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Describe the setting of this story.	Write a detailed response to the following question about Captain Midas by Alfred Coppel. Question: Describe the setting of this story. Answer:	[ "This story takes place in the Holcomb Foundation aboard Martian Maid. The Martian Maid is a grand ship that took off from Solis Lacus on its last flight; the ship spanned 200 feet in its length and despite its sleek exterior, was an armed ship as well. The Maid was on an orbit in a region strewn with asteroids between the outer systems and the EMV triangle. \n\nAboard the spaceship, interactions between the characters in the story largely took place in the Control room. It also takes place in Captain Midas’ quarters, where he investigates the mystery metal. The setting also changes to include the derelict ship the crewmates had found, which presented itself as a shell of a vessel with torn interiors and yellow-tinged walls. \n", "After the character’s inner monologue finishes, Midas starts talking about the day his team took off on the Martian Maid spaceship. He watched the lights of Canalopolis: gin mills and houses reflected on the ancient canal’s water, the bright moons cast their shadows across the banks. They were leaving the Earth-Mars-Venus Triangle and moving towards the outer systems, specifically the planet called Callisto. Midas spent most of his time in the Control room. He gathered the crew there to tell them about the derelict. At his quarters, Midas examined the metal samples sitting at his work-table. Days later, in the control room with a control panel, a radar finder, and a firing console, Midas killed Spinelli, who had attacked him. He then decided to find his team. He entered the living quarters of the prize crew. The walls were gleaming. Then, Midas swiftly reached the Maid and flew to Callisto. Now he’s in a hospital cot.\n\n", "The story happens on two spaceships. One is Martian Maid, which is a two hundred feet long spaceship. It is sleek, chemical-fueled, and spherical. It is equipped with weapons, such as turrets. There is a telescope, radar, and a book rack above the desk in the captain’s room. The other is the derelict. It is tremendously gigantic. It has a sleek torpedo shape with unknown alienness. Its flanks are constituted with glittering whorls. It is torn apart severely. There are a few storage compartments inside.", "The story is primarily set in space. When the Martian Maid first takes off, it leaves from Solis Lacus after being taken out of the Foundation Yards. The ship is headed towards Callisto, where everybody will be receiving a fat paycheck. There is a Earth-Mars-Venus triangle that provides relative security for space travel. However, the outer systems are much more dangerous. The Captain also watches Canalopolis from a distance before he has to leave. The Maid has a scope position and living quarters for the crew. There is also an area called Control, where everybody is called to meet. The golden ship they find is made fully out of gold. The treasure ship has yellowish decks and an airlock compartment set aside for the crew. The entire ship gleams, but it is made out of devil metal. After the captain escapes to Callisto, he is subjected to a hospital cot for the rest of his life. " ]	63867
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Expendables by Jim Harmon. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "A racketeer, Tony Carmen, comes to Professor Venetti, demanding him figure out how to get rid of the corpse in his house without leaving any traces by using the information Professor Venetti has in his job for the U.S. government that is related to the disposal problem of nuclear waste. Tony threatens Professor Venetti that if Professor Venetti does not abide by what he says, his connection with Mafia will cause Professor Venetti a lot of trouble. Afraid of what the Mafia may do, Professor Venetti finally accepts his request. However, professor Venetti does not abide by the safety and careful principles when he invents the machine, which is named Expendable late after by Tony. He does not know how the machine works either; he creates a device that can turn physical mass into nothingness without knowing where the disposed of mass or energy goes. When he gives the machine to Tony, Tony asks how the machine works, but Professor Venetti cannot explain. Later on, Tony sets up the device on the street, ordering Professor Venetti to turn on the machine, which is modified by a boy who used to be a mechanic, and Professor Venetti does. The machine destroys a warehouse, including the people inside. Professor Venetti condemns Tony for committing a crime, but Tony does not care as there is no corpse to prove the crime. \n\nTony persuades Professor Venetti to put the Expendables into business. He leaks the information about the machine through newspapers to attract big corporations to come for them. As they make more profits from the product and go through all the business matters, an agent from Atomic Energy Commission comes. The agent informs them about the ban of their products because there is a research finding that the side effect of their product is the heat transformed from the mass, which results in the rising temperature. Professor Venetti believes that people would not stop using the products even if they knew what environmental damage they would cause. He creates a reverse version of the machine, called Disexpendable, which would consume the excess energy produced by the Expendables. After he completes it, he turns it on. As the Disexpendable operates, the temperature gets colder, and the corpse, once decomposed, appears in the room in front of the agent. At the same time, Tony orders Professor Venetti to turn off the machine.\n", "Tony Carmen, a criminal with connections in the Mafia, comes to professor Venetti with a request to create some method of getting rid of human corpses with no traces. He says that these are bodies of accident victims left by Harry Keno. Professor tries to come up with different conventional methods. Carmen mentions that he knows Venetti’s affiliation with the radioactive waste disposal program coordinated by the government and wants something more scientifically-based. Venetti thinks about all the attempts the government made to dispose of radioactive waste, but they were all futile since there was no way of creating an effective mechanism without breaking the law of energy conservation. He experiments and manages to create a machine that erases any physical object without any thermal or gravitational traces. When Tony Carmen asks where the matter goes, the professor honestly admits that he doesn’t know. Carmen is suspicious, but Venetti firmly states that even if the objects go to the future or the past, there is a small chance of them appearing again soon. Tony starts talking about the mass-production of these machines, but Venetti initially protests, scared of legal prosecution and reputational damage. But eventually, the professor gives up, realizing that this mechanism - Tony calls it an Expendable - won’t be useful to the government. Sometime later, Camren and Venetti decide to test the machine outside. After flipping the switch, Venetti sees that a distant warehouse building disappears. He is shocked and soon notices that the unit is halved. Tony says that his friend separated the mechanism to square the operational field, and it worked. He also says that his enemy Harry Keno just got wiped out together with his intimates and their confidential squat. The following morning, the Times mentions the vanishing of the building and that the government is developing a disintegrating process for waste. Tony comes to him and tells him that Arcivox - a company producing radios and TV sets - wants to buy the machine. Tony suggests selling the potent and keeping it in control through a separate corporation. Several months later, professor Venetti is in his office talking to his secretary, Miss Brown, about the future business communications. Suddenly Tony bangs open the door and says that G-men are on their way. Seconds later, an investigator from the Atomic Energy Commission comes in. He quickly states that the manufacturing of the Expendable will soon be banned. He explains that their scientists understood that the energy the machine seemingly destroyed actually turned into heat. This process increased the mean temperature. The professor agrees but adds that people are too stubborn to stop using the machine. He suggests creating an engine that would use up this extra energy. When they switch the disexpendable on, slowly the body of Harry Keno appears on the revolving disc. At the end, Venetti claims that his inventions are useless now and that this story is true, and he encourages the readers to write letters towards his upcoming defense.", "The story follows a scientist who works for the U.S. Government. He is trying to find ways that the Government can get rid of radioactive and nuclear waste cleanly and safely. He is approached by a member of the Italian Mob. He asks Venetti to continue making this instrument, and to give him a copy when he makes it, because he needs to find a way to get rid of human bodies. At the beginning Venetti doubts doing this, but he believes it is a good way to make money. Venetti finally makes it and it, and gives Venetti one of the machines. The machine seems to get rid of anything that is put in it, without leaving behind any trace. Together, they start a company and commercially sell the boxes as expendables. They start to gain a lot of money, because it makes life easier for a lot of people. Their company grows a lot, and they start to get a lot of. Finally, it is revealed that the expendables have been contributing to global warming, as it excretes the energy into the environment. Venetti develops another machine in order to counteract the effects of the original expendable, which leads to regenerating everything that was put in the machine, including the dead bodies. This leads to Venetti being sued for the expendables, as people believe that he approached the member of the mob first. ", "The Expendables is written in the form of a personal account by scientist Professor Venetti. He is approached by a stranger claiming to know the Mafia, Tony Carmen, who asks him for a favor to which Venetti initially refuses. Carmen is trying to use the professor’s potential invention to get rid of dead bodies Carmen has. After Carmen makes Venetti aware that he knows about his secret project with the government to develop an innovation that would get rid of radioactive wastes, Carmen manages to make Venetti agree to help him. Prof. Venetti makes him promise that he did not kill the bodies. Venetti has yet to succeed in finding such an invention because this requires a neutralization of the radioactive emanations while he has only been able to reduce the radioactive mass. With less responsibility and credibility associated with Tony’s request compared to the government’s, he decides to perform more risky experimentations. He finds a way to make trash disappear but by completely destroying its mass. Venetti thinks that contrary to the government, Carmen would not be curious enough to ask where the mass actually goes. Carmen does in fact ask this when Venetti shows him the machine as he is concerned that he will get caught. Venetti genuinely does not know the answer and Carmen proposes that they launch the machine as the “Expendable”. With his business expertise, Carmen promises to help with the launch while Venetti is still concerned with the ethical implications such as a possible rise in murder rate. Together, they go test the machine on an empty, wide land with bodyguards around in case any policemen show up. When they use it, a square shape of the horizon disappears and Tony uses the machine for corpses which Venetti ultimately understands were results of Carmen’s own crime. The next morning, the innovation is featured in the newspaper as a rumor. Arcivox, a radio and TV company, expresses interest. Tony convinces Venetti to accept the offer when they come forward, saying that he will give him a large portion of the stocks.\n\nFlash forward into time, after taking the offer, Venetti is now a business man but he is not enjoying it. One day, the Atomic Energy Commission approaches his team, telling him they need to end the Expendables. They explain that their scientists used to think that the increasing hot weather was due to nuclear testing but they found that it was in fact due to the Expendables. The machines merely destroy matter but do not create any, violating the law of conversion of energy which could raise the Earth temperature to worrying extremities. Venetti argues that the public would not be willing to stop its use because of how convenient it is and instead agrees to create “Disexpendibles” which would create the opposite effect. When put to use, the temperature readjusts but trash reappears and so do the bodies that Tony wanted gone. At the very least, this held Tony accountable for his actions.\n" ]	61171
What effect does Farquar have on the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Appointment In Tomorrow by Fritz Leiber. Question: What effect does Farquar have on the story? Answer:	[ "Farquar sparks the driving conflict of the story; the question he submits threatens the authority and legitimacy of the Thinkers, implying that the machine that guides society's decisions is a fake. This question disturbs the officials present at Maizie's event. Farquar also attempts to convince Opperly, a major Scientist, that the Thinkers should be exposed and called out for their deception. He is eager to take action against them. Farquar plays an additional role in the story as someone who Jorj must turn to for help; he is a skilled physician that the Thinkers need in order to develop their idea for a nuclear rocket. Farquar determines the fate of Jorj and the Thinkers as someone who both poses a threat to them and is needed by them.", "Willard Farquar is a physicist who is a member of Morton Opperly’s group. He is a large individual with strong and ugly features. He has traced the path of the Thinker’s spaceship and found that, contrary to the Thinkers’ claims, the spaceships do not travel to Mars. Through Opperly, Farquar submits a revealing question to the Thinkers’ machine Maizie, antagonizing the Thinkers. \nIn Opperly’s residence, Farquar proposes further chipping away at their deception, saying that they shouldn’t avoid a task merely because of its difficulty. Opperly, who is from the previous generation of academic physicists, disagrees. Farquar condemns his generation, saying that they wasted the power of atomic energy which they could have used to influence humanity. As he is saying that the Thinkers will soon need the help of scientists to support their bluffing, an invitation from the leader of the Thinkers arrives, inviting Farquar to the Thinkers’ Foundation. We learn that one of Farquar’s previous love interests had left him for a Thinker. \n", "Farquar creates a question for an examination that hints to the Secretary of State and Jorj that he knows the secret that they are hiding. He knows that Maizie is not the intelligent and amazing piece of machinery that they claim. He knows that there is a person behind Maizie that is helping to create the illusion that Maizie is an intelligent cubic piece of machinery. Farquar wants to fight in an act of violence against the Thinkers because of their deceit towards the population. He is upset that they lie about Maizie’s capabilities, their Mars rockets, and their Martian mental science. ", "Farquar is a physicist who knows that the Thinkers do not have a real Maizie. He has sent the question about whether Maizie is a Maelzel to the Thinkers, teasing them. Farquar’s argument with Opperly allow us to learn about the Thinkers and the physicists. The Thinkers have the government’s control because they seems to be able to do things that the physicists are not able to, such as going to Mars, learning about their mental sciences, as well building a human-brain machine. However, we learn from Farquar that none of that is true. There is no landing on Mars, designing a human-brain machine, which is why they need the physicists help. \n\nJorj indeed decide to send an invitation to the physicists after seeing the girl that he hypnotically controls, thus the girl should be the reason that the invitation is sent to Farquar. Later we learn from Opperly that there was a girl named Miss Arkady who had been with Farquar. She could be the Caddy that Jorj mentioned. Miss Arkady apparently went off with a Thinker, and Opperly thinks that this could be the reason that they are sending this invitation to them. However, Farquar does not believe it." ]	51152
What is the setting of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Girls from Fieu Dayol by Robert F. Young. Question: What is the setting of the story? Answer:	[ "The first scene is in the library. Hippolyte Adolphe Taine’s History of English Literature is in the literature section. The books are categorized in alphabetical order. Taine’s book is in the T-section. The secret letters are always hidden in Taine’s book in the T section, where the girls from Fieu Dayol always stop and take the book. A librarian sits at the front desk to handle administrative stuff. There are reading tables. The second scene is in an all-night coffee bar where Herbert Quidley conducts his Spill-the-sugar operation to start the conversation with the girl next to him. There is a sugar dispenser on the counter. \n\nThe third scene is in Quidley’s apartment. There is a custom-built chrome-trimmed desk, a typewriter inserted with a blank sheet of paper, and the reference books stacked nearby. The magazine rack has Better Magazines, Harper’s, The Atlantic, and The Saturday Review. There is also a small table and a sideboard with a bottle of bourbon and two snifter glasses on top. The fourth scene is on the highway where Quidley is stuck in the car. The rutted road with trees points towards a ship. A ship with its lock open is hiding in the trees. It is dark.", "The story is set in a city, but most of the action takes place in a library. While searching for a book in the library, Herbert comes across the weird messages that Kay and her crew used to communicate with each other. Some parts of the story also take place in a bar, which is where Kay and Herbert actually met. Herbert’s apartment is also an important location, as it was where Herbert and Kay became closer. Lastly, Kay’ ship is hidden within a forest, which is where the story ends. ", "The story is set on planet Earth. It is set in a city, and the beginning of the story is inside of a library. There is a great number of books inside of the library, including old tomes. Whenever one of the women has to leave a message, they go to the ‘T’ section of English literature. The city also has an all-night coffee shop, where Quidley goes to bump into Kay in order to find out more about her. Quidley has an apartment himself, and Jillka is noted to live in a brick apartment building. It is later revealed that there is also a ship to take everybody back to Fieu Dayol, or Persei 17. It is noted that there is an unequal population-balance between the men and women there. \n", "The story starts at the library, where Quidley finds the undecipherable messages inside Taine's novel. The next day, he comes back there and then decides to follow Kay. He gets in his car and drives behind her until they both stop near an all-night coffee bar. They sit at the bar counter and talk. Two days later, Quidley goes to the library again and notices another girl. Later this evening, Kay arrives at his place. The room has a typewriter on his chrome-trimmed desk with crinkly sheets and reference books beside it, a bottle of bourbon and glasses on a sideboard, and a small table set for two. When Kay catches him reading their new message, she orders him to follow her. They get in her convertible and drive to a brick apartment building. She pulls over and enters the building. Minutes later, she walks back to the car, and they drive along a highway away from the city. She turns down a rutted road, and soon they reach a black blur of trees and a spherical ship that blends with its background. At the end, Quidley marches up the ship’s plank. \n" ]	61048
How is the theme of capitalism explored throughout the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Expendables by Jim Harmon. Question: How is the theme of capitalism explored throughout the story? Answer:	[ "The theme of capitalism is explored throughout the story by the greed of the racketeer, Tony Carmen, and how he prefers profits over the environment. In the story, Professor Venetti creates a machine that can easily decompose anything without knowing how it works and where the decomposed particles go. His process of creating the device is also not carefully examined under the safety rules. Despite knowing these manufacturing facts and the uncertainty of its consequences, Tony Carmen makes this machine into a business and sells it for a considerable profit, with the collaboration of Professor Venetti. The theme of capitalism is shown through the preference for profits over safety when seeking profits from a product. It is also explored through Tony’s dealings with business corporates and how he attracts business corporations’ attention to sell their products. Revealed by Tony’s testimony, big business corporations would have detectives and their sources of information to buy the inventions and sell them. Finally, the mechanism of the business world and the dark side of capitalism are shown through Tony’s plan to sell the products and all the dirty work behind it when Professor Venetti’s secretary is reading the letters regarding their business matter from several organizations.", "The story shows how commercial benefits may outweigh all the negative consequences of inventions and products. Tony Carmen says that the government would allow a private company like Arcivox to sell anything - they just have to find a commercial use for a potential product. Tony Carmen’s and Venetti’s desire to profit off of the professor’s mechanism leads to global warming and makes the threat of climate doomsday more than realistic. The story also shows that people disregard environmental repercussions when the commodity they’re using is convenient.\n\n\n", "Capitalism is one of the most important themes in the story. Veretti’s and Tony’s hunger for money is what led them to selling these very controversial boxes, and Veretti deciding to look away when the boxes were used for murder. When convincing Veretti to work with him, Tony even compares him to Henry Ford and Sam Colt, two famous capitalists that also decided to look away when their inventions lead to death. Capitalism also was the reason that led to an absurd number of sales of the expendables, as consumers are always looking for their lives to be easier. The expendables provided this exact same service, as it was a very easy and simple way that people could get rid of trash.", "One of the main themes explored in “The Expenables” is also the concept of capitalism. We are first introduced to a scientist working for the government with the best intentions to find a fix to a global issue through innovation. As the story goes on, however, he is lured by a stranger belonging to the mafia to take the easy and riskier path to speed up the process of creating a successful innovation. Additionally, when this machine works, we see the professor ditch his ethical concerns around it and rather starts getting attracted by the financial benefits he is told he could get by the stranger if he were to launch his product on the market. Instead of sticking with his initial intentions of helping the government, he chooses to partner with a large corporation who takes on his machines worldwide as he is promised a big sum of the stocks. This showcases human greed that arises from capitalism and how it can consume an individual to the point that they disregard all ethical thoughts, even when on a global level. Moreover, we are introduced to the idea of convenience the public is used to. Instead of ending his machines, the scientist creates another machine to counter the effect of his first one as he believes the public will not be able to part its convenience. This showcases the speed as to which capitalism has led our lives to adapt to and how because of that, people would choose convenience over the greater good at any time.\n" ]	61171
Who is Gravgak and what is his importance to the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Serpent River by Don Wilcox. Question: Who is Gravgak and what is his importance to the story? Answer:	[ "Gravgak is a guard who serves under Tomboldo, the leader of the Benzendella people, and escorts the humans after they meet. He is tall and muscular, with piercing eyes, and his limbs are painted with diamonds in green and black. He is knocked down during the second attack, and when Linden tries to tend to him, Gravgak knocks him out with his club. After Linden comes to a few weeks later, Gravgak apologizes for accidentally knocking him out, but it's not clear if he is being sincere about it being an accident. Linden's suspicions primarily come from Vauna's reaction, but Gravgak seems to hold some power over Vauna and Linden is not able to learn what Gravgak's true intentions are. ", "Gravgak is one of the native Benzendella people. He is a tall guard with green and black diamonds painted on his legs. Tomboldo, the leader of the Benzendella, relies on Gravgak to make sure the group can travel safely to their dwellings after the initial attack, but Gravgak is more interested in the siren and trying to communicate with Linden and Campbell. When the sponge-tree warriors regroup and attack again, he grabs one of their clubs and confronts them as they advance—either rushing to fight them or to warn them to back away. When Linden and Campbell throw fire at the enemy, he is so close that the fire and blasts of rock knock him down. He looks suspiciously at Linden as he and Campbell minister to his wounds and use smelling salts to make Gravgak fully conscious, making him jump up while holding the club and sending the rock attached to the club flying into Linden’s head. Several days later after Linden comes to, Gravgak comes to see him and tells him the blow to Linden’s head was not intentional. Vauna appears not to believe him. As Gravgak leaves, he tells Vauna he wants to speak to her alone. Linden stops her until Gravgak yells at her, and she starts to leave with him; this time, her father stops them. Linden wonders if Gravgak and Vauna have a relationship, but he also considers the possibility that Gravgak is a traitor. \n\n", "Gravgak is one of Tomboldo's most important guards. He is tall and muscular, and his legs and arms are covered with green and black diamond paintings. Jim notices his eyes first, which appear piercing and suspicious to him, and Gravgak continues to arouse his suspicions throughout the story. Gravgak keeps watch for the tree-disguised warriors and guards Jim and Split on their way back to the underground city. However, he shows signs of agitation and distraction and commands the two men to mimic the siren sounds along with the rest of Tomboldo's party. When the attackers once again descend upon their party and Jim throws a capsule bomb at them, Gravgak retrieves one of their clubs and charges. Jim interprets this behavior to mean one of two things--either Gravgak bravely defends his people or he intends to warn the attackers of Jim and Split's advanced weaponry. After another of Jim's capsule bombs injures Gravgak, Jim and Split attempt to attend to his wounds and resuscitate him. When he regains consciousness, he clubs Jim and knocks him out. After Jim recovers, Gravgak visits him to apologize, but Jim isn't sure if the attack was accidental, especially because Vauna doesn't seem to trust Gravgak. Vauna appears to be in some kind of relationship with Gravgak, whether as a lover or some kind of subservient. While this is not completely clear to Jim, he is certain that Vauna's distrust of Gravgak strengthens his feeling that Gravgak is a traitor.", "Gravgak is one of the main sources of conflict and betrayal in this story. Gravgak is a very large warrior of the Benzendella people. He is strong and muscular. His arms and legs are painted with green and black diamonds. When Captain Linden first meets him, he describes Gravgak’s piercing eyes as suspicious. His motives are never truly known, but his actions betray him. \nAfter Linden and Split meet Tomboldo, Gravgak is sent to guard them. He rushes into battle and gets injured. Linden and Split heal him, but when he wakes up, he hits Linden over the head with a club. Whether or not he did that on purpose is up in the air. The injury Linden sustained required surgery and days of bed rest. It could have killed him. \nOnce Linden wakes up, Gravgak returns and aggressively demands Linden to get better. He claims that he did not mean to hit him on the head, but everyone doubts his sincerity and integrity. Even Vauna, Tomboldo’s daughter and Linden’s crush, does not believe Gravgak. However, she is bound to him in some way, perhaps by marriage, but her father comes first. Possibly a traitor, Linden will forever question Gravgak’s actions. \n" ]	50923
Who is Tony Carmen and what happens to him in the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Expendables by Jim Harmon. Question: Who is Tony Carmen and what happens to him in the story? Answer:	[ "Tony Carmen is a racketeer who threatens Professor Venetti to invent the machine to decompose corpses without leaving any traces. He is also a criminal who does not care about killing people, so he orders Professor Venetti to conduct the machine to wipe off the warehouse and the people inside. It is also implied that he kills the corpse he wants to get rid of. When he receives the machine Professor Venetti creates, he gives it to his subordinates and lets them modify it. He takes Professor Venetti to the place where they try the machine's function. He has many connections to business, the mafia, and the news, and he knows how to make profits by manipulating the business work behind the scene. When he realizes how much profit the machine can make after seeing its effects, he persuades Professor Venetti to collaborate with him. He leaks the information through the newspaper to attract the business corporates’ attention. When the agent from Atomic Energy Commission informs the harmful consequences of the machine, he strongly disagrees with the ban on the manufacture and the selling of the device. When Professor Venetti turns on the reverse machine, Tony is panicked, and he shouts to order the professor to turn off the engine.", "Tony Carmen is one of the near-mafia criminals. At the beginning, he asks a scientist called Venetti, who works in the secret radioactive wastes disposal project, to come up with a mechanism that could help Tony get rid of the bodies Harry Keno leaves at his place. Soon the professor says that he created a mechanism that works like an incinerator but with no traces. Tony tries to understand where the bodies would go after disappearing in this machine. Venetti honestly says that he doesn’t know where they end up: it might be the past, the future, or another dimension. He also explains that the probability of finding these bodies is small, and Tony accepts this. Carmen also mentions that they could mass-produce these machines, which Venetti finds impractical. Tony calls it an Expendable and decides to test it. He asks his friend to halve the unit to cover the area of Harry Keno’s warehouse. When the professor turns it on, the building disappears, wiping out its inhabitants - Keno and his intimates - too. Tony starts leaking information about the mechanism to intrigue potential buyers, for example, ordering a small article in the Times. Soon he gets an offer from Arcivox - a manufacturer of radio and TV sets. Tony persuades the professor to sell the potent and control the manufacturing through a separate company. Their business grows fast. Months later, Tony learns that some government officials are going to come to them. He gets into Venetti’s office seconds before the AEC man shows up at the door. Tony starts threatening the officer but gets a witty comeback and then keeps silent. They hear that the government scientist learned that the energy the expendables seemingly destroyed has been turning into heat energy, increasing the mean temperature of Earth and leading to a climate catastrophe. Venetti proposes creating an engine that could use the excess energy by reversing the expendable mechanism. When they switch the engine on, Tony screams to the professor to turn the mechanism off, but the body of Harry Keno appears quickly. They both are under investigation. ", "Tony Carmen is a member of the Italian mob who approaches Venetti. Tony is in desperate need of a machine to get rid of bodies. He believes that Venetti could create this device. When Venetti does create it, Tony convinces him to partner with him and start selling them commercially. Tony believes that there is a big space in the market for people to buy them. After he uses the machine to get rid of some men who were messing with his business. At the end, both Tony and Venetti are put on trial. ", "Tony Carmen is a stranger who approaches Professor Venetti, claiming that he knows the Mafia. He threatens Venetti into helping him with his potential new invention. Carmen is in need of assistance to get rid of dead bodies he has. Venetti is currently working on a secret project with the government to create an innovation that would get rid of radioactive waste. Tony manages to make Venetti agree to help him by threatening him. When Venetti comes up with a machine, “the Expendable,” which he took unusual risks to create, they go test it together on a wide, empty lawn. Tony’s demeanor changes as he becomes more aggressive and makes the bodies, which is hinted that he actually murdered, disappear through the machine. He lures the professor to launch the machine on the market and helps him when a large corporation approaches them. As their business booms, they are approached by the Atomic Energy Commission which explains that their machines have been raising Earth’s temperature and need to be stopped. The professor explains that customer behavior will be hard to change and instead creates “Disexpendables” which does the opposite effect. Tony is very much against this and when put to use, the bodies he hid all come back. This allows the professor to restore justice by disproving the narrative that Tony was creating in which lawyers claimed that the professor approached Tony, suggesting to help him get rid of his enemies in exchange for financial backing for his innovation.\n" ]	61171
What is the relationship between Eric and the citizens?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Beast-Jewel of Mars by V. E. Thiessen. Question: What is the relationship between Eric and the citizens? Answer:	[ "Eric sees the citizens in the most beautiful way and is willing to join them. They, on the contrary, meet him with hatred as they hear his name. The citizens surround and try to attack Eric, they are superstitious and believe him to be the destroyer of the city from the legends. The Elders from the Council send one of them to save Eric. They also believe him to be part of the legend, but they know more about the city and the machine. They think that it's time for the city to be destroyed as it has changed, the machine doesn't do good anymore. Nolette, the daughter of the city, also believes Eric to be the legend and stops the crowd with the use of her authority from killing him. Eric is overwhelmed and he obeys the council, listening with curiosity. He also feels happiness near the girl. ", "The relationship between Eric and the citizens of the fabricated city is a very strange, tense and violent one. The citizens believe that Eric is \"Eric the Bronze\" and man from Earth who is prophesied to destroy their city. Eric first meets a citizen at the gate to the city, when he mentions his name, the guard strikes him in the head with his sword. He is taken into the city by the guard, where the crowd debate on killing him. He is seen as a threat to their very existence. Later, when Eric returns to the city once again to rescue his brother Garve, is captured by two men, who take him to the centre of the city, also preparing to beat and kill him. He is only saved by Nolette, Daughter of the City, and the respect the citizens have for her. \n", "The first time he enters the city, the sentinel assumes that he is Eric the Bronze from the legend and hits Eric with a sword. The citizens stare at him with red hatred in their eyes once they learn that he is Eric the Bronze, here to destroy the city. The crowd are chanting for whips. Once he escapes the city, the gate closes right behind him. Later, when he enters the city again, he is taken prisoner by the citizens once more. They look at him coldly, calculatingly and are suggesting to whip him. However, once he speaks, they stand still and fear his words. However, a few seconds later, they decide to kill him at once so that he will not keep on coming back. Despite the hatred of the citizens, the Elders are quite friendly and they tell him about this city and the legend. They tell Eric to dwell in the building, assuring his safety. Once they find out that he is not Eric the Legend, he can choose to stay or go. ", "There is a one-sided hateful relationship between Eric and the citizens. When the sentinel first assumes that Eric is Eric the Bronze, there is a flame of blue hatred in his eyes. Even after he wakes up, all the beautiful citizens stare at him with red hate. They want ships to be brought into the city to scourge him from it and yell for whips. An older man even strikes him on the hat and back with a stick. On the other hand, Eric is confused by all of this because he initially has no idea of the prophesy until the Elders explain it. When he returns to the city again, the citizens conclude that they should kill Eric. One of the guards even prepares to slash his sword downward on Eric’s neck until Nolette intervenes. " ]	63605
Describe the Grannies, or Granitebacks.	Write a detailed response to the following question about Trouble on Tycho by Nelson S. Bond. Question: Describe the Grannies, or Granitebacks. Answer:	[ "Granitebacks are huge creatures that live on Luna III. Their immense size, hulking form, and impenetrable body make them practically indestructible. As of the beginning of this story, no Grannie had ever been killed. It was also believed that they were unable to hear, lacking ear canals, and potentially intelligence. Their exoskeleton or carapace was impenetrable, even harder than diamond or steel. Each weapon the Earthman devised to use against the Grannies failed. However, at the end of the story, it’s revealed that Grannies can, in fact, hear and are deeply affected by the sounds of the bagpipe. Isobar’s playing kills them all within 10 minutes and allows him and his companions to escape safe and sound. ", "The Granitebacks, colloquially referred to as the \"Grannies\", are the only mobile form of life found on Luna, and were named by the first explorers of the moon. Although the Grannies have low intelligence, they are a deadly threat to humans. They move fast for their size and weight, and their bodies are covered with impervious exoskeletons impenetrable even by humans' most sophisticated technologies. Isobar does not fear them because they haven't been seen around the Dome in quite a long time. However, when Roberts and Brown run afoul of a hostile group of them during a routine maintenance run Outside, they take shelter with Isobar up a tree, knowing that none of their weapons can defend against the Grannies. The Grannies attack as a group, throwing their hard bodies against the tree, which bends and dents upon impact. When Isobar plays his bagpipes, the men learn that Grannies can be lulled and ultimately killed by the sounds emitted from that instrument. ", "The Grannies, also known as Granitebacks, are mobile creatures that live on the moon, and they are highly dangerous to humans. The people working at Lunar III are not allowed to venture Outside because the Grannies will attack with little notice or reason. They are described as rocks on legs, which is where their moniker came from. The Grannies are not highly intelligent creatures, but intelligence isn’t necessary when they have exoskeletons made of incredibly strong material that can’t be wounded by steel or fire. Their exteriors are stronger than diamonds, steel, or any other known material to humans. Due to their immense weight, the Grannies cannot climb trees, so Isobar’s plan to climb to avoid them is a great move. However, the creatures work in packs, and about a dozen of them begin hurling their bodies at the tree at the same time, and this breaks the tree’s trunk. The men believe that the Grannies are deaf, but that turns out to be incorrect information. So far, the humans have not found a single weapon that works to fight against the Grannies. Isobar’s discovery that the music he creates with the bagpipes actually kills the Grannies is literally lifesaving. ", "The Granitebacks (Grannies) are deadly beasts of low intelligence - the only life form found on Luna - so named because they are indestructibly impervious to human weapons. Their biology is a mystery to science because one has never been killed so it can be studied in a laboratory. All that is known is that their outer shell is harder than steel, diamond, or battleplate. \nOne weakness of the Grannies is that they are unable to climb, which is how Isobar, Roberts and Brown escape their land attack by climbing a tree in the Outside dome. However, the Grannies are exceptionally strong, capable of uprooting a tree large enough to hold three adult men. Ultimately, the thing that kills Grannies is bagpipe music, which causes them to lay down and die.\n" ]	62260
Describe what the robots are.	Write a detailed response to the following question about Orphans of the Void by Michael Shaara. Question: Describe what the robots are. Answer:	[ "The robots are the first evidence of an advanced alien race that man has discovered in 300 years of interstellar travel. They are at least a foot shorter than the humans, with an eye-band circling their entire head, bunches of hanging arms, and a gliding type of locomotion. Steffens remarks that they are some of the most well-built machinery he has ever seen. The robots are made of black plastic, and have rows of dense symbols engraved all over their torsos. Their communication comes to the humans telepathically, and they are fully sentient - aware of their life spans of ~55 years, and their time until death. They also have the ability to probe the minds of the humans and even urge them to make certain decisions, but they reveal they only use this to get the humans to land and will not use it further except when given permission.\nThey claim to have been made by the Makers, and exhibit the Factory where they are built to Steffens and his crew while they are on the Third planet. There are more than nine million of them in total on the planet, which astonishes the humans, and they spend their time trying to expand their knowledge to better serve their Makers when they eventually return to the planet. \n", "The robots are short, black hunks of metal with several arms and legs each. They have a plastic band that circles their head, allowing them to see in every direction. They have a series of symbols that decorate the fronts of their bodies. They are telepathic robots, able to both see into the minds of others as well as communicate with them both in their language and through visual elements. They are, as is often said, built to serve, and they live in a sort of purgatory waiting for their Makers to return home. There are approximately nine million robots currently living on that planet, each with a life span of around 55 years. They are made in the Factory, which was, of course, built by the Makers. There are two types of robots: the normal ones met by Steffens and Ball, as well as the Doctors who are able to heal flesh. ", "The robots that Steffens spots on the third planet of the star Tyban are small and black with a vision band wrapping around the top, the rest created from black metal, with a number of sturdy legs that put them about a foot shorter than the humans. They have the ability to make the humans on the ship hear thoughts that they relay to them, and can even send images this way, which makes Steffens worry that they have mind-control abilities. They do have the ability to intrude on thoughts. It is clear to Steffens that they were built to serve those around them, and at the initial encounter they do insist that their \"only desire is to serve\". Those that they want to serve are \"the Makers\", presumably the race of people who were on the planet before the city was scorched and destroyed in some kind of radioactive explosion. It is not clear what the robots' role in this part of the history is, just that the chances of their makers coming back to them was probably very low. ", "The robots were designed by their Makers and produced in their factories which are still operational as there are over nine million of them of various ages and remaining lifespans. They are small, black structures with several hanging arms and legs. They have a band of transparent plastic-like material that runs around their heads; this is presumably their eye, enabling them to see in all directions. A similar round dot of the plastic on top of their heads suggests they can see directly over them. The robots are all identical and have rows of symbols on their torsos. Surprisingly, the robots appear to demonstrate emotion as they seem disappointed when they first meet Steffens, pleased when the ship lands and the crew joins them on the planet, pained when they refer to their Makers who have been gone a long time, and curious about the similarities and differences between themselves and the humans.\nCommunicating telepathically, the robots let Steffens and his crew know that they are designed to serve. It is possible that the robots can control human minds, but they choose not to do so. They let Steffens know that they only reached out to the humans’ minds because they detected that the humans were going to leave, so they decided to communicate some information about themselves so that the humans would stay for a visit. They also indicate that they explored the humans’ minds only enough to be able to contact and communicate with them. The robots understand human thinking: they know how to present themselves as nonthreatening, sending an image of one with an outstretched arm for a handshake and reducing the number of robots that first engage with the humans, so they won’t be overwhelmed or intimidated. They also understand that their silence will draw the humans in after their initial communication and the picture, due to their curiosity. \nLeft to their own devices after their Makers left and didn’t return, the robots engaged in building their knowledge of the natural sciences and mathematics. Their goal is to make themselves even more useful to their Makers when they return. The robots fully expect their Makers to return; otherwise, what would be their purpose?\n" ]	50827
Who is Mr. Michaelson and what is his personality like?	Write a detailed response to the following question about A City Near Centaurus by William R. Doede. Question: Who is Mr. Michaelson and what is his personality like? Answer:	[ "Mr. Michaelson is a determined, tall, gaunt archeologist who enjoys finding artifacts and methodically undergoes the process of discovering and unearthing things, like this dead city on Alpha Centaurus II. His wife died many years ago back on Earth, and he has no children and no friends in the Earth settlement. He has a tiny cylinder in the flesh behind his ear that allows him to teleport instantly to a different location when touched.\nHe does not believe in the spiritual, and rejects that the dead city he stumbles across even needs a keeper, offending Maota greatly who refers to him as “Mr. Earthgod.”\nMr. Michaelson is ignorant and pushy towards Maota, not heeding his warnings or respecting his appeals to leave because it is angering the gods. Instead, Mr. Michaelson can’t understand why Maota won’t negotiate with him, almost as if he is entitled to take possession of the secrets and artifacts of the dead city\n", "Michaelson is an Earthman on Alpha Centaurus II and an archeologist. At first, he seems to be a cheerful, pleasant man as he explores the ruins of the dead city because he is smiling to himself, exclaiming about his finds, marveling, and chuckling. He is, indeed, extremely interested in his findings. At the same time, however, he is stubborn, strong headed, and determined and treats Maota with condescension and even rudeness, questioning Maota’s need to protect a dead city, denying Maota’s belief that the spirits will return there, and dismissing his faith as superstition. Michaelson is also convinced that his views are right and that anyone else’s are wrong. For example, he is impressed with the talking book until he learns that it is a book of poetry; then, he considers it a waste. He believes books about mathematics or history are much more valuable. On the other hand, he is eager to hear Maota read the book, and the sounds of the words, even though he cannot understand them, move him and remind him the lost people were human with human sentiments and passions. When Maota decides to leave but indicates he is going in a direction Michaelson doesn’t know, Michaelson calls him stupid outright. Michaelson is curious to decipher the ancient peoples’ language and devotes hours to doing so. He then spent weeks trying to learn more about the clock device. When he can’t find anything out about it, he finally decides to push the button to experience its effects.\n\n", "Mr. Michaelson is an archeologist from Earth who uses a cylindrical implant placed behind his ear to travel instantly from Earth to Alpha Centaurus II. He wants to explore an old city whose inhabitants had mysteriously vanished. Michaelson's wife had died many years prior to his arrival at Alpha Centaurus II, and he has neither children nor friends in the Earth settlement where he lives. Mr. Michaelson is compelled by his curiosity and his interest in preserving historical artifacts for posterity. When he first arrives in the city, he excitedly explores the unique buildings in spite of the sand and cobwebs; he eagerly investigates the various artifacts he finds, and he makes a small pile of them that he intends to investigate further. Michaelson acknowledges the intelligence of the webfooted natives, but he still treats Maota with a great deal of dismissiveness and condescension when Maota insists on the presence of sacred spirits in the city. Michaelson is a man of science and does not have much patience for the mysticism Maota espouses. He also shrugs off Maota's persistent threats to kill him and tries to convince him to support his preservation efforts. However, Michaelson does have some sense of self-preservation, which he displays in his fight with Maota. By the end of the story, Michaelson's scientific curiosity merges with a newly-discovered spiritual awareness when he realizes he can zoom in and out of dimensions by combining the powers of the clock-like device with his own cylindrical implant.", "Mr. Michaelson is an Earthman without any close connections. His wife passed away many years back, and they never had any children together. Without anything truly tying him down, Michaelson is able to fully devote himself to his work without any distractions. As an archaeologist, he wants to discover more about ancient cultures, the way they thought, and the things they created. When he discovers the ancient city that the webfoots kept from the Earthmen, he instantly sorts through the sand and piles artifacts in the street. He plans on building a museum there where all mankind can come and see what life was like in this city half a million years ago. Mr. Michaelson is inherently curious and a little impulsive, shown time and time again when he chose to ignore Maota’s warnings. \nHis cylinder, tailored to Michaelson specifically, makes him a god in the eyes of Maota since he can transport himself between places in the blink of an eye. However, just like Maota, Michaelson is able to grow old and die like any other human. \n" ]	50802
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Orphans of the Void by Michael Shaara. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "Captain Steffens and his crew, including Lieutenant Ball, are exploring the dead (uninhabited) fourth planet of the star called Tybanon in the Coal Sack Nebula. They are on a Mapping Command sent from Earth to explore new planets, assess them for life-forms and evaluate the ability of human colonization.\nThis planet is peculiar because it contains stone building structures that are over 15,000 years old. Steffens and Ball discuss the profound realization that to be that old, the alien race that erected them must be quite advanced, with interstellar travel while humans were still throwing spears around. They conclude there were castaways stranded on the planet that were then evacuated since they could find no other traces of civilization besides the structures.\nThey begin mystery-solving, wondering if the race evacuated to a different planet. The readings from the system indicate that there are moons, and the Third planet has a suitable temperature range for life, but has a CO2 atmosphere. They take their ship down to cruising altitude on the Third planet and find cities that have all been obliterated into black craters at least three miles in diameter and very deep. They are shaken, and then Steffens spots the most perfect robots he has ever seen. They are black plastic, expertly crafted, have hanging arms and legs and move with a gliding motion. \nHe is forbidden by League Law from contacting planet-bound races. He is not clear if robots are a race (sentient robots are banned on Earth) and thinks that he could be in trouble whether he contacts them or not. Contacting them if they are a race would be bad, and also he would be dismissed for not fulfilling his mapping duties if they aren’t a race. As he wonders, the robots contact the humans telepathically, urging them to land since their only desire is to serve and sending a visual of a robot extending a handshake.\nSteffens decides not to reach out to the Alien Contact branch, and makes contact and lands on the planet. The robots are disappointed when the humans land, but show examples of caring for them like cleaning up the radiation so that the humans can feel more comfortable, and spreading their robot bodies out across the planet because they themselves are radioactive.\nThe humans spend three weeks gathering knowledge of the planet. Steffens begins to inquire about their origins and finds they were constructed by “Makers” who are no longer on the planet, but that the robots believe will return. They were disappointed when the humans landed because they did not communicate telepathically and so could not be the makers. The robots also have Factories on the planet where they are constructed. The story ends with Steffens feeling an irony that he wishes to discover who made the robots, but asking them who their Makers are would be like asking a human who created their god - an impossible question.\n", "Captain Steffens, leader of the Mapping Command, led his crew to the Coal Sack Nebula and landed on Tyban IV. There, they discover the buildings left behind by an ancient civilization. Made out of native stone, the buildings were worn away by winds and times and were built on a raised rock. Lieutenant Ball and his geologists estimate that the rock was cut at least 15,000 years ago, 14,700 years before humans took to space. Ball and Steffens discuss the other planets in the Nebula, but none are fit to host human life. Still, they check each one out until they reach the hot one. This planet was radioactive and absolutely incapable of hosting life, however, as they got closer, Steffens could see a giant hole in the center. The site of an explosion, and all that remained was rubble. The image is up on the main screen for the whole crew to see, and they watch in amazement. Steffens sees movement in the rubble, and orders his crew to move the ship closer. He sees a black robot, and then two, as does the rest of his crew. Ball, who fell in the sudden movement, comes to Steffens, and they throw around ideas as to what these robots could be. Suddenly, a calm voice speaks to them telepathically, welcoming them to their planet and claiming they only wish to serve. A picture appeared then of a robot extending one of its hands. \nSteffens asks for permission to land, and so they do. He leaves the ship first, wearing his radiation suit, and is greeted by a large amount of slightly disappointed robots. He waves it off and soon the other members of his crew join them. Elb, the first robot to speak, explains their telepathic abilities and apologizes for violating their minds. They talk for a little while until Steffens asks where the Makers are. The robots answer sadly, saying that the Makers left a long time ago but would return. Steffens believes the Makers are dead, caught in the crossfire of the explosion, but he doesn’t say so. The robots then showed his crew the Factory, which they reached by skiff. It was a large, gray building that pumped out robots left and right. \nThe Mapping Command stayed on this planet for several weeks, discovering more about this alien culture. However, the radioactive nature of the planet made it impossible for any man to stay outside the ship for long. However, one day, Steffens emerges to realize the robots effectivelyd econtaminated the area overnight. \nElb and Steffens discuss their meaning of life and what they were built to do. He realizes the Makers are like God to these robots, and he smiles at the irony. The story ends on a cliffhanger, however, claiming that that was the last time Steffens would smile on this planet. \n", "Captain Steffens and Lieutenant Ball find themselves in a very old city on a planet far from Earth, which was the first piece of proof humans had found of another advanced race in the three hundred years humans had been in space. There is something curious about the ruins of the old city built from stone, because the humans wouldn't have expected a colony to establish a presence there. They find another city on a nearby planet with a three-mile-wide scorch mark that looked like it had decimated the city. The men detect high levels of radiation, and know nothing alive is left. They decide to explore here as well, when Steffens spots a small black robot on the surface, which makes him jump the ship back up, opening up sight to a whole field of robots, which baffled the crew. They don't know if they are entirely mechanical, how long they'd been there, or where they came from. All of a sudden, the members of the crew hear the robots talking to them in a greeting, and then plant a moving picture in everyone's mind, which startles the crew. Steffens requests permission to land, and everyone realizes how many robots there really are. Steffens is surprised that the robots seem less interested in the humans once Steffans has gotten off of their ship, which makes everyone uncomfortable. The robots explain that the humans do not understand their real nature and wanted to inform them, and they promise not to intrude on thoughts anymore without consent. Steffens notices some symbols on the robot he had met, which look identical to the markings on the other robots, though he is unsure of their importance. The more he interacts with the robots, the more Steffans finds their presence likeable and comforting. Nobody is able to determine if the robots are entirely mechanical, or if there are organic components. The robots explain that they only other living structures they are familiar with are \"the Makers\" who created the robots. The Makers have not been present for a long time, making Steffens suspect that the robots had been involved in the war he had just seen evidence of. Steffens learns that the lifespan of the robots is about 55 years, but the robots are of various ages; they are built by \"the Factory\", which was built by the Makers. The humans stay for a few weeks, learning what they can, trading knowledge. Once the robots understand the point of the radiation suits, they decontaminate the area to make it safe for the humans, though they themselves remain radioactive. Elb, the lead robot, explains that the robots' main goal is to expand knowledge which will serve the Makers. The conversation gets tense as Elb recognizes that Steffens doesn't think the Makers are coming back, so they talk about society and faith. Steffens explains the concept of God, which the robots find varies far more for humans than the idea of the Makers does for them.", "Captain Steffens and his crew work for Mapping Command; their mission is to closely examine unexplored areas, check for life-forms, and determine whether sites are suitable for human habitation. They are currently exploring and recording information about the four planets of the star named Tyban in the Coal Sack Nebula. They find stone buildings still standing on the fourth planet but no signs of previous life. The smoothness of the stones leads them to conclude the buildings are approximately 15,000 years old. The men are amazed that space-borne beings were in this part of the Galaxy at the time when men on Earth were throwing spears at each other. They have numerous questions about the race, why there is no sign of them, and what happened to them. Lacking any way to answer these questions, they decide to move on.\n\tFlying over the fourth planet, the crew sees the remains of several cities, each destroyed by a blast that ruined the buildings. They see movement and realize it is a robot looking up at the ship; then they see more robots. At first, Steffens is undecided about what to do. League Law prohibits contact with planet-bound species, but these are robots, not living beings. Steffens decides they can legally interact with the robots, and then one of them communicates a message to him, greeting him and assuring him they do not mean any harm. It also sent a picture of one of the robots with its right arm extended for a handshake. Steffens senses the robot could control his mind if it wanted to and decides to communicate back, asking for permission to land.\n\tSteffens takes a skiff to the planet and is greeted by a robot holding out its hand for a handshake and welcoming him. Steffens signals the Aliencon men on the skiff to deplane and join him, and the robots reveal that they can read the humans’ minds but are limiting their access to what is needed to communicate with them. Steffens signals his ship to land, and more robots come into view. The robots are friendly and pleasant, even relaxing to be around. They explain they had never encountered humans before, just themselves and their Makers who had lived there and created the factory that builds the robots. The robots were built to serve the Makers, and the factory is still producing them so that now there are nine million of them. \n\tElb, the robot who stays with Steffen, asks and answers questions and explains that the robots spend their time building their knowledge to be better able to serve their Makers when they return. Elb detects that Steffens thinks the Makers will not return and says they believe they will; otherwise, why were they built? Steffens compares their Makers to God because the robots believe the Makers created them, their planet, and the universe.\n" ]	50827
Where does the story take place?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Wanderers of the Wolf Moon by NELSON S. BOND. Question: Where does the story take place? Answer:	[ "\tThe story begins in the control room of J. Foster Andrews’s space yacht the Carefree, and then proceeds to the dining room. Outside of the Carefreem is a dynamic, glittering web of bright violet light, in stark contrast to the typical black of space. \n\tAs the members of the Andrews family and their household staff escape the Carefree onto a life skiff, the setting changes to the atmosphere of the moon Titan. Now free of the vortex which caused the shimmering lights, the space around their skiff is dark. \n\tAfter their uncontrolled descent onto Titan, the passengers of the skiff find themselves at the foot of a ring of shallow mountains, standing on rough soil. The mountains above are green and lush, with periodic caves along their face. In the sky is an image of Saturn, which causes the gravitational pull on the planet to be similar to Earth’s. More broadly, Titan, the moon they are on, is uninhabited and rarely visited. \n", "The story takes place on the Andrews' family ship. The ship has multiple rooms; Malcolm and Sparks spend their time operating the ship while the Andrews family stays in the dining dome, a much more comfortable and luxurious room. However, once the ship is in distress and close to crashing, everyone on the ship must move to the independent life skiff, a smaller cramped unit. The crew eventually crashes onto the planet Titan, a mountainous, green, cavern-filled planet, though threatening in its uncertainty and lack of colonies. In the atmosphere, Saturn is visible above them, and the gravity is similar to that on Earth.", "The story first takes place on a ship which has been in a vortex for more than eight hours. It has lost all its radio signals in and out. They are unsure of when they will be toss out, nor the place that they will be tossed out at. Then the readers follow Greg into the dining room where J. Foster Andrews, his family and some others are eating. There he is asked about the communication which he responds with no communication at all. He starts to explain when Hannigan came into the room and tells everyone to get on the life-skiff since the ship is about to crash. Once they get on to the life-skiff, however, because Breadon accidentally hits the control keys with his sleeve, which turns of the motors and they go directly towards the ground. Luckily Breadon is talented and skilled, he is able to perform the miracle that makes the life-skiff bounced and finally landed, without injuring anyone. Even though the life-skiff is a bit broken, it is not too big of a deal. As everyone got off the life-skiff, Breadon calls them together and tells Hannigan to send signals to the nearest space cruiser. Hannigan suggests to him that they aren’t even sure where they are, and the signal system are broken. Then the story ends with Greg telling them that they are on the northern hemisphere of Titan, one of the satellites of Mars. ", "The story begins on the yacht named Carefree, owned by J. Foster Andrews. The ship is stuck in a typhoon that is causing the ship to be twisted and directed towards an unknown location. Carefree has been caught in the space vortex for hours and the ship ends up in the H-layer of an unknown planet. As the ship is about to crash, a group swarm towards a life skiff. The life skiff is forty feet. The life skiff crash lands on one of the satellites of Saturn, on Titan, in the northern hemisphere. " ]	63048
What happens to Sergeant Andy McCloud throughout the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Plague by Teddy Keller. Question: What happens to Sergeant Andy McCloud throughout the story? Answer:	[ "Ten days prior to the epidemic, Colonel Patterson retired. He was Sergeant Andy McCloud’s superior, and his replacement has yet to show up. Andy theorizes that the replacement for the lieutenant got caught up in all the red tape, but, at the end of the day, the newly-coined Germ War Protection needed a leader. And Andy was stepping up to the job. \n\tHe had worked at the Office of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection Coordinator for two years prior to the epidemic. He knew the ins and outs of the place, so, despite being a noncom, he was truly the best for the job. \n\tOne of his colleagues, Corporal Bettijean Baker, had picked up the phone two days prior, and suddenly their whole words changed. An epidemic was sweeping the nation, infecting random people left and right with no underlying cause or trend, and, despite the absence of fatalities, panic was ensuing. Though some of the officers disapprove of Andy’s noncom position, he continues working tirelessly with his colleagues to try and figure out the cause of this terrifying disease. \n\tHe and Corporal Bettijean Baker brainstorm throughout the story, desperately searching for a trend or place of infection. They realize that artists, poets, college students, and workers are the ones being infected; not necessarily doctors, dentists, and government employees. They try to figure out what activities each group does that could possibly have been the cause of their infection. They quickly rule out the disease traveling through water, wind, and food. And, later on, it’s revealed that the disease is not contagious. Bettijean and Andy put their heads together and think. \n\tTheir time spent together brainstorming was also filled with flirtatious moments. Andy, with his freckles and messy hair, and Bettijean with her jet-black hair, share a kiss or two throughout the story. \n\tAfter exhausting themselves, Andy orders all the girls to redirect all calls to go out, not in. They are to focus on hospitals and relief crews, to discover more on who the virus is infecting. He and Bettijean are almost fired by the disgruntled colonel, who came with two replacements. Thankfully, just as Andy kisses Bettijean, the general walks in and dismisses the colonel. He reinstates Andy and Bettijean to their former and rightful positions, before telling them that the Iron Curtain has gone silent, except for one coded message from two days before, possibly hinting at the epidemic. \n\tAfter the brass left, Bettijean and Andy brainstormed some more, looking through new reports brought in by Janis, a colleague. Janis soon collapses, and it is revealed that she’s been infected. Andy questions her and soon discovers the transmitter of the virus. Stamps! He relates the news to his higher-ups, and rejoices with Bettijean. They are given a 30-day furloughed vacation together, leaving the reader with a future of romance and hope. \n", "Sergeant Andy McCloud was the highest-ranking officer in the Office of Civil Health and Germ Warfare protection when the retired Co-ordinator’s replacement didn’t show up, so he found himself in charge of the office just as a nationwide epidemic was surging. He is berated by some of his superior officers who couldn’t fathom the idea of an officer not in a combat role being in charge of such a large issue, but pushed through and continued trying to work on a solution. He goes through piles of reports with Corporal Bettijean Baker, his assistant, trying to find something that connects the victims. The two of them work through a variety of emotions, including frustration, exhaustion, confusion, and exasperation. When the colonel comes back into Andy’s office to yell more about the severity of the situation that he doesn’t seem to think Andy is the right person to handle, Andy acknowledges him curtly, which makes the colonel relieve Andy of his duties. This whole time, Bettiejean is standing with him, gripping his shoulder in his defense. The threat doesn’t stick, even though Andy was somewhat relieved to have a chance to sleep, as a captain walks in and tells him to continue working. The captain tells the colonel that he and his captains have to report to Andy for the remainder of the crisis. During each of these interactions with superior officers, Andy relies on smoking a cigarette to find some focus, and tries to listen to the captain’s report about possible influence from the Soviet Union. He is upset, and in his exhaustion, loses hope for a moment as the general asks him what Andy can do about the situation, but then finds the courage to stand up and say that he’ll get the job done as long as people work with him on it. He worked through more reports with Bettijean until they were interrupted by a scream as Janis, one of the office workers, fell sick at her desk. Andy called for a doctor and a chemist, asked Janis everything that had happened to her that day, and pondered over the new evidence over another cigarette. He has an epiphany, frantically looks for Janis’ book of stamps in her purse, and sends a stamp with a lab technician. His hunch was right: the toxin that spreads the disease is on the adhesive side of the stamps. As he works on a response plan with the general, he calls out a few orders and then defers to the general to make the rest of the decisions in his exhaustion. The general then offers Andy and Bettiejean a month of furlough so that they can spend time with one another, and they look into each other’s eyes excited to explore their connection. ", "Andy begins the story as a non-commissioned officer running the Germ Warfare Protection division during a crisis. He was never assigned a commanding officer after his previous colonel's retirement 10 days prior. As a result he continually has to defend his standing and prove that he is the right individual to solve the mystery of the illness.\n\nHe works doggedly to try and establish a pattern or trend for the illness and calls tirelessly every hospital in the country until his hand cramps from writing and his voice verges on giving out.\n\nHe has to navigate an attempted takeover by the chicken colonel and his young officers. Eventually he pieces the mystery together by speaking to Janis, a phone operator who falls ill after licking a stamp. Finally he provides his recommendation on how to stop the illness and is rewarded with a long vacation and promotion.\n\n", "Andy has been working at the Office of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection for two years when all hell breaks loose. He is put in charge of finding out how the new American plague is spreading, and he is deeply stressed. Chicken colonel attempts to discipline him for insubordination, but the two star general shoots down that idea and asks McCloud to keep working the case with everything he’s got.\n\nMcCloud and Bettlejean look through reports and gather that the disease is not communicable, and it is not only affecting people of a certain class or geographical area. The only clues that they can piece together are that the illness is affecting people who work in small offices rather than large buildings. They also recognize that artists and poets are becoming sick when doctors and dentists are not. \n\nMcCloud’s subordinate, a woman named Janis, suddenly becomes ill. After he questions her about her day and activities, he realizes that the culprit behind the outbreak must be postage stamps. He locates one of the stamps that Janis had in her work desk and sends it to be tested in the lab. \n\nWhen his boss, the general, comes in to hear about McCloud’s findings, he says with confidence that the postage stamps are behind the epidemic. When the lab confirms his suspicions, he is hailed as the hero. The general gives him time off to relax and recuperate from this entire ordeal, and he suggests that McCloud spend some of that time with Bettlejean. McCloud is so excited to get some alone time with his coworker that he barely hears the general detail the awards and accolades that McCloud will receive for his job well done. \n\n" ]	30062
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Contagion by Katherine MacLean. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "The story begins with the Explorer ship landing on an unknown planet. The ships inhabitants are careful of any potential diseases and so do not readily disembark to explore their new surroundings. Instead, they send a crew of four medical doctors to go on a hunt party to understand the types of pathogens on the planet. The four doctors in the hunt party are June Walton, George Barton, Hal Barton, and Max. George and Hal are brothers. Max and June are in a relationship together. \n\nThey walk through the forest, shooting different animals that they encounter to test for diseases. As they walk through the forest, they encounter a man who speaks English. His name is Patrick Mead and he introduces the party to the planet, known as Minos. The man explains how his group was 300 miles away from their ship. \n\nPatrick and the group asks questions of each other. Patrick notes that he is shocked to see a variety of different looking people as those on Minos all look very similar to each other. The group and Pat all head back to the ship where they explain to Pat that he has to go through a process of decontamination. They begin by taking specimen from Pat and spinal fluid samples from him. Pat then continues on to the rest of the decontamination process that the others do not have to go through. \n\nWhile Pat is going through decontamination, so is the rest of the doctors – but in a different process. During June’s process, she is seen admiring her body. Once they are done, they go to the dining hall to eat. A woman asks the doctors when they will be able to let out of the ship to explore the new land, and Max answers that it might happen soon. Many people are excited about the possibility because they have all been isolated in space for the past year and a half. When they enter the cafeteria, they can hear passengers excitedly gossiping about Pat’s arrival. As soon as pat enters the room, people approach him eagerly awaiting to talk to him. During the meal, Pat explains how a geneticist on the planet adapted the citizens’ cells to their planet so that they would not destroy the planet foraging for food. \n\nDuring the conversation over food, Hall enters the room to inform them that the hamsters showed signs of infection. This means that Pat’s people still do carry the disease, the morning sickness. Pat assures them that his people would be willing to be de-infected. The crew then send Reno Ulrich to go to Pat’s town to make relations with the people.\n\nAfter eating, June goes back to the laboratory. She sees Pat and the beautiful Shelia Davenport walking in her direction. She mockingly acknowledges his presence when he walks past her. \n", "The hunt party of the 'Explorer' proceeds through a forest on planet Minos in spacesuits and communicates through earphones. The forest reminds Earth but can be dangerous, so the rest of the people stay on the ship, longing to be outside. At that time, the party of doctors is hunting animals to test for contagion, which has been the reason for massive deaths on other planets. Suddenly, an animal-like man, Patrick Mead, appears, who was sent by the Mayor from far away. The party is surprised to see an English-speaking human as there is no colony on Minos according to the map. Patrick informs them that the population of Minos is one hundred and fifty, and the planet has room for more. The variety of the group's appearances puzzles Patrick as in his opinion all people should look like June, a member of the party. She looks similar to Patrick himself - tanned, tall, with freckles and wavy red hair. He tells about a plague which happened in the past and killed everyone except the Mead families who were immune. As all the people alive are related, they look similar. The disease was called the melting sickness and it killed all the doctors before they studied it. The colony's ship went off forever to avoid the contagion and took everything with them. The party returns to the ship with Pat, considering the planet the desirable home. Pat admires the ship as he was raised on Minos without any luxuries or technologies. Max, June's boyfriend and also a doctor, tests Pat for the melting sickness before letting him into the ship. Reno's scout plane comes in surprise and is updated about the local colony. The newcomers have cureall, a multi-purpose cure from any alien intrusion to the body, but for safety the ship equipment for testings is fully mechanical. Pat's positive attitude is opposite to the usual ship talk and, therefore, pleasing for June. The passengers abroad are staring outside and stake places for their future houses. People are eager to meet Pat after a year and a half in isolation. Soon, he comes into the cafeteria and is surrounded by curious passengers. June becomes jealous of the female attention to Pat and compares him to Max, with the least significantly losing in appearance. Pat mentions that local food won't digest for the newcomers unless they are adapted by a test-tube evolution, a method used by his ancestor to avoid destroying the local flora but rather adapt the Mead's genes to local food. That leads to the inability to digest the ship's food, only the products of Minos. For some reason June feels fear. Hal comes and reports the hamsters tested before Pat was de-infected to be dead. Reno sets off to the colony to persuade the locals to be de-infected and to give their agreement through voting. The dead hamsters have nothing wrong in their bodies and the reasons are unknown. June sees Pat and admires him from afar. ", "The story begins on Minos, an Earthlike planet where The Explorer has landed in hopes of colonization. The medical crew on the ship, consisting of June Walton, Max Stark, and Hal and George Barton, step outside with their spacesuits to hunt animals and test them for disease, cautious of potential plagues that could wipe out their ship. They surprisingly come across a human who speaks English, finding out that Minos had been colonized prior to their arrival. The man introduces himself as Patrick Mead. He explains that the population on Minos is small, only consisting of the Mead family, all which look alike. Pat goes on to tell the crew that a plague had struck the original colony when they arrived, called the melting sickness. The mysterious disease killed everyone except for the Mead family, and the people on Minos had tried to fly back into space for escape, but the crew never came back. The crew takes Pat back to their ship, and explains to him that in order to protect themselves against disease, tests and precautions are necessary. They run several procedures on Pat, including drawing his blood, bathing him in disinfectant, and injecting his blood into hamsters to see if he carried disease. June, having developed an interest in Pat, finds herself to be drawn to him as time passes. Dinner time eventually comes, and all the people aboard The Explorer eventually hear news of the new stranger. In the meantime, Reno flies a plane to and from the ship, carrying messages to the town on Minos. Pat arrives to the dining hall, and is immediately swarmed with interest and excitement. He tells stories of Minos and answers the many questions he is asked, and is given particular attention by the women on the ship, which June feels upset about. Len Marlow, a plant geneticist, listens as Pat tells him about food on Minos; when they had first arrived, they were unable to digest the plants and animals due to genetic differences. Their head of the clan, Alexander Mead, had managed to take human cells and adapt them to the life on Minos, ultimately allowing for them to eat and digest the food there. Pat implies that this process is necessary if the people on The Explorer want to settle on Minos. Hal Burton appears and informs the crew that three of the hamsters have died, and calls for the people on Minos to be disinfected. As June observes the hamsters, she walks past Pat, who kindly acknowledges her.", "The medical party of the Explorer is going hunting along a narrow trail in the forest. June Walton asks if George Barton has gotten anything from his shot, and he says it looks like a duck. Hal Barton, his brother, says that the creatures won’t look like ducks. Max tells June that he loves her and not to get eaten by a dragon. Many people wait on the Explorer spaceship to go outside, but it is up to the four medicos to hunt the animals and test them for disease. Someone fires at a specimen they see, but it turns out to be a man who has the three-day growth of red stubble. The man introduces the planet as Minos and says that the mayor sends his greetings from Alexandria. June is shocked to hear that after thirty-six light years of space travel, there is already a colony of one hundred and fifty living here. The man introduces himself as Patrick Mead, and he is shocked to see the wide variety of humans who have come from the Explorer. He mentions that there was a plague too, but it has disappeared, and there are no other illnesses. Pat goes with them back to the Explorer and admires all of the technology since he has been raised on Minos his entire life. When Pat asks to go abroad, Hal tells him that he must go through a few tests for melting sickness. Max performs various tests on him as Hal signals for Reno Unrich to drop a note in Pat’s town to explain that contact has been made. Pat goes through more tests, which the ultimate, multi-purpose cureall called the Nucleocat Cureall could help ensure. June checks on Pat again and tells him that there will be a banquet after he has finished the tests. A Canadian woman named Bess St. Clair asks when the people will be let out. Max tells her that they will be going out soon because of the castaway colony. Bess is excited, and Max tells her that she can show Pat the way to the dining hall. Shortly after June and Max go into the dining hall, Pat appears and gets swarmed by a large crowd. They rescue him so that he can eat, but people come by anyway. All of the women linger longer, and June even begins to question her love for Max. Pat reveals that the people on Minos have been chemically adapted by Alexander P. Mead, who had turned human cells and made them into phagocytes. Eventually, these leucocytes are put back into humans once they have become successful. Hal then says that the colony people have the germs of melting sickness, to which Pat says that health is a top priority; the colony will need to vote on first, however. Reno is excited to study the people further, while June and George study the hamsters. As June wanders down the hall, Pat walks by, and they make contact. " ]	50774
What kind of city Eric finds himself in?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Beast-Jewel of Mars by V. E. Thiessen. Question: What kind of city Eric finds himself in? Answer:	[ "The city is located on Mars. It was created a long time ago when Mars was flourishing. When most Martians left the planet because of the drought, a small colony remained in this place. Back then a machine, which is the whole city, was created to protect this small group. The machine translates thought into reality. It was used for the people in the city to receive all the necessary for life. At first, Eric considered it an illusion. The city captures thoughts with the use of a device and Eric's hat was an obstacle. Putting it on and off confused the machine and Eric was able to see the real ugliness of the city. When one gets into the radius of the machine, he is also called by it and can not refuse the city's beauty. When one doesn't look at the beautiful city, a voice still calls him. Many try to make their lustful desires real, they are banished for that and go mad. That's why the machine is not doing only good things anymore and should be destroyed in accordance with the prophecy. There is the council in the center of the city, whose Eldest know all about the origin of the machine. The members of the council, such as the daughter of the city, are respected by all the citizens. ", "The city that Eric finds himself in is very strange, as it is not really a city at all. It is in fact, a machine buried underground. It was created so that the inhabitants that colonise this area could create whatever their hearts desired from the sand of the great deserts of mars. Beautiful music emanates out of it. The buildings of the city are towers that sparkle with jewels. In the centre of the city is a street covered in blue fur. All the people of the city seem to be more stunning than humanly possible. But the city is a lie. In truth, it holds ugliness and evil. It's inhabitants, while beautiful on the outside, are greedy, and drunk with power. \n", "Eric first has illusions of long streets of fur, jewels, wine, and fair women. When he gets to the city, he sees high walls surrounding the city and a gate carved with lotus blossoms. While the women in the city are beautiful, they stare at him with hatred. The city has wide fur streets going toward the center. The Elder’s building is cubical. It is in direct contrast with the exquisite ornament of the rest of the city. In the conference room in the Elder’s building, he learns that the city is very old. It dates back to when the canals has clear, green water and the deserts have plants. This city is the product of a machine that translates the mass will of the citizens into reality. He learns that the outward appearance of the city is maintained by the combined power of their imaginations. ", "Eric finds himself in a city that is actually a machine built to protect a small colony of the remaining inhabitants on Mars. The nature of the machine itself is to translate thought into reality, which is why the Elders can build and control its outward appearance. Many of the things in the city can be made from the machine by transmuting red dust in the desert to any desired material. The construction device of the machine then assembles the material into any pattern that has been recorded from one’s thought. Even with the many beautiful citizens, including Garve, after they return the second time, it is all an illusion as part of the machine. " ]	63605
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Signal Red by Henry Guth. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "Shano is a sickly old man in line to board the space liner Stardust to go home. There is a red signal announcement for the liner, and guests are given an option to receive a refund. Many guests leave after hearing the danger signal, but Shano sticks his ticket into the scanner and moves to get on the liner. Shano chooses to step in anyways despite the dangers, and the Stardust takes off into space again. Captain Menthlo informs him of the Uranian enemy fleets and the high possibility of running into danger with one of them. When the captain realizes Shano's role as a laborer, he makes him sign a waiver because of the possible danger his life will be when they shut off the ship and mechanical device to avoid the enemies. Once he exits to the next deck, he sees the same lieutenant from earlier speak to him again. The lieutenant's name is Rourke, and he asks why Shano is so anxious to board the ship. Later, as Shano smokes in his cabin, he tries to remember the specific saying for people with nicked jaws. Later, the ship announces that it will now maintain dead silence mode to avoid the Uranian fleets. Shano leaves his room to follow one of the young ensign, who walks by with a blaster. He then realizes that he cannot go back to his room. However, he sees an indistinguishable figure enter the engine room and notices a grey box with switches. Not soon after, the ship enters an offensive attack mode because the Uranian fleets have noticed them. Shano suddenly remembers the rumors to watch out for a man with a nicked jaw because he sells out information to Uranus. He knows that nobody will believe him about a traitor on the ship, so he faces Rourke himself. Shano digs his cigarette into the other man's body and clings to his body. He then twists Rourke's neck with his hands and kills the traitor. The frantic yelling of the other members catches his attention again, and the Stardust informs everybody on board that the ship is midway to Venus. However, there is toxic gas in the engine room now, and nobody on board can withstand the fumes to fix the engines. Although Shano continues to smoke, he does go into the engine room through the emergency exit to fix the space liner. The other crew on the ship are confused by how the liner continues to fly towards Venus. They realize that Shano is working the valve rods in the engine room. Shano thinks about how the Uranian fleet will come into the area and expect to find the Starliner but only find nothing. The fact that this escape is because of him makes him laugh and cough more. ", "Shano awaits with confusing feelings for a spaceship to land in the spaceport and to take him home. Red signal is announced - the travel is dangerous and at one's own risk. The line dissolves and people rush for refunds, Shano decides to travel home anyway. On board the captain explains that a Uranian fleet is on their way and guesses Shano is from Pluto. Soon, there is an order to keep silent on the ship. Alarmed Shano exits the cabin and sneaks around the ship, then there is a short silence followed by emergency. Short orders and a state of anxiety last and then a sudden relief comes - the fight is over. Shano sees Rourke exiting the emergency room and remembers a nick on the jaw to be a sight of trade with Uranus. He starts a fight and chokes the traitor. The selector is gone, there is gas in the engine room and no one can enter to fix the selector. Shano decides to go in as his lungs are damaged by gas already and he will be able to last longer. He works in the engine room and gets the ship going, hoping to reach Earth and die then proving himself useful. ", "The main character, Shano, is currently on Q City Spaceport, waiting to board his spaceship that would take him home to die. Shano has gum-clogged lungs, and it was quite an advantage to him when working inside the mines. However, before he could board the ship, an announcement is made about the signal turning red, signifying that there is danger out there, and passengers could travel at their own risk. Shano, desired to go home, decides to take this risk. \n\nHe is the only passenger aboard along with the crew members. The captain of the ship, Menthlo, told him that there is a Uranian fleet on their way. He warns Shano that they will turn the ship off later to avoid detection, and tells him to stay in his cabin. After he sees the kicked jaw of Rourke, the lieutenant of the ship, he heads towards his cabin, where he lays and thinks about the rumors he has heard about nicked jaws. Then captain’s voice comes through the speaker, telling everyone to shut down all machineries and maintain dead silence because the Uranians are listening for mechanical and electronic disturbance. Feeling anxious in his cabin, Shano follows a young man down to the Engine Room. Pausing after seeing a specious figure going into the room, he sees a gray box. Even though everything becomes silent, they are detected by the Uranians. The battle begins. He once again notices the gray box and that the needle inside did not stop, thus he assumes that someone planted it there to make sure the Uranians discover them – a man sold them out. He immediately assumes that it is the nicked jaw man, he is up to something. Then, after spotting the nicked jaw man suspiciously leaving the emergency door, Rourke, Shano digs the cigarette into his face, and grasps his neck until he stops breathing and drops dead. Then he learns from the captain that a selector has been smashed, and in order to fix it, one has to enter the Engine Room which is filled with toxia gas. He knows that his gum-clogged lungs is able to slow down he consumption of the toxia gas in comparison to other people who breaths the gas. Thus, he enters the Engine Room, and starts to work on the selector. Leaving the captain and the crew in shock, they are finally on their way again. ", "Shano is a retired labourer on Mercury, getting ready to make the journey Home to Earth. As he gets to the spaceport, all the passengers of the spaceship \"Stardust\" are informed that there is a \"red signal\" and passengers are not advised to fly. Shano is old and tired, and just wants to get home so he can die, so he decides to board regardless. He boards the ship with a lieutenant with the notch on his jaw named Rourke, onboard he meets the captain, who advises him to stay in his cabin. The captain informs him that there is a hostile Uranian fleet waiting for them on their path, and they will have to turn all power off during the journey. Shano is intrigued by Rourke and the notch on his jaw, thinking it reminded him of something he had heard once. Shano's lungs are very weak from working on the pluto for so long. Shano goes to his cabin, and the ship goes dark. He opens his doors and walks down the corridor. He sees a figure disappear into the engine room. Suddenly, the captain's voice rings through the intercom. The ship has been spotted by the Uranians, a battle ensues. The crew of the Stardust win this round. Shano notices an electric signal box, which tells of the ships position. He realises something. He remembers what he had heard about the man with the notch on his jaw sold the crew out to Uranus. It was Rourke. Rourke arrives, and Shano attacks him, swiftly killing him. The captain's voice flashes once again that there is an emergency in the engine room. The ship has been hit and everything is dead. Someone has broken through the engine room and it has filled with toxic gas. More Uranian ships are coming, and there's no way to repair the tear in the engine room without being poisoned by the gas. They are stranded. Shano knows that unlike the other men onboard, he can withstand the effects of the gas for a dozen hours, whereas the rest would be dead in a minute. He decides to repair the ship and goes to work in the engine room. He may not die on Earth, but he will save everyone else on board, who will now make it to Venus because of him. " ]	63860
What is Celeste's attitude towards other members of her family and how does it change?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Dr. Kometevsky's Day by Fritz Leiber. Question: What is Celeste's attitude towards other members of her family and how does it change? Answer:	[ "From the beginning, Celeste seems to struggle with her complex marriage. She finds it hard to find complete security in three men simultaneously. In a crisis, it’s disturbing for her to have her source of security divided into three. She also cannot accept that Dotty is her daughter because the girl was born from Frieda. Celeste points out that the probability of Dotty being Theodor’s daughter is only one-third. She reckons that humanity might have gone too far with some things, including monogamous marriages. While in the committee room, she tries to determine if they are a true family or just experimenting with their relationship. The family members seem both familiar and unfamiliar to her. When she wants to check up on Dotty, she thinks that she is no one to the girl but still goes on. Dotty, after a small chat, makes Celeste say that she loves her. In the end, the reader understands that, no matter what Celeste’s feelings are, Dotty loves all three women and considers them mothers. ", "Celeste seems to not be too happy with her marital situation. At the beginning, she tells one of her husbands that she doesn’t like that her happiness lies divided with 3 people, her husbands. She is also jealous that she is the one that has the least connection with their child, as the other women are the biological mother and the nurse of the little girl. Throughout the story, these same feelings are reflected, as Celeste seems to be wary when taking care of Dotty. At the end those feelings seem to take a back seat, as they were more preoccupied with the threat of the other species. ", "Celeste shares three husbands, Theodor, Edmund, and Ivan, with the other two women, Rosalind and Frieda. Celeste is uncomfortable with one of her husbands, Theodor, as she talks about her insecurity of facing the unknown catastrophe in the future and having three husbands when she cannot find security from a single whole man who only belongs to her. She also does not see herself as belonging to the family as she separates herself from being the mother of a child, Dotty, born from Frieda’s womb. She feels uneasy and unsecured with the polygamous family as all her husbands share one-third of the chance to be the father or a husband of any child or wife in the family. She also feels distant from her family while knowing all their quirks and habits. When she goes to watch Dotty, she feels bitter and worried. When Dotty asks her whether she is her mother, Celeste smiles with uncertainty, questioning her feeling of separation from the family. After knowing the truth from Dotty’s mouth and experiencing the terror of losing her family, Celeste changes her attitude and feels belonging to her family.", "Celeste is initially wary about having three husbands. She is aware that as a woman, she needs to find complete security. The complex marriages are stressful because each of her husbands only have one third of a security. She also does not regard Dotty too fondly, claiming that she is just Frieda’s daughter. Although Celeste is quite casual when Theodor kisses the other two wives, she begins to think later whether or not they are actually family. She wonders if they are truly a united group or just a bunch of silly adolescents playing around with marriage. Later, she does begin to warm up to Dotty after the child asks if she loves her. She says that she loves Dotty, despite the earlier feelings, and even tries to call out to her later. Although Celeste does not explicitly admit it, she does begin to grow closer and secure with the other family members. " ]	51353
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Dream Town by Henry Slesar. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "The plot follows Sol, a veteran of the U.S. army who, after picking up a hitchhiker on the way to a wedding, gets his car robbed near a small town. He ends up staying in the house of a young family who are kind enough to host him. They are very nice with him, and even offer him breakfast the next morning. As Sol learns more of the town and the family, he learns that the people in the town share the same dream every night, in a place called the Armagon. He also learns that there was an execution last night in the same place. He follows Willie Dawes, the head of the family, to pick up the body of the person that was executed. They are also accompanied by the sheriff of the town and by a man named Charlie. When Sol sees the body of the executed person, he starts to get worried and starts asking people in the town questions about the Armagon. That night, Sol stays with the Dawes family again, and when he goes to sleep he meets with the townspeople in the Armagon, where it seems that he will be executed. \n\n", "Sol Becker meets a woman at the doorway who looks like a mom from a homey cartoon. She is confused by why Sol is at her door, and he explains that he is a hitchhiker going to Salinas. She lets him come into her house, where he asks if he can stay the night. She explains that he does not have to pay and rushes back upstairs so she will not miss the execution. Sol goes to sleep and is woken up again by a little girl named Sally. He asks what time it is, but Sally responds that she likes poached eggs. Sol desperately tries to get her to leave, but Mom sends her away. Sol tries to call Fred but is met with indifference; a man named Willie Dawes offers to take him to the sheriff as Mom finishes breakfast. They talk about Armagon during breakfast, which is a place that everybody dreams about at night. Sol asks about the execution again, but Dawes tells him to eat his breakfast. They enter a wooden building to meet Charlie, and Dawes mentions that they are picking up Sheriff Coogan too. As they discuss with the other people, Sol realizes that everybody dreams about Armagon. Charlie is the Prince Regent, and they meet the sheriff too. The men go to the shop to find Mrs. Brundage, who is in grief because of her husband. Sol tries to ask what had happened in Armagon, but Mrs. Brundage refuses to tell him. Everybody is more worried about Mr. Brundage, so Sol goes on a walk and tries to ask about Armagon. Everybody says that it is none of his business, so he has no choice but to stay in the town until his car is found. Sally comes home at five thirty and asks if he is going to stay, and Mom refuses to hear anything about pay. Sol tries to ask Mr. Dawes for some more information again, but he refuses to say anything. When Sol goes to sleep that night, he finds himself awake in Armagon. Sally, Mom, and Mr. Dawes have returned wearing much finer clothing, indicating a higher status. Charlie asks if this is the snooper, and Dawes tells him that he should round up the knights. Sally screams for execution, and the knights begin to appear. They point the tips of their sharp spears at him as Sol wonders if he will ever awake.", "Sol Becker was driving to the wedding in Salinas - his old army friend Fred was getting married. Late at night, he picked up a hitchhiker who minutes later pushed Sol out of the car and drove away, leaving the man soaking near an unknown village. He knocked at the door of a village house, and a woman - he called her Mom - let him in. Sol briefly told her what had happened, and she allowed him to sleep on the couch. Anxiously whispering that she would miss some execution, Mom went upstairs, leaving Sol confused but grateful. He got woken up by a little girl named Sally, pestering him with awkward questions - Mom told her to stop and get ready for breakfast. Minutes later, he found a telephone and called Fred, who didn’t seem very upset by the news of Sol probably missing the wedding. After hanging up the phone, Sol talked to a man called Dawes, who promised to take him to Sheriff Coogan to report the car theft after breakfast. Mom called out that the breakfast was ready. Sally told Sol about Armagon - a place both parents and the daughter dreamt about every night. She also started talking about some execution, but Dawes coldly refused to answer Sol’s questions about this. Before meeting the sheriff, Sol and Dawes crossed the street and picked up a man named Charlie or, as Dawes said, Prince Regent. As they were marching down the street, they met a woman who, Sol eventually realized, was also dreaming about Armagon. They finally came to the sheriff’s house. He listened to Sol’s story while they all were walking to a barbershop to pick up the body of a man called Brundage. They saw a crying woman - the wife of the dead, and Sol again made an attempt to understand who got killed and why. Soon, they came back with the body and told Sol to wait while they were carrying it somewhere else. Sol took a walk and again tried to ask citizens about the mystery place from their dreams but didn’t get much information. He then went back to the Dawes residence. A State Trooper asked him some questions about the car and told him to remain in town until further notice. Sol ate lunch, walked for a bit, and returned in the evening. Sally - the daughter - clutched his leg and then started telling him about her day. Mr.Dawes came later and asked Sol about his questions to the citizens and then wondered if the man was a reporter. After a quiet evening, they all went to bed. Sol fell asleep and suddenly realized he was somewhere else, surrounded by marble pillars. He saw Sally running around in a white toga, then the sheriff chasing her. He finally saw Dawes dressed as a king who welcomed Becker to Armagon. The king unexpectedly asked Charlie to round up the knights, and Sally started triumphantly screaming: “Execution!”. Sol asked them to stop, but the knights kept approaching. ", "Sol Becker, an engineer whose car is stolen by a hitchhiker on his way to Salinas for his friend’s wedding, asks for a stay in a house. The owner of the house is a family with parents and a kid. On the first night when Sol makes himself in the house, he sleeps in the living room and notices Mom of the family hurry upstairs to join a court. The following morning, Sol is woken by their daughter, Sally, who asks him weird questions. After Mom orders Sally to leave Sol alone to let him dress, Sol borrows the phone to talk to his friend, whose wedding he will miss. After that, he meets Mr. Dawes, the father of Sally, and they eat breakfast together.\n\nAt the table, Sol learns that the family dreams of going to the same place called Armagon every night, where there is a palace, and execution happens there. After breakfast, Mr. Dawes takes Sol to seek Sheriff Coogan. On their way, they meet Charlie, who is called Prince Regent. Charlie joins them, and they find the Sheriff. They go to a barbershop, where the owner’s wife, Mrs. Brundage, is sobbing because her husband died. The three men from the town go into the house and carry the corpse out. Sol tries to know the truth by asking Mrs. Brundage, but he is scolded for not being respectful. After seeing the men deal with the corpse, he takes a walk in the town. During his walk, Sol realizes everyone in the town dreams of going to the same place every night. He learns little about the place. When he gets back to the house, he is allowed to stay for one more night. At night, after he falls asleep, he finds himself in a palace where Sally and Charlie are playing. When Mr. Dawes finds him, he orders Charlie to gather the Knights. The Knights surround Sol, and he realizes that he may not be able to wake again, just like Mr. Brundage.\n" ]	29193
What is the setting for this story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Aide Memoire by Keith Laumer. Question: What is the setting for this story? Answer:	[ "The story is set entirely on the planet Fust. The native inhabitants of Fust are described as something similar to snapping turtles that walk on their hind legs, and much of the imagery used by Fustians when speaking revolves around themes of the sea and mud. Fust is a peaceful enough world that they don’t even really have much of a police force, despite the rowdy and rebellious behavior of Fustian youths. \nNot much is known about the physical characteristics of the planet, such as the proportion of sea and dry land. We know there must be oceans, because the warehouse where Wonk was tied up and left was full of bales of kelp, a sea product. The city of the story is also near a sea, whose breezes make it a bit cool at certain times of day.\nThe city where all the action takes place is an important city, perhaps the capitol. It is full of diplomatic missions from all planets, and is apparently a place of some Fustian learning and culture, given that it has musicians for hire. There is a space ship building operation right outside the city, which can be reached by public transport that consists of flat open wagons. This is practical for the unwieldy shape of the adult Fustian, if not too comfortable for a human.\nOne of the most interesting things about Fust, and the hardest for an outsider to understand, is their assorted suns and moons. Fust is lit by a blue sun called Alpha and a yellow sun known as Beta, and three moons orbit Fust. There is also a third sun, unnamed, so that there are three “noons” on Fust.\n", "The story takes place on the planet whose native species is a turtle-like race known as the Fustians. It is usually a peaceful planet, and does not have a police force like humans are used to--in fact, weapons are currently illegal. There are at least two other species living here as well: the Terrestrials and the Groaci. More specifically, the story takes place near the coastline, with many events taking place either in political buildings or at the docks. The sea that lines this area has strong tides controlled by a number of celestial objects: there are three moons and multiple sons. The major sun is referred to as Beta, and is yellow, but there is a blue sun called Alpha as well. This has strong impacts on the weather as well: it can be very chilly while there are no suns in the sky, but very hot when the light is at its strongest. Besides the Terrestrial Embassy, its technical library, and the banquet hall, the protagonist Retief spends most of his time near the docks. At the port, he spends some time in the new ship being built where he asks Whonk to see the plans. He also does some investigation on the Moss Rock, the luxury ship where he found false evidence planted.", "The story takes place on the planet Fust, where a chancery houses the Terrestrial Embassy where Retief works. Fust has several suns and moons that regulate the tides of the ocean nearby. The Fustians regularly nap There is a large city surrounded by shipyards, where Retief conducts the majority of his investigation into the development of the new passenger barge. When Retief meets Whonk, they pore over blueprints for the barge in Whonk’s work hut and look out the window to see the Groaci attaché consulting with the Fustian youth that had harassed them earlier. Later, a pair of youth attack Retief at the bus station, and he returns to the shipyard to inquire after Whonk. He enters the warehouse behind Whonk’s shack and finds him injured in the midst of some hay bales. From there, Whonk and Retief go to the “Moss Rock”—a ship where the Groaci barrels filled with titanite had been taken earlier—to investigate. The “Moss Rock” is a luxurious ship dimly lit and meant for VIP guests. This is where Retief begins to uncover the plot of the Groaci to implicate SCARS in the ship’s destruction. Retief then attends the sponsorship ceremony, which is held in a banquet hall with a low-ceiling. Fustian music plays, which is inaudible to the human ear. After Slock escapes the ceremony, Retief goes back to the “Moss Rock”, and this is where Whonk ultimately apprehends Slock once more.", "The story's setting is in the future on a space world named Fust, inhabited by creatures who look similar to turtles. Fust has oceans or seas large enough for passenger ships and barges which provide fish for the Fustians. Aliens come to Fust; Magnan and Retief work at the Terrestrial Embassy; the Groacis also have members on Fust. The planet has two suns: Beta, which is yellow, and Alpha, which is blue. There are also three moons. Part of the action in the story takes place in the Terrestrial Embassy. In contrast, other parts occur in the shipyard where the passenger ship is being built, its warehouse where Whonk is hidden after he is beaten, and where the explosive had been stored, aboard the barge the Moss Rock where the explosive has been moved and where Whonk puts Slock at the end of the story, and a low-ceiling banquet hall where the dinner is being held. Magnan announces Retief’s sponsorship of SCARS.\n\n" ]	61198
What equipment is employed throughout the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Signal Red by Henry Guth. Question: What equipment is employed throughout the story? Answer:	[ "One of the main pieces of equipment used on the Stardust liner is a loudspeaker. The primary role of the speaker is to give out instructions to the crew on the ship and makes any important announcements. The men also use phosphorescent bulbs as a light source to navigate their surroundings when the liner goes into total shutdown. Crew members also carry around a blaster for protection, most likely if there is ever a need for self-defense. There is also usage of a ray gun to fight back against the Uranian fleets. To ensure survival, emergency oxygen pipes are used to maintain atmosphere. Shano also carries a pack of cigarettes that do not seem important but later become essential to the story.", "The ship is locked with multiple air locks. There is a panel of studs in the control room. The pilot is in earphones. A loud-speaker gives orders. Machinery is stopped and lights are out when ship is hiding from the enemy. For such cases there are emergency oxygen cylinders. Some men have blasters. There were port guns and ray guns and the battle was almost silent. Pipes are all around. There is a screen and a selector in the engine room which keep the ship going. Toxia gas is needed to make the selector work but people can't handle it. There is massive machinery and a shattered gold-gleaming cylinder in the engine room which make the whole ship move. Heavy rods are there which need to be lifted.", "Firstly, Shano is wearing polarized goggles, but it is unclear what it is used for. Secondly, there is a gray box next to the pipes at the corner of the passageway, which is used to attract the Uranians detection since its dial needle keeps quivering when everything else went silence. It’s assumed by Shano that this device was planted by the spy of the Uranians. When Shano fights with Rourke, he first uses his cigarette to dug into Rourke’s face and uses his hand to grasp Rouke’s neck, which makes his face turn purple and choked to death. When Shano is fixing the rod, he simply uses his bare hand whenever the rods fall. ", "There is various equipment employed throughout the story. Phosphorescent bulbs are used when the ship goes dark to light the passageways. A grey box with two switches and a radium dial is used. It is an electric signal box to give away the ship's position. An intercom is employed so the captain can speak to the crew. There are port guns used in battle. Atom motors are employed to keep the ship running. Shano uses the selector valve rods to keep the ship running. \n" ]	63860
What is the setting of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Hanging Stranger by Philip K. Dick. Question: What is the setting of the story? Answer:	[ "The story happens in Pikeville town and Oak Grove town. The first scene occurs in the town park where the hanged body is. In the park, there is a lamppost, a drinking fountain, and a bench. Under the lamppost, the body is hanged. The second scene is in the car, where Ed has a conversation with the fake police. When Ed escapes from the fake police, he runs into a hardware store filled with customers and clerks. There is a back door in the shipping room, a garbage can next to the door, and concrete stairs outside the store towards the top of the fence. The other side of the fence is an entrance to an alley, which is filled with boards and ruined boxes and tires. Passing the loading platform of a grocery store stands one wall of the Hall of Justice. The wall is white with barred windows. The City Hall is next to the police station, with yellow wooden walls with brass cement steps. Cedars and flowers are planted on each side of the entrance. \n\nWhen Ed gets on the bus, the people sitting around him are all dull, tired, and quiet. No one pays attention to him. People seem to be normal: one is reading the newspaper, another with business suits sits quietly, and the other gazes absently towards the front. When Ed escapes from the bus, he runs into a residential district, pavement sides with tall apartment buildings and lawns. \n\nWhen Ed comes home, there are windows with shades in the living room. The house is a two-floor building. The twin’s room is upstairs. There is a basement in the house. In the kitchen, a butcher knife lies in the drawer under the sink. On his way to Oak Grove, rough ground, gullies, open fields, and forest are along the way. \n\nIn Oak Grove, there is a gasoline station and drive-in. Several trucks park there—some chickens on the field and a dog tied with the string. In front of the police station in Oak Grove, a telephone pole is suitable to hang a human body.\n", "The story is set in a small town named Pikeville. The town is described as very small, composed of a town center with a square. The town’s town hall is where the aliens’ portal was, so it was covered by a swarm of them. The town also has different streets and highways, which Ed needs to take in order to leave the town. He ended up crawling out of the town because he didn’t want to be seen, and he ended up hurt and scratched because the town had a lot of shrubbery and plants. ", "The story is first set in Pikeville, where Ed has spent the day digging dirt out of his basement and wheeling it into the backyard. His television store is also located in the town, where there are many other commuters. There is a little square of green in the center of the street that serves as the town park. The park also has a lonely drinking fountain, bench, and single lamppost. The dead body hangs from this lamppost. The town also has a Hall of Justice, City Hall, and police station. The Hall of Justice has barred windows and a police antenna. The City Hall, however, is an old-fashioned yellow structure of good, gilded brass, and cement steps. There are also buses that take commuters back home after the day. Loyce’s home has a living room, upstairs, kitchen, and basement. Later, the scene changes to Oak Grove, where there are farm fields, stations, and even a police station. It is also home to the Oak Grove Merchants’ Bank, where Clarence Mason spends the day working in the vaults.", "The majority of the story happens in Pikeville. At five o’clock, Ed drives from his house to his TV store across town. It’s getting dark. He passes a small park where he notices the hanging body. Later, he is taken by two officers, and they are driving towards the City Hall. It’s already gloomy outside - the sun has set. After escaping, he runs through a hardware store, climbs over a fence, and moves down a street alley. He can see the City Hall’s roof. Then, he gets on a bus but soon runs away from the two suspicious passengers. He comes home and realizes that his family is under the influence of the alien flies. He crawls for ten miles, walks by a farm, and reaches a gasoline station, a couple of trucks parked near it. After that, he ends up at the police station of Oak Grove, the town near Pikeville. At the end, we meet another character who is leaving the Oak Grove Merchants’ Bank." ]	41562
Describe the circumstances that led to Kevin's power not being discovered until he was twenty-six years old.	Write a detailed response to the following question about Jack of No Trades by Evelyn E. Smith. Question: Describe the circumstances that led to Kevin's power not being discovered until he was twenty-six years old. Answer:	[ "n the year 2102, when this story takes place, 95% of the population has psi-powers. Because of the advancement of technology and medicine, physical ailments are easily and quickly remedied. There is even a cure-all that can heal most things, so it is not often that sickness or injury is relevant to life in the society that Kevin and his family live in. However, everything changes when an alien race from Alpha Centauri wages war on the humans. Unknown weapons mean unknown damage, and injury is out of the humans' control. Because Kevin does not have any psi-powers, he is encouraged to learn first aid so that he can be useful during the war. He is expected to be especially good at first aid because he does not feel the emotions of the injured in the way that telepaths do, and thus he should be able to stay more level-headed. However, he is even more effective in first aid that anyone imagined, because when he touches an injured person they heal almost instantaneously. What usually takes days with cure-all is achieved in mere seconds with a touch of Kevin's hand. It is not only the lack of violence that led to Kevin's power going unnoticed: he is the only person in the world with his powers, which makes it incredibly rare, instead of just being a power that nobody was looking for. ", "Hundreds of years prior to the action of the story, human experimentation with nuclear energy released radiation into the air that caused people to develop psi powers, turning them \"into a race of supermen.\" By 2102, the year the story takes place, most people have some kind of unique ability, the most common of which is telepathy. This quality, coupled with the fact that viral disease and sickness have largely been eradicated, has led to the creation of a well-ordered society unused to violence and large-scale suffering. There are places called \"cure-alls\", which help people with physical ailments, but since such issues are rare, cure-alls are also limited. There are transplants and grafts for things like missing arms and legs in this new world, but there is no such treatment for psi-deficiencies. As a psi-negative, Kevin feels like an outcast in his family and in society in general. He struggles to understand what his purpose is until war comes to Earth in the form of a hostile group of aliens from two newly-discovered planets near Alpha Centauri. Kevin trains in first-aid in order to offer assistance to the war-wounded, and in the process, he discovers he has the ability to heal people physically by simply touching them with his hands.", "In the story, Earth had not had war in well over a hundred years and all viruses had been eradicated. The planet was peaceful because there were so many telepaths that there was no longer any capacity for war or crime. Humans started showing these supernatural powers around the 1960s when nuclear energy was being developed. The powers were present, but latent, in humans until brought to life by nuclear radiation. \nBecause Earth was such a peaceful place, attending medical casualties was rare and it was never a career that Kevin had the opportunity to explore. However, after humans discover two earth-like planets in Alpha Centauri and the aliens retaliate and attack Earth, casualties start rolling into the town the Faraday family lives in. Kevin is prepared since he was rapidly trained in the field of medicine on the insistence of his mother who recognized that there would not be enough people with the relevant medical knowledge to treat war casualties should the aliens attack. However, Kevin tries to run away at the first sight of a gaping wound. His mother forces him to stay, and he reluctantly begins shakily sponging the wound of a victim missing half of their face with water. He accidentally drops the sponge and plunges his fingers into the wound, disgusting him greatly. His mother notices immediately that Kevin has healed the wounds completely without scarring. This is the first discovery of Kevin’s psi-power of healing, and he is the only person on Earth to have this ability. If it weren’t for the aliens attacking Earth and creating many casualties, Kevin would not have discovered his extremely rare psi-power.\n", "Kevin’s long-undiscovered power is healing, which was largely useless in their society. The cure-all was invented before his birth and advanced technology meant illness, disease, and injuries were few and far between. If someone were injured or ill, they were taken to the health center in another town that contained a cure-all machine. This machine could cure anything within a few days. Frankly, his powers were not needed until the war came around. Since he did not grow up around physically hurt people, he was unable to discover his power until he placed his hands on an injured soldier. " ]	49838
How is the current McGuire version different from the previous versions and why is that important?	Write a detailed response to the following question about His Master's Voice by Randall Garrett. Question: How is the current McGuire version different from the previous versions and why is that important? Answer:	[ "The most recent McGuire is the seventh edition. It is described as being more mobile as it is a spacecraft. It is potentially dangerous because it can move at thousands of miles per second. The most recent version is different from the previous six because it follows Asimov’s famous Three Laws of Robotics more closely than the other versions. The laws emphasize that a robot should define a human being and making sure the robot does not hurt a human. That has previously proven difficult. McGuire version 7 circumnavigated the issue by defining whatever first awoken the robot as a human and its controller.", "The present iteration of the McGuire, the MGYR-7, is different in its interpretation of Asimov’s three laws of robotics. These three laws, as they are told to the reader by Daniel, are the following: firstly, a robot cannot harm a human being; secondly, a robot must obey orders from human, expect when in conflict with the first law, and thirdly, a robot shall be self-preserving, except when in conflict with the first and third laws. In the first six models of the McGuire, the engineers encoded Asimov’s laws into the machine’s directives. However, this led to erratic and insane-like behaviour from the robot when conflicting commands were issued. \n\tThe seventh iteration, however, resolves this issue by instead restricting the individuals from whom the McGuire takes orders to only that person who issues the first order. The roboticists responsible for designing the McGuire, however, have noticed issues in the MGYR-7, which they aim to resolve in the eighth iteration, the construction of which Daniel has been hired to expedite. \n", "The previous models of McGuire struggled because of the difficulty to define what a \"human being\" is to robots. The Three Laws for robot construction state that robots must not allow harm to a human being, as well as obey orders from a human being. However, when receiving contradicting yet equally qualifying orders from two different human beings, the previous McGuire models would malfunction out of confusion. The seventh model, the current McGuire, narrowed down the definition of what a \"human being\" is, down to an individual. McGuire was constructed so that the individual he would obey would be the first individual that spoke to him when he was built. This is important because Daniel Oak, being the first human to interact with McGuire, is at the center of the robot's objectives.", "Firstly, McGuire is different because he is mobile, in a way, he is the spaceship. Different from the traffic robot, he is in charge of one single object. But since the object is moving very fast through space where no specified pathway is determined, McGuire has to be able to react fast. Moreover, McGuire needs to understand English in order to communicate with human beings. \n\nMost importantly, the current version of the robot, McGuire, has alteration in the definition of “human being,” instead of trying to define what human being is as the previous versions did, there will be one person who McGuire takes orders from, since defining individuals are way easier. Previously, they tried to allow robots listen to any one identified as human being. However, this easily made the robots go insane. Once two people – human beings – give an opposing order, the robot does not know what to do. The robot does not know who has a higher authority, thus not knowing which order to follow. Taking order from an individual will completely avoid such problems. " ]	48513
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Girls from Fieu Dayol by Robert F. Young. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "Herbert Quidley finds a yellow paper with unintelligible words folded in the book called History of English Literature by Hippolyte Adolphe Taine. After he continues to work, he sees a girl come in, browse randomly, and take Taine’s book. The girl quickly riffles through the book, puts it back on the shelf, and leaves the library. After the girl leaves, Quidley checks the book, noticing the disappearance of the yellow paper. He learns the girl’s name, Kay Smith, from the librarian and goes home. On his way home, he guesses that the paper is a kind of message transmitted through an esoteric book. He guesses the identity of the person who might do this message job with Kay, none of which pleases him as he has a liking for the girl, so he decides to observe this messaging action for a while.\n\nThe following day, when Quidley waits at the library, a girl different from Kay comes to the library, puts another paper in Taine’s book, and leaves. Quidley sees the paper and finds another batch of unintelligible words, from which he finds two common words, Fieu Dayol and snoll doper. He puts back the letter and goes back to his seat. When the library is about to close, Kay comes to take the paper and leaves. Quidley follows behind her into a coffee bar. He intentionally spills the sugar on her, which allows him to start talking to her. Throughout the conversation, Quidley reveals his identity as a profiliste and accepts Kay’s request to make her a profile. They set up a time to meet next time. After they separate, Quidley goes home and writes a letter to his father for the allowance.\n\nTwo days later, Quidley goes to the library again and sits at his reading-table post with his favorite magazine. He sees the third woman come in and do the same thing as the previous girls. He reads the new message and returns to his apartment waiting for Kay. He thinks about the meaning of snoll doper. When Kay comes, they do something sexually. The following day, puzzled by the secret of the snoll doper, Quidley decides to read the message before the exchange happens. Kay finds out that Quidley is reading the message. She tells him to come with her to deliver the snoll doper to Jilka and meet her folks. When Quidley waits in the car, he realizes the possible true identity of Kay and what may happen next. Quidley learns from the conversation with Kay that they are heading to the ship to Fieu Dayol. He also learns that Kay is the ship’s stock girl, and all the messages are actually requisitions for the snoll dopers. He realizes that he is kidnapped to another planet, Fieu Dayol, where women outnumber men. He sees a man with Jilka ascend the ship and disappear. Kay forces Quidley to go into the ship by pointing him with a shotgun, which is called snoll doper in Kay’s language.\n", "The plot follows Herbert Quidley. Herbert is a man who loves to engage with women. One day, he was in the public library when he saw a weird message scribbled on a bookmark in a random book. He then saw a very beautiful lady enter the library, and go to the book which had weird writing. Herbert learnt that her name was Kay. Herbert thought this was weird, but he thought it was even weirder when the next day another girl came and left another bookmark in the same book. Herbert understood that the girls were using the book as a means of communication, but he didn’t understand the messages. After the original girl came back, Herbert decided to follow her to a bar in order to meet her. Herbert uses a trick in order to first approach her, and they end up getting to know each other. They agree to meet in a few days at Herbert’s house. Herbert was very surprised to learn that there was a third woman communicating with the other two girls. After Herbert and Kay get to know each other more on their date, Herbert decides to confront Kay about her book in their next outing. When he confronts Kay, Kay tells him that she was in fact from an alien species, and that she used the books to communicate with her crew. Kay tells Herbert that he wants to take her to her home planet and mate with him, but when Herbert tries to refuse Kay takes out a shotgun and forces him onto their ship. ", "Herbert Quidley’s penchant for old books has never been much of a problem for him. He finds a sheet of yellow paper in one of his Taine tomes and unfolds it, making him wonder what high school students read. He notices a girl walk through the door, noting that she deposits a book at the librarian’s desk and heads towards the literature section. Although Quidley lowers his eyes, he finds that she also has picked up the book that he had earlier. When he goes to see the book again later, he notes that the makeshift bookmark is now gone. He thinks back to the message again and wonders who could have left it for her. Quidley later finds out that the girl’s friend is another girl, and he tries to figure out what the second message means. Kay shows up again to leave another message, and Quidley follows her out to an all-night coffee shop to get her attention by spilling sugar. He introduces himself to her, and she responds that her name is Kay Smith. He feels intimidated by the girl for a moment, before she asks if he is really willing to word-paint her profile. She asks if they can meet at his place, and he agrees. A date is set up, and Quidley goes home. Although Kay is not in town for the next two days, he notices that there is now a third woman involved. The message is impossible to understand again, and he wonders if they are part of some secret society. When Kay comes, she is wearing a beautiful dress. Later, as Quidley is coming up with a new novel idea, he finds the fourth message again. As he thinks about her, Kay suddenly appears and tells him to put the book back. He is curious as to why she can’t just give Jilka a snoll doper, but Kay says it is because of regulations. Soon, she tells him that she is planning to take him back to Fieu Dayol because he had compromised her and because there are not enough men back on the planet. Kay also reveals that all of the messages were requisitions because she is the ship’s stock girl. The two arrive at the ship, and Quidley watches as Jilka and another man board the ship. Quidley tries to protest against boarding the ship himself, but Kay points a snoll doper at him. He notices that the object looks strikingly like a shotgun. ", "Herbert Quidley is at a library. He opens Taine's History of English Literature and finds a sheet of paper with unintelligible text. He picks up another book. While reading it, he sees a beautiful young girl enter the library, take the sheet of paper from Taine's book, get another random book from the shelf, and leave. The next day, he notices another girl who slips a piece of paper between the book’s pages. When she leaves, he looks at the sheet of paper - it also has some unintelligible message. Later, the first girl - he calls her Kay - shows up and takes the message from the book. He follows her into a coffee bar. Quidley spills sugar on her lap, which helps him start a conversation with her. He tells her she can send him the cleaners’ bill and gives her his business card with his name, address, and profession - profiliste. He explains that he paints profiles with words. She introduces herself and asks if we can paint her profile. They decide to meet two days later at his place. Before meeting with her, he spends some time in the library and sees another girl who leaves the third coded message. He is confused and doesn’t understand why these girls are using this medium of communication. Quidley comes back home and waits for Kay. She arrives in a pretty white dress - he is mesmerized. They drink some bourbon and soon kiss. She tells him to postpone the dinner. The following evening Quidley goes to the library. He fantasizes about his future novel and finds a new message. Kay finds him reading the message. She look at the paper and then tells him to follow her. They get in her convertible, and Kay says that she has to deliver a snoll doper to Jilka, and then she will take Quidley to meet her folks. He admits to reading all their messages. She stops the car near a brick apartment building and leaves for several minutes. Quidley thinks of running away, but Kay comes back quickly. They drive to some ship which is supposed to take them to Fieu Dayol or Persei 17. She explains that she can and has to marry him now because he compromised her and because there are very few men on Fieu Dayol. She also tells him that those papers were requisitions, not messages - Kay is the ship’s stock girl. They pull up to a ship, parked somewhere among country fields. Jilka arrives with some man who slowly walks to the ship. When Quidley refuses to go with them, Kay tells him that the Interstellar law allows them to take only the ones who do not conform to the sexual mores of their society. She presses a snoll doper - a term he saw in the messages and later asked about - against his back. He realizes it’s something similar to a shotgun and starts marching up the plank. " ]	61048
What is the significance of the army in the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Soldier Boy by Michael Shaara. Question: What is the significance of the army in the story? Answer:	[ "The army has no respect from the colonists; they don’t want anything to do with it because they associate it with war. The people at this time have been conditioned to despise war and anything to do with it. When they see Captain Dylan standing by his ship and facing the village, they think he is ridiculous or possibly drunk. Rossel noticed that Dylan appeared like a typical soldier: not very neat and not very clean, and his salute lacked proper military precision. And when Lt. Bossio tosses Dylan a bottle of liquor, Rossel isn’t surprised because of the reputation soldiers have for being drunks; in fact, Rossel is disgusted by the liquor and Bossio’s drunkenness. When aliens attacked Lupus V in 2360, the army found the destruction and dead and discovered why their security bomb hadn’t detonated. There was little the army could do about the alien attack because the army had become so small and weak. There had been peace for 500 years when people didn’t need the army, so its equipment was old, and many of the soldiers were from the bottom of society: drinkers and gamblers. So the army is just notifying other colonies of the attack and warning them to evacuate. When the colonists learn that they have to evacuate due to the threat of an alien attack, Rossel demands that the fleet defend them, and another man named Rush asks where the army fleet is, expecting it to come to their defense. When Dylan explains there is no fleet, just a few hundred obsolete ships, he is tempted to tell them that no one wants an army until it is needed. Dylan himself has been in the army for 30 years and has never seen any action. And when Rossel realizes the colony’s ship won’t hold all of the colonists, he asks if any fleet ships are within radio distance that they could summon to help with their evacuation, hoping that the army is near enough to be of help. Ironically, the army that they despise now offers their only hope. ", "After 500 years of peace, few saw the reason for maintaing or keeping an army intact. With anti-war and peace sentiments running abound, those that served were looked down upon, since they were paying for their seemingly worthless service. However, when the aliens attack, suddenly the long-forgotten fleets were called into action, and the drunken soldiers were called to arms. After the years of inactivity and depleted funding, the army is not what it once was and is having trouble containing the alien threat. \nThe army is both the saviour and ultimate enemy in this story, as they could offer protection, but simply don’t have the means to do so. \n", "The army is significantly smaller than it once was due to humans having a loathing of war and thus, reducing the size of the Fleet over time. Humans have had 500 years of peace and anti-war conditioning, that have led to the army becoming “small, weak and without respect.” The army could do nothing but warn colonists of attack.\nIronically, the colonists question Captain Dylan why the Fleet isn’t coming to their rescue, to which he describes the Fleet barely exists and now only has a “few hundred half-shot old tubs that were obsolete before you were born.” In this way, the army is significant in the story because it is not wanted by many, but it comes to be called on for help anyways in their time of need.\nCaptain Dylan has worked for thirty years as a peacetime soldier and thinks to himself that peace-loving nations in the history of Earth never stay strong, but does not go on to labor the point to the colonists. He feels deeply sad that his only friend, Bossio, was already dead from trying to help these people that didn’t support the army, and that he too would soon have the same fate. Captain Dylan shakes off this mentality and in the end feels that he can’t hate the colonists for wanting peace because it is a noble thing for trying to achieve.\n", "The people of the village have been taught over the years to hate war, and as a result, they also hate soldiers. They suspect every soldier they meet is a drunk, which Captain Dylan appears to confirm when he catches a bottle tossed to him by an associate upon first arriving at the village. Later, Dylan recalls the thirty years of his army career, which has largely been spent drinking and getting into trouble. Due to hundreds of years of anti-war conditioning, the army is under-resourced, understaffed, and underfunded. In fact, there are only a few hundred ships left that are mostly obsolete and a handful of army leadership and government jobs available. However, when the aliens attack, the army deploys Dylan and Bossio to help warn and evacuate as many colonies as possible, which they do to little fanfare. In fact, Bossio dies in the effort, and it appears that Dylan might as well." ]	50848
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT by RAY BRADBURY. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "The story begins with Sim being born in a cold cave. He’s wailing with tears while his mom feverishly feeds him. Even though he is a newborn, he interestingly has some self-awareness. Sim looked around the cave and spotted some old people dying in a graphic, grotesque manner. He raged in angst and his mom moved to soothe him. \n\nSuddenly, his father goes to attack him and his mother with a knife. His father wants to kill him as he reasons that there is no reason to live. Sim’s mother begs him not to and tells him to have faith that their son might live longer. After this altercation, Sim notices his sister, Dark, for the first time. Afterwards, he notices that his mother goes through a painful process of aging. Sim cannot seem to find anywhere to look in the cave that is not horrifying to look at and cries himself at these revelations. \n\nBecause the people on this planet age incredibly fast, Sim goes through a lot of understanding and self-thought during the first day of his life. Eventually, the next day arrives. As an avalanche falls into the valley, Sim’s father takes him and they both jump into the avalanche and are carried by it into the valley. Sim and his family enjoy the valley during the time that it is livable to play within its borders. During this time, Sim’s mother and father become upset as there is a pressing realization that they both will die soon. They all hurriedly return back to their cave as the sun is coming out and would kill them if they are caught in its rays. A young child is caught in the sun’s rays and burned to death. \n\nUpon their return, Sim’s mother and father toast icicles to signify their last day. Throughout the day, Sim continues to grow and gain more intelligence. His mother feeds him and lovingly embraces him. Upon their mother’s instruction, Dark takes Sim out into the valley and watches over him. While they are in the valley, the two parents die from old age. In the valley, Sim wonders why no one else asks about the metal seed in the distance that he sees. He thinks it is a potential escape plan. \n\nWhile outside, Sim observes meaning screaming a war rallying cry. When he finds a red berry, a boy named Chion goes and steals it from Sim. Dark slaps the boy and scolds him for stealing the berry. Sim thinks to himself about how he does not understand the fighting nature people have when life is already so short. He then threatens Chion and acknowledges the boy as his new enemy. Dark gives him advice about enemies and friends, how quick they can be made. However, Sim gets distracted with lustful thoughts about a girl that passes him. Dark mentions that she is concerned for his future as he will have to fight Chion. They then both run back to the caves. \n", "Sim is just born in a cave, which is a nightmare. His mother feeds him and he grows larger and larger. There is a scary man in the farther corner of the cave, Sim's father with eyes being the only alive things on his face. Behind, the old people are sitting in the tunnel and dying. The father heads towards Sim with a knife to kill the child as there is nothing for him to live for. The mother disagrees and takes the weapon away. Sim's sister, Dark, is eating in the same room. The mother is also aging and dying. Sim understands everything though he is just one hour old and he is terrified. On the planet the days are flame, and the nights are ice, with dawn and sunset being the only bearable time to go outside. For that reason people live on the cliffs and they are about to die. Sim is about to live only eight days and all without sleep. Every age passes by really fast and people get old in days on the horrible planet. Ten thousand days ago metal seeds crashed on this planet bringing the people here, who rushed to hide in the cliffs and grew old in days. The only usable ship after the crash is still beyond the valley of cliffs, with some scientists working in it. Sim is determined to go there when he grows old and wise enough. At dawn, Sim's father takes him outside, leaps out during an avalanche and makes it alive. Fruits appear and as Sim eats, he rapidly gets knowledge. The mother cries for the transiency of time and wants to take the last look at everything, as they will die soon. The sun is rising but she is not afraid to be caught by it. Everyone rushes to the hideouts, including the family, but someone's child doesn't make it and is burnt. Sim glimpses the metal ship, his dream. Sim's parents are too feeble and send Dark to play with Sim at sunset, while they die. At dawn a funeral procession takes place for all dead during the night. Sim already can walk along. Dark and Sim discuss what they know when some people run to fight others. The kids are surprised as life is too short to fight. A boy, Chion, fights Sim for a berry. Sim understands what enemies and friends are, and the boy promises to kill him the next day. Dark explains how those are made and says that people around believe they can earn another day of life by killing the other. Suddenly, Sim notices and touches a girl, who he knows will become his wife tomorrow and they will be buried together. The girl introduces herself as Lyte, and along with Sim, Chion promises to remember the name. Dark tells Sim he needs weapons to fight for Lyte.", "The story opens with Sim being born in a cave. He immediately is aware of feelings and sensations and is introduced to the dreadful world his family lives in. Sim is fed fruits and grass by his mother as he grows larger, and he sees the others in the cave begin to die. As Sim's mother holds him, his father suddenly takes him and holds a knife to him, planning to kill him. Sim's mother pleads as his father wonders what he has to live for. Sim sees his sister, Dark, beside him, and his mother manages to grab the knife from his father. Sim soon begins to understand, through racial memory, the conditions he lives in. He understands that the planet he is on, on which the people before him had crashed, casts deadly radiation on the planet which causes the people on it to live for only eight days. The land outside the cave is too dangerous and deadly during the days and nights; only when it is dawn or sunset do the valleys bloom with nature and the people can enjoy its short life. Sim begins to age rapidly, aware of the eight days he has to live, and desperate to find a solution. He has a vision of a spaceship on a far out mountain, intact but impossible to get to, where a group of scientists struggle to find a way home. Sim longs to get to the ship and prolong his life. As dawn approaches, the people in the cave get ready to head down to the valley, where the daily Avalanche occurs; Sim's father recklessly takes him through the avalanche, barely surviving. Sim watches the valley become flooded with life as he gains more knowledge and understanding. As dawn fades, Sim's parents acknowledge that it is their last day of living, and everyone bolts back into the cave, a child being left behind and scorched by the sun. Sim's parents make a toast on their last day of life, and he watches them age until they are unable to walk and struggle to speak, while Sim himself notices his growth and ability. At sunset, Sim's parents are no longer able to go outside, and Sim says his first word, \"Why\". The next day, Sim's parents pass, and Dark becomes his caretaker. They frolic in the valley after the funeral procession, where Sim sees a group of men engage in war and is perplexed. He is then knocked to the ground by a child named Chion, making his first enemy. Dark explains that enemies are inevitable, especially due to the superstition some believe about gaining more days of life by killing others. Sim then notices a girl named Lyte, who he takes a liking to and acknowledges as his future wife.", "Sim is born during the night. His mother feeds him with feverish hands as he realizes that he has begun the nightmare of living. As the thick fog clears, he sees a man with a dying face begin to approach them. His mother is fearful, but she continues to feed him things such as ice-nipples, pebble-fruits, and valley-grass. As his father approaches, people sitting in the tunnel all die. His father raises the knife over him and plans to kill him, but his mother flings herself upon the back of his father. He wants to kill Sim’s sister too, but seeing his wife’s state makes him change his mind. Sim begins to understand that he is on a planet next to the sun, with cold nights and hot days. Most of the people bring their children out during dawn and sunset to play because these are the only times the climate is bearable. Sim knows that he has exactly eight days to live. Sim feels that it is unfair that he only has eight days to live before he dies and wonders how the people have gotten into this situation. He gets flashbacks of a crash that brought men and women to the planet; their bodies are altered so that they live and die in a week. He tries to think about what he can do to save them and suddenly gets another image of a deserted spaceship on a low mountain. His father wakes him up to announce that it is dawn, and the Avalanche comes. As people push towards the dawn, the rocks fall too. His father lifts him up, and they narrowly avoid being killed by one. Dark runs ahead, and Sim wonders why there is laughing. Suddenly, he sees plants come to life and fruit begin to sprout, giving him new knowledge. His parents discuss how this is the last time they will see these sights again; the sun begins to rise again, and they all leave. Sim watches a young child running in the flatness, but the child dies before he makes it. His parents toast one last time, and Sim watches them age rapidly from one stage to another. Before dying, his mother tells Dark to take care of him. Sim speaks for the first time as his parents die. On the second day, there is a funeral procession for the people who have died the previous night. Dark and Sim go outside to see fifty young men go to war, which makes him bewildered as to why people fight when their lives are already so short. A small boy attacks him, and he introduces himself as Chion. Sim realizes that this is his enemy as Chion says that he will be big enough to kill him tomorrow. He sees his future wife named Lyte, and it seems that Chion is interested as well. Dark tells him to eat so he will be strong enough to fight. " ]	63874
Who are the Thinkers and how are they significant to the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Appointment In Tomorrow by Fritz Leiber. Question: Who are the Thinkers and how are they significant to the story? Answer:	[ "The Thinkers are magicians who dominate the current society. When America was in crisis post-World War III, they provided solutions to problems and questions, and acted as a more structured, moral, \"human\" group for leadership than physicists prior. The Thinkers are the creators of Maizie, a brain-like computer that answers any question; Maizie is used by many in government to make drastic decisions with the goal of preserving humanity. The Thinkers are also working towards a larger plan of moving their work to Mars, ultimately dominating Martians the same way they dominated Earth. There is also controversy surrounding the Thinkers, mainly from the Physicists, who believe that their work relies on the desperation of society and is fraudulent.", "The Thinkers are a group of individuals led by Jorj Helmuth. Their members include Helmuth, a man who is an intermediary between government officials and the Thinkers’ super-intelligent machine Maizie, Tregarron, the man inside Maizie who produces its responses, and an unnamed astronaut who the world thinks travels to Mars and returns with Martian wisdom, when in fact he merely floats in the upper atmosphere. \nThe Thinkers have deceived government officials, including the President of the United States and his cabinet, with the use of Maizie, a machine which is advertised as being able to solve complex problems of every type. In fact, Maizie is operated by a man who writes its responses. The story revolves around an interaction between the President, his cabinet and Maizie; a discussion is also had between two physicists, Farquar and Opperly, who are aware of the Thinkers’ deception but are in disagreement with one another about whether their information should be more thoroughly shared. \n", "The Thinkers are a group of people that won a Presidential election. Farquar exclaims that their power was not earned because of their technology but because the world is not at peace. The Thinkers are significant to the story because they make many claims about their technologies and innovations. They claim they built a cube called Maizie which is a brain machine. In addition, they have told people that they built Mars rockets with nuclear motors designed by Maizie. Neither of the two inventions are true, but rather they are deceptions. Farquar calls them Charlatans for the magician-like trickery they practice. ", "The Thinkers are a group of charlatans that tells people what they wish to hear. But because of the times that they are in, people chooses to believe in magic. As Opperly mentions, when the time is good, people don’t need magicians. But when the time is bad, people would do anything just to get the magic cures. As Farquar sees, the Thinkers are simply lucky and are talented with their stage-managing skills. They uses the brain-machine to justify their guesses. The Thinkers have faked Maizie as well as rocket landing on Mars in order to have control over the government. All government officials would do exactly as what the Thinkers order them to do. However, the physicists knew what the Thinkers are doing, they know that their rocket did not go to Mars, Maizie is not a human-brain machine, and the mental science of the Martians is fake. But since they got the government’s support, Jorj sends an invitation to the physicists to support Jorj and the other Thinkers in building those actual machineries. Farquar thinks he should go while Opperly suggests it might be a trap. " ]	51152
Describe Michael and Mary's relationship and their conflicting preferences	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Valley by Richard Stockham. Question: Describe Michael and Mary's relationship and their conflicting preferences Answer:	[ "Michael and Mary are two humans who were sent on an expedition to find a habitable planet elsewhere in the solar system after humans destroyed their own planet during the Atomic Wars, and continued to drive it into the ground through their own greed for resources. Three thousand years after the Wars, the expedition was sent out (so five thousand years have passed in total since the Wars). Michael and Mary are the only two people who survived, and their return was two thousand years after they left Earth. They are married, though contemporary relationships do not involve much physical touching as compared to the twenty-first century, in a few ways. When Michael hugs Mary to comfort her, he mentions that it is a custom of the past. In their society, it is illegal to have children through sexual intercourse, so it is a surprise at the end of the story when Mary admits that she might be pregnant. They have endured a lot together on their mission in outer space, and have had to watch a lot of people die. It was very isolating to be in space, living on a ship, and this is part of their other major discussion: what to do when their mission was over. Michael had some desire to stay in space and not return to the scorched planet. However, Mary wanted to return to Earth, and the two of them wanted to stay together no matter what. This turned out to work in their favor: staying on Earth but wanting to stay alive is what gave them the opportunity to find the patches of life they found at the end of the story. ", "The first initial conflict of the story is the debate between Michael and Mary as to whether or not to return to the stars or stay on Earth. Mary wants to place her feet on solid ground again and die with the earth as humans were meant to do, but Michael wants to return to space and escape the burden of sharing their catastrophic news with their fellow man. Mary wins the debate, claiming that she hasn’t asked much of Michael over their 2,000-year relationship. \nAs the story continues, the reader sees how they deal with their trauma differently. Michael still wants to return to space and asks Mary if they can after presenting their findings to the President’s council. She says he can go without her, but he doesn’t think he could be away from her. Mary wants to die on the earth, while Michael wants to escape to space once again. When Michael hears that Mary is pregnant, he hops on board with her idea to stay on Earth. \nMichael and Mary are clearly a team. They have worked and existed together for 2,000 years without change and have watched all their friends and colleagues die. This trauma clearly bonded them, as Michael says he could never return to space without Mary. Although they may differ, they reach compromises and work together to find the best solution for the two of them. \n", "Michael and Mary are two humans from Earth who have effectively become immortal through a scar tissue culturing technology that allows them to continually regenerate entirely new bodies for themselves as their bodies grow old and die. They have been regenerating their bodies like this, and living on a spaceship together exploring the Milky Way for 2000 years. They love each other deeply.\nWhen they finally return to Earth to deliver the horrible news that there is no other planet in the galaxy that humans can live on, Mary declares to him that she must stay on Earth. She insists that she has loved him for so long (thousands of years) and has asked for very little except for them to now remain on Earth. \nMichael feels as though they should not have ever landed on Earth, but instead wishes they just delivered their message by radio and returned back into space. He can’t understand why she wants to live on Earth when it is so desolate. However, he says that he can not be without her and will kill himself if he were to go back into space alone. When Mary reveals in private to Michael that she is pregnant, they know they will not be accepted by society and hatch a plan to leave the city together. A human has not given birth to a child for 3000 years on Earth. Pregnancy was forbidden to reduce the population until it was low enough that there were sufficient resources available to sustain those that remained.\nThey successfully escape their city and the fate of solitary confinement from the council by threatening to kill themselves with their lockets, which would be a violent death that would cause the onlookers to go insane. This is so shocking and unacceptable to the council that the President grants them a ground car and a year of supplies to leave the city and never return. Michael and Mary find an oasis with vegetation and fresh spring water not far on their journey outside the city. It is a place for them to build a house and raise their child, which is joyful for both of them.\n", "Michael and Mary are a couple deeply in love. They join a crew of one thousand other humans, also comprised of couples, who leave Earth in order to find another habitable planet. As their fellow travelers slowly die over the course of 2,000 years, Michael and Mary continue to reincarnate through a special process of culturing their scar tissue. They also carry lockets that can kill them instantly when triggered and help them avoid a painful death. When they realize their mission has failed, Michael and Mary return to Earth to announce the news. Michael wishes to go back to space since he cannot stand the desolation of Earth and would rather spend the rest of his existence with Mary exploring the universe. Mary wants to stay on Earth because she misses her home and because she is pregnant, although she does not reveal this to Michael until just before President Davis reveals his decision to place the couple in solitary confinement. Michael is shocked because pregnancy had been banned on Earth at the time that atomic war and human greed had laid bare the planet's essential resources. Together, they decide to use their lockets as leverage against the council to force them to permit them to leave the city. Soon after doing so, they discover Earth is regenerating, and they will be able to make a new home for their child." ]	32744
What is the history of POSAT?	Write a detailed response to the following question about What is POSAT? by Phyllis Sterling Smith. Question: What is the history of POSAT? Answer:	[ "The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth, POSAT, is an ancient secret society. It was founded by a genius of a man who lived during the Italian Renaissance, roughly 400 years ago. The founder was a mathematician and scientist, and he invented calculus, created the quantum theory of light, and wrote Maxwell’s equations. However, he did not get credit for any of these ideas. He also designed the atomic reactor that Don sees in the laboratory of the building. The founder understood how dangerous the atomic bomb was, and he did not want to give his peers the tools to create such a powerful weapon. He did not trust men who were at war with one another over political power. Still, he did not want his knowledge to vanish when he died, so he created POSAT. He was willing to share his scientific and mathematical secrets, but he did not wish for untrustworthy people to get their hands on the information until it would be safe to do so. The founder also wanted POSAT to work towards a more peaceful society where everyone could be trusted to share knowledge and information without the fear of it leading to catastrophic events. \n\nIn the centuries since the society was founded, the members have invented new tools and technologies that are not available anywhere else in the world, like the atomic reactor shield and the lightbulbs that hang above each Renaissance painting in the waiting room. Yet, the secret society’s main goal is to create a civilized society, not new inventions. In an effort to make that vision a reality, members of POSAT created a very large computer that seeks to decode human motivation. The computer used Don’s multiple choice questionnaire to determine that Don would be a good fit for the society because he is trustworthy. Although it seems like POSAT should involve more renowned scientists and peacekeepers to make sure it accomplishes its mission, it must also guard all of its secrets, and in an increasingly surveilled state, that would be nearly impossible to do while also including great thought leaders. \n", "POSAT, or The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth, is a secret society that considers itself \"ancient and honorable\", which has been active since the Renaissance Era. They put ads in magazines to attract new members, stating that anyone can unlock the key to life through their pamphlets. The organization is led by a Grand Chairman, a spot currently filled by Dr. Crandon. When the organization was founded in the Renaissance Era, some four hundred years before the time in which the story takes place, the technology did not exist to act on the founder's theories. For instance, the atomic reactor that powers the headquarters has only been in use for twenty years, but was designed four hundred years ago. This was how the founder operated, well ahead of his time, developing ideas in the physical sciences far past what anyone would have expected, even of a genius. He donated a number of paintings from his personal collection, so much of the contemporary headquarters has his mark on it, even from an aesthetic standpoint. ", "POSAT was founded four hundred years prior to the events of the story by a genius mathematician and physical scientist and a group of fellow \"brilliant men\" capable of advancing his scientific discoveries and committing them to secrecy. The founder lived during the Italian Renaissance and used his own mind to invent and discover, among other things, calculus, the quantum theory of light, the theory of relativity, wave mechanics, and nuclear reactions. The founder realized mankind was not able to wield this knowledge responsibly, so POSAT was designed to withhold this information until the time came in history when they could be trusted with it. POSAT operates its headquarters in a large warehouse, in the center of which is a large lab full of researchers where Dr. Crandon oversees the continuing work of the founder. The warehouse also houses businesses like the pharmacy that employs desperate people like Bill Evans, who turns to POSAT as a last resort, and the print shop that publishes advertisements that reach people like Elizabeth Arnable, whose belief in mysticism borders on religious.", "The Perpetual Order of Seekers After Truth was founded four centuries ago by a genius. He discovered radioactivity and nuclear bombs hundreds of years before the rest of the world, designed the atomic reactor, invented calculus, and more. Impossible things that have yet to be discovered or invented in the 21st Century. The idea behind POSAT was to keep this man’s inventions a secret from the rest of the world, as well as continue making such amazing technological advances. \nSo, POSAT continued as a secret society, committing members who were dedicated to maintaining secrecy and developing ideas and theories that could be used to save the world, not harm it. They are currently dedicated to discovering more about the human motivation and how it can be used to perpetual world peace. This way all discoveries that are made in the future (however dangerous or wonderful they may be) will not be used to incite war, human disaster, or violence. \n" ]	51336
What is the relationship between Dark and Sim?	Write a detailed response to the following question about THE CREATURES THAT TIME FORGOT by RAY BRADBURY. Question: What is the relationship between Dark and Sim? Answer:	[ "Dark is the older sister to Sim. When both of their parents die from old age, on the eighth day of their existence, Dark takes over as a carrying role for Sim. She tries her best to impart knowledge to him about friends and enemies. Noticing the interactions Sim is having with other kids his age, she warns him about the violence that his future surely holds due to a new enemy. While she is not his mother and was not born much before him, she does take a protective role. She makes sure he is fed and defends him when he is being bullied. ", "Dark and Sim are brother and sister. They have a one-day difference, which is a lot on the planet. As other children, they are constantly eating to get knowledge. While the parents are alive, the two are too little to be close. When the parents die, the leave Dark to take care for Sim. She teaches him what she already knows and they share their thoughts about the knowledge they gain. They become really close during the day without parents. Dark is a friend, while Sim already has enemies. She warns her brother and says him what he should do. ", "Dark and Sim are siblings, Dark being one day older than Sim. Even when Sim is just born, he is able to see Dark and feel a connection with her, describing the feeling of their minds brushing. As Sim grows, he watches Dark model life for him. As they play in the valley, he notices the way she interacts with other children, and watches her eat in the cave. Though Dark is only one day older than Sim, time moves quickly, and she eventually must care for him when their parents die. She acts as a motherly figure to him, explaining life and making sure he eats and is protected.", "Dark and Sim have a good sibling relationship. Dark is one day older than Sim, therefore making her age even faster than him. Before she dies, their mother tells Dark to look after Sim because he is younger. When their parents die, she holds Sim and cries. However, she does not disobey her parents and goes when they tell her to go play. Dark also does not let go of Sim, even when he tries to twist out of her grasp. She holds his hand during the funeral procession, and they stick together afterward. They chatter like birds, feed among the rocks, and exchange what they know about life. Later, Dark tries to break Chion apart from Sim and tells her brother that these enemies are made over small things such as food. She says that he must eat in order to defend himself and also catch up to Lyte. Dark is sad that her brother may very well have to fight for Lyte, so she tells him that he needs weapons. She worries a lot for her brother and always looks out for him." ]	63874
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Lost Tribes of Venus by Erik Fennel. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "Engineer Barry Barr is one of the chosen few to ride on Number Three to Venus. His beloved Dorothy Voorhees would have been riding with him, but Barry had a piece of scaffolding drop on his ankle. Unable to make the first flight, Barry hops onto Number Four instead. \nOn the journey to Venus, a small meteor crashes into their hull at several hundreds of miles an hour. The effect is immediate: Ryan is killed in the jet room and traces of the meteor are stuck in the field. Barry wakes up when the alarm bells are sounded, and rushes to join the rest of the crew to figure out what’s going on. Nick Podtaguine is steering the ship with emergency controls while Captain Reno looks on. Once the jet room stabilized, Captain Reno opens the doors to find Ryan’s body and ruin. After fixing all that they could, Reno hit the accelerator, only to watch in dismay at it soared out of proportions. Captain Reno cut off the power, realizing that the meteor had left metal particles in the cylinder of force. He asks for volunteers to work outside of the ship and remove all traces of the meteor. No one volunteers at first because of how dangerous a task it is; Sigma radiation affects man in ways still unknown and incurable. After Robson Hind turns the task down, Barry volunteers. He steps outside in his spacesuit equipped to block radiation and removes them with the chisel. \nOnce he returns inside, he falls asleep and wakes a day later already feeling the effects of the radiation. His symptoms only increase: dryness, heat, and breathing difficulties. He faints upon standing and realizes that the Sigma radiation had seeped into his spacesuit. \nFour heads toward Venus while Barry suffers from an insatiable thirst. Finally, upon landing, they throw open the doors to let in the muggy Venusian air, and Barry feels like he can breathe again. Two and Three welcome them, and Barry throws his arms around Dorothy before fainting. Dr. Carl Jensen gives him water which Barry inhales. He’s growing gills on the sides of his neck, and dry air is becoming more intolerable. \nBarry asks Nick to build him a machine to let in moisture, allowing him to breathe better. He grows webbed fingers and toes. Dorothy doesn’t visit him while in hospital until she can’t bear it anymore. She bursts open the door and reveals she still loves him even though he has a wife and family back in Philadelphia. Barry reveals the falsehood and believes that Hind sent her a letter detailing this lie. One night, he wakes up to realize his moisture machine was broken and the door locked. He escapes by breaking the window and runs to the water. He dives in and inhales the water. Worms attack him, but he swims away to the ocean. He battles humanoid Venusians and kills one of them. He rescues a girl from being robbed. \n", "People are settling Venus, and those aboard ship Four have a close call when the ship is struck by a meteorite that damages the accelerators and leaves metal in a shaft. After the accelerator is repaired under the leadership of Robson Hind, they discover the metal. Barry Barr volunteers to do the spacewalk to remove the metal that is wedged in the shaft since he is unassigned on this voyage. Assigned members are considered unexpendable, so they are expected to stay and protect the ship. The spacewalk is dangerous due to the high concentration of deadly Sigma outside. Although their spacesuits have Kendall shields, no one knows how effective they are. Animals briefly exposed to Sigma die almost right away. Barr completes the work and returns to a hero’s welcome. \n\tSoon, Barr begins feeling strange. He’s ravenously hungry, extremely thirsty, and having difficulty breathing. He tries to eat, but the sense that the air is extraordinarily hot and dry makes it harder for him to breathe, and he passes out. However, when the ship reaches Venus, Barr breathes in the hot, humid air, and his breathing becomes much less labored. Feeling stronger, he seeks out the woman he loves, Dorothy Voorhees, who arrived at the colony on Three. They kiss, but then he passes out again, and when he wakes, Barr asks for water which he pours into his lungs. The doctor tells him that would normally kill a person. Barr scratches his neck and notices something growing there, which the doctor identifies as the beginnings of gills.\n\tBarr asks his friend to gather materials and build him a humidifier in the infirmary. With this device, Barr can breathe better. Barr longs to see Dorothy, especially since he knows Robson Hind is probably wooing her; the two men have been competing for her affections. At last, Dorothy comes to see him, claiming she loves him and can’t stay away even though he is married and has a child. Barr isn’t married and suspects that Hind planted the story to win Dorothy for himself. Later that night, Barr awakens, unable to breathe. An investigation shows that his humidifier’s water and power lines have been cut, and the door to his room is locked from the outside. Barr knocks out the window with a chair, runs outside, and dives into the slough. There, at last, he can breathe. He realizes that he has become a water breather, meaning he is no longer completely human. He stays in the slough until some worms start biting his eyelids, then makes his way to the ocean. He wants to stay close to the colony even though he can’t breathe on land anymore, but suddenly a group of human-like creatures with webbed fingers and toes like his descend on him and begin attacking with their spears and tube weapons. He kills one but sees two other males capture a female, and Barr attacks her attackers.\n", "Barry Barr is a structural engineer serving on Number Four, a ship taking part in the Five Ship Plan headed for Venus. The Five Ship Plan had been designed to avoid filling one ship to critical mass with fuel; instead, five ships would fill their tanks as much as safely possible, land on Venus, and the ship that had sustained the least amount of damage would take on the fuel reserves of the other four for the return trip to Earth unless a successful colony could be established on Venus. Barry had originally been assigned to Number Three, but an ankle injury caused him to take the later ship. A meteorite strikes Number Four, and since Barry is unassigned and therefore expendable, he goes outside the ship to remove the debris in spite of the dangerous presence of Sigma radiation, which had been known to kill animals. As he is outside, he thinks about Dorothy Voorhees, a toxicologist on Number Three with whom Barry is in love. The wealthy jet chief Robson Hind is also in love with Dorothy, although Dorothy only has a shallow interest in what he has to offer. Barry's spacesuit offers minimal protection against the radiation, and when he returns, he discovers he has indeed developed a kind of sickness that causes him to struggle to breathe in the ship's air. When Number Four finally lands on Venus, Barry is surprised to discover he can breathe much easier in the thick, humid atmosphere there. As Number Four reconnects with the makeshift colony the previous ships have constructed, Barry is reunited with Dorothy briefly before passing out. Dr. Carl Jensen examines Barry and keeps him on bed rest for several days. When Barry awakens, he recruits his friend Nick to help him fashion a machine that will transfer the Venusian atmosphere into his room so that he may breathe easier. Dr. Jensen is shocked at the physical changes in Barry; over time, he grows gills and webbed feet. Finally, Dorothy visits him in his room and reveals her true love for him; she had been hesitant to do so because she had received a communication from his wife in Philadelphia revealing Barry was married with a child. This news surprises Barry since he is not married; Robson must have written the letter to drive a wedge between him and Dorothy. When Barry awakens the next day, he discovers his door is locked and the machine drawing Venusian air into his room has been shut off. Desperate to breathe, Barry breaks out of his room and jumps into the nearby slough, where he is attacked by hundreds of hostile worms. He swims further out into an ocean, amazed by his ability to breathe underwater. Underwater, Barry runs into two Venusians who attack him and a female Venusian. Barry helps her and saves himself by fighting off the attackers.", "The spaceship Number Four is in free fall; its crew is doing everything they can to get it working again. As they tend to various systems, the outside threat is brought to the reader's attention: Sigma radiation, which is not well understood by humans but it is known to be dangerous. Barry Barr is selected to leave the ship to clear the meteorite debris for the sake of the crew. He works on cutting the meteorite debris, reflecting on the growing tension between himself and Robson Hind, the jet chief, over their mutual interest in Dorothy Voorhees, the dietician and toxicologist. Barry wakes up later feeling like he doesn't have enough air, and searches for a meal. As he tries to eat, he realizes he can't breathe, and it occurs to him that his suit's Kendall-shield, which was supposed to protect him from Sigma radiation, had leaked. Nobody knew quite what would happen to Barry after exposure to Sigma radiation. His breathing got worse over time and nobody could do anything for him without a doctor. The ship successfully lands on Venus, and Barry finds that the humid atmosphere makes it easier for him to breathe. He finds Dorothy, kissing her before Robson Hind shows up, then passes out and wakes up in a doctor's office. Barry inhales the water he was handed (literally ingesting it), surprising the doctor, who doesn't know what to do for Barry. They notice gills on Barry's neck, and Barry passes out again. Barry asks Nick Podtaguine, the mechanic, for help in building a machine. It seems Barry is now known for having saved the ship, so Nick figures he can get all the materials he needs, which only took him eight hours. The machine keeps Barry's room wet while keeping the excess water off of the floor. Barry recovers some energy now that he can breathe, and dreams of Dorothy Voorhees as he rests. He starts to develop webs on his hands and feet, and a full set of gills, but Dorothy still comes to visit him one day after having avoided Barry the entire time he'd been under the doctor's care. This helps his mood, but then he wakes up one day finding his machine turned off, and is unable to escape. Eventually he breaks a plastic window but the air doesn't have enough moisture for him, so he breaks out and jumps into the water. He faints again, inhales, and realizes his gills work just fine, which also makes him realize he is officially no longer human. He swims away from some worms who are interested in his eyelids, and eventually makes it to the ocean even though he wants to stay near the people. His lungs have not adjusted yet so he sinks again, awoken by yells of people. Barry finds a creature who looked a lot like Barry, with webbed limbs and pieces of clothing. The story ends in a skirmish with various Venusians and one other Earthman. " ]	63932
What is the significance of Janis's character on the rest of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Plague by Teddy Keller. Question: What is the significance of Janis's character on the rest of the story? Answer:	[ "In short, without Janis, Sergeant Andrew McCloud would not have discovered the cause of the epidemic as quickly or at all. \n\tNear the end of the story, Janis, an attractive blonde woman, enters Sergeant Andy’s office to deliver another stack of reports before him and Corporal Bettijean. The two of them had been analyzing the reports and statistics for several hours now, desperate to find a trend amongst those infected. So far, they had come up with nothing concrete, except for the types of people who were getting infected. Working people, artists, poets, newly engaged women, and small office workers were all turning up sick. Bigger offices, postal workers, doctors, dentists, and government workers were all fine. So, what’s the connection? \n\tAfter nervously delivering the reports, Janis quickly scurries out of the office and back to her desk elsewhere. Bettijean and Andy notice that the adult population in Aspen, Colorado; Taos; and Santa Fe, New Mexico is rapidly falling ill, all towns with prominent artistic industries. \n\tThey keep pouring over the reports, making new discoveries but still not coming up with any answers. Suddenly, a girl cries out from beyond his office. They hear a body fall to the floor, and they quickly rush out as the sounds of screaming emerge. Andy sends Bettijean to retrieve a doctor and a chemist, while he runs to help. Janis was lying on the floor, in pain and scared. Luckily, the virus is not contagious, so Andy and the others were able to help her. \n\tAndy interrogates her, asking detailed questions about her day and the past 12 hours. He tries to ascertain all the moments of her life, so he can pinpoint where and how she got infected. Her symptoms match up with the epidemic at hand (a fever and feeling dizzy), so Andy knows this is his best shot to find the origin. \n\tSlowly, she recounts her day and tells them all about what she did, where she was, and what she ate. She hides one thing though, which Andy quickly forces out of her. She wrote a letter to her mother, telling her about the epidemic and how scary it was. This is against regulations, as shown through Andy’s grunt of disapproval. She mailed it with her own stamps, not with a government envelope. \n\tAndy puts all the puzzle pieces together in his mind and realizes that all those people, Janis included, had one thing in common: writing letters. The poison was in the stamp. Without Janis, Andy would have struggled far longer to discover the illness and halt the production and sale of all stamps nationwide. \n\t\n", "Janis is the first person to fall sick with the mysterious disease in the Office of Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection. She had been one of the people delivering reports to Andy’s office, and head seemed nervous when she had entered last. She had fallen at her desk, and was shivering and horrified at what had happened. Once she was able to talk with Andy, he was able to ask her questions about her day. This was important because Andy had not yet found a connection that tied the victims of the epidemic together. He insisted that he tell her everything, and the fact that she sent a letter to her mother was the crucial fact that allowed Andy to put the story together. He was able to have Janis’ postage stamps tested for a toxin on the glued side, allowing him to finally find the root of the sickness and start the nationwide response, including giving the lab enough information to find out what was needed for a treatment. ", "Janis is the phone operator who falls ill as they are working to solve the mystery of the pandemic. She becomes the key to unlocking the mystery as she describes her day to Andy. She informs him that she sent a letter to her mother earlier in the day. This, along with the trends that are becoming apparent in the sick populations allows Andy to deduce that licking stamp adhesive is what is making people sick.", "Janis is the first person in McCloud’s office to become sick. First, she comes in to give him a report, and she fidgets and moves like she is nervous. Only a few minutes later, she collapses in the hallway. She is feverish and dizzy. \n\nWhen McCloud pressures her to tell him everything that she has consumed and done in the last day or so, Janis admits that she broke government regulations when she mailed a letter to her mother that detailed the epidemic. McCloud points out that she hardly let out a secret. The news of the epidemic has spread far and wide at this point. \n\nHe contemplates her story for several minutes and realizes that in order to send the letter, Janis must have licked a stamp. Janis’s illness turned out to be the essential clue. Without her explanation of the steps she took before she became sick, McCloud would not have the information he needed to solve the puzzle. \n" ]	30062
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Lorelei Death by Nelson S. Bond. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "Chip Warren and his crew of Salvation Smith, a righteous missionary, and Syd Palmer, mechanic, have landed in the Belt on their spaceship Chickadee II after discovering a mountain of ekalastron, a highly sought-after material. Their new fortune is cause for celebration, so Chip picks out a flashy tie, which Syd and Salvation both make fun of him for, and sets off to get a drink. Syd and Salvation do not join him, as the repairmen were still encasing their ship with ekalastron. \nThe asteroid Danae has a gravity that’s modeled after Earth, a good atmosphere, and features a wide variety of interplanetary species. Chip walks into Xu’ul’s Solarest and strolls past all the charm-gals, busy cabarets, and the native sing-stomp, before arriving in an empty, private bar. The Martian bartender serves him a new bottle of Scotch but is quickly frightened when a member of the Space Patrol steps in and accuses Chip of murder. The Martian runs off before the cop reveals himself to be Johnny Haldane, Chip’s old friend. After catching up briefly, Chip tells Johnny about their find on Titania and explains that they turned it all over to the Space Patrol, before visiphoning Earth. At this, Johnny becomes upset and explains that their message could have been intercepted by the mythic Lorelei. Chip laughs him off, but Johnny explains that for the past two months a beautiful blonde woman has been luring spacemen to their doom and stealing all their cargo. They decide to take on the Lorelei together, especially now that the Chickadee will be plated with ekalastron, an impenetrable material. Johnny claims he knows one of Lorelei’s men is on Danae right now getting more supplies, so they could follow him back to their base. As he says that, Johnny saves Chip by throwing him to the floor and sacrificing himself. He is killed by an assailant with a scar on his face. Chip tries to save his friend, but the bartender rushes back in with a horde of people, claiming Chip is the murder. Chip runs away, chasing after the true killer, but loses him. He runs back to the Chickadee, and they quickly take off, even though the plating was only halfway finished. Syd and Salvation question him, and he explains the situation, as they follow the scarred man to the Bog, an extremely dangerous asteroid-ridden area. As Chip attempts to look through the perilens, a beautiful woman pops up, crying for help: the Lorelei. Chaos ensues, and they try to get her off their transmission, while a blast rocks the hull. The Chickadee crashed, and Chip wakes up to see a large man standing above him. He and his men question Chip about the ekalastron, but Chip won’t reveal its location. The story ends with the pirate threatening to torture Chip. \n", "Chip Warren, of the spaceship Chickadee II, is preparing for a solo night out on the asteroid Danae. Syd Palmer is a friend of his, and Salvation Smith is a missionary who handles a gun famously well: they warn Chip to be careful of the dangers of the Belt on his night out. Chip heads to the casino on the surface of the asteroid, passing members of many races as he heads to the small private bar in the back of the casino, empty except for a Martian bartender. As soon as he gets his scotch, someone bursts in yelling for Chip's arrest. After the bartender runs away, Chip recognizes Johnny Haldane, an old friend. They talk about Chip's recent discovery of an entire mountain's worth of No. 97, or ekalastron, a light and strong metal worth a lot of money. Instead of selling to anyone, Chip, Syd, and Salvation had sent a message to Earth about the cargo, and would handle the details later. Johnny is immediately concerned that \"the Lorelai\" may have intercepted this message--a pirate group much like the sirens who distract ships in the ocean, but in space. As Chip laughs at the idea of a mythical creature being involved, Johnny stops him to explain all of the related destruction that's happened in the past two months--only one person had escaped alive. Johnny explains that the ekalastron would be quite the prize for the Lorelai, and Chip needed to find protection. Chip reminds Johnny that his ship was being plated and could be indestructable, so they decide to go after the Lorelei together. Just then, there is an attack: Johnny is hit in the face with flame while pushing Chip out of the way. Johnny dies and the attacker flees when he hears footsteps, leaving Chip calling for help. Unfortunately, the Martian bartender thought Johnny's murder accusation had been serious, had gone to get help, and now assumes Chip is responsible for Johnny's death. A miner shoots at Chip, who runs to catch the real murderer to save himself. When he gets back to the Chickadee, he yells at Syd to get the ship moving, and spots the ship the murderer is leaving on. They move the ship as quickly as they can, and Chip catches his friends up as they fly towards the Bog, a region densely packed with asteroids. As they approach, they spot a phantom that is undeniably the Lorelei, calling for help. They try to modify their viewing equipment to get rid of the image, but she stays and keeps calling, and the ship was hit in the part that hadn't yet been plated. They are hit again and the men eventually pass out. As Chip comes to, he finds himself on the surface of a planet surrounded by pirates who laugh at him and explain that they want his ekalastron--they had intercepted Chip's message to Earth, but they still want to know where he got it. ", "Chip Warren is going to celebrate discovering a mountain of ekalastron by drinking scotch while the other crewmen, Syd Palmer and Salvation Smith, stay with the ship. Chip enters a bar where he orders his scotch when the door bursts open and a voice yells for the bartender to grab Chip, stating he is wanted for murder on four planets. Terrified, the bartender flees the bar, and Chip faces his accuser, who is actually his old friend Johnny Haldane, a Space Patrol officer playing a joke on him. They talk, and Chip explains he is plating his ship with the ek they found. When Chip says they visiphoned Earth authorities they were bringing in a cargo of ek, Haldane stops him and explains how dangerous that is, warning he might have set himself up to be a victim of the Lorelei.\n Chip believes the Lorelei is a myth, but Haldane tells him it is real. In the last two months, a dozen spacecraft have been taken, their crews murdered, and the cargo stolen. Haldane urges Chip to go back to Jupiter or Io with a Space Patrol escort, but Chip reminds him that his ship will be invincible. Haldane then encourages Chip to join him in Chip’s spacecraft to take down the Lorelei together. Haldane is looking for one of the Lorelei’s men who is on the asteroid for supplies and will follow the man to the Lorelei base.\n Suddenly, Haldane throws Chip aside as a flame shot hits the scotch. The gun fires again, burning Haldane’s face and killing him. Chip fires off a shot at the assailant, making him flee, and checks on Haldane, but the man is already dead. Then the bartender bursts into the bar with a mob behind him, pointing out Chip as the murderer wanted on four planets. He accuses Chip of killing Haldane since he is standing over the man’s body with his flame gun.\n Chip runs from the bar back to his ship and tells the men to take off right away. They haven’t finished plating the ship with ek, but Chip needs to catch the assailant to prove his innocence. As they travel, Chip looks through the perilens and sees a beautiful blonde woman who motions for them to come to her. Her voice comes through the ship’s audio, and she implores the men to help her. No matter what frequency he uses with his perilens, all he can see is her image. They are hit with a tractor-blast. Chip is stunned his ship is damaged, but Syd reminds him they hadn’t finished applying the ek. When the ship is hit again, Chip slams into the instrument panel and loses consciousness.\n Regaining consciousness, Chip is lying on the ground, surrounded by several men. The leader tells him they have unloaded his cargo and demands that Chip tell them where they found the ek, threatening to beat the information out of him if Chip refuses.\n", "Chip Warren and his shipmates Syd Palmer and \"Salvation\" Smith dock at the Donae asteroid spaceport to refuel and allow their jerry-crew to plate the ship, the Chickadee II, with a protective layer of ekalastron--a powerfully strong, resilient metal of which the team had recently discovered a massive store which they planned to turn over to Space Patrol. As the crew work to cover the ship with the thin metal, Chip goes into the nearby town to celebrate his discovery. He finds Xu'ul's Solarest, a place where citizens from every planet in the Solar System could drink, gamble, and dance together; Chip, however, wants to be alone so he finds a quiet bar manned by a Martian bartender who gives him a bottle of Scotch. Soon, Chip's reverie is disturbed by a loud man accusing him of being a wanted murderer, which frightens the bartender into fleeing the room. Chip's accuser turns out to be his old friend Johnny Haldane, and they laugh and drink together as they catch up. Chip tells Johnny about his ekalastron discovery and about his intentions to deliver his cargo to authorities on Earth. As a Space Patrol officer himself, Johnny warns Chip that his communications with Earth may have been intercepted by the space siren Lorelei and her crew of pirates. At first, Chip shrugs off this suggestion, as he considers Lorelei to be only a myth, but Johnny reveals he is actually on Donae tracking one of her men. Remembering the protective qualities of the ekalastron coating his ship, Chip invites Johnny to join him on the Chickadee II, and they will hunt Lorelei and her crew together. After making this agreement, the two men are suddenly attacked, presumably by the man Johnny is pursuing, and he shoots and kills Johnny. Enraged, Chip flees the bar in pursuit of Johnny's killer with a horde of men tailing him, since the bartender believed Chip was the actual murderer thanks to Johnny's earlier joke. Chip runs back to the ship, and they begin their pursuit of Lorelei's man, despite the ekalastron coating being incomplete. Chip and his team realize they must catch the man in order to find evidence proving Chip's innocence in Johnny's murder. Along the way, they enter The Bog, a region of tightly packed asteroids, where Chip spots Lorelei through the ship's perilens. In an attempt to escape her broadcast, Chip exposes the Chickadee's location to the enemy ship, which quickly takes down the Chickadee II with a couple of crushing blasts. After Chip wakes up, he discovers he has been captured by Lorelei's people, who press him for information as to the whereabouts of the rest of the ekalastron. There is no sign of his shipmates." ]	62039
Describe a flitterboat and when it is used.	Write a detailed response to the following question about His Master's Voice by Randall Garrett. Question: Describe a flitterboat and when it is used. Answer:	[ "A flitterboat is a more economical option than a full spaceship. It is described as having a single gravitoinertial engine. It is meant to have the most basic necessities that are needed for a person to survive their journey, which includes oxygen, water, and the requirement of food necessary. The flitterboat is not necessarily more affordable, but it does provide the purpose of transporting from one Belt to another Belt. Daniel Oak details how a vacuum suit is needed to be worn in a flitterboat. Daniel describes the flitterboat as a tool that does its job, but is not comfortable. ", "A flitterboat is a small, single-person space vehicle capable of navigating from beacon to beacon in the Belt, an area of space in which it is impractical to use full-sized spaceships. It is propelled by a single engine, and contains only a few things necessary for life - water, air, and small amounts of food. \n\tIn order to ride in a flitterboat, the passenger must wear an uncomfortable vac suit and sit straddling a drive tube. The main body of the vessel is composed of a material called transite, which is nearly transparent. The gravitational force inside a flitterboat is one gee. \n", "A flitterboat is a smaller spaceship used for individual transportation on the Belt; to use a full sized spaceship would be inconvenient and impractical, so the flitterboat is used for local travel for one. It has a singular engine and can carry air, and a bit of food and water. It contains an anchor that holds the boat to the ground. Because it is only meant for short travels, one can only last a short amount of time in one, so flitterboats are used to get to and from different beacon points in the neighborhood.", "The flitterboat has a single gravitoinertial engine and it contains a few necessities of life, air, water and little food. But this flitterboat still costs quite a lot. The flitterboat is used for short distance travelling since it is very hard to stay in a vacuum suit for too long. Thus it is common to hop from beacon to beacon, and this decreases the average speed since most of the time one would spend accelerating and decelerating. The flitterboat has a bucket seat for the driver and it produces a one-gee pull. It sits on the drive tube in a way similar to a witch on a broomstick. Importantly, a flitterboat cannot be stopped whenever it wants to, instead it has to get to a beacon station. Oak uses it when he was told by Raverhurst to travel to Ceres, he wears a vacuum suit when he was going to ride it. First he allowed the boat to get to the top of the planetoid by releasing the magnetic anchor and once the station is reached, the flitterboat has to be parked at the specific space assigned by the Landing Control." ]	48513
How does June feel and interact with Patrick Mead?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Contagion by Katherine MacLean. Question: How does June feel and interact with Patrick Mead? Answer:	[ "Upon meeting Patrick, June makes note of his tall frame and how his appearance resembles her own. She seems to admire his looks. She in turn feels guilty as Max, her partner, seems to not compare well to Patrick in her own eyes. She also notes that Max is frailer than Pat. Back on the ship, June admires herself during the spacesuit decontamination process. Evident from Max’s reaction, it is unusual for her to do so in such a manner. It is hinted that Pat’s appearance prompted her examination. \n\nFurther, into the story, June begins to express more uneasiness with Max’s figure. She also does not appear to like that so many women are giving Pat a lot of attention. She continues to feel guilty as she sees her feelings toward Pat as being disloyal to Max, who she thinks she loves. \n\nShe again shows her jealously when Pat is seen walking down a hallway with Shelia Davenport, who June herself describes as gorgeous. \n", "June has been isolated with the passengers of the ship for one year and a half, and Pat is the first new man she meets. He is tall and handsome, especially on the contrast with her boyfriend Max, who is of the same height as she is and not handsome. She didn't care about Max's appearance before as she loves him, but presence of Max evokes some feeling of admiration in her. She is disappointed in how Max looks on the contrast. Pat also possesses a cheerful and gay attitude, especially on the contrast with the crew, which is tired of constant searching. Pat seems an attractive movie character for June and she tries to stay afar as she feels guilty before Max. She is also jealous of all the women approaching Pat. In the end the two even flirt slightly. ", "June is in a romantic relationship with Max. However, throughout the story, she finds herself drawn to Pat and cannot seem to explain why. Upon meeting Pat, June is stunned by his appearance, and immediately becomes aware of her looks and behavior, smiling around him. When Pat meets the rest of the people aboard The Explorer, he gains a lot of attention from the women on the ship, who are evidently flirting with him. June feels herself becoming jealous, but tries to deny her emotions and reassures herself of her love for Max. However, she still finds herself wanting to be near Pat. ", "When June first meets Patrick Mead, she is instantly friendly towards him. He smiles at June and says that many people in the colony look like them because of their similar features. Pat is very handsome, and June even feels guilty for pitying Max because he is smaller and frailer in comparison. When she goes to the shower stall later, she even remarks how she has a good figure. When Max asks if they are going to eat, she chooses to dial Pat first instead. June realizes that Pat’s voice is full of vitality and enjoyment. After Pat is swarmed in the dining hall, June is very happy to have been the one who rescues him. She gets jealous when the other female specialists swarm the man. Even when she looks at Max again, he feels shrunken and shorter than before. She is angry at herself and feels guilty for doubting the love that she shares with Max, despite being immensely attracted to Pat. During her encounter with Pat in the hallway later, he touches her arm lightly, and she says, “Oh, pioneer!” to his passing profile. " ]	50774
What is the relationship between the Andrews family and those in their employ?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Wanderers of the Wolf Moon by NELSON S. BOND. Question: What is the relationship between the Andrews family and those in their employ? Answer:	[ "Generally, the Andrews family is dismissive of their household staff, which include Gregory Malcolm, ‘Tina Laney, Sparks, and a cabin-boy. J. Foster Andrews, the head of the family, impatiently calls for his secretary, Gregory Malcolm, to complain about the quality of their morning honey. J. Foster learns that Malcolm doesn’t know that state of the Galactic market, but dismisses the reason that Malcolm provides, instead concluding that the radio technician Sparks is drunk. \n\tDuring the evacuation to the life skiff, Crystal Andrews, J. Foster’s daughter, remembers her maid ‘Tina Laney and asks where she is, apparently paying mind to her safety. In contrast, her fiancé Ralph Breadon is dismissive of Malcolm, and later blames him for the life skiff’s crashing into Titan. Upon the cabin-boy’s revelation that it was, in fact, Breadon who inadvertently caused the skiff’s malfunction, Breadon strikes the cabin-boy. \n\tOn Titan, ‘Tina is instructed to remove things from the skiff by the women of the Andrews family, who do not help, and Sparks and Malcolm are harshly instructed to make themselves useful. ", "The Andrews family resembles a royal one; they are wealthy and own the monopoly of Galactic Metals Corporation, with over ten thousand employees. The Andrews family is aware of their wealth and power, and treat their employees as significantly inferior to them. They also believe that any problems that arise are due to their employers, and insist that their products are perfect enough to not be subject to any problems. This is shown in the story when Malcolm first sees the Andrews family to update them on the situation at hand, and J. Foster Andrews expects his workers to be able to resolve the issue themselves. ", "The Andrews family seem to have different attitudes towards their employees. Through the first part of the story, we see that at first J. Foster Andrews is not paying much attention to Greg, who is his employee, even when speaking with him. J. Foster Andrews simply replies “fine” to Greg’s answer of no transmission. Then he realizes what Greg is actually saying and then without allowing Greg to explain what he means by no transmission and how it has happened, he continues to scold them and order Greg to do things. Maud Andres tells him to stop and lets Greg explain himself. Greg on the other hand is very polite. He greets the Andrews family when entering the dining room, and thanks Miss Andrews for letting him to explain himself. On the contrary, later in the story, Breadon does not thank Greg even when he complements Breadon, instead, Breadon just accuses him for the crash just because he touched the control. But still, Greg is being very polite and calm, and it is in strong contrast to Breadon’s anger and rudeness. Lastly, in the end, the readers see that Maud Andrews, the sister of J. Foster Andrews, is very surprised when she hears that Greg knows where they are. ", "J. Foster Andrews employs around ten thousand people for his Galactic Metals Corporation. He is described as Napoleonic, especially when talking towards his employees. He is loud and demanding towards Malcolm and interrupts him many times when he speaks. His sister Maud even remarks that he has to give Malcolm a chance to respond. Maud inquisitively judges Malcolm and the other employees. When the ship is about to crash and everybody is rushing towards the life skiff, the Andrews family has more regard for their pets or fights than for saving others on the ship. \n\nAndrew continuously commands orders from his employees and has no patience for anything but extreme obedience from them. The rest of the family continues to demand the employees take after them once they leave the ship after their crash landing. They are more concerned about their own comfort than the well-being of the employees. Both Ralph and J. Foster take action trying to one-up one another in an attempt to show their power over their employees. Neither wants to be a fool. At the end of the story when Malcolm is able to approximate their location, Maud, a member of the Andrews family, is taken aback by Malcolm's discovery. She reacts as if she is surprised an employee could be smart.\n" ]	63048
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Yesterday House by Fritz Leiber. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "Jack Barry is a biology student, who sets sail on his boat \"Annie O\". He has sailed out to the furthest island off the coast of Maine. He gets to the shore and docks his boat. He sets out to explore the island. Once he reaches the summit, he finds that there is another island, connected by a thin line of rocks to the one he is on. He climbs down the slope, onto the rocks and crosses to the other side. He arrives at a gate, which he manages to overcome. Beyond the fence is a cottage, with a lawn. The whole scene is old fashioned and slightly eerie. An elderly woman comes out of the house, gets in an old car and drives away. A pretty girl, dressed like a flapper comes out. Jack walks over to her. She asks if he is the man who sends her little boxes. She tells him she lives here with her aunts. They talk for a while, Jack telling her about his professor \" Martin Kesserich\", whom he's staying with. The girl tells Jack her name is Mary Alice Pope. She says she's never been to the mainland, and that she's never met anyone her own age, let alone a man. She explains to him that every morning she receives a little box with a gift inside, and a note, signed by \"Your Lover\". She tells him she was born in the middle of the first world war, and that the year is 1933. Jack tries to convince her that it is in fact 1951. She doesn't believe him. They hear her aunt's car returning, so Jack leaves, telling her he'll be back tomorrow. He makes his way back to the Annie O. Once at sea, he sees the chug boat of one of Mary Alice's aunts, who points what looks like a rifle at him, before turning away to go back to the island. When Jack returns to his professor's home, he asks Mrs Kesserich about Mary Alice. She informs Jack that Mary Alice was the love of her husband's life, who died in 1933. Martin arrives home, and begins a hypothetical discussion with Jack about the possibility of recreating a human being. If you could take the same DNA as the original, and put the copy in the same circumstances as the one before, they would be the same. He tells Jack that he won't be here the following day. Jack wakes up the next morning and sets off for the little island. He brings with him newspapers from the present day to try and convince Mary Alice the truth, that it is in fact 1951, and not 1933. He tells her that she has been a victim of a conspiracy to make her believe it is a different year. He asks her to come back to the mainland with her. She then tells him that she can't, as the man who sends her the boxes is coming tonight. ", "Jack Barry is a biology student under Professor Martin Kesserich, spending the summer studying marine biology. Though he is advised not to sail to the farther islands, one day he decides to anyway, taking his sailboat to a quiet cove. As he sets foot on the island and begins to explore, he realizes that there is another island hidden behind it. Awestruck, Jack heads towards the island and comes across a barbed fence, and beyond it, a cottage. He watches as a woman dressed in a long lace dress enters a car in the driveway and drives off. He then sees a girl in a white dress come out of the cottage, holding a newspaper. Jack approaches the girl, startling her, and she asks him whether he is the man who has been sending her boxes. Jack asks the girl questions, revealing that the woman from earlier is the girl's aunt, who brings her newspapers and other things from the mainland while she remains on the island. The girl offers Jack some lemonade, and he introduces himself, and in return the girl gives her name: Mary Alice Pope. Mary reveals that Jack is the first man she has met in real life, and that though she feels loneliness, she is greeted each morning with a small box containing a gift, all addressed from her \"lover\". Upon asking when the last time Mary visited the mainland was, she says that she was born eighteen years ago, in the middle of the World War. Perplexed, Jack notices that the newspaper Mary is holding is dated 1933. He asks her about the old newspaper, but Mary believes the newspaper is recent, that the current date is 1933 and not 1953, the actual date. Inside the cottage, Jack notices an old recording playing. In a terrified panic, Jack hurries back to his ship as Mary's aunt returns, promising to be back soon. As Jack scrambles to his boat and heads back home, he notices another boat overtake him, steered by a woman resembling those back on the island, but the boat turns back around. Back at the Kesserich's place, Jack asks Mrs. Kesserich if she knows of Mary Alice Pope. Mrs. Kesserich explains that Mary Alice Pope was Martin's fiancee, who died in an accident in 1933; Martin was intensely in love with her, but his sisters disliked her, and one night while waiting for Martin to arrive by train, she fell into the tracks and was killed. Suddenly, Martin enters, eager to tell Jack about his new discoveries about recreating individuals; specifically, about how it could be achieved if you replicated environments for both individuals. Jack comes to a realization, and the next morning he hurries over to the island. He brings recent newspapers for Mary, explaining that she is being manipulated to believe that it is 1933 on purpose. Mary is reluctant and frightened, and Jack tells Mary to follow him.", "Jack Barry sails his boat called the Annie O into a cove. Once he is close enough to the ledge, he scrambles onshore and throws a line around a boulder. He has sailed to the farthest island out from the coast of Maine and decides to look around some more. He enjoys exploring but is surprised to see signs of human life on the island. He sees an older woman come out to drive an ancient Essex. Soon after, a younger girl in a white silk dress emerges too. Jack takes this opportunity to speak to her, and she asks if he is the one sending little boxes. When he says no and explains his reason for being on the island, she says that she and her three aunts live in the area. He tells her that he is a Biology student studying marine ecology under Professor Kesserich, the greatest living biologist. The girl introduces herself as Mary Alice Pope, and they have a conversation about why Mary must be alone all the time. She tells him that she receives boxes from and letters somebody signed ‘Your Lover’ for as long as she can remember. Jack notices that she has a paper from 1933, and she tries to convince him that it is from the day before yesterday. Mary brings him into the house to show him more proof, and he finds it extremely odd. He then leaves the island on his boat once they hear her aunts coming back. Jack then visits Mrs. Kesserich, who informs him that the original Mary Alice Pope was Martin Kesserich’s fiancee and died in an accident in 1933. She explains how his sisters, Hilda and Hani, hated her for stealing Martin away. However, when the three of them went to visit him during his research on growth and fertilization, they could not prevent Mary Alice’s death. Suddenly, Martin Kesserich comes home. Martin and Jack then have a conversation about individuality, to which the professor reveals the possibility of controlling heredity by will. Jack begins to grow concerned, but Kesserich dismisses his thoughts and changes the topic. The next day, Jack buys half a dozen newspapers when he has his clam chowder and goes back to the island to find Mary Alice. She tells him to go away quickly because he is a wicked man, but he shows her the newspapers. Although Mary Alice tries to reason, he tells her to come with him to prove that she is being made to live a lie that has cut her off from the world.\n", "A man observes a quiet cove and a boat for a while, then he moves into the island he has disembarked on, climbs a fence and finds himself inside a huge cottage garden. He sees a woman driving away in an ancient car and then a girl with a newspaper. The stranger greets her and she is terrified as she has never seen a man or anyone except her aunts before. She takes him for someone who has been sending her boxes with some presents accompanied by a note from 'your lover'. Turns out, the girl lives with two aunts who bring her newspapers, books and movies, while she stays home and never goes to the mainland. The man introduces himself as Jack Barry and tells about his marine ecology research for a great biologist Professor Kesserich. Jack lives with the professor and his wife, who told him not to go to these islands and thus stimulated his curiosity. Mary, the girl, tells about being born eighteen years ago in the middle of World War I and startled when Jack sees a headline about Hitler in her newspaper. The girl claims this newspaper dated the year 1933 is two days old while the man knows it is the year 1953. Jack follows her into the house and hears old news on the radio and an approaching car, Mary asks him to leave. He runs towards his boat and sets sail, far away he sees a motorboat and a woman with a rifle. Back home Mrs. Kesserich tells him Mary Alice Pope was Martin Kesserich's fiance and died in a railway accident in 1933. She also shows a photo of the girl Jack met earlier that day. Martin was deeply in love with Mary and his sisters hated her for that. One day all three of them were waiting for Martin's train on their horses and Mary's rushed before the train. Suddenly, the professor returns home and his wife's story ends. The two men talk about biology and the professor brings up the topic of recreating the same individuals. Next day Jack buys modern newspapers and visits Mary. Jack proves to her that the year is 1953 and begs to come with him to the mainland. The girl insists that she has to wait for the man sending her boxes who is coming that night. Jack realizes with terror the man is the professor. \n" ]	50905
Why are the newspapers such an important part of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Yesterday House by Fritz Leiber. Question: Why are the newspapers such an important part of the story? Answer:	[ "The newspapers are such an important part of the story because they are an indicator as to the different characters' understanding of the time period. On the island, Mary Alice is surrounded by many items and artefacts to gaslight her into thinking that the year is 1933. These include the old fashioned car and radio, which plays news from the past. The one main item used to convince her are the newspapers. Hani and Hilda, who refer to themselves as her \"aunts\", give her a new newspaper every day with the date on it. It is a way for her to keep track of the passing time, albeit incorrect. When Jack Barry sees these newspapers and exclaims that they are wrong, Mary Alice is understandably shocked, and doesn't believe him. She doesn't know that newspapers aren't supposed to be yellow, because to her, newspapers have always been yellow. They are also very important to her because even though they are false, they are her only connection to what the outside world is like, apart from the radio, film and books. They are the real time news of what is happening in the world. At the end of the story, Jack Barry takes some current newspapers, in the hopes that he can convince her that the ones she possesses are decades old, and that she is, in fact, living in 1951. She doesn't believe him at first, pointing out that the papers he has could be fake, but when he states that only old papers are yellow, it seems that she begins to believe him. ", "The newspaper that Mary is holding when Jack first meets her is visibly old and yellowed, and dated from 1933. This newspaper is what initially makes Jack realize that something is off about Mary and the island. The newspapers are a critical part of Martin's plan in recreating his fiancee in a new individual. He delivers the old newspapers to make Mary Alice believe that the events are happening in real time. In fact, when Jack tries to explain to Mary Alice that she is being manipulated, she uses the old newspapers as her own proof that she is truly in 1933.", "Newspapers are an important part of the story because they reveal the lies told to Mary Alice. When she first meets Jack, she shows him the yellowed newspaper and says that it is the morning news from the day before yesterday. When Jack points out that the paper is from many years ago, she refuses to believe him and even implies that he is lying to her. The newspapers also help lead Jack to ask Mrs. Kesserich about Mary Alice Pope and why she believes she is living in 1933. Later, the newspaper from present-day that Jack buys finally convinces Mary Alice that she is living in a simulated lie. Although she is initially suspicious, he does manage to make her see the truth and question why the people around her would lie to her. ", "For the girl the newspapers are almost the only way to learn something about the world and to divert herself as she is never brought to the mainland. They are also the way Jack learns about her being tricked. He proves his point of it being the year 1953 also by bringing newspapers. Mary's newspapers are yellow which proves their age. The tool for creating the lie and the tool for destroying it is the same in the story. With the help of contemporary newspapers, Jack is able to convince the girl to believe him and to save her from deception. The whole plan of the professor is ruined mainly because of the newspapers. " ]	50905
Describe the setting of the story.	Write a detailed response to the following question about What is POSAT? by Phyllis Sterling Smith. Question: Describe the setting of the story. Answer:	[ "“What is POSAT?” takes place in an unspecified city. Three of the characters, Bill, Elizabeth, and Don, lead ordinary lives and hold typical jobs. Don is a physicist, and the laboratory he works at is located about 100 miles away from the POSAT headquarters. \n\nThe POSAT headquarters is the main setting described in the story. It is located at the end of an alley in an unassuming warehouse, next to a wholesale pharmacy, an upholstery shop, and a printer’s plant. The building is almost entirely windowless, and the only sign that the secret society is housed there is the organization’s emblem on its door. \n\nVisitors enter a dark room with a staircase. A buzzer goes off to let the employees of POSAT know that someone has arrived. The reception room is dusty and highly unimpressive. The wallpaper and rugs are worn out and gray, and the woman who works at the beat-up reception desk is average looking. \n\nThe next room that some visitors are allowed access to is entirely different from the first. There are gorgeous Renaissance paintings on the walls, framed with ornate gold decoration and lit up with individual lights. The rug is lush, and the room is impeccably clean. \n\nFinally, when visitors are invited to meet with the Grand Chairman, they must enter a balcony area located in the interior of the warehouse. There is a frosted glass door with the Grand Chairman’s name on it. On the lower floor, there is a laboratory that is visible from the balcony. The lab contains advanced equipment that is not available anywhere else in the world. It also houses an atomic reactor that is shielded by a bluish-green invention that is about an inch thick The shield is semi-transparent but also incredibly strong. Beneath the balcony, down a steep flight of stairs, there is a gigantic computing machine. Everything that goes on in the POSAT building must remain confidential, and very few individuals are told the secrets of the ancient society. \n", "The primary setting in this story is that of the POSAT headquarters. Hidden in a back alley in a warehouse district, it proved hard to find for Donald when he was invited for an interview. In this same warehouse are a number of businesses, including a pharmacy where POSAT places Bill with a job. The first room in the POSAT headquarters is a dingy waiting room, which acts as a facade or screening room of sorts so that they do not show their hand to people they are not sure will want to enter the organization. The real waiting room is a gorgeous, ornate room with Renaissance paintings on the walls, part of the personal collection of POSAT's founder. There was a beautiful rug on the floor, some filing cabinets, and some curious fluorescent lights that seemed more advanced that Donald figured possible. Past this room, the Grand Chairman has an office that is also ornate, with a frosted glass door, but between this office and the waiting room there is a balcony. This balcony acts like a bridge between the two rooms over a laboratory. This laboratory is visible from this walkway and is full of extremely advanced technology that Donald is not able to identify by sight, as it is beyond its time. Even the glass-like substance acting as a shielding window between him and the laboratory is too thin to be a substance known by his contemporaries. ", "The story centers on three main characters who separately discover the advertisements of the POSAT in different locations. Bill Evans discovers it while reading through a magazine left on a bus seat. Elizabeth Arnable finds the advertisement in the Antivivisectionist Gazette, which she reads in a room with her many cats and a radio. Don Alford receives his invitation to meet with the Grand Chairman of POSAT, which is located nearly one hundred miles away from his home. The POSAT headquarters calls a giant, sprawling warehouse home. The concrete, windowless warehouse covers an entire city block and also houses a printer's plant, upholstering shop, and a pharmacy where Bill Evans finds new employment. Several alleys make way for loading platforms at various locations around the warehouse as well. Don Alford finds the entrance to POSAT at the back of an alley, and he enters through a frosted glass door and walks up a dark, murky stairwell to a dingy reception room. The room Don enters beyond the reception area, however, is ornately decorated with rugs and paintings from the Renaissance periods. Bright tubes light the paintings from above, which astonishes Don because they are neither battery-powered nor wired to anything. His meeting with the Grand Chairman of POSAT takes place outside the room with the paintings on a balcony overlooking the vast warehouse interior. Looking out upon the warehouse floor, Don observes several men appearing to conduct experiments in some kind of laboratory populated with scientific instruments he has never before seen (except for an atomic reactor obscured by a bluish-green plastic). At the bottom of another flight of stairs, Dr. Crandon shows Don the world's largest computer, which was used to analyze his questionnaire results and may be used to predict and motivate human behavior.", "What is POSAT? by Phyllis Sterling Smith takes place in several different settings. However, much of it takes place in the POSAT headquarters itself. A long dark stairway leads to the receptionist’s room. It’s dusty and a little unattractive, but the window that lets in sunlight helps hide that fact. The waiting room is grand and luxurious, filled with ancient, Renaissance paintings and ornate gilding. The paintings were lit up from the bottom by contained radioactive lights. The headquarters has a laboratory in it as well, filled with previously uninvented equipment, such as an atomic reactor. Scientists and worker bees are hard at work, studiously bent over their equipment. In the basement rests a supercomputer equipped with the ability to understand humans based on their answers to multiple-choice questions or the papers they write. " ]	51336