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Science Fiction Books - Daily
Short Science Fiction Collection 041 - Various
05:39:12
"Short Science Fiction Collection 041" features a selection of imaginative stories that delve into speculative themes, exploring the consequences of ideas grounded in nature and the scientific method. Written prior to 1962, these tales invite...
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Lady Luck
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Spinquest Announcer
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Spinquest Details Announcer
Visit spinquest.com for more details.
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Spinquest Announcer
Accidental Death by Peter Bailey this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Recording by Stephen Anderson Accidental Death by Peter Bailey the wind howled out of the northwest, blind with snow and barbed with ice crystals. All the way up the half mile precipice. It fingered and wrenched away at groaning ice slabs. It screamed over the top, whirled snow in a dervish dance around the hollow. There piled snow into the long furrow, plowed rulers straight through streamlined hummocks of snow. The sun glinted on black rock glazed by ice chasms and ridges and bridges of ice. It lit the snow slope to a frozen glare, penciled black shadow down the long furrow and flashed at the furrow's end on a thing of metal and plastics, an artifact thrown down in the dead wilderness. Nothing grew, nothing flew, nothing walked, nothing talked. But the thing in the hollow was stirring in stiff jerks like a snake with its back broken or a clockwork toy running down. When the movements stopped, there was a click and a strange sound began, thin, scratchy, inaudible. More than a yard away, weary but still cocky, there leaked from the shape in the hollow the sound of a human voice. I've tried my hands and arms and they seem to work. It began. I've wiggled my toes with entire success. It's well on the cards that I'm all in one piece and not broken up at all, though I don't see how it could happen. Right now I don't feel like struggling up and finding out I'm fine where I am. I'll just lie here for a little while and relax and get some of the story on tape. Suit's got a built in recorder, I might as well use it that way, even if I'm not as well as I feel. I'll leave a message. You probably know we're back and wonder what went wrong. I suppose I'm in a state of shock. That's why I Can't seem to get up. Who wouldn't be shocked after luck like that? I've always been lucky. I guess luck got me a place in the whale. Sure I'm a good astronomer, but so are lots of other guys. If I were 10 years older it would have been an honor being picked for the first long jump in the first starship ever at my age. It was luck. You'll want to know if the ship worked. Well she did. Went like a bomb. We got lined up between Earth and Mars. You'll remember. And James pushed the button marked jump. Took his finger off the button and there we were. Alpha Centauri two months later. Your time. One second by us. We covered our whole survey assignment like that. Smooth as a pint of old and mild.
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Bluff
Which.
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Spinquest Announcer
Which right now I could certainly use. Better yet would be a pint of hot black coffee with sugar. In failing that I could even go for a long drink of cold water. There was never anything wrong with a whale till right at the end. And even then I doubt if it was the ship itself that fouled things up. That was some survey assignment. We astronomers really lived. Wait till you see. But of course you won't. I could weep. When I think of those miles of lovely color film all gone up in smoke. I'm shocked. Alright. Never said who I was. Matt Hennessey from Farside Observatory, back of the moon. Just back from approving flight coom astronomical survey in the starship Whale. Whoever you are who finds this tape you're made take it to any radio station or newspaper office. You'll find you can name your price. And don't take any wooden nick. Where had I got to? I'd told you how we happened to find Chang, hadn't I? That's what the old natives called it. Walking. Talking natives on a blue sky planet with 1.1g gravity and a 20% oxygen atmosphere at 15 psi. The odds of finding Chang on a six sun survey on the first star jump ever must be up in the googols. We certainly were lucky. The Chang natives aren't very technical. Haven't got space travel for instance. They're good astronomers though. We were able to show them our sun and their telescopes. In their way they're a highly civilized people. Look more like cats than people. But they're people alright. If you doubt it, chew these facts over. One, they learned our language in four weeks. When I say they, I mean a 10 man team of them. Two, they brew a near beer that's a lot nearer than the canned stuff we had aboard the whale. 3. They've a great sense of humor, ran rather to silly practical jokes, but still can't say I care for that hot foot and belly laugh stuff myself. But tastes differ. 4. The 10 man language team also learned chess and table tennis. But why go on? People who talk English, drink beer, like jokes and beat me at chess or table tennis are people for my money, even if they look like tigers in trousers. It was funny the way they won all the time at table tennis. They certainly weren't so hot at it. Maybe that 10% extra gravity put us off our strokes. As for chess, Svendlov was our champion. He won. Sometimes the rest of us seemed to lose. Whichever chingzi we played there again. It wasn't so much that they were good. How could they be in their time? It was more that we all seemed to make silly mistakes when we played them. And that's fatal in chess, of course. It's a screwy situation playing chess with something that grows its own fur coat, has yellow eyes an inch and a half long and long white whiskers. Could you have kept your mind on the game? And don't think I fell victim to their feline charm. The children were pets, but you didn't feel like patting the adults on their big grinning heads. Personally, I didn't like the one I knew best. He was called. Well, we called him Charlie. And he was the ethnologist, ambassador, contact man, or whatever you like to call him, who came back with us. Why I disliked him was because he was always trying to get the edge on you all the time. He had to be on top. Great sense of humor. Of course, I nearly broke my neck on that butterslide he fixed up in the metal alleyway to the whale's engine room. Charlie laughed fit to bust. Everyone laughed. I even laughed myself, though doing it hurt me more than the tumble had. Yes, life and soul of the party, old Charlie. My last sight of the Minnow was a cabin full of dead and dying men. The sweetish stink of burned flesh and the choking reek of scorching insulation. The boat jolting and shuddering and beginning to break up. And in the middle of the flames, still unhurt, was Charlie. He was laughing. My God, it's dark out here. I wonder how high I am. Must be all of 50 miles doing 800 miles an hour at least. Be doing more than that when I land. What's final velocity for a 50 mile fall? Same as a 50,000 mile fall, I suppose. Same as escape. 24,000 miles an hour. I'll make a mess. That's better. Why didn't I close my eyes before? Those star streaks made me dizzy like a nice shooting star when I hit air. Come to think that, it must be deep in air now. Let's take a look. It's getting lighter. Look at those peaks down there. Like great knives. I don't seem to be falling as fast as I expected, though. Almost seem to be floating. Let's switch on the radio and tell the world. Hello, hello, Earth. Hello again and goodbye. Mm, sorry about that. I passed out. I don't know what I said, if anything. And the suit recorder has no playback or eraser. What must have happened is that the suit ran out of oxygen and I lost consciousness due to anoxia. I dreamed I switched on the radio, but I actually switched on the emergency tank. Thank the Lord. And that brought me around. Come to think of it, why not crack the suit and breathe fresh air instead of bottled? No, no, I'd have to get up to do that. I think I'll just lie here a bit longer and get properly rested before I try anything big, like standing up. I was telling about the return journey, wasn't I? The long jump back home, which should have dumped us between the orbits of Earth and Mars. Instead of which, when James took his finger off the button, the mass detector showed nothing. Cept the noise level of the universe. We were out in that no place for a day. We astronomers had to establish our exact position relative to the solar system. The crew had to find out exactly what went wrong. The physicist had to make mystic passes in front of meters and mutter about residual folds in stress free space. Our task was easy because we were about half a light year from the sun. The crew's job was also easy. They found what went wrong in less than half an hour. It still seems incredible to program the ship for a star jump. You merely told it where you were and where you wanted to go. In practical terms, that entailed first a series of exact measurements which had to be translated into the somewhat abstruse coordinate system we used based on the topological order of mass points in the galaxy. Then you cut a tape on the computer and hit the button. Nothing was wrong with the computer. Nothing was wrong with the engines. We'd hit the right button and we'd gone to the place we'd aimed for. All we'd done was aim for the wrong place. It hurts me to tell you this, and I'm just attached personnel with no spaceflight tradition. In practical terms, one highly trained crew member had punched Wrong pattern of holes on the tape. Another, equally skilled, had failed to notice this when reading back. A childish error, highly improbable, twice repeated, thus squaring the improbability. Incredible. But that's what happened. Anyway, we took good care with the next lot of measurements. That's why we were out there so long. They were cross checked about five times. I got sick, so I climbed into a spacesuit and went outside and took some photographs of the sun, which I hoped would help to determine hydrogen density in the outer regions. When I got back, everything was ready. We disposed ourselves about the control room and relaxed for all we were worth. We were all praying this time that nothing would go wrong and all looking forward to seeing Earth again after four months subjective time away. Except for Charlie, who was still chuckling and shaking his head, and Captain James, who was glaring at Charlie and obviously wishing human dignity permitted him to tear Charlie limb from limb. Then James pressed the button. Everything twanged like a bowstring. I felt myself turned inside out, passed through a small sieve and poured back into shape. The entire bow wall screen was full of earth. Something was wrong, all right. And this time it was much, much worse. We'd come out of the jump about 200 miles above the Pacific, pointed straight down, traveling at a relative speed of about 2,000 miles an hour. It was a fantastic situation. Here was the Whale, the most powerful ship ever built, which could cover 50 light years in a subjective time of one second. And it was helpless for as, of course, you know, the star drive couldn't be used again for at least two hours. The Whale had ion rockets, of course, the standard deuterium fusion thing with direct conversion. As, again, you know, this is good for interplanetary flight because you can run it continuously and it has extremely high exhaust velocity. But in our situation, it was no good because it has a rather low thrust. It would have taken more time than we had to deflect us enough to avoid a smash. We had five minutes to abandon ship. James got us all into the Minnow at a dead run. There was no time to take anything at all except the clothes we stood in. The Minnow was meant for short, heavy hops to planets or asteroids. In addition to the ion drive, it had emergency atomic rockets using steam for reaction mass. We thanked God for that when Kazamian canceled our downwards velocity with them. In a few seconds we curved away up over China, and from about 50 miles high, we saw the whale hit the Pacific. 600 tons of mass at well over 2,000 miles an hour. Make an almighty splash. By now you'll have divers down, but I doubt they'll salvage much you can use. I wonder why James went down with the ship, as the saying is. Not that it made any difference. Must have broken his heart to know that his lovely ship was getting the chopper. Or did he suspect another human error? We didn't have time to think about that, or even to get the radio working. The steam rockets blew up. Poor Kazamian was burnt to a crisp. Only thing that saved me was the spacesuit I was still wearing. I snapped the faceplate down because the cabin was filling with fumes. I saw Charlie coming out of the toilet. That's how he'd escaped. And I saw him beginning to laugh. Then the port side collapsed and I fell out. I saw the launch spinning away, glowing red against a purplish black sky. I tumbled head over heels toward the huge curved shield of Earth 50 miles below. I shut my eyes and that's about all I remember. I don't see how any of us could have survived. I think we're all dead. I'll have to get up and crack this suit and let some air in. But I can't. I fell 50 miles without a parachute. I'm so dead, I can't stand up. There was silence for a while, except for the vicious howl of the wind. Then snow began to shift on the ledge. A man crawled stiffly out and came shakily to his feet. He moved slowly around for some time. After about two hours, he returned to the hollow, squatted down and switched on the recorder. The voice began again, considerably wearier. Hello there. I'm in the bleakest wilderness I've ever seen. This place makes the moon look cozy. There's precipice around me every way but one. And that's up. So it's up. I'll have to go till I find a way to go down. I've been chewing snow to quench my thirst, but I could eat a horse. Picked up a shortwave broadcast on my suit, but couldn't understand a word. Not English, not French. And there I stick. Listened to it for 15 minutes just to hear a human voice again. I haven't much hope of reaching anyone with my 5 milliwatt transmitter, but I'll keep trying to. Just before I start the climb, there are two things I want to get on tape. The first is how I got here. I remembered something from my military training when I did some parachute jumps. Terminal velocity for a human body falling through the air is about 120 miles per hour. Falling 50 miles is no worse than falling 500ft. You'd be lucky to live through a 500 foot fall. True, but I've been lucky. The suit is bulky but light and probably slowed my fall. Hit a 60 mile an hour updraft this side of the mountain, skidded downhill through about half a mile of snow and fetched up in a drift. The suit is part worn but still operational.
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Matt Hennessey
I'm fine.
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Spinquest Announcer
The second thing I want to say is about the Qingzi. And here it is. Watch out for them. Those jokers are dangerous. I'm not telling how because I've got a scientific reputation to watch. You'll have to figure it out for yourselves. Here are the clues. 1. The Chingxi talk and laugh, but after all, they aren't human. On an alien world a hundred light years away, why shouldn't alien talents develop a talent that's so uncertain and rudimentary here that most people don't believe it might be highly developed out there? 2. The Whale Expedition did fine till it found Chang. Then it hit a seam of bad luck. Real stinking bad luck that went on and on till it looks fishy. We lost the ship, we lost the launch, and all but one of us lost our lives. We couldn't even win a game of ping pong. So what is luck? Good or bad? Scientifically speaking? Future chance events are by definition chance. They can turn out favorable or not. When a preponderance of chance events has occurred unfavorably, you've got bad luck. It's a fancy name for a lot of chance results that didn't go your way. But the gambler defines it differently. For him, luck refers to the future. And you've got bad luck when future chance events won't go your way. Scientific investigations into this have been inconclusive. But everyone knows that some people are lucky and others aren't. All we've got are hints and glimmers, the fumbling touch of a rudimentary talent. There's the Evil Eye legend and the Jonah Bad Luck Bringers superstition. Maybe, but ask the insurance companies about accident prones. What's in a name? Call a man unlucky and you're superstitious. Call him accident prone and that sound business sense. I've said enough. All the same, search the spaceflight records. Talk to the actuaries. When a ship is working perfectly and is operated by a hand picked crew of highly trained men in perfect condition, how often is it wrecked by a series of silly errors happening one after another in defiance of probability. I'll sign off with two thoughts, one depressing and one cheering.
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Lady Luck
Hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips and being that I'm going gonna be Passenger Princess I Love playing on Spinquest.com Spinquest has all of my favorite slot games. Live blackjack, live craps. Head on over to Spin Quest right now and get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. Spin Quest is a free to play
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Spinquest Announcer
social casino void where prohibited. Visit spinquest.com for more details. A single chinksy wrecked our ship and our launch. What could a whole planet full of them do? On the other hand, a talent that manipulates chance events is bound to be chancy, no matter how highly developed it can't be sure fire. The proof is that I've survived to tell the tale. At 20 below zero and 50 miles an hour, the wind ravaged the mountain. Peering through his polarized visor at the white waist and the snow filled air howling over it, sliding and stumbling with every step on a slope that got gradually steeper and seemed to go on forever, Matt Hennessy began to inch his way up the north face of Mount Everest. End of Accidental Death by Peter Bailey Recording by Stephen Anderson, Jacksonville, Florida
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Bluff
Back
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Spinquest Details Announcer
to Julie by Richard Wilson this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Reading by Bologna Times Back to Julie by Richard Wilson the Side Shuffle is no dance step. It's the choice between making time and doing time. You can't go shooting off to that dimension for peanuts. I don't want to give you the impression that peanuts are in short supply here, or that our economy is in the fix of having to import them sidewise. What I'm trying to convey is that if you're one of the rare ones functionally equipped to do the Side Shuffle, you ought to be well paid for it in any coin. That's what I told Krasnow, and he wasn't after peanuts. I'll do it, I said, if you'll make it worth my while. I'd hardly expect you to do it for nothing, he replied reproachfully. How much do you want? I told him. The amount shook him up, but only briefly. Okay, he said grudgingly. I suppose I'll have to give it to you. But the stuff had better be good. Oh, it is, I assured him. And you don't have to Be afraid because I couldn't punch, possibly skip with the loot, I'll have to travel naked. I can't get there with so much as a sandal on one foot or a filling in a single tooth. Fortunately, my teeth are perfect. Sweat poured off Krasnow's florid face as he worked the combination of his office safe. His fat jowls quivered unhappily around his cigar while he counted out the bills. 10 per cent was cash in advance and the rest went into a bank account in my name. I paid off a batch of bills, then stripped and did my off to Buffalo. Honest John Krasnow was a crooked district attorney who wanted to be governor and then president. He had the machine, but he didn't have the people. And because he needed the people, he needed me. I had been to this other dimension, the one on the farthest branch of the time tree, and I could give him what he wanted. Krasnov found out about it after I was hauled up in front of him on a check kiting charge. I'd had something of a reputation before I got into difficulties, and in trying to live up to the reputation, I had done some plain and fancy financing. Nothing that 15 to 20 grand wouldn't have fixed. But while I scrounged around trying to get cash, I kited a few checks. They pyramided me right into the DA's office, where Krasnow was properly sympathetic. How, he asked, could a man of your standing in the scientific world stoop so low? It developed into quite a lecture, and even coming from Krasnow, it made me feel pretty low. So I began explaining. I told him where I was born and where I went to school and where I had taken my sabbaticals, including this other dimension. And Krasno. Believe me, I can't account for it. Except possibly because he knew he was a crook and knew I wasn't one. Exactly. Anyway, he believed me and we made the deal and I did the side shuffle, as agreed. The journey to that other dimension is not a pleasant one. It does disturbing things to the stomach, and you see everything thin and elongated, as if you're sitting too far to the side in a movie theater. I got there, however, and waited for the hiccups to subside. Hicuppi Laterally, I had called them when I considered writing an article for the medical journal after my first trip. With the hiccupi gone, I stole some clothing, which was one of the riskiest parts of the program, and waited for morning. I didn't have any money of course, so I had to hitchhike into town. I could have stolen myself a better fit, but people aren't clothes conscious in that dimension. They're more interested in what you are and what you can do. The driver of the car that gave me a lift asked, and what is your field of endeavor? I told him I am able to eliminate the long wait in the in ivory production by accelerating the growth cycle of elephants. He was deeply impressed and tipped me handsomely. I was less impressed with his talent for growing cobbless corn and therefore had to return only a small part of the sum he gave me. The world of this dimension had developed some remarkable parallels to Earth. I mean our Earth, which falls into what I have designated timeline 1.1, since it's the Earth with which I am most familiar. Every other world that has a language calls itself Earth, too. I had to visit briefly hundreds of the lateral worlds hovering over primordial swamps, limitless oceans, insect kingdoms, and radioactive planetoids before I found the one that was truly parallel. It existed in in timeline 17.08. And it had refrigerators, platinum blondes, automobiles, airplanes, apple pie, tabloids, television, Scotch and soda. Just about everything we think makes life worthwhile. But it had its little differences, which was only to be expected in a timeline where the bionomics could create a new world each time someone changed his mind. Thus the copless corn man was driving what looked to me like a Chevrolet, but which was a Morton in his world. He let me off near a downtown restaurant where, thanks to our little exchange of talent talk, I had enough money for breakfast. It was considered unethical to swap talent talk outside the limits of certain rigidly defined groups, so I didn't try to out impress the waitress. Fed and filling my stolen clothes a bit better, I walked to the recorder's office and spent the rest of the morning looking up old documents. There was nothing there for Krasnow, as I had expected, but for me there was a very pretty file clerk. Talking to her, I verified my impression that human instincts and relationships were much the same in this dimension as in my own, except in the one basic respect that interested Krasnow, of course. The file clerk and I lunched together, and then I spent the afternoon in the library. But I didn't find anything there either. And then I had dinner with her. She said her name was Julie. I told her mine was heck for Hector, which it is. She thought this was awfully cute, and we got along fine. Julie had a delightful apartment and a matching sense of hospitality. The following day, when she went to work. I stayed home and washed the dishes and made the bed and used the telephone. I ran up quite a bill with my long distance calls. But I found out what I needed to know. I impressed a lot of people with my elephant story. And pretended to be impressed hardly at all with what they told me. They did, although often I. I was very much. The trouble with these people is that they no longer know how to lie. If that can be listed as trouble. I don't think it can. Neither did Krasno, obviously. He'd never have sent me off on my expensive side trip if he had. Of course, Krausnow looked at it objectively. What he wanted from timeline 17.08 was not for for himself. It was for everybody else. He wanted the formula for the truth gas these people had developed long ago and loosed upon their world to put a stop to wars. They had been in a bad way, although no worse than the sort of problem we were up against. Their trans ocean squabbles and power politics seem to have settled into a pattern of a war or two per generation, just like us. Hence the man who invented the truth gas became a global hero. After a certain amount of cynicism and skepticism, all the doubts vanished naturally once the gas got to working. And so did war. You can't do much plotting and scheming if every time you open your mouth to tell a lie, you stammer, sweat, turn red and gasp for breath. It's a dead giveaway. Nobody tries it. More than once, one or two men had tried to nullify the gas or work out a local antidote, either as a pure research project or through power of madness. But because they had had to state their purposes, as soon as they thought of them, they were put away. Neat. Very neat. What I wanted was the formula for the truth gas. Its location wasn't exactly a secret in the this land of complete candor. But it wasn't writ large on any wall for all to see either. They kept it in their capital, located about where our Omaha is on file among the vital statistics. I took a super jet out there. I had no trouble posing as a historian entitled to the facts. The gas didn't work on me, you see, because it was adjusted to the physiology of that time timeline. There was just enough difference between us for it not to make me stick to the truth. We'll write out the formula for you, I was told obligingly. But you'll have to sign the usual statement, of course, I said. Which one is that? The one that says you won't publish it and will destroy your copy when it has served your research purpose without letting anyone else see it. Oh, that statement I said I signed freely, told my elephant story and departed in an aura of goodwill. The jet got me back that same evening. Julie fixed me up a snack and we discussed how pretty she was and how nice I was. I had everything Cross now wanted. Now. I felt pretty good about it because there was nobody else who who could have done the job for him. And because it wasn't spying, really. Earth 1.1 on the timeline is world enough for Krasno, I'm sure. Besides, dimensions don't have wars with one another. Too many things can go wrong. Julie was lovely, and I hated to leave the next morning, but it was my job. I told her. I'm afraid I have to leave town for a bit, dear, but I'll be be back very soon. Business, you know. Being a 17.08 girl, Julie had no reason to doubt me. Make it very soon, she whispered, her lips close to my ear. So I came back. And now Krasnow has what he wants. He's delighted, as he should be. I've made up the gas for him and adjusted the formula so that it will work on people of our timeline. It's high power stuff, and a little will go a long way. I also made up an antidote for him. This was easy, since I could work on it without feeling any compulsion to tell everybody what I was doing and why. Krasno plans to release the truth gas just before the state convention. He'll be nominated, of course, and after November he'll be governor. With everyone else compelled to tell the truth. It should be a cinch for him. He's a patient man, Honest John. Krasnow is. And he's willing to wait four years for the presidency. I ought to be happy too, with the money Krasno gave me. I've been living in the style to which I've always wanted to be accustomed. He has offered me a place on his staff and somewhat superfluously, the use of his antidote. Naturally, the reason he was so magnanimous was that he doesn't want anyone else around who knows his gimmick and might have to tell the truth about it. But I have had enough of this dimension now. Now that Krasnow has what I promised him, he's going to use it tomorrow. And if I know Honest John, and I do not even the presidency will be big enough for him. So I'm going back to Julie. There are some obvious questions in your mind, I know. Such as why did I get the formula for Krasnow, knowing there was no way for him to prosecute me while I was Julie's dimension and what made me come back? In short, what was in it for me? Let's call it research. Krasnow is a big time operator. I've always been, you might say, in the peanut end of the game. He had a great deal to teach me and I, I'm happy to say, was an apt pupil. You might speculate on what's in it for you, because if you ask me, anybody who can do the side shuffle should do it before Krasno becomes president. However, don't go to 17.08 unless you want to swap one cross now for another. The fact is, I've learned that I can be one in Julie's dimension after all, their formula doesn't work on me, but I can assure you that it will work on you. And that elephant story I told on my last visit is, as I've indicated in the peanut category, all Krasnowhaus is a country. I'll have a whole world. There's nothing like study under a master, is there? I should be back to Julie by midnight if I start now. End of Back to Julie by Richard Wilson.
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Bluff
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Lady Luck
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Bluff
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Lady Luck
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Gramps Ford
The Big Trip Up Yonder by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. This is Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Gramps Ford, his chin resting on his hands, his hands on the crook of his cane, was staring irascibly at the five foot television screen that dominated the room. On the screen a news commentator was summarizing the day's happenings. Every 30 seconds or so, Gramps would jab the floor with his cane and shout, hell. We did that a hundred years ago. Emerald and Lou, coming in from the balcony where they had been seeking that 2185 A.D. rarity privacy, were obliged to take seats in the back row behind Lou's father and mother brother and sister in law, son and daughter in law, grandson and wife, granddaughter and husband, great grandson and wife, nephew and wife, grand nephew and wife, great grand niece and wife, great grand nephew and wife. And of course Gramps, who was in front of everybody. All save Gramps, who was somewhat withered and bent, seemed by pre antigyrozone standards to be about the same age, somewhere in their late 20s or early 30s. Gramps looked older because he had already reached 70 when antigerraisone was invented. He had not aged in the hundred and two years since. Meanwhile, the commentator was saying, Council Bluffs, Iowa, was still threatened by Stark tragedy, but 200 weary rescue workers have refused to give up hope and to continue to dig in an effort to save The Elbert Hegedorn 183, who has been wedged for two days in a I wish they'd get something more cheerful, Emerald whispered to Lou. Silence. Cried Gramps. Next one shoots off his big bazoo while TV's on is going to find hisself cut off without a dollar. His voice suddenly softened and sweetened. When they wave that checkered flag at the Indianapolis Speedway and old Gramps gets ready for that big trip up yonder, he sniffed sentimentally while his heirs concentrated desperately on not making the slightest sound. For them the poignancy of the prospective big trip had been dulled somewhat, though having been mentioned by Gramps about once a day for 50 years. Dr. Brainard Key Bullard, continued. The commentator, president of Wynne Dot College, said in an address tonight that most of the world's ills can be traced to the fact that man's knowledge of himself has not kept pace with his knowledge of the physical world. Hell, Snorted Kramps. We said that a hundred years ago in Chicago. Tonight, the commentator went on, a special celebration is taking place in the Chicago lying in hospital. The guest of honor is Lowell w. Hitz, age 0. Hitz, born this morning, is the 25 millionth child to be born in the hospital. The commentator faded and was replaced on the screen by young hits who squalled furiously. Hell. Whispered Lou to Emerald. We said that a hundred years ago. I heard that. Shouted Gramps. He snapped off the television set, and his petrified descendants stared silently at the screen. You there, boy. I didn't mean anything by it, sir, said Lou, age 103. Give me my will. You know where it is. You kids all know where it is. Fetch, boy. Gramps snapped his gnarled fingers sharply. Lou nodded dully and found himself going down the hall, picking his way over Bedding to Gramps room, the only private room in the Ford apartment. The other rooms were the bathroom, the living room, the wide windowless hallway which was originally intended to serve as a dining area and which had a kitchenette in one end. Six mattresses and four sleeping bags were dispersed in the hall and the living room, and the daybed in the living room accommodated the 11th couple. The favorites of the moment. On Gramp's bureau was his will. Smeared, dog eared, perforated and blotched with hundreds of additions, deletions, accusations, conditions, warnings, advice and homely philosophy. The document was, lou reflected, A 50 year diary, all jammed onto two sheets, a garbled, illegible log of day after day of strife. This day Lou would be disinherited for the 11th time, and it would take him perhaps six months of impeccable behavior to regain the promise of a share in the estate, to say nothing of the daybed in the living room for em and himself. Boy. Called Gramps. Coming, sir. Lou hurried back to the living room and handed Gramps the will. Pen. Shouted gramps. He was instantly offered 11 pens, one from each couple. Not that leaky thing, he said, brushing Lou's pen aside. Ah, there's a nice one. Good boy, Willie. He accepted Willie's pen. That was the tip they had all been waiting for. Willie then Lou's father, was the new favorite. Willie, who looked almost as young as Lou, though he was 142, did a poor job of concealing his pleasure. He glanced shyly at the daybed, which would become his and from which Lou and Emerald would have to move back into the hall, back to the worst spot of all by the bathroom door. Gramps missed none of the high drama he had authored and gave his own familiar role everything he had. Frowning and running his finger along each line as though he were seeing the will for the first time, he read aloud in a deep portentous monotone, like a bass note on a cathedral organization. I, Harold D. Ford Presiding in Building 257 of Alden Village, New York City, Connecticut, do hereby make, publish and declare this to be my last will and testament, revoking any and all former wills and codicils by me at any time heretofore made. He blew his nose importantly and went on, not missing a word, repeating many for emphasis, repeating in particular his ever more elaborate specifications for a funeral. At the end of these specifications, Gramps was so choked with emotion that Lou thought he might have forgotten why he'd brought out the will in the first place. But Gramps heroically brought his powerful emotions under control and after erasing for a full minute, began to write and speak at the same time. Lou could have spoken the lines for him, he had heard them so often. I've had many heartbreaks here, leaving this vale of tear for better land, gramps said, and wrote, but the deepest hurt of all has been dealt me by. He looked around the group, trying to remember who the malefactor was. Everyone looked helpfully at Lou, who held his hand up resignedly. Gramps nodded, remembering, and completed the sentence. My greatest grandson, Lewis J. Ford. Grandson, sir, said Luke. Don't quibble. You're in deep enough now, young man, said Gramps. But he made the change, and from there he went without a misstep, through the phrasing of the disinheritance, causes for which were disrespectfulness and quibbling. In the paragraph following the paragraph that had belonged to everyone in the room at one time or another, Lou's name was scratched out and Willie substituted as heir to the apartment and the biggest plum of all, the double bed in the private bedroom. Sol, said Gramps, beaming. He erased the date at the foot of the will and substituted a new one, including the time of day. Well, time to watch the McGarvey family. The McGarvey family was a television serial that Gramps had been following since he was 60 for a total of 112 years. I can't wait to see what's going to happen next, he said. Lou detached himself from the group and lay down on his bed of pain by the bathroom door, wishing Em would join him. He wondered where she was. He dozed for a few minutes until he was disturbed by someone stepping over him to get into the bathroom. A moment later he heard a faint gurgling sound, as though something were being poured down the wash basin drain. Suddenly it entered his mind that Em had cracked up and that she was doing something drastic about Gramps. M. He whispered through the panel. But there was no reply, and Lou pressed against the door. The worn lock, whose bolt barely engaged in its socket, held for a second and then let the door swing inward. Morty. He gasped. Lou's great grand nephew, Mortimer, who had just married and brought his wife home to the Ford Menagerie, looked at Lou with consternation and surprise. Morty kicked the door shut, but not before Lou had glimpsed what was in his hand. Gramp's enormous economy sized bottle of antigerasone, which apparently had been half emptied and which Morty was refilling with tap water. A moment later Morty came out, glared defiantly at Lou, and brushed past him, wordless, to rejoin his pretty bride. Shocked, Lou didn't know what to do. He couldn't let Gramps take the mouse trap antigerrazone, but if he warned Gramps about it, Gramps would certainly make life in the apartment, which was merely insufferable now harrowing. Lou glanced into the living room and saw that the Fords, emerald among them, were momentarily at rest, relishing the blotches that McGarvey's had made of their lives. Stealthily, he went into the bathroom, locked the door as well as he could, and began to pour the contents of Gramp's bottle down the drain. He was going to refill it with full strength antigerazone from the 22 smaller bottles on the shelf. The bottle contained a half a gallon and its neck was small, so it seemed to Lou that the emptying would take forever, and the almost imperceptible smell of antigerazone, like Worcestershire sauce, now seemed to Lou, in his nervousness, to be pouring out into the rest of the apartment. Through the keyhole and under the door. The bottle gurgled monotonously. Suddenly, up came the sound of music from the living room, and there were murmurs and scraping of chair legs on the floor. Thus ends, said the television announcer. The 29,121st chapter of Lives of your Neighbors and Mine. The McGarveys footsteps were coming down the hall.
- [47:26]
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Gramps Ford
There was a knock on the bathroom door. Just a sec. Lou cheerily called out. Desperately. He shook the big bottle, trying to speed up the flow. His palm slipped on the wet glass and the heavy bottle smashed on the tile floor. The door was pushed open and Gramps, dumbfounded, stared at the incriminating mess. Lou felt a hideous prickling sensation on his scalp and the back of his neck. He grinned engagingly through his nausea and, for want of anything remotely resembling a thought, waited for Gramps to speak. Well, boy, said Gramps, at last. Looks like you've got a little tidying up to do. And that was all he said. He turned around and elbowed his way through the crowd and locked himself in his bedroom. The Fords contemplated Lou an incredulous silence for a moment longer and then hurried back to the living room, as though some of his horrible guilt would taint them too if they looked on too long. Morty stayed behind long enough to give Lou a quizzical annoyed glance. Then he also went into the living room, leaving all the Emerald standing in the doorway. Tears streamed over her cheeks. Oh, you poor lamb. Please don't look so awful. It was my fault. I put you up to this with my nagging about Gramps. No, said Lou, finding his voice. Really you didn't. Honest, Em, I was just. You don't have to explain anything to me, hun. I'm on your side no matter what. She kissed him on one cheek and whispered in his ear. It wouldn't have been murder, Hunter. It wouldn't have killed him. It wasn't such a terrible thing to do. It just would have fixed him up so he'd be able to go at any time. God decided he wanted him. What's going to happen next, Em? Said Lou hollowly. What's he going to do? Lou and Emeril stayed fearfully awake almost all night, waiting to see what Gramps was going to do. But not a sound came from the sacred bedroom. Two hours before dawn they finally dropped off to sleep. At six o' clock they rose again, for it was time for their generation to eat in the kitchenette. No one spoke to them. They had 20 minutes in which to eat, but their reflexes were so dulled by the bad night that they had hardly swallowed their two mouthfuls of egg type processed seaweed before it was time to surrender their places to their son's generation. Then, as was the custom for whoever had been most recently disinherited, they began preparing Gramps breakfast, which would presently be served to him in bed on a tray. They tried to be cheerful about it. The toughest part of the job was having to handle the honest to God eggs and bacon and oleomargarine on which Gramps spent so much of his income from his fortune. Well, said Emerald, I'm not going to get all panicky until I'm sure there's something to be panicky about. Maybe he doesn't know what I busted. Lucid hoped. He probably thinks it was your watch crystal, offered Eddie, their son, who was toying apathetically with his buckwheat type processed sawdust cakes. Don't get sarcastic with your father, said Em. And don't talk with your mouth full either. I'd like to see anyone take a mouthful of this stuff and not say something, complained eddie, who was 73. He glanced at the clock. It's time to take Gramps breakfast, you know. It is, isn't it? Said Wooloo weakly. He shrugged. Well, let's have the tray, Em. We'll both go. Walking slowly, smiling bravely, they found the large semicircle of long faced Fords standing around the bedroom door. Em knocked. Gramps, she said brightly. Breakfast is ready. There was no reply and she knocked again, harder. The door swung open before her fist. In the middle of the room the soft, deep, wide canopied bed, the symbol of the sweet by and by to every Ford, was empty a sense of death as unfamiliar to the Fords, a zoroasterism or the cause of the Sepoy mutiny, stilled. Every voice slowed, every heart awed. The heirs began to search gingerly under the furniture and behind the drape for all that was mortal of Gramps, father of the clan. But Gramps had not left his earthly husk but a note which Lou finally found on the dresser under a paper rate which was a treasured souvenir from the World's Fair of 2000. Unsteadily, Lou read it aloud. Somebody who I have sheltered and protected and taught the best I know all these years. Last night turned on me like a mad dog and diluted my anti Gerazone, or tried to. I am no longer a young man. I can no longer bear the crushing burdens of life as I once could. So after last night's bitter experience, I say good bye. The chances of this world will soon drop away like a cloak of thorns, and I shall know peace. By the time you find this, I will be gone. Gosh, said Willie brokenly. He didn't even get to see how the 5000 mile speedway race was going to come out. Or the Solar Ceres, eddie said with large mournful eyes. Or whether Mrs. McGarvey ever got her eyesight back, said Morty. There's more, said Lou, and he began reading aloud. I, Harold D. Ford, etc. Do hereby make and publish and declare this to be my last will and testament, revoking all and any former wills and codicils by me at any time heretofore made.
- [53:34]
Matt Hennessey
No.
- [53:35]
Gramps Ford
Cried Willie. Not another one. I do stipulate, read Luke, that all of my property of whatsoever kind a nature not be divided, but do devise and bequeath it to be held in common by my issue without regard for generation equally share and share alike Issue, said Emerald. Lou included the multitude in the sweep of his hands. It means we all own the whole damn shootin match. Each eye instantly turned to the bed. Share and share alike? Asked Morty. Actually, said Willie, who is the oldest one present, it's just like the old system where the oldest people head up things with their headquarters in here. And I like that. Exclaimed Lou. I like that. Exclaimed Em. Lou owns as much of it as you do, and I say it ought to be for the oldest one who's still working. You can schmooze around here all day waiting for your pension checks while poor Lou stumbles in here after work all tuckered out. And how about letting somebody who's never had any privacy get a little crack at it? Eddie demanded hotly. Hell, you old people had plenty of privacy back when you were kids. I was born and raised in the middle of that goddamn barracks in that hall. How about yeah, challenge Morty. Well, you've all had it pretty tough, and my heart bleeds for you, but try honeymooning in the hall for a real kick. Silence. Shouted Willie imperiously. The next person who opens his mouth spends the next six months by the bathroom. Now clear out of my room. I want to think. A vase shattered against the wall inches above his head. In the next moment a free for all was underway, with each couple battling to eject every other couple from the room. Fighting coalitions formed and dissolved with lightning changes of the tactical situations, and Em and Lou were thrown into the hall where they organized others in the same situation and stormed back into the room. After two hours of struggle, with nothing like a decision in sight, the cops broke in, followed by television cameramen from mobile units. For the next half hour patrol wagons and ambulances hauled away Fords, and then the apartment was still spacious. An hour later, films of the last stages of the riot were being televised to 500 million delighted viewers on the Eastern seaboard. In the stillness of the three room Ford apartment on the 76th floor of Building 257, the television had been left on once more. The air was filled with cries and grunts and crashes of the fray coming harmlessly now from the loudspeakers. The battle also appeared on the screen of the television set in the police station where the Fords and their captors watched with professional interest. M and liu and adjacent 4x8 cells were stretched out peacefully on their cots. Em called Lou through the Partition. You got a washbasin all your own, too? Sure, a washbasin, bed light, the works. And we thought Gramps room was something. How long has this been going on? She held out her hand for the first time in 40 years. Hon, I haven't got the shakes. Look at me. Cross your fingers, said Lou. The lawyer's gonna try to get us out in a year. Gee, said Ann dreamily, I wonder what kind of wires you'd have to pull to get put away in solitary. All right, pipe down, said the turnkey, or I'll toss the whole kitten caboodle of you right out the first one who lets on to anybody outside how good jail is ain't never getting back in. The prisoners instantly fell silent. The living room of the apartment darkened for a moment as the riot scenes faded on the television screen, and then the face of the announcer appeared like the sun coming from behind a cloud. And now, friends, he said, I have a special message from the makers of Antigerasome. A message for all you folks over 150. Are you hampered socially by wrinkles, by stiffness of joints and discoloration or loss of hair, all because these things came upon you before antigerazone was developed? Well, if you are, you need no longer feel different and out of things. After years of research, medical science has developed super antigerazone in weeks. Yes, weeks. You can look, feel, and act as young as your great, great grandchildren. Wouldn't you pay $5,000 to be indistinguishable from everyone else? Well, you don't have to. Safe tested, super antigerazone costs you only a few dollars a day right now for your free trial carton. Just put your name and address on a dollar postcard and mail it to Super Box 500,000, Schenectady, New York. Have you got that? I'll repeat it. Super Box 500,000. Underlining the announcer's words was the scratching of Gramps Pen, the one that Willie had given him the night before. He had come in a few minutes earlier from the Idle Hour Tavern, which commanded a view of Building 257 from across the square of asphalt known as Alden Village Green. He had called a cleaning woman to come in and straighten up the place and then hired the best lawyer in town to get his descendants a conviction. A genius who had never gotten a client less than a year and a day, Gramps had then moved the daybed before the television screen so that he could watch from a reclining position. It was something he'd been dreaming of doing for years, S.K. nectaddy murmured. Gramps got it. His face had changed remarkably. His facial muscles seemed to have relaxed, revealing kindness and equanimity under what had been taut lines of bad anger. It was almost as though his trial package of Super Antigerraison had already arrived when something amused him on television. He smiled easily rather than barely, managing to lengthen the thin line of his mouth a millimeter. Life was good. He could hardly wait to see what was going to happen next. You have been listening to the Big Trip up Yonder by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. Taken from Galaxy Science Fiction magazine, January in 1954. Read by Jerry Beckert.
- [60:03]
Lady Luck
Daughters of Doom by HB Hickey this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Recording by Karina Schulz Daughters of Doom by H.B. hickey Beyond Ventura B. There was no life. There was nothing but one worn out sun after another, each with its retinue of cold planets and its trail of dark asteroids. At least that was what the books showed, and the books had been written by men who knew their business. Yet despite the books and the men who had written them, Ben Sessions went past Ventura Be deliberately and all alone, and knowing that the odds were against his returning alive, he went because of a file clerk's error. More correctly, he went as the final result of a chain of events which had begun with the clerk's mistake. The clerk's name was Gilbert Wayne, and he worked at the Las Vegas Interplanetary Port. It was Wayne's job to put through the orders for routine overhaul of interplanetary rockets. Usually Wayne was quite efficient, but even efficient men have bad days, and on one of those days Wayne had removed from the active list the name of Astra instead of its sister ship, the Storan. The very next morning, the Astra had been turned over to maintenance. Maintenance asked no questions. It was that department's job to take the ship apart, fix what needed fixing, and put it back together. Ten minutes later Jacobs saw Armando Gomez was the mechanic detailed to check the rocket tubes. Gomez, who always got that job because he was small and slender, dutifully dropped his instruments into his overall pockets and crawled into the left firing tube. Half an hour later he stuck his head out of the tube and yelled to Jacobs, who was in charge of the job, amigo, how many hours this ship she got. Jacobs ran his finger down a chart and discovered to his surprise, that the astra had only 200 hours on its log since the last overhaul. Ordinarily a ship was checked each thousand hours. He scratched his head but decided that if Operations wanted the Astra tuned, it was none of his business. So he told Gomez not to ask useless questions and to get back in the tube. Anyone else but Gomez would have obeyed orders and forgotten all about it. Ten minutes later, Jacob saw Armando's head appear. Amigo. Gomez shouted. How many hours? 200, Jacobs shouted back, knowing he would have no peace until Gomez was answered. Now get to work. We ain't got all year. But Gomez was out of the tube again in five minutes and yelling for the foreman. What do you want now? Jacobs demanded. He swung himself up on the catwalk beside Gomez. Something very funny in here, amigo, gomez replied. One plate. She is too clean. Less work for you. Jacobs grunted. So why complain? Nevertheless, he took a look at the plate, which was near the mouth of the tube. It should have been lightly encrusted with the oxides of rocket fuel. Instead, it was only beginning to dull, in strange contrast to its neighbors which were welded to it. That is queer, jacobs muttered.
- [63:41]
Narrator/Various Characters
See?
- [63:42]
Lady Luck
As you say, amigo, queer. Once Jacob's interest was aroused, he was also not one to let a matter drop. He told Gomez to work on another tube while he consulted the front office. The front office was not especially interested, but at Jacob's insistence, they called in a metallurgist. The metallurgist, whose name was Britton, was fortunately a thorough young man. He ordered the plate removed and sent to his laboratory for complete analysis. After that, things happened fast. Britain scanned the analysis of the plate and without hesitation called in his superior, who ordered a second test just to be safe, and then notified Washington. Washington turned it over to Interplanetary Intelligence, of which Carson was chief of staff. One week later, Ben Sessions stood before Carson's desk. Sessions was only 35, but in his few years with two eyes, as the organization was known, he had rung up an enviable record. Tall, lithe, darkly handsome, he was well liked by the men who worked with him. At the moment. There was a puzzled frown on his face, lengthening the line made by a scar which ran from his forehead down the side of his nose. The scar was the result of a crash landing on Neptune. I don't get it, sir, he said. A single plate from a rocket tube. So what if it didn't oxidize? That makes me feel much better. Carson smiled, an inner bitterness making that smile. Rye, I didn't get it either, he went on. A mechanic named Gomez got it. A foreman named Jacobs got it. A lab man named Britain got it. But the chief of Two eyes missed the boat. I feel swell about that. He rose suddenly and hammered his fist on the desk. Every one of us in Intelligence ought to be cashiered. Take it easy, ben cautioned. All because of that plate. Carson slumped back into his chair. Yes, and because we have failed in our duty, our only hope is that we may have time to make it up. I'll give you the facts. Those tubes are made of virium. But even virium develops scale. After next week it will develop even more, because next week we make the change over to the new fuel. If Wayne had made his mistake two weeks later, there would have been so much deposit in the tubes that Gomez would not have noticed the difference. Now virium is one of the most standardized products in the world. So Gomez was rightly astonished that the tube didn't oxidize evenly. Jacob saw further. Virium is the toughest metal we know of. If this piece was tougher, it might be a discovery of major importance. So Britton analyzed the plate. Now we get to the point. Sessions grinned. Carson stabbed a finger at him.
- [66:42]
Matt Hennessey
Right.
- [66:43]
Lady Luck
And the point is that this one section of plate is not virium. In fact, it is a substance which we are positive does not exist in our system. Wait a second. What do you mean by system? I mean every single bit of matter that lies between here and Ventura B. Maybe it's not a natural substance, not an element. We thought of that. It's an element and one we know nothing of. Do you mind if I sit down, sir? Ben asked suddenly. The enormity of the thing had struck him, almost dazzling him with its implications. Carson laughed bitterly and waved him to a chair, then went on talking. Precisely, Ben. The question is, how did this strange substance get into the tube of an interplanetary rocket called the Astra? To answer that, we checked on the ship. The Astra is one of the few ships which have ever gone beyond Ventura B. I almost expected to hear that, sessions said. It adds up all right, doesn't it? A foreign substance, a foreign system. But this substance had been made into a plate. That means the work of intelligent beings. Who took the Astra on that trip? Sessions asked, his body tense. A licensed space explorer named Murchison. Two others went with him, but he returned alone. Claims they fell into a chasm. But no explorer has reported life beyond Ventura B, sessions said, taking up the thread of thought. He whistled softly. You must have been busy this last week.
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Busy is no word for it. It's only three years since anyone has been allowed to go outside our system for the purpose of science. Interstellar Flight granted permits to six licensed explorers. All returned with charts showing only a desolate waste. In our own quiet way, we have checked on each of these six men, including Murchison, in the last week and and we discovered something very interesting. The six who returned from beyond Ventura B were not the same six who went. They are identical in every facial, bodily and mental characteristic, identical enough to fool even the families of the lost explorers. But when we secretly photographed them with infrared light, we found that their skins contained elements foreign to our system. Ventura A and its sister star were the twin beacons that marked the last outposts of the Earth's system. Past them was only a trackless waste of interstellar space. Ben Sessions knew that the charts he carried were probably worse than useless, were likely downright traps. He and Carson had planned the trip. Carson had wanted to send a fighting fleet, but Ben had opposed the idea. Wayne's mistake had led them to the uncovering of a gigantic hoax, a hoax which could have only a sinister purpose. Somewhere in the void ahead were sentient beings. To send a fleet would be to let them know that their existence was suspected. Sessions let the automatic controls take over while he examined the charts once more. They showed the constellation which lay directly ahead, the one after that, and then nothing for hundreds of millions of miles. Those first two reflected a tiny amount of light from Ventura B and were visible through telescopes, therefore would have created suspicion to falsify their position past them. However, the blackness was too intense to penetrate. The speed of the rocket ship increased. Atomic blasts replaced those of the regular fuel. Sessions knew that an Earth measurement would have shown the ship to have shrunk to half its size. Only light and the Radona beam which protected the ship from collisions, could travel faster. From now on, it was just a matter of luck. Someone had pulled those six explorers out of space, and Sessions was hoping the same thing would happen to him. On the third day, it happened he was sitting in the pilot's chair, watching the Radona chart before him. Most of the chart was blank, only the upper right hand corner showing a mass of black dots which indicated a planetary dispersal about a dead star. Sessions waited for the Radona beam to swing the ship leftward. Instead, the ship was curving in the direction of the dots. Ben's first thought was that the beam had gone out of order, and he switched to manual controls. No use. Despite all his efforts, he was being carried toward those planets. Habit made him shut off the tubes. Why waste fuel? A tight smile froze on his lips as his speed dropped 20 million miles, then lifted again as the ship bypassed a planet. With calm deliberation, Ben switched on the camera he had installed before the flight and let it record his course as shown on the Rodona chart. Only one dot remained on the chart. It grew larger and larger until it filled the entire screen. There was no longer any doubt as to the ship's destination, and as if to add further proof, its speed dropped sharply. Ben clicked the switch on the camera and removed a tiny roll of microfilm. The roll fit snugly into the hollow cap which covered the stub of one of his molars. The altitude indicator went on automatically, showed 50,000ft, then 40,000 went down to hundreds. Ahead, there was only blackness. Ben held his breath and waited for the crash. It never came. Long after the altimeter showed zero, the ship still moved. Ben could think of only one explanation. He was below the surface of the dark planet. And then he could think no more. The blackness seemed to filter into the ship and into his mind. He awakens, a voice said. It was a pleasant voice, a feminine one, silky and soothing. Ben Sessions sat up and said, huh? The first thing he noticed was the light. No more darkness, but a light that came from nowhere and yet was everywhere. He was on some sort of couch in a huge room with a vaulted ceiling. Shaking his head groggily, Ben looked for the source of the silken voice. He was alone in the room. His eyes ran down the length of his body. The flash gun was gone from his belt. That was hardly unexpected. But the belt was gone, too. So were his clothes. He was clad in a loose robe of shimmering white cloth. That meant he had been unconscious for some time. How long? Ben would have given much to know. Suddenly he let out an unearthly moan, threw his arms wide, and rolled off the couch. He lay still. The silken voice was raised again, and added to it was another, more masculine. Then a door opened and two people stepped into the room. Ben sat up and grinned at them, especially at the woman. I thought that would get you, he said. It's not hospitable to hide from your guest. Resourceful, isn't he? The woman raised her eyebrows in mock admiration. Her companion growled a reply which Ben couldn't quite catch. They were an odd pair, the woman towering well above 10ft, but perfectly formed, her skin the color of pink marble, the man more beast than human. The women of Saturn were as tall as she, Ben had time to think, but not nearly as beautiful. Welcome to Terrace, Ben Sessions, she said. Her smile was the smile of the serpent of Eden. You're pretty resourceful yourself. Ben grinned. He had carried no papers except a blanket permit from interstellar flight. He wondered if the precaution he and Carson had taken would prove to be in vain. The woman spoke again. Ben Sessions, graduate of Neptune School of Rockets, born in Taos, New Mexico, Earth. Third of four children. Unmarried. Unattached at present. First position, co pilot, Earth Vega Express. She seemed to be choosing items at random from a memorized list. The exhibition was intended to impress Ben, and it was succeeding. More than that, however, it was frightening. He held his breath as she neared the end. Two years with Interstellar Communications. Presently a licensed space explorer, non affiliated. Pretty good, ben said. It was better than that. It was perfect. Only the end was wrong. He and Carson had worked that out with the psychoanalyst. The two of them had wanted to falsify the entire biography, but the analyst had convinced them he was right. One lie I might attempt to pound into your very subconscious by hypnotism. A dozen would be spread too thin. We would leave holes under the type of electroanalysis you seem to think might be used on you. I can't even promise one lie will hold up. Ben reminded himself to recommend the man for honors if he ever got back to Earth. He had certainly known his business. But then, if he hadn't, he would not be working for Two Eyes. Now that you've told me all about myself, maybe you'll tell me what's going on, ben said. One of your compatriots can do that, the woman told him. Her interest seemed suddenly to have waned. She said a few words in a strange tongue to the man who stood at her side. He grunted, bowed, and advanced toward Ben. Long arms covered with thick black hair reached out. Ben dodged. You'll be sorry if you make him use force, the woman said. Nothing like trying, Ben told her. He avoided another grab and stepped in and smashed his fist to the hairy man's jaw. He might as well have hit a wall. Before Ben could strike another blow, he was lifted from his feet by an upward slap that threatened to tear loose one side of his face. Too dazed to resist, he felt both his wrists encircled by a tremendous hand. The woman's voice rose sharply in a tone of command. The corridor through which Ben Sessions was being led was thronged with people. There seemed to be three classes rosy skinned giantesses like his escort, men of his own size but also with pink complexions, and the squat, hairy men who appeared to be nothing more than slaves. It was plain that women dominated this society, and from them Ben received curious but contemptuous glances. Any one of these Amazons would have been considered a beauty on earth, so regular were their features, but they lacked an air of feminine softness. Instead, cruelty lay thinly masked beneath the surface. At the end of the long corridor a huge door swung open, and Ben was led through it into an immense room. At the far end of the room was a throne, and on it a woman. Ben blinked. As well proportioned as the others he had seen, she was half again as tall, twice as beautiful. He could not contain a gasp of appreciation. Thick violet hair fell almost to her shoulders. Her skin was luminous and flawless, her body breathtaking, more revealed than concealed by a clinging gown of some filmy material. At her breast flashed a single violet jewel, larger by far than the famed sapphires of Uranus. I brought him as soon as he awakened, said the woman. With Ben, a malevolent stare from the woman on the throne rested on Ben. It was unnecessary, she said. We have no further need of him. Take him to the field. Wait a minute, ben snapped. You are addressing Ardus, Queen of Tarras, he heard his escort say. I don't give a hoot. He never finished the sentence. From behind, the hairy slave seized him, lifted him, and flung him bodily toward the doors. The interview was over. They went for a while along the same corridor, then turned off and followed a side passage for a way. It led steadily downward to an arched opening, and through that out of the building. Here too the light was diffused, but much brighter. Ben had to blink several times before he became adjusted to it. They were standing in the center of a vast level plain, apparently endless and roofless, for overhead there was no sky, only an increasing intensity of light. Ranged in rows. On the plain were thousands of spaceships. Ben turned once as they approached the first line of ships and saw behind him the building from which he had just come. It rose upward, a single block of shining stone for Almost a mile alongside it were other buildings of the same material, but none so large. Then Ben and his two escorts were past the first row of ships. His eyes roved over them, trying to discover what armament they carried. None was visible. Their firing tubes were much the same as those of Earth design, but slightly smaller. His attention was diverted from his study by a sudden disturbance aboard the closest ship. The sound of an angry feminine voice came clearly through an open porthole and mingled with it was a pleading, deeper tone. An instant later, a door was flung open and out of it came hurtling one of the men of Terrace. He hit the ground, rolled over, and came to his knees, facing the open door and the giant woman who stood framed in it. That the man was pleading for his very life was obvious to Ben, but it was equally plain that his pleas were having no effect. The woman on the ship uttered a single contemptuous word that cut the pleas short. On her face was a sadistic anticipation such as Ben had never before seen. Slowly she raised a cylinder in her hand and pointed it at the man on the ground. From the cylinder came a violet light, weak at first, but growing in intensity as she pressed some sort of trigger. The man shrieked in agony as light played on him. Then the smell of burning flesh came to Ben's nostrils and the shriek became a single high pitched scream which choked off. Suddenly Ben's escort laughed with ghoulish enjoyment, said something to the woman in the doorway, and gestured at the charred body on the ground. The violet light grew to blinding intensity. A puff of smoke, and the body was gone. What was that for? Ben gasped. His escort smiled indulgently and shot a question at the other woman. The reply was a shrug of shoulders and a few short syllables. He did something that displeased her, she told Ben. At his look of horror, she laughed again, apparently pleased to have shocked him. He noticed as they went along that the spaceships decreased in size. Those in the first rows had been comparable to Earth's battle cruisers. Those in the last were one or two man jobs. His own ship, the rapier, was at the very end of the last line. Beyond was a vast army of men, both rosy skinned and hairy, at work on a gigantic excavation project. Great power. Shovels scooped load after load of earth. But most of the work was being done by the men who labored with primitive pick and shovel. Above the sound of digging rose the sharp voices of the giant women of Terrace, each with a battalion under her command. As far as Ben's eyes could reach, men were digging at the ground. He was hustling along to a point where a dirt spattered group struggled with the metallic lining for the half mile hole it had excavated. At that point his escort turned him over to the woman who bossed that crew. Ben saw in the hand of the overseer one of the violet ray cylinders. Down there, she said curtly, pointing to where a small knot of men worked on a terrace 50ft below. They will tell you what to do. Ben had found nothing strange in the fact that his escort has spoken English fluently. She had been present at his electroanalysis, but he doubted that all the women of Terrace could have the same command of the language. Nevertheless, he said nothing and clambered down the ladder to the terrace beneath. Ben's unasked question was answered when he saw the five faces turned up toward him. Earth men. Even the grime that covered them could not hide that, and there was added proof in their widening eyes. They were sorry to see another Earthman captive, yet happy at the sight of one of their own kind. Willing hands helped bend down from the bottom rung of the ladder. We'd heard they had picked up another ship, one of the men said, but we weren't sure the rumor was true. True enough. As you can see, I'm Ben Sessions. His outstretched hand was grasped and shaken cordially. Names were flung at him. Murchison, Davies, Kennard, Bannon. Murchison. Wait a second, ben said. I thought I heard Murchison twice. You did, said the big raw boned man at whom he was staring. The first is my daughter, Sally. It was only then that Ben noticed how small and slender was the figure of the one next to Murchison. Even the girl's loose robe, similar to that of the men, could not quite conceal her femininity. Her hair was cut short. Her hands toil hardened. Carson didn't tell me, ben muttered. He grinned at Murchison. I expected to find you and two assistants, but I didn't know one would be your daughter expected. Hope glinted in five pairs of eyes. Above them there was a shouted command to get to work and a cylinder was waved threateningly. I'll explain as we go along, ben said hastily. Show me what to do. Bannon, a short, thick set man with a mop of unruly black hair, shoved a pair of tongs into Ben's hands and quickly explained how to hold the rivets with which the group was working. In effect, they were constructing a huge cylinder. Looking down, Ben saw that it descended into the bowels of Terrace. The others were pressing Ben for his explanation, but he insisted that they tell their stories first. The same thing had happened to them as to him. Within some thousands of miles of Terrace, they had felt a force pull them toward it. Then they had passed out and awakened to find themselves prisoners. I know all that, ben said. But in all the time you've been here, you must have found out a good deal what goes on here. Why are they taking prisoner everyone who approaches the planet? Why do they conceal its existence from our system? Murchison paused between blows of his hammer, as though to wipe sweat from his brow. Since you seem in a hurry, he said, I will tell it in brief. You are in the center of a planet whose evil people are engaged in one enterprise, the conquering and subjugating of our universe. I thought that might be it. Ben nodded. But subjugating billions of people may prove tougher than they think. Their intention is to reduce our population so it can be easily handled. And I can assure you that these women are perfectly capable of slaughtering as many people as they think necessary. They have both the means and the contempt for human life that such an undertaking requires. Ben hazarded a guess. This project is part of their preparation. The final part. Since the surface of Terrace has a temperature of absolute zero, it can only be reached from here through a series of locks. What they are building now are new locks, big enough to handle their largest ships. As soon as that's done, they plan to attack. Any idea when that will be? About a week Earth time. Murchison's shoulders sagged with despair. We've been racking our brains for a way to stop them, but it's no use. They're as clever as they are evil. They've even sent doubles of each of us men to Earth to pave the way for the attack. I suppose you've seen your double.
- [88:26]
Narrator/Various Characters
No.
- [88:27]
Lady Luck
Then they haven't made one. You have to be awake while it's being done. I suppose they didn't think it necessary, now that there's so little time left. Less time than I thought. Ben grunted. I'd better get moving. He tilted his head back and shouted to the woman above. For a second time, Ben stood before Ardus, Queen of Taris. Her eyes probed at him, trying to divine his thoughts. There was anger in those eyes. If she detected a single flaw in his story, it would mean Ben's death. More than that, it would mean disaster for Earth. He talked fast. When we found that plate in the firing tube of Murchison's ship, we knew he was lying we figured he'd discovered valuable deposits out here and was trying to keep them secret. Hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips. And being that I'm going to be Passenger Princess, I love Love playing on Spinquest.com Spinquest has all of my favorite slot games. Live blackjack, live craps. Head on over to Spinquest right now and get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.
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That was all. It's enough, isn't it? Enough for Interplanetary Intelligence to send me on this mission. Those false papers I carried are proof that we suspected something. And if I'm not back in the time we allowed, they'll have our entire battle fleet out looking for me. Very clever, Arnda smiled. But if you are trying to frighten us, you are failing. The women of Terrace had a high civilization before your Earth was born. We can do things you never dreamed of. At her command, Ben's arms were seized and bound behind him. He was carried swiftly into a room nearby, a room filled with a maze of scientific apparatus. On what appeared to be an operating table was a transparent shell, and beneath this Ben was strapped. Through the shell he saw one of the men of Terrace brought into the room and placed in a similar position on another table. Wires were strung between the two shells, and somewhere a machine began to hum. The shells fell, filled with a white vapor that lingered a moment and then was gone. Although he had known what was to happen, Ben could not control his amazement, for the man who came out of the other shell was an exact replica of himself. Within minutes he saw the other, dressed in his own flying suit. You see how simply we solve the problem? Ardus asked. Ben Sessions will return to Earth and there will be no search. He will report that he found nothing and request that he be allowed to try again. By that time we shall be ready to attack. Ben's arms had been untied, and now he put his hand to his face as though to rub some tender spot. The move attracted no undue attention. An instant later he had two fingers inside his mouth and was working loose the cap over his tooth. His next move took them completely by surprise. With a leap, he was halfway across the room and lunging for his double. Ben brought the man down with a flying tackle, and for seconds they wrestled on the floor. Then a hairy hand tore Ben loose and he was Hauled to his feet, he had done little harm to the other. Not quite fast enough, arndus said. Within minutes he will be aboard the rapier and on his way. Her voice rose. Take this one back to the locks. Doesn't it ever get dark here? Ben asked. He and Murchison and the others had been allowed to come out of the tube after what seemed hours of toil. They sat now in a tiny cell into which air came through slits in the wall. No, murchison said. But Bannon has a good watch, and we're able to keep track of time. It's exactly six days and three hours since you were put to work. Ben nodded thoughtfully. There was not much time left. Work on the locks went on endlessly, and sooner than he could have believed possible, they were being completed. Given enough slaves, he thought, anything could be accomplished. Gluing his eyes to one of the slits, he peered out. The last of the giant gates was being installed. Their own crew would have only one more shift before the job was finished. Beyond the excavation, Ben could see the tower from which the locks were controlled. Bannon, who had been in Terrace longest and who had managed to garner some information, had explained their operation to Ben. I worked on the new controls when they were being installed, he said, ranging himself alongside Ben. They're fully automatic. There are five locks in each tube between the interior and the surface of Terrace. How many ships did you say were kept at the tower? Ben asked. About 10. They make inspection flights each day, although nothing has ever gone wrong that I've heard of. But the tubes and the locks are the only outlets to the surface, and they watch them carefully. What are our chances of getting to the tower? Zero, I should say. Only the women are allowed to enter it, or a small crew under their supervision. Willing to make a try? Ben asked. He swung around to face them all. Until now he had not taken them into his confidence, given them no inkling of what was in his mind. We've talked about it before, murchison answered. But there's so little chance. We gave up the idea. Better to stay alive and hope for a rescue. I can't tell you how I know, ben told them. But there isn't going to be any rescue. He kept his eyes on the girl. How about you, Sally? Willing to trust me? She nodded, and Ben heaved a sigh of relief. Rather than leave her behind, he would have stayed with her. Gathering them about him, he outlined his plans. The men were more than skeptical, but no one had any suggestions. Ben and Davies were the last to finish their work and as they fastened the last rivet to the last hinge and Ben looked up and shook his head to the giant woman who stood watching him, it seemed only that he was tired. She failed to notice that Sally had drifted off to one side and was coming up behind her. Sally's foot suddenly caught the overseer just behind one knee and knocked her off balance. At the same instant, Ben stepped in close and wrenched the violet ray cylinder from the woman's hand. The others screened them from sight. Ben looked around and saw that the slight flurry of activity had gone unnoticed by others of the giant women who were nearby. We're going to walk to the control tower, he told the woman grimly. If anyone asks, you're to say we have to do some work there. I'm going to have this ray gun trained on you under my robe, so don't try any tricks, understand? She understood all too well. A flicker of fear in her eyes told Ben that she knew he would blast her without mercy. They fell in behind her. When they reached the doors of the tower, a pair of women barred their way. We have received no notice of work to be done, one of them said. Ben saw her eyes narrow with sudden suspicion, and then her hand darted for the cylinder at her side. Ben's ray gun spouted violet death, and the charred bodies of three women lay in the doorway. Ben scooped up their guns and thrust them at Bannon and Murchison. We'll give you five minutes before we take off. He shouted as they ran past him for the control room. Behind him and Davies and Sally. There were shouts as the two men went into action, but they had their own job to do. The closest inspection ship was several hundred feet away, and already women were running to cut them off. Ben cut loose with a cylinder before they had a chance to use theirs. Then he and Davies were lifting Sally into the ship. While they covered the open door, Ben ran for the controls. Somewhere an alarm was wailing, and as he swung the ship about, Ben saw other ships being boarded. But Bannon and Murchison had not failed. Just beyond the tower, a lock swung open. Ben skimmed along the ground, figuring to pick up the two men as they came out of the tower. Then he saw Murchison wave him on. He had planted himself in the doorway and was refusing to budge. Ben saw why as Murchison blasted away at a group of giant women who were trying to rush the tower. There was no more time. Already other ships were taking off. Another wasted minute and they would beat him to the lock. Ben yelled to Davies to close the hatch as he turned on the power. A moment later, they were in the blackness of the tube. Davies ran forward to the controls. There's a light on the ship, he said. He found the switch and threw it in time for them to see the next lock open for them. Three to go, ben muttered. Looks like we're going to make it. Maybe not. Davies tapped his shoulder and pointed to the rear of the ship. Looking back through a porthole, Ben could see other ships behind them. As long as we're in the tube, they won't fire, davies said. But neither can we get very far ahead. While he spoke, the ship had gone through another lock with the others still directly behind. It looked like Davies was right, but Ben was not yet ready to concede defeat. The fourth lock loomed ahead, and he watched it swing open. Just a few minutes more and they would go through the last one. It was still hundreds of miles ahead, but at the rate they were traveling, they would be on it still soon. He waited until the last possible second and then cut his speed sharply behind them. The other ships were forced to use their retarding rockets for fear of ramming them. It was just what Ben had expected. As the last lock opened, he threw the accelerator all the way forward and felt the ship leap ahead. That alone would not have been enough. But as the ship roared out of the tube above the surface of Terrace and he cut sharply to the right. Had their ship been faster, it might have worked. But it was not fast enough. Through the blackness of space, the exhausts of their pursuers flamed closer. Ben's teeth clamped down on his lips. I guess we're out of luck. There was nothing more to say. It was only a matter of minutes before the guns of the ships behind them would blast them to pieces. They held their breath and waited, watching the exhausts come through the darkness. And then suddenly there was no more darkness. A light as bright as the noon sun flared. Ben let out a shout, for beyond the light were lined the battle cruisers of Earth. His pursuers turned tail and ran. Where the devil did those ships come from? Davies gasped. I sent for them, ben told him. We had it all arranged. When I tackled that double, I managed to slip a microfilm capsule into his pocket. It had a complete picture of my Radona chart. As soon as the double reached Earth, intelligence grabbed him. All they had to do was follow my chart to Terrace. They were passing the flagship of the Earth fleet, and Ben dipped the nose of his ship in salute. Then he turned to see what was going on. There was going to be no attempt to invade Terrace. Instead, its surface was illuminated with more of the flares. A moment later, Terrace was gone, blasted by the guns of a thousand cruisers. And for the strange women who would have enslaved a universe, Ben felt no pity. Ebook of Daughters of Doom by H.B. hickey Recording by Corinna Schultz.
- [100:51]
Ellaby
The Dictator by Milton Lesser this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, visit Librivox.org recording by Mark Nelson the Dictator by Milton Lesser Just looking at Ellaby you could tell he was going places. He was 5ft 9 inches tall and weighed a hundred and fifty pounds. He had an IQ of 98.57, less than 4 hundredths off the mode. His hair was mousy and worn, slightly long for a man, slightly short for a woman. Back in high falls, where he was born, he was physically weaker than 60 per cent of the men, but stronger than 60% of the women. He had been in training since his 20th birthday to assassinate the dictator. Ellaby was now 30 years old. Dorcas Sinclair met Ellerby at the Pneumo station. She was too big and strapping for a woman, but otherwise not unattractive with her lustreless hair, slightly thick featured face, small sagging bosom and heavy calved legs. I'll take your bags, she told Ellaby and led him from the station. She walked quickly, but not too quickly. You always had to find the happy medium, thought Ellaby. For Elaby, finding the happy medium had always come easy. Ten years ago, when Ellaby had been graduated from the high fall secondary school, the four words most likely to succeed had been printed under his picture in the yearbook. It was expected by everyone. Young Ellerby had learned his three Rs, rules, rights, responsibilities satisfactorily. Ellaby had neither excelled nor failed. He was by nature a first class citizen running to keep up with the too big, too long legged Dorcas Sinclair, who is carrying one of his suit cases in each hand. Ellaby was led from the Pneumo station, the splendid, unimaginative geometric precision of the Capitol stretched out before him in the dazzling summer sunlight, the view serving as a leaven for Elaby's usually phlegmatic disposition. He could feel his spirits rise, his heart thump more rapidly, speeding the sudden flow of adrenaline through his body. This was the city. It was here where the fruits of whatever had gone wrong in Ellaby's upbringing, or whatever had gone wrong in the linear arrangement of his genes would ripen. It was here where Ellerby Modal Ellaby would pass his tests for top secret work. Unsuspected average Elaby would write his name in flaming letters across the pages of history. It was here where Elaby would kill the dictator. And after that what? Chaos. A new order based not on modality but something else. Ellaby wasn't sure. No one in the organization knew for sure. The concept was staggering. To Elaby it was the system or nothing. Well, let others worry about it. They did the planning. Ellaby was only the executioner. The house was like all the others on the block, all the others in the capital, a grimly solid structure of let's pretend brick, fronting on a street which faded into distant haze, straight as a ruled line to north and south, crossing the east west avenues at precise right angles every 500ft. The grid pattern City Ellaby remembered from his Wright's course in school. Every man has the right to a room and bath in any city as long as he is employed. Made the best use of available space for houses. The strip city is unnecessary in time of peace. Was there ever? Had there ever been any other time? The radial city is preferred for rapid transportation, being the accepted pattern in the great economic hubs and ports like Greater New York and Hampton Roads. You will have to live here with me, Dorcas Sinclair told Ellaby, until you pass your tests for employment. I don't have to tell you how much depends on the outcome of those tests, Ellaby. But I can't fail them. I thought you knew my record. With an unnerving, unmodal violence, Dorcas Sinclair's strong fingers dug into the flabby muscle of Ellaby's upper arm. Well, you had better not, she said, her large teeth hardly parting to let the sounds out. Ellaby was suddenly alarmed. He had had very little truck with people of this sort. They were as unpredictable as the weather in High Falls, which having a population under 25,000, had never qualified for weather control. Unlike Modal man, they had never been exhaustively studied. Their likes and dislikes were not catered to, but their passions couldn't be predicted either. Ease up, Dorcas, a deep voice said from the doorway leading to the kitchen. Ellaby stared in that direction gratefully. It was indecent for a woman, for anyone to expose her emotions that way. Ellaby was almost inclined to thank the stranger. Stranger? Nothing, elaby blurted aloud. Ellaby's face reddened and he apologized. I didn't mean to raise my voice, he explained. You surprised me. I guess you didn't expect to find me here at that. You haven't changed much, Ellaby. Automatically Ellaby mumbled his thanks for the compliment. Sam Mulden, though, had changed. He had always been a radical. He wore his hair cropped too short. He was tall and thin, his elbows and knees exposed by the tunic he wore like knots on gnarled living wood. Mulden looked older. He hadn't bothered to dye his graying hair or to smooth the premature wrinkles on his long nosed, thin lipped face. He was smiling sardonically at Ellaby now, as if he could read Ellaby's mind. I might have known it would be you, he said, as soon as they said the assassin was coming from High Falls. I should have guessed. Why? Asked Elaby. It was a question which had nudged for 10 years at his docile patience. When people go out of their way to train you, though, to spend 10 years teaching you every inch of capital territory without once taking you there to make you proficient with various deadly weapons, although your reflexes are splendidly modal, to teach you meaningless phrases like democratic inequality and individuality and the right to live a self directed life to make your own decisions when people act, in short, like a very thorough government school, even if their motives seem strangely misdirected. You don't question them for two reasons, Mulden said. You can understand the first, Ellaby. If the second one bothers you, forget it. In the first place, you're so perfectly modal the government would never suspect you. In the second place, you're so well adjusted you're bound to follow our instructions or any instructions. Dorcas Sinclair said. That's what I'm afraid of, Mulden. Ellaby still couldn't get over it. He never expected to find poor unfortunate Sam Mulden in such a high position in the organization or anywhere. He remembered Mulden clearly from their school days together. Mulden was a character, a real character. Physically he was barely acceptable. More than 80% of the men and some 65% of the women were able to knock Mulden down in the High Falls gymnasium classes.
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Ellaby
But mentally, Mulden was a misfit. His IQ was in the neighborhood of a hundred and fifty. His gangling, ineffectual physique wasn't too far below the mode. But mentally he soared intolerably above it. Now Mulden told Dorcas Sinclair, don't worry about that. We've had 10 years to work on him. They can't undo it in a few days. Ellaby, you are quite sure you know what you must do? Oh, yes. To morrow morning I will take my security tests. According to the record of my previous physical and mental testing, I should make top secret classification. I will work here in the capital. I will find the dictator and kill him. The only thing that bothers me is I don't know who to look for. What does the dictator look like? Didn't they explain all of that to you in High Falls? The woman asked irritably, without even making an effort to poker her face. Ease off, mulden told her for the second time. He's confused. Listen to me, Ellaby. Don't you remember? The dictator never makes public appearances. Yes, yes, now I remember. No one knows what the dictator looks like. He keeps to himself. He issues orders which are instantly obeyed, helping to maintain universal mortality in the country. It almost seems a shame I'll have to kill him. So we've pavlov'd him for ten years, have we, Dorcas Sinclair raged. Ellaby turned away in embarrassment. Damn you, Mulden. He still questions it. He's supposed to, malden explained quietly. If he accepted what we told him, he'd go around talking about it naively. This way he understands the necessity for secrecy. He doesn't understand well. Then he realizes it. Let him get some sleep, will you? To morrow's going to be a good day for USA Big day for him. Good night, Ellaby. If you want anything, Sinclair will get it for you. Ellaby assured him that he would want nothing except a simple meal of whatever most people in the capital ate on Wednesdays. It turned out to be pork chops, which Ellerby neither particularly liked nor disliked. He chewed his food with the proper lack of enthusiasm and retired. Early the next morning, Ellaby took his IQ test at the Capitol Personnel Bureau. He was slightly above average in space perception, but slightly below average in comparisons. He hoped his anxiety didn't show on his face. If anyone asked him why he had come to the Capitol, he was ready to blurt out the reason and have done with it. He wondered what Sam Mulden would have thought if he knew, the Sinclair woman would have been furious. No one asked Ellerby. You came to the capital because you wanted to work there. According to the mode, a man desired to change his location every 3.7 years. Ellaby had been 6.3 years tardy, but High Falls was an ideally modal community in in which people tended to linger I Q7 under the mode, the personnel clerk told Elaby. The slight variation due to his anxiety was not enough to matter, Ellaby realized with a faint sense of triumph. Proceed to physical testing, the girl told Elaby. Obediently, Ellaby followed the Green Arrow to the gymnasium. He was given a locker, a towel, a pair of athletic shorts, and a first aid kit. He stripped off his clothing, placing the tunic, underwear, and sandals in the locker, then climbed into his athletic shorts and fell into line with the other men and women, carrying their towels and first aid kits into the gymnasium. The 10 overmowed male wrestling tester pinned Elaby in less than two minutes, a fact which was duly noted on his employment blank. He was given 15 minutes of rest, then squared off on the mat with a skinny five under mode male. Ellaby bested him in four minutes flat, took another 15 minute break, mopping the sweat from his body with an already sodden towel, then defeated the 10 under mode female wrestler in two minutes and some seconds. It developed into a knock down, drag out fight with the two overmode female, who finally forced Ellerby's shoulders to the mat for the necessary five seconds. After half an hour, Ellaby showered, ate a hot Thursday lunch, and took his employment blank to the emotion lab. His electroencephalograph revealed nine alpha cycles to the second, but too much theta. Are you nervous? The technician asked Elaby. You're theta ing all over the place. I guess so, yes. I'm nervous. Then let's try it again. They did, the technician rubbing the greasy electrode salve on Ellerby's forehead before the electrodes were fastened there for the second time. The result was the same, more than modal Theta, said the technician, writing something in code on his employment blank. See the personnel adviser, please. For Elaby, it came as a distinct shock. His heart pounded against his temples, in his ears. He was emotionally unstable. Had the 10 years been for nothing? Sit down, Ellaby, the personnel adviser said. He was a man of middle age, irritatingly careless about his appearance. He had dyed his graying hair, of course, but if you looked close you could see gray at the roots. He wore a green Thursday tunic, which was poorly starched, having Gone a full week to get it ready. That was naturally inexcusable. You have a splendid record, Ellaby, the sloppy personnel clerk said. Mentally within tenths of the Mode. Physically even closer. Unfortunately. You're emotional. That never happened to me before. Not in High Falls it didn't. Ellaby interrupted. This is not High Falls. Every community, you must realize, has its own security testing center, and the Capitol requires the tightest security of all. I know, but I was nervous. You're going to tell me my Theta was too high, aren't you? That's correct. You needn't feel so bad about it. You're going to be cleared for secret work. You're damn close to modal, Ellaby. You're a good security risk. Incidentally, just why were you nervous? Because I wanted a Top secret clearance. Because I wanted to work close to the Dictator, you see. Abruptly Ellerby stopped talking, clasping a hand over his mouth in sudden confusion. He wasn't supposed to talk about this. Lying, of course, was as far from Ellaby's nature as it was from anyone else's, assuming he were reasonably close to the Mode. But Ellaby hadn't been asked for all that information directly. What kind of job will I get? He asked, trying desperately to change the subject. It was too late. The personnel clerk asked, just why did you want to work close to the Dictator? Ellaby felt a single drop of sweat fall from his armpit under the loose tunic and roll itching down the side of his body. He wanted with all his soul to be back in High Falls any place but here. Why, Ellerby? I can't answer that question. A man isn't forced to answer a question unless he wants to. Certainly not, said the personnel adviser, staring blandly at Ellaby. This is a democratic country, then. But you've never known a man to refuse answering a question asked of him officially, have you? I'm not sure I understand, sir. You don't have to be so obsequious, Ellerby. I'm less modal than you are, but I make the best of my divergencies. What I meant was, did you ever hear of a criminal not confessing to his crime? Well, no. I'll ask you the question again, Ellaby. Why did you want to work near the Dictator? The man leaned close, peered at Ellaby. The room was small, almost a cubicle. The bare walls seemed to close in on all four sides. Ellaby stifled a wild impulse to scream and run out of there. Run any place as long as he could leave the room and the personnel adviser behind him. I'm sorry, but I can't answer that question, he said finally. Tell me, Ellaby, did you ever hear your own voice? What a strange question. Why, certainly. All the time when I speak. No, I mean your voice reproduced artificially. Your radio voice. No, I never heard it. Well, you're about to. While the personnel adviser busied himself setting up the radio equipment, Ellaby had a few seconds in which to think he could still make a clean breast of the whole thing. They had chosen him, Mulden, the Sinclair woman, and the others in High falls for his modality. Very well. He could use that modality to get out from under. He didn't understand. He didn't know what they were leading him to. Slowly, over a period of 10 years. He didn't want to assassinate the dictator. What in the world would he want to do that for? He would gladly name all the names he knew if the personnel adviser would only let him forget the whole mad experience and return to High Falls. He could attend Adjustment Academy if they thought he needed it. Anything? Anything. Please slip these earphones over your head. Over your ears, there. Is the microphone close enough to your lips? I think so. A metal band running over the top of Ellerby's cranium held the earphones in place. Another metal band curved around the side of his cheek and chin, leading to a small microphone before his lips. Place your hands on the arms of your chair, please. Elaby did as he was told. Click. Click. A pair of manacles sprang up from the chair's arms, trapping Elaby's wrists. Ellaby looked at the personnel tester in unpokered alarm. What did you do that for? He asked timidly. So you won't remove the earphones now. Are we ready? The personnel advisor pressed a button on his desk. Ellaby thought he heard a faint hum of power in the microphone. I will ask you once more, Ellaby, why did you want to work near the dictator? Ellaby shrugged. He was going to say. I'm sorry, but I don't have to answer that question, he said, and heard through the earphones. I'm sorry. I'm. But I. Sorry don't have but to ance I were that. Don't question. Have to answer that question again, please. I didn't hear you, the personnel tester said. It was his own voice Ellaby had heard through the earphones playback with a fraction of a second lapse. Oddly, it unnerved him. The reproduced voice had no right lagging he I'm sorry. I'm But I sorry. Don't have but to answer. I were that don't question. Have to shut up. Shut up that please question.
- [123:52]
Lady Luck
Please.
- [123:52]
Narrator/Various Characters
Please.
- [123:54]
Ellaby
Once more, if you don't mind. Ellaby's head was whirling. He blinked sweat from his eyes. I please. I please. The law requires that you make some answereven if answer is a refusal. Criminals confessed. Ellaby thought wildly. Is this why criminals confessed? Did the sound of their own voices drive them mad? It seemed such a simple device. And yet. And yet. But he could fool it. He couldn't rush the words out in a quick torrent. And I don't have to I don't answer that quest have to shun answer that question. Ellaby and Elaby's echo. Well, I well don't. I don't. Elaby blinked more sweat from his eyes. Mumble. Mumble. Sob. Sob. Relax, Ellaby. You seem upset. Will you read this, please? The personal adviser held a card in front of Ellaby's face. The words swam blurred together, fused, were readable and then were not. Elaby read aloud a code A of eth Code ICS for eth Mankind Ethics for mankind. It was, he realized, the preamble to the Constitution in the in 19th the center 9i the 9 common 10th faster faster century the common C common man was defended common man by enlightened liberalism. Man was in the 20th century in the common man was championed by t century enlightened liberalism. The common man was in the 21st century championed by enlightened the common man assumed his proper place liberalism at the top of society but in the 21st century will protect the rights of the turi the common man Enlightened liberals or any other minority assumed his proper encouraging them to become place at the top of as common as possible society but will protect the rights of the enlightened liberals or any other minority encouraging them to become as common as possible.
- [126:17]
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O God.
- [126:18]
Narrator/Various Characters
Oh.
- [126:19]
Ellaby
Shouted Ellaby. Shut God. It shut. Off it make off it make. Stop it. God. Stop God. Will you agree to answer my question? Anything. Anything. Anything. Anything. Now the playback was a faint whisper. Ellaby found himself hysterically fascinated by it, trying to guess the time lapse which varied. Trying to guess the volume which varied. Ellaby's head slumped forward on his chest. The unfamiliar wetness at the corners of his mouth was drool. Ellaby didn't quite know it, of course, but he had given himself a very mild and very temporary nervous breakdown. Two hours later he was asked one question. He answered, I want to be near the dictator so I can kill him later. Dorcas Sinclair asked, what else happened at testing, Ellaby? Take your time, mulden cautioned. He looks nervous. I know it. I want to find out why. After my eeg, said Ellaby softly. They told me I had too much theta. Damn you, Dorcas Sinclair swore. Then you weren't cleared for top secret? No, I wasn't. Not at first. Then a strange thing happened. They said I was cleared only for secret and asked me why I wanted to be cleared for top secret.
- [127:56]
Fannia
You fool.
- [127:57]
Ellaby
The woman cried. I told them it was because I wanted to work near the dictator. I didn't mean to tell them, but. The woman shook her head in despair. Don't bother finishing, she said. You can clear out of here, ellaby. You're through. 10 years. 10 years wasted if you wish, ellaby said mildly. But you're missing the most interesting part. They asked me why I wanted to be near the dictator. Dorcas Sinclair sucked in her breath sharply. Even Mulden seemed anxious. You didn't tell them? The woman asked in a frantic whisper. I'm afraid I did. We'll have to flee the city, the woman told Mulden, ignoring Ellaby now. If he told him that, he probably named names. I have friends in Hampton Roads. Let him finish, Mulden said. Mulden was looking strangely at Ellaby. They didn't ask me to name anyone in the conspiracy, ellaby said, unless they could poke her. Very well. They seemed perfectly calm. They said they would make an exception in my case. They would clear me for top secret work. I start tomorrow. What's your job? Mulden asked eagerly. Well, this is the strangest part. I'm to be the dictator's confidential assistant. Of course. Mulden cried. It makes sense. Don't you see, Sinclair? We're not the only ones. There are others inside the government who think it's time for a coup. With their help, Ellaby won't fail us. Dorcas Sinclair wasn't convinced. Doesn't it seem peculiar to you that purely by coincidence Ellaby happened to meet these people? But Mulden shrugged. You know the old saw about the gift horse, he said. Ellaby, we'll go ahead with the plan tomorrow. If all goes well, we'll have a full scale revolution on our hands. Don't you understand? St. Clair, the dictator. A figurehead. There are plenty of people around like us who don't want to do things just because everyone else does them, who don't want to be stamped by the mold of conformity. Who don't want. But I don't have to go on. The dictator is a figurehead, a symbol of power.
- [130:39]
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- [131:09]
Ellaby
Destroy him and the whole conforming system comes tumbling down in chaos. You'll see tomorrow. It was all beyond Ellaby who was still weary from the playback ordeals. He took the small palm sized blaster from Mulden and slipped it into his tunic. To morrow he would assassinate the dictator and suffer the consequences. He almost had in mind to rebel. The people at testing had been very nice except for those earphones. But the Sinclair woman and Mulden might be able to do as bad or worse. He'd go through with it. Under the circumstances, he slept surprisingly well. Mulden's passionate parting words still ringing in his ears. Ellaby entered the capitol building. Some day you and your kind will understand, Ellaby, Mulden had said. Some day you'll know what banau really means. And vulgar. Someday, I promise you. Some day the true social perspective will be re established. It should not be the role in life of the common man, the mass, the mob to make the uncommon man as common as possible, but quite the other way around. The other way, Ellaby? Common folk should be given the opportunity to become as uncommon as possible. Otherwise, Elaby, we've reached a dead end. Kill him. And I promise you this. The whole warped system will come tumbling. A man shouldn't be forced to conform, Ellaby. Mankind's greatness stems from lack of conformity. For his own purposes, the dictator bows to the will of the mob. But he surrounded himself with mediocrity. Without him, what can they do? Without him they'll go down in weeks, Ellerby. In days. The guard, a tall blonde woman who looked like a 20 over mode to Ellaby, led him down a long well lit corridor. No one had searched him. It would have taken the guard a moment to reach within his tunic, find the blaster and drag him off to the academy. Other people, nameless people on nameless errands walked by in the corridor without paying Ellaby any attention. Was Mulden right? Were there people here within the building, waiting to help Ellaby. Ellaby licked his dry lips and kept walking, finding it difficult to keep his legs from trembling. It was as if a nimbus of terror dogged his footsteps, ready to envelop him momentarily. The guard seemed completely unconcerned. She was humming the melody of the latest song hit, a wonderfully lilting, banal tune which had been on everyone's lips back in High Falls. The blond guard paused before a door in the long corridor. Here we are, she said. Ellaby opened his mouth to speak but gulped in air instead. He felt a weak fluttering in his chest. He had never been so afraid in all his life. The guard, who was a head taller than Ellaby, glanced down at him. You don't have to be so nervous, she said in a perfectly normal voice. Everything's going to be all right. You see, It's a new job and all. Oh, here, let's see that blaster. Ellaby's heart plunged. He wanted to bolt, to run. She knew. She knew. He stood there, too weak to move, while the guard reached inside his tunic, found the blaster taped to his chest, wrenched it loose. She took it out, held it up, flipping open the chamber and examined the inside. All right, she said. I only wanted to make sure it was loaded. And she took out a key and opened the door. He's inside, she said, and strolled on down the hall. Ellaby clutched the door frame for support. He was breathing raggedly now, as if he'd run all the great length of the corridor, sprinting with monsters behind him. He rubbed the shoulder of his tunic against his damp brow and entered the room. A man Ellerby's own size was sitting there, viewing a 3D when he heard Ellaby at the door. He got up. He looked very unhappy as Ellaby pointed the blaster at him. He said, so soon. They said you would try wiles. Trickery, deceit, ellaby recited. You won't fool me. You think I'm the dictator.
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- [136:41]
Ellaby
You're going to kill me. That's very funny. I know you See, I know. Stand back. Ellaby screamed. I assure you I am not the Dictator any more than you will be. The dictator's face dissolved in a red jelly like smear as Ellaby pulled the trigger of his blaster. He spent the next 10 minutes being very ill. Afterwards, they were very efficient. They carted the body away and told Elaby all he had to do was ring for food or drink or anything he wanted. Occasionally he would sign some papers. Occasionally, masked, he might be asked to review a parade. And all at once, sitting alone in the room with its pleasant view, it came to Ellaby. He passed no judgment, but he understood and he was afraid. The mass is ruled, thought Elaby, hardly knowing what the phrase meant. The system was self perpetuating and revolution couldn't change it. The common man, men like Ellerby, had come into his own for once and for all time. The man Ellerby had slain was no dictator. He had tried to tell Ellaby that before he perished. Now Ellaby had taken his place. Ellaby was no dictator either, but he would do until the next one came along. The End of the Dictator By Milton Lesser.
- [138:33]
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Homesick by Lynn Venable this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Reading by Bologna Times Homesick by Lynn Venable what thrill it is there in going out among the stars if coming back means bitter loneliness. Raxton pushed listlessly at a red checker with his right forefinger. He knew the move would cost him a man, but he lacked enough interest in the game to plot out a safe move. His opponent, James, jumped the red disc with a black king and removed it from the board. Gregory, across the room, flicked rapidly through the pages of a magazine, too rapidly to be reading anything or even looking at the pictures. Ross laid quietly on his bunk, staring out of the viewport. The four were strangely alike in appearance, nearly the same age, the age where gray hairs finally outnumber black or baldness takes over. The age when the expanding waistcoat baseline has begun to sag tiredly, when robust middle age begins, the slow accelerating decline towards senility. A strange group to find aboard a spaceship. But then the Columbus was a very strange ship. Bolted to its outer hull, just under the viewports were wooden boxes full of red geraniums and ivy wound tenuous green fronds over the gleaming hull that that had withstood the bombardment of pinpoint meteors and turned away the deadly power of naked cosmic rays. Frankston glanced at his wrist chrono. It was one minute to six. In about a minute, he thought, Ross will say something about going out to water his geraniums. The Wrist Chrono ticked 59 times. I think I'll go out out and water my geraniums, said Ross. No one glanced up. Then Gregory threw his magazine on the floor. Ross got up and walked, limping slightly, to a wall locker. He pulled out the heavy, ungainly spacesuit and the big metal bulb of a headpiece. He carried them to his bunk and laid them carefully down. Will somebody please help me on with my suit? He asked. For one more long moment no one moved. Then James got up and began to help Ross fit his legs into the suit. Ross had arthritis, not badly, but enough so that he needed a little help climbing into a spacesuit. James pulled the heavy folds of the suit up around Ross's body and held it while Ross extended his arms into the sleeve sections, his hands in the heavy gauntlet. Helmets were too unwieldy to do the front fastenings, and he stood silently while James did it for him. Ross lifted the helmet, staring at it as a cripple might regard a wheelchair, which he loathed but was wholly dependent upon. Then he fitted the helmet over his head and James fastened it down and lifted the oxygen tank to his back. Ready? Asked James. The bulbous headpiece inclined in a nod. James walked to a panel and through a switch marked Inner Lock, a round aperture slid silently open. Ross stepped through it and the door shut behind him as James threw the switch back to its original position. Opposite the switch marked Outer Lock. His signal glowed redly and James threw under another switch. A moment later the signal flickered out. Frankston, with a violent gesture, swept the checkerboard clear. Red and black men clattered to the floor, rolling and spinning. Nobody picked them up. What does he do it for? Demanded Frankston in a tight voice. What does he get out of those stinking geraniums he can't touch or smell? Shut up, said Gregory. James looked up sharply. Curtness was unusual for Gregory, a bad sign. Frankston was the one he'd been watching, the one who'd shown signs of cracking, but after so long, even a psycho expert's opinion might be haywire. Who was a yardstick, who was normal? Geraniums don't smell much anyway, added Gregory in a more conciliatory tone. Yeah, agreed Frankston. I'd forgotten that. But why does he torture himself like this, and us, too? Because that's what he wanted to do? Answer James. Sure, agreed Gregory. The whole trip, the last 20 years of it anyhow. All he could talk about was how when he got back to Earth, he was going to buy a little place in the country. Country and raised flowers. Well, we're back, muttered Frankston with a terrible bitterness. He's raising flowers, but not in any little place in the country, Gregory continued almost dreamily. Remember the last night out? We were all gathered around the view screen and there was Earth getting bigger and greener and closer all the time. Remember what it felt like to be going back after 30 years? 30 years cooped up on the ship, grumbled Frankston. Out our 20s and 30s and 40s. But we're coming home. There was a wrapped expression on Gregory's lined and weathered face. We were looking forward to the 20 or maybe 30 good years we had left, talking about what we do, where we'd live, wondering what had changed on Earth. At least we had that last night out. All the data was stashed away in the micro files, all the data about planets with air we couldn't breathe and food we couldn't eat. We were going home. Home to big, friendly green Earth. Frankston's face suddenly crumpled as though he were about to weep, and he cradled his head against his arms. God, do we have to go over it all again? Not again tonight. Leave him alone, ordered James with an inflection of command in his voice. Go to the other section of the ship if you don't want to listen. He has to keep going over it, just like Ross has to keep watering his geraniums. Frankston remained motionless, and Gregory looked gratefully at James. James was the steady anyone. It was easier for him because he understood. Gregory's face became more and more animated as he lost himself living again. His recollections the day we blasted in the crowds. Thousands of people all there to see us come in. We were proud, of course. We thought we were the first to land, just like we'd been the first to go out. Those cheers coming from thousands of people at at once. For us, Ross, Lieutenant Ross was the first one out of the lock. We decided on that. He'd been in command for almost 10 years, ever since Commander Stevens died. You remember Stevens, don't you? He took over when we lost Captain Willers. Well, anyway, Ross out first, and then you, James, and you, Frankston, and then trip it and me last, because you were all special specialist and I was just a crewman. The crewman, I should say. The only one left. Ross hesitated and almost stumbled when he stepped out and tears began pouring from his eyes. But I thought, well, you know, coming home after 30 years and all that. But when I stepped out of the lock, my eyes stung like fire and a thousand needles seemed to jab at my skin. And then the president himself, himself stepped forward with the flowers. That's where the real trouble began, with the flowers. I remember Ross stretching out his arms to take the bouquet, like a mother reaching for a baby. Then suddenly he dropped them, sneezing and coughing and sobbing for breath, and the President reached out to help him, asking him over and over what was wrong. It was the same with all of us, and we turned and staggered back, back to the ship, closing the lock behind us. It was bad then. God, I'll never forget it. The five of us moaning in agony, gasping for breath, our eyes all swollen shut. And the itching, that itching. Gregory shuddered. Even the emotionally discipled James set his teeth and felt his scalp crawl at the memory of that horror. He glanced toward the viewpoint port as though to cleanse his mind of the memory. He could see Ross out there among the geraniums, moving slowly and painfully in his heavy spacesuit. Occupational therapy. Ross watered flowers and Gregory talked, and Frankston was bitter and himself. Observation, maybe. Gregory's voice began again, and then they were pounding on the lock, begging us to let the. The doctor in. But we were all rolling and thrashing with the itching, burning, sneezing. And finally James got himself under control enough to open the locks and let them in. Then came the tests. Allergy tests. Remember those? They cut a little row of scratches in your arm. Each man instinctively glanced at his forearm, saw neat rows of tiny pink scars, row on row. Then they put. Put a little powder in each cut, and each kind of powder was an extract of some common substance we might be allergic to. The charts they made were full of peas. P for Positive. Long columns of big red peas, all pollen, dust, wool, nylon, cotton, fish, meat, fruit, vegetables, grain, milk, whiskey, cigarettes, dogs, cats, everything. And wasn't it funny about us being allergic to women's face powder?
- [148:46]
Fannia
Ha.
- [148:47]
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We were allergic to women, from their nylon hose to their face powder. 30 years of breathing purified, sterilized, filtered air. 30 years of drinking distilled water and swallowing synthetic food tablets had changed us. The only thing, things we weren't allergic to were the metal and plastic and synthetics of our ship. This ship. We're allergic to Earth. That's funny, isn't it? Gregory began to rock back and forth, laughing the thin high laugh of hysteria. James silently walked to a water hydrant and filled a plastic cup. He brought Gregory a small white pill. You wouldn't take this with the rest of the rest of us at supper. You better take it now. You need it. Gregory nodded bleakly, sobering at once, and swallowed the palate. He made a face after the water. Distilled. He spat. Distilled. No flavor, no life like us. Distilled. If only we could have blasted off again. Frankston's voice came muffled through his hands. It wouldn't have made any difference where. Anywhere or nowhere. No, our fine ship is obsolete and we're old. Much too old. They have the space drive now. Men don't make 30 year junkets into space and come back allergic to Earth. They go out and in a month or two they're back with their hair still black and their eyes still bright and their uniforms still fit. A month or two or two is all. Those crowds that cheered us. They were proud of us and sorry for us because we'd been out 30 years and they never expected us back at all. But it was inconvenient for spaceport. Bitter sarcasm tinged his voice. They actually had to postpone the regular monthly trans galactic run to let us in with this big clumsy hulk. Why didn't we ever see any of the new ships either going out or coming back? Asked Gregory. Frankston shook his head. You don't see a ship when it's in space drive. It's out of normal space time dimensions. We had a smattering of the theory at cadet school. Anyway, if one did flash into normal space time, say for instance, coming in for a landing, the probability of a being at the same place at the same time was almost nil. Two ships passing in the night, as the old saying goes. Gregory nodded. I guess Trip it was the lucky one. You didn't see Trip it die, replied James. What was it as Frankston, what killed Tripit so quickly too? He was only outside a few minutes like the rest of us, and eight hours later he was dead. We couldn't be sure, answered James. Some virus. There are countless varieties. People live in a contaminated atmosphere all their lives build up a resistance to them. Sometimes a particularly virulent strain will produce an epidemic. But most people, if they're affected, will have a mild case of whatever it is and recover. But after 30 years in space. 30. 30 years of breathing perfectly pure uncontaminated air. Trip it had no antibodies in his bloodstream. The virus hit and he died. But why didn't the rest of us get it? Asked Gregory. We were lucky. Viruses are like that. Those people talked about building a home for us, muttered Frankston. Why didn't they? It wouldn't have been any different, answered James gently. It would have been the same. Almost an exact duplicate of the ship. Everything but the rockets. Same metal and plastic and filtered air and synthetic food. It couldn't have had wool rugs or down pillows or smiling wives or fresh air or eggs for breakfast. It would have been just like this. So since the ship was obsolete, they gave it to us and a plot of ground to anchor it to, and we're home. They did the best they could for us, the very best they could. But I feel stifled, shut in. The ship is large, Frankston. We all crowd into this section because without each other we'd go mad. James kicked the edge of the magazine on the floor. Thank God we're not allergic to decontaminated paper. They're still reading. We're getting old, said Gregory. Someday one of us will be here alone. God help him then, answered James with more emotion than was usual for him. During the latter part of the conversation, the little red signal had been flashing persistently. Finally, James saw it. Ross was in the outer lock. James threw the decontaminator switch and the signal winked out every trouble. Trace of dust and pollen would have to be removed from Ross's suit before he could come inside the ship. Just like on an alien planet, commented Gregory. Isn't that what this is to us? An alien planet? Asked Frankston, and neither of the other men dared answer his bitter question. A few minutes later Ross was back in the cabin and James helped him out of his spacesuit. How are the geraniums, Ross? Asked Gregory. Fine, said Ross enthusiastically. They're doing just fine. He walked over to his bunk and lay down on his side so he could see out of the viewport. There would be an hour left before darkness fell. An hour to watch the geraniums. They were tall and red and swayed slightly in the evening breeze. End of Homesick by Lynn Venable
- [154:42]
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- [155:15]
Lady Luck
Into Space by Sterner St. Paul this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox Recording by Karina Schultz into space by Sterner St. Paul many of my readers will remember the mysterious radio messages which were heard by both amateur and professional shortwave operators during the nights of the 23rd and 24th of last September, and even more will remember the astounding discovery made by Professor Montesquieu of the Lick Observatory on the night of September 25th. At the time, some inspired writers tried to connect the two events, maintaining that the discovery of the fact that the Earth had a new satellite coincident with the receipt of the mysterious messages was evidence that the new planetoid was inhabited and that the messages were attempts on the part of the inhabitants to communicate with us. The fact that the messages were on a lower wavelength than any receiver then in existence could receive with any degree of clarity, and the additional fact that they appeared to come from an immense distance lent a certain air of plausibility to these abolitions. In the Sunday magazine sections for some weeks the future writers harped on the subject, but the hurried construction of new receivers which would work on a lower wavelength yielded no results, and the solemn pronouncements of astronomers, to the effect that the new celestial body could by no possibility have an atmosphere on account of its small size, finally put an end to the talk, so the matter lapsed into oblivion. I doubt whether there are 500 people alive who will remember anything at all about the disappearance of Dr. Livermore of the University of Calvada on September 23rd. He was a man of some local prominence, but he had no more than a local fame, and few papers outside of California even noted the event in their columns. I do not think that anyone ever tried to connect up his disappearance with the radio messages or the discovery of the new earthly satellite. Yet the three events were closely bound up together, and but for the doctor's disappearance, the other two would never have happened. Dr. Livermore taught physics at Calvada, or at least he taught the subject. When he remembered that he had a class and felt like teaching, his students never knew whether he would appear at class or not, but he always passed everyone who took his courses, and so of course they were always crowded. The university authorities used to remonstrate with him, but his ability as a research worker was so well known and recognized that he was allowed to go about as he pleased. He was a bachelor who lived alone and who had no interests in life, so far as anyone knew, other than his work. I first made contact with him when I was a freshman at Calvada, and for some unknown reason he took a liking to me. My father had insisted that I follow in his footsteps as an electrical engineer. As he was paying my bills, I had to make a show at studying engineering while I clandestinely pursued my hobby, literature. Dr. Livermore's courses were the easiest in the school and they counted as science. So I regularly registered for them, cut them and attended a class in literature as an auditor. The doctor used to meet me on the campus and laughingly scold me for my absence. But he was really in sympathy with my ambition and he regularly gave me a passing mark and and my units of credit without regard to my attendance or rather lack of it. When I graduated from Calvada, I was theoretically an electrical engineer practically. I had a pretty good knowledge of contemporary literature and knew almost nothing about my so called profession. I stalled around Dad's office for a few months until I landed a job as a cub reporter on the San Francisco Graphic and then I quit him cold. When the storm blew over, dad admitted that you couldn't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear and agreed with a grunt to my new line of work. He said that I would probably be a better reporter than an engineer because I couldn't by any possibility be a worse one and let it go at that. However, all this has nothing to do with the story. It just explains how I came to be acquainted with Dr. Livermore in the first place and why he sent for me on September 22nd. In the second place. The morning of the 22nd, the city editor called me in and asked me if I knew old Liverpill's. He says that he has a good story ready to break, but he won't talk to anyone. But you went on Barnes. I offered to send out a good man for when old Liverpill starts a story. It ought to be good, but all I got was a high powered bawling out. He said that he would talk to you or no one and would just as soon talk to no one as to me any longer. Then he hung up. You'd better take a run out to Calvada and see what he has to say. I can have a good man rewrite your drivel when you get back. I was more or less used to that sort of talk from Barnes, so I paid no attention to it. I drove my flivver down to Calvada and asked for the Dr. Dr. Livermore, said the bursar. Why, he hasn't been around here for the last 10 months. This is his sabbatical year, and he is spending it on a ranch he owns up at Hat Creek near Mount Lassen. You'll have to go there if you want to see him. I knew better than to report back to Barnes without the story, so there was nothing to it but to drive up to Hat Creek. And a long, hard drive it was. I made reading late that night. The next day I drove on to Burney and asked for directions to the doctor's ranch. So you're going up to Doc Livermore's, are you? Asked the postmaster, my informant. Have you got an invitation? I assured him that I had. It's a good thing, he replied, because he don't allow anyone on his place without one. I'd like to go up there myself and see what's going on, but I don't want to get shot at like old Pete Johnson did when he tried to drop in on the dock and pay him a little call. There's something mighty funny going on up there. Naturally I tried to find out what was going on, but evidently the postmaster, who was also the express agent, didn't know. All he could tell me was that a lot of junk had come for the doctor by express and that a lot more had been hauled in by truck from Redding. What kind of junk? I asked him. Almost everything, bub. Sheet steel, machinery, batteries, cases of glass, and Lord knows what all. It's been going on ever since he landed there. He has a bunch of Indians working for him and he don't let a white man on the place. Forced to be satisfied with this meager information, I started old Lizzie and lit out for the ranch. After I had turned off the main trail, I met no one until the ranch house was in sight. As I rounded abandoned the road, which brought me in sight of the building, I was forced to put on my brakes at top speed to avoid running into a chain which was stretched across the road. An Indian armed with a Winchester rifle stood behind it, and when I stopped, he came up and asked my business. My business is with Dr. Livermore, I said tartly. You got letter? He inquired. No, I answered. No ketchum letter. No ketchum doctor, he replied and walked stolidly back to his post. This is absurd. I shouted and drove Lizzie up to the chain. I saw that it was merely hooked to a ring at the end, and I climbed out and started to take it down. A 30. 30 bullet imbedded itself in the post an inch or two from my head, and I changed my mind about taking down that chain. No ketchum letter, no ketchum, doctor, said the Indian laconically as he pumped another shell into his gun. I was balked until I noticed a pair of telephone wires running from the house to the tree to which one end of the chain was fastened. Is that a telephone to the house? I demanded. The Indian grunted an ascent. Dr. Livermore telephoned me to come and see him, I said. Can't I call him up and see if he still wants to see me? The Indian debated the question with himself for a minute and then nodded a doubtful assent. I cranked the old coffee mill type of telephone which I found, and presently heard the voice of Dr. Livermore. This is Tom Faber, Doctor, I said. The Graphic sent me up to get a story from you, but there's an Indian here who started to murder me when I tried to get past your barricade. Good for him, chuckled the doctor. I heard the shot but didn't know that he was shooting at you. Tell him to talk to me. The Indian took the telephone at my bidding and listened for a minute. You go in, he agreed. When he hung up the receiver, he took down the chain and I drove on up to the house to find the doctor waiting for me on the veranda. Hullo, Tom, he greeted me heartily. So you had trouble with my guard, did you? I nearly got murdered, I said ruefully. I expect that Joe would have drilled you if you had tried to force your way in, he remarked cheerfully. I forgot to tell him that you were coming to day. I told him you would be here yesterday, but yesterday isn't today. To that Indian I wasn't sure you would get here at all, in point of fact, for I didn't know whether that old fool I talked to in your office would send you or someone else. If anyone else had been sent, he would have never got by Joe, I can tell you. Come in. Where's your bag? I haven't got one, I replied. I went to Calvada yesterday to see you and didn't know until I got there that you were up here. The doctor chuckled. I guess I forgot to tell where I was, he said. That man I talked to got me so mad that I hung up on him before I told him. It doesn't matter, though. I can dig you up a new toothbrush and I guess you can make out with that. Come in. I followed him into the house, and he showed me a room fitted with a crude Bunk, a washstand, a bowl, and a pitcher. You won't have many luxuries here, Tom, he said. But you won't need to stay here for more than a few days. My work is done. I am ready to start. In fact, I would have started yesterday instead of today had you arrived. Now, don't ask any questions. It's nearly lunch time. What's the story, Doctor? I asked after lunch as I puffed one of his excellent cigars. And why did you pick me to tell it to? For several reasons, he replied, ignoring my first question. In the first place, I like you, and I think that you can keep your mouth shut until you are told to open it. In the second place, I have always found that you had the gift of vision or imagination and have the ability to believe. In the third place, you are the only man I know who had the literary ability to write up a good story and at the same time has the scientific background to grasp what it is all about. Understand that unless I have your promise not to write this story until I tell you that you can, not a word will I tell you. I reflected for a moment. The Graphic would expect the story when I got back. But on the other hand, I knew that unless I gave the desired promise, the doctor wouldn't talk. All right, I assented. I'll promise. Good, he replied. In that case, I'll tell you all about it. No doubt you, like the rest of the world, think that I'm crazy. Why, not at all, I stammered. In point of fact, I had often harbored such a suspicion. Oh, that's all right, he went on cheerfully. I am crazy. Crazy as a loon, which, by the way, is a highly sensible bird with a well balanced mentality. There is no doubt that I am crazy, but my craziness is not of the usual type. Mine is the insanity of genius. He looked at me sharply as he spoke, but long sessions at poker in the San Francisco Press Club had taught me how to control my facial muscles, and I never batted an eye. He seemed satisfied and went on. From your college work you are familiar with the laws of magnetism, he said. Perhaps, considering just what your college career really was, I might better say that you are supposed to be familiar with them. I joined with him in his laughter. It won't require a very deep knowledge to follow the thread of my argument, he went on. You know, of course, that the force of magnetic attraction is inversely proportional to the square of the distances separating the magnet and and the attracted particles, and also that each magnetized particle had Two poles, a positive and a negative pole, or a north pole and a south pole, as they are usually called. I nodded. Consider for a moment that the laws of magnetism, in so far as concerns the relation between distance and power of attraction, are exactly matched by the laws of gravitation. But there the similarity between the two forces ends, I interrupted. But there the similarity does not end, he said sharply. That is the crux of the discovery which I have made. That magnetism and gravity are one and the same. Or rather, that the two are separate but similar manifestations of one force. The parallel between the two grows closer with each succeeding experiment. You know, for example, that each magnetized particle has two poles. Similarly, each gravitized particle, to coin a new word, has two poles, one positive and one negative. Every particle on the Earth is so oriented that the negative poles point toward the positive center of the Earth. This is what causes the commonly known phenomena of gravity or weight. I can prove the fallacy of that in a moment, I retorted. There are none so blind as those who will not see, he quoted with an icy smile. I can probably predict your pure Ryle argument, but go ahead and present it. If two magnets are placed so that the north pole of one is in juxtaposition to the south pole of the other, they attract one another, I said. If the position of the magnets be reversed so that the two similar poles are opposite, they will repel. If your theory were correct, a man standing on his head would fall off the earth. Exactly what I expected, he replied. Now let me ask you a question. Have you ever seen a small bar magnet placed within the field of attraction of a large electromagnet? Of course you have. And you have noticed that when the north pole of the bar magnet was pointed toward the electromagnet, the bar was attracted. However, when the bar was reversed and the south pole pointed toward the electromagnet, the bar was still attracted. You doubtless remember that experiment. But in that case, the magnetism of the electromagnet was so large that the polarity of the small magnet was reversed. I cried. Exactly. And the field of gravity of the Earth is so great compared to the gravity of a man that when he stands on his head, his polarity is instantly reversed. I nodded. His explanation was too logical for me to pick a flaw in it. If that same bar magnet were held in the field of the electromagnet with its north pole pointed toward the magnet, and then by the action of some outside force of sufficient power, its polarity were reversed, the bar would be repelled. If the magnetism were neutralized and held exactly neutral, it would be neither repelled nor attracted, but would act only as the force of gravity impelled. It is that clear? Perfectly. I assented. That then paves the way for what I have to tell you. I have developed an electrical method of neutralizing the gravity of a body while it is within the field of the Earth, and also, by a slight extension, a method of entirely reversing its polarity. I nodded calmly. Do you realize what this means? He cried. No, I replied, puzzled by his great excitement. Man alive. He cried. It means that the problem of aerial flight is entirely revolutionized and that the era of interplanetary travel is at hand. Suppose that I construct an airship and then render it neutral to gravity. It would weigh nothingabsolutely, nothing. The tiniest propeller would drive it at almost incalculable speed with a minimum consumption of power, for the only resistance to its motion would be the resistance of the air. If I were to reverse the polarity, it would be repelled from the Earth with the same force with which it is now attracted, and it would rise with the same acceleration as a body falls toward the Earth. It would travel to the moon in 2 hours and 40 minutes. Air resistance would There is no air a few miles from the Earth. Of course, I do not mean that such a craft would take off from the Earth and land on the Moon three hours later. There are two things which would interfere with that. One is the fact that the propelling force, the gravity of the Earth, would diminish as the square of the distance from the center of the Earth. And the other is that when the band of neutral attraction, or rather repulsion, between the Earth and the Moon had been reached, it would be necessary to decelerate so as to avoid a smash on landing. I have been over the whole thing, and I find that it would take 29 hours and 52 minutes to make the whole trip. The entire thing is perfectly possible. In fact, I have asked you here to witness and report the first interplanetary trip to be made. Have you constructed such a device? I cried. My spaceship is finished and ready for your inspection, he replied. If you will come with me, I will show it to you. Hardly knowing what to believe, I followed him from the house and to a huge barn like structure over a hundred feet high, which stood near by. He opened the door and switched on a light, and there before me stood what looked at first glance to be a huge artillery shell, but of a size larger than any ever made it was constructed of sheet steel and while the lower part was solid, the upper sections had huge glass windows set in them. On the point was a mushroom shaped protuberance. It measured perhaps 50ft in diameter and was 140ft high. The doctor informed me a ladder led from the floor to a door about 50ft from the ground. I followed the doctor up the ladder and into the Space Flyer. The door led us into a comfortable living room through a double door arrangement. The whole hull beneath us, explained the Doctor, is filled with batteries and machinery except for a space in the center where a shaft leads to a glass window in the bottom so that I can see behind me, so to speak. The space above is filled with storerooms and the air purifying apparatus. On this level is my bedroom, kitchen and other living rooms, together with a laboratory and an observatory. There is a central control room located on an upper level, but it need seldom be entered, for the craft can be controlled by a system of relays from this room or from any other room in the ship. I suppose that you are more or less familiar with imaginative stories of interplanetary travel. I nodded an assent. In that case there is no use in going over the details of the air purifying and such matters, he said. The story writers have worked out all that sort of thing in great detail and there is nothing novel in my arrangements. I carry food and water for six months and are enough for two months by constant renovating. Have you any question you wish to ask? One objection I have seen frequently raised to the idea of interplanetary travel is that the human body could not stand the rapid acceleration which would be necessary to attain speed enough to ever get anywhere. How do you overcome this? My dear boy, who knows what the human body can stand? When the locomotive was first invented, learned scientists predicted that the limit of speed was 30 miles an hour as the human body could not stand a higher speed. Today the human body stands a speed of 360 miles an hour without ill effects. At any rate, on my first trip I intend to take no chances. We know that the body can stand an acceleration of 32ft per second without trouble. That is the rate of acceleration due to gravity and is the rate at which a body increases speed when it falls. This is the acceleration which I will use. Hey everybody, lady luck here and we're celebrating America's 250th birthday. Now, all summer long I'm going to be celebrating by playing on finquest.com which is an American owned social casino. It obviously features over a thousand slot games and live blackjack, live crabs, live bubble craps. Head on over to spinquest.com get yourself a $30 coin pack for just 10 bucks.
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- [176:00]
Lady Luck
Remember that the space traveled by a falling body in a vacuum is equal to one half the acceleration multiplied by the square of the elapsed time. The moon, to which I intend to make my first trip is only 280,000 miles, or 1,478,400,000ft from us. With an acceleration of 32ft per second, I would pass the moon 2 hours and 40 minutes after leaving the Earth. If I later take another trip, say, to Mars, I will have to find a means of increasing my acceleration, possibly by the use of the rocket principle. Then will be time enough to worry about what my body will stand. A short calculation verified the figures the doctor had given me, and I stood convinced. Are you really going? I asked most decidedly. To repeat, I would have started yesterday had you arrived. As it is, I am ready to start at once. We will go back to the house for a few minutes while I show you the location of an excellent telescope through which you may watch my progress and instruct you in the use of an ultra short wave receiver, which I am confident will pierce the heaviest layer. With this I will keep in communication with you, although I have made no arrangements for you to send messages to me on this trip, I intend to go to the moon and land. I will take atmosphere samples through an air port, and if there is an atmosphere which will support life, I will step out on the surface. If there is not, I will return to the Earth. A few minutes was enough for me to grasp the simple manipulations which I would have to perform, and I followed him again to the Space Flyer. How are you going to get it out? I asked. Watch, he said. He worked some levers and the roof of the barn folded back, leaving the way clear for the departure of the huge projectile. I followed him inside, and he climbed the ladder when I shut the door. Go back to the house and test the radio, he directed. The door clanged shut and I hastened into the house. His voice came plainly enough. I went back to the flyer and waved him a final farewell, which he acknowledged through a window. Then I returned to the receiver. A loud hum filled the air, and suddenly the projectile arose and flew out through the open roof, gaining speed rapidly until it was a mere speck in the sky. It vanished. I had no trouble in picking him up with the telescope. In fact, I could see the Doctor through one of the windows. I have passed beyond the range of the atmosphere, Tom, came his voice over the receiver, and I find that everything is going exactly as it should. I feel no discomfort, and my only regret is that I did not install a transmitter in the house so that you could talk to me. But there is no real necessity for it. I am going to make some observations now, but I will call you again with a report of progress in half an hour. For the rest of the afternoon and all of that night, I received his messages regularly. But with the coming of daylight, they began to fade. By 9 o' clock I could get only a word here and there. By noon I could hear nothing. I went to sleep hoping that the night would bring better reception. Nor was I disappointed. About 8 o' clock I received a message, rather faintly, but nonetheless distinctly. I regret more than ever that I did not install a transmitter so that I could learn from you whether you are receiving my messages. His voice said faintly. I have no idea of whether you can hear me or not, but I will keep on repeating this message every hour while my battery holds out. It is now 30 hours since I left the Earth and I should be on the Moon according to my calculations. But I am not and never will be. I am caught at the neutral point where the gravity of the Earth and the Moon are exactly equal. I had relied on my momentum to carry me over this point, and once over it, I expected to reverse my polarity and fall on the Moon. My momentum did not do so. If I keep my polarity as it was when left the Earth, both the Earth and the Moon repel me. If I reverse it, they both attract me. And again, I cannot move. If I had equipped my Space Flyer with a rocket so that I could move a few miles or even a few feet from the dead line, I could proceed. But I did not do so, and I cannot move forward or back. Apparently, I am doomed to stay here until my air gives out. Then my body, entombed in my spaceship, will endlessly circle the Earth as a satellite until the end of time. There is no hope for me for long before a duplicate of my device equipped with rockets could be constructed and come to my rescue. My air would be exhausted. Goodbye, Tom. You may write your story as soon as you wish. I will repeat my message in one hour. Goodbye. At nine and at ten o' clock the message was repeated. At eleven it started again, but after a few sentences the sound suddenly ceased and the receiver went dead. I thought that the fault was with the receiver and I toiled feverishly the rest of the night, but without result. Hey guys, Lady Luck here. Are you going on any road trips this summer? I know I'm going to be going on a bunch of road trips and being that I'm going to be Passenger Princess I Love playing on Spinquest.com Spinquest has all of my favorite slot games. Live blackjack, live craps. Head on over to Spinquest right now and get yourself a 30 coin pack for just 10 bucks. Spin Quest is a free free to
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Lady Luck
I learned later that the messages heard all over the world ceased at the same hour. The next morning, Professor Montesquieu announced his discovery of the world's new satellite. End of into space by Sterner St. Paul recording by Karina Schultz
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the Invader by Alfred Koppel this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Reading by Bologna Times the Invader by Alfred Koppel Invading Earth was going to be a cinch, the Triamid scout decided, but to make certain, he must study its inhabitants. As one of them, the Triamed advanced stealthily across the floor of the dark cell toward the sleeping figure huddled in the corner. After the long, lonely voyage, the nearness to a host filled the Triamed with eager anticipation. The tiny spaceship that had carried him into this lush planetary system form far from the galaxy's heart lay well hidden behind him. So far as he could tell, his descent had not been detected. And that was as it should be, for he was a Triomed and a scientist, one of the finest in the service of his dying race. Dying, that is, until now, he thought. No longer with the race of Triameds weaken and die for lack of suitable hosts. This third planet of the yellow sun was a paradise thick with warm blooded biped mammals. The sleeping creature stirred uneasily, as though sensing the approach of danger. The Triamid froze into immobility. It was unlikely that he could be seen, he knew, though the sense of sight was only a synthesized abstraction to him it was was not one of his own proper senses, but he had been able to detect at long distance that almost every living creature on this planet received impressions through certain specialized organs mounted on and within their structure. There were plants, of course, as there were on Triumph, but they were unimportant. There were viruses, too, and he had been afraid when he had discovered this Fact that he had arrived too late. But the first attempts at establishing communication had relieved the triad of his fears. The indigenous viruses were primitive, not at all like his own illustrious ancestors of ancient triumph. The sleeping biped relaxed and the Triamid inched forward again. A flat, almost two dimensional smear of glistening matter on the floor in front of the bipedal. From high above the planet's night side, the Triamid had sensed the city. He had absorbed its shape and size and meaning while his craft settled through the heavy, oxygen rich air. It was not enough that his instruments told of suitable hosts. He was a scientist and believed in absolute proof. Also, he had been in space long without the satisfaction of a host and he yearned for the the rapport, the domination of a warm blooded creature. There had been a dark segment in the brilliant pattern of the city, an island of solitude and the myriad confluences. It was there that he had landed his tiny probe ship and hidden it among the thickly wooded glades. Almost immediately he had sensed the nearness of many creatures. Insects, plants, warm blooded quadrupeds and bipeds. There had been machines and buildings and winding roadways among the trees. Darkness had covered his progress until at last he found himself near the sleeping creature, ready to infiltrate and take command. The glistening shape, elongated, became a thread like tendril of almost gossamer thickness. It touched the flesh of the sleeper and and thrilled with pleasure. Cautiously, the Triomed moved up the hairy leg, an invisible strand of alien life close to the warm skin. Presently the strand found the opening it sought. It slithered imperceptibly into the moist warmth of the sleeper's nostril, move through the tear duct into the space behind the eyeball. Here it probed through muscle and membrane along the base of the brain, seeking the pineal gland, and found it penetrated it, coiling like a microscopic serpent within the gland. A surge of pleasure went through the trial med. Here was safety. The host was large, powerful and vibrant with life. Quickly the Triamid established dominance. It was shockingly easy. The creature's mind was immature, primitive. Briefly it struggled and then died. As the alien poisoned the identity centers of the brain, new sensations poured in through unfamiliar sense organs. Sounds of the faraway city, small sounds from the many living creatures in the darkness. Smells and sights and pressures from all about him presented themselves, were evaluated and recorded in the the atomic structure of the Triomed. He was now equipped, he reflected with satisfaction, to carry out further exploration in the guise of the indigenous biped. He could roam among the natives at will. He remained in a sitting position, however, while he familiarized himself with his host. He had two articulated appendages fixed to the trunk at a point near and below the skullcase. These ended in complex extremities consisting of five jointed fingers. The same pattern was repeated at the lower end of the trunk, but the extremities were suited there for the carrying of the creature's considerable weight. Within the trunk were the customary viscera generally associated with the warm blooded beings lungs, intestines, stomach, liver, bladder, reproductive organs, and assorted ducted and ductless glands. It was apparent to the Triomed that his present body was in excellent health. He was greatly pleased. After some careful experiments, the Triamed rose. If there was a proper method of egress from the cubicle in which he found himself, it was not imprinted on the bipeds his brain. For a moment this gave the alien pause. He could, of course, determine the proper method by a tedious process of trial and error, but that would take time, and he had no desire to waste the hours of darkness. One wall, he noted, consisted of vertical risers fixed in the substance of the floor and ceiling beyond. He could see the darkling woods and the sky glow of the ceiling city. The answer, then, was simple force. He did not doubt there was strength enough in the host's musculature to distort the risers. His assumption was quite correct. Stepping through the bent risers, he picked his way along a narrow walkway lined with cubicles similar to the one he had left. Within them. Dark shapes moved or lit day sleeping. Some were alert, others were not, but none gave an alarm. The Triamed reached the end of the walk, scaled offense easily, and stood on a surface of wet grass that sloped away from the low, dark building toward the woods. Behind him he heard a shout. A narrow beam of light pierced the night, swinging to and fro with a searching motion. He had a fleeting glimpse of of a small biped running down the walk toward the cubicle he had deserted. The Triamed broke toward the wood with a long, loping pace that covered the ground with unbelievable swiftness. The probing light did not find him. Once among the trees, he paused and took his bearings. The woods were not thick. He could see the lights of the city through the foliage. They began at the very edge of the trees, where a wide open area could be discerned. Wheeled vehicles moved past with breathtaking speed. If there was pursuit, it was inefficient, for the triummet moved through the woods undisturbed until he stood at the edge of the avenue, sheltered by the shadow of a large tree. Most of the traffic was vehicular, he noted. There were few pedestrians. From the noise and odor, he classified the vehicles as being powered by internal combustion engines, burning hydrocarbons. Primitive. That was good, he reflected. When the fleets of triumph descended on this planet, there would be no science worthy of the name to oppose them. He waited until there was an interval in the traffic and then stepped out confidently, crossing the avenue as he was, he reached the opposite side. He heard a screech of brakes and a garbled choking sound. He did not turn to discover the source of the disturbance until he had reached the shelter of a building on the far side of the walk bordering the street. A vehicle had stopped at an oblique angle to the lane in which it was traveling, and its single occupant, a very pale faced biped, was goggling stupidly in the direction of of the hidden triomed. For the first time the alien being felt a twinge of apprehension. Certainly had done nothing out of the ordinary in crossing the open space on foot, but perhaps there were tribal taboos and traditions among the natives that could not be ignored without attracting attention. The Triamed promised himself that he would exercise more caution in such matters. Too much depended on this reconnaissance to allow it to be disturbed by carelessness. He worked his way through the shadows between the many buildings until the wide highway was far behind him. He was very aware of the teeming life all about him, in the buildings, in the vehicles, on the streets. Still, some odd impulse that stemmed from the numbed brain of his host rather than his own kept him fairly hidden. This, he decided with something akin to annoyance, was not as it should be. If his survey were to be of any value, he must roam at will and without fear of detection, secure in his disguise. Presently he came upon a street where streams of bipeds jostled one another, each seemingly intent upon its own particular incident. Incomprehensible errands. For a long while he watched from the shelter of an alley doorway, classifying and integrating the information his host sharp eyes brought him. It was miraculous. Hosts of every size and description were in abundance, an unlimited supply of them, enough for the whole population of Triumph. It was beyond belief, but he could not doubt. And this was but a single concentration, a single city. From the stratosphere he had seen hundreds of similar cities. Paradise. He envisioned the fleets of triumph descending, the triameds emerging and infiltrating. The thoughts brought pride and anticipation. It had been so easy. He decided not to linger. He felt now that he had his proofs and that he should return at once to his ship. Triumph must be told immediately. The communicator in the ship could carry the message. As soon as the craft reached a suitable distance from planetary mass, he would return, send the ship aloft, dispatch his message, and then return to his host to await the others of his race. His decision made, he stepped confidently out into the throng of bipeds, seeking the shortest route back to his hidden craft. The result was instantaneous and amazing. The crowd drew back with a howling, shrieking noise, leaving him standing in the center of a circle of dead white faces. Behind the first row of bipeds he could see others running in every direction and screaming at the top of their voices. The racket, combined with the noises of the city, was most unpleasant. The Triamid began to be afraid. He broke into a rapid walk and the crowd parted before him with much louder screeching. Here and there a biped, apparently braver than the rest, made threatening motions with bundles or knotted fists. A package struck him on the shoulder. The Triamed began to run. He noted for the first time that he towered head and shoulders over most of the bipeds nearby, and his host's brain interpreted the smells of hate and fear all about him. The crowd scattered wildly at his approach, but he was being followed. Panic began to clutch at the alien. What had he done wrong? Somewhere a wailing sound began. Vehicles with glaring red lights swept past him with vicious, explosive noises. He felt a stinging pain in one leg and glanced down to see it streaked with red. Ahead of him, a line of bipeds, all clothed in identical blue sacks of fabric, had formed, spilling from the vehicles as they halted. The Triamid stopped, sensing mortal danger. Behind him, the mob rumbled ahead. The blue bipeds stood, holding artifacts that the Triad did not for an instant doubt were weapons. No street opened on either side of him. He was trapped between the weapons, the mob, and two tall buildings. He hesitated only for a moment. With a desperate leap, he reached the second level of windows of the building nearest him and climbed, clung there, gasping. A white faced creature appeared and began poking at him with a steel rod that burned like fire. When it touched his host's flesh, the creature screamed shrilly all the while. With a sob, the Triamid swung himself onto the window ledge and began climbing upward toward the roof of the building. It was slow work, and the pain in his leg and burned shoulder slipped, slowed him down. He dare not free himself of his host now, for he was much too far from his ship to be able to return in his natural form. There were searchlights in the street below, probing at him as he clung to the sheer facade of the building. Panic drove him upward. A continuous wailing roar rose from the canyon below, a fear laden, hideous cacophony. The triamid felt himself weak with terror, part of which was his hosts and part of which stemmed from within himself, the terror and fear of not knowing what had gone wrong and why he stood now in such peril. At last he reached the roof. He heaved himself over the parapet and lay for a moment, flanks heaving painfully. Then he stiffened with a new fear. He was was not alone. The roof was occupied. A score or more of armed bipeds blocked him into a triangular corner of the roof. He got to his feet and stumbled backward. Their weapons were aimed at him. He retreated until the parapet stopped him, warning of the sheer drop to the street far below. A figure separated itself from the armed mass. A flash of recognition came, partially his own, partially his hosts. It was the small biped he had seen in the searchlight beam, running toward the cubicle he had deserted so long ago. It seemed. The small creature began speaking, making soft, soothing noises, advancing all the while, a tiny glass vial in his hands. Without knowing why, the triad felt his lips pull away from his teeth in a snarl. He heard a deep, deep rumbling, growling sound in his own throat. The biped stopped, and the triamette could smell his sudden fear. He felt a surge of incomprehensible rage come over him. He crouched menacingly. The creature took a step closer, another. The triamed tensed. The creature was within reach, extending the vial. The alien can see that it was tipped with a sliver of steel. He sprang. The weapons crashed. The alien felt the thudding impact of projectiles penetrating the brain case. In a panic, he began to extrude from the pineal gland. If death overcame the host while he had rapport, he too would die. And if he died, triumph would die. He felt his huge body totter. There was. There was another blast from the weapons, and he sensed the projectile coming with what seemed to be agonizing slowness to his quickened senses. It was spinning in the darkness. It struck the eye, smashed, it moved inward along the base of the brain. The triamed felt one deep, searing agony that was his alone as the bullet crushed him. The hot metal, accurate touch was the last thing he knew before death came. The policeman stood about in a circle, staring down in mixed awe and relief at the huge body on the roof. I've seen him a dozen times at the park, one said. He always seems so. So peaceable. He shook his head. What in hell do you suppose came over him? The keeper looked up from where he knelt over the deep still chest, bloody and riddled with bullets. It happens like this sometimes, he said. You can never tell about gorillas. End of the Invader By Alfred Koppel
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Visit spinquest.com for more details. Mad Music by Anthony Pelcher this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Karina Schultz Mad Music by Anthony Pelcher to the accompaniment of a crashing roar not unlike rumbling thunder, the proud Colossus Building, which a few minutes before had reared at 60 stories of artistic architecture toward the blue dome of the sky, crashed in a rugged, dusty heap of stone, brick, cement, and mortar. The steel framework like the skeleton of some prehistoric monster, still reared to dizzy heights but in a bent and twisted shape of grotesque outline. No one knew how many lives were snuffed out in the avalanche. As the collapse occurred in the early dawn, it was not believed the death list would be large. It was admitted, however, that autos, cabs, and surface cars may have been caught under the falling rock. One train was known to have been wrecked in the subway due to a cave in from the surface under the ragged mountain of debris. The litter fairly filled a part of Times Square, the most congested crossroads on God's footstool. Straggling brick and rock had rolled across the street to the west and had crashed into windows and doors of innocent small trademen's shops. A few minutes after the crash, a mad crowd of people had piled from subway exits as far away as Penn Station and Columbus Circle, and from cross streets. These milled about, gesticulating and shouting hysterically. All neighboring police stations were hard put to handle the growing mob. Hundreds of dead and maimed were being carried to the surface from the wrecked train in the subway, trucks and cabs joined the ambulance crews in the work of transporting these to morgues and hospitals. As the morning grew older and the news of the disaster spread, more milling thousands tried to crowd into the square. Many were craning necks hopelessly on the outskirts of the throng blocks away, trying vainly to get a view of what lay beyond the fire department. And finally, several companies of militia joined the police in handling the crowd. Newsies, never asleep, yelled their extras and made much small money. The newspapers devoted solid pages in attempting to describe what had happened. Nervously, efficient reporters had written and written, using all their best adjectives and inventing new ones in attempts to picture the crash and the hysterics which followed. When the excitement was at its height, a middle aged man, bleeding at the head, clothes torn and dusty, staggered into the West 47th Street Police Station. He found a lone sergeant at the desk. The police sergeant jumped to his feet as the bedraggled man entered and stumbled to a bench. I'm Pat Brennan, street floor watchman of the Colossus, he said. I ran for it. I got caught in the edge of the wreck and a brick caught, clipped me. I must have been out for some time. When I came around, I looked back just once at the wreck and then I beat it. Over here. Phone my boss. I'll let you phone your boss, said the sergeant. But first tell me just what happened. Earthquake, I guess. I saw the floor heaving in waves. Glass was crashing and falling into the street. All windows in the arcade buckled either in or out. I ran into the street and looked up. God, what a sight. The building from sidewalk to towers was rocking and waving and twisting and buckling and I saw it was bound to crumple, so I let out and ran. I heard a roar like all hell broke loose. And then something nicked me and my light went out. How many got caught in the building? Nobody got out but me. I guess there weren't many tenants. The building is all rented. But not everybody had moved in yet and those as had didn't spend their nights there. There was a watchman for every five stories, an engineer and his crew. Three elevator operators had come in. There was no names of tenants in or out on my book. After 4am the crash must have come about 6. That's all. Throughout the country, the news of the crash was received with great interest and wonderment. But in one small circle it caused absolute consternation. That was in the offices of the Mueller Construction Company, the builders of the Colossus. Jason V. Linnane, chief engineer of the company, was in conference with its president, James J. Muller. Muller sat with his head in his hands, and his face wore an expression of a man in absolute anguish. Linnane was pacing the floor, a wild expression in his eyes, and at times he muttered and mumbled under his breath. In the other offices the entire force, from manager to office boys, was hushed and awed, for they had seen the expressions on the faces of the heads of the concern when they stalked into the inner office that morning. Muller finally looked up rather hopelessly at Linane. Unless we can prove that the crash was due to some circumstance over which we had no control, we are ruined, he said, and there actually were tears in his eyes. No doubt about that, agreed Linnane, But I can swear that the colossus went up according to specifications and that every ounce and splinter of material was of the best. The workmanship was faultless. We have built scores of the biggest blocks in the world, and of them all, this colossus was the most perfect. I had prided myself on it, Muller. It was perfection. I simply cannot account for it. I cannot. It should have stood up for thousands of years. The foundation was solid rock. It positively was not an earthquake. No other building in this section was even jarred. No other earthquake was ever localized to one half block of the earth's crust. And we can positively eliminate an earthquake or an explosion as the possible cause. I am sure we are not to blame, but we will have to find the exact cause. If there was some flaw, questioned Muller, although he knew the answer, if there was some flaw, then we're sunk. The newspapers are already clamoring for probes of us, of the building, of the owners and everybody and everything. We have got to have something damned plausible when we go to bat on this proposition, or every dollar we have in the world will have to be paid out. That is not all, said Muller. Not only will we be penniless, but we may have to go to jail, and we will never be able to show our faces in reputable business circles again. Who was the last to go over that building? I sent Teddy Jenks. He is a cub and is swell headed and too big for his pants, but I would bank my life on his judgment. He has the judgment of a much older man, and I would also bank my life and reputation on his engineering skill and knowledge. He pronounced the building positively OK, 100 per cent. Where is Jenks? He will be here as soon as his car can drive down from Tarrytown. He should be here now. As they talked, Jenks, the youngest Member of the engineering force entered. He entered like a whirlwind. He threw his hat on the floor and drew out a drawer of a cabinet. He pulled out the plans for the Colossus, big blue prints, some of them yards in extent, and threw them on the floor. Then he dropped to his knees and began poring over them. This is a hell of a time for you to begin getting around, exploded Muller. What were you doing cabaret ing all night? It sure is terrible, awful. Said Jenks, half to himself. Answer me. Thundered Muller. Oh, yes, said Jenks, looking up. He saw the look of anguish on his boss's face and forgot his own excitement and sympathy. He jumped to his feet, placed his arm about the shoulders of the older man, and led him to a chair. Linane only scowled at the young man. I was delayed because I stopped by to see the wreck. My God, Mr. Muller, it is awful. Jenks drew his hand across his eye as if to erase the scene of the wrecked building. Then, patting the older man affectionately on the back, he said, buck up. I'm on the job as usual. I'll find out about it. It could not have been our fault. Why, man, that building was as strong as Gibraltar itself. You were the last to inspect it, accused Muller with a break in his voice. Nobody knows that better than I. And I can swear by all that square and honest that it was no fault of the material or the construction. It must have been. Must have been what? I'll be damned if I know. That's like him, said Linnane, who, while really kindly intentioned, had always rather enjoyed prodding the young engineer. Like me. Like the devil. Shouted Jenks, glaring at Linnane. I suppose you know all about it. You're so blamed wise. No, I don't know, admitted Linnane. But I do know that you don't like me to tell you anything. Nevertheless, I am going to tell you that you had better get busy and find out what caused it, or that's just what I'm doing, said Jenks, and he dived for his plans on the floor. Newspaper reporters, many of them, were fighting outside to get in. Muller looked at Linnane when a stenographer had announced the reporters for the 10th time. We had better let them in, he said. It looks bad to crawl for cover. What are you going to tell them? Asked Linnane. God only knows, said Muller. Let me handle them, said Jenks, looking up confidently. The newspaper men had rushed the office. They came in like a wild wave. Questions flew like feathers at a cock fight. Muller held up his hand and there Was something in his grief stricken eyes that held the gentlemen of the press in silence. They had time to look around. They saw the handsome, dark haired, brown eyed Jenks poring over the plans. Dust from the carpet smudged his knees and he had rubbed some of it over a sweating forehead. But he still looked the picture of self confident efficiency. Gentlemen, said Muller slowly, I can answer all your questions at once. Our firm is one of the oldest and staunchest in the trade. Our buildings stand as monuments to our integrity. All but one, said a young Irishman. You are right, all but one, confessed Muller. But that one, believe me, has been visited by an act of God. Some form of earthquake or some unlooked for, uncontrolled, almost unbelievable catastrophe has happened. The Molar Company stands back of its work to its last dollar. Gentlemen, you know as much as we do. Mr. Jenks there, whose reputation as an engineer is quite sturdy, I assure you, was the last to inspect the building. He passed upon it when it was finished. He is at your service. Jenks arose, brushed some dust from his knees. You look like you'd been praying, bandied the Irishman. Maybe I have. Now let me talk. Don't broadside me with questions. I. I know what you want to know. Let me talk. The newspaper men were silent. There has been talk of probing this disaster. Naturally, began Jenks. You all know, gentlemen, that we will aid any inquiry to our utmost. You want to know what we have to say about it. Who is responsible? In a reasonable time, I will have a statement to make that will be startling in the extreme. I am not sure of my ground. Now, how about the ground under the colossus? Said the Irishman. Don't let's kid each other, pleaded Jenks. Look at Mr. Muller. It is as if he had lost his whole family. We are good people. I am doing all I can. Mr. Linnane, who had charge of the construction, is doing all he can. We believe we are blameless. If it is proven otherwise, we will acknowledge our fault, assume financial responsibility and take our medicine. Believe me, that building was perfection. Plus, like all our buildings, that covers the entire situation. Hundreds of questions were parried and answered by the three engineers and the reporters left convinced that if the Mueller Construction Company was responsible, it was not through any fault of its own. The fact that Jenks and Linnane were not strong for each other except to recognize each other's ability as engineers, was due to an incident of the past. This incident had caused a ripple of mirth in engineering circles when it happened, and the laugh was on the older man, Linnane it was when radio was new. Linnane, a structural engineer, had paid little attention to radio. Jenks was the kind of an engineer who dabbled in all sciences. He knew his radio. When Jenks first came to work with a technical sheepskin and a few tons of brass, Linnane accorded him only passing notice. Jenks craved the plaudits of the older man and his pal Ship. Linnane treated him as a son, but did not warm to his social advances. I'm as good an engineer as he is, mused Jenks, and if he is going to high hat me, I'll just put a swift one over on him and compel his notice. The next day, Jenks approached Linane in conference and I've got a curious bet on Mr. Linane. I'm betting sound can travel a mile quicker than it travels a quarter of a mile. What? Said linane. I'm betting 50 that sound can travel a mile quicker than it can travel a quarter of a mile. Oh no it can't, insisted Linnane. Oh yes it can, decided Jenks. I'll take some of that fool money myself, said Linane. How much? Asked Jenks. As much as you want. All right, $500. How are you going to prove your contention? Buy stop watches and your men can hold the watches. We'll bet that a pistol shot can be heard two miles away quicker than it can be heard a quarter of a mile away. Sound travels about a fifth of a mile a second. The rate varies slightly according to temperature, explained Linnane. At the freezing point, the rate is 1090ft per second and increases a little over one foot for every degree Fahrenheit, hot or cold, breezed Jenks. I am betting you $500 that sound can travel two miles quicker than a quarter mile. You're on, you damned idiot. Shouted the completely exasperated Linnane. Jenks let Linnane's friends hold the watches and his friend held the money. Jenks was to fire the shot. Jenks fired the shot in front of a microphone on a football field. One of Linnane's friends picked the sound up instantaneously on a three tube radio set two miles away. The other watch holder was standing in the open a quarter of a mile away and his watch showed a second and a fraction. All hands agreed that Jenks had won the bed fairly. Linnane never exactly liked Jenks after that. Then Jenks rather aggravated matters by a habit. Whenever Linnane would make a very positive statement, Jenks would look owl eyed and say, Mr. Linane, I'll have to sound you out about that. The heavy accent on the word sound nettled Linnane somewhat. Linnane never completely forgave Jenks for putting over this fast one. Socially, they were always more or less at loggerheads but neither let this feeling interfere with their work. They worked together faithfully enough and each recognized the ability of the other. And so it was that Linnane and Jenks, their heads together, worked all night in an attempt to find some cause that would tie responsibility for the disaster on Mother Nature. They failed to find it and, sleepy eyed, they were forced to admit failure. So far. The newspapers, to whom Mueller had said that he would not shirk any responsibility began a hue and cry for the arrest of all parties in any way concerned with the direction of the building of the Colossus. When the death list from the crash and subway wreck reached 97, the press waxed nasty and demanded the arrest of Mueller, Linnane and Jenks in no uncertain tones. Half dead from lack of sleep, the three men were taken by the police to the district Attorney's offices and after a strenuous grilling were formally placed under arrest on charges of criminal negligence. They put up a $50,000 bond in each case and were permitted to go and seek further to find the cause of what the newspapers now began calling the colossal failure. Several days were spent by Linane and Jenks in examining the wreckage which was being removed from Times Square truckload after truckload to a point outside the city. Here it was again sorted and examined and piled for future disposal. So far as could be found, every brick, stone and ounce of material used in the building was perfect. Attorneys, however, assured Linnane, Jenks and Mueller that they would have to find the real cause of the disaster if they were to escape possible long prison sentences. Night after night, Jenks courted sleep. But it would not come. He began to grow wan and haggard. Jenks took to walking the streets at night, mile after mile, thinking, always thinking and searching his mind for a solution of the mystery. It was evening. He had walked past the scene of the Colossus crash several times. He found himself on a side street. He looked up and saw in electric lights Town Hall, Munsterbergen, the Mad Musician concert here tonight. He took $5 from his pocket and bought a ticket. He entered with the crowd and was ushered to a seat. He looked neither to the right or left. His eyes were sunken, his face lined with worry. Something within Jenks caused him to turn slightly. He was curiously aware of a beautiful girl who sat beside him. She had a mass of golden hair which seemed to defy control. It was wild, positively tempestuous. Her eyes were deep blue and her skin as white as fleecy clouds in spring. He was dimly conscious that those glorious eyes were troubled. She glanced at him. She was aware that he was suffering. A great surge of sympathy welled in her heart. She could not explain the feeling. A great red plush curtain parted in the center and drew in graceful folds. To the edges of the proscenium a small stage was revealed. A tall so headed man with glaring beady black eyes, dressed in black evening clothes, stepped forward and bowed. Under his arm was a violin. He brought the violin forward. His nose, like the beak of some great bird, bobbed up and down in acknowledgment of the plaudits which greeted him. His long nervous fingers began to caress the instrument and his lips began to move. Jenks was aware that he was saying something, but was not at all interested. What he said was maybe, yes. I couldn't talk so good English, but you could understand it. Yes. Und now I tell you, Dot, I never play the compositions of any man. I extemporize excloosively. I just play und play und maybe you should listen. Yes, if I bleeze you, I am just happy. Jenks. Attention was drawn to him. He noted his wild appearance. He sure looks mad enough, mused Jenks. The violinist flipped the fiddle up under his chin. He drew the bow over the strings and began a gentle melody that reminded one of raindrops falling on calm waters. Jenks forgot his troubles. He forgot everything. He slumped in his seat and his eyes closed. The rain continued falling from the strings of the violin. Suddenly the melody changed to a glad little lilting measure as sweet as love itself. The sun was coming out again and the birds began to sing. There was the trill of a canary with the sun on its cage. There was the song of the thrush, the mocking bird, and the meadow lark. These blended finally into a melodious burst of chirping melody which seemed a chorus of the wild birds of the forest and glen. Then the lilting love measure again. It tore at the heartstrings and brought tears to one's eyes.
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Visit spinquest.com for more details. Unconsciously, the girl next to Jenks leaned towards him. Involuntarily, he leaned to meet her. Their shoulders touched. The cloud of her golden hair came to rest against his dark locks. Their hands found each other with gentle pressure. Both were were lost to the world. Abruptly, the music changed. There was a succession of broken trouble notes that sounded like the crackling of flames. Moans deep and melancholy followed. These grew more strident and prolonged, giving place to abject howls suggesting the lamentations of the damned. The hands of the boy and girl gripped tensely. They could not help shuddering. The violin began to produce notes of a leering, jeering character, growing more horrible with each measure, until they burst in a loud guff, fall of maniacal laughter. The whole performance was as if someone had taken a heaven and plunged it into a hell. The musician bowed jerkily and was gone. There was no applause, only wild exclamations. Half the house was on its feet. The other half sat as if glued to chairs. The boy and the girl were standing, their hands still gripping tensely. Come, let's get out of here, said Jenks. The girl took her wrap and Jenks helped her into it. Hand in hand, they fled the place. In the lobby, their eyes met, and for the first time they realized they were strangers. Yet deep in their hearts was a feeling that their fates had been sealed. My goodness. Burst from the girl. It can't be helped now, said Jenks decisively. What can't be helped? Asked the girl, although she knew in her heart. Nothing can be helped, said Jinx. Then he added, we should know each other by this time. We've been holding hands for an hour. The girl's eyes flared. You have no right to presume on that situation, she said. Jenks could have kicked himself. Forgive me, he said. It was only that I just wanted so to know you. Won't you let me see you home? You may, said the girl simply, as she led the way to her own car. They drove north. Their bodies seemed like magnets. They were again shoulder to shoulder, holding hands. Will you tell me your name? Pleaded Jenks. Surely, replied the girl. I am Elaine Linnane. What? Exploded Jenks. Why, I work with Elinae, an engineer with the Mueller Construction Company. He is my father, she said. Why, we are great friends, said the boy. I am Jenks, his assistant. At least we work together. Yes, I have heard of you, said the girl. It is strange the way we met. My father admires your work, but I am afraid you are not great friends. The girl had forgotten her troubles. She chuckled. She had heard the way Jenks had sounded her father out. Jenks was speechless. The girl continued. I don't know whether to like you or to hate you. My father is an old dear. You were cruel to him. Jenks was abject. I did not mean to be, he said. He rather belittled me without realizing it. I had to make my stand. The difference in our years made him take me rather too lightly. I had to compel his notice if I was to advance. Oh, said the girl, I am sorry. So sorry. You might not have been altogether at fault, said the girl. Father forgets at times that I have grown up. I resent being treated like a child. But he is the soul of goodness and fatherly care. I know that, said Jenks. Every engineer knows his mathematics. It was this fact, coupled with what the world calls a lucky break, that solved the Colossus mystery. Nobody can get around the fact that 2 and 2 make 4. Jenks had happened on accomplishment to advance in the engineering profession, and it was well for him that he had reached a crisis. He had never believed in luck or in hunches, so it was good for him to be brought face to face with the fact that sometimes the footsteps of men are guided. It made him begin to look into the engineering of the universe, to think more deeply, and to acknowledge a higher power. With Linnane, he had butted into a stone wall. They were coming to know what real trouble meant. The fact that they were innocent did not make the steel bars of a cage any more attractive. Their troubles began to wrap about them with the clammy intimacy of a shroud. Then came the lucky break. Next to his troubles, Jenk's favorite topic was the mad musician. He tried to learn all he could about this uncanny character at whose concert he had met the girl of his life. He learned two facts that made him perk up and think. One was that the mad musician had had offices and a studio in the Colossus and was one of the first to move in. The other was that the mad musician took great delight in shattering glassware with notes of or vibrations from a violin. Nearly everyone knows that a glass tumbler can be shattered by the proper note sounded on a violin. The mad musician took delight in this trick. Jenks courted his acquaintance and saw him shatter a row of glasses of different sizes by sounding different notes on his fiddle. The glasses crashed one after another like gelatin balls hit by the bullets of an expert rifleman. Then Jenks, the engineer who knew his mathematics, put two and two together. It made four, of course. Listen, Linane, he said to his co worker. This Fiddler is crazier than a flock of cuckoos. If he can crack crockery with violin sound vibrations, is it not possible, by carrying the vibrations to a much higher power, that he could crack a pile of stone, steel, brick and cement like the Colossus? Possible, but hardly probable. Still, Linnae mused, when you think about it and put two and two together, let's go after him and see what he is doing now. Both jumped for their coats and hats. As they fared forth, Jenks cinched his argument. If a madman takes delight in breaking glassware with a vibratory wave or vibration, how much more of a thrill would he get by crashing a mountain? Wild but unanswerable, said Linnane. Jenks had been calling on the mad musician at his country place. He had a studio in the Colossus, he reminded Linnane. He must have reopened somewhere else in town. I wonder where. Musicians are great union men, said Linane. Phone the union, Teddy. Jenks did, but the union gave the last known town address. As a Colossus he would remain in the same district around Times Square, reasoned Jenks. Let's page out the big buildings and see if he is not preparing to crash another one. Fair enough, said Linnane, who was too busy with the problem at hand to choose his words. Together the engineers started a canvas of the big buildings in the theatrical district. After four or five had been searched without result, they entered the 30 story Acme Theater building. Here they learned that the mad musician had leased a four room suite to just a few days before. This suite was on the 15th floor, just halfway up in the big structure. They went to the manager of the building and frankly stated their suspicions. We want to enter that suite when the tenant is not there, they explained, and we want him forestalled from entering while we are examining the premises. Hadn't we better notify the police? Asked the building manager, who had broken out in a sweat when he heard the dire disaster which might be in store for the stately Acme building. Not yet, said Linae. You see, we are not sure. We have just been putting two and two together. We'll get the building detective anyway, insisted the manager. Let him come along, but do not let him know until we are sure. If we are right. We will find a most unusual infernal machine, said Linnane. The three men entered the suite with a passkey. The detective was left outside in the hall to halt anyone who might disturb the searchers. It was as Jenks had thought. In an inner room they found a diabolical machine, a Single string stretched across two bridges, one of brass and one of wood. A big horsehair bow attached to a shaft operated by a motor was automatically sawing across the string. The note resulting was evidently higher than the range of the human ear. Because no audible sound resulted, it was later estimated that the destructive note was several octaves higher than the highest note on a piano. The entire machine was enclosed in a heavy wire net cage securely bolted to the floor. Neither the string or bow could be reached. It was evidently the mad musician's idea that the devilish contrivance should not be reached by hands other than his own. How long the infernal machine had been operating, no one knew. But the visitors were startled when the building suddenly began to sway perceptibly. Jenks jumped forward to stop the machine, but could not find a switch. See if the machine plugs in anywhere in a wall socket, he shouted to Linane, who promptly began examining the walls. Jenks shouted to the building manager to phone the police to clear the streets around the big building. Tell the police that the Acme Theatre building may crash at any moment, he instructed. The engineers were perfectly cool in face of the great peril. But the building manager lost his head completely and began to run around in circles, muttering oh my God, save me. And other words of supplication that blended into an incoherent babble. Jenks rushed to the man, trying to still his wild hysteria. The building continued to sway dangerously. Jenks looked from a window. An enormous crowd was collecting, watching the big building swinging a foot out of plum like a giant pendulum. The crowd was growing. Should the building fall, the loss of life would be appalling. It was mid morning. The interior of the building teemed with thousands of workers for all floors above the third were offices. Teddy Jenks turned suddenly. He heard the watchman in the hall scream in terror. Then he heard a body fall. He rushed to the door to see the mad musician standing over the prostrate form of the detective, a devilish grin on his distorted countenance. The madman turned, saw Jenks and started to run. Jenks took after him up the the staircase. The madman rushed toward the roof. Teddy followed him two floors and then rushed out to take the elevators. The building in its mad swaying had made it impossible for the lifts to be operated. Teddy realized this with a distraught gulp in his throat. He returned to the stairway and took up the pursuit of the madman. The corridors were beginning to fill with screaming men and wailing girls. It was a sight never to be forgotten. Laboriously, Jenks climbed story after story without getting sight of the madman. Finally he reached the roof. It was waving like swells on a lake before a breeze. He caught sight of the mad musician standing on the street wall 30 stories from the street, a leer on his devilish visage. He jumped for him. The madman grasped him and lifted him up to the top of the wall as a cat might have lifted a mouse. Both men were breathing heavily as a result of their 15 story climb. The madman tried to throw Teddy Jenks to the street below. Teddy clung to him. The two battled desperately as the building swayed. The dense crowd in the street had caught sight of the two men fighting on the narrow coping and the shout which rent the air reached the ears of Jenks. The mind of the engineer was still working clearly, but a wild fear gripped his heart. His strength seemed to be leaving him. The madman pushed him back, bending his spine with brute strength. Teddy was forced to the narrow ledge that had given the two men footing. The fingers of the madman gripped his throat. He was dimly conscious that the swaying of the building was slowing down. His reason told him that Linnane had found the wall socket and had stopped the sawing of the devil's bow on the engine of hell. He saw the madman draw a big knife. With his last remaining strength, he reached out and grasped the wrist above the hand which held the weapon. In spite of all he could do, he saw the madman inching the knife nearer and nearer his throat. Grim death was peering into the bulging eyes of Teddy Jenks. When his engineering knowledge came to his rescue, he remembered the top stories of the Acme building were constructed with a step of 10ft in from the street line for every story of construction above the 24th floor. If we fall, he reasoned, we can only fall one story. Then he deliberately rolled his own body and the weight of the madman who held him over the edge of the coping. At the same time, he twisted the madman's wrist so the point of the knife pointed to the madman's body. There was a dim consciousness of a painful impact. Teddy had fallen underneath, but the force of the two bodies coming together had thrust the knife deep into the entrails of the mad musician. Clouds which had been collecting in the sky began a splattering downpour. The storm grew in fury and lightning tore the heavens. While thunder boomed and crackled. The rain began falling in sheets. This served to revive the unconscious Teddy. He painfully withdrew his body from under that of the madman. The falling rain, stained with the blood of the mad musician, trickled over the edge of the building. Teddy dragged himself through a window and passed his hand over his forehead, which was aching miserably. He tried to get to his feet and fell back, only to try again. Several times he tried, and then, his strength returning, he was able to walk. He made his way to the studio where he had left Linnane and found him there, surrounded by police, reporters and others. The infernal machine had been rendered harmless but was kept intact as evidence. Catching sight of Teddy, Linnaen shouted with joy, I stopped the damned thing. He chuckled like a pleased schoolboy. Then, observing Teddy's exhausted condition, he added, why, you look like you've been to a funeral. I have, said Teddy. You'll find that crazy fiddler dead. On the 29th story. Look out the window of the 30th story, he instructed the police, who had started to recover the body. He stabbed himself. He is either dead or dying. It proved that he was dead. No engineering firm is responsible for the actions of a madman. So the Molar construction company was given a clean bill of health. Jenks and Elaine Linane were with the girl's father in his study. They were asking for the paternal blessing. Linnane was pretending to be hard to convince. Now, my daughter, he said, this young man takes $500 of my good money by sounding me out, as he calls it. Then he comes along and tries to take my daughter away from me. It is positively high handed. It dates back to the football game. Daddy dear, don't be like that, said Elaine, who was on the arm of his chair with her own arms around him. I tell you, Elaine, this dates back to the fall of 1927. It dates back to the fall of Eve, said Elaine. When a girl finds her man, no power can keep him from her. If you won't give me to Teddy Jenks, I'll elope with him. Well, all right then. Kiss me, said Linane as he turned towards his radio set. One and one makes one, said Teddy Jenks. Every engineer knows his mathematics. Mad Music by Anthony Pelcher Recording by Corinna Schultz.
- [237:01]
Bluff
Monkey on His Back by Charles V. De Wet this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Jacob Paul Starr Monkey on His Back by Charles V. De Wet under the cloud of cast off identities lay the shape of another man. Was it himself. He walked endlessly down a long glass walled corridor. Bright sunlight slanted in through one wall on the blue knapsack across his shoulders. Who he was and what he was doing here was clouded the truth lurked in some corner of his consciousness, but it was not reached by surface awareness. The corridor opened at last into a large, high, domed room, much like a railway station or an air terminal. He walked straight ahead. At the side of him, a man leaning negligently against a stone pillar to his right but with envision, straightened and barked an order to him.
- [238:08]
Narrator/Various Characters
Halt.
- [238:09]
Bluff
He lengthened his stride but gave no other sign. Two men hurried through a doorway of a small anteroom to his left, calling to him. He turned away and began to run. Shouts and the sound of charging feet came from behind him. He cut to the right, running toward the escalator to the second floor. Another pair of men were hurrying down two steps at a stride. With no break in pace, he veered into an opening beside the escalator. At the first turn, he saw that the aisle merely circled the stairway, coming out into the depot again on the other side. It was a trap. He glanced quickly around him. At the rear of the space was a row of lockers for traveler use. He slipped a coin into a pay slot, opened the zipper on his bag, and pulled out a flat briefcase. It took him only a few seconds to push the case into the compartment, lock it, and slide the key along the floor beneath the locker. There was nothing to do after that except wait. The men pursuing him came hurtling around the turn in the aisle. He kicked his knapsack to one side, spreading his feet wide with an instinct, instinctive motion. Until that instant he had intended to fight. Now he swiftly reassessed the odds. There were five of them, he saw. He should be able to incapacitate two or three and break out. But the fact that they had been expecting him meant that others would very probably be waiting outside. His best course now was to sham ignorance. He relaxed. He offered no resistance as they reached him. They were not gentlemen. A tall ruffian, copper brown face, damp with perspiration and body oil, grabbed him by the jacket and slammed him back against the lockers. As he shifted his weight to keep his footing, someone drove a fist into his face. He started to raise his hands and a hard, flat object crashed against the side of his skull. The starch went out of his legs. Do you make anything of it? The psychoanalyst Milton Bergstrom asked. John Zarwell shook his head. Did I talk while I was under? Oh, yes, you were supposed to. That way I follow pretty well what you're reenacting. How does it tie in with what I told you before? Bergstrom's neat boned fair skinned face betrayed no emotion other than an introspective stillness of his normally alert gaze. I see no connection, he decided, his words once again precise and meticulous. We don't have enough yet to go on. Do you feel able to try another coma analysis this afternoon yet? I don't see why not. Zarwell opened the collar of his shirt. The day was hot and the room had no air conditioning, still a rare luxury on St Martin's the office window was open, but it let in no freshness, only the mildly rank odor that pervaded all the planet's habitable area. Good. Bergstrom rose. The serum is quite harmless, John. He maintained a professional diversionary chatter as he administered the drug, a scopolamine derivative that's been well tested. The floor beneath Zarwell's feet assumed abruptly the near transfluent consistency of a damp sponge. It rose in a foot high wave and rolled gently toward the far wall. Bergstrom continued talking with practiced urbanity when psychiatry was a less exact science. His voice went on, seeming to come from a great distance. A doctor had to spend sometimes months or years interviewing a patient. If he was skilled enough, he could sort the relevancies from the vast amount of chaff. We are able now, with the help of the serum, to confine our discourses to matter cogent to the patient's trouble. The floor continued its transmutation and Zarwell sank deeper into viscous depths. Lie back and relax. Don't. The words tumbled down from above. They faded, were gone.
- [242:08]
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Zarwell found himself standing on a vast plain. There was no sky above and no horizon in the distance. He was in a place without space or dimension. There was nothing here except himself and the gun that he held in his hand. A weapon beautiful in its efficient simplicity. He should know all about the instrument, its purpose and workings, but he could not bring his thoughts into rational focus. His forehead creased with his mental effort. Abruptly, the unreality about him shifted perspective. He was approaching, not walking, but merely shortening the space between them. The man who held the gun, the man who was himself the other himself, drifted nearer also, as though drawn by a mutual attraction. The man with the gun raised his weapon and pressed the trigger with the action. The perspective shifted again. He was watching the face of the man he shot jerk and twitch, expand and contract. The face was unharmed, yet it was no longer the same, no longer his own features. The stranger face smiled approvingly at him. Odd, bergstrom said. He brought his hands up and joined the tips of his fingers against his chest. But it's another piece in the jigsaw. In time it will fit into place. He paused. It means no more to you than the first, I suppose. No, zarwell answered. He was not a talking man, Bergstrom reflected. It was more than reticence, however. The man had a hard granite corner core, only partially concealed by his present perplexity. He was a man who could handle himself well in an emergency. Bergstrom shrugged, dismissing his stray thoughts. I expected as much. A quite normal first phase of treatment. He straightened a paper on his desk. I think that will be enough for to day. Twice in one sitting is about all we ever try. Otherwise, some particular episode might cause undue mental stress and set up a block. He glanced down at his appointment pad. Tomorrow at two, then. Zarwell grunted acknowledgment and pushed himself to his feet, apparently unaware that his shirt clung damply to his body. The sun was still high when Zarwell left the analyst's office. The white marble of the city's buildings shimmered in the afternoon heat, squat and austere as giant tree trunks, pockmarked and gray, mottled with windows. Zarwell was careful not to rest his hand on the flesh searing surface of the stone. The evening meal hour was approaching when he reached the flats on the way to his apartment. The streets of the old section were near deserted. The only sounds he heard as he passed were the occasional cry of a baby chronically uncomfortable in the day's heat, and the lowing of imported cattle waiting in a nearby shed to be shipped to the the country. All St. Martin's has a distinctive smell as of an arid, dried out swamp with a faint taint of fish. But in the flats the odor changes. Here is the smell of factories, warehouses, and trading marts, the smell of stale cooking drifting from the homes of the laborers and low class techmen who lived there. Zarwell passed a group of small children playing a desultory game of lick, lick for pieces of candy and Cigarettes. Slowly, he climbed the stairs of a stone flat. He prepared a supper for himself and ate it without either enjoyment or distaste. He lay down fully clothed on his bed. The visit to the analyst had done nothing to dispel his ennui. The next morning, when Zarwell awoke, he lay for a moment, unmoving. The feeling was there again, like a scene waiting only to be gazed at directly to be perceived. It was as though a great wisdom lay at the edge of understanding. If he rested quietly, it would all come to him. Yet always, when his mind lost its sleep induced lethargy, the moment of near understanding slipped away. This morning, however, the sense of disorientation did not pass. With full wakefulness, he achieved no understanding. But the strangeness did not leave. As he sat up, he gazed about him. The room did not seem to be his own. The furnishings and the clothing he observed in a closet might have belonged to a stranger. He pulled himself from his blankets, his body moving with mechanical reaction. The slippers into which he put his feet were larger than he expected them to be. He walked about the small apartment. The place was familiar, but only as it would have been if he had studied it from blueprints. Not as though he lived there. The feeling was still with him when he returned to the psychoanalyst. The scene this time was more kaleidoscopic, less personal. A village was being ravaged. Men struggled and died in the streets. Zarwell moved among them, seldom taking part in the individual clashes, yet a moving force in the conflict. The background changed. He understood that he was on a different world. Here a city burned. Its resistance was nearing its end. Zarwell was riding a shaggy pony outside a high wall surrounding the stricken metropolis. He moved in and joined a party of short, bearded men, directing them as they battered the wall with a huge log mounted on a many wheeled truck. The log broke a breach in the concrete, and the besiegers charged through, carrying back the defenders who sought vainly to plug the gap. Soon there would be rioting in the streets again, plundering and killing. Zarwell was not the leader of the invaders, only a lesser figure in the rebellion. But he had played a leading part in the planning of the strategy that led to the city's fall. The job had been well done. Time passed without visible break in the panorama. Now Zarwell was fleeing, pursued by the same bearded men who had been his comrades before. Still, he moved with the same firm purpose, vigilant, resourceful, and well prepared for the eventuality that had befallen he. Made his escape without difficulty. He alighted from a spaceship on still another world, another shift in time, and the atmosphere of conflict engulfed him. Weary but resigned, he accepted it and did what he had to do. Bergstrom was regarding him with speculative scrutiny. You've had quite a past, apparently, he observed. Zarwell smiled with mild embarrassment. At least in my dreams. Dreams? Bergstrom's eyes widened in surprise. Oh, I beg your pardon. I must have forgotten to explain. This work is so routine to me that sometimes I forget it's all new to a patient. And actually, what you experienced under the drug were not dreams. They were recollections of real episodes from your past. Zarwell's expression became wary. He watched Bergstrom closely. After a minute, however, he seemed satisfied, and he let himself settle back against the cushion of his chair. I remember nothing of what I saw, he observed. That's why you're here, you know, bergstrom answered. To help you remember. But everything under the drug is so haphazard. That's true. The recall episodes are always purely random with no chronological sequence. Our problem will be to reassemble them in proper order later, or some particular scene may trigger a complete memory return. It is my considered opinion, bergstrom went on, that your lost memory will turn out to be no ordinary amnesia. I believe we will find that your mind has been tampered with. Nothing I've seen under the drug fits into the past. I do remember. That's what makes me so certain, bergstrom said confidently. You don't remember what we have shown to be true. Conversely, then, what you think you remember must be false. It must have been implanted there. But we can go into that later. For to day, I think we have done enough. This episode was quite prolonged. I won't have any time off again until next weekend, Zarwell reminded him. That's right. Bergstrom thought for a moment. We shouldn't let this hang too long. Could you come here after work tomorrow? I suppose I could. Fine, bergstrom said with satisfaction. I'll admit I'm considerably more than casually interested in your case by this time. A work truck picked Zarwell up the next morning, and he rode with the tech crew to the edge of the reclam area beside the bulldozer, bringing ocean muck from the converter plant at the seashore. His bulldozer was waiting. He took his place behind the drive wheel and began working dirt down between windbreakers anchored in the rock along a makeshift road into the badlands. Trucks brought crushed lime and phosphorus to supplement the ocean sediment the progress of life from the sea to the land was a mechanical process of this growing world. Nearly 200 years ago, when Earth established a colony on St. Martin's, the land surface of the planet had been barren. Only its seas thrived with animal and vegetable life. The necessary machinery and technicians had been supplied by Earth, and the long struggle began to fit the world for human needs. When Zarwell arrived six months before, the vitalized area already extended 300 miles along the coast and 60 miles inland. And every day the process continued. A large percentage of the energy and resources of the world were devoted to that essential expansion. The reclam crews filled and sodded the sterile rock, planted binding grasses, grain and trees, and diverted rivers to keep it fertile. When there were no rivers to divert, they blasted out springs and lakes in the foothills to make their own. Biologists developed the necessary germ and insect life from what they found in the sea. Where that failed, they imported microorganisms from Earth. Three rubber tracked crawlers picked their way down from the mountains until they joined the road passing the Belt. They were loaded with ore that would be smelted into metal for depleted earth or for other colonies. Short of Minerals, it was St. Martin's only export thus far. Zarwell pulled his sun helmet lower to better guard his hot, dry features. The wind blew continuously on St. Martin's but it furnished small relief from the heat after its 3,000 mile journey across Scorched, sterile rock. It sucked the moisture from a man's body, bringing a membrane shrinking dryness to the nostrils as it was breathed. In. With it came also the cloying taste of limestone in a worker's mouth. Zarwell gazed idly about at the other laborers. Fully three quarters of them were Barry Rasma ridden. A cure for the skin fungus had not yet been found. The men's faces and hands were scabbed and red. The colony had grown to near self sufficiency would have a moderate prosperity, yet still they lacked adequate medical and research facilities. Not all the world's citizens were content.
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Bluff
Bergstrom was waiting in his office when Zarwell arrived that evening. He was lying motionless on a hard cot with his eyes closed, yet with his every sense sharply quickened. Tentatively, he tightened small muscles in his arms and legs, across his wrists and thighs. He felt straps binding him to the cot. So that's a big bad man, a coarse voice above him observed caustically. He doesn't look so tough now, does he? It might have been better to kill him right away, a second, less confident voice said. It's supposed to be impossible to hold him. Don't be stupid. We just do what we're told. We'll hold him. What do you think they'll do with him? Execute him, I suppose, the harsh voice said matter of factly. They're probably just curious to see what he looks like first. They'll be disappointed. Zarwell opened his eyes a slit to observe his surroundings. It was a mistake. He's out of it, the first speaker said, and Zarwell allowed his eyes to open fully. The voice he saw belonged to the big man who had bruised him against the locker at the spaceport. Irrelevantly, he wondered how he knew now that it had been a spaceport. His captor's broad face jeered down at Zarwell. Have a good sleep? He asked with mock solitude. Zarwell did not deign to acknowledge that he heard. The big man turned. You can tell the chief he's awake, he said. Zarwell followed his gaze to where a younger man with a blond lock of hair on his forehead stood behind him. The youth nodded and went out while the other pulled a chair up to the side of Zarwell's cot. While their attention was away from him, Zarwell had unobtrusively loosened his bonds as much as possible with arm leverage. As the man drew his chair nearer, he made the hand farthest from him tight and compact and worked it free of the leather loop. He waited. The big man belched. You're supposed to be great stuff in a situation like this, he said, his smoke tanned face splitting a grin that revealed large square teeth. How about giving me a sample? You're a yellow livered bastard, zarwell told him. The grin faded from the oily face as the man stood up. He leaned over the cot and Zarwell's left hand shot up and locked about his throat, joined almost immediately by the right. The man's mouth opened and he tried to yell as he threw himself frantically backward. He clawed at the hands about his neck. When that failed to break the grip, he suddenly reversed his weight and drove his fist at Zarwell's head. Zarwell pulled the struggling body down against his chest and held it there until all agitated movements ceased. He sat up then, letting the body slide to the floor. The straps about his thighs came loose with little effort. The analyst dabbed at his upper lip with a handkerchief. The episodes are beginning to tie together, he said with an attempt at nonchalance. The next couple should do it. Zarwell did not answer. His memory seemed on the point of complete return, and he sat quietly, hopefully. However, nothing more came and he returned his attention to his more immediate problem. Opening a button on his shirt, he pulled back a strip of plastic cloth just below his rib cage and took out a small flat pistol. He held it in the palm of his hand. He knew now why he always carried it. Bergstrom had his bad moment. You're not going to, he began. At the sight of the gun, he tried again. You must be joking. I have very little sense of humor, zarwell corrected him. You'd be foolish. Bergstrom obviously realized how close he was to death. Yet surprisingly, after the first start, he showed little fear. Zarwell had thought the man a bit soft, too, adjusted to a life of ease and some prestige to meet danger. Calmly, curiosity restrained his trigger finger. Why would I be foolish? He asked. Your Meninger oath of inviolable confidence. Bergstrom shook his head. I know it's been broken before, but you need me. You're not through, you know. If you killed me, you'd still have to trust some other analyst. Is that the best you can do? No. Bergstrom was angry now. But use that logical mind. You're supposed to have scenes before this have shown what kind of man you are. Just because this happened here on St. Martin's makes little difference? If I was going to turn you into the police, I'd have done it before this. Zarwell debated with himself the truth of what the other had said. Why didn't you turn me in? He asked. Because you're no mad dog killer. Now that the crisis seemed to be past, Bergstrom spoke more calmly, even allowed himself to relax. You're still pretty much in the fog about yourself. I read more in these coma analyses than you did. I even know who you are. Zarwell's eyebrows raised. Who am I? He asked, very interested now, without attention, he put his pistol away in a trouser pocket. Bergstrom brushed the question aside with one hand. Your name makes little difference. You've used many, but you are an idealist. Your killings were necessary to bring justice to the places you visited. By now you're almost a legend among the human worlds. I'd like to talk more with you on that later. While Zarwell considered, Bergstrom pressed his advantage. One more scene might do it, he said. Should we try again? If you trust me, that is. Zarwell made his decision quickly. Go ahead, he answered. All Zarwell's attention seemed on the cigar he lit as he rode down the escalator, but he observed the terminal carefully over the rim of his hand. He spied no suspicious loungers behind the escalator. He groped along the floor beneath the lockers until he found his key. The briefcase was under his arm. A minute later, in the basement lathe, he put a coin in the pay slot of a private compartment and went in. As he zipped open the briefcase, he surveyed his features in the mirror. A small muscle at the corner of one eye twitched spasmodically. One cheek wore a frozen quarter smile. 36 hours under the paralysis was longer than advisable. The muscles should be rested at least every 20 hours. Fortunately, his natural features would serve as an adequate disguise. Now he adjusted the ring setting on the pistol shaped instrument that he took from his case and carefully raised several small areas of his face, loosening muscles that had been tight too long. He sighed gratefully when he finished massaging his cheeks and forehead with considerable pleasure, he turned to his briefcase again and exchanged the gun for a small syringe, which he pushed into a trouser pocket and a single edged razor blade. Removing his fiber cloth jacket, he slashed it into strips with the razor blade and flushed it down the disposal bowl. With the sleeves of his blouse rolled up, he had the appearance of a typical workman as he strolled from the compartment. Back at the locker, he replaced the briefcase and with a wad of gum glued the key to the bottom of the locker frame. One step more. Taking the syringe from his pocket, he plunged the needle into his forearm and tossed the instrument down a waste chute. He took three more steps and paused uncertainly. When he looked about him, it was with the expression of a man waking from a vivid dream. Quite ingenious, graves murmured admiringly. You had your mind already preconditioned for the shot, but why would you deliberately give yourself amnesia? What better disguise than to believe the part you're playing? A good man must have done that job on your mind, bergstrom commented. I'd have hesitated to try it myself. It must have taken a lot of trust on your part. Trust in money, zarwell said dryly. So your memories back then? Zarwell nodded. I'm glad to hear that, bergstrom assured him. Now that you're well again, I'd like to introduce you to a man named Vernon Johnson. This world. Zarwell stopped him with an upraised hand. Good God, man, can't you see the reason for all this? I'm tired. I'm trying to quit. Quit? Bergstrom did not quite follow him. It all started on my home colony, zarwell explained listlessly. A gang of hoods had taken over the government. I helped organize a movement to get them out. There was some bloodshed, but it went quite well. Several months later, an unofficial envoy from another world asked several of us to give them a hand on the same kind of job. The political conditions there were rotten. We went with them again. We were successful. Seems I have a kind of genius for that sort of thing. He stretched his legs out and regarded them thoughtfully. I learned then the truth of Russell's saying when the oppressed win their freedom, they are as oppressive as their former masters. When they went bad, I opposed them. This time I failed. But I escaped again. I have quite a talent for that.
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Bluff
I am not a professional do Gooder. Zarwell's tone appealed to Bergstrom for understanding. I have only a normal man's indignation at injustice, and now I've done my share. Yet wherever I go, the word eventually gets out and I'm right back in the fight again. It's like the proverbial monkey on my back. I can't get rid of it. He rose. That disguise and memory planting were supposed to get me out of it. I should have known it wouldn't work. But this time I'm not going to be drawn back in. You and your Vernon Johnson can do your own revolting I'm through. Bergstrom did not argue as he left. Restlessness drove Zarwell from his flat the next day, a legal holiday on St. Martin's at a railed off lot, he stopped and loitered in the shadow of an adjacent building, watching workmen drilling an excavation for a new structure. When a man strolled to his side and stood watching the workman, he was not surprised. He waited for the other to speak. I'd like to talk to you if you can spare a few minutes, the stranger said. Zarwell turned and studied the man without answering. He was medium tall with the body of an athlete, though perhaps 10 years beyond the age of sports, he had a manner of contained energy. You're Johnson? He asked. The man nodded. Zarwell tried to feel the anger he wanted to feel, but somehow it would not come. We have nothing to talk about was the best he could manage. Then will you listen after I'll leave if you tell me to. Against his will, he found himself liking the man and wanting at least to be courteous.
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He inclined his head toward a curb waistbox with a flat top. Should we sit? Johnson smiled agreeably, and they walked over to the box and sat down. When this colony was first founded, johnson began without preamble, the administrative body was a governor and a council of 12. Their successors were to be elected biannually. At first they were. Then things changed. We haven't had an election now in the last 23 years. St. Martin's is beginning to prosper. Yet the only ones receiving the benefits are the rulers. The citizens work 12 hours a day. They are poorly housed, poorly fed, poorly clothed. They Zarwell found himself not listening as Johnson's voice went on. The story was always the same. But why did they always try to drag him into their troubles? Why hadn't he chosen some other world on which to hide? The last question prompted a new thought. Just why had he chosen St. Martin's was it only a coincidence? Or had he subconsciously at least, picked this particular world? He had always considered himself the unwilling subject of glib persuaders. But mightn't some inner compulsion of his own have put the monkey on his back? And we need your help. Johnson had finished his speech. Zarwell gazed up at the bright sky. He pulled in a long breath and let it out with a sigh. What are your plans so far? He asked wearily. End of Monkey on His Back by Charles V. De Vet Recording by Jacob Paul Starr.
- [267:08]
Fannius
Navy Day by Harry Harrison this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Recording by Frank Malanga Navy Day by Harry Harrison General Wingrove looked at the rows of faces without seeing them. His vision went beyond the Congress of the United States, past the balmy June day, to another day that was coming, a day when the army would have its destined place of authority. He drew a deep breath and delivered what was perhaps the shortest speech ever heard in the hallowed halls of Congress. The General staff of the U.S. army requests Congress to abolish the archaic branch of the armed forces known as the U.S. navy. The aging senator from Georgia checked his hearing aid to see if it was in operating order, while the press box emptied itself in one concerted rush and a clatter of running feet that died off in the direction of the telephone room. A buzz of excited comment ran through the giant chamber. One by one the heads turned to face the navel section where rows of blue figures stirred and buzzed like smoked out bees. The knot of men around a paunchy figure heavy with gold braid broke up, and Admiral Fitzjames climbed slowly to his feet. Lesser men have quailed before that piercing stare, but General Wingrove was never the lesser man. The admiral tossed his head with disgust, every line of his body denoting outraged dignity. He turned to his audience, a small pulse beating in his forehead. I cannot comprehend the General's attitude, nor can I understand why he has attacked the Navy in this unwarranted fashion. The Navy has existed and will always exist as the first barrier of American defense. I ask you gentlemen to ignore this request as you would ignore the statements of any person slightly demented. I should like to offer a recommendation that the General's sanity be investigated and an inquiry be made as to the mental health of anyone else connected with this person. Preposterous proposal. The general smiled calmly. I understand, Admiral, and really don't blame you for being slightly annoyed. But please, let us not bring this issue of national importance down to a shallow personal level. The army has facts to back up this request, facts that shall be demonstrated to morrow morning. Turning his back on the raging admiral, General Wingrove included all the assembled Solons in one sweeping gesture. Reserve your judgment until that time, gentlemen. Make no hasty judgments until you have seen the force of argument with which we back up our request. It is the end of an era. In the morning the Navy joins its fellow fossils, the dodo and the brontosaurus. The admiral's blood pressure mounted to a new record, and the gentle thud of his unconscious body striking the floor was the only sound to break the shocked silence of the giant hall. The early morning sun warmed the white marble of the Jefferson Memorial and glinted from the soldiers helmets and the roofs of the packed cars that crowded forward in a slow moving stream. All the gentlemen of Congress were there, the passage of their cars cleared by the screaming sirens of motorcycle policemen. Around and under the wheels of the official cars pressed a solid wave of government workers and common citizens of the capital city. The trucks of the radio and television services pressed close. Microphones and cameras extended. The stage was set for a great day. Neat rows of olive drab vehicles curved along the water's edge. Jeeps and half tracks shouldered close by weapons carriers and sixpence spies, all of them shrinking to insignificance beside the looming patent tanks. A speaker's platform was set up in the center of the line near the audience. At precisely 10am General Wingrove stepped forward and scowled at the crowd until they settled into an uncomfortable silence. His speech was short and consisted of nothing more than amplifications of his opening statement that actions speak louder than words. He pointed to the first truck in line, a two and a half ton filled with infantry squad sitting stiffly at attention. The driver caught the signal and kicked the engine into life. With a grind of gears it moved forward towards the river's edge. There was an indrawn gasp from the crowd as the front wheels ground over the marble parapet. Then the truck was pulling, plunging down toward the muddy waters of the Potomac. The wheels touched the water and the surface seemed to sink while taking on a strange glassy character. The truck roared into high gear and rode forward on the surface of the water, surrounded by a saucer shaped depression. It parked 200 yards offshore and the soldiers, goaded by the sojourn's bark, leaped out and lined up with a showy present arms. The general returned his salute and waved to the remaining vehicles. They moved forward in a series of maneuvers that indicated a great number of rehearsal hours on some hidden pond. The tanks rumbled slowly over the water while the jeeps cut back and forth, drew their lines in intricate patterns. The trucks backed and turned like puffing ballerinas. The audience was rooted in a hushed silence, their eyeballs bulging. They continued to watch the amazing display as General Wingrove spoke again. You see before you a typical example of army ingenuity developed in army laboratories. These motor units are supported on the surface of the water by an intensifying of the surface tension in their immediate area. Their weight is evenly distributed over the surface, causing the shallow depressions you see around them. This remarkable feat has been accomplished by the use of the Dornifier, a remarkable invention that is named after that brilliant scientist, Colonel Robert A. Dorn, commander of the Brook Point Experimental Laboratory. It was there that one of the civilian employees discovered the dorne effect. Under the colonel's constant guidance, of course, utilizing this invention, the army now has become master of the sea as well as the land. Army convoys of trucks and tanks can blanket the world. The surface of the water is our highway, our motor park, our battleground, the airfield and a Runway for our planes. Mechanics were pushing a shooting star onto the water. They stepped clear as flame gushed from the tailpipe. With the familiar whooshing rumble, it sped down the Potomac and hurled itself into the air. When this cheap and simple method of crossing oceans is adopted, it will, of course, mean the end of that fantastic medieval anachronism, the Navy. No need for billion dollar aircraft carriers, battleships, dry docks and all the other cumbersome junk that keeps those boats and things afloat. Give the taxpayer back his hard earned dollar. Teeth grated in the naval section as carriers and battleships were called boats and the rest of America's sea might lumped under the casual headings of things. Lips were curled at the transparent appeal to the taxpayer's pocketbook. But with leaden hearts they knew that all this justified wrath and contempt would avail them nothing. This was army day with a vengeance, and the doom of the Navy seemed inescapable. The army had made elaborate plans for what they called Operation Sinker. Even as the general spoke, the publicity mills ground into high gear. From coast to coast, the citizens absorbed the news with their morning nourishment. Agnes, you hear what the radio said? The Army's going to give a trip around the world in a B36. As first prize in this limerick contest. All you have to do is fill in the last line and mail one copy to the Pentagon and the other to the Navy. The Navy mail room had standing orders to burn all the limericks when they came in. But some of the newer men seemed to think the entire thing was a big joke. Commander Bullman found one in the mess hall. The army will always be there, on the land, on the sea, in the air. So why should the Navy take all of the gravy to which a seagoing scribe had added, and not give us ensigns our share? The newspapers will fill daily with photographs of mighty B36s landing on Lake Erie and grinning soldiers making mock beachhead attacks on Coney Island. Each man wore a buzzing black box at his waist and walked on the bosom of the now quiet Atlantic like a biblical prophet. Radio and television also carried the thousands of news releases that poured in an unending flow from the Pentagon Building cards, letters, telegrams and packages descended on Washington in an overwhelming torrent. The Navy Department was the unhappy recipient of deprecatory letters and a vast quantity of little cardboard battleships. The people spoke and their representatives listened closely. This was an election year. There didn't seem to be much doubt as to the decision, particularly when the reduction in the budget was considered. It took Congress only two months to make up its collective mind. The people were all pro army. The novelty of the idea had fired their imaginations. They were about to take the final vote in the lower house. If the amendment passed, it would go to the states for ratification, and their votes were certain to follow that of Congress. The Navy had fought a last ditch battle to no avail. The balloting was going to be pretty much of a sure thing. The wet water Navy would soon become ancient history. For some reason, the admirals didn't look as unhappy as they should. The Navy Department had requested one last opportunity to address the Congress. Congress had patronizingly granted permission for even the doomed man is allowed one last speech. Admiral Fitzjames, who had recovered from his choleric attack, was the appointed Speaker. Gentlemen of the Congress of the United States. We in the Navy have a fighting tradition. We dam the torpedoes and sail straight ahead into the enemy's fire if that is necessary. We have been stabbed in the back. We have suffered a second Pearl harbor sneak attack. The army relinquished its rights to fair treatment with this attack. Therefore, we are counter attacking. Worn out by his attacking and mixed metaphors, the Admiral mopped his brow. Our laboratories have been working night and day on the perfection of a device we hoped we would never be forced to use. It is now in operation, having passed the final trials a few days ago. The significance of this device cannot be underestimated. We are so positive of its importance that we are demanding that the army be abolished. He waved his hand toward the window and bellowed, one look. Everyone looked. They blinked and looked again. They rubbed their eyes and kept looking. Sailing majestically up the middle of Constitution Avenue was the battleship Missouri. The Admiral's voice rang through the room like a trumpet of victory. The Mark 1 debinder, as you see, temporarily lessens the binding energies that hold molecules of solid matter together. Solids become liquids, and a ship equipped with this device can sail anywhere in the world, on sea or land. Take your vote, gentlemen. The world awaits your decision. The END End OF Navy Day By Harry Harrison Recording by Frank Mulanga Pembroke Pines, Florida
- [280:12]
Narrator/Various Characters
NO Pets Allowed By MA Cummings this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org recording by Lindsay Sibelski no pets allowed by Ma Cummings I can't tell anyone about it in the first place. They'd never believe me. And if they did, I'd probably be punished for having her because we aren't allowed to have pets of any kind. It wouldn't have happened if they hadn't sent me a way out there to work. But you see, there are so many things I can't do. I remember the day the Chief of Vocation took me before the Council. I've tried him on a dozen things, he reported. People always talk about me as if I can't understand what they mean, but I'm really not that dumb. That doesn't seem to be a thing he can do, the Chief went on. Actually, his intelligence seems to be no greater than that which we believe our ancestors had back in the 20th century. As bad as that? Observed one of the council members. You do have a problem. But we must find something for him to do, said another. We can't have an idle person in the state. It's unthinkable. But what? Asked the chief. He's utterly incapable of running any of the machines I've tried to teach him. The only things he can do are already being done much better by robots. There was a long silence, broken at last by one little old council member. I have it. He cried. The very thing. We'll make him guard of the treasure. But there's no need of a guard. No one will touch the treasure without permission. We haven't had a dishonest person in this state for more than 3,000 years. That's it exactly. There aren't any dishonest people, so there won't be anything for him to do. But we will have solved the problem of his idleness. It might be a solution, said the chief. At least a temporary one. I suppose we will have to find something else later on, but this will give us time to look for something. So I became Guard of the treasure with the badge and nothing to do, unless you count watching the key. The gates were kept locked just as they were in the old days, but the large key key hung beside them. Of course, no one wanted to bother carrying it around. It was too heavy. The only ones who ever used it anyway were members of the Council. As the man said, we haven't had a dishonest person in the state for thousands of years. Even I know that much. Of course, this left Me with lots of time on my hands. That's how I happened to get her in the first place. I'd always wanted one, but pets were forbidden. Busy people didn't have time for them, so. So I knew I was breaking the law. But I figured that no one would ever find out. First I fixed a place for her and made a brush screen so that she couldn't be seen by anyone coming to the gates. Then one night I sneaked into the forest and got her. It wasn't so lonely after that. Now I had something to talk to. She was small when I got her. It would be too dangerous to go near a full grown one. But she grew rapidly. That was because I caught small animals and brought them to her, not having to depend on what she could catch. She grew almost twice as fast as usual and was so sleek and pretty. Really, she was a pet to be proud of. I don't know how I could have stood the four months there alone if I hadn't heard it. Talked to. I don't think she really understood me, but I pretended she did and that helped. Every three or four weeks, three of the council members came to take part of the treasure or to add to it. Always three of them. That's why I was so surprised one day to see one man coming by himself. It was Graham, the little old member who had recommended that I be given this job. I was happy to see him and we talked for a while, mostly about my work and how I liked it. I almost told him about my pet, but I didn't because he might be angry at me for breaking the law. Finally he asked me to give him the key. I've been sent to get something from the treasure, he explained. I was unhappy to displease him, but I said, I can't let you have it. There must be three members. You know that. Of course I know it. But something came up suddenly, so they sent me alone. Now let me have it. I shook my head. That was the one order they had given me. Never to give the key to any one person who came along. Grant became quite angry. You idiot. He shouted. Why do you think I had you put out here? It was so I could get in there and help myself to the treasure. But that would be dishonest, and there are no dishonest people in this state for 3,000 years. I know. His usually kind face had an ugly look I had never seen before. But I'm going to get part of that treasure and it won't do you any good to report it. Because no one is going to take the word of a fool like you against a respected council member. They'll think you are the dishonest one. Now give me that key. It's a terrible thing to disobey a council member. But if I obeyed him, I would be disobeying all the others, and that would be worse. No. I shouted. He threw himself upon me. For his size and age, he was very strongstronger even than I. I fought as hard as I could, but I knew I wouldn't be able to keep him away from the key for very long. And if he took the treasure, I would be blamed. The council would have to think a new punishment for dishonesty. Whatever it was, it would be terrible indeed. He drew back and rushed at me. Just as he hit me, my foot caught upon a rope and I fell. His rush carried him past me and he crashed through the brush screen beside the path.
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I heard him scream twice. Then there was silence. I was bruised all over, but I managed to pull myself up and take away what was left of the screen. There was no sign of Grim, but my beautiful pet was waving her pearl green feelers as she always did. And thanks for a good meal. That's why I can't tell anyone what happened. No one would believe that Grim would be dishonest, and I can't prove it because she ate the proof. Even if I did tell them, no one is going to believe that a flycatcher plant, even a big one like mine, would actually be able to eat a man. So they think that Grim disappeared and I'm still out here with her. She's grown so much larger now, and more beautiful than ever. But I hope she hasn't developed a taste for human flesh lately. When she stretches out her feelers, it seems that she's trying to reach me. End of no Pets Allowed by Ma Cummings.
- [287:09]
The Stoker and the Stars by Algenus Jonas Budrus, also known as John A. Sentry. This is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org the Stoker and the Stars by John A. Century Recorded by Frank Booker. When you've had your ears pierced back in a bow knot, but it's sometimes hard to remember that an intelligent people has no respect for a whipped enemy, but does for a fairly beaten enemy know him? Yes, I know him. Knew him. That was 20 years ago. Everybody knows him now. Everybody who passed him on the street knows him. Everybody who went to the same schools or even the different schools in different towns knows him now. Ask them. But I knew him. I lived three feet away from him for a month and a half. I shipped with him and called him by his first name. What was he like? What was he thinking sitting on the edge of his bunk with his jaw in his palm and his eyes on the stars? What did he think he was after? Well. Well, I think he. You know, I think I never did know him after all. Not well. Not as well as some of those people who were writing the books about him seem to. I couldn't really describe him to you. He had a duffel bag in his hand and a packed air suit on his back. The skin of his face had been dried out by ship's air, burned by ultraviolet and broiled by infrared. The pupils of his eyes had little cloudy specks in them where the cosmic rays had shot through them. But his eyes were steady and his body was hard. What did he look like? He looked like a man. It was after the war and we were beaten. There used to be a school of thought among us that deplored our combativeness. Before we had ever met any people from off Earth, even you could hear people saying we were the toughest, cruelest life form in the universe, unfit to mingle with the gentler, wiser races in the stars. And I sure bet to steal their galaxy and corrupt it forever. Where these people got their information, I don't know. We were beaten. We moved out beyond center, Taurus and Sirius, and then we met the Jeks, the Najoe, the Ludd. We tried terrestrial know how. We tried production miracles. We tried patriotism. We tried damning the torpedoes in full speed ahead and we were smashed back like mayflies in the wind. We died in droves and we repeated from the guttering fires of a dozen planets, we dug in. We fought through the last ditch and we were dying on Earth itself before Baker mutinied, shot cope and surrendered the remainder of the human race to the wiser, gentler races in the stars that way, we lived. That way. We were permitted to carry on our little concerns and mind our manners. The Jeks and the Ludd and the Najer Way returned to their own affairs, and we knew they would leave us alone so long as we didn't bother them. We liked it that way. Understand me? We didn't accept it. We didn't knuckle under with waiting murder in our hearts. We liked it. We were grateful just to be left alone again. We were happy we hadn't been wiped out like the upstarts the rest of the universe thought us to be. And when they let us keep our own solar system and carry on a trickle of trade with the outside, we accepted it for the fantastically generous gift. It was. Too many of our best men were dead for us to have any remaining claim on those things in our own right. I knew how it was. I was there 20 years ago. I was a little pudgy man with short breath and high pitched voice. I was a typical Earthman. We were out on a godforsaken landing field on Mars, MacCready and I, loading cargo aboard the Serenis. MacCready was first officer. I was second. A stranger came walking up to us. Got a job? He asked, looking at Macready. Mac looked him over. He saw the same things I'd seen. He shook his head. Not for you. The only thing we're short on is stokers now. You wouldn't know there's no such thing as a stoker anymore with automatic ships. But the stranger knew what Mac meant. Surenis had what they called an electronic drive. She had to run with an evacuated engine room. The leaking electricity was would have broken any stray air down to ozone, which eats metal and rots lungs. So the engine room had the air pumped out of her, and the stokers who tended the dials and set the cathode attitudes had to wear suits, smelling themselves for 12 hours at a time and standing a good chance of cooking. Where they sat when the drive arced. Serenis was an ugly old tub at that. We were the better of the two interstellar freighters that the human race had left. You're bound over for the border, aren't you? Macready nodded. That's right. But I'll stoke. Macready looked over toward me and frowned. I shrugged my shoulders helplessly. I was a little afraid of the stranger, too. The trouble was the look of him. It was the look you saw in the bars back on Earth, where the veterans of the war sat and stared down into their glasses waiting for night to fall so they could go out into the alleys and have drunken fights among themselves. But he had brought that look to Mars, to the landing field, and out here there was something disquieting about it. He caught Mac's look and turned his head to me. Hal Stoke, he repeated. I didn't know what to say. MacReady and I, almost all of the men in the merchant marines hadn't served in the combat arms. We had freighted supplies, and we had seen ships dying on the runs. We'd had our own brushes with commerce raiders, and we'd known enough men who joined the combat forces. But very few of them came back, and the war this man had fought hadn't been the same as ours. He commanded a fighting ship somewhere and come to grips with things we simply didn't know about. The mark was on him, but not on us. I couldn't meet his eyes. Okay by me, I mumbled. At last I saw MacReady's mouth turn down at the corners, but he couldn't gainsay the man any more than I could. MacReady wasn't a mumbling man, so he said angrily, okay, bucko, you'll stoke. Go and sign on. Thanks. The stranger walked quietly away. He wrapped a hand around the cable on a cargo hook and rode into the hold on top of some freight. Mac spat on the ground and went back to supervising his end of the loading. I was busy with mine, and it wasn't until we got the serenis loaded and buttoned up that Mac and I even spoke to each other again. Then we talked about the trip, and we didn't talk about the stranger. Daniels the third had signed him on and had moved him into the empty bunk above mine. We slept all in a bunch on the Sirenas officers and crew. Even so, we had to sleep in shifts with the ship's designers, given 90% of her space to cargo and 8% to power in control. I left very little for the people who were crammed in any way they could be. I said, empty bunk. What I meant was empty during my sleep shift. That meant he and I'd be sharing work shifts, me up in the control blister parked in a soft chair and him down in the engine room broiling in a suit for 12 hours. But I ate with him, used ahead with him. You can call that rubbing elbows with greatness if you want to. He was a very quiet man, quiet in the way he moved and talked. When we were both climbing into our bunks that first night, I introduced myself and he introduced himself. Then he heaved himself into his bunk, rolled over on his side, fixed his straps, and fell asleep. He was always friendly towards me, but he must have been very tired that first night. I often wondered what kind of a life he'd lived after the war, what he'd done, what made him different from the man who simply grew older in the boy bars. I wonder now if he really did do anything different. In an odd way, I like to think that one day in a bar, on a day that seemed like all the rest to him when it began, he suddenly looked up with some new thought, put down his glass and walked straight to the Earth Mars Shuttle Field
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Narrator/Various Characters
He might have come from any town on Earth. Don't believe the historians too much, and don't pay too much attention to the Chamber of Commerce plaques. When a man's name becomes public property, strange things happen to the facts. It was MacReady who first found out what he'd done during the war. I gotta explain about MacReady. He takes his opinions fast and strong. He's a good man. Is or was? I haven't seen him for a long while, but he liked things simple, MacReady said. The duffel bag broke loose and floated into the middle of the bunk room room during acceleration. He opened it to see whose it was. When he found out, he closed it up and strapped it back in its place at the foot of the stoker's bunk. MacReady was my relief on the bridge when he came up. He didn't relieve me right away. He stood next to my chair and looked out through the ports. Captain leave any special instructions in the order book? He asked. Just the usual. Keep a tight watch and proceed cautiously. Dat new stove, mack said. Yeah. I knew there was something wrong with him. He's got an old Marine uniform in his duffel. I didn't say anything. Mac glanced over at me. Well, I don't know. I didn't. I couldn't say I was surprised. It had to be something like that about the stoker. The mark was on him. I've said. It was the Marines that did the earth's best dying. It had to be. They were trained to be the best we had and they believed in their training. And they were the ones who slashed back the deepest when the other side hit us. They were the ones who sallied out into the doomed spaces between the stars and took the war to the other side as well as any human force could ever hope to. They were always the last to leave an abandoned position. If Herth had been giving medals to members of her forces in the war, every man in the Corps would have had the medal of honor two and three times over. Posthumously. I don't believe there were 10 of them left alive when. When Cope was shot. Cope was one of them. They were a kind of human being neither Macready nor I could hope to understand. You don't know, Mack said. It's there in his duffel. Damn it. We're going out to trade with his sworn enemies. Why do you suppose he wanted to sign on? Why do you suppose he's so eager to go? You think he's going to try and start something? Think that's exactly what he's going to do? One last big alley fight, One last brawl. And when they cut him down, do you suppose they're going to stop with him? They'll kill us. Then they'll go in and stomp earth flat. You know it as well as I do. I don't know, Mac, I said go easy. I could feel the knots in my stomach. I didn't want any trouble. Not from the stoker, not from Mac. None of us wanted trouble, not even Mac. But he'd cause it to get rid of it. If you follow what I mean about his kind of man. Mack hit the viewport with his fist. Easy.
- [298:19]
Fannius
Easy.
- [298:19]
Narrator/Various Characters
Nothing's easy. I hate this life, he said, at a murder. I don't know why I keep signing on. Mars to Centaurus and back, back and forth in an old rust tub that's going to blow herself up one of these. Daniels called me on the phone from communication. Turn up your intercom volume, he said. The stoker's jamming the circuit. I kicked the selector switch over and this is what I got. So there we were at a million per in. The air was getting thick. The skipper says, cheer up, brave boys, Will. He was singing. He had a terrible voice, but he could carry a tune and he was hammered out at the top of his lungs. Twas the last cruise of the Venus, by God, you should have seen us. The pipes were full of whiskey, and just to make things frisky, the jets were. The crew was chuckling into their chest phones. I could hear McDaniels trying to cut him off, but he kept going. I started laughing myself. I mean, no one's supposed to jam an intercom, but it made the crew feel good. And when the crew feels good, the ship runs right, and it had been a long time since they'd be happy. He went on for another 20 minutes, and then his voice thinned out and I heard him cough a little. Daniels, he said. Get a relief down here for me. Jump to it, he said, the last part in a master's voice. Daniels didn't ask questions. He sent a man on his way down. He'd been singing. The stoker had. He'd been singing while he worked, with one arm dead, one sleeve ripped open and badly patched because the fabric was slippery with blood. There'd been a flash over in the driver's, and by the time his relief got down there he had the insulation back on and the drive was purring along the way it should have been. It hadn't even missed a beat. He went down to sickbay, got the arm wrapped, and would have gone back on shift if Daniels had let him. Those of us who were going off ship found him toying with the theremin in the mess compartment. He didn't know how to play it, and it sounded like a dog howling. Sing, will you? Somebody yelled, and he grinned and went back to the good ship Venus. It wasn't good, but it was loud. From that we went to Starways, Farways, and Bar Ways. The Free Fall song somebody started I left her behind for you, and that got us off into sentimental things, the way these sessions would sometimes wind up when spacemen were far from home. But not since the war, we all seemed to realize together. We stopped, looked at each other, and we all began drifting out of the mess compartment. Maybe it got to him, too. It may explain something. He and I were the last to leave. We went to the bunk room, and he stopped in the middle of taking off his shirt. He stood there looking out the porthole and forgot I was there. I heard him reciting something softly under his breath, and I stepped a little closer. This is what it was. The rockets rise against the skies slowly in sunlight gleaming with silver hue upon the blue and the universe waits, dreaming, for men must go where the flame winds blow, the gas clouds softly plating where stars are spun and worlds begun and men Will find them waiting. A song that roars where the rocket soars Is the song of the stellar flame and the dreams of men and galactic span Are equal and much the same. What was he thinking of? Make your own choice. I think I came close to knowing him at that moment. But until human beings turn telepath no man can be sure of another. He shook himself like a dog out of cold water and got into his bunk. I got into mine and after a while I felt fell asleep. I don't know what MacReady may have told the skipper about the stoker or if he tried to tell him anything. The captain was the senior ticket holder in the merchant service and a good man in his way. He kept mostly to his cabin and there was nothing Macready could do on his own authority. Nothing simple that is. And the stoker had saved the ship. And I think what kept anything from happening between Macready and the stoker or anyone else in the stoker was was that it would have meant trouble in the ship. And trouble confined to our little percentage of the ship's volume could seem like something much more important than the fate of the human race. It may not seem that way to you, but as long as no one began anything we could all get along. We could have a good trip. MacReady worried. I'm sure I worried sometimes. But nothing happened. When we reached Alpha Centaurus and set down at the trading field on the second planet. It was the same as the other trips we'd made and the same kind of landfall. The Lud Factor came out of his post after we waited for a while and gave us our permit to disembark. There was a jack ship at the other end of the field loaded with the cargo we would get in exchange for our hold full of goods. We had the usual things. Wine, music, tapes, furs and the like. The jacks had been giving us light machinery lately. Probably we get two or three more loads and then they'd be giving us something else. But I found that this trip wasn't quite the same. I found myself looking at the Factor's post and I realized for the first time that the Ludd hadn't built it. It was a leftover from the old colonial human government and the city on the horizon. Men had built it. A touch of our architecture was on every building. I wondered why it had never occurred to me that this was so. It made the landfall different from all the others. Somehow it gave a new face to the entire planet. Mac and I and some of the other Crewmen went down to the field to handle the unloading. The jacks on self propelled cargo lifts jockeyed among us, scooping up the loads as we unhooked the slings, bring in cases of machinery from their own ship. They sat atop their vehicles, lean and aloof, dashing in, whirling, shooting across the field to their ship back like wild horsemen on the plains of earth, paying us no notice. We were almost through when Mac suddenly grabbed my arm. Look. The stoker was coming down on one of the cargo slings. He stood upright, his booted feet planted wide, one arm curled up over his head and around the hoist cable. He was in his dusty brown marine uniform, the scarlet collar tabs bright as blood at his throat, his major insignia glittering on his shoulders, the battle stripes on his sleeves. The jack stopped their lifts. They knew that uniform. They sat up in their saddles and watched him come down. When the sling touched the ground, he jumped off quietly and walked towards the nearest jack. They all followed him with their eyes. We gotta stop him, Mac said, and both of us started towards him. His hands were both in plain sight, one holding his duffel bag, which was swelled out with the bulk of his ear suit. He wasn't carrying a weapon of any kind. He was walking casually, taking his time. Mac and I had almost reached him when a jack with insignia on his coverall suddenly jumped down from his lift and came forward to meet him. It was an odd thing to see the stoker and the jack, who did not stand as tall. MacReady and I stepped back. The Jek was coal black, his scales glittering in the cold smoke sunlight, his hatchet face inscrutable. He stopped when the stoker was a few paces away. The stoker stopped too. All the jacks were watching him and paying no attention to anything else. The field might as well have been empty except for these two. They'll kill him. They'll kill him right now, MacReady whispered. And they ought to have. If I'd been a jack, I would have thought that uniform was a death warrant. But the jack spoke to him. Are you entitled to wear that? I was at this planet in 39. I was closer to your home world the year before that, the stoker said. I was captain of a destroyer. If I'd had a cruiser's range, I'd have reached it. He looked at the jack. Where were you? I was here when you were. I want to speak to your ship's captain. All right. I'll drive you over. The stoker nodded and they walked over to his vehicle. Together they drove away toward the jack ship. All right, let's get back to work, another Jack said to McCready and myself, and we went back to unloading cargo. A stoker came back to our ship that night without his duffel bag. He found me and said, I'm signing off the ship, going with the jacks. McCready was with me. He said loudly, what do you mean you're going with the jacks? I signed on air ship, the stoker said, Stoken. They got a micro nuclear drive. It's been been a while since I worked with one, but I think I'll make out all right. Even with the screwball way they got it set up, huh? The stoker shrugged. Ships are ships, and physics is physics. No matter where you go, I'll make out. What kind of deal did you make with them? So what do you think you're up to? Stoker shook his head. No deal. I signed on as a crewman. I'll do a crewman's work for crewman's wages. I thought I'd wander around a while. It ought to be interesting, he said. On a juxt ship, anybody's ship, when I get to their home world. I'll probably ship out with some people from farther on. Why not? It's honest work. Macready had no answer to that, but I said, what? He looked at me as if he couldn't understand what might be bothering me, but I think perhaps he could. Nothing, I said, and that was that. Except Macready was always as sour a man, from that time up to as long as I knew him. Afterwards he took off in the morning. The stoker had had already left on the jack ship, and it turned out he'd trained an apprentice boy to take his place. It was strange how things became different for us little by little after that. It was never anything you could put your finger on, but the Jecks began taking more goods and giving us things we needed when we told them we wanted them. After a while Serenas was going a little deeper into Jeck territory, and when she wore out the two replacements let us trade with the Lud too. Then it was the Nasirway and other people beyond them, and things just got better for us somehow. We heard about our stoker. Occasionally he shipped with the Ludd and the Najer way and some people beyond them, getting along, going to all kinds of places. Pay no attention to the precise red lines you see on the star maps. Nobody knows exactly what path he wandered from people to people. Nobody couldn't he. He just kept signing on with whatever ship was going deeper into the galaxy, going farther and farther. He messed with green shipmates and blue ones 1 and 2 and 3 heads, tails 6 legs. After all, ships are ships and they've all got to have something to push them along. And if a man knows his business, why not? A man can live on all kinds of food if he wants to get used to it. And any non toxic toxic atmosphere will do as long as there's enough oxygen in it. I don't know what he did to make things so much better for us. I don't know if he did anything but stoke their ships and I suppose fix them when they were in trouble. I wonder if he sang dirty songs in that bad voice of his to people who couldn't possibly understand what the songs were about. All I know is for some reason these people slowly began treating us with respect. We changed too. I think I'm not the same man I was. I think not altogether the same. I'm a captain now with master's papers and you won't find me in any cabin very often. There's a kind of joy in standing on a bridge looking out at the stars you're moving towards. I wonder if it might have kept my old captain out of that place he died in finally if he'd tried it. So I don't know. The older I get, the less I know. The thing that makes him famous and I think annoys him, I'm fairly sure is only incident incidental to what he really did. If he did anything, if he meant to. I wish I could be sure of the exact answer he found in the bottom of that last glass at the bar before he worked his passage on Mars and the Serenas and began it all. Though I can't say what he ought to be famous for. But I suppose it's enough to know for sure that he was the first living being ever to travel all the way around the galaxy. End of the Stoker and the Stars by John A. St Century.
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Vanishing Point by C.C. beck this is a LibraryVox recording. All LibraryVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit libraryvox.org Recording by Zernaz Vanishing Point by CC Beck in perspective, theoretically, the vanishing point is at infinity and therefore unattainable. But reality is different. Vanishment occurs a lot sooner than theory suggests that. Oh, that's a perspective machine. Well, not exactly, but that's what I call it. No, I don't know how it works. Too complicated for me. Carter could make it go, but after he made it, he never used it. Too bad. He thought he'd make a lot of money with it there for a while while he was working it out, almost had me convinced. But I told him, get it to working first, Carter, and then show me what you can do with it better than I can do without it. I'm doing pretty well as is picture. Selling good. Even if I do make em all by guesswork, as you call it. That's what I told him. You see, Carter was one of them artists that think that they can work everything out by formulas and stuff. Me, I just paint things as I see them. Never worry about perspective and all that kind of mechanical aids. Never even went to art school, but I do alright. Carter now was a different sort of artist. Well, he wasn't really an artist, more of a draftsman. I first got him in to help me with a series of real estate paintings I'd gotten order for big aerial views of land developments and drawings of buildings, roads and causeways. That kind of stuff was a little too much for me to handle alone. Cause I never studied that kind of things, you know. I thought he'd do the mechanical drawings, which should have been simple for anybody trained that way. And I'd throw in the colors, figures and trees and so on. He did fine job, came out good. Client was real happy. We made a pretty good amount on the job. Enough to keep us for a couple of months without working afterwards. I took it easy, fishing and so on. But Carter stayed here in the studio working on his own stuff. I let him keep an eye on things for me around the place and just dropped in now and then to check up. The guy was nuts on the subject of perspective. I thought he knew all there was to know about it already. But he claimed nobody knew anything about it really. Said he had been studying it for years and the more he learned about it, the more there was to learn. He used to cover big sheets of paper with complicated diagrams, trying to prove something or other to himself. I'd come into the studio and find him with thumbtacks, strings and stuff all over the place. He'd get big long rulers and draw lines to various points all over the room and end up with a little drawing of a cube about an inch square that anybody could have made in a half minute without all the apparatus. Seemed pretty silly to me. Then he brought in some books on mathematics and physics and other things. And a bunch of slide rules, calculators and junk. He must have been a pretty smart guy to know how to handle all those things. Even if he was kinda dopey about other things. You know, women and fishing and sports and drinking. He was lousy at everything except working those perspective problems. Personally, I couldn't see much sense to what he was doing. The guy could draw alright already. So I asked him, what more did he want? Let me see if I can remember what he said. I'm trying to get at things as they really are, not as they appear. He said. I think those were his words. Art is an illusion, a bag of tricks. Reality is something else, not what we think it is. Drawings are two dimensional projections of a world that is not merely three, but four dimensional, if not more. He said. Yeah, kind of a crackpot. Carter was just on that one subject though. Nice enough guy otherwise. Here, look at some of the drawings he made working out his formulas. Nice designs, huh? Might make good wallpaper or fabric patterns. Real abstract. That's what people seem to like. See all those little letters scattered around among the lines? Different kinds of vanishing points they are. Carter claimed the whole world was full of vanishing points. You don't know what a vanishing point is? Let me see if I can explain. Come over to the window here. You see how that road out there gets smaller and smaller in the distance? Of course, the road doesn't really get smaller, it just looks that way. That's what we call a vanishing point in drawing. Simple, isn't it? Never could understand why Carter went to so much trouble working out all those ways to locate vanishing points. Me, I just throw them in wherever I need them. But Carter claimed that was wrong. Said they were all connected together some way and he was gonna work out a method to prove it. Here. Here's a little gadget he made up to help his calculations. Bunch of disks all pivoted together at the center. You're supposed to turn em around so the arrows point to the different figures and things. Here's the square root sign. I remember Carter telling me that this one is the tangent function. Whatever that means. Log there is short for logarithm. Oh, he had a bunch of that scientific stuff in his head all the time. Don't know whether he understood it all himself. He built this thing just before he put together the perspective machine there. Silly looking gadget, huh? All them pipes and wires and that little cube in the center. Don't try to touch it. It ain't really there. You just think it is. It's what Carter called a tetaract or a cataract. No, that ain't the right word. Something like that. Tesser something or other. There's a picture like it in one of Carter's books. Hurts your eyes to look at it, don't it? That's what Carter thought was going to make him a lot of fame and money, that perspective machine. I told him nobody would ever made a drawing machine yet that worked. But he said it wasn't supposed to make drawings. It was just supposed to give people a view of what reality really is instead of what they think it is. I don't know whether he expected to charge money to look through it or whether he was gonna look through it himself and make some new kind of drawings and sell them. No, I can't tell you how it works, I said Before, I don't know. Carter only used it once himself. I came in here the day he finished it, just as he was about to turn it on. He was just putting the finishing touches on it. In a few minutes, he told me, I'll have the answer to a question that may never have been answered before. What is reality? Is the world a thing by itself and all we know? Illusion. Why do things grow smaller the farther away from us they appear? Why can't we see more than one side of anything at a time? What happens to the far side of an object? Does it cease to exist just because we can't see it? Are objects not present, non existent? Because artists draw things vanishing to points, does that mean that they really vanish? A whack, that's what he was. Nice guy, but sorta screwy. He kept saying more goofy things while he was finishing up the machine. About how he had figured out all that we knew about vision and drawing and so on. Must be wrong. And that once he got a look at the real world, he'd prove it. How about cameras, I asked him. Take a picture with a camera and it looks just about the same as a drawing, doesn't it? That's because cameras are built to take pictures like we are used to seeing them, he said, flat two dimensional slices of reality without depth or motion. Even 3D moving pictures? I asked. They are closer to reality, he admitted, but there are still only cross sections of it. The shutter of a movie camera is closed as much of the time as it is open. What happens in between the times it is open? You know, he went on, people used to think matter and motion were continuous. But scientists have proved that they are discontinuous. Now some of them think that they may be too. Maybe everything is just imaginary and appears to our senses in whatever way we want it to appear. We are so well trained that we see everything just as we are taught to see it by generations of artists, writers and other symbol makers. If we could see things as they really are, what might happen? We'd probably all go nuts, I told him. He just smiled. Well, here goes, he said. It's finished. Now to find out who is right. The scientists and philosophers who say reality is forever unreachable, or the artists who say there isn't any reality, that we make the whole thing up just to suit ourselves. He moved one of those pointers you see there and squinted around at different scales and dials and then stepped back. That little tessy thingy appeared really small at first, just a point. You could hardly see it. I couldn't see anything else happening and thought he was gonna do something else to the machine. I turned to look at Carter and saw his face, white as a sheet. Good God, he says. Just like that. Good God, that's all. Well, I say to him, who was right, the scientists or the artists? The artists. These sort of screeches. The artists were right all the time. There is no reality. It's all a fabric of illusion we've created ourselves. And now I've ripped a hole in that. He gives a strangled hoot and goes hightail and outer here, like somethin was after him. Jumps in his car and roars off down the road and disappears. No, I don't really mean he disappeared. Are you nuts? Just roared on down the road till he got so small I couldn't see him anymore. You know the way things do when they go farther and farther away. Happens every day. That's what us artists mean by perspective. The machine. Well, I don't know what to do with it. If Carter ever comes back. He might not like my getting rid of it. I was thinking maybe I'd put in the hobby show at the country fair next week, though. You noticed how that funny looking cube inside there gets bigger every time you look at it There. It just doubled its size again. See? People at the fair ought to get a big kick out of it. No telling how big it'll get with all those people looking at it. But come on, let's go fishing. We'd better hurry, or it'll be too late. End of the vanishing point by cc beck recorded by zernaz.
- [321:55]
Fannia
Warrior Race by Robert Sheckley this is a Librivox recording. All Librivox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit Librivox.org Reading by Greg Marguerite Warrior Race by Robert Sheckley. Destroying the spirit of the enemy is the goal of war, and the aliens had the best way. They never did discover whose fault it was. Fannia pointed out that if Donnot had had the brains of an ox as well as the build, he would have remembered to check the tanks. Donnot, although twice as big as him, wasn't quite as fast with an insult, he intimated after a little thought, thought that Fannia's nose might have obstructed his reading of the fuel cage. This still left them 20 light years from Thetis, with a cupful of transformer fuel in the emergency tank. All right, fannius said presently. What's done is done. We can squeeze about three light years out of the fuel before we're back on atomics. Hand me the galactic pilot. Unless you forgot that too. Dunno dragged the bulky microfilm volume out of its locker and they explored its pages. The galactic pilot told them they were in a sparse, seldom visited section of space, which they already knew. The nearest planetary system was Hatterfield. No intelligent life there. Cirsus had a native population but no refueling facilities. The same with Iled, Hung and Porteri. Aha, fanny said. Read that, Donnot. If you can read, that is Cassella. Donnot read slowly and clearly, following the line with a thick forefinger. Type M Sun, three planets, intelligent AA3C human type, life on second, oxygen breathers, non mechanical, religious friendly. Unique social structure described in The Galactic Survey Report 338-772-42. Population estimate stable at 3 billion. Basic cacellan vocabulary taped under CAS33B2. Scheduled for resurvey 2375 AD. Cache of transformer fuel, left beam coordinate 8741 kilograms. Physical unoccupied. Flatland transformer fuel. Boy, fannia said gleefully, I believe we will get to Thetis after all. Pete punched the new direction on the ship's tape. If that fuel's still there, should we read up on the unique social structure? Donot asked, still poor, pouring over the galactic pilot. Certainly, fania said. Just step over to the main galactic base on Earth and buy me a copy. I forgot, donat admitted slowly. Let me see, fania said, dragging out the ship's language library. Keselin, Kessellan. Here it is. Be good while I learn the language. He set the tape in the hypnophone and switched it on. Another useless tongue in my overstuffed head, he murmured. And then the hypnophone took over, coming out of transformer drive with at least a drop of fuel left. They switched to atomics. Fanny, erode the beam right across the planet, locating the slender metal spire of the galactic survey cache. The plane was no longer unoccupied, however. The Caesalans had built a city around the cache, and the spire dominated the crude wood and mud buildings. Hang on, fannia said, and brought the ship down on the outskirts of the city in a field of stubble. Now look, fannia said, unfastening his seatbelt. We're just here for fuel. No souvenirs. No side trips. No fraternizing. Through the port they could see a cloud of dust from the city. As it came closer, they made out figures running toward their ship. Ship? What do you think this unique social structure is? Donat asked, pensively, checking the charge in a needler gun. I know not and care less, fannia said, struggling into space armor. Get dressed. The air's breathable. Look, Pachyderm. For all we know, these Cassellans think the proper way to greet visitors is to chop off their heads and stuff them with green apples. If Galactic says unique, it probably means unique, galactic said. They were friendly. That means they haven't got atomic bombs. Come on, get dressed. Donnot put down the needler and struggled into an oversized suit of space armor. Both men strapped on Needlers, paralyzers, and a few grenades. I don't think we have anything to worry about, fannius said, tightening the last knot on his helmet. Even if they get rough, they can't crack space armor. And if they're not rough, we won't have any trouble. Maybe these geegaws will help. He picked up a box of trading articles, mirrors, toys, and the like. Helmeted and armored. Fannius slid out the port and raised one hand to the Cassellans. The language, hypnotically placed in his mind, leaped to his lips. We come as friends and brothers. Take us to the chief. The natives clustered around, gaping at the ship and the space armor. Although they had the same number of eyes, ears, and limbs as humans, they completely missed Looking like them if they're friendly. Donnot asked, climbing out of the port, why all the hardware? The Cassellans were dressed predominantly in a collection of knives, swords and daggers. Each man had at least five and some had eight or nine. Maybe Galactic got their signals crossed, Fanny said as the natives spread out in an escort. Or maybe the natives just used the knives for mumbly peg. The city was typical of a non mechanical culture. Narrow packed dirt streets twisted between ramshackle huts. A few two story buildings threatened to collapse at any minute. A stench filled the air so strong that Fanny's filter couldn't quite eradicate it. The Cassellans bounded ahead of the heavily laden Earthmen, dashing around like a pack of playful puppies. Their knives glittered and clanked. The Chief's house was the only three story building in the city. The tall spire of the cache was right behind it. If you come in peace, the Chief said when they entered, you are welcome. He was a middle aged Cassellan with at least 15 knives strapped to various parts of his person. He squatted cross legged on a raised dais. We are privileged, fannia said. He remembered from the hypnotic language lesson that Chief on Kassella meant more than it usually did on Earth. The Chief here was a combination of king, high priest, deity, and bravest warrior. We have a few simple gifts here, Fanny added, placing the gewgaws at the King's feet. Will His Majesty accept? No, the King said. We accept no gifts. Was that the unique social structure? Fanny wondered. It certainly was not human. We are a warrior race. What we want, we take. Fanny sat cross legged in front of the dais and exchanged conversation with the king while Donat played with the spurned toys, trying to overcome the initial bad impression. Fanny had told the Chief about the stars and other worlds, since simple people usually liked fables. He spoke of the ship, not mentioning yet that it was out of fuel. He spoke of Casella telling the ship Chief how its fame was known throughout the galaxy. That is as it should be, the Chief said proudly. We are a race of warriors, the like of which has never been seen. Every man of us dies fighting. You must have fought some great wars, fannia said politely, wondering what idiot had written up the galactic report. I have not fought in a war for many years, the Chief said. We are united now and all our enemies have joined us. Happy Birthday, America.
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Fannia
Bit by bit, Fanny led up to the matter of the fuel. What is this fuel? The chief asked haltingly, because there was no equivalent for it in the Casellan language. It makes our ship go. And where is it? In the metal spire, fannia said. If you would just allow us in. The holy shrine. The chief exclaimed, shocked. The tall metal church which the gods left here long ago. Yeah, fannius said sadly, knowing what was coming. I guess that's is sacrilege for an outworlder to go near it, the chief said. I forbid it. We need the fuel. Fanny was getting tired of sitting cross legged. Space Armor wasn't built for complicated postures. The spire was put here for such emergencies. Strangers know that I am God of my people as well as their leader. If you dare approach the sacred temple, there will be war. I was afraid of that, fannius said, getting to his feet. And since we are a race of warriors, the chief said, at my command, every fighting man on the planet will move against you. More will come from the hills and from across the rivers. Abruptly, the chief drew a knife. It must have been a signal, because every native in the room did the same. Fanny had dragged Donnot away from the toys. Look, Lummox, these friendly warriors can't do a damn thing to us. Those knives can't cut space armor, and I doubt if they have anything better. Don't let them pile up on you, though. Use the paralyzer first. The needler if they really get thick. Right. Donnot whisked out and primed a paralyzer in a single coordinated movement with weapons. Donnot was fast and reliable, which was virtue enough for Fania to keep him as a partner. Will cut around this building and grab the fuel. Two cans ought to be enough. Then we'll beat it fast. They walked out of the building, followed by the Kiselens. Four carriers lifted the chief, who was barking orders. The narrow street outside was suddenly jammed with armed natives. No one tried to touch them yet, but at least a thousand knives were flashing in the sun. In front of the cache was a solid phalanx of Cassellans. They stood behind a network of ropes that probably marked the boundary between sacred and profane ground. Get set for it, fannia said and stepped over the ropes. Immediately the foremost temple guard raised his knife. Fanny brought up the paralyzer, not firing it yet, still moving forward. The foremost native shouted something, and the knife swept across in a glittering arc. The Cassellan gurgled. Something else staggered and fell. Bright blood oozed from his throat. I told you not to use the needler yet, Fannia said. I didn't, donnot protested. Glancing back, Fannia saw that Donald's needler was still holstered. Then I don't get it, said Fannia bewilderedly. Three more natives bounded forward, their knives held high. They tumbled to the ground. Also. Fannius stopped and watched as a platoon of natives advanced on them. Once they were within stabbing range of the Earthmen, the natives were slitting their own throats. Fania was frozen for a moment, unable to believe his eyes. Donnot halted. Behind him, natives were rushing forward by the hundreds now, their knives poised, screaming at the Earthmen as they came within range. Each native stabbed himself, tumbling on a quickly growing pile of bodies. In minutes, the Earthmen were surrounded by a heap of bleeding Kissellan flesh, which was steadily growing higher. All right. Phania shouted. Stop it. He yanked Donald back with him to Profane ground. Truce. He yelled in Kiselin. The crowd parted and the chief was carried through with two knives clenched in his fists. He was panting from excitement. We have won the first battle, he said proudly. The might of our warriors frightens even such aliens as yourselves. You shall not profane our temple while a man is alive on Casella. The natives shouted their approval in triumph. The two aliens dazedly stumbled back to their ship. So that's what galactic meant by a unique social structure, Fannia said morosely. He stripped off his armor and lay down on his bunk. Their way of making war is to suicide their enemies into capitulation. They must be nuts, donnot grumbled. That's no way to fight. It works, doesn't it? Fanny got up and stared out a porthole. The sun was setting, painting the city a charming red in its glow. The beams of light glistened off the spire of the galactic cache. Through the open doorway they could hear the boom and rattle of drums. Tribal call to arms. Fannia said. I still say it's crazy. Donnot had some definite ideas on fighting. It ain't human. I'll buy that. The idea seems to be that if enough people slaughter themselves, the enemy gives up out of sheer guilty conscience. What if the enemy doesn't give up? Before these people united, they must have fought it out tribe to tribe. Suiciding until someone gave up. The losers probably joined the victors. The tribe must have grown until it could take over the planet by sheer weight of numbers. Fania looked carefully at Donna, trying to see if he understood. It's anti survival, of course. If someone didn't give up, the race would probably kill themselves. He shook his head. But war of any kind is anti survival. Perhaps they've got rules. Couldn't we just barge in and grab the fuel quick? Donnot asked. And get out before they all killed themselves? I don't think so, fannia said. They might go on committing suicide for the next 10 years, figuring they were still fighting us. He looked thoughtfully at the city. It's that chief of theirs. He's their God, and he'd probably keep them suiciding until he was the only man left. Then he'd grin and say, we are great warriors and kill himself. Donna shrugged his big shoulders in disgust. Why don't we knock him off? They'd just elect another God. The sun was almost below the horizon now. I've got an idea, though, fannia said. He scratched his head. It might work. All we can do is try. At midnight, the two men sneaked out of the ship, moving silently into the city. They were both dressed in space armor again. Donnot carried two empty fuel cans. Fannia had his paralyzer out. The streets were dark and silent as they slid along walls and around posts, keeping out of sight. A native turned a corner suddenly, but Fanny apparelized him before he could make a sound. They crouched in the darkness in the mouth of an alley facing the cache. Have you got it straight? Fanny asked. I paralyze the guards. You bolt in and fill up those cans. We get the hell out of here quick. When they check, they'll find the cans still there. Maybe they won't commit suicide. Then. The men moved across the shadowy steps in front of the cache. There were three Cassellans guarding the entrance, their knives stuck in their loincloths. Fanny had stunned them with a medium charge, and Donnot broke into a run. Torches instantly flared. Natives boiled out of every alleyway, shouting, waving their knives. We've been ambushed. Fanny shouted. Get back here, Donnot. Donnot hurriedly retreated. The natives had been waiting for them. Screaming, yowling, they rushed at the earthmen, slitting their own throats at five foot range. Bodies tumbled in front of Fannia, almost tripping him as he backed up. Donnot caught him by an arm and yanked him straight. They ran out of the sacred area. Truce, damn it. Fannia called out Let me speak to the chief. Stop it. Stop it. I want a truce. Reluctantly, the Cassellan stopped their slaughter. This is war, the chief said, striding forward. His almost human face was astern under the torchlight. You have seen our warriors. You know now that you cannot stand against them. The word has spread to all our lands. My entire people are prepared to do battle. He looked proudly at his fellow Cassellans, then back to the Earthmen. I myself will lead my people into battle now. There will be no stopping us. We will fight until you surrender yourselves completely, stripping off your armor. Wait. Chief Fannia panted, sick at the sight of so much blood. The clearing was obscene. Out of the inferno, hundreds of bodies were sprawled around. The streets were muddy with blood. Let me confer with my partner tonight. I will speak with you tomorrow. No, the chief said. You started the battle. It must go to its conclusion. Division brave men wish to die in battle. It is our fondest wish. You are the first enemy we have had in many years, since we subdued the mountain tribes. Sure, fannia said. But let's talk about it. I myself will fight you, the Chief said, holding up a dagger. I will die for my people as a warrior must. Hold it. Fannia shouted. Grant us a truce. We are allowed to fight only by sunlight. It is a tribal taboo. The Chief thought for a moment, then said, very well. Until tomorrow. The beaten Earthmen walked slowly back to their ship amid the jeers of the victorious populace. Next morning, Phanius still didn't have a plan. He knew that he had to have fuel. He wasn't planning on spending the rest of his life on Cassandra, or waiting until the galactic survey sent another ship in 50 years or so. On the other hand, he hesitated at the idea of being responsible for the death of anywhere up to 3 billion people. It wouldn't be a very good record to take to Thetis. The Galactic Survey might find out about it anyway. He just wouldn't do it. He was stuck both ways. Slowly, the two men walked out to meet the chief. Fannia was still searching wildly for an idea while listening to the drums booming. If there was only someone we could fight, Donnot mourned looking at his useless blasters. That's the deal, fannia said. Guilty conscience is making sinners of us all. Or something like that. They expect us to give in before the carnage gets out of hand. He considered for a moment. It's not so crazy, actually. On Earth, armies don't usually fight until every last man is slaughtered on one side. Someone surrenders when they've had enough. If they'd just fight us. Yeah, if they only he stopped. We'll fight each other, he said. These people look at suicide as war. Wouldn't they look upon war, real fight fighting as suicide? What good would that do us? Donat asked. They were coming into the city now, and the streets were lined with armed natives. Around the city there were thousands more. Natives were filling the plain as far as the eye could see. Evidently they had responded to the drums and were here to do battle with the aliens. Which meant, of course, a wholesale suicide. Look at it this way, fannia said. If a guy plans on suiciding on Earth, what do we do, arrest him? Donnot asked. Not at first. We offer him anything he wants if he just won't do it. People offer the guy money, a job, their daughters, anything just so he won't do it. It's taboo on Earth. So. So, Fannya went on. Maybe fighting is just as taboo here. Maybe they'll offer us fuel if we'll just stop. Donnot looked dubious, but Fania felt it was worth a try. They pushed their way through the crowded city to the entrance of the cache. The chief was waiting for them, beaming on his people like a jovial war God. Are you ready to do battle? He asked. Or to surrender? Sure, fannia said. Now, Donat. He swung, and his mailed fist caught Donnot in the ribs. Donnot blinked. Come on, you idiot. Hit me back. Donnot swung, and Fanny staggered from the force of the blow. In a second they were at it like a pair of blacksmiths, mailed blows ringing from their armored hides. A little lighter. Fanny gasped, picking himself up from the ground. You're denting my ribs. He belted Donut viciously on the helmet. Stop it. The chief cried. This is disgusting. It's working. Fanny panted. Now let me strangle you. I think that might do it. Donnot obliged by falling to the ground. Vannia clamped both hands around Donut's armored neck and squeezed. Squeezed. Make believe you're in agony, idiot, he said. Donnot groaned and moaned as convincingly as he could. You must stop. The chief screamed. It is terrible to kill another. Then let me get some fuel, fania said, tightening his grip on Donnot's throat. The chief thought it over for a little while, then he shook his head. No. What? You are aliens. If you want to do this disgraceful thing, do it. But you shall not profane our religious relics. Donat and Fania staggered to their feet. Fania was exhausted from fighting in the heavy space armor. He barely made it up now, the chief said. Surrender at once. Take off your armor or do battle with us. The thousands of warriors, possibly millions because they were arriving every second, shouted their blood wrath. The cry was taken up on the outskirts and echoed to the hills, where more fighting men were pouring down into the crowded plain. Fanny's face contorted. He couldn't give himself and Donnot up to the Cassilans. They might be cooked at the next church supper. For a moment he considered going after the fuel and letting the damned fool suicide all they pleased. His mind an angry blank, Fannia staggered forward and hit the chief in the face with a mailed glove. The chief went down and the natives backed away in horror. Quickly, the chief snapped out a knife and brought it up to his throat. Fanny's hands closed on the chief's wrists. Listen to me, fanny croaked. We're going to take that fuel. If any man makes a move, if anyone kills himself, I'll kill your troops, chief. The natives milled around uncertainly. The chief was struggling wildly in Fanny's hands, trying to get a knife to his throat so he could die honorably. Get it, Fanny had told Donna. And hurry up. The natives were uncertain just what to do. They had their knives poised at their throats, ready to plunge if battle was joined. Don't do it, fanny warned. I'll kill the chief, and then he'll never die a warrior's death. The chief was still trying to kill himself. Desperately, Fanny held on, knowing he had to keep him from suicide in order to hold the threat of death over him. Listen, Chief, fannia said, eyeing the uncertain crowd. I must have your promise. There'll be no more war between us. Either I get it, or I kill you. Warriors. The chief roared. Choose a new ruler. Forget me, and do battle. The Kisellans were still uncertain, but knives started to lift. If you do it, Phania shouted in despair, I'll kill your chief. I'll kill all of you. That stopped them. I have powerful magic in my ship. I can kill every last man. And then you won't be able to die a warrior's death or get to heaven. The chief tried to free himself with a mighty surge that almost tore one of his arms free. But Fannia held on, pinning both arms behind his back. Very well, the chief said, tears springing into his eyes. A warrior must die by his own hand. You have won, Alien. The crowd shouted curses as the earthmen carried the chief and the cans of fuel back to the ship. They waved their knives and danced up and down in a frenzy of hate. Let's make it fast, fannia said. After Dunnot had fueled the ship. He gave the chief a push and leaped in. In a second they were in the air, heading for Thetis and the nearest bar at top speed. The natives were hot for blood. Their own. Every man of them pledged his life to wiping out the insult to their leader and God and to their shrine. But the aliens were gone. There was nobody to fight. End of warrior race by robert sheckley.
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