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What is the significance of the mountain?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Highest Mountain by Bryce Walton. Question: What is the significance of the mountain? Answer:	[ "The mountain is a sign of an impossible obstacle that the conquerors from Earth want to overcome, topple. Their urge to expand their territories and own the entire Solar System forces the Martians to come up with an illusion of something that can stop the destruction humans are spreading. The Martian mountain is a part of the hypnotic vision the conquered had access to, but they never saw the Martian city. They all ultimately died trying to climb it, from their drive to conquer everything they could find. The mountain is a perfect symbol of humans’ greed for territories and power, and it is also what stops them all from expanding their so-called empire. ", "The mountain is significant because it is the ultimate challenge that the Martians laid out for the humans. Since they are aware of the Conquerors and horrors on Venus, the mountain is an illusion that was made to stop the humans and let only the good ones live. Helene explains that the people on Earth will get the opportunity to live on Mars too, but the terrible ones must be destroyed so that civilization can be preserved on Mars. Even though everybody wants to scale the mountain in hopes of finding some sort of new discovery or territory for the totalitarian Earth, the mountain serves as a trap that kills all of the ones who try to conquer it. The mountain is what also hides the Martian world away, only fading away when there is only one sane human from each crew left. ", "The mountain, placed there intentionally by the Martians, acted as a test for the Conquerers. Most of the people coming from Earth had a will to conquer, and the Mountain served as a physical manifestation of this desire. It becomes evident throughout the climb that the Mountain continuously rises above the initial estimate, and yet humans overtaken by their desire to conquer this will continue to stride on. By doing so, they have failed the test. \n\nIt is significant because it demonstrates the supposedly innate and greedy determination of humans to be the Conquerer and be at the top - figuratively and literally. Even when a task seems improbable, a human's ego will feed this determination. This will to conquer that is fuelled without reason or morality. And it's only through this test that the Martians are able to identify which humans do not have this senseless will, that they are rewarded with the supposed oasis that the Conquers themselves desired to take over. ", "The mountain symbolizes a challenge to be conquered. It plays a significant role in the story as every Earthmen coming from Earth with the will of conquest would climb the mountain. The mountain is very high that Earthmen can see it from the space and that Earthmen with the will of domination would want to climb to the top, which they will never succeed. Everyone who climbs the mountain will eventually die as it is a hypnotic-like phenomenon, which cannot be described in human language, created by Martians. Martians make this mountain because they know that Earthmen with the will of conquest cannot bear not to climb it since they enjoy the feeling of belittling others and the power of conquering, which is shown through their actions of killing anything or anyone in their ways even though those killed species may not have any intention to harm them. The story also plays a crucial role in distinguishing between people with the will to conquest and people who has no desire to conquer. Those who have no will to dominate will not climb the mountain, and they will be sent to the reality of Mars, where everything is adorable and peaceful. In the story, only four people out of five flights can get to the Martian reality, which again shows the significance of the mountain. Using the mountain phenomenon, Martian will be able to stop the Earthmen’s interplanetary conquest that Mars will be the furthest they can reach as they will keep climbing the mountain until they die." ]	50868
What happens to Terrence throughout the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Highest Mountain by Bryce Walton. Question: What happens to Terrence throughout the story? Answer:	[ "Terrence is the ship’s captain. At the beginning, he serves as a judge when he interrogates Bruce, who killed the other crew member Doran. Terrence listens to the story about Venus and claims that Bruce is not a true conqueror and is simply a psycho. He then asks a question about Bruce’s dreams and later hears the story of Doran's death. Stromberg then concludes that Bruce has schizophrenia caused by inner conflict. He also supposes that Doran imagined the strange creature after Terrence asks him to explain the actions of the killed crew member. Finally, instead of killing Bruce, Terrence orders him to sit by the radio and write down everything they report while climbing. He reports that they are at fifteen and then twenty-five thousand feet and are to take a little time out. At forty thousand feet, he tells Bruce that the mountain is way higher than they thought - their computations are wrong. At sixty thousand feet, he shoots Anhauser after the latter starts dissenting and becomes hysterical and claims the mountain to be a tester for the real conquerors. Eventually, they reach the mark of five hundred thousand feet, and the captain is shocked. Later, Marsha unexpectedly starts dying, and Terrence concludes that women don’t have real guts for such undertakings. At six hundred thousand feet, he starts declaring that they will soon find the top of the universe. Terrence made it farther than any other crew member of the five ships. He dies with his fingers still clutching the rock outcroppings. In reality, he’s just over twelve miles away from the spaceship horizontally. \n", "Captain Terrence is initially present for Bruce’s trial. He does not understand how the other man thinks, believing that nothing is more important than the destiny of Earth. He is a great believer of the totalitarian thought, finding no problem killing whatever stands in their way of ultimate conquest. He decides to scale the mountain with the other members of the crew, leaving Bruce behind to take care of the radio. On the mountain, Terrence excitedly documents his journey, talking about how far they have gotten. However, he does have to shoot Anhauser because the other man does not want to climb anymore. He shouts a few more reports to Bruce before disappearing completely, having died. Terrence is the one who tries to climb the furthest after everybody else dies, wanting to be the one who conquers the mountain and brings the glory back to Earth. In reality, he had completely been trapped in the illusion and lays dead at the end with his arms stretched out.", "In the beginning of the story, Terrence leads the inquisition against Bruce for killing Lieutenant Doran without provocation. He has already determined Bruce's fate - an execution - but grants the inquest to understand his motivations. He often explodes in anger as Bruce only appears to give philosophical lectures about morality. When Terrence agrees to hear Bruce's supposed dreams out, he disagrees with Bruce's disinterest in climbing the mountain and concludes him to be a psycho. However, he agrees to let Bruce live only to note down the crew's upcoming climb to the mountain, for records. \n\nIn the latter half of the story, Terrence and his crew begin the climb up the mountain. Terrence often gives Bruce updates on the altitude of their climb, and sometimes request his response to make sure he is still there. Terrence also reported he had to shoot Anhauser for dissenting, as the latter wanted to descend back down the mountain. Upwards of an ascent of five hundred thousand feet, Terrence begins to go mad as he yells of his domination of the mountain and conquest of the Solar System. As his crazy yells fade, he is presumed to be dead, which is confirmed later on. ", "Terrence wears a black uniform, and he is the captain of Mars V, a rocket that lands on Mars. Terrence presides over Bruce’s trial that Bruce kills Lieutenant Doran. When they argue with each other, Terrence insists on the importance of the twisted democracy and the strength of a conqueror, which, according to Bruce, is totalitarianism disguised under democracy. Terrence regards Bruce as a psycho, deciding his fate of staying while he and all the other crewmembers climb the mountain. When they start to climb the mountain, Terrence reports to Bruce through the radio while climbing, showing his conquering feeling of climbing the highest mountain and belittling everything else, even the universe. Terrence kills Anhauser because he dissents to keep climbing. Terrence becomes more and more enthusiastic about climbing and conquering the mountain. When Marsha is talking to Bruce, Terrence interrupts them, expresses his ambition, and dies. He manages to climb to the highest but still dies." ]	50868
What is the relationship between Bruce and Marsha?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Highest Mountain by Bryce Walton. Question: What is the relationship between Bruce and Marsha? Answer:	[ "Bruce and Marsha were close years ago when they lived on Earth. They shared similar values and loved each other, but eventually, Marsha became one of the conquerors, ready to expand the human territories. Now she’s almost emotionless. Bruce is disappointed and reckons that the other conquerors had gotten her young, and there was nothing he could do about it. When he’s interrogated, the psychologist asks if she saw any creature before Bruce shot Doran. She seems hesitant and doesn’t look at Bruce when denying seeing anything. When she is dying, she crazily laughs and admits that she is in love with him, asking Bruce to read her a poem. At the end, he finds Marsha’s body among the eroded hills and puts it beside the city canal. He says that he loved her once, and she could’ve been sane, different if the conquerors hadn’t got her when she was so young. \n", "Bruce and Marsha do not interact much initially. Marsha is a witness of when Bruce shot Doran, but she makes no move to oppose the other members of the crew. She also hesitates to meet his eyes when she speaks, only following orders. Bruce mentions that they had gotten her when she was too young. Later, when Marsha is dying, she calls him darling and mentions how much she loves him. Even though she is hysterical, Bruce remembers the time when they used to talk about human values. He recites poetry to her and tries to think about the good times on Earth. Later, it is revealed that Bruce loved her before on Earth. However, it eventually meant nothing because she had been converted by the Conquerors too early and could not fight back. ", "Bruce and Marsha appear to once have been romantic partners, with both proclaiming their love for each other. They used to share poetry and talk about human values and had a clear and affectionate connection back on Earth. \n\nHowever, Marsha and Bruce begin to distance as Marsha bought into the will to conquer, whereas Bruce leaned further away from this thought. This dissonance is apparent as she refuses to look at him during his inquest and at the fact that Marsha goes onto the climb. \n\nDespite this, when Marsha dies over the radio, they share a last moment of spoken affection. When Bruce sees her dead body, he takes care to rest her by the canal as he expresses his melancholy over \"they\" getting to her young. ", "Bruce and Marsha used to be lovers years ago. Marsha is indifferent to Bruce when Bruce accepts his inquisition from other crewmembers for his murder. When Marsha is asked whether she saw anything when Bruce killed Doran, she says no, even though she might see it. According to Bruce, Marsha was reconditioned to accept the new values in New Era, where strength and conquest are prioritized as the most important thing, compared to Old Era, where mercy and compassion seem to exist. Marsha keeps calling Bruce’s name on the edge of death while climbing the mountain. She misses the warmth she used to have with Bruce, realizing that conquest is not everything. After she dies, Bruce places her corpse along the canals. Bruce and Marsha used to be in a romantic relationship, but after Marsha accepts the will to conquer, they become distant from each other. When Marsha is dying, Marsha finally regains herself and confesses to Bruce. Their relationship becomes tolerant and beloved." ]	50868
Describe the setting of the story.	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Highest Mountain by Bryce Walton. Question: Describe the setting of the story. Answer:	[ "At the beginning, Jacobs, Bruce, and Anhauser talk aboard their ship Mars V which recently landed on the windy surface of Mars. Bruce then looks at the even Martian landscape with an incredible mountain right near the ship and the double moons illuminating the surface. When everybody else leaves to climb the mountain, he spends his time on the spaceship, eating, sleeping, and sitting by the radio. Bruce dreams of a green valley and canals inside a town. And later, when the crew stops reporting anything, he finally can see the real landscape of Mars. He looks at numerous low hills with purple mist, a canal, and valleys with green trees. The mountain disappeared. A quarter of a mile beyond the canal, there is an ugly red mound with the bodies of the conquerors lying there. After looking at Marsha and Terrence, together with Helene, he walks along the canal back to the city. \n", "The story is set on Mars; it is originally shown as a dead planet with nothing but smooth, red hills caused by erosion. However, there is a mountain too that is around 45,000 feet. Mars also has double moons and is extremely cold. On Mars, there are also five ships from the Conquerors in their attempts to try and take total control of Mars. When Bruce has his dreams, the martian landscape changes to one of green valleys and rivers. There are wide canals, odd trees trailing their branches on the gliding rivers. There is also a pastel–colored city that seems completely different from the Mars that the crew arrived to conquer. Later, it is revealed that this landscape is actually real because the fake Mars was just an illusion that the Martians set up using their powers to mess with the mind. The mountain does not exist either, having served its purpose of eliminating each group of Conquerors. ", "This story is set on Mars. However, the Mars that the Conquerers see and the real Mars is different. \n\nThe Mars that the crew initially see lifeless, barren and has a flat landscape with only a mountain estimated at 45,000 feet standing out. There are four rockets - prior attempts at conquering Mars - lay side by side the mountain. \n\nThe real Mars that is revealed to Bruce is vastly different. It had lush green valleys and rivers and wide canals with slow currents. There were inhabited cities that are pastel-colored and overall, the atmosphere was soft, vibrant and lovely. Beyond the canal, the red mountain still stands. By the red mountain, the remains of the bodies of the crew of the first four ships lie as skeletons. The dead bodies of Bruce's crewmates also lie there - all still tied together by the rope. ", "The story happens on Mars. There are two moons on Mars. There is a tremendously high mountain where the top seems nowhere to be seen, and the four rockets sent before the fifth rock lie in its shadow. The landscape on Mars is smoothed with red eroded hills, except for the mountain, which is unexpected in height and points toward Earth. In Bruce’s dream, which turns out to be the real Mars, the landscape on Mars is totally different. There are green valleys, wide canals, trees, and cities decorated with flowers. Behind the shelter, five rockets lie beside it. There is no mountain in the dream, only a high mound of the red hill with corpses lying on it." ]	50868
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Bridge Crossing by Dave Dryfoos. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "The protagonist of this story is Roddie, a young male character whose interactions with the characters around him include mechanical arms and robotic functionalities. It turns out that Roddie lives within a dystopian city, to which alongside his android friends, seek to defend the city against its enemy. Whilst going about his day, Roddie investigates the manhole he often frequents and finds that it has recently been visited by something warm. Further investigation reveals Ida to be the culprit, a human female who has decided to help the wounded in the city.\n\nDespite Roddie’s initial hesitance, Ida and Roddie strike up an easygoing acquaintance and gallivant around the city, with the latter guiding the former due to his experience. In addition to helping Ida find food and shelter, Roddie is able to ward off a potential attack from an android soldier with a talisman - his watch. However, this watch leads Ida to be suspicious of Roddie. As they neared the bridge, Ida insists on bringing Roddie back to where he belongs, fearing he had been wrongfully taken or indoctrinated. After a chase and climbing up the south tower, Roddie notices that Ida may be able to inform her fellow humans on how to infiltrate the city due to them being on top of the bridge. Choosing to defend his city and prove himself to his friends, Roddie does not hesitate to kill Ida and advances to do so. Ida begins to cry and defend her people - insisting that they are on the same side as Men and that the city belongs to the two of them, not Roddie’s friends. Initially in disbelief, Roddie continues to advance before deciding to leave it for the next morning before comforting Ida and later on, realizing that he too, is Man. \n", "Roddie, a man, raised by the androids in the ruined city, is angry to be left behind with his nurse, Molly, whenever the soldiers go out to fight the Invaders from the north. When he complains about it with Molly, a nursing android, Molly’s robotic response irritates him, and he rips her head off her neck. The soldiers come back when Roddie is repairing Molly. Roddie orders the soldiers to line up and report, inspecting their damages. One soldier suddenly attacks Roddie as it seems to identify Roddie as one of the Invaders, but Molly protects Roddie, and he stops it. After the chaos has been eased, Roddie tries to fix and recombine the damaged soldier while reflecting on the dim future for him and the city. He accidentally burns his hair, and a civil defender firefighter covers him with carbon dioxide foam, irritating him and making him run away. \n\nOn the street, Roddie feels cold, being shamed by the sensation of coldness and reflecting on all the other differences that he has from the androids. The night comes, and he tries to find the way down to his usual hiding spot: a manhole under a bar. Once he arrives at the bottom of the manhole, he feels the warmth, realizing that something had just rested there. He prepares his hammer as a weapon, touches the thing in the darkness, and gets attacked by it. It is a girl named Ida who is one of the Invaders. She identifies Roddie as one of her sides. Roddie takes advantage of that, intending to kill her after gaining more information about the way to pass the impassable Golden Gate Bridge that connects the ruins and the Invaders’ area. After the conversation with Ida, Roddie climbs out of the manhole, followed by Ida. When he learns that Ida recognizes him as one of the Invaders, he thinks it is his chance to be accepted by his friends by giving them his achievement. Roddie learns many new things and beliefs from Ida on their way to the bridge. They also meet an android, but Roddie lets it go away without hurting them. Roddie finds canned baby food from the ruined supermarket to feed him and Ida. Once they arrive at the bridge, as Ida keeps going towards it, Roddie grabs her, but Ida loosens his grip and escapes from him. She climbs on the dangling wire, followed by him. Ida is scared and wants to stop on the wire, but Roddie forces her to keep climbing. After they arrive at the tower, Roddie tries to kill Ida as she may bring more Invaders to come, but Ida tells him that he is a human, not an android, and surrenders herself to him. After the dispute about his identity and the superiority of either the robot or the humans, Roddie decides to wait for a night. The following day, Roddie acknowledges himself as a man.", "The story follows the journey of a man called Roddie. He lives in a destroyed San Francisco under the care of a robot called Molly. San Francisco is protected against “invaders” by other robots, who Roddie takes care of with his tools. Roddie believes that the robots are his friends and wishes to go out and fight with them against the invaders. Roddie knows that he is different from the robots, but still wishes to become a part of them. When Molly and other robots start to malfunction more and more, Roddie runs to a manhole which he uses as a hiding place. Here, he meets a girl called Ida. Roddie believes that he has to kill Ida in order to finally be able to fight side by side with the robots, but decides to first get information out of her. They traverse together to the Golden Gate Bridge, where Ida tells him that the invaders are in fact humans like them that go into the city in order to get food and supplies. Roddie doesn’t want to believe that he is like an invader, so he chases Ida to the top of the bridge in order to kill her. Here, they confront each other and Roddie was very close to killing her, but decides not to. At the end, it is insinuated that Roddie learns that he belongs with the humans at the other side of the bridge and not with the robots.", "It’s the twenty-fourth century. San Francisco is ruined and now guarded by robot soldiers built by humans in the past. They fight with humans - Invaders - and don’t let them come to the city. Roddie lives with Molly - a robotic nurse who still treats him as a child - and hasn’t seen an invader. He sits with Molly and complains about not being allowed to fight alongside the soldiers. She starts singing a children’s song, and Roddie rips her head off her neck. Soldiers come back. Roddie tries to fix one of them, but the robot unexpectedly attacks the young man. Molly defends Roddie by thrusting needles into the robot’s eyes. Roddie is working and thinking about his desire to be accepted by the soldiers. His hair catches fire accidentally, and a Civil Defense firefighter covers him with carbon dioxide foam. Roddie gets frustrated and leaves. He is walking along cold streets and stone ruins toward his hideout. Roddie comes down to his manhole and realizes that someone was there. He starts moving in the darkness and soon finds Ida, a young human girl. Roddie understands that she thinks he is one of her kind and continues talking to her. She came on some boat and followed Roddie’s footprints to his hideout. Ida says she knows a way over the Golden Gate Bridge and invites Roddie to go with her. They leave the hole, and Ida starts laughing at the diapers he’s wearing. While walking, Ida tells him that men rely on raids for tools and that she left here to help the wounded. Suddenly they meet one of the soldiers, Roddie quickly tells him everything is fine, and the robot leaves. Ida kisses him after the shock. They go to a supermarket to get food, and Ida asks why the robot let them go. Roddie shows her his watch - a talisman, and she looks scared. They reach the bridge. Ida starts leading him somewhere unknown, saying that she’s taking him where he belongs. He refuses and starts chasing her with a hummer. While following her, Roddie starts walking along the suspension cable’s steel surface; soon, walking turns into crawling. He thinks about killing Ida - it will earn him a place among the robot soldiers. They keep going up, finally reach a tower, and fall asleep for several hours. They wake up, and Roddie decides to look around the tower. He can see Mount Tamalpais, the Twin Peaks, and Mount Diablo. He follows Ida’s gaze and finds the secret path the invaders are using. Roddie prepares to kill Ida, but she starts crying - it disturbs him. She tells him that he is a man, not a robot. Roddie says he believes the true men are rational and superior - thus, the robot soldiers are the real men. She asks him why killing a defenseless girl is rational and says that emotion is for creating. Roddie tucks his hammer away and comforts crying Ida.\n\n\n" ]	51241
What is the relationship between Roddie and Ida?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Bridge Crossing by Dave Dryfoos. Question: What is the relationship between Roddie and Ida? Answer:	[ "Although Roddie has been preparing his entire life for defense against something, someone, he never knows who his enemy is. Ida - by nature of being Man - is his enemy, as Roddie believes him to be an android. When they first meet in the darkness, Roddie is afraid that Ida may realize what he is. However, they have no trouble once they see each other and spend the entire day together. Roddie proudly takes the role of Ida’s caretaker, noting that she is scared of the soldiers and not as strong as he is, so he takes her to a supermarket and feeds her. \n\nHowever, when Roddie reveals the talisman that prevented the soldier from attacking, their relationship changes. Ida tries to take Roddie back to her boat where she proclaims he belongs and Roddie insists that he belongs in this android-ridden dystopia. In their chase, they end up atop a tower. Realizing Ida now has the knowledge to bring home to the Invaders on how to enter the city, Roddie feels a sense of duty to kill her. She is the enemy, as he thinks she wishes to harm his city. As Ida cries - something Roddie can do but his friends can’t - he realizes that he too is Man and decides not to kill her. \n", "Roddie and Ida meet in the manhole, usually Roddie’s hiding place. Roddie learns information about Invaders and the relationship between Invaders and the androids. He also realizes the similarities between him and Ida, compared to his differences from the androids. When they walk towards the bridge, their relationship is the protector and the protected. It is the teacher-student relationship when Roddie learns many new and inexperienced things from Ida throughout the conversation. The hunting-hunted relationship is when Roddie tries to grab and kill Ida, and Ida escapes to the bridge. They have to support each other on the bridge cable as they can barely maintain their strength through climbing, where their relationship is supportive. But after they arrive and sleep in the tower, Roddie regains his energy and tries to kill Ida again. Their relationship becomes hostile again. When Ida finally convinces Roddie that he is also a man, they become mutually supportive.", "The relationship between them is tense. Roddie wants to kill Ida because he believes that she is an invader, and he wants to prove to the robots that he can fight alongside them. Ida, on the other hand, wants to help Roddie and take him back to the humans, because it is where he belongs. They both learn a lot from each other, as Roddie had never seen an “invader” and Ida was in San Francisco for the first time, so she thought that only robots lived in the city. The relationship between them is tense and violent as Roddie chases her up the bridge. Then, they seem to become friends, and Roddie ends up not killing her. ", "At the beginning, Roddie is apprehensive and uncomfortable because he has never seen another human being. Soon, Ida makes him feel better by chatting with him. Roddie, who thinks that he is a peculiar type of robot, realizes that she thinks that he is a human, like her. She makes fun of him and seems to be comfortable with Roddie. When he shows her his watch, she becomes tense, and Roddie realizes that she knows who he is. She tries to take the young man with her to other people, but he attacks her instead. Both stubborn, they spend hours climbing the suspension cable and then sleep in the tower, too tired to keep up the altercation. At the end, Ida is crying and explaining to Roddie why he is not a robot. He doesn’t want to accept it, but Ida’s crying expression and an emotional monologue keep him from killing her. He seems to accept his identity the next morning.\n" ]	51241
Who is Ida and what are her characteristics?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Bridge Crossing by Dave Dryfoos. Question: Who is Ida and what are her characteristics? Answer:	[ "Ida is a human girl that Roddie first encounters when she is hiding in the manhole that he frequents himself. She appears to have come into the android-ridden city on her own with the altruistic desire to help the wounded. She is selfless and persistent in her mission. She is inexperienced with the android world as demonstrated by her fright when the pair encountered a soldier, who only walked away after Roddie confronted it. Similarly, Roddie had to guide her around the city and help her with access to resources like shelter and food. \n\nIda is loyal and brave as well. Despite Roddie threatening to kill her at the end of the story, Ida insists on the idea that they are both human and that Roddie’s way of thinking was incorrect. In the end, she is able to discourage him from killing her and he ends up comforting her. \n\n", "Ida is short and lean, wearing a doeskin dress. Her legs are slender, and her tiny bare feet wear nothing. Her face is tanned and ruddy, with a full mouth and dark eyes. She is friendly to Roddie when she guesses he is lost from the boat. Ida is brilliant as she figures out Roddie’s identity after his interaction with an android and his familiarity with the surrounding areas and baby food. She is also brave as she suppresses her fear and manages her way to escape from Roddie after knowing his intention to catch her. She is dedicated as her purpose in ruins is to help her fellows in every way possible. Roddie sees her as purposeless and impulsive. She is weaker than Roddie. She is nervous and scared when they walk towards the bridge, being furtive and close behind Roddie. She is emotional, and she considers it a good thing because she is angry at Roddie’s claim of the superiority of being rational.", "Ida is a girl that traversed illegally into San Francisco in order to help men get supplies and fight the robots that patrolled the city. Women weren’t allowed to go into the city, so she snuck into one of the boats in order to help the wounded men who were fighting. She is described as small and thin, but that allows her to be quick and agile. When Ida meets Roddie, she wants to bring him back to the humans so he can learn where he comes from, and that he doesn’t belong with the robots. She is very brave, because she wasn’t afraid of being killed by Roddie or the robots. ", "Ida is a young girl, one of the Invaders living outside the city. The fact that she followed Roddie’s footprints and found his hideout seems to indicate her intelligence. She is brave and compassionate - Ida was ready to secretly leave her safe community and come to the city to help the wounded. She is emotional: we see that when she unexpectedly kisses Roddie or when she starts crying at the end. Ida also has a strong sense of justice - she considers returning the city to men a necessity, she thinks San Francisco belongs to them. Ida also doesn’t seem to like violence or destructive behavior - this is what she says to Roddie at the end. \n" ]	51241
How does Roddie figure out why he's different from his friends?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Bridge Crossing by Dave Dryfoos. Question: How does Roddie figure out why he's different from his friends? Answer:	[ "Put simply, Roddie is Man and his friends in the story are androids. Despite growing up with them and having been brought up by Molly, Roddie is human. One clear difference is the fact that Roddie is able to tear off the limbs of his friends and repair it back together. For example, he tore off Molly’s head when her “spells” became worse, and then later tinkered it back on her head. Another example of this difference is when Ida begins to cry at the end of the story, and Roddie internally expresses that the first time he wept was the first time he noted a difference between him and his android friends, who presumably cannot emote in the same way. Similarly, they do not know pain nor fatigue, so Roddie pretends he doesn’t either. At the very end of the story, he finally accepts that he is Man. \n", "Roddie knows that he is weaker than Molly, his nursing android, and other soldiers as he has all the sensations, such as coldness, hunger, pain, and thirst, while they don’t. The growth he has been undergoing until recently is also a sign that he is different from his friends, the soldier androids in the city. His yearning to sleep amid the danger makes him think that he was built by an apprentice when he still believes he is one of the androids. He learns from Ida, a girl he meets in his hiding place, that all the androids are heat-sensitive to locate them in the dark. He also realizes the similarities between Ida and him when Ida is supposed to be the Invader. After going through all the obstacles with Ida to cross the bridge and feeling his weakness on the cable, he realizes the differences between his friends and him again. Recalling his memory of weeping after seeing Ida weep when she tries to convince him that he is a man, not an android, Roddie finally acknowledges himself as a man different from his friends.", "Roddie always knew that he was different from the robots which he lived with. He didn’t have the same build, or the same gears and cables as them. Roddie always wanted to prove that he was the same, and that he could help them fight. When he meets Ida, who is very similar to him, he starts to doubt where he belongs. Ida helps him understand that he is in fact human, and not a robot. He learns that he belongs with the other humans outside the city, and not with the robots. ", "\nThroughout the story, Roddie ponders the question of identity: he is different from Molly and the soldiers. Roddie can feel pain, he can be hot and cold, exhausted, hungry, or sleepy. While growing up, Roddie knew that the robots surrounding him did not have the same experience. He cried when he realized that he was different. This emotion also made him unique. After meeting Ida, he slowly analyzes her behavioral traits and sees how similar they are. She says that he is a human being, not a robot. He believes rationality creates the superior. But Roddie knows he’s not a completely rational creature - he has feelings, too. Roddie spends enough time with her to finally accept that he is a man, not a soldier. " ]	51241
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Dr. Kometevsky's Day by Fritz Leiber. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "The story is set in the future where Mars’ two moons Phobos and Deimos unexpectedly vanished, space travel exists, and monogamous marriages are lawful. Celeste Wolver talks to her friend Madge Carnap, who claims that the old book The Dance of The Planets predicted the moons’ disappearance. Wolver’s husband, one of the three ones she has, Theodor tries to explain that the book predicts only some events, but he and Celeste soon understand they don’t have strong arguments. Then Celeste and Theodor leave for a meeting regarding the recent events. While walking there, she shares her worries with him. Theodor says ESPs around the world have similar dreams. So, Rosalind, one of his wives, will bring their daughter Dotty to the meeting. Celeste, Rosalind, Frieda, Theodor, and Edmund were waiting only for the third husband, Ivan. Rosalind leaves to look for him, and the others start the meeting. They listen to recent news recordings: Mars’ moons disappeared; Kometevskyites - people that believe in the theory of The Dance of The Planets - demand some government's action. The news anchorman declares that Jupiter’s fourteen moons are not visible anymore. Rosalind comes back and says she only found Ivan’s briefcase covered in mud, with the phrase \"Going down” hastily written on it. They alert local agencies and talk about the project - Deep Shaft - Ivan was studying. The family splits up for a thirty-minute break, and Rosalind goes to where she found the briefcase. There the woman soon starts sinking into the ground. Rosalind realizes what happened to Ivan and leaves a glove pointing down as a sign; soon, her body is underground, and she keeps moving down mud and soil. Theodor, who went to the bar for the break, meets a colonel who tells him that there is a war between good and evil, and the planets are battleships controlled by divine power. The stories of these characters get interrupted by small extracts from Dotty’s dreams, where she calls herself a god, and says she and her friends have been found by their enemies and need to flee. Dotty wakes up and tells Celeste she is a god. Celeste goes back to everybody, and Edmund lists all the known facts. He says Deep Shaft found a metallic durasphere inside the Earth and proposes that other moons had it too. Ivan and Rosalind are drawn into the depth of the Earth, and in their dreams, all ESPs say they will leave in some great boats. Everybody understands that their planet is a camouflaged spaceship. Suddenly, Dotty says in an unfamiliar voice that their assumption is correct. The creature uses Dotty to tell them people were part of the camouflage they needed to hide from the enemies who don’t support mental privacy. Now they have to leave and can take only a few people. Suddenly, the creature says that their enemies changed, and now they don’t need to hide or destroy the planet. Rosalind and Ivan return.\n", "The story follows a group of people that are engaged in a polyamorous marriage. They are 3 men and 3 women, who share a child. The story follows how they are reacting to astronomical phenomena. After Phobos and Demios, two of Mar's moons, disappear, Theodore and Celeste meet with another girl that says that everything that is happening was predicted by Dr. Kometevsky, and it was written in a book called “The Dance of the Planets”. When the six of them want to meet, they realize that one of them was missing, and the only thing that was left was his briefcase, with the message: Going Down. During this meeting, their little girl was having dreams in which she dreamed about a separate species. After one of them goes to a bar, the group learn that Earth was in fact created by a separate species that were being hunted, and that within Earth there is a spherical ship where the species reside. The species can communicate with humans that have Extra-Sensory Perception, and their child is one of them. Through their child, the group learn that the species’ hunters found them, and that they have to leave soon. The story ends with the group learning that the species wants to take the humans with them, and they accept that the species wants to help them. ", "Madge Carnap shows a book, The Dance of the Planets, which looks old and terrifies Celeste Wolver. Celeste’s husband, Theodor, argues with Madge about the disappearance of Mars’ two moons, Phobos and Deimos. Madge believes the book author’s prediction, Dr. Kometevsky, that the Earth will take a leap in space, but Theodor and Celeste don’t believe her. They separate from each other, Madge goes to a meeting in a Buddist temple, and Theodor and Celeste go to a sub-committee of the Congress for the Discovery of New Purposes to investigate the materials about the phenomenon. Theodor and Celeste talk about the possible omen and their family situation on their way. Theodor also mentions that many people with Extra-Sensory Perception have been dreaming similarly. \n\nWhen Celeste and Theodor go into the committee room, Edmund, one of the husbands, suggests the family to start examining the microfilms without waiting for Ivan, the third husband of the family. Rosalind goes out to check for Ivan. Other people take the projectors out of their suitcases and check the microfilms while Celeste turns on the TV. They start to focus on the audio, which talks about the discovery of the debris of the moons in their original positions and Dr. Kometevsky’s call. When Rosalind returns with Ivan’s suitcase, she doesn’t hear the news that Jupiter’s fourteen moons have become invisible on the TV. They examine the briefcase, finding it eerily muddy with two letters. When they take a break from the examination, Theodor and Rosalind go out to drink. Rosalind is dragged underground to the core of Earth while trying to catch up with Theodor. Meanwhile, Theodor meets Colonel Fortescue in the Deep Space Bar, who tells him that God is a military strategist and the whole phenomenon is the war between the forces of good and evil when listening to the news about the movements of Jupiter’s moons and the unknown bodies in the space. Celeste watches Dotty in sleep. Edmund gathers everyone and starts to explain his discovery from all materials, including the metallic durashpere found in the center of Earth underground, the relation between the moons’ debris and the durashpere of them, Ivan’s and Rosalind’s disappearances, and the godlike creatures in ESPs dreams. After his explanation, the godlike creature communicates with them through Dotty’s body, explaining that Earth is their battleship, and that humans are their camouflage to escape from the pursuers. The pursuers have detected them, so Earth must be destroyed to let them grab the chance to flee. Only a small portion of humans will be saved to serve as the seed of the human race, such as Ivan and Rosalind. While the Wolver family is shocked by the truth, the godlike creatures negotiate with their pursuers. After a while, the godlike creature tells them that they are safe and will be brought to their place as the pursuers have changed to be good. In the end, Rosalind and Ivan are sent to the house, and the family gathers together.\n", "Celeste Wolver is listening to her friend Madge Carnap hold a book called The Dance of Planets from the Twentieth Century. Her husband Theordor tries to argue that Kometevsky predicted the reshuffling of planets in a vague way, but Maggie Madge that it is undeniable Phobos and Deimos have disappeared. The story cuts to Celeste staring at a landscape, as Madge comes up to talk to her more about Dr. Kometevsky. Theodor says that the Mars Base would have noticed something, but Madge says that they are smaller than asteroids. Once she leaves, Celeste talks about how this feels like a warning for disaster in terms of complete security. She does not feel at rest because she has three husbands, and Theodor says that they are still family. Theodor talks about presenting evidence of dreams in ESPs at the meeting. The scene cuts to Dotty dreaming about being a God with god-like friends, and there are other gods out to stop them. Celeste and Theodor enter the committee room. Edmund is impatient to start without Ivan, but Rosalind says that she will go check on him. Celeste gets a newscast going, and everyone listens to the news about finding remnants of the two missing moons. There is also news about Kometevskyites staging helicopter processions to prepare for Earth’s leap through space. Rosalind suddenly walks in and shows everybody the microfilms that Ivan has used to handle. Dotty dreams again that the other gods are combing the whole universe to find them. Edmund says that they have done everything they can with finding Ivan, and he offers to take over the notes about the Deep Shaft. Dotty once again dreams about the other gods fearing that the escaped ones have found a door going out of the Universe. As Rosalind and Theodor step out, Celeste goes to see Dotty. As Rosalind goes to investigate Ivan’s briefcase, she notices that something is holding her feet ankle-deep in the path. Rosalind disappears too, as the bartender at the Deep Space Bar makes drinks for Theodor and Edmund. Colonel Fortescue believes that this is a war between good and evil. The scene then cuts to Celeste observing Dotty, as she says she is a god. Dotty asks if Celeste loves her, and she says that she does. Edmund calls everyone back together, piecing together the four clues to come to the conclusion that planets are a camouflaged fleet of gigantic spaceships. Dotty then comes, speaking with the voice of the god as it says that they will be escaping from the pursuers and destroying the planets because they have been found. As everybody contemplates what to do, the voice from Dotty suddenly says that their enemies have changed. They are no longer seeking to destroy them and that the planets are free because there is no need for them to be destroyed. Everybody feels much calmer, and Dotty says that she just had the funniest dream. " ]	51353
What’s the significance of Dotty’s dreams?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Dr. Kometevsky's Day by Fritz Leiber. Question: What’s the significance of Dotty’s dreams? Answer:	[ "Throughout the entire story, the narrative gets interrupted by small parts of Dotty's dreams. She has extrasensory abilities, and the semi-god creatures use her and other ESPs to communicate with people. In her dreams, she tells the story of these creatures' life. She speaks about their belief in mental privacy and says that other gods do not want them to have private thoughts and decide to hunt them down. The creatures that value privacy of thoughts create inhabited planets and manage to hide for millions of years from the others. But now they have been found and need to flee again. Dotty’s dreams conceptually explain the origin of the planets of the Solar System and why those need to be destroyed now. Through her dreams, the creatures tell the Earth is their camouflaged spaceship, and they will soon need to live. \n", "Dotty is one of the humans with Extra-Sensory Perception, which allows her to be a gateway of communication between the species that live within Earth and humans. A side effect of this is that she dreams a lot from the perspective of the other species. Her dreams are a reflection of what the species is feeling and what they are thinking with respect to their hunters. Dotty could understand that the species was being hunted, and could understand what they were thinking. At the end, Dotty wakes up and tells the family that she was dreaming.", "Dotty is Frieda’s daughter who has extra-sensory perception. Dotty’s dream shows how the godlike creatures who live on Earth, their boat, escape from their pursuers and use life as camouflage to escape from the search. Her dream also shows what the godlike creatures think. In her dream, the godlike creatures express their desire for mental privacy that is not allowed by their other fellows. The godlike creatures leave their fellows, who are scared by them because of the unknown of their secret thoughts. When they used all their ways to get out of the universe, they had no choice but to hide under the camouflage disguised with life, and they succeeded. Dotty’s dream is significant because it shows how and why the godlike creatures fled from their point of view. It also indicates Dotty’s compatibility with the godlike creatures to allow them to talk with her family through her body.", "Dotty’s dreams are significant because they tell the life of the god-like beings who have separated themselves from the rest of the group. Dotty’s dreams give insight to how the god-like beings came about, and how the start of the conflict between them and the rest of their race started. The dreams also reveal how the group managed to escape, creating great ships and camouflaging themselves so that their pursuers will not be able to catch up to them. Later, Dotty’s dreams also allow her to be controlled by one of the voices so that she is able to tell the rest of the Wolvers what will happen to the world and them because the pursuers have discovered where the rogue god-like group has been hiding. Dotty’s dreams also allow her to serve as a messenger between the two parties and inform them of what is happening in regards to the current situation. " ]	51353
Who’s Rosalind and what happens to her throughout the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Dr. Kometevsky's Day by Fritz Leiber. Question: Who’s Rosalind and what happens to her throughout the story? Answer:	[ "Rosalind is a member of the Wolves family, the wife of Theodor, Edmund, and Ivan. At the beginning of the story, she comes to the meeting of their family sub-committee. When Ivan doesn’t show up, Rosalind decides to go to the Deep Space Bar and try to find him. On her way back, she finds his briefcase half-buried in the dirt. It has a hastily written phrase “Going down” written on it. Shocked, she comes back and shows her findings to everybody. They alert the local agencies and create their family member’s description that is broadcast. They decide to take a small break, and Rosalind leaves right after Theodor. She doesn’t catch up with him and stops at the place where she found the briefcase. Suddenly, her feet get stuck, and her body starts sinking into the ground. She understands that the same thing happened to Ivan and decides to leave her glove to show what happened to her. Soon earth covers her head, and she keeps moving down through different soil levels. The temperature rises, and soon she ends up in a silver egg-shaped room where she meets Ivan. A voice inside their heads explains that their bodies will soon go through a painless process of separation into small atom-thick layers which will enable them to endure almost infinite accelerations, and their consciousness will be intact. They learn more about the Earth and its function. Soon, when the pursuers of the semi-god creatures tell them about the changes they made, Rosalind and Ivan are shot back to the surface. They walk back to their family.\n\n\n", "Rosalind is one of the women who is a part of the Wolver family. She has 3 husbands and shares them with 3 other women. Rosalind is also the nurse of Dotty, the little girl who they all raise together. After they meet for a while, the group decides to have a break. During this break, Rosalind decides to search for more clues about the disappearance of their 6th member. Doing this, she gets sucked down into the Earth. She manages to leave her glove in the dirt facing down, which allows the group to understand what happened to her. At the end she and Ivan come back, and it is revealed that they went into the ship of the other species. ", "Rosalind is the wife of Theodor, Ivan, and Edmund. She takes care of Dotty when Dotty is sleeping. She sets the mike so that Frieda, Dotty’s biological mother, can know when Dotty calls. Then, she checks when Ivan will come to the committee room when Edmund suggests starting the meeting without him. She comes back to the committee room with Ivan’s briefcase, finding it weirdly muddy with “Going Down”. When Theodor goes out to grab a drink, Rosalind follows him and ends up being dragged underground to the interior of Earth, leaving one of her gloves on the ground pointing downward. In the core of Earth, the godlike creatures’ battleship, she learns that she will be disintegrated into particles to store while staying alive. After the godlike creatures’ negotiation with their pursuers comes to a peaceful conclusion, Rosalind is sent to the house with her family.", "Rosalind Wolver is one of the wives alongside Celeste and Frieda. Although she is not the mother of Dotty, she is noted to be the nurse of the little girl. She is described as a glitter of platinum against the darkness. When everyone is concerned as to why Ivan has not yet shown up to the meeting, Rosalind offers to go check on him. She later comes back, pale as a ghost, to show everybody what she has found from what remains of Ivan’s disappearance. After, Rosalind leaves with Theodor, but she goes back to the area where Ivan’s briefcase was. Although she tries to investigate further, something grabs at her feet and pulls her in. Rosalind feels the light of the path stay with her as she feels it grow hotter and hotter. Later, her and Ivan are sitting in an egg-shaped silver room that has no entrance or exit. A voice tells them that their bodies will be separated into layers one atom thick to be stored. However, this is a painless process and their consciousness will remain. Once the planets are no longer being destroyed, she comes back with Ivan through the outer door. Rosalind explains the experience as riding a rocket, and she is last telling Dotty that they have been dreaming instead of her. " ]	51353
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
Describe the setting of the story.	Write a detailed response to the following question about Breakdown by Herbert D. Kastle. Question: Describe the setting of the story. Answer:	[ "The story is set on an ark that Doctor Hamming put money into creating. Although it resembles Iowa, the residents are fooled to believe that it is indeed Iowa. Each of the residents have their own farm and land area, and they are restricted to only staying inside a certain area. For the Burrs, they cannot go beyond the Shanks’ place. Harry’s farm area has his house, an area for the livestock, and a tractor shed that was supposed to be torn off. Their area also has a supply bin that is shaped like an old-fashioned wood bin for deliveries from the government. The land they live on is also shared with the Franklins. When Harry takes Plum out for a ride, they go up north past the Franklins to where the Bessers should be. Then, they reach a small Pangborn farm. Beyond Pangborn, there lies old Wallace Elverton’s place, which is known as the biggest farm in the country. There is barbed wire in this area, and he walks past it. Slowly, the earth becomes sand and then wood. There are also colored folks living here, when there shouldn’t have been, and a place called Piney Woods exists as well. The place where Doctor Hamming lives is two miles past Dugan’s farm. It resembles a hospital, but there is nobody else inside of it. ", "This story is set in Iowa, perhaps a town, specifically, the farmhouse of Edna and Harry. This farmhouse had fields of land, a thriving vegetable patch, and a barn. Towards the road, there is a wooden supply in for deliveries and payment by the government. \n\nWhile on the horse, Harry encounters a farm fenced off with barbed wire. As he walked, the ground changed from beneath him. It went from earth to sand to wood. Here, he found a waist-high metal that when overlooked, revealed endless salty water - the ocean. \n\nAt the end of the story, Harry visits the doctor's place which is located in a new house past Dugan's farm. The house had long passageways and many. stairways, with gray walls and cold lighting. In there, there were windowless rooms. ", "The story happens on a wooden ark floating on the ocean. The first scene is in Harry’s two-floor house. There are bedrooms, a kitchen, and a bathroom in his house. There is a blue armchair, a sofa, and a TV in the living room. Outside the house is the barn with the floor strewn with hay. Across the yard, there is a pigpen with four pigs inside. Behind the house, there is a half-acre truck farm. Across the front yard, there lies a wooden supply bin by the road. The road is empty, along which are unplanted fields. Ten-foot heavy steel mesh on top with three-foot barbed wire surrounds all the houses on the wooden ark. Near the edge of the ark, the floor is covered with hard-packed sand. On the edge of the ark is a metal railing circling the ark. The doctor’s house is big. Inside the house, at the end of a central passage and dozens of doors on both sides, a stairway downwards to at least two hundred yards depth, where the end leads to a ramp going upward. The grey plaster walls, black floors, and white lighting set a dull tone. An engine for the ark to move lies in the most central and deepest part of the house.", "Harry and Edna think that they live in Iowa’s countryside. In the morning, they have a small conversation in the bedroom. Then Harry goes to the bathroom to wash, then to the kitchen. After eating, he spends some time in the barn and goes to the truck behind the house. Later, harry picks up a delivery in the front yard. He takes a nap and then eats in the kitchen. In the evening, their guests are seated on the sofa, and Edna is in the blue armchair. Later, Harry rides to the north. He trespasses on Phineas Grotton Farm. Then, he climbs over a high fence, and soon notices sand and later wood flooring beneath his feet. Finally, he sees the ocean. He runs back to his horse and decides to ride in the opposite direction along a residential road. He again reaches the railing and the ocean. The police officer gets him to doctor Hamming. This building is big: they go along the central passageway and see dozens of doors branched off it on both sides, and stairways go down from it in at least three places that Harry can see, and at the far end—a good two hundred yards away—a big ramp led upward. And it was all gray plaster walls, black floors, and cold white lighting, like a hospital, or a modern factory, or maybe a government building. He comes into a windowless room with a medical chair and a set of radios. At the end, after learning that he lives on an ark and immediately forgetting this, Harry comes back home.\n\n\n " ]	51662
What are some of the government regulations that are imposed in the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Breakdown by Herbert D. Kastle. Question: What are some of the government regulations that are imposed in the story? Answer:	[ "One of the government restrictions that Edna reminds Harry about is the rationing of meat. Due to the crisis in the country, there is a shortage of meat. Instead of actual meat, most people eat multi-pro, which is similar to spam. The government also sets up boundaries for the residents to stay inside of, and they are not allowed to go past these regulations or else the police will come. The government also takes care of supplies, and most residents just have to write down what they want and pay a bill. In terms of money, the government takes care of it as well each week. Each farm receives the same number of animals because government agents paid flat rates. When Harry finds the stock of grain, he notes that the government has enough to keep going for a few years. Television is also restricted to old movies, playing only on one channel from nine to eleven at night. Later, it is revealed that these restrictions are imposed to keep the people alive on the ark long enough until they can begin to expand civilization again. ", "Some of the government regulations included rationing the food. This included not being able to butcher their own meat, but rather, having multi-pro. There was also a regulation about the type of farming allowed. Despite all the land, the government would pay the farmers for letting the fields remain empty as long as they only farm vegetables, and not wheat or corn. \n\nAdditionally, there are regulations on travel and gas. You were not able to go further than your neighbor's house. There is also an education regulation that says children should be at least 5 years and 9 months old before beginning to learn and read through a kindergarten book. ", "The travel regulation restricts the area that people can travel to, which means their own houses and the closest neighbor's house. Whoever breaks the travel regulation will be sent to see the doctor. People buy their living necessities through delivery weekly by the rationing regulation. The farming regulations prohibit the plantation of wheat and corn, only allowing vegetables to be grown, resulting in many fields fallow. People would get compensated by the government for not planting wheat or corn. The rationing regulation allocates foods and living necessities for each family, regulates the supplies people can get, and prohibits people from butchering their livestock. Everyone has the same amount of livestock. Gas and water are also rationed that each family can only have a sink of water for dishes each day and a tub of bath water twice a week. The television regulation limits the channel to one, restricts the watching time to only nine to eleven at night, and constrains the audience to watch the listed movies only. Emergency Education Regulations claim that children should be at least five years nine months old to learn kindergarten books.", "They cannot cultivate wheat and corn, and these fields are not in use. There are meat rations that significantly limit the amount of meat one household can consume. Harry also thinks about the travel regulations - he can't go further than Walt and Gloria Shanks' place. They live a little more than a mile away from Harry and Edna. There is gas rationing. The livestock is controlled by the government, too - every household has the same number of chickens, sheep, cows, etc. We learn about the Emergency Education Regulations - every child should be five years nine months old before embarking on a kindergarten book. " ]	51662
Who is Doctor Hamming, and what are his traits?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Breakdown by Herbert D. Kastle. Question: Who is Doctor Hamming, and what are his traits? Answer:	[ "Doctor Hamming is first described by Edna as someone who can treat Harry’s so-called “mental problems”. She insists for Harry to go see him multiple times, but Harry refuses every time. Finally, when Harry is escorted by the policemen does he go meet Doctor Hamming in person. In person, Doctor Hamming is a thin little man with a bald head and framed glasses. He also wears a white coat and looks about one hundred years old. He lives with his two sons, and his wife is not around anymore. His son’s names are Pete and Stan. Doctor Hamming is a very stressed person, constantly trying to manage the ark. He is also impatient as well, raising his voice when Harry asks him about his dead son. However, although the doctor is impatient, he is very knowledgeable in his field as well. He predicted that people will begin to die from a disaster and invested a lot of his money to build the ark. He has exceptional planning skills, picking out the farmers in the rural areas as people to continue living on the ark because he knows how important the farmers are. The doctor’s treatments are very successful as well, capable of completely erasing Harry Burr’s conflicting memories and making him forget that they are on an ark. ", "Dr. Hamming is the only doctor in the town, as the other Dr. Timkins had previously died. He is described to be a thin little man, bald, wearing frameless glasses and overall looking to be frail and at least a hundred years old. \n\nHe is weary and tired as he and his two sons are seemingly in charge of up-keeping the entire health, wealth and charade of the townspeople. He is compassionate as a doctor and has a deep passion for survival. He is generous, for he had saved a few of the remaining people alive after the bomb to try and find uncontaminated land to rebuild life on. \n\nHe describes himself as insane. Insane to be playing God, to be plagued with the memories of what actually happened, and to have been searching for habitable land for years on end. ", "Doctor Hamming is the only doctor on the ark who is on the duty of maintaining the ark, finding the habitable land, and brainwashing the farmers on the ark. He lives in the new house two miles away from Dugan’s farm. He is thin, bald, and little, wearing frameless glasses and a white coat. He looks very old. He has two sons, Petey and Stan. His wife lost her mind a long time ago before he had the technique to help her. He is stressed because of the enormous pressures of running a world by himself and his sons without much financial support. He is insane because he and his sons have been playing god to maintain good social conditions on the ark for three years, searching for habitable lands desperately, and surrounded by people who know nothing. He is careful as he makes sure everyone on the ark knows nothing about the truth but he and his sons only to prevent possible chaos and terror. He is thoughtful of his plan as he knows what humans need to survive on a single ark and organize things in a necessary order. After the explosion, he picks up the remaining alive farmers to sustain the human race. He is desperate as they cannot find any pure habitable land for years.", "Doctor Hamming is a medical specialist and a scientist. He saves several hundred people by relocating them to his ark with uncontaminated soil. He is resilient and responsible because he managed to gather the survivors and build a self-sustaining community that lives after the bombing. The doctor is lonely: he tries to talk to Harry, the only sane person besides him and his two sons, while the man’s memory is not under any influence. He is pragmatic and cautious - the doctor started building his ark before the Holocaust started. He was planning the construction, ready for the following catastrophe. He wants to live and to let people live - that's why he spent the last three years managing his mini-world and waiting for some land to become habitable again. " ]	51662
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Breakdown by Herbert D. Kastle. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "Harry Burr is begged by his wife Edna to go see a doctor because she believes that he is sick in the head. He refuses to believe that anything is wrong, but he does admit that there are times where he lies in fear over nothing and mixes up his memories. The story then jumps to the present, where he begins to think about a blond boy named Davie. Edna is confused because they have no children. Edna brings up seeing a doctor again, he angrily responds that it will only be Timkins who brought their son into the world. Edna tells him they had no son, and Timkins died a while ago. The scene cuts to breakfast, where Harry complains about a lack of meat. Edna explains that there is only multi-pro because of the current crisis in the country. Harry begins to go walk outside, but he experiences more strange memories that don’t add up. He picks up the delivery that Edna ordered. Edna asks if there is anything good on television this week because there is only one channel. After a late lunch, Harry goes to check on the animals again and wonders what happened to the rest of the livestock. Edna tells him that they got the same as everyone else, and he goes upstairs again. When he awakes again, Gloria and Walt have arrived. He asks about Penny and Frances. After they leave, He takes his mare Plum out for a ride, and they arrive at a barbed wire fence area up north. He gets over the wire and continues to walk north, until the earth changes to sand. Then, the sand becomes wooden flooring; there is also a loud roaring sound. When he reaches a waist-high metal railing, he runs back to Plum again. Harry has the idea to ride to town, even if the other neighbors tell him to stop and for somebody to call the police. Soon, two policemen come out to escort him to the doctor. Harry asks the doctor where his son is, and the doctor explains that he is dead like so many millions of others. The doctor tells him he has so many things to do, and he says there are a few remaining people who are still alive. Harry’s brain struggles with the impossible concept, and he thinks about how this is not Iowa. Just as Harry realizes what they are on, the switch is thrown, and he finds himself feeling better from the diathermy treatment. Before Harry leaves, the doctor tests him one last time by telling him that they are on an ark. Harry is confused, which means that the treatment works. He goes home to Edna and is happier than ever. ", "This story follows Harry, a farmer living in Iowa. He and his wife, Edna, live in a time of crisis and so there are many government regulations to follow. Some of these regulations include food rationing, being restricting to farming vegetables, only being able to travel to the neighbors house, etc. While going about his day, Harry often has visions of a young boy named Davie, someone he understands to be his and Edna's son. He is also constantly discombobulated by the placement of things in the house as well as events that supposedly did or did not happen. This confusion leads Edna to be very worried about him, and she insists for him to visit Dr. Hamming, which he refuses. \n\nOne night, their neighbors Walt and Gloria visit. Harry mistakenly asks about their older daughter - who doesn't exist - and spends the rest of the dinner quiet. After the neighbors leave, Edna is furthermore distraught which prompts Harry to leave the house in hopes of clearing his mind. Outside, he creates a makeshift saddle over his horse, Plum, and rides off into the unplanted fields. After travelling for a while, he and Plum approach a fenced off property labelled \"Phineas Grotton Farm\". Trespassing nonetheless, he rides Plum forwards before pausing; he felt as if everything around him was wrong, including his supposed friend Pangborn putting up a massive fence. \n\nGoing over the fence, he noticed a roaring sound growing louder and the smell of the air changing. As he walked, the ground underneath him changed from earth to sand to wood. He came over to a metal railing and found that it overlooked an endless crashing water and salty air - the ocean. After a while, he rode Plum back to his farm, only to note that he had arrived without even needing to go through town. On the way back, he was spotted breaking travel regulations and was pulled over by the police, who take him to the doctor's office. \n\nAt the doctor's office, his confusion is finally explained away. While being prepped for treatment, Dr. Hamming reveals that his supposed son, Davie, and friend Pangborn, were indeed real and alive, but killed by the bombs. Only a few remain amongst the uninhabitable land, and so it was Dr. Hamming who brought them along to his inhabitable world. Dr. Hamming, his two sons, and his now late wife work together to wipe the bad memories from the townspeople and keep the community going as they, on board an ark, continually search for inhabitable land. As Harry begins to form his own conclusions, Dr. Hammings injects him with the treatment and his sane mind is restored. \n\nAt the end, Harry returns home to his wife. She expresses a worry that he may have taken Plum and broken regulations, to which he insists he would never do. ", "Harry seems to have a memory problem. His wife, Edna, often begs him to see the doctor in the town, but he refuses. He often remembers memories that are mismatched with reality. For example, he thinks he has a son, Davie, but all the people, including Edna, deny the fact. He remembers that his fields were planted fully with crops such as wheat and corn, not wasting the land, but now he can only plant a patch of vegetables with all the other fields remaining fallow. He thinks Timkins, the doctor he used to go for, is still alive, but Timkins died a long while ago, based on Edna’s testimony. After eating the rationed food supplied by the government for breakfast, he checks his barn and farms around his house, which seem unfamiliar to him compared to his memory. He picks up the delivery of living supplies and sees the listed movies provided, having the same conversation with Edna as last week. The more he sees, the more he realizes that everything is wrong. When their neighbors visit them and eat with them, Harry has more mistakes in his memory and does not talk while eating. When Edna begs him to see the doctor again, he goes out to ride a mare called Plum.\n\nAt night, Harry rides Plum towards the north on the empty road. Soon after realizing he may be reported for breaking travel regulations, he cuts into an unplanted field. He faces a fenced farm where the owner’s name is unfamiliar with what he remembered to be; he opens it and keeps going northwards. When he reaches the end, he sees a tall metal mesh with barbed wire fence with no gates and climbs to the other side of the fence, seeing nothing but the ocean while standing on the wooden floor. He goes back to the fence, climbs it, and mounts Plum. He tries to find the town but fails. He rides on the road, passing his and his neighbor's houses. People living next to the road shout at him for breaking the regulation, but Harry gives no care to those unfamiliar faces and goes to the southern tip, seeing the extension of the metal fence, climbing through it, and the ocean is there again. When he returns to the fence, two men in police uniforms from a car catch him. He gets in the car, letting one man lead his horse back to his house. They arrive at the doctor’s house, where Harry is told by Doctor Hamming the truth that the people on the ark are the remaining humans in the world. All the other humans might have already died from the bombs, including his son Davie. Harry has those memory problems because his real memory is coming. As soon as Harry realizes what is going on, he forgets it again as the treatment is already applied to him. After the treatment, he returns home and chats with his wife carefreely.\n", "Harry has mixed memories and forgets facts from his life. He wakes up in the morning, asking his wife about their son Davie but momentarily remembers that they have no children. He then suggests that he cooks bacon for breakfast but once again recalls that there is a meat ration. His wife Edna asks him to see Dr.Hamming, but Harry is adamant. During breakfast, Harry complains about rations. Edna tells him they will have multi-pro meat for dinner - he is not satisfied. While doing the chores, Harry realizes his barn seems different and unfamiliar. After picking up the delivery, he says that the TV program guide has old moves, but Edna has never seen them. Harry decides to take a nap and feels that everything around him is wrong. After lunch, he goes back to the barn and sees that they have fewer chickens than he remembers. Their neighbors, Walt and Gloria, come over. Harry makes some strange comments about the neighbors' children - he keeps silent for the rest of the evening. Walt and Gloria leave, and Edna asks Harry to go to the doctor again. He leaves for a walk, harnesses his horse, Plum, and heads north towards the town. He soon reaches Phineas Grotton Farm, which he has never seen before. He goes through the gate and continues riding to the north. The countryside seems wrong to him. Soon, he stumbles upon a ten-foot-high fence with a slight inward curve. He ties Plum to the fence, climbs over it, and walks on. The earth beneath his feet turns into the sand and then into wood flooring. He finally sees a metallic railing covered in saltwater. He sees waves beyond the railing - an ocean - and nervously runs back to Plum. He disregards the traveling regulations and rides along the road in the opposite direction - the citizens scream that he is breaking the law. Soon, he reaches the same high fence, railing, and ocean. A police car pulls over: one officer takes Plum, and the other drives Harry to Doctor Hamming. When entering the house, Harry hears some rumbling sound. The doctor, the officers' father, asks about the second son and starts working on Harry, who keeps asking about Davie. The doctor reveals that Harry’s son, just like millions of others, died during a bombing. The doctor claims that he, together with his two sons, is now running the world for the few hundred who survived after putting them on his world with the only uncontaminated soil left. He has to control the crops and livestock. He says he erased all the knowledge about these events to help people remain sane. Harry realizes Davie is dead, and he isn’t in Iowa. The doctor turns off the radio switch, and Harry immediately forgets this. He thanks Hamming for the treatment. Harry hears the doctor say that they are on an ark, but he doesn’t understand what it means and goes home in peace. \n\n\n" ]	51662
Who is Kay Smith, and what are her characteristics?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Girls from Fieu Dayol by Robert F. Young. Question: Who is Kay Smith, and what are her characteristics? Answer:	[ "She is tall with hyacinth long hair and blue eyes. Her skin is glowingly white. Her body shape is Grecian symmetric. She fascinates Herbert Quidley, a man who finds out the secret letter in Taine’s book, when she walks in the library. She is the receiver of secret messages in the book, and she goes to the library almost every day to pick up the letter in the book. She wears a pleated skirt when Herbert Quidley spills the sugar on her thighs. She speaks with a slight accent that she pronounces “interesting” with “anteresting.” She walks demurely. She wears a dress that exposes a lot of her skin when she goes to Quidley’s apartment, which indicates her intention to have sexual behaviors with him. She owns a convertible, and her purse hides a gun. She is the stock girl on the ship to Fieu Dayol, and her job is to deliver guns to her members, which is why she goes to the library to pick up the secret letters, the requisitions for the guns. It is revealed at the end that she comes to the Earth to bring men to her planet.", "Kay Smith is a beautiful girl who is pursued by Herbert. Kay uses a bookmark and a book to communicate with her friends. At the end we learn that Kay comes from an alien planet, and that she uses the books to communicate with her crew of women who also came from her planet. We also learn that Kay is looking for a mate to take to her planet, as there aren’t enough men for each woman in her home planet. Kay ends up taking Herbert hostage into her ship in order to make him her mate.", "\nKay Smith is a tall woman with hyacinth hair and liquid blue eyes. She also has the Grecian symmetry of shape that instantly caught Quidley’s attention. Kay is described as a mysterious person, going to the library to leave messages in the Taine book. Later, when she meets Quidley at the coffee shop, Kay is shown to be very polite. She is also straightforward as well, telling him that they will be meeting at his apartment even though Quidley does not usually make this exception. Although Kay is a pleasant person, she does become more assertive once she is found out. She forces Quidley to come with her, calling him the man who compromised her. When Quidley does not want to go back to Fieu Dayol with her, she threatens him with her snoll doper. ", "Kay Smith is a young girl from Fieu Dayol. She came to Earth to get a male partner and is the ship’s stock girl. She is quite confident when she talks to Quidley. She is determined and charming - Kay manages to seduce Quidley very quickly and then orders him to reschedule the dinner. She is pragmatic and sly - we understand that after noticing how she can change the way she converses with Quidley and be both talkative and secretive, depending on her personal goal. Kay is good at planning and manages to almost lure Quidley into the ship by just concealing the information that can alienate him. She knows how to use a weapon. " ]	61048
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 role does the snoll doper play in the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about The Girls from Fieu Dayol by Robert F. Young. Question: What role does the snoll doper play in the story? Answer:	[ "Snoll doper appears in every letter that is hidden in History of English Literature by Hippolyte Adolphe Taine, a book favored by Hebert Quidley, from which he finds these letters and starts his observation. Quidley finds these words several times when he secretly reads the letters in the book whenever a girl comes to put a new letter in the book. He is fascinated by the first girl called Kay Smith who takes the first letter after he notices it. From then on, he has been guessing the meaning of snoll doper. At first, Quidley thinks that snoll doper means a person who has close relationships with Kay, like a boyfriend or a husband. He is annoyed by this possibility after having sexual behaviors with Kay, which causes him to secretly read the fourth letter before Kay comes to pick it up. When Kay finds out that Quidley has been reading her letter, she tells him to come with her to deliver the snoll doper to Jilka, where Quidley is relieved because he realizes that snoll doper is the name of an object, not an identity. On their way to Jilka’s place, Quidley keeps asking Kay what the meaning of snoll doper is, but Kay doesn’t tell him. At the end of the story, snoll doper turns out to be the name of a shotgun, which is what the letters are for, a requisition for the shotgun. Those letters are sent toward Kay because she is the ship’s stock girl who delivers the guns. In conclusion, snoll doper is a word that puzzles Quidley throughout the whole story and causes him to be caught by Kay, the purpose of those secret letters transmitted between Kay and other girls through the book, and an object that forces Quidley to go into the ship.", "The snoll doper is an important part of the story because it was a part of all of the messages. When Herbert read all of the different messages scribbled in bookmarks, he saw that the names of the girls repeated in every message, as well as the words: snoll doper. He was very curious to understand what they meant, so he decided to meet Kay. After Kay tells Herbet who she is, Herbert asks her whan snoll dopers are. She responds by taking out a shotgun-like weapon and forcing him onto their ship. ", "The snoll doper is mentioned in the very first message that Quidley reads. It is also this message that motivates him to investigate further into who Kay is and what exactly is a snoll doper. Most of the story revolves around him trying to crack the meaning behind snoll doper, and he wonders if he could just ask Kay directly about it when she comes to his apartment. The snoll dopper is also largely relevant in helping him figure out what the next The snoll doper is still relevant either, after he finds out Kay’s identity and has to go back to her planet with her. ", "Snoll doper is one of the phrases that Quidley finds in the unintelligible messages from the library. It intrigues him because he doesn’t understand what it means. It makes him think about its potential meaning. Eventually, it leads to his mini-relationship with Kay. When he asks her about this term, she says she will share its meaning later. Thus, she brings him to the ship without any trouble and knows she can use her snoll doper in case Quidley refuses to go. When he does, she presses a snoll doper - a tool similar to a shotgun - against his back and orders him to enter the ship. " ]	61048
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
What is the plot of the story?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Captain Midas by Alfred Coppel. Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "This story follows the Martian Maid’s journey and features its crew members: a captain nicknamed ‘Captain Midas’, Mister Spinelli the Third Officer, and various other shipmates. It is revealed that many of the crew members have a lust for making money, and an apt opportunity to do so is discovered when Mister Spinelli spots a derelict ship amongst the asteroids that could be claimed by them. After a first exploration, Midas ends up with a mystery metal collected from the starship. In his further investigation, he finds that this mystery metal transforms into a heavier metal with a yellow tinge - gold. At the same time, he finds that holding the metal evokes fatigue in him, particularly in his arms. This initial investigation was interrupted by Spinelli barging into Midas’ quarters and spotting the gold. Fearful of the other shipmates knowing and hence collecting it for themselves, Midas threatens Spinelli’s silence. \n\nMidas continues the acquisition of this derelict ship by sending a crew, led by Cohn, to further investigate and take control of the ship. With Midas and Spinelli left behind, they watch their shipmates enter the alien ship. While waiting to hear back from the crew, Midas notices that Spinelli has arranged the Maid’s gun to point at the derelict ship and their crew mates. Initially enraged, Midas soon calms down as he begins to suspect that the rest of the crew knows about the gold and may be hatching an alternate plan. Two days past the check-in time, the pair receives a garbled message from the crew. Midas orders them to disembark and depart, but the starship begins to divert its course. In arguing between something being wrong and Spinelli telling the crew about the gold, Spinelli begins to inch towards the firing panel for the gun and a tussle emerges between the two with Midas killing him. \n\nAfter re-catching the derelict ship, Midas boards the ship to look for the rest of his crew mates. He finds the walls to turn into yellow metal and the decks to have a yellowish cast as well. Inside the ship, he sees skeletal and rusty versions of his crew, and comes to the horrifying realization that the transformation of the metal into gold comes at the expense of him and his crew member’s youth and strength. Running from the ship, Midas reboards the Maid and quickly throws the alien ship back into space. Back on Callisto, the Foundation relieves him of his command as the illness spreads to the rest of his body. \n", "This story is about the last spatial flight of Captain Midas. He lives in a time when humans have explored and deemed safe the Earth-Mars-Venus Triangle. At the beginning, he talks about greedy human nature and what it can cause. Years ago, he was a skipper of the Martian Maid spaceship flying to Callisto. His crew - Spinelli, Shelley, Cohn, Marvin, Zaleski - people with love for money, not noble pioneers. They detected a derelict in the supra-solar void between the EMV Triangle and the outer systems. First, they thought it was The Holcomb Foundation ship, but this one was the largest craft they had ever seen. It was on a near-collision course and probably came in from the direction of Coma Berenices - the stars. He gathered the crew and informed them that they were entitled to claim this derelict as salvage. Everyone got excited and started thinking about the money they could get for this craft. The skipper was supposed to report their finding to the EMV base. But Midas decided to do that after receiving the money for its parts. When they got near the craft, Midas noticed that the metal of its flanks was grained with glittering whorls. They realized it was a starship, and it probably had been roaming through space for millennia. It was gashed deeply by something. Cohn and three other men came back disappointed, saying there was nothing valuable inside. He brought two samples of the ship’s metal. Midas examined the chunks at his work-table, and soon the metal grew yellower. He spent some time testing the sample, and it became stable, drawing the necessary energy from somewhere, and turned into gold. Spinelli unexpectedly came into his office and noticed the piece of gold. He volunteers to go onboard the derelict, but Midas refuses. He also orders Spinelli not to say anything about the precious stone. Captain then saw Spinelli murmuring something to Zaleski and also felt inexplicably tired. He assigned Marvin and Chelly to accompany Cohn and Zaleski onto the hulk in case of mutiny. With time, the number of messages from Cohn started decreasing, and they came through garbled. They sent a strange message that stated that they had lost control. Spinelli got infuriated and almost fired at the big ship from the supersonic rifle. Midas aggressively ordered him to stop, and Spinelli attacked him. After a short fight, Midas killed the officer and immediately noticed that his hands were sickly purple. He put on a pressure suit and decided to go onboard the derelict. Inside he saw his crewmates, their skeletal bodies, and old faces. The walls around them were gold. Midas realized that the ship’s metal was taking the energy required to make it stable from people who touched it. He ran and threw all the gold away. Midas landed on Callisto and was relieved of his command. The illness slowly spread from his hands to other body parts. Now he’s in a hospital and looks eighty though he’s thirty two. \n\n\n", "Captain Midas lives on the spacemen’s pension from Holcomb Foundation. He starts a story about his experience of once having a tremendous amount of treasure. The story begins with him and the crew members on the spaceship Martian Maid when they find a massive derelict in the outer system of the Earth-Mars-Venus Triangle in space. Mister Spinelli is the first one to find the derelict. After he reports to the captain, and the captain measures the course of the derelict, they decide to search over the hulk based on the Space Regulation that any derelict belongs to the discoverer. They sense the chance of treasure in the derelict, searching over it without reporting to the nearest EMV base. At first, they do not find anything valuable inside the ship, so they decide to bring the whole derelict. Mister Cohn brings two pieces of the metal constituting the derelict to the captain. When the captain examines the metal, he finds his hand grows bony and old while the metal becomes gold. He realizes that the metal can somehow transmute the energy to the property of metal, stabilizing itself to become gold. Mister Spinelli witnesses this discovery when the captain is trying in his room. When Mister Spinelli asks the captain whether he can help take the derelict abroad, the captain denies his request and orders him not to leak the information about the metal. Mister Spinelli tells Zaleski, who will take care of the derelict, about the metal. The captain orders the rest of the members to help Zaleski, ensuring that he cannot take the derelict himself. The captain sets the radar finder to watch the derelict. While Spinelli and the captain watch over the derelict with a turret pointing toward it, the message from Mister Cohn, who takes charge of the crew on the derelict, starts to decrease. When they find the derelict begins to get out of sight, Spinelli suspects them of betraying and attacks the captain, while the captain senses the danger of the decreasing message and fights back. The captain kills Mister Spinelli. As the captain examines his hand’s condition, he realizes something goes wrong. The captain controls the Maid to catch up with the derelict, attempting to shoot it but fails. He wears the pressure suit and goes to the derelict, finding the prize crew aged and caress the metal. He realizes that the energy the metal draws comes from organic life, which in this situation is humans. He runs to the Maid, throws away any alien metals, and flees. And now, he lives on the spacemen’s pension, old and weary when he should be young and strong.", "The captain of the Martian Maid starts off describing gold and the greatness of the treasure. He begins to mention how old he is, and he is also poor because he would not be here otherwise. The man goes further on to describe how people of his generation did not let anything go because they were entitled to keep whatever they found. He begins talking about how he is the skipper of the Martian Maid, and the rest of the crew ride a golden ship that they paid for with their lives. He begins to talk about the experience not too long ago, how none of the crew would have known that this was their last flight. He thinks about the sweet payload they would pick up in Callisto from delivering all of the cargo. The captain also mentions how dangerous the asteroid belt was for astrogation at the time. The story then cuts to Spinelli reporting a derelict to the rest of the crew. Once they are near the collision, an abandoned spacer is found. However, even though they have claim over the ship, the captain’s calculations show that it came from beyond the stars. Everybody becomes excited at the prospect of money; the derelict is much bigger than anything the Foundation Yards have ever built. It is also damaged too, as there is a gash from the stem to the stern with a jagged rip in its bare mangled innards. Some of the men are sent to go explore the ship, but they come back disappointed that there is nothing worthy left inside. The ship itself was never built to carry humans, but the crew still decides to take her along. When the captain puts the metal through the metallurgical testing kit, however, he discovers that it is gold. Spinelli tells him that the derelict is ready, but the captain makes him stay on the Maid with him. A few other members of the crew seem to be planning something, and the captain wonders if there is a chance that they will take off with the treasure ship. Spinelli reveals later that he did tell Zaleski about the gold, but they receive a message about losing control on the ship. Spinelli leaps at the captain, and the two of them fight. When the captain realizes that Spinelli is dead, he suddenly looks at his arms and sees how old he has become. He goes to the gold ship and sees the rest of the crew as almost skeletal beings. Realizing that the gold draws energy from them, he discards all of it and speeds away in the Maid. He is relieved of his duty on Callisto, and the Foundation refuses him another ship. The captain is thirty-two, but he looks eighty and is stuck on a hospital cot. The bitterest part is people laugh and call him Captain Midas when he tells this story. " ]	63867
Who is Captain Midas and what are some of his characteristics?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Captain Midas by Alfred Coppel. Question: Who is Captain Midas and what are some of his characteristics? Answer:	[ "Captain Midas is the captain of the spaceship Martian Maid, who unknowingly takes the spaceship on its last flight in this story. He is described to be relatively young at 32 years old, but after interacting with the metal and at the end of the story, has the physical appearance of an eighty year old man with wrinkles and veiny hands. \n\nHe is a greedy man. In the beginning of the story, he honestly admits that he would do quite a few things for a few solar dollars, which we see throughout the story. In addition to his greed, he is a selfish man, as in discovering the gold he threatens Spinelli to secrecy in order to keep the highest gains for himself. It is also this greed that allows Spinelli to get away with initially aiming the gun at the derelict ship and their fellow shipmates on board in case those shipmates try to escape with the gold. \n\nThere are brief moments where he is shown to be an honorable man. For one, he fights Spinelli over blasting their fellow shipmates, and ends up killing Spinelli instead by accident. At the end of the story, he becomes terrified of the derelict ship and its devil metal, and yet still chooses to go aboard it to seek out his shipmates. \n", "Captain Midas is a spaceman, a skipper of the Martian Maid spaceship. He is confident, experienced, and a natural leader - he can feel how the mood of his crew changes and what they are able to do. He knows how Spinelli and Zaleski can act if they find out about the gold and tries to be cautious. He is greedy - Midas gets blinded by the prospect of getting lots of money for the metal parts of the derelict and initially doesn’t notice the metal’s unique feature. Still, he values his team and finds it disgusting that Spinelli would be ready to kill his own colleagues for some gold. Midas also attempts to learn what happened to them when Spinelli gets out of control and thinks that the other members of the team betrayed him and stole his gold. He doesn’t feel normal after killing Spinelli - Midas doesn’t enjoy violence. ", "Captain Midas is the captain of the spaceship Martian Maid. He looks bony, wrinkled, and weary. He looks eighty when he is thirty-two. He is greedy for money as he and the whole crew search every possibility in space to find treasure or things that can be traded for money. His greed also makes him not report to the interplanetary base when the crew finds the derelict. He prioritizes his lust for treasure over his duty as a captain, suspecting everyone on the ship to steal the derelict, but he also maintains his reason in the situation where the lust for treasure may surpass his duty as a captain. This can be shown when Mister Spinelli and the captain find it hard to read the message from the crewmembers on the derelict; he senses the danger while Mister Spinelli only thinks about his treasure. He is rational that all his actions have a reason, such as letting Mister Spinelli set the weapon pointing toward the derelict to ensure the rest of the crew members do not steal the treasure and flee. He has the moral that he feels guilty when he kills Mister Spinelli.", "The captain of the Martian Maid, nicknamed Captain Midas, is the skipper of the boat. He works alongside the rest of the crew, consisting of Spinelli, Shelley, Cohn, Marvin, and Zaleski. The captain is only thirty-two, but he looks eighty by the end of the story. Physically, he is described as having gray hair, flesh hanging off of his bone like a yellow cloth, and face a mask. He is a hard-working man, willing to go to any means to earn his share of money. He is also poor, which is why he was so driven to keep the treasure ship when he found it. Captain Midas, however, is a lot more level-headed than the rest of the crew. He is aware of the dangers of being gold-hungry, which is why he keeps this finding to himself. The captain is also observant, figuring out the ship had come from beyond the stars based on his charts. However, even though he is a lot more level-headed, the captain is also susceptible to the idea of becoming insanely rich off of the golden ship. He is not against taking the ship with them and even sleeps with the gold chunk underneath his bed. Midas is also not afraid to use brute force, considering how he killed Spinelli when the other man attacked. " ]	63867
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 significance of the mystery metal from the starship?	Write a detailed response to the following question about Captain Midas by Alfred Coppel. Question: What is the significance of the mystery metal from the starship? Answer:	[ "The mystery metal is significant because it initially attracted the crew’s interest due to their greed - they had hoped to tear about the derelict starship and sell its pieces for millions. When the Captain tested out the mysterious metal and saw that it turned out to be gold, his greed increased so much that he became suspicious of his crew members that were sent out to investigate the ship. \n\nAlthough the Captain and his crew thought they could take advantage of this metal and benefit from it, it turns out that the opposite is true. Instead, it is this mystery metal that gains its yellow-tint and subsequent gold composition through drawing its energy from them and draining the crew of their youth and strength. The latter named ‘devil-metal’ demonstrates the hastiness of the greed of man, and how it led them to be so enraptured in greed that it blinded them of the wariness of strange objects in space, and hence led to their ultimate demise. \n", "All the spacemen in this story are greedy and materialistic. When the Maid’s crew finds the derelict, they think of selling its parts. This thought cheers them up. Then Midas finds out the starship’s metal can turn into gold, and Spinelli learns that, too. Eventually, this chunk of gold makes Midas’ hands slowly decay while he sleeps with it every night. Spinelli becomes more and more suspicious and suspects everyone to be a traitor. Eventually, Midas realizes the starship’s metal has some evil in it. When he finds his team almost dead and still trying to climb the golden walls of the room, he understands that the metal takes the energy required for its stability from humans. This gold quite literally kills. Greed ends the lives of almost all crewmates of the Maid and leaves Midas to slowly die in a hospital cot, regretting his lethal hunger for money.", "The mystery metal from the derelict can draw energy from life and turn itself into gold through the transmutation of the energy. In the story, the crews on Maid, a spaceship, find a large derelict constituted of this mysterious metal and bring it with them. Soon after they find out its property of becoming gold, they start to fight with each other and caress the metal unstoppably, but they do not know where the energy that makes the metal change comes from. After the captain kills one crewmember, finding the lost signals and weirdness of his hand and the metal, he realizes the metal draws the needed energy from humans. The mysterious metal plays a significant role in that it triggers the greed of the crewmembers to cause them to fight, symbolizing the cursed treasure. It is also the leading cause that most crew members die or mutate, except for the captain, showing that any treasure comes with a cost, in which case, the mysterious metal is the treasure, and the life is the cost.", "The mystery metal, later revealed to be ‘gold’, is significant because it is what drives the crew to want to become rich and leads to their downfall. When the captain first discovers it is gold, he thinks about how wealthy the entire crew will become once they reach Callisto and sell it off. The mystery metal is worth a lot of money, and it is what makes them decide to take the entire ship with them. However, this metal is also deadly because it sucks the energy from the crew. Out of their greed, they fail to realize that the gold drains their lifespan away to continue functioning. The crew has to pay the ultimate price with their lives, and only Captain Midas survives the incident. Even as they are old and skeletal, the rest of the crew do not want to give up the possibility of gold. When the captain goes to Callisto, everybody scorns him and laughs at him despite how terrible his story is about the gold. " ]	63867
Describe the setting of the story	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Raiders of the Second Moon by Basil Wells. Relevant chunks: events of the day before dropping off to sleep. The troublesome Sally. The strange dream world of Armagon. The visit to the barber shop. The removal of Brundage's body. The conversations with the townspeople. Dawes' suspicious attitude ... Then sleep came. He was flanked by marble pillars, thrusting towards a high-domed ceiling. The room stretched long and wide before him, the walls bedecked in stunning purple draperies. He whirled at the sound of footsteps, echoing stridently on the stone floor. Someone was running towards him. It was Sally, pigtails streaming out behind her, the small body wearing a flowing white tightening of the man's shoulder muscles that his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet made clear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. "Continue to work," he said to the young man. "Do not be too surprised at what I am about to tell you, Rold." He paused and watched the golden man's rather stupid face intently. "I am not a Misty One," Noork said. "I killed the owner of this strange garment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue the girl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke." Rold's bound to develop differently." "Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...." For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war." "What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade. "The World War, of course. What's the matter?" Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves. And yet everything had changed, gone dark and enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the Question: Describe the setting of the story Answer:	[ "The story begins in thick jungle on Sekk, which we are told is a \"second moon\" which retains a \"breathable atmosphere\" around a lake surrounded by eleven jungled valleys. In this way, it is implied that Sekk is a second moon of Earth.\n\nIn the jungle, we meet Noork and a young woman named Sarna. They begin traveling together through the jungle, but soon Sarna disappears and Noork is attacked. This is our first encounter with the Misty Ones, who blend in with the jungle foliage. Noork defeats the Misty Ones and continues toward the lake and island where they make their home.\n\nNoork briefly encounters his friend Ud near the marshy lowlands that lie between the jungled valleys on Sekk and the central Lake of Uzdon, but this area is not described. When Noork reaches the central island in the lake, we encounter a non-jungle landscape for the first time. Noork finds himself in a cultivated field, and sees the shape of a huge white skull about half a mile away. After speaking with an enslaved man and learning where Sarna is being held, Noork continues toward the skull.\n\nThe skull is a dome of white stone, with black stone for eye-sockets and nose-holes. The interior contains a raised altar made of precious metals--gold, silver, and brass--and precious stones, as well as stone images of the two gods the Misty Ones worship. Below the altar is the caged area where the young women are held; Noork detects the entrance to this area by its foul odor. The room where the young women are kept is dimly lit by only two torches, very damp with pools of dirty water all around, and holds at least twenty young women. They have nothing to sit on but rotten grass mats. In contrast to the enslaved men who are out in the cultivated fields and open air, the young women are in a desperate situation indeed. They can only sit in their foul, rotting prison and wait to be sacrificed.", "The story takes place sometime after World War II on a second moon that is obscured by the moon we know and is known as Sekk. The moon Sekk has a diameter of less than five-hundred miles and a thirty-two-hour revolution, and it has a breathable atmosphere that sustains life. Life on Sekk is concentrated within a star-shaped cavity that features a lake and eleven valleys branching out from it, all of which contain jungles. The action of the story happens in the jungle areas, the lake, a walled temple, and the cavern prison beneath it. \n", "The story is set on Sekk, the second moon, beyond Luna and blocked from Earth’s view by Luna. Sekk is less than 500 miles in diameter and has a revolution period of 32 hours. It has a breathable atmosphere and features a star-shaped center surrounded by twelve valleys thick with jungle growth. Some trees are over forty feet tall; Noork uses these trees to surveil the area around him. Several groups live on Sekk in different villages, and there are dangerous wild animals called spotted narls. There is a mysterious group of beings, believed to be demons, called the Misty Ones because they are invisible. They live on an island in the middle of a lake and have a huge skull that represents their god, Uzdon. Female slaves are held captive in a pit beneath the skull. The story takes place after World War II, when the Allies were searching for Nazi officers to stand trial for their war crimes. Dr. Karl Von Mark is one of the Nazi officials, and he makes his way to Africa, pursued by the American Stephen Dietrich. They both fly into space and land on Sekk where Von Mark works on his scheme to return and take over the Earth, and Dietrich loses his memory and becomes known as Noork.", "The story takes place on a small moon called Sekk, five hundred miles wide with a thirty-two-hour day. The atmosphere on Sekk supports life, which exists in rich abundance within a star-like depression in its earth. Deep in this depression is a lake surrounded by twelve vast, green valleys and jungles. The jungles are dense and covered with massive trees that look like giants. Many of these trees have sticky fruits that Noork later uses to help him see the Misty Ones. Noork paddles across the lake in order to reach the island of Manak, which is home to the Temple of Skull where the Misty Ones make their sacrifices to the gods Uzdon and Lornu. The Temple is comprised mostly of stone, and the sacrificial altar is made of brass, gold, and silver. After navigating through the Temple to find Tholon Sarna, he eventually ends up in “the pit”—a cavern dimly lit with torches and peppered with dark standing water. After their escape from the Temple, they are once again stopped by Misty Ones in a grassy inlet back on the mainland. This is where Dr. Von Mark reveals Noork’s true identity to him and is killed by Gurn and the Vasads." ]	63521	events of the day before dropping off to sleep. The troublesome Sally. The strange dream world of Armagon. The visit to the barber shop. The removal of Brundage's body. The conversations with the townspeople. Dawes' suspicious attitude ... Then sleep came. He was flanked by marble pillars, thrusting towards a high-domed ceiling. The room stretched long and wide before him, the walls bedecked in stunning purple draperies. He whirled at the sound of footsteps, echoing stridently on the stone floor. Someone was running towards him. It was Sally, pigtails streaming out behind her, the small body wearing a flowing white tightening of the man's shoulder muscles that his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet made clear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. "Continue to work," he said to the young man. "Do not be too surprised at what I am about to tell you, Rold." He paused and watched the golden man's rather stupid face intently. "I am not a Misty One," Noork said. "I killed the owner of this strange garment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue the girl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke." Rold's bound to develop differently." "Is environment so important? Newman tells about a pair of identical twins separated from birth, unaware of each other's existence. They met by accident when they were twenty-one. Each was a telephone repairman. Each had a wife the same age. Each had a baby son. And each had a fox terrier called 'Trixie.' That's without trying to make environments similar. But suppose you did try. Suppose you saw to it that each of them had exactly the same experiences at the same times...." For a moment it seemed to Jack that the room was dimming and aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war." "What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade. "The World War, of course. What's the matter?" Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves. And yet everything had changed, gone dark and enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the
What is the plot of the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Raiders of the Second Moon by Basil Wells. Relevant chunks: "Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see. "What about the book?" "What kind of book is it?" "What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks." "No, no. I mean, what's in it?" "Poetry." "Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book." Maota events of the day before dropping off to sleep. The troublesome Sally. The strange dream world of Armagon. The visit to the barber shop. The removal of Brundage's body. The conversations with the townspeople. Dawes' suspicious attitude ... Then sleep came. He was flanked by marble pillars, thrusting towards a high-domed ceiling. The room stretched long and wide before him, the walls bedecked in stunning purple draperies. He whirled at the sound of footsteps, echoing stridently on the stone floor. Someone was running towards him. It was Sally, pigtails streaming out behind her, the small body wearing a flowing white enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war." "What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade. "The World War, of course. What's the matter?" Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves. And yet everything had changed, gone dark and tightening of the man's shoulder muscles that his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet made clear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. "Continue to work," he said to the young man. "Do not be too surprised at what I am about to tell you, Rold." He paused and watched the golden man's rather stupid face intently. "I am not a Misty One," Noork said. "I killed the owner of this strange garment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue the girl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke." Rold's Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "Noork is in a tree on a moon named Sekk, watching a woman walk through the jungle. When they speak, they learn that Noork has been living with her brother, Gurn. With this introduction, they begin to travel together.\n\nThe woman explains that she had been captured by slavers in the past but had escaped. The escapees were then followed by the Misty Ones, and the woman was the only one who made a complete escape. Noork states that he will visit the island where the Misty Ones live one day, but the woman does not answer. When Noork turns back to her, she has disappeared, and Noork is attacked. He hides in the trees and spies the Misty Ones below. He throws fruit down on them until he can easily see them by the stains the fruit makes on their clothing, then attacks with arrows. The Misty Ones flee except for one who has been killed with an arrow. Noork takes the robe of this one and sets off toward the Temple of the Skull, the home of the Misty Ones, to free the woman.\n\nNoork encounters Ud, his friend, near the lake, and tells him to tell Gurn that the MIsty Ones can be trapped and skinned. He asks Ud to tell Gurn that Noork is going to save Gurn's \"father's woman woman\" called Sarna.\n\nNoork paddles across the lake and sneaks close to the Temple of the Skull. He falls asleep in a tree and is awakened by the conversation of two slaves talking about Sarna. After one slave leaves, he speaks with the other slave, Rold, and tells him that he is there to rescue Sarna. Rold, realizing that the Misty Ones are only mortal men, tells Noork that Sarna is held in a pit beneath the temple with the other young women slaves.\n\nNoork finds the entrance to the pit but is blocked by two guards, whom he kills.He then proceeds to the cage where the young women are held, where he is confronted by a priest. He fights the priest, kills him, and frees Sarna. They go back to the field, get Rold, and the three of them flee into the jungle. They plan to go for a boat and leave, but are caught by Misty Ones waiting to trap them. At this time, Dr. Von Mark, a Nazi from Earth, confronts Noork, who is also Stephen Dietrich, an American pilot who has been hunting him and had tracked him through space to Sekk. Due to Dietrich/Noork's amnesia, he remembers none of this. Just as Von Mark is about to kill him, Gurn and other men from Wari kill the Misty Ones with arrows and Noork and the others are freed. Noork states that he can now live in peace with Gurn and Sarna in the jungle.", "Noork, a man from Earth who doesn’t remember who he is, lives in the jungle on a second moon. He knows he was brought there by what he remembers as a huge bird and that he was taken in by a man named Gurn and the Vasad people of the jungle. He meets a woman named Sarna with whom he shares a mutual attraction, and it turns out that she is Gurn’s sister. Shortly after they discover this, they are attacked. Sarna vanishes and Noork hides, eventually discovering that the “Misty Ones” who attacked them, thought to be demons, look similar to him and can be “skinned”; this is important because their skins or coverings allow the wearer to be nearly invisible like them. \n\nNoork passes a message along via another Vasad to tell Gurn what he has learned about the Misty Ones, and to say that Noork has gone to rescue Sarna. He sneaks into the walled temple where the slaves are being kept, and enlists the help of another slave, Rold, to help them get out if he can get Sarna. Noork goes down to the cavern and, after fighting a priest to the death, rescues Sarna. They escape with Rold, only to be captured by more Misty Ones, one of whom turns out to be a Nazi from Noork’s previous life. \n\nThough Noork can’t remember him (but knows he dislikes him), Doctor Von Mark remembers him. Noork’s name was Stephen Dietrich, and he was an American flier who had chased down one of the last nazi criminals: Doctor Von Mark. Von Mark had then flown one of his shuttles to Sekk and landed successfully, while Stephen had pursued him in another of his shuttles and crashed on Sekk, resulting in his amnesia. “Noork” was the name given to him by the Vasad based on the only sounds he could make: “New York”. \n\nDoctor Von Mark asks if Noork knows the secret to the invisibility of the Misty One’s skins, since this would allow him to return to Earth and take it over for the Fatherland. When he realizes that Noork knows nothing, he moves to kill him but is shot by an arrow just in time. Gurn has rallied warriors based on Noork’s message. Noork now knows his real name and that he got where he is by hunting down an evil man. He is now happy to live safely in the jungle with Gurn and Sarna, and she says she is happy, too. \n", "Noork is a man from Earth whose real name is Stephen Dietrich; he was pursuing the Nazi Dr. Karl Von Mark, the last of the Axis criminals at large. Dietrich followed Von Mark to Africa where Von Mark took off in a spaceship, and Dietrich followed. Both landed on Sekk, a second moon past Luna, but Dietrich’s landing was so rough that he lost his memory. When the locals found him, he said, “New York,” which they didn’t understand and named him Noork. Noork lives among the Vasads and learns their language. \n\nNoork and Tholon Sarna meet in the jungle and become friends. One day as they are talking, Noork hears feet scuffing, and Tholon disappears. Noork climbs a tree to find out where the Misty Ones are (They are invisible.). He detects movement and throws overripe fruit, which stains the cloaks of the Misty Ones. Noork shoots arrows toward the creatures and kills one. He takes that one’s robe, which is what makes the Misty Ones invisible. \n\nNoork tells one of his colleagues to take the message to Gurn, their leader and Tholon’s brother, that the Misty Ones are flesh and blood, not demons as they believe. He tells Ud that he is going to the island of the Misty Ones to save Tholon. He reaches the wall surrounding the Misty Ones’ village and overhears two slaves talking before they separate. Noork approaches the slave in the field, Rold, and asks for his help in exchange for helping Rold escape. Rold explains that the large skull is the god Uzdon, and the priests make sacrifices by taking the heart out of a living slave girl. He also tells Noork that the slave girls are held in a pit beneath the skull guarded by Misty Ones.\n\nNoork moves among the Misty Ones in anonymity since he is wearing one of their robes. He enters the skull and kills the guards who are in charge of the slave girls. Just as he is about to release Tholon, a priest catches him, and they fight until Noork kills him, too. Noork takes more robes and the priest’s face shield and leaves with Tholon and Rold. The face shield enables him to see the Misty Ones who are invisible to everyone else, so he can see when they are waiting to trap them. They capture the escape party, and one of the Misty Ones reveals that he is Dr. Von Mark after recognizing Dietrich. Von Mark reveals his plans to use the cloaks of invisibility to conquer Earth and make Germany invincible. Von Mark prepares to shoot Dietrich but is shot by an arrow first. Misty Ones close in on the group and lower their hoods, revealing Tholon’s brother Gurn and his men. Noork now remembers who he is and says he will live in peace with Gurn and his sister.\n", "Noork searches for the bird that dropped him on a cliff (as well as another bird) when he is discovered by the Vasads. He repeated the word \"New York\", and so the Vasads call him Noork. From his perch, he now watches a girl—Tholon Sarna--moving along a trail below. She is the sister of Gurn, the Vasad leader. Gurn has been exiled from their home city of Grath because he doesn't believe in the enslavement of the Zuran, and Tholon Sarna has recently evaded capture by her enemies, the men of Konto. The Misty Ones--slavers dwellling at the Temple of the Skull and feared deeply by the Vasads--follow her. As Tholon Sarna and Noork walk, she is captured by a Misty One made invisible by a special robe. A Misty One clubs Noork, injuring his arm. Thanks to their blurry outlines, Noork realizes the Misty Ones are not entirely invisible, and he uses his legs to pelt them with fruit. Upon seeing their true form--closer to his own human shape--Noork loses his fear of them and begins attacking them with arrows. He takes the invisibility robe of a fallen Misty One and uses it to disguise himself as he makes his way to the Temple of the Skull. Along the way, he reunites with his friend Ud, a jungle-dwelling beast-man. He sends Ud to inform Gurn of the Misty Ones' newfound weakness. We then learn that Noork's real name is Stephen Dietrich, and he had been hunting Dr. Karl Von Mark, a criminal scientist attempting to revivify the Nazi power structure. Von Mark manages to evade Dietrich by landing on Sekk, and Dietrich crashes and succumbs to amnesia. The bird that had carried him to the cliff was his own plane, and the bird he had been seeking was Von Mark's. Now, Noork descends upon a slave named Rold near the Temple of the Skull. He enlists Rold to help him free Tholon Sarna. Rold informs Noork of the High Priest's plan to choose a sacrifice to their god, Uzdon, from the female slaves caged in a pit beneath the Skull. Noork promises a robe to Rold if his plan to rescue Tholon Sarna succeeds. In disguise, Noork approaches the Skull, heavily guarded by Misty Ones, and makes his way toward the pit. Along the way, he defeats guards and pockets two robes. Before freeing Tholon Sarna, Noork battles the High Priest, kills him, and they make their escape. Soon after, they are again trapped by a group of Misty Ones--this time led by none other than Dr. Karl Von Mark himself. Von Mark tells Noork of his desire to use the secret of invisibility to make Germany all-powerful, and he pulls out a gun to kill him. Suddenly, Gurn emerges with the Vasads, and they kill Von Mark with arrows. Noork recalls his true identify as Captain Dietrich and looks forward to a life of peace amongst the Vasads with Tholon Sarna." ]	63521	"Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see. "What about the book?" "What kind of book is it?" "What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks." "No, no. I mean, what's in it?" "Poetry." "Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book." Maota events of the day before dropping off to sleep. The troublesome Sally. The strange dream world of Armagon. The visit to the barber shop. The removal of Brundage's body. The conversations with the townspeople. Dawes' suspicious attitude ... Then sleep came. He was flanked by marble pillars, thrusting towards a high-domed ceiling. The room stretched long and wide before him, the walls bedecked in stunning purple draperies. He whirled at the sound of footsteps, echoing stridently on the stone floor. Someone was running towards him. It was Sally, pigtails streaming out behind her, the small body wearing a flowing white enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war." "What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade. "The World War, of course. What's the matter?" Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves. And yet everything had changed, gone dark and tightening of the man's shoulder muscles that his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet made clear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. "Continue to work," he said to the young man. "Do not be too surprised at what I am about to tell you, Rold." He paused and watched the golden man's rather stupid face intently. "I am not a Misty One," Noork said. "I killed the owner of this strange garment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue the girl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke." Rold's
What is the significance of enslavement in the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Raiders of the Second Moon by Basil Wells. Relevant chunks: enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the Misty One he found a solitary tree growing within the wall and climbed to a comfortable crotch. In less than a minute he was asleep. "The new slave," a rough voice cut across his slumber abruptly, "is the daughter of Tholon Dist the merchant." Noork was fully awake now. They were speaking of Sarna. Her father's name was Tholon Dist. It was early morning in the fields of the Misty Ones and he could see the two golden-skinned slaves who talked together beneath his tree. "That matters not to the priests of Uzdon," the slighter of the two slaves, his chosen one will be bound across the altar before great Uzdon's image and her heart torn from her living breast." The slave's mismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown, lifted from his work. "Tholon Sarna is in the pit beneath the Temple with the other female slaves. And the Misty Ones stand guard over the entrance to the temple pits." "It is enough," said Noork. "I will go to rescue her now. Be prepared to join us as we return. I will have a robe for you if all goes well." "If you are captured," cried Rold nervously, "you "Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see. "What about the book?" "What kind of book is it?" "What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks." "No, no. I mean, what's in it?" "Poetry." "Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book." Maota America. I was hunting this evil man when my bird died." He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. "The evil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peace with you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle." "It is good, Noork," smiled Tholon Sarna. End of Project Gutenberg's Raiders of the Second Moon, by Gene Ellerman Question: What is the significance of enslavement in the story? Answer:	[ "Enslavement and freedom as themes run throughout the story. When Noork and Sarna first meet each other in the opening scene, one of the ways they decide to trust one another is because of their mutual relationships with Gurn, a third character. Gurn has been exiled from the city of Grath because he says that his people should no longer enslave the captured Zurans from other valleys of Sekk. In the next scene, we learn that Sarna, Gurn's sister, was kidnapped by one group of slavers, escaped them with four others, and only narrowly escaped capture by a second group of slavers, the Misty Ones from the Temple of the Skull, who captured the other four of her group. Noork tells her that one day he will visit the island of Misty Ones who took her friends. At this time, he realizes that Sarna has disappeared, and he is attacked by the Misty Ones, though he is able to fight them off.\n\nDuring Noork's travels to the island of the Misty Ones, we learn his backstory: he is American pilot Stephen Dietrich, and he arrived on the moon of Sekk by following Doctor Karl Von Mark, last of the Nazi criminals at large. Dietrich's ship had crashed on Sekk, robbing him of his memory. In the conflict between the Allies and Nazis, we again see the conflict between enslavement and freedom: the Nazis forced those they considered racially \"impure\" into prison camps where they were either murdered outright or forced to engage in labor under inhumane conditions until they died; the Allied forces were a hope of freedom for these imprisoned, enslaved people.\n\nNoork spies on enslaved men in the fields outside the temple of the Misty Ones and hears them gossiping about Sarna. The older man suggests that their life is not so bad, but the younger man protests and states that one day he plans to escape. Noork approaches the younger man to find out where Sarna is being held and promises to take him along when he and Sarna escape. Noork then fights off multiple guards and a priest in order to free Sarna from the pit where she is held, which is dank and full of rotting grass mats and little light.\n\nWhile the story touches on themes of enslavement and freedom, it does not engage with them fully. The dungeon where the enslaved young women is held is described in foul terms, but Noork does not seem to free all the young women from their prison. That may happen as a result of Gurn's final attack on Doctor Von Mark and the Misty Ones, but Noork escapes only with Sarna and Rold. Rold is unhappy with being enslaved, not because he is being harmed or others are, but because he is not free to mate with attractive young women like Sarna. While the story should not need to spell out every reason why enslavement is wrong, it takes a very superficial approach to a deeply painful issue.", "Enslavement is a major theme throughout the story. Gurn has been exiled for speaking out against the slavery that his people have inflicted on others, which is how he a Noork find one another. Noork’s travels during the action of the story are undertaken in an effort to save Sarna, who has now been enslaved twice. The person he enlists to help him, Rold, is also a slave. When Doctor Von Mark and the Misty Ones ambush Noork and the doctor recognizes him as Stephen Dietrich, he mentions that the trapper has now become the trapped. A moment later, Gurn and the other warriors free Noork from the doctor’s enslavement. Most of the story involves various people being enslaved or feeling a certain way about enslavement, and the element of Nazism in the story also lends it a broader theme of the enslavement that that regime inflicted and tried to inflict, and the continued possession of the Earth that Von Mark is working toward. \n", "Enslavement seems to be the preferred way to deal with enemies on Sekk, and when Gurn speaks out against enslaving their Zuran captives, the city rulers label him a traitor and exile him from the city. His sister, Tholon, was captured by slavers but managed to escape with four others. However, when they passed near the Lake of Uzdon, the Misty Ones captured her four fellow escapees. And while Tholon is telling her story to Noork, she is kidnapped by the Misty Ones and spirited away to their city of Uzdon. The Misty Ones offer beautiful slave girls chosen by their priests as sacrifices to their god Uzdon, binding them to the altar and removing their hearts while still alive. The Misty Ones also enslave others to be workers. Slaves work in their cultivated fields and gardens, and in the skull, slaves are chained together with heavy chains. ", "Enslavement is an important topic in the story as many of the Zuran peoples are enslaved by various groups. The men of Kanto are enemies of the Vasads and the people of Grath, but the city of Grath also enslaves people. When Gurn speaks out against the practice, he is exiled from Grath and becomes transient with his group of Vasads. When Noork first meets Tholon Sarna, she has fled her initial enslavement, narrowly avoided enslavement by the men of Kanto, and is then captured by the Misty Ones, who also have slaves working on the island of Manak. Noork frees Rold from his enslavement, and enlists his help to prevent Tholon Sarna from becoming a human sacrifice to Uzdon. When the Vasads defeat the Misty Ones and Dr. Von Mark, they are free to live in their own society without the constraints of slavery." ]	63521	enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the Misty One he found a solitary tree growing within the wall and climbed to a comfortable crotch. In less than a minute he was asleep. "The new slave," a rough voice cut across his slumber abruptly, "is the daughter of Tholon Dist the merchant." Noork was fully awake now. They were speaking of Sarna. Her father's name was Tholon Dist. It was early morning in the fields of the Misty Ones and he could see the two golden-skinned slaves who talked together beneath his tree. "That matters not to the priests of Uzdon," the slighter of the two slaves, his chosen one will be bound across the altar before great Uzdon's image and her heart torn from her living breast." The slave's mismatched eyes, one blue and the other brown, lifted from his work. "Tholon Sarna is in the pit beneath the Temple with the other female slaves. And the Misty Ones stand guard over the entrance to the temple pits." "It is enough," said Noork. "I will go to rescue her now. Be prepared to join us as we return. I will have a robe for you if all goes well." "If you are captured," cried Rold nervously, "you "Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see. "What about the book?" "What kind of book is it?" "What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks." "No, no. I mean, what's in it?" "Poetry." "Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book." Maota America. I was hunting this evil man when my bird died." He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. "The evil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peace with you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle." "It is good, Noork," smiled Tholon Sarna. End of Project Gutenberg's Raiders of the Second Moon, by Gene Ellerman
What is Gurn's role in the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Raiders of the Second Moon by Basil Wells. Relevant chunks: America. I was hunting this evil man when my bird died." He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. "The evil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peace with you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle." "It is good, Noork," smiled Tholon Sarna. End of Project Gutenberg's Raiders of the Second Moon, by Gene Ellerman laughed Gurn. "The Misty Ones skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came across the lake," he looked at the dying Von Mark, "as were these others. Soon we would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend." "Lucky I escaped first," Noork told him. "The priests of Uzdon would have trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible." He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. His chest expanded proudly. "No longer," he told Gurn, "am I a man without a name. I am Captain Dietrich from a distant valley called exclaimed at his brown skin. "Your hair is the color of the sun!" she said. "Your garb is Vasad, yet you speak the language of the true men." Her violet oddly slanting eyes opened yet wider. "Who are you?" "I am Noork," the man told her. "For many days have I dwelt among the wild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, for my friend." The girl impulsively took a step nearer. "Gurn!" she cried. "Is he tall and strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together with human hair? Does he talk with his own skull. "Go to save Gurn's ..." and here Noork was stumped for words. "To save his father's woman woman," he managed at last. "Father's woman woman called Sarna." And the misty blob of nothingness was gone again, its goal now the marshy lowlands that extended upward perhaps a thousand feet from the jungle's ragged fringe to end at last in the muddy shallows of the Lake of Uzdon. To Noork it seemed that all the world must be like these savage jungle fastnesses of the twelve valleys and their central lake. He knew that the giant bird had carried him shadow when he thinks?" "That is Gurn," admitted Noork shortly. "He is also an exile from the walled city of Grath. The city rulers call him a traitor. He has told me the reason. Perhaps you know it as well?" "Indeed I do," cried Sarna. "My brother said that we should no longer make slaves of the captured Zurans from the other valleys." Noork smiled. "I am glad he is your brother," he said simply. The girl's eyes fell before his admiring gaze and warm blood flooded into her rounded neck and lovely cheeks. "Brown-skinned one!" she cried with a Question: What is Gurn's role in the story? Answer:	[ "We first hear Gurn's name mentioned by Noork in his initial meeting with Sarna. He tells her that he has been living with the wild Vasads of the jungle with Gurn, his friend and their chief. Noork goes on to say that Gurn is an exile from the walled city of Grath and asks Sarna if she knows why this is. Sarna says that her brother says they should no longer enslave Zurans they capture from other valleys. In this way, their relationships with Gurn build a bridge between them, allowing them to consider a relationship with one another.\n\nGurn is next mentioned when Noork encounters his friend Ud near the central lake of Sekk, the moon they are on. Noork asks Ud to go to their mutual friend Gurn and pass on a message. Noork asks Ud to tell Gurn that the Misty Ones can be trapped and skinned. When Ud wonders why anyone would want to do such a thing, Noork tells him that Noork is trying to save Gurn's \"father's woman woman\", as he describes Gurn's sister Sarna.\n\nGurn then arrives as something between a hero and a deus ex machina at the very end of the story. Noork, Sarna, and Rold, an enslaved man who helped Noork free Sarna, are about to be murdered by Doctor Von Mark and the Misty Ones, when Gurn and his allies arrive and shoot the enemy full of arrows, saving all their lives. Gurn reveals that he received Ud's messages and they were trapping the Misty Ones as they came across the lake and stealing their robes so they could come to Noork's rescue. Without Gurn, Noork and Sarna would never have traveled together in the first place, nor would they have been rescued at the end.", "Gurn is described as a renegade and the leader of the Vasad, a hairy people living in the jungle on Sekk. He is tall, strong, golden-skinned, and has proven to be a friend to Noork. He wears bracelets connected by human hair. He has been exiled from the city of Grath because he spoke out against keeping the captured people from other valleys as slaves. He is Sarna’s brother, and she seems to trust Noork more when he mentions Gurn. After he and Sarna are attacked, Noork passes a message to another Vasad, Ud, to tell Gurn that the “misty people” they fear can be killed and their skins used to conceal them, and that he’s going to save Sarna. Later, after Noork and Sarna are captured by the Nazi Doctor Von Mark, Gurn and some warriors show up just in time to save them. \n", "Gurn is Tholon Sarna’s brother and the leader of a group of Vasads. He is tall and strong, wears a bracelet made of gold discs linked together with human hair, and talks with his own shadow when he thinks. Gurn was exiled from the city of Grath, whose leaders called him a traitor for voicing his opinion that they should not make their captured Zurans slaves. When Noork leaves to rescue Tholon from the Misty Ones, he sends word to Gurn via Ud that the Misty Ones are not demons but flesh and bone beings who can be trapped and skinned and that he is going to rescue Gurn’s sister from the Misty Ones. At the end of the story, when Von Mark and his men have captured Noork, Tholon, and Rold, Gurn and his men arrive and pelt the Waris with arrows to rescue Noork and the others. Gurn and his men had been trapping Misty Ones on their way to the Misty Ones’ city of Uzdon to rescue Noork when they came across Von Mark and the Waris holding Noork and the others. ", "Gurn is the golden-skinned leader of the Vasads and Tholon Sarna’s brother. Gurn discovers Noork when he first lands on Sekk and reminds him that he has not always lived in the valleys of the moon. As leader of the Vasads, Gurn has been exiled from his home city of Grath for speaking out against the enslavement of the people of Zura. Gurn and the Vasads fear the Misty Ones that make sacrifices to Uzdon at the Temple of the Skull, believing they are gods or demons. When Noork discovers the Misty Ones can be shed of their invisibility, he sends his friend Ud to inform Gurn. Upon hearing this news, Gurn brings the Vasads to rescue his sister, Tholon Sarna, and they arrive just in time to prevent Dr. Von Mark from killing Noork. Instead, Gurn kills Dr. Von Mark by shooting him with arrows, and Noork decides to live in peace with him, the Vasads, and Tholon Sarna." ]	63521	America. I was hunting this evil man when my bird died." He smiled and his brown arm tightened around Sarna's golden body. "The evil man is dead. My native valley is safe. Now I can live in peace with you, Gurn, and with your sister, here in the jungle." "It is good, Noork," smiled Tholon Sarna. End of Project Gutenberg's Raiders of the Second Moon, by Gene Ellerman laughed Gurn. "The Misty Ones skin easily. We were trapping the Misty Ones as they came across the lake," he looked at the dying Von Mark, "as were these others. Soon we would have come to your rescue, Noork, my friend." "Lucky I escaped first," Noork told him. "The priests of Uzdon would have trapped you. To them the Misty Ones are visible." He picked up the fallen vision shield that lay beside their feet. His chest expanded proudly. "No longer," he told Gurn, "am I a man without a name. I am Captain Dietrich from a distant valley called exclaimed at his brown skin. "Your hair is the color of the sun!" she said. "Your garb is Vasad, yet you speak the language of the true men." Her violet oddly slanting eyes opened yet wider. "Who are you?" "I am Noork," the man told her. "For many days have I dwelt among the wild Vasads of the jungle with their golden-skinned chief, Gurn, for my friend." The girl impulsively took a step nearer. "Gurn!" she cried. "Is he tall and strong? Has he a bracelet of golden discs linked together with human hair? Does he talk with his own skull. "Go to save Gurn's ..." and here Noork was stumped for words. "To save his father's woman woman," he managed at last. "Father's woman woman called Sarna." And the misty blob of nothingness was gone again, its goal now the marshy lowlands that extended upward perhaps a thousand feet from the jungle's ragged fringe to end at last in the muddy shallows of the Lake of Uzdon. To Noork it seemed that all the world must be like these savage jungle fastnesses of the twelve valleys and their central lake. He knew that the giant bird had carried him shadow when he thinks?" "That is Gurn," admitted Noork shortly. "He is also an exile from the walled city of Grath. The city rulers call him a traitor. He has told me the reason. Perhaps you know it as well?" "Indeed I do," cried Sarna. "My brother said that we should no longer make slaves of the captured Zurans from the other valleys." Noork smiled. "I am glad he is your brother," he said simply. The girl's eyes fell before his admiring gaze and warm blood flooded into her rounded neck and lovely cheeks. "Brown-skinned one!" she cried with a
What is the significance of memories in the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Galactic Ghost by Walter Kubilius. Relevant chunks: explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of stinging forehead on his arms, cursing softly and crying. Finally he rolled over, pulled his foot out of the mess, and took off his shoes. They were full of mud—sticky sandy mud. The dark world was reeling about him, and the wind was dragging at his breath. He fell back against the sand pile and let his feet sink in the mud hole and wriggled his toes. He was laughing soundlessly, and his face was wet in the wind. He couldn't think. He couldn't remember where he was and why, and he stopped caring, and after a while he felt course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—" In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed. Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab." It was the girl who had many millions of others. Dead, when the bombs fell. Dead, as everyone knew they would be and no one did anything to prevent. Dead. Perhaps the whole world is dead—except for us." Harry stared at him. "I can't take the time to explain it all. I have too much to do. Just three of us—myself and my two sons. My wife lost her mind. I should have helped her as I'm helping you." "I don't understand," Harry said. "I remember people, and things, and where are they now? Dead? People can die, but farms, cities...." "I haven't the time," the Question: What is the significance of memories in the story? Answer:	[ "Both Dobbin and Willard have memories of Earth that sadden them and make them lonely. As Dobbin is dying, he remembers his life on Earth, and his greatest regret is that he will never see it again. Dobbin is satisfied with his life and experiences, but his Earth-loneliness prevents him from dying a happy man. Willard is also pained by his memories of Earth and what he has lost and will never have again. Alone in space, Willard considers his memories the only things of value to him. Because his memories cause him so much pain, Willard tries to ignore them or remove them, but they return in his dreams. His memories in his dreams are full of sensory details and other details that he did not notice when he was on Earth. However, when Willard is drugged and sleeping on the Ghost Ship, his dreams are of memories from the years he spent on the Mary Lou, and his dreams about people that he knew are unpleasant. Willard believes that if he could walk on Earth one more time, he would die a happy man.", "Memories are both joys for Willard as well as his greatest anguish. The memories of his time on Earth, the sound of his friend’s voices, the feel of the ground beneath his feet, and even the sounds of the buildings and the city torture him since it gives him something to hope for. \nHe is not able to let go of his life because he longs to survive and live out the rest of his days on Earth. He spends almost 20 years alone while in space, holding on to his memories to keep him going. Unlike Dobbin, memories became Willard’s constant companion and the only thing that lasted with him throughout his time aboard the Mary Lou. \nIn the end, though, his memories basically haunted and tormented him. He would push them away, only to dream of them at night. His memories broke him and, without anyone beside him, Willard slowly faded away into nothing more than a shell of a man. \n", "Memories function as a link to reality for Willard. The more he struggles to stay sane during his long periods of isolation, the more he relies on his vivid memories of Earth—walking along the streets of Arden, hearing the voices of his co-workers and scientists he used to know, the voices of his friends and wife–to keep him alive. Even as the “Mary Lou” slowly begins to lose its energy and shape and become a “ghost ship”, Willard is not aware that this process is even happening because his memories keep him grounded in a kind of reality. In this reality, his memories keep Willard alive because Willard believes he is alive and that a real ship has come to save him. The idea of returning to Earth and seeing those memories come to life again keeps Willard going for all those decades.", "Memories are very significant in the story, because they both sustain Willard’s will to keep going and torment him when he is at his lowest points. He dreams of his Earth days at night and longs to hear the voices of his friends, family, and coworkers, and to see Earth again. When he is rescued by The Ghost Ship, he tells the Captain that the idea of seeing Earth is all that has kept him going. His Earth memories have also made him feel even lonelier as he has floated through space, and now on The Ghost Ship his memories of being stranded on the Mary Lou haunt him in his nightmares. His memories have alternately been a struggle and a lifeline, but are ultimately what have kept him connected to his humanity. \n" ]	62244	explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of stinging forehead on his arms, cursing softly and crying. Finally he rolled over, pulled his foot out of the mess, and took off his shoes. They were full of mud—sticky sandy mud. The dark world was reeling about him, and the wind was dragging at his breath. He fell back against the sand pile and let his feet sink in the mud hole and wriggled his toes. He was laughing soundlessly, and his face was wet in the wind. He couldn't think. He couldn't remember where he was and why, and he stopped caring, and after a while he felt course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—" In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed. Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab." It was the girl who had many millions of others. Dead, when the bombs fell. Dead, as everyone knew they would be and no one did anything to prevent. Dead. Perhaps the whole world is dead—except for us." Harry stared at him. "I can't take the time to explain it all. I have too much to do. Just three of us—myself and my two sons. My wife lost her mind. I should have helped her as I'm helping you." "I don't understand," Harry said. "I remember people, and things, and where are they now? Dead? People can die, but farms, cities...." "I haven't the time," the
What is the significance of Ghost Ships in the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Galactic Ghost by Walter Kubilius. Relevant chunks: explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it. There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history there had been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roam forever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was true for the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space? He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it was not nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. A moment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The Ghost Ship is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts!" "Yes." faint ghost-like rocket ships? The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars. "There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away. Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. useless order, he thought bitterly, when there was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth, long forgotten Earth. He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him. He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already being marked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater of the stars, he suddenly froze. There was a ship, coming toward him! For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubt assailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again? Question: What is the significance of Ghost Ships in the story? Answer:	[ "There are legends and tall tales about the Ghost Ships, told mainly by drunken men and professional storytellers. Willard remembers that there are stories on Earth about Ghost Ships that sail the Seven Seas. The story goes that the crews of Ghost Ships have broken a particular law, and their punishment is to roam forever. The Ghost Ship in space is said to be the home of spacemen who could not return to Earth. When Dobbin is dying, he claims to see the Ghost Ship and that it has come for him, but when Willard looks for the ship, he does not see it. Later, when Willard sees the Ghost Ship for himself for the first time, he tries to convince himself it is not really there. He remembers the stories about oceangoing Ghost Ships and reasons that there could also be Ghost Ships in space. When the Ghost Ship turns to leave, Willard is almost sorry to see it go because he has been so lonely. When the Ghost Ship appears to Willard for the second time, it has pulled alongside the Mary Lou, and Willard thinks it is a real ship. Only when the Ghost Ship abruptly speeds away and Willard sees stars shining through it does Willard realize it was the Ghost Ship, and he believes it is mocking him. With his third sighting of the Ghost Ship, Willard immediately thinks it is the Ghost Ship but then convinces himself it is not when it messages him. After he is on the ship, he realizes it is indeed the Ghost Ship and that he is now a Ghost. \n", "The Ghost Ship is a tale told by spacemen to frighten each other or warn them of this grave possibility. Many of those that came close to death in space, or those who witnessed others dying with no hope of a return to earth, mentioned seeing a ghost ship. A faint outline of a ship that had come to take them away forever. Before Dobbin’s death at the story of the story, he tells Willard that he sees the ghost ship. \nThis ghost ship serves as another form of torture for Willard during his many years of solitude. The ghost ship would essentially check up on him, float by and see if he was still alive or not. This gave Willard false hope as he would dream that the ghost ship was a real rocket ship that was coming to rescue him. In the end, Willard is taken away by a ghost ship, though he thinks it’s a rescue ship initially, and he is doomed to forever fly through the solar system as a ghost and nothing more. There is no hope for his return to Earth. The men of the ghost ship are truly ghosts, invisible to the naked eye and only visible to those on their deathbeds. \n", "The Ghost Ship is a legend that sailors and space travelers alike have claimed people see in the moments before they die at sea or in space. In the seconds before Dobbin dies in Willard’s arms, he looks out the window of the “Mary Lou” and claims to see the Ghost Ship himself. Throughout Willard’s long periods of solitude aboard the “Mary Lou”, he thinks he sees the Ghost Ship several times. First, from a distance, as a blinking light advancing closer and closer before turning back and sailing off into dark space; later, he thinks he sees the ship return, only this time it passes nearer before turning back and leaving again. With each return of the Ghost Ship, Willard believes he sees it clearer than he had before. After decades adrift in space, Willard believes a ship has finally come to rescue him. He does not think it is the Ghost Ship because it is solid, and he is greeted by a crew of people. However, the captain explains that the longer a vessel spends lost in space, the more it loses itself and slips into a kind of un-reality, along with those aboard. The more the “Mary Lou” drifted into this space, the more real the Ghost Ship became to Willard. Willard realizes that the “Mary Lou” has become a “ghost ship” herself.", "Ghost Ships frame the story and the idea of them haunts Willard on and off throughout it. At the beginning, when Dobbin exclaims that he sees a Ghost Ship prior to his death, Willard tells himself that it was a hallucination from somewhere deep in his dying friend’s subconscious, just the result of the memory of an old legend. However, the idea of a Ghost Ship never really leaves Willard’s mind throughout the rest of the story. When he sees a partially transparent rocket ship that turns away and disappears, he wonders if it could be a Ghost Ship but talks himself out of it. Later he wonders if it was a ghost ship that was “mocking him”. When he is rescued by a ship that looks more real, the thought still crosses his mind that it could be a Ghost Ship and he again shuts the idea down. Ultimately, Ghost Ships are incredibly significant in the story, because it turns out that both the Mary Lou, and his rescue ship/new home, while not exactly like the tall tale, are, in effect, Ghost Ships. \n" ]	62244	explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, This was no fantasy. There was a scientific reason for it. There must be! Or should there be? Throughout all Earth history there had been Ghost Ships sailing the Seven Seas—ships doomed to roam forever because their crew broke some unbreakable law. If this was true for the ships of the seas, why not for the ships of empty space? He looked again at the strange ship. It was motionless. At least it was not nearing him. Willard could see nothing but its vague outline. A moment later he could discern a faint motion. It was turning! The Ghost Ship is the Ghost Ship and we are the Ghosts!" "Yes." faint ghost-like rocket ships? The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars. "There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away. Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. useless order, he thought bitterly, when there was no way whatever to get sufficient power to get back to Earth, long forgotten Earth. He was leaning back in his chair when a vague uneasiness seized him. He arose and slowly walked over to the window, his age already being marked in the ache of his bones. Looking out into the silent theater of the stars, he suddenly froze. There was a ship, coming toward him! For a moment the reason in his mind tottered on a balance. Doubt assailed him. Was this the Ghost Ship come to torment him again?
Who is Larry Dobbin, and what happens to him?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Galactic Ghost by Walter Kubilius. Relevant chunks: man could. Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and a tremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard. "I saw it!" his voice cracked, trembling. "Saw what?" "It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there!" "In heaven's name, Dobbin," Willard demanded, "What do you see? What is it?" Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studded space. "The Ghost Ship!" Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of in whispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales. But he had faint ghost-like rocket ships? The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars. "There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away. Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship in space and bring them home again. Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard lifted him so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of the stars. Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of the heavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft he first crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin would die a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as any never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner of Dobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come up in this time of delirium. "There's nothing there," he said firmly. "It's come—for me!" Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly toward Willard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. His mouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now one with the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone. For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the body of his friend and space But no phantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlight shone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solid and had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in the Ghost Ship in his youth. For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin, had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him. The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him. "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU," the message rapped out, "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU." With trembling fingers that he could scarcely Question: Who is Larry Dobbin, and what happens to him? Answer:	[ "John Willard considers Larry Dobbin his best friend. They are both astronauts in a rocket ship that was on a voyage past Pluto to explore a possible planetoid. Their ship was struck by a meteor and can no longer fly, so they are drifting through space. When the story opens, Dobbin is dying. His breathing is erratic, and his fingertips are black. Dobbin has accepted his impending death, but Willard tries to convince Dobbin that he is not dying and that they will return to Earth. Dobbin longs to return to Earth and regrets that he will not see it again. He remembers his first space flight as Willard raises him to look out the port window at the stars. Before he dies, Dobbin declares that the Ghost Ship has come for him. He points to it out the window, but Willard does not see it. Willard believes that Dobbin has gone mad. Dobbin then dies. Dobbin is mentioned in a newspaper account thirteen years after the men left on their voyage when Willard’s son builds a larger version of their ship called the Mary Lou II. The article indicates they were never heard from again. \n", "Larry Dobbin is John Willard’s right-hand man abroad the space ship Mary Lou. They blasted off from Rocket Port nine years before the beginning of the story. They went to space to explore the possibility of another planetoid hidden beyond Pluto. \nLarry Dobbin, as Willard’s companion and confidante, operated the Mary Lou from the control board, possibly co-piloting with Willard. \nHowever, less than five years into their adventure, the Mary Lou was struck by a meteor, which damaged the Mary Lou to no repair but only in certain areas. The meteor did not damage the assimilators and convertors, which meant the ship was livable, but not moveable. However, assumedly during the meteor strike, Dobbin was severely injured. At the beginning of the story, he is dying and sees a ship far in the distance. He claims it’s the ghost ship coming to take him away. After spotting the ship, Dobbin quickly passes. Willard mourns respectfully and follows the vigil ritual. Two days later, Willard disposed of Dobbin’s body, and his atoms were converted into pure energy for the Mary Lou. ", "Larry Dobbin is Willard’s closest friend and fellow explorer who joins Willard on the “Mary Lou.” Their mission is to journey to a small planet that lies beyond Pluto. At some point in their expedition, a meteor hits their ship and damages it, causing the “Mary Lou” to drift through unknown space, unable to return to Earth. Dobbin becomes sick during this period, and Willard realizes he is going to die. Dobbin hopes to return to Earth prior to his death, and Willard entertains this fantasy in order to give him some hope and peace before his passing. Dobbin remembers his first journey into space, and as he peers out into the abyss towards the end of his life, he exclaims that he sees the Ghost Ship—a legend amongst sailors and spacemen who claim people see such a ship in the moments before death. Dobbin dies shortly after announcing his vision, and Willard is left alone.", "Larry Dobbin (called “Harry Dobbin” by Willard) is the other space explorer on the Mary Lou with Willard. They embarked on a voyage to explore a planetoid beyond Pluto, and were never heard from on Earth again. As the story begins, they are four years into the mission and Dobbin is dying of an unspecified illness that has turned his finger tips black and made it difficult for him to breathe or speak. Willard lifts him to the window of the ship so he can see the stars one last time, and Dobbin says he sees The Ghost Ship and that it has come for him because he is dying. Willard assures him that isn’t the case as Dobbin passes away. Willard keeps vigil over Dobbin’s remains for two days before disposing of them in the ship’s engine. \n" ]	62244	man could. Silently the two men watched. Dobbin's eyes opened suddenly and a tremor seized his body. He turned painfully and looked at Willard. "I saw it!" his voice cracked, trembling. "Saw what?" "It's true! It's true! It comes whenever a space man dies! It's there!" "In heaven's name, Dobbin," Willard demanded, "What do you see? What is it?" Dobbin lifted his dark bony arm and pointed out into star-studded space. "The Ghost Ship!" Something clicked in Willard's memory. He had heard it spoken of in whispers by drunken space men and professional tellers of fairy tales. But he had faint ghost-like rocket ships? The thought shot through his mind like a thunder bolt. Ghost Ship! Was this the thing that Dobbin had seen before he died? But that was impossible. Ghost Ships existed nowhere but in legends and tall tales told by men drunk with the liquors of Mars. "There is no ship there. There is no ship there," Willard told himself over and over again as he looked at the vague outline of the ship, now motionless a few hundred miles away. Deep within him a faint voice cried, " It's come—for me! " but Willard stilled it. lonely wanderers would find their battered hulk of a ship in space and bring them home again. Dobbin motioned to him and, in answer to a last request, Willard lifted him so he faced the port window for a final look at the panorama of the stars. Dobbin's eyes, dimming and half closed, took in the vast play of the heavens and in his mind he relived the days when in a frail craft he first crossed interstellar space. But for Earth-loneliness Dobbin would die a happy man, knowing that he had lived as much and as deeply as any never put any stock in them. In some forgotten corner of Dobbin's mind the legend of the Ghost Ship must have lain, to come up in this time of delirium. "There's nothing there," he said firmly. "It's come—for me!" Dobbin cried. He turned his head slowly toward Willard, tried to say something and then fell back upon the pillow. His mouth was open and his eyes stared unseeing ahead. Dobbin was now one with the vanished pioneers of yesterday. Willard was alone. For two days, reckoned in Earth time, Willard kept vigil over the body of his friend and space But no phantom this! It was a life and blood rocket ship from Earth! Starlight shone on it and not through it! Its lines, window, vents were all solid and had none of the ghost-like quality he remembered seeing in the Ghost Ship in his youth. For another split second he thought that perhaps he, too, like Dobbin, had gone mad and that the ship would vanish just as it approached him. The tapping of the space-telegrapher reassured him. "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU," the message rapped out, "CALLING SPACE SHIP MARY LOU." With trembling fingers that he could scarcely
What is the plot of the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Galactic Ghost by Walter Kubilius. Relevant chunks: explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—" In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed. Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab." It was the girl who had forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of "Get somebody—maybe even the President—on all radio and TV networks. Explain frankly about the four-centers and warn against licking any stamps. Then—" He broke off as his phone rang. Answering, he listened for a moment, then hung up and said, "But before the big announcement, get somebody checking on the security clearances at whatever plant it is where they print stamps. This's a big deal. Somebody may've been planted years ago for this operation. It shouldn't be too hard. "But there's no evidence it was a plot yet. Could be pure accident—some chemical in the stickum spoiled. Do they keep deathly ill, but nobody dying. And doctors can't identify the poison until they have a fatality for an autopsy. People stricken in every part of the country, but the water systems are pure. How does it spread?" "In food?" "How? There must be hundreds of canneries and dairies and packing plants over the country. How could they all goof at the same time—even if it was sabotage?" "On the wind?" "But who could accurately predict every wind over the entire country—even Alaska and Hawaii—without hitting Canada or Mexico? And why wouldn't everybody get it in a given area?" Bettijean's smooth Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "John Willard and Larry Dobbin are astronauts who have been in space for four years on the rocket Mary Lou, and as Dobbin is dying, he regrets that he will not see Earth again. Willard assures him that they will make it back, but he knows that they will never make it back because their ship was damaged by a meteor. Although the ship can still carry out functions to support life, it is not navigable. After Willard helps Dobbin look at the stars one more time, Dobbin cries out that it’s true—when an astronaut is dying, the Ghost Ship comes for him. \n\nWillard recycles Dobbin’s body but feels regretful about it. He longs to see the Earth again and walk on it, but he knows this will never happen and feels intensely lonely. After two years, a strange thing happens. Willard is looking at the stars, and it seems that they are winking at him. Something seems to be moving toward him, and it turns out to be an ancient ship. Willard’s gauges do not register the ship’s presence although he sees it with his own eyes, and Willard realizes that it is the Ghost Ship coming for him. Strangely enough, however, the ship turns away and moves away from him.\n\nSeven years later, a newspaper on Earth publishes a story that Willard’s son, J. Willard II, plans to build a larger version of his father’s ship, the Mary Lou II, in memory of his father, but Willard Sr. is unaware of this. He continues to experience excruciating loneliness and dreams about his life on Earth—the people he knew, the sounds, and the cities. One day a giant rocket ship comes alongside the Mary Lou, and Willard is thrilled that he has been discovered. But the vessel turns away and leaves. Willard notices that he can see starlight through the ship and realizes it is the Ghost Ship. \n\nOne day he sees another ship and, at first, fears the Ghost Ship has returned. The new ship looks solid, though, and it contacts him, addressing the Mary Lou by name. Willard believes that this ship will take him back to Earth and eagerly boards it. Willard is kept drugged for a while but eventually is alert enough to speak with the captain. When Willard asks when they will return to Earth, the captain explains that they cannot return because matter in space loses its mass and energy until nothing is left. If they tried to return to Earth, they would pass through it. Willard then realizes he is on the Ghost Ship, and he is one of its Ghosts. \n\n", "Galactic Ghost begins with death. John Willard is taking care of his co-pilot and best friend, Larry Dobbin as he dies. A meteor struck their rocket ship, the Mary Lou, and damaged both her and Dobbin. As Dobbin dies, Willard gently takes care of him and lifts him up to the port so he can see the stars one last time. Just before he passes, Dobbin cries out and says he saw the infamous ghost ship. It steals dying spacemen who have no hope of returning to Earth, cursing them to spend the rest of their lives as ghosts in space. \nAfter Dobbin passes, Willard watches over him for two days before removing his body and turning it into energy for the useless engine in the Mary Lou. Although the ship is livable, it is not flyable. Taking careful diligence to check every part of the ship, Willard manages to keep the Mary Lou from completely shutting down. He transforms waste into food and learns to survive. \nTwo years of great loneliness and despair pass. As Willard looks out the port, he sees blinking stars. Excited, he investigates and realizes that it was an old-fashioned spaceship from decades ago. He soon sees that half of it is invisible, hence the blinking star phenomenon. As the ship gets closer, his sensors remain quiet. Putting it all together, he concludes that this is the Ghost Ship, but pushes the thought away, claiming it’s impossible. Slowly, the ship turns around and travels away from him. \nFlash forward seven more years and a newspaper published a story about Willard and Dobbin on Earth. Sadly, he would never get to see it. Willard’s son was about to create his own ship called Mary Lou II to honor his father. Willard spends his years alone trying to survive and also trying to fight off his memories of home, as they torture him. He kept up with the days and nights of Earth for many years and made his bed. But the memories of his old friends, the cities he lived in, and the crunch of snow beneath his feet drove him mad. Quickly, he lost track of the days. Another ship came and went, torturing him with hope yet again. \nAlmost twenty years passed and he grew more anguished every day. A ship came toward him and asked if he wanted to board, seeing as his ship was unlivable. Grateful he had checked the space suit beforehand, Willard traveled to the other ship and quickly fell into a deep sleep, exhausted by his years of solitude. After being drugged and evaded, Willard finally gets to speak to the captain of the ship on the third week who reveals that this is the Ghost Ship. Willard was only able to perceive the Ghost Ship because he and the Mary Lou were already ghosts, faded to the human eye. They are only shells on the Ghost Ship, and Willard is doomed to join them forever. ", "John Willard's and Larry Dobbin's ship the \"Mary Lou\" had been damaged by a meteor during its mission to explore a small planet beyond Pluto, and Willard and Dobbin are waiting to die in space. Eventually, Dobbin dies, and he claims to see the fabled \"Ghost Ship\" seconds before his passing. After Dobbin's death, Willard manages to stay alive thanks to the machines that could convert waste into food and air. Willard spends two years alone, lost in hopeless thought and agony. Eventually, he sees a blinking shape in the distance, which he soon determines is an old-fashioned rocket ship. However, his instruments indicate there is no ship despite what he sees. Willard oscillates between doubting his own vision and believing there must be a scientific explanation for it. As he struggles with these thoughts, the ship leaves, and Willard spends seven years alone. Meanwhile, back on Earth, a newspaper from his hometown of Arden publishes an obituary of Willard and Dobbin indicating Willard’s son’s intention to build a “Mary Lou II.” Willard recalls memories with his wife and co-workers and the feeling of walking around Arden. He thinks about the legend of the Ghost Ship, which is said to come for the spacemen who die in space alone. A few years pass, and Willard sees the Ghost Ship pass close to him and turn away again, appearing to taunt him. He begins to lose track of time and guesses that as many as twenty years pass; he spends his days going through the motions of managing the ship as he feels himself aging physically. Then, he sees a ship approach, and this time it is a real ship. The ship sends out a rescue calls and retrieves Willard from the “Mary Lou.” Willard spends the next few days reacquainting himself with human interaction and struggling with the horrible memories of his decades in solitude. Then, he starts to realize something is off about the crew of the ship that rescued him. They will not engage him in any conversation other than the operations of the ship. When Willard meets the captain later, he reveals he actually is on the Ghost Ship after all. It only appeared solid to Willard the more the “Mary Lou” lost its mass and energy and itself became a kind of “ghost ship” through its aimless wandering through space. Willard realizes he is dead and will never again return to Earth. ", "John Willard and Larry Dobbin are the lone space explorers aboard the Mary Lou, a ship that can’t move due to meteor damage. As the story begins, WIllard tries to comfort Dobbin as Dobbin dies. Before passing away, Dobbin sees what he believes to be “The Ghost Ship”, a fabled ship that comes for dying spacemen. Willard believes Ghost Ships are just fairy tales and that Dobbin was delirious. \n\nTwo years later, Willard sees what looks like a partially invisible rocket ship, though his ship’s control board shows no sign of anything. As the ship turns away and disappears, Willard wonders if he imagined it or if it could be The Ghost Ship, but decides that is impossible. \n\nSeven more years go by, and we read a small article from Willard and Dobbin’s hometown newspaper (that we are told Willard will never see), about the thirteenth anniversary of Willard and Dobbin embarking on their mission, how they have never been heard from again, and how Willard’s son is having a large spaceship manufactured in his father’s honor. \n\nBack on the Mary Lou, Willard can’t help but dream of his Earth days each night. He grows more and more despondent and thinks about Ghost Ships. He stops looking out the window, and isn’t sure if fifteen or twenty years have passed. He wonders if he has gone mad when he sees a ship coming. Everything changes when he realizes that it’s a real ship that taps out a real message on his space-telegrapher.\n\nThe other ship invites him to come aboard and he gratefully accepts, boarding it and immediately falling asleep. Over the next few weeks he drifts in and out of consciousness, knowing that he must be being drugged but also realizing it would be difficult for him to acclimate to being around others so soon. His memories start to come back and his mind starts to clear, and he notices that none of the men caring for him want to give him any information or answer his questions. \n\nAfter Willard awakens fully, one of the men says he’ll get the captain, who wanted to see Willard when he came to. The captain comes to see him, and Willard notices that he is very old. He tells the captain that he can’t wait to get to Earth and asks when they’ll go. The captain explains that after floating around in space for as long as they and Willard have, things and people lose their mass and energy. Willard hadn’t yet lost his twenty years ago, which is why their ship didn’t look fully formed to him then. Now that he has, he is just a shell like them and can see them fully. \n\nAs Willard puts the pieces together, the captain explains that they can’t go to Earth because they would pass right through it. Willard realizes that this is, in fact, a Ghost Ship, and that they are the ghosts, and the captain confirms this. \n" ]	62244	explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—" In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed. Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab." It was the girl who had forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of "Get somebody—maybe even the President—on all radio and TV networks. Explain frankly about the four-centers and warn against licking any stamps. Then—" He broke off as his phone rang. Answering, he listened for a moment, then hung up and said, "But before the big announcement, get somebody checking on the security clearances at whatever plant it is where they print stamps. This's a big deal. Somebody may've been planted years ago for this operation. It shouldn't be too hard. "But there's no evidence it was a plot yet. Could be pure accident—some chemical in the stickum spoiled. Do they keep deathly ill, but nobody dying. And doctors can't identify the poison until they have a fatality for an autopsy. People stricken in every part of the country, but the water systems are pure. How does it spread?" "In food?" "How? There must be hundreds of canneries and dairies and packing plants over the country. How could they all goof at the same time—even if it was sabotage?" "On the wind?" "But who could accurately predict every wind over the entire country—even Alaska and Hawaii—without hitting Canada or Mexico? And why wouldn't everybody get it in a given area?" Bettijean's smooth
Who is Whonk, and what is his relevance to the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Aide Memoire by Keith Laumer. Relevant chunks: He knelt, sniffed at the spot. "What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now?" Whonk considered. "There were drums," he said. "Four of them, quite small, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, the Groaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the first period they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge Moss Rock ." "The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it?" "I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movements after I have settled a score with certain Youths." heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to the ground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure was on its back, helpless. "That's Whonk, still on his feet," said Retief. "I wonder who he's caught—and why." Whonk came toward the Moss Rock dragging the supine Fustian, who kicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind the sentry box. "Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I can outrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do." He stepped out and hailed Whonk. Puffing like a steam engine Whonk I am, yet not without strength." "Ask him where the titanite is tucked away." "Speak, witless grub," growled Whonk, "lest I tweak you in twain." The youth gurgled. "Better let up before you make a mess of him," said Retief. Whonk lifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thump that made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at the elder, mouth snapping. "This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for the killing," said Whonk. "In his repentance he will tell all to his elder." "That's the same go aboard and take a look around." They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough box stood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant note in the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it. "Curious," he said. "What means this?" He held up a stained cloak of orange and green, a metal bracelet, papers. "Orange and green," mused Relief. "Whose colors are those?" "I know not." Whonk glanced at the arm-band. "But this is lettered." He passed the metal band to Retief. "SCARS," Retief read. He looked at Whonk. "It seems to world." Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of the borrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seize him, lift him high and head for the entry to the Moss Rock . "Hey," Retief called. "Where are you going?" "I would not deny this one his reward," called Whonk. "He hoped to cruise in luxury. So be it." "Hold on," said Retief. "That tub is loaded with titanite!" "Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me a vengeance." Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden Question: Who is Whonk, and what is his relevance to the story? Answer:	[ "Whonk is a very old Fustian who works as a clerk at the shipyards. He meets Retief when Retief comes to to inquire about seeing plans for the new passenger liner. Whonk is neutral and correct, but not especially friendly. His partnership, and it seems fair to say, friendship with Retief really begins when Retief returns to the shipyard to look for Whonk and finds that the Fustian thugs who tried and failed to kill him, due to his thick, mature skin and shell, have left him tied up, in an undignified position on his back.\nRetief apologizes for putting him in danger, and gets the old Fustian back on his feet. Whonk is so grateful that he tells Retief, “My cows are yours,” a heartfelt, traditional Fustian expression of gratitude. \nWhonk is extremely angry about what the Fustian Slock and his gang have done to him, and throws in his lot with Retief. Thereafter, every time Retief is in physical danger from Fustians, Whonk is right there to help. \nAt the end of the story, Whonk steps in again to help Retief capture Yith, a member of the Groaci diplomatic mission, and Slock the rebel adult Fustian with no carapace. His desire for vengeance against these two nearly overwhelms his good sense. He puts Slock on the Moss Rose with the titanite that Slock had intended to use against Fustian politicians, and sets the rocket to blast off to Groaci, knowing that it would below up before it got there. \nBut Retief manages to settle him down enough not to take Yith apart piece by piece, by getting the Groaci to do something that would make Whonk’s life a lot easier and more pleasant: surgically remove his carapace. \nWhonk is steadfast, reliable, implacable – a good sidekick for Retief.\n", "Whonk is the older Fustian who helps Retief uncover the Groacian plot. He is looking after papers when Retief asks to see the plans of the new ship being built, but is hurt by the gang members and Youths that come in after Retief leaves. He is still willing to help Retief after this, and the two of them work together to piece together their evidence. Being older means that Whonk has a very heavy shell that keeps him from moving quickly, but he is very strong--he manages to capture a number of characters throughout the story to keep them from running away. Not only is Whonk the reason Retief was able to confirm that the new ship was indeed meant to be a battle cruiser, helping to uncover the plot, but the two of them become friends and go on a fishing trip together at the end of the story.", "Whonk is an elderly Fustian who works managing documents at the shipyard where Retief goes to investigate the new passenger ship being built there. Whonk shares the documents with Retief, who notices its similarities to a defunct ship design that had been previously used in combat. Whonk educates Retief on the rebellious ways of the younger Fustians before they witness a Groaci military attache consulting with some youth outside his office. The youth attack Whonk after Retief’s departure, nearly severing his head. When Retief returns to help him, Whonk is very grateful and continues to help Retief on his mission to discover the real connection between the Groaci and SCARS. Whonk guides Retief to the “Moss Rock” and helps Retief defeat yet another group of attacking youth. Whonk discovers that one of the youths is not a youth at all but rather an older Fustian with a detached shell. He is baffled by this. After a fracas at the sponsorship ceremony, Retief captures the Groaci attaché, and Whonk apprehends Slock, whom he quickly discovers is also an older Fustian with a surgically-removed shell. Retief convinces Whonk to forego his act of vengeance on the Groaci, and in exchange the Groaci would provide the elders of Fust with the same surgical procedure provided to the SCARS members. Pleased with this arrangement, Whonk agrees, but he is still seeking vengeance. He places Slock aboard the “Moss Rock” and sends it on a path to Groaci. The ship explodes on the way, killing Slock, and sending a message to the Groaci to stay away from Fust.", "Whonk is an older Fustian who is very polite and helpful to Retief. He lets Retief look at the blueprints for the passenger ship that the younger Fustians are building with the Groacis and then apologizes for the rudeness of the younger Fustian who confronts Retief for looking at the plans. Whonk becomes Retief’s ally right away; he holds off the younger Fustians who come back to confront Retief, giving Retief a chance to sneak out the back door. After two younger Fustians tell Retief they want his films from his pictures of the plans, he realizes they must have gotten the information about the pictures from Whonk and knew Whonk wouldn’t have given it to them freely. When he checks on Whonk, he finds him tied up. The younger Fustians had tried to kill him. From then on, the two work together, checking the Moss Rock for explosives that have been removed from the storage area. When attackers come, Whonk protects Retief and blocks the attackers with his carapace. Whonk provides Retief with information that he needs to determine who is involved in criminal activity and what that criminal activity is. At the end of the story, he provides justice for Slock by putting him aboard the Moss Rock before it blows up so that he gets his just rewards. When everything settles, Whonk offers to take Retief on a fishing vacation." ]	61198	He knelt, sniffed at the spot. "What kind of cargo was stacked here, Whonk? And where is it now?" Whonk considered. "There were drums," he said. "Four of them, quite small, painted an evil green, the property of the Soft Ones, the Groaci. They lay here a day and a night. At full dark of the first period they came with stevedores and loaded them aboard the barge Moss Rock ." "The VIP boat. Who's scheduled to use it?" "I know not. But what matters this? Let us discuss cargo movements after I have settled a score with certain Youths." heavier of the two struggling Fustians threw the other to the ground. There was another brief flurry, and then the smaller figure was on its back, helpless. "That's Whonk, still on his feet," said Retief. "I wonder who he's caught—and why." Whonk came toward the Moss Rock dragging the supine Fustian, who kicked vainly. Retief thrust Yith down well out of sight behind the sentry box. "Better sit tight, Yith. Don't try to sneak off; I can outrun you. Stay here and I'll see what I can do." He stepped out and hailed Whonk. Puffing like a steam engine Whonk I am, yet not without strength." "Ask him where the titanite is tucked away." "Speak, witless grub," growled Whonk, "lest I tweak you in twain." The youth gurgled. "Better let up before you make a mess of him," said Retief. Whonk lifted the Youth clear of the floor, then flung him down with a thump that made the ground quiver. The younger Fustian glared up at the elder, mouth snapping. "This one was among those who trussed me and hid me away for the killing," said Whonk. "In his repentance he will tell all to his elder." "That's the same go aboard and take a look around." They entered the ship. Soft lights glowed in utter silence. A rough box stood on the floor, rollers and pry-bars beside it—a discordant note in the muted luxury of the setting. Whonk rummaged in it. "Curious," he said. "What means this?" He held up a stained cloak of orange and green, a metal bracelet, papers. "Orange and green," mused Relief. "Whose colors are those?" "I know not." Whonk glanced at the arm-band. "But this is lettered." He passed the metal band to Retief. "SCARS," Retief read. He looked at Whonk. "It seems to world." Behind Whonk there was a movement. Slock, wriggling free of the borrowed carapace, struggled to his feet ... in time for Whonk to seize him, lift him high and head for the entry to the Moss Rock . "Hey," Retief called. "Where are you going?" "I would not deny this one his reward," called Whonk. "He hoped to cruise in luxury. So be it." "Hold on," said Retief. "That tub is loaded with titanite!" "Stand not in my way, Retief. For this one in truth owes me a vengeance." Retief watched as the immense Fustian bore his giant burden
What is the setting for this story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Aide Memoire by Keith Laumer. Relevant chunks: this," the Sheriff warned. "This is a local matter, young man. You better stay in the shop while we go up." They filed past him and the crying Mrs. Brundage. When they were out of sight, Sol pleaded with her. "What happened? How did your husband die?" "Please ..." "You must tell me! Was it something to do with Armagon? Do you dream about the place, too?" She was shocked at the question. "Of course!" "And your husband? Did he have the same dream?" Fresh tears resulted. "Can't you leave me alone?" She turned her back. "I got things to time travel not possible. Just like television not possible to your grandfather." Ann said, "Why invite us? We're not rich enough for expensive trips." "Invite many people," Snader said quickly. "Not expensive. You know Missing Persons lists, from police? Dozens people disappear. They go with me to other time. Many stay." "Oh, sure," Jeff said. "But how do you select the ones to invite?" "Find ones like you, Mr. Elliott. Ones who want change, escape." Jeff was slightly startled. How did this fellow know his name was Elliott? Before he could ask, Ann popped another question. "Mr. Snader, you heard enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the except rain?" His attention returned to the matter at hand. Why the baby talk? And why was his memory so hazy? How long had he been here? What had he been doing during that time? Listlessly he reached for the towel at his elbow and wiped the moisture from his face and bare shoulders. The air conditioning had gone out when the scout ship cracked up. He'd have to repair the scout or he was stuck here for good. He remembered now that he had gone over the job very carefully and thoroughly, and had found it too big to from some other place that his battered brain could not remember, but to him it seemed incredible that men could live elsewhere than in a jungle valley. But Noork was wrong. The giant bird that he had ridden into the depths of Sekk's fertile valleys had come from a far different world. And the other bird, for which Noork had been searching when he came upon the golden-skinned girl, was from another world also. The other bird had come from space several days before that of Noork, the Vasads had told him, and it had landed somewhere within the land 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	this," the Sheriff warned. "This is a local matter, young man. You better stay in the shop while we go up." They filed past him and the crying Mrs. Brundage. When they were out of sight, Sol pleaded with her. "What happened? How did your husband die?" "Please ..." "You must tell me! Was it something to do with Armagon? Do you dream about the place, too?" She was shocked at the question. "Of course!" "And your husband? Did he have the same dream?" Fresh tears resulted. "Can't you leave me alone?" She turned her back. "I got things to time travel not possible. Just like television not possible to your grandfather." Ann said, "Why invite us? We're not rich enough for expensive trips." "Invite many people," Snader said quickly. "Not expensive. You know Missing Persons lists, from police? Dozens people disappear. They go with me to other time. Many stay." "Oh, sure," Jeff said. "But how do you select the ones to invite?" "Find ones like you, Mr. Elliott. Ones who want change, escape." Jeff was slightly startled. How did this fellow know his name was Elliott? Before he could ask, Ann popped another question. "Mr. Snader, you heard enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the except rain?" His attention returned to the matter at hand. Why the baby talk? And why was his memory so hazy? How long had he been here? What had he been doing during that time? Listlessly he reached for the towel at his elbow and wiped the moisture from his face and bare shoulders. The air conditioning had gone out when the scout ship cracked up. He'd have to repair the scout or he was stuck here for good. He remembered now that he had gone over the job very carefully and thoroughly, and had found it too big to from some other place that his battered brain could not remember, but to him it seemed incredible that men could live elsewhere than in a jungle valley. But Noork was wrong. The giant bird that he had ridden into the depths of Sekk's fertile valleys had come from a far different world. And the other bird, for which Noork had been searching when he came upon the golden-skinned girl, was from another world also. The other bird had come from space several days before that of Noork, the Vasads had told him, and it had landed somewhere within the land
What is the plot of the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Aide Memoire by Keith Laumer. Relevant chunks: "Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see. "What about the book?" "What kind of book is it?" "What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks." "No, no. I mean, what's in it?" "Poetry." "Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book." Maota events of the day before dropping off to sleep. The troublesome Sally. The strange dream world of Armagon. The visit to the barber shop. The removal of Brundage's body. The conversations with the townspeople. Dawes' suspicious attitude ... Then sleep came. He was flanked by marble pillars, thrusting towards a high-domed ceiling. The room stretched long and wide before him, the walls bedecked in stunning purple draperies. He whirled at the sound of footsteps, echoing stridently on the stone floor. Someone was running towards him. It was Sally, pigtails streaming out behind her, the small body wearing a flowing white enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war." "What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade. "The World War, of course. What's the matter?" Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves. And yet everything had changed, gone dark and tightening of the man's shoulder muscles that his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet made clear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. "Continue to work," he said to the young man. "Do not be too surprised at what I am about to tell you, Rold." He paused and watched the golden man's rather stupid face intently. "I am not a Misty One," Noork said. "I killed the owner of this strange garment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue the girl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke." Rold's Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "As the story opens, Ambassador Magnan briefs Councillor Retief on the Terrestrial Embassy’s request for sponsorship of youth groups on the planet Fust. Councillor Retief is not interested. Magnan specifically suggests that Retief sponsor the group SCARS (Sexual, Cultural and Athletic Recreational Society), and warns Retief that the rival Groaci may fill any void. Retief suggests researching the youth groups before giving them money. Magnan is dismissive. Retief is still not interested, and leaves to go look at plans for a new passenger liner being built by the Fustians. \nRetief takes a flat-car to the ship yard and meets Whonk, who is a shipyard clerk. He asks to see the blueprints, which he photographs. He and Whonk chat about the attitude of the youth, and Whonk blames it on their new leader, Slock, who hangs around with Yith, a member of the Groaci embassy.\nLater, while Retief is on his way home to dress for a dinner and press event organized by Magnan, two Fustian youths threaten him on the bus. Retief realizes that they were after his photos, which showed that the ship under construction was a battle cruiser, not a passenger liner. He also realizes that Whonk may be in danger. Retief escapes the youths and races back to the shipyard to find that Whonk has been dragged off and tied up in a warehouse. From the Fustian’s wounds, Retief realized that they had tried to kill him.\nRetief figures out that the Fustian youths have taken some titanite, an explosive, over to a ship called the Moss Rock, which would be full of dignitaries later. He and Whonk race over there and encounter more Fustians, and win a fight with them, effectively breaking up the Groaci-backed plot to blow up the ship. \nRetief arrives at the banquet a little late, and exchanges a few words with Magnan, who proceeds to make the Fustians miserable with his cultural insensitivity. A few minutes later, the SCARS leader, Slock, arrives. Retief reveals Slock’s plan: Slock, backed by the Groaci, was planning to take over Fust. The Groaci tried to frame the Terrestrial Embassy for the plot.\nSlock escaped. Retief went back toward the Moss Rock, where Whonk tackled Slock, and Retief accosted Yith. Whonk wanted to take revenge on Yith for attacking him earlier, but Retief instead negotiated a deal in which Yith, who had mastered removing the Fustian carapace surgically, which would be a great relief to Whonk and other elders, would agree to do so in return for not being ritually dismembered. Just as this agreement was completed, Slock tried to escape again, but Whonk dumped him on the Moss Rock, and set the autopilot for Groaci, still full of titanite. It blew up on the way there.\nMagnan wrested what he could, diplomatically speaking, from the wreckage of the youth sponsorship program and moved on to plans to sponsor Senior Citizens Groups.\n", "This story follows Retief, a Terrestrial diplomat working on the surface of the Fustian planet, where these two species co-exist with the Groaci. At the start of the story, Retief is talking to the Terrestrial Ambassador about a new program that the Fustians are looking for sponsorship for, that the Ambassador wants Retief to take care of. Retief, the Councillor, does not seem interested, and heads out to the shipyards to ask the people there some questions about a new ship being built. An older Fustian named Whonk allows him to see the plans for the ship and tells Retief about Slock, one of the local leaders of the Youths that seems to be a bad influence. These troublesome characters showed up to talk to Whonk and scare Retief off of the docks as Retief slips out unnoticed. He finds plans in the Embassy's library for an old battle cruiser that match the plans for the new ship, pointing him towards a plot to re-introduce weapons into the society. He finds Whonk, injured from the others' attempt to extract information from him, and the two of them piece together the clues: there was titanite, a dangerous explosive, that is going to be placed on the fanciest boat at the docks, the Moss Rock. When they get to that ship to take a look, they find a variety of items emblazoned with the logo of SCARS, the Youth Group that Ambassador Magnan wanted Retief to sponsor at the beginning. Retief figures that these items are here as planted false evidence, so that the explosion would be pinned on the Youth Group, and thus the Terrestrials by extension. Retief's goal is to destroy this plot--Whonk captures a Fustian who they realize has had his shell surgically removed, something that they thought impossible. Retief takes this to mean that the Groaci have more medical knowledge than they realized, and that they are responsible for this plot. In order to expose this plan, he heads to the banquet where the sponsorship of the Youth Group is being announced. He interrupts the Ambassador's grand announcement, exposing the plot to the press that was already gathered there. He knew Slock to be a gang leader, told everyone of the plan to blow up the Moss Rock and his deal with the Groaci, and then runs toward the boat with Whonk and the Ambassador. Whonk wanted to follow through with his society's classic ceremonial revenge against Yith, the Groaci at the ship, but Retief convinces them to have a sort of trade: Yith would share the medical knowledge to remove Whonk's heavy outer shell so that it would no longer be a nuisance and a heavyweight, and Slock is thrown onto the Moss Rock as it leaves the docks and explodes. With the plot exposed, the Ambassador wants to move on to more social projects, but Retief heads out for a fishing vacation with his new friend Whonk.", "The story begins with a meeting between Ambassador Magnan and Councillor Retief, who represents the Terrestrial Embassy on the planet Fust. The planet is populated with turtle-like creatures called Fustians (the younger Fustians lack the hard shell of the mature ones). Magnan assigns Retief the mission of sponsoring a new youth movement there called the Sexual, Cultural, Athletic Recreational Society (SCARS). Instead, Retief prefers to investigate a new passenger ship being built by the Fustians. Upon his arrival at the shipyard, Retief meets Whonk, an elderly Fustian who maintains documents, and he shows Retief the blueprints for the new ship. A young Fustian named Slock enters and arouses Retief’s suspicions by inquiring what he wants with the plans. After he leaves the shipyard, Retief is attacked by two young Fustians, and he returns to find Whonk has been attacked as well. Retief notices a stain on the ground that Whonk tells him is a remnant of four drums belonging to the Groaci—an alien species that operated a competing embassy. Retief had seen interacting a Groaci attache interacting with the youth that had attacked him earlier. The drums had been loaded onto a boat called \"Moss Rock.\" After identifying the smelly stain as an explosive called titanite, Retief and Whonk go to \"Moss Rock\" and discover a box containing a SCARS uniform. While there, they are attacked by an older-looking youth Fustian and discover that he is not a youth at all; rather, his shell has been removed by some mysterious method. They ward off another attack by his friends, and Retief decides to head to the sponsorship ceremony, realizing that the Groaci are likely taking advantage of the SCARS group's distaste for Fustian leadership to advance their plot to bomb \"Moss Rock\". At the sponsorship ceremony, Ambassador Magnan introduces Slock as guest of honor, and Retief and Whonk seize the opportunity to apprehend him and explain his deal with the Groaci to the press: The Groaci would supply weapons, and Slock would make sure they were installed on the ship. The SCARS uniforms found at the scene of the exploded ship would implicate them along with the Terrestrial Embassy, because of its sponsorship of SCARS. Magnan notes that Slock was scheduled to be on the ship, and Retief rebuts that this reveals the Groaci's intention to get rid of Slock after he'd done their bidding. Thus, the disaster at \"Moss Rock\" would cement the Groaci's control of Fust. Retief returns to the \"Moss Rock\" and captures the Groaci diplomat Yith, and Whonk captures Slock, whom they both discover has also had his shell surgically removed to appear younger. Retief makes a deal with Whonk to spare Yith's life in exchange for the same shell-removal surgery. Whonk takes his revenge on Slock by placing him back on the \"Moss Rock\" and exploding the ship with the titanite barrels on its course to Groaci. Retief informs Magnan that this display will prevent the Groaci from pursuing any further action against Fust.", "Ambassador Magnan wants Retief, the Councillor working with him at the Terrestrial Embassy, to sponsor the Fustian youth group the Sexual, Cultural, and Athletic Recreational Society (SCARS), but Retief isn’t interested. Instead, he wants to check out the new passenger liner that the Fustians are building, but he does express concern about the Groaci’s interest in Fust, which has a steel-age manufacturing economy while Groaci is into crude atomics. At the shipyards, an old Fustian named Whonk shows him the blueprints for the new passenger liner. Retief takes photographs of the blueprints to study them later. Slock, a young Fustian, comes with a Groaci Embassy military attache and beats up on Whonk while Retief sneaks out the back.\n\nLater in the day, Retief has to attend a dinner where the sponsor for the SCARS youth group will be announced. On the way, he is accosted by two Fustain youth who tell him they want the films for the pictures he took of the blueprints. Retief manages to elude them. He has looked at pictures and realized they are plans for a replica of a battlecruiser used two hundred years ago and has gun placements. Retief realizes that Whonk must have told them about his pictures and knows that he wouldn’t tell them willingly, so he goes to Whonk’s office to look for him. He sees signs of a struggle and finds Whonk tied up behind some bales where he is out of sight. Whonk reveals he was attacked by a Groaci, Slock, and his cohorts, and they tried to kill him. Retief recognizes the smell of an explosive, and Whonk tells him drums of it have been placed on a barge called Moss Rock. \n\nRetief and Whonk decide to go back to the Embassy but are attacked by one of the young Fustians who attacked Whonk earlier that day. As they wrestle with him, they pull off his cloak to discover that his carapace has been removed, so he isn’t really a youth. Whonk is stunned because he believed it wasn’t possible to remove a carapace without killing the Fustian. \n\nAt the dinner, Magnan announces that Retief has won the “bidding” to sponsor the SCARS. Retief sneaks up on Slock and tells Magnan that he has figured out that the Groaci are planning to take over a local world and then branch out to more worlds. They have been using the young Fustians to help them set up their attack but planned to kill them after everything was ready. Retief catches a Groaci, and Whonk wants to kill him, but Retief gets him to promise to have the Groaci surgeon remove the carapaces from the older Fustians like Whonk. When Retief reports the scheme to Magnan, he tells his superior that the Moss Rock is headed for Groaci and will explode there, ending their problems with the Groaci.\n" ]	61198	"Well," he said, "before you kill me, tell me about the book." He held it up for Maota to see. "What about the book?" "What kind of book is it?" "What does Mr. Earthgod mean, what kind of book? You have seen it. It is like any other book, except for the material and the fact that it talks." "No, no. I mean, what's in it?" "Poetry." "Poetry? For God's sake, why poetry? Why not mathematics or history? Why not tell how to make the metal of the book itself? Now there is a subject worthy of a book." Maota events of the day before dropping off to sleep. The troublesome Sally. The strange dream world of Armagon. The visit to the barber shop. The removal of Brundage's body. The conversations with the townspeople. Dawes' suspicious attitude ... Then sleep came. He was flanked by marble pillars, thrusting towards a high-domed ceiling. The room stretched long and wide before him, the walls bedecked in stunning purple draperies. He whirled at the sound of footsteps, echoing stridently on the stone floor. Someone was running towards him. It was Sally, pigtails streaming out behind her, the small body wearing a flowing white enemy city of Grath was beautiful. Perhaps she would love him for helping to rescue her and come willingly with him to Konto. "I will help you, stranger," he agreed. "Then tell me of the Skull, and of the priests, and of the prison where Tholon Sarna is held." The slave's fingers flew. "All the young female slaves are caged together in the pit beneath the Skull. When the sun is directly overhead the High Priest will choose one of them for sacrifice to mighty Uzdon, most potent of all gods. And with the dawning of the next day the aunts tell me I was born there in the middle of the war." "What war?" he asked startledly, spilling some lemonade. "The World War, of course. What's the matter?" Jack Barr was staring down at the spilled lemonade and feeling a kind of terror he'd never experienced in his waking life. Nothing around him had changed. He could still feel the same hot sun on his shoulders, the same icy glass in his hand, scent the same lemon-acid odor in his nostrils. He could still hear the faint chop-chop of the waves. And yet everything had changed, gone dark and tightening of the man's shoulder muscles that his presence was known. He looked down and saw that his feet made clear-cut depressions in the soft rich soil of the field. "Continue to work," he said to the young man. "Do not be too surprised at what I am about to tell you, Rold." He paused and watched the golden man's rather stupid face intently. "I am not a Misty One," Noork said. "I killed the owner of this strange garment I wear yesterday on the mainland. I have come to rescue the girl, Tholon Sarna, of whom you spoke." Rold's
Who is Magnan, and what is his role in and relevance to the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about Aide Memoire by Keith Laumer. Relevant chunks: guest of honor," said Magnan, "a fine young fellow! Slop I believe his name is." "Slock," said Retief. "Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And—" Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, to them, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering. Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Some of the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose. Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and green wine gushed on the tablecloth. "What in the name of the Great Egg!" the Minister muttered. He blinked, it might be a good idea to find out a little more about them," said Retief. "Who organizes them? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's the alignment of this SCARS organization?" "You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak," Magnan said. "Politics mean nothing to them ... yet." "Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in a two-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing but business. But what has Fust got that they could use?" "You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance," said Magnan. "Fust possesses a vigorous Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his grip loosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, butting his way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnan watched, open-mouthed. "The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual," Retief said. "They intended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served their purpose." "Well, don't stand there," yelped Magnan over the uproar. "If Slock is the ring-leader of a delinquent gang...!" He moved to give chase. Retief grabbed his arm. "Don't jump down there! You'd have as much chance of getting through as a "In my youth we were indentured to the dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge." "But in these modern times," put in Magnan, "surely it's incumbent on us to make happy these golden hours." The minister snorted. "Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon me and pelted me with overripe stench-fruit." "But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations," cried Magnan. "Their essential tenderness—" "You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder," the minister said, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, "if you drilled boreholes and blasted." "Why, that's our the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras. "How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more the great pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS," he said, talking slowly for the benefit of the scribbling reporters. "We'd like to think that in our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieve during the years ahead." Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two low steps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as the newcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the Question: Who is Magnan, and what is his role in and relevance to the story? Answer:	[ "Magnan is the Ambassador to Fust, and thus is Retief’s boss. He is also a spineless, political wind-sniffing clod. His main role, or function in the story is as a foil to the hero, Retief. Magnan’s clueless blathering sets up Retief’s dry, sarcastic remarks – remarks which, if Magnan were not so oblivious, would perhaps offend Magnan to the point of firing Retief. \nWhile Retief is running around Fust getting into fist fights and spoiling terrorists’ plots, Magnan is back at the office shuffling whatever papers came in from the Terrestrial Embassy that day, implementing the “program of the week.” Magnan is flat. Retief is three-dimensional.\nMagnan’s main contributions to the story are to: \n1.\tIgnore Retief’s advice to check out the Fustian youth organizations before sponsoring them, which leads to the potential for the Terrestrial Embassy being embarrassed by the Groaci attempts to frame SCARS for the explosion they hoped to cause aboard the Moss Rock. \n2.\tSet up the banquet to honor SCARS where he grossly insults his Fustian counterparts by having the hired musicians play a dirge, the “Lament of Hatching,” and then shattering their ear drums by tapping on his wine glass.\n3.\tWhip up a meringue of obfuscation to hide the fiasco of the youth organization sponsorship program and try to make himself smell like a rose in the process\n4.\tStart a new sponsorship program for Fustian Senior Citizens.\nAt no point in the story does he do anything useful at all.\n", "Magnan is the Terrestrial Ambassador to the Fustians. He is the figurehead of their influence on the Fustian planet, and works closely with Retief, the Terrestrial diplomat who uncovers a plot against the Terrestrials through the course of the story. He is the man who tries to convince Retief to sponsor the Youth Group SCARS in the beginning of the story, and we encounter him at the banquet near the end of the story. As the figurehead, he is responsible for announcing the role of the Terrestrials in funding the Youth Group, which creates an opportunity for Retief to announce the Grocian plot to everyone. Ambassador Magnan eventually joins Retief and Whonk as they leave the event to stop the criminals, but he is thrown into an alley by Whonk and doesn't have an opportunity to help directly. After the issue is dealt with by Whonk and Retief, Magnan resumes normal duty, and as the story ends he is looking at other groups that his government could potentially fund.\n", "Magnan is an ambassador with the Terrestrial Embassy, and he assigns Retief the mission to sponsor the new youth movement (SCARS) on the planet Fust. Magnan seems eager for this sponsorship to proceed despite his general ignorance about the movement itself. His motivation for speed rather than understanding may be attributed to the haste with which the Groaci Embassy has moved to establish a connection with SCARS. Magnan, of course, is not aware of the secret dealings between the Groaci and the SCARS, whom they are working with to ultimately supplant the Fustian leadership and take control of the planet for themselves. Magnan’s vision is fairly straightforward and views this sponsorship as the surest way to curry good favor with the Fustians (and get good publicity for the Terrestrial Embassy). Magnan is impatient with Retief’s more meticulous, fact-finding methods and organizes the sponsorship ceremony before Retief has completed his research. At the ceremony, Magnan’s interactions with the Fustian minister reveal further his humorous ignorance about their species, particularly when he hurts their sensitive hearing by banging his glass louder and louder. After he invites Slock on stage to present him to the press as his guest of honor and representative of SCARS, Whonk and Retief capture Slock and expose his plan to Magnan. At first, Magnan does not believe them, but he is quickly convinced when Slock escapes. In the end, Magnan creates a story for the press that the sponsorship event was a ruse to apprehend the perpetrators of the attempted coup against the Fustian leadership. ", "Magnan is the Ambassador at the Terrestrial Embassy on Fust and Councillor Retief’s boss. He wants Retief to sponsor the SCARS and stops just short of ordering him to do so. Magnan is very focused on his role as Ambassador and has little interest in anything not directly connected to his job. Magnan is not concerned about the passenger ship the Fustians are building or the fact that the Groacis are interested in the Fustians when their lives and economies are so different from each other. When Retief mentions the fact that the Groacis are interested in fission bombs, Magnan’s reaction is to wonder what market there could be for such devices since the world is at peace. He is politically correct and is shocked when Retief mentions the carapaces that the older Fustians has. He also pretends that he can hear the Fustians’ music when he clearly isn’t able to do so. Magnan is manipulative because he announces that Retief will sponsor SCARS even after Retief clearly tells him he is not interested. He misjudges character and refers to Slock as a fine young fellow when Slock is rude, violent, and mixed up in the scheme with the Groacis to begin conquering nearby worlds. At the end of the story when Magnan finally learns of the deceit of the young Fustians and the Groacis, he tries to act like he knew about it all along. His disinterest in anything not related to diplomacy gives Retief the leeway he needs to figure out the Fustian and Groaci crimes." ]	61198	guest of honor," said Magnan, "a fine young fellow! Slop I believe his name is." "Slock," said Retief. "Eight feet of armor-plated orneriness. And—" Magnan rose and tapped on his glass. The Fustians winced at the, to them, supersonic vibrations. They looked at each other muttering. Magnan tapped louder. The Minister drew in his head, eyes closed. Some of the Fustians rose, tottered for the doors; the noise level rose. Magnan redoubled his efforts. The glass broke with a clatter and green wine gushed on the tablecloth. "What in the name of the Great Egg!" the Minister muttered. He blinked, it might be a good idea to find out a little more about them," said Retief. "Who organizes them? There are three strong political parties here on Fust. What's the alignment of this SCARS organization?" "You forget, these are merely teenagers, so to speak," Magnan said. "Politics mean nothing to them ... yet." "Then there are the Groaci. Why their passionate interest in a two-horse world like Fust? Normally they're concerned with nothing but business. But what has Fust got that they could use?" "You may rule out the commercial aspect in this instance," said Magnan. "Fust possesses a vigorous Slock roared suddenly, twisting violently. Whonk teetered, his grip loosened ... and Slock pulled free and was off the platform, butting his way through the milling oldsters on the dining room floor. Magnan watched, open-mouthed. "The Groaci were playing a double game, as usual," Retief said. "They intended to dispose of this fellow Slock, once he'd served their purpose." "Well, don't stand there," yelped Magnan over the uproar. "If Slock is the ring-leader of a delinquent gang...!" He moved to give chase. Retief grabbed his arm. "Don't jump down there! You'd have as much chance of getting through as a "In my youth we were indentured to the dredge-masters. I myself drew a muck sledge." "But in these modern times," put in Magnan, "surely it's incumbent on us to make happy these golden hours." The minister snorted. "Last week I had a golden hour. They set upon me and pelted me with overripe stench-fruit." "But this was merely a manifestation of normal youthful frustrations," cried Magnan. "Their essential tenderness—" "You'd not find a tender spot on that lout yonder," the minister said, pointing with a fork at a newly arrived Youth, "if you drilled boreholes and blasted." "Why, that's our the robed Fustian youth and beamed at the cameras. "How gratifying it is to take this opportunity to express once more the great pleasure we have in sponsoring SCARS," he said, talking slowly for the benefit of the scribbling reporters. "We'd like to think that in our modest way we're to be a part of all that the SCARS achieve during the years ahead." Magnan paused as a huge Fustian elder heaved his bulk up the two low steps to the rostrum, approached the guest of honor. He watched as the newcomer paused behind Slock, who did not see the
Describe the relationship between Corporal Bettiejean and Sergeant Andy.	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Plague by Teddy Keller. Relevant chunks: sore. He spoke to worried doctors and frantic hospital administrators and hysterical nurses. His firm, fine penmanship deteriorated to a barely legible scrawl as writer's cramp knotted his hand and arm. His voice burned down to a rasping whisper. But columns climbed up his rough chart and broken lines pointed vaguely to trends. It was hours later when Bettijean came back into the office with another stack of papers. Andy hung up his phone and reached for a cigarette. At that moment the door banged open. Nerves raw, Bettijean cried out. Andy's cigarette tumbled from his trembling fingers. "Sergeant," the the general arrived. Half a dozen other brass hats, none of whom had been to bed, were close behind. The lab technician arrived a minute later. He shook his head as he handed his hastily scribbled report to Andy. It was Bettijean who squeezed into the office and broke the brittle silence. "Andy, for heaven's sake, what is it?" Then she moved around the desk to stand behind him as he faced the officers. "Have you got something?" the brigadier asked. "Some girl outside was babbling about writers and doctors, and dentists and college students, and little secretaries and big into his chair. He glanced to Bettijean and a smile warmed his wedge face. "Corporal, were you speaking just then as a woman or as a soldier?" Crimson erupted into Bettijean's face and her tight laugh said many things. She shrugged. "Both I guess." The general waved her to a chair and, oblivious of the colonel, pulled up a chair for himself. The last trace of humor drained from his face as he leaned elbows on the desk. "Andy, this is even worse than we had feared." Andy fumbled for a cigarette and Bettijean passed him a match. A captain of here and let the sergeant get to work." He took a step toward the door, and the other officers, protesting and complaining, moved along after him. As they drifted out, he turned and said, "We'll clear your office for top priority." Then dead serious, he added, "Son, a whole nation could panic at any moment. You've got to come through." Andy didn't waste time standing. He merely nodded to the general, snubbed out his cigarette, and buzzed the intercom. "Bettijean, will you bring me all the latest reports, please?" Then he peeled out of his be-ribboned blouse and rolled know better than that." A shocked young captain exploded, "Corporal. Maybe you'd better report to—" "All right," Andy said sharply. For a long moment he stared at his clenched fists. Then he exhaled slowly and, to the colonel, flatly and without apology, he said, "You'll have to excuse the people in this office if they overlook some of the G.I. niceties. We've been without sleep for two days, we're surviving on sandwiches and coffee, and we're fighting a war here that makes every other one look like a Sunday School picnic." He felt Bettijean's hand tighten reassuringly on his shoulder Question: Describe the relationship between Corporal Bettiejean and Sergeant Andy. Answer:	[ "Sergeant Andrew McCloud is Corporal Bettijean Baker’s superior, both in rank and position at the Germ War office. They have worked together before, perhaps for the two years that Andy has been stationed there. Their relationship ranges from colleagues to lovers, sharing kisses at work or gentle shoulder touches, while still maintaining a professional atmosphere. \n\tThey begin the story extremely stressed, due to the sudden epidemic, and use their combined brain power to find the root cause of the disease. After hours of working together and defending each other to their higher-ups, they are able to identify different groups of people that have been infected, all of which are random and don’t show a clear trend. After the truth is discovered, that the disease is being spread through licking stamps, Corporal Bettijean and Sergeant Andrew are granted a 30-day vacation together, with the promises of getting to know each other better. They accept gratefully, and stare into each other’s eyes. \n\tThough their relationship may be inappropriate in the modern office, it’s clear through their constant defense of the other and dedication to the cause, that their romance is just as strong as their professional relationship. \n", "Corporal Bettiejean and Sergeant Andy are colleagues at the Office of Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection. When Andy is suddenly in charge as the Co-ordinator of the office, Bettiejean is his assistant. The two of them work together to comb through the reports about various aspects of infrastructure that could be responsible for the transmission of the epidemic. Part of this process involves a lot of brainstorming, and throwing ideas back and forth about what the problem could be. When their superior officers come by, and the colonel starts yelling at Andy, Bettiejean defends him and tries to make the colonel realize his rude behavior is entirely unhelpful, which is eventually escalated into an emotional discussion as her grip on Andy’s shoulder grows tighter. She supports him in other ways, too, including handing Andy a match when he tries to light a cigarette, which he does often. The two of them kept the hope for a solution in mind as they worked through more piles of reports, and when Andy develops his theory about the postage stamps being the culprit, it is Bettijean that he sends to call in their superiors. She comes into his office to check on him, and is there while Andy explains that they have a solution. Apparently their interactions have been visible to the rest of the staff in the office, as the general gives them a month of furlough after the root of the problem has been identified, teasing them a bit about the chance to get to know each other. As the story ends, they are looking into each other’s eyes longingly, ready to take the month off. ", "Bettijean and Andy are in a professional relationship with Andy as Bettijean's superior. They are also on close personal terms with romantic overtones.\n\nAs the crisis intensifies, Andy and Bettijean work together to pour through the details of the illness. They view each other as a team although with Bettijean clearly subordinate to Andy. She follows Andy's orders but is also valued for her contribution and viewed as an equal.\n\nAs the crisis is averted, the pair are rewarded with a vacation furlough and pending promotion. The pair are only excited about the furlough and it is implied that they will spend it together as lovers. ", "Corporal Bettlejean and Sargeant McCloud have a friendly and important relationship. Bettlejean shows her intense interest in McCloud when she checks in on him about how he’s feeling and how their colleagues are treating him. She tries her best to help Andy in his work and set him up to be successful at his job. When McCloud wants to fire back at colonel chicken for what he sees as mistreatment, Bettlejean gently reminds him to keep his composure with only a small and silent gesture. \n\nMcCloud looks at the various groups of people who have come down with the sickness and compares them to those that are fine, and he realizes that the illness is most likely caused by licking postage stamps. Bettlejean beams with pride as he makes his announcement. She is not jealous of his sharp wit and hard work. She supports his reasoning and immediately congratulates him on his brilliant idea. \n\nThroughout the story, McCloud and Bettlejean work together to solve the mystery, and they are quietly flirtatious, even in front of their coworkers. It is clear that the general has picked up on their attraction to one another when he suggests that they use their much deserved time off to get to know each other better. The two confirm that they will in fact be seeing more of each other when they hold hands at the news. \n\n" ]	30062	sore. He spoke to worried doctors and frantic hospital administrators and hysterical nurses. His firm, fine penmanship deteriorated to a barely legible scrawl as writer's cramp knotted his hand and arm. His voice burned down to a rasping whisper. But columns climbed up his rough chart and broken lines pointed vaguely to trends. It was hours later when Bettijean came back into the office with another stack of papers. Andy hung up his phone and reached for a cigarette. At that moment the door banged open. Nerves raw, Bettijean cried out. Andy's cigarette tumbled from his trembling fingers. "Sergeant," the the general arrived. Half a dozen other brass hats, none of whom had been to bed, were close behind. The lab technician arrived a minute later. He shook his head as he handed his hastily scribbled report to Andy. It was Bettijean who squeezed into the office and broke the brittle silence. "Andy, for heaven's sake, what is it?" Then she moved around the desk to stand behind him as he faced the officers. "Have you got something?" the brigadier asked. "Some girl outside was babbling about writers and doctors, and dentists and college students, and little secretaries and big into his chair. He glanced to Bettijean and a smile warmed his wedge face. "Corporal, were you speaking just then as a woman or as a soldier?" Crimson erupted into Bettijean's face and her tight laugh said many things. She shrugged. "Both I guess." The general waved her to a chair and, oblivious of the colonel, pulled up a chair for himself. The last trace of humor drained from his face as he leaned elbows on the desk. "Andy, this is even worse than we had feared." Andy fumbled for a cigarette and Bettijean passed him a match. A captain of here and let the sergeant get to work." He took a step toward the door, and the other officers, protesting and complaining, moved along after him. As they drifted out, he turned and said, "We'll clear your office for top priority." Then dead serious, he added, "Son, a whole nation could panic at any moment. You've got to come through." Andy didn't waste time standing. He merely nodded to the general, snubbed out his cigarette, and buzzed the intercom. "Bettijean, will you bring me all the latest reports, please?" Then he peeled out of his be-ribboned blouse and rolled know better than that." A shocked young captain exploded, "Corporal. Maybe you'd better report to—" "All right," Andy said sharply. For a long moment he stared at his clenched fists. Then he exhaled slowly and, to the colonel, flatly and without apology, he said, "You'll have to excuse the people in this office if they overlook some of the G.I. niceties. We've been without sleep for two days, we're surviving on sandwiches and coffee, and we're fighting a war here that makes every other one look like a Sunday School picnic." He felt Bettijean's hand tighten reassuringly on his shoulder
What is the plot of the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Plague by Teddy Keller. Relevant chunks: explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—" In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed. Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab." It was the girl who had forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of "Get somebody—maybe even the President—on all radio and TV networks. Explain frankly about the four-centers and warn against licking any stamps. Then—" He broke off as his phone rang. Answering, he listened for a moment, then hung up and said, "But before the big announcement, get somebody checking on the security clearances at whatever plant it is where they print stamps. This's a big deal. Somebody may've been planted years ago for this operation. It shouldn't be too hard. "But there's no evidence it was a plot yet. Could be pure accident—some chemical in the stickum spoiled. Do they keep deathly ill, but nobody dying. And doctors can't identify the poison until they have a fatality for an autopsy. People stricken in every part of the country, but the water systems are pure. How does it spread?" "In food?" "How? There must be hundreds of canneries and dairies and packing plants over the country. How could they all goof at the same time—even if it was sabotage?" "On the wind?" "But who could accurately predict every wind over the entire country—even Alaska and Hawaii—without hitting Canada or Mexico? And why wouldn't everybody get it in a given area?" Bettijean's smooth Question: What is the plot of the story? Answer:	[ "The Plague takes place in the modern United States of America. The story follows several government workers as they navigate a sudden and mysterious epidemic. Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud, mostly referred to as Andy, works at the Office of the Civil Health and Germ Welfare Protection located in the Pentagon. Corporal Bettijean Baker, his right-hand woman and new lover, picks up the phone one day, and then chaos ensues. \nA switchboard is put in the hallway to help receive the hundreds of calls being made to their office. This sudden influx of calls, attention, people, and disease leave the main characters feeling overwhelmed and desperate. \nSince the new lieutenant had not arrived (post Colonel Patterson’s retirement), Sergeant Andy is effectively in charge as a noncom, though not everyone is happy about that. Andy pushes their worries aside, and continues working. \nDespite the spread, no fatalities have been reported, and infections are random. No trend has been established yet, but they are searching desperately for one. Bettijean goes through reports with Sergeant Andy, revealing all she’s uncovered. It’s affecting workers, artists, and poets, but not necessarily those who work in government, or as doctors or businessmen. The water systems are ruled out, as well as wind and food. Bettijean and Andy are left with nothing, except the possibility of biological terrorism. \nFinally, Andy orders Bettijean to halt all in-coming calls, and redirect their attention to all hospitals. \nDespite their best efforts, no conclusion can be reached. The colonel reappears in Andy’s office, followed by two officers. He throws a newspaper down on his desk, proclaiming that this epidemic was allegedly caused by the Russians, and that all the authorities are baffled. It is hinted that the Colonel commissioned this article to throw doubt on Andy’s authority. Andy defends his employees and the work they’ve been doing. The Colonel forces Andy and Bettijean out of office, and Andy lets him, kissing Bettijean on the way out. Suddenly, the general walks in and gives Andy back his job, while telling him the news from Intelligence. The Iron Curtain’s not sent word for almost two days. Only a coded message that could have been about the epidemic. \nAndy promises to work hard again, and the general assigns the colonel and his two men to the switchboard in the hall. After brainstorming about potential causes, Janis, another employee, enters the room and puts another stack of reports down. Small college towns, newly engaged girls, poets, all these people have been infected. Janis falls to the floor, and everyone rushes to her. She’s been infected with the disease, and they question her about her activities for the past 12 hours. It’s revealed finally that she wrote a letter to her mother, and Andy finally figures it out. The poison was in the stamps. He lets his higher-ups know, and Janis is carted off to safety. Bettijean and Andy are given a 30-day vacation to relax and explore their relationship further. \n", "Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud has found himself in charge of the Office of Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection somewhat by accident. As he waits for a replacement, his superior officers nervously warn him about an epidemic that they don’t understand yet, that Andy will be in charge of the response for. Corporal Bettijean Baker is Andy’s assistant, in this previously under-the-radar department that is all of a sudden the most important aspect of the nation’s response. Andy and Bettijean work through reports together to look for a trend, hoping to find how the epidemic is spreading. It seems to be affecting only the United States of America, without affecting Canada even though it has reached Alaska. The dumbfounded officers decide to learn more about the people who have fallen sick. When Bettijean returned with more reports, two other officers came into Andy’s office to show him the headlines: the public panic had started, two days after the office had stopped sleeping to find the root of the issue. The colonel doesn’t appreciate the lack of military formality in the way that Andy and Bettijean are taking, and he angrily orders them to be disciplined before the general interrupts. The general gestures to Andy and Bettijean to continue their work, and sat down with them to talk solemnly. There’s some suspicion about the Soviet Union’s involvement. Recognizing Andy’s need for manpower, the general assigns the very unhappy colonel to report to Andy and Bettijean for as long as the epidemic is going on. Lighting a new cigarette, Andy gets back to work. The team found evidence of small business workers being sick, but no government workers (outside of some in a hospital), no doctors, and no postal workers. They take this as evidence that it’s not communicable, but they find some cities are more affected than others. Writers, poets, artists, and musicians in cities that are often vacation spots are hit hard, along with small college towns. They are interrupted by screams outside their door when Janis falls sick. When she’s able to talk, Andy asks Janis questions about the past twelve hours. She had written and mailed a letter to her mother about the epidemic, but nothing else seemed out of place. Andy pondered over another cigarette as the doctor saw to Janis. Andy suddenly had an idea, frantically searched for Janis’ purse, and handed one of her postage stamps to a lab technician. His hunch was right: the stamp was the problem, licking the glue was how people got sick. Andy starts on a plan to notify the public of the issue, and to investigate the source of the poison in the stamps. The lab was able to identify the toxin, and it would be simple to treat. The general took over giving orders, and gave Andy and Bettijean a month of furlough before marching the stamp out of the office as Andy and Bettijean looked at each other longingly. ", "The story describes members of the U.S. military Germ Warfare Protection Division as they struggle to understand the cause of a mysterious illness. Sergeant Major Andy McCloud and his Corporal Bettijean Baker slowly learns the details of the pandemic. It is entirely confined to the United States and seems to affect people according to no discernable pattern. The illness is not passed person to person and has affected people regardless of age, location, and behavior while other people are spared.\n\nHigh ranking military officials (the brass) express to Andy the urgency of the situation. As the day wears on, Andymust deal with threats to his operation from officers that believe that, as a noncommissioned officer, He is not qualified to perform his task regardless of his obvious expertise.\n\nVague trends begin to emerge. Large offices see no cases while small ones do; doctors and dentists are mostly unaffected while writers and poets are.\n\nEventually a woman working the phones in the Germ Warfare Protection division falls ill and Andy solves the riddle of the illness. Stamp adhesive is determined to be the vector for the illness. With the mystery solved, a plan to halt the spread of the illness is formulated and the brass gives Andy and Bettijean a vacation furlough and promise of a promotion.", "Sergeant Andrew McCloud is in charge of the office of Germ War Protection when a mysterious plague breaks out in the United States. His coworker Bettlejean tells him that all kinds of people are coming down with the illness, but no one has died yet. The strangest part about the new disease is that it has only affected Americans. Not even Canadians or Mexicans have become sick. \n\nMcCloud decides to send everyone who works in the office out to do some investigating about where the illness is coming from. He tells Bettlejean that the two of them will work in Washington. They begin to put together clues about the nature of the illness when suddenly a woman in the office, Janis, drops to the ground. She is red and feverish and extremely nervous. After some prodding, she admits that she broke an office rule when she mailed her mother a letter that included information about the outbreak. \n\nAfter a few moments of reflection, McCloud runs to Janis’s office and tears through her drawers to find her stamps. He sends the lab technician to test them, but he is already convinced that the stamps contain poison, and they are behind the mysterious illness. \n\nWhen his superior comes in to ask him what he has discovered, McCloud divulges his beliefs about the problematic stamps. McCloud suggests that the President make an announcement to the public about the poisonous stamps. However, he quickly realizes that the stamps could have been tainted accidentally, and this doesn’t necessarily point to an attack on the country. McCloud is interrupted by a phone call from the lab. The technician informs him that the illness the stamps cause has a quick fix, and the people who are ill are going to be just fine. McCloud allows someone else to take over. He’s too tired and elated to make any more decisions. \n\nThe general offers McCloud and Bettlejean many awards and some time off to get to know each other better. He can tell that they are quite fond of each other. \n\n\n" ]	30062	explain the phenomena of the Ghost Ship? Was it really only a product of his imagination? What of all the others who had seen it? Was it possible for many different men under many different situations to have the same exact illusion? Reason denied that. But perhaps space itself denies reason. Grimly he retraced the legend of the Ghost Ship. A chance phrase here and a story there put together all that he knew: Doomed for all eternity to wander in the empty star-lanes, the Ghost Ship haunts the Solar System that gave it birth. And this is its tragedy, course. What is it that girls in small offices do or eat or drink or wear that girls in large offices don't do or eat or drink or wear? What do writers and doctors do differently? Or poets and dentists? What are we missing? What—" In the outer office a girl cried out. A body thumped against a desk, then a chair, then to the floor. Two girls screamed. Andy bolted up from his chair. Racing to the door, he shouted back to Bettijean, "Get a staff doctor and a chemist from the lab." It was the girl who had forty years ago or more. Resembled one? It was one! Unquestionably, though half-invisible and like a piece of glass immersed in water, it was a rocket ship. But the instruments on the control board could not lie. The presence of any material body within a hundred thousand miles would be revealed. But the needle on the gauge did not quiver. Nothing indicated the presence of a ship. But the evidence of his eyes was incontestable. Or was it? Doubt gripped him. Did the loneliness of all these years in space twist his mind till he was imagining the appearance of "Get somebody—maybe even the President—on all radio and TV networks. Explain frankly about the four-centers and warn against licking any stamps. Then—" He broke off as his phone rang. Answering, he listened for a moment, then hung up and said, "But before the big announcement, get somebody checking on the security clearances at whatever plant it is where they print stamps. This's a big deal. Somebody may've been planted years ago for this operation. It shouldn't be too hard. "But there's no evidence it was a plot yet. Could be pure accident—some chemical in the stickum spoiled. Do they keep deathly ill, but nobody dying. And doctors can't identify the poison until they have a fatality for an autopsy. People stricken in every part of the country, but the water systems are pure. How does it spread?" "In food?" "How? There must be hundreds of canneries and dairies and packing plants over the country. How could they all goof at the same time—even if it was sabotage?" "On the wind?" "But who could accurately predict every wind over the entire country—even Alaska and Hawaii—without hitting Canada or Mexico? And why wouldn't everybody get it in a given area?" Bettijean's smooth
What happens to the "chicken colonel" throughout the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Plague by Teddy Keller. Relevant chunks: chicken colonel barked, parading into the office. Andy swore under his breath and eyed the two young officers who trailed after the colonel. Emotionally exhausted, he had to clamp his jaw against a huge laugh that struggled up in his throat. For just an instant there, the colonel had reminded him of a movie version of General Rommel strutting up and down before his tanks. But it wasn't a swagger stick the colonel had tucked under his arm. It was a folded newspaper. Opening it, the colonel flung it down on Andy's desk. "RED PLAGUE SWEEPS NATION," the scare headline patience had frayed thin. "I told you, general," he snapped to the flustered brigadier, "Colonel Patterson was retired ten days ago. I don't know what happened. Maybe this replacement sawbones got strangled in red tape. Anyhow, the brand-new lieutenant hasn't showed up here. As far as I know, I'm in charge." "But this is incredible," a two-star general wailed. "A mysterious epidemic is sweeping the country, possibly an insidious germ attack timed to precede an all-out invasion, and a noncom is sitting on top of the whole powder keg." Andy's big hands clenched into fists and he had to wait at Andy, at the stamp. Bettijean said, "Sure. College kids and engaged girls and new parents and especially writers and artists and poets—they'd all lick lots of stamps. Professional men have secretaries. Big offices have postage-meter machines. And government offices have free franking. And"—she threw her arms around the sergeant's neck—"Andy, you're wonderful." "The old American ingenuity," the colonel said, reaching for Andy's phone. "I knew we could lick it. Now all we have to do—" "At ease, colonel," the brigadier said sharply. He waited until the colonel had retreated, then addressed Andy. "It's your show. What do you suggest?" whole stinking business. Whatever they do to us, at least we can get some sleep." "But you can't quit now," Bettijean protested. "These brass hats don't know from—" "Corporal!" the colonel roared. And from the door, an icy voice said, "Yes, colonel?" The colonel and his captains wheeled, stared and saluted. "Oh, general," the colonel said. "I was just—" "I know," the brigadier said, stepping into the room. "I've been listening to you. And I thought I suggested that everybody leave the sergeant and his staff alone." "But, general, I—" The general showed the colonel his back and motioned Andy screamed. Andy's first glance caught such phrases as "alleged Russian plot" and "germ warfare" and "authorities hopelessly baffled." Snatching the paper, Andy balled it and hurled it from him. "That'll help a lot," he growled hoarsely. "Well, then, Sergeant." The colonel tried to relax his square face, but tension rode every weathered wrinkle and fear glinted behind the pale gray eyes. "So you finally recognize the gravity of the situation." Andy's head snapped up, heated words searing towards his lips. Bettijean stepped quickly around the desk and laid a steady hand on his shoulder. "Colonel," she said levelly, "you should Question: What happens to the "chicken colonel" throughout the story? Answer:	[ "From the start, the colonel does not approve of Sergeant Andrew McCloud. His gray eyes carry disapproval and irritation in them. As a member of the brass, the colonel strives for everything to be official and approved of, unlike the sergeant’s recent promotion. The replacement for the retired colonel had not yet arrived, and the chicken colonel is not thrilled. To have a noncom, defined as a noncommissioned officer, in charge of this office while in the midst of a national epidemic is ludicrous, in his eyes. \n\tDespite voicing his doubts and grievances, Sergeant Andy is allowed to continue working as the head-of-office, at least for the time being. The colonel steals away and plots his next move. \n\tSeveral hours later, he returns, this time with two officers in tow. He walks into Sergeant Andy’s office where he and Corporal Bettijean were looking through a stack of papers. With a defiant stride, the colonel tosses a newspaper onto the Sergeant’s desk. Andy reads it and quickly throws it across the room. The article tells the tale of a red plague taking over America, a possible plot from Russia, and baffled government officials. The colonel brought in the article--and possibly helped write it--to convey the seriousness of the situation, but Andy takes it as an offense instead. \n\tHis colleague, Corporal Bettijean, defends Andy and reprimands the colonel at the same time. The captain behind him scolds her in return. After Sergeant Andy recites a list of excuses for his office, the colonel tells him that his insubordination will not be allowed. He calls for his removal, as well as Corporal Bettijean's, and promotes the two officers from the surgeon general’s office to take their positions. \n\tAfter some fight, Andy relents and stands up, releasing himself of his duty. He kisses his colleague once, before she tries to fight back again. The general walks in and quickly demotes the colonel and his men to working at the switchboard, where the reader can assume they stay for the rest of the story. \n", "Andy’s first impression of the colonel (at least in terms of this story) is of the colonel whining about Andy being in charge, insistent that only officers in combat roles should be in charge of a situation as large as a nationwide epidemic. After Andy is able to work through some reports with Bettiejean, the colonel returns to throw a newspaper on Andy’s desk to show the headlines, proving that the public panic has started. In this very tense encounter, the colonel continued to insist that Andy needed to understand the gravity of the situation, without recognizing that of course Andy knew that the issue was serious. He and a young captain overreacted to Bettiejean trying to calm the situation, citing insubordination, and the colonel tries to relieve Andy and Bettiejean of their duties before he is interrupted by a general. This general then assigns the colonel to report to Andy and Bettiejean for the remainder of the crisis, which makes the colonel even more upset. Near the end of the story, after the lab has a report about the toxin on the stamps, the colonel is already trying to take charge again. He reaches for Andy’s phone to start making calls even though Andy is the one in charge of the office, and is the point-person for the epidemic. The colonel is again put in his place by his general, and is eventually sent out of the building with the rest of the officers.", "The chicken colonel (slang for a full colonel--an officer with an eagle as an insignia) is an individual who is preoccupied with rank and traditional military chain-of-command formality. The fact that Andy is a noncommissioned officer operating without direct commissioned officer oversight is unacceptable to him.\n\nWhile the brigadier general sees Andy's expertise and places him in charge of the investigation, the chicken colonel immediately acts to try to undermine Andy's command. He arrives with two young officers to take over the Germ Protection Division but is stopped by an even higher ranking officer--the brigadier. The chicken colonel and his subordinates are assigned to work the phones in a humiliating defeat.", "Chicken colonel comes into McCloud’s office and demonstrates his dismay with McCloud’s handling of the crisis thus far by slamming a newspaper on the desk. When McCloud and Bettlejean dismiss his criticisms and explain that they have been awake for days, working around the clock, chicken does not bat an eye. Instead, he excuses them from their work to discipline them. \n\nHowever, he is swiftly interrupted by the general who insists that McCloud be in charge of the entire operation, regardless of his rank. He sends chicken colonel to man the phone lines with the rest of his staff. \n\nWhen McCloud announces that he believes American postage stamps have been poisoned, chicken colonel immediately picks up his phone and tries to take the lead once more. The general tells him to stop because McCloud is in charge of what the next steps are. \n\n\n\n\n\n" ]	30062	chicken colonel barked, parading into the office. Andy swore under his breath and eyed the two young officers who trailed after the colonel. Emotionally exhausted, he had to clamp his jaw against a huge laugh that struggled up in his throat. For just an instant there, the colonel had reminded him of a movie version of General Rommel strutting up and down before his tanks. But it wasn't a swagger stick the colonel had tucked under his arm. It was a folded newspaper. Opening it, the colonel flung it down on Andy's desk. "RED PLAGUE SWEEPS NATION," the scare headline patience had frayed thin. "I told you, general," he snapped to the flustered brigadier, "Colonel Patterson was retired ten days ago. I don't know what happened. Maybe this replacement sawbones got strangled in red tape. Anyhow, the brand-new lieutenant hasn't showed up here. As far as I know, I'm in charge." "But this is incredible," a two-star general wailed. "A mysterious epidemic is sweeping the country, possibly an insidious germ attack timed to precede an all-out invasion, and a noncom is sitting on top of the whole powder keg." Andy's big hands clenched into fists and he had to wait at Andy, at the stamp. Bettijean said, "Sure. College kids and engaged girls and new parents and especially writers and artists and poets—they'd all lick lots of stamps. Professional men have secretaries. Big offices have postage-meter machines. And government offices have free franking. And"—she threw her arms around the sergeant's neck—"Andy, you're wonderful." "The old American ingenuity," the colonel said, reaching for Andy's phone. "I knew we could lick it. Now all we have to do—" "At ease, colonel," the brigadier said sharply. He waited until the colonel had retreated, then addressed Andy. "It's your show. What do you suggest?" whole stinking business. Whatever they do to us, at least we can get some sleep." "But you can't quit now," Bettijean protested. "These brass hats don't know from—" "Corporal!" the colonel roared. And from the door, an icy voice said, "Yes, colonel?" The colonel and his captains wheeled, stared and saluted. "Oh, general," the colonel said. "I was just—" "I know," the brigadier said, stepping into the room. "I've been listening to you. And I thought I suggested that everybody leave the sergeant and his staff alone." "But, general, I—" The general showed the colonel his back and motioned Andy screamed. Andy's first glance caught such phrases as "alleged Russian plot" and "germ warfare" and "authorities hopelessly baffled." Snatching the paper, Andy balled it and hurled it from him. "That'll help a lot," he growled hoarsely. "Well, then, Sergeant." The colonel tried to relax his square face, but tension rode every weathered wrinkle and fear glinted behind the pale gray eyes. "So you finally recognize the gravity of the situation." Andy's head snapped up, heated words searing towards his lips. Bettijean stepped quickly around the desk and laid a steady hand on his shoulder. "Colonel," she said levelly, "you should
What happens to Sergeant Andy McCloud throughout the story?	After carefully reading the provided chunks, write a detailed response to the following question about The Plague by Teddy Keller. Relevant chunks: THE PLAGUE By TEDDY KELLER Suppose a strictly one hundred per cent American plague showed up.... One that attacked only people within the political borders of the United States! Illustrated by Schoenherr Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud ignored the jangling telephones and the excited jabber of a room full of brass, and lit a cigarette. Somebody had to keep his head in this mess. Everybody was about to flip. Like the telephone. Two days ago Corporal Bettijean Baker had been answering the rare call on the single line—in that friendly, husky voice that gave even generals pause—by saying, "Good morning. Office of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection Co-ordinator." Now there was a switchboard out in the hall with a web of lines running to a dozen girls at a half dozen desks wedged into the outer office. And now the harried girls answered with a hasty, "Germ War Protection." All the brass hats in Washington had suddenly discovered this office deep in the recesses of the Pentagon. And none of them could quite comprehend what had happened. The situation might have been funny, or at least pathetic, if it hadn't been so desperate. Even so, Andy McCloud's nerves and sore. He spoke to worried doctors and frantic hospital administrators and hysterical nurses. His firm, fine penmanship deteriorated to a barely legible scrawl as writer's cramp knotted his hand and arm. His voice burned down to a rasping whisper. But columns climbed up his rough chart and broken lines pointed vaguely to trends. It was hours later when Bettijean came back into the office with another stack of papers. Andy hung up his phone and reached for a cigarette. At that moment the door banged open. Nerves raw, Bettijean cried out. Andy's cigarette tumbled from his trembling fingers. "Sergeant," the chicken colonel barked, parading into the office. Andy swore under his breath and eyed the two young officers who trailed after the colonel. Emotionally exhausted, he had to clamp his jaw against a huge laugh that struggled up in his throat. For just an instant there, the colonel had reminded him of a movie version of General Rommel strutting up and down before his tanks. But it wasn't a swagger stick the colonel had tucked under his arm. It was a folded newspaper. Opening it, the colonel flung it down on Andy's desk. "RED PLAGUE SWEEPS NATION," the scare headline screamed. Andy's first glance caught such phrases as "alleged Russian plot" and "germ warfare" and "authorities hopelessly baffled." Snatching the paper, Andy balled it and hurled it from him. "That'll help a lot," he growled hoarsely. "Well, then, Sergeant." The colonel tried to relax his square face, but tension rode every weathered wrinkle and fear glinted behind the pale gray eyes. "So you finally recognize the gravity of the situation." Andy's head snapped up, heated words searing towards his lips. Bettijean stepped quickly around the desk and laid a steady hand on his shoulder. "Colonel," she said levelly, "you should 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	THE PLAGUE By TEDDY KELLER Suppose a strictly one hundred per cent American plague showed up.... One that attacked only people within the political borders of the United States! Illustrated by Schoenherr Sergeant Major Andrew McCloud ignored the jangling telephones and the excited jabber of a room full of brass, and lit a cigarette. Somebody had to keep his head in this mess. Everybody was about to flip. Like the telephone. Two days ago Corporal Bettijean Baker had been answering the rare call on the single line—in that friendly, husky voice that gave even generals pause—by saying, "Good morning. Office of the Civil Health and Germ Warfare Protection Co-ordinator." Now there was a switchboard out in the hall with a web of lines running to a dozen girls at a half dozen desks wedged into the outer office. And now the harried girls answered with a hasty, "Germ War Protection." All the brass hats in Washington had suddenly discovered this office deep in the recesses of the Pentagon. And none of them could quite comprehend what had happened. The situation might have been funny, or at least pathetic, if it hadn't been so desperate. Even so, Andy McCloud's nerves and sore. He spoke to worried doctors and frantic hospital administrators and hysterical nurses. His firm, fine penmanship deteriorated to a barely legible scrawl as writer's cramp knotted his hand and arm. His voice burned down to a rasping whisper. But columns climbed up his rough chart and broken lines pointed vaguely to trends. It was hours later when Bettijean came back into the office with another stack of papers. Andy hung up his phone and reached for a cigarette. At that moment the door banged open. Nerves raw, Bettijean cried out. Andy's cigarette tumbled from his trembling fingers. "Sergeant," the chicken colonel barked, parading into the office. Andy swore under his breath and eyed the two young officers who trailed after the colonel. Emotionally exhausted, he had to clamp his jaw against a huge laugh that struggled up in his throat. For just an instant there, the colonel had reminded him of a movie version of General Rommel strutting up and down before his tanks. But it wasn't a swagger stick the colonel had tucked under his arm. It was a folded newspaper. Opening it, the colonel flung it down on Andy's desk. "RED PLAGUE SWEEPS NATION," the scare headline screamed. Andy's first glance caught such phrases as "alleged Russian plot" and "germ warfare" and "authorities hopelessly baffled." Snatching the paper, Andy balled it and hurled it from him. "That'll help a lot," he growled hoarsely. "Well, then, Sergeant." The colonel tried to relax his square face, but tension rode every weathered wrinkle and fear glinted behind the pale gray eyes. "So you finally recognize the gravity of the situation." Andy's head snapped up, heated words searing towards his lips. Bettijean stepped quickly around the desk and laid a steady hand on his shoulder. "Colonel," she said levelly, "you should