\n They had him pegged all right. Joe\n said, \"But why me? Why don't you\n get some heavy from now? Somebody\n knows the ropes these days.\"\n\n\n Brett-James said, \"Mr. Prantera,\n there are no professional assassins in\n this age, nor have there been for over\n a century and a half.\"\n\n\n \"Well, then do it yourself.\" Joe\n Prantera's irritation over this whole\n complicated mess was growing. And\n already he was beginning to long for\n the things he knew\u2014for Jessie and\n Tony and the others, for his favorite\n bar, for the lasagne down at Papa\n Giovanni's. Right now he could have\n welcomed a calling down at the hands\n of Big Louis.\n\n\n Reston-Farrell had come to his feet\n and walked to one of the large room's\n windows. He looked out, as though\n unseeing. Then, his back turned, he\n said, \"We have tried, but it is simply\n not in us, Mr. Prantera.\"\n\n\n \"You mean you're yella?\"\n\n\n \"No, if by that you mean afraid. It\n is simply not within us to take the\n life of a fellow creature\u2014not to speak\n of a fellow man.\"\n\n\n Joe snapped: \"Everything you guys\n say sounds crazy. Let's start all over\n again.\"\n\n\n Brett-James said, \"Let me do it,\n Lawrence.\" He turned his eyes to Joe.\n \"Mr. Prantera, in your own era, did\n you ever consider the future?\"\n\n\n Joe looked at him blankly.\n\n\n \"In your day you were confronted\n with national and international, problems.\n Just as we are today and just as\n nations were a century or a millennium\n ago.\"\n\n\n \"Sure, O.K., so we had problems. I\n know whatcha mean\u2014like wars, and\n depressions and dictators and like\n that.\"\n\n\n \"Yes, like that,\" Brett-James\n nodded.\n\n\n The heavy-set man paused a moment.\n \"Yes, like that,\" he repeated.\n \"That we confront you now indicates\n that the problems of your day were\n solved. Hadn't they been, the world\n most surely would have destroyed itself.\n Wars? Our pedagogues are hard\n put to convince their students that\n such ever existed. More than a century\n and a half ago our society eliminated\n the reasons for international\n conflict. For that matter,\" he added\n musingly, \"we eliminated most international\n boundaries. Depressions?\n Shortly after your own period, man\n awoke to the fact that he had achieved\n to the point where it was possible to\n produce an abundance for all with a\n minimum of toil. Overnight, for all\n practical purposes, the whole world\n was industrialized, automated. The\n second industrial revolution was accompanied\n by revolutionary changes\n in almost every field, certainly in every\n science. Dictators? Your ancestors\n found, Mr. Prantera, that it is\n difficult for a man to be free so long\n as others are still enslaved. Today the\n democratic ethic has reached a pinnacle\n never dreamed of in your own\n era.\"\n\n\n \"O.K., O.K.,\" Joe Prantera growled.\n \"So everybody's got it made. What I\n wanta know is what's all this about\n me giving it ta somebody? If everything's\n so great, how come you want\n me to knock this guy off?\"\n\n\n Reston-Farrell bent forward and\n thumped his right index finger twice\n on the table. \"The bacterium of hate\u2014a\n new strain\u2014has found the human\n race unprotected from its disease.\n We had thought our vaccines\n immunized us.\"\n\n\n \"What's that suppose to mean?\"\n\n\n Brett-James took up the ball again.\n \"Mr. Prantera, have you ever heard of\n Ghengis Khan, of Tamerlane, Alexander,\n Caesar?\"\n\n\n Joe Prantera scowled at him emptily.\n\n\n \"Or, more likely, of Napoleon, Hitler,\n Stalin?\"\n\n\n \"Sure I heard of Hitler and Stalin,\"\n Joe growled. \"I ain't stupid.\"\n\n\n The other nodded. \"Such men are\n unique. They have a drive ... a\n drive to power which exceeds by far\n the ambitions of the average man.\n They are genii in their way, Mr. Prantera,\n genii of evil. Such a genius of\n evil has appeared on the current\n scene.\"\n\n\n \"Now we're getting somewheres,\"\n Joe snorted. \"So you got a guy what's\n a little ambitious, like, eh? And you\n guys ain't got the guts to give it to\n him. O.K. What's in it for me?\"\n\n\n The two of them frowned, exchanged\n glances. Reston-Farrell said,\n \"You know, that is one aspect we had\n not considered.\"\n\n\n Brett-James said to Joe Prantera,\n \"Had we not, ah, taken you at the\n time we did, do you realize what\n would have happened?\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" Joe grunted. \"I woulda let\n old Al Rossi have it right in the guts,\n five times. Then I woulda took the\n plane back to Chi.\"\n\n\n Brett-James was shaking his head.\n \"No. You see, by coincidence, a police\n squad car was coming down the\n street just at that moment to arrest\n Mr. Rossi. You would have been apprehended.\n As I understand Californian\n law of the period, your life\n would have been forfeit, Mr. Prantera.\"\n\n\n Joe winced. It didn't occur to him\n to doubt their word.\n\n\n Reston-Farrell said, \"As to reward,\n Mr. Prantera, we have already told\n you there is ultra-abundance in this\n age. Once this task has been performed,\n we will sponsor your entry\n into present day society. Competent\n psychiatric therapy will soon remove\n your present\u2014\"\n\n\n \"Waita minute, now. You figure on\n gettin' me candled by some head\n shrinker, eh? No thanks, Buster. I'm\n going back to my own\u2014\"\n\n\n Brett-James was shaking his head\n again. \"I am afraid there is no return,\n Mr. Prantera. Time travel works but\n in one direction,\nwith\nthe flow of the\n time stream. There can be no return\n to your own era.\"\n\n\n Joe Prantera had been rocking\n with the mental blows he had been\n assimilating, but this was the final\n haymaker. He was stuck in this\n squaresville of a world.\nJoe Prantera on a job was thorough.\n\n\n Careful, painstaking, competent.\n\n\n He spent the first three days of his\n life in the year 2133 getting the feel\n of things. Brett-James and Reston-Farrell\n had been appointed to work\n with him. Joe didn't meet any of the\n others who belonged to the group\n which had taken the measures to\n bring him from the past. He didn't\n want to meet them. The fewer persons\n involved, the better.\n\n\n He stayed in the apartment of\n Reston-Farrell. Joe had been right,\n Reston-Farrell was a medical doctor.\n Brett-James evidently had something\n to do with the process that had enabled\n them to bring Joe from the\n past. Joe didn't know how they'd\n done it, and he didn't care. Joe was a\n realist. He was here. The thing was\n to adapt.\n\n\n There didn't seem to be any hurry.\n Once the deal was made, they left it\n up to him to make the decisions.\n\n\n They drove him around the town,\n when he wished to check the traffic\n arteries. They flew him about the\n whole vicinity. From the air, Southern\n California looked much the same\n as it had in his own time. Oceans,\n mountains, and to a lesser extent, deserts,\n are fairly permanent even\n against man's corroding efforts.\n\n\n It was while he was flying with\n Brett-James on the second day that\n Joe said, \"How about Mexico? Could\n I make the get to Mexico?\"\n\n\n The physicist looked at him questioningly.\n \"Get?\" he said.\n\n\n Joe Prantera said impatiently, \"The\n getaway. After I give it to this Howard\n Temple-Tracy guy, I gotta go on\n the run, don't I?\"\n\n\n \"I see.\" Brett-James cleared his\n throat. \"Mexico is no longer a separate\n nation, Mr. Prantera. All North\n America has been united into one\n unit. Today, there are only eight nations\n in the world.\"\n\n\n \"Where's the nearest?\"\n\n\n \"South America.\"\n\n\n \"That's a helluva long way to go on\n a get.\"\n\n\n \"We hadn't thought of the matter\n being handled in that manner.\"\n\n\n Joe eyed him in scorn. \"Oh, you\n didn't, huh? What happens after I\n give it to this guy? I just sit around\n and wait for the cops to put the arm\n on me?\"\n\n\n Brett-James grimaced in amusement.\n \"Mr. Prantera, this will probably\n be difficult for you to comprehend,\n but there are no police in this\n era.\"\n\n\n Joe gaped at him. \"No police!\n What happens if you gotta throw\n some guy in stir?\"\n\n\n \"If I understand your idiom correctly,\n you mean prison. There are\n no prisons in this era, Mr. Prantera.\"\n\n\n Joe stared. \"No cops, no jails. What\n stops anybody? What stops anybody\n from just going into some bank, like,\n and collecting up all the bread?\"\n\n\n Brett-James cleared his throat.\n \"Mr. Prantera, there are no banks.\"\n\n\n \"No banks! You gotta have banks!\"\n\n\n \"And no money to put in them.\n We found it a rather antiquated\n method of distribution well over a\n century ago.\"\n\n\n Joe had given up. Now he merely\n stared.\n\n\n Brett-James said reasonably, \"We\n found we were devoting as much\n time to financial matters in all their\n endless ramifications\u2014including\n bank robberies\u2014as we were to productive\n efforts. So we turned to more\n efficient methods of distribution.\"\nOn the fourth day, Joe said, \"O.K.,\n let's get down to facts. Summa the\n things you guys say don't stick together\n so good. Now, first place,\n where's this guy Temple-Tracy you\n want knocked off?\"\n\n\n Reston-Farrell and Brett-James\n were both present. The three of them\n sat in the living room of the latter's\n apartment, sipping a sparkling wine\n which seemed to be the prevailing\n beverage of the day. For Joe's taste\n it was insipid stuff. Happily, rye was\n available to those who wanted it.\n\n\n Reston-Farrell said, \"You mean,\n where does he reside? Why, here in\n this city.\"\n\n\n \"Well, that's handy, eh?\" Joe\n scratched himself thoughtfully. \"You\n got somebody can finger him for me?\"\n\n\n \"Finger him?\"\n\n\n \"Look, before I can give it to this\n guy I gotta know some place where\n he'll be at some time. Get it? Like Al\n Rossi. My finger, he works in Rossi's\n house, see? He lets me know every\n Wednesday night, eight o'clock, Al\n leaves the house all by hisself. O.K.,\n so I can make plans, like, to give it\n to him.\" Joe Prantera wound it up\n reasonably. \"You gotta have a finger.\"\n\n\n Brett-James said, \"Why not just go\n to Temple-Tracy's apartment and, ah,\n dispose of him?\"\n\n\n \"Jest walk in, eh? You think I'm\n stupid? How do I know how many\n witnesses hangin' around? How do I\n know if the guy's carryin' heat?\"\n\n\n \"Heat?\"\n\n\n \"A gun, a gun. Ya think I'm stupid?\n I come to give it to him and he\n gives it to me instead.\"\n\n\n Dr. Reston-Farrell said, \"Howard\n Temple-Tracy lives alone. He customarily\n receives visitors every afternoon,\n largely potential followers. He\n is attempting to recruit members to\n an organization he is forming. It\n would be quite simple for you to\n enter his establishment and dispose\n of him. I assure you, he does not possess\n weapons.\"\n\n\n Joe was indignant. \"Just like that,\n eh?\" he said sarcastically. \"Then what\n happens? How do I get out of the\n building? Where's my get car parked?\n Where do I hide out? Where do I\n dump the heat?\"\n\n\n \"Dump the heat?\"\n\n\n \"Get rid of the gun. You want I\n should get caught with the gun on\n me? I'd wind up in the gas chamber\n so quick\u2014\"\n\n\n \"See here, Mr. Prantera,\" Brett-James\n said softly. \"We no longer have\n capital punishment, you must realize.\"\n\n\n \"O.K. I still don't wanta get caught.\n What\nis\nthe rap these days, huh?\"\n Joe scowled. \"You said they didn't\n have no jails any more.\"\n\n\n \"This is difficult for you to understand,\n I imagine,\" Reston-Farrell told\n him, \"but, you see, we no longer punish\n people in this era.\"\n\n\n That took a long, unbelieving moment\n to sink in. \"You mean, like, no\n matter what they do? That's crazy.\n Everybody'd be running around giving\n it to everybody else.\"\n\n\n \"The motivation for crime has\n been removed, Mr. Prantera,\" Reston-Farrell\n attempted to explain. \"A\n person who commits a violence\n against another is obviously in need\n of medical care. And, consequently,\n receives it.\"\n\n\n \"You mean, like, if I steal a car or\n something, they just take me to a\n doctor?\" Joe Prantera was unbelieving.\n\n\n \"Why would anybody wish to steal\n a car?\" Reston-Farrell said easily.\n\n\n \"But if I\ngive it\nto somebody?\"\n\n\n \"You will be turned over to a medical\n institution. Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy\n is the last man you will\n ever kill, Mr. Prantera.\"\n\n\n A chillness was in the belly of Joe\n Prantera. He said very slowly, very\n dangerously, \"You guys figure on me\n getting caught, don't you?\"\n\n\n \"Yes,\" Brett-James said evenly.\n\n\n \"Well then, figure something else.\n You think I'm stupid?\"\n\n\n \"Mr. Prantera,\" Dr. Reston-Farrell\n said, \"there has been as much progress\n in the field of psychiatry in the\n past two centuries as there has in\n any other. Your treatment would be\n brief and painless, believe me.\"\n\n\n Joe said coldly, \"And what happens\n to you guys? How do you know I\n won't rat on you?\"\n\n\n Brett-James said gently, \"The moment\n after you have accomplished\n your mission, we plan to turn ourselves\n over to the nearest institution\n to have determined whether or not\n we also need therapy.\"\n\n\n \"Now I'm beginning to wonder\n about you guys,\" Joe said. \"Look, all\n over again, what'd'ya wanta give it to\n this guy for?\"\n\n\n The doctor said, \"We explained\n the other day, Mr. Prantera. Citizen\n Howard Temple-Tracy is a dangerous,\n atavistic, evil genius. We are\n afraid for our institutions if his plans\n are allowed to mature.\"\n\n\n \"Well if you got things so good,\n everybody's got it made, like, who'd\n listen to him?\"\n\n\n The doctor nodded at the validity\n of the question. \"Mr. Prantera,\nHomo\n sapiens\nis a unique animal. Physically\n he matures at approximately the age\n of thirteen. However, mental maturity\n and adjustment is often not fully\n realized until thirty or even more.\n Indeed, it is sometimes never\n achieved. Before such maturity is\n reached, our youth are susceptible to\n romantic appeal. Nationalism, chauvinism,\n racism, the supposed glory of\n the military, all seem romantic to the\n immature. They rebel at the orderliness\n of present society. They seek entertainment\n in excitement. Citizen\n Temple-Tracy is aware of this and\n finds his recruits among the young.\"\n\n\n \"O.K., so this guy is dangerous.\n You want him knocked off before he\n screws everything up. But the way\n things are, there's no way of making\n a get. So you'll have to get some other\n patsy. Not me.\"\n\n\n \"I am afraid you have no alternative,\"\n Brett-James said gently. \"Without\n us, what will you do? Mr. Prantera,\n you do not even speak the language.\"\n\n\n \"What'd'ya mean? I don't understand\n summa the big words you eggheads\n use, but I get by O.K.\"\n\n\n Brett-James said, \"Amer-English is\n no longer the language spoken by the\n man in the street, Mr. Prantera. Only\n students of such subjects any longer\n speak such tongues as Amer-English,\n French, Russian or the many others\n that once confused the race with\n their limitations as a means of communication.\"\n\n\n \"You mean there's no place in the\n whole world where they talk American?\"\n Joe demanded, aghast.\nDr. Reston-Farrell controlled the\n car. Joe Prantera sat in the seat next\n to him and Warren Brett-James sat\n in the back. Joe had, tucked in his\n belt, a .45 caliber automatic, once displayed\n in a museum. It had been\n more easily procured than the ammunition\n to fit it, but that problem too\n had been solved.\n\n\n The others were nervous, obviously\n repelled by the very conception of\n what they had planned.\n\n\n Inwardly, Joe was amused. Now\n that they had got in the clutch, the\n others were on the verge of chickening\n out. He knew it wouldn't have\n taken much for them to cancel the\n project. It wasn't any answer though.\n If they allowed him to call it off today,\n they'd talk themselves into it\n again before the week was through.\n\n\n Besides, already Joe was beginning\n to feel the comfortable, pleasurable,\n warm feeling that came to him on\n occasions like this.\n\n\n He said, \"You're sure this guy talks\n American, eh?\"\n\n\n Warren Brett-James said, \"Quite\n sure. He is a student of history.\"\n\n\n \"And he won't think it's funny I\n talk American to him, eh?\"\n\n\n \"He'll undoubtedly be intrigued.\"\n\n\n They pulled up before a large\n apartment building that overlooked\n the area once known as Wilmington.\n\n\n Joe was coolly efficient now. He\n pulled out the automatic, held it\n down below his knees and threw a\n shell into the barrel. He eased the\n hammer down, thumbed on the\n safety, stuck the weapon back in his\n belt and beneath the jacketlike garment\n he wore.\n\n\n He said, \"O.K. See you guys later.\"\n He left them and entered the building.\n\n\n An elevator\u2014he still wasn't used\n to their speed in this era\u2014whooshed\n him to the penthouse duplex occupied\n by Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy.\n\n\n There were two persons in the reception\n room but they left on Joe's\n arrival, without bothering to look at\n him more than glancingly.\n\n\n He spotted the screen immediately\n and went over and stood before it.\n\n\n The screen lit and revealed a\n heavy-set, dour of countenance man\n seated at a desk. He looked into Joe\n Prantera's face, scowled and said\n something.\n\n\n Joe said, \"Joseph Salviati-Prantera\n to interview Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy.\"\n\n\n The other's shaggy eyebrows rose.\n \"Indeed,\" he said. \"In Amer-English?\"\n\n\n Joe nodded.\n\n\n \"Enter,\" the other said.\n\n\n A door had slid open on the other\n side of the room. Joe walked through\n it and into what was obviously an office.\n Citizen Temple-Tracy sat at a\n desk. There was only one other chair\n in the room. Joe Prantera ignored it\n and remained standing.\n\n\n Citizen Temple-Tracy said, \"What\n can I do for you?\"\n\n\n Joe looked at him for a long, long\n moment. Then he reached down to\n his belt and brought forth the .45\n automatic. He moistened his lips.\n\n\n Joe said softly, \"You know what\n this here is?\"\n\n\n Temple-Tracy stared at the weapon.\n \"It's a handgun, circa, I would\n say, about 1925 Old Calendar. What\n in the world are you doing with it?\"\n\n\n Joe said, very slowly, \"Chief, in the\n line you're in these days you needa\n heavy around with wunna these. Otherwise,\n Chief, you're gunna wind up\n in some gutter with a lotta holes in\n you. What I'm doin', I'm askin' for a\n job. You need a good man knows how\n to handle wunna these, Chief.\"\n\n\n Citizen Howard Temple-Tracy\n eyed him appraisingly. \"Perhaps,\" he\n said, \"you are right at that. In the near\n future, I may well need an assistant\n knowledgeable in the field of violence.\n Tell me more about yourself.\n You surprise me considerably.\"\n\n\n \"Sure, Chief. It's kinda a long\n story, though. First off, I better tell\n you you got some bad enemies, Chief.\n Two guys special, named Brett-James\n and Doc Reston-Farrell. I think one\n of the first jobs I'm gunna hafta do\n for you, Chief, is to give it to those\n two.\"\nTHE END\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nAnalog\nDecember\n 1960. Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "26843": "THE DOPE\n\n on Mars\nBy JACK SHARKEY\nSomebody had to get the human\n angle on this trip ... but what\n was humane about sending me?\nIllustrated by WOOD\nMy\n agent was the one who\n got me the job of going\n along to write up the first\n trip to Mars. He was always getting\n me things like that\u2014appearances\n on TV shows, or mentions in writers'\n magazines. If he didn't sell\n much of my stuff, at least he sold\nme\n.\n\n\n \"It'll be the biggest break a\n writer ever got,\" he told me, two\n days before blastoff. \"Oh, sure\n there'll be scientific reports on the\n trip, but the public doesn't want\n them; they want the\nhuman\nslant\n on things.\"\n\n\n \"But, Louie,\" I said weakly, \"I'll\n probably be locked up for the\n whole trip. If there are fights or accidents,\n they won't tell\nme\nabout\n them.\"\n\n\n \"Nonsense,\" said Louie, sipping\n carefully at a paper cup of scalding\n coffee. \"It'll be just like the\n public going along vicariously.\n They'll\nidentify\nwith you.\"\n\n\n \"But, Louie,\" I said, wiping the\n dampness from my palms on the\n knees of my trousers as I sat there,\n \"how'll I go about it? A story? An\n article? A\nyou-are-there\ntype of report?\n What?\"\n\n\n Louie shrugged. \"So keep a\n diary. It'll be more intimate, like.\"\n\n\n \"But what if nothing happens?\"\n I insisted hopelessly.\n\n\n Louie smiled. \"So you fake it.\"\n\n\n I got up from the chair in his office\n and stepped to the door.\n \"That's dishonest,\" I pointed out.\n\n\n \"Creative is the word,\" Louie\n said.\n\n\n So I went on the first trip to\n Mars. And I kept a diary. This is\n it. And it is honest. Honest it is.\nOctober 1, 1960\nThey picked\n the launching\n date from the March, 1959, New\n York\nTimes\n, which stated that this\n was the most likely time for launching.\n Trip time is supposed to take\n 260 days (that's one way), so\n we're aimed toward where Mars\n will be (had\nbetter\nbe, or else).\n\n\n There are five of us on board. A\n pilot, co-pilot, navigator and biochemist.\n And, of course, me. I've\n met all but the pilot (he's very\n busy today), and they seem friendly\n enough.\n\n\n Dwight Kroger, the biochemist,\n is rather old to take the \"rigors of\n the journey,\" as he puts it, but the\n government had a choice between\n sending a green scientist who could\n stand the trip or an accomplished\n man who would probably not survive,\n so they picked Kroger. We've\n blasted off, though, and he's still\n with us. He looks a damn sight better\n than I feel. He's kind of balding,\n and very iron-gray-haired and\n skinny, but his skin is tan as an Indian's,\n and right now he's telling\n jokes in the washroom with the co-pilot.\n\n\n Jones (that's the co-pilot; I\n didn't quite catch his first name) is\n scarlet-faced, barrel-chested and\n gives the general appearance of belonging\n under the spreading chestnut\n tree, not in a metal bullet flinging\n itself out into airless space.\n Come to think of it, who\ndoes\nbelong\n where we are?\n\n\n The navigator's name is Lloyd\n Streeter, but I haven't seen his face\n yet. He has a little cubicle behind\n the pilot's compartment, with all\n kinds of maps and rulers and things.\n He keeps bent low over a welded-to-the-wall\n (they call it the bulkhead,\n for some reason or other)\n table, scratching away with a ballpoint\n pen on the maps, and now\n and then calling numbers over a\n microphone to the pilot. His hair\n is red and curly, and he looks as\n though he'd be tall if he ever gets\n to stand up. There are freckles on\n the backs of his hands, so I think\n he's probably got them on his face,\n too. So far, all he's said is, \"Scram,\n I'm busy.\"\n\n\n Kroger tells me that the pilot's\n name is Patrick Desmond, but that\n I can call him Pat when I get to\n know him better. So far, he's still\n Captain Desmond to me. I haven't\n the vaguest idea what he looks like.\n He was already on board when I\n got here, with my typewriter and\n ream of paper, so we didn't meet.\n\n\n My compartment is small but\n clean. I mean clean now. It wasn't\n during blastoff. The inertial gravities\n didn't bother me so much as\n the gyroscopic spin they put on the\n ship so we have a sort of artificial\n gravity to hold us against the\n curved floor. It's that constant\n whirly feeling that gets me. I get\n sick on merry-go-rounds, too.\n\n\n They're having pork for dinner\n today. Not me.\nOctober 2, 1960\nFeeling much\n better today.\n Kroger gave me a box of Dramamine\n pills. He says they'll help my\n stomach. So far, so good.\n\n\n Lloyd came by, also. \"You play\n chess?\" he asked.\n\n\n \"A little,\" I admitted.\n\n\n \"How about a game sometime?\"\n\n\n \"Sure,\" I said. \"Do you have a\n board?\"\n\n\n He didn't.\n\n\n Lloyd went away then, but the\n interview wasn't wasted. I learned\n that he\nis\ntall and\ndoes\nhave a\n freckled face. Maybe we can build\n a chessboard. With my paper and\n his ballpoint pen and ruler, it should\n be easy. Don't know what we'll use\n for pieces, though.\n\n\n Jones (I still haven't learned his\n first name) has been up with the\n pilot all day. He passed my room\n on the way to the galley (the\n kitchen) for a cup of dark brown\n coffee (they like it thick) and told\n me that we were almost past the\n Moon. I asked to look, but he said\n not yet; the instrument panel is\n Top Secret. They'd have to cover\n it so I could look out the viewing\n screen, and they still need it for\n steering or something.\n\n\n I still haven't met the pilot.\nOctober 3, 1960\nWell, I've\n met the pilot. He is\n kind of squat, with a vulturish neck\n and close-set jet-black eyes that\n make him look rather mean, but he\n was pleasant enough, and said I\n could call him Pat. I still don't\n know Jones' first name, though Pat\n spoke to him, and it sounded like\n Flants. That can't be right.\n\n\n Also, I am one of the first five\n men in the history of the world to\n see the opposite side of the Moon,\n with a bluish blurred crescent beyond\n it that Pat said was the Earth.\n The back of the Moon isn't much\n different from the front. As to the\n space in front of the ship, well, it's\n all black with white dots in it, and\n none of the dots move, except in a\n circle that Pat says is a \"torque\"\n result from the gyroscopic spin\n we're in. Actually, he explained to\n me, the screen is supposed to keep\n the image of space locked into\n place no matter how much we spin.\n But there's some kind of a \"drag.\"\n I told him I hoped it didn't mean\n we'd land on Mars upside down. He\n just stared at me.\n\n\n I can't say I was too impressed\n with that 16 x 19 view of outer\n space. It's been done much better\n in the movies. There's just no awesomeness\n to it, no sense of depth or\n immensity. It's as impressive as a\n piece of velvet with salt sprinkled\n on it.\n\n\n Lloyd and I made a chessboard\n out of a carton. Right now we're using\n buttons for men. He's one of\n these fast players who don't stop\n and think out their moves. And so\n far I haven't won a game.\n\n\n It looks like a long trip.\nOctober 4, 1960\nI won\n a game. Lloyd mistook my\n queen-button for my bishop-button\n and left his king in jeopardy, and\n I checkmated him next move. He\n said chess was a waste of time\n and he had important work to do\n and he went away.\n\n\n I went to the galley for coffee\n and had a talk about moss with\n Kroger. He said there was a good\n chance of lichen on Mars, and I\n misunderstood and said, \"A good\n chance of liking\nwhat\non Mars?\"\n and Kroger finished his coffee and\n went up front.\n\n\n When I got back to my compartment,\n Lloyd had taken away the\n chessboard and all his buttons. He\n told me later he needed it to back\n up a star map.\n\n\n Pat slept mostly all day in his\n compartment, and Jones sat and\n watched the screen revolve. There\n wasn't much to do, so I wrote a\n poem, sort of.\n\nMary, Mary, quite contrary,\n \nHow does your garden grow?\n \nWith Martian rime, Venusian slime,\n \nAnd a radioactive hoe.\n \n\n I showed it to Kroger. He says\n it may prove to be environmentally\n accurate, but that I should stick to\n prose.\nOctober 5, 1960\nLearned Jones'\n first name.\n He wrote something in the ship's\n log, and I saw his signature. His\n name is Fleance, like in \"Macbeth.\"\n He prefers to be called Jones. Pat\n uses his first name as a gag. Some\n fun.\n\n\n And only 255 days to go.\nApril 1, 1961\nI've skipped\n over the last 177\n days or so, because there's nothing\n much new. I brought some books\n with me on the trip, books that I'd\n always meant to read and never\n had the time. So now I know all\n about\nVanity Fair\n,\nPride and Prejudice\n,\nWar and Peace\n,\nGone with\n the Wind\n, and\nBabbitt\n.\n\n\n They didn't take as long as I\n thought they would, except for\nVanity Fair\n. It must have been a\n riot when it first came out. I mean,\n all those sly digs at the aristocracy,\n with copious interpolations by Mr.\n Thackeray in case you didn't get\n it when he'd pulled a particularly\n good gag. Some fun.\n\n\n And only 78 days to go.\nJune 1, 1961\nOnly 17 days\n to go. I saw Mars\n on the screen today. It seems to be\n descending from overhead, but Pat\n says that that's the \"torque\" doing\n it. Actually, it's we who are coming\n in sideways.\n\n\n We've all grown beards, too. Pat\n said it was against regulations, but\n what the hell. We have a contest.\n Longest whiskers on landing gets a\n prize.\n\n\n I asked Pat what the prize was\n and he told me to go to hell.\nJune 18, 1961\nMars has\n the whole screen\n filled. Looks like Death Valley. No\n sign of canals, but Pat says that's\n because of the dust storm down below.\n It's nice to have a \"down below\"\n again. We're going to land, so\n I have to go to my bunk. It's all\n foam rubber, nylon braid supports\n and magnesium tubing. Might as\n well be cement for all the good it\n did me at takeoff. Earth seems awfully\n far away.\nJune 19, 1961\nWell, we're down.\n We have\n to wear gas masks with oxygen\n hook-ups. Kroger says the air is\n breathable, but thin, and it has too\n much dust in it to be any fun to\n inhale. He's all for going out and\n looking for lichen, but Pat says he's\n got to set up camp, then get instructions\n from Earth. So we just have\n to wait. The air is very cold, but the\n Sun is hot as hell when it hits you.\n The sky is a blinding pink, or maybe\n more of a pale fuchsia. Kroger\n says it's the dust. The sand underfoot\n is kind of rose-colored, and not\n really gritty. The particles are\n round and smooth.\n\n\n No lichen so far. Kroger says\n maybe in the canals, if there are\n any canals. Lloyd wants to play\n chess again.\n\n\n Jones won the beard contest. Pat\n gave him a cigar he'd smuggled on\n board (no smoking was allowed on\n the ship), and Jones threw it away.\n He doesn't smoke.\nJune 20, 1961\nGot lost today.\n Pat told me\n not to go too far from camp, so,\n when I took a stroll, I made sure\n every so often that I could still see\n the rocket behind me. Walked for\n maybe an hour; then the oxygen\n gauge got past the halfway mark,\n so I started back toward the rocket.\n After maybe ten steps, the rocket\n disappeared. One minute it was\n standing there, tall and silvery, the\n next instant it was gone.\n\n\n Turned on my radio pack and\n got hold of Pat. Told him what happened,\n and he told Kroger. Kroger\n said I had been following a mirage,\n to step back a bit. I did, and I could\n see the ship again. Kroger said to\n try and walk toward where the ship\n seemed to be, even when it wasn't\n in view, and meantime they'd come\n out after me in the jeep, following\n my footprints.\n\n\n Started walking back, and the\n ship vanished again. It reappeared,\n disappeared, but I kept going. Finally\n saw the real ship, and Lloyd\n and Jones waving their arms at me.\n They were shouting through their\n masks, but I couldn't hear them.\n The air is too thin to carry sound\n well.\n\n\n All at once, something gleamed\n in their hands, and they started\n shooting at me with their rifles.\n That's when I heard the noise behind\n me. I was too scared to turn\n around, but finally Jones and Lloyd\n came running over, and I got up\n enough nerve to look. There was\n nothing there, but on the sand,\n paralleling mine, were footprints.\n At least I think they were footprints.\n Twice as long as mine, and\n three times as wide, but kind of\n featureless because the sand's loose\n and dry. They doubled back on\n themselves, spaced considerably\n farther apart.\n\n\n \"What was it?\" I asked Lloyd\n when he got to me.\n\n\n \"Damned if I know,\" he said. \"It\n was red and scaly, and I think it\n had a tail. It was two heads taller\n than you.\" He shuddered. \"Ran off\n when we fired.\"\n\n\n \"Where,\" said Jones, \"are Pat and\n Kroger?\"\n\n\n I didn't know. I hadn't seen\n them, nor the jeep, on my trip back.\n So we followed the wheel tracks for\n a while, and they veered off from\n my trail and followed another, very\n much like the one that had been\n paralleling mine when Jones and\n Lloyd had taken a shot at the scaly\n thing.\n\n\n \"We'd better get them on the\n radio,\" said Jones, turning back\n toward the ship.\n\n\n There wasn't anything on the\n radio but static.\n\n\n Pat and Kroger haven't come\n back yet, either.\nJune 21, 1961\nWe're not\n alone here. More of\n the scaly things have come toward\n the camp, but a few rifle shots send\n them away. They hop like kangaroos\n when they're startled. Their\n attitudes aren't menacing, but their\n appearance is. And Jones says,\n \"Who knows what's 'menacing' in\n an alien?\"\n\n\n We're going to look for Kroger\n and Pat today. Jones says we'd better\n before another windstorm blows\n away the jeep tracks. Fortunately,\n the jeep has a leaky oil pan, so we\n always have the smears to follow,\n unless they get covered up, too.\n We're taking extra oxygen, shells,\n and rifles. Food, too, of course.\n And we're locking up the ship.\nIt's later\n , now. We found the\n jeep, but no Kroger or Pat. Lots of\n those big tracks nearby. We're taking\n the jeep to follow the aliens'\n tracks. There's some moss around\n here, on reddish brown rocks that\n stick up through the sand, just on\n the shady side, though. Kroger\n must be happy to have found his\n lichen.\n\n\n The trail ended at the brink of\n a deep crevice in the ground. Seems\n to be an earthquake-type split in\n solid rock, with the sand sifting\n over this and the far edge like pink\n silk cataracts. The bottom is in the\n shade and can't be seen. The crack\n seems to extend to our left and\n right as far as we can look.\n\n\n There looks like a trail down the\n inside of the crevice, but the Sun's\n setting, so we're waiting till tomorrow\n to go down.\n\n\n Going down was Jones' idea,\n not mine.\nJune 22, 1961\nWell, we're\n at the bottom, and\n there's water here, a shallow stream\n about thirty feet wide that runs\n along the center of the canal (we've\n decided we're in a canal). No sign\n of Pat or Kroger yet, but the sand\n here is hard-packed and damp, and\n there are normal-size footprints\n mingled with the alien ones, sharp\n and clear. The aliens seem to have\n six or seven toes. It varies from\n print to print. And they're barefoot,\n too, or else they have the damnedest-looking\n shoes in creation.\n\n\n The constant shower of sand\n near the cliff walls is annoying, but\n it's sandless (shower-wise) near\n the stream, so we're following the\n footprints along the bank. Also, the\n air's better down here. Still thin,\n but not so bad as on the surface.\n We're going without masks to save\n oxygen for the return trip (Jones\n assures me there'll\nbe\na return\n trip), and the air's only a little bit\n sandy, but handkerchiefs over nose\n and mouth solve this.\n\n\n We look like desperadoes, what\n with the rifles and covered faces. I\n said as much to Lloyd and he told\n me to shut up. Moss all over the\n cliff walls. Swell luck for Kroger.\nWe've found\n Kroger and Pat,\n with the help of the aliens. Or maybe\n I should call them the Martians.\n Either way, it's better than what\n Jones calls them.\n\n\n They took away our rifles and\n brought us right to Kroger and Pat,\n without our even asking. Jones is\n mad at the way they got the rifles so\n easily. When we came upon them\n (a group of maybe ten, huddling\n behind a boulder in ambush), he\n fired, but the shots either bounced\n off their scales or stuck in their\n thick hides. Anyway, they took the\n rifles away and threw them into the\n stream, and picked us all up and\n took us into a hole in the cliff wall.\n The hole went on practically forever,\n but it didn't get dark. Kroger\n tells me that there are phosphorescent\n bacteria living in the mold on\n the walls. The air has a fresh-dug-grave\n smell, but it's richer in oxygen\n than even at the stream.\n\n\n We're in a small cave that is just\n off a bigger cave where lots of tunnels\n come together. I can't remember\n which one we came in through,\n and neither can anyone else. Jones\n asked me what the hell I kept writing\n in the diary for, did I want to\n make it a gift to Martian archeologists?\n But I said where there's life\n there's hope, and now he won't talk\n to me. I congratulated Kroger on\n the lichen I'd seen, but he just said\n a short and unscientific word and\n went to sleep.\n\n\n There's a Martian guarding the\n entrance to our cave. I don't know\n what they intend to do with us.\n Feed us, I hope. So far, they've just\n left us here, and we're out of rations.\n\n\n Kroger tried talking to the guard\n once, but he (or it) made a whistling\n kind of sound and flashed a\n mouthful of teeth. Kroger says the\n teeth are in multiple rows, like a\n tiger shark's. I'd rather he hadn't\n told me.\nJune 23, 1961, I think\nWe're either\n in a docket or a\n zoo. I can't tell which. There's a\n rather square platform surrounded\n on all four sides by running water,\n maybe twenty feet across, and\n we're on it. Martians keep coming\n to the far edge of the water and\n looking at us and whistling at each\n other. A little Martian came near\n the edge of the water and a larger\n Martian whistled like crazy and\n dragged it away.\n\n\n \"Water must be dangerous to\n them,\" said Kroger.\n\n\n \"We shoulda brought water pistols,\"\n Jones muttered.\n\n\n Pat said maybe we can swim to\n safety. Kroger told Pat he was\n crazy, that the little island we're on\n here underground is bordered by a\n fast river that goes into the planet.\n We'd end up drowned in some grotto\n in the heart of the planet, says\n Kroger.\n\n\n \"What the hell,\" says Pat, \"it's\n better than starving.\"\n\n\n It is not.\nJune 24, 1961, probably\nI'm hungry\n . So is everybody\n else. Right now I could eat a dinner\n raw, in a centrifuge, and keep it\n down. A Martian threw a stone at\n Jones today, and Jones threw one\n back at him and broke off a couple\n of scales. The Martian whistled\n furiously and went away. When the\n crowd thinned out, same as it did\n yesterday (must be some sort of\n sleeping cycle here), Kroger talked\n Lloyd into swimming across the\n river and getting the red scales.\n Lloyd started at the upstream part\n of the current, and was about a hundred\n yards below this underground\n island before he made the far side.\n Sure is a swift current.\n\n\n But he got the scales, walked\n very far upstream of us, and swam\n back with them. The stream sides\n are steep, like in a fjord, and we\n had to lift him out of the swirling\n cold water, with the scales gripped\n in his fist. Or what was left of the\n scales. They had melted down in\n the water and left his hand all\n sticky.\n\n\n Kroger took the gummy things,\n studied them in the uncertain light,\n then tasted them and grinned.\n\n\n The Martians are made of sugar.\nLater, same day\n . Kroger\n said that the Martian metabolism\n must be like Terran (Earth-type)\n metabolism, only with no pancreas\n to make insulin. They store their\n energy on the\noutside\nof their\n bodies, in the form of scales. He's\n watched them more closely and\n seen that they have long rubbery\n tubes for tongues, and that they\n now and then suck up water from\n the stream while they're watching\n us, being careful not to get their lips\n (all sugar, of course) wet. He\n guesses that their \"blood\" must be\n almost pure water, and that it\n washes away (from the inside, of\n course) the sugar they need for\n energy.\n\n\n I asked him where the sugar\n came from, and he said probably\n their bodies isolated carbon from\n something (he thought it might be\n the moss) and combined it with\n the hydrogen and oxygen in the\n water (even\nI\nknew the formula for\n water) to make sugar, a common\n carbohydrate.\n\n\n Like plants, on Earth, he said.\n Except, instead of using special\n cells on leaves to form carbohydrates\n with the help of sunpower,\n as Earth plants do in photosynthesis\n (Kroger spelled that word\n for me), they used the\nshape\nof the\n scales like prisms, to isolate the\n spectra (another Kroger word)\n necessary to form the sugar.\n\n\n \"I don't get it,\" I said politely,\n when he'd finished his spiel.\n\n\n \"Simple,\" he said, as though he\n were addressing me by name.\n \"They have a twofold reason to fear\n water. One: by complete solvency\n in that medium, they lose all energy\n and die. Two: even partial sprinkling\n alters the shape of the scales,\n and they are unable to use sunpower\n to form more sugar, and still die,\n if a bit slower.\"\n\n\n \"Oh,\" I said, taking it down verbatim.\n \"So now what do we do?\"\n\n\n \"We remove our boots,\" said\n Kroger, sitting on the ground and\n doing so, \"and then we cross this\n stream, fill the boots with water,\n and\nspray\nour way to freedom.\"\n\n\n \"Which tunnel do we take?\"\n asked Pat, his eyes aglow at the\n thought of escape.\n\n\n Kroger shrugged. \"We'll have to\n chance taking any that seem to\n slope upward. In any event, we can\n always follow it back and start\n again.\"\n\n\n \"I dunno,\" said Jones. \"Remember\n those\nteeth\nof theirs. They must\n be for biting something more substantial\n than moss, Kroger.\"\n\n\n \"We'll risk it,\" said Pat. \"It's better\n to go down fighting than to die\n of starvation.\"\n\n\n The hell it is.\nJune 24, 1961, for sure\nThe Martians\n have coal\n mines.\nThat's\nwhat they use those\n teeth for. We passed through one\n and surprised a lot of them chewing\n gritty hunks of anthracite out\n of the walls. They came running at\n us, whistling with those tubelike\n tongues, and drooling dry coal dust,\n but Pat swung one of his boots in\n an arc that splashed all over the\n ground in front of them, and they\n turned tail (literally) and clattered\n off down another tunnel,\n sounding like a locomotive whistle\n gone berserk.\n\n\n We made the surface in another\n hour, back in the canal, and were\n lucky enough to find our own trail\n to follow toward the place above\n which the jeep still waited.\n\n\n Jones got the rifles out of the\n stream (the Martians had probably\n thought they were beyond recovery\n there) and we found the jeep. It\n was nearly buried in sand, but we\n got it cleaned off and running, and\n got back to the ship quickly. First\n thing we did on arriving was to\n break out the stores and have a\n celebration feast just outside the\n door of the ship.\n\n\n It was pork again, and I got sick.\nJune 25, 1961\nWe're going back\n . Pat says\n that a week is all we were allowed\n to stay and that it's urgent to return\n and tell what we've learned\n about Mars (we know there are\n Martians, and they're made of\n sugar).\n\n\n \"Why,\" I said, \"can't we just tell\n it on the radio?\"\n\n\n \"Because,\" said Pat, \"if we tell\n them now, by the time we get back\n we'll be yesterday's news. This way\n we may be lucky and get a parade.\"\n\n\n \"Maybe even money,\" said\n Kroger, whose mind wasn't always\n on science.\n\n\n \"But they'll ask why we didn't\n radio the info, sir,\" said Jones uneasily.\n\n\n \"The radio,\" said Pat, nodding to\n Lloyd, \"was unfortunately broken\n shortly after landing.\"\n\n\n Lloyd blinked, then nodded\n back and walked around the\n rocket. I heard a crunching sound\n and the shattering of glass, not unlike\n the noise made when one\n drives a rifle butt through a radio.\n\n\n Well, it's time for takeoff.\nThis time\n it wasn't so bad. I\n thought I was getting my space-legs,\n but Pat says there's less gravity on\n Mars, so escape velocity didn't\n have to be so fast, hence a smoother\n (relatively) trip on our shock-absorbing\n bunks.\n\n\n Lloyd wants to play chess again.\n I'll be careful not to win this time.\n However, if I don't win, maybe this\n time\nI'll\nbe the one to quit.\n\n\n Kroger is busy in his cramped\n lab space trying to classify the little\n moss he was able to gather, and\n Jones and Pat are up front watching\n the white specks revolve on that\n black velvet again.\n\n\n Guess I'll take a nap.\nJune 26, 1961\nHell's bells\n . Kroger says\n there are two baby Martians loose\n on board ship. Pat told him he\n was nuts, but there are certain\n signs he's right. Like the missing\n charcoal in the air-filtration-and-reclaiming\n (AFAR) system. And\n the water gauges are going down.\n But the clincher is those two sugar\n crystals Lloyd had grabbed up\n when we were in that zoo. They're\n gone.\n\n\n Pat has declared a state of emergency.\n Quick thinking, that's Pat.\n Lloyd, before he remembered and\n turned scarlet, suggested we radio\n Earth for instructions. We can't.\n\n\n Here we are, somewhere in a\n void headed for Earth, with enough\n air and water left for maybe three\n days\u2014if the Martians don't take\n any more.\n\n\n Kroger is thrilled that he is\n learning something, maybe, about\n Martian reproductive processes.\n When he told Pat, Pat put it to a\n vote whether or not to jettison\n Kroger through the airlock. However,\n it was decided that responsibility\n was pretty well divided.\n Lloyd had gotten the crystals,\n Kroger had only studied them, and\n Jones had brought them aboard.\n\n\n So Kroger stays, but meanwhile\n the air is getting worse. Pat suggested\n Kroger put us all into a state\n of suspended animation till landing\n time, eight months away. Kroger\n said, \"How?\"\nJune 27, 1961\nAir is foul\n and I'm very\n thirsty. Kroger says that at least\u2014when\n the Martians get bigger\u2014they'll\n have to show themselves.\n Pat says what do we do\nthen\n? We\n can't afford the water we need to\n melt them down. Besides, the\n melted crystals might\nall\nturn into\n little Martians.\n\n\n Jones says he'll go down spitting.\n\n\n Pat says why not dismantle interior\n of rocket to find out where\n they're holing up? Fine idea.\n\n\n How do you dismantle riveted\n metal plates?\nJune 28, 1961\nThe AFAR system\n is no more\n and the water gauges are still dropping.\n Kroger suggests baking bread,\n then slicing it, then toasting it till\n it turns to carbon, and we can use\n the carbon in the AFAR system.\n\n\n We'll have to try it, I guess.\nThe Martians\n ate the bread.\n Jones came forward to tell us the\n loaves were cooling, and when he\n got back they were gone. However,\n he did find a few of the red crystals\n on the galley deck (floor). They're\n good-sized crystals, too. Which\n means so are the Martians.\n\n\n Kroger says the Martians must\n be intelligent, otherwise they\n couldn't have guessed at the carbohydrates\n present in the bread after\n a lifelong diet of anthracite. Pat\n says let's jettison Kroger.\n\n\n This time the vote went against\n Kroger, but he got a last-minute reprieve\n by suggesting the crystals\n be pulverized and mixed with sulphuric\n acid. He says this'll produce\n carbon.\n\n\n I certainly hope so.\n\n\n So does Kroger.\nBrief reprieve\n for us. The\n acid-sugar combination not only\n produces carbon but water vapor,\n and the gauge has gone up a notch.\n That means that we have a quart\n of water in the tanks for drinking.\n However, the air's a bit better,\n and we voted to let Kroger stay inside\n the rocket.\n\n\n Meantime, we have to catch\n those Martians.\nJune 29, 1961\nWorse and worse\n . Lloyd\n caught one of the Martians in the\n firing chamber. We had to flood\n the chamber with acid to subdue\n the creature, which carbonized\n nicely. So now we have plenty of\n air and water again, but besides\n having another Martian still on\n the loose, we now don't have\n enough acid left in the fuel tanks\n to make a landing.\n\n\n Pat says at least our vector will\n carry us to Earth and we can die\n on our home planet, which is better\n than perishing in space.\n\n\n The hell it is.\nMarch 3, 1962\nEarth in sight\n . The other\n Martian is still with us. He's where\n we can't get at him without blow-torches,\n but he can't get at the carbon\n in the AFAR system, either,\n which is a help. However, his tail\n is prehensile, and now and then it\n snakes out through an air duct and\n yanks food right off the table from\n under our noses.\n\n\n Kroger says watch out.\nWe\nare\n made of carbohydrates, too. I'd\n rather not have known.\nMarch 4, 1962\nEarth fills\n the screen in the\n control room. Pat says if we're\n lucky, he might be able to use the\n bit of fuel we have left to set us\n in a descending spiral into one of\n the oceans. The rocket is tighter\n than a submarine, he insists, and\n it will float till we're rescued, if\n the plates don't crack under the impact.\n\n\n We all agreed to try it. Not that\n we thought it had a good chance of\n working, but none of us had a better\n idea.\nI guess\n you know the rest of\n the story, about how that destroyer\n spotted us and got us and\n my diary aboard, and towed the\n rocket to San Francisco. News of\n the \"captured Martian\" leaked out,\n and we all became nine-day wonders\n until the dismantling of the\n rocket.\n\n\n Kroger says he must have dissolved\n in the water, and wonders\n what\nthat\nwould do. There are\n about a thousand of those crystal-scales\n on a Martian.\n\n\n So last week we found out, when\n those red-scaled things began clambering\n out of the sea on every coastal\n region on Earth. Kroger tried\n to explain to me about salinity osmosis\n and hydrostatic pressure and\n crystalline life, but in no time at all\n he lost me.\n\n\n The point is, bullets won't stop\n these things, and wherever a crystal\n falls, a new Martian springs up\n in a few weeks. It looks like the\n five of us have abetted an invasion\n from Mars.\n\n\n Needless to say, we're no longer\n heroes.\n\n\n I haven't heard from Pat or\n Lloyd for a week. Jones was picked\n up attacking a candy factory yesterday,\n and Kroger and I were allowed\n to sign on for the flight to\n Venus scheduled within the next\n few days\u2014because of our experience.\n\n\n Kroger says there's only enough\n fuel for a one-way trip. I don't care.\n I've always wanted to travel with\n the President.\n\u2014JACK SHARKEY\nTranscriber's Note:\nThis etext was produced from\nGalaxy Magazine\nJune 1960.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S.\n copyright on this publication was renewed. Minor spelling and\n typographical errors have been corrected without note.",
    "26569": "Transcriber\u2019s note:\nThis story was published in\n Galaxy\n magazine, June 1960.\n Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.\n[p\n 135\n ]\n\n By CHARLES V. DE VET\nmonkey on his back\nUnder the cloud of cast-off identities\n  \n lay the shape of another man\u2014\n  \n was it himself?\nIllustrated by DILLON\nHE was walking endlessly\n down a long, glass-walled\n corridor. Bright sunlight\n slanted in through one wall, on the\n blue knapsack across his shoulders.\n Who he was, and what he was doing\n here, was clouded. The truth lurked\n in some corner of his consciousness,\n but it was not reached by surface\n awareness.\n\n\n The corridor opened at last into\n a large high-domed room, much\n like a railway station or an air terminal.\n He walked straight ahead.\n\n\n At the sight of him a man leaning\n negligently against a stone pillar,\n to his right but within vision,\n straightened and barked an order\n to him, \u201cHalt!\u201d He lengthened his\n stride but gave no other sign.\n\n\n [p\n 136\n ]\n\n Two men hurried through a\n doorway of a small anteroom to his\n left, calling to him. He turned away\n and began to run.\n\n\n Shouts and the sound of charging\n feet came from behind him. He\n cut to the right, running toward the\n escalator to the second floor. Another\n pair of men were hurrying\n down, two steps at a stride. With\n no break in pace he veered into an\n opening beside the escalator.\n\n\n At the first turn he saw that the\n aisle merely circled the stairway,\n coming out into the depot again on\n the other side. It was a trap. He\n glanced quickly around him.\n\n\n At the rear of the space was a\n row of lockers for traveler use. He\n slipped a coin into a pay slot,\n opened the zipper on his bag and\n pulled out a flat briefcase. It took\n him only a few seconds to push the\n case into the compartment, lock it\n and slide the key along the floor\n beneath the locker.\n\n\n There was nothing to do after\n that\u2014except wait.\n\n\n The men pursuing him came\n hurtling around the turn in the\n aisle. He kicked his knapsack to\n one side, spreading his feet wide\n with an instinctive motion.\n\n\n Until that instant he had intended\n to fight. Now he swiftly\n reassessed the odds. There were\n five of them, he saw. He should be\n able to incapacitate two or three\n and break out. But the fact that\n they had been expecting him meant\n that others would very probably\n be waiting outside. His best course\n now was to sham ignorance. He\n relaxed.\n\n\n He offered no resistance as they\n reached him.\n\n\n They were not gentle men. A tall\n ruffian, copper-brown face damp\n with perspiration and body oil,\n grabbed him by the jacket and\n slammed him back against the\n lockers. As he shifted his weight\n to keep his footing someone drove\n a fist into his face. He started to\n raise his hands; and a hard flat\n object crashed against the side of\n his skull.\n\n\n The starch went out of his legs.\n\u201cD\n O you make anything out of\n it?\u201d the psychoanalyst Milton\n Bergstrom, asked.\n\n\n John Zarwell shook his head.\n \u201cDid I talk while I was under?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cOh, yes. You were supposed to.\n That way I follow pretty well what\n you\u2019re reenacting.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cHow does it tie in with what I\n told you before?\u201d\n\n\n Bergstrom\u2019s neat-boned, fair-skinned\n face betrayed no emotion\n other than an introspective stillness\n of his normally alert gaze. \u201cI see\n no connection,\u201d he decided, his\n words once again precise and meticulous.\n \u201cWe don\u2019t have enough to\n go on. Do you feel able to try another\n comanalysis this afternoon\n yet?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI don\u2019t see why not.\u201d Zarwell\n [p\n 137\n ]\n opened the collar of his shirt. The\n day was hot, and the room had no\n air conditioning, still a rare luxury\n on St. Martin\u2019s. The office window\n was open, but it let in no freshness,\n only the mildly rank odor that pervaded\n all the planet\u2019s habitable\n area.\n\n\n \u201cGood.\u201d Bergstrom rose. \u201cThe\n serum is quite harmless, John.\u201d He\n maintained a professional diversionary\n chatter as he administered\n the drug. \u201cA scopolamine derivative\n that\u2019s been well tested.\u201d\n\n\n The floor beneath Zarwell\u2019s feet\n assumed abruptly the near transfluent\n consistency of a damp\n sponge. It rose in a foot-high wave\n and rolled gently toward the far\n wall.\n\n\n Bergstrom continued talking,\n with practiced urbanity. \u201cWhen\n psychiatry was a less exact science,\u201d\n his voice went on, seeming to come\n from a great distance, \u201ca doctor\n had to spend weeks, sometimes\n months or years interviewing a\n patient. If he was skilled enough,\n he could sort the relevancies from\n the vast amount of chaff. We are\n able now, with the help of the\n serum, to confine our discourses to\n matters cogent to the patient\u2019s\n trouble.\u201d\n\n\n The floor continued its transmutation,\n and Zarwell sank deep into\n viscous depths. \u201cLie back and relax.\n Don\u2019t\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\n The words tumbled down from\n above. They faded, were gone.\nZARWELL found himself\nstanding on a vast plain. There was\n no sky above, and no horizon in the\n distance. He was in a place without\n space or dimension. There was\n nothing here except himself\u2014and\n the gun that he held in his hand.\n\n\n A weapon beautiful in its efficient\n simplicity.\n\n\n He should know all about the\n instrument, its purpose and workings,\n but he could not bring his\n thoughts into rational focus. His\n forehead creased with his mental\n effort.\n\n\n Abruptly the unreality about\n him shifted perspective. He was\n approaching\u2014not walking, but\n merely shortening the space between\n them\u2014the man who held\n the gun. The man who was himself.\n The other \u201chimself\u201d drifted\n nearer also, as though drawn by a\n mutual attraction.\n\n\n The man with the gun raised his\n weapon and pressed the trigger.\n\n\n With the action the perspective\n shifted again. He was watching the\n face of the man he shot jerk and\n twitch, expand and contract. The\n face was unharmed, yet it was no\n longer the same. No longer his own\n features.\n\n\n The stranger face smiled approvingly\n at him.\n\u201cO\n DD,\u201d Bergstrom said.\nHe brought his hands up and joined\n the tips of his fingers against his\n chest. \u201cBut it\u2019s another piece in the\n [p\n 138\n ]\n jig-saw. In time it will fit into\n place.\u201d He paused. \u201cIt means no\n more to you than the first, I suppose?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNo,\u201d Zarwell answered.\n\n\n He was not a talking man, Bergstrom\n reflected. It was more than\n reticence, however. The man had\n a hard granite core, only partially\n concealed by his present perplexity.\n He was a man who could handle\n himself well in an emergency.\n\n\n Bergstrom shrugged, dismissing\n his strayed thoughts. \u201cI expected\n as much. A quite normal first phase\n of treatment.\u201d He straightened a\n paper on his desk. \u201cI think that will\n be enough for today. Twice in one\n sitting is about all we ever try.\n Otherwise some particular episode\n might cause undue mental stress,\n and set up a block.\u201d He glanced\n down at his appointment pad. \u201cTomorrow\n at two, then?\u201d\n\n\n Zarwell grunted acknowledgment\n and pushed himself to his\n feet, apparently unaware that his\n shirt clung damply to his body.\nTHE sun was still high when\n Zarwell left the analyst\u2019s office.\n The white marble of the city\u2019s\n buildings shimmered in the afternoon\n heat, squat and austere as\n giant tree trunks, pock-marked and\n gray-mottled with windows. Zarwell\n was careful not to rest his hand\n on the flesh searing surface of the\n stone.\n\n\n The evening meal hour was approaching\n when he reached the\n Flats, on the way to his apartment.\n The streets of the old section were\n near-deserted. The only sounds he\n heard as he passed were the occasional\n cry of a baby, chronically\n uncomfortable in the day\u2019s heat,\n and the lowing of imported cattle\n waiting in a nearby shed to be\n shipped to the country.\n\n\n All St. Martin\u2019s has a distinctive\n smell, as of an arid dried-out\n swamp, with a faint taint of fish.\n But in the Flats the odor changes.\n Here is the smell of factories, warehouses,\n and trading marts; the smell\n of stale cooking drifting from the\n homes of the laborers and lower\n class techmen who live there.\n\n\n Zarwell passed a group of\n smaller children playing a desultory\n game of lic-lic for pieces of\n candy and cigarettes. Slowly he\n climbed the stairs of a stone flat.\n He prepared a supper for himself\n and ate it without either enjoyment\n or distaste. He lay down, fully\n clothed, on his bed. The visit to the\n analyst had done nothing to dispel\n his ennui.\n[p\n 139\n ]\n\n\n\n The next morning when Zarwell\n awoke he lay for a moment, unmoving.\n The feeling was there\n again, like a scene waiting only to\n be gazed at directly to be perceived.\n It was as though a great wisdom\n lay at the edge of understanding.\n If he rested quietly it would\n all come to him. Yet always, when\n his mind lost its sleep-induced\n [p\n 140\n ]\n lethargy, the moment of near understanding\n slipped away.\n\n\n This morning, however, the sense\n of disorientation did not pass with\n full wakefulness. He achieved no\n understanding, but the strangeness\n did not leave as he sat up.\n\n\n He gazed about him. The room\n did not seem to be his own. The\n furnishings, and the clothing he observed\n in a closet, might have belonged\n to a stranger.\n\n\n He pulled himself from his blankets,\n his body moving with mechanical\n reaction. The slippers into\n which he put his feet were larger\n than he had expected them to be.\n He walked about the small apartment.\n The place was familiar, but\n only as it would have been if he\n had studied it from blueprints, not\n as though he lived there.\n\n\n The feeling was still with him\n when he returned to the psychoanalyst.\nTHE scene this time was more\n kaleidoscopic, less personal.\n\n\n A village was being ravaged.\n Men struggled and died in the\n streets. Zarwell moved among\n them, seldom taking part in the\n individual clashes, yet a moving\n force in the\n conflict\n .\n\n\n The background changed. He\n understood that he was on a different\n world.\n\n\n Here a city burned. Its resistance\n was nearing its end. Zarwell was\n riding a shaggy pony outside a high\n wall surrounding the stricken metropolis.\n He moved in and joined a\n party of short, bearded men, directing\n them as they battered at the\n wall with a huge log mounted on a\n many-wheeled truck.\n\n\n The log broke a breach in the\n concrete and the besiegers charged\n through, carrying back the defenders\n who sought vainly to plug the\n gap. Soon there would be rioting\n in the streets again, plundering and\n killing.\n\n\n Zarwell was not the leader of the\n invaders, only a lesser figure in the\n rebellion. But he had played a leading\n part in the planning of the\n strategy that led to the city\u2019s fall.\n The job had been well done.\n\n\n Time passed, without visible\n break in the panorama. Now Zarwell\n was fleeing, pursued by the\n same bearded men who had been\n his comrades before. Still he moved\n with the same firm purpose, vigilant,\n resourceful, and well prepared\n for the eventuality that had befallen.\n He made his escape without\n difficulty.\n\n\n He alighted from a space ship on\n still another world\u2014another shift\n in time\u2014and the atmosphere of\n conflict engulfed him.\n\n\n Weary but resigned he accepted\n it, and did what he had to do\u00a0\u2026\nBERGSTROM was regarding\nhim with speculative scrutiny.\n \u201cYou\u2019ve had quite a past, apparently,\u201d\n he observed.\n\n\n [p\n 141\n ]\n\n Zarwell smiled with mild embarrassment.\n \u201cAt least in my dreams.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cDreams?\u201d Bergstrom\u2019s eyes\n widened in surprise. \u201cOh, I beg your\n pardon. I must have forgotten to\n explain. This work is so routine to\n me that sometimes I forget it\u2019s all\n new to a patient. Actually what you\n experienced under the drug were\n not dreams. They were recollections\n of real episodes from your\n past.\u201d\n\n\n Zarwell\u2019s expression became\n wary. He watched Bergstrom\n closely. After a minute, however,\n he seemed satisfied, and he let himself\n settle back against the cushion\n of his chair. \u201cI remember nothing\n of what I saw,\u201d he observed.\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s why you\u2019re here, you\n know,\u201d Bergstrom answered. \u201cTo\n help you remember.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cBut everything under the drug\n is so\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\n \u201cHaphazard? That\u2019s true. The\n recall episodes are always purely\n random, with no chronological sequence.\n Our problem will be to reassemble\n them in proper order\n later. Or some particular scene may\n trigger a complete memory return.\n\n\n \u201cIt is my considered opinion,\u201d\n Bergstrom went on, \u201cthat your lost\n memory will turn out to be no ordinary\n amnesia. I believe we will find\n that your mind has been tampered\n with.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNothing I\u2019ve seen under the\n drug fits into the past I do remember.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s what makes me so certain,\u201d\n Bergstrom said confidently.\n \u201cYou don\u2019t remember what we\n have shown to be true. Conversely\n then, what you think you remember\n must be false. It must have been\n implanted there. But we can go\n into that later. For today I think\n we have done enough. This episode\n was quite prolonged.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI won\u2019t have any time off again\n until next week end,\u201d Zarwell reminded\n him.\n\n\n \u201cThat\u2019s right.\u201d Bergstrom\n thought for a moment. \u201cWe\n shouldn\u2019t let this hang too long.\n Could you come here after work\n tomorrow?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI suppose I could.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cFine,\u201d Bergstrom said with satisfaction.\n \u201cI\u2019ll admit I\u2019m considerably\n more than casually interested\n in your case by this time.\u201d\nA WORK truck picked Zarwell\n up the next morning and he\n rode with a tech crew to the edge of\n the reclam area. Beside the belt\n bringing ocean muck from the converter\n plant at the seashore his\n bulldozer was waiting.\n\n\n He took his place behind the\n drive wheel and began working dirt\n down between windbreakers anchored\n in the rock. Along a makeshift\n road into the badlands trucks\n brought crushed lime and phosphorus\n to supplement the ocean\n sediment. The progress of life from\n the sea to the land was a mechanical\n [p\n 142\n ]\n process of this growing world.\n\n\n Nearly two hundred years ago,\n when Earth established a colony on\n St. Martin\u2019s, the land surface of the\n planet had been barren. Only its\n seas thrived with animal and vegetable\n life. The necessary machinery\n and technicians had been supplied\n by Earth, and the long struggle began\n to fit the world for human\n needs. When Zarwell arrived, six\n months before, the vitalized area\n already extended three hundred\n miles along the coast, and sixty\n miles inland. And every day the\n progress continued. A large percentage\n of the energy and resources\n of the world were devoted to that\n essential expansion.\n\n\n The reclam crews filled and\n sodded the sterile rock, planted\n binding grasses, grain and trees, and\n diverted rivers to keep it fertile.\n When there were no rivers to divert\n they blasted out springs and lakes\n in the foothills to make their own.\n Biologists developed the necessary\n germ and insect life from what they\n found in the sea. Where that failed,\n they imported microorganisms\n from Earth.\n\n\n Three rubber-tracked crawlers\n picked their way down from the\n mountains until they joined the\n road passing the belt. They were\n loaded with ore that would be\n smelted into metal for depleted\n Earth, or for other colonies short\n of minerals. It was St. Martin\u2019s only\n export thus far.\n\n\n Zarwell pulled his sun helmet\n lower, to better guard his hot, dry\n features. The wind blew continuously\n on St. Martin\u2019s, but it furnished\n small relief from the heat.\n After its three-thousand-mile journey\n across scorched sterile rock, it\n sucked the moisture from a man\u2019s\n body, bringing a membrane-shrinking\n dryness to the nostrils as it was\n breathed in. With it came also the\n cloying taste of limestone in a\n worker\u2019s mouth.\n\n\n Zarwell gazed idly about at the\n other laborers. Fully three-quarters\n of them were beri-rabza ridden. A\n cure for the skin fungus had not\n yet been found; the men\u2019s faces\n and hands were scabbed and red.\n The colony had grown to near self-sufficiency,\n would soon have a moderate\n prosperity, yet they still\n lacked adequate medical and research\n facilities.\n\n\n Not all the world\u2019s citizens were\n content.\n\n\n Bergstrom was waiting in his office\n when Zarwell arrived that\n evening.\nHE was lying motionless on a\n hard cot, with his eyes closed,\n yet with his every sense sharply\n quickened. Tentatively he tightened\n small muscles in his arms and\n legs. Across his wrists and thighs\n he felt straps binding him to the\n cot.\n\n\n \u201cSo that\u2019s our big, bad man,\u201d a\n coarse voice above him observed\n [p\n 143\n ]\n caustically. \u201cHe doesn\u2019t look so\n tough now, does he?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIt might have been better to\n kill him right away,\u201d a second, less\n confident voice said. \u201cIt\u2019s supposed\n to be impossible to hold him.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cDon\u2019t be stupid. We just do\n what we\u2019re told. We\u2019ll hold him.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat do you think they\u2019ll do\n with him?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cExecute him, I suppose,\u201d the\n harsh voice said matter-of-factly.\n \u201cThey\u2019re probably just curious to\n see what he looks like first. They\u2019ll\n be disappointed.\u201d\n\n\n Zarwell opened his eyes a slit to\n observe his surroundings.\n\n\n It was a mistake. \u201cHe\u2019s out of\n it,\u201d the first speaker said, and Zarwell\n allowed his eyes to open fully.\n\n\n The voice, he saw, belonged to\n the big man who had bruised him\n against the locker at the spaceport.\n Irrelevantly he wondered how he\n knew now that it had been a spaceport.\n\n\n His captor\u2019s broad face jeered\n down at Zarwell. \u201cHave a good\n sleep?\u201d he asked with mock solicitude.\n Zarwell did not deign to acknowledge\n that he heard.\n\n\n The big man turned. \u201cYou can\n tell the Chief he\u2019s awake,\u201d he said.\n Zarwell followed his gaze to where\n a younger man, with a blond lock of\n hair on his forehead, stood behind\n him. The youth nodded and went\n out, while the other pulled a chair\n up to the side of Zarwell\u2019s cot.\n\n\n While their attention was away\n from him Zarwell had unobtrusively\n loosened his bonds as much as\n possible with arm leverage. As the\n big man drew his chair nearer, he\n made the hand farthest from him\n tight and compact and worked it\n free of the leather loop. He waited.\n\n\n The big man belched. \u201cYou\u2019re\n supposed to be great stuff in a situation\n like this,\u201d he said, his smoke-tan\n face splitting in a grin that revealed\n large square teeth. \u201cHow\n about giving me a sample?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019re a yellow-livered bastard,\u201d\n Zarwell told him.\n\n\n The grin faded from the oily face\n as the man stood up. He leaned over\n the cot\u2014and Zarwell\u2019s left hand\n shot up and locked about his throat,\n joined almost immediately by the\n right.\n\n\n The man\u2019s mouth opened and he\n tried to yell as he threw himself\n frantically backward. He clawed at\n the hands about his neck. When\n that failed to break the grip he suddenly\n reversed his weight and\n drove his fist at Zarwell\u2019s head.\n\n\n Zarwell pulled the struggling\n body down against his chest and\n held it there until all agitated\n movement ceased. He sat up then,\n letting the body slide to the floor.\n\n\n The straps about his thighs came\n loose with little effort.\nTHE analyst dabbed at his upper\n lip with a handkerchief. \u201cThe\n episodes are beginning to tie together,\u201d\n he said, with an attempt at\n [p\n 144\n ]\n nonchalance. \u201cThe next couple\n should do it.\u201d\n\n\n Zarwell did not answer. His\n memory seemed on the point of\n complete return, and he sat quietly,\n hopefully. However, nothing more\n came and he returned his attention\n to his more immediate problem.\n\n\n Opening a button on his shirt, he\n pulled back a strip of plastic cloth\n just below his rib cage and took\n out a small flat pistol. He held it\n in the palm of his hand. He knew\n now why he always carried it.\n\n\n Bergstrom had his bad moment.\n \u201cYou\u2019re not going to\u00a0\u2026\u201d he began\n at the sight of the gun. He tried\n again. \u201cYou must be joking.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cI have very little sense of humor,\u201d\n Zarwell corrected him.\n\n\n \u201cYou\u2019d be foolish!\u201d\n\n\n Bergstrom obviously realized\n how close he was to death. Yet\n surprisingly, after the first start,\n he showed little fear. Zarwell had\n thought the man a bit soft, too\n adjusted to a life of ease and some\n prestige to meet danger calmly.\n Curiosity restrained his trigger finger.\n\n\n \u201cWhy would I be foolish?\u201d he\n asked. \u201cYour Meninger oath of inviolable\n confidence?\u201d\n\n\n Bergstrom shook his head. \u201cI\n know it\u2019s been broken before. But\n you need me. You\u2019re not through,\n you know. If you killed me you\u2019d\n still have to trust some other\n analyst.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cIs that the best you can do?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cNo.\u201d Bergstrom was angry now.\n \u201cBut use that logical mind you\u2019re\n supposed to have! Scenes before\n this have shown what kind of man\n you are. Just because this last happened\n here on St. Martin\u2019s makes\n little difference. If I was going to\n turn you in to the police, I\u2019d have\n done it before this.\u201d\n\n\n Zarwell debated with himself the\n truth of what the other had said.\n \u201cWhy didn\u2019t you turn me in?\u201d he\n asked.\n\n\n \u201cBecause you\u2019re no mad-dog\n killer!\u201d Now that the crisis seemed\n to be past, Bergstrom spoke more\n calmly, even allowed himself to\n relax. \u201cYou\u2019re still pretty much in\n the fog about yourself. I read more\n in those comanalyses than you did.\n I even know who you are!\u201d\n\n\n Zarwell\u2019s eyebrows raised.\n\n\n \u201cWho am I?\u201d he asked, very interested\n now. Without attention he\n put his pistol away in a trouser\n pocket.\n\n\n Bergstrom brushed the question\n aside with one hand. \u201cYour name\n makes little difference. You\u2019ve used\n many. But you are an idealist. Your\n killings were necessary to bring\n justice to the places you visited. By\n now you\u2019re almost a legend among\n the human worlds. I\u2019d like to talk\n more with you on that later.\u201d\n\n\n While Zarwell considered, Bergstrom\n pressed his advantage. \u201cOne\n more scene might do it,\u201d he said.\n \u201cShould we try again\u2014if you trust\n me, that is?\u201d\n\n\n [p\n 145\n ]\n\n Zarwell made his decision quickly.\n \u201cGo ahead,\u201d he answered.\nALL Zarwell\u2019s attention seemed\n on the cigar he lit as he rode\n down the escalator, but he surveyed\n the terminal carefully over the rim\n of his hand. He spied no suspicious\n loungers.\n\n\n Behind the escalator he groped\n along the floor beneath the lockers\n until he found his key. The briefcase\n was under his arm a minute\n later.\n\n\n In the basement lave he put a\n coin in the pay slot of a private\n compartment and went in.\n\n\n As he zipped open the briefcase\n he surveyed his features in the mirror.\n A small muscle at the corner of\n one eye twitched spasmodically.\n One cheek wore a frozen quarter\n smile. Thirty-six hours under the\n paralysis was longer than advisable.\n The muscles should be rested at\n least every twenty hours.\n\n\n Fortunately his natural features\n would serve as an adequate disguise\n now.\n\n\n He adjusted the ring setting on\n the pistol-shaped instrument that\n he took from his case, and carefully\n rayed several small areas of\n his face, loosening muscles that had\n been tight too long. He sighed\n gratefully when he finished, massaging\n his cheeks and forehead with\n considerable pleasure. Another\n glance in the mirror satisfied him\n with the changes that had been\n made. He turned to his briefcase\n again and exchanged the gun for\n a small syringe, which he pushed\n into a trouser pocket, and a single-edged\n razor blade.\n\n\n Removing his fiber-cloth jacket\n he slashed it into strips with the\n razor blade and flushed it down the\n disposal bowl. With the sleeves of\n his blouse rolled up he had the\n appearance of a typical workman\n as he strolled from the compartment.\n\n\n Back at the locker he replaced\n the briefcase and, with a wad of\n gum, glued the key to the bottom\n of the locker frame.\n\n\n One step more. Taking the syringe\n from his pocket, he plunged\n the needle into his forearm and\n tossed the instrument down a\n waste chute. He took three more\n steps and paused uncertainly.\n\n\n When he looked about him it\n was with the expression of a man\n waking from a vivid dream.\n\u201cQ\n UITE ingenious,\u201d Graves\n murmured admiringly. \u201cYou\n had your mind already preconditioned\n for the shot. But why would\n you deliberately give yourself amnesia?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cWhat better disguise than to\n believe the part you\u2019re playing?\u201d\n\n\n \u201cA good man must have done\n that job on your mind,\u201d Bergstrom\n commented. \u201cI\u2019d have hesitated to\n try it myself. It must have taken a\n lot of trust on your part.\u201d\n\n\n [p\n 146\n ]\n\n \u201cTrust and money,\u201d Zarwell said\n drily.\n\n\n \u201cYour memory\u2019s back then?\u201d\n\n\n Zarwell nodded.\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m glad to hear that,\u201d Bergstrom\n assured him. \u201cNow that\n you\u2019re well again I\u2019d like to introduce\n you to a man named Vernon\n Johnson. This world\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\n Zarwell stopped him with an upraised\n hand. \u201cGood God, man, can\u2019t\n you see the reason for all this? I\u2019m\n tired. I\u2019m trying to quit.\u201d\n\n\n \u201cQuit?\u201d Bergstrom did not quite\n follow him.\n\n\n \u201cIt started on my home colony,\u201d\n Zarwell explained listlessly. \u201cA\n gang of hoods had taken over the\n government. I helped organize a\n movement to get them out. There\n was some bloodshed, but it went\n quite well. Several months later an\n unofficial envoy from another\n world asked several of us to give\n them a hand on the same kind of\n job. The political conditions there\n were rotten. We went with him.\n Again we were successful. It seems\n I have a kind of genius for that\n sort of thing.\u201d\n\n\n He stretched out his legs and regarded\n them thoughtfully. \u201cI\n learned then the truth of Russell\u2019s\n saying: \u2018When the oppressed win\n their freedom they are as oppressive\n as their former masters.\u2019 When\n they went bad, I opposed them.\n This time I failed. But I escaped\n again. I have quite a talent for that\n also.\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m not a professional do-gooder.\u201d\n Zarwell\u2019s tone appealed\n to Bergstrom for understanding. \u201cI\n have only a normal man\u2019s indignation\n at injustice. And now I\u2019ve done\n my share. Yet, wherever I go, the\n word eventually gets out, and I\u2019m\n right back in a fight again. It\u2019s like\n the proverbial monkey on my back.\n I can\u2019t get rid of it.\u201d\n\n\n He rose. \u201cThat disguise and\n memory planting were supposed to\n get me out of it. I should have\n known it wouldn\u2019t work. But this\n time I\u2019m not going to be drawn\n back in! You and your Vernon\n Johnson can do your own revolting.\n I\u2019m through!\u201d\n\n\n Bergstrom did not argue as he\n left.\nRESTLESSNESS drove Zarwell\n from his flat the next day\u2014a\n legal holiday on St. Martin\u2019s. At\n a railed-off lot he stopped and loitered\n in the shadow of an adjacent\n building watching workmen drilling\n an excavation for a new structure.\n\n\n When a man strolled to his side\n and stood watching the workmen,\n he was not surprised. He waited for\n the other to speak.\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019d like to talk to you, if you\n can spare a few minutes,\u201d the\n stranger said.\n\n\n Zarwell turned and studied the\n man without answering. He was\n medium tall, with the body of an\n athlete, though perhaps ten years\n [p\n 147\n ]\n beyond the age of sports. He had\n a manner of contained energy.\n \u201cYou\u2019re Johnson?\u201d he asked.\n\n\n The man nodded.\n\n\n Zarwell tried to feel the anger he\n wanted to feel, but somehow it\n would not come. \u201cWe have nothing\n to talk about,\u201d was the best he\n could manage.\n\n\n \u201cThen will you just listen? After,\n I\u2019ll leave\u2014if you tell me to.\u201d\n\n\n Against his will he found himself\n liking the man, and wanting at least\n to be courteous. He inclined his\n head toward a curb wastebox with\n a flat top. \u201cShould we sit?\u201d\n\n\n Johnson smiled agreeably and\n they walked over to the box and\n sat down.\n\n\n \u201cWhen this colony was first\n founded,\u201d Johnson began without\n preamble, \u201cthe administrative body\n was a governor, and a council of\n twelve. Their successors were to\n be elected biennially. At first they\n were. Then things changed. We\n haven\u2019t had an election now in the\n last twenty-three years. St. Martin\u2019s\n is beginning to prosper. Yet\n the only ones receiving the benefits\n are the rulers. The citizens work\n twelve hours a day. They are poorly\n housed\n , poorly fed, poorly clothed.\n They\u00a0\u2026\u201d\n\n\n Zarwell found himself not listening\n as Johnson\u2019s voice went on. The\n story was always the same. But why\n did they always try to drag him into\n their troubles?\n\n\n Why hadn\u2019t he chosen some\n other world on which to hide?\n\n\n The last question prompted a\n new thought. Just why had he\n chosen St. Martin\u2019s? Was it only a\n coincidence? Or had he,\n subconsciously\n at least, picked this particular\n world? He had always\n considered himself the unwilling\n subject of glib persuaders \u2026 but\n mightn\u2019t some inner compulsion of\n his own have put the monkey on his\n back?\n\n\n \u201c\u2026\u00a0and we need your help.\u201d\n Johnson had finished his speech.\n\n\n Zarwell gazed up at the bright\n sky. He pulled in a long breath,\n and let it out in a sigh.\n\n\n \u201cWhat are your plans so far?\u201d\n he asked wearily.\n\u2014\nCHARLES V. DE VET",
    "99917": "What cities in the post-Brexit era could learn from a 14th-century trading bloc\nAs you fly from the country now known as Germany to Britain, the coastal geography of northern European cities gently unfurls. You can see where the sea smacks into them, or where yawning estuaries unfold like funnels between green and brown city and choppy blue water. You can track the snaking rivers and canals that form unrepentant umbilical connections to the settlements set a little further inland.  \n\n By their nature cities along coasts and rivers developed so they could be open to trade with each other. From the middle of the 13th century, and for some 300 years after, many settlements dotted along this route formed the prosperous Hanseatic League, a European trading confederation of market towns, before the rise of the nation state led to its dissolution. \n\n The Hanseatic League is not well known, and today it lives on most prominently in the name of the German national airline Lufthansa, literally the 'Hansa of the skies', whose planes you can look out of \u2013 and down towards the Hanseatic cities \u2013 on the short journeys between mainland Europe and Britain. The letters HH on the number plates of cars in Hamburg stand for Hansestadt Hamburg: another proud little memory of this hidden history. \n\n In the traumatised atmosphere of post-Brexit Britain, it is worth remembering the Hanseatic League. It could point us towards new relationships between progressive city dwellers in a world that otherwise seems to be putting the brakes on modernity. \n\n Despite some of Britain's Leave voters longing to inhabit a fantastical realm immune to foreign influence, the reality is patently very different to that. In the late 1300s, Chaucer wrote about characters travelling to Jerusalem, and others who came from Europe; and it was at exactly this point that the Hanseatic League slowly started to coalesce, eventually influencing our isles. \n\n The League is most easily understood as a loose federation of cities that acted together in self-interest to promote trade. The Hanseatic cities developed their own legal system, and their armies came to one another's aid. Merchants who wanted to buy and sell and travel were taking the lead at a time when nation states were not fit for purpose: in the case of England or Denmark, leadership was too centralised and authoritarian, while in German-speaking lands a nation had yet to be formed.  \n\n We think of nations today as elemental almost, immovable. Yet look at any city of Mitteleuropa and you'll see the many different names it has had as borders and regimes have shifted with the sands of time. Nations come and go. Cities endure.  \n\n \"It is often said that great cities survived great empires,\" says Cristina Ampatzidou, editor-in-chief of the Rotterdam-based online publishing platform Amateur Cities. \"So it is not unrealistic to think of cities as discrete entities that compete and collaborate with each other, independently from the states to which they belong.\" \n\n The cities involved in the Hanseatic League are found along the Baltic and North Sea coasts, and slightly inland too. The League stretched from Novgorod in the east \u2013 in what is now Russia \u2013 to London in the west. Tallinn, Riga, Gda\u0144sk, Visby, Berlin, Cologne, Antwerp, Stockholm, Bergen, Kiel, Rostock, Dinant, Bruges, Turku, Groningen, Hanover, Wroclaw, Kaliningrad: all were involved at different stages in the Hanse's history, which ran on into the 1500s.  \n\n The League covered lands that today find themselves a part of the modern nations of Finland, Sweden, Poland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Norway, Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia. It was a huge \u2013 and hugely ambitious \u2013 undertaking in the days when communications consisted of ink and paper and the only viable method of travel was by ship. Wood, fur, wool, silver, herring, cod and salt were the main items traded. But what was also exchanged was knowledge. In some ways it was an exercise in what we today call 'soft diplomacy'. There was no maniacal ruler overseeing things \u2013 merchants met and talked. They raised armies and waged war against kings who threatened their businesses and their freedoms and their peace.\nThere was a kind of proto-democracy at work. Professor Rainer Postel, of the Bundeswehr Universit\u00e4t (Germany's equivalent of Sandhurst military academy), has described the Hanse as \"a community of interests without power politics\". As David Abulafia, Professor of Mediterranean History at Cambridge points out, \"The lack of an elaborate superstructure was one of the things that made the Hanse work. Having said that, one should recognise that L\u00fcbeck in particular dominated the League for long periods.\"  \n\n L\u00fcbeck was where the merchants most often met; and where renewed recent interest in the Hanse eventually led to Angela Merkel cutting the ribbon at the brand new European Hansemuseum in the city last year.\nGermany today \u2013 multicultural, economically and culturally motoring, free and fair \u2013 seems like the ideal model for a modern European nation state. And part of that success lies in the gravitas the country has given to its Hanseatic history. For Germany is not a top-down country with one city unhealthily dominating as with France and Britain (regional economic inequalities have plagued Britain since the painful de-industrialisation of the 1980s, especially in the north). Germany respects federalism and its cities exist on a much more even keel. The way that Cologne, Munich, Frankfurt, Dusseldorf and Stuttgart all bring varied economic and cultural character to the party is pure Hanse. The former Hanseatic cities of Hamburg, Berlin and Bremen have city state status within Germany, putting them on the same level as a whole region or 'land' like Bavaria or Brandenburg. \n\n So how about a new Hanseatic League? I ask Benjamin Barber, senior fellow at New York's Fordham University. \"I believe you will find there is a new Hanse,\" he says, \"that constituted itself about 10 or 11 years ago \u2013 including many of the original Hanseatic League cities.\" Barber is founder of the Global Parliament of Mayors, which he describes as a kind of Hanse of all cities, not just European ports, which will give cities a global urban voice and a common platform for action. The parliament convenes for its inaugural session in The Hague in September. \n\n \"Cities both exist within nations and transcend nations. Their power lies not just in the extent of\nde jure\nautonomy ceded or granted by 'higher' levels of government,\" says Bruce Katz, centennial scholar at the Washington DC thinktank the Brookings Institution. \"Rather, cities have de facto power, the result of larger market and demographic forces and environmental imperatives that value proximity, density, connectivity and quality. Smart nations will see themselves as partners to their cities, setting strong platforms for urban prosperity and devolving powers, where appropriate, to give cities the flexibility to perform\u2026 Dumb nations will continue to dictate from above, stifling market activity and urban potential.\" \n\n But could we go further? Could cities like London declare independence from the UK? London's economy is larger than that of Scotland and Wales combined. \"States will not vanish or surrender their waning sovereignty,\" says Benjamin Barber. \"But cities will meet across frontiers and work together to solve problems. The objective is not an independent London or New York, but interdependent cities collaborating globally. And that is happening.\" \n\n London's voters largely wanted to remain a part of the EU and to maintain the city's status as an entrep\u00f4t. There is clearly a widening chasm between urban and rural life at the heart of many nations. Visualisations of Austria's recent presidential election showed the issue clearly: the country's cities voted for the Green candidate Alexander Van der Bellen, while the the rural districts went for right-wing nationalist Norbert Hofer (whose legal challenge to the close result has resulted in a rerun being announced for October). And in the USA in November, it's likely that Trump voters will also come from rural areas and Clinton voters from the cities. City dwellers are finding ever more in common with the world's other city dwellers than with their countrymen 50 miles down the road. \n\n Back in Britain, one of history's little oddities pops up on the east coast. Boston in Lincolnshire and King's Lynn in Norfolk were both forward-looking Hanseatic League towns that traded with far-flung ports and hosted foreign merchants. King's Lynn contains the only extantHanse House left in Britain (London's was knocked down to build Cannon Street Station in the 1800s). Yet in the EU referendum these two areas polled among the highest Leave votes of anywhere in the country. \n\n \"Things change,\" says LSE's Professor Tony Travers. \"[King's Lynn] used to be very highly connected, but the economy moved on and left those trading ports like it in a different situation.\" Take, for example, the pivot towards the New World, with which trade made more sense from the west-coast ports like Bristol and Liverpool. While these boomed between the 1600s and 1800s, the Hanseatic ports declined and then died out. \"One of the things that's interesting about the [referendum] decision is that it begs all sorts of questions about the future of the UK and its relationship with Europe; and of London and Scotland and their relationship with the rest of Europe. When the EU began as the EEC in the mid-20th century some saw it as a modern day Hanse. Now the EU seems to be waning, perhaps its successor will have to ape the Hanse even more.\" \n\n For all its complex beauty, life can ultimately be reduced to a series of binary options: yes or no, stick or twist, in or out, innovation or stagnation, modernity or mythology. The referendum result was disappointing for many progressive observers because it felt like a step backwards. Despite being primarily about trade monopolies and money making, the Hanse was, in its way, an early stab at stepping forwards: it encompassed internationalism, rational thought, free trade, loose democratic institutions and, most crucially of all, movement. \n\n The future, for many observers, can only be understood in terms of the free movement of people, capital, goods and ideas. It is this necessary movement, and its possible curtailment, that could be the spark that leads to cities like London to seek independence and parity with other world cities \u2013 rather than with the rural hinterlands of Britain. \n\n Of course, cities seceding from their nation states would provide huge headaches for countries whose biggest economic driver had been removed \u2013 as well as likely deepening ideological differences between city and rural dwellers. Moreover, cities need the food the countryside provides.  \n\n Yet for all the potential pitfalls, city states can thrive. Look at Singapore, Hong Kong, or de facto city states like Dubai and Abu Dhabi. One of the most telling characteristics about these four \u2013 all of course former British imperial enclaves \u2013 is that they are utterly outward looking. To return to the sky analogy, it's the airlines of each of these (Singapore Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Emirates and Etihad) that open up each respective city to the world in the way that the machinery of the Hanse did on the Baltic Sea 600 years ago. And it's the unions each city makes with other places that also look thoroughly Hanseatic in character. A model for modern city states, then. But is it one that we want? \n\n \"The Hanseatic League was not always accepted by local citizens,\" says Cristina Ampatzidou, \"because the privileges granted to the Hanse merchants were forcing local traders out of competition and many cities took steps to eliminate them. The reasons the countryside is turning to the right [globally] are not independent from cities turning increasingly into speculation machines for the profit of a happy few. It is basically these systemic contradictions that must be addressed before we resort to more isolationist ideas that would intensify the urban-rural political divide. The bottom line is not whether a contemporary Hanse-esque federation is possible, it probably is; but whether it is actually desirable.\"\nThis article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.",
    "99912": "Obstetrics for beginners\nIt's my first go at delivering a baby by caesarean section \u2013 and the foetal head is impacted, jammed in its mother's pelvis. To be honest I'm struggling. \n\n Incisions have been made in the lower part of the mother's abdomen and womb. I've pushed my gloved hand inside and managed to slide my fingers between the baby's head and the surrounding uterine tissue. But it's difficult. The baby is tightly wedged in. I've had to push hard to get my hand to the far side of its head, and even though I'm now cupping and grasping it in the approved manner, I can't seem to pull it out. Dare I grip its head more firmly? Dare I pull harder?  \n\n The baby's mother \u2013 she's called Debra \u2013 remains impassive throughout these agonised fumblings. Her face reveals nothing of what she may be feeling. But then Debra has no feelings. Indeed she has no face\u2026  \n\n So you can stop worrying. Debra \u2013 Desperate Debra to use her full trade name \u2013 is a simulator designed to help doctors practise their skill at dealing with impacted foetuses: babies that get stuck trying to exit the womb by the normal route. She comprises the lower two thirds (ie from the mid-chest region downwards) of a life-sized but limbless female torso made of flesh-coloured silicone rubber. She comes with a vulva, a pre-cut incision in her abdomen and, most importantly, a uterus containing a foetal head that should, in the normal way of things, be free to emerge between her legs. But this fetus is going nowhere until an obstetrician \u2013 or in this case me \u2013 can successfully grasp and pull it out.  \n\n The clever and sophisticated simulator I'm playing with started life as a lash-up in an obstetrician's home workshop: a Heath Robinson-style contraption barely recognisable as a model of the human body. But it wasn't at that stage intended as a simulator for training medical staff. Its sole purpose was to test the effectiveness of a novel device called a Tydeman tube. Paradoxically, although the testing equipment, Debra, is now commercially available, the device it was intended to test has yet to reach the market. \n\n The inventor of the tube and of Desperate Debra is Dr Graham Tydeman, a consultant in obstetrics and gynaecology at Victoria Hospital in Kirkcaldy, Fife. Only after he'd built Debra did he realise that she might serve a purpose beyond his original intention. His is a decade-long tale of inspired insights, thwarted aims and shifting purposes; but with a good outcome. Although the Tydeman tube is still in gestation, Desperate Debra herself is now thriving.\nTo understand the desperation of Debra and how the Tydeman tube might help to relieve it requires a brief foray into basic obstetric knowhow.  Evolution has endowed us with heads proportionally so large that even when labour runs according to plan, the delivery process involves a bit of a squeeze. For the baby's head to get stuck on the way out may not be usual, but it's by no means a rarity. \n\n The standard response is to perform a caesarean section. Every year some 160,000 babies are born in the UK this way, with almost two thirds of them classified as emergencies. One audit has suggested that roughly 8,000 babies get stuck and have to be delivered by caesarean at a stage when their mothers are fully dilated. \"Some of the babies will be so close to coming out by the normal route,\" says Tydeman, \"that it's then difficult to get them back up and remove them through the hole in the woman's tummy.\" Which women are most at risk of this setback seems to be largely unpredictable. \"We just observe that it happens\u2026 It's been discussed in the medical literature since the 1940s, but until 10 years ago, and throughout my training and most of my life as a consultant, it wasn't really talked about.\"\nConsidering the universality of childbirth, impaction and the best way of dealing with it are topics that seem to have gone remarkably unstudied. \"There are strong opinions about why it happens and what to do, but very little research evidence,\" says Tydeman, adding that many of these opinions are contradictory. \n\n In a protracted birth that's destined to end with a caesarean, the longer the labour is allowed to go on before the obstetrician decides to intervene, the greater the likelihood that the baby's head will become impacted. However, concern over the rising number of babies born by caesarean has made doctors more wary of doing them \u2013 one consequence of which is that medical staff may allow a difficult birth to continue for longer before they resort to surgery. This could be boosting the frequency of impaction. But, again, no one is certain. \n\n When obstetricians doing planned caesareans slice open a mother's womb, what they usually see is the baby's head. By slipping a hand round and below it they can easily guide the baby out. \"When you do a caesarean for an impacted baby,\" says Tydeman, \"you make the incision in the same place, but what you might come across is a shoulder because the baby's so much further down [the birth canal].\" As I'd discovered for myself, sliding a hand around the baby's head is then far more difficult. \"It makes your fingers hurt,\" says Tydeman. \"It makes your pulse rate go up to about 200, and you break out in a sweat because know you've only got about five or 10 minutes before there are serious consequences. The clock is ticking.\" \n\n If a baby's head is jammed down in the mother's pelvic region, common sense suggests that it might help if a second person gives a gentle backward push on the area of its head visible through the mother's dilated cervix. \"In our unit,\" says Tydeman, \"when the woman is fully dilated and you'd expect the baby to come out normally [but it doesn't]\u2026 a registrar will be asking for a push-up about one in five times.\" Although registrars are doctors still in training, they're nonetheless experienced; which suggests requests for push-ups during unplanned caesareans are far from uncommon. The Tydeman tube is a gadget intended to make this manoeuvre safer and more effective.\nCreativity and innovation have many unlikely sources. What seems to have inspired Tydeman to develop his device was the characteristic sound of a Wellington boot being pulled free of wet, muddy ground: a slurpy, sucking, gurgling noise. When an impacted foetal head is pulled free of the uterus it's often accompanied by a similar sucking noise, the result of air rushing in between the obstetrician's fingers to fill the space vacated. \"What occurred to me years ago was that if the air can't get in, why not put a tube up into the vagina so that it can get in from below the baby's head.\" From time to time, if he felt he felt the baby might stick, Tydeman would slip a length of sterile silicone tubing through the woman's vagina and up into the womb next to the baby's head. Allowing air in by this route would release any suction forces tending to hold it where it was. \n\n Tydeman didn't do much with the idea until 10 years ago when one trainee, who was experiencing real difficulty getting heads out, prompted him to think again about the problem. Around the same time, he met professor of obstetrics Andrew Shennan and consultant midwife Annette Briley, both of the Women's Health Academic Centre at St Thomas's hospital. Between them they came up with a device \u2013 the Tydeman tube \u2013 to make pushing on the foetus more controlled while simultaneously releasing any vacuum that might be holding it in place. \n\n The instrument is made up of a rigid plastic tube opening into a softer silicone cup. Pressure to the foetal head is applied using four pads projecting forward from the cup's interior. Holding the device by the tube, the user places the cup against the part of the head exposed through the dilated cervix, and presses. This pushes the baby back up into the uterus while releasing any suction pressure that may have been holding it, so allowing the obstetrician to extract it more easily. Because pressure is distributed equally between the four pads with a greater combined surface area than that of a user's fingertips, the risk of inadvertent damage is minimised. \n\n The team found some money to employ a product designer who used computer-aided design technology and 3D printing to make a prototype. \"We were at the point of getting one made in silicone,\" says Tydeman, \"when we realised that before we started experimenting on women we really ought to test it on a simulator.\" No such simulator existed \u2013 so he decided to make one himself. \n\n That Tydeman was able to do this comes as no great surprise once you've glanced at his website. His career may be rooted in medicine but his interests encompass sculpture, furniture making and much else. He works in wood, glass, metals and plastic. \"I've got a big workshop with a lathe and a forge,\" he says. \"I make stuff. I always have, ever since I was a child. My dad was a woodwork teacher, my mum was very creative with fabric.\"\nAlthough tests carried out with the Debra prototype showed that the tube would work as intended, Tydeman and his colleagues then faced what he calls a kind of medical catch-22. \"We had the tube finished about three years ago\u2026 but we were more interested in trying to save lives than selling a product. We thought that the right thing to do before commercialising it was to be sure we'd got the best design.\" They tried it on a dozen or so women in labour, and concluded that it did what it supposed to. But they held off trying to market it because they wanted to do more extensive, more rigorous clinical studies.\nThis presented a problem. \"If you've applied for research money,\" says Tydeman, \"but you've already got what seems to be a commercially viable design, potential funders are going to say that the company aiming to sell it should pay for the work.\" On the other hand, commercial interest is easier to drum up if you've already got evidence that a device is safe and effective. \n\n That said, the team didn't want to leave the tube sitting on the shelf. So they eventually decided to go ahead and find a commercial partner willing to manufacture and market it. They have now identified one, and are fairly confident it will soon be in production. With sufficient users it should then be possible to compile factual \u2013 as opposed to anecdotal \u2013 evidence of benefit. Not ideal, Tydeman concedes, but the best they can do at present. \n\n In the meantime, back to Desperate Debra: so named, Tydeman says, not after any particular person but because the appellation is memorably alliterative. He put together the original Debra in a weekend. The skin was made out of a neoprene wetsuit fixed to a scaffolding formed from plastic tubing he'd found 20 years ago in skip outside a Glasgow pub; the head was cast in silicone from a model he'd made in plasticine, and the rest comprised old springs and other bits of stuff lying around his workshop. \"It wasn't actually that difficult,\" Tydeman says. \n\n When originally conceived, remember, Debra was simply a means of testing the effectiveness of the tube. What she looked like was neither here nor there. It was only once Debra was reborn as a teaching aid that she needed sprucing up. \n\n Tydeman can remember the exact moment when the idea of her having a greater role dawned on him. \"I was on the sleeper train down from Scotland to London,\" he says. \"Debra was with me because the first Tydeman tube had become available at St Thomas's\u2026 It was about midnight, I'd had my free whisky and I suddenly thought, 'Blow me! Even if the tube doesn't work, Debra could be useful as a teaching aid'.\"\nThe following morning, at St Thomas's, Tydeman asked a visiting professor of obstetrics to have a look at Debra and tell him what she thought. She put her hand into Debra's womb, grasped the foetal head and said it felt just like the real thing. \"Terribly flattering,\" Tydeman laughs. \n\n With a grant from the Guy's and St Thomas's Charity fund they made Debra more presentable. Tydeman showed the prototype to Adam Rouilly, an established company specialising in medical models and simulators. They were impressed. A year later, the first of Debra's smartened-up sisters was on the market. \n\n In Debra as she is now, the precise extent and nature of her desperation can be fine-tuned according to need. The foetal head inside her uterus can be moved to mimic the various positions that an unborn baby may adopt. By tightening a spring inside Debra's body, it's also possible vary the degree of impaction from mild to so severe that the head is virtually impossible to extract. In this way she simulates the full range of difficulty that obstetricians are likely to encounter.   \n\n So how valuable in training medical staff is a simulator like this? Very, according to Annette Briley. Imagine it's the middle of the night and an unplanned emergency caesarean is required: \"Some poor junior doctor might find himself trying to manage it on his own.\" To have practised the knack of extracting a firmly impacted baby from a simulator is lot better than first honing your skill on a real woman. \n\n At St Thomas's, midwives in training also get an opportunity to practise on Debra. The chances that midwives will find themselves having to do the actual extraction of an infant are slim; but they're quite likely to be asked to help the obstetrician by pushing a stuck baby from below. Debra's anatomy allows them to practise this skill; and to learn where and how hard to push on the infant skull. \"Any practice you've done in the cold light of day will help you stay calm and composed in an emergency, and that's what we're aiming for,\" says Briley.\nIt's still too soon to make a final judgement about Debra\u2019s impact. \"When we first brought Debra out,\" Briley recalls, \"some of the really experienced professors said things like, 'We always managed without one. Why would you need this?' But ask them to have a go at using it and then they admit it's really good.\" Medicine as a whole has an oddly ambivalent relationship to innovation. Some new findings, techniques or equipment take years to penetrate the profession; others are seized upon immediately. \n\n A proper study of the clinical effectiveness of the Tydeman tube will necessarily involve women giving birth. Assessing the value of Debra as a simulator didn't require human subjects; and the team has already conducted such a study. Thirty obstetricians, from three NHS maternity units and with varying levels of experience, took part. They all received a brief explanation of how Debra works, and were then asked to try a timed removal of the foetal head at three different levels of difficulty. Overall, 87 per cent reported that the simulator offered a realistic experience of dealing with an impacted head, and 93 per cent thought it would be valuable as a training device. \n\n The use of simulators to teach technical skills is now common in medical schools. You can learn to sew up a knife wound, catheterise a bladder or intubate an airway. You can practise cardiopulmonary resuscitation or ear syringing or even go through the motions of a keyhole surgical procedure. The technology required to do these things may cost a few pounds, or tens of thousands. Either way, given that most of these devices were invented during the past three or four decades, it comes as something of a surprise to learn that simulation for medical purposes can be traced back as far as the Chinese Song dynasty of 960-1279 AD. \n\n One of the treatments of choice in that era was, naturally, acupuncture. But how to teach tyro-acupuncturists where to place the needles? Simple. A life-size bronze statue dotted with small holes indicated the points of insertion. And how then to test the students' grasp of their subject? If the statute was hollow, filled with liquid and given an outer coating of wax to mask the holes, a correct needle insertion would be followed by a leak. \n\n Given the universality of childbirth it's no surprise that, then as now, the womb turns out to be the most simulated of our organs. For the benefit of 18th-century midwives and doctors-in-training, the Bologna surgeon Giovanni Antonio Galli devised a birthing simulator comprising a glass uterus supported by an artificial pelvis and containing a flexible foetus. Trainees had to deliver the baby while wearing a blindfold. Only the tutor could witness the fumbling of their hands. \n\n As the material for a convincing simulation, glass clearly has its drawbacks. But another 18th-century contraption used a pink cloth-covered mannequin comprising a female torso complete with genitalia, a set of implantable foetuses of various ages, and even \u2013 a real\ncoup de th\u00e9\u00e2tre\n, this \u2013 a facility for exuding suitably coloured liquids at the appropriate moment.\nOddly, as medicine became more scientific, most of these devices fell by the wayside. As an academic review of these and other devices has pointed out, much of the 20th century was something of Dark Ages for simulation. Its value in professional training has had to be rediscovered: an endeavour in which inventive people like Graham Tydeman, sometimes with workshops rich in discarded junk, are still fruitfully engaged.\nThis article was originally published on TheLong+Short. Read the original article.",
    "99921": "Just another free soul\nIn his foreword to the book, Lessig writes that you understand your subjects \u201cby learning to see them in a certain way.\u201d What is that certain way?\nI think I\u2019m trying to get a mental image of a person, certain\n expressions, or what I think that person is about. I\u2019m trying to capture\n what I think they look like, which is many times a minority of their\n typical expressions, or their typical stance. So, if I\u2019m taking pictures\n of Larry [Lessig], I want to have his signature hand gestures, and not\n just random ones.\nI think I\u2019m trying to capture pictures of people that help others see\n what they\u2019re about. Some photographers will make someone look the way\n the photographer wants them to look, and not the way they appear, so\n they\u2019ll pick the one picture out of 100 where the guy looks more\n egotistical than he really is. Some photographers are almost medical,\n and are going after a perfect portrait. I\u2019m somewhere in between.\nIt\u2019s amazing how many people will upload snapshots of people where the\n pictures don\u2019t look like them at all. To me, uploading a picture that is\n not an easily recognizable picture of that person defeats the point,\n which I\u2019m working toward, to try to express who they are. On the other\n hand, professional photographers usually have a subject whom they don\u2019t\n know personally, so they end up having to try to capture an image that\n they\u2019ve created based on who they think the person is or how they want\n that person to appear. You know how sculptors often say that they\u2019re\n just freeing an image from a block? What I\u2019m trying to do is free\n someone\u2019s soul from his or her image. There are a lot of things that\n make this hard. A lot of people are uncomfortable in front of a camera,\n or might make expressions that aren\u2019t very natural for them. And if the\n person is nervous, it\u2019s very difficult to try to see what it is that\n you\u2019re trying to capture.\nA lot of what I\u2019m doing is, I just start shooting photos. After half an\n hour of having their picture taken, people start to ignore you. Or I\u2019ll\n take pictures when I\u2019m talking to people about what they\u2019re doing, so\n after a while they get distracted by the conversation and forget about\n the camera. That\u2019s something that I\u2019m not perfect at, but I\u2019m getting\n better.\nI think good photographers are also able to disarm people through\n conversation, but still, it\u2019s difficult to have a disarming conversation\n with somebody you don\u2019t know, or to make them laugh. Many times people\n make a face for me that they wouldn\u2019t make for a professional\n photographer.\nFor instance, a board meeting picture, like the one with Eric Saltzman:\n that was during a very tense discussion. I\u2019ve found that people are at\n their most animated at these kinds of meetings, and look the most alive\n when they are under a lot of pressure, and super- focused. But usually\n if an outsider is in the room, they won\u2019t get into that. I mean, it\n would be difficult for a cameraman to be in a room where a board is\n having a heated debate.\nBut those are the things that I\u2019m trying to capture, because most people\n don\u2019t get to see that. At the Creative Commons board meeting, Larry\n asked me to put the camera away after awhile [laughs] because it was\n distracting. We were having a very heated discussion and I was taking\n all of these pictures. But he credited me later because afterward those\n pictures turned out the best.\nIn your mind, what is a \u2018Freesoul\u2019 ?\nA freesoul is somewhat of a pun. On the one hand it means you are free,\n liberated. You, as a human spirit, are open. And then, it also has the\n meaning that you are unencumbered legally, that you are free, as in\n \u2018free software.\u2019\nThere\u2019s a paradox: with many people\u2019s Wikipedia\n articles to which I\u2019ve contributed, when it comes to the picture, many\n of these people don\u2019t have any free photos of themselves on the web, so\n while they are \u201cnotable\u201d on Wikipedia, their images aren\u2019t free of the\n copyright of the photographer, or the institution who hired the\n photographer to take the picture. Often, even the subject of the article\n can\u2019t make an image available to the Wikimedia/Wikipedia community.\nThis means that a lot of people who have a Net presence have a legally\n encumbered Net presence. People who are invited to conferences get asked\n all the time, \u201cBy the way, do you have a photo that we can use?\u201d But\n they don\u2019t. By making these pictures available under a Creative Commons\n license, now they do. This is solving the issue of legal freedom.\nThe third part of the pun is that, since I\u2019m asking for a model release\n from the subjects, I\u2019m asking everyone to be much more open and giving\n about their image than most people typically are. I\u2019m giving, you\u2019re\n giving, we\u2019re all giving to participate and to try to create this\n wonderful work, and allow others to create derivative works.\nOf course people can abuse that, just like they can abuse anything. But\n I want people to see the value in sharing over the fear in sharing. The\n fact is, it\u2019s much more likely that somebody is going to use these\n pictures for something positive, rather than for something negative. The\n benefits greatly outweigh the risks. I think we spend way too much of\n our lives worrying about the risks, at the cost of a lot of the\n benefits.\nThis is a celebration of all of the people who are willing to give. In a\n way, giving up your image and allowing anyone to use it: it\u2019s the\n ultimate gift. In one way it\u2019s kind of vain. [laughs] But in another\n way it\u2019s wonderful. A Wikipedia article on some person but with no\n picture is sad.\nBesides Wikipedia, how do you imagine these photos being used?\nThey can be used in textbooks and in mainstream media articles about the\n person. Now they can get a picture that represents the person, at least\n from my perspective. That said, I shouldn\u2019t be the only person doing\n this. More people should do the same, and make the photographs available\n freely. For one, I feel that \u201cfree\u201d CC licensed photos have a much\n higher chance of not disappearing. But I don\u2019t know exactly how these\n photos are going to be used, so in a sense I\u2019m curious. For example,\n recently I received the Harvard Berkman Center pamphlet. It was a report\n of what they\u2019re doing, and they also had a bunch of my pictures in\n there. They all had attribution, and it made me feel really good. There\n were pictures of different Berkman Center members that I had taken in\n various places all over the world. I think that the subject is probably\n happy with this, and I\u2019m happy, and the Berkman Center\u2019s happy because\n they\u2019re not all pictures of people sitting at desks in the Berkman\n Center. There\u2019s one more important thing: Creative Commons is great for\n original creative works or derivative creative works, but when it\n involves human images, it gets very complicated. We all know the Virgin\n Mobile case, where Virgin used CC licensed images in an advertisement\n without getting permission from the models, and got in trouble. What\n we\u2019re trying to do here is to expand beyond just copyright, to make it\n more thorough from a legal perspective. It\u2019s also an important\n educational point, so people understand that, in addition to the\n Creative Commons licenses, we need people to provide other rights in\n cases where the law requires such rights to be cleared before reuse.\nWhat have you learned about the people in these networks, just in the past year?\nThat\u2019s a good question. I think that at least Creative Commons has\n become much more mainstream. Creative Commons has moved from a fringy\n academic discussion to a boardroom discussion. Yahoo announced that it\n will be using Creative Commons for all of their basic infrastructure,\n and integrating it all. Google has CC search in their advanced search.\nMicrosoft is working with CC as well and have a plug-in. Nine Inch Nails\n released their album, Ghost, under a Creative Commons license. The list\n goes on. Many people are asking: can you make money and share? The\n answer is, yes. CC is becoming an important part of the business\n discussion.\nBut one thing that happens when a movement like CC becomes a business\n thing, is that a lot of the pioneers fade into the background, and it\n becomes a part of industry. This happened to the Internet. And so while\n you still have the core people who still remember and hold the torch for\n the philosophical side, the Internet has become much more of a business.\n Now, when you go to many Internet conferences, it\u2019s mostly salesmen in\n attendance.\nI believe that the success of the Internet has two parts. The first part\n is the market- driven business side, which has made the Internet\n affordable and ubiquitous. The second part is the strong movement of\n participants who fight to keep the Internet open and try to prevent the\n business side from corrupting the fundamental elements that make the\n Internet great. The Net Neutrality or Open Network discussion going on\n right now is a good example of the importance of continuing to balance\n these principles with business interests.\nSimilarly, I think that business interests can help make Creative\n Commons ubiquitous and more easily accessible to everyone. However, I\n think it\u2019s important to remember to keep pushing to make content more\n \u201cfree\u201d and not allow businesses to use Creative Commons in exploitive or\n destructive ways.\nIn addition to the business side, Creative Commons is being used by\n educators to create open courseware around the world and in the area of\n science and technology to promote sharing in research. And as of now, we\n have the license ported to at least 44 jurisdictions, and the number of\n countries with projects continues to grow. In many ways, the movement\n outside of the United States has become much bigger than the movement in\n the United States. Although the United States is still slightly farther\n ahead in terms of commercialization, the size of the whole free culture\n movement outside of the United States is huge now. The CC China Photo\n exhibit was just amazing. There were some great\n images, and a lot of the photographers were professionals. This is\n beyond what anybody has done in the US. A lot of the progress that we\u2019re\n making is international.\nWhat are your personal realizations or experiences?\nWell, we\u2019re all getting old, if you look at these pictures. But there\u2019s\n another thing, though, about this book: the number of\n professional-quality amateurs has increased significantly due to the\n importance of digital in both professional and high-end amateur\n photography I hate to say it, a lot of people love the darkroom, but it\n really feels like the death of the darkroom with this year.\nWith new 22 megapixel cameras coming in under $10,000, and Lightroom\n and some of this software at a couple hundred dollars, it doesn\u2019t really\n make sense, except for particularly fussy artists, to do wet-work\n anymore. If you\u2019re a commercial photographer or a high-end amateur, you\n can do anything you used to do in the darkroom. I think it has really\n lowered the bar. I don\u2019t know how that affects the industry directly,\n but for me, it bridged a huge gap.\nI used to be darkroom geek. I loved my darkroom, and even when I didn\u2019t\n have my darkroom anymore, I still was shooting 6x6 Hasselblad 120 film\n and processing it in a special lab, and then digitizing it. For me, that\n film was it. You could never get as good as medium-format film or\n large-format film\nAt the time, the digital Hasselblad backs were too expensive, and were\n still not as good as 8x10 film. So there was this whole period where the\n darkroom was not all that exciting, but the digital wasn\u2019t perfect. I\n went through a limbo period. I had invested so much in my Hasselblad\n system, and my Leica M6 set. I had bought the Leica R8, but I was\n kicking myself because it was terrible. But then the Leica M8 came out,\n and I bought one at the beginning of 2007. The M8 really got me to where\n I could use my old gear, and it had enough megapixels to be as good as\n some film.\nAnother way of saying it was that there was a gear breakthrough at the\n beginning of last year. Okay, that\u2019s pretty materialistic! So there was\n a technology breakthrough, let\u2019s call it that, that allowed me to switch\n completely away from film, and I think this happened to a lot of\n photographers. It caused an explosion of content and an increase in the\n quality of content on sites like Flickr. It has\n allowed amateurs to create a business model with professionals.\n Interestingly, I think these new high-end amateurs are buying more\n photography books and photographs and are probably providing an\n increasing revenue stream for professional photographers. I think most\n amateurs, including myself, are paying homage to the professionals and\n not trying to \u201ccompete\u201d with them.\nDespite the existence of social software, what is still important about meeting people face-to-face?\nFor me, the right way to use a lot of the new social software is by\n making it easier to spend more physical time with the people you like\n best. Dopplr is a great example. When\n I visit a city, I will see all of the people who are in the city at the\n same time. When I went to London awhile ago, there were 47 people I knew\n in London, and a huge percentage of those people don\u2019t live there. I\n would bet that more than half of the photos in this book are pictures of\n friends, and they\u2019re not in their hometown.\nThat\u2019s the really interesting thing that is happening right now: it\u2019s\n really increasing your ability to spend quality time with, actually, a\n smaller number of people. It allows you to actively filter. Your\n meetings don\u2019t have to be random. If I look at the list of people in\n this book, although there are some obvious people missing whom I didn\u2019t\n see last year, probably met more of my friends last year, my real\n friends, than I\u2019ve met in any other year. I know my travels were crazy,\n but I think that the online world has allowed me to do that.\nWhat\u2019s great about photography is that it captures the moment that I was\n sharing with that person. It\u2019s not just a connection on a social network\n online, which is really pretty binary. I can look at all these photos\n and remember exactly what we were doing, what we were eating, what we\n were drinking, what we were talking about, and to me that\u2019s a much more\n rich experience.\nIt\u2019s the combination of social software and photography. For me, reality\n is \u201cthe present\u201d plus what you remember from the past. I think this\n project is really sharing memories with people. Blog posts contribute as\n well, but to me photography is a really good way of doing that. When I\n look at the expressions, I remember the moment and get a sense of\n presence.\nI think the main problem for me is the environmental impact of flying\n around. Just as I never believed that we would have a paperless office,\n being able to connect with people through social software mostly\n increases your travel, it doesn\u2019t decrease it. It is great because you\n get to meet all these people. But it is bad for the environment, and bad\n for our jet lag.\nHow would you characterize your contributions to free culture?\nI think it\u2019s mostly incremental. I think there is very little we\n actually do all by ourselves, and I hate saying, \u201cI did this\u201d or \u201cI did\n that.\u201d I think that in most cases, focusing on individual contributions\n or achievements undervalues the importance of everyone else involved.\nHaving said that, I think my main contribution is probably in supporting\n Creative Commons as a fan, board member, chairman of the board and now\n CEO. I think CC has a significant role, and helping to keep it on track\n and growing is probably the single most important role that I have in\n Free Culture.\nSpecifically, I think that trying to keep an international focus and a\n balance between business and the non-business elements of the movement\n is essential. My job is to keep that focus and maintain that balance.\n Also, CC needs to run smoothly as an organization and there is a lot of\n operational work that we all need to do. My photography is a way for me\n to participate in a small measure on the creative side of the Free\n Culture movement, and helps me see things from that perspective as well.\nHowever, I believe in emergent democracy and the importance of trying to\n celebrate the community more than the heroes. Of course, I\u2019m a huge fan\n of Larry\u2019s and I have great respect for the leaders of our movement. But\n more than anything, I\u2019m thankful for and respectful of all of the\n participants who aren\u2019t so well known and who are essential to moving\n everything forward.\nPersonally, I don\u2019t think it\u2019s ultimately meaningful to talk about one\n individual\u2019s personal contribution to any movement. The real meaning is\n in the whole movement. I\u2019m just one participant. Just another free soul.",
    "99923": "Sharism: A Mind Revolution\nWith the People of the World Wide Web communicating more fully and\n freely in Social Media while rallying a Web 2.0 content boom, the inner\n dynamics of such a creative explosion must be studied more closely. What\n motivates those who join this movement and what future will they create?\n A key fact is that a superabundance of community respect and social\n capital are being accumulated by those who share. The key motivator of\n Social Media and the core spirit of Web 2.0 is a mind switch called\n Sharism. Sharism suggests a re-orientation of personal values. We see it\n in User Generated Content. It is the pledge of Creative Commons. It is\n in the plans of future-oriented cultural initiatives. Sharism is also a\n mental practice that anyone can try, a social-psychological attitude to\n transform a wide and isolated world into a super-smart Social Brain.\nThe Neuron Doctrine\nSharism is encoded in the Human Genome. Although eclipsed by the many\n pragmatisms of daily life, the theory of Sharism finds basis in\n neuroscience and its study of the working model of the human brain.\n Although we can\u2019t entirely say how the brain works as a whole, we do\n have a model of the functional mechanism of the nervous system and its\n neurons. A neuron is not a simple organic cell, but a very powerful,\n electrically excitable biological processor. Groups of neurons form\n vastly interconnected networks, which, by changing the strength of the\n synapses between cells, can process information, and learn. A neuron, by\n sharing chemical signals with its neighbors, can be integrated into more\n meaningful patterns that keep the neuron active and alive. Moreover,\n such a simple logic can be iterated and amplified, since all neurons\n work on a similar principle of connecting and sharing. Originally, the\n brain is quite open. A neural network exists to share activity and\n information, and I believe this model of the brain should inspire ideas\n and decisions about human networks.\nThus, our brain supports sharing in its very system-nature. This has\n profound implications for the creative process. Whenever you have an\n intention to create, you will find it easier to generate more creative\n ideas if you keep the sharing process firmly in mind. The\n idea-forming-process is not linear, but more like an avalanche of\n amplifications along the thinking path. It moves with the momentum of a\n creative snowball. If your internal cognitive system encourages sharing,\n you can engineer a feedback loop of happiness, which will help you\n generate even more ideas in return. It\u2019s a kind of butterfly- effect, as\n the small creative energy you spend will eventually return to make you,\n and the world, more creative.\nHowever, daily decisions for most adults are quite low in creative\n productivity, if only because they\u2019ve switched off their sharing paths.\n People generally like to share what they create, but in a culture that\n tells them to be protective of their ideas, people start to believe in\n the danger of sharing. Then Sharism will be degraded in their mind and\n not encouraged in their society. But if we can encourage someone to\n share, her sharing paths will stay open. Sharism will be kept in her\n mind as a memory and an instinct. If in the future she faces a creative\n choice, her choice will be, \u201cShare.\u201d\nThese mind-switches are too subtle to be felt. But since the brain, and\n society, is a connected system, the accumulation of these\n micro-attitudes, from neuron to neuron and person to person, can result\n in observable behavior. It is easy to tell if a person, a group, a\n company, a nation is oriented toward Sharism or not. For those who are\n not, what they defend as \u201ccultural goods\u201d and \u201cintellectual property\u201d\n are just excuses for the status quo of keeping a community closed. Much\n of their \u201cculture\u201d will be protected, but the net result is the direct\n loss of many other precious ideas, and the subsequent loss of all the\n potential gains of sharing. This lost knowledge is a black hole in our\n life, which may start to swallow other values as well.\nNon-sharing culture misleads us with its absolute separation of Private\n and Public space. It makes creative action a binary choice between\n public and private, open and closed. This creates a gap in the spectrum\n of knowledge. Although this gap has the potential to become a valuable\n creative space, concerns about privacy make this gap hard to fill. We\n shouldn\u2019t be surprised that, to be safe, most people keep their sharing\n private and stay \u201cclosed.\u201d They may fear the Internet creates a\n potential for abuse that they can\u2019t fight alone. However, the paradox\n is: The less you share, the less power you have.\nNew Technologies and the Rise of Sharism\nLet\u2019s track back to 1999, when there were only a few hundred pioneer\n bloggers around the world, and no more than ten times that many readers\n following each blog. Human history is always so: something important was\n happening, but the rest of the world hadn\u2019t yet realized it. The shift\n toward easy-to-use online publishing triggered a soft revolution in just\n five years. People made a quick and easy transition from reading blogs,\n to leaving comments and taking part in online conversations, and then to\n the sudden realization that they should become bloggers themselves. More\n bloggers created more readers, and more readers made more blogs. The\n revolution was viral.\nBloggers generate lively and timely information on the Internet, and\n connect to each other with RSS, hyperlinks, comments, trackbacks and\n quotes. The small-scale granularity of the content can fill discrete\n gaps in experience and thus record a new human history. Once you become\n a blogger, once you have accumulated so much social capital in such a\n small site, it\u2019s hard to stop. We can\u2019t explain this fact with a theory\n of addiction. It\u2019s an impulse to share. It\u2019s the energy of the memes\n that want to be passed from mouth to mouth and mind to mind. It\u2019s more\n than just E-mail. It\u2019s Sharism.\nBloggers are always keen to keep the social context of their posts in\n mind, by asking themselves, \u201cWho is going to see this?\u201d Bloggers are\n agile in adjusting their tone\u2212and privacy settings\u2212to advance ideas and\n stay out of trouble. It\u2019s not self-censorship, but a sense of smart\n expression. But once blogs reached the tipping point, they expanded into\n the blogosphere. This required a more delicate social networking system\n and content- sharing architecture. But people now understand that they\n can have better control over a wide spectrum of relationships. Like how\n Flickr allows people to share their photos widely, but safely. The\n checkbox-based privacy of Flickr may seem unfamiliar to a new user, but\n you can use it to toy with the mind-switches of Sharism. By checking a\n box we can choose to share or not to share. From my observations, I have\n seen photographers on Flickr become more open to sharing, while\n retaining flexible choices.\nThe rapid emergence of Social Applications that can communicate and\n cooperate, by allowing people to output content from one service to\n another, is letting users pump their memes into a pipeline-like\n ecosystem. This interconnectedness allows memes to travel along multiple\n online social networks, and potentially reach a huge audience. As a\n result, such a Micro-pipeline system is making Social Media a true\n alternative to broadcast media. These new technologies are reviving\n Sharism in our closed culture.\nLocal Practice, Global Gain\nIf you happened to lose your Sharism in a bad educational or cultural\n setting, it\u2019s hard to get it back. But it\u2019s not impossible. A\n persistence of practice can lead to a full recovery. You can think of\n Sharism as a spiritual practice. But you must practice everyday.\n Otherwise, you might lose the power of sharing. Permanently.\nYou might need something to spur you on, to keep you from quitting and\n returning to a closed mindset. Here\u2019s an idea: put a sticky note on your\n desk that says, \u201cWhat do you want to share today?\u201d I\u2019m not kidding.\n Then, if anything interesting comes your way: Share It! The easiest way\n to both start and keep sharing is by using different kinds of social\n software applications. Your first meme you want to share may be small,\n but you can amplify it with new technologies. Enlist some people from\n your network and invite them into a new social application. At first it\n might be hard to feel the gains of Sharism. The true test then is to see\n if you can keep track of the feedback that you get from sharing. You\n will realize that almost all sharing activities will generate positive\n results. The happiness that this will obtain is only the most immediate\n reward. But there are others.\nThe first type of reward that you will get comes in the form of\n comments. Then you know you\u2019ve provoked interest, appreciation,\n excitement. The second reward is access to all the other stuff being\n shared by friends in your network. Since you know and trust them, you\n will be that much more interested in what they have to share. Already,\n the return is a multiple of the small meme you first shared. But the\n third type of return is more dramatic still. Anything you share can be\n forwarded, circulated and republished via other people\u2019s networks. This\n cascade effect can spread your work to the networked masses.\nImprovements in social software are making the speed of dissemination as\n fast as a mouse-click. You should get to know the Sharism-You. You\u2019re\n about to become popular, and fast\nThis brings us to the fourth and final type of return. It has a meaning\n not only for you, but for the whole of society. If you so choose, you\n may allow others to create derivative works from what you share. This\n one choice could easily snowball into more creations along the sharing\n path, from people at key nodes in the network who are all as passionate\n about creating and sharing as you are. After many iterative rounds of\n development, a large creative work may spring from your choice to share.\n Of course, you will get the credit that you asked for, and deserve. And\n it\u2019s okay to seek financial rewards. But you will in every case get\n something just as substantial: Happiness.\nThe more people who create in the spirit of Sharism, the easier it will\n be to attain well- balanced and equitable Social Media that is woven by\n people themselves. Media won\u2019t be controlled by any single person but\n will rely on the even distribution of social networking. These \u201cShaeros\u201d\n (Sharing Heroes) will naturally become the opinion leaders in the first\n wave of Social Media. However, these media rights will belong to\n everyone. You yourself can be both producer and consumer in such a\n system.\nSharism Safeguards Your Rights\nStill, many questions will be raised about Sharism as an initiative in\n new age. The main one is copyright. One concern is that any loss of\n control over copyrighted content will lead to noticeable deficits in\n personal wealth, or just loss of control. 5 years ago, I would have said\n that this was a possibility. But things are changing today. The sharing\n environment is more protected than you might think. Many new social\n applications make it easy to set terms-of-use along your sharing path.\n Any infringement of those terms will be challenged not just by the law,\n but by your community. Your audience, who benefit form your sharing, can\n also be the gatekeepers of your rights. Even if you are a traditional\n copyright holder, this sounds ideal.\nFurthermore, by realizing all the immediate and emergent rewards that\n can be had by sharing, you may eventually find that copyright and \u201cAll\n Rights Reserved\u201d are far from your mind. You will enjoy sharing too much\n to worry about who is keeping a copy. The new economic formula is, the\n more people remix your works, the higher the return.\nI want to point out that Sharism is not Communism, nor Socialism. As for\n those die- hard Communists we know, they have often abused people\u2019s\n sharing nature and forced them to give up their rights, and their\n property. Socialism, that tender Communism, in our experience also\n lacked respect for these rights. Under these systems, the state owns all\n property. Under Sharism, you can keep ownership, if you want. But I like\n to share. And this is how I choose to spread ideas, and prosperity\nSharism is totally based on your own consensus. It\u2019s not a very hard\n concept to understand, especially since copyleft movements like the Free\n Software Foundation and Creative Commons have been around for years.\n These movements are redefining a more flexible spectrum of licenses for\n both developers and end-users to tag their works. Because the new\n licenses can be recognized by either humans or machines, it\u2019s becoming\n easier to re-share those works in new online ecosystems.\nThe Spirit of the Web, a Social Brain\nSharism is the Spirit of the Age of Web 2.0. It has the consistency of a\n naturalized Epistemology and modernized Axiology, but also promises the\n power of a new Internet philosophy. Sharism will transform the world\n into an emergent Social Brain: a networked hybrid of people and\n software. We are Networked Neurons connected by the synapses of Social\n Software.\nThis is an evolutionary leap, a small step for us and a giant one for\n human society. With new \u201chairy\u201d emergent technologies sprouting all\n around us, we can generate higher connectivities and increase the\n throughput of our social links. The more open and strongly connected we\n social neurons are, the better the sharing environment will be for all\n people. The more collective our intelligence, the wiser our actions will\n be. People have always found better solutions through conversations. Now\n we can put it all online.\nSharism will be the politics of the next global superpower. It will not\n be a country, but a new human network joined by Social Software. This\n may remain a distant dream, and even a well-defined public sharing\n policy might not be close at hand. But the ideas that I\u2019m discussing can\n improve governments today. We can integrate our current and emerging\n democratic systems with new folksonomies (based on the collaborative,\n social indexing of information) to enable people to make queries, share\n data and remix information for public use. The collective intelligence\n of a vast and equitable sharing environment can be the gatekeeper of our\n rights, and a government watchdog. In the future, policymaking can be\n made more nuanced with the micro-involvement of the sharing community.\n This \u201cEmergent Democracy\u201d is more real-time than periodical\n parliamentary sessions. It will also increase the spectrum of our\n choices, beyond the binary options of \u201cYes\u201d or \u201cNo\u201d referenda.\n Representative democracy will become more timely and diligent, because\n we will represent ourselves within the system.\nSharism will result in better social justice. In a healthy sharing\n environment, any evidence of injustice can get amplified to get the\n public\u2019s attention. Anyone who has been abused can get real and instant\n support from her peers and her peers\u2019 peers. Appeals to justice will\n take the form of petitions through multiple, interconnected channels.\n Using these tools, anyone can create a large social impact. With\n multiple devices and many social applications, each of us can become\n more sociable, and society more individual. We no longer have to act\n alone.\nEmergent democracy will only happen when Sharism becomes the literacy of\n the majority. Since Sharism can improve communication, collaboration and\n mutual understanding, I believe it has a place within the educational\n system. Sharism can be applied to any cultural discourse, CoP (Community\n of Practice) or problem-solving context. It is also an antidote to\n social depression, since sharelessness is just dragging our society\n down. In present or formerly totalitarian countries, this downward cycle\n is even more apparent. The future world will be a hybrid of human and\n machine that will generate better and faster decisions anytime,\n anywhere. The flow of information between minds will become more\n flexible and more productive. These vast networks of sharing will create\n a new social order\u2212A Mind Revolution!"
}